Pocketnow Daily: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 5G: More Than We Expected! (video)

Apple’s previous-gen MacBook Air, M1 MacBook Pro and more on sale

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2, iPad Pro, Apple Watch Series 6 and more on sale

As per usual, let’s kick today off with some M1 MacBook deals because why not? The latest M1 MacBook Pro is currently $50 off, that leaves the 8GB of RAM, 256GB of SSD model in Space Gray for $1249. Sadly we don’t have any deals for the Air at the moment but what we do have deals on is Samsung products! Believe it or not the company is making the trade-in deals even better, starting once again with the Z Fold 2 which is $925 and you get $120 in Samsung Credit for other purchases. You can get the Galaxy Note 20 line for as low as $225, and the S20 line for as low as $365. Those Note deals sound like if they’re probably planning something. Probably the craziest deal is the S20 FE, which goes for $115, you get the $120 in Samsung Credit and you also get a $30 eCertificate. Again all of these are trade-in deals and you need an eligible device. But alright, moving on, the Google Pixel 4 is $281 off, that leaves the entry level model for $518 shipped.

Salesforce acquires Slack for a cool $27.7 billion, calls it a match made in heaven

Sticking to the official news, let’s talk about Slack. Right about now I seriously wish I was a software developer. Last week some rumors sparked up, hinting that Salesforce was planning to buy the company. Well, they just made it official through a press release, Salesforce just acquired Slack for $27.7B and it will now be integrated into their Salesforce Cloud. Now, for those of you that use Slack that are probably wondering what’s going to happen to yours, current CEO Stewart Butterfield will continue to lead the company and the transaction is expected to conclude on the second fiscal quarter of 2022. Once this is complete, Slack will become a full operating unit of Salesforce, allowing them to offer a unified platform for connecting employees and partners to customers, as they will be “integrating slack to their workflow”. I just find it shocking that my least favorite way to communicate is worth so much, but yeah, I also wonder if you’ll still be able to use it once the takeover is completed.

Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Buds Pro earbuds appear in leaked renders

Let’s move on to Samsung and accessories, particularly with their upcoming Galaxy Buds Pro. We showed you how these were already certified by the FCC and that the “Pro” feature would be Active Noise Cancelling. Well, now we have some new renders from Evan Blass that show us both the design and the case. And, as the previous leaks claimed, they pretty much bring the same design as the Galaxy Buds+ but the case looks like the one on the Buds Live, if that makes sense. Speaking of this case, it looks like it will bring a 472 mAh battery but we still have no details on play-time or how many charges it actually provides. Again we should expect these with the Galaxy S21 Series and their main features will be Active Noise Cancellation, a better Ambient Mode and a richer listening experience. Of course we hope that Samsung adds other features along the way just to sweeten the pot, but I feel keeping the price aggressive will be the best strategy.

Apple to launch two MacBook Pro models with fresh design and mini LED display in 2021: Kuo

Moving on to Apple and their Apple Silicon and miniLED roadmaps, we have a new report from Ming Chi Kuo with new devices that we should expect. According to his latest research Note, Kuo reiterates that we should expect two new MacBook Pro models equipped with an all-new form factor design and they will launch in 2021. Now, he also mentions that we should expect a new and “affordable” MacBook Air in 2022. Of course, all of them will bring Apple Silicon chips and a miniLED display. Kuo also claims that Apple will be able to offset the increased costs of miniLEDs in the Macs, thanks to their Apple Silicon chips being significantly cheaper than Intel’s solutions. miniLED displays are also projected to see pretty high shipments with MacBooks being the main driver here, probably because the iPad is rumored to move on to OLED next year. Apparently MacBook shipments could grow by 100% with up to 35M units per year. If the M1 MacBooks are any indication, this is definitely something we’re looking forward to, and a logical reason why the 16-inch MacBook Pro didn’t see a refresh.

Samsung Galaxy S21+ appears online in a sleek mirror silver finish. Take a gander!

We’re already getting pretty close to the Galaxy S21 Series so, the leaks should just keep coming right? Well, about a month ago we got the first CAD renders from OnLeaks and now we get some from a different source. Now, these renders are for the Galaxy S21 Plus showing off the new design. We see the flat display with the punch hole at the front with the slimmer bezels of course. At the back you get to see the new triple camera array which reportedly consist of a 12MP main sensor, a 12MP ultra wide and a 64MP telephoto. Now, these renders show a silver variant which we hadn’t exactly seen before and they got a pretty glossy finish. To recap, we’re expecting the S21 Line in mid-to-late January, rocking the Snapdragon 888 or the latest Exynos, up to 16GB of RAM and all the bells and whistles you could expect. I guess the only question left is if you like the design, which I’m just liking for the fact that it’s unique.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Mobile Platform details are here

And finally, the hottest news today have to do with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. First of all, thank you Qualcomm for sponsoring this video and let’s get right to it. Yesterday, the company pretty much teased the launch of the Snapdragon 888 5G at their Tech Summit. Well, today was day 2 and now we have everything you need to know about this chip. It is built on a 5nm process, implementing 5G, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 for enhanced mobile experiences. It brings the 3rd Gen Snapdragon X60 5G Modem which enables all 5G flavors with speeds of up to 7.5Gbps. It supports Global 5G Multi-SIM for international roaming, and again it delivers industry leading power efficiency at 26 Tera Operations per second. The New Kryo 680 CPU delivers a 25% boost in CPU performance while the Adreno 660 GPU gives you 35% faster graphics when compared to the previous generation. The new Spectra 580 ISP is a Triple ISP which brings a new low light architecture for brighter pictures. It supports Rec. 2020 color gamut photo and video capture, up to 10-bit color depth for photo and video as well as HDR HEIF. You now have 8K video at 30fps and Slow-mo 720p video at a crazy 960 fps. It also supports Dolby Vision 4K video at 120fps and HDR 4K video with Portrait Mode which sounds pretty slick. Snapdragon Elite Gaming also brings way more responsiveness and game rendering at up to 30% thanks to Variable rate shading. Again, 14 OEMs were announced to use the platform with Xiaomi, OPPO and Realme being some the first. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/pocketnowsub http://pocketnow.com Follow us: http://flipboard.com/@Pocketnow http://facebook.com/pocketnow http://twitter.com/pocketnow Source

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