Even Than Game: Latest Updates and Analysis

Is it game over for T-Mobile after Verizon and AT&T's big satellite breakthrough? Not even close!

Luka Doncic Nikola Jokic to the Lakers roster, Donald Trump's right-hand man is T-Mobile's extraterrestrial signal expansion. While Elon Musk's dream of colonizing other planets remains as unlikely to pan out anytime soon as the addition of someone likeNikola Jokic to the Lakers roster, Donald Trump's right-hand man is undeniably playing a crucial role in.

Verizon and AT&T , the two carriers often labeled "Dumb and Dumber" by America's 5G champion jumped into the limelight with But just when it seemed like Magenta was ready to further widen its technological lead overand, the two carriers often labeled "Dumb and Dumber" by America's 5G champion jumped into the limelight with an exciting (joint) breakthrough of their own.

Wait, so who has the upper hand in the satellite arena now?

T-Mobile Still. Does that answer surprise you? Did you expect me to dodge my own (seemingly rhetorical) question and tell you that this is a far too complicated matter to settle with such a simple and direct answer? Then surprise, I guess.

See, if there's one thing all of my years covering bombastic Verizon and AT&T announcements have taught me, it's that you should always treat everything the two carriers promise to deliver without a clear timeline with the utmost caution and skepticism.

Just look at Big Red's News Center post following the FCC's granting of a temporary authorization for AST SpaceMobile satellite service tests. While the enterprise boastfully (and misleadingly) starts by claiming that "satellites are no longer reserved for the extraordinary" (notice the present tense?) and are instead "woven into the everyday", connecting and powering "end-people' lives" (right at this moment, you'd think), the 700-word promotional text ends without providing the vaguest public deployment goal.

Although it was probably unrealistic to expect an exact release date here, Verizon isn't even treating us to the usual "coming soon" or "in the next few months" vernacular, which strongly hints at (at least to me) that the vast majority of its clients will not be able to come close to this groundbreaking satellite technology by the end of 2025.

maybe in 2026. Until that happens, all Verizon (and I'm not basing that prediction entirely on my hunch, mind you, as AST SpaceMobile recently revealed that its still-nascent satellite constellation is likely to reach the scale "required for continuous coverage of the US, Europe, and Japan" either "this year or the next." Translation -in 2026. Until that happens, all(and AT&T ) can do is test the technology for limited periods of time in certain parts of the country, which doesn't sound like the ideal setup for true, palpable innovation for the masses.

Will Verizon and AT&T eventually catch up to T-Mobile?

Verizon and AT&T are still struggling to make up for the ground they lost by believing in the large-scale impact of mmWave tech or simply not doing enough to Maybe... and maybe not. Coincidentally, that same answer applies to the 5G availability and speed fields, where T-Mo gained a massive early advantage over its two arch-rivals by betting big on mid-band spectrum , andandare still struggling to make up for the ground they lost by believing in the large-scale impact of mmWave tech or simply not doing enough to improve and expand their networks at the right time.

T-Mobile has chosen to do its own thing, relying on SpaceX's already expansive constellation of over 100 Starlink satellites rather than waiting for AST SpaceMobile to fulfil its promises. And once again, there are arguments to be made that Verizon and AT&T 's path to satellite connectivity is technologically superior, not requiring users to Once again,has chosen to do its own thing, relying on SpaceX's already expansive constellation of over 100 Starlink satellites rather than waiting for AST SpaceMobile to fulfil its promises. And once again, there are arguments to be made thatand's path to satellite connectivity is technologically superior, not requiring users to own the latest and greatest phones to embrace what's supposed to eliminate the few "Dead Zones" still existent across the US.

But while I wouldn't typically put that much importance on which carrier was first to start their public beta tests, it's pretty clear that Verizon and AT&T are at least a few big steps behind T-Mobile in yet another key network development field.

Verizon and AT&T to jump on the Starlink ship. That would further highlight the "Un-carrier's" supremacy in the satellite arena, making it even harder for Big Red and Ma Bell to pose as innovators and trendsetters rather than the trend followers and laggards they so very clearly are. What's ironic is that T-Mo's exclusivity deal with SpaceX will only last a year, after which many industry analysts expectandto jump on the Starlink ship. That would further highlight the "Un-carrier's" supremacy in the satellite arena, making it even harder for Big Red and Ma Bell to pose as innovators and trendsetters rather than the trend followers and laggards they so very clearly are.

After a number of years of pretty clear supremacy for one particular carrier (or should I say "Un-carrier"?) in terms of both speeds and service availability , the US mobile network operator battles are heating up all of a sudden... with some help from space.

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The world's thinnest foldable, Oppo Find N5, is going global sooner than expected

Even though it's incredibly thin, the upcoming foldable is set to pack a punch with a 5900 mAh battery – much bigger than the 4800 mAh found in both the Find N3 and the original.

Under the hood, it's expected to run on the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, ensuring top-notch speed and power. The camera setup is also rumored to get a major upgrade by adding a feature that other flagships don't offer:

Additionally, the Find N5 will have both IPX8 and IPX9 ratings, making it the first foldable to handle high-pressure, high-temperature water jets.

With its global launch approaching, the competition in the foldable market is about to heat up, especially with Even though it's incredibly thin, the upcoming foldable is set to pack a punch with a 5900 mAh battery – much bigger than the 4800 mAh found in both the Find N3 and the original OnePlus Open . Plus, it's addressing a major issue from the current generation: no wireless charging. That's right, the OnePlus Open 2 is confirmed to support 50 W fast wireless charging Under the hood, it's expected to run on the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, ensuring top-notch speed and power. The camera setup is also rumored to get a major upgrade by adding a feature that other flagships don't offer: telephoto macro capabilities . Expect a triple 50 MP rear camera setup, while the front cameras will likely keep the 32 MP and 20 MP sensors.Additionally, the Find N5 will have both IPX8 and IPX9 ratings, making it the first foldable to handle high-pressure, high-temperature water [website] its global launch approaching, the competition in the foldable market is about to heat up, especially with Huawei set to unveil its first tri-fold phone worldwide this month too.

Chinese smartphone brand Oppo is preparing to unveil what it indicates will be the world's thinnest foldable smartphone , the Oppo Find N5, which will also serve as the foundation for the upcoming OnePlus Open 2 . Now, new details about its launch have [website] has confirmed that the Find N5 will debut globally at the same time as its China launch in just two weeks. This will be the first time the firm releases one of its foldables simultaneously across multiple markets. While it's unlikely to launch under the Oppo brand in the US, a later release as theis definitely a [website] the launch just around the corner, let's take a closer look at what the upcoming foldable has to offer. Keep in mind that the Find N5 andare expected to be nearly identical, so any buzz around one will likely spill over to the [website] foldable is set to be incredibly slim, measuring under 4 mm when unfolded. Oppo has compared it several times to Apple products , highlighting how the Find N5 is thinner than the iPad Pro M4 (2024), which is just [website] mm thick and much thinner than an iPhone . In fact, it's barely thicker than a USB-C port, which is seriously impressive.

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There is even more to the Google Pixel 4a’s horrific battery update than we thought

The enhancement also disables aspects like Adaptive Charging and charging time ETAs.

Google made the upgrade an Emergency Maintenance Release (EMR), which means it’s been trying to release it as quickly as possible.

There’s been a lot of talk lately regarding Google’s Battery Performance Program for the Pixel 4a, which, among other things, includes a software upgrade that has a huge impact on its battery life. Many individuals now consider the phone unusable and are rightfully mad at Google, which hasn’t done a great job communicating why it was suddenly rolling out such an upgrade six years after the device’s release.

A few days ago, a post by Hector Martin (known for his work on Asahi Linux, which brings Linux to newer Macs) shed some light on the revision. But we still have loads of unanswered questions, so I decided to investigate it myself and dig deeper into the kernel revision.

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Exploring the fixes As revealed in Hector’s post, the Pixel 4a has two different battery variants. While both of them share the same exact specs and are even manufactured by the same business, Sunwooda Electric, they have battery cells (the thing that actually stores the charge) from different vendors. The cells that are affected by Google’s enhancement are from Lishen (LSN), while the good ones are from Amperex Technology Limited (ATL).

The post revealed that Google has reduced the maximum voltage of the LSN batteries down to [website] V, from the original [website] V. However, this fact is worthy of greater explanation. At a very high level, battery charging works by pushing more electrons into the cell, raising the internal voltage. Using the stored charge basically works in reverse, using the electrons to power whatever components require it and thereby slowly dropping the voltage.

Shaving [website] off the max battery voltage results in a 44% drop in usable charge!

At first glance, this might not seem too bad — shaving [website] V off [website] V is a mere 11%, but that’s not the end of the story. Lithium-ion batteries, like the one used in the Pixel 4a, are only really unusable in a range of voltages. The bottom limit of that range is called “cutoff voltage.” In the case of the Pixel 4a, this value is [website] V.

Doing some simple math, we can see that the usable battery range after the modification has dropped from [website] V to [website] V, a 43% drop! This, however, still isn’t the full picture, as batteries are not really linear as you can see above, but we can just check the original voltage-to-percentage curve from the software to see what [website] V corresponds to. As it turns out, that value corresponds to 56% of the charge before the modification (which is also marked on the image above)!

The kernel patch Google applied also changes the charging profile on affected units. While Hector’s post mentions the value Google used for capacity — 1,540 mAh — I wouldn’t necessarily trust it to be entirely accurate, as all the changes in the modification seem extremely rushed, and this value is exclusively used to calculate charging speeds anyway.

The more significant thing here is the charging speed reduction. Li-ion batteries are usually charged at a current defined by a “C” value. For example, 1C charging on a 5,000mAh battery would mean 5,000mA of current flowing into the battery.

Google’s original charging profile allowed up to 1C of current (depending on the conditions), which would be 3,080mA. After the change, this value is halved to 1,540 mA, which directly translates to the same charging speed decrease (now [website].

Interestingly, Google also added a check for ATL cells — if they exceed 800 cycles, a health issue will be reported (and indicated in Android as a generic notification), but it won’t trigger the same mitigations.

While the modification does not make any other changes to the battery on the kernel level, there is more going on on the Android side. in settings. Additionally, while charging, the battery icon is replaced by one with an exclamation mark.

As in turns out, the source code of the Android part of this special build has been uploaded, so it’s easy to find other things that changed. A quick look at all the commits exhibits they all have one thing in common — they do more than their titles suggest, and the context they provide for the changes is minimal.

The Pixel 4a upgrade also disables the charging ETA and Adaptive Charging capabilities.

There are two other major functional changes for the affected devices. First, the battery charge ETA is disabled, which seems to be because the AI models used to power the feature were never updated for the new reduced capacity. Not only that, but Adaptive Charging, the feature meant to extend the life of batteries by learning your habits and slowing down charging when possible, is also disabled for a similar reason.

Other than that, Google seems to have blocked the “show percentage in status bar” option at the settings level, but this doesn’t stop people who already had it on from using it. The intention might have been to hide the incorrect percentage on affected devices, but as with the other changes, the underlying charging curves were never properly updated.

We already know what changes were included in the improvement, but there’s still more context to be uncovered. As it turns out, the build was marked as an Emergency Maintenance Release (EMR) — a special type of build that doesn’t have to go through all the usual certification steps.

Google has also built the kernel without its usual automation — the whole process was done on a developer’s machine. This is also likely the reason the kernel source has only been released almost a month after the revision went live.

Interested in the unusual circumstances of this build, I reached out to a source inside Google. Unfortunately, even the bug tracker entry that was mentioned in the open-source changes in this build has no details filled in besides the title “sunfish [the codename for the Pixel 4a] sunset EMR”.

There’s no way to know exactly what caused Google to release such an overly cautious and rushed modification, but we can certainly speculate.

Google is making Pixel 4a phones containing batteries with cells from Lishen basically unusable, and it seems pretty unlikely it would do something like this for a device that was already dead without a really critical reason. The clearly rushed nature of the improvement, plus the fact it’s an EMR, demonstrates Google was rushing to get it out of the door as soon as possible. This definitely hints at there is some deeper reason behind the whole program, and given that Google has also removed all the previous builds from its site, it seems like it might have been a safety issue that triggered the response.

I doubt we’ll ever get an official answer as to what happened — it’s simply not in Google’s best interest to say more than necessary — but it’s pretty evident it’s not nothing, and Google didn’t simply kill the Pixel 4a for no reason.

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