Huawei edges ahead of Apple’s iPad in the falling Chinese tablet market

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May 29, 2020

The LG Velvet is arriving in Europe soon. It was spotted recently on LG’s official Italian website and is expected to launch in June 2020. The device is the latest launch from the South Korean company and is likely to be another attempt at revitalizing its falling smartphone business.

LG Velvet is a mid range handset, which features Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 765G. It was announced a few weeks back but the company had yet to reveal any details regarding its availability outside its home country of South Korea. But now, the official listing that was recently spotted revealed that the availability of the device will arrive in June 2020. Furthermore, it may even arrive with every color variant in Europe, namely Sunset, Aurora White, Aurora Gray, and Aurora Green.

At the moment, a similar listing in nearby countries like Spanish and French websites have not revealed any findings. This may be due to a mishap from the Italian counterpart, or launch that starts from Italy’s markets. Notably, South Korean reports have even stated that the LG Velvet might also be heading to the US very soon. Unfortunately, no specifics regarding launch dates have been given out so far. So stay tuned, as we will be providing updates as soon as there is more information available.

IDC: Hearables market sees growth, but smartwatch sales decline in Q1 2020

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May 29, 2020

The first quarter of 2020 had the wearables market see a significant growth despite the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. According to an IDC report, the hearables market has seen impressive growth during this time of crisis, while smartwatches and fitness trackers have seen a decline in sales.

The hearables category includes all the headphones, earphones earbuds, and other audio related products in the market. With the COVID-19, work from home has become the new norm and professional environment for many across the globe. Thus, the demand for hearables and other personal audio devices have also risen because of this. For example, Apple has seen a massive growth of 59.9 percent year on year, with shipment numbers rising to 21.2 million units over 2019’s 13.3 million units.

Xiaomi comes in second with a global market share of 10.1 million units in this quarter. This also marked an impressive growth of 56.4 percent from 2019. Samsung and Huawei followed close behind in third and fourth positions with 8.6 percent and 8.1 percent respectively. Notably, the South Korean tech giant’s hearables department accounted for nearly 74 percent of its wearables shipments.

During Q1 2020, the known wearables and fitness tracker maker, Fitbit, saw a sizeable decline. Since manufacturing plants and supply chains were disrupted earlier this year in China, the company had faced many issues during its operations. This caused the Fitbit to lose 35.7 percent year on year, with its shipments falling from 72.6 million units to 56 million units.

(Source)

Infinix Hot 9, Hot 9 Pro launched in India; Price and specifications

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May 29, 2020

The Infinix Hot 9 and Hot 9 Pro smartphones have gone official today in India. The series comes with a large-sized punch-hole displays, quad rear cameras and massive batteries. The Hot 9 lineup has arrived with a starting price of Rs. 8,499 (~$112).

Infinix Hot 9 and Hot 9 Pro price

The Infinix Hot 9 will go on sale on June 8 at 12 PM (local time) through Flipkart. The handset will be available for Rs. 8,499 (~$112). The Hot 9 Pro will be available for purchase from June 5 at 12 PM (local time) with a pricing of Rs. 9,499 (~$125). Quetzal Cyan, Midnight Black, Violet, and Ocean Wave are the four color editions of the Hot 9 and Hot 9 Pro phones.

Editor’s Pick: Redmi 10X 5G Has Gone Up For Pre-Order For $319 On Giztop

Infinix Hot 9 and Hot 9 specifications

The Infinix Hot 9 and Hot 9 Pro phones have 6.6-inch with HD+ resolution and 20:9 aspect ratio. They are equipped with 8-megapixel front cameras. These phones have rear-facing fingerprint scanners and they carry support for face unlock.

The triple-LED flash assisted AI-powered quad-camera system of Hot 9 features a 13-megapixel main lens with f/1.8 aperture, 2-megapixel depth sensor, 2-megapixel macro lens, and a low-light sensor. On the other side, the AI-assisted quad-camera setup features a 48-megapixel primary sensor with f/1.8 aperture, a 2-megapixel depth sensor, a low-light sensor, and quad-LED flash.

The Android 10 OS along with OXS 6.0 comes preinstalled on the Infinix Hot 9 and Hot 9 Pro. They are driven by MediaTek Helio P22 chipset. Both phones have 5,000mAh batteries and dedicated microSD card slots.

The Infinix Hot 9 and Infinix Hot 9 Pro are both equipped with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB storage. The Hot 9 duo have dual SIM slots, 4G VoLTE, Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS, MicroUSB and 3.5mm audio jack.

Xiaomi sends its greetings to laptop makers as it plans on entering the Indian market

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May 29, 2020

Xiaomi has sent a customary ‘Hello’ to various laptop makers, announcing its entry into the Indian market with its latest generation of laptops. The Chinese tech giant shared a tweet from its official Xiaomi India account.

Hey there 👋, @Dell_IN, @Acer_India, @HPIndia, @Lenovo_in, @ASUSIndia.

We guess it's time to say, Hello! pic.twitter.com/5jYcriEeFQ

— Mi India (@XiaomiIndia) May 28, 2020

For those unaware, Xiaomi had previously confirmed that it would be entering the Indian market with its own laptop offerings. The greetings arrived just hours after Xiaomi India’s Managing Director shared another tweet that hinted at the launch of laptops in the Southeast Asian country. The tweet from Xiaomi India tagged major laptop makers like Dell, Asus, Lenovo, HP, and Acer, with a GIF that said hello.

Recently, Xiaomi had launched its latest series of RedmiBook notebooks. These sports AMD’s latest mobile processors, the Ryzen 4000 series, and featured a few impressive specs as well, especially for the price tag that they were offered in. Although, the Mi Notebook Pro 15 Enhanced Edition, with Intel 10th Gen chips, is more likely to see an Indian launch.

The new Mi Notebook house up to 16GB of RAM and NVIDIA’s mobile gaming processor, the MX250. These kinds of specs are generally seen in high end or premium notebooks in India. With the inclusion of the Intel 10th Gen chips, the laptops offer great battery and performance as well. This laptop was launched back in October and may finally arrive in the Indian market soon.

Latest Xiaomi promotion includes a surprise gift inside its suitcase

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May 29, 2020

The mid-year shopping festival, which is commonly known as “618” in China, is coming soon and the companies are gearing up for the same. In line with this, Xiaomi has announced its new marketing activity.

Xiaomi says that whoever buys its suitcase during the sale will get a surprise gift inside which could be anything from Xiaomi or its ecology of products. The company has added that the users can also find the latest Mi 10 Pro flagship smartphone inside the bag.

Anyone in China who purchases the suitcase products of Xiaomi from 1st June to 20th June through Xiaomi’s Tmall Store or through the company’s own Xiaomi Mall online store will be able to eligible for the surprise gifts.

The teaser poster shared by the company showcases that along with the Mi 10 Pro smartphone, buyers can find Mi Electric Screwdriver, Mi Handheld Iron, Mi Automatic Washing Machine, Mi Touchscreen Smart Speaker, Hair Dryers, Car Air Purifiers, Portable Cups, Health Calendars, among others.

Currently, Xiaomi is selling more than 10 luggage or suitcase products in China with their price varying from 999 199 yuan (~$28) to 999 yuan (~$140) and in different sizes as well — from 20-inch to 28-inch.

Last month, the company launched the 20-inch version of the Xiaomi Light Business Suitcase. It is manufactured using high-resistance PC-type materials and has improved shock-absorption, thanks to a 3-layer structure. It weighs about 3.6 kilograms, has an internal volume capacity of 36L, and costs 399 yuan which is around $56.

100 Million Android users are affected by this Chinese Spyware App

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May 29, 2020

In recent Android builds, the operating system has offered its users an improved degree of control over what resources or areas an application has access to. However, this system is still abused by many applications that do not require many of the permissions they require to operate. Now, a Chinese developer’s apps have been labeled as ‘Spyware’ from a research team that suspects that 100 million Android users have already been affected.

The research team is from VPNpro that claimed that the developer behind the app also has at least 50 million installs and its apps request “dangerous permissions.” Notably, VPNpro also claimed that one of their apps also has a malicious remote access trojan hidden within it. These applications were found in Google’s Play Store and were made from a Chinese developer and its local subsidiaries. Reportedly, this practice has been seen before with developers hiding behind a network of different subsidiaries.

The Chinese developer behind the abuse was the Hangzhou-based QuVideo Inc. It is best known for its popular video editing app, VivaVideo. This application is extremely popular since it offers its services for free, with the Play Store showing 100 million installs. VivaVideo is also one of the 40 Chinese apps that have been listed as ‘malicious-ware’ or ‘spyware’ by the Indian government back in 2017.

The apps from QuVideo are available on Apple’s iOS as well. However, due to the permissions system and boundaries being different, the abuse of a similar nature isn’t present on that platform. So, those that have these applications are warned to check what permissions you are granting the app.

(Via)

Motorola One Vision Plus Geekbench listing reveals Snapdragon 665 and 4 GB RAM specs

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May 29, 2020

Last year in May, Motorola unveiled the Exynos 9609 powered Motorola One Vision Android One smartphone. Recently, its enhanced edition dubbed as Motorola One Vision Plus was found listed at the Android Enterprise Recommended page. It appears that the company is planning to launch the phone soon as it has appeared on Geekbench benchmarks. Probably, the company could be testing its performance before making it official.

The Motorola One Vision Plus Geekbench 5 appearance states that it scored 310 in the single-core test and 1351 in the multi-core test. The “trinket” text mentioned in the motherboard field is the internal name for the mid-range Snapdragon 665 SoC from Qualcomm. It has a base frequency of 1.80GHz.

The SoC is coupled with 4 GB of RAM and the phone boots to Android 9 Pie OS. The same RAM capacity and Android version was found at the Android Enterprise listing of the smartphone. The listing had further revealed that it has a 6.3-inch display and has an internal storage of 64 GB. The presence of fingerprint reader and support for NFC was also revealed through Android Enterprise appearance.

Editor’s Pick: Leaked Motorola RAZR 2 specs still can’t match the Galaxy Z Flip

Motorola is yet to confirm the launch of the existence of the Motorola One Vision Plus. Probably, the smartphone may break cover before the end of the first half of the year.

The Motorola One Vision from last year featured a 6.3-inch IPS LCD punch-hole display with support for 21:9 aspect ratio and full HD+ resolution. The SoC was coupled with 4 GB of RAM and it came with 128 GB of UFS 2.1 storage. The Android One featured a front camera of 25-megapixel and a 48-megapixel + 5-megapixel dual camera setup on its back. Its 3,500mAh battery came with support for 15W fast charging.

(source)

[UPDATE: Launch Postponed, Limited Rollout]Android 11 Beta launch event will be live streamed on June 3rd

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May 29, 2020

UPDATE:

While the launch event is officially postponed, the Android 11 Beta update is available for several Pixel devices today.

Original Story.

Google I/O, the technology giant’s annual developers conference, has been canceled this year because of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the company has decided to have an exclusive launch event for the upcoming major Android version — Android 11.

The company will be hosting a launch event on 3rd June for the Android 11 Beta which will be live-streamed. The event’s live stream will start at 15:00 PM UTC (08:30 PM IST) and will last for about an hour.

For those who are unaware, Google was supposed to release the Android 11 Beta version this month but it pushed the update to 1st June and instead released the Android 11 Developer Preview 4 (DP4) version.

Coming back to the launch event, it will include the features packed inside the new Android 11 along with updates for developers. This will be followed by a live Q&A session in which anybody can participate using #AskAndroid hashtag.

Along with this, the company will also make available 12 talks which were scheduled for the Google I/O 2020. Here’s the list of those talks.

What’s new in Android
What’s new in System UI
All things privacy in Android 11
Storage access with Android 11
The state of Kotlin on Android
Get Composed
What’s new in Android Jetpack
What’s new in Android Development Tools
What’s new in Design Tools
What’s new in Google Play
What’s new in Play Commerce
Screens – large, small and foldable

The company was earlier rumored to announce the Pixel 4a smartphone at this same event but as per the latest reports, the launch event for the Google Pixel 4a has been delayed till mid-July and the sale for the same is expected to talk place in August.

You can find out the list of all the exciting features of Android 11 here. You can watch the live stream on YouTube as well as Twitter.

OnePlus and Fortnite collaborate to bring new game modes in Creative Island

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May 29, 2020

Fortnite, one of the most popular games in the market, is partnering with the known smartphone vendor OnePlus. The collaboration will bring a new game mode to Epic Game‘s battle royale.

The new Creative Island is a part of Fortnite’s in-game Creative mode. The new game mode within the game will allow players to test their skills in a series of mini-games. Dubbed as “90”, the new Creative Island will have 5 unique mini-games. Each of these games will last for about 90 seconds, with the focus on the player’s speed and adaptability.

For example, the Color Dash mini-game will test players’ abilities to color as many times as possible within a fixed time frame, with gravitational effects also coming into play. Another one is Skydrive Shootout, where players are pitted against one another, testing their capabilities against one another while skydiving. The announcement that unveiled the new Creative Island arrives just after OnePlus and Fortnite brought 90fps streaming to OnePlus phones.

OnePlus 8 series Fortnite — OnePlus 8 series can stream Fortnite at 90fps

For those unaware, OnePlus smartphones are capable of streaming Fortnite at 90fps, offering both a better visual experience thanks to the smoothness and improved gameplay due to better responsiveness. Notably, OnePlus has been an active figure in the entire gaming industry, it is a known partner of popular esports organizations like Fnatic and even sponsors popular streamers like Shroud. So, it comes as no surprise that it is actively collaborating with gaming studios.

(Via)

Meizu dual-screen smartphone leak shows rounded secondary screen and Samsung chipset

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May 29, 2020

Meizu, which recently launched its flagship Meizu 17th smartphone in its home country China. The company has worked on some interesting smartphone designs and now a smartphone with dual display setup has been leaked online.

The leaked image shows that the phone has a secondary screen on the back panel. It also shows that the device is powered by the Samsung Exynos 8890 chipset and features a single rear camera sensor.

While nothing much is known about this smartphone, the report claims that the device in question could have been named Meizu Pro X. Given the smartphone’s design and the chipset used, it seems that the company was working on it around 2006 but the device never made it commercially.

However, the company did come up with a dual-screen smartphone when it finally launched Meizu Pro7 and Pro7 Plus. The smartphones come with a small 1.9-inch AMOLED screen on the top-left corner on the phone’s back.

The company’s latest flagship smartphones — the Meizu 17 series went official earlier this month and a couple of weeks back, the phones were up for sale in China for the first time and got sold out in under a minute.

Meizu 17 has a starting price of 3,699 Yuan which is about $522 whereas the Meizu 17 Pro begins at 4,299 Yuan which roughly converts to $607. The Meizu 17 comes in Mint, Black, and White colors while the Pro model is offered in Green, Gray, and Aurora White colors.

Recently, Meizu joined the P2P File Transfer Alliance along with OenPlus, Realme, and Black Shark. The alliance, which already has Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo as members, enables cross-device file transfer protocol at high-speed without the need for third-party apps.

(Via)

Redmi K30 Pro price slashed by 400 Yuan (~$56) for 618 sales in China

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May 29, 2020

Apart from November 11 (also known as Double 11), China is known for organizing 618 shopping festival from June 1 to June 18 each year. With June 1 fast approaching, Chinese smartphone brands are coming up with exciting offers for the forthcoming 618 sales. Redmi today confirmed that it will be offering up to 400 Yuan discount for the buyers of Redmi K30 Pro 5G phone between June 1 and June 3.

The above poster shows that the Redmi K30 Pro 5G’s 8 GB RAM + 128 GB storage variant will be available with 400 Yuan (~$56) discount. The discount effectively brings down the price of the variant to 2,999 Yuan (~$414).

The Redmi K30 Pro’s 6 GB RAM + 128 Gb storage and 8 GB RAM + 256 GB storage models will come with 300 Yuan (~$42) price cut. These models can be purchased with revised pricing of 2,699 Yuan (~$377) and 3,399 Yuan (~$475) during the first three days of June month in China.

Editor’s Pick: Redmi 10X 5G Has Gone Up For Pre-Order For $319 On Giztop

Redmi K30 Pro 5G specifications

The Redmi K30 Pro 5G has a 6.67-inch notch-less AMOLED display that supports full HD+ resolution. It has an in-screen fingerprint reader. The Snapdragon 865 mobile platform powers the device with LPDDR5 and UFS 3.1 storage. It lacks a microSD card slot and comes preinstalled with MIUI 11 based Android 10 OS.

The 4,700mA battery of the Redmi K30 Pro 5G supports 30W fast charging. It has a pop-up selfie camera of 20-megapixel. The rear shell of the phone features a quad camera system that includes a 64-megapixel Sony IMX686 main lens, a 5-megapixel telephoto macro shooter, a 13-megapixel ultrawide lens and a 2-megapixel depth sensor.

Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 and 6700 announced with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2

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May 29, 2020

Qualcomm has announced a flagship portfolio of mobile connectivity systems — Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 and 6700. The new offerings come with support for the latest wireless communications standards and the company says that they are built from scratch.

Both, the Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 and Qualcomm FastConnect 6700 supports Wi-Fi 6 which is the fastest available Wi-Fi speeds in the industry (up to 3.6 Gbps), along with VR-class low latency and Bluetooth advancements for immersive audio experiences.

With the Wi-Fi 6E-enabled chipset, devices will be able to use the 6GHz frequency when other frequencies are being used by other devices. Now combine that with Bluetooth 5.2 and you get lower latency on peripherals, as close to a wired connection as possible.

Notably, FastConnect 6900 offers the fastest available Wi-Fi 6 speed, up to 3.6 Gbps while the FastConnect 6700 offers peak speeds of 3 Gbps. This is because 6900 has an extra boost of performance through additional implementation of 4-stream Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) with multi-band (including 6GHz) capabilities.

The Bluetooth 5.2 implementation includes a second Bluetooth antenna with intelligent switching capabilities to overcome common signal shadowing issues for unparalleled Bluetooth reliability and range. It is engineered to be ready to address emerging LE Audio experiences such as multi-point audio sharing and broadcast audio, enabling multiple audio connections simultaneously.

Features for the next-generation Wi-Fi 6E technology offered includes the following:

It dramatically expands Wi-Fi capacity by adding up to 1200MHz of additional spectrum, more than doubling the number of pathways currently available for sending and receiving data.
Dual-band 160MHz supports up to seven additional non-overlapping channels in the 6GHz band, in addition to 160MHz channels available in the 5 GHz band.
Deploys high-performance Uplink / Downlink MU-MIMO and OFDMA mobile technologies across all available bands.
New Wi-Fi 6 Uplink MU-MIMO capability increases network capacity by more than 2.5x.

OnePlus 8 5G special sale in India at 12 PM today

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May 29, 2020

The OnePlus 8 series of flagship phones were made official in April. While the OnePlus 8 5G and OnePlus 8 Pro 5G have been available for purchase in some markets across the globe, India is one of the major regions where the sales of these phones have not started yet. The Chinese firm had planned to carry out the first sale of the OnePlus 8 series in India on May 29. However, it recently confirmed that the OP8 series first sale for India has been postponed due to a temporary halt in its production last week. Still, as promised, the company will be conducting a special sale of the OnePlus 8 5G smartphone in India at 12 PM (local time).

The OnePlus 8 5G comes in three choices such as 6 GB RAM + 128 GB storage, 8 GB RAM + 128 GB storage and 12 GB RAM + 256 GB storage. They are priced at Rs. 41,999 (~$555), Rs. 44,999 (~$594) and Rs. 49,999 (~$661). Onyx Black, Glacial Green, and Interstellar Glow are three color variants of the smartphone. SBI cardholders can take advantage of Rs. 2,000 discount on the purchase of OnePlus 8 5G. Customers can also take advantage of no-cost EMI for up to 12 months while availing the handset.

Editor’s Pick: OnePlus Z leaked screen protector showcases the front design

OnePlus 8 5G specifications

The OnePlus 8 5G has a 6.55-inch Fluid AMOLED full HD+ display with support for a 90Hz refresh rate. The Snapdragon 865 SoC fuels the device with LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.0 storage. The Android 10 OS with OxygenOS 10 comes preinstalled on the phone. It has a 48-megapixel + 16-megapixel (ultrawide) + 2-megapixel (macro) triple camera system on its rear and it has a front camera of 16-megapixel. The device houses a 4,300mAh battery with 30W fast charging support.

On May 18, it had made the OnePlus 8 5G available through an early bird sale for its fans. The smartphone was sold out in a few seconds. Today too, the handset is expected to receive similar response from buyers.

OPPO Reno4, 4 Pro to launch on June 5; Live shots appear

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