The week past had its fair share of personal technology headlines, from WhatsApp finally gaining a dark mode (albeit in beta) to Samsung launching two of its ‘affordable' premium smartphones in the country – the Galaxy Note 10 Lite and Galaxy S10 Lite. The Oppo F15 – a mid-ranger from the Chinese smartphone company – went on sale in India this week, while Qualcomm used India as the setting for the launch of its new budget and mid-range smartphone processors. Xiaomi and HMD Global's Nokia brand also made headlines this week when the two companies cut prices of popular smartphones in their lineup, namely the Mi A3, Redmi K20 Pro, Redmi Go, Nokia 7.2, and Nokia 6.2. Read on for all the top tech news of the week past.
WhatsApp dark mode finally available
Facebook[1]-owned WhatsApp[2] this week launched its ‘dark' theme[3], the much-awaited new feature. In a world where most apps now offer a dark mode, WhatsApp was one of the holdouts, despite being used by more than a billion people globally. Apart from being easier on the eyes in low-light environments, a dark mode would also be useful in extending battery life of your device if it features an OLED display panel.
In a beta build for Android, the company has introduced the dark theme within settings. To use the feature, you will need to install the Android beta via the Google Play Beta testing programme[4]. If you're unable to register for the programme, another method is sideloading the latest beta via APK Mirror[5]. The feature was first spotted this week in v2.20.13, but dark mode can be observed in later beta builds as well – such as v2.20.16....