A new listing of Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 on GFXBench shows the smartphone running on Android 7.1.1 Nougat OS. Hence, it is likely that the phablet is likely to get the software update soon.
The Redmi Note 3 with 32 GB storage and 3 GB of RAM has appeared on GFXBench. The operating system of the handset is mentioned as Android 7.1.1. This indicates that the Chinese manufacturer is testing the smartphone with the latest Android version. There are no details available on the version of MIUI present on the device.
However, since some of the specs of the smartphone appears to be mentioned incorrectly, the news about Nougat update for Redmi Note 3 should be taken with a pinch of a salt. The GFXBench listing shows that the smartphone features a 5.7-inch full HD display, but it actually features a 5.5-inch screen. The processing speed of hexa-core processor is shown as 2.0 GHz, but in reality its processing speed is 1.8 GHz.
Xiaomi had released the Marshmallow update customized with MIUI 8 skin for Redmi Note 3 users in December 2016. Hence, it is unlikely to release the newer software so soon to Redmi Note 3 users. Moreover, Xiaomi has also released Redmi Note 4 to succeed Redmi Note 3. If the company released Android 7.1.1 Nougat for Redmi Note 3, it is likely that its successor would be also treated with the latest flavor of Android.
In the past, the Xiaomi Mi 4c was spotted on a benchmarking site Android 7.0 Nougat. Some of the other Xiaomi smartphones that are rumored to receive Nougat update soon include Xiaomi Mi 4c, 4i 4s, Mi Max, Mi Note, Mi Note 2, Mi 5, Mi 5s and Mi Mix. However, the Chinese company has not revealed any information on when will it be releasing Nougat update to its device.
OPPO Find 9, the rumored flagship smartphone that is expected to launch is now pegged to arrive in Snapdragon 835 and 653chipset variants. Previous rumors have hinted that it may sport a bezel-less screen.
The OPPO Find 9 has been in the rumors since April 2015, but the smartphone has not released yet. New rumors hint that a cheaper version of OPPO Find 9 will be fueled by Snapdragon 653 whereas its flagship model will be powered by Snapdragon 835 that will be carrying an expensive price tag.
Recent reports have revealed that the Qualcomm will be providing initial supply of the Snapdragon 835 SoC to Samsung for its Galaxy S8 smartphone that is expected to launch at the end of March. It is expected to be available for purchase in April. Hence, other high-end smartphones that are rumored to feature release before April would come powered by some other processor and Snapdragon 835 driven flagships may be available in April or later.
Hence, speculations indicate that the OPPO Find 9 running on Snapdragon 653 would be available for purchase earlier whereas its Snapdragon 835 sibling may be available purchase by April or later.
The OPPO Find 9 may come with RAM options such as 4 GB and 6 GB as well as with internal storage variants like 64 GB and 128 GB. As far as the appearance of the device is concerned, it bears a resemblance to Nubia Z11, a 2016 smartphone that came with high-end specs and ultra-thin bezels. It is learnt that the OPPO Find 9 would be sporting even thinner bezels.
The rumor mail has revealed in the past that the OPPO Find 9 would be featuring a quad HD 5.5-inch screen. It would be becoming with a rear camera of 21-megapixel and a front-facing shooter of 16-megapixel. It would be packed with a 4,100 mAh battery equipped with VOOC flash charging technology by OPPO.
As far as pricing is concerned, the OPPO Find 9 is pegged to be available for purchase with a starting cost of CNY 3,999 ($581). Since it appears to be very costly for the Chinese market that is filled with numerous high-end smartphones with low price, it is likely that the $581 belongs to the flagship version of OPPO Find 9.
For the first time in five years, the iPhone wasn’t the best selling smartphone in China. That title is now held by the OPPO R9 which sold 17 million units, which is 4% of the market share and 5 million units more than the units of iPhone 6s sold in 2016. The report comes from Counterpoint Research, an analysis firm with headquarters in Hong Kong.
It is one thing to not be the top selling smartphone and it is another thing to have declining sales. For Apple, they are also suffering from the latter. In 2016, top sellers like OPPO, Vivo, and Huawei recorded an increase in shipments by 109%, 78%, and 21% respectively; Apple’s shipments declined by 21%, a tad better than Xiaomi who recorded a 22% decline in shipments.
The statement below from the research director at Counterpoint, Neil Shah explains why Apple suffered a decline last year:
“The key features which are driving smartphone market have been fast-charging, OLED displays, bigger batteries and dual cameras which were already available. But most were missing in the iPhone 6s. The iPhone 7 Plus has a bigger battery and dual camera but it was beyond the reach of most consumer in China because of price. In the iPhone 8, the OLED screen which is rumored will be a positive. I think the next model will be key for Apple.”-Neil Shah, research director, Counterpoint
Xiaomi released the Mi Note 2 back in November. The dual-curved phone was originally available in black and silver. However, at CES 2017, they unveiled three additional colors (pink, green, and blue) for the device. That brings it to five colors, right? But why stop there?
According to Xiaomi Founder Lei Jun, the Mi Note 2 will be available in coral blue as well. On his Weibo page, you will find pictures of his skiing trip in Switzerland in which he is holding a blue phone he has confirmed to be the Mi Note 2.
The Mi Note 2 is already referred to as a Galaxy Note 7 alternative. Releasing it (Mi Note 2) in one of the original colors (Blue Coral) of the Note 7 might actually be smart but some will still see it as a sort of imitation. But we guess Xiaomi is just taking advantage of the situation. So if you have been waiting for one more reason to pick up the phone, you have it already.
Oukitel is a smartphone maker that produces mainly affordable smartphones. The U20 Plus model is one of them and it has a dual camera setup and decent specs for the price of just about $100. Stay tuned for a full review.
The phone comes with all the usual accessories and some extras include a nice TPU case to protect your phone.
Oukitel U20 Plus Review: DESIGN
Design-wise, the phone is made entirely of plastic. It does not feel premium or anything but I have no complaints about the build quality.
We have a 5.5” 1080p display, which is sharp and good enough for daily use for a cheap phone.
The buttons are made of plastic too but they have a decent tactile response. One thing that I hate is that the power button is on the left. It is simply inconvenient.
On the back, we have a dual-camera setup that allows you to take pictures with bokeh effect. There is one 13MP shooter and another that has only 0.3MP. A fingerprint sensor is far from the fastest I’ve seen but it works 8/10 times.
We have the LED light but the capacitive buttons are not backlit.
The loudspeaker is like on most of the cheap phones – the sound is flat.
Oukitel U20 Plus Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
The phone sports okay specs for the price. The device ships with a quad-core MTK6737T chip (1.5GHz), 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.
The gaming performance is pretty good if you play the 3D games like Asphalt 8 on medium graphics. Still, you may see a few skipped frames but nothing major.
The phone gets warm pretty quickly but it does not overheat.
Oukitel U20 Plus Review: BENCHMARKS
Oukitel U20 Plus Review: USER INTERFACE
The Android 6.0-based user interface will give you a pretty much stock Android experience but there are some added features like a theme store or a bunch of gesture and motion controls that work pretty well.
I didn’t have any major lags or hiccups even after installing quite a few apps and I believe this is the most important thing for a cheap phone.
Oukitel U20 Plus Review: IMAGE QUALITY
When it comes to the image quality, you should never expect any great results from cheap phones. Still, the Oukitel U20 Plus can take some decent daylight photos but obviously, there is quite a bit of noise and the level of detail could be higher.
If you want to use a secondary camera, you have to select the SLR shooting mode. I have to tell you that the results are pretty good and you get a nice shallow depth of field effect.
The low-light camera performance does not really impress but that it the case for most of the cheap phones.
I didn’t have any connectivity issues and even the GPS lock speeds and accuracy were okay.
Oukitel U20 Plus Review: BATTERY LIFE
The 3300mAh battery performs pretty well. With my usage, I could get around 5 hours of screen-on time, which is a pretty good result.
Oukitel U20 Plus Review: CONCLUSIONS
Oukitel U20 Plus is another cheap phone from China that aims to impress you and it does by offering a dual-camera setup on a budget.
The image quality is not stellar but you can definitely get some decent photos for social media. Also, you get a nice and sharp display, a decent all-around performance for a cheap phone, a fingerprint scanner and a decent battery life.
On the other hand, the phone looks kind of cheap since it does not sport any premium materials in the construction. Also, I don’t like that the power button is on the left side and the capacitive keys are not backlit.
At the end of the day, the Oukitel U20 Plus is an interesting and pretty good phone for the price of just above $100 but as always, you have to consider a few shortcomings before buying it.
Android Wear 2.0 is coming very soon and if you are eager to get your hands on a watch sporting the new OS, you should look no farther than at the LG Watch Sport and Watch Style smartwatches.
Images of the watches were leaked recently but they were blurry and might have made it difficult to appreciate their beauty. Yesterday, Evan Blass (@evleaks) posted a new set of pictures of the Watch Style that are way clearer and show more details.
The Watch Style is the smaller of the two and has a 1.2-inch OLED display with a 360 x 360 resolution. Unlike the Watch Sport which has two physical buttons and a digital crown button, the LG Watch Style has only the latter. The pictures show the watch in two color variants: a Silver version with khaki-colored straps and a Rose Gold version with cream-colored straps.
LG’s Watch Style has an Ingress Protection (IP) rating of 67. So apart from being dust proof, you can also immerse it in water with a depth of between 15cm and 1 meter for 30 minutes. The Watch Style is said to have 512MB RAM, 4GB ROM, and a 240mAh battery.
BlackBerry has a new phone codenamed Mercury it plans to release soon. The device which has the same physical keyboard + touch screen design like the BlackBerry Priv was privately unveiled at this year’s edition of CES, but won’t launch until next month at MWC.
Ever since news of the device surfaced there have been speculations of its internal specifications, none of which have been confirmed by BlackBerry. New details that have emerged are related to the camera. The info released by Roland Quandt (@rquandt), says the BlackBerry Mercury sports the same camera sensors present in the Google Pixel phones.
If you remember, the Pixel and Pixel XL sport a 12.3MP f/2.0 Sony IMX378 rear camera and results have shown that the Pixel and Pixel XL take fantastic pictures. The front facing camera on the Mercury according to @rquandt is an 8MP Samsung S5K4H8 or an OmniVision OV8856.
Even if the camera turns out to be the same, they might not produce the same results as the Pixels have software enhancements and ‘additional sensor hardware’.
Another render of LG‘s next generation flagship, the LG G6 has again appeared, originating from South Korea. The renders is no different from the first one which leaked earlier on, just that the device is captured from a different angle on this one. Specifically, the device is shot from the side on this render which happens to be the second photo of the G6 we are getting but it isn’t much different from the first one.
The LG G6 comes with a design which is markedly different from all what LG had done in the past. The device in question comes in silver with a blue color scheme around the display. There is a SIM card slot at the right side and the fused antenna band lines are also visible. The G6 will feature an all-metal body and is said to have a near bezel-less display with a screen to bezel ratio of up to 90%. Since the SIM slot sits at the right, the volume rocker will likely be at the left side.
In addition the design shows the device with well chamfered edges and there are words that the G6 would be water resistant. It is said to come as a 5.7-inch device which would cram a Snapdragon 835 chip inside. There are also rumors of a lower Snapdragon 821 chip onboard and this seems to have been corroborated by Forbes in a new report. The LG G6 is expected to be launched on February 26 at MWC 2017 and when that happens we’ll get the true picture.
This is the real live render of the Samsung Galaxy S8 capturing both the front and the back view and it is coming as a huge surprise. The Galaxy S8 project has been a closely guarded secret in Samsung’s circle and it has been a well-kept one until now. The Galaxy S8 real live photos come courtesy of popular tipster on Twitter Evan Bass.
The photo shows quite explicitly that the Galaxy S8 would feature an all screen curved display as well as an all-glass body both at the front and rear. The rear also gets a curved edge design and curiously, there is an elliptical fingerprint scanner at the right side of the rear camera. The camera takes a more reduced bumped and you also get the regular dual-tone LED flash on the left side of the camera. Up front, the usual physical home button is visibly absent as the device features an all-screen design in which the display takes a large chunk of the screen. There aren’t any design bezels on the display instead, the screen curves at the sides to meet the rear curved glass.
What readily comes to mind on sighting the leaked Galaxy S8 images is Xiaomi’s Mi Mix concept device with almost similar bezel-less, entire screen design. We cannot tell from the image, neither is it indicated if this is the S8 or the larger S8 Plus but both devices are not wider than the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, meaning the Mi Mix would be wider than the duo. The rear camera on the Mi Mix also doesn’t have any bump and has a round-shaped fingerprint sensor at the rear unlike the elliptical one mounted on the Galaxy S8.
Years back, we would have thought this was just a concept that might never be commercialized but Evan Bass also tipped that the Galaxy S8 would be launched on March 29. An earlier leak tipped the flagship as coming in April. Which ever is correct, we know the Galaxy S8 launch is right at the corner, coming with a top notch design as well as a fiery specs lineup marshaled by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 835 chipset.
Motorola recently filed a new patent application which hints at the likelihood of the feature being used on the upcoming Moto Z (2017). The feature is an iris scanner which would bring some level of authentication to the device if really it is featured.
The sketches of the patent leave no doubt that it is an iris scanner, a function which works the same way like the more common fingerprint scanner. However, the iris scanner brings some extra level or security because it is more difficult to clone than the fingerprint. The patent filing also reveals that the iris scanner will feature a pair of narrow-angle lenses to focus on the user’s eyes. Another revelation on the filing is that the Moto Z (2017) will continue the tradition of a front fingerprint scanner which would be a dedicated one and not embedded under the home button.
The Moto Z (2017) is Motorola’s next big thing and it will do some good if such feature is included inside the device. The device recently appeared on benchmark website Geekbench and is revealed to pack flagship features like an octa-core Qualcomm chip clocked at 1.9GHz, which is the Snapdragon 835. There is also 4GB of RAM onboard and it runs the latest version of Android Nougat (Android 7.1.1). The device also performed well both on the single core and multi-core tests, scoring 1930 points and 6207 points respectively.
The current generation Moto Z was launched around the middle of last year so we don’t expect anything to become official very soon.
Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones are expected to get succeeded by newer smartphones later this year. However, the rumor mill has revealed that the alleged Google Pixel 2 will be arriving with advanced features and a higher pricing. Also, a cheaper Pixel phone is also said to be in works.
Water-resistant Chassis
One of the rumored features of Google Pixel 2 is that it will be coming with a water-resistant body. However, it is said to be “still on the table,” indicating the Google is still not sure about adding water-resistance feature to Pixel 2.
However, major flagships from other brands like iPhone 7, Samsung Galaxy S7 and the upcoming LG G6 are equipped with water-resistant chassis, it is likely that the Google will include the feature on Pixel 2.
The 12.3-megapixel is one of the bestselling features of the original Google Pixel. DxOMark, a benchmarking platform for cameras has a given a rating of 89 to the main camera of Google Pixel which makes it the best smartphone camera ever. Rumors have it that one of beat features of Google Pixel 2 will be its topnotch camera.
Google is unlikely to increase the megapixel count, but rumors hint that the stellar camera of Pixel 2 will support advanced low-light photography and it will be also coming with some new features.
Advanced Processor
Google is speculated to be testing multiply prototypes of Pixel 2 with different kinds of processors. One of the prototypes is powered by Snapdragon 83X SoC whereas there is another variant that includes Intel chipset. Also, the search engine is rumored to be testing a custom chipset for Pixel 2. Speculations even suggested that Google is working with MediaTek for Pixel 2. However, this rumor seems unlikely to come true.
Cheaper Pixel 2B Arriving?
The Google Pixel 2 is expected to arrive with an expensive price tag. The starting price of the first-generation Pixel 2 is $649. However, the Pixel 2 is expected to cost “at least” $50 more than the current pricing of Pixel.
Apart from the pricey Pixel 2, Google is also speculated to be working a Pixel 2B that will be coming with modest specs as well as significantly lower price tag.By launching the alleged Pixel 2B phone, the company aims to bring the “Google experience and Google Phone” to developing markets.
Google Pixel 2, Pixel 2B Release Date
Rumors are rife that the Google Pixel 2 release date will be set in October this year. The Pixel 2B may launch alongside the Pixel 2 or it may be made available shortly after it
Sony has confirmed that it will be present at the upcoming MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2017 on Feb. 27. Its event will begin at 7:30 PM GMT. Fresh details coming from a Georgian blog suggest that the Japanese tech giant is going to announce an astonishing total of 5 smartphones.
Here are the details of 5 Sony smartphones that are slated to get unveiled at MWC 2017:
Sony Yoshino
Codenamed as Sony Yoshino, it is speculated as a flagship smartphone that will feature a 5.5-inch display that will carry support for 4K resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels. It is said to be powered by Snapdragon 835 chipset and may feature 4 GB or 6 GB of LPDDR4 RAM. With Sony IMX400 image sensor onboard, it is expected to be an amazing device for photography.
Carrying a codename of Sony BlancBright, it is expected to be an upper-midrange smartphone that would include a 5.5-inch display that would be supporting quad HD resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels. Speculations indicate that it will be featuring Snapdragon 835 or 653 SoC along with 4 GB of RAM. Like Yoshino, this smartphone is also rumored to house Sony IMX400 image sensor.
Sony Keyaki (zelkova)
A mid-range smartphone that is codenamed as Sony Keyaki, this smartphone is expected to come with 5.2-inch display that would be supporting a full HD resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. It may be powered by MediaTek Helio P20 and 4 GB of RAM. One of its major features will be its in-built storage of 64 GB. Its main camera is rumored as 23-megapixel snapper and for selfies it may be coming with a 16-megapixel shooter.
Sony Hinoki (cypress)
Codenamed as Sony Hinoki, it would be a budget-friendly smartphone that would be featuring a 5-inch screen with HD resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels. It is also speculated to be driven by MediaTek Helio P20. Its other rumored features include 3 GB of RAM, native storage of 32 GB, 16-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel selfie camera.
Sony Mineo
Sony Mineo is speculated as codename for another mid-range smartphone. Nothing much is known on the specifications of this device. However, it is expected to carry a pricing of $350.
By looking at the details of the five smartphones, it seems that Sony has a mega event waiting for its fans at the upcoming MWC 2017. However, since the rumored information of the forthcoming Sony phones have surfaced from a not so reliable source, it is advisable to take the news with a grain of salt.
Once again, we get to feast our eyes on a new set of Samsung Galaxy S8 concept renders created from information gathered from multiple leak source as well as the recently leaked glass protectors said to be for the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus. The concepts were created by graphics designer Lee Kingway who shared them on Weibo.
This might just be the closest we could get on how the Galaxy S8 and its sibling would look like considering the way Samsung closely guards the flagship’s images against leaking out in spy photos. So far, we are yet to see any render of the device said to have leaked from Samsung’s factory. We’ll make do with these concept renders for now and it may not be far from the real machine.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 is expected with ultra-narrow bezels at the top and bottom and that is captured in the concept rendition. We also have the iris scanners, a curved display which we expect to be a Super AMOLED display. The display is rumored to cover almost the entire screen just like on the Mi Mix and there won’t be physical home button up front and the designer took those into consideration.
At the sides, there is a USB Type-C port at the bottom and a 3.5mm headphone jack as well. We don’t know if Samsung will yank off the good old headphone jack since there is a Type-C port. What is the use having them both on anyway? There is also the rumored dedicated button for launching Samsung’s new virtual assistant Bixby on the left. The camera is said to remain unchanged from the Galaxy S7’s and that is captured on the renders.
The designer did include an ellipsis-shaped area at the side and quite honestly we are not sure if Samsung would include that on the real deal. The Galaxy S8 is rumored to have an underglass fingerprint sensor onboard and that might just be it.
The flagship Samsung Galaxy S8 is said to launch in April and we are sure going to get the real images by then but for now, enjoy these flawless beauties which we sincerely wish were real. More images down below.
Samsung has already started rolling out the Android Nougat update for the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge in some regions. The time of update according to Samsung will vary from country to country.
The official Samsung account on Weibo has however said the Nougat update for residents in Mainland China will begin in mid-February. So if you own any of the devices listed below, you should prepare for the update next month:
Huawei is expected to unveil its next generation P-series flagship, the Huawei P10 during MWC 2017 in Barcelona. The P10 has been revealed to pack quite a number of revolutionary features and that list keeps getting larger. Right now, a popular Huawei tipster @ichangezone has teased that the P10 may feature two additional color variants of green and purple.
The tipster in a Weibo post also added a couple of image suggesting the P10 will feature enhanced audio system developed in partnership with Yamaha and Harman Kardon, two of the world’s renowned sound system manufacturers. These are in addition to the dual-lens camera co-engineered with Leica that the Huawei P10 is said to feature.
The Huawei P10 has now been rumored to come in five different color variants namely; black, white, gold, and now green and purple. In other specs, the P10 is said to come with a 5.5-inch QHD AMOLED display and is powered by a Kirin 960 chipset with an octa-core processor clocked at 2.3GHz. A Mali G71 GPU will render the graphics while there will be 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage inside the device. There may likely be more than one storage versions, with this one being the topmost.
The P10 will also feature a dual edge design, along with a metal fuselage. In addition, the Huawei P10 had earlier been rumored as coming with an artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The device is also said to support wireless charging and will have an IP68 waterproof and dustproof level.
Last week we were graced with pictures of a smartwatch running Android Wear made by HTC and Under Armor and codenamed “halfbeak”. We had speculated that the watch might probably be launched at MWC 2017 which is after Android Wear 2.0 must have been announced. Sadly that won’t be happening.
Yesterday, an interview with HTC’s President of Smartphones and Connected Device Chialin Chang was published online. In that interview, Mr. Chang had said “I can tell you that we’re not going to have an Android watch”. The team at Android Police decided to reach out to HTC to confirm the statement and they replied that the statement is accurate. Which means that HTC is not preparing to release an Android Wear watch soon.
Just days after US company Apple filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm in a US court seeking $1 billion in damages, the Silicon Valley company has also filed a second lawsuit against Qualcomm but in China. Apple filed the suit seeking 1 billion yuan ($145.32 million) in damages in Beijing’s Intellectual Property court, a court statement indicates.
Qualcomm has been facing series of litigations and fines as a result of its model of transacting business with its partners of which Samsung and Apple are the two largest, accounting for up to 40% of Qualcomm’s revenue in recent times. Qualcomm supplies both companies modem chips which connect phones to wireless networks. Apple is accusing the chip maker of abusing its dominance of the chip industry and is further seeking compensation for damages. Specifically, Apple is accusing Qualcomm of failing to live up to promises made to license “standard essential patents” broadly and inexpensively.
In an email response to an inquiry by Reuters, Qualcomm says it is yet to get a copy of the full complaint but in a separate statement, Qualcomm’s general counsel Don Rosenberg accused Apple of trying to use the lawsuits to find ways to pay less for Qualcomm’s technology. The counsel also stated that Apple was offered terms consistent with terms accepted by more than one hundred other Chinese companies and it (Apple) refused to even consider them.
The Apple lawsuits both in the US and China are coming on the heels of a decision by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to file a complaint on January 17 accusing Qualcomm of using anti-competitive tactics to maintain its monopoly of a key semiconductor used in mobile phones. Earlier on, South Korea’s antitrust regulator had fined Qualcomm 1.03 trillion won ($854 million) in December for what it called unfair practices in patent licensing. Back in February 2015, Qualcomm paid a $975 million fine in China following a 14-month probe, while the European Union in December 2015 accused it of abusing its market power to prevent rivals from coming up.
These lawsuits may just be a precursor to series of legal challenges Qualcomm may face in the near future that could see its near complete dominance of the mobile chip industry broken.
Not every company attends the major tech events that holds during the year. Some usually have their own separate events where they launch their latest products. And others don’t attend because there is nothing to showcase. Xiaomi seems to belong to the latter as a spokesman has revealed that it will not be attending this year’s MWC in Barcelona.
The decision not to attend comes as a surprise to all as Xiaomi usually announces its flagship for the year at the event. So if it is not attending due to not having any new product, that means the Mi 6 isn’t ready. And the only plausible cause might be the supply issues plaguing the Snapdragon 835 processor.
Some folks might think the company is also not attending the event due to the departure of Hugo Barra but the reason above seems like a more genuine one. Xiaomi still has plans to attend other events outside of China and was at this year’s edition of CES where it launched a new router and TV.
Xiaomi is also taking things a bit slow this year. CEO Lei Jun had said that the company grew too fast and will be entering a transitional period. In a IHS report for shipments recorded last year, Xiaomi recorded just 58 million units to sit at the fourth position; a far cry from Huawei’s 139 million units and OPPO and Vivo’s 95 and 82 million units respectively.
We woke on Monday to news of Hugo Barra’s resignation as Xiaomi’s Vice-President of International. Mr. Barra had cited his desire to be closer to home as the reason for leaving and returning to Silicon Valley. When he made the announcement, nobody knew what new project he’d be embarking on or which company he’d be joining. However, a few hours ago he took to his twitter page (@hbarra) to announce that he’d be joining Facebook as the new Vice-President of Virtual Reality.
The announcement was also made on Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg who said Hugo Barra’s position as lead of VR will also cover the Oculus team. There is no mention of when exactly he’ll be resuming the position as he is still in China. But a follow up comment made by Hugo Barra himself says “in a couple of months”.
Mark Zuckerberg has shown great enthusiasm for virtual reality as he believes that is the next big thing. Hugo Barra also seems to share the same enthusiasm. During his tenure at Xiaomi, the company launched two VR glasses: the Xiaomi Mi VR Play which is more like a refined Google Cardboard; and the more sophisticated Mi VR Headset.
Nokia 6 has continued to achieve incredible feats since it was first unveiled by Nokia in China recently. First the smartphone did record colossal registration figures for its first flash sale. The flash sale itself was a thriller as all units up for grab were said to have been sold out in just 60 seconds. The second round of flash sale is set to commence today but that isn’t the only news coming in today. The Nokia 6 has been revealed to have got a white variant which would start selling in the Philippines today as well.
Reports emerging from the Asian country indicate that popular e-commerce website Lazada has listed the Nokia 6 on its website and among the features is that the device will be available in a white-only variant. The device is also listed with a slightly higher Php 18,590 price tag (around $374), different from the 1699 yuan ($245) it got rolling with in China. This really shouldn’t be a surprise as shipping costs and tax would factor in the pricing.
We really can’t say for sure if this news is true but picture don’t lie, even though Photoshop exists. The white-colored Nokia 6 does look real and even comes with an offer of free shipping. Lazada has got credibility in the Philippines so they really wouldn’t flaunt a phony offer.
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