Author: Vipul Vij

Unboxing The Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
Xiaomi recently launched the Redmi 5 and Redmi 5 Plus in China. The two budget smartphones sport a modern 18:9 aspect ratio and are expected to launch in India soon. Ever since the Redmi 5 Plus was launched, there were rumours that Xiaomi will launch the Redmi 5 Plus in India as the Redmi Note 5 and drop the ‘Note’ series in China altogether.

Let’s unbox the Redmi 5 Plus and see what we get inside the box:
- Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
- Documentation
- Sim ejector tool
- Micro USB cable
- Wall charger
- Clear Case
First impressions

The first thing you notice about the Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus is the tall display and relatively thinner bezels around. By no means is it a bezel-less display but, the curved corners make the display look better. The form factor of the device is surprisingly comfortable especially considering that it houses an almost 6-inch display. The phone, although a bit slippery, is comfortable and if you’d like to protect from the get-go, the company provides a clear case inside the box.

Specifications

It has a 5.99-inch display with a 2160 x 1080px resolution which again, translated to an 18:9 aspect ratio.

Under the hood, the Redmi 5 Plus has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset, 2.0GHz octa-core processor, Adreno 506 GPU, 3GB or 4GB of RAM, and 32GB or 64GB of onboard storage which will be expandable via microSD card. The fingerprint sensor sits at the back of the device which has become a Redmi signature irrespective of thin or thick bezels.

The Redmi 5 Plus is powered by a massive 4000 mAh battery which, according to Xiaomi, has a standby time of up to 17 days. The device has a micro USB port for charging and data syncing along with a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The device has a 12MP primary camera with an f/2.2 aperture and a 5MP secondary camera with beautify 3.0 software.

The Redmi 5 Plus is a solid offering at the price it is available for, and with a modern design combined with the performance of a Xiaomi phone, the device makes a good case to be a go-to budget smartphone.

Buy it here
January 5, 2018
Top 5 Shows On Netflix You Should Watch This Weekend

Netflix India still doesn’t stream Friends yet which might be called an abomination by a few. But, Netflix has recently added some amazing shows to its repertoire while one of the most famous TV series ever released its new season. So, if your plan for the weekend is to Netflix and chill, then these five shows need to be on your list:

Dark

If watching Narcos was tough with all the Spanish being thrown around, then Dark can cause another level of confusion for us non-German speaking peoplem, if we don’t pay attention that is. The first-ever German language Netflix original has elements of Stranger Things and Twin Peaks but, has its own twists to make it a brilliant little series. The show has everything from time travel to corporate conspiracy set in a small town of Winden, Germany. The first season has 10 episodes and Netflix has already announced that the show will return for a second season. Without giving much away about the show, it follows the lives of people of a small town in Germany and the secrets surrounding a nuclear plant. Secrets start unravelling when kids from around the town start disappearing. The series has a supernatural angle but, tries to justify the events through science.

Black Mirror

This British black comedy gained mainstream attention when Netflix bought the rights after its second season. The dystopian thriller is an analogy and the fourth season consists of six episodes. The show examines modern society, particularly with regard to the unanticipated consequences of new technologies. Even though it is considered to be a comedy and satire, there are a few episodes of Black Mirror where it is tough to laugh at something which might be true in the coming years. The fourth season of the show along with the previous seasons is streaming on Netflix right now.

Mindhunter

Sometimes, it is hard to fathom that what you’re watching is based on real events that happened to real people. Mindhunter takes you through a similar journey. The series follows two FBI detectives who travel from city to city interviewing convicted serial killers to build a profile of a serial killers. It is a fascinating yet sometimes gut-wrenching story of how the term “serial killer” was coined. Excellent performances and great cinematography combined with a satisfying story arch make the Mindhunter an absolutely brilliant series. It will be surprising if Mindhunter doesn’t bag a few awards this year.

Manhunt: Unabomber

Another series based on real events, Manhunt: Unabomber has received a lot of media attention for apparently fictionalising the events that lead to the capture of the infamous Unabomber. Agent Jim Fitzgerald is a new profiler on the FBI block and immediately becomes an integral part of the country’s longest and costliest manhunt till now. It is a fascinating deep dive into the trials and tribulations of a law enforcement officer looking for the most famous terrorist the country had ever known until that point. With great actors like Paul Bettany and Chris Noh, the series is a visual and mental treat for the lovers of a good police drama.

The Sinner

There have been numerous TV series and movies that chronicle a murder investigation. But, what leads to a murder? What is going on inside the head of a person while committing the crime? The Sinner, a gripping mini-series tries to unravel just that. The series follows the aftermath of a murder on the beach in a small town as the detective in charge tries to find the reason behind the main character’s abrupt actions. The main character, Cora Tannetti is played Jessica Beil who is also the executive producer of the show delivers an outstanding performance. The series consists of eight episodes, just enough to help you through a lazy Sunday!

January 5, 2018
UIDAI Claims All Aadhar Biometric Private Data Is Safe

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has responded to reports that someone sold over 1 billion Aadhar card details for just Rs. 500. In a statement, the organisation has claimed that all data is safe. In response, UIDAI has also filed an FIR for unauthorised access to Aadhaar data, such as names and other demographic details, due to the misuse of the grievance redressal facility at the office of the Surat district administration in Gujarat.

UIDAI denied that the breach allowed access to millions of Aadhaar cardholders’ details, saying the search facility is available for the purpose of grievance redressal to designated personnel and state government officials and details are limited to the particular Aadhaar number punched in.

UIDAI assures there has not been any Aadhaar data breach. The Aadhaar data, including biometric information, is fully safe. UIDAI reiterates that the grievance redressal search facility gives only limited access to name and other details and has no access to biometric details.

Stating that the given case appears to be a misuse of the grievance redressal search facility, UIDAI said it maintains a complete log and traceability and legal action will follow.

The news broke out when a report in The Tribune claimed that after paying just Rs. 500 to an agent, the investigators were handed a login ID and password to the particulars of any Aadhaar number.

Lo and behold, you could enter any Aadhaar number in the portal, and instantly get all particulars that an individual may have submitted to the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India), including name, address, postal code (PIN), photo, phone number and email.

You can read the in-depth report on the matter here.

January 5, 2018
Google’s Fix For Spectre And Meltdown Won’t Cause Significant Slowdowns

A couple of days ago, Google along with a few other security researchers conceded that almost all the CPUs currently functioning across the world are susceptible to a major security breach. The company released two white papers chronicling the two main ways through which the CPUs can be affected, called Meltdown and Spectre.

It now appears that Google has a fix for this flaw and it might not cause a significant slowdown as well. In a blog post, Google said that it has shared a new fix, called Retpoline which fixes one of the Spectre vulnerabilities (CVE-2017-5715). Along with that, the company also deployed a Kernel Page Table Isolation (KPTI) fix that protects against the Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754) vulnerability.

There has been speculation that the deployment of KPTI causes significant performance slowdowns. Performance can vary, as the impact of the KPTI mitigations depends on the rate of system calls made by an application. On most of our workloads, including our cloud infrastructure, we see negligible impact on performance.

However, Google has maintained that it doesn’t guarantee that there won’t be any slowdowns.

In our own testing, we have found that microbenchmarks can show an exaggerated impact. Of course, Google recommends thorough testing in your environment before deployment; we cannot guarantee any particular performance or operational impact.

Meltdown and Spectre exploit critical vulnerabilities in modern processors. These hardware bugs allow programs to steal data which is currently processed on the computer. While programs are typically not permitted to read data from other programs, a malicious program can exploit Meltdown and Spectre to get hold of secrets stored in the memory of other running programs. This might include passwords stored in a password manager or browser, personal photos, emails, instant messages and even business-critical documents.

January 5, 2018
LG Launches Its First Ever 4K Projector

Companies usually wait for CES to launch new and exciting pieces of technology. LG, however, appears to be in no mood to wait for this year’s CES, as it has launched its first ever 4K projector, the HU80KA. LG claims the new UHD projector is almost half the size of its competition in the market and unlike other projectors which are “heavy, expensive, and difficult to install,” this one from LG is better.

LG is calling the HU80KA an “affordable, yet premium” 4K projector which can output a 150-inch picture on any wall in a house. The picture from this machine can get really bright as well, and the company claims that the HU80KA maxes out at 2500 lumens, which makes it the company’s brightest projector yet and puts it on par with what’s on the market today.

As far as positioning of the projector is concerned, it can be placed on the floor, mounted on the wall, or hung from the ceiling. Along with 4K resolution, there is also support for HDR video with HDR10. Just like a lot of other LG TVs, the projector runs WebOS, so most of the big streaming apps will come integrated out of the box. For sound, the projector has two 7-watt speakers built-in which might be enough depending on the room the projector is placed in.

LG has not revealed the price of the HU80KA yet which means that the rest of the details like price and availability will be revealed at CES 2018 which will take place from the 8th of January in Las Vegas.

January 5, 2018
Samsung Launches Its Most Affordable Tablet In India

The tablet industry has been going through a dwindling phase where Apple and Samsung are the only two companies consistently bring out tablets that interest the buyers. Samsung is continuing the trend of tablets with the launch of the Galaxy Tab A 7.0. The new tablet is Samsung’s most affordable tablet yet, priced at Rs. 9500. The tablet will be available across retail stores and Amazon from the 5th of January 5.

With the launch of the Galaxy Tab A, the South Korean tech giant also believed that the tablet industry will see a rise in 2018. Vishal Kaul, Director at Samsung India, said the segment has seen de-growth in the past quarters, but the company has been able to expand its market share:

Tablets are more of companion devices and we have been focusing on the various use cases of this form factor. The Galaxy Tab A 7.0 is our first 4G tablet in the sub Rs 10,000- category and we are confident it will do well.

With Galaxy Tab A 7.0, we are providing our customers a device that is the perfect blend of refined design, superior display great performance and non-stop entertainment.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab A has a 7-inch TFT display with a 1280 x 800 px resolution.

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Under the hood, the tablet is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 1.5GB of RAM, and 8GB of onboard storage which can be expanded via a microSD card. There is a physical home button on the front of the tablet with two capacitive navigation buttons on either side, similar to a lot of other Samsung mobile devices.

Powering the tablet is a 4000 mAh battery which the company claims will provide up to 9 hours of video playback. You might think the tablet was launched in 2015 because it runs Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box.

It has a rear-facing 5MP camera and a front-facing 2MP camera.

Tablets, over the past few years, have reached a state of obsolete where Apple appears to be the only company bringing innovation into its tablet lineup. Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab A 7.0 will enter a price segment where no other other prominent smartphone maker has a tablet, and that might be its best bet.

January 5, 2018
Nokia 6 (2018) With A 16:9 Aspect Ratio Launched

Nokia 6 was launched back in January of 2017 and was Nokia’s foray into the Android market. At the time of its launch, many felt that the Nokia 6 did not offer much when compared to its peers and especially its own price. HMD Global will hope to rectify its errors with the new Nokia 6 (2018) which was launched today at an event in China. The 32GB variant of the Nokia 6 (2018) is priced at CNY 1499 Rs. 14600 approx.), while the 64GB variant comes with a price tag of CNY 1699 (Rs. 16600 approx).

The Nokia 6 (2018) maintains the 16:9 aspect ratio but, get rids of the front-facing fingerprint scanner and the touch capacitive keys. This move is a bit surprising since other smartphone makers usually resort to rear-facing fingerprint sensors due to the lack of bezels around the display.

The Nokia 6 (2018) has a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display with a 1920 x 1080 px resolution.

Under the hood, the new iteration of Nokia 6 has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 chipset, a 2.2GHz octa-core processor, the Adreno 508 GPU, 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 32GB or 64GB of onboard storage. The onboard storage can be expanded up to 128GB via a microSD card. The fingerprint sensor now sits on the back of the device while the capacitive navigation buttons are replaced with software buttons.

Powering the smartphone from Nokia is a 3000mAh battery that supports fast charging technology. The Nokia 6 (2018) runs Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box which will be close to stock OS.

The back of the phone also houses a 16MP camera with an f/2.0 aperture along with a dual-tone LED flash. To the front of the smartphone is an 8MP with an f/2.0, and an 84-degree wide-angle lens.

There is no word on the smartphone’s availability in the Indian market as of now. If HMD Global does launch the device in India, the price of the phone will be a major factor as devices like the Xiaomi Mi A1 and Honor 7X are already well established in the market.

January 5, 2018
Apple Admits Spectre And Meltdown Affects All macOS And iOS Devices

Alphabet’s Google, along with a few other security researchers published a document which chronicled two major flaws found in nearly all modern CPUs. The reason this flaw is much more complex than the usual software or hardware bugs is that it’s more than just a bug that can be fixed with an update. The flaw lies in the middle, at the level of the processors’ “architectures,” in the way all the millions of transistors and logic units work together to carry out tasks.

In the architecture of modern CPUs, there are unpenetrable spaces where data passes through in raw, unencrypted form, such as inside the kernel, the most central software unit, or in system memory carefully set aside from other applications. This data has powerful protections to prevent it from being interfered with or even observed by other processes and applications.

MacBook Pro

Meltdown and Spectre exploit critical vulnerabilities in modern processors. These hardware bugs allow programs to steal data which is currently processed on the computer. While programs are typically not permitted to read data from other programs, a malicious program can exploit Meltdown and Spectre to get hold of secrets stored in the memory of other running programs. This might include passwords stored in a password manager or browser, personal photos, emails, instant messages and even business-critical documents.

Meltdown affects Intel processors and works by penetrating through the barrier that prevents applications from accessing arbitrary locations in kernel memory. Spectre affects Intel, AMD, and ARM processors, which basically means that it affects anything with a chip in it, from mobile phones to thermostats.

iPhone X

In a response to this revelation, Apple has come out and conceded that its devices are not immune to the security flaws. In a statement, the company announced that all its macOS and iOS devices are affected but, mitigations are either already in place or in the final stages of being rolled out. Apple has stated that it has already dealt with Meltdown:

Apple released mitigations for Meltdown in iOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2, and tvOS 11.2. watchOS did not require mitigation.

This is what the company had to say about Spectre:

Analysis of these techniques revealed that while they are extremely difficult to exploit, even by an app running locally on a Mac or iOS device, they can be potentially exploited in JavaScript running in a web browser.

Apple will release an update for Safari on macOS and iOS in the coming days to mitigate these exploit techniques.

In a nutshell, this means that while Meltdown is no longer a threat, Spectre remains the only major flaw which can be exploited and Apple will soon release a fix for that.

January 5, 2018
OnePlus 5T Sandstone White Is The Star Wars Edition Minus The Logo

In late-December, OnePlus started teasing the launch of another variant of the OnePlus 5T. It was expected that the company will launch a new phone with a sandstone finish, that became famous thanks to the OnePlus One and OnePlus Two. On January 5th, the company launched the OnePlus 5T Sandstone White at the same price as the original OnePlus 5T.

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The OnePlus 5T Sandstone White is essentially the OnePlus 5T Star Wars Edition minus the promotional bells and whistles. Right from the red colour alert slider to a different hue around the fingerprint sensor, the Sandstone White is the same Star Wars Edition but, for other markets. The Star Wars Edition OnePlus 5T that we unboxed, was an India-exclusive device hence, it is fair to assume that the Sandstone White variant won’t be entering the Indian market anytime soon.

OnePlus 5T Star Wars Edition

The Sandstone White is no way close to what the OnePlus One looked or felt like. Even though the back is textured, it is just not as grippy as the original OnePlus One and its sandstone finish back panel. However, a textured aluminium back will always be grippier than a brushed aluminium back found on the original OnePlus 5T. This also gives OnePlus 5T buyers a different colour option other than the Midnight Black which has become increasingly common.

Apart from the Sandstone White, the OnePlus 5T in a Lava Red colour is expected to be launched in India in late-January. A new report claims that in order to utilise the holiday sales, OnePlus will launch the OnePlus 5T Lava Red in India on January 23rd. It also supports the argument by stating that Amazon (OnePlus’ preferred online partner) rarely launches a device on a national holiday or weekend.

OnePlus 5T Midnight Black

Considering the company’s pricing strategy for the Sandstone White variant, the Lava Red colour could enter the Indian market with the same price tag as its Midnight Black sibling. If so, then the new colour could well become the new fan favourite.

January 5, 2018
75 Billion WhatsApp Messages Were Sent On New Year’s Eve

Up until a few years ago, SMS packs were a big selling point for holidays and major festivals. However, with the internet becoming more affordable and accessible, users have resorted to instant messaging apps like WhatsApp to communicate on a daily basis. A report claims that on the 31st of December 2017, over 75 billion messages were sent on WhatsApp worldwide. For context, Earth’s population is 7.6 billion.

In India alone, WhatsApp has over 200 million monthly active users who sent over 20 billion messages on New Year’s Eve. That is a staggering figure for one country which constitutes more than 1/4th of the total messages sent across the world. Incidentally, the last day of the year also turned out to be WhatsApp’s biggest messaging day ever.

Ever since the internet became cheaper and smartphones became affordable, SMS services have seen a severe decline and active usage. Moreover, instant messaging apps let users send more than just text messages to each other. It allows users to express in a more expansive way through GIFs, videos or emoticons.

Over the course of 2017, WhatsApp released a few new features which a lot of users had asked for including ‘Delete For All’. Ever since Facebook took over WhatsApp, there have been instances where Facebook features were trickled down to WhatsApp as well. One such feature was ‘Status’. In less than a year, WhatsApp Status feature has garnered over 300 million monthly active users across the globe. To put this statistic into context, Snapchat as whole experiences about 166 million daily active users. And WhatsApp status feature was set out to be a ‘Snapchat Stories’ clone. Instagram stories, another Snapchat clone hit the 250 million daily active users as well.

In 2017, WhatsApp also hit 1 billion monthly active users. India is WhatsApp’s largest market with 200 million active users. In fact, back in February WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton visited India in order to gather insights from people on how WhatsApp can contribute to the country in a more prominent way.

January 4, 2018
Nokia 6 (2018) Images Leaked Before Imminent Launch

The Nokia 6 was launched back in January as HMD Global owned Nokia began to enter the Android market slowly. In India, the device was surprisingly priced close to Rs. 15000 even though it was powered by the Snapdragon 430 chipset, usually found in devices priced close Rs. 10,000. Apart from the Nokia 8, no other Nokia device was priced competitively including the recently launched Nokia 2. HMD Global would want to change in the coming months and a revamped Nokia 6 could be the first device to do so.

For weeks, there have been speculations that the Nokia 6 (2018) could be launched on the 5th of January in two variant, one with a 16:9 aspect ratio while the other one with an 18:9 aspect ratio display. A few images appear to have leaked of the former variant of the Nokia 6 a day before its apparent launch. The leak reveals a new accent colour of the Nokia 6 (2018) with gold rims on a black phone. The display of the smartphone in the images appears to have a 16:9 aspect ratio with thick bezels.

According to the recent leaks of the Nokia 6 (2018), the device will have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 chipset, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage.

To the back of the smartphone will be a 16MP camera and the front of the device will house an 8MP camera. Powering the device will be a 3000 mAh battery although there is no clarification regarding the charging port on the device.

The device will be running Android 7.1 Nougat out of the box which will be disappointing since Android 8.0 Oreo was officially launched over four months ago. The Nokia 6 (2018) will maintain the stock-ish operating system that Nokia Android phones are known for.

The date of launch of the Nokia 6 (2018) is still a speculation and there is no guarantee that these images are credible. More details about the smartphone will be known as we move closer to the imminent launch of the Nokia 6 (2018). Now, will that launch happen on January 5th or not is yet to be seen.

January 4, 2018
Honor View10 To Be Priced At Rs. 29,999 In India

The Honor View10, launched in early-December at an event in London will go on sale in India on 8th of January at a price of Rs. 29,999. The price of Rs. 29,999 makes this the most affordable budget flagship available in the market right now. The OnePlus 5T and the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 are priced at Rs. 32999. Registrations for the device started on the 28th of December and it will be available in two colour variant, Midnight Black and Navy Blue.

The Honor View10 has a 5.99-inch IPS LCD display with a 2160 x 1080 px resolution which translates to an 18:9 aspect ratio. The Honor View10 has minimal side bezels and thin top and bottom bezels.

Under the hood, the device has the Kirin 970 chipset with a Neural Processing Unit, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB onboard storage. The onboard storage can be expanded up to 256GB via microSD card. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack at the bottom of the device along with a USB Type C port. The front of the device also has a home button which houses the fingerprint sensor.

The Honor View10 also has facial recognition which is becoming more prominent since the launch of the iPhone X. The facial recognition works similar to the Face ID on the iPhone X, the accuracy of which, will be extensively tested in the coming weeks.

Similar to the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, the Honor View10 also concentrates a lot on AI. For example, while on a call, AI will differentiate between the user’s voice and background noise to make sure the user’s voice is clearer. This is thanks to the presence of the Kirin 970 chipset which has a Neural Processing Unit on board.

Because of its facial recognition technology, the Honor View10 also has iPhone X-like animojis, which Honor claims are much more accurate than iPhone X since it tracks the user’s tongue as well.

Powering the device is a 3750 mAh battery and supports 5V / 4.5A fast charging. Honor claims the phone will be 50% charged in 30 minutes thanks to Honor Super Charge technology.

The Honor View10 has a dual camera setup at the back and has a single camera at the front. The back of the devices houses a 16MP RGB sensor and a 20MP Monochrome sensor with both having an f/1.8 aperture. The primary camera setup records 4K videos at 30fps. At the front of the phone is a 13MP camera with an f/2.0 aperture.

At an extremely competitive price of Rs. 29999, the Honor View10 will definitely test the resilience of the OnePlus 5T which has so far been a popular choice for people looking for an affordable flagship Android device. The Honor View10, just like the OnePlus 5T has a flagship chipset, dual cameras but, also has all the bells and whistles of AI, which are missing from the OnePlus 5T.

January 4, 2018
Apple Will Sell 16 Million Fewer iPhones Thanks To Its New Battery Replacement Program

Apple has been in the news for the past few days, getting bad press over the Battery vs Performance slowdowns of the previous generation of iPhones. Although the company clarified its stance and revealed the intentions behind such a drastic step, consumers are still baffled and the company will have to do a lot of work in order to win their trust back. One step that the company took in that direction was reworking its battery replacement program.

One the 29th of December, the company released a statement announcing its new battery replacement wherein the charges of replacing an out-of-warranty battery were much less than what it was before. According to the old program, it cost US $79 plus taxes to replace a battery but, it will now cost US $29 plus taxes. While this seems like a reasonable trade-off for the consumers, the company might be facing a significant drop in iPhone sales in 2018.

According to Barclays analyst Mark Moskowitz, customers opting for a battery replacement instead of upgrading an iPhone could be a “mild headwind” for iPhone unit sales, potentially resulting in millions of fewer iPhone purchases during the year. He believes that up to 78% of iPhone users are eligible to upgrade their batteries.

In our base case scenario, 10% of those 519M users take the $29 offer, and around 30% of them decide not to buy a new iPhone this year. This means around 16M iPhone sales could be at risk, creating ~4% downside to our current revenue estimate for C2018.

It is to be seen whether the sales will see such a significant hit because it costs less to replace a battery. There are many other factors that influence a consumer to upgrade to a new phone like new features, better camera, or even a new design.

Apple has said that a new battery in an affected iPhone will restore its old performance since the software tweak kicks in only when it notices a significantly degraded battery health. This was the prime reason behind Apple cutting down the cost of replacing an out-of-warranty. Apple has stated that the throttling of performance was never done to influence a consumer into buying a new iPhone but, there is no denying that it is an inevitable consequence of its actions. Perhaps, the company would have been better off by being transparent about such a huge issue and its steps to curb the side effects.

January 4, 2018
Samsung Galaxy A8+ To Be Launched In India Soon

Samsung will soon launch its new Galaxy A8+ in India. Amazon India has listed the two devices which means that the device will be sold in India as an Amazon exclusive. However, the website doesn’t reveal anything related to the price or date of launch of the smartphone. But, with Amazon listing the device on its website, the launch of the phone might not be too far away. Although the listing only mentions the Galaxy A8+, the Galaxy A8 could also be launched in India.

In Vietnam, the Galaxy A8+ is priced at VND 13,490,000 (Rs. 38040 approx.) and will go on sale on the 6th of January. The Galaxy A8, on the other hand, is priced at VND 10,990,000 (Rs. 30980 approx.) in Vietnam. It is fair to assume that the two devices will be priced under Rs. 40000 in India and compete with the likes of the OnePlus 5T and Honor View10.

The Galaxy A8 and A8+ are the first budget-oriented Samsung phones to feature the infinity display. The Galaxy A8 has a 5.6-inch display while the bigger sibling, the Galaxy A8+ has a 6-inch display. Both the phones have a Super AMOLED display panel with a 2220 x 1080 px resolution which translates to an 18.5:9 aspect ratio.

Galaxy A8

Under the hood, both the devices have an octa-core (2.2GHz Dual + 1.6GHz Hexa) processor while the chipset is still unspecified, it could be the Exynos 7885 SoC as found in the leaked video. The Galaxy A8 has 4GB of RAM with two storage options of either 32GB or 64GB while the Galaxy A8+ has two variants, one with 4GB RAM and 32GB storage and the other with 6GB RAM and 64GB storage. Just like every other smartphone from Samsung, the onboard storage can be expanded up to 256GB via microSD card. Both the smartphones are IP68 rated for water and dust resistance and support Samsung Pay for contactless mobile payment.

Powering the Galaxy A8 is a 3000 mAh battery while the Galaxy A8+ has a 3500 mAh battery. Both the devices are charged via USB Type-C port.

One thing that might come as a surprise, especially for phones launching in 2018 is the OS. Both the phones will run Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box with Samsung’s own custom skin on top.

Galaxy A8+

The Galaxy A8 and Galaxy A8+ are also the first of Samsung phones to have a dual-camera setup on the front. Both the phones have a 16MP + 8MP camera setup with an f/1.9 aperture. The Live Focus feature lets users chose whether the background should be in focus or blurred to a soft bokeh. The phone will switch between the two front cameras to get the effect the user needs. To the back of the phone is a 16MP camera with an f/1.7 aperture and digital stabilisation.

At a price of under Rs. 40000, the two phones will face stiff competition from the budget flagship phones like the OnePlus 5T and Honor View10. The Galaxy A8 and A8+ do have an IP68 rating and front-facing dual cameras which the other two phones, and it’ll be interesting to see if these features will be enough to persuade consumers into opting for Samsung’s offerings over the others.

Check out the Galaxy A8+ on Amazon here.

January 4, 2018
Samsung Galaxy J2 (2018) Case Listed On Samsung’s Official Website

The Samsung Galaxy J2 (2018) is expected to be launched soon. The specifications of the device were leaked a few weeks ago and then, a Russian e-commerce website listed the Galaxy J2 (2018) along with a few specifications. However, the most notable development in the saga of Galaxy J2 (2018) happened when Samsung listed a case for the device on its Russia website.

The listing reveals the same build and design of the Galaxy J2 (2018) which has been leaked over the past few weeks. Another aspect to note here is the capacitive buttons next to the physical home button. The design of the buttons is reminiscent of what we’ve seen from the software buttons found on the Galaxy S8, S8+ and the Galaxy Note8 devices. This further implicates the device listed on the website is, indeed, the upcoming Galaxy J2 (2018). The listing also reveals that Samsung will launch the device in an array of colours like Coral Blue, Gold, Pink and Black.

The device will have a 5-inch Super AMOLED display with 960 x 540 px resolution.

Under the hood, the device is expected to have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 chipset, 1.4GHz quad-core processor, Adreno 308 GPU, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of onboard storage which will expandable via microSD card.

Powering the device is a user-replaceable 2600 mAh battery. The J2 (2018) has dual-SIM support, Bluetooth 4.2, LTE Cat.4 (up to 150Mbps down), and 802.11n Wi-Fi.

Both the primary and secondary cameras have an LED flash, according to the renders. On the back is an 8 MP camera and the front houses a 5MP camera. The device is expected to be launched in early-2018 in Russia with a subsequent global roll-out.

January 4, 2018