Latest news with #premium
The Independent
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
‘It's over for short men': Dating app height filter sparks backlash
Tinder is trialling a new premium height filter that allows paying users to select the height of potential matches. The height filter is being tested as a paid preference, influencing the algorithm rather than completely blocking users of certain heights. The trial has sparked controversy on social media, with concerns raised about potential disadvantages for shorter men. Some users believe the filter is a positive development for avoiding time-wasting, while others highlight the prevalence of heightism on dating apps. A Tinder spokesperson stated the company is listening to user preferences and aims to help people connect more intentionally.
Gizmodo
17 hours ago
- Business
- Gizmodo
Insta360 X4 8K Action Camera Hits a New All-Time Low, Amazon Clears Stock at a Ridiculous Price
Action camera fans have always had to compromise on something: do you prefer battery life, video quality, or user interface? Rarely has a single device been capable of pulling together all these elements in a way that truly satisfies the most fastidious creators. Everything has changed with the release of the Insta360 X4, a camera that lives up to the hype but also breaks new ground for what an action camera can do. Released in 2024, the Insta360 X4 is widely regarded as one of the most premium and feature-packed action cameras on the market, and Amazon is now offering it at a new all-time low price. The Insta360 X4 Standard Package which contains the camera and standard accessories is now available for just $359 which is a 28 percent discount from its list price of $499 at Amazon. That's a rare (and unique?) opportunity to obtain a high-end action camera at a price that brings it within the budget of a much greater number of shoppers. See at Amazon Stunning 360° 8K Videos What puts the Insta360 X4 ahead of the pack is that it's capable of shooting immersive 360° video in stunning 8K resolution, or super-stable 5.7K at 60fps. And for you wide-angle fans out there, the X4 also functions as a regular action camera and captures sharp 4K at 60fps or ultra-wide 170° MaxView at 4K30fps. The Insta360 X4 also features Active HDR which ensures your footage is color-true and vibrant even in challenging light. And the camera's signature invisible selfie stick effect allows you to shoot from impossible angles, which makes your videos look like they were filmed by a drone or a professional film crew. Combined with the ability of the camera to reframe shots after they have been taken using the AI-powered Insta360 app, this gives creators creative flexibility. Thanks to FlowState Stabilization and 360° Horizon Lock, your footage stays smooth and level no matter how intense the action gets. The X4 is also built to withstand the rigors of adventure: The rugged design of the camera withstands bumps and rough handling and the new lens guards are easy to slip on and off during the action. The camera is cold-proofed and shoots stable footage in freezing temperatures down to -4°F (-20°C) and waterproof to 33 feet (10 meters) without a dive case. You will also love the X4's improved 2290mAh battery which delivers up to 135 minutes of recording time on a single charge, which is also a huge 67% improvement over the previous model. Thanks to rapid charging, you can get back to shooting in a flash. The 2.5-inch Gorilla Glass touchscreen is bright, responsive, and tough, and it's simple to use the camera even in extreme conditions or under intense sunlight. All you need to get started is included in the standard package: Insta360 X4, Type-C to Type-C cable, standard lens guards, lens cloth, protective pouch, user manual. This Insta360 X4 is the ultimate all-in-one solution for capturing your most exciting moments in stunning detail, make sure to secure this deal before it runs out of stock! See at Amazon
Phone Arena
19 hours ago
- Business
- Phone Arena
Don't miss your chance to get the Bose SoundLink Micro at a rare 24% discount
Looking for a premium yet ultra-compact Bluetooth speaker? The SoundLink Micro might just be the perfect choice. At almost $120 when not on sale, this small but capable speaker isn't the cheapest option money can buy. But you can get it at a more accessible price right now, as it's 24% off on Amazon. $29 off (24%) The Bose SoundLink Micro is down by 24% at Amazon, making it a top choice for users seeking premium sound in an ultra-compact form factor. Amazon doesn't often launch deals on this speaker, so you shouldn't overlook this limited-time sale. Buy at Amazon How does this promo compare to previous bargains we've seen? Well, Walmart holds the record with its 57% exclusive discount. This one only came live twice, though, and Amazon has never matched it. That said, the e-commerce giant rarely launches deals for this portable Bluetooth speaker , so you certainly shouldn't overlook the current 24% discount. Keep in mind that Amazon won't keep it forever, so you want to act fast. With its ultra-compact design and IP67 rating, this Bose speaker is perfect for just about any environment. It features a tear-resistant silicone strap, which lets you secure it on a bike rack, backpack, pocket, or SoundLink Micro might be mini-sized, but it delivers pretty loud audio. Sure, it won't shake your whole house with thumping low-end, but it offers a sufficient output to fill a room. You get some bass, wide mids, and clear vocals --- perfect sound for small gatherings. With Bluetooth Multipoint connectivity on deck and a built-in microphone, this bad boy really stands its own against competitors like the JBL Clip 5. Battery life isn't half bad, either. The Soundlink Micro gives you up to six hours of music per charge, which is pretty good given its small size. So, what do you think? If you're after premium sound in a small package, plus extra features like a built-in mic and Bluetooth Multipoint, you won't go wrong with the Bose SoundLink Micro. Sure, it's a bit pricey at its standard price, but Amazon's limited-time sale certainly makes it more attractive.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Truecaller reaches two new milestones for consumer subscriptions
STOCKHOLM, June 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Truecaller's paid consumer offerings have recently reached two new milestones. Truecaller surpassed three million paying subscribers on the 17th of May and has also hit the milestone of surpassing one million subscribers on iOS on the 27th of May. As of 31st of March 2025 the corresponding numbers were 2.86 million overall subscribers of which 0.86 million subscribers on iOS and on 31 of December 2024 the subscriber numbers were 2.72 million of which 0.82 million on iOS. The growth rate for iOS subscribers since 31 March 2025 is equivalent to 16%. Rishit Jhunjhunwala, Truecaller's CEO, said, "I am pleased to see that more and more users see the value of becoming premium users. In the last couple of years we have improved and simplified our premium offering significantly. Our premium users today get many valuable products like our AI-Assistant, advanced spam blocking opportunities and fraud insurance, to mention a few. From January, our premium users on iOS now also get the Live Caller ID solution. Our strategy on iOS and optimization of the product and conversion, starts to show a promising trend. Our family package, where you can include up to four more family members in the premium package and get a discounted price, has also seen encouraging growth." Fredrik Kjell, Truecaller's COO, said, "We will continue to elevate the subscription offering by adding even better services and providing more tools to improve our users' communication experience. The achieved milestones are definitely a step in the right direction but our ambitions go well beyond having 3 million subscribers. The upside to our revenues from growing the number of subscribers is substantial as premium users generate substantially higher revenue per user." For more information, please contact: Andreas Frid, Head of IR & Communication+46 705 29 08 About Truecaller: Truecaller (TRUE B) is the leading global platform for verifying contacts and blocking unwanted communication. We enable safe and relevant conversations between people and make it efficient for businesses to connect with consumers. Fraud and unwanted communication are endemic to digital economies. especially in emerging markets. We are on a mission to build trust in communication. Truecaller is an essential part of everyday communication for more than 450 million active users. Truecaller is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm since 8 October 2021. For more information please visit This information was brought to you by Cision The following files are available for download: Subscription PR 250602 4157447_0.png 4157447_1.png View original content: SOURCE Truecaller AB Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Phone Arena
4 days ago
- Business
- Phone Arena
Sony Xperia 1 VII review: great hardware...
Another year rolls by, another new Xperia comes out to try its hand in the high-end smartphone market. The Sony Xperia 1 VII continues the valued tradition of Xperia phones — high-end camera specs, slim body, and no hardware element omitted. The good old headphone jack is still here, the microSD card slot is not a thing of the past, and the true zoom camera is even zoomier. Alongside some camera upgrades, we have the new Snapdragon chip — of course — and the return of fan-favorite hardware shutter button. There is some bad news, though. For one, the Xperia 1 VII is not coming to the States. Secondly, it's pretty pricey wherever it does launch. In Europe, it'll cost you €1,499 — that's a big bill! Is it worth it? The Sony Xperia 1 VII scores pretty well for its price class in design, display quality, and performance. It lags behind in photo and video quality, as long as software update commitment and reputation so far. The Price Class Average score is there to help you quickly identify how it compares to its peers in the premium flagship phone area! Here's an overview of the newest Xperia 1 VII and how it compares to the predecessor: The Xperia phones barely change shape and size, but you won't find us complaining about that. They are slim, elegant, with thin bezels and grippy frames. The Xperia 1 VII is no exception. There are ribbed accents running across the aluminum frame, making it extremely easy to grip, the Gorilla Glass back has fine dimples all over, giving it a unique feel, and the forehead and chin around the display on the front are extremely thin, considering they hold front-firing stereo speakers. The right frame of the phone holds a volume rocker, a power buton with an extremely fast fingerprint scanner, and the two-step shutter button. This is not a sensor-equipped camera button like Apple recently started to make them — it's a classic camera key that feels just right and is placed where you'd expect one to be on a camera. The three colors, Sony official image It comes in three colors — Moss Green, Orchid Purple, Slate Black. The green and purple ones look quite fun, and we'd be lying if we said we aren't slightly disappointed that our test unit is the black one. That being said, we also can't deny that it looks incredibly stylish and elegant. Box contents? What's that? OK, some good news and some bad news here. The bad news is that, by default, the Xperia 1 VII comes with a lot of nothing inside the box. Phone and cable — that's it. The good news is that, in some markets, you can order it now bundled with the excellent Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones. That'll surely help that salty price tag go down easier. Sony does place a lot of importance on its display quality — it's proud to market the Xperia phones as devices for visual content creators. The OLED panel comes out with saturated, punchy colors out of the box, but if you want to tone them down and go "realistic" — pick Creator Mode. It looks soft on the eyes, the colors turn mature and lifelike and it's great not only for editing video but general long sessions on the a 120 Hz panel, of course. Unlike other manufacturers, Sony doesn't flaunt "peak brightness" numbers, which often means nothing. But that's fine, we usually do our own measurements. Here they are: 20% APL measures screen brightness when about 20% of the pixels are firing at full instead of having a white image over the entire screen. Basically, it more closely simulates looking at actual images or video, and a result north of 2000 nits is excellent here. We are also pleasantly surprised by the minimium brightness this time around — 1 nit or below is optimal for bedtime use. You will also notice that color reproduction drifts much less than the other expensive flagships shown here. Despite its impressive hardware, the Xperia 1 VII didn't quite score as high as other flagships on our camera test. Common issues were inconsistent exposure, some visible sharpening artifacts, no HDR preview, and no super stabilization solutions for video (though there is an AI mode to follow subjects in action). Let's get out of the lab and take some photos out in the real world: Sony prides itself in making exceptional sensors (most smartphones out there use Sony sensors), and for years it wanted Xperias to deliver "natural" photos and let the user do the post editing on their own — like they would with pro cameras. But that method didn't work out, the reality is that small phone sensors and small lenses can only lift so much of the weight. Expert work needs to be done by software after the shutter has been pressed — companies like Google, Samsung, and Apple are well known to have excellent post-processing. Sony has recently buckled — it stopped including 3 different pro camera apps in the Xperias and put extra work into the auto mode of the one Camera app. But it's visible it's a bit behind in the game. For example — the bird in sample 3 became doubled due to the HDR algorithm not stithching the images together properly (or maybe the shutter was too slow?). That's an issue we haven't seen in years, and only expect to spot on entry level phones nowadays. Sample 4 looks extremely weird with the leaves in the background that are out of focus — they look way too hazy. The zoom may be optical, but at 5x and beyond looks soft and noisy. The good news is that the ultra-wide camera does take great photos. Apparently, the lens isn't exactly... ultra-wide, it shows as 0.7x in the app. By our calculations it should be something like 0.65x by smartphone standards. In any case, the lens itself has distortion correction in its design, so very little software work is required. And it's visible — ultra-wide shots look epic and crispy, even towards the edge of the photo. The Bokeh mode (Sony's Portrait mode) is pretty unconvincing and we strayed away from it. And the selfie camera is OK? A bit overexposed and with some pink-ish cast thrown in there. In general, the camera may have super-impressive hardware and may produce OK images... but OK is not good enough for a €1,499 phone. Don't you wish we had some PlayStation expertise here? No surprise that the Xperia 1 VII uses the Snapdragon 8 Elite — pretty much the best CPU you can get on an Android phone right now. Built on a 3 nm process, it's fast and powerful and does demand good thermal management. The Xperia 1 VII has that, trading punches with the Galaxy S25 Ultra on the benchmarks. And in real life? It's a snappy demon! On par with modern smartphones, the Xperia 1 VII hits 3,000 and above on Geekbench — you know, the casual beast. It scrolls through and opens apps as fast as the modern competition, no complaints! GPU Performance And in the graphics department, you can definitely enjoy those modern titles that are launching right now — Delta Force, Warframe, what a time to be alive! Sony Xperia 1 VII Software The Xperia 1 VII is coming with Android 15 out of the box. The user interface is pretty "vanilla" with only minor Sony improvements on top. For example, the quick toggles menu doesn't have these huge, ridiculous Wi-Fi and Bluetooth buttons that modern Android has — Sony kept the clean small buttons from before. And there's the sidebar handle which also has quick toggles and shortcuts to your favorite apps. Sony promises 4 years of Android updates with 6 years of security patches this time around, which is an improvement over the 2 / 4 year commitments of the past. Still, how fast those updates come to the flagship Xperia also matters. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Other than that, the software is pretty clean of any AI shenanigans. You've got Gemini, so it's all up to Google. The only place you will find AI is in a new camera mode for subject following. And it's arguable that the phone needs AI for that since they've been doing it for years now, but I digress. The Xperia 1 VII is quite compact by today's standards but still rocks a 5,000 mAh battery. And, speaking of standards — it performs comfortably, with an endurance somewhere between the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL and Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. It doesn't charge back extremely fast — about 50% in half an hour, and you need an hour and a half on the wire for a full charge. This is not bad time, not at all, but if you are spoiled by a current flagship that can get 50% in 10 minutes, you will find yourself needing to plan charging sessions ahead of time. I USB-C a microSD card tray on the right there The haptics are pretty great — quick, accurate, but a bit subtle. They work great as feedback when interacting with the phone, but not amazing for vibration when the phone is ringing through thick layers of clothing. The sound through the front-facing speakers gets decently loud and has a surprising amount of bass. They can be a bit muddy in the mids out of the box, but activating the Dolby Sound option from the settings cleans that up proper. In general, among the better-sounding smartphone speakers out there for sure, but not quite the best (crown still belongs to the old ROG Phone 7). The Sony Xperia 1 VII is not a bad phone. On the contrary — it's pretty good. The design and feel in the hand is great. The bloat-less software is a breath of fresh air as ever. The screen is good and the speakers are well above decent. And you get a headphone jack and microSD card slot, which are considered luxury nowadays. There are two points that make this phone hard to recommend. One is the price — £1,399 / €1,499 for 256 GB is quite the asking price. Yeah, sure, some markets get the Xperia 1 VII bundled with Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones, which are excellent and quite expensive on their own. But what if you don't want the headphones or don't get them in your area? Secondly, the one serious selling point of this phone is the camera. And, sorry, but it's just not that fantastic. It's OK, but I wouldn't recommend an OK camera phone for €1,499.
