Tech Round Up Week 4 May 2020: Sony Xperia 1 II More Expensive Than iPhone, New Motorola Razr and mo

The Sony Xperia 1 II is estimated to cost USD$1,199.99 when it goes on sale. This makes the Sony Xperia 1 II the most expensive phone of the year, in line with the Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus. But, it will still be likely to cost more than the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 and iPhone 12 when it launches. The Sony Xperia 1 II will be up for pre-order on June 1st in the US but it will only be available in stores on July 24th.

Popular video calling service Zoom has removed GIPHY from their Chat feature. “Once additional technical and security measures have been deployed, we will re-enable the feature.” Zoom said in a statement on their blog post. With more people working from home, the demands for services like Zoom have increased significantly. Zoom, which had its fair share of security problems previously, has updated its security measures including limits on screen sharing, changes to muting and unmuting functions, and restrictions on logging in to meetings from multiple devices. This news comes at the time when Giphy has just been acquired by Facebook.

A new version of the Motorola Razr foldable phone might launch this year, and it might potentially have 5G, a bigger battery, and improved cameras. These address the criticisms of the Motorola model that was released in February 2020. The new Motorola also may be powered by Qualcomm’s 5G-capable Snapdragon 765 processor, and it might have a 2,845mAh battery. There are also rumours that the new version’s outer camera will be 48 megapixels, with a 20-megapixel inner camera, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. This certainly sounds like a good upgrade from the first version of the Motorola Razr Foldable!

Motion Sense was one of Google Pixel 4’s unpopular features. That feature, facilitated by the Soli radar chip in the Pixel 4 phones, was created to let you use various features of the phone by using gestures instead of touching the device. However, there weren’t many applications that supported it when first launched.

Nevertheless, Motion Sense seems to be a good feature to include in the Google Pixel 5 in the year of the global pandemic outbreak. With health and hygiene becoming a priority and awakening for many, cleaning our phones might become a habit too. Motion Sense will be a good solution for users, given the ability to operate the phone without touching it – that is, provided it works as promised!

Apple has released macOS Catalina 10.15.5. New features include a new battery health feature and new FaceTime options. The battery is designed to slow down the ageing process of Lithium-ion batteries in Macbooks, giving the battery the ability to hold more charge over a longer period of time.

This, in turn, could extend the lifespan of your Macbook’s battery. MacOS 10.15.5 will also let users turn off the feature in group FaceTime calls that automatically changes the size of the portrait of the current speaker. The new battery health feature will be available if you have updated to macOS 10.15.5 and are using a Macbook that supports Thunderbolt 3. The new feature will be automatically turned on for new Macbooks with the macOS10.15.5.