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Smartphones to be more expensive in 2026 due to rising memory cost —Counterpoint

More bad news for tech prices. This time, Counterpoint Research’s Memory Price Tracker hints at smartphone price hikes in 2026, as mobile RAM costs have increased by 50 percent quarter-on-quarter and NAND storage is now up by over 90 percent QoQ. This translates to a higher Bill of Materials (BoM) for smartphones — extra costs that will be passed on to consumers. While all price segments will be affected, low-end phones will feel it the most. With these new prices, the 6GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB eMMC storage on a low-end phone will amount to a whopping 43 percent of its total BoM. That’s a staggering 25 percent increase from the previous quarter. For midrange phones with 8GB LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB UFS 4.0 storage, they expect to increase BoM by up to 20 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Flagship phones’ higher margins provide slack, but the higher prices of the 2nm chipset could be an issue. Bottomline, expect price hikes on smartphones this year. In fact, Counterpoint for...
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MetroFuel Tracker shows a map of gas stations with the cheapest prices

Tensions in the Middle East are disrupting oil supply and prices worldwide, especially here in the Philippines. If you’re curious where to fill up next, there’s a website that shows you where the cheapest gas prices are. The MetroFuel Tracker website shows a map of gas stations with their prices listed, allowing you to compare prices to decide where to go. No need to visit stations one by one just to find the cheapest one. Again, this is a website, so there’s no need to download an app. The website currently list over 1,500 gas stations across Metro Manila. Once you pick your preferred station, there are buttons for Google Maps and Waze that help you navigate there quickly. The website lets you filter by brand. The data is crowdsourced from drivers who update the prices as they visit a gas station. The developer said that over 500 motorists have contributed to the website. Alexander Miguil Sy, the web developer behind the service, created it after being frustrated with the...
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Arduino Ventuno Q: Dragonwing IQ-8275 chipset, Adreno 623 GPU, 40 TOPS AI power

Arduino has announced the Ventuno Q, its first product since Qualcomm acquired it last year. The Arduino Ventuno Q is powered by the Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ-8275 chipset, which has two Gold Prime cores at 2.35GHz, two Gold at 2.1GHz, and four Silver at 1.95GHz. It also has an Adreno 623 graphics, up to 16GB RAM< and up to 64GB of eMMC storage. It also comes with an M.2 NVMe Gen 4 connector for SSD storage. The chip’s most impressive feature is its AI performance, offering up to 40 TOPS of power. To give you a perspective, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite has 80 TOPS while the Intel Panther Lake has 50 TOPS. It can run on Linux (Debian or Ubuntu) or Robot Operating System 2. It also has an STM32H5 microcontroller for handling real-time interactions with accessories. So, what is this single board computer (SBC) is for? It can handle PoseNet for pose detection, YOLO-X models for object tracking, local LLMs, MediaPipe, speech-to-text and text-to-speech models, and more. It...
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vivo V70 FE: Dimensity 7360 Turbo CPU, 200MP camera, 7,000mAh battery

The budget-friendly member of the vivo V70 series, the vivo V70 FE, is now official. Not to be outshone by the vivo V70 and V70 Elite , the new vivo V70 FE has a big battery, a sharp main camera, and an interesting display. It features a 7,000mAh battery that lasts for up to 43.8 hours of watching YouTube videos or 13 hours of playing Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. We also have a pixel-dense 200-megapixel main camera that uses an HP5 sensor from Samsung. That sensor is sharp enough to do 2x zooms. We also have an 8-megapixel ultra-wide lens, a 32-megapixel sensor for selfies, and a ring light with adjustable color temperature. For the display, vivo used a large 6.83-inch AMOLED panel with 1.5K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, up to 1900-nit peak brightness, and uses a Q10+ lighting material like the vivo X300 series . It ships with a 90W charger that vivo claims can provide a full charge in only an hour. Stereo speakers are also here, as well as a large vapor chamber cooling s...
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OPPO A6s Pro: 7,000mAh battery, Helio G100 Max processor, 120Hz OLED display

OPPO has quietly added another device to its popular A6 lineup. The new OPPO A6s Pro is now available for pre order in Bangladesh, and it brings one major upgrade for selfie lovers alongside a battery that should last for days. The A6s Pro is very similar to the existing A6 Pro that launched last year, but it swaps out the front camera for a much more powerful sensor. You now get a 50MP selfie camera, which also features an ultra-wide lens. That makes it a solid option for group selfies or fitting more people into the frame without having to use a selfie stick. Inside, the phone packs a huge 7,000mAh battery. When you do need to top up, the 80W SuperVOOC charging should get you back to full power quickly. OPPO is using the same MediaTek Helio G100 Max chipset found in the previous model, and it is paired with a vapor chamber cooling system to help keep things running smoothly when you are gaming or multitasking. On the back, there is a 50MP main camera. It is joined by a sec...
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vivo V70 Elite: Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 CPU, 6,500mAh battery, 120Hz AMOLED display, Dual 50MP camera

vivo is birthing a new breed of smartphones, which starts with the vivo V70 Elite. Sitting in the sub-flagship category, the vivo V70 Elite is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor, with up to 12GB LPDDR5X RAM, and 512GB UFS 4.1 storage. You also get an interesting camera system, backed by ZEISS technology. There’s the 50-megapixel Sony LYT-700V main sensor with optical image stabilization, a 50-megapixel telephoto lens, and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide. There’s also a sharp 32-megapixel selfie camera on the 6.59-inch FHD+ AMOLED screen with a high 5,000-nit peak brightness and 120Hz refresh rate. You also get a generous 6,500mAh battery with 90W wired charging. Plus, an extended software support with 4 OS updates and 6 years of security patches. vivo’s latest device is also IP68/69 dust and water-resistant. The vivo V70 Elite is now available in India. The 8GB/256GB retails for INR54,999 (~Php35,500), the 12GB/256GB for INR59,999 (~Php38,700), and the 12G...
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iPad Air M4 2026 prices in the Philippines

Apple has released an update to the iPad Air for 2026, now powered by the M4 processor and equipped with new proprietary connectivity chips. The new M4 chip makes the new iPad Air 2026 30 percent faster than its predecessor. The RAM was also upgraded to 12GB from 8GB, with a faster bandwidth of 120Gbps. For the specs-heads out there, the new M4 chipset consists of an 8-core CPU, 9-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine that’s 3x faster than the M1. Apart from the chipset, the new Air has Apple’s N1 chip that brings the latest WiFi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread smart home protocol to the device. The cellular version of the tablet comes with an Apple C1X modem that offers 50% faster speeds while utilizing 30% less power. It still comes in 11-inch (28.93Wh battery) and 13-inch (36.59Wh battery) models, but still uses a dated Liquid Retina LCD panel with only a 60Hz refresh rate. On the upside, it ships with a 20W USB-C power adapter for charging. The new M4-powered iPad Air ...
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