The September 2018 Apple event is all about the iPhone X, as the company reveals not one, not two, but three versions of the smartphone-- the "standard" iPhone XS, ultra-large iPhone XS Max and the more affordable iPhone XR.

While more iterative than revolutionary, the three iPhone X models run on the A12 Bionic, the first Apple SoC built using a 7nm processor. It promises a 15% increase in speed when running CPU tasks over the A11 Bionic, a 50% boost in GPU tasks and 50% less power consumption. Also seeing an increase is the number of cores (from 2 to 8), with a "Neural Engine" allowing features such as smart HDR, expressive Memoji and front/rear camera AR experiences.

Gartner reports a smartphone market first-- Huawei beats Apple in terms of sales on Q2 2018, making it to 2nd place by selling 49.8 million handsets to end users in the quarter.

"Huawei’s smartphone sales grew 38.6% Y-o-Y in Q2 2018. Huawei continues to bring innovative features into its smartphones and expand its smartphone portfolio to cover larger consumer segments," the analyst says. "Its investment into channels, brand building and positioning of the Honor devices helped drive sales. Huawei is shipping its Honor smartphones into 70 markets worldwide and is emerging as Huawei’s key growth driver."

Xiaomi launches a budget-focused sub-brand dubbed Poco together with the F1-- a smartphone offering flagship specs, such as a Snapdragon 845 processor, with a mid-tier $300 pricetag.

Initially aimed at the Indian market, the F1 is clearly designed as a OnePlus 6 rival. It features a 6.18-inch 1080p display with an 18:7:9 aspect ratio, Qualcomm Adreno 630 GPU, 6/8GB RAM, 64/128/256GB storage, 20MP front-facing camera, rear-facing 12/5MP dual-camera array and a big 4000mAh battery, making it more advanced than other mid-tier Xiaomi devices such as the RedMi 6A.

The OS is Android 8.1 Oreo with a MIUI skin, and connectivity comes via USB-C port as well as wifi and Bluetooth 5.0. The body features water cooling, and Xiaomi includes a full complement of security features with a fingerprint sensor and face unlock.

Samsung uses the Unpacked 2018 event to launch the next flagship Note-- the Galaxy Note 9, offering what are arguably the best specs for an Android device yet, together with a bigger display and S Pen stylus.

As one might expect, the Galaxy Note 9 is an oversized device with a 6.4-inch SuperAMOLED 2960 x 1440 resolution display. It does not have a notch, since the front-facing 8MP camera resides within a traditional bezel. Inside are a Snapdragon 845 processor with an optimised GPU, 6/8GB RAM, 128/512GB storage (expandable via microSD slot), rear-facing 12MP dual-camera array and a 4000mAh battery Samsung claims allows for all-day use. The OS of choice is Android 8.1 Oreo with the usual selection of Samsung additions, such as Samsung Pay and the Bixby assistant.