Xiaomi’s most successful line of smartphones in India, the Redmi Note series might be getting its new flag bearer very soon. The Redmi Note 5, apparent successor to the hugely successful Redmi Note 4 might be coming to India soon.
A recent listing on a couple of e-commerce websites have shed some light on what the Redmi Note 5 might have to offer when it launches.
The Redmi Note 5 will sport a 5.99-inch display with a 2160 x 1080 px resolution, and as rumoured for weeks, will feature an 18:9 aspect ratio.
The listing suggests that the Redmi Note 5 will have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset, but, since that is an old chipset, expect the Snapdragon 630 chipset instead. The device is also expected to be launched in a couple of variants, one with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage and the other one with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage. As is with a lot of Redmi Note phones, the Redmi Note 5 is also expected to be powered by a massive battery.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
The Redmi Note 5 is expected to have a 12MP rear-facing camera and a front facing 5MP camera.
Xiaomi recently announced a permanent price cut for the Redmi Note 4 which suggests that the company is making room for the Redmi Note 5 in that price bracket which already flooded with phones from other OEMs.
Additionally, Manu Jain, Head of Xiaomi India shared a teaser on Twitter hinting at launch of a new product.
Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has announced that it will launch its upcoming smartphone, the V10 in China on the 28th of November before the global launch in London. Thanks to a TENAA listing, a lot of the details of the upcoming smartphone have been leaked. The price of the phone is expected to be around CNY 2,999 or US $452.
The Honor V10 will have 5.99-inch FullView screen with Full HD+ resolution (2160 x 1080 px). An 18:9 aspect ratio means that the phone will have a tall display and thin bezels, which has become a norm in 2017.
Under the hood, the Honor V10 will have the Kirin 970 chipset, Mali-G72 MP12, 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of onboard storage. As per the leaked images, the Honor V10 will have a fingerprint sensor placed at the back of the phone due to thin bezels and a missing home button. The smartphone is expected to be powered by a massive 4000 mAh battery with support for QuickCharge.
Huawei announced EMUI 8.0 along with the launch of the Mate 10 Pro, which means that the Honor V10 might run Android 8.0 Oreo (since EMUI 8.0 is based on Android 8.0 Oreo) and EMUI 8.0 on top.
The Honor V10, according to the listing, will have a 16MP+20MP setup at the back. Considering how Honor has so far predominantly implemented the dual-camera setup, one of the cameras will have an RGB sensor while the other will be equipped with a monochrome sensor. On the front of the phone will be a single 13MP camera, which means no “four cameras” on this one from Honor.
Google has started rolling an update for Pixel and Pixel 2 devices which brings the Google Lens feature to these phones. 9To5Google reported that the some users have noticed the Lens feature in the Google Assistant app.
The first users have spotted the visual search feature up and running on their Pixel and Pixel 2 phones.
In Photos, Lens can be triggered when viewing an image or a screenshot. However, in Google Assistant, it is integrated right into the sheet that pops up after holding down on the home button, or squeezing the frame of the Pixel 2. Once triggered, the Lens runs an image based search and pulls out web page links, options to open another app or links to buy a certain product.
When Lens was firs unveiled, Google CEO Sundar Pichai described Google Lens as a set of vision based computing capabilities that can understand what you’re looking at and perform actions based on that information. If you trigger Lens while pointing your phone to a book, it will scan the cover of the book and pull links to buy or read the particular book online. Google says Lens has an accuracy of over 95%.
While the rollout is still minimal, and extensive rollout to all the Pixel and Pixel 2 devices is expected to happen in the coming days.
Tesla, one of the most talked about electric car companies, has now ventured into smartphone accessories. The American company has announced the launch of a new power bank and a desktop supercharger.
While there are plenty of power banks in the market with much more capacity, Tesla’s power bank will certainly interest people especially at a price tag of US $45.
The desktop supercharger does exactly what the name suggests. It sits on your desktop and has a USB port so that you can connect any USB cable and charge anything you want. It is also priced at US $45 and is available on the company’s official website but, the shipping of the supercharger is delayed as of now.
The smartphone accessory is launched days after the company announced two of its marquee vehicles, the Roadster 2.0 and Tesla Semi. While the Roadster 2.0 is the second iteration of the company’s first Roadster, the Tesla Semi is an electric truck which will go into production in 2020.
The Tesla power bank can charge an iPhone or an Android phone thanks to its integrated lightning cable and a detachable micro USB cable. This is done for people who own a smartphone that charges via Type C cable. It has a capacity of 3350 mAh and a maximum output of 5V/1.5A. These specifications for a modern day power bank are not mind boggling and you have to be Tesla enthusiast to invest on this power bank.
You can buy the newly launched power bank and the desktop supercharger from Tesla’s official website.
We are pushing out the incremental roll-out of OxygenOS 5.0, our first official Android O OTA update for the OnePlus 3 and 3T.
With the new update, the OnePlus 3 and 3T will get long awaited Android 8.0 Oreo features such as notifications dots and picture-in-picture mode and a few new Oxygen OS features. Other additions are ‘parallel apps’, auto-fill, smart text selection and more.
In the OnePlus launcher, there are new features like notification dots and a new app folder design. OnePlus has also added the option to upload photos directly to Shot on OnePlus. The company has further cleared that the OTA update is ‘incremental’ which means that only a small percentage of users will get the update right away. The blog post continues to state that a broader roll-out of the new software update will begin in some days.
The news is bittersweet for OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T users. Yes, these users will be the first to get Android 8.0 Oreo on a OnePlus device but, as the company had announced earlier, this is the last major software upgrade for the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T. OnePlus is known for dropping support for its year-old flagships and this case doesn’t seem any different.
The OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5Tare expected to get the Android 8.0 Oreo update some time in early 2018 as the beta testing on the two phones will start in early-December.
Lenovo has continued its efforts of consistently launching tablets with two new additions of the Tab 7 and Tab 7 Essential. While the Tab 7 is priced at US $99.99 (Rs 6500 approx.), the Tab 7 Essential is priced even lower at US $79.99 (Rs 5200 approx.).
The Tab 7 has a 7-inch IPS LCD display with a 1280 x 720 px resolution.
Under the hood, the budget tablet has the MediaTek MT8161 chipset, 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard storage which can be expanded via microSD card. Lenovo has not mentioned the exact battery capacity of the tablet but, it does claim up to 15 hours of usage time.
Lenovo Tab 7
The Tab 7 runs Android 7 Nougat.
The tablet has a rear-facing 2MP camera and a front facing 5MP camera.
The Tab 7 Essential has a 7 inch IPS LCD display with a 1024 x 600 px resolution.
Under the hood, the Tab 7 Essential packs a MediaTek MT8167D, quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard storage. Lenovo has not mentioned the exact battery capacity of the tablet but, it does claim up to 20 hours of usage time.
Just like the Tab 7, the Tab 7 Essential also runs Android 7 Nougat.
The tablet has a rear-facing 2MP camera and a front facing 2MP camera.
Ever since the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL were launched back in October, the two Android flagship phones have been marred with some issue or the other. While the Pixel 2 XL has faced a lot of flak for its shoddy display and extremely apparent colour shifting, the Pixel 2 has also had some minor issues that have been reported extensively online. One of them is the buzzing noise a user can hear when they put the phone to their ear during a call. Google has announced that an upcoming software update will fix this issue.
Hey all,
We’re rolling out a software update in the coming weeks which eliminates a faint buzzing sound on some Pixel 2 devices when the phone is placed to your ear during a phone call.
Thanks.
It is worth noting that the buzzing noise is different from the “clicking” noise that some Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL users have experienced in the past. While an update fixed that issue, people found a way around that issue by switching off NFC.
Considering Google’s prowess in the software part of technology, it is surprising that most of the problems with the two Pixel 2 phones have been software related. On the flip side, it is a good sign that Google is taking note of every little issue reported by users and trying to actively fix them.
Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has launched the new Honor 7X launched in India. Let’s unbox the new device and see what we get inside:
Honor 7X
Documentation
Sim ejector tool
Wall charger
Micro USB cable
[section label=”First Impressions”]
First Impressions
The Honor 7X right from the moment you hold it in your hand gives a solid and sturdy feel. It has an aluminium unibody design with well-rounded edges for a nice snug fit in the hand.
[section label=”Specifications”]
Specifications
The Honor 7X has a 5.9 inch LTPS IPS LCD display with a 2160 x 1080 px display which translates into an 18:9 aspect ratio.
Under the hood, the Honor 7X has the HiSilicon Kirin 659 chipset, Mali-T830 MP2, 4GB of RAM and three storage options of 32GB, 64GB and 128GB. The onboard storage is expandable up to 256GB via microSD card. The device is powered by a 3340 mAh battery which charges via a micro USB slot. Since the device has thin bezels, the fingerprint sensor is placed at the back of the below the dual-camera setup.
The Honor 7X runs Android 7.0 Nougat with EMUI 6.0 on top which gives a user more options for customising their phones.
The smartphone has a dual camera setup at the back. One of the cameras is equipped with a 16MP senor while the other one is a 2MP depth sensor. The camera setup at the back has PDAF and records 1080P videos at 30fps. On the front is an 8MP camera which also records 1080P videos.
Even though we’ve almost reached the end of 2017, there is a constant flux of high-end phones launching week in and week out. We recently saw three high profile Android phones launching in November itself, the Razer Phone, HTC U11+ (a mid range variant called the HTC U11 Life was launched as well) and the OnePlus 5T. Excluding the HTC U11+, the OnePlus 5T and the Razer Phone have the best specifications you can ask for in an Android phone. Snapdragon 835, up to 8GB of RAM and umpteen amount of storage.
But, these two phones have one thing in common which should not be acceptable in November of 2017. Both the devices run on an Android OS version which is more than a year old. Android 8.0 Oreo was launched back in August and it has been three months since it was made available for all these big smartphone companies to adopt and install in its new phones.
When the OnePlus 5T was launched, the Chinese smartphone maker said it is due to the intensive testing programme that it has not yet introduced Android 8.0 Oreo in the latest OnePlus 5T. Razer gave a similar reason and said it will push out an update soon enough. But, is soon enough good enough? You’re paying close US $700 for the Razer Phone and the higher end OnePlus 5T has a price tag of US $549, at this price, a consumer at least deserved whatever the latest software is in the market.
Yes, at the price these two phones have the best specifications in the market and the performance will be amazing enough to ignore what Android OS version these phones are running.
But, won’t the latest and greatest Android OS match better with the latest and greatest chipset? With Android 8.0 Oreo, Google introduced faster boot speeds, tighter security and those notification dots along with a lot of under the hood improvements. That should amount to something more than just, “it looks great, it will work great as well.” That is usually our defence for phones running older Android OS versions.
An average consumer barely even notices what OS version their phone is running. But, it matters, because the latest version of any operating system means that it performs better than the previous one and will be better for the longevity of your phone.
Android 8.0 Oreo On Pixel 2 XL
Android 8.0 Oreo is currently available in only 0.3% Android phones, while iOS 11, which was launched in September is present in over 50% of iOS devices. For further context, here is the Android OS and the percentage of Android phones running it:
Android KitKat (13.8%) – 2013,
Lollipop (27.2%) – 2014,
Marshmallow (30.9%) – 2015
Nougat (20.6%) – 2016
Android Lollipop, launched back in 2014 is more prevalent than Android Nougat that was launched in 2016. This tells you the story of Android’s adoption rate, especially when compared to iOS 11. Even iOS 10, which was launched in 2016 is available in 38% of the iOS devices currently out in the market.
It is hard to believe that companies like Razer and OnePlus would bring out their marquee phones with dated software because of lack of effort. It may be because the difference between Android Nougat and Android Oreo from the look of it, isn’t much. An average consumer would not make out the difference unless the consumer is coming from KitKat or Gingerbread. Fragmentation of Android devices is also a reason why so many smartphones currently never see a major software upgrade through their lifecycle.
Google’s Android One resurgence shows that the company wants more people to adopt to the latest OS and not wait for other OEMs to make a skin based on the latest Android OS and then push it out to consumers. Whether the Android One project will be a success is yet to be seen and how the adoption rate will change for Android 8.0 Oreo.
Huawei’s sub brand Honor will launch its new smartphone, the V10 at an event in China on the 28th of November. The V10 will have a display with an 18:9 aspect ratio and thin bezels. The device will then be launched to a global audience on the 5th of December in London. The event poster hints at a “bezel-less” display and a dual camera setup. Honor has already launched a phone with a dual-camera setup at the back as well as the front, so it possible that the V10 might have a similar setup as well.
According to the leaks, the Honor V10 will have a 6-inch display with an 18:9 aspect ratio and 2160 x 1080 px resolution.
The Honor V10 is expected to have the Kirin 960 chipset, with 6GB of RAM. The phone is said to have two variants, one with the 64GB onboard storage, and the other one with 128GB of onboard storage. Due to thin bezels, the fingerprint sensor could be placed at the back of the phone like a lot of Honor smartphones from the recent past and considering the craze of facial recognition these days, it might as well have an option for “face unlock.” The smartphone is expected to be powered by a mssive 4000 mAh battery with support for QuickCharge.
The Honor V10 will run Android 8.0 Oreo with Honor’s custom EMUI 6.0 on top.
The smartphone is expected to have dual cameras at the back. One of the cameras will have a 16MP sensor while the other is expected to be equipped with a 20MP sensor. Considering how Honor’s used the dual camera setup in its previous phones, it might be a RGB+Monochrome setup. While on the front, rumours are that the Honor V10 will have an 8MP camera.
The launch event in London will most probably shed more light on its global availability and whether the company plans to launch the device in the Indian market.
The holiday season is a time when companies try to push their marquee products into the market to take advantage of an average consumer’s spending spree. Apple Inc however, has decided to evade this season and wait till early next year to launch its much awaited foray into the smart speaker industry. HomePod, the Siri powered smart speaker which was unveiled back in June will start shipping to the US, UK and Australia in only early 2018.
The smart speaker industry has become more competitive this year and launching a first smart speaker at the end of 2017 was already a but late from Apple. Amazon’s Echo lineup and Alphabet Inc’s Google Home speakers have been dominating the market and with a price tag of US $349, the HomePod already have a stiff competition from its own price tag.
Amazon Echo Dot Retails For US $49
Bob O’Donnell, founder of Technalysis Research, said, “Apple has forecast between $84 billion and $87 billion in revenue for the holiday – mostly driven by sales of its $999 iPhone X – so it’s unlikely that missing a few weeks of sales of its $349 speaker will affect its financial results.”
AI Assistants are more used in smart speakers than phones. Even if the majority of Echo or Google Home users own an iPhone, it is highly likely that they’re talking to Alexa or Google Assistant more than Siri.
Google Home Mini retails for US $49 as well
Another big responsibilty on the shoulders of the HomePod is Apple Music. The rival smart speakers play music from Spotify, even though Google and Amazon have their own music streaming services. The HomePod however, will not have this option and will drive more people to subscribe to Apple Music and the rise of rival Spotify.
Samsung Galaxy S9 will be the first high profile smartphone of 2018 with its launch expected to take place in March. While there isn’t much known about the device other than a few obvious aspects, a new benchmark listing has provided some information regarding the device’s performance.
New benchmark results for a Samsung smartphone with the model number SM-G960F – widely expected to the global version of the Galaxy S9 – have appeared on the Geekbench website. The smartphone will most likely be powered by the new Exynos 9810 chipset, which was announced earlier in November. The phone scores 2680 on the single-core Geekbench 4 test and a 7787 on the multi-core test. While the scores are impressive, the smartphone doesn’t even come close to iPhone X‘s single-core score of 4197 and multi-core score of 10051.
The Galaxy S9 will have the same screen size as the Galaxy S8 and similarly the Galaxy S9+ will have the same screen size as the Galaxy S8+. What will be different is the size of the bezels. The top and bottom bezels will be thinner than the ones found on the 2017 flagship phones. There were rumours that the Galaxy S9 will have a screen-embedded fingerprint sensor but, a recent report claims that Samsung will introduce this technology only in the Galaxy Note9 in late 2018. This means that the fingerprint sensor on the Galaxy S9 will remain at the back of the phone but, might have a new position.
Samsung, in all likelihood, will also revive the ‘Mini’ lineup by launching a Samsung Galaxy S9 Mini with a screen size under the 5-inch mark and same specifications.
Smart home devices have come a long way over the past few years. Big tech companies like Amazon, Apple and Google are investing big in smart home gadgets such with smart speakers being the latest rage. This new smart mirror, iCVBT10 from iHome is the latest addition to the everyday household things becoming “smart.”
The distortion-free mirror 10 inches by 13 inches in size, and has a built-in Bluetooth speaker to play music while you are getting ready, and a USB jack to charge your phone. The adjustable mirror includes a removable 3.5-inch mirror with 10x magnification and variable LED lighting around the frame to see as much detail as you want.
The mirror also has a built-in microphone to activate Siri or Google Assistant as it has support for both the AI assistants. To do so, you have to push and hold a button on the mirror to activate the voice assistant through your phone. You can even use it on the go thanks to a rechargeable battery. And a timer will switch off the light after 25 minutes if you forget.
If you were on the lookout for a smart mirror for your house then this device looks like the one for you. It is priced at US $199 and is available on Amazon.
Samsung’s budget smartphone lineup has had a lot of competition over the years since the rise of the likes of Xiaomi and Lenovo’s budget lineup. The Galaxy J5 Prime has long been Samsung’s flag bearer in the sub 15K category and the next year’s J5 Prime 2018 will be an incremental upgrade over the J5 Prime 2016 edition. New benchmark listing sheds light on what we can expect from the upcoming J5 Prime 2018 variant.
According to the listing, the J5 Prime 2018 will have a 4.8-inch display with a 120 x 720 px resolution amounting to a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9. While the flagship lineup and presumably the mid-rangers of 2018 will have display with an 18.5:9 aspect ratio, it appears that Samsung is not quite convinced to compete with the likes of the LG Q6 which has a taller display.
The SM-G571 was benchmarked as being powered by the Exynos 7570 SoC, the same Samsung-made chipset found inside its predecessor, Galaxy J3 (2017). The chipset is listed as running at a maximum operating frequency of 1.4GHz, which is in line with its previously commercialised configurations. The device will have 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of onboard storage which will be expandable via microSD card.
The device was also identified as having a 12MP primary camera capable of shooting 4K photos and 1920 x 1080 px videos along with an unspecified flash unit. The smartphone also appears to sport an 8MP camera with 1080p video support. The benchmark has listed it as a 7MP camera but, it is likely that the phone will have an 8MP sensor.
There are no firm availability details for the Samsung Galaxy J5 Prime 2018, with an early 2018 launch being the most plausible scenario.
Tesla, the American automaker headed by Elon Musk, has unveiled two new electric vehicles at an event held in Hawthorne. The company revealed a new electric car, the Roadster and an electric truck, the Semi. Not a lot was revealed in terms of specifications about both the vehicles but, Elon Musk said that Roadster will go into production in 2020 while Semi, the e;ectric truck will go into production in 2019.
Tesla Roadster
Musk claims the car will rocket zero to 60 miles per hour in 1.9 seconds, the first production car to perform the feat in under 2 seconds, Musk said. Musk did not confirm the top speed of the Roadster but hinted that it will be over 250 mph. The new sports car is priced at US $200,000. “It’ll be faster than that jet over there,” Musk quipped, as an airplane soared over Tesla’s Hawthorne, California facility.
Musk said the Roadster had a 200 kwh battery pack and a 620-mile range per charge, or over 1,000 kilometres. Imagine driving to Los Angeles to San Francisco, and back, without recharging, Musk teased. The car has three motors, one in the front and two in the rear, all-wheel drive and torque steering.
Tesla Semi Truck
Elon Musk had teased a “self driving electric truck” for a long time. He finally took the stage to unveil the product, the Tesla Semi Truck. The Truck is extremely smart, Musk claims. Surround cameras minimise blind spots, Tesla said.
The trucks will be equipped with enhanced autopilot and other self-drive and safety features such as automatic emergency braking, automatic lane keeping and lane departure warning. Musk claimed incredible levels of safety and reliability. There are onboard sensors which will look for signs of jackknifing. The Truck has four engines, so even if you break two, it will still keep motoring for a million miles.
The windshield is apparently thermonuclear explosion-proof. Musk has guaranteed a refund if the truck doesn’t survive a nuclear explosion.
Even though it is far from consumer ready as the company will start working on it in only 2019, Musk claims that it will be worth the wait. According to Musk, on a 100-mile route, a diesel truck would cost $1.51/mile, while this truck will cost just $1.26/mile. Musk claimed the Tesla Semi would go from 0 to 60 mph in 5 seconds compared with 15 seconds for a diesel truck. He also said it would climb a 5%-grade hill at 65 mph, compared with a diesel’s 45 mph.
