GoKawiil
Tech News
The Korea Fair Trade Commission has fined Samsung roughly 20.1 billion won (about $15.1 million) over its Game Optimizing Service, which automatically reduced performance in certain popular games on Galaxy S22-era phones to as low as 30% of capacity. The ruling follows an earlier class-action lawsuit brought by South Korean Galaxy owners over the same issue.
A like-new 256GB Galaxy S23 Ultra, which launched at $1,199.99 in 2023, sold for an average $404 on peer-to-peer marketplace Swappa as of October 23, 2026, compared with a top cash buyback offer of $291. Sellers can choose among buyback sites, Samsung trade-in, or direct consumer sales, with direct sales yielding the most cash but requiring more effort from the seller.
Samsung will take its Community forum offline for 72 hours starting October 30 at 5 AM ET to perform a major platform overhaul, returning November 2. During the outage, users will still be able to read existing posts via the web, but drafts, direct messages, bookmarks, and subscriptions will not carry over to the new version.
Android Authority surveyed over 1,500 readers about their experience with Samsung's newly released stable One UI 9 update. Roughly 54% of those who have installed it reported encountering no issues, while about 31% experienced at least minor bugs, ranging from stuttering animations to missing notifications.
Digital Wellbeing, Google's built-in Android screen-time tracker, has been installed more than 10 billion times but is rarely opened deliberately because it lacks a home-screen icon and sits inside the Settings menu. The app tracks app usage, unlock counts and notification volume, and offers tools to set time limits, holding a 4.1-star rating across 1.49 million reviews. Some manufacturers, including Samsung and Huawei, ship their own equivalent tools instead, since Google requires makers to include some screen-time and parental-control feature but not Digital Wellbeing specifically.
A specs comparison lines up the rumored foldable iPhone Duo, with its 5.4-inch cover screen and 7.6-inch inner display, against three Android foldables: Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8, Google's Pixel 11 Pro Fold, and Motorola's Razr Fold. The analysis covers screen size, weight, camera resolution, and water/dust resistance ratings across all four devices.
Testing by SoundGuys found that AirPods paired with a Samsung Galaxy phone retain basic controls like play, pause and skip, but lose customization options such as press-and-hold stem actions, ear detection, Spatial Audio, head tracking, and health features like Hearing Test and heart rate tracking. These settings require an Apple device to configure, and automatic switching between devices only works within the Apple ecosystem since AirPods don't support standard Bluetooth multipoint.
Samsung's One UI 9, running Android 17, delivers a smooth experience and timely security patches on the Galaxy S26 Plus, according to an Android Authority reviewer. However, the reviewer says Galaxy AI features like Now Brief and Now Nudge continue to underdeliver, with Now Brief failing to surface news matching the user's stated interests even after customization.
Apple's new foldable iPhone Duo is reaching customers, but many apps display with awkward unused space because they haven't been adapted to its unusual screen ratios, including a wide front display and a 4:3 inner screen. CNET reviewers note this mirrors what happened with Samsung's original Galaxy Fold in 2019, where app layouts took time to catch up to the new format.
CNET explains that a common cause of iPhone and Android charging failures isn't damaged cables or ports but a buildup of dust, lint and debris inside the charging port itself. Over months or years, this debris compacts into a solid blockage that prevents the charging cable from fully connecting. The outlet notes this issue affects both Lightning ports on older iPhones and USB-C ports on newer iPhones and Android devices like the Pixel 11 Pro and Galaxy S26 Ultra.
An Android Authority writer prompted ChatGPT's voice mode and Gemini Live to debate which smartphone deserves the title of best overall, without specifying a year, price range or operating system. The experiment followed a similar earlier test comparing iOS and Android, and the piece also included a reader poll where 44% picked the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and 30% picked a Pixel model.
CNET's review of Apple's first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, highlights its 5.4-inch cover screen and 7.6-inch inner display, along with a matte inner panel designed to reduce glare and crease visibility. The device includes camera features like Duo Preview and Smart Take, which let users preview shots on the cover screen while using the higher-resolution 48-megapixel rear cameras instead of the 12-megapixel selfie camera.