Myriam Joire
Contributing since June, 2019
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9articles
About Myriam Joire
Myriam Joire (tnkgrl) was born wearing combat boots and holding a keyboard; moments later she picked up a soldering iron. She’s been stomping, typing and hacking ever since. After spending years being a code-monkey in the video game industry, she joined Engadget as Senior Mobile Editor and later Pebble as Chief Evangelist. Today she advises startups on product/media strategy, hosts the weekly Mobile Tech Podcast, and writes for Android Police and other major publications. She’s based in San Francisco.
Latest Articles
For the last couple years, Xiaomi’s been releasing its flagships lineup on a tic-toc cycle, with a volley early in the year, and another round — the T models — later that same year. For example, the Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro landed in February 2020, followed by the Mi 10T and Mi 10T Pro in September 2020. So far this year, we got the Mi 11 in January, with a rumored Mi 11 Ultra coming soon. And that’s not including the “Lite” models.
Xiaomi’s been busy this year. In addition to launching a plethora of Xiaomi and Redmi-branded phones, the company’s turned Poco into its own sub-brand, starting with the Poco X2 in February, followed by the Poco F2 Pro in May, Poco M2 Pro in July, plus the Poco X3 NFC and Poco M2 in September. What started off as a single, $300 handset with flagship specs in 2018 — the Poco F1 (or Pocophone F1) — is now an entire product line.
Poco F2 Pro review: Gourmet performance, buffet price
Have your cake and eat it, too
Almost exactly two years ago, Xiaomi pulled a page from OnePlus’ playbook and stunned everyone with the Poco F1 (or Pocophone F1), a phone with proper flagship specs that cost just $300. While the F1 cut some corners to achieve this feat (plastic build, no NFC), it still delivered amazing performance and battery life. Then in 2019, it was followed up by… crickets?
TCL’s SOCL500TWS are the true wireless earbuds that’ll cure your stay-at-home blues
They're $80, and they're shockingly decent
Think back, way back to CES 2020. Remember when we tech journalists still travelled (in airplanes!) to trade shows and covered the crap out of them? Those were the days! It all seems like ages ago now. But I digress… Back at CES in January, among the plethora of devices TCL announced -- all the TVs, cool phones, and even prototypes -- were these unassuming true wireless earbuds, the SOCL500TWS (ugh, that name). They gave everyone in the media a pair.
By most estimates, Apple’s AirPods business alone is worth about billion. Let that sink in for a minute. No wonder everyone’s getting into the true wireless earbuds game — from Samsung to Google to Microsoft to Amazon. And of course, Huawei joined the party a while ago. Its third generation FreeBuds 3, while beating the AirPods Pro to market (IFA 2019), compete directly with Apple’s latest offering.
By now you’re probably familiar with the Huawei ban. Back in May, as part of the US government’s pointless trade war with China, Huawei was put on an “entity list” preventing American companies from doing business with the Chinese giant. As a result, Huawei lost access to Intel and Qualcomm’s chips, Microsoft and Google’s software — like Windows and Google Mobile Services (GMS) — and much more US tech.Huawei mostly makes phones using its own Kirin processors, so losing access to Qualcomm’s hardware isn’t a huge issue. The company can also continue using Android since it’s open source. But losing access to GMS means new Huawei phones cannot run Google’s apps or services, or third party apps that use Google’s APIs — a deal breaker in many markets, including Europe, where Huawei handsets are extremely popular.The first two phones from the Chinese company to launch without GMS support are the Huawei Mate 30 Pro and the Honor 9x Pro (Honor is a sub-brand of Huawei). I recently received a Chinese-market Honor 9x Pro review unit from the PR team, and so began my first serious experience using an Android phone without GMS. I’m writing this article to share my trials and tribulations on this mad journey, from the perspective of someone who relies extensively on Google’s apps/services.
Between my podcast and my various writing gigs, I play with a lot of new phones — about one per week, actually. Most of these are the usual sort of high-end stuff (both premium and affordable), some are specialized, niche products, and a few are mid-range devices. Obviously, my dance card is pretty full, so I rarely get the chance to dip my toes in the pool of oddball Chinese phones. I recently partnered with an online store for my blog and they offered to send me a sub-$300 handset of my choice. I settled on the uleFone Armor 6E, an affordable, ruggedized phone with decent specs — at least on paper. I decided to put that ruggedization to the test.
Forget gaming: The Red Magic 3 is the most powerful phone under $500 in the US right now
I’ll just come right out and say it: gaming phones are a gimmick. You can get 99% of the same gaming experience using a flagship without sacrificing other core functionality like camera performance. And don’t get me wrong—shoulder buttons, blinking lights, and other gaming-specific features are certainly nice to have, but hardcore gaming on phones isn’t a big enough market (at least yet). In reality, too few mobile games are designed to take full advantage of extra controls or 90Hz displays.
Say you’re in the market for some wireless earbuds and you have a Benjamin to spend. You don’t need noise cancellation, but want good sound quality. What do you buy? There are several choices out there, including OnePlus’ much hyped $99 Bullets Wireless 2. But I’m here to tell you that there’s one unassuming product that stands out—a better device than the Bullets Wireless 2—and it’s not officially available in the US. It’s the $99 Huawei FreeLace.