Tag Archives: Smartphones

This Modded Android Phone Runs The Witcher 3 at 1080p Ultra Settings

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The boundary between a smartphone and a desktop computer has been narrowing for years. Modern flagship phones carry processor configurations, RAM capacities, and GPU performance that would have qualified as desktop territory not long ago. Most of the time, that hardware sits underutilized inside a slim glass slab, throttled by thermals the moment any sustained workload asks it to perform at its actual ceiling.

One modder decided to find out what a flagship Android phone such as the nubia Z70 Ultra could actually do if thermal throttling was removed from the equation. The answer involved relocating the screen to the front of a custom acrylic case and sandwiching the phone itself between two desktop-grade CPU coolers with direct contact against the Snapdragon chip’s shielding. The result doesn’t fit neatly into any existing product category.

Designer: ntsow

The Nubia Z70 Ultra carries a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor with a maximum clock speed of 4.32 GHz and 24 GB of RAM. Removing the screen was the key step: the CPU coolers need direct access to the chip’s shielding for full thermal contact, so the display had to migrate to the outside of the case. A power bank handles the energy supply, completing the self-contained build.

On the software side, the build runs a full XFCE Linux desktop through Termux with GPU acceleration, layering Windows application support on top via Wine and Box64. The Android system remains fully intact underneath, making the device simultaneously a phone, a Linux workstation, and a Windows gaming machine. The stated end goal is one device that handles everything, including native Linux work and full Windows game support.

The cooling changes what the hardware is capable of sustaining. In 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme Stress Test, the modified phone achieved 99% stability across 20 loops, outperforming the newer Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, Apple A19 Pro, and Dimensity 9500 on the consistency metric. That sustained performance is the point: most mobile chips can briefly hit impressive scores, but they thermal-throttle within minutes under continuous load.

The Witcher 3 runs at 1080p with Ultra graphics settings, hitting 20 to 30 fps and occasionally exceeding 30 fps when the phone operates in its maximum-performance overclocking mode. The Adreno GPU runs at 99% utilization during those sessions, and the build connects to an external monitor with keyboard and mouse support for a genuine desktop gaming setup. For an Android phone, the performance is difficult to dismiss.

What the build demonstrates is less about running The Witcher 3 at any particular resolution and more about how far the gap between a phone and a desktop has actually closed. Adequate cooling was the only thing separating the Snapdragon 8 Elite from sustained desktop-class workloads. The question the project raises isn’t whether phones can replace PCs but how much work remains before the hardware inside them can already handle it.

The post This Modded Android Phone Runs The Witcher 3 at 1080p Ultra Settings first appeared on Yanko Design.

This $549 QWERTY Android Phone Was Built to Give You Your Day Back

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Smartphones have never been smarter, but they’ve also never been more demanding. Bigger screens, algorithmic feeds, and relentless notifications aren’t design oversights. They’re deliberate, built to keep you engaged for as long as possible. The prevailing logic is that longer screen time is better, and most phones are optimized around that, pulling you back in every time you try to put them down.

The Minimal Phone 2 is a different kind of proposition. It’s a modern 5G Android phone built around the opposite idea: that a phone should serve you and then get out of the way. It pairs a compact AMOLED display with a full physical QWERTY keyboard and a custom OS called Minimal OS, designed to make daily interactions faster, more deliberate, and less compulsive.

Designer: Armen Youssefian

Click here to Buy Now: $599 $699 ($100 off). Hurry, only 657/1000 left! Raised over $1,009,000.

The keyboard is the phone’s most striking feature, and also its most considered. It’s a full QWERTY board integrated directly into the phone, about 69mm wide, with backlit keys whose legends are laser-etched into the keycap surface rather than printed on top, so they won’t fade with use. Each row fans outward slightly, and the keycaps are sculpted to guide your thumbs naturally.

What a physical keyboard really changes is the relationship between picking up your phone and doing something on it. When the keyboard is always there, typing becomes the default instinct instead of scrolling. You reach for the phone with something in mind, do it, and put it down. That shift sounds subtle, but over the course of a day, it changes how the device feels.

Minimal OS reinforces that instinct with its command bar, which lets you do most things without opening an app at all. Start with a symbol, type what you want, and the OS handles the rest. Typing “@jason on my way” sends a text. Typing “#lauren” places a call. A hyphen adds a to-do, an asterisk creates a calendar event, and an exclamation mark saves a note.

Communication is pulled together in something called the Minimal Hub. Swipe right from the home screen, and you get a single, unified list of everything that’s come in: emails from every account, texts, missed calls, voicemails, and calendar invitations. You can read and reply without opening a separate app, which makes a full inbox feel like clearing a short list rather than bouncing between five different places.

Two quieter features round out the software side. The Activity Bar puts 24 dots on the home screen, one per hour. Each turns white when your time stays focused, and red when the hour slips into social apps or media. The notification LED lets you assign colors and patterns to specific contacts and apps, so a glance at your desk tells you what’s actually waiting.

The hardware underneath makes it a credible daily driver. A 3.92-inch AMOLED at 1080×1240 pixels and 90Hz, a MediaTek Dimensity 8300 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB or 512GB of storage make up the core. Connectivity covers 5G, Wi-Fi 6E, and NFC. The rear camera is 50MP, the front has a 20MP shooter, and there’s both 27W wired and 15W wireless charging, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The phone sits in an aluminum frame measuring 122.6mm x 72mm x 9.48mm, in three finishes. Pearl is a brushed light alloy in a warm off-white. Onyx is an anodized alloy in a deep near-black. Ember is an anodized minimal orange, offered as a launch exclusive. The design language is restrained throughout, with nothing calling for attention except the keyboard, which announces itself plainly.

What’s interesting about the Minimal Phone 2 is that its restraint doesn’t feel punishing. It still runs full Android, so banking apps, navigation, music, and messaging are all there. What changes is how you arrive at them. Rather than a phone that sprawls into your day uninvited, this one waits to be needed, which in a landscape of devices competing for attention, feels unusual.

Click here to Buy Now: $599 $699 ($100 off). Hurry, only 657/1000 left! Raised over $1,009,000.

The post This $549 QWERTY Android Phone Was Built to Give You Your Day Back first appeared on Yanko Design.