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Xiaomi Mi Watch Revolve gets a ₹3,000 price cut as a part of Limited Period Offer in India

Xiaomi launched its first Smartwatch, the Mi Watch Revolve in India back in September 2020. The company has officially announced a price cut that will make the wearable available ₹3,000 less than the launch price.

Xiaomi Mi Watch Revolve
Xiaomi Mi Watch Revolve

Xiaomi’s Mi Watch Revolve is now priced at ₹7,999($110) in India. The smartwatch comes in two color options- Chrome Silver, Midnight Black. If you recall, the company brought it for a price of ₹10,990($151). However, it sold for a ₹1,000 less during the Diwali sale.

That said, the company mentions that the new offer is a Limited Period one which could be on the occasion of Valentine’s day arriving in five days. Either way, the new Price of the Smartwatch has already reflected on the official channels. Speaking of which, you can grab the Mi Watch Revolve on mi.com and Amazon India.

The Mi Watch Revolve features a 1.39-inch round-shaped AMOLED touchscreen housed inside a 46mm Watch dial. The strap width is about 22mm. The display has a 454×454 pixel resolution, 326ppi PPI, and a max brightness of 450nits. It is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 as well.

It also has features like always-on functionality, close to 112 Watch faces. Further, the device has 10 sport modes, media control, notifications, find my phone, weather, and more. It is compatible with Android 4.4 or iOS 10 and above.

Other features include a 420mAh battery, Heart rate monitoring(PPG), GPS, Bluetooth 5.0 BLE, 5ATM water resistance, Ambient light functionality, and more. Finally, the watch measures 4.62 cm x 5.33 cm x 1.14 cm and weighs just 40 grams.

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Lenovo K13 renders along with key Specs leaked

A few days ago, a Lenovo phone with a “K13” moniker got certified by Bluetooth SIG leaving everyone surprised. Today, 91Mobiles have partnered with tipster Sudhanshu to reveal the renders along with key specifications.

Lenovo Logo Featured

 

According to the report, Lenovo K13 will have 4G LTE connectivity support, run Android 10 OS just like its predecessor. If you recall, Lenovo resurrected the Lemon series in China with budget Lenovo Lemon K12 Pro and Lemon K12 smartphones. These were rebadged versions of Moto G9 Power and Moto E7 Plus respectively.

These devices also had the 4G LTE connectivity and ran Android 10 OS out of the box. If this isn’t enough, the Bluetooth SIG also suggested that the Lenovo K13 could just be a rebrand of Moto E7i Power as model numbers were similar(XT2097).

Anyway, it’s really disappointing to see devices debuting with Android 10 at a time when Android 12’s arrival is imminent. Coming back, the report also shows renders of the Lenovo K13. The device is said to come in two colors- Red and Blue. The design is a bit different as this one has vertically-aligned dual-cameras on the back.

 

Surprisingly, it seems to have a speaker grille located on the back alongside the Lenovo branding. There is also a fingerprint sensor at the center of the rear. Apart from this, the device has Power, Volume, Google Assistant keys to the right side.

Lenovo K13 Specifications(Expected)

As for Specs, the device is likely to get a 6.5-inch HD+ display with a 1600x720p resolution and mostly a waterdrop notch. It will be powered by an Octa-core chipset clocked at 1.6GHz paired with 2GB RAM and 32GB internal storage. The device could also get a microSD expansion up to 32GB.

For cameras, the rear setup will have a 13MP main and a 2MP sensor, and a 5MP sensor up front for selfies according to the report. Weighing 200g, other features of it include dual-SIM and a Type-C port for charging. I guess we will have just have to wait for the official launch date and price now.

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Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Galaxy S21: Gaming Performance Comparison

Samsung, the world’s biggest phone manufacturer has just updated its 2021 flagship lineup with the brand-new Galaxy S21 series, which includes the Galaxy S21, the Galaxy S21 +, and the Galaxy S21 Ultra. And as promised before, we got a unit of the Galaxy S21 and have been testing the device for the past few days. Since you can find plenty of unboxing and hands-on videos of the S21 on youtube, we instead focused on how the Mi 11 fares in comparison to the new Samsung model. So today we are going to bring you a deep gaming comparison between the S21 and the Xiaomi Mi 11 and briefly talk about their UIs.

Galaxy s21 vs mi 11 05

As an early flagship model in 2021, the S21 is much more recognizable in appearance. Since you may have already learned much about these two models’ design, we are not going to go through it again and waste your time. So let’s just focus on their gaming experience.

Indeed, we have praised the light and thin design of the Mi 11, but the S21 has an even lighter design, which no doubt is able to provide a better holding experience during long hours of gaming.

samsung galaxy s21 vs s21 ultra featured
samsung galaxy s21 vs s21 ultra

Galaxy S21 vs Xiaomi Mi 11: Display

Samsung is one of the first few brands that started the trend of curved display on their flagship models. Since the S6 Edge, the edge-curved display has become one of the series’ most distinctive features. But this time around the S21 comes with a traditional flat display, while other brands including Xiaomi just started their journey with curved displays.

Galaxy s21 vs mi 11 04However, we are really happy to see the flat display come back because personally I feel, having a flat-screen for gaming and videos is absolutely a better option. What’s very interesting here is that the Mi 11 utilizes Samsung’s latest 2K 120Hz panel, while Samsung has downgraded the s21’s resolution to 1080p. Here, Samsung is telling you that if you want a better display with a higher resolution, just pay more money and get the S21 Ultra. Both the Mi 11 and the S21 have an excellent color presentation, but if we just focus on gaming, you can’t really pick one as the one with a better display, no matter for the colors or for resolution.

Galaxy s21 vs mi 11 gaming
Mi 11 top / S21 bottom

Although the light and thin design of the Mi 11 offers comfortable holding when gaming for a long time, the S21 has an even lighter design. Therefore, even though the Mi 11 has a bigger display, we still strongly feel that the whole visual experience on the S21 is better in our gaming test.

READ MORE: Amazfit GTR 2 vs GTS 2 vs GTS 2 Mini vs GTR 2e vs GTS 2e: Review &Comparison

Actually, we don’t think these two phones are the ideal models for gaming. In our comparison between the Mi 11 and the iQOO 7, you can see how additional buttons improve gaming operation. If we had to pick one who’s better at gaming, we would give our credit to the Mi 11 which has a slightly bigger display for a less crowded button-layout. And the Mi 11’s sampling rate is a bit higher than the S21, although it’s not easy to perceive this difference.

Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Xiaomi Mi 11: Benchmark & Gaming Performance

Now let’s focus on their performance. The S21 series released in Europe features Samsung’s own flagship chipset, the Exynos 2100, while the model in our hands is powered by the Snapdragon 888. From what we got on these benchmarks, the result shows a tiny gap between these two models within 8 percent, except for the Antutu benchmark results, which showed a 12% lead for Mi 11. So theoretically the S21 should have a close performance to what we have on the Mi 11. However, the real difference is higher than what we expected.

But it doesn’t mean that the S21 is worthless over gaming. For example, in shooting games like PUBG Mobile which is well-optimized, the S21 has almost the same performance as the Mi 11. The consistent high framerate shows that the PUBG Mobile now is not a problem at all for these high-end models.

And then we turned to the NBA 2K20, the game that is able to support higher-framerate gaming. So in this game, both of them can reach up to a maximum 120fps, but both of them throttled down performance several times in our 20mins gaming test.

After the latest update, the Mi 11 finally fixed the issue of the lazy big core and the performance mode of the CPU lasted for much longer than before. Its first performance down throttling happened at the 9-minute mark. While the Samsung S21 was more disappointing with it throttling down the CPU in just 2 minutes. And it eventually limited the frame rate down to 60fps most of the time. So when you look back to their frame rate results, not so surprisingly, the average frame rate for the S21 running the NBA 2k is only 70.74fps, while the average figure for the Mi 11 is 105.15fps.

But these figures are not even close to the results that we tested on the 2020’s flagship models running the Snapdragon 865. And the S21’s result once again proves the optimization issue of the Snapdragon 888. But, of course, this aggressive down throttling reduced the surface temperature and the power output of the S21.

And then let’s move on to the results of the Genshin Impact. Well, this game is an absolute nightmare for the snapdragon 888. All we can say is that the result for the S21 is worse. Even though the average framerate of 28.72fps was gathered from a mid-range phone, it would be still terrible, not to say that it’s tested from a giant brand’s flagship model. Then we ran the game on Mi 11 to see whether its performance improved after the latest update. Well as you can see, a different issue just occurred — higher frame rate fluctuation. Although it seemed that the big core was working well, it didn’t reflect in better gaming fluency. Still the result of 47.3fps is still much better than what we got on the S21.

The last game we tested was Nimian Legends. The situation for the S21 didn’t change. The gap is still huge between these two models. The Mi 11 ran at 52.09fps on average, while the S21 only ran at 32.57fps.

So from all the tests we did, we have to admit that the S21 didn’t take full advantage of the latest flagship chipset. And it’s probably the most conservative model among all the Snapdragon 888 flagships in the market right now. And it seems that the Mi 11 also got the better performance over its GPU dispatch.

But at the same time, the S21 did perform better in terms of the cooling effect and power consumption. In the test of Nimian Legends, the S21 didn’t over-heat and was able to control the perceivable temperature under 47℃, and it only consumed 15% of power, while the Mi 11 easily heated up to 53℃ and it consumed 20% of power as we mentioned in the last video.

Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Galaxy S21: UIs

Galaxy S21 UI One
Galaxy S21 OneUI

In addition to their performance, we think it’s necessary to briefly talk about their UIs too. The S21 is running the One UI, which is one of the most customizable UIs in the Android ecosystem. When you get the phone, your first impression might be that the UI is boring without any features. Indeed there is not much you can do with its default settings. However, Samsung has officially offered customizable UI features via an App called Good Look, and you need to download the app from the Samsung Appstore. In the App, you will see the basic UI get a number of customizable UI features, such as Navigation bar, operating gesture, dynamic wallpaper elements, and so on. And even some basic settings were hidden inside the app collection of the Good Look family, such as the adjustment of edge touch for avoiding mis-touches.

Xiaomi Mi 11 display ads featured

On the contrary, on the Mi 11, the highly integrated MIUI feels a bit bloated with so many features. Some are creative and useful, and some will never be used in their lifetime. And it has pretty comfortable animations too, if it’s running fluently. But unfortunately, the Mi 11 still lagged sometimes. And make sure that you can live with its ads if you are going to buy the Chinese version.

Galaxy s21 vs mi 11 04

So that’s it. We have covered all the important information that we want to share with you, mainly about the S21’s disappointing gaming performance and its UI details when directly compared to the popular Mi 11. As for the camera performance of the S21 series, we will bring the S21 Ultra to our labs soon and compare it with other top camera phones of 2021.

The reason why we didn’t compare the S21’s cameras with the Mi 11’s is very simple: after we checked their camera samples, the Mi 11 lost the competition in almost all rounds. And the S21 is even not the best model of the series. 

But you can check out our comparison of the Galaxy S21 with the Vivo X60 Pro+ down below.

 

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Here are AnTuTu’s Top Android phones for January based on user ratings

AnTuTu has just released a new list of top Android smartphones for the month of January 2021. This list is based on user ratings of Android handsets, and is led by the Meizu 17 Pro, followed closely by the Huawei Mate 40 and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G.

AnTuTu

The rankings from the known benchmarking based platform arrives based on user ratings of Android smartphones. In other words, the rankings are also based on customer satisfaction of a handset. This implies that the devices on the list are present due to the high ratings received from numerous users. These phones also meet customers needs in most scenarios as well and are basically the ones that have been very positively received by the Chinese market.

Earlier this month, the list went live with the Meizu 17 Pro leading the rankings. Since its release, the device has received various OTA updates that have added various new features, which is likely what led to its high user ratings overall, which reached 97.93 percent. Under the hood, the device sports last year’s flagship Snapdragon 865 SoC, with LPPDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage. The device has been built with design in mind rather than performance, although, its hardware is still quite capable.

AnTuTu

The other top three rankings had the Huawei Mate 40 arrive in second, with a 97.89 percent user rating. This device features the company’s Kirin 9000E chipset and is the company’s latest flagship handset. On the third spot, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G can be found, with a 97.75 percent user rating. It features top notch specs and has recently seen price slashes as well making it more affordable.

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Specs and images of RedMagic Watch leak via FCC

First, there was a smartphone wave, which was followed by TWS aka true wireless earphones. Now, we see smartwatches everywhere. Almost all companies, whether new or old, sell wearables. Hence, we are not surprised to learn that a gaming brand like RedMagic will be soon releasing its own smartwatch.

RedMagic Watch FCC 03

RedMagic, the gaming sub-brand of nubia Technology is known for gaming smartphones, related accessories, and even a gaming TWS called Cyberpods. Now, according to FCC, the brand may launch its first-ever smartwatch called RedMagic Watch with model number  SW2102.

The upcoming RedMagic Watch will sport a 1.39-inch circular AMOLED display with a resolution of 454 x 454 pixels. The live images and the sketches in the manual show that this smartwatch will come with two physical buttons on the right side.

Further, the entire casing of the watch seems to be made of plastic but the bezel could be metal. Whereas, the replaceable strap looks like cheap silicon material, going by its appearance. Also, the live images only showcase a black-colored model, however, there could be other variants as well.

Talking about sensors, this wearable will come with all the essential ones, such as a heart rate sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, and ambient light sensor. That’s not all, the watch will also feature in-built GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, QZSS).

Unfortunately, the manual does not list the sports modes and other features of this wearable. But it does mention that this 5ATM water-resistant smartwatch will be backed by a 420mAh battery that charges via an included magnetic charger at the rate of 2.5W.

Last but not least, the RedMagic Watch will use Bluetooth 5.0 LE to connect with smartphones running Android 4.4 and above via a companion app called RedMagic Sports.

RedMagic Watch FCC 04

As far as launch is concerned, we can expect RedMagic Watch to debut alongside the RedMagic 6 gaming smartphone powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 888.

 

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(Via)

Nothing’s first product will be Wireless Earbuds, coming this summer

OnePlus’ co-founder Carl Pei left the company and founded his own venture called ‘Nothing’. As teased before, in an interview with Bloomberg, he says that the company will start its portfolio with Wireless Earbuds.

Nothing fetaured

Carl Pei, the founder of ‘Nothing‘, plans to make not just audio products but create an ecosystem where devices can talk to each other. Precisely, it is already working on Smart, Connected consumer electronics. However, the company will begin with Simpler products i.,e a Wireless Earbuds.

Speaking of which, the earbuds are coming this summer but we don’t have a specific date yet. This announcement comes along with details about investment from venture capitalists. Carl Pei said that GV(Formerly: Google Ventures) has invested $15 million in the London-based Consumer Technology company.

In case you don’t know, GV is a Captial Investment arm of Alphabet Inc. Apart from GV, Nothing has attracted investments from biggies like Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, Reddit co-founder & CEO Steve Huffman, iPod inventor Tony Fadell, and YouTuber Casey Neistat.

Wireless earbuds have stormed the consumer electronics market in 2020. In fact, they, along with wristwear, led the entire wearable segment‘s shipments with a whopping 93% of the total share. The list includes giants like Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, and even realme making it inside the top-10.

Hence, it would be a bang of a start for Carl Pei to compete with companies( including his ex-company OnePlus) in a segment that’s already blooming entering into 2021. That said, we will have to wait and see if the company manages to pull the audience towards it with its first product.

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LG patents a rollable smartphone with a secondary display

Recently, LG has on multiple occasions teased its rollable smartphone that has been under development. And now, a new patent has just surfaced that reveals that the company could possibly working on another rollable smartphone with a secondary display on the back.

LG

According to a LetsGoDigital report, the South Korean tech giant filed a new design patent with the CNIPA (China National Intellectual Property Administration). The patent was for a rollable smartphone and featured 26 patent sketches as well, showcasing the device from different angles. The dual display smartphone features a large flexible display on the front, which can be extended from one side. This raises its overall size by about 40 percent compared to its compact form. On the rear, a smaller secondary display can be found below the camera module.

In other words, the user can pull the primary display to extend it from one side, while the smaller secondary screen might offer functions related to photography, since there is no front camera visible on the front. Notably, the device is also devoid of any ports, seams or even buttons. So it could also be a button less handset. Furthermore, it is unclear if the company is actually working on such a device.

LG

Previously we had reported on the company possible selling its mobile division, due to poor performance in recent times. Its latest launches including the LG Velvet and Wing had also sold poorly with demand that was below company expectations. So, a rollable handset with two displays might be rather expensive to build and even more difficult to sell.

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OPPO F19 Pro+ moniker appears in Google ARCore supported device list

An early leak had claimed that OPPO will be launching the OPPO F19 series in India in February. However, it was recently revealed that the OPPO F19 lineup will debut in early March. Fresh information reveals that the series may include a third device named the OPPO F19 Pro+.

According to a recent report by My Smart Price, three monikers of upcoming OPPO phones have appeared in the Google ARCore supported devices list. As can be seen in the screengrab shared by the publication, the Find X3, Find X3 Pro, and F19 Pro+ are the monikers of three upcoming OPPO smartphones.

The F19 lineup is expected to debut in early March in India. However, it is unclear whether the company will be announcing the F19, F19 Pro, and F19 Pro+ smartphones at the same event. Unfortunately, there is no information available on the specifications of the next-generation F-series phones from OPPO.

OPPO-F19-Pro-Find-X3-and-Find-X3-Pro-Google-ARCore

The F19 series is rumored to arrive with a sleeker design as compared to the existing F17 models. Hopefully, the rumor mill will spill more information on the F19 lineup before its official announcement.

Recent reports have revealed that the Find X3 Pro will debut along with Find X3 Neo and Find X3 Lite phones in global markets in March. Leaks have not revealed specification information on the Find X3. Hence, it was not clear whether the company has plans to launch the Find X3. The appearance of the vanilla X3 at Google ARCore is a good hint that it may also go official in the near future. In related news, the company is also expected to launch the F21 lineup in the second half of the year.

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LG Display raises Vietnam factory investment from $750 million to $3.25 billion

Vietnam has recently awarded a license to LG Display that would enable it to raise the investment for the factory that it has set up in the nation’s northern port city of Haiphong. The company aims on raising investment from 750 million US Dollars to 3.25 billion US Dollars.

LG Display Logo Featured

According to a Reuters report, local media outlets reported on this news and even added that the additional investment will help the South Korean tech giant in expanding its production capacity. This would help bump production units in the city, with the plans of expansion slated to be completed by May 2021. Furthermore, the rise in investment will also allow for the creation of 5,000 new jobs, as per Vietnam Finance.

This sizeable expenditure will allow LG Display to boost its project in the Vietnamese port city, allowing it to set up more OLED production facilities in the region by the next month at the earliest. The company had began its Vietnamese OLED module plant in 2016, so it expanding on its prior investment understandable, especially considering it is the world’s largest OLED TV panel maker.

LG

At the moment, LG has yet to respond or comment on the matter. Unfortunately, this is all the information we have to go for now. So stay tuned for more, as we will be providing updates when additional information is available.

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POCO X3 Pro bags BIS and SIRM certifications 

Last year, POCO announced the POCO X3 NFC for global markets and it unveiled the POCO X3 in India. Both smartphones differed in departments like NFC connectivity and battery size. A recent report revealed the existence of a handset named POCO X3 Pro. Fresh information reveals that the phone has approval from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) authority of India (via) and the Standard and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (SIRIM) regulatory body of Malaysia.

A POCO smartphone with model number M2102J20SG was recently approved by the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) in Russia, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) of Singapore, and TUV Rheinland authorities. The letter ‘G’ at the end of the model number indicates that it is a global edition. It was revealed through the IMEI database that the M2102J20SG model number belongs to the upcoming POCO X3 Pro handset.

The M2102J20SG model has also passed SIRIM certification. The FCC certification revealed that the phone will come with MIUI 12, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, LTE, and NFC. The other certifications have anything concrete about the smartphone. The variant of the POCO X3 Pro that received BIS certification has revealed that its model number is M2102J20SI, where I refer to the Indian edition.

A recent report by XDA Developers revealed that ‘vayu’ and ‘bhima’ codenames belong to the different variants of the same base model of POCO X3 Pro. The publication claimed that the device could be equipped with an sm8150 chip and it could be featuring a 48-megapixel main camera. The quad-camera setup of the phone may include a main wide-angle lens, an ultrawide lens, a macro shooter, and a depth sensor.

The sm8150 chip belongs to the Snapdragon 855 family, which includes Snapdragon 855, Snapdragon 855+, and the rumored Snapdragon 860. Nothing else is known about the specifications of the POCO X3 Pro.

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Apple warned to ‘play fair’ by EU antitrust chief, ahead of its new ad tracking feature

Apple is set to launch its new ad tracking transparency feature some time in early spring. But before its official launch, it has already faced backlash for the new privacy changes, especially from social media giant Facebook. Now, EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager has also warned the company to play fair.

Apple AR/VR headset

According to a 9To5Mac report, the EU antitrust chief said that the new ad tracking feature does fall in with some of the proposed legislation in Europe. She even added that she has yet to receive any official complaints regarding these upcoming ad tracking transparency changes, which will essentially notify iPad and iPhone users when the apps and websites are tracking them and even offer an easy opt out option. Vestager said that the feature is actually in line with the recently proposed EU Digital Services/Markets Act legislation.

She added that “It is a very good thing to have a clear opt-out option. If you look at the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, these are some of the solutions we are looking at there.” However, the EU antitrust chief still warned that the feature could go beyond privacy focus and might border on anticompetitive practices as well. In an interview earlier this week, Vestager stated that ‘It can be competition if it is shown that Apple is not treating its own apps in the same way.”

Apple iPhone 12 Featured

As mentioned prior, Facebook is one of the biggest critic of this and is filing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple over ATT feature. Notably, Apple has also claimed that this feature would also be applicable on itself along with third party developers. So it remains to be seen how the lawsuit plays out regarding the ad tracking feature.

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realme Buds Q2, Buds Air 2, C21, and narzo 30A have received SIRIM certifications

Chinese smartphone maker realme is expected to release a plethora of new products in global markets in the coming days. Some of these devices have been now certified by SIRIM. Hence, they could launch in Malaysia like most realme products.

Realme Logo Featured

The devices that have received certifications from the Standard and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (SIRIM) include two handsets and two pairs of wireless earphones. These products are as listed below.

The certifications do not reveal anything about these devices except for their product category. The phones are listed with support for 4G connectivity, while the two models of realme Buds TWS are certified as wireless earphones.

Talking about the smartphones first, there’s nothing much known about the realme C21 and realme narzo 30A although both of them have bagged multiple certifications. However, realme India has begun to promote the vanilla realme narzo 30 in India. This phone is also a mystery.

On the other hand, some details of the realme Buds Q2 are out, thanks to FCC. It is expected to feature a similar design as the original model, MicroUSB port, 40mAh battery for buds, 400mAh battery for the charging case, and at least two colors (Black, Green).

Lastly, just like the handsets, nothing is known about the realme Buds Air 2.

 

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(Via 1, 2, 3, 4)

Redmi’s new teaser strongly hints at Note 10 series launch in India with High Refresh rate display

Redmi is riding high with the success of selling 200 million Note Series devices Globally. As guessed before, the company has now officially started teasing its next Redmi Note 10 series launch in India.

Redmi Note 9S Featured
Representative image: Redmi Note 9S

Global VP of Xiaomi and MD, Xiaomi India, Manu Kumar Jain, and a lot of other Redmi employees have posted teasing the launch of Redmi Note 10 in India. Every video of them includes a #SM10THChallenge. In the video, he says the company will make an announcement on February 10 at 10:00 AM IST.

He also says in a tweet that a Smoothest Smartphone from Redmi India is coming. All this clearly hints that he is talking about the Redmi Note 10 launch in India. Earlier, tipster Ishan Agarwal had tipped that Xiaomi will bring the Redmi Note 10 series to the country this month.

Further, the “smoothest” keyword in every teaser suggests that the Note 10 series will finally bring displays having a high refresh rate. If you recall, all the POCO mid-range(POCO X2, X3) and Xiaomi’s newly launched Mi 10i support 120Hz displays.

However, the yesteryear Redmi Note 9 series that launched in India back in March 2020, came with a 60Hz LCD. Although high refresh rate wasn’t really a trend back then, competitors like realme brought the realme 6 Pro with 90Hz panels. Still, Xiaomi managed to sell a good amount of Note 9 series in the country.

That said, we aren’t sure if the devices would have LCD or AMOLED but it’s most likely the former with a 120Hz panel. Anyway, Xiaomi is expected to launch two devices inside the Redmi Note 10 series- Redmi Note 10 (M2101K7AG) and a Redmi Note 10 Pro (M2101K6AG). The former will come in White, Green, or Grey colors while the latter will be available in Bronze, Blue, and Grey variants.

As for Specs, nothing concrete is known yet but the devices have already received India’s BIS certification. The ‘Pro’ variant might sport POCO X3’s design and a Snapdragon 732G chipset inside but it’s just a guess right now.

A recent tip also says that Redmi Note 10 will come in 4/6GB RAM, 64GB storage while the Note 10 Pro will have 6/8GB RAM, 64/128GB option.

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Electronic Arts to acquire Glu Mobile with a $2.4 billion deal

Electronic Arts has just announced that it is planning on acquiring another gaming studio. With a deal of 2.4 billion US Dollars, the company aims to acquire Glu Mobile by the second quarter of this year.

Electronic Arts

As per a VentureBeat report, the new deal marks the second major acquisition from EA in recent weeks, with it previously buying out publisher Codemasters. For those unaware, Glu is best known for a Kim Kardashian Hollywood game, along with other mobile games like Tap Sports Baseball, Dine Dash Adventures, and Disney Sorcerer’s Arena. The publisher is a known for mobiles titles with big budget that often include full 3D visuals. Despite this, it still offers its games as free to play titles that run for years and generate revenue through in app microtransactions.

Notably, this business model is what Electronic Arts wishes to switch towards in the future, and has even repeatedly informed its investors as well. EA CEO Andrew Wilson said that “Our acquisition of Glu combines amazing teams and deeply-engaging products to create a mobile games leader with proven expertise across many fast-growing genres. Mobile continues to grow as the biggest gaming platform in the world, and with the addition of Glu’s games and talent, we’re doubling the size of our mobile business.”

Electronic Arts

Similarly, Nick early, Glu chief executive also added that “This transaction is the culmination of the tremendous work of the Glu team to deliver world-class interactive experiences for our players, while driving business momentum that has led to strong financial and operational results. It represents a terrific outcome for all of our stockholders and other key constituents. This transaction is the culmination of the tremendous work of the Glu team to deliver world-class interactive experiences for our players, while driving business momentum that has led to strong financial and operational results. It represents a terrific outcome for all of our stockholders and other key constituents.”

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Huawei Founder hopes Biden administration will bring an ‘open policy’

Huawei Technologies Founder, Ren Zhengfei, stated earlier today (9th February 2021) that it will be “extremely difficult” for the US to reverse its sanctions against the company, but he hopes the new Biden administration will bring a more “open policy.”

Huawei Logo MWC 2019

According to a Reuters report, the senior executive of the Chinese tech giant said that he hoped the new US President, Joe Biden, would keep the US business interests in mind while making new policies. The founder believes that it is “conducive” to the financial performance of US based companies that supply to Chinese corporations. Despite its struggling smartphone operations, Huawei still managed to see positive growth last year for both revenue and net profit.

Ren further added that “We hope the new administration will harbor an open policy for the benefit of the American firms and also the economic development of the US.” Furthermore, he said that he would also welcome a call from Biden. For those unaware, the previous US President, Donald Trump, added Huawei to the US trade blacklist, over national security concerns. Additional sanctions thereafter effectively hampered the company’s smartphone unit as well.

Zhengfei Ren, Huawei founder and CEO
Zhengfei Ren, Huawei founder and CEO

Due to the blacklist, the company could no longer procure goods or technology from US based firms. In other words, it now faced issues sourcing crucial components, especially after being cut off from its primary chip supplier TSMC. Ren believes it would still be “extremely difficult” for the brand to be taken off the entity list, but he continues to hope to buy “large volumes” of US made equipment and materials if the Biden administration allows it.

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Redmi Note series has exceeded 200 million units in global shipments

Although Xiaomi sells expensive smartphones, the company’s cheaper handsets are popular worldwide. In fact, in India. Xiaomi is known as Redmi among commoners, thanks to value for money phones like Redmi A series, Redmi number series, and Redmi Note series. The latter series has now achieved a huge milestone, as per Xiaomi.

Redmi Note Series 200 Million Units Shipments

Yesterday, ahead of the Mi 11 global launch event, Xiaomi India announced a brag-worthy achievement on its various social media handles.

The Chinese smartphone maker revealed that it has shipped over 200 million units of Redmi Note series phones globally to date. This data is sourced from the firm’s own ‘Xiaomi Data Center’.

It is not surprising to learn that the global shipments of the Redmi Note series have exceeded 200 million units since its inception. This series has been the heart of Xiaomi’s product lineup ever since it was introduced.

Redmi Notes have been unbeatable in their price segment for a very long time. However, that began to change when realme entered the scene. But being an established product lineup, they are still as popular as they were before.

That said, Xiaomi is known for announcing its milestones ahead of releasing new devices. Hence, we think the Redmi Note 10 series is just around the corner. The upcoming series is reported to include two models, namely Redmi Note 10 and Redmi Note 10 Pro. As of now, we are only aware of the storage configurations and color variants of these handsets.

 

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China smartphone shipments recover to pre-COVID levels in January: Report

The smartphone shipments in China have recovered to a level that is similar to the one before the Coronavirus pandemic caused a market slump. A new Government report has revealed that smartphone shipments in China have nearly doubled this January, over the same month last year.

China smartphone sale

According to a Reuters report, shipments in the region has surged significantly by 94.3 percent annually, reaching 39.6 million units in January 2021. The information was published by the China Academy of Information and Communications (CAICT). Back in January 2020, smartphone shipments only reached 20.4 million units, which is lower than the 32.1 million units shipped in January 2019. In other words, the first month of this year has already outperformed the year before COVID-19 hit and even managed to show a sizeable recovery over last year.

Furthermore, the supply chain complications and reduced consumer spending due to the pandemic also caused the decline of industry as a whole. Although now, the segment has recovered along with the local economy. Experts project that shipments and sales in China will mostly recover this year, however, the nation’s top OEM, Huawei, is still weighed by the US sanctions that have hampered its smartphone business.

China

Huawei’s shipments have fell by 44 percent year on year in the final quarter of last year. Other vendors have since taken advantage of this, like Apple, which has seen a bump in its smartphone sales after the launch of its latest iPhone 12 lineup. Similarly, Xiaomi also registered impressive growth during this period as well, filling up the void left by Huawei.

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Realme GT could be next Realme flagship for India

Yesterday, the Realme Race smartphone (RMX2202 model number) appeared in the database of China’s TENAA authority. The listing only revealed the images of the device. A careful look at the rear shell of the Race’s back revealed the presence of “GT” branding at the bottom-right corner. Fresh information reveals that the handset could be heading to India as a Realme GT series phone.

Realme has claimed that many times in the recent past that Race is just the codename of the device and its actual product name will be revealed later. Fresh information shared by popular tipster Mukul Sharma reveals that the Realme has trademarked the “Realme GT” moniker in India.

The Realme RMX2202 was recently certified by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) recently. It is likely that this device could be arriving in the Indian market with the Realme GT name.

Realme Race specifications (Rumored)

Leaked information that appeared in December revealed that the Realme Race will be fueled by the Snapdragon 888 mobile platform and 12 GB of RAM. The device may ship with 256 GB of internal storage. It is expected to come loaded with Realme UI 2.0 based Android 11 OS.

Realme Race RMX2202
Realme Race’s TENAA images

Another leak that appeared a few days back claimed that there is a Realme Race Pro handset with a 160Hz 6.81-inch OLED screen with 3K resolution support, 12 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, up to 512 GB of storage, and a 5,000mAh battery with 125W superfast charging support. The device could be featuring a 64-megapixel + 13-megapixel + 13-megapixel triple camera system.

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Android 12 screenshots leak showcases redesigned interface and new features

Google has been working on a newer version of the Android mobile operating system and is likely to get released this year in the fall if the company sticks to its usual schedule. Before the official rollout, there will be several beta versions.

However, ahead of all that, a few screenshots of the upcoming Android 12 have leaked online, which reveals that the operating system will have a newly redesigned user interface. The source of the leaked images is said to be a document from Google for summarizing the changes in the new version.

The company seems to have doubled-down the privacy-related features. From the leaked images, it appears that there will be a small icon in the top-right corner that will notify if the camera or microphone is being used. Tapping on that icon will reveal which application is what and there will be a quick way to disable the access.

It appears that new widgets are also coming with the newer version of Android. There’s a new Conversations widget, highlighting recent messages, missed calls, as well as activity statuses. The size of the widget is small and thus only one item shows up at a time. The quick access area now holds fewer icons, making them easier to access.

The upcoming Android 12 is expected to come with several features, including app pairs, a double-tap on the back panel to trigger an action, sharing Wi-Fi passwords, an improved theme engine, support for emojis decoupled from system updates, and an app hibernation feature, among others.

While the authenticity of the leaked screenshots has not been confirmed yet, folks at XDA-Developers claim to have seen the document from which the images have come. The first Developer Preview of Android 12 is expected to be available in a few weeks but to get to know the list of features, we will have to wait a bit longer.

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Redmi Note 10, Redmi Note 10 Pro, and POCO X3 Pro have been certified by Malaysia’s SIRIM

Xiaomi is expected to launch the Redmi Note 10 series in the coming days. Similarly, POCO may also release POCO X3 Pro. Ahead of their official announcement, these smartphones are being certified by multiple organizations. Hence, they have now received SIRIM certification as well.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro Redmi Note 9S Featured
Redmi Note 9 Pro (aka Redmi Note 9S)

For those unaware, SIRIM stands for Standard and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia. The certification issued by this institution is a must for companies to import and sell their products in the country.

Hence, the upcoming Redmi Note 10 (M2101K7AG), Redmi Note 10 Pro (M2101K6AG), and POCO X3 Pro (M2102J20SG) from the house of Xiaomi may launch in Malaysia. Anyway, the exact release date of these handsets is a mystery just like their specs.

As of now, we are aware of the storage configurations and color variants of the Redmi Note 10 series for India. The vanilla Redmi Note 10 is reported to come in 4G + 64GB and 6GB + 64GB variants, whereas the Redmi Note 10 Pro is said to be available in 6GB + 64GB, 6GB + 128GB, and 8GB + 128GB versions.

POCO X3
POCO X3 NFC

Further, customers will be able to pick up the non-pro model in either White, Green, or Grey color options, while the Pro model will be sold in Bronze, Blue, and Grey color variants.

On the other hand, POCO X3 Pro is a complete mystery. We are yet to learn anything about this smartphone. But we are certain that these three phones will run MIUI 12.

 

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(Via 1, 2, 3)