The AI phones are here, but that doesn’t mean they’ve really arrived. The year’s hottest trend is trickling down to mobile tech, but the results so far are a mixed bag, to say the least. Samsung and Google have a lot of AI tricks on their phones that don’t really amount to much yet, and Apple is scrambling to catch up. AI really could be the start of helpful new ways to interact with our phones! But we’re definitely not there yet. In the meantime, be prepared to hear a lot more about AI on your next phone — and temper your expectations.
Technology
Databricks lakehouse a secret weapon for WNBA’s Fever
Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever were a significant part of what was one of the most electrifying seasons in Women’s National Basketball Association history.
Databricks and its lakehouse platform for data management and analytics, conversely, was a key part of what helped the Fever to their most successful season since 2016.
Clark, who recently finished a record-setting rookie season with the Fever, is perhaps best known for draining long-range shots and making spectacular passes. Her 769 total points (19.2 per game) and 337 assists (8.4 per game) set league records for a rookie — so did her 223 turnovers. And she helped the Fever improve from 13-27 in 2023 to 20-20 in a 2024 season that ended last Sunday night with the New York Liberty topping the Minnesota Lynx for the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) championship.
But her performance, and the Fever’s success, weren’t mere happenstance. They weren’t just the result of a generational player joining the team and the team becoming more successful.
In the background of both Clark’s success as well as the Fever’s overall improvement was Databricks’ lakehouse platform, which enabled the Fever to view and analyze data in ways previously impossible.
In a sense, Clark’s arrival this past season was fortuitous timing.
Pacers Sports & Entertainment — owner of the Fever along with the NBA’s Indiana Pacers, Gainbridge Fieldhouse where the Fever and Pacers play, the Indiana Mad Ants of the NBA’s G League and minor league baseball’s Reno Aces — only started using Databricks in April 2022.
Before that, the organization’s data was an untidy muddle of myriad systems and isolated data, according to Jared Chavez, Pacers Sports and Entertainment’s manager of data engineering and strategy.
“There was no crossover,” he said.
Clark’s arrival certainly would have had some impact on the Fever’s success regardless of how well the team could analyze data and use it to inform its on-court performance.
But perhaps it wouldn’t have been quite as significant. Perhaps a couple of close games would have gone against the Fever instead of for them had the Fever not been making data-informed decisions throughout the game leading up to the drama at the end. Perhaps what was the Fever’s first playoff appearance and .500 season since 2016 would have been their eighth straight losing one.
Before making Databricks’ lakehouse platform the hub for its entire data management and analytics operations in April 2022, Pacers Sports and Entertainment’s most important franchises — the Pacers and Fever — suffered from isolated data. The Pacers’ basketball-related data was kept on premises while business-related data such as sales and marketing was stored in a cloud-based data warehouse. The Fever, meanwhile, were not yet analyzing on-court data while their business-related data was kept in multiple Microsoft Azure Synapse databases that weren’t integrated.
“Every single department had data living in one of our warehouses that was cut off from the rest of them, or they didn’t have data flowing into anything,” Chavez said
In addition to an inability to integrate data, Pacers Sports & Entertainment’s data operations were costly given the disparate systems for which the organization was paying.
To better enable its teams to compete with other franchises on the court, the organization needed a data ecosystem rather than a series of isolated tools. To improve its financial bottom line, it needed to get a better return on its investment from its data operations. The company decided to start over on a new system.
In retrospect, Databricks seems like a logical choice for Pacers Sports & Entertainment. One of the advantages of the vendor’s lakehouse platform is that it was designed to enable large organizations to centralize their data, both structured and unstructured, to enable integration, according to Alexander Booth, a solutions architect at Databricks.
Sports franchises collect not only large amounts of traditional structured data such as financial records and point-of-sale transactions on the business side but also petabytes of unstructured data such as motion capture data on the performance side. Even on the performance side, there is structured data that includes traditional statistics such as home runs in baseball, points in basketball, or goals in hockey and soccer that needs to be integrated with unstructured data to develop a more complete view of what is taking place during competition.
As a result, Databricks makes sense for an organization like Pacers Sports & Entertainment.
“Databricks excels in sports analytics due to its capacity to handle large volumes of diverse data types in real time,” Booth, who previously was assistant director of baseball R&D for Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers, said. “This includes … complex data sources such as biomechanics, videos and detailed reports with natural language [that can be integrated to feed] machine learning and AI models.” Despite the data integration enabled by Databricks’ lakehouse, the platform was not the first choice for Pacers Sports & Entertainment in 2022. Chavez, who joined Pacers Sports and Entertainment in early 2022, was familiar with Snowflake, perhaps Databricks’ closest rival.
Starting with Snowflake, however, required a bigger initial investment than Pacers Sports and Entertainment wanted to make, according to Chavez. Databricks, meanwhile, offers pay-as-you-go pricing, so based on finances as much as anything else, the organization decided to migrate its data operations to the vendor’s lakehouse platform.
“At the time, it was a money decision,” Chavez said. “We were hemorrhaging on our old infrastructure, and we didn’t have the money to go with what I was familiar with at the time, which was Snowflake. Looking back, I’m glad we didn’t.”
Pacers Sports & Entertainment is not yet using Databricks to analyze the Pacers’ on-court performance. It is, however, using Databricks’ lakehouse platform to store, integrate and analyze most of the organization’s other data. In total, in the 30 months since Pacers Sports & Entertainment scrapped its inefficient data management and analytics operations, the company has either migrated to or rebuilt on Databricks more than 60 systems.
When Pacers Sports & Entertainment first started using Databricks for some of its data operations, the results were almost immediate, according to Chavez.
Most significantly, given that the company made the move from myriad systems to Databricks — at least, in part, for financial reasons — migrating certain operations to Databricks’ lakehouse led to a 70% reduction in cost compared to the way those operations were run previously.
Those cost savings led to buy-in from organizational executives. Buy-in subsequently resulted in expanded use of Databricks and, eventually, the complete overhaul of the organization’s data management and analytics operations to make the Databricks lakehouse its hub. “That’s what ended up snowballing and leading us to stick around to see how it goes [with Databricks],” Chavez said.
Now, though the Pacers aren’t yet benefiting from the organization’s migration to Databricks, the Fever are.
The WNBA uses a tracking system from Second Spectrum to provide its franchises with motion capture data that enables teams to analyze the movements of every player at every instant they’re on the court by essentially photographing each player 30 times per second.
Using that data in concert with the right platform, teams can go far beyond basic statistics — points, rebounds, assists, points in the paint and points from beyond the 3-point arc — that are rear-facing and only show what happened to ask and understand why something happened. The Fever loads its Second Spectrum data into Databricks’ lakehouse. With Databricks as its hub for data management and data engineering, the team is able ask why things are happening on the court and analyze motion capture data to reach conclusions.
For example, the team wanted to know not only how many touches near the basket it wasn’t converting into points but also why those possessions right in the paint weren’t resulting in baskets. Another question it had was how many possessions started with a steal but weren’t converted into fast-break points and why those possessions didn’t result in an easy basket.
“We had a lot of questions come through that were like, ‘Why are we the lowest in the league in this thing or in the bottom half of the league in some other specific area?’” Chavez said. “Now we can answer those questions.”
That’s just the start, he continued. The WNBA only began providing its teams with Second Spectrum data about two weeks before the start of the 2024 season. That gave the Fever and other franchises little time to develop models using the motion capture data to ask questions and analyze on-court performance. Beyond motion capture data, Databricks is the Fever’s system for feeding data to television and radio commentators to inform broadcasts and developing more traditional data assets, such as pregame and postgame reports for coaches and players, among other things.
Included is refined data such as missed opportunities for challenging bad calls, long 2-point shots that could have turned into 3-pointers had a player stepped back, and missed boxouts for rebounds as well as traditional statistics such points, rebounds, assists, turnovers and field goal percentage.
“The coaches are the heaviest users by a long shot,” Chavez said. “The questions that we’re seeing being asked and being relayed to my team are about that more nuanced stuff like, ‘Why is it that when teams drive the middle [of the lane], we’re not stopping it?’”
Databricks, meanwhile, plays a role in assisting the Fever and other customers with unique data management and analytics needs, working with them to train personnel on the platform as well as develop the data and machine learning tools that inform decisions, according to Booth. “Databricks offers … the power to rapidly build custom AI and machine learning models that can reason on sports teams’ unique data,” he said. “Sports teams typically seek quick and cost-effective data insights, often with lean teams. Databricks partners with franchises to decrease time to insight while empowering upskilling.”
Pacers Sports & Entertainment realized immediate savings after switching its data operations to Databricks and has since used the lakehouse platform for multiple purposes, including better understanding the performance of the Fever. But all wasn’t perfect from the start, according to Chavez.
Databricks has long been good at enabling the use of analytics and machine learning to inform decisions, he noted. But from an engineering perspective, it wasn’t as strong in 2022 as some other platforms.
“The orchestrator was a far cry from most things on the market at the time — though, granted, it was their attempt to start getting headway,” Chavez said. “It was choppy for a bit.” A significant development that made engineering easier was the Databricks Unity Catalog, a data catalog that enables organizations to organize and govern their data.
“They have found their stride in the last year or year-and-a-half, especially on the engineering front,” Chavez said. “The tools continue to improve, and things are getting a lot better. But there are still some quality-of-life fixes that [Databricks needs to make] to catch up to platforms that have been around [longer].”
One remaining issue for many users is needing to use Apache Spark to work with Databricks’ lakehouse platform, he continued. For those who have used data warehouses in the past and are familiar with traditional databases, Databricks is completely foreign.
However, once users learn Spark, the benefits far outweigh the negatives associated with any initial struggles. “The learning curve and ceiling is astronomical for this platform, especially if you’re coming from a traditional background,” Chavez said. “You don’t have to know Spark to use Databricks. But if you don’t, you’re doing yourself a disservice because you can make this platform stupidly efficient and incredibly powerful.”
Databricks, meanwhile, has introduced tools over the past year aimed at making its platform easier to use, according to Bryan Saftler, global industry leader at Databricks.
They include a AI-powered tools that enable conversational interactions with data and free access to Databricks Academy, a set of training resources to help new users learn needed skills.
“Databricks has always been committed to democratizing access to more individuals across organizations whether they are technical nor not,” Saftler said. “To this effect, Databricks takes a multi-pronged approach.” With problems mostly in the past for Pacers Sports and Entertainment, Databricks’ lakehouse is now the system underpinning most of the organization’s data operations, including its Salesforce ecosystem, security planning, marketing strategy and on-court analysis.
Looking ahead, the organization has ambitious plans for its future use of the vendor’s platform, including developing virtual reality models, Chavez said.
The organization captures location data as fans move throughout Gainbridge Field House and the property that surrounds it. Using that data, and by partnering with a research lab at Indiana University, Pacers Sports & Entertainment is planning to develop a virtual three-dimensional model of the Field House’s campus that shows the flow of traffic during events.
With the model, analysts will be able to see what fans are seeing to best strategize where to place advertising. They will also be able to observe where there are choke points in the flow of traffic to decide what gates to open when and where to place security personnel. Regarding on-court analysis, one application of virtual reality will be to enable the Fever to not only analyze the movement of players but also view their movement from different angles.
One example is if there is action taking place close to the basket where a bunch of bodies are crowded together and it’s difficult to tell exactly what’s taking place, virtual reality will enable an analyst to shift the viewing perspective. Using a simulation, the analyst will be able to essentially go inside the scrum to better see the action.
Another application of virtual reality will be to help the Fever better observe games from afar, such as action in overseas leagues.
Scouts can’t be everywhere, so the Fever are collecting data from over 50 competitions worldwide that will feed virtual reality models that enable the Fever to see more than just game tape as they look for players to add to their roster. The virtual reality models will also let coaches and front-office staff track current Fever players who spend winters playing overseas. The WNBA season is only from May to October, and the average salary of $102,000 is dramatically lower than the average NBA salary of $9.6 million, so players often spend winters in overseas leagues. “The goal is to simulate the game so when you say the team or a player is good at something or not good at something, we can see what it actually looks like,” Chavez said. “Now you can know what it looks like outside of just the stats.”
Eric Avidon is a senior news writer for TechTarget Editorial and a journalist with more than 25 years of experience. He covers analytics and data management.
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Circle to Search is one of the most potentially useful AI-powered tools Google has developed for mobile devices. Currently, the feature is available on select smartphone models from some manufacturers. However, the expansion of Circle to Search continues, now reaching the Motorola Razr 2024 lineup.
This year, Motorola introduced the Razr Plus 2024 and Razr 2024, a pair of clamshell-designed and competitively priced foldable smartphones, with the aim of reaching the mass market. Perhaps these devices are among the reasons why sales of Galaxy foldable smartphones were below Samsung’s expectations this year. In any case, Motorola’s latest foldable phones are now equipped with Circle to Search, enhancing their functionality.
Motorola’s 2024 Razr foldable phones now support Circle to Search
Interestingly, it seems that Motorola is enabling Circle to Search via a security update for the Razr 2024 series. According to Android Central, the update’s changelog doesn’t mention anything beyond the usual bug fixes and performance optimizations. However, after installing the update, Circle to Search is available on both devices. The firmware is 1.05GB in size on the Razr Plus but just under 1GB on the Razr 2024.
Circle to Search is a quick way to trigger searches related to anything you see on your screen. After invoking it, you just need to circle or draw on an item on the screen. Then, you’ll immediately receive results related to the item. For instance, if you spot a pair of shoes that pique your interest, you can utilize Circle to Search to get the shoe’s model, price, and availability, among other details.
Circle to Search is actually a way to significantly speed up Google Lens searches. For instance, without this feature, a user on a phone would have to take a screenshot, share it with Lens, and then crop the image around the shoes. However, you can access all of Lens’s features from Circle to Search.
The feature is expanding at a slow pace
Initially, the option was only available on select Pixel and Galaxy phones. Later, brands like Xiaomi and Honor announced its availability on some models. Now Motorola is jumping on the bandwagon by rolling out Circle to Search practically by surprise. Although the brand had already announced that it would bring it to its devices, it has not even mentioned it in the changelog of the update that includes it.
Roblox has adopted several new policies designed to give parents control over how their children use the sprawling online game platform. reported that the company has created a new type of parental account so that a guardian can oversee their kids’ online activities and friends. Roblox is also now requiring parent permission for users under age 13 to access certain features. Users age 9 and younger will also need permission in order to access game modes with moderate violence or crude humor. The publication said these changes are slated to go into effect next month.
Concerns about safety for young players have been a recurring issue for Roblox. The platform faced a claiming exploitation of a minor in 2022. was reluctant to host the game on its hardware over questions of whether Roblox exposed children to inappropriate sexual content, and the same justification led to a earlier this year. Hindenburg Research recently released an about predatory behavior as well as misleading financial activity at Roblox (although that source has a shaky reputation of its own). An investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek found that at least two dozen people have been arrested by US law enforcement since 2018 for abusing or abducting child victims they met on Roblox.
Humane on Wednesday announced a $200 price cut to its flagship product, the Ai Pin. The Bay Area startup, founded by two former Apple executives, has reportedly struggled to sell the product, which launched in April for $700.
In a message sent to its email list, Humane highlights its return policy in the new pitch. “Ai Pin starts at $499 and includes your first month of Humane Plan on us,” the company writes. “Along with a 90-day return window, it’s completely risk-free to try.”
The device was poorly received by reviewers. By August, returns of the Ai Pin had reportedly begun to outpace sales, leaving some 7,000 to 8,000 devices in the hands of users.
The company reportedly began exploring a sale in May, amid poor reviews and poorer sales.
A lot of people in the US get their phones through carrier deals, and no judgment here if that’s the route you take — it’s how I bought mine. Just be sure you know what you’re getting into and how many years you’ll need to stay on that Super 5G Everything Unlimited Plus plan to keep the monthly device reimbursements coming.
If you’re looking to spend a little less and still get the best smartphone on a budget, you can find something really good for under $500. For those recommendations, check out our guide to budget smartphones.
The best iPhone for most people
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$799
Apple’s baseline iPhone has a 6.1-inch screen, two rear cameras in a rearranged vertical layout, a customizable Action Button, and a new Camera Control button. It’s set to receive a score of AI software features as Apple rolls out Apple Intelligence.
Screen: 6.1-inch, 2556 x 1179 OLED, 60Hz refresh rate / Processor: A18 Cameras: 48-megapixel f/1.6 main with sensor-shift IS; 12-megapixel ultrawide; 12-megapixel selfie / Battery: Not advertised / Charging: 27W wired, 25W wireless MagSafe, 15W Qi2, 7.5W Qi / Weather-resistance rating: IP68
From a hardware perspective, the iPhone 16 (or the 16 Plus) is an easy upgrade choice. If you’re switching from an iPhone 13, 12, or even older, those four or five years of incremental performance improvements add up. But there’s something entirely new this time around — well, two things: the Action Button and the Camera Control button.
The customizable Action Button, which replaces the mute switch on the left edge of the phone, is a hand-me-down from the 15 Pro series. You can set it to open a particular app, turn on the flashlight, or almost anything else you might want at the touch of a button. On the other side of the phone is the Camera Control, which you can use to launch the camera app. With the camera open, it acts as a shutter button with a full press, and a light press brings up other exposure options you can adjust. Even if you only ever use it to launch the camera, it’s pretty handy, and it frees up the Action Button.
The iPhone 16 and its larger 16 Plus sibling use Apple’s A18 chipset, which is in the same family as the 16 Pro’s processor. That bodes well for the phones staying on the same software upgrade cycle. They’re both slated to get an update with Apple Intelligence in the fall, which will include AI-powered writing tools and notification summaries in its earliest iteration. But despite the similarities, the regular 16 models lag behind the Pros in two important departments: the screen and the camera.
The Pros come with dedicated 5x lenses and updated main cameras that do a little better in low light. And you’ll only get a ProMotion display on the Pro models; the regular 16 features a slower 60Hz screen. Basically every other high-end phone on the market offers a 120Hz display, so that’s a disappointment. If those two drawbacks don’t bother you — and most people probably won’t mind them — then the iPhone 16 makes for a great upgrade.
The best Android phone for most people
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Google’s new Pixel 9 has a slightly larger 6.3-inch OLED display than its predecessor, along with a new Tensor G4 processor, a bigger battery, 12GB of RAM, and a dual rear camera setup with a new 48-megapixel sensor for its ultrawide.
Screen: 6.3-inch, 1080p 120Hz OLED / Processor: Tensor G4 / Cameras: 50-megapixel f/1.7 main with OIS; 48-megapixel ultrawide; 10.5-megapixel selfie / Battery: 4,700mAh / Charging: 27W wired, 15W wireless (with Pixel Stand 2) / Weather resistance: IP68
The Android ecosystem has been looking for a phone like the Pixel 9 for a while now. It’s straightforward and unfussy, takes reliably good photos, and comes with the polished hardware you’d expect from a high-end phone. It doesn’t have a dedicated telephoto lens, which the similarly priced Galaxy S24 does, but the software is less quirky than Samsung’s, making for a better overall experience.
Outside of zoom capabilities, Google’s Pixel camera is just as reliable as ever. The phone comes with a Tensor G4 chipset that powers AI features aplenty, both inside and outside of the camera app. Some are promising and some are worrying, but there’s nothing here that feels like a true game-changer. Which is fine.
The important thing is that the Pixel 9 has the right stuff where it counts. It’s easy to use, and some of the Pixel series’ persistent problems like poor thermals and buggy software seem to be under control in this generation. The 9 Pro is a worthwhile upgrade if you want that telephoto lens and a slightly nicer screen, but in any case, the Pixel 9 feels like a top-notch device, inside and out.
The best high-end Android phone
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The Galaxy S24 Ultra is the first in the series to use a titanium frame. It also includes an integrated S Pen and upgraded camera suite, along with the biggest display in the S24 line.
Screen: 6.8-inch, 1440p, 120Hz OLED / Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 / Cameras: 200-megapixel main with OIS; 50-megapixel 5x telephoto with OIS; 10-megapixel 3x telephoto with OIS; 12-megapixel ultrawide; 12-megapixel selfie / Battery: 5,000mAh / Charging: 45W wired, 15W wireless / Weather resistance: IP68
Samsung’s maximalist S-series Ultra phone sort of exists in its own stratosphere. Where else are you going to find a phone with four rear cameras and a built-in stylus? The S24 Ultra remains an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink phone, and even though it’s every bit as feature-packed as last year’s model, it feels just a little less special than the S23 Ultra did.
The aforementioned Galaxy AI features are here, of course, but they’re nothing to write home about just yet, and they’re available on the S23 series, too. The S24 Ultra’s starting price went up, too — now $1,299 rather than $1,199. And the optical 10x zoom lens is gone, replaced by a 5x zoom with more megapixels and in-sensor cropping to get to 10x. It’s mostly fine, but man, there was something cool about a true 10x zoom on a phone.
All that said, the S24 Ultra can’t be beat if you’re looking for the very best Android phone — cost and size be damned. The 6.8-inch display now comes with anti-glare treatment that does a fantastic job of cutting reflections and keeping the screen comfortable to use outdoors. The phone handles heavy processing tasks without a problem, and the camera system is usually good and occasionally brilliant, especially with 3x portrait mode photos. And there’s an S Pen! Have you ever seen a fancier way to make a to-do list?
Ultra devotees likely won’t have a problem stomaching the price hike this year thanks in no small part to Samsung’s generous trade-in deals. For everyone else, it’s best to think of the S24 Ultra like any other pricey gadget — a beautiful, splurge-worthy device if nothing but the absolute best will make you happy.
The best phone for around $500
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$499
Google’s latest midranger touts a whopping seven years of software support and a number of small upgrades, including Google’s speedy Tensor G3 processor, a 120Hz display, and plenty of new AI features. Read our review.
Screen: 6.1-inch, 1080p OLED, 120Hz / Processor: Tensor G3 Cameras: 64-megapixel f/1.89 with OIS; 13-megapixel ultrawide; 13-megapixel selfie / Battery: 4,492mAh / Charging: 18W wired, 7.5W wireless / Weather-resistance rating: IP67
It’s hard to beat the Pixel 8A on sheer ROI. For $500, you get a very good budget phone that comes with seven years of OS and security updates; most phones at this price will only see a handful of OS upgrades, if that. The 8A also comes with a good camera that covers the basics. It’s not as fancy as the Pixel 9 or 9 Pro, but it won’t prevent you from capturing that once-in-a-lifetime shot.
The Pixel 8A provides a lot of other things you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a $500 phone, like wireless charging and an IP67 rating for resistance against full water immersion. Of course, you can’t have everything. The 8A’s back panel is matte plastic rather than glass, sadly, and its 6.1-inch 1080p screen isn’t the best in its class (see the OnePlus 12R).
There are other phones available for under $500 worth considering, many of which are covered in our guide to the best inexpensive phones. But if you’re looking for the absolute most value you can get from a $500 phone, then look no further than the 8A.
The best high-end iPhone
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$999
The iPhone 16 Pro sports a new 6.3-inch OLED panel with 120Hz refresh, all of which is powered by a new A18 Pro chip. Its triple camera array features a higher-res 48MP sensor for its ultrawide lens, and there’s a new physical Camera Control button for taking pictures and operating the camera app.
Screen: 6.3-inch, 2622 x 1206 OLED, 120Hz refresh rate / Processor: A18 Pro Cameras: 48-megapixel f/1.8 with sensor-shift IS; 12-megapixel 5x telephoto with OIS; 48-megapixel ultrawide; 12-megapixel selfie / Battery: Not advertised / Charging: 27W wired, 25W MagSafe wireless, 15W Qi2, 7.5W Qi / Weather-resistance rating: IP68
Like all four iPhone 16 models, the 16 Pro gained the new Camera Control, but it got another important update, too: a 5x telephoto lens. In the 15 series, that longer telephoto lens was reserved for the bigger Pro Max model. This time around, it’s on the smaller Pro, too, making it a great option for someone who wants to upgrade without upsizing their phone.
Like the Pro Max, the iPhone 16 Pro uses an A18 Pro chipset designed to support Apple Intelligence, which will start rolling out in the fall of 2024. The first update will include things like notification summaries and the new glowing-border Siri UI, which Apple centered its launch event on. But don’t expect anything radical — at least at first.
Outside of AI, the 16 Pro is a fairly iterative update. The new Camera Control makes it easier to launch the camera and get right to taking photos, and it also frees up the Action Button if you were using it as a camera shortcut. The screen is a little bigger at 6.3 inches compared to 6.1 inches, even though the phone is basically the same size. You can record 4K video at 120fps now. And the new Photographic Styles, which are available on all iPhone 16 models, let you take more control over your photos than ever.
There’s nothing here that someone with an iPhone 15 Pro should upgrade for, but it’s an all-around solid device that will please Apple devotees, especially those who prefer a phone that isn’t too big.
The best flip phone
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The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 offers slight design and performance upgrades compared to the previous generation. The AI-ready Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 now comes with 12GB of RAM and a vapor chamber for cooling. It also has a new 50-megapixel camera sensor that enables 2X optical zoom.
Screen: 6.7-inch, 1080p, 120Hz OLED inner screen; 3.4-inch, 720p, OLED cover screen / Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 / Cameras: 50-megapixel f/1.8 main with OIS; 12-megapixel ultrawide; 10-megapixel selfie (inner screen) / Battery: 4,000mAh / Charging: 25W wired, 15W wireless / Weather resistance: IP48
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 isn’t the most fun flip phone you can buy right now; that would be the 2024 Motorola Razr Plus. But fun only goes so far, and the Z Flip 6 is the more reliable device of the two. When it comes to the device you use day in and day out, reliability counts for a lot.
Motorola’s take on the modern flip phone embraces nostalgia with cute animations and a mode that sends the whole device back to the early 2000s. The Z Flip 6 lacks this kind of charm, but you do get an updated cover screen UI that’s more customizable than the Z Flip 5’s. The Flip 6 also comes with seven years of software updates, which matches the best software policies on the market. The hardware will probably give out long before the software, honestly.
That’s the other side of the flip phone coin: long-term durability is iffy. Sure, the Flip 6 is built to withstand full water immersion, but it still doesn’t have any formal dust resistance. For that reason, it isn’t a phone I would recommend to just anyone.
That said, the Z Flip 6’s outer screen does come in handy. You can do a lot with the prebaked widget options available to use, and if you’re just a little adventurous, you can run any app you want on the little screen. Starting a Strava workout or sending a quick text is a cinch, which is a big part of the appeal of a flip phone. Just, you know, keep this phone away from the beach.
The best folding phone
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$1799
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold features a 6.3-inch outer screen and an eight-inch inner screen once it’s unfolded — both of which are larger than the original Pixel Fold. The new foldable also lays flat when opened, sports IPX8 weather resistance, and offers a thinner design than the last-gen model.
Screen: 8.0-inch, 2076p, 120Hz OLED inner screen; 6.3-inch, 1080p, 120Hz OLED cover screen / Processor: Tensor G4 / Cameras: 48-megapixel f/1.7 main with OIS; 10.8-megapixel 5x telephoto with OIS; 10.5-megapixel ultrawide; 10-megapixel selfie (cover screen); 10-megapixel inner selfie camera / Battery: 4,650mAh / Charging: 21W wired, 7.5W wireless / Weather resistance: IPX8
It’s hard to convey just how nice the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is to use. It’s the first book-style folding phone that fully delivers on the promise of a foldable: it’s a tablet when you need it and a regular phone when you don’t.
Samsung’s Z Fold series feels a little too narrow and cramped in its closed configuration, and the original Pixel Fold was too bulky and heavy to use comfortably. The 9 Pro Fold is lighter, and using its 6.3-inch outer screen feels basically like using a normal phone, which is a big win.
That’s really the theme of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold: it just feels normal. But there are a couple of decidedly not-normal things to consider: price and durability. The 9 Pro Fold costs $1,799 — basically the going rate for a book-style foldable but still a lot of money for a phone.
And long-term durability is unclear, especially given that this is only Google’s second folding phone. It’s rated to withstand full water immersion, but as with any foldable, dust is a concern, so you’ll want to take a little extra care with this device. All that said, someone with the stomach (and wallet) for the 9 Pro Fold will find it a very rewarding device.
The best phone for something completely different
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The Nothing Phone 2 embraces a certain retro-infused aesthetic that’s unlike anything else you’ll find on the market. It’s not certified to work on Verizon, and its rear-panel LED light strips are more stylish than functional, but it’s a good alternative to the big Android brands.
Screen: 6.7-inch, 1080p, 120Hz OLED / Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 / Cameras: 50-megapixel F/1.9 main with OIS; 50-megapixel ultrawide; 32-megapixel selfie / Battery: 4,700mAh / Charging: 45W wired, 15W wireless / Weather resistance: IP54
The Nothing Phone 2 isn’t for everyone, but for the right kind of person, it’s a very good alternative to the Galaxies and Pixels of the world. It’s a style-driven device, from the dot-matrix-inspired UI to the flashing light strips on the back panel. Will its unique hardware and software features help you take back your attention span as Nothing claims? Eh, probably not. Mostly, it’s just a cool-looking gadget and a thoughtfully designed device.
The Phone 2 is equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, which is a slightly older but still very capable processor. Its 6.7-inch, 1080p screen supports a fast 120Hz top refresh rate, and its lowest 1Hz refresh rate allows it to offer an information-rich always-on display. The camera system is good, though not quite as consistent as the Pixel 7’s. There’s wireless charging, fast 45W wired charging, and an all-day battery.
That’s all of the good news. The bad news is that it’s only rated IP54, meaning it’s not fully dustproof, and it’s only resistant to splashes rather than full immersion in water. Most other phones at this price offer a full IP68 rating, and a couple of cheaper midrange phones, like the Pixel 8A, still include IP67 water resistance. The Phone 2 also lacks official support for Verizon’s network, which rules it out for a lot of people in the US.
There’s the Glyph Interface, too — those lights on the back of the phone. It’s a neat idea with some interesting applications if you invest a little time in tweaking it. You can flip it over to silence notifications when you need some time to focus and handpick certain “essential” alerts to light up the Glyph. Personally, I find it less helpful than a traditional focus mode or even the Phone 2’s always-on display. But others might find it useful, and if nothing else, it looks neat.
The Phone 2 isn’t the best choice for sheer value — the Pixel 8A is a much better deal. It’s not the best choice for someone who just wants a phone to get them through their day with minimal hassle. But it’s undeniably different, and if you’re looking for something outside of the ordinary with a certain visual appeal, then it’s a worthy candidate.
Other good phones
- The Samsung Galaxy S24 is a little fussier to use than our overall pick for the best Android phone, but it’s still a solid performer and includes a telephoto lens, which very few of the “basic” flagships do. At this point, it’s also the smallest high-end phone you can buy in the US, if that’s your thing. (It’s my thing.)
- The 2024 Motorola Razr Plus is a delightful flip phone with tons of nostalgic vibes, with a big cover screen that’s handy for accessing quick tasks without opening the phone. But Motorola’s track record for timely software updates isn’t great, making it hard to fully recommend the Razr Plus.
Update, October 23rd: Adjusted pricing.
Technology
Meet the 634g Japanese wonder notebook that runs on Intel’s latest CPU — it makes the Dell XPS 13 looks overweight, but shame about the battery life
Fujitsu has launched the FMV Zero notebook, which at only 634g (1.4 lbs), looks to claim the title of the world’s lightest 14-inch laptop.
This ultra-light device is part of FCCL’s FMV LIFEBOOK UH series and features Intel’s latest Core Ultra processors with integrated AI Boost NPUs for hardware acceleration of AI services such as Copilot on Windows 11.
The WU5/J3 is powered by Intel Core Ultra 5 125U or Core Ultra 7 155U processors and weighs between 634g and 639g, depending on the configuration. For comparison, the non-touch screen version of the Dell XPS 13 weighs 1.22 kg (2.69 lbs), approximately 92.43% heavier than the FMV Zero.
Short battery life
The FMV Zero is currently only available to buy in Japan through Fujitsu’s shopping site Web Mart, and comes in two models: WU5/J3 and WU4/J3. The WU5/J3 will be available in mid-November 2024 for 197,900 yen (approximately $1,320 USD), and the WU4/J3 will be released in late October 2024 for 193,300 yen (around $1,290 USD). Both models offer a range of configurations, with memory options ranging from 8GB to 64GB and SSD storage capacities from 256GB to 2TB.
Fujitsu says it achieved this lightweight design by optimizing the LCD panel, battery, and palm rest materials, as well as redesigning the internal components to reduce their weight by a few grams here and there. While the end result is a super-light laptop, the quest to trim as much weight as possible has massively impacted battery life. If you’re watching video or performing intensive tasks, you’ll run out juice in under six hours, although it can manage up to 15 hours in idle mode.
The WU4/J3, slightly heavier at 888g, offers a longer battery life of up to 11.5 hours of video playback or 30 hours of idle time. It is powered by Intel Core Ultra 5 125H or Core Ultra 7 155H processors.
The FMV Zero is equipped with AI-powered tools like noise cancellation, Umore makeup, and Quick Capture, with enhanced speaker recognition features.
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How private players and academic institutions will jointly steer ISRO’s Venus Orbiter Mission- The Week
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is preparing for its Venus Orbiter Mission (VOM) and the spacecraft is set to launch on March 29, 2028. This mission aims to explore Venus, adding to our understanding of the planet. A recent Cabinet meeting approved an interplanetary mission to Venus. ISRO will use its new heavy-lift rocket, Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM-3), to send the spacecraft, named Shukrayaan-1, on a 112-day journey to the planet. The orbiter is set to arrive at Venus on July 19, 2028, highlighting India’s advancements in space exploration.
The development of the spacecraft and launch vehicle will involve various industries, creating significant job opportunities and potential technological advancements for other sectors. Additionally, the mission will collaborate with academic institutions, offering training for students involved in design, development and testing. Recently during a press briefing S. Somanath, the ISRO Chairman and Secretary of the Department of Space (DoS), had confirmed that each of the approved forthcoming missions would include participation from the private space sector. This marks one of the most significant boosts for India’s emerging space startups from the government to date.
The rocket will place the spacecraft in an Elliptical Parking Orbit (EPO), which ranges from 170 km to 36,000 km above Earth. This orbit has a specific angle and position. From there, the spacecraft will begin its journey to Venus. “The VOM will use advanced tools to explore Venus, focusing on its atmosphere, surface and geological features. The mission aims to detect any volcanic eruptions or quakes. The spacecraft will have cutting-edge instruments, including synthetic aperture radar and infrared and ultraviolet cameras,” explained Space expert Girish Linganna.
ISRO will oversee the development and launch of the spacecraft with a total budget of Rs 1,236 crore (approximaately $150 million). Out of this, Rs 824 crore is allocated for building the spacecraft.
The Shukrayaan-1 will be equipped with a range of scientific tools, such as the Venus S-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (VSAR), Venus Surface Emissivity and Atmospheric Mapper (VSEAM), Venus Thermal Camera (VTC), Venus Cloud Monitoring Camera (VCMC), Lightning Instrument for Venus (LIVE), Venus Atmospheric Spectro-Polarimeter (VASP) and Solar Occultation Photometry (SPAV).
“These instruments will assist scientists in studying Venus’s atmosphere, surface and plasma environment. The VOM is a worldwide collaboration involving such countries as Russia, Sweden, France and Germany. The Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF) will be a participant in providing the Venusian Neutrals Analyzer (VNA) to examine how the Sun’s charged particles interact with Venus’s atmosphere. On the other hand the private sector may be involved in materials procurement, supply chain management, rocket engineering, testing facilities, manufacturing units, assembly and integration, and launch operations,” added Linganna.
After travelling through space, Shukrayaan-1 will move into an orbit around Venus, ranging from 500 km to 60,000 km away. This process is called Venus Orbit Injection (VOI). Over six to eight months, a process, called aero-braking, will gradually adjust the orbit to a closer path around Venus, measuring 200 x 600 km. This new orbit will enable detailed studies of Venus’s surface and atmosphere for a planned mission lasting five years.
In an earlier analysis in THE WEEK, it was mentioned that ISRO’s VOM is expected to be one of the most challenging ones as the atmosphere of Venus is made mostly of poisonous sulphuric acid. Since Venus orbits the sun within Earth’s orbit, the planet appears to have phases like the moon. When Venus is on the opposite side of the sun, it is in full phase, while it appears in a new phase when it is between the Earth and the sun. Despite the poisonous atmosphere, a chemical called phosphine was discovered in Venus’s clouds recently. Incidentally, on Earth, phosphene is found to be produced by microbes. The study seemed to suggest that despite its extreme conditions, Venus might, after all, host life. Needless to say, the theory was disputed and alternate explanations were posited.
Linganna says landing on Venus’ surface can be an extremely challenging affair as a lander (or rover) must fall through approximately 35km (1,00,000ft) of the thick, murky lower atmosphere before the final couple of kilometres where the ground finally becomes visible from above. “During descent, the temperature starts at a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius and shoots up to 450 degrees Celsius just before reaching the surface. (A standard kitchen oven runs at about 200 degrees Celsius.) Near the surface, the air is so thick that the lander will settle to the ground much like a stone settles in water—no retrorockets or sky cranes are required,” remarked Linganna.
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