Two new Xiaomi products have received Bluetooth certifications. The two products are the Mi Flood Detector and the Mi Kids Smartwatch 4C.
Mi Flood Detector
The Mi Flood Detector was certified a few days ago. From the name, one can tell that this is a sensor that alerts you when there is a water leak that can flood your apartment.
Xiaomi actually launched a similar product back in 2017 called the Aqara Water Leak Sensor (Aqara Flood Sensor). The sensor can be placed on the floor in your bathroom or under your kitchen sink or anywhere there is a chance of a water leak. Two sensors on the back will set off the alarm when a leak is detected and alert you on your device.
With the Bluetooth certification of the Mi Flood Detector, we presume Xiaomi plans to launch an upgraded version of the sensor that may also be sold outside China.
The Aqara Water Leak sensor had a launch price under $15, so this too should be pretty affordable.
Mi Kids Smartwatch 4C
Before Xiaomi began making smartwatches for adults, it has been making for kids under the Mi Bunny Kids Smartwatch line. Back in April, it launched the Mi Bunny Watch 4 in China.
Xiaomi is yet to announce any of its kids’ smartwatches outside China but a Bluetooth SIG certification has revealed there may be a new model launching soon in China.
Listed as the Mi Kids Smartwatch Kids 4C, the smartwatch should be a successor to the Mi Bunny Kids Smartwatch 3C that was announced back in August 2019. The watch has model number MTSB111XUN and will connect via Bluetooth 4.2.
We won’t be surprised if this doesn’t get an international release just like its predecessors.
OPPO unveiled the A52 smartphone alongside the Enco WII TWS earbuds in India last week with the sale scheduled to begin on June 17. The OPPO A52 has indeed gone on sale in China and is presently available via Flipkart, Amazon.in and offline retailers. The phone adopts a retail price of Rs. 16,990 (~$222) for the 6GB RAM variant which is the only available option.
The OPPO A52 sports a 6.5-inch FHD+ LCD screen with 90.5% screen-to-body ratio and a punch-hole design. There is a 16-megapixel camera inside the punch-hole. The premium model is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 SoC paired with 6GB of RAM. There is equally 128GB of UFS 2.1 flash storage onboard which is expandable up to 256GB with microSD.
The A52 runs Android 10 with ColorOS 7.1 on top. It packs a quad rear camera setup consisting of a 12-megapixel main camera, 8-megapixel ultra-wide sensor, 2-megapixel macro and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. There is also a side-mounted fingerprints sensor and under the hood is a 5000mAh battery with support for 18W fast charging via USB Type-C.
Xiaomi‘s ecological chain company SMartmi ahs launched a dual-purpose DC inverter fan in China. The fan which can be used as a floor and table fan is presently on sale in Jingdong (JD.com) for 799 yuan (~$112).
The Smartmi dual-purpose DC inverter fan still uses the unique natural wind function but brings silent operation and is a wireless fan. The main highlight is the detachable pillar which allows for adjustment of the height such that it can be used as a floor or desk fan. The neck can be turned upwards up to 100° and it can also rotate up to 120° in the left and right direction. The fan can also be set to achieve three-dimensional (3D) swing by moving in all directions.
The fan is equipped with a Japanese Nidec DC brushless motor as well as a noise reduction wind path system. The wind is strong and the wind noise is extremely low. The streamlined diversion wind hood makes the air supply more stable.
The Smartmi DC inverter fan features 7 feather fan blades and a large wide-angle powerful air supply, which fully agitates the indoor air and realizes 24 times/h ventilation of the entire house. The wind power can reach a distance of 9 meters and the fan has a 24.8m³/min large wind output.
There is a built-in lithium battery onboard that can be used for up to 20 hours without plugging in. The fan weighs just 3.7 kg making it easy to be lifted with just one hand. Apart from the control buttons located on the body of the fan, it comes with remote control.
We don’t know when this product will be available outside China.
Exactly a week after the AnTuTu result of the Snapdragon 865 Plus was published, the upcoming flagship processor has now made its way to Geekbench to show us how powerful it is.
The Geekbench result shows the chipset inside an ASUS phone benchmarked as the “asus ZF”. The device scored 973 points in the single-core test and 3346 points in the multi-core test.
When compared to the benchmark result of a Snapdragon 865-powered phone such as the Galaxy S20+ 5G, we can see the major improvement is in the single-core score.
Galaxy S20+ 5G Geekbench
The ASUS device is shown to have 16GB of RAM and runs Android 10. The identity of the phone is unknown but there is a possibility it is the upcoming ROG Phone 3. The ROG Phone 3 may be the first Snapdragon 865 Plus phone to hit the market. It has already been certified by China’s TENAA.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 Plus will have a clockspeed of 3.1GHz. This is the clockspeed of the prime core. The other CPU cores have the same clockspeed as those of the Snapdragon 865.
Oppo launched its first-ever smartwatch called Oppo Watch in March. It runs ColorOS Watch, an Android fork rather than proper Wear OS. Now, after three months from its release, the wearable is receiving a new system update, which brings WeChat replies, support for more boarding passes, access control cards and more.
Though Oppo Watch is a great piece of hardware, it lacks some of the common functionalities found on the competitors. Thankfully, the company is slowly adding them via software updates.
The new system update for the wearable comes with build numberA.38 and it requires Oppo Health companion app v2.6.2 or above to utilize all the newly added features.
The main highlight of this update is the support for WeChat replies directly from the smartwatch. Previously, users were limited to view messages as notifications but now they can respond via Xunfei voice input.
This feature is only available on smartphones running Android 6.0 or above with Android Auto app installed. That means it cannot be used with Apple iPhones.
Another major addition is the support for access control cards and more boarding passes for local transportation services in China. Also, the company promises to publish 10 new useful applications in the app store by the end of June.
Last but not least, the latest system update for Oppo Watch also brings 10 new watch faces and automatic fitness tracking feature.
Xiaomi‘s Mi Band 5 was announced in China last week but went on its first sale today. The MiBand 5 which is expected to launch for the global market as Mi Smart Band 5 comes in a regular version as well as an NFC version. Unlike previous years, both the regular version and the NFC version were made available at the same time. Reports indicate that the Mi Band 5 NFC version was sold out rapidly after the sales opened.
The Xiaomi Mi Band 5 arrived with a price tag of 189 Yuan (~$27) while the NFC version is priced at 229 Yuan (~$32). Apparently, most fans are willing to pay a little more to get the NFC version. The presence of NFC is the only difference between the two models. The NFC feature enables contactless payment supporting transportation card, AliPay and UnionPay in China. Outside China, there are rumours of the global variant coming with sport for Google pay and Amazon Alexa.
The Mi Band 5 NFC features a 1.1-inch AMOLED dynamic color display. The device also comes with support for a number of exercise modes now including cycling, jump rope, yoga, elliptical and rowing machine.
The smart band equally features a new pressure assessment, breathing training, PAI index (Personal Activity Intelligence), women’s health tracking and remote shutter control. These features are all absent on the Mi Band 4 and are tailored towards improving our health and lifestyle. In addition, the new wrist band now supports 24-hour sleep monitoring and REM (Rapid eye movements) detection. There is also a new magnetic charging feature onboard.
The safety of electric vehicles has over the years been called to question in some quarters especially after reports of a few EVs going up in flames. A new report from China hints at a recent accident involving a Tesla Model 3.
Tesla Model 3 clinched the 2019 Top Safety Pick+ award by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety after achieving a “good” performance in all six IIHS crash tests. However, the report first carried by Sina News Media claims the Model 3 accident occurred in Jiangxi after the car suddenly accelerated to 127 km/h while the owner was driving. All efforts to reduce the speed proved abortive as the brakes failed. The car then crashed and burst in flame.
The highly graphic image of the fire scene suggests the fire apparently started from the engine bay after the crash and spread to the rear of the car, resulting in thick black smoke rising into the sky.
Tesla did issue an official response a few days back. The US company stated that the accident is being investigated in coordination with the relevant government agency in China. Since all Tesla is connected, data including videos before the crash will be analysed to determine what went wrong. The crash is likely caused by a defective autopilot system which is increasingly becoming a concern on Teslas.
In January this year, The Associated Press reported on three crashes involving Teslas in December in which three people were killed. The crashes further heightened scrutiny of the company’s Autopilot driving system.
A crashed Tesla
One of the crashes reportedly occurred on December 29, 2019 and involved a Tesla Model S sedan which left a freeway in Gardena, California, at a high speed, ran a red light and struck a Honda Civic, killing two people inside. On the same day, a Tesla Model 3 hit a parked firetruck on an Indiana freeway, killing a passenger in the Tesla. On December 7 last year, yet another Model 3 struck a police cruiser on a Connecticut highway but thankfully, no one was hurt.
In 2016 a Tesla crashed in Florida killing the driver after neither Tesla’s Autopilot system nor the driver had braked before the car went underneath a semi-trailer that had turned in front of the car.
Major Chinese companies are offering massive discounts on popular products via Mid-Year sales. After Ulefone and Blackview, the Ulefone is here with its Summer Sale offering extensive discounts on its premium devices. Ulefnoe is offering upto 40% discount on newly launched products like Elephone E10 Pro, and PX Pro. However, you can also grab an Elephone E10, Elephone A7H, and W6 at reduced prices.
Elephone always stuns the users by bringing useful yet powerful devices at an affordable price. The interested users can grab upto 40% discount on these devices if you’re among the first 100 users of the day. Below we are listing the devices that are available under Elephoen Summer Sale.
Elephone A7H
The smartphone features a 6.41-inch Full HD+ display, an Helio P23 Octa-Core processor, a 13-megapixel triple rear camera, and a 3900 mAh battery. Elephone A7H is coupled with 4GB RAM and 64 GB internal storage. It houses a rear fingerprint scanner and runs on Android 9. Pie. It is available for the discount price of $79 for the first 100 buyers of the day.
ElePhone E10 is a popular smartphone with a 6.5-inch HD+ display. It features a true Quad-rear module with 48-megapixel primary camera. The smartphone is powered with MT6762D Octa-core chipset with 4GB RAM and 64 GB internal storage. It houses a side fingerprint sensor for improved accessibility and runs on Android 10. You can grab it for the reduced price of $99.99 $139.99.
The users can grab a beautiful and useful Elephoen W6 smartwatch at the discount price of $19. Elephone W6 smartwatch houses a 1.54-inch display, real continuous heart rate monitor, SImple and STylish UI, and metal body. It can effectively monitor Blood pressure and blood oxygen levels easily using the VC31 true heart rate sensor.
Other useful features such as sleep monitoring, activity tracking, notifications support, and sedentary reminders are part of the package.
The smartphone was recently launched with tons of improvements. It houses a quad-rear camera with 48-megapixel primary sensors. Other sensors include a 12-megapixel ultrawide sensor, 5-megapixel macro lens, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. there’s a massive 6.55-inch punch-hole LCD display. It also supports NFC for contactless payments.
Elephone E10 Pro is powered with MediaTek octa-core processor, 4GB RAM, 128GB storage, and support for 512 GB expandable storage. There’s a 4000 mAh battery and runs on Android 10. It is available in two color options of Grey and Blue.
There are many other useful products that are available at Elephoen Summer Sale at reduced prices. You can know more about the Elephone SUmmber sale by heading to the official offers page.
As the year rolls by, the number of mid-range 5G devices keeps increasing. Other than China, Europe has also been getting a fair share of devices from this category and a new one has just been added today. The Nubia Red Magic 5G Lite has been announced today in Europe and it has a familiar design and spec sheet.
The Red Magic 5G Lite is actually a rebadged Nubia Play 5G which is why we said it has a familiar design and spec sheet.
The phone has a 6.65-inch OLED display a 2340 x 1080 resolution. There is no notch neither is there a hole in the screen. Nubia has stuck to bezels but they are pretty slim. The Red Magic 5G Lite also has a 120Hz refresh rate and a 240hz touch-sampling rate.
Powering the phone is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 765G processor which has a built-in 5G modem. There is liquid cooling which helps keep the device cool when gaming. The Red Magic 5G Lite has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. That should be pretty sufficient for most folks.
When it comes to cameras, the phone has a 48MP primary rear camera paired with an 8MP ultrawide angle camera. You also get a 2MP macro camera and a 2MP depth sensor. The front-facing camera is an 8MP sensor.
The Red Magic 5G Lite has an in-display fingerprint scanner, NFC, and Bluetooth 5.0. Sadly, there is no audio jack. The phone also packs a 5100mAh battery with support for 18W fast charging. It also ships with Android 10 out of the box.
The phone is sold by Vodafone in Spain for €17/month for 36 months which comes to a total of €612. That is more expensive than the Red Magic 5G with 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage that sells for €579. Vodafone is including a gamepad worth €49.99 and a case valued at €19.99 with the first 500 orders.
The Nubia Red Magic 3 was the brand’s flagship gaming smartphone for the first half of 2019. It launched with Redmagic 2.0 based on Android Pie. Now, after a year from its release, the handset is finally receiving Redmagic 3.0 Android 10 update in China.
The new software update for Nubia Red Magic 3 brings all the bells and whistles of Android 10 along with some additional features to further enhance the gaming experience.
Here’s the official changelog for Redmagic 3.0 Android 10 update, which is being seeded to Nubia Red Magic 3 units in China (translated).
Game space: New UI design, add one-click combo, front sight assist and more gameplay.
Wireless projection screen: a new projection screen experience, supporting functions such as computer and TV.
Neo Al smart system: add smart sidebar, smart screen and more functions.
Basic function upgrade: Picture-in-picture experience optimization, new functions such as split screen, split screen, three-finger screenshot, dark mode, etc.
Brand-new application visual effects optimization, presenting a brand new interface.
More animation effects adjustment, smoother operation experience.
More than 80 details optimized.
As mentioned earlier, the update is currently limited to China. It is not known when the company will roll out this to global units. Lastly, it is worth noting that some features may not be available internationally just like any other Chinese ROM.
A couple of months ago, Xiaomi Youpin launched the Haylou Solar Smartwatch. We have been keeping a close eye on the watch for the past few weeks and finally decided to get this for review. And to our surprise, the Haylou Solar turned out to be a pretty good smartwatch.
Before we go on to the review, let me clear one thing first: The Haylou Solar is NOT solar powered.
First of all, the biggest question about the Haylou Solar is its pricing. It’s almost a fact now that all those smartwatches that retail under $50 are not really smart. Even in 2020, there are hardly any real smartwatches that we could recommend under $40. Not to mention these cheap watches have poor design too.
But that’s not applicable for the Haylou Solar.
At first glance, it’s really hard to believe that such good design could be seen on this $40 smartwatch. It follows the same minimalistic philosophy of Xiaomi’s design. The single button at the right side of the round watch dial did not confuse me at all. On the contrary, it always reminded me of the modern watches we’ve seen from popular watch brands.
The watch dial (22mm) sports a 1.28-inch TFT display with a resolution of 240 x 240px. Although it is not a high-end display, considering the pricing and the primary function of displaying information, it turns out to be a solid screen with a superb 30-day standby. More importantly, it is so lightweight (54g band-included) that you almost feel you are wearing a Mi Band. And the band is made from silicon, which allows me to wear the watch for long periods of time, even during workouts without any discomfort.
Haylou Solar Review: Features
The Haylou Solar features 12 sport-mode guidance to help users get professional workout plans. The basic step detection is my favorite feature, as it could provide accurate step information with distance and calorie consumption. And to facilitate better health lifestyle, the watch has a built-in heart rate sensor that monitors heartbeat 24 hours. it detects any underlying heart issues and accordingly adjusts inside exercise recommendation.
In daily use, since I have no heart issues, there was no chance to experience any warnings or suggestions for my activities. But it’s really an interesting feature and potentially life-saving too.
workouts & steps
1 of 3
In addition, like most other smartwatches, it supports sleep management and lets me know what’s going during the night. But of course, you’ll have to wear it through the night which might be uncomfortable for some users.
As we mentioned, it features 30-day standby power. In reality, the battery life is good enough for a few weeks. Honestly, I have not charged it since I topped it up to 100% a few weeks ago. Although it doesn’t provide Wi-Fi connection, so far, the Haylou Solar is the first watch giving me the same comfort as wearing a traditional watch: no need to worry about the battery endurance and connectivity issues. But pay attention here, when I activated 24H heart monitoring, the battery consumption was obviously larger. A full-charge could last around 15-days with the 24H HR monitoring feature turned on.
Despite lacking Wi-Fi, the Haylou Solar comes with Bluetooth which allows users to synchronize smartphone notifications to the watch. And if you are carrying an iPhone, the official app is able to synchronize the Apple Health data as well. The watch also supports basic music player controls which can come in handy during exercise.
Note that that watch doesn’t support app-download and installation. However, I’m sure there are people like me that don’t really want an extra smart watch that aims to replace your smartphone. After all, simple design and software are its specialty.
Haylou Solar Review: IP68 Waterproof
The Haylou Solar is IP68 water and dustproof. It is resistant to sweat and rain and allows me to wear it all the time in most of my daily activities. But according to the watch team, it is not suggested to expose it to activities like swimming or diving.
Other features like Breathing training, find my phone, timer/stopwatch, or weather forecast were also helpful. With these features, the Haylou Solar is definitely a smart choice to get your money worth.
Haylou Solar Review: Conclusion
I will probably keep wearing the Haylou Solar for a long period. Not just because it provides the most necessary features as a convenient wearable but also for its design. Especially for those who are looking for their first smartwatch, you simply can’t go wrong buying this watch for $40!
Google Chrome is notorious for RAM consumption, especially on Windows since its early days. Thankfully, it is going to get a fix after these many years. The latest Windows 10 May 2020 (20H1) update brings new segment heap memory improvements. Win32 applications like Google Chrome that make use of it will able to reduce their overall memory usage.
The new ‘SegmentHeap’ value introduced by Microsoft for developers in the latest Windows 10 update is a modern heap implementation. According to the Redmond-based company, it will “will generally reduce your overall memory usage” on machines running Windows 10 version 2004 or newer.
The software giant also confirmed that it has already started using this new SegmentHeap value its latest Chromium-based Edge browser. It also mentions that memory usage has bee reduced by 27% as per early tests on Windows 10 May 2020 update.
In the same manner, developers of Google Chrome can also make similar changes to benefit from this new implementation. Fortunately, a comment has been recently spotted on Chromium Gerrit, which reveals the changes to follow soon.
According to it, the new segment heap instead of legacy heap “could save hundreds of MB in the browser and Network Service utility processes”.
Having said that, it is not sure when it will be implemented in the Google Chrome stable channel.
The Snapdragon 690 Mobile Platform has been announced as the first Snapdragon 600-series 5G chipset. The processor should appear in affordable 5G phones later this year; a category that is currently dominated by MediaTek with its Dimensity 800 5G processor. If you want to know which processor is more powerful, you are on the right page.
Node size
The Snapdragon 690 is built on Samsung’s 8nm LPP process while the Dimensity 800 is built on TSMC’s FinFET 7nm process. A smaller node size translates to better efficiency, so MediaTek has got this round.
CPU
The two chipsets are octa-core processors but with different core arrangement. The Snapdragon 690 uses a 2+6 core arrangement while the Dimensity 800 uses a 4+4 core arrangement. Below are their CPU configurations:
Snapdragon 690 = 2x Kryo 560 cores (Cortex-A77) clocked at 2.0GHz + 6x Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 1.7GHz
Dimensity 800 = 4x Cortex-A76 cores clocked at 2.0GHz + 4x Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2.0GHz.
So which chipset has better CPU performance? The Cortex-A77 cores in the Snapdragon 690 are definitely more powerful than the Cortex-A76 cores in the Dimensity 800. However, there are just two of them whereas the Dimensity 800 has four Cortex-A76 cores. The higher number of performance cores, albeit less-powerful ones, should result in better performance for the Dimensity 800 over the Snapdragon 690. The Cortex-A55 cores are also clocked higher on the Dimensity 800. MediaTek wins this round too.
The Snapdragon 690 has an Adreno 619L GPU inside it while the Dimensity 800 has a Mali-G57 GPU. Which GPU is more powerful? First, there is no benchmark result for the Snapdragon 690 5G but we can infer its GPU performance from that of close siblings.
Based on the naming, the Adreno 619L should be more powerful than the Adreno 618 GPU inside the Snapdragon 720G. But that may not entirely be the case.
Qualcomm is known to use a higher nomenclature for some GPUs that are not practically more powerful than those with a lower number, though they may have some additional features.
When we compared the GPU of the Snapdragon 720G against that of the Snapdragon 690, the only difference seems to be the Adreno 619L having support for DX12 while the Adreno 618 doesn’t. Based on this, we believe the Adreno 619L should offer similar GPU performance to the Adreno 618.
Mali-G57 versus Adreno 618
Comparing the AnTutu results of the Huawei Enjoy Z 5G which is powered by the Dimensity 800 and that of the Realme 6 Pro powered by the Snapdragon 720G (Adreno 618), the Mali-G57 is a much more powerful GPU. Even if the Adreno 619L scores higher than the Adreno 618, the chances of it catching up to the Mali-G57 are really slim.
Other features
The two chipsets support Bluetooth 5.1 but only the Snapdragon 690 supports Wi-Fi 6. The two SoCs also support FHD+ displays with a refresh rate up to 120Hz but the Snapdragon 690 also adds support for QHD+ displays at 60Hz.
Conclusion
The Dimensity 800 is definitely the more powerful processor when it comes to CPU and GPU performance. We expect more phones powered by the chipset will continue to launch but it may lose some of its share of the budget 5G smartphone market to Qualcomm. With the arrival of the Snapdragon 690, it should be the chipset of choice for manufacturers that will be launching their products outside China.
Some manufacturers that have said they will launch Snapdragon 690 phones are HMD Global, LG, Motorola, Sharp, and TCL. For Dimensity 800 phones, we expect more from brands such as Xiaomi, Huawei/Honor, OPPO, and ZTE to continue using the chipsets. If you want to grab a Dimensity 800 phone, your options include Huawei’s Enjoy Z 5G, OPPO A92s, and the ZTE Axon 11 SE 5G.
Earlier today (18th June 2020), known leakster Digital Chat Station (@数码闲聊站) revealed the first look at the upcoming Asus ROG Gaming Phone 3 on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging website.
In the Weibo post, the leakster shared certain key specifications regarding the upcoming gaming smartphone and also revealed its design. According to the leak, the Asus ROG Gaming Phone 3 will feature a 6.59 inch FHD+ display, which will feature either 120Hz of 144Hz OLED panel. On the rear, Asus has bumped the number of cameras to three, with a 64 megapixel primary sensor, while the front sports a single 13 megapixel shooter.
Under the hood, the Asus ROG Gaming Phone 3 will reportedly house the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC paired with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage. This processor is also reported o cross the 3GHz mark, so it is definitely a powerful chip for gaming. The device will be powered by a whopping 6,000mAh battery pack, which will also support fast charging up to 30W. Its thickness was also revealed, coming in at 9.85mm and weighing a hefty 240 grams.
Looking at the images, the design of the 3rd gen gaming handset from Asus highly resembles the previous generation, ROG Gaming Phone 2. The rear panel still sports the LED ROG logo but with a new Tencent Games branding at the bottom as well. A notable feature on the back is the triple camera module and angular lines and patterns on the back. Unlike its predecessor, however, these designs are subtler and the finish seeming a lot more polished and glossier.
Xiaomi India has been recently increasing the price of its smartphones every other week. It all started when the new 18% GST(Goods & Services Tax) went live for mobile phones in April. The last hike for the whole Redmi 8/Redmi Note 8 series was in late May. Now, once again, the second cheapest model in that series, Redmi 8A Dual (3GB + 32GB) gets a new price bump along with Redmi Note 9 Pro Max.
This is the second price hike for both Redmi 8A Dual (3GB + 32GB) and Redmi Note 9 Pro Max respectively. The price of these two handsets has been increased by ₹1,300 and ₹2,000 from their launch.
The Redmi 8A Dual launched as the cheapest Xiaomi smartphone with a dual-camera setup in India. Unfortunately, the company has hiked the price of the base 2GB + 32GB three times and mid-3GB + 32GB variant two times apart from launching a new 3GB + 64GB version for ₹8,999.
Here’s the current price of all the variants of Redmi 8A Dual in India after the new ₹300 price hike for the mid-variant.
Device
Launch Price
GST Hike
Early May Hike
Late May Hike
Mid-June Hike
Current Price
Redmi 8A Dual (2GB + 32GB)
₹6,499
₹500
₹300
₹200
–
₹7,499
Redmi 8A Dual (3GB + 32GB)
₹6,999
₹1000
–
–
₹300
₹8,299
Redmi 8A Dual (3GB + 64GB)
₹8,999
–
–
–
–
₹8,999
Further, Xiaomi also increased the price of Redmi Note 9 Pro Max, by another ₹500 for the 6GB + 64GB and 6GB + 128GB storage configurations. The base variant is now only ₹500 cheaper than the POCO X2 but the mid-variant of both the handsets cost the same.
However, the high-end 8GB + 128GB version did not receive any price hike this time.
Device
Launch Price
GST Hike
Mid-June Hike
Current Price
Redmi Note 9 Pro Max (6GB + 64GB)
₹14,999
₹1,500
₹500
₹16,999
Redmi Note 9 Pro Max (6GB + 128GB)
₹16,999
₹1000
₹500
₹18,499
Redmi Note 9 Pro Max (8GB + 128GB)
₹18,999
₹1000
–
₹19,999
The new price of Redmi 8A Dual and Redmi Note 9 Pro Max is live on Mi Online Store and Amazon India.
Samsung is reportedly seeking to improve the production yield of 6th generation NAND flash memory chips. The South Korean tech giant has apparently set up a special task force for this goal.
This new task force will seek to raise the competitiveness of its 128 layer V-NAND chip production. The group will include executives from Samsung Device Solutions’ Manufacturing Technology Center and officials from the department that run the NAND flash production. This new team will help solve any issues that may arise during the chip production process and will implement steps to improve overall productivity.
Currently, Samsung utilizes the channel hole etching technology, which pierces holes from the top to the bottom of the stacked 128 layers. This offers an electrical connection between layers, with higher stacks enabling higher memory capacity. One of the primary drawbacks of this method is the production time since this process for the 128 layers requires twice as long when compared to 96 layer NAND flash chips.
Thus, the new task force will work to overcome such limitations to improve the company’s overall competitiveness. This move from Samsung is a part of its “Super Gap” strategy, which essentially means, leaving the competition so far behind that they can’t catch up. The company has already achieved competitive pricing through its 128-layer NAND flash chip production process but is seeking to improve its margins even further.
AMD has officially announced the new Ryzen 3000XT series of processors. These new chips are refreshed chips of their popular 7nm desktop processors and offer a higher boost clock than the regular versions.
The new chips feature the refreshed Zen 2 architecture that the Ryzen 3000 series is built on. The announcement revealed three new chips, which included the Ryzen 9 3900XT, Ryzen 7 3800XT, and Ryzen 5 3600XT. These are built on a more refined 7nm process, which results in slightly higher performance than the base variant. Despite having slightly higher boost clocks, the overall TDP of these CPUs have remained the same.
Furthermore, the primary focus of these chips was to improve single threaded performance, which is an area their competition, Intel, generally win at. According to official notes, the Ryzen 9 3900XT offers 4 percent higher performance than the Team Blue’s counterpart, Intel Core i9-10900K. Interestingly, AMD has also announced that the new processors will also be offered at the same retail price as the non-XT chips.
Notably, only the Ryzen 5 3600XT is bundled with a Wraith air cooler, since the company recommends water cooling for both the Ryzen 9 3900XT and Ryzen 7 3700XT. The high end Ryzen 9 3900XT only boasts a 100MHz higher boost clock, which is also reflected with the Ryzen 5 3600XT. On the other hand, the Ryzen 7 3800XT arrives with a 200MHz higher boost clock than the non-XT versions. So while these are great offerings, they aren’t exactly ground breaking improvements over the pre-existing lineup.
Xiaomi is gearing up for the launch of its Mi Wi-Fi Range Extender Pro in Malaysia. The company had previously announced that it would be expanding its smart IoT (internet of things) products in the region, in which the Wi-Fi extender also falls under.
The Mi Wi-Fi Range Extender Pro from the Chinese tech giant will be launched in the country on 25th June 2020. As the name suggests, the product is specially designed to boost the overall Wi-Fi signal coverage inside your home or workplace. In other words, it boosts the original connectivity range of your wireless router. The Xiaomi gadget is equipped with two external antennas and is powered by a MediaTek chip.
It is relatively easy to set up and can even be controlled and paired through the Xiaomi smart Home application. This device can offer speeds of up to 300Mbps. A notable aspect regarding the product is the fact that it can pair up to 16 devices at the same time. Keep in mind, however, that the Xiaomi Mi Wi-Fi Range Extender Pro can only support 2.4GHz Wi-Fi band. The new smart product will be available through the official Mi Stores in Malaysia and is priced at 59 RM (roughly 14 US Dollars).
Oppo, the Chinese smartphone vendor, has showcased a few of its new camera technologies at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) 2020. In the event, the company earned first place twice and third place twice awards at the conference.
The technology that got Oppo the awards includes perceptual extreme super-resolution technology, visual localization, and human activity recognition in videos. Oppo’s Research team was tasked to solve the issues with perceptual extreme super-resolution for a single image with a 16x magnification in the event. The goal of this challenge was to develop an AI model that is capable of producing high resolution results with the best perceptual quality and similarity to the actual subject.
Perceptual Extreme Super-Resolution
In this event, Oppo’s team showcased the effectiveness of RFB-ERSGAN neural network, which beat the other 280 other participants. To expain this technology in layman’s terms, it can be used in smartphones and can help adapt original low resolution images into high resolution ones while retaining greater levels of details. Another application is in restoring old or damaged photos and even in satellite imagery.
Moving forward, Oppo also received first place in the Visual Localization for Handheld Devices challenge, where it created a monocular visual localization pipeline. This utilized semantic and depth cues to pinpoint the location of any image. In the challenge, Oppo received first place for outdoor visual localization and third place for the indoor one. This technology has a varied field of application including, robotics, augmented reality, and navigation. AI’s can also potentially guide users through the camera, guiding them through advanced location tracking and navigation system.
In the Activity Detection in Extended Videos challenge, Oppo came in third again. The company had to design automatic activity detection algorithms that could identify and reorganize the characters in each frame. The algorithm would have to recognize multiple human activities in complex dynamic videos. This technology could potentially play a huge role in the future of human-computer interaction and even sports analysis videos.
Xiaomi officially announced MIUI 12 in late April and even started seeding out beta updates from the day of the conference itself. After almost two months, the company has now begun to roll out stable builds to eligible devices in its home country. Last week, it was made available for Mi 10/Mi 10 Pro. Now, this week, the availability of MIUI 12 China Stable update has been extended for handsets like Mi 9, Mi 9 Pro 5G, Mi 10 Youth, Redmi K30 5G, and Redmi K30 Pro Zoom.
It is worth noting that not all the features are available for eligible devices. For instance, phones with LCD panels don’t get the new Always-on Display option. Further, the build version also varies by handsets.
Having said that, here’s the complete list of Xiaomi and Redmi smartphones that have received MIUI 12 China Stable update so far.
Xiaomi Mi 10/Mi 10 Pro
MIUI 12.0.1.0
Xiaomi Mi 9
MIUI 12.0.1.0
Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro 5G
MIUI 12.0.1.0
Xiaomi Mi 10 Youth
MIUI 12.0.2.0
Redmi K30 5G
MIUI 12.0.1.0
Redmi K30 Pro Zoom
MIUI 12.0.1.0
Globally, MIUI 12 is currently available as Stable Beta update for Mi 9, Redmi K20/Mi 9T, and Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro.
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