Android Circuit: Galaxy Z Fold8 Success, Xiaomi 18 Fold Preview, Retroid Pocket 6 Upgrade

Taking a look back at this week's news and headlines across the Android world, including Galaxy Z Fold8 Success, Xiaomi 18 Fold Preview, Pixel 11 Pro Tensor Benchmarks, Qualcomm's Neural Fusion, what if Nokia chose Android, and Retroid Pocket 6 testing.

Android Circuit is here to remind you of a few of the many discussions around Android in the last seven days. You can also read my weekly digest of Apple news here on Forbes .

Galaxy Z Fold8 Finds Sales Success

Introduced in July as one of the most high-profile wide foldable smartphones, the Galaxy Z Fold8 is seeing strong demand across the board. Android Headlines' Alexander Markham reports that South Korean company is redirecting parts and components from other product lines to maintain the availability of the Fold.

"The Galaxy Z Fold 8's unexpectedly high demand has created a shortage of the Display Driver IC chip that controls the phone's OLED display, forcing Samsung to redirect DDI inventory from other products and ask manufacturer UMC to prioritize production through its highest-priority process, with the situation potentially complicating component planning for the Galaxy S27 series launching in about six months."

Xiaomi 18 Fold Preview

The Xiaomi 18 Fold will launch next week, and the company has offered a quick official tease, showing the new colorway and the widescreen internal display, matching the Galaxy Z Fold8 and the upcoming iPhone Ultra. GSM Arena has more :

"The phone is seen with a triple rear camera setup and an LED flash housed inside a horizontal, pill-shaped camera module. It also sports large rounded corners and slim display bezels. The Xiaomi 18 Fold is confirmed to feature a 5.38-inch cover screen and a 7.58-inch inner foldable display."

The Tensor G6 Yardstick For The Pixel 11 Pro

Google continues to use its own silicon design in the Pixel family. The Tensor series is promoted as eschewing straightforward power in favour of AI features and a smoother UI. NotebookCheck has analysed the benchmarking coming from Chinese publication Geekerwan to offer context of Google's chip design against the competition:

"Geekerwan summarized the results by placing the Tensor G6's CPU efficiency roughly in line with that of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and its GPU efficiency closer to that of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. This puts it a few years behind current flagship silicon from Qualcomm and Apple. The Kirin 9030 Pro's near parity in efficiency with the Tensor G5 is notable, given that it uses an older, less dense process than the 3nm chips against which it is plotted."

Qualcomm's Latest AI Silicon Optimisation

Staying with chipsets, Qualcomm has announced the Adreno Neural Fusion accelerator . GPUs have typically been used to support AI processing throughout consumer electronics. Offering strong on-device AI processing demands it, and Qualcomm is ready to deliver an optimized system that deals with AI and other GPU demands for 2027:

"Adreno Neural Fusion is an AI-driven rendering technology that combines neural processing, AI super resolution and frame generation into a unified graphics pipeline. Designed to transform how scenes are rendered and enhanced, it helps games deliver higher visual quality while reducing rendering costs and power consumption."

Retroid Pocket 6's 4 GB Difference

Retroid's latest Android-powered gaming deck, the Pocket 6, comes in both 8 GB and 12 GB flavours. How much difference does 4 GB of memory make? The Bryant Review takes a look at the impact to find out. While the retro games beloved by owners are comfortable with either, the extra memory benefits are clear with native Android titles:

""Some heavier 3D games will not be able to run with 8 GB of memory," he told me. Witcher 3 is one example: Utkarsh says it works fine on the 12GB RP6, but may struggle or fail to work altogether on the 8GB model. That's not necessarily because the game itself needs 12GB of RAM. PC emulation adds its own overhead, meaning a game that might run perfectly well on a PC with 6GB or 8GB can have very different requirements when you're trying to run it through an emulation layer on Android."

And Finally...

An interesting 'what if' discussion over Nokia on Reddit this week . Nokia moved from Symbian to Windows Phone, while Samsung moved from Symbian to Android. What would have happened if both moved to Android? Let the debate begin:

"How you know, Nokia is just a brand that's used on some very low-end phones. But it was once synonymous with quality. Its downfall began when they decided, after abandoning Symbian, to put Windows Phone on their phones. The hardware was excellent, but the chosen ecosystem proved to be a losing proposition. But if they had immediately chosen Android, would they be a brand today on par with Samsung, Motorola, etc.?"

Android Circuit rounds up the news from the Android world every weekend here on Forbes. Don't forget to follow me so you don't miss any coverage in the future, and of course, read the sister column in Apple Loop ! Last week's Android Circuit can be found here , and if you have any news and links you'd like to see featured in Android Circuit, get in touch!

This article was originally published on Forbes.com