Taiwanese tech giant ASUS has launched a new smartwatch dubbed VivoWatch BP. The ASUS VivoWatch BP is a successor to the VivoWatch which was launched three years ago. The new sports smartwatch comes with lots of new features but the most notable one is the blood pressure tracking and de-stress index. This feature makes the ViVoWatch BP one of the few BP tracking watch around just like the latest Lenovo Watch X.
The VivoWatch BP won’t rank among the flashy smartphones in the market. If you are searching for something fashionable, then you may want to turn your head the other way. However, what it lacks in design, it gains in the features it packs. It is equipped with several sensors under the thick screen bezels but the biggest is the Electrocardiographic (ECG) and photoplethysmographic (PPG) sensors which measure your current blood pressure. Both sensors work simultaneously to deliver better accuracy. The BP is measured by placing the fingertip on the front-facing ECG sensor for about 15 to 20 seconds.
Apart from helping users keep track of their blood pressure, the VivoWatchBP also tracks other vital data like heart rate, sleep quality, de-stress index and overall activity data. The smartwatch uses the HealthAI technology which enables it to be connected to an Android app and the data gathered is transferred to the app with personalized suggestions and recommendations. You get suggestions like how many steps you need to take today, how many hours of sleep you should get during the night and also it tries to motivate you to exercise.
In addition, the ASUS smartwatch comes with GPS tracking, allowing you to share your location with friends and family for safer weekend mountain hiking. The gadget also packs a pretty impressive battery life which Asus claims can run for about 28 days under normal usage. This is twice the battery performance compared to the previous version.
As for pricing and availability, the ASUS VivoWatch BP comes with a price tag of $169. The smartwatch will be available in Asia by the end of July while it will hit Europe in August. US customers will have to wait until Q2 or Q3 next year as a result of pending FDA approval.
Just a few weeks ago, OPPO announced the OPPO R15 Nebula Special Edition. It is actually a new color variant of the phone created by Egyptian designer Karim Rashid. Today, the manufacturer has unveiled yet another color variant called Magic Powder.
The Magic Powder OPPO R15 has a color gradient design like the Nebula edition. However, this time it is a mix of gold and pink. The result is nothing short of beautiful.
The OPPO R15 Magic Powder will go on sale tomorrow for ¥2699 (~$421). It will be available on the official website as well as JD.com. OPPO will also ship the phone along with a free unit of the OPPO M11 Bluetooth speaker for those who pre-order.
The new color variant has the same specs as the other variants. It has a 6.28-inch 2280 x 1080 display, an Helio P60 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.
Every year, Xiaomi has been putting efforts on improving the cameras of its devices. And in the previous years, the Chinese company has managed to release some of the best camera phones in the affordable smartphones market. According to the company’s declarations, the new Xiaomi Mi 8 unveiled just three days ago is its best camera phone, even better than the Mi Mix 2S. Indeed, DxOMark has already included it in its best camera phones ranking, in which the handset obtained the 4th place with the same score as Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus.
Now, the first selfie samples have surfaced online and we can assume that even Xiaomi Mi 8’s selfie camera is outstanding just like its dual rear camera. The front snapper of the device supports AI portrait selfies and a new AI Beauty algorithm, and it is evident in the below selfies which made those girls’ face nearly perfect without any blemishes. Further, the selfie camera is able to deliver a great bokeh effect, blurring the background with good edge detection. In case you do not remember, Xiaomi Mi 8 features a single selfie snapper with a resolution of 20 MP and a f/2.0 aperture and a huge pixel size of 1.8 microns.
Near the front camera, there are also infrared sensors for the Xiaomi’s 3D facial recognition technology. The rear camera is a dual setup composed of the wide-angle Sony IMX363 primary sensor with a pixel size of 1.4 microns and a secondary S5K3M3 sensor. Both sensors feature resolutions of 12 MP, but their apertures are different: f/1.8 and f/2.4, respectively. They are also equipped with 4-axis optical stabilization and they support optical zoom, as well as dual pixel autofocus.
Lenovo also announced a new smartwatch at today’s event. The Lenovo Watch X (10) comes with a bunch of sensors and an OLED display. If you don’t like the Watch 9 announced earlier this year, then you should check out the Watch X.
The full specs of the Watch X are still unavailable but we will update the article once we get our hands on it. The Watch X comes with an OLED screen which lets you see the recorded readings in real time. The Watch X has a Milanese watch strap but there is also a leather variant if that is what you prefer.
The watch has six different sensors – a barometer, a heart rate sensor, a blood pressure sensor, a gyroscope, a gravity sensor, and a geomagnetic sensor.
Powering the watch is a 600mAh battery which Lenovo claims can last up to 45 days on standby. Connectivity is via Bluetooth 5.0 LE. The Watch X is also water resistant up to 80 meters.
During the unveil event of the Xiaomi Mi 8, Mi 8 Explorer Edition and Mi 8 SE smartphones, the Chinese manufacturer had also launched the MIUI 10 ROM. The Chinese manufacturer has already started the closed beta of MUI 10 in China and the public beta of developer ROM is expected to be available in the country late June to some handsets like Mi 8, Mi MIX 2S, Mi MIX, Mi 6X, Mi 6, Mi 5, Mi Note 2, Redmi S2 and Redmi Note 5. The remaining Xiaomi phones will be getting the developer ROM in July. In India, Xiaomi will be holding a launch event the rumored Redmi Y2 smartphone. Manu Kumar Jain, Xiaomi’s Global VP and Managing Director for India has shared a new teaser on his Twitter which reveals that the company will be launching the MIUI 10 soon.
Last year, Xiaomi had launched the MIUI 9 ROM in China in July. And when the Chinese firm had launched the Redmi Y1 smartphone in India in November. it had used the same platform to announce the rollout of MIUI 9 Global ROM. Hence, it is being speculated that Xiaomi will be confirming on the rollout of MIUI 10 Global ROM on June 7 when it launches the Redmi Y2 phone.
The MIUI 10 has come with some new features and the company has claimed that it faster than MIUI 9. The major improvement that has arrived on the MIUI 10 is the heavy integration of AI. The ROM includes AI Portrait Mode which makes it possible for even older phones like Mi Note 2 to capture shots with bokeh effects. The AI Preload can analyze the usage of an app and reduce its loading times. It also includes a new Recent Apps switcher, navigational gestures, a driving mode and a hub for accessing all smart devices.
As far as Redmi Y2 is considered, Rumors have it that it the same selfie-centric Redmi S2 phone that was launched in China in May. It has a 5.99-inch FHD+ screen, Snapdragon 625 SoC, soft-LED enabled 16-megapixel front camera, dual rear cameras and more. It is likely to arrive with a pricing of Rs. 9,999 (~$149).
BBK subsidiary, Vivo last week confirmed that it would launch the concept NEX smartphone in an event holding on June 12. The Vivo NEX is expected to be the mass production version of the Vivo APEX concept phone which was unveiled a couple of months back. The Chinese manufacturer recently released a teaser poster on its official Weibo account which re-echoes the presence of a pop-up selfie camera on the NEX. The company has now released a new poster which basically confirms the presence of a pop-up selfie shooter.
The teaser poster contains the render of the full-screen device with the selfie camera already popped up. The crisp clear picture on the display obviously represents how powerful the selfie camera output would be. The poster also shows the device will indeed be a truly bezel-less model with no notch at the upper edge. The sides also look completely bezel-less while the chin has just a minimal level of bezels.
As a reminder, the NEX’s selfie camera is hidden on the top bezel from view and it comes up automatically when a user selects the front-facing camera option inside the camera app. When not required, the pop-up camera can hide inside the top bezel. When the feature was demonstrated on the Vivo APEX phone, the company had claimed that it can pop-up in just 0.8 seconds. That could also be retained on the NEX smartphone. The poster also points at the presence of artificial intelligence (AI) on the device.
As for the specs, the Vivo NEX is expected to have a Snapdragon 845 chipset on its topmost model while there is rumoured to be a model with a Snapdragon 710 chip.
At a launch event in Beijing, along with its much-awaited smartphone Lenovo Z5 and Lenovo K5 Note, the China-based company also introduced yet another smartphone under its lineup of budget-friendly devices — Lenovo A5.
The Lenovo A5 features a 5.45-inch HD+ 2.5D curved glass display, which has a screen resolution of 1440 × 720 pixels and is clubbed with 18:9 aspect ratio. Under the hood, a 1.5GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6739 64-bit chipset with PowerVR Rogue GE8100 GPU powers the smartphone.
It packs 3GB of RAM and two options in terms of internal storage — 16GB and 32GB. Further, the phone’s storage capacity can be expanded up to 256GB through a microSD card. On the software front, the device is running Android 8.1 Oreo operating system out of the box with the company’s own custom interface ZUI 3.9 on top.
On the imaging front, the Lenovo A5 boasts a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED Flash, f/2.2 aperture, and an 8-megapixel front-facing snapper with f/2.2 aperture. The phone also features a fingerprint sensor on the back panel as well as comes with support for Facial Recognition feature.
Connectivity options on the device include Dual-SIM, 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, and GPS. The device is backed by a 4000mAh battery. It measures 158.3 × 76.7 × 8.5mm and weighs 176 grams.
In China, the Lenovo A5 is priced at 599 Yuan, which roughly converts to $94 and will be available in three color options — Black, Gold, and Rose Gold. For now, there is no information regarding the launch of the smartphone in any other market.
Lenovo’s K-series were very popular at a time but along the line, the manufacturer sort of messed up the naming. After the Lenovo K6 series in 2016, it announced the Lenovo K8 series in India, skipping the K7 name. Now, rather than go on with the naming, Lenovo’s latest device in the K-series is yet another K5 Note.
To avoid confusing it with the 2016 model, we’ll refer to it as the Lenovo K5 Note (2018) even though Lenovo is calling it just Lenovo K5 Note. The device completes this year’s series which includes the Lenovo K5 Play and Lenovo K5.
Apart from the naming, which we are not pleased with, Lenovo might have a winner here as the K5 Note packs some interesting specs for an affordable price.
Lenovo K5 Note (2018) Design
Unlike the Lenovo K5 and K5 Play which have reflective bodies, the K5 Note is non-reflective metal. However, it comes with the trending 18:9 display with thinner bezels than its siblings.
Lenovo K5 Note (2018) Specs
The Lenovo K5 Note (2018) has a 6.0” display but Lenovo didn’t state the screen resolution. It is powered by a Snapdragon 450 – the same found in the Xiaomi Redmi 5 which should be its closest rival. It comes with either 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage or 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage.
On the rear are dual 16MP cameras while a lone 8MP camera sits in front for selfies and video calls. The phone has a triple card tray which lets you use two SIM cards and a microSD card slot all at once.
The K5 Note (2018) has a 3760mAh battery and runs ZUI 4.0 based on Android Oreo out of the box. Unlike the Lenovo Z5, we do not know if the K5 Note will get updated to Android P.
Lenovo’s phone as well as PC business has been dwindling in recent times but it isn’t going down without a fight. The company aims to get back in the game with the release of the new Lenovo Z5 mid-ranger. We have been seeing teasers of this particular phone for the past couple of weeks and the Z5 does look like a device that can change the tide for the Chinese giant.
About an hour ago, the Lenovo Z5 was made official in China. The company has adopted the tried and tested strategy of incorporating trending features at an affordable price tag on this new device. So, you have a notched display, handful of new color options, powerful mid-range hardware and AI, all at an affordable price point.
Lenovo Z5 Design
The Lenovo Z5 comes with a full screen 19:9 6.2-inch 2240 x 1080p display with a notch up front and 2.5D Gorilla Glass. The company made sure to point out the fact that its notch is smaller than flagship phones like the iPhone X or the Xiaomi Mi 8. Further, the company even boasts of its thinner chin as compared to Xiaomi devices like the Mi 6X and the Mi 8. However, the real highlight of Z5’s display is its support for DCI-P3 color gamut with 700 nits of brightness, a feature usually seen only in the top-end smartphones of recent times. The screen occupies 90% of the front, which is definitely a feat for its price segment. The back is standard with a vertically arranged dual camera setup on the left and a fingerprint sensor at the centre.
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There are three color options available, Schumann Black, XLR Blue, and Aurora. Looks like, Lenovo has taken some inspiration from Honor for its new model!
Lenovo Z5 Specs
The Z5 is powered by the capable Snapdragon 636 with 6GB of RAM and 3300mAh battery with 18W fast charge support. The phone runs on ZUI 4.0 which brings fluidity of the UI and adds Full U-Touch 4.0 Screen gestures, AI voice commands, and features such as automatic call answer via gestures. Note that the company has promised the Android P update for the Z5.
There’s a dual camera setup at the back of the phone with a primary 16MP f/2.0 sensor and a secondary 8MP sensor for depth information. Like most other phones of 2018, the camera experience will be enhanced by AI with support for 4D beauty mode, AI noise reduction, night mode and AI portrait mode. Further, the company has tied up with ArcSoft for the phone’s depth of field algorithms, so expect pretty good bokeh portraits. Front features an 8MP f/2.0 sensor with beauty mode.
Lenovo Z5 Price & Availability
Lenovo has ensured that the phone is taking on the Snapdragon 636 powered Redmi Note 5 in China. Pricing starts from 1299 Yuan ($202) for the 6GB + 64GB version and goes up to 1799 Yuan ($281) for the 6GB + 128GB edition.
On 31st May, Xiaomi launched its flagship smartphone — Mi 8 at a launch event in Shenzhen, China. Today, the smartphone went on sale in China for the first time and all the units sold out in about 1 minute and 37 seconds.
However, the company has not revealed how many units of the Mi 8 were sold in this first sale. The next sale for the smartphone is scheduled to take place on 12th June at 10:00 AM. Just like this sale, in the next sale also, the phone will be available in three variants — 6GB RAM + 64GB storage, 6GB + 128GB storage, and 6GB RAM + 256GB storage.
While the 6GB RAM + 64GB internal storage model is priced at 2,699 Yuan (approximately $), the 6GB + 128GB and 6GB + 256GB models are priced at 2,999 Yuan (approximately $) and 3,299 (approximately $) Yuan, respectively.
The Xiaomi Mi 8 is the first smartphone from the company to feature a notched S-AMOLED display that offers a Full HD+ screen resolution of 2248 x 1080 pixels and aspect ratio of 18.7:9. The backside of the phone is made out of glass that has a unique “water drop arc” design. It features a 7000-series aluminum frame.
Under the hood, the device is powered by Qualcomm‘s Snapdragon 845 processor. It comes equipped with 3,400mAh battery that is enabled with Quick Charge 4+ fast charging technology. The handset comes pre-installed with Android 8.1 Oreo operating system with the company custom user interface MIUI 10 on top.
The Mi 8 features a wide-angle Sony IMX363 12-megapixel primary sensor with f/1.8 aperture and 1.4-micron pixel size and a secondary 12-megapixel S5K3M3 sensor with f/2.4 aperture and 1-micron pixel size. The dual cameras offer features like 4-axis optical image stabilization, optical zoom, and dual pixel autofocus. On the front side, it features a 20-megapixel sensor with f/2.0 aperture with a massive pixel size of 1.8micron and supports AI portrait selfies and AI Beauty.
Further, the Xiaomi Mi 8 is the world’s first smartphone to come with dual-frequency GPS. Other connectivity options on the device include dual-SIM support, 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac NFC, Bluetooth 5.0, and 3.5mm audio jack. The smartphone comes with advanced facial recognition feature has been dubbed as Infrared Face Unlock, which will offer better facial recognition than other Android phones with face unlock feature.
U.S tech giant Apple is holding its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) presently and one of the first products that got unveiled is the new iOS 12. Apple has announced the new iOS version and also disclosed that the new update will be available to all devices which currently have iOS 11. The rollout will begin this fall and will hit models from the 5-year-old iPhone 5s as well as any iPad released since 2013.
The main focus of Apple in its operating system is performance and that is what obtained on iOS 12. The system’s performance gets the first major improvement. It is touted to be much faster than iOS 11 with 40% faster app launch, 70% faster camera, 50% faster keyboard, and huge optimizations under heavy load thanks to clever CPU boosts. It also comes upgrades of several of the features available on iOS including Siri.
Also, the new iOS 12 introduces new AR Kit 2 which focuses on shared experiences, allowing many people to share the same virtual environment like creating content, playing games, or just sharing your creations. LEGO, among other companies, are on board to create apps that share the same AR environments. In addition, the new OS comes with a brand-new file format for 3D graphics called USDZ. The format is an open source format and all native iOS apps will support reading USDZ files. Adobe will also add native USDZ support for Creative Cloud suite.
Another aspect that has gotten some improvement is Photos search. It is now improved with Search Suggestions. You can search by activities, events, locations, vacations, items. Apparently, you can now search by almost anything – even broad terms like museum, office, bar.
Another improved aspect is the Photos app which gets an extra “For You” tab. The tab automatically generates albums, suggestions for effects, even sharing suggestions – such as sharing your dinner photos with people you’ve been together with and then it will suggest sharing their photos on their phones with you and the rest.
Apple’s own virtual assistant Siri is getting a new feature as well and it is shortcuts. You can create shortcuts for actions Siri could do, like finding your keys, ordering coffee, reserving tables, reminders. There is a new Shortcuts app to help you create all shortcuts involving various apps. Siri Suggestions then uses those shortcuts to suggest to you something you might have forgotten like ordering your morning coffee, in case you didn’t do that on Monday morning. The suggestion could also be for you to send a message that you’ll be late for your meeting with someone.
Apps
The embedded apps are also improved. For instance, the News app is updated with new Browse section, where you can browse by different topics. In addition, Stocks app now gets News inside it, and it will be available on iPad. Also, Voice memos will now be available on iPad with this update. There will be iCloud support, as well. Other improvement include a new design for iBooks app which will now be called Apple Books. It will now have support for audio books .
Another app that gets some improvement is Car Play. It now supports third-party navigation apps, so users can change if they don’t like Apple Maps.
Other changes
There are also changes on the Do Not Disturb mode which now gets DND bedtime. DND is also easy to activate in various forms from the Control Center. Also, iOS 12 now groups notifications by app and topics and users can now turn on or off notifications from app straight from the lockscreen.
Apple also tailored the new iOS to be able to get you complete weekly reports of how you use your device, what sends you notifications, what time you spent on different apps, among other thorough statistics. You can limit your app usage, say Facebook, by setting a time limit and iOS will stop you after the time is up.
These are all developed to help reduce users screen time. The app control will also limit the usage of your kids iDevices via pre-set time limits on app, downtime on specific hours (bedtime), or always allow some apps.
Animjois and Messages
Apple iOS 12 brings some improvement to the Messages app with four new Animojis named coala, ghost, t-rex, and tiger. There is also a brand-new tongue detection which allows the iPhone X to detect your tongue movements. There is also an update for the Animojis called Memojis. They are Animojis designed after you. It’s like an RPG character creation – you have a ton of options for everything – hair, face, freckles, eyes, sunglasses, ears, and others.
FaceTime
Apple introduces Group FaceTime with iOS 12. Now, you can facetime with up to 32 people and the feature also integrates with messages. You can dial a whole group chat from within your Messages app. You can also join any already ongoing group facetime chat anytime. You can also replace yourself with an Animoji/Memoji n chats.
Qualcomm is focused on expanding its chipset business and along with making chips for mobile phones, the company is also making chips for the Internet of Things devices, VR headset, among others. Now, at Computex 2018 in Taiwan, the company unveiled the Snapdragon 850 processor, which is specifically designed for Windows devices.
The chip is supposed to drive a new generation of Windows devices on Snapdragon chipset, made by Qualcomm‘s numerous partners. Samsung has already announced that it will be making a 2-in-1 PC powered by the Snapdragon 850.
The chipset features ARM processors, integrated LTE, long battery life, and an instant-on resume with no hibernation. As the Snapdragon 850 is meant to be used in devices bigger than a smartphone, it can run at higher clock speeds without overheating. It has a faster 2.96GHz clock speed, which makes the processor about 30 percent faster than the SD835.
The Snapdragon 850 is built on the same second-generation 10nm process as the Snapdragon 845, and it’s paired with the same X20 modem for cellular connectivity. The company says that the Snapdragon 850 includes both hardware and software tuning to make it better at performing PC activities compared to the Snapdragon 845.
The Snapdragon X20 modem can now reach speeds of 1.2 Gbps, and Qualcomm will be leveraging the AI capabilities of their Hexagon DSP a lot more with the new platform. The new platform, according to Qualcomm, along with improved performance, should provide +20% battery life, and +20% wireless speeds.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 also uses the upgraded audio and video codec features and include support for H.264 and HEVC 4K encode and decode for video playback services. It has extended support for 4K video capture from integrated cameras.
On the audio front, it has improved dynamic range and reduced harmonic distortion metrics on its audio codec, and both analog and digital audio output is supported with Qualcomm’s Aqstic and aptX technologies.
For the new platform, Qualcomm is offering more assistance to the OEMs and vendors when it comes to reference designs and components, such as reference modem design and layout.
AnTuTu is considered one of the reliable benchmarks for testing the performance of a smartphone. Each month it releases its list of top 10 smartphones that offers best performance. Until the arrival of Snapdragon 845 chipset driven phones, AnTuTu’s list of best performing phones were led by Huawei Mate 10 Pro and Mate 10 that are fueled by Kirin 970 SoC. Today, the benchmarking platform has released the list of top 10 best performance smartphones between May 1 and May 31.
As it can be seen in the image below, the list is mainly populated by Snapdragon 845 powered phones. One should be aware of the fact that the list is not showing the highest score of each smartphone, but their average benchmarking score.
The list is led by Snapdragon 845 powered OnePlus 6 that has managed to salvage an impressive average benchmarking score of 274,910. The China-exclusive Smartisan R1 that is also powered by the same chipset is sitting on the second position. It has scored 272,520 points. The Black Shark gaming phone by Xiaomi that includes the same SoC has scored 270,235.
The Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galax S9+ that are also fueled by SD845 have respectively scored 263,218 and 262,571 points on AnTuTu. Currently, they are placed on fourth and fifth positions on the listing of best performing phones on AnTuTu in May. The Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S is now holding to sixth position with a score of 261,719. On seventh is Nubia’s Red Magic gaming phone with a score of 214,904.
The Huawei Mate 10 Pro with a score of 212,001 and Mate 10 with a score of 211,566 are respectively placed at eighth and ninth positions. The Honor V10 that recorded 210,616 points sits on the last position on the list. These three phones are powered by the Kirin 970 chipset. There is no confirmation on why the list does not include the Kirin 970 powered Huawei P20 and P20 Pro smartphones that were launched in March this year.
The Xiaomi Mi 8 was also launched in the previous month. Since it has been made available for buying starting from this month, it is not present in the above list. During the launch of Mi 8, Xiaomi had claimed that it is the first smartphone ever to breach the 300,000 mark on AnTuTu. Hence, it seems that the top 10 list of best performing phones for June 2018 will surely have the Mi 8 ranking among the top 3 phones.
Last week, OPPO had confirmed the return of the Find series and today the company has revealed that it will be keeping a global launch event for the upcoming OPPO Find X flagship phone on June 19 at The Louvre in Paris, France.
The rumors about the OPPO Find X smartphone started swirling when the company had trademarked the name in April. In May, OPPO had held a press conference with the title “Connect to the Future of the Future” in Shenzhen, China to showcase its R&D achievements in 5G and 3D structured light technology. This suggested that the OPPO Find X could be a flagship phone that may arrive with features like 3D facial recognition and 5G support.
The Find series that were launched in the past have always featured advanced specs and features. Hence, the company may want to deliver the best of the specs on the Find X as it is arriving four years after the Find 7 phone from 2014. Apart from support for 5G and 3D facial recognition, it may come packed with features like under-display fingerprint reader, super flash charging technology and 5x optical zoom.
Such a smartphone is likely to feature Snapdragon 845 SoC and around 8 GB of RAM. Leaked information has revealed that the handset may come with a 6.42-inch OLED display that will carry support for 2K resolution. It may feature an internal storage of 256 GB and a 4,000mAh battery equipped with Super VOOC charging.
A recently spotted leaked image that is said to belong to Find X revealed that its chassis may have front and rear glass panels. Besides dual camera setup, the rear glass may have a starry sky design and it may also sport the well-acclaimed breathing light indicator that was seen on Find 7.
Are you excited about the return of the OPPO Find series? Do you think that the Find X will include all the rumored advanced features? Share us your views by posting your comments below.
Xiaomi‘s IPO is expected to go live on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange next month. The countdown has been a mixture of prospects and skepticism. The IPO is expected to be the largest in four years since Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd raised $25 billion in its 2014 debut in New York. Xiaomi has no doubt had a highly successful run lately, beginning from last year. That notwithstanding, it was reported recently that the tech giant’s valuation was reportedly scaled down from $100 billion around $70 billion.
There are reports that investors are still skeptical about the overall prospect of the IPO. According to a report covered by Reuters, some investors are also worried about Xiaomi’s profit margins, especially since the firm revealed that it will keep its profit margin at 5%. This is in addition to the slide in smartphone sales in China, Xiaomi’s biggest market. It must be noted, though, that Xiaomi’s supposed 5% profit margin doesn’t include profit from its software gotten from advertisement.
At some point, the company may have to change its focus on growth instead of profit since investors are only interested in the profitability of the venture. That could be challenged by Xiaomi’s growing focus on offline sales. The company is gradually expanding its brick-and-mortar stores locations and that is going to increase its operating costs thus eating into already thin profit margins. The IPO will likely go public in the first half of July if the company receive final securities approvals within the move next week. We’ll have to keep our fingers crossed expecting that the IPO lives up to expectations.
Microsoft Surface phone has been in the news for quite a while now, not because we have evidence it exists apart from several patent filings, the phone is the clamour of many fans of the brand. There have been rumours and counter-rumours bothering on its existence. A new rumour that surfaced had tipped the Surface phone to not only come with a foldable hinge but to also feature Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 845 chipset. However, while nothing remains confirmed, a new set of images and a video of the Surface Phone concept created by Harry Dohyun Kim have been shared online.
The concept seems to have drawn inspiration from some of the latest patents of the Microsoft Surface phone which was spotted a few months back. The design includes a “hinge screen” that gives the illusion of a solid display when the device is fully opened in tablet mode. The hinged screen would also display certain information based on whether the device is opened in “tent mode,” or is opened like a book.
The Surface Phone is expected to be a foldable device running on a version of Windows 10 which would be called “Andromeda OS”. A set of code discovered in the latest Windows 10 SDK made reference to Andromeda OS. The code shows that the foldable Surface Pro will be powered by an ARM-based processor. None of this is confirmed but we sincerely hope rumours of the much-touted Surface phone could be put to recent finally. Meanwhile, check out the concept video and more photos of the Surface phone concept from below.
The BlackBerry KEY² launches in a few days. Ahead of the release, popular leaker @evleaks has released some high resolution renders of the device.
The changes in the BlackBerry KEY² are easy to spot right away. It now comes with dual rear cameras that are arranged horizontally. The sensors are slightly raised and have a metal frame around them. It also has a single LED flash now and not two like its predecessor.
BlackBerry has gone with a textured rear which has a diamond-like design. The famous Blackberry logo sits at the center of the device.
For the front, the device appears to have a larger screen. The glass covering the display reaches to the top with a slit for the earpiece. I think this is a better design than the thick metal bezel on the KEYone.
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The keyboard has been redesigned too. It even has a new key (beside the symbol key) that wasn’t present on the KEYone. Other changes include a redesigned speaker grille which is still on opposite sides of the USB-C port and the repositioning of the buttons and SIM tray.
After recently launching the Galaxy S Lite Luxury smartphone with premium design, Samsung is all set to debut all new Galaxy A9 Star and Galaxy A9 Star Lite smartphones in China. The South Korean company has already started the pre-orders of the Galaxy A9 and A9 Star Lite in China. Both the smartphones are fitted with Infinity Display design found on recently released smartphones such as Galaxy S and Galaxy A series smartphones. Moreover, they blessed with amazing rear and front-facing cameras.
The pre-orders of the Galaxy A9 Star duo will run until June 14 and both the handsets will be hitting the market on June 15. Samsung has confirmed that it will be holding a launch conference on June 7 to showcase the Galaxy A9 and Galaxy A9 Star Lite phones.
Samsung Galaxy A9 Star, Galaxy A9 Star Lite Specifications, Features and Pricing
The Samsung Galaxy A9 Star comes with a Super AMOLED display of 6.28 inches whereas the A9 Star Lite has a 6-inch S-AMOLED display. Both the smartphones support Full HD+ resolution of 2240 x 1080 pixels and an aspect ratio of 18.5:9.
The Snapdragon 660 SoC and 4 GB of RAM powers the Galaxy A9 Star. It has an inbuilt storage of 64 GB and has a microSD for additional storage. The vertical dual camera module sitting on the top-left corner of the rear shell of the phone includes a 24-megapixel primary sensor and a 16-megapixel secondary sensor. It is fitted with a 24-megapixel front-facing camera. The handset is fueled by a 3,700mAh battery. A fingerprint reader is placed at the center portion of the upper half of the back panel.
The Snapdragon 450 coupled with 4 GB of RAM powers the A9 Star Lite. It has an internal storage of 64 GB and a microSD card slot. The A9 Star Lite also features a selfie shooter of 24-megapixel. The rear panel of the phone has a vertical dual camera setup with a fingerprint reader placed below. The dual camera system has a 16-megapixel primary sensor and a 5-megapixel secondary sensor. It receives power from 3,500mAh battery.
The Galaxy A9 Star and Galaxy A9 Star Lite are preinstalled with Android 8.0 Oreo that is overlaid with Samsung Experience 9.0. The other common features on both phones include dual-SIM support, 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, and microUSB 2.0.
The Galaxy A9 Star has a price tag of 3,699 Yuan (~$577) whereas the A9 Star Lite has a pricing of 2,699 Yuan (~$421). The Samsung Galaxy A9 Star Lite can be brought in colors like Black and White and the color variants of the A9 Star Lite such as Black and Blue.
Despite the fact that it is not even a flagship, Vivo X21 has been launched with a stunning design, including a curved and reflective glass back as well as an aluminum frame and an incredibly high screen-to-body ratio. But what is inside its beautiful shell? Thanks to the first teardown photos surfaced online we can finally see under its wide and notched display. According to the source, if you own a unit of the Vivo X21, in order to open the phone you need to remove the SIM card tray, then remove two screws by using a normal screwdriver.
After that, you have to heat around the display a bit, then use a paddle to create a gap between the display and the backplate. You can now separate the screen comfortably starting from the right side. Given that this phone features an in-display fingerprint reader instead of the classic back-mounted one, you won’t need to disconnect the fingerprint reader in order to completely separate the backplate from the rest of the phone. Once you are at this point, it will be a bit harder to disassemble the phone as there are several protections for water-resistance and heat dissipation.
You will need to disconnect the motherboard cables, open some graphite shields, then disconnect the screen cable. With all the cables and screws removed, it is possible to completely separate the motherboard from the handset. Then you will be able to remove the battery, the bottom module and the speaker. In the images, you can see all the most important components powering the device. Vivo X21 is equipped with a Snapdragon 660 SoC, 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. Photos also show the dual camera module, as well as the 12 MP selfie camera and the 3200 mAh battery.
Nokia does not seem to be focusing on flagship phones very much in 2018. After launching just one flagship with the 2017 SoC Snapdragon 835 and after renewing its whole mid-range and low-end series, HMD Global is working on a new upper-midrange device with the new Snapdragon 710 chipset. The famous leakster Roland Quandt has just revealed it through his Twitter account, and he also told us that the device is currently codenamed Phoenix. According to the leakster, it will be officially released in autumn or winter 2018. The most reliable hypotheses is suggesting an IFA 2018 launch in September.
Further, Roland Quandt has revealed that the first mid-range device from the Pixel series by Google (powered by Snapdragon 710 as well) is actually codenamed Bonito. According to the first speculations we may be talking about the Nokia 7.1 or 7.1 Plus, given that the 7 Plus comes with a Snapdragon 660 and the 710 is its successor. Also, note that the Nokia 7 has been unveiled in the second half of 2017. In case you do not know, the SD710 is the first chipset from the 700 series by Qualcomm which sits just in the middle between 600 and 800 series.
HMD/Nokia Mobile is working on a Snapdragon 710 based device to be released in the autumn/winter 2018 timeframe. Codename is "Phoenix". Oh and btw, the Google SDM710 based device apparently is called "Bonito".
It is an octa-core processor composed of two Cortex-A75 CPUs and six Cortex A55 which can run at a max frequency of 2.2 GHz. It includes an Adreno 616 GPU and, according to Qualcomm, it is able to provide 35 percent better performance than its predecessor Snapdragon 820. It also supports artificial intelligence thanks to its dedicated AI module called Hexagon 685 DSP (the same we can find on the Snapdragon 845). Currently, there is no other info about the specs of the upcoming Nokia device. The latest smartphones launched by HMD Global are Nokia 2.1, 5.1 and 3.1: all of them are budget phones.
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