Samsung will hold its next Galaxy Event on August 27, where it is expected to unveil the Galaxy S26 FE.
The Galaxy S26 FE is expected to feature a 6.7-inch 120Hz display and Samsung's Exynos 2500 chipset.
Leaks point to a 50MP main camera, 3x telephoto lens, 4,900mAh battery, and support for 45W charging.
It's the day the Pixel 11 series officially goes on sale, but Samsung isn't keeping quiet either. The company has confirmed its next Galaxy launch event for August 27, 2026.
Samsung has sent out invites to the media for its "Galaxy Event August 2026." Interestingly, the company isn't calling this one Galaxy Unpacked. Samsung says it will introduce the latest addition to the Galaxy S26 family at the event. While it hasn't officially named the device, all signs point toward the Galaxy S26 FE.
Samsung says the keynote will also be livestreamed for anyone watching from home. You'll be able to catch the event on Samsung's website as well as the company's YouTube channel, with the keynote scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. KST (8 a.m. ET) on August 27.
(Image credit: Samsung)
As with almost every Samsung launch these days, though, there probably isn't much left to surprise us. A massive leak recently gave us our clearest look yet at the Galaxy S26 FE, including what appear to be Samsung's official marketing materials, revealing both the phone's design and most of its specs.
According to those leaks, the Galaxy S26 FE will feature a 6.7-inch FHD+ display with support for up to a 120Hz refresh rate. The phone is expected to be powered by Samsung's Exynos 2500 chipset, the same processor that powered the Galaxy Z Flip 7 last year. It's also expected to come with 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage.
On the back, the Galaxy S26 FE is rumored to feature a triple-camera setup consisting of a 50MP main camera, a 12MP ultra-wide, and an 8MP telephoto camera with up to 3x optical zoom. The phone is also expected to pack a 4,900mAh battery, the same capacity as last year's Galaxy S25 FE, along with support for 45W wired charging.
There's no word on pricing just yet. But with the ongoing RAM crisis and memory shortage affecting smartphone makers across the industry, it wouldn't be surprising to see the Galaxy S26 FE arrive at a higher starting price than its predecessor.
Thankfully, we don't have much longer to wait. Samsung's next Galaxy event is just a week away, and if everything points in the direction we expect, the Galaxy S26 FE will finally make its official debut on August 27.
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Leaked images show a polished, Apple-like magnetic puck from Motorola.
The images show a slim, MagSafe-style circular puck with a braided USB-C cable, metallic finish, and a purple accent ring.
The accessory hints that native magnetic charging could expand across Motorola's mid-range and flagship lineup.
Android hardware makers have been slow to adopt magnetic wireless charging, allowing Apple’s MagSafe and Google’s Pixel lineup to dominate the market. But it seems Motorola wants to join the party. A leaked accessory dubbed the Moto Snap suggests the company could be preparing more phones for Qi2.
Images posted by leaker Evan Blass on X show a slim, round Motorola charging puck with a USB-C connector and braided cable. It looks very similar to Apple’s MagSafe charger, with what look like magnets to automatically align the phone with the charging coil.
Interestingly, Motorola has taken a rather unusual step with the Edge 70 Max, its first phone with built-in Qi2 magnets. The handset supports wireless charging up to 25W, with the magnets built directly into the phone, rather than requiring a special case.
Motorola says its phone can also get up to 12 hours of battery life from six minutes of wired charging with its 90W TurboPower setup.
(Image credit: Evan Blass / X)
The Moto Snap itself is much more portable. It’s a flat puck with a metallic finish, a Motorola logo, a braided cable, and what looks like a purple illuminated ring around the edge. It’s designed to be attached directly to the back of a compatible phone.
Of course Motorola has still not said anything. The charger may just be an accessory for the Edge 70 Max. But it makes more sense if Motorola plans to bring magnetic charging to more devices. That could be a big deal for Motorola, whose wider lineup still has plenty of phones without wireless charging in tow.
If the company begins adding native Qi2 magnets to more of its mid-range and flagship models, then magnetic charging could finally become the mainstream Android standard we’ve been promised for years.
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The Lenovo Idea Tab Plus comes with a first-party stylus, a 12.1-inch touchscreen, and a built-in Folio Case with digital pen storage. It's backed by Android 15 and features a relatively lightweight, albeit durable, aluminum build, as well as a basic 128GB of storage.
For those who need additional storage, it also comes with a built-in microSD card slot that offers up to 1TB of additional space. To be sure, it doesn't exactly feel like a premium tablet, but even at the normal sticker price, it offers a pretty good value for what you get.
Amazon's Back-to-School deals include a $30 price drop on the Lenovo Idea Tab Plus, bringing it down to just $250. With the included Folio Case and digital pen, some might even call it a steal before the discount.View Deal
✅Recommended if: you're looking for a powerful Android tablet with a large, useful touchscreen, and you'd prefer a device that comes with a first-party stylus; you need something with enough storage for a wide range of file types, even if it means utilizing a microSD card; you like having something thin, lightweight, and portable, and something that also feels durable and drop-proof.
❌Skip this deal if: you're looking for the best tablet on the market and you have the budget to spend money on a premium-level device; you plan to use this for fast-paced gaming and you'd rather spend more on something with top-notch performance; battery life is your top priority when it comes to using a tablet with a stylus.
Lenovo's Idea Tab Plus offers a mid-sized 12.1-inch touchscreen with a 90Hz refresh rate, clocking in at a slightly smaller overall size than the Tab Pro. It has 128GB of storage as well as a microSD port for expandable storage, and a great Folio Case with storage for the included Lenovo digital pen stylus.
Lenovo says the tablet will get users over 6 hours of battery life per charge, and while that isn't an industry-leading spec by any stretch of the imagination, it's likely enough for most casual users, students, and young professionals. If you're looking for a hardcore gaming tablet, however, you may want to look into higher-priced devices with better performance.
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Fairphone and Murena have teamed up to debut the Gen 6 Plus with /e/OS, a privacy-focused software based on Android.
The Gen 6 Plus delivers 12GB of RAM, 12 replaceable parts for consumers, and a five-year warranty/five years of software updates.
Murena Backup debuts with the Fairphone Gen 6 Plus, integrated into Murena Workspace Accounts, alongside the Advanced Privacy widget.
The Fairphone Gen 6 Plus is available for $699 in a new Cobalt Blue colorway.
If Fairphone's Gen 6 caught your eye last year, the company's latest Gen 6 Plus is taking sustainability even further.
Together with Murena's /e/OS, Fairphone launches the Gen 6 Plus, categorizing it as its "latest achievement in the mission to make technology fairer, more modular, repairable and long-lasting while prioritising user privacy and experience." The original Fairphone Gen 6 launched in June 2025, but the company says the Plus model isn't anything to overlook.
The company states the Gen 6 Plus builds on "what already works" with the previous device. Fairphone is looking to "fight back" against current economic pressures, while improving the phone's lifespan. Repairability is a major highlight for Fairphone, and that's continuing with 12 replaceable parts in the Gen 6 Plus. Additionally, consumers will receive a five-year warranty and five years of software updates, carrying the Gen 6 Plus into 2033.
Elsewhere, Fairphone states the Gen 6 Plus comes equipped with 12GB of RAM and Qualcomm's Snapdragon 7s Gen 4. This is a mid-range chip; however, Qualcomm boosted the SoC with stronger, "flagship-level" gaming capabilities. The CPU has been boosted by ~7% over the 7s Gen 3, which the Fairphone Gen 6 debuted with.
Privacy-focused software
(Image credit: Fairphone)
Murena stands tall with its privacy-focused software, and the Fairphone Gen 6 Plus will benefit from the latest updates. Murena states its source code is "fully open." This means that anyone can verify that it "does not collect user data" in the ways Google collects data. It states Google's OS (Android) has "tracking embedded in its source code and native apps that are constantly ‘pinging information to Google - with ambiguity surrounding how that data is used and where it ends up."
Murena does away with this. Moreover, /e/OS now has an Advanced Privacy widget. This will let users control the data collected by third-party apps installed on their devices. The Fairphone Gen 6 Plus announcement calls back to Murena's /e/OS 4 update, which rolled out in June. The patch focused on making it easy to switch from Big Tech. Users will find "one-click" migrations from Google that transfer their files, dates, emails, contacts, and more to Murena's systems.
One feature that was teased in June was cloud backups. That's not debuting with the Gen 6 Plus as "Murena Backup." It states this is "a new cloud-based backup and recovery solution fully integrated with Murena Workspace accounts."
Consumers can purchase the Fairphone Gen 6 Plus from Murena for $699. Fairphone highlights a new colorway: Cobalt Blue. However, you'll also find Forest Green and Horizon Black.
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Perhaps the best part of owning a Pixel is that the phone is better a year in than on the day it launched. Google has very successfully made a name for itself in the industry with Pixel Drops, a set of quarterly updates delivered to Pixel phones alongside monthly security updates and annual operating system updates.
After a year with the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL, I can confidently say this phone is better now than it was last August, but that comes with some caveats along the way. Considering the rising prices of electronics these days, it very likely makes more sense to buy a Pixel 10 this year than a Pixel 11.
While the Pixel 11 is launching with several new features that might make Pixel 10 owners jealous, there is very little doubt in my mind that the vast majority, if not all, of these new features will come to the Pixel 10 Pro XL.
But this past year hasn't been without its problems for the Pixel 10 series, and a series of very serious, problematic software updates follows a trend Google simply shouldn't be proud of. One of the reasons I didn't recommend the Pixel 10 series last year was its bad software update track record, and Google did nothing to help that image this year. Let's explore the best and worst of the Pixel 10 after one year, shall we?
Start with the bad
(Image credit: Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central)
I'm going to get the bad out of the way because it's really bad. Ever since the Pixel 6, Pixel phones have been a bit... buggy. Most of the time, a reboot fixes the issues, or, in a worst-case scenario, you have to wait a month or two for Google to patch them. But March 2025 marked the start of a trend in the wrong direction. I even wrote a guide on how to roll back your firmware at the time.
Somehow, the Pixel 10 series may have had the most update issues I can recall with a Pixel phone to date. For the first several months, Google continuously worked on weird graphical issues for the Pixel 10. Touch responsiveness and battery drain issues followed in January, and the patch even completely broke Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
(Image credit: Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central)
This very scenario is something I was concerned about going into the Pixel 10's release, and Google has done little to assuage my fears about recommending its devices. The problem mainly seems to come down to Google's update cadence. With very rare exceptions, Pixels get an OS update every month. In my opinion, this is too much and doesn't allow enough time for proper QA testing.
I wrote as much about Meta Quest headsets in April 2025, as the same kinds of issues kept popping up with every monthly software update. Quarterly or even bimonthly software updates make much more sense and would certainly give Google more time to test devices properly before rolling them out to the public.
At this point, there is zero likelihood that I would recommend Pixels to anyone, given Google's abysmal track record of software update stability. It's time for Google to take this seriously and fix a brand-killing problem.
Mellow it out a bit
(Image credit: Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central)
Google has shied away from promoting its phones as top performers, and I said as much in my Pixel 10 Pro review. Some games are fine on this phone, while others aren't. That hasn't changed at all in a year.
But we did see some software changes toned down a bit compared to Google's initial marketing. Pixel Daily Hub was removed just a few weeks after launch, and while Google said the feature would come back better than ever, that never happened. Instead, it looks like we got Gemini Daily Brief, a feature I enjoy using every morning, but not one that's Pixel-exclusive, and it's also not quite the same as what Daily Hub was.
Google also removed Pixel Studio, the AI-generated image creation suite that shipped with every Pixel 10. Ironically, Google did this right before Apple announced an identical AI-powered image generation app for iOS 27.
Now for some better news
(Image credit: Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central)
If you made it this far (and I'm impressed you did, to be honest), then you're about to get a lot happier about the Pixel 10's future. Let's start with Magic Cue, a feature hyped during the Pixel 10's launch that turned out to be far less exciting than most hoped for. Google put major work into the feature, and it's being relaunched as Gemini Proactive Intelligence with the Pixel 11 series and Android 17.
Google also debuted Material 3 Expressive in the Pixel 10 Pro's first big update, further improving the look and feel of Pixels, with additional apps and settings windows getting the update a few months later. Google then debuted AI-powered notification summaries in October 2025, and Pixel Theme Packs a month later.
(Image credit: Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central)
Yeah, it's been a monumental year of jam-packed updates, often delivered via Pixel Drops each quarter. Assuming you weren't one of the people who experienced major problems with your Pixel 10 after an update, you were probably extremely happy with Google's support for its phones.
Which brings me back to what I said in the intro: the Pixel 10 Pro is a better phone today than it was on launch day, and that's not just because Google introduced a boatload of new features. It's also because the company wasn't shy about pulling back features that weren't worthwhile and then reintroducing them when they were improved.
Here's hoping that the problematic updates we've seen over the past year for this phone are gone and, in their place, updates we can actually look forward to installing. Otherwise, I'm not entirely convinced people will want to keep returning to the Pixel brand.
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Kid-friendly tablet deals are officially here as the new school year approaches, much to the delight of parents and children alike. As one example, Amazon has cut $40 off the price of the Fire 7 Kids Tablet, representing a 36% price cut and bringing the device down to just $70.
The Amazon Fire Kids lineup is well-liked for the interface's easy-to-use parental controls, and for the durable, hard plastic cover that's spill- and drop-proof enough to handle a child's active lifestyle. This particular deal is for the ad-free version of the Fire tablet, and it comes in red, blue, or purple, each with different colored accents of their own.
The Fire 7 Kids Edition is rated for children ages 3 to 7, and it comes with a free one-year subscription to Amazon Kids Plus. Parents also love the Parent Dashboard, which makes it easy to filter content based on their child's particular age, along with the ability to set device time limits, create educational goals, and even access kid-friendly versions of streaming apps such as Netflix and Disney Plus.
For a limited time, Amazon has cut 36% off the price of the Fire 7 Kids tablet, which marks a $40 discount weeks ahead of the first day of school. From parental controls to the sturdy hinge and plastic housing, this is a great ready-made device for children, and purchase also comes with a two-year worry-free guarantee.View Deal
✅Recommended if: you want one of the best Android tablets for kids, with easy access to parental controls, a small, durable build, and a price point that won't break the bank; you want a tablet for your kids that has plenty of storage for a variety of apps; you like having a long-lasting battery that will last through trips in the car or other longer-term use periods.
❌Skip this deal if: you'd rather upgrade your kids to the larger 8- or 10-inch displays, rather than the slightly cramped 7-inch option; you need a kids' tablet that's compatible with a wide range of Google services; you'd prefer to avoid an Amazon product and would want to consider the more educationally-focused LeapFrog LeapPad kids tablet.
The Amazon Fire 7 Kids Edition comes with a small, easy-to-hold 7-inch screen, up to 10 hours of battery life, and 16GB of storage. If you expect your child to need more storage space, the device also has a 1TB microSD port, offering more than enough space for most.
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If you want the ultimate Pixel phone experience, the Google Pixel 11 Pro XL is the device for you. This powerful flagship was just unveiled last week with a $1,299.99 price tag, but you can already get the phone for FREE from T-Mobile when you add a line with the Experience Beyond plan.
That said, as with most carrier deals, "FREE" simply means that you won't pay the retail cost for the phone. You will still have to cover any sales tax and activation fees, not to mention the monthly cost of the phone plan. So is this Google Pixel 11 preorder deal really worth it? Let's break it down.
New and existing T-Mobile customers who add a line with the Experience Beyond plan will get their Google Pixel 11 Pro XL preorder for free. No trade-in required!
The Google Pixel 11 Pro XL is a powerful flagship phone with an efficient Tensor G6 chipset, 12GB of RAM, and an impressive 6.8-inch AMOLED display. You also get a massive 5,115mAh battery, incredible AI-boosted camera system, and the new HiLight LED array for customizable light-based notifications. View Deal
For starters, it's important to note that Experience Beyond is T-Mobile's most expensive unlimited plan, which is why the company can afford to give you a $1,299 smartphone for free when you sign up.
The plan starts around $100/month for a single line, although you can drop that price down considerably by using AutoPay and adding multiple lines at once. Adding four lines, for instance, could drop the price of each line down to $53.75/month.
The good news is that you get a lot of bang for your buck. In addition to unlimited talk, text, and premium data on T-Mo's vast 5G network, the Experience Beyond plan gets you an unlimited mobile hotspot, a ton of international benefits, and free subscriptions to Netflix and Hulu. You also get a five-year price guarantee.
(Image credit: Shruti Shekar / Android Central)
Is this deal right for you?
If you want one of the best unlimited plans in the business and you don't mind paying for it, definitely. For folks who can afford it, the Experience Beyond plan is a fantastic choice, especially when you get a powerful Android phone out of the deal.
That being said, if you want to save money on your phone bill, there are plenty of other Pixel 11 deals that might be more cost-effective. For example,T-Mobile will give you the base model Google Pixel 11 for free when you add a line with "most plans" on the carrier's site, and that includes the more-affordable Essentials tier (which starts at just $55 per month for a single line).
In conclusion, there are a ton of ways to save money on a Google Pixel 11 ahead of the phones' August 20th release date — but if you were looking to sign up for T-Mobile's best unlimited plan anyway, now's your chance to get some great wireless and a great new phone in one fell swoop.
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