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Fortnite, a Battle Royale game that can be played on smartphones, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC as well as Mac, just crossed a new milestone. They reported that they had 8.3 million concurrent players worldwide. This came after their release in South Korea. It means that more than 8 million people were logged in to the game at the same time. This, by no means is a small feat. Specially considering it’s rival PUBG had around 797,000 peak concurrent players as of November 8.
How Are Fortnite And PUBG Similar?
Both Fortnite and PUBG share similar play-styles but the similarities end there. PUBG is a more true to real life game whereas Fortnite has a more fast paced nature with it’s fort building abilities and has cartoonish graphics. They have been locking horns for a long time now and have been in constant competition. Both have in-game purchases and both Epic Games (Fortnite) and Tencent Games ( PUBG) have constantly been pushing updates with new maps and new items to keep the game interesting. PUBG has recently launched Harley Quinn and Joker outfits whereas Fortnite has added NFL Jerseys.
How Are Fortnite And PUBG different?
PUBG has peaked at 3 million concurrent players which is quite low if we compare it to Fortnite’s recent achievement. Steam, which is a gaming digital distribution platform, averages about 5 million concurrent players across all of its games. Steam has about a 16 million peak in terms of concurrent players. This includes players who are just logged in to the screen. It is also noteworthy that Steam sells PUBG for a price of Rs 999 at the moment in India, whereas Fortnite is a free to play game with in-game purchases.
Fortnite’s minimum requirements for PC is an Intel HD 4000 and Core i3 2.4 Ghz processor. On the other hand PUBG has a higher Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB / AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB with an Intel Core i5-4430 / AMD FX-6300 and 8 GB RAM requirement. The massive differences in PC requirements can also account for lower concurrent as well as overall player count.
Smartphone components are evolving at a rapid pace but, the lithium-ion batteries that power them are not able to keep up with the latest hardware specifications. Hence, in an effort to prolong battery life, companies are trying to make software and hardware more power efficient. Recently, at the Android Dev Summit, Google revealed some key findings that can boost battery life on smartphones. Display and screen brightness are the biggest battery drainers on any smartphone. Google’s findings reveal using darker colours and the dark mode can extend battery upto 63%.
Google’s Findings
The most interesting piece of information from the summit was, more brightness draws more power in an almost linear manner. Next, the developers shared their studies performed using the Google Pixel 1 smartphone. The study points out the power consumption on max brightness between normal mode and ‘dark Mode’ on the AMOLED screen on the Pixel 1. The study reveals that the Pixel 1 consumed 250 mA of battery on max brightness in Normal mode whereas max brightness on dark mode consumed only 92 mA . The power consumption on dark Mode is 63% less than the Normal Mode. While, Google also conducted a similar test on the iPhone 7 with LCD display and it showed no difference in power consumtion between two different modes.
Google also studied the impact that different screen colours have on power consumption. They found different colours draw different amounts of power from the source. For instance, Red consumes 600 miliWatts of power and Green consumes 580 miliWatts of power. While, Blue draws the highest power at 800 miliWatts out of the RGB colour gamut. The most important finding is that Black consumes the least power out of all the 65k colours that a display can produce. On the other hand, White draws max power out of the battery.
Google Admits Their Mistake
Google has admitted that they made a mistake in the past with their material design scheme. The company heavily encouraged developers to use white as their primary color for all applications and interfaces which apparently takes a jab at battery backup.
Fortunately, Google explained how ‘Dark Mode’ can prolong the battery backup on a smartphone. Additionally, the latest YouTube with dark mode is an example that Google is learning from its mistakes and continue to bring this support to other apps as well. The company also demonstrated the comparison results that YouTube with dark mode has over normal mode. The YouTube video was paused on both the smartphones to pin point effects dark mode has on power drain. At 50% brightness, dark mode consumed 80 mA of power while normal mode consumes 93 mA of power from the battery. The biggest highlight in this study was the amount of power drawn on 100% screen brightness. YouTube in Dark Mode consumed 96 mA of max brightness which is higher than 50% at Normal Mode. But, Normal Mode on 100% brightness drew significantly higher power at 239 mA.
As foldable displays come to the verge of becoming a reality, Android has announced it’s support towards this new tech. This was announced at the Android Dev Summit held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. Android announced that they will be extending their hand to support foldable displays with their UI. According to the company, as early as Android 1.6, Android and it’s partners have contemplated different screen sizes and densities. They have since worked on several different form factors to power a broad category and new experiences like Android TV, Android Auto, Wear OS and even Android apps on Chromebooks. The introduction of Phablets, which are phones with bigger screens set the benchmark for where smartphones are today.
Android Optimisation For Folding Displays
Foldable screens are the future where the screen folds into a phone and unfolds into a bigger screen for media consumption. Android is working towards making this transition from a phone to a media consumption device seamless and more immersive. Android states that when unfolding, the app seamlessly transfers to the bigger screen without missing a beat. They are optimising Android for this new form factor. According to the company, they are making changes to help developers everywhere take advantage of the possibilities this creates for amazing new experiences. It also opens up new ways to engage and delight the users, states the company.
Android also stated that there will be more manufacturers joining the folding screen bandwagon soon. Last year, ZTE displayed a phone that had two screens attached to a hinge. While Samsung’s new phone closes inward, but Royole’s FlexPai, another foldable phone, has an outward-folding screen. Other makers such as Huawei, LG, Xiaomi, Oppo, Lenovo and Motorola are also reportedly working on foldable phones. It will be interesting to see how Android optimises for different form factors and screen sizes from different manufacturers in future.
Fossil is a company that is recognised all over the globe for their quartz watches and recently they have launched an affordable smartwatch called Fossil Sport Smartwatch. It has a circular touchscreen display and has easy swap silicon straps. The smartwatch is water resistant and has many features like GPS navigation, heart rate tracking and customisable dials.
Fossil Sport Smartwatch
The Fossil Sport smartwatch has a circular 41 mm case which is 12 mm thick and is made form Nylon and Aluminium. The smartwatch has a touch screen display to display time and content. It has an 18 mm wide silicone strap that can fit wrists of sizes up to 19.5 cm. The Fossil Sport also has a side mounted crown and two push buttons. It has a 5 ATM water resitance rating hence, it can be easily survive a swimming session. In terms of sensors, the smartwatch has an accelerometer, altimeter, ambient light sensor and NFC support.
The Fossil Sport smartwatch runs on the latest Snapdragon 3100 SoC and has 4 GB of inbuilt storage. It uses WearOS by Google, which is specially developed for smartwatches. The watch is compatible with both Android and iOS devices running iOS 9.3 or above and Android 4.4 or above. It connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth 4.2 and also has Wi-Fi 802.11 connectivity. Fossil claims the smartwatch has a battery backup of up to 24 hours depending on usage It also has a low-power mode that can give 2 days of additional battery backup with all smart features turned off. You can charge the watch via the magnetic plate which can fast charge it up to 80 % in just one hour.
The Fossil Sport smartwatch has a heart rate tracker and an activity tracker to track your fitness levels. It can display notification for e-mails, alarm clock, alerts, calendar, app alerts and even text messages from your smartphone. The watch supports wireless data syncing with user’s phone and also support Google Pay services. It has a built-in microphone that perform a variety of tasks on your smartphone via voice commands. One key highlight of the smartwatch is its untethered GPS navigation capabilities. This feature allows to navigate destinations without even connecting to a smartphone and the built in 4 GB ROM can store music for your running sessions.
Dell is well known for its Alienware gaming laptops. However, Dell is also pushing out machines that aren’t dedicated gaming machines, but deliver great gaming performance along with all-round usability. The Dell G3 is a part of this series of laptops and while it does not look like a traditional gaming laptop, it does pack some impressive specs on paper.
[section label=”Design & Build”]
Design & Build
The design of the Dell G3 is sober for a gaming laptop, to say the least. It does not have any flashy lights, heavy accents, nor does it feel like a gaming laptop. On the outside, it carries the Dell logo and a few ports. The laptop has an SD Card port, 2 SuperSpeed USB 3.1 ports, 1 USB 3.1 port, 1 HDMI port, 1 ethernet port, a headphone hack and the charging port. Relatively thin for a gaming laptop at 22.7 mm, the Dell G3 weighs in at just 2.5 Kg.
The subtle design is good in other environments or for users who do not perform heavy gaming. The design of the laptop ensures that it offers the perfect balance, appearing like a regular laptop.
[section label=”Display”]
Display
The Dell G3 has a 15.6 inch 1920 x 1080 IPS LED display. Being an IPS display, it has good viewing angles.The display has an anti-glare coating on it as well. The anti-glare coating is great as it protects your eyes from strain caused by continuous exposure to the display. However, the anti-glare coating is probably one of the most ‘glaring’ problems of the laptop. The coating seems to dim down the brightness of the display, and also makes it appear more dull. This is clearly visible while gaming as one feels like the laptop is not on full brightness.
Not only does this affect the gaming experience on the laptop, the issue spreads out to other utilities as well. If you are in a brightly-lit environment, or even outdoors, the display will be hard to view. Another drawback of the coating is that it does not produce an accurate representation of the colours. So if you’re a designer or an editor, using softwares such as Photoshop or Illustrator would be an issue.
[section label=”Keyboard”]
Keyboard
The Dell G3 has a full-sized keyboard which adds to your convenience. The keyboard is well spread out and the keys have good travel in between them. The feedback from the keys is also good, fit for both intense gaming and every day business affairs. The keyboard is also equipped with a num pad which is extremely helpful for both gaming as well as day-to-day office activities. The trackpad could have been a bit bigger, considering it needs to be used for gaming and the buttons on the trackpad are a little mushy. So fi you’re using the trackpad, we recommend using touch rather than the physical buttons on it.
The keyboard also has a blue backlight which gives that ‘gaming machine’ feel to the laptop. Again, the colour on the keyboard backlight is not very flashy and is good enough to be used in all environments.
[section label=”Gaming”]
Gaming
On paper, the Dell G3 has top of the line specifications. It has an 8th gen, Intel i7 processor which reaches upto 4.1 GHz with Turbo Boost. It runs on 8 GB of DDR4 RAM and has 128 GB of SSD storage, with an additional 1 TB HDD. For graphics, it is supported by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti with a 4 GB GDDR5 graphics memory. All of this should make the G3 a gaming beast, but unfortunately, it isn’t.
While games such as PUBG run pretty smoothly at a high graphics configuration, the laptop does struggle with heavier games. For example, it could run Wolfenstein II and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey at mid graphics and at 30 fps. Also considering the fact that Wolfenstein II is relatively old. Adding to this is the average display which really took away the pleasure of a good gaming experience .
You can solve this issue by swapping out the 1 TB HDD for a faster and more efficient SSD. On the other hand, you can just run your games out of the existing 128 GB SSD on the laptop, or even upgrade that SSD to a higher storage capacity.
[section label=”Performance”]
Perfromance
The battery life on the laptop is decent, with it providing around an hour and a half with intense gaming and around 5-6 hours of light use. You can also disable the graphics card while not in use, which will add on its battery life.
The G3 also has a dedicated webcam, with a 720p resolution. While the camera quality is not brilliant, it is enough for basic video calling and Skype sessions. The laptop also has two microphones out front, which capture good sound and can be helpful if you forget to carry your gaming headsets around. The G3 also has 2 front firing speakers, which are tuned by Waves MaxxAudio, giving out good quality of sound, which makes for an immersive experience while gaming or viewing content.
[section label=”Serviceability”]
Serviceability
A huge advantage that the laptop does offer is the ability to swap out and upgrade components in case you want to upgrade something or simply change out faulty or worn out parts. The bottom has all the components laid out in a very accessible fashion. You can easily swap out your HDD for an SSD, for example.
[section label=”Verdict”]
Verdict
While the Dell G3 is not a hardcore gaming laptop, it fulfils what it sets out to do. It is an all-round performer with the ability to be used for day-to-day operations as well as a higher level of gaming. However, if you are someone who is looking for something that will exclusively be used as a gaming machine, the Dell G3 is not for you. But if you’re in the market for a feature packed, overall well performing laptop, this is probably the machine for you. At a price of Rs 84,990, this is a pretty good deal for its price.
Samsung recently announced that their flagship phones; the S9 and S9+ will get the new Android Pie update that is based on the new One UI, in January. The announcement was made at the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC 2018) in San Francisco, California. There have been several complaints from consumers stating that Samsung’s UI has a lot of clutter and is confusing. Apple on the other hand has always kept their user interface simple and made it very user friendly. This is one of the many reasons that consumers have accepted Apple so readily in the past.
What’s New?
Samsung’s new UI is clean, simple and looks very much like stock Android with a personal touch from Samsung. The landing page is very clean, the home screen is clutter free and the icons looks quite good as well. We also expect this lighter UI to make the phone perform better. But our guess in that department is as good as yours. At least until we get our hands on the UI. The new UI will make one- handed use better. This is easily visible in their Settings page, Dialler, Clock, Albums and more, which starts from the lower half of the screen.
They are calling the top part the ‘viewing area’ and the bottom part the ‘interacting area’. Apart from this, the gallery has been completely redesigned as well, with bigger icons making it easier to identify the image you are looking for. The overall design cue seems to find a lot of influence from Stock Android, infusing their old TouchWiz UI.
Samsung’s S8 which saw it’s release early in 2017 will reportedly not get the new user interface. The open beta program for Android 9 Pie will reportedly start to roll out in the US, Germany and South Korea later this month. Other Asian and European countries will receive the beta at a later stage but no date has been mentioned as of now.
The Nokia 8.1 was spotted on Geekbench a few weeks back. It has now popped up on the list of Google’s ARCore supported devices. With these listings already out, it is said that HMD will launch the smartphone soon. Other specifications of the device include the Snapdragon 710 SoC, 4 GB of RAM and Android 9 Pie. There are some speculations that this could be the Nokia X7 which was launched in China last month, as its specifications match that of the alleged Nokia 8.1.
Nokia 8.1 Or X7
However, it is possible that this could another device. Since the Nokia X7 has a 6.18 inch display, it will most probably carry the ‘Plus’ title after its name. As Nokia usually does with larger screen devices. Therefore, the X7 might be the Nokia 7.1 Plus while the Nokia 8.1 will sport a slightly smaller 5.9 inch display. ARCore is a kit developed by Google to allow augmented reality applications for a certain smartphone to be built. Therefore, the inclusion of ARCore support in the 8.1 could mean that we would see more AR integration in the camera. This could include elements such as stickers and even interactive animations.
Earlier, the Geekbench listing of the Nokia 8.1 had given us some more specifications about the device. The geek bench listing showed that the phone has a single-core score of 1841 and a multi-core score of 5807. Considering the current design language being used by Nokia, we can expect the device to have a Zeiss dual rear camera setup. It might have a glass body, with an aluminium frame. Running on the Snapdragon 710, the phone is most probably a mid-ranger and will be priced accordingly. Pricing will be the key as the mid-range segment is home to a lot of competition. This can make it difficult for even some of the best smartphones.
With a lot of upcoming launches coming our way from HMD Global, including the Nokia 9 and the Nokia 7.1, we can expect the Nokia 8.1 to launch soon as well.
It has been two years since the launch of the PlayStation 4, and Sony has introduced a version which is quieter than the old models. The new PlayStation 4 bearing the model number CUH-7200 is significantly quieter. Now this may not seem like a big deal to people who have never owned a PlayStation before but it is. PlayStations are extremely noisy and can reach an unbearable decibel when used.
A few websites did a test on the new PS4 Pro and compared it to the older one. The new PS4 reportedly runs a bit hotter than the original model, but its fan remains a lot quieter. A reputed gaming website also recorded the decibel count. The new Sony PlayStation 4 Pro recorded 48 decibels at its loudest, compared to 55 decibels in the original. PlayStations have been known for their loud noise and the ‘Jet Engine Effect’ which can be extremely distracting for gamers. This move from Sony is a welcome change. They are generally loud because they generate a lot of heat and thus the fans have to work a lot to cool it down, causing a lot of noise. Playing games like Marvel’s Spider-Man and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey which have high graphics requirements makes the PS4 extremely hot and noisy.
Another significant change includes a new power adapter. It is a figure eight power adapter, like the ones used in Xbox models. There is very little else that has changed. Some websites have also reported that the PS4 Pro will be bundled with Red Dead Redemption 2. The Red Dead Redemption 2 PS4 Pro bundle is currently available for $ 399 on Amazon. With Black Friday and Christmas coming up, there will be massive discounts on gaming consoles. Since both models look similar, it is best to check the model number before buying.
Everyone thought the future had arrived when Apple showcased the iPhone X with the notch and the almost bezel-less display. But there lies the beauty of technology, as it never remains stagnant. After the launch of the iPhone X, and it’s huge demand, other phone manufacturers understood that bezel-less and notch-less screens are the way forward. But all these companies faced two major issues in making a 100% screen-to-body-ratio phone; the front camera and the connector that attaches the screen component to the motherboard. Apple patented a technology where they could solve the issue of the screen connector by folding the screen underneath itself. But the front camera issue still prevailed.
The Way Around
Many manufacturers made the notch smaller, a U-shaped notch, a V-shaped teardrop notch and more. Many decided to make mechanical and physical moving parts so that the camera could slide out when needed. But the latest trend in hiding the small front camera has been patenting phones with the cameras hidden underneath the display. Samsung was rumoured to have been working on such a phone. But now it seems LG has patented a phone with a similar technology as well.
According to a news website, the patent has been filed in South Korea and has two different designs. One of the designs has a curved edge and the other one has a straight edge. The notch placements also vary on the patent. It can be in the middle or the top left or top right of the screen. While LG has already worked extensively on curved displays, this may be new territory for the company. Even through they have patented the designs, it is not clear when we will get to see these phones. But we look forward to technologies like this in the years to come as we truly move into the future of smartphones.
Just as we thought that all the major launches for the year were done and dusted, reports about the Nokia 9’s imminent launch surface. The Nokia 9 is exciting and highly anticipated, for 5 reasons; It’s penta camera setup. Jokes aside, this is one of the biggest design changes in a year full of big design changes. 2018 saw the adoption of in-display fingerprint sensors, sliding camera modules, and the addition of more lenses to the camera setup. But how many lenses are too many lenses, and does a smartphone need them at all?
Nokia 9
The Nokia 9 made headlines a few months ago when a hands-on image of the device leaked, showing off its penta camera setup. While the setup is impressive, it is equally peculiar as well. The setup features three vertically aligned lenses, likes of which we’ve seen before, however they are a bit spaced out. Accompanying these are two more lenses placed to the sides of the vertical setup. These are placed adjacent to what appears to be two flash modules. This setup does look like something out of a sci-fi movie, but the fact that it is a patented design by Zeiss, adds to the legitimacy of the leak.
Specifications
The patented design by Zeiss is called ‘Miniature Zoom Camera’. This uses an array of multiple smaller lenses in a circle instead of singular or dual, larger sensors. The setup is said to consist of an image sensor and a normal lens. Along with a secondary group of ‘rotating lenses’ with varying focal lengths. Apart from the unique camera setup, the Nokia 9 is said to have a 6 inch AMOLED display with an in-display fingerprint scanner. The device will run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC with 8 GB of RAM. It is also said to have an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance. Apart from this, it will have 256 GB of inbuilt storage and a 3,900 mAh battery.
Apart from the aforementioned features, it is also said to run on the Android One OS. The device is also exciting as it will be one of the first devices to carry the PureView trademark after HMD Global reacquired the same. It is well known that a smartphone with a PureView trademark never disappoints in the camera department. And with a Nokia-Zeiss collaboration, we can expect something great.
The device had gone underground for a while, but sources say that HMD had done so to ensure that there were no further leaks about the device. The Nokia 9 is the next flagship from HMD and is highly anticipated due to its long list of features. According to sources, the device can be expected to launch 3-4 weeks from now.
Remember Samsung’s advertisement mocking Apple when the iPhone X came out? Well, it seems that Samsung has finally given in to the notch and has decided to go with the general flow of the industry. Albeit, the notches are not as big as the iPhones’ but they are notches nonetheless. Samsung was one of the very few companies that did not have notches on their phones but now it seems the company has changed it’s stance as they revealed three different notch designs at a developer conference recently.
Notch Specifications
The fact that Samsung is looking into notch designs was in the rumour mill since a long time and the event confirms that truth. In the conference, they showed three different types of notches – the V-notch, the O- notch and the U- notch. The V- notch is in the shape of a V. It is located in the middle of the screen on top. The U- notch aptly looks like a U and is located on the middle top. It is similar to what we have seen in the Essential phone and a few other phones. The most interesting of the three is the O- notch that is in the shape of a circle. This notch is on the top left side of the screen. It looks like a hole, a cutout inside the screen.
Screengrab of Samsung’s advertisement mocking Apple’s notch
It is still unclear as to how Samsung is going to utilise this notch if the consumer is going to accept the weird position of the camera or not. We really like this position as it provides an unobstructed view when it comes to watching videos or consuming other content. The New Infinity panel is the most interesting thing showed by the company. It is a notch-less, bezel less design that everyone was waiting for! If rumours are to be believed it might even have an under display camera and will be seen on the upcoming Galaxy S10!
What do you get when you mix Rockstar Games’ open world gameplay with the wild west? A perfect brew of mayhem, horse-riding and amazing gameplay. John Marston, the hero of the first Red Dead Redemption game is back and the stakes are quite high this time. Gunslingers, outlaws, horse drawn carriages and a lot of savagery awaits in this game. Rockstar Games are known for the Grand Theft Auto series, L.A. Noire and Max Payne and Red Dead Redemption 2 is nothing less in terms of quality. The game has sold 17 million copies to retailers worldwide which is more than what Red Dead Redemption’s first instalment sold in eight years! The game launched for Xbox and PlayStation on October 26th and the sales haven’t slowed down yet.
Strauss Zelnick, President and CEO of Take-Two Interactive, recently revealed that the online beta for the game will arrive sometime in the end of November. According to a news website, which later deleted the article and agreed to donate over £1 million to charity on behalf of Take Two interactive for their leaks, had mentioned about a battle royale mode in the Red Dead Redemption 2 Online game. If it is indeed true then it will pose a fierce competition for other battle royale games such as PUBG, Fortnite and Call of Duty 4. We are eager to see how things pan out. But for all the PC gamers who are not watching the gameplay walkthrough, so as to not spoil it, here is a chronology of trailers and first looks that the game has brought out till date!
Chronology Of Trailer Releases
The first trailer saw it’s release on Oct 20, 2016, shortly after the announcement of Red Dead Redemption 2. It gives us a general look and feel of the game and the landscapes that the game is set in.
The second trailer dropped almost a year later on Sep 28, 2017. It gave us a glimpse of its new protagonist Arthur Morgan. This trailer features snow clad mountains, fights on trains, dark forests and a lot more!
The third trailer hit the internet hard with it giving us a fleeting glimpse of John Marston in it. It saw its release on May 2, 2018, again almost a year after the second trailer.
As part of the notorious Van Der Linde gang, Arthur is projected as an outlaw. He has to constantly change locations to stay ahead in the game. He has to set up camps everywhere he goes and this camp is where gang members eat, sleep, play, games, and do chores. Red Dead Redemption 2 promises to be more interactive and detailed than ever before and the entire game is populated with a diverse range of characters from the turn of the century. You can watch the gameplay trailer that saw its release on Aug 9, 2018 to find out more.
Ever had moments when you sent a message to your friend or your ex and regretted it? Well, we all have. Facebook messenger is going to fix that for you with it’s new unsend feature. You will now get a window of 10 minutes to delete your message. This feature has been written about in the “coming soon” section in the release notes of Messenger on iOS. The note states that if someone has accidentally sent the wrong photo, incorrect information or message in the wrong thread, they can delete the message in the next ten minutes. WhatsApp also has a similar feature but the message can be deleted in a time frame of an hour and also has to be an unread message. Even though the 10 minute window does not seem much but it is still a great feature to have.
It is also well known that the top brass in Facebook have had the unsend feature for a long time. What prompted Facebook to add this feature for regular users is unclear. However, there have been speculations that it is being added after the controversy of Facebook deleting messages sent by CEO Mark Zuckerberg from other people’s inboxes. Many had considered this act to be a breach of trust at the time. It will be interesting to see if the receiver of the message gets a “message deleted” notification or not. WhatsApp shows a similar notification at the moment.
For the uninitiated, Facebook Messenger is a messaging application that is free to use and allows users to send and receive messages, calls, video calls and so on via the internet. It also allows one to send photographs and videos to their friends and family once they are connected through Facebook. WhatsApp, which is also a messaging application, is also owned by Facebook.
Android Go is a tailored distribution of the Android Operating system for low-end smartphones with 1 GB of RAM or less. It uses a special suite of Google apps which can work on less powerful hardware and consume less data. Android Go devices are priced very aggressively and are mainly targeted towards developing countries. Samsung is the global smartphone leader and makes smartphones in all price brackets. They launched their first Android Go smartphone, the Galaxy J2 Core back in August. Recently, another Samsung Android Go smartphone, the Galaxy J4 core has surfaced on a Brazilian website prior to its official launch.
J4 Core Specs & Features
The Samsung Galaxy J4 core is a smartphone made for the budget segment, but does not compromise on high priority features like a large screen, battery and storage expandability. The smartphone has a 6-inch HD+ display with a 1480 x 720 px resolution. It runs on an unstated quad-core processor with 1.4 GHz frequency and 1 GB of RAM. The smartphone has 16 GB of internal memory which is expandable up to 256 GB via a microSD card.
The Galaxy G4 is a dual sim smartphone with 4G capabilities. For photography, the smartphone has an 8 MP rear and a 5 MP front camera. Additionally, both front and rear cameras get a dedicated LED flash. It can shoot 1080p videos @ 30fps. The Galaxy J4 Core is powered by a 3,300 mAh battery with fast charging support. The smartphone will be available in three colours; Black, Blue & Copper, according to the listing on the site. Tt runs on Android 8.1 Oreo (Go Edition).
No information regarding the price of the Samsung Galaxy J4 Core is available as of now, but it might launch soon as almost all the details are already out.
Xiaomi has been on a roll, launching products that are affordable, yet have great quality. In an event in China, Xiaomi recently launched two new products. A wireless Apple-styled white earbud and a new notebook powered by the intel i3 processor. Xiaomi is known to take their design cues from Apple, previously having launched products that look very similar to iPhones and MacBooks and the earbuds are no different. Even the name of the product AirDots sound eerily similar to AirPods by Apple.
AirDots
The AirDots have tappable controls and a compact charging case just like the AirPods from Apple. They costs around 199 yuan which is about $29 and they look quite good too. They are slightly rectangular in shape compared to AirPods and have silicone tips that allow for better sound isolation and a better fit. There are speculations that they might soon be added in the box with Mi phones, just like the wireless chargers that were recently announced as well. The AirDots run on Bluetooth 5.0. They also connect to the last paired device automatically once they are taken out of their case. The standalone battery life is around 4 hours and the battery time with the case is around 12 hours.
Xiaomi also launched two new laptops in their Notebook range. A 13-inch and a 15.6-inch screen laptop. One of them costs RMB 3,099 and features a Core i3 processor that has two cores and four threads. Clocked a maximum turbo frequency of 3.9GHz, the laptop has 4GB of RAM and 128GB storage. It also features an SSD drive. It also has a dual fan cooling system to keep the heat down. The other laptop is priced at RMB 3,799 and features a 13.3-inch display with Intel’s 8th generation Core i3 processor. The difference is in the memory as it is paired with 8GB of RAM and 128GB SSD storage. This laptop also has a fingerprint scanner for biometric authentication.
The laptops will go on sale in China on November 1 but it is unclear if they will be launched in India or not. It is reported that Xiaomi intends to launch a few models of it’s notebooks in India soon but no specific dates have been given yet.
