Source: Pocketnow
OPPO announces partnership with Hasselblad ahead of Find X5 series launch
The official news today begin with OPPO and announcements they're making ahead of their next flagship. Earlier today, the company just announced a new 3 year partnership with non-other than Hasselblad. OPPO says this partnership will benefit them and that the two companies will be co-developing industry-leading camera technologies for the upcoming Find X Series. They're also saying that OnePlus has hugely benefitted from this partnership and that they have maximized their efficiency and improved the camera experience for users, so they're excited to elevate that partnership to OPPO as well. And, to conclude with the PR jargon, they're also saying that their goal is to develop advanced imaging solutions with natural colors that will provide a more refined imaging experience. So, yes they pretty much made it official that the Find X5 is coming soon and that it will feature this Hasselblad partnership, which also serves as confirmation for those leaked images we got last month. We're expecting the Find X5 Series to launch sometime during Q1, maybe even February so, let's see how Hasselblad does with OPPO because I'm not the biggest fan of their OnePlus partnership.
The foldable phone market could get more interesting as shipment numbers look promising
Let's keep talking official news but switch on to foldables and their future. We have a new report from Canalys, with some predictions for the foldable market in the near future. This segment saw a 148% growth year-over-year in 2021, with an estimated total of 8.9%... And just for context, the regular market just grew 7 percentage points over the same period, and that's even after it went back to normal after 2020. Canalys is claiming that we can expect a yearly shipment rate of around 30 Million foldables by 2024, which translates to an annual growth rate of 53% between 2021 and 2024. When it comes to the price tags, they also expect the average selling price to drop in half from the initial value we got in 2019, claiming that they'll be costing around 1000 bucks by 2024.. Makes you wonder what Samsung might price the Z Flip going forward if that'll be the average price for the rest of the market. Finally, they're claiming that Android makers will try and ramp up demand with new foldable offerings in order to battle Apple in the premium segment as they've been growing like crazy.
The new mini-LED iMac Pro could arrive in June
Let's move on over to Cupertino and Macs... Yes, again. There's been a frenzy of leaks of different Macs that are coming soon, some of them for the Spring Event, some of them for later. Today, we have two separate reports, starting with the M2 MacBook Pro. According to a new report from MacRumors, the 13-inch MacBook Pro will retain the exact same design from the current model, including the Touch Bar, and it won't have a notch or a ProMotion display like the high end variants. Apparently this information comes from the same source who reported we'd be getting a notch in the 14 and 16-inch models. Meaning the only main difference here will be the introduction to the M2 chip. Moving on to iMacs, someone in the MacRumors forum shared additional information from the filings we covered yesterday. Apparently one of these is in fact a laptop, while the other two are personal computers or desktops. Ross Young chipped in, saying that the miniLED iMac Pro could launch some time in June. He then said that certain observers said that no miniLEDs were coming but, they're hearing around 1000 zones and over 4000 miniLEDs. So yeah, not all of these computers might come in March but, there's definitely some exciting stuff coming in the first half of the year.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 could arrive with an S Pen slot
Finally, for the hottest news today, let's go back to talking about foldables, but this time we'll discuss the next generation of the Z Fold because why not? Yes, we've only had the S22 Series for a week but The Elec is wasting no time in leaking the next big thing.. According to their latest report, Sammy will be adding an S Pen slot to the Galaxy Z Fold 4... As a matter of fact, their sources are claiming that this addition will be a major selling point for this device. They're also adding that this foldable will bring a 7.56-inch main display and a 6.19-inch outer display which is similar to the Z Fold 3. Sammy is also said to be focusing on durability for this model.. The Z Fold 3 was the first one to bring IPX8 and water resistance, and we hope for other things like dust resistance and a tougher panel for the next model but, it's still a complicated topic given how new these phones are. Finally, The Elec also gave us some information on the Z Flip 4, which will reportedly feature a 6.7-inch foldable display which is the same we got last year, but it'll bring a slightly larger external display at 1.9-inches.