A statistical agency, Beijing Sino Statistical Agency, has released its own results for market sales of major phone manufacturers in China. The stats which is separated into 3, viz.: offline, online, and a combination of both, covers data from 20 different companies for the first half of the year.
Online Sales
Xiaomi will surely be happy with this seeing as they have reportedly discredited IDC’s report. Xiaomi sold over 17 million smartphones via its online channels, which is over 1 million more than that of Huawei’s 15,815,807 devices. The interesting thing about the online sales is that the sum of the sales of the 3rd (LeEco), 4th (Apple), and 5th (Meizu) companies is not even as much as Huawei’s sales.
Samsung comes in 7th place with 1.8 million devices, OPPO comes in at number 9 with 975,272 devices and OnePlus takes the 15th spot with just 147,664.
Offline Sales
The streets is where the tide of battle changes. OPPO takes the first spot with a whooping 28 million devices and is followed closely by Huawei with 27,963,915 devices. Vivo comes in at number 3 with 24,813,503 devices, Apple is next with 22.5 million iPhones sold which is nearly double that of Samsung who takes the 5th spot with 11,742,057 phones.
Xiaomi takes a hard beat and manages to remain in the top 10 by clinching the 9th position with 6.2 million devices but forfeiting the 6th, 7th, and 8th spots to Gionee, Meizu, and Coolpad respectively.
It is getting more and more certain that Nokia will start rolling out its Nokia branded Android phones under the new partnership arrangement with Helsinki-based HMD Global Oy. A Nokia Exec had also hinted earlier on that the Nokia Android phones may likely pop in the fourth quarter (Q4) of this year.
Well, we just might see that happen soon as two new Nokia smartphones running on Android operating system has appeared on Benchmark website Geekbench revealing some of the specs which isn’t in any way similar to the few rumored specs we had gotten before now.
The Nokia smartphones bore the model names, Nokia 5320 and Nokia RM-1490. Nokia 5320 is listed as sporting a 2.27GHz quad-core processor with 2GB RAM. The clocking frequency of the Nokia 5320 resembles that of a high-end chipset but the small RAM size is a turn off. Perhaps it is possible to ramp up the RAM size in the coming days since this is just a prototype. The Nokia 5320 is also listed to run on Android 4.4.4 operating system which is quite weird.
On the other hand, the Nokia RM-1490 is listed as featuring a single core AMD A8-5545M chipset clocked at a miserable 500MHz. The RM-1490 also clutches a 2GB RAM as the Nokia 5320. The Android phone is listed to run on an even older Android 4.2.2 operating system.
This is all the details we have for now, that is as bad as it can get. The leaked Benchmark data ended up confusing us the more instead of throwing more light on the expected Nokia Android smartphones. We hope more leaks detailing the Nokia branded Android phones emerge soon. Like always, we’ll keep you posted here on Gizmochina whenever that happens.
Folks who own the Redmi Note 3 (Snapdragon and Mediatek) that have updated to MIUI 8 must have noticed that the android version is still stuck on Lollipop. It’s actually sad, knowing that one of the best selling Redmi phones is still running lollipop when Android 7.0 Nougat has already been released.
MIUI’s operations manager @RanGer posted on Weibo that Android 6.0 Marshmallow is being developed for the Snapdragon version of the Redmi Note 3. He mentioned that beta testing was supposed to begin yesterday but due to some problems that have not been ironed out, the beta program has been postponed. There is no news yet on the new date, so if you are eager to start testing, you might want to exercise a little bit of patience.
In the mean time, you can keep yourself busy by trying out the new features of MIUI 8.
Back when the first iPhone was launched, 16GB was a lot of storage, but in the last 2 years, fans of the Cupertino-based company have complained about the company still launching 16GB phones which just doesn’t cut it anymore. If the rumours are to be believed, the iPhone 7s (sevens) will come with 32GB storage on the base models.
However, it seems the company is raising the maximum storage available on an iPhone. An image of a leaked assembly sheet posted by twitter account, @the_malignant shows that there will be a 256GB version of the iPhone 7.
The spec sheet shows that the 256GB NAND chips will be supplied by Toshiba and confirms that there will be 32GB and 128GB versions (no 64GB) which will be supplied by an unnamed manufacturer.
While @the_malignant has leaked details for other phones that did turn out to be true, there is still no evidence that the assembly sheet is for Apple. Experts say the PCB format does follow Apple’s guidance, but it is also similar to that of other Foxconn clients.
Xiaomi officially unveiled the “thousand yuan flagship” Redmi Note 4 today at a news conference in China and the images reveal a very beautifully designed device with large display screen. Xiaomi also re-categorized the Redmi series into three namely; Redmi, Redmi Note and Redmi Pro series.
The Redmi Note 4 features a slim all-metal body design available in silver, gray and gold color variants. Despite cramming a massive 4,100mAh battery, the Redmi Note 4 still looks flat .
The display sports a 2.5D arc glass covering and the body is said to feature nine CNC diamond cutting on the body. The design keeps the rear camera, LED flash, USB port and fingerprint sensor, all in the same symmetrical centre line.
The antenna bands are visible on the top edge and the bottom edge of the back cover of the device. There are also capacitive buttons for volume control and the power up button on the right side of the device.
The 13MP main camera at the rear comes with 5P lens, f/2.0 aperture, color temperature flash, PDAF and HDR, all geared towards bringing out crisp, clear photos that become difficult to tell if they were shot by a mobile camera.
The 5MP front facing is not to be left out, as it features a f/2.0 alongside Beauty 2.0, and facial recognition.
The beautiful speaker grills, common in Xiaomi smartphones, lies just at the bottom edge of the device, bordering the USB port on both sides and yes, the Redmi Note 4 comes with a 3.5mm audio jack situated at the opposite end. For an 899 Yuan ($135) smartphone, the design is dope, Xiaomi got it right once again!
We are almost getting lost in keeping count with the number of smartphones Meizu has released so far this year (although still less than Xiaomi!) and yet the Chinese phone maker isn’t done yet. Just yesterday, we saw the Meizu U10 and U20 budget-phones and now Meizu has officially announced a news conference coming up on September 5 during which they plan to release another smartphone (most likely a phablet).
This time around, it seems this one is going to be a large screen phablet but quite surprisingly, the invitation also features a classic Nokia E71 phone. Now, Meizu isn’t manufacturing the next Nokia phone but it is very likely the upcoming smartphone will offer business applications and functions just like the Nokia E71 which was specifically built for business users worldwide.
Earlier on, popular tipster @Kjuma had leaked Meizu’s launch schedule beginning with August 28 for the U-series phones which seem to be the Meizu U10 and U20 released on August 23. The next is September 5 when Meizu is expected to launch its Meizu Max and from there, the attention will shift to September 13 when the much anticipated Meizu Pro 7 flagship will be unveiled.
In addition, Meizu had earlier been rumored to be working on a new 6-inch large screen device which may be called Meizu Max and the slogan of the announcement poster suggests that Meizu is targeting the younger generation with the upcoming phone. Apart from that, not much is known about the upcoming large screen smartphone.
Xiaomi has yet again continued the tradition of unveiling new Redmi smartphones every few months. After releasing the Redmi 3X and the Redmi Pro smartphones in the past few weeks, now Xiaomi has unveiled the brand new Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 smartphone. The company is calling this device, the “Thousand Yuan Flagship”. Considering the specs, it is true, to some extent.
Unlike the Xiaomi Redmi Pro, which got much fanfare for its launch, the Redmi Note 4 got relatively less attention. Nevertheless, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 is a pretty good smartphone. It comes with the same design as the recent Redmi smartphones, a metal body with a fingerprint sensor at the back. The dimensions of the phone are as follows: 151 x 76 x 8.35mm and it weighs 175 grams. If you remember, this is quite close to Redmi Pro’s dimensions and weight. There will be three color options available, silver, gray and gold.
The Redmi Note 4 comes with a 5.5-inch 1080p IPS LCD display with 450 nit brightness. Inside, the phone comes with the Helio X20 deca-core processor and it’s actually good to see this chip inside a cheap device. There are two memory versions available. The chip inside is the same, i.e. Helio X20 @ 2.1GHz. But you have the option to choose from the Standard version which comes with 2GB RAM + 16GB storage and high version which features 3GB RAM + 64GB storage. Both these versions have expandable hybrid storages.
At the back, the Redmi Note 4 comes with a single camera sensor of 13MP with 5P lens, f/2.0 aperture, color temperature flash, PDAF and HDR. The sensor is capable of recording at a max resolution of 1080p at 30 fps and 720p slo-mo at 120 fps. The front camera is of 5MP and comes with Beauty 2.0, f/2.0 aperture and facial recognition.
The phone supports dual SIM dual standby with entire network connectivity and comes with a 4100mAh battery with 5V 2A fast charging. The fingerprint sensor at the back also supports Ali and Mi payments. As for software, it will run on Android 6.0 based MIUI 8.
The Redmi Note 4 2GB + 16GB will retail for 899 Yuan ($135) while the 3GB + 64GB version costs 1199 Yuan ($180). The storage on the standard variant is a bit surprising since 32GB has become the standard on most phones. But the company probably decided to limit it to 16GB in order to keep the price under 999 Yuan.
Anyway, considering the pricing and the specs, the Redmi Note 4 is a pretty good option for budget users. What do you think?
And in case you are wondering, the 360 N4 offers better value (4GB + 32GB) at this price (except for a smaller battery). Read about the 360 N4 from here.
Today’s headline is the newcomer, Lenovo’s sub-brand ZUK Z2 series. Amazing value for price, almost the cheapest Snapdragon 820 based smartphone and therefore the series already has many fans/forums around the world. I myself always used Qfil flash programmer when it was about unbricking a Qualcomm based Lenovo/ZUK. But after Snapdragon 820, things changed a little, in terms of the name of programmer files and extensions. Until Snapdragon 810, for 64 Bit chips, we had “mbn” file extension as our “firehose programmers”, for example “prog_emmc_firehose_8994_ddr.mbn” or “prog_emmc_firehose_8994_lite.mbn” inside our Qfil ROM packages. And Qfil was the only flasher that supported this firehose protocol till now. After 820’s Qualcomm made differences both in file system and naturaly to our “service files”. Mbn’s became “elf’s”, “not the nation from middle-earth ?”
Taken from wiki : “In computing, the Executable and Linkable Format (ELF, formerly called Extensible Linking Format) is a common standard file format for executables, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps.” Examples from ZUK Z2’s Qfil rom folder : “prog_emmc_firehose_8996_ddr.elf” and “prog_emmc_firehose_8996_lite.elf“.
I read that some users are having difficulties flashing their Snapdragon 820 Zuk’s with Qfil, could be because of the version of Qfil, can be driver related or something else. Today, I will show you a more easy way to flash any *.elf programmer to any Qualcomm 820 based smartphone, with right kind of ROM, of course. We will use our regular saviour, Xiaomi’s latest “MiFlash” Qualcomm programmer, this version came out right after Xiaomi’s Snapdragon 820 based phone Mi5 and supporting elf programmers and is very easy to use in most cases.
Before we start, we need to put our Windows operating system into “Test Mode“, so we don’t have to deal with any driver install issues in between our work.
To do this just :
Press Start->Search->cmd then right-click on it and click Run as administrator. In the CMD window, type or copy this “Bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON” and press enter. Restart PC.
After your work with unbricking is done, if you want to get out of this test mode, detailed instructions are here : Windows Test Mode .
Before we begin, let me remind you, this method will wipe your phone completely and bring it to “out of box” factory mode. So backing up your important data is a must! If your phone is already bricked and can’t power on or is stuck at logo, there is not much to do for your data.
STEP 1:
First, we need to install adb on our computers, and for that, we will use a program called “adb setup“, thanks to Snoop05 from XDA-Developers, this will enable adb and fastboot commands to work on our systems. It will also install necessary adb drivers. There are many ways to do that but what is best about Snoop05’s solution is that we can use adb and fastboot commands system-wide, this means our old “command prompt” will turn to accept this commands, and no need to work in the “adb” folder like we used to before.
On Lenovo/ZUK phones, to enable USB debugging, click “USB debugging (ADB)”under “USB computer connection” from the pop-up window when you plug the USB cable.On ZUK Z1, if Cyanogen ROM is installed, go to settings> about phone, and click “Build number”couple of times till you see “you are a developer“message. Then back to settings>Developer opitons>USB debugging, click it and allow. Your system will install necessary”adb” drivers. Now open command prompt and type :
“adb devices“
Look at your phone for the “Allow USB debugging?“ message, select “Always allow from this computer“ and click OK. If you forget to allow from phone, the command will return“unauthorized“, if OK you will see your phone as “device“ .
STEP 3:
Now it’s time to open our so called Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 service port to work with. If your phone is in working condition, we will use an adb command from command prompt :
“adb reboot edl”
If your phone is bricked / can’t boot up / stuck at logo / restarting itself continuously, then we will use the key combination to open our Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 service port. That key combination depends on the ROM that you had on your phone before it’s bricked.
If you were on Lollipop : Phone must be completely off. Pressing “Volume Up” key plug the USB cable in WITHOUT PRESSING POWER BUTTON ! Port will open.
If you were on Marshmallow : Phone must be completely off. Plug the USB cable in and immediately press Power On button. Port will open.
STEP 4:
Now setup Miflash that you downloaded before. Miflash will install necessary “Qulacomm” drivers to your system , so don’t forget to choose “Install this driver software anyway” option when it asks, twice, and after it finishes you will see a new port named Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 in your device manager too.
The driver path will be “C:\Program Files (x86)\Xiaomi\MiPhone\Qualcomm\Driver”, in case you want/need to install your drivers again.
STEP 5:
Open MiFlash, click “refresh” button and you’ll see your Qualcomm 9008/EDL port there. Then click “Browse” and choose your downloaded ROM folder, please (unzip it before you that). It will look like this for ZUK Z2 ROM folder :
When you are ready click “flash” button. In about 2-3 minutes the flashing will finish, unplug the USB cable and press power button long enough to power on your ZUK Z2. That’s it. Your ZUK has been saved or flashed with a stock factory ROM.
Some of the paragraphs of this article are taken from my Xiaomi and Lenovo unbricking + flashing guides, so don’t get confused because of some pictures here.
Yes, now you must be confused as to why we are calling this the Le 2S Pro. This is because, earlier today, the Weibo post made by the Le 2S Pro from the company executive kind of confirmed the name. So, we are now going to call the upcoming phone as the Le 2S Pro and not the Le 2S as previously reported. Maybe, there will be both, Le 2S and Le 2S Pro but at this point, let’s assume that there is just one model, the Le 2S Pro.
The latest leak reveals the back and the side of the upcoming Le 2S Pro smartphone. Surprisingly, there’s nothing new to see. Just a traditional metallic design (so no revolutionary design as hinted by the executive earlier today). The finish is smooth, the sensors are located on the top left corner and you have a round fingerprint sensor below it, around the center.
The second image shows the power and volume buttons on the device. It also shows that the camera sensor will be a bit protruding, but before we complain, we must note that the phone is quite thin as well.
The third image shows us the LEX720 model name, which is exactly what we have seen in the past few days. The image also shows us that it will come with Snapdragon 820, 4GB of RAM and 5.5-inch display with 1080p resolution. The storage inside should be 32GB, but this is probably a prototype which is why it’s showing as 19.9GB.
Now, you must be wondering, we had reported a few days back that the Le 2S Pro should come with Snapdragon 821. It should, at least according to multiple leaks which have reported the same. But the chip revealed by this image is the MSM8996 which is the SD820. If it was SD821, it should have been MSM8996Pro.
As always, we are not sure of the authenticity of these images, so we will advise you to take it with a pinch of salt. It’s a bit different from what we had seen (leaked back cover) a while back.
Hopefully, future leaks will make things clearer. Till then, stay tuned to gizmochina for more updates.
If you want to read more about Le 2S (Pro) coverage on gizmochina, check out this feed.
Ulefone Vienna was one of the first local Chinese smartphones to offer something special in the audio department. It’s been a while since the company launched the smartphone but now, Ulefone has decided to giveaway 5 units of the Vienna as free gift.
The giveaway will start from August 25 and end on September 2. All you have to do is vote for the 3 favorite specs on the Ulefone Vienna via their official website giveaway page and enter your mail address and social contact to participate. Every two days, one lucky winner will be selected and will win a brand new Ulefone Vienna smartphone. In case you are confused as to how to participate, just head over to the Giveaway link that we have added below. Once you visit the page, things will be clearer.
The contest has already begun and we can see that there are lots of votes for different features. What’s really interesting is that the contestants have voted the inbuilt 32GB memory as the best feature, among other features such as Smart Audio PA Hi-Fi chip, Gorilla Glass 3, Fingerprint sensor and even Android 6.0. It was the only feature to get over 4K votes at the time of writing this article. But of course, things will change by the end of the contest. For more details about the giveaway, head over to this link.
To recap, some of the top features of the Ulefone Vienna include Independent audio chip, Sharp FHD display, 3GB RAM, MT6753 and 3250mAh battery. The phone is currently available at a discounted price of $139.99. You can check out the listing on gearbest from here.
The CEO of Huami Technology might have just revealed the company’s upcoming watch will run android wear while he was talking about the battery life.
In his post, Mr. Wang said he has used a number of smartwatches running android or android wear from big brands and battery life didn’t go beyond a day. He also mentioned that since the second generation Mi Band offers a 20-day battery life and he has gotten a 7-day battery life from other big name sports bracelets, he should be able to get a few days from the Huami watch.
Only to later post that the smartwatch will have a battery life of 2 days under normal use or close to 3 days but not more.
While we wait for the launch of LeEco’s Le 2s which is said to be on the 7th of September, an executive of the company, Feng Xing Yue has posted on weibo details of what to expect when the phone arrives.
Mr. Xing Yue’s post which is focused on the design of the upcoming phone, talks about how the metallic feel and texture of phones that are termed all-metal have been lost during production processes or how phones that have frosted or sprayed plastic feel like they are going to break. He says all those issues have been addressed on the Le 2s. To put it in simple words, the design of the Le 2s is said to be a breakthrough and will be different from what we are used to. It will look good and feel good when you hold it. We sure want to see this new design and hope it lives up to the hype.
Another detail we got from the post is the name of the phone. Weibo usually reveals the name of the phone a post was made with, much like when Facebook started and you would see the brand of phone used to make a post. The phone used to post is a Le 2sPro. While it is possible that it is the same phone we’ve been calling the Le 2s, let’s not rule out the possibility of the 2s having a pro version.
Xiaomi has officially announced a news conference scheduled for August 25 where the company is expected to launch a new smartphone. The expected Xiaomi smartphone is speculated to be a smartphone in the Redmi series with the Redmi Note 4 or Redmi 4 touted.
From the teaser, it is likely that the device will feature an all-metal body design and from the image render, it will probably have a 5.5-inch display size which makes the Redmi Note 4 very likely.
Apart from that, the poster also contains the logo of China Mobile which is an indication that the expected smartphone is likely a carrier based smartphone just like the China Unicom based Redmi 3X.
On the specs bench, the Xiaomi redmi Note 4 is expected with a 5.5-inch display screen with 1080p resolution and will be powered by a 2GHz processor touted to be a MediaTek Helio X20 chipset. The processor will combine with a 3GB RAM to give the device a seamless performance. On the camera aspect, the Redmi Note 4 should pack a 13MP rear camera sensor and up front, there is an 8MP selfie camera. The devcie is said to have a 4,000mAh battery under its hood and will likely carry a 899 yuan ($136) price tag when launched.
August 25 is just tomorrow, so we’ll get all the juicy details across to you on Gizmochina as they pop.
A new image of Huawei’s upcoming Mate 9 has been leaked online, revealing a different camera setup from what was previously leaked.
New LeakOld Leak
This new image shows a dual camera setup with a single piece of glass covering both lens. The phone’s LED flash is also circular unlike the first leaked image. Another difference is the lack of laser focus which was present on the previously leaked image. The only feature common to both images is the position of the fingerprint scanner.
The leak also says the Mate 9 may likely launch with Huawei’s Kirin 960 processor. The Kirin 960 is an octa-core chip that uses the big.LITTLE architecture which will be made up of 4 Cortex A-73 cores and 4 Cortex A-53 cores. The Kirin 960 will have LTE Cat. 12 and support CDMA networks, making it the second kirin chip other than the Kirin 650 to have full network support. Its GPU will be the latest Mali-G71.
Other details mentioned says the Mate 9 will feature a 6” 2K display, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of built-in storage. It is said to launch with EMUI 5.0 which is based on Android 7.0 Nougat.
OnePlus has released a video trailer teasing an upcoming release billed for August 25. The device, which would be outed on that day wasn’t revealed in the video but the image featured in the video teaser points to an earphone.
Already, OnePlus had before now hinted that they are cooking up a very special product which would be unveiled on August 25 but it’s not as if Oneplus doesn’t have an earphone to its name.
The short video trailer of just 28 seconds shows a spinning disk plate, with solid music playing at the background. The spinning disk somewhat looks like a headset with a loop running from the middle to the edge. There’s also the letters V2 imprinted on the disk, which all heightens speculations that the expected device might be a new earphone set.
Oneplus already has its Icons In-ear Earphones which is priced at 399 yuan and was launched last year and if we take into consideration the letters V2 on the disk, it is most likely the new product will be a second version or generation of the Icons In-ear Earphones.
Those are just speculations based on our thoughts anyway. We can factually get what the product is on August 25 when OnePlus officially unveils it. Till then, keep the dial at Gizmochina, we’ll keep you updated.
Meizu is still continuing with its flurry of smartphone release, and today saw the outing of the Meizu U10 and U20 with mid-budget price tags.
The Meizu U10 features a 5-inch IPS display and is powered by an octa-core processor which is complemented by 2GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage. There’s another version with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage.
The Meizu U10 crams a 2760mAh battery under its hood and packs a 13MP rear camera unit with LED flash as well as a 5MP front-facing camera.
On the other hand, the Meizu U20 sports a 5.5-inch 1080p display with 2.5D curved glass cover and comes equipped with an octa-core processor as well which lets you run multiple apps on your phone seamlessly. There are also two versions in terms of memory, one with 2GB RAM alongside 16GB of internal storage and another with 3GB RAM with 32GB of internal storage.
The Meizu U20 also tag along a 13MP primary camera at its rear with LED flash and a 5MP selfie camera up front. In addition, the smartphone features a bigger 3,260mAh battery under its hood.
Both the Meizu U10 and U20 features 2.5D curved glass design on both the front and back sides and are both available in four color variants, white crescent, sky black, champagne Gold, and Rose Gold. The two Meizu smartphone models also come with fingerprint sensors that are enabled for fingerprint payment via Alipay and other payment platforms. The Meizu U10 and U20 equally come with entire network support, 4G inclusive. There is also support for Wi-Fi connectivity and 5G.
Talking about the price, the Meizu U20 version with 2GB RAM + 16GB of built-in storage costs 1099 yuan ($166), while the 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM version starts at 1299 yuan ($192). The U20 will go on sale from August 28 on Meizu stores and other online channels while it will become available on August 29 via Meizu Mall, Jingdong Mall, Lynx official flagship store, and Suning Tesco.
In addition, the Meizu U10 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM combo starts at 999 Yuan ($150) while the 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM version carries a price tag of 1199 yuan ($181). The Meizu U10 will go on sale starting September 18 and will be available via Meizu store and other online sales channels. The device will be available on Meizu Mall, Jingdong, Lynx, Suning Tesco and Meizu shops simultaneously on September 19.
UMi is one of the few Chinese companies who have managed to consistently release some interesting mid-range smartphones in the past few months. The UMi Super and the UMi Max, both are pretty good phones, but if you were hoping to find something more pleasant to the eyes, then the upcoming UMi smartphone should be something that could interest you.
We have got the first pictures of the unnamed UMi flagship. While the phone is not yet released, we can see that the company seems to have taken inspiration from the gorgeous Galaxy Note 7 for this phone’s design, with some even calling it the Note 7 Mini. What we know at the moment is that the phone will be smaller than the Galaxy Note 7. It will be made out of a single piece of aluminum, with a slim body. All the ports, including the USB and headphone jack seem to be located at the bottom.
The fingerprint sensor will be located up front, and will be oval in shape. To be honest, the phone in the pictures looks quite premium. Hopefully, we will be able to get more details about this UMi flagship in the next few days.
Elephone is known to make buzz in the market with some of its products, especially before launch. The Elephone S7 turned out to be one such smartphone, all thanks to its bezel-less display that we managed to see in some pictures earlier. If you had doubts about the authenticity of the pictures, here’s a video directly from Elephone revealing the Elephone S7 in action. This is a prototype device, but at least confirms the design on the device.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTiHPvMg0CA&feature=youtu.be
So, the Elephone S7 will indeed feature a bezel-less screen and it will have 2.5D curved glass on top as well. The phone also comes with incell technology to make sure that the display looks vibrant and bright. It will be a 5.5-inch 1080p panel and in the video, the phone’s display looks pretty good.
Blackview has one device that looks pretty nice on paper. We are talking about the R7 phone. It has some great specs and it costs below $190. Learn more in our full review.
32GB (expandable via microSD card slot up to 256GB)
Blackview R7 Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY
When it comes to the design, the Blackview R7 is pretty comfortable to hold in the hand.
It uses metal chassis that does around the device. It’s hard to tell if the metal was used in the backplate but it has a primer coating (similar to the LG G5), which feels like plastic to me.
As far as camera, we have a 13MP Omnivision sensor coupled with a single LED flash. The fingerprint scanner is not the fastest I’ve seen but it unlocks your phone from the standby mode and it is pretty accurate.
The buttons, which sit on the right side, are made of metal too, they are tactile but the problem is that they rattle quite a bit(Maybe just because this is an engineering sample, the factory promise better quality on the first batch).
Same can be said about the hybrid dual SIM card slot.
We have a 5.5” 1080p display, which is covered with the Gorilla Glass 3. It is pretty sharp and vivid but I wish it had a higher brightness output for a better sunlight legibility. A front-facing camera has 8MP.
One of the disappointments of this device is that there is no notification LED light and the capacitive buttons are not backlit. It is strange that Blackview did not implement these features considering the price of the phone.
The loudspeaker quality is just mediocre as I would love to hear more depth and balance.
Blackview R7 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
One of the main selling points of this device is its powerful internals. The Blackview R7 ships with an octa-core MTK6755 Helio P10 chip, which has the max. clock speeds of 2.0GHz, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, which can be further expanded via the microSD card slot.
These kind of specs sound impressive but in real life, the phone struggles handling some 3D games like Asphalt 8 on the highest graphics. On the other hand, changing the graphics to medium solves this issue and the phone handles the game with just a few skipped frames.
I’ve tested the phone with some other games like Nova 3 and the device handles it pretty well.
The phone gets a little warm but it does not alter the gaming performance.
Blackview R7 Review: BENCHMARKS
Blackview R7 Review: USER INTERFACE
The phone ships with the Android 6.0 but it has Blackview’s skin on top of it, which removes the app tray for some reason. Also, we have some redesigned icons and some other design touches.
There are a few features like gesture and motion controls that work pretty well but the phone could recognize gesture input faster.
So far I didn’t have any hiccups or lag and the phone performs well on the daily basis.
Blackview R7 Review: IMAGE QUALITY
The daylight image quality is pretty good for the category of the phone and the photos look quite sharp. A few shortcomings would be that the camera struggles adjusting the dynamic range in some of the shots. Also, the colors look too warm and some of the shots seem to have a slightly yellowish tint. In addition, there were a few close-up images that were not as sharp as I expected but other macro shots look great.
The low-light camera performance is not the worst I’ve seen but it has the shortcomings that are common to most of the phones in this price range – a low amount of detail and high level of noise. A worse thing is that there is a visible red tint if you take pictures close to the light source e.g. street light.
The video quality would be pretty good but there is a noticeable choppiness when panning the phone. See a video review for a video sample.
A selfie camera is pretty good and it will do the trick for social media if you take pictures in good lighting.
I didn’t have any connectivity issues. Even the GPS lock speeds were fast and the GPS was accurate.
Blackview R7 Review: BATTERY LIFE
The phone ships with the 3000mAh battery that performs pretty well for its capacity. You should expect just over 4 hours of screen-on time but the results may vary, depending on the usage.
When you need to recharge your battery, the phone supports quick charge tech. I was able to fully charge the phone in just over 1 hour and 20 mins. Keep in mind that the screen-on time was measured before connecting a phone to a charger (the phone simply died before I managed to take a screenshot).
Blackview R7 Review: CONCLUSIONS
The Blackview R7 aims to bring some great specs at the price of less than $190.
Well, it delivers in some ways. The phone is well-built and it sports a sharp display and the UI performs well. Also, the Blackview R7’s camera can take some good looking daylight images for the price, the phone has a decent battery life and a pretty accurate fingerprint scanner.
However, Helio P10 processor may sound impressive on paper but it can only handle games like Asphalt 8 on medium graphics. On the other hand, I’ve tested the phone mainly with the most demanding 3D games.
Other shortcomings would be that buttons and the SIM card tray rattle quite a bit and the phone does not have neither notification LED nor backlit capacitive buttons.
At the end of the day, the Blackview R7 still brings quite of lot of value to the table for the price. The phone definitely has more pros than cons but make sure to consider if the previously mentioned shortcomings are important to you or not(This unit is an engineering sample, the factory promise better quality for the first batch).
ZTE’s recent efforts have been to strengthen the audio on its smartphones and the ZTE Axon 7 made sure that the company’s flagship device featured top-notch audio support. For some, audio is just another feature in a smartphone, but for others, it is one of the most used as well as important features on their phone.
ZTE has now confirmed that we will meet another audio-centric smartphone at the famous IFA Berlin in 2016. The event will be held on September 1, the same day that Huawei unveils its brand new device. From the press release sent to us, it is confirmed that the phone will be a premium device, coming with superior audio quality.
“We’re delighted to be debuting our latest products to the world in Berlin,” says Adam Zeng, CEO of ZTE Mobile Devices. “Our fan community played a huge role in the development of our new smartphones, delivering valuable input that helped inspire and motivate our team. The result is a suite of devices that pack cutting-edge, innovative features and the latest technology.”
The company claims that audio has been a shortcoming on many of the flagship smartphones in recent times and with their advanced research and development, ZTE’s recent phones like the Axon 7 aims to fill these special needs of customers.
Hopefully, we will get to hear more about this audio-centric ZTE smartphone in the coming days.
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Xiaomi will surely be happy with this seeing as they have reportedly discredited IDC’s report. Xiaomi sold over 17 million smartphones via its online channels, which is over 1 million more than that of Huawei’s 15,815,807 devices. The interesting thing about the online sales is that the sum of the sales of the 3rd (LeEco), 4th (Apple), and 5th (Meizu) companies is not even as much as Huawei’s sales.
The streets is where the tide of battle changes. OPPO takes the first spot with a whooping 28 million devices and is followed closely by Huawei with 27,963,915 devices. Vivo comes in at number 3 with 24,813,503 devices, Apple is next with 22.5 million iPhones sold which is nearly double that of Samsung who takes the 5th spot with 11,742,057 phones.
