Mats Hellqvist
Chinese OnePlus 11 apparently regionally locked
The OnePlus 11 is currently selling like hot cakes. As a consequence, fans of OnePlus cell phones are currently also looking at other markets, but that doesn’t always go well. A region-locked OnePlus 11 has appeared on the Russian 4PDA forum. Said phone came from China and worked fine for about two weeks. After that, a message appeared which roughly translated means: “You are using a regionally modified phone. Its calling functions are limited in your region. Please contact customer service for assistance.”
After that, the affected OnePlus 11 has limited its calling functionality. It’s unclear if cellular data was also affected. The 4PDA community then started searching and found the app TeleService.apk (com.android.phone) as the trigger for the alert. The codes of the regions in which the region-locking behavior is triggered were found in the configuration files. However, it seems that the restrictions only apply when using a Chinese device in one of the listed markets. The list is quite long and linked below. It includes India, Italy, Russia and Brazil, among others.
But there is also good news. The community found a string in the OplusEngineerNetwork.apk. This suggests that you might be able to unlock the region lock with a 16-digit unlock code. Presumably this code can be obtained on a per-device basis through OnePlus Support. At least if the support is willing to unlock OnePlus smartphones bought through third-party rather than official Chinese channels.
Nokia G22 popped up on Geekbench
A mysterious, yet unannounced smartphone called the Nokia G22 has appeared in the GeekBench database. Judging by the few technical data that came to light, it is not a big upgrade compared to the predecessor Nokia G21. GeekBench reports fairly low single and multi-core scores from an unnamed 8-core Unisoc chipset clocked at 1.61 GHz.
According to GeekBench, the Nokia G22 has 4 GB of RAM on board and runs on Android 12. So the Nokia smartphone should at least get the upgrade to Android 13. The G21, on the other hand, could possibly see its last update with Android 13 since it was introduced with Android 11. Nokia parent company HMD is currently offering software updates for two years.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: S Pen backwards does not hurt
As has been the case since the Samsung Galaxy Note7, the same applies to the new top model, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: the S Pen can also be pushed backwards into the housing. At least you can try that – after a short distance there is a clear resistance. This will not damage the pen or the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
The last time reverse insertion of a stylus was a real problem was in 2015. That’s when the Galaxy Note5 launched with a design flaw that actually allowed the S Pen to be inserted backwards. To make matters worse, a small catch prevented the stylus from ever coming out of the Samsung smartphone again.
