South Korean tech giant Samsung has reported a slump in its profits for the fourth quarter of 2019, down 38% from the previous year. A continued fall in memory chip prices and weaker sales of display panels have been largely blamed as the reason for this slowdown in growth. However, Samsung has said it's hoping the increasing popularisation of 5G networks will play a hand in boosting sales, especially since the brand has an ever-expanding wide variety of 5G devices on offer. News of this slump comes less than two weeks before the company launches its flagship S-series devices for the 2020 model year at its Galaxy Unpacked event in on 11th February.

South Korean tech giant Samsung has reported a slump in its profits for the fourth quarter of 2019, down 38% from the previous year. A continued fall in memory chip prices and weaker sales of display panels have been largely blamed as the reason for this slowdown in growth. However, Samsung has said it's hoping the increasing popularisation of 5G networks will play a hand in boosting sales, especially since the brand has an ever-expanding wide variety of 5G devices on offer. News of this slump comes less than two weeks before the company launches its flagship S-series devices for the 2020 model year at its Galaxy Unpacked event in on 11th February.

A host of telecom companies in the UK have removed data allowance caps on current fixed broadband services to help vulnerable customers stay connected during the Covid-19 pandemic. As per the deal with the government, they&rsquo;ll also offer reasonable support to customers who&rsquo;re finding it hard to pay their bills. Moreover, the firms will also be offering "generous" new mobile and landline packages, which could mean free calls and data boosts at lower prices.

Chinese smartphone maker Vivo has released a short film saluting doctors and frontline health workers, who are relentlessly fighting the coronavirus pandemic in India . Titled &lsquo;Heroes Who Care&rsquo;, the film aims to remind people that while they remain locked in their safe haven, there is a section of society that has undertaken the most daunting of tasks and are making sacrifices above and beyond their call of duty. Earlier, the company pledged to donate over two lakh surgical and N95 masks to Indian hospitals and healthcare workers.

A Mumbai-based startup is making 3D printed face shields to support health agencies and hospitals who&rsquo;re facing shortage of face masks as the coronavirus pandemic spreads across India. According to an Indian Express report, Boson Machines currently produces 500-800 3D printed face shields per day, but aims to increase it ten fold to meet the growing demand. The face shields are reportedly attached to a person&rsquo;s head and have a transparent PVC film that covers most of the face and even ears. The makers, however, admit that these are not replacements for regular masks but an additional protective gear.

Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus has confirmed that it&rsquo;s bringing an always-on display feature in an update sometime in the near future. The company has held off from implementing this popular feature so far despite featuring AMOLED panels for years. These screens can save battery life by lighting only a few necessary pixels at a time. OnePlus hasn&rsquo;t confirmed whether this feature will be exclusive to the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro or will be rolled out to older devices as an Oxygen OS update.

Leaked images of the upcoming OnePlus 8 series of smartphones are doing the rounds of social media. The renders seem to indicate a variety of colour options never seen before, that are reportedly called Interstellar Glow, Glacial Green and Onyx Black. Previous leaks have hinted that the new OnePlus 8 Pro may sport a 6.78-inch QHD+ display with a 120Hz refresh rate, LPDDR5 RAM, a quad camera setup, and water and dust resistant along with wireless charging. OnePlus is expected to launch its new devices sometime in April.

If you've run out of ways to keep your children or yourself engaged amid the lockdown to fight the coronavirus pandemic, Google has something for you! You can explore the animal kingdom virtually with its 'Augumented Reality' feature. All you have to do is search the name of the animal and select the 'view in 3D' option. Using your phone, you will be able to watch the animal move around the room and even change its size by zooming in or out. Netizens&nbsp;are lauding the 3D hologram feature, using it in creative ways.&nbsp;

According to reports, messaging service WhatsApp has begun rolling out a limit to its status feature for users in India. While users could previously post up to 30 seconds of video as a WhatsApp status, they will now be limited to just 15 seconds. Reports say this is a measure to reduce the load on WhatsApp's servers, since usage has spiked amid the 21-day lockdown in the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The limitation will reportedly be reverted once the situation stabilises.

Russia's biggest telecom service provider MTS is pleading with customers to refrain from sending memes and viral videos to ease the burden on its networks during the Covid-19 pandemic. "Memes and keeping in good spirits are important, but it is important to be responsible about using content online", the company said in a statement on its website. The telco has 80 million clients in the region, and says it's seen a spike in the load on its networks, especially in large cities like Moscow, prompting it to beseech users to stop sharing 'heavy' videos to dozens of contacts. It's worth noting that many companies in Russia have shifted to working from home to lower the risk of Covid-19 infection, despite no mandatory lockdown announced by the government.

Google has announced that it will be donating $800 million to aid businesses and health organisations fighting the coronavirus, which includes 2-3 million protective face masks. The company CEO Sundar Pichai detailed the fund distribution in a blog post, adding that $250 million of this will be divided as ad grants to help the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other government agencies. Further, $340 million in ad credits will be provided to all small-and medium-sized businesses that have had active accounts over the past year. Meanwhile, academic institutions and researchers working on Covid-19 research will get access to $20 million in Google Cloud credits.

After announcing last week that it'll be limiting the bandwidth of its gaming services in Europe, Sony has now said PlayStation users in the US will be facing a similar situation. Several companies are implementing the move in an attempt to maintain network stability, with more people playing video games online under lockdown or in self-quarantine due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Sony has confirmed that while downloads will now take longer, gameplay speeds should remain as robust as before.

Amazon has announced in a blog post that users of its Alexa virtual assistant in the US and Japan will now be able to receive help diagnosing their symptoms in case they feel they've contracted Covid-19. Based on the user's risk level and symptoms, Alexa will then relay guidance from the US Centre for Disease Control for American users, and the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare for users in Japan. For customers in India, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, the UK and the US, Alexa can play a song for 20 seconds, to help keep time while washing hands.

Samsung has reportedly delayed the release of the electrocardiogram or ECG feature to its Galaxy Watch Active 2 smartwatch. The Korean tech giant had promised at launch in August last year that the functionality would be enabled in Q1 2020, but reports now quote the firm saying "it may take time to provide a stable service", and that it will notify users when the service is available. Disgruntled buyers of the Galaxy Watch Active 2 expressed their disappointment with the news, with some saying the ECG function was one of the main reasons they had made the purchase. The Galaxy Watch Active 2 was launched in India in October 2019, and currently starts at ₹25,990.

More interestingly&nbsp;though, the hinge is stiff enough to stay open in almost any position - even 90 degrees. Samsung calls this the Flex mode, where a few apps like Youtube have been optimized&nbsp;to take&nbsp;advantage of the half-opened display. It basically lets&nbsp;you play your video on the top half of the screen, while&nbsp;you scroll through comments on the bottom. You can also launch two different apps simultaneously, but it's&nbsp;awkward to use and really is one of those try-once-forget-forever gimmicks.

The biggest design strength of the Z Flip comes in the form of its new hideaway hinge, which feels really smooth when opening or shutting the phone. This is how the Galaxy Fold should have felt like, and it seems Samsung&nbsp;has almost learned from its mistakes made on that phone. I say almost because the phone still isn't water or dust resistant and there's a slight but noticeable&nbsp;gap&nbsp;at the hinge between the two halves, which means dust bunnies can accumulate inside over time.&nbsp;
The good news, however, is that the company has&nbsp;reintroduced&nbsp;those protective T-shaped hinge caps that we saw on the Galaxy Fold, and the Flip's hinge now comes with special&nbsp;fibres&nbsp;that reduce the likelihood of debris getting into the mechanism.

Beyond the practicality of the hinge, Samsung has also made a giant leap in terms of display technology used in foldable phones.&nbsp;Until now, devices like the Galaxy Fold and Moto Razr have used&nbsp;plastic screens, making them highly susceptible to scratches. However,&nbsp;the Z Flip is the first foldable phone to sport a front glass panel, called ultra-thin glass.&nbsp;
It's a big deal and the step in the right direction, but it just so happens that&nbsp;ultra-thin glass is also&nbsp;very fragile, so in order to protect it, Samsung added a layer of plastic on top of the glass screen,&nbsp;which means its more than capable of getting scratches and dents.
Now, during my time with the phone, I didn't notice these issues with the display... In fact,&nbsp;it felt very durable to me even after long sessions of call of duty, where I had to tap the screen really hard. Although, I only had access to the Z flip for a few days and it's very likely that the screen could succumb to daily wear and tear during long term usage...so if you are planning to buy this phone, Id advice that you treat it with cotton hands.
But don't let the fragility take away the fact that this is a fantastic looking display with deep blacks and rich colours. It gets a tall&nbsp;&nbsp;21.9:9 aspect ratio&nbsp;which is great for scrolling on social media feeds or articles, but many videos and games don't fit perfectly into the 21.9:9 screen dimensions, resulting in black sidebars. The bezels around the display are fairly chunky as well and seem to have been&nbsp;slightly raised in order to&nbsp;prevent the screen from hitting itself when you fold over. The single notch on top isn't the smallest I've seen on a smartphone but it's not very intrusive. What is intrusive,&nbsp; is that very prominent crease bang in the middle. At first, I thought it wouldn't bother me, but it definitely sticks out like a sore thumb.

The idea of a device that takes up less room in your pocket while providing all the features of a normal smartphone has a certain appeal to it.&nbsp;The Z Flip is also a fashion statement in its own right. It combines a smooth glass finish with precise processing, resulting in layers of colours that reflect a range of hues depending on the angle at which the handset is folded.&nbsp;Although I will say that that the&nbsp;mirror black colour variant looks a bit generic and nowhere as premium as the&nbsp;Mirror Purple colour.

Thankfully, the cameras don't leave me&nbsp; too much to complain about, They're&nbsp;nowhere&nbsp;as ambitious&nbsp;as the setup on the Galaxy S20 series, but do seem to perform along the lines of last years Galaxy S10. Feed it enough light and the Z Flip will click nice pictures with a good amount of detail. Sadly, ultra-wide photos left a lot to be desired and low light photography&nbsp;only offers decent results&nbsp;if there is some form of light source nearby. Otherwise don't even bother snapping anything once the sun goes down. It's just not good, and sure the night mode massively brightens up the frame but does a shoddy&nbsp;job of removing noise from the background. The front 10MP camera performed more reliably and should keep selfie fans happy.&nbsp;

Netflix said it is lowering its traffic on network providers by 25 per cent in India for 30 days, following a similar move in Europe to reduce the congestion on Internet&nbsp;pipelines. The American giant said in a statement that this doesn&rsquo;t affect the video resolution and people can still stream the content in HD and UHD format--but at lower bit rates. Amazon Prime Video said it has also begun lowering the data consumption, while other OTT players like Hotstar, MX Player and Zee5 said they are working to implement similar measures.

Now, let's talk about that cover display, which is easily this phones weakest feature. It gets a 1.1 OLED panel on the front, which is just too tiny to be used in a practical way. I mean its fine for checking the time, battery percentage or getting a glance at incoming notifications, but apart from that, you can't really do anything meaningful with the baby-sized screen.Samsung, also, for some reason, wants you to use this a selfie viewfinder, but again its too unhelpful to properly frame a shot.&nbsp;&nbsp;To me, the petite cover display is clearly Samsung's attempt to save on battery life and I don't think its a strategy that will work in the long run.&nbsp;

Look the Z Flip has its faults, and it's not as refined as it could be, but Samsung has made a massive improvement in the foldable landscape within a span of just one year. You can't deny that there is something really cool about flipping this phone open, then making a call with, snapping it shut again and&nbsp;comfortably&nbsp;slipping it back into your pocket. It's nostalgia and convenience&nbsp;mixed in perfect harmony. For some people that might be enough, but for others, it could be an expensive pill to swallow. &nbsp;
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Samsung reports slump in Q4 profits ahead of new flagships in Feb

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