A leaked photo of Moto Z (2017) that surfaced recently revealed that the upcoming flagship would be arriving with few changes in its design such as redesigned fingerprint scanner and a dual-tone selfie flash. Now, an alleged image of a mysterious Moto Z model placed on a gamepad Moto Mod that has surfaced from Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017 event is doing rounds.
The Moto Z shown in the image seems to match with the recently leaked image of the flagship. The new image also features a rectangular shaped fingerprint scanner with rounded corners. It also seems to feature a dual-tone selfie flash. Like the previous image, this one also has a “moto” logo placed above the fingerprint scanner.
During MWC 2017, Sprint had demonstrated its Gigabit-Class LTE service in collaboration with Motorola (owned by Lenovo). The press release from the carrier stated it had used a Motorola smartphone that was powered by Snapdragon 835 chipset and an integrated Snapdragon X16 LTE modem.
These are images of the Snapdragon 835 chipset powered mysterious Motorola phone. As it can be seen, the top and bottom bezels were covered probably to cover its identity.
The carrier even stated that the Motorola device that was used to display its Gigabit LTE technology is a “forthcoming flagship.” This hints that the disguised smartphone may be the Moto Z (2017). It also indicates that in this year the Moto Z (2017) would be available through multiple carriers like Sprint and Verizon in the U.S.
In January, the alleged Moto Z (2017) was spotted with the Snapdragon 835 SoC and 4 GB of RAM. It was found running on Android 7.1.1 Nougat OS. It is also expected to arrive with an enhanced rear camera that will be equipped with lesser but larger pixels to shoot better photos in low light conditions. It is also rumored to arrive with an iris scanner.
Also, the Moto Mods accessories that are available for the first generation Moto Z would be also expected to be compatible with the upcoming Moto Z flagship. The Moto Z (2017) is speculated to launch in June this year.
Huawei has just unveiled the new dual-camera flagship smartphone – P10. It is a premium device that has a promising camera setup, great specifications and a lot more that is packed into the all-metal body. Learn more in the full review.
The Huawei P10 ships in quite a premium box. Inside of it, you can find some paperwork, a hard plastic case, a pair of earphones, USB c cable and lastly, the fast charger.
DESIGN and DISPLAY
Once you first take the P10 out of the box, you will notice how compact it is due to the 5.1” LCD 1080p display, which is sharp, bright and it has vivid colors.
Also, the display has the latest Gorilla Glass 5 for scratch resistance. Finally, the sunlight legibility may not be the best but it is pretty good.
I love how nicely the phone sits in the hand due to rounded edges on the back and all-aluminum housing that is smooth to the touch and it does not attract fingerprints or smudges like the glass-made phones.
The brand new home button has a built-in fingerprint sensor that is very fast, accurate and it unlocks the phone straight from the standby mode. The home key has a lot of other features but more on that later on.
When it comes to the camera, the Huawei upgraded its Leica-branded dual camera system by using the latest 20MP monochrome sensor, which is mainly used to capture sharper detail. Also, there is another 12MP shooter, which is essentially used to capture colors. The camera system has the OIS, dual tone dual LED flash and finally, the cameras use f/2.2 aperture Leica lens.
As far as selfie camera, Huawei also cooperated with Leica and as a result, we have an improved 8MP selfie shooter with a bright f/1.9 aperture lens.We also havea notification LED light on the top.
The sound quality via the headset jack is great. No distortions, rich and balanced sound and great volume output. Also, I love the sound quality of the loudspeaker. The sound is balanced, rich and the volume output is very good.
SPECIFICATIONS
The Huawei P10 got a little performance upgrade and it runs on the same processor as the Huawei Mate 9. The Kirin 960 chipset is a small upgrade over the Kirin 955 found in the Huawei P9.
As we expected, it only comes with one storage option and that is 64GB, at least you don’t need to think about different models and if you need extra storage, you can further expand it via the microSD card slot up to 256GB.
The Kirin 960 uses an octa-core CPU (2.36GHz) and is supported by 4GB of RAM. If you want even more power, you should check out the Huawei P10 Plus that has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.
USER INTERFACE and PERFORMANCE
As most of the phones right now, it runs Android 7. But no stock Android, Huawei has included its Emotion UI 5.1 overlay on top of Android 7.
This disappoints a bit because some of the key Nougat features are missing like Google Assistant and Daydream compatibility, at least at the launch there is no sign when it will come to this phone but we may see it with the future software updates.
The software has improved a bit over the software on the P9. Also, there are some cool new features like themes of Emotion UI can now be tailored to the color of your phone. The P10 also comes with a new approach to navigating through the UI. The home button on the front is not only a fingerprint scanner, it’s also a multi-navigation button that allows you to access your multitasking menu if you swipe to the right, go back with one tap and go home by tapping and holding it.
It feels different than on P9 because the P9 had the fingerprint scanner on the back but it was quite easy to get used to using this feature. Huawei also included Quik Integration. This GoPro owned app allows you to pick photos and videos, and the app automatically edits them into a video. It’s a pretty cool feature, it works straight out of the gallery and it helps you make a social media-ready video from your latest events or parties.
The Huawei have also included predictive fingerprint tracking which will suggest the phone where your fingers will probably go next. That means if a lot of people exit an app after using it, the phone will predict that and it is able to make it work quicker. The overall user experience in the UI is good, the phone is fast, fluid and there are no hiccups.
The gaming performance is the same like on the Huawei Mate 9 and it also supports the new Vulkan API which renders game faster and with more details. All in all, games run fine and you can play the latest titles like World of Tanks with maximum graphic details. Also, the phone does not have any overheating issues.
CAMERA
The camera app has been improved and it comes with a lot of great features. As on previous Huawei phones, we have a monochrome mode, which takes pretty decent looking 20MP black and white pictures. There is also an HDR Mode, Light painting, Time-lapse mode, Slow-motion up to 120fps in 720p. There are some other modes for you to download.
IMAGE QUALITY
When it comes to the daylight image quality, the Leica-branded dual cameras can take some nice-looking photos with a good amount of detail, great dynamic range adjustment and very accurate color reproduction. In fact, some of the pictures we took are one of the best you can get on any phone.
The night image quality on the P10 is almost the same as on the Huawei Mate 9, I just noticed that some shots are a bit higher exposed on the Mate 9 or have a higher ISO. The noise looks a bit better on the P10 which could be due to a software improvement in noise reduction.
The 4k video quality looks pretty good. The footage looks pretty sharp but there could be more detail if we compare the quality of video to some of the top tier flagship devices. My biggest concern is, however, that the phone uses H.265 video format, which is not supported by Youtube, so you would need to convert the video first.
The selfies look great. There is lots of detail, the colours look nice and the pictures will definitely do the trick for social media needs. The selfie video looks pretty sharp and detailed too, definitely more than enough for video chats and other stuff.
As far as connectivity, we didn’t have any issues at all. The signal reception and the call quality have been great, the Wifi speed and range are excellent and finally, the GPS is accurate whether you need to use it for driving or walking down the street.
BATTERY LIFE
The Huawei P10 has a 3200mAh battery that can be fully charged in about 1 h and 10 mins with the supplied fast charger.
I used the phone mostly for taking lots of pictures, checking social media, web browsing and I was able to get about 5 hours of screen-on time using a 50% brightness setting, which is a pretty good result.
CONCLUSIONS
After using the Huawei P10 since the official launch, I have to tell you that I like this phone for a lot of reasons but it doesn’t mean it is a perfect phone.
First of all, I love the design and build quality of the phone even though some may say that the looks were inspired by some other phones. Also, I love the form factor that allows me to manage the phone in one hand and scroll through the nice and sharp display.
Other things that we really love include a dual-camera setup that can take some of the best-in-class daylight images, excellent gaming and user interface performance and great battery life.
Since I always prefer stock Android, I’m not a huge fan of the cartoonish look of the Emotion UI but I appreciate all the extra features, especially the fingerprint reader gestures. Another shortcoming is that the phone uses H.265 video format, which is not supported by Youtube, so you would need to convert the video first.
All in all, the Huawei P10 is a very solid phone and it can be called a legit flagship despite a few shortcomings but given the suggested retail price of 649 EUR, this phone is really worth your attention and it is definitely one of the best for the price.
The first phones with 10nm chips such as the Snapdragon 835, Helio X30, Kirin 970, Apple A11 and Exynos 8895 are yet to arrive. TSMC is the foundry handling the production of three of these chipsets. Latest report coming in says while the production of the 10nm chips are going on, Mediatek and TSMC plan to begin trial production of a new 7nm chip with 12 cores!!!
The 10nm Helio X30 is a deca-core chip but Mediatek is going all out and making it twelve on the 7nm chipset. There is still no specific info on how the cores will be paired but the chip will be the first to feature 12 cores.
You might be wondering why Mediatek keeps increasing the number of cores on their flagship chips while other flagship processors like the Snapdragon 821 remain quad-core chips. The reason is said to be a way to maintain balance between power efficiency and performance.
The trial production is expected to begin in the second half of the year and begin mass production in 2018. Samsung has also scheduled its own 7nm mass production to begin the same time. There is also a mention of a 5nm trial production scheduled for 2019 by the Taiwanese foundry.
The Meizu Pro 6 was released in May of last year. It was the first phone to feature the top and bottom antennae design that Apple replicated on the iPhone 7. Six months later, it was followed by the Pro 6 Plus, and the month after that saw the release of the Pro 6s. A leaked schedule already told us to expect the Meizu Pro 7 in June and we have also seen a couple of leaked images and specs.
The team at DBS Designing have come up with their own renders of what the Meizu Pro 7 should look like. First, lets run through the specs.
The device sports a 5.5-inch Quad HD AMOLED display, 6GB of RAM, and either 64GB or 128GB of storage. The processor is definitely the Mediatek X30 and there is a 5000mAh battery inside too with support for Super mCharge. The main camera is a 16MP shooter and the front camera is 8MP.
For the design, they have settled for something similar to the upcoming Galaxy S8. The display is curved on both sides and the top and bottom bezels have been shrunk considerably. DBS have managed to squeeze a fingerprint scanner on the lower bezel. How comfortable that will be when it comes to real life usage remains to be seen.
The rear is not so much different from that of the Pro 6 though. The lens style is different and the LED flash is now shaped like a pill. There is a USB Type-C port on the bottom and speaker grilles flanking it on both sides.
South Korean tabloid Korea Economic Daily has carried a report that the Samsung Galaxy S8 would come with an additional bio-metric feature which would work alongside the iris scanners which the Galaxy series were known to feature. According to the report, the new feature would be a facial recognition feature which is said to unlock he phone in less than 0.01 seconds.
This latest news is coming amidst talks of Apple’s own iPhone 8 packing a similar face scanner. The feature is said to be undergoing testing with the tech giant alleged to have commenced testing of the prototypes. If it turns out to be true, it brings the number of Samsung’s biometric features expected on the Galaxy S8 to three. There is the traditional rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, as well as the iris scanner and then the latest, which is the facial recognition. The report cited a Samsung official as stating that the additional biometric feature was prompted due to the limitations of the iris scanner which is slow.
The Galaxy S8 is expected to be unveiled later this month while the sales would commence in April. A report had earlier emanated from Korea that Samsung is planning to make up to 60 million units of the device available when sales commences. We expect it to come in very pricey but then, you don’t need to sell a kidney to get one, clones of the Galaxy S8 are already coming out from China. They sure would have very affordable price tags an similar looks with the original but e can’t vouch for their features, though.
LeMaker has a new development board called the HiKey 960. The development board is actually a product borne from a partnership between Huawei and Cheng Mai Technology. However, like the previous Hikey development board, there is a LeMaker version.
The Hikey 960 is based on Huawei’s latest chip, the Kirin 960. It measures 85 x 55 mm, has an octa-core processor, a Mali G71 MP8 image processor and 3GB of RAM. There is 32GB of storage with the option to expand it via a microSD slot.
The Hikey 960 has two USB 3.0 ports, a HDMI port, a USB Type-C OTG port and a 8-18V/2A DC jack. There is support for WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n and it also boasts Bluetooth 4.1. The Hikey 960 is the successor to the Hikey 620 which was released last year and is based on the Kirin 620.
Asides the HDMI port for video output, there is a 4-lane MIPI DSI connector. For expansion, there is a PCIe Gen2 on M.2 Key connector, a 40 pin low speed expansion connector, and a 60 pin high speed expansion connector.
The Apple iPhone 8 is still a long time away from going official but the device has continued to resonate on the tech circle every now and then. The flagship will be Apple’s 10th anniversary offering and is expected to pack several innovations, both on the specs angle and on the design aspect.
Based on the rumors we get, mobile phone concept designers usually put up something which would be tailored along the line of the rumors gotten so far. In the smartphone industry, there are elements of facts in almost all rumors so it usually isn’t surprising if the concept look similar to the final design of the product. Thus, based on the rumor gotten so far about the iPhone 8, BGR joint designer Alhasan Husni has designed a concept of the iPhone 8 which could help us understand better the features the Apple flagship is expected to come with.
From the picture, the design is consistent with Apple’s design language except that this one features a curved display which is actually likely to be a 3D curved glass on top of the flat LCD display. The design conceptualizes the entire screen display the iPhone 8 is said to come with, devoid of a physical home button. The controls are entirely onscreen, well, except for the volume and power buttons.
News emanating from Taiwan, Foxconn’s base, indicate that the iPhone 8 may finally be called iPhone Edition and the changes in the design might not be too much as speculated. The device may also likely be launched later than September as it may not enter production until September. September or not, it is still a long way away so we’ll just chill.
ZTE might be dealing with a lot right now like the recent fine by the US Government and the failure of its Project CSX phone, Hawkeye. In spite of that, they have managed to release some impressive devices that cater to the mid-range category. According to a sighting on GFXBench, it appears the communications giant has another device on the way.
The new phone, listed as ZTE Z986 was spotted on the graphics benchmarking site and features some interesting specifications. The new phone is for those who want that extra screen estate as it sports a 6-inch 1080p display. There is a Snapdragon 625 processor paired with an Adreno 506 GPU, so you should be able to enjoy playing games on it too.
The ZTE Z986 has 2GB of RAM and comes with just 16GB of storage. There is just one SIM slot, so it is possible there is a dedicated microSD card slot. The phone has a 12MP camera on the rear that can record 4K videos and a 5MP shooter up front for selfies.
On the market for already three years, GearBest is forward to become the number one electronics reseller from China. Of course, a party to celebrate this success is mandatory. GearBest’s Promotion nowadays follow the same pattern with preheat, main-event and after-party along with giveaways and coupons for extra discounts.
Inspired by other Chinese online shops, GearBest will sell Lucky Bags for $15 a piece with random surprises inside. They are the first company worldwide to adapt this event.
As mentioned before, the birthday celebration is split in three main parts. All of them feature different products and discounts so it is no use to wait for a better price as the promotion is proceeding. Do not forget to use coupons along your orders and participate in giveaways to win a OnePlus 3T among other products.
The Timetable of GearBests 3rd Birthday is:
Preheat Phase: 9th – 14th of March
Main Event: 14th – 18th of March
After-Party: From the 20th of March
How to make a party unforgetable for everyone joining? Be the best host the world has yet seen and offer your guests the best experience ever. As an online shop GearBest will offer prices promising
Your favorite brands like Xiaomi, DJI or Huawei will be on board and everyone who didn’t wish for a smartphone during Christmas, will no have his first (discounted) chance of the year to grab one. Obviously it is not all about smartphones and tablets and other categories will also be covered. You are an Outdoor Fan, E-Cigarette vaper or a gadget lover in general? You will definitely not be disappointed and GearBest got you covered.
On GearBest, they show you some discounts exclusively in advance. Get ready when they go live!
Hongbaos (red packages) in China are the equivalent to gift cards and are widely used during festive events or among friends. you never know how much money they hold until you open them. Same principle applies during shopping events on Chinese platforms where people buy gift boxes with random products inside. The total value can, in case you are really lucky, exceed the price by far.
during the GearBest Anniversary promotion are the same. For $15 you can buy one of these bags containing different gadgets and products from your favorite product category. If you are a quadcopter pilot you should pick the respective bag for it. Tech addicts should pick the smartphone or TV Box bags to get the best lucky bags for what you truly love. A great deal tailor made for you.. and let’s be honest, who doesn’t love the thrill of gambling?
Xiaomi‘s Mijia brand has launched another innovative smart product, this time it is the 90 Minutes Ultra Smart running shoes. The Smart running shoes or sports foot wear comes with a built-in Intel Curie chip which is very small in size, about the size of a button but enough to store vital fitness data in real time.
The footwear is developed in China by the Shanghai Runmi Technology Co. Ltd and is said to be designed for professional athletes. It uses a foam-like material on the body which cushions the effect of the runner is suppose to feel when his or her foot hit the ground. The sole of the shoes also has a design with arch support balance sheet, anti-skid wear and other design. The Smart sports footwear also comes with air cushion and an antibacterial removable insole.
Perhaps the most important feature on the footwear is the ability of the intelligent Intel chip to detect movement and store data such as distance covered, speed, calories lost etc. The chip can detect when the user of the sports shoes is running, walking or climbing. The chip can stay up to 60 days without need for a charge.
The Xiaomi 90 Minutes Ultra Smart sports footwear comes in black and surf blue color options designed specifically for the male folks and black and pink for the females. There is a blue special edition with luminous material that makes the runner visible to motorist and other road users at night.
The Smart wearable comes with a 299 Yuan ($43) price tag and is already up for funding on Mi Home. The smart footwear would ship on 15th of April.
OPPO F3 and OPPO F3 Plus, the new Selfie Expert branded smartphones are poised to launch on March 23. A leaked document has completely revealed the specifications of the OPPO F3 Plus before its upcoming launch.
The leaked document has revealed that the OPPO F3 Plus has a huge screen of 6 inches protected by Gorilla Glass 5. It supports full HD resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. The Snapdragon 653 chipset (MSM8976) featuring an octa-core processor powers the device along with 4 GB of RAM. Its native storage is 64 GB and it carries support for up to 256 GB of microSD card.
The USP of the phone will be its Dual Selfie Camera that includes a 16-megapixel + 8-megapixel snapper on the front. The rear side of the phone features a 16-megapixel camera. There is no confirmation whether the rear camera will be equipped with OPPO’s newly announced 5X optical zoom camera technology.
It will be running on Color OS 3.0, a customized edition of Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS. It supports dual nano SIM cards with 4G LTE. Its dimensions are 163.63 x 80.8 x 7.35mm and its weight is 189 grams. It includes a 4,000 mAh battery. It is likely that the battery will be coupled with the company’s VOOC fast charging feature.
Recently, the OPPO F3 and F3 Plus banner was spotted in the Philippines and the company has also released a teaser with a text “The New Era of Selfie Expert” with the date of March 23. It hints that OPPO F3 and F3 Plus may debut on that date. The leaked document has revealed that the OPPO F3 Plus would be coming in Gold and Black color options.
Both phones will arrive to replace the OPPO F1s and OPPO F1s Plus Selfie Expert phones. The smartphones will arrive to take on the recently launched Vivo V5 and Vivo V5 Plus smartphones that also feature 20-megapixel + 8-megapixel dual camera on their front sides. The Vivo V5 Plus is also equipped with a selfie flash. There is no confirmation on whether the OPPO F3 and F3 Plus have selfie flash for their dual selfie camera.
In the previous week, the leaked photos of BlackBerry Aurora with model number BBC1001-1 had surfaced. Earlier today, the smartphone was officially announced.
Indonesia is one of the major markets for BlackBerry phone. Hence, BlackBerry had signed a contract with BB Merah Putih from Indonesia to launch new BlackBerry phones in the country. The BlackBerry Aurora has been launched with midrange specs which includes an impressive rear camera.
BlackBerry Aurora is the first smartphone from the brand to come with dual-SIM support. The official press release states that the phone that is packed with entertainment features is mainly aimed towards Indonesian customers.
The Aurora smartphone has a 5.5inch On-cell display that carries support HD resolution of 720 x 1,280 pixels. It is driven by Snapdragon 425 chipset that includes a 1.4 GHz quad-core processor. Even though it’s a midranger, BlackBerry has included 4 GB of RAM on the device. It carries support for external storage.
Its rear side houses a 13-megpaixel camera enabled features like LED flash and electronic aperture controls. The latter helps users to shoot crisp and clear photos by using accurate manual settings.
This leaked video had surfaced before just before the official announcement of BlackBerry Aurora to show off its photography prowess. For shooting selfies, it has a fixed focus 8-megapixel snapper.
The dual SIM phone supports 4G LTE connectivity and it runs on Android 7.0 Nougat OS and it is preloaded with BlackBerry Hub. With DTEKTM preloaded on the phone, the BlackBerry Aurora offers the best security to protect its operating system and apps. The security app can tell the user whether the device’s camera or accessing other functions on the phone is being secretly accessed by someone. Talking about security, the smartphone does not feature a fingerprint scanner.
BlackBerry Aurora includes a 3,000 mAh battery housed inside a body that measures 152 x 76.6 x 8.5 mm and weighs around 178 grams. It comes in color options like Gold, Black and Silver.
The Aurora is aimed towards the Indonesian market. So, there is no confirmation on when will it be hitting markets outside of Indonesia. It is priced at IDR 3,499,000 ($261). The pre-orders of the phone have begun in Indonesia through online retailers. Customers who pre-order it can get freebies like JBL Bluetooth speaker as well as a flip case. Its shipping will begin on March 13.
I got the MGCOOL Band 2 a few weeks back and ever since I have been playing around with the device. MGCOOL is a special brand that focuses on products other than smartphones like wearables, action cameras etc.
The MGCOOL Band 2 is a good looking fitness band that works as promised. It took me a while to learn all the features on the handset, and there are quite a number of options available, despite its cheap price tag. And surprisingly, all the features work as described.
Just like any other wearable, there are three major things that you get inside the MGCOOL Band 2 box, the wearable device, a charging module and the user manual. No need for any kind of screen scratch guard as the display on board is quite resistant to scratches. At least I haven’t seen any significant scratches on the screen in my two weeks of usage.
MGCOOL Band 2 Review: DESIGN
The MGCOOL Band 2 is a pretty good looking wearable. I like that the company has given it a different design as compared to the Xiaomi Mi Band 2 which most local Chinese companies try to imitate. In fact, because of its slightly curved display design, the MGCOOL Band 2 looks better than Xiaomi’s wearable. However, note that the main module with the display is not removable, and is integrated with the silicone strap. But the strap can be replaced by taking out the two screws on each side of the module.
What I love about the band is its minimalistic design. The strap feels good and there is a cut out in between where you can neatly slide the remaining part of the strap (after pinning it) for a firm fit. While it may take a couple of trials to get used to the design, it ensures that the wearable fits well onto your wrist.
You have one capacitive button on the display that works well along with the MGCOOL branding on top. Overall the wearable feels pretty good for a $25 device.
MGCOOL Band 2 Review: DISPLAY
The Band 2 has a pretty decent display. It’s larger than Xiaomi’s Mi Band 2 and also uses its larger size in full effect. You get a host of information right from its first menu, which is great. As soon as you light up the display, the MGCOOL Band 2 reveals the time, date as well as battery remaining. Use the capacitive button to move to the next display page. I ‘ll detail all the display pages in the UI section, but since we are talking about the display quality here, note that it’s pretty good for a $20 device. The graphics are good and things look pretty sharp.
One important feature missing from the MGCOOL Band 2 is lighting up the display when you bring up your wrist. Although this feature doesn’t usually work as well as you would want in most cheap wearables, it is still a pretty essential feature. Having to manually click the capacitive button to light up the display gets boring after a while.
MGCOOL BAND 2 REVIEW: MGCOOL APP
Before we move on to the user interface, note that there is a dedicated MGCOOL Band 2 app on the Google Play store to make sure that the installation process is quick and easy. Like most other Chinese wearable apps in the market, the translation is a bit off in the app, well, not exactly off, but a bit funny. But that doesn’t affect the usage in any much as the features and options are clearly defined in the app. The app is good for basic usage, but don’t expect too much from it.
Once you download and install the MGCOOL Band 2 app, just go to device from the menu and your app should find the Band 2 pretty quickly. I tried out connecting the band on my Redmi 4A as well as OnePlus 3T and it was quick to find the wearable and connect to it. So, no issues in this department. The app will take a few seconds to sync data to the band and reveal it on your smartphone screen.
The app will show you important details such as your steps, sleep and heart rate data. Note that there is a special running mode on the device (I ‘ll explain it to you in the user interface section) and you have those details available on the app as well.
You can also play around with a lot of features on the MGCOOL Band 2 app from the setting menu, like Setting your goal for steps, distance and calories, Anti-lost, Music and camera controls, alarm, ringtone and hydration modes. Yes, the hydration mode as you may have guessed from the translation reminds you to drink a glass of water throughout the day. You can set an interval for the reminder as well as the number of times the band has to remind you for the same.
Overall, despite its weird translations, the app for the MGCOOL Band 2 works well.
MGCOOL Band 2 Review: User Interface
Unlike the Mi Band 2, the MGCOOL Band 2 comes with a lot of pages on the display. You are greeted with the date, time and battery life on the first page. As you move on to the next using the capacitive button, you’ll find the steps walked in a day, special running mode, distance traveled, calories burned, remote camera, remote music playback control, heart rate sensor, and firmware version details in each of the subsequent pages.
Note that these pages just display the recorded information. But if you want to start switch on the feature in some of the pages, like running mode, remote camera and music controls and even heart rate sensor, you have to long press the capacitive button. Long press in the remote camera mode takes a picture, but only when you have activated the camera via the companion Band 2 app. It’s a pretty decent setup for selfies. The music mode gives you three different controls, including play/pause, next and previous buttons.
All the interface modes are shown below in the gallery.
MGCOOL Band 2 Review: Fitness Features
The MGCOOL Band manages to track your steps with a decent level of accuracy. It’s pretty much the same as most decent wearables out there, so you won’t be disappointed. Initially, I felt that the step count was higher on this band than the Mi Band 2, but when I tested both the wearables together, the results were quite similar.
The heart rate sensor works pretty well, provided the band fits perfectly on your wrist. Sometimes you may have to adjust the position of the band to get rid of the “Please Wear Correctly” message in the heart rate mode. But overall the sensor works fine.
The band is IPX7 certified as well, which means it’s waterproof and can be immersed under water up to 1m for up to 30 minutes. So, it will be fine for use under rain, or a few splashes of water. But don’t go swimming with the device.
The running mode is pretty good as well, as it shows you the time taken to cover the steps taken as well as the calories burned during the activity.
MGCOOL BAND 2 REVIEW: Battery Life
The MGCOOL Band 2 lasts for about a week after charging it once. So, battery life isn’t a problem on the device. The charger provided inside the box is also minimalistic. Unlike some wearable chargers that are magnetic that snap right onto the device, the one provided with the MGCOOL Band 2 comes with a basic clip on design. It’s quite easy to connect the three pins on the charger to the device and you won’t have any issues in this regard.
MGCOOL BAND 2 REVIEW: Conclusion
Overall, I am pretty happy with the device. The fitness features work well on most occasions, it looks and feels well built and the battery lasts for a few days. These are the things that you usually look for in a cheap fitness band and the MGCOOL Band 2 manages to fulfill these needs with ease. Given that the band costs just $25-30, the device can be a good addition to your fitness accessories.
The Moto Z was launched in 2016 to replace the Moto X series smartphones. A leaked photo of the alleged Moto Z (2017) has now surfaced to reveal new changes in its design.
The Moto Z (2017) resembles a lot to its predecessor model. It sports a redesigned physical Home button that probably houses a fingerprint scanner. A “moto’ logo can be seen between the screen and the Home button.
Compared to the squared shaped Home button on the original Moto Z, the leaked photo suggests that the Home button of the Moto Z (2017) has a rectangular appearance with rounded corners. It resembles with the fingerprint sensor enabled Home button on the recently unveiled Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus smartphones.
The original Moto Z has an LED flash for its selfie camera. The leaked photo suggests that the Moto Z (2017) would be able to catch good quality selfies as it seems to sport a dual-tone flash for the front-facing camera. It is also expected to feature
The Moto Z (2017) was allegedly spotted on Geekbench benchmarking site in January. It revealed that the smartphone would be powered by Snapdragon 835 chipset and 4 GB of RAM. It was spotted running on Android 7.1.1 Nougat OS.
A patent filed by Motorola in the recent past suggests that the new Moto Z will be equipped with an iris scanner. However, this biometric recognition feature cannot be identified on the leaked photo does of Moto Z (2017).
In July 2016, well-known leakster Ricciolo had revealed that the new Moto Z’s rear camera will come with lower number of megapixels, but the size of each pixel will be increased. It means the second-generation Moto Z would be able to snap better photos in low light conditions.
The USP of the Moto Z lineup introduced last year is that it features 16-pin magnetic connector on the bottom part of its rear side. Various kinds of easily swappable accessories dubbed as Moto Mods can be snapped on the rear side of Moto Z. The Moto Mods that are available for the first-generation Moto Z is also expected to be compatible with its successor.
The Moto Z was launched in June 2016. Its successor is expected to launch in the same month this year. Since June is only few months away, the rumor mill is expected to spill more information on the Moto Z (2017).
Barely 3 days after we reported that the Nokia 3310 and its senior siblings, the Nokia 3, Nokia 5 and Nokia 6 were all up for pre-orders in Europe, details have emerged that the Nokia 3310 is receiving an unexpected number of interests. Pre-orders doesn’t transform into actual sales but then, they are indicators of how popular the phone is when it goes up for sale and for a cheap €49 iconic feature phone, that could as well transform into real sales.
UK retailer Carphone Warehouse disclosed this much recently, stating that it received an unprecedented level of demand for the feature phone. Call it nostalgia if you like, but the 3310 was one of Nokia most successful devices in its hey days. The new Nokia 3310 comes with a lot of differences, mostly upgrades in its specs and the design is also totally different but those seem not to have affected the level of interest in the phone.
As a reminder, the Nokia 3310 comes with a 2.4-inch curved window screen with an entire dimension of 115.6 x 51 x 12.8mm. The device is available in four color options — Warm Red and Yellow with glossy texture and Grey and Dark Blue with Matte finish. You can check out details on the specs from here. The Nokia 3310 is expected to go on sale in Q2 2017 globally for €49 (~$52).
OPPO seems to have a couple of new smartphones in the works which would hit the market soon. That is if the rumor emanating from the Philippines is anything to go by. A pair of OPPO smartphones named OPPO F3 and F3 Plus were recently spotted in an ad poster somewhere in the Philippines.
In case you don’t know, the Philippines is one of OPPO’s stronghold as the Chinese brand is very popular in the country. The smartphones’ names mean they belong to the F-series which are better known by the alias “Selfie Expert”. But this time around, the F3 and F3 Plus looks set to take that selfie expertise of the F-series to a different plane, with the poster indicating that they would pack dual selfie cameras.
Another interesting fact gathered from the poster is the presence of South Korean singer G-Dragon who seem to have endorsed the smartphones. Apart from the picture of him holding who should be one of the two smartphones, his autograph and name are also crested onto the poster. G-Dragon and his band, the Big Band are popular in the Philippines, so the likelihood of all these being real is big.
OPPO’s previous antecedent when the R9 Plus was spotted in a poster inside an airport in China long before it was announced perhaps further lends credence to the chances of these being real. We hope to see more details especially on the specs and launch date, in the coming days.
Xiaomi unveiled the Xiaomi Mi 5C a week ago. The special feature about the phone is its processor, the Pinecone Surge S1. This is Xiaomi’s first in-house chip and the Mi 5C is the first device to sport it.
The Xiaomi Mi 5C is based on last year’s flagship the Snapdragon 820 toting Xiaomi Mi 5. So there are quite a number of similarities such as the screen size and the position of the fingerprint scanner. Where things start getting different is under the hood.
The Xiaomi Mi 5C has a 5.15 inch 1080p display, 3GB of RAM, 64GB of storage and is powered by the Surge S1 SoC clocked at 2.2GHz. One of its selling points is its 12MP rear camera which has a large 1.25um pixel. Xiaomi says the processor’s dual ISP algorithm allows for dual noise reduction and a 150% increase in camera sensitivity. The effect is pictures which are rich in detail with a significant reduction in noise.
The Xiaomi Mi 5C has a 2860mAh battery with support for 9V2A fast charging. There is no NFC like in the Mi 5 but it will be getting Android Nougat 7.1 later this month.
Surprisingly, Xiaomi has managed to keep the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 6 flagship under wraps for quite a long time. If you are familiar with the Chinese market, you would know that before the release of a major flagship device, you get most of the details about the model and even its variants. In fact, traditionally, by now, we should have come across multiple Xiaomi Mi 6 renders and leaks. But as you may have realized, this year, Xiaomi has guarded each and every detail about the Mi 6 pretty successfully. We don’t have a detailed specs list (apart from a few comments from analysts), no Geekbench or AnTuTu benchmarks and not even a basic sketch of the device. This means we could be in for a surprise when Xiaomi Mi 6 launches officially sometime in the next few weeks.
However, this doesn’t mean we don’t know anything about the phone. Considering the details revealed by analysts as well as a few leaks, we can build a basic picture of the Mi 6. So here’s everything we know about the Xiaomi Mi 6.
Xiaomi Mi 6 Design & Renders
Well, this is one area where we literally have no information on the Xiaomi Mi 6. There were a couple of images of a device claiming to be the Mi 6 circulating on Weibo, but it is most likely fake. You can check them below (or all images from here).
What we do know about the Mi 6 is that the phone will likely come in two design variants — one with a regular glass / metal body and another with a ceramic body. This is most likely going to be the case given that Xiaomi has experimented with ceramic body models (for Mi 5 Pro and Mi Mix) in the past and the latest news from China states that ceramic body production (which was a big issue last year) is going to be in good pace this year, thanks to the massive investment recently.
will the Xiaomi Mi 6 feature a Mi Mix like design?
But that’s about it. Whether Xiaomi will continue with a similar design language as the Xiaomi Mi 5S or will it go with something similar to the Xiaomi Mi Mix is something we still don’t know. It would be natural to go with a slimmer bezel design because that’s what everyone is trying to achieve this year.
Xiaomi Mi 6 Specs
Fortunately, there have been a lot of leaks and reports in this regard, many coming from popular analysts in China. First of all, note that unlike very early rumors which said Mi 6 might use SD821, almost all of the recent rumors, including comments from analysts confirm Snapdragon 835 processor on the Xiaomi Mi 6. Now, note that the there were also rumors about an underclocked SD835 ending up in the Mi 6, all thanks to the excessive demand by Galaxy S8 for the powerful version of the chip. But that doesn’t seem to be the case as the flagship is said to feature the powerful version of the chip. Further, it is even said that the Xiaomi Mi 6 will be the first Snapdragon 835 Chinese flagship.
As for the display, the Xiaomi Mi 6 is said to come with a 5.2-inch display with 2.5D glass on top. Don’t expect a curved display variant for the Mi 6, as that seems to be reserved for the Mi Note series, at least for now.
Now there are two versions rumored for the device, one with 1080p resolution and another with 2K display. The 4GB RAM + 32GB ROM variant should feature 1080p display while the 4GB + 64GB version should come with 2K display. Rumors didn’t shed light on a 6GB RAM version, but it’s very likely that we see a 6GB + 128GB variant of the Xiaomi Mi 6 at launch.
As for the camera, one report has said that the Xiaomi Mi 6 should feature a 12MP Sony IMX386 at the back. Up front, there should be an 8MP Sony IMX268 sensor for selfies. It looks like Xiaomi isn’t a big fan of a dual camera setup, unlike other companies like Huawei, LG, and even Vivo, who seem to be adopting it aggressively.
Mi 5S had an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, but will the Mi 6?
Another piece of information that we have got recently is that the Xiaomi Mi 6 may not feature an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor. Instead, the company could go for a Chinese partner for its fingerprint requirement. But we are not quite sure whether that’ll be the case.
Xiaomi Mi 6 Release & Pricing
The Xiaomi Mi 6 was expected to be released in February. That didn’t happen. Analysts have revealed March 2017 release for the Mi 6, but we are yet to hear anything from the company officially. Finally, the latest report from China reveals that the Xiaomi Mi 6 could be announced on April 16. A bit too late as compared to last year’s Feb launch, but given that the Galaxy S8, which is another device featuring Snapdragon 835 is launching only in April (a bit delayed as compared to last year), it’s very much possible that we may see the Xiaomi Mi 6 only in April 2017.
As for the pricing, almost every analyst has said that the Xiaomi Mi 6 Price will start higher than that of its previous generation. So, we may not see a 1999 Yuan ($290) launch. The starting price of the Mi 6 could be a couple of hundred Yuan higher this year and naturally, the higher-end models will end up with higher price tags as well.
So, this is all we know about the Xiaomi Mi 6. If the release is indeed in March (as some rumors say), then expect the first set of the Mi 6 teasers to crop up in the next couple of weeks.
It appears 360 Mobiles has another phone set to be released soon barely 2 weeks after the launch of the 360 N5. While the 360 N5 is at the top of the spectrum with 6GB of RAM, this new device is equipped with just 1GB RAM.
The phone whose model number is 1701-M01 was seen on TENAA today. It is equipped with a 5-inch 720p display, a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a 5MP rear camera and a 2MP front camera. It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, has dual SIM slots with support for LTE networks and has a 2,000mAh battery.
The 360 1701-M01 appears to be made of metal but it might turn out to be plastic. There is a physical home button up front but there is no mention of it having a fingerprint scanner, so don’t get your hopes high. Plus 360 phones usually have their fingerprint scanners on the back, so the chances are slim.
The rear of the phone has the single rear camera with a single LED flash below it. There is the 360 Mobiles logo at the bottom sitting about an inch from the speaker grille. If you look closely, you can also see the U-design antenna lines at the top and bottom. The 360 1701-M01 weighs 135 grams and measures 143.9 x 71.7 x 8.3 mm.
Judging from the specs, this device should be priced below $100. Probably even lesser than the Redmi 4A. Since it has made it to TENAA, we might get to see it launch soon.
The Honor V9 is one of the most beautiful smartphones released this year. It not only packs a punch but it also comes in amazing colors.
It is the successor to last year’s Honor V8 which itself is still less than a year old, but we know a lot can happen under a year. The V9 sports the new Kirin 960 processor, has a larger 4000mAh battery and improved cameras but it still keeps some of the features of its predecessor. The display is still 5.7-inches but its resolution has been bumped up to 2K on all variants making it great for VR. There is still NFC, a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner and a USB Type-C port too.
For those of you who are curious to know what’s under the hood, we have been able to get images of the phone getting the teardown treatment. From the images we can see that when taken apart, the phone has its screen attached to one half of the phone while the remaining part is attached to the back plate. In other phones what you have is the back plate coming off totally. If you are going to try this at home, we advise you exercise caution when opening up the device so as not to rip the cable apart.
After disconnecting the cable attaching the display to the other half of the phone and removing the covering, you get greeted by the large 4000mAh battery and the rest of the components. To get a look at the dual rear cameras, you will have to remove the screws at the top and bottom, then gently lift both parts out, leaving the battery still seated.
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