Week 38 in review: Asus ROG Phone 6D announced, Pixel 7 series pre-order date confirmed

Welcome to our roundup of the biggest headlines from week 38.

The Apple iPhone 14 fever is still here – we’ve seen the regular iPhone 14 pass a durability test where it did reasonably well. For the 14 Pro models, the shaky camera issue has been fixed with the latest iOS 16.0.2 update.

In semi-related news, Android manufacturers like Xiaomi and Realme are preparing to implement Dynamic Island-type notification systems on their upcoming devices – we can’t say we didn’t see that coming. Xiaomi will launch its Civi 2 smartphone on Tuesday 27 September with a pill-shaped cutout centered on the screen.

Google’s marketing campaign for the Pixel 7 series is in full swing as we received a new teaser for the phones and Pixel Watch ahead of the October 6th launch event. Pre-orders for the Pixel 7 series will start on the same date as the announcement.

Asus debuted its ROG Phone 6D duo consisting of the ROG Phone 6D and the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate. Both phones have almost identical specs as the ROG Phone 6 range, with the big change being the Dimensity 9000+ chipset replacing the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. The vanilla 6D costs £799 in the UK, while the Ultimate change asks for a minimum of £1,199. Asus has also launched a Batman edition of the ROG Phone 6, which costs €1,199.

Nvidia announced its RTX 40 series graphics cards with a claimed 2x to 4x performance boost and DLSS 3. The base 12GB RTX 4080 starts at $899, while the top-of-the-line RTX 4090 is available for a cool $1,599. Official sales of the RTX 4090 will start on October 12th, while the RTX 4080 will be available from November.

This week’s big rumors include Samsung continuing to use Exynos chipsets for the Galaxy S23 series and Apple finally bringing 8K video to next year’s iPhone 15 Ultra. We’ve also gotten some details on the upcoming OnePlus 11 Pro, which is said to bring the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip alongside 100W charging.

Those were the biggest headlines this week. Until next time.

Xiaomi President Lu Weibing asked Weibo users if they would like to see a Dynamic Island implementation.

The ROG Phone 6D Ultimate comes with an AeroActive attachment.

This affects the two Pro models when users open third-party apps that use the camera. Apple’s own camera app is not affected.

Reports point to internal conflicts over using the in-house chipset.

There are no big surprises here, it is in line with other smartwatches.

The 8K video may be exclusive to Ultra. However, all four models are expected to feature USB-C ports and dynamic islands.

It’s coming on September 27th.

It looks the same as the Redmi Note 10 Pro except one had the more powerful Snapdragon 732G chipset.

The US/Canada models will get the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, while other regions will sport the Dimensity 9000+ SoC.

According to a new leak, this will be the case at least in the USA.

This trio started in the distant 2015, over 7 years ago. In related news, the newer Galaxy A40 is getting a security patch.

Since the smartphone camera scores with the DxOMark plateau, brands seem to attach less relevance to the results for marketing.

It’s essentially an iPhone 13 with some upgraded internals and an easier-to-repair backplate.

Will be the first mainline Pixel phone to launch in India since the Pixel 3.

The design of the camera island is very similar to the 12 series.

The front display can slide out horizontally if needed, but when it’s closed the extra piece is a secondary rear display.

We’re looking at you Samsung.

This new hype-building effort from the company lets you see it from pretty much every angle.

It will drop the previously expected Dimensity 8200.

It comes with up to 16GB of RAM.

And we still haven’t seen the X80 Pro+.