T-Mobile is expanding its 5G home internet service to 64 cities in several states in the Northeast, reaching residents in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

This latest expansion in coverage gives more than 9 million homes access to T-Mobile’s internet, the company says. However, as our review last year showed, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be consistent everywhere. T-Mobile warns that even if your city is on the list (available below), it’s not ready to go everywhere yet. However, some people may be eligible for 4G LTE service. Currently, the service is $50 a month for AutoPay customers and $30 for families with Magenta MAX, T-Mobile’s phone plan.

Launched in April 2021, the Home Internet service has been steadily expanding across the US. During its second-quarter earnings call, T-Mobile reported it has more than 1.5 million Home Internet customers and now says it has coverage available to over 40 million households — even without using SpaceX satellites.

If you want to see if your area is now covered, you can enter your address on T-Mobile’s site.

Connecticut

• Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk
• Hartford-East Hartford-Middletown
• New Haven-Milford
• Norwich-New London
• Torrington

Maryland

• Baltimore-Columbia-Towson
• California-Lexington Park
• Easton
• Hagerstown-Martinsburg
• Salisbury

Massachusetts

• Barnstable
• Boston-Cambridge-Newton
• Springfield
• Vineyard Haven
• Worcester

New Jersey

• Atlantic City-Hammonton
• Ocean City
• Trenton-Princeton
• Vineland-Bridgeton

New York

• Albany-Schenectady-Troy
• Amsterdam
• Auburn
• Batavia
• Binghamton
• Buffalo-Cheektowaga
• Corning
• Cortland
• Elmira
• Glens Falls
• Hudson
• Ithaca
• Jamestown-Dunkirk-Fredonia
• Kingston
• Malone
• New York-Newark-Jersey City
• Ogdensburg-Massena
• Olean
• Oneonta
• Plattsburgh
• Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown
• Rochester
• Seneca Falls
• Syracuse
• Utica-Rome
• Watertown-Fort Drum

Pennsylvania

• Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton
• Bloomsburg-Berwick
• Chambersburg-Waynesboro
• East Stroudsburg
• Erie
• Lancaster
• Lebanon
• Lewisburg
• Lock Haven
• New Castle
• Oil City
• Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington
• Pittsburgh
• Pottsville
• Reading
• Sayre
• Scranton-Wilkes-Barre
• Sunbury
• York-Hanover

Huawei has announced the Mate 50 series, a day ahead of Apple’s September event and with a feature that the iPhone 14 is expected to offer: the ability to send texts via satellite communication. The Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro will be able to send short texts and utilize navigation thanks to China’s global BeiDou satellite network, allowing for communication in areas without cellular signal.

The flagship Mate 50 series includes 4G-only versions of the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset with 8GB of RAM. The 50 Pro comes with a slightly bigger 6.74-inch OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, while the Mate 50 offers a 6.7-inch, 90Hz OLED panel. Both include a 50-megapixel main rear camera with a variable aperture lens with stops from f/1.4 to f/4 — most smartphone cameras use fixed apertures, so a moving aperture is neat, but the lens itself is so small that it’s unlikely to create any kind of meaningful difference in depth-of-field in most situations.

Both models share a 13-megapixel f/2.2 ultrawide, and while each has a telephoto lens, the Pro gets an upgraded 64-megapixel camera capable of 200x digital zoom — the standard Mate 50 offers 100x digital zoom with a lower-res 12-megapixel sensor.

Image: Huawei

If you feel like you’re hearing a lot about satellite-based communication these days, it’s because you are. T-Mobile and SpaceX just announced a partnership that aims to bring this feature to T-Mobile subscribers by way of Starlink satellites. And the rumors of Apple’s satellite messaging feature have been swirling since last year.

In all of these cases, the technology will likely be limited, at least at first. T-Mobile says its system will allow for text and even picture messaging, but voice calls and data won’t be coming until later. And based on Huawei’s description of the system, it looks like the Mate 50 phones will only be able to send texts by satellite, and won’t be able to receive them. In all of these cases, satellite-based texting aims to provide an emergency connection in places without signal to get urgent messages out, rather than a way to keep up with your group chats while you’re out of cell range. In any case, we’ll have to wait at least a little longer for the feature in the US — Huawei’s devices will, of course, not be sold here.

Older generations of Samsung foldable phones and smartwatches will soon be eligible to update to the latest versions of One UI, granting new features such as multitasking gestures, optimizations for large-screened devices, first-party app enhancements and a PC-like taskbar for phones, and new watch faces and customizations for Galaxy smartwatches.

Samsung’s One UI 4.1.1 is based on Android 12L and first appeared on devices such as the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4. Samsung has already started to roll out the UI 4.1.1 update globally today to the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 devices, which should reach all users within the next few days. The Galaxy Z Fold 2, Galaxy Z Flip, and Galaxy Z Fold have also been confirmed to receive the One UI 4.1.1 update by Samsung at some point, though no timeline has been provided.

Image: Samsung

Users of these older folding handsets will be able to enjoy features such as the Taskbar which allows you to quickly switch between applications and drag-and-drop apps to create a split view. A new two-finger gesture is also available for multitasking, allowing you to instantly switch full-screen apps to pop-up windows or split your screen in half for improved productivity.

Image: Samsung

Additional features coming to the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 include the ability to adjust settings, make calls, dial back missed calls and reply to texts (using voice-to-text) from the cover screen, as well as take selfies with the main camera using Rear Cam Selfie.

The One UI Watch 4.5 first got a full release on the Galaxy Watch 5, and is now also coming to the Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. That means six new interactive watch faces and additional customizations, as well as a new QWERTY keyboard. Samsung hasn’t provided a release date for the rollout of Watch 4.5

Galaxy Watch 3 and Galaxy Watch Active 2 have been confirmed by Samsung to be eligible for a separate software update around the end of September. This refresh will deliver “selected features” from One UI Watch 4.5, such as two new watch faces, snore analysis, and support for blood pressure and ECG measuring in the Samsung Health Monitor app.

Honor is planning to release its second foldable next year, and unlike the Honor Magic V, the company hopes to actually release the device outside of China. Honor’s CEO, George Zhao, confirmed the plans in an interview with The Verge ahead of this year’s IFA trade show in Berlin and said the company expects to launch its next foldable device in the first quarter of next year.

“We’ve made the decision that next year, in Q1, we’ll bring our latest foldable smartphone to international markets,” including Europe, Zhao said. The CEO didn’t confirm any specifics or details for the new device but indicated that Honor’s major areas of focus for its foldables are making them thinner, lighter, and more affordable.

A release in the first quarter of next year would come roughly a year after Honor debuted its first foldable device, the Honor Magic V. The company is one of several Chinese smartphone brands that have recently launched foldables, alongside the likes of Oppo’s Find N, Xiaomi’s Mix Fold, and Huawei’s Mate X devices.

A surprisingly large proportion of these devices have remained exclusive to the Chinese market, however. In the west, only Samsung and Huawei have made serious foldable pushes, and of them, it’s arguably only Samsung’s devices that have been worth considering; Huawei’s continue to be sold without Google’s apps and services as a result of ongoing US sanctions. The result is that Chinese customers simply have a much broader range of foldable devices to choose from.

Image: Honor

When I asked Zhao why Honor and other brands are prioritizing China for their foldables, he said that a much bigger proportion of popular apps in the country are optimized for foldable devices. That’s because China has a unique Android app market that’s dominated by domestically produced apps like WeChat, and it even has a special version of TikTok (named Douyin) in the country. The situation makes it easier to collaborate with developers to optimize their apps for new form factors.

“We have a very good relationship with the [China-based] app providers,” explains Zhao, who says that this relationship means developers are willing to work with Honor to optimize their apps for foldables. Unlike in the rest of the world, where users download Android apps from the global Google Play Store, users in China access them via a number of app stores that are specific to the market.

But with Google’s recent initiatives to improve the Android experience on big-screen devices, Zhao believes international markets are catching up. For starters, Google recently released Android 12L, a new version of its mobile operating system optimized for tablets and foldables. It’s also working to optimize its own apps for larger screens and says it’s working with third-party developers to improve the experience of using apps like TikTok, Zoom, and Facebook. “Google is making a lot of effort in this direction,” Zhao says.

One place Honor still isn’t planning to sell its foldables is the United States. Although the company made a push into the US market half a decade ago, for now, it’s focusing its limited resources on regions like Europe, where it has an existing presence and more experience.

In the more immediate future, Honor is continuing to build out a family of devices across a number of different product categories. Today saw the global launch of its latest midrange smartphone, the Honor 70 (check out our full review here), alongside a new tablet and laptop. The former is the 12-inch Honor Pad 8 tablet, which launched in China earlier this year, and there’s also the 14-inch MagicBook 14 laptop, which is powered by a 12th Gen Intel Core H-series processor and can optionally be specced with an Nvidia RTX 2050 GPU.

After years of seeing the international market for foldables dominated by Samsung, next year, we might finally see some real competition. Well, so long as the CEOs of China’s other tech brands are similarly impressed with Google’s efforts to improve Android app support for tablets and foldables.

The Wall Street Journal reports T-Mobile’s engineering and network operations teams are experiencing waves of layoffs, which have included managers and executives, on top of thousands of jobs eliminated by restructuring after the company merged with Sprint in 2020. T-Mobile execs promised then that the merger was “all about creating new, high-quality, high-paying jobs, and the new T-Mobile will be jobs-positive from Day One and every day thereafter.”

In April 2020, the companies had about 80,000 workers combined; however, as the Journal points out, T-Mobile’s most recent annual report (pdf) said it ended 2021 with 75,000 full- and part-time employees.

Employees

As of December 31, 2021, we employed approximately 75,000 full-time and part-time employees, including network, retail, administrative and customer support functions.

A company spokesperson told the Journal that the layoffs “were part of continuing organizational shifts during the past few months” without exactly saying how many jobs were eliminated or if there would be more layoffs in the future.

T-Mobile said the post-merger company would employ at least 11,000 additional workers by 2024, but so far, it looks like the exact opposite is occurring. Soon after the merger, T-Mobile announced a layoff plan that would affect “hundreds” of former Sprint workers. Since then, T-Mobile has dissolved Sprint’s LTE network and switched Sprint customers over to T-Mobile as the company plans to use its wealth of PCS spectrum to broadcast cellular signals from satellites.

Meanwhile, the Dish Network Genesis 5G service that was supposed to provide new competition is still hard to find. Elsewhere in the industry, other carriers have been experiencing layoffs, too. In early August, CNET reported that T-Mobile, along with its competitor Verizon reported that they were laying off employees to accommodate business needs.

The European Commission is seeking to improve phone and tablet battery life and spare parts availability. In draft proposals published this week, European regulators are planning to force phone manufacturers to supply at least 15 different parts to professional repairers for five years after a device first goes on sale. Consumers will also get guaranteed access to replacement batteries, displays, chargers, back covers, and even SIM / memory card trays for five years.

The draft proposals are designed to improve repairability of smartphones and tablets and reduce their carbon footprint across Europe. The Financial Times reports that extending smartphone lifecycles by five years would be roughly the equivalent of removing 5 million cars from the road. The EU argues that forcing manufacturers to make products that are more durable and easier to repair should reduce e-waste, and improve recycling rates and the reuse of materials needed to manufacturer devices.

If the proposals are adopted across Europe later this year, a new energy label on smartphone and tablets will also be introduced and will act much like the labels on TVs and white goods across Europe. The energy label will indicate the likely battery life of a phone or tablet, and also include information on a device’s protection against water and dust and even rate a phone’s resistance to accidental drops.

Under the EU’s plans, if manufacturers can’t supply batteries to consumers for five years, they will have to meet a set of battery endurance tests instead. These will ensure devices achieve 80 percent of a rated capacity after 1,000 full charge cycles. Manufacturers will also be forced to ensure software updates never have a negative effect on battery life.

The regulations won’t apply to phones or tablets with a flexible main display “which the user can unroll and roll up partly or fully,” or smartphones designed for high security environments. Either way, these new rules are bound to improve battery life and repairability for smartphones, particularly for budget or low-cost devices.

The draft regulations follow the European Union lawmakers’ proposal earlier this year to mandate a universal charger for mobile phones and other devices. The European Parliament claimed at the time that unused and discarded chargers add up to around 11,000 metric tons of e-waste in Europe every year.

While the draft proposals attempt to tackle repairability and improve reliability, the Environmental Coalition on Standards (ECOS) argues they don’t go far enough. “Although generally encouraging, the proposals should still be significantly improved,” says ECOS. “The availability and replaceability of certain spare parts set unnecessary limits for do-it-yourself repairers.”

ECOS, an international NGO advocating for environmentally friendly standards, also wants manufacturers to have to provide durable batteries and spare parts as standard, rather than being able to choose between the two. “ECOS believes that consumers deserve both as a minimum, and not one or the other as currently suggested.”

Samsung is bringing the Galaxy A23 5G to the US today, providing fast 5G connectivity and a 120Hz full HD display for just under $300.

The US release only includes a single color (black), with prices starting from $299.99 at AT&T, T-Mobile, and elsewhere. It was previously announced that this handset would also hit the Taiwanese market in blue and peach versions in addition to black.

The Galaxy A23 5G comes with a 6.6-inch 1080 x 2408 LCD display with adaptive 120Hz refresh to allow for smoother scrolling and gameplay. It features a Snapdragon 695 processor and will ship with Android 12 running Samsung’s One UI 4.1. Memory is available in 4GB, 6GB or 8GB and you get a choice of either 64GB or 128GB for storage. If that isn’t sufficient, there’s also an expandable microSD card slot. Its 5,000mAh battery supports 25W fast charging

Image: Samsung

The Galaxy A23 5G features a quad-camera setup with a primary 50-megapixel camera and a 5-megapixel ultrawide, as well as a 2-megapixel macro camera and a 2-megapixel depth-sensing camera. There’s also an 8-megapixel camera in the front for selfies.

We’ve rated previous models in the budget-friendly Samsung Galaxy A-series as “so-so,” with the Galaxy A32 impressing on battery life and connectivity, but disappointing with a low-resolution display. That 720p handset hit the market for $279, and was still a pretty compelling package for a phone under $300. The A23 5G addresses some of these issues already which could justify the extra 20 bucks.

Cox announced on Monday that it is launching a pilot for Cox Mobile that will be available to Cox’s internet customers. This will be the company’s second major attempt to get into the mobile industry, after its effort launched in 2010 shut down after less than two years, citing an inability to offer “iconic phones” (like Apple’s iPhone, for example) along with its suite of feature phones and Android handsets.

Under the new Cox Mobile, customers will have access to both 4G and 5G coverage with access to “on-the-go wifi hotspots.” They will also have access to high-speed data plans “Pay As You Gig” that will let customers pay for needed data and an unlimited data plan called “Gig Unlimited.” The Wall Street Journal reported that prices for the unlimited service will begin at $45, with another $15 a month for 1 gigabyte of data and any additional gigabyte after that.

Fierce Wireless reports it almost launched Cox Mobile in October 2021 but was held back by ongoing litigation with T-Mobile tied to Cox’s previous relationship with the now-owned-by-T-Mobile Sprint. Cox won the litigation in March following the appeal of a previous ruling that sided with T-Mobile allowing them to pursue a contract with a service provider of their choosing.

Currently, Cox has cable services available in several states, but it said in its blog post announcing Cox Mobile that the new mobile service will be available to customers in three markets — Hampton Roads, Virginia; Omaha, Nebraska; and Las Vegas, Nevada — and said it will continuously roll out to other markets throughout the rest of the year.

T-Mobile led the way in bundling mobile and entertainment services together, but now competitors like Verizon are doing the same to incentivize their subscribers to stick around. With that in mind, T-Mobile is trying to sweeten the pot a bit more with the addition of free Apple TV Plus. The new perk will be available starting August 31st for customers on the company’s Magenta Max plan.

Thankfully for T-Mobile customers, gaining Apple’s service doesn’t mean giving up Netflix. The carrier will continue to offer its long-running “Netflix on us” deal, which similarly provides free streaming access for as long as you’re a T-Mobile customer. Just keep in mind that the Netflix perk is limited to the basic, standard definition tier for most plans unless you’re on a multi-line Magenta Max plan. Whereas with Apple TV Plus, you’ll get full 4K streaming even on a single-line Max plan.

T-Mobile had previously been offering a free year of Apple TV Plus on many eligible T-Mobile and Sprint plans. But since access will be ongoing for Max customers, that promotion will be halved to six months for other plans like the standard Magenta tier. Aside from Apple TV Plus and Netflix, T-Mobile also offers a free year of Paramount Plus, plus monthly discounts on YouTube TV and Philo TV, both of which are $10 off for one year.

While it won’t give you Netflix or Apple TV Plus, Verizon’s big counter to T-Mobile is the inclusion of the Disney bundle — including Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus — on its 5G Get More and 5G Play More unlimited plans. Verizon also offers Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Google Play Pass, and other incentives depending on the plan.

Both T-Mobile and Verizon are now providing widespread 5G coverage and speedy performance, according to PCMag’s latest tests. AT&T is lagging behind somewhat in urban areas, but that could level out over the next couple years. With mobile data speeds starting to get so similar between all of them, these entertainment and streaming bonuses might swing customers to one carrier or the other. AT&T doesn’t seem interested in pursuing the same strategy, however. Following the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery, the carrier stopped including complimentary HBO Max with its plans.

Last week, T-Mobile and SpaceX revealed their plan to bring satellite connectivity to mobile phones in 2023. The goal of “Coverage Above and Beyond” is to eliminate signal dead zones and provide enough data throughput for sending texts and messages in regions where it’s not currently possible. T-Mobile has said that “the vast majority of smartphones already on T-Mobile’s network will be compatible with the new service.”

The Galaxy Z Fold 4 is the latest in the line of Samsung’s foldables to endure JerryRigEverything’s torture test that subjects devices to razor blades, lighters, and handfuls of dirt. Like the Fold 3 and Fold 2 before it, the Fold 4 managed to survive the test, albeit with quite a few scratches and some burnt-up pixels.

But the real question is whether the Fold 4 can pass the test of time. Samsung has taken significant steps toward improving the durability of its lines of foldables, making them water resistant, as well as adding stronger screens with a more rigid aluminum frame. And while the company has released videos — both this year and the last — designed to inspire confidence about the durability of its devices, they still don’t indicate how well they’ll fare with years of use.

Users reported experiencing several issues, including cracked screens and noticeable creases, shortly after purchasing new Galaxy Z Flip 3 or Fold 3 devices last year. But even if users didn’t have issues upon purchasing the foldable last year, for some owners, they’re starting to crop up now. Zoe Kleinman, a technology editor at the BBC, posted on Twitter that her Galaxy Z Flip 3 has developed a crack where the device creases, making both the bottom and top half of the device unusable. Several users on Reddit have also been put in similar situations months out from their purchase.

The release of the first Galaxy Z Fold in 2019 was notably delayed due to a faulty screen, and Samsung has obviously come a long way since then. While Samsung advertises its Z Fold 4 as “unbelievable tech built to last,” it describes its Z Flip 4 as having “serious durability [that] lets you flex and flip to your heart’s content” and lasts you 200,000 folds. While that may be true in lab conditions, everyday wear and tear over an extended period of time can be harder to predict.

Thankfully, Samsung has lowered the cost to repair the screens on a Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Fold 4 to $29 — but only if you’re subscribed to Samsung’s Care Plus service, which costs $8 to $11 / month, depending on the device you’ve purchased. Without the plan (and if you’re not covered under warranty), you could wind up paying $499 to replace the Z Fold 4’s inner screen or $357 to repair it. The Z Flip 4 is slightly less expensive, costing $349 for an inner screen replacement and $219 for a repair. First and second-gen Flip and Fold devices (assuming you still have one that hasn’t needed a replacement yet) are eligible for cheaper one-time screen replacements that start at $119, however.