Saturday, July 25, 2026

Samsung finally gave its foldables a true flagship. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, shown at Unpacked in London on July 22, starts at $2,099.99 with a top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, a 200-megapixel main camera, and an 8-inch inner screen Samsung rates at 3,000 nits (via Android Authority).

A phone camera on a robotic arm? A leaked spec sheet points to Honor's 'Robot Phone,' with a 200-megapixel gimbal-mounted sensor and a roughly 6,000mAh battery, reportedly due in China in August. Still a rumor (via Android Authority).

India gets a budget battery beast. The iQOO Z11 Lite launches from INR 19,499 (about $205) with a MediaTek Dimensity 6300 chip and a 6,500mAh battery with 44W fast charging, one of the larger cells at that price (via GSMArena).

Your next laptop screen might be printed like a newspaper. Lenovo's Legion R9000P is the first laptop with an inkjet-printed OLED panel, a cheaper-to-make 16-inch, 240Hz display from China's TCL CSOT covering over 99% of DCI-P3 color. No price or date yet (via Tom's Hardware).

Razer's flagship gaming laptop trades speed for stamina. Tom's Hardware's review of the $4,899.99 Blade 16 (Intel's new 'Panther Lake' Core Ultra 9, RTX 5090) found class-leading battery life from a 25-watt processor tune, but slightly slower gaming than the 2025 model (via Tom's Hardware).

Apple's Mac roadmap may reach past touchscreens. A Bloomberg-sourced report describes a refreshed iMac and 14-inch MacBook Pro, a cheaper A19 Pro 'MacBook Neo,' and an OLED-touchscreen 'MacBook Ultra,' all still rumor (via Engadget).

iPhone owners get an update on Monday. Apple's iOS 26.6, expected July 27, adds security fixes, a max-blocked-contacts alert, and a Spotlight tweak that quietly pre-stages the bigger search overhaul coming in iOS 27 this fall (via 9to5Mac).

Apple Maps is heading to the dashboard. Apple and Ford announced Maps will become a built-in navigation mode on Ford's next electric-vehicle platform, using a new automotive software kit for EV routing and turn-by-turn directions, arriving in 2027 (via 9to5Mac).

Apple wants to lease you an iPhone. Per a Bloomberg report, the unconfirmed 'Apple Upgrade' launches July 28, a Klarna-partnered plan with a soft credit check and lower monthly payments across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Watch, replacing the iPhone Upgrade Program (via 9to5Mac).

Pixel's first patch since Android 17 squashes real bugs. Google's July update reaches the Pixel 6 and later, the Pixel Tablet, and its foldables, fixing app crashes, wrong widget colors, and a boot-loop glitch (via Android Authority).

Samsung's new foldables ship on One UI 9. Built on Android 17, the stable release lands first on the Z Fold8, Fold8 Ultra, and Flip 8, adding an AI Assistant activity dashboard and smoother iPhone-to-Galaxy transfers. Galaxy S26 owners are still waiting (via Android Authority).

The Pixel 11 has leaked in every color. Thirty-six press renders spilled the full palette before Google's August 12 event, from Moss and Fuchsia to a copper 'Dune' finish on the Pro. Renders, not confirmation (via Android Authority).

ChatGPT wants to talk about your health. OpenAI opened ChatGPT Health to all US users 18 and over on free and paid tiers, letting them connect Apple Health data and medical records for answers grounded in their own history (via TechCrunch).

Google Search is starting to do your chores. AI Mode, Google's conversational search, can now hand off to and act inside partner apps, with Instacart, Canva, and YouTube first, pushing from answering questions toward completing tasks (via TechCrunch).

Samsung's watches got bigger batteries and brighter screens. Alongside its foldables on July 22, Samsung launched the Galaxy Watch 9 (from $380) and the $700 Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 with a 5,000-nit display, and teased AI smart glasses built with Google and Warby Parker (via Engadget).

Apple and Meta are fighting over how earbuds pair. Apple is building an interface to give Meta's Ray-Ban glasses and Quest headsets AirPods-style auto-pairing under EU rules, but Meta objects that it works only in Europe. It is targeted for spring 2027 (via 9to5Mac).

Valve's living-room PC lands with a thud. Engadget's review calls the new Steam Machine ($1,049 for 512GB) 'underpowered and too expensive,' with graphics roughly matching an RTX 3060 despite near-silent operation (via Engadget).

Blame AI for your next graphics-card bill. AMD says it will 'fight for gamers' as an AI-driven memory shortage pushes GPU prices up, with Radeon cards already climbing more than 10% as board partners raise memory costs again (via Tom's Hardware).

An AI hub just got hacked. Hugging Face, the site where developers share machine-learning models and datasets, confirmed on July 20 that internal datasets and service credentials were exposed after a booby-trapped uploaded dataset ran code on its servers, and urged all users to rotate their access tokens (via TechCrunch).