Strands is the NYT’s latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it’s great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my Wordle today, NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games.

This time around we have a rather interesting comparison for you. We’re not comparing phones that have similar price tags, not at all. In this article, we’ll be comparing the Apple iPhone 16 Plus vs OnePlus 12R. The former costs twice as much, actually. The OnePlus 12R is shooting above its price range in terms of what it offers, and this comparison could actually surprise you. Apple did omit some features that it shouldn’t have, as it usually does, like a high refresh rate display.

It will be interesting to pit these two together and see what we come up with. As per usual, we’ll first list their specifications, and will then get down to comparing them across a number of other sections. These two devices are immensely different in pretty much every way, including design. So… it should be fun. Let’s get to it, shall we?

Specs

Apple iPhone 16 Plus vs OnePlus 12R, respectively

– Screen size:
6.7-inch Super Retina XDR OLED ( flat, 60Hz, HDR, 2,000 nits)
6.78-inch LTPO4 AMOLED display (Curved, 120Hz LTPO, HDR10+, 4,500 nits)
– Display resolution:
2796 x 1290
2780 x 1264
– SoC:
Apple A18 (3nm)
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
– RAM:
8GB
8GB/16GB (LPDDR5X)
– Storage:
128GB/256GB/512GB (NVMe)
128GB/256GB (UFS 3.1)
– Rear cameras:
48MP (wide, f/1.6 aperture, 1/1.56-inch sensor, 1.0um pixel size, sensor-shift OIS), 12MP (ultrawide, f/2.2 aperture, 120-degree FoV, 0.7um pixel size, PDAF)
50MP (f/1.8 aperture, 24mm lens, 1.0um pixel size, OIS, PDAF, Laser AF), 8MP (ultrawide, f/2.2 aperture, 16mm lens, 1.12um pixel size), 2MP (macro, f/2.4 aperture)
– Front cameras:
12MP (f/1.9 aperture, PDAF, 1/3.6-inch sensor size,)
16MP (f/2.4 aperture, 26mm lens, 1.0um pixel size)
– Battery:
4,674mAh
5,500mAh
– Charging:
30W wired, 25W MagSafe wireless, 15W Qi2 wireless, 7.5W Qi wireless, 4.5W reverse wired (charger not included)
100W wired (charger included)
– Dimensions:
160.9 x 77.8 x 7.8 mm
163.3 x 75.3 x 8.8mm
– Weight:
199 grams
207 grams
– Connectivity:
5G, LTE, NFC, Wi-Fi, USB Type-C, Bluetooth 5.3
– Security:
Face ID (3D facial scanning)
In-display fingerprint scanner (optical) & facial scanning
– OS:
iOS 18
Android 14 with OxygenOS 14
– Price:
$899+
$429+
– Buy:
Apple iPhone 16 Plus (Apple)
OnePlus 12R (Best Buy)

Apple iPhone 16 Plus vs OnePlus 12R: Design

The moment you see these two devices you’ll realize the different approaches these companies had. The iPhone 16 Plus is made out of metal and glass, and it’s a lot flatter overall. It has a flat front, flat back, and flat frame all around. Only its corners are rounded. The OnePlus 12R is made out of metal and glass too, but its front and back are curved. Yes, it has a curved display. Its frame is far from being flat.

The iPhone 16 Plus has a pill-shaped cutout on the front and uniform bezels. The OnePlus 12R includes a display camera hole, which is centered, so a much smaller cutout. It also has thin bezels, but they’re not uniform. However, the OnePlus 12R does have a higher screen-to-body ratio, hence thinner bezels. On the back, you’ll find two vertically-aligned cameras on the iPhone 16 Plus, in the top-left corner. OnePlus’ handset has three cameras which are a part of a camera oreo, in the top-left corner too.

Apple’s handset has more buttons overall. It includes a power/lock button on the right, along with a Camera Control button. On the left, it includes volume rocker keys and an Action Button. The OnePlus 12R has a power/lock key on the right, right below the volume up and down buttons. On the left, you’ll find an alert slider. Both phones are water and dust-resistant, but the iPhone 16 Plus comes with a better IP68 rating, compared to the IP64 rating the OnePlus 12R offers.

OnePlus’ handset has a slightly larger display, and the phone is taller, narrower, and thicker than the iPhone 16 Plus. It’s also 8 grams heavier, by the way. The in-hand feel between the two is vastly different, though both are quite slippery.

Apple iPhone 16 Plus vs OnePlus 12R: Display

There is a 6.7-inch 2796 x 1290 Super Retina XDR OLED display included on the iPhone 16 Plus. That panel is flat, and it has a 60Hz refresh rate, so not a high refresh rate. It supports HDR10 content, and Dolby Vision too. The peak brightness here is 2,000 nits, and the screen-to-body ratio is 88%. The display aspect ratio is 19.5:9, while the Ceramic Shield glass protects this display.

The OnePlus 12R, on the flip side, has a 6.78-inch 2780 x 1264 LTPO4 AMOLED display. That panel is curved, and it offers a 120Hz refresh rate. It can project up to 1 billion colors, and it supports HDR10+ content and Dolby Vision. The peak brightness here is 4,500 nits, while the screen-to-body ratio is around 91%. The Gorilla Glass Victus 2 from Corning is here to protect this panel.

Both of these displays are vivid and have great viewing angles. Both of them are also more than sharp enough and have good touch response. The thing is, the OnePlus 12R’s panel does get a bit brighter, and it also offers a high refresh rate. If you notice the difference between refresh rates, and the vast majority of people do, that will be a considerable jump. Do note the display curvature difference here too. The OnePlus 12R technically has a better display out of the two. Apple, for some reason, decided to stick with a 60Hz panel, which is difficult to understand considering the price tag here.

Apple iPhone 16 Plus vs OnePlus 12R: Performance

Apple’s handset is fueled by the Apple A18 processor, the company’s 3nm chip. Apple paired that with 8GB of RAM and NVMe flash storage. The OnePlus 12R, on the flip side, is fueled by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, a 4nm processor. The phone also includes up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 3.1 flash storage. Apple’s handset does have a more powerful chip here.

The performance between the two is basically on par in terms of everyday use. Both phones are very snappy regardless of what you do with them. It’s actually a real chore getting either phone to slow down. They’re great for general app use, browsing, multimedia consumption, messaging, and so on. The iPhone 16 Plus will have an edge when it comes to truly demanding games, but in all honesty, we did not really notice much of a difference.

The OnePlus 12R was able to run basically any game that we threw at it from the Google Play Store, without a problem. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 may be inferior, but it’s still an outstanding processor capable of running basically any game, with ease. So… even though the iPhone 16 Plus will likely have a longer shelf life, at the moment, the two phones are on par in terms of performance feel when you actually use them.

Apple iPhone 16 Plus vs OnePlus 12R: Battery

Apple’s handset has a 4,674mAh battery on the inside. The OnePlus 12R, on the other hand, includes a 5,500mAh unit. Apple’s iPhones usually have smaller batteries than their Android counterparts, so don’t pay too much attention to the capacity itself. With that being said, both of these smartphones are battery monsters. The OnePlus 12R offers outstanding battery life, but the iPhone 16 Plus is a tough competitor.

The iPhone 16 Plus has one of the best battery life results out there at the moment, so it does trump the OnePlus 12R. However, regardless of which of the two phones you end up getting, chances are you’ll be more than happy. Even if you’re a power user both of these phones have enough juice to get you through the day. Getting over 7 hours of screen-on-time is not much of a problem, especially on the iPhone 16 Plus, at least from what we’ve seen.

In terms of charging, the iPhone 16 Plus is more versatile, but the OnePlus 12R wipes the floor with it in terms of sheer charging speed. The OnePlus 12R supports 100W wired charging, while the iPhone 16 Plus offers 30W wired, 25W MagSafe wireless, 15W Qi2 wireless, 7.5W Qi wireless, and 4.5W reverse wired charging. Do note that only the OnePlus 12R ships with a charger, though.

Apple iPhone 16 Plus vs OnePlus 12R: Cameras

The iPhone 16 Plus comes with a 48-megapixel main camera (1/1.56-inch sensor) and a 12-megapixel ultrawide unit (120-degree FoV). The OnePlus 12R, on the flip side, includes a 50-megapixel unit (1/1.56-inch sensor), an 8-megapixel ultrawide camera (112-degree FoV), and a 2-megapixel macro shooter. Both phones do a good job with photography, but neither is close to competing with the very best.

The OnePlus 12R misses Hasselblad’s color calibration, but despite that, it manages to provide really good results. There’s not much to complain about its main camera performance, across different scenarios, the images end up looking really good, and somewhat contrasty. The iPhone 16 Plus does provide images with warmer tones, though it also does a good job across the board. The images do end up looking different, and the ones in low light, a hair darker.

In regards to the ultrawide camera, the iPhone 16 Plus wins. It simply provides better images in almost every way. They end up providing more details and end up being better-balanced. The macro camera on the OnePlus 12R is forgettable, 2-megapixel macro cameras should not be a thing, at all. In regards to video, that’s an easy win for the iPhone 16 Plus, even though the OnePlus 12R can shoot solid video content.

Audio

Both of these smartphones have a set of stereo speakers. Those speakers are actually rather good, and more than loud enough. In fact, they’re very close in terms of overall loudness, and output quality too.

There is no audio jack on either phone. You can, however, hook up your audio headphones to the Type-C port on either devices. If you prefer wireless audio, Bluetooth 5.3 is supported by both smartphones.

New details are continuing to surface about the hacking of US telecom companies by a China-linked group that US officials and campaign staffers. Now, The Wall Street Journal that the hackers’ access was even greater than what’s been previously reported, and that the communications of “potentially thousands of Americans” may have been impacted.

Last week, The New York Times reported that FBI investigators suspected call logs and SMS messages had been accessed by the hacking group, known as “Salt Typhoon.” The group reportedly targeted the phones of diplomats and government officials, as well as people associated with both presidential campaigns.

Now, The WSJ is reporting that the hackers, who were “likely” working for a Chinese intelligence agency, spent “eight months or more” in US telecom infrastructure, and that they may have been able to scoop up the data of thousands of people who were in contact with the targeted individuals.

The Journal confirms earlier reports that the hackers “limited their targets to several dozen select, high-value political and national-security figures.” But the hackers, who reportedly exploited routers used by telecom firms, had “the ability to access the phone data of virtually any American who is a customer of a compromised carrier — a group that includes AT&T and Verizon.” Both AT&T and Verizon declined to comment on the report.

Raffael “Dr. B” Boccamazzo, the clinical director of Take This, will leave the nonprofit for gaming mental health at the end of this year.

Take This made the announcement after Boccamazzo posted the change on his LinkedIn account.

“It’s been a year of transition at Take This, and it is with bittersweet sentiment that we share that Dr. B, Take This’ clinical director, will be leaving at the end of this year,” Take This said on its web site. “We want to express our heartfelt appreciation for Dr. B’s decade of dedication to Take This. His kindness, insight, and knowledge has been invaluable, and his impact on the Take This team and community will not be forgotten. Below is a heartfelt letter from Dr. B about the upcoming change.”

Boccamazzo joined Take This as a volunteer/staffer in 2014. It was started to serve the game industry in 2012 by Russ Pitts and Mark Kline after the suicide of game journalist Matt Hughes. Kline served as the founding clinical director and Boccamazzo replaced him after Kline left. Boccamazzo’s pending departure comes just a week after Eve Crevoshay, longtime executive director, also resigned from Take This. Kelli Dunlap filled Crevoshay’s role.

“There’s so much I’m proud to have done with the org,” Boccamazzo said. “However, the truth is that nonprofit life is hard. Since I became a dad earlier this year, I find my focus is more on my family. I can’t commit to all the extra hours required of being a director at a small nonprofit organization while maintaining the focus on my family that they deserve.”

He added, “I’d end up underserving everyone on both sides of that coin. As my schedule allows, I’d eventually like to find ways to support the org in a more limited capacity, but for now I need to focus on me and my family.”

Both Crevoshay and Boccamazzo were frequent speakers at game industry events where they stressed the importance of mental health for game developers. And they both spoke at GamesBeat events. Boccamazzo spoke in 2021 in a virtual GamesBeat event on how to avoid burnout as well as a panel on employee mental health in 2022. Crevoshay received the Vanguard Award from Games for Change and she also received our Up-and-Comer Award for GamesBeat.

Boccamazzo said he looked forward to the remaining staff at Take This to take the organization and continue its mission.

“I don’t entirely know what’s next for me, other than focusing on my family and the psychology practice I run,” Boccamazzo said. “I’d like to keep at least one toe dipped in games. If you might need a psychologist with a decade of experience working within the game industry on things like burnout, mental health representation in media, content creator mental health, tabletop roleplaying games, crunch culture, and other things, I’ll be around, and I’d love to hear from you.”

Amber Hill spent 14 years as a medical researcher. She didn’t mind the work, but there was one thing she consistently hated: administrative tasks. 

“I think most people do, especially in research,” she told TechCrunch. She would rather be analyzing data or building relationships with patients, she said. “But I was spending so much time doing manual tasks that didn’t require any medical expertise. It’s a process that’s completely broken, and I knew it could be fixed.” 

So, she did what any problem solver would do: She launched a company. 

Her startup, called Research Grid, was founded in London in 2020. The company is trying to make clinical trials more efficient by automating administrative and data management workflow. It hails itself as the the only software that can automate full back-office trials.

Research Grid on Tuesday announced a $6.4 million seed round, led by Fuel Ventures, with participation from firms including Ada Ventures and Morgan Stanley Inclusive Ventures Lab. 

Research Grid consists of two patent products: Inclusive and Trial Engine. Together, the products handle tasks such as flagging protocol errors, data extraction, and workflow. Right now, clinical trials use a more manual process supported by legacy software systems that often cause expensive delays during a trial. 

“They are built on old codebases, which means it’s almost impossible for them to innovate,” she said. “Our tech is already superior, and while the displacement of large players won’t happen overnight, it’s going to happen, and I don’t see why it won’t be us that does it.” 

But there are other issues Research Grid hopes to tackle, such as making clinical recruitment faster and better handling of the pressure that often comes from the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) regarding compliance. Recruitment can take months, “it’s manual, administrative, and hard to find people,” she said. It’s also hard to do consistently when it comes to finding people who fit in a narrow, strict criteria for a research trial.

Right now, it’s a very manual process, using non-targeted social ads and parsing health records. “If there’s not enough participation, researchers can’t understand if a drug or intervention is safe and effective, which ultimately means it’s not approved by regulators to go to the people who might need it most.” 

Plus, the FDA has now made it a requirement to make clinical trials more diverse, since women and people of color are often left out of medical trials. Hill sought to build a customer relationship management feature in Research Grid that has more than 80,000 groups, across 157 countries, representing around 2,000 medical conditions, she said. “It uses AI to extend far beyond traditional methods of finding people,” she said. “It helps out partners to find who they need to find in seconds rather than months.” 

Hill was introduced to her lead investor by the EMEA team of the venture firm Plug and Play, who came into this round early. The company, which has raised $8 million in venture funding to date, will use this latest funding to invest in more research and development, build out its engineering team, and further expand into the U.S. and Asian markets. 

“The next challenge is mostly about setting up the corporate infrastructure to seamlessly serve these partners,” she said of operating in the U.S., U.K., and Asia. 

Though this company, like many great ones, was built out of a frustration point, Hill said she always had a passion for entrepreneurship. She ran a nonprofit while studying for her doctorate as a way to widen her access to research. Running the business taught her how to be resilient and resourceful, and how to work with different types of people. “I kept a volunteer team together over three years without financial resources,” she recalled. “We fundraised the ‘old school’ hard way in buckets and took it to the bank.” 

Her first tech idea was to use AI to automate all the work that goes into running a nonprofit. “We’ve come full circle because that idea morphed into our pre-trial product and meaningful IP,” she said. When she knew she wanted to launch Research Grid, she applied to an incubator program to help switch her “mindset from nonprofit to for-profit,” from “academic to an entrepreneur.” Then she went through an accelerator program that put her in front of some of the largest investors in London; she raised her first £1 million — a feat in a country where Black founders raise less than 2% of all venture capital. And from 2019 to 2023, only eight Black women raised more than $1 million in venture funding, as TechCrunch previously reported.

The hardest part for Hill was getting the company off the ground during the pandemic as a solo founder. She managed through and is now in growth mode. Revenue grew over 20x last year and is expected to continue to grow, she said. The company is working across Big Pharma, Contract Research Organisations, and Clinical Sites, hiring more experts, and improving their AI technology.

“AI is expediting precision medicine, drug development operations, and changing the care pathway for everyone,” she said. “It’s here to stay.”