Author: Sushant Talwar

Le Max Pro vs Xiaomi Mi 5 : Will the Real Flagship Killer Please Stand Up

Xiaomi with its announcement of the Xiaomi Mi 5 at events in Beijing and Barcelona today has come to lay claim on the title of being 2016’s biggest flagship killer. The handset which took Xiaomi two years to develop comes with mouth-watering specs at an affordable price point of RMB 1,999(Approx Rs 21,000).

Xiaomi with the MI 5 will look to eat up into the market share of upcoming flagships such as the LG G5 and Samsung Galaxy S7 when they finally hit Indian markets. But before it can officially take up the mantle of being this year’s best bang for buck flagship killer, it will face tough competition closer to home from the new kid on the block, Le Eco, which only yesterday announced the sale of its Le Max Pro handset for the same price in China.

So time to find out which of these two is the real flagship slayer of 2016. Let the battle begin.

What’s Under the hood?

The Le Max Pro became the world’s first Snapdragon 820 smartphone to go on sale after 1000 units were made available for purchase yesterday to customers in China, and as expected was quite quickly lapped up by the “Superfans” of the “Superphone”.

The Le Max Pro comes to the party equipped with a pretty impressive specs. It sports a 6.33-inch display with QHD resolution which is a massive upgrade over the Xiaomi Mi 5’s 5.15-inch Full HD display, but both the phones find common ground when it comes to the Snapdragon 820 SoC that runs the show for both these devices.The Le Max Pro comes with 4GB of RAM and 64 GB of flash memory while the Mi 5 brings to the table 3GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage.

The Le Max Pro has a slight advantage when it comes to the 3,400mAh battery when compared to the 3000mAh battery pack inside Xiaomi’s offering. Both the phones can be charged through a USB Type-C port and also feature fingerprint scanners come running Android 6.0 Marshmallow with their company’s respective skins out of the box.

Camera

Camera’s on both the phones are pretty impressive. While Le Max has gone the traditional way and overloaded the specsheet with details about high megapixel count of the phone, Xiaomi has gone ahead and like most big names of the industry has looked towards real world performance in place for extra megapixels to brag about.

Le Max comes with an able a 21MP sensor for the back of the phone which is expected to take good pictures and a 4MP sensor for the front while Xiaomi has sports a 16-megapixel rear sensor that uses Sony IMX298 with important additions such as PDAF, DTI image enhancements and 4-axis OIS. The front features a 4-megapixel UltraPixel camera which is also expected to better than the Le Max Pro.

Design

The Le Max Pro features a bezel-less, full metal unibody design made completely out of aircraft grade aluminum which the company claims is highly durable. It also comes with the world’s first full-floating glass made by Sharp exclusively for LeEco. Because of its size, the phone feels big in the hand and one handed operation is difficult.

Coming to the Mi 5, it draws inspiration from the Mi Note in terms of design. The Mi 5 introduces a home button that houses the fingerprint scanner – a first for Xiaomi. The back features a curved edge with a 3D glass body. Meanwhile, the Pro variant comes with a 3D ceramic back. The front features an almost bezel just 6.95mm thick, seamless design and more curved than the Mi Note. The curved ceramic back seamlessly joins the glass on the front.

Specs	Le Max Pro	Xiaomi Mi 5
Display	6.33-inch display with QHD	5.1.5-inch screen Full HD display
Resolution	2560 x 1440	1920×1080
Dimensions	167.10 x 83.50 x 8.90	69.20 x 144.55 x 7.25mm
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 820	Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Processor
GPU	Adreno 530	Adreno 530
RAM	4GB	3GB
Storage	64GB	32GB
Rear Camera	21 MP Sensor	16MP Sony IMX298, PDAF, 4-axis OIS and f/2.0
Front Camera	4 MP	4MP UltraPixel
Expandability	N/A	N/A
Battery	3,400mAh	3000mAh battery Quick Charge 3.0
Connectivity	USB Type-C, 4G+, Wi-Fi 802.11ad, VoLTE, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot, Bluetooth v4.1, A-GPS, GLONASS, NFC	4G+, Wi-Fi 802.11ad, VoLTE, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot, Bluetooth v4.1, A-GPS, GLONASS, NFC,
OS	Android 6.0 Marshmallow	Android 6.0 Marshmallow with MIUI 7
Price	RMB 1,999 (Rs 21000)	RMB 1,999 (Rs 21,000)

February 24, 2016

Xiaomi Announces Mi 4s in China

Ahead of the Mi 5 launch, Xiaomi’s today announced the Mi 4s in Beijing, China. The Mi 4s is the successor to the Mi 4i with its great design, and decent under the hood specification.

The Mi 4s comes with cool looking glass panels on the front and back with a metal frame in the middle holding the glass panels together. The front of the phone is dominated by a 5-inch Full HD(1920×1080) resolution display.

Under the hood, the Mi 4s comes packing a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 chipset paired with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of storage space. On the back is a 13 megapixel camera with PDAF and two-tone LED flash. There’s also a fingerprint sensor on the phone for users looking for added security. Powering the phone will be a 3260mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 support.

The phone comes with support for 4G+ with VoLTE and USB Type-C. It comes running a MIUI 7 on top of Android out of the box. It is powered by a 3260mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 support.

The 64GB model is priced at 1699 Chinese Yuan (Approx Rs 18,000). It will be available in black, white, gold, and pink.

February 24, 2016
Meizu Drops Plans to Develop a Pro 5 Mini Device

Latest reports coming out of China reveal that the Meizu has dropped plans of developing a skimmed 4.7-inch mini version of the Meizu Pro 5 which was expected to come to the markets in the upcoming months. This particular news was confirmed by none other than the Chinese company’s founder and CEO Huang Zhang on popular social networking website Sina-Weibo.

Zhang revealed the reason behind this change of plans was is the recent earthquake in Taiwan which has significantly affected their manufacturing and supply chain and has lead to most of the company’s inventory being damaged. Hanging on to the Pro 5 mini would have delayed the device beyond acceptable limits so they decided to ditch the project altogether.

He revealed that they tried their best to keep the device alive, but in the end decided against it as hanging on to the Pro 5 mini would have resulted in massive delays which would have been beyond acceptable limits. Zhang further revealed Meizu will now focus on developing and perfecting the Pro 6 instead.

Source

February 24, 2016
Sony Says No to Z6, to be Replaced by X Series

The Japanese tech company has confirmed today that it will indeed be calling curtains on the much loved Xperia Z series replacing it with the new Xperia X range of devices.The company’s German arm disseminated this information to its loyal customer base on Facebook through comments in response to questions posted about the Z6 on its official page.

The German arm of Sony in the comments revealed to users that there won’t be a flagship Z6 device but that mantle would rather be taken up by the new X series devicesReplying to a question about the arrival of the Z6, the Sony team said, “A Z6 will not exist. The new X series is under a modified concept that meets the needs of our users even more accessible.”

The X Performance which will be the new flagship for Sony this year sports a 5-inch 1080p Full HD display and is powered by Snapdragon 820. The device, which is the bigger of the three has a premium metal finish with a rectangular chasis and rounded edges and a 2.5D curved glass on top. The X Performance comes with a 23MP rear camera with a Predictive Hybrid Autofocus, 5x Clear Image Zoom and ISO 12800 sensitivity, and a 13MP selfie shooter.

The Xperia X and XA also feature Predictive Hybrid Autofocus tech that offers motion tracking. The mid-range devices are powered by the Snapdragon 650 hexa-core processor, run on Android 5.0 Lollipop and come with a 2.5D curved glass on the front and a metallic rear for a premium feel.

February 24, 2016

Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge to Launch in India Early March Starting Rs 55,000

In latest news, sources close to Samsung, who have been accurate in the past, state to iGyaan that the long wait for Indian customers for the recently launched Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge is finally going to come to an end as the South Korean tech giant’s premium offerings will make their way across to Indian shores around mid March, 2016.

The sources further revealed the pricing details of the upcoming set of phones which will start retailing in the country at Rs 55,000 for the regular Galaxy S7, while the more premium Galaxy S7 edge with a curved display and bigger battery will hit stores with a price tag of Rs 64,000 in Indian markets.

Coming to the specs, The S7 is equipped with a Super AMOLED display with QHD resolution. Two SoC configurations are offered here– one being the new Exynos 8890 and the other being Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820. The device comes with 4GB of RAM and upto 64GB of internal storage as well as a MicroSD card slot this time around and the battery is bumped upto 3000mAh. A fingerprint sensor is housed in the home button.

The S7 Edge comes with a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display with QHD resolution. The same SoC configuration as in the Galaxy S7 powers the device along with 4GB RAM and a maximum of 64GB storage. Importantly, the battery on the S7 edge has also been bumped upto a respectable 3600mAh battery pack.

On the camera front, Samsung this year has tried to take its camera up a notch which is why it’s using a new Britecell technology for the Galaxy S7 for better low-light photography. Both the S7 and S7 Edge feature ‘Dual Pixel’ cameras with a 12MP with f/1.7 aperture rear camera and a 5MP front. Samsung has boasted of exceptional low-light captures with the Galaxy S7 devices and it may just dominate the camera department once again this year.

Specs	Galaxy S7	Galaxy S7 Edge
Display	5.1-inch Super AMOLED QHD display	5.5-inch curved AMOLED QHD display
Resolution	2560 x 1440 pixels	2560 x 1440 pixels
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Processor/ Exynos 8890	Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Processor/ Exynos 8890
GPU	Adreno 530	Adreno 530
RAM	4GB	4GB
Storage	32GB/ 64GB	32GB/ 64GB
Rear Camera	Dual Pixel 12MP with f/1.7 aperture	Dual Pixel 12MP with f/1.7 aperture
Front Camera	Dual Pixel 5MP	Dual Pixel 5MP
Expandability	via MicroSD	via MicroSD
Battery	3000mAh battery	3600mAh battery
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot, Bluetooth v4.1, A-GPS, GLONASS, NFC	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot, Bluetooth v4.1, A-GPS, GLONASS, NFC
OS	Android 6.0 Marshmallow	Android 6.0 Marshmallow
Price	RS 55,000	Rs 64,000

February 24, 2016

OPPO Unveils 15-Minute Flash Charge and SmartSensor at MWC 2016

Oppo, fresh off its major milestone of achieving 50 million smartphone sales in 2015 is looking to capitalise on its good work and has presented today Smart Sensor image stabilization and Super VOOC Flash Charge technologies for smartphones at Mobile World Congress 2016.

OPPO, as it seems, has made a significant dent in the problem of slow charging of batteries by the introduction of Super VOOC Flash Charge technology. Super VOOC Flash Charge is a marked improvement over 2014’s VOOC Flash Charge tech. The new offering from OPPO takes things to another level by promising 10 hours of talk time with only five minutes of charging, and filling a 2500 mAh battery in only 15 minutes, a never-before-seen speed, as claimed by OPPO.

“With our commitment to equipping consumers with the best technology, OPPO invests great efforts in technological innovation,” said Mr. Sky Li, OPPO Global Vice-President, Managing Director of International Mobile Business and President of OPPO India. “We are excited to share these breakthrough technologies with the world at MWC 2016 — they’re the result of our commitment to listening to consumers and valuing their feedback to create more delightful user experiences for them in the future.”

Super VOOC Flash Charge uses a 5V low-voltage pulse-charge algorithm, ensuring a low-temperature charge that’s safe for the battery and dynamically regulating the current to charge the phone in the shortest time possible. Super VOOC Flash Charge supports Micro USB or type-C interfaces, in line with the global standard.

SmartSensor Image Stabilization: The first ever sensor-based, pixel-level optical image stabilizer

According to OPPS claims, OPPO’s SmartSensor which relies on groundbreaking MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical system), is the first-ever sensor-based solution for smartphones, as well as the smallest optical image stabilizer of any kind in the world.

OPPO also claims that its SmartSensor tech is better than the competition in the sense that Existing lens-based stabilizers can only correct for vibrations on two axes of motions, the pitch axis, and yaw axis, even though the most common type of unwanted shaking during photography actually takes place on the roll axis. SmartSensor solves this problem, allowing for image stabilization on three axes, pitch, yaw and the all-important roll. Making split-second adjustments with its comb-shaped monocrystalline silicon MEMS, SmartSensor achieves full three-axis image stabilization in a mere 15 milliseconds.

SmartSensor solves this problem, allowing for image stabilization on three axes, pitch, yaw and the all-important roll. Making split-second adjustments with its comb-shaped monocrystalline silicon MEMS, SmartSensor achieves full three-axis image stabilization in a mere 15 milliseconds. OPPO’s Smart Sensor is also higly efficient and as such OPPO expects it to be a hit in the coming days.

SmartSensor is the world’s first pixel-level image stabilizer, and if OPPO’s claims are to be believed making OPPO smartphones become essentially like pocket-sized SLR cameras.

February 23, 2016
Galaxy S7 Series : Samsung’s Step Towards the Future of Mobile Gaming

Samsung on the first day of the Mobile World Congress 2016 announced its new flagship, the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge phones to the world. While on the outside the phones might look very similar to their predecessors, but from the inside, the S7 series may well just be a much-awaited leap towards the future of mobile gaming.

With the Galaxy S7 phones, the company wants users to “rethink what a phone can do”. It has a vision of making mobile games look and feel as much like desktop games as possible on the Samsung Galaxy S7 mobile platform. This is an ambitious project, to say the least, and quite frankly there’s a huge difference between saying “we take games seriously” and delivering on such tall promises, but a quick look at the fancy tech that the Galaxy S7 series comes packing on both the hardware and software front sheds more light at what really Samsung has in store for mobile gamers across the globe.

Optimized for Performance

The core requirement for any graphics intensive game is raw processing power at the CPU and GPU’s end. The Samsung Galaxy S7 series phones depending on the variant availability come with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC or the Exynos 8890.

These brand new SoCs will provide more than 30 percent faster CPU processing and more than 60 percent faster GPU processing capabilities when compared to the last generation of chipsets on the Samsung phones. The SoCs on the Samsung S7 series phones are paired with 4GB of RAM for seamless performance, and the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge as a result, have decent firepower to run games available on the Play Store.

These SoCs as the company claims are going to be great at power efficiency and that working in tandem with the 3000mAh and 3600mAh battery packs on the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge will mean longer gaming sessions.

Water Cooled Systems to Rival Desktop Machines

Phones running high-end multi-core CPUs are notorious for running a bit too hot under stress, and as we know, heat is the ultimate enemy of any gaming machine. No matter the exalted processing capabilities of a phone, or beefy battery packs that they come with, if it runs hot, you game not.

Samsung in its bid to fight this menace has come up with a system that’s not new to bigger desktop machines but is groundbreaking for mobile devices. The Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are equipped with a very thin sealed copper liquid based cooling system, enabling these phones to run cool and fast without facing any CPU or GPU throttling. The system keeping the internals of the phone cool will also result in better battery life.

Vulkan API

Mobile phones benefiting from the great advancements in silicon technology over the years have become smaller, thinner and at the same time grown more powerful. The latest generation of mobile phones bring with them specs which boast of computing power at times even surpassing that of the last generation consoles such as the Xbox 360, and PS3.

Though at the hardware end the industry has been able to cram in such advanced hardware inside the miniature chassis of these phones, but on the software end, owing to many bottlenecks the industry has not been able to put the hardware at hand to optimum use and recreate the truly immersive gaming experience that is often seen on desktop systems and consoles. With the Galaxy S7 Samsung is taking the first step at changing just that.

Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are the first smartphones to utilize Vulkan: the next generation graphics API. The Vulkan API was developed by the Khronos Group using the AMD’s Mantle API as a base.The switch to Vulkan API in the future with supported games will offer users significantly better performance and lesser CPU usage in the form of increased distribution of workload on the multiple cores of the chipset. Multi-Core processing will also see the phone being far more energy efficient at the same time.

This switch to Vulkan API will further allow processing of games utilising the full power of the Octa-Deca core CPUs, in comparison to the current generation OpenGL ES API which only allowed processing of games using a single core. This will result in more graphic intensive games making its way to the mobile platform, and in real life situations unlock the true potential that mobile devices in our hand hold inside them.

Game Launcher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnzQP8MJTCk

Just to show Samsung really cares about gaming and gamers on the Galaxy S7 platform, the South Korean tech giant has brought with the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge an all new app which it fondly calls the “Game Launcher.”

It is essentially an evolution of the ” Game Tuner” already available on the last generation S6 devices, and comes with a suite of utilities and nifty tricks for improving user experience while gaming on the Galaxy S7 devices.

All games on your Galaxy S7 device will automatically be added to the Game Launcher folder and will be accessed from there for what Samsung claims will be a “better experience”, and that’s indeed what the Game Launcher really does.

A new “No Alerts” mode is added which tells the S7 to suppress all notification pop-ups so you can play uninterrupted without the fear of a notification of a SPAM mail ruining your immersive gaming experience. The Game Launcher also allows the user to lock the Recent and Back keys so that accidentally kicking yourself out of a game can be avoided.

The Game Launcher feature further allows the user to maximize game-playing time through instant downloads, shortcuts and power-saving options. In addition, it also helps you to take screenshots, record your game, scores and rankings, and share them with friends.

February 23, 2016
Apple vs FBI : Bill Gates Ditches Apple in the iPhone Encryption Case

As the plot thickens in this complex saga of privacy vs security, Apple has seen a lot of big names put their weight behind its argument but today in a change of trends, one of the biggest names that the tech industry has ever seen has come out surprisingly in open support of the FBI.

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has backed the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its legal battle against Apple over encryption in an iPhone used by one of the shooters in December’s San Bernardino attacks.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Gates dismissed the notion that Aple’s CEO Tim Cook is propagating that granting the FBI access would set a legal precedent for future cases such as this one. Bill Gates argued that the FBI is “not asking for some general thing, and is asking for a particular case.”

Adding to this, the Co-Founder of Microsoft goes on,

“It is no different than [the question of] should anybody ever have been able to tell the phone company to get information, should anybody be able to get at bank records. Let’s say the bank had tied a ribbon round the disk drive and said ‘don’t make me cut this ribbon, because you’ll make me cut it many times.’”

As it stands, Microsoft communications chief Frank X. Shaw declined to comment on Bill Gates’ comments which sees him alienating himself from other Silicon Valley top executives, such as Facebook Inc chief Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter Inc founder Jack Dorsey and Google head Sundar Pichai, who have all backed Cook’s decision, the newspaper added.

.

February 23, 2016
MediaTek Unveils Helio P20 SoC at MWC, 2016

MediaTek has announced its latest SoC for budget smartphones called the Helio P20. It will be the direct successor to the company’s Mediatek Helio P10. The new chip is built using SMC’s latest 16nm FinFET Plus (16FF+) process and the company claims, as a result, the Helio P20 will be 25% more energy efficient than its predecessor. It’s also the industry’s first SoC to support LPDDR4X, which is Samsung’s more efficient LPDDR4 RAM.

“MediaTek designed the MediaTek helio P20 to meet today’s consumer demand for sleek, powerful yet highly power efficient mobile devices,” said Jeffrey Ju, Executive Vice President and Co-Chief Operating Officer at MediaTek. “Consumers place increasing importance on the battery life and multimedia capabilities of their smartphones. MediaTek has risen to this challenge with a leading solution,” he added.

The Helio P20 is structured to come with eight Cortex-A53 cores which are the same number of cores as the last generation, but the new SoC is clocked higher at 2.3GHz owing to the move to the new manufacturing process. It also has ARM’s latest Mali-T880 GPU, but unlike the GPUs found on high-end mobiles, the GPU on the particular SoC comes with only two cores which are clocked at 900MHz, quite high for mobile GPUs.

The Helio P20 SoC is also the first SoC to support Samsung’s LPDDR4X, which according to the company provides 70 percent more bandwidth and 50 percent higher efficiency compared to LPDDR3. This is achieved by lowering the supply voltage to a low 0.6v.

The SoC uses MediaTek’s latest Image Signal Processor (ISP) which adds support for dual-phase detection autofocus significantly improving autofocus performance by upto four times compared to conventional autofocus systems.The company has revealed that phones using the Mediatek P20 could be seen as early as second half of 2016.

February 23, 2016
Acer Launches new Liquid Series Phones at MWC 2016

Acer has unveiled two new handsets at the ongoing Mobile World Congress,2016 that the company will soon be bringing to markets across the globe. Let’s take a look at what Acer has in store for us.

Acer Liquid Jade

The Acer Liquid Jade 2 comes equipped with a 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED screen. The phone also features a mammoth 21MP camera with fast autofocus and 4K video recording support at 30fps. The front-facing camera is 8MP and has 84-degree wide-angle lens

It is powered by a Snapdragon 808 chipset with hexa-core CPU and 3GB of RAM. The internal storage is 32GB and is expandable via the microSD card slot.

Acer Liquid Zest

The Liquid Zest comes in two variants 3G, and 4G. The 3G variant houses a Mediatek MT6580 chipset with a quad-core 1.3GHz CPU and comes equipped with DTS Sound Studio while the Zest 4G comes on board with a MediaTek MT6735 with a quad-core processor clocked at 1,3 GHz and upgraded DTS-HD Premium Sound.Both the variants come with the same 8MP f/2.0 main camera with autofocus and a 5MP selfie unit.

February 23, 2016
Samsung S7 Edge vs S6 Edge : What’s Changed

The Samsung Galaxy S7 edge is here, and it’s come to the party with a high-end smartphone featuring great design, premium materials and impressive under-the-hood specs. Samsung with the S7 edge has done well to listen to its user base and improve on the flaws of the last year’s S6 edge. Today we put these two up against each other, and do a quick comparison to show how much really has changed in this new handset.

Display and Design

The S7 edge has a bigger 5.5-inch form factor and comes with a QHD Super AMOLED display with a pixel density of 534 ppi compared to the 5.1-inch QHD 577 ppi screen that we saw on the S6 edge. The display though not an upgrade in terms of resolution does come as a welcome upgrade when it comes to size. To Samsung’s credit, it has managed to cut down on the screen-to-body ratio and bring a bigger display to the S7 edge without adding significantly to the phone’s dimensions.

To Samsung’s credit, it has managed to cut down on the screen-to-body ratio and bring a bigger display to the S7 edge without adding significantly to the phone’s dimensions. The phone’s display also comes with an intelligent “Always-On” feature which figures out when the phone’s display is not face down on a surface or kept in a pocket and stays lit up to show important notifications and time.

The phone also comes with more rounded edges which combined with the rounded edges at the back provides for a far better grip to the user. Samsung claims it has “made the camera nearly level in the S7 edge which carries forward the premium glass and metal design scheme of the S6 edge while incorporating IP68 waterproofing, and dust resistance, capabilities which provides safety up to 30 minutes while submerged under 1.5 metres of water to this latest iteration by sealing the metal chassis of the phone from the inside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0epWiMGAkc

Under-the-hood Specifications

The S7 edge is available in two versions with two different processors. The first will see a 64-bit octa-core (2.3GHz Quad + 1.6GHz Quad) processor, the other will come with a 64-bit quad-core (2.15GHz Dual + 1.6GHz Dual) processor. The device that makes it to India is expected to carry the Octa-Core Exynos 8890 SoC. This will be an upgrade over last year’s 1.5 Ghz Exynos 7420 Octa-core SoC present on the S6 edge.

The S7 edge also gets one up over the S6 edge when it comes to RAM on board. The S7 edge comes equipped with 4GB of RAM while, the S6 edge came only with 3GB on board. In terms of inbuilt memory, the S7 edge comes in only 32GB and 64GB options as compared to the S6 edge which had a 128GB variant too in its arsenal, but what makes the S7 edge a clear upgrade over the S6 edge is the fact that the former houses a microSD card slot for memory expansion.

Camera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEblmHmKz3c

Samsung pulling out of the Megapixel race has decided to jump into the fray with a ‘Dual-Pixel’ 12-megapixel camera at the back, and a 5-Megapixel front camera both with F1.7 aperture. Galaxy S6 edge on the other hand, came with a 16-megapixel rear camera with OIS and a 5-Megapixel front camera.

Samsung claims this is the most advanced camera to date that it has used on its phones and that the pixels in its camera are around 30 percent bigger than the competing phones such as the iPhone 6s Plus and thus allow for sharper, clearer pictures, even in low-light surroundings.

The company claims that the dual-pixel technology which it has incorporated works like a human eye and results into 100 percent of the pixels being used to focus allowing for a faster focus while taking a picture.

Battery & Gaming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnzQP8MJTCk

Samsung S6 edge was notorious for it’s short battery life, and Samsung has looked to correct this basic flaw with a significantly bumped up battery pack in the S7 edge. The new phone features a 3600mAh battery pack, which is a cool 1000mAh over its predecessor.

The S7 edge also comes with new Air-Cooling tech to help keep the temperature of the phone down, and also adds to the mix wireless and fast charging capabilities. One thing that Samsung did miss out on was the widely expected USB Type-C port.

The mobile phone gaming market is emerging as an important space and Samsung is making a very strong push for it with the S7 edge. The S7 edge will be the first device to use the Vulkan API which Samsung claims will provide users the ability to experience PC-quality gaming on the S7 series devices with lower battery consumption. The company has also added a new ‘Game Launcher,’ to enable users to better manage battery consumption, and block notifications for immersive gaming sessions.

February 22, 2016
HTC Desire 825,630,530 Budget Phones Unveiled

HTC at the Mobile World Congress has unleashed a new lineup of mid-range smartphones with great designer looks but modest hardware. The lineup includes three new phones the HTC Desire 530, 630, and 825.

Of the three, the 530 and 630 are quite similar and come in a 5-inch form factor. Both come packing a 720p Super HD display. The Desire 530 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 1.0GHz processor which is paired with 1.5GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage.

The Desire 630, on the other hand isn’t too great on specs either and comes with a Snapdragon 400 1.6GHz processor paired with 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage.On the camera front, the desire 530 comes packing a 8-Megapixel camera while the Desire 630 comes with a 13-Megamixel camera on board.

The Desire 825 is the bigger sibling, and features a 5.5-inch form factor but disappointingly, the Desire 825 also has just a 720p HD display which is sure to be a turn-off for a lot of users.On the specifications front, it is equipped with a Snapdragon 400 1.6GHz processor and is matched with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. There’s also a large 2,700mAh battery, which coupled with a low-resolution display promises good battery performance.

The standout feature of these phones is their design which includes the “micro splash” paint design that HTC claims is unique to each and every of these new phones built which will be designed with special nozzles that sprays colorful dots on the phone’s rear plastic casing. No pricing details have been revealed so watch this space for further details.

February 22, 2016
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 to Launch in India Next Week

Xiaomi today has announced that the Chinese smartphone maker will bring the Redmi Note 3 to India sooner than expected. The company through its official forum has invited fans to the launch event of the phablet at the Talkatora Stadium in Delhi on 3rd March 2016.

This device which has already been launched in China has been highly awaited in India for some time now. The Redmi Note 3 comes with a full-metal unibody design, as well as a fingerprint scanner, and sports a 5.5-inch 1080p display which is going to be powered by a Snapdragon 650 SoC.

The phablet is expected in two variants of 16GB storage with 2GB of RAM, and 32GB storage with 3GB of RAM. Both variants come with 4,050mAh battery packs.The camera on the two variants of the phablet will be a 16MP rear unit and a 5MP front shooter. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 will run Android 5.0.2 Lolipop out of the box. Pricing details are still awaited.

Users who want to register for the event can find the link here.

February 22, 2016
Lenovo Launches Vibe K5 and K5 Plus

In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the MWC 2016 taking place in Barcelona, Lenovo quietly unveiled two new budget handsets for consumers around the world.The new handsets Vibe K5 and K5 Plus whose launch went under the radar amongst the other high profile launches, come to the market with almost similar specs.

Both sport 5-inch displays, with the difference in display resolution and on-board SoC setting them apart. The Vibe K5 comes with a 720p display and a Snapdragon 415 SoC while its bigger sibling comes with a 1080p display and Snapdragon 616 SoC.

Both the handsets share specs when it comes to the 2GB LPDDR3 RAM, 16GB inbuilt storage and microSD expansion slot for expandable memory. Both phones also come packing a 2750mAh battery pack to keep them powered on.

Both the handsets are LTE enabled, and come with 13-MP unit at the back, and an 8-MP unit at the front. Further, both these handsets boast Dual-Sim connectivity and come with Android 5.1 Lolipop, and house Dolby Atmos-powered stereo speakers in their chassis.

These budget offerings will be launched in select markets, and India is expected to be one of them. The pricing details reveal the Vibe K5 to come for $129 ( Approx Rs 8800), while theVibe K5 Plus will retail for $149( Approx Rs 10200).

February 22, 2016

MWC 2016 : LG G5 “World’s First Modular Phone” Launches

South Korean tech Giant, LG, announced its much-awaited flagship, the G5 in Barcelona during the Mobile World Congress today. The G5 has a full metal body and comes with impressive specifications but the what sets the phone apart from its competition is the fact that it comes with modular attachments which for now can be utilised to enhance the camera and battery of the phone.

The company also announced modular accessories for the phone at the launch. Most interesting of the lot was the LG Cam Plus module which can be attached to the G5 through the battery slot giving the user “comfortable grip and convenient control of a DSLR” for better imaging and also adds to the battery of the phone taking the capacity up to 4000mAh.

Next is the Hi-Fi Plus with B&O Play module. This is a Hi-Fi DAC audio player which is perfect for audiophiles. It can also play high-definition audio files encoded in 32-bit at 384KHz.

On the specifications front, the LG G5 comes packing a primary 5.3-inch QHD LCD display with 3D Arc Glass on top. It also has a cool Always-on feature that lights up the display for access to important updates. The phone’s construction is full metal unibody and is powered by a Snapdragon 820 chipset, paired with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, expandable by upto 2TB with microSD cards.

When it comes to photography, the phone is equipped with dual cameras at the back. A standard 16-megapixel 78-degree lens and another 8-megapixel 135-degree wide angle lens. The LG G5 features a front-facing 8-megapixel camera too for clicking selfies.

LG G5 comes packing a 2,800mAh removable battery with Quick Charge 3.0, and when it comes to connectivity it gives users options such as Bluetooth 4.2, NFC and Wi-Fi 802.11ac. The smartphone also features USB Type-C 2.0 port. The G5 runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS with LG’s custom UI on top. The G5 will be available in four different colors, silver, gold, pink and silver. No pricing details have been revealed yet so watch this space for more details.

Specs	LG G5
Display	5.3-inch screen Quad HD IPS display
Resolution	2560 x 1440 / 554ppi
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Processor
GPU	Adreno 530
RAM	4GB
Storage	32GB
Rear Camera	Standard 16MP, Wide 135 degrees 8MP
Front Camera	8MP
Expandability	Up to 2 TB via MicroSD
Battery	2800mAh battery Quick Charge 3.0
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot, Bluetooth v4.1, A-GPS, GLONASS, NFC,
OS	Android 6.0 Marshmallow with LG custom UI

February 21, 2016

Author: Sushant Talwar

Specs

Le Max Pro

Xiaomi Mi 5

Specs

Galaxy S7

Galaxy S7 Edge

Specs

LG G5