Nexus Marlin & Sailfish to likely use Snapdragon 821 processor

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Jul 11, 2016

Xiaomi’s co-founder and Senior Vice-President, Liwan Jiang has reaffirmed the plan of the company to release high-end but cost effective smartphones this year.

Liwan Jiang disclosed this while speaking at an interview very recently. The Senior VP reaffirmed the plan by Xiaomi to release high-end products in the second half of the year and further hinted that the company has shifted its attention to the launch of the high-end device.

Mr Jiang also reassured earlier stance that Xiaomi’s cost-effective policy will still not change as regards the high-end device and hinted at the possibility of a special brand name for the device. He, however did not disclose the specific name it’d be called.

It has been rumored that a Xiaomi news conference is scheduled to take place sometime in August where the new high-end device(s) is expected to be unveiled.

Also, on that same day in August, the long awaited Mi Note 2 is expected to be launched as well.

The 5.7-inch Mi Note 2 is expected to come with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 821 processor, 4GB / 6GB RAM options, fingerprint sensor, dual camera setup and lots more top specs. The Mi Note 2 is expected to be priced at 3000 Yuan (about $450) for the base model.

Xiaomi planning second Hong Kong store, says VP Xiaomi Global

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Jul 11, 2016

Chinese tech giant Xiaomi is looking to open a second flagship store, which is beautifully named Mi Home, in Hong Kong even when Hong Kong’s retail sector is experiencing some sort of slowdown.

This was disclosed by the popular Vice-President Xiaomi Global, Hugo Barra at a product launch last week. Mr. Barra hinted that there was a “big chance” a second location would be added to its present store in Hong Kong.

Xiaomi opened its first Mi Home store in Mong Kok, Hong Kong around this time last year, which also happened to be the first Mi Home store outside mainland China.

Mr. Barra, who joined Xiaomi from Google, also restated the plan while speaking to the South China Morning Post.

“Obviously we have to choose the locations very carefully. Retail is all about location and details,” he told the Post, adding that a date would be announced later.

“Suffice to say this (Mong Kok) location is such a huge hit that we think that the model is worth repeating.”

Barra, a former Google senior exec, disclosed that Hong Kong was an all-important market for Xiaomi where it recently launched two smartphones and an air purifier. VP Barra further stressed the importance of the Hong Kong market to the tech company by hinting that the launch of the Mi Air Purifier 2 was the first time the company was launching an Internet of Things (IoT) product outside Mainland China. Barra also launched the latest 6.4-inch Mi Max phablet in Hong Kong during his visit last week.

The brand has in recent years positioned itself as more than a mobile phone manufacturer, producing wearables, headphones, cameras and even electric scooters. It has its own operating system called MIUI, on which its mobile devices run. The move to solidify its presence in Hong Kong may be unconnected to the company’s drive to ramp up dwindling sales through focusing on offline sales channels.

(Source)

Honor 8 Official With 12MP Dual Cameras & Beautiful Glass Body, Starts At $300

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Pre-order Huawei Honor 8 at Oppomart

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Jul 11, 2016

Huawei has just officially unveiled the brand new Honor 8 smartphone, which is the company’s mid-range flagship. The company seems to have given a lot of importance to the phone’s design, and to be honest, it looks like Huawei has done a good job in this department.

Like expected, the Honor 8 comes with 2.5D double glass body. While this design is not new, as we have seen phones from brands like Nubia feature double glass design, it does make the device look premium and attractive. Also, for those who are not a big fan of metal, this glass design is worthy of your attention. Further, the dual camera setup along with the laser focus and dual LED flash module sits well on the top left corner of the back. The fingerprint sensor is also located on the back. The body measures 7.45mm in thickness, which is pretty slim and it weighs 153 grams.

As for the specs, the Honor 8 comes with the Kirin 950 octa-core chipset clocked at 2.3GHz, which is the company’s SoC for flagships along with three memory variants — 3GB RAM + 32GB, 4GB RAM + 32GB and 4GB RAM + 64GB. There will be a 3000mAh battery (9V2A fast charging) on board, which has become the standard among mid-range phones. The screen will be of 5.2-inches with 1080p resolution (423 ppi). So, it’s much more compact than the Honor V8 flagship.

Coming to the camera, which is undoubtedly the highlight of the Honor 8, you get dual camera setup at the back. So there are two 12MP sensors at the back, one RGB sensor and a black and white sensor. These are IMX286 sensors from Sony. Like with other dual camera setups, you get features such as depth of field. Plus, there are Laser Autofocus and Contrast Focus. On the front, the Honor 8 features an 8MP sensor, which has large 1.4um pixels. So, expect the camera performance on the new flagship to be pretty good. The phone supports 1080p FHD video shooting and 720p 120fps slo-mo recording.

Huawei has also equipped the new Honor 8 with other essential connectivity features. For example, the phone comes with NFC with fingerprint payment, IR blaster which supports over 25,920 appliances from different brands, dual SIM dual standby, 4G+, VoLTE, intelligent dual antenna design, WLAN+ 3.0 etc. As for software, the phone runs on EMUI 4.1 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

LTE Band Support:

TDD-LTE：B38/B39/B40/B41（2555MHz~2655MHz）；

FDD-LTE：B1/B3/B4/B7；

TD-SCDMA：B34/B39；

WCDMA：B1/B2/B4/B5/B8

So, it’s basically equipped with most of the connectivity features found on a flagship smartphone. The Honor 8 starts at 1999 Yuan ($300) for the 3GB + 32GB model, then goes up to 2299 Yuan ($346) for the 4GB + 32GB model and 2499 Yuan ($375) for the top-end 4GB + 64GB of storage. The phone comes in five different colors namely Sapphire Blue, Pearl White, Midnight Black, Sunrise Gold and Sakura Pink.

Dual cameras at $300 makes the Honor 8 stand out from the crowd. So, what do you think about the device?

Snapdragon 821 Official, Offers 10% Improvement Over SD820

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Jul 11, 2016

Snapdragon 820 is the clear market leader when it comes to flagship grade processors in 2016, but this capable chip is soon going to be beaten by its successor, the Snapdragon 821. We have been hearing a lot about Snapdragon 821 and its presence in the upcoming flagship smartphones and now, Qualcomm has just made the chip official, further revealing that we can expect to see smartphones running this SoC in the second half of the year.

snapdragon

The chipmaker reveals that Snapdragon 821 will offer 10% increase in performance as compared to Snapdragon 820. It features the same quad-core architecture as the SD820 but runs at 2.4GHz instead of 2.2GHz. The company is yet to reveal detailed specs of the new chip, but the GPU and other specs are expected to be almost similar to the Snapdragon 820.

There are a lot of smartphones that are expected to feature this new chip, including the upcoming Xiaomi Mi Note 2 which may debut later this month. Then there’s LeEco flagship and even the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is said to feature this upgraded Snapdragon 821 version.

Turns out, the Snapdragon 820 chip which started featuring inside flagships earlier this year, is old already!

Honor V8 Max Spotted On AnTuTu, Bigger Than Mi Max

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Jul 11, 2016

Later today, Huawei will be holding a conference for the unveiling of the Honor 8. But it appears that the Honor V8 Max (which we talked about here) will be making an appearance as well.

It is said to feature a massive 6.6” 2K screen which towers above Xiaomi’s Mi Max’s 6.44”. The V8 Max will be equipped with a Kirin 950 processor, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of built-in memory. Camera configuration will be 8MP up front for selfies and 13MP at the rear which confirms the info about it not having dual cameras. The phone will draw juice from a 4400mAh battery which has support for fast charging.

There is also news of a high end version which will have 4GB of RAM and will double the storage to 64GB.

The Honor V8 Max is presumed to have a starting price of 1999 Yuan ($299) for the base version and 2499 Yuan ($374) for the high end version.

The Kirin 950 is a top performance processor, therefore the V8 Max should be able to handle graphics demanding games well enough and not put that large screen to waste.

Xiaomi has sold over 110 million Redmi phones in 3 years

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Jul 11, 2016

Chinese mega startup, Xiaomi today unveiled three official spokesperson for the company, and also announced that it had sold over 110 million units of the Redmi line of phones for the past three years since the Redmi series was unveiled.

The Redmi series was first announced in July 2013 as a lower-cost range than the Mi series. Apart from the pocket friendly price tag, the Redmi series also tag along wonderful hardwares for their prices.

The Xiaomi Redmi was the first in the series, followed by the Redmi 1s, 2 and 3. The Redmi Note was also released and thereafter Xiaomi released the Redmi Note 2 with a 16GB on-board storage as well as Redmi Note 2 Prime with 32GB storage on August 13, 2015. In quick succession, the Redmi Note 3 with a non-removable battery pack was launched in November 2015. The Redmi Note 3 Pro was also launched with a slightly higher specs package than the Note 3.

The evolution of the Redmi series have seen Xiaomi improve tremendously on the hardware setup over the years but still maintaining the series’ cheap and affordable price regime. So it is not surprising that Xoami has been able to rake in over 110 million sales in just three years.

However, Xiaomi has seen sales of its smartphone dwindle but CEO, Lei Jun is confident that its phone sales will rebound soon. This fall in sales may not be unconnected with stiff competition from rival phone manufacturers in China who are also striving to grab their share of the phone market. The fall in sales may also bear some relationship with the poor shipments of Xiaomi’s smartphones which are only sold through online channels.

Perhaps, the new spokespersons who are well known figures will help the smartphone maker, known as the Apple of China, ramp up her dwindling sales. Coupled with news that Xiaomi is planning to open physical stores as well as turn its focus to offline sales channels.

High Definition Images and GeekBench Scores of Meizu MX6 Revealed

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Jul 11, 2016

A new image showing the Meizu MX6 in high definition has been released. The image which shows the phone in grey and its power button and volume rocker on the right, also indicates that the camera is slightly raised.

Another image also cropped up today, showing off the device with a white leather case. This could be one of the accessories that Meizu is rumored to release alongside the device.

The CEO complained about it looking so much like the Meizu Pro 6, which is a nice looking phone, no doubt. But frankly speaking, he could have just ordered for a new design.

The Meizu MX6 has also showed up on bench-marking site, Geekbench. The MX6 scored 1822 points in the single core test and 5183 points in the multi-score test. The listing also confirms many of the already known specs such as the use of a Helio X20 processor, 4GB of RAM, Android 6.0 Marshmallow (which we are still angry about not making it to the Meizu M3s or M3 Note).

The MX6 will feature a 13MP/5MP camera configuration (not 12MP/5MP as listed on Antutu). A fingerprint scanner is also positioned beneath the mBack key which also doubles as the home button.

Metal Xiaomi Phone With Dual Cameras Spotted, Could Be Redmi Note 4

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Jul 11, 2016

There’s no doubt that dual cameras are the new fad in the smartphone market, with companies equipping their mid-range and flagship phones with two cameras to bring the best camera experience to their devices. Huawei is one company that has taken dual cameras pretty seriously this year, first partnering with the renowned Lecia for its Huawei P9 flagship and later, releasing the Honor V8 and Honor 8 (confirmed to feature dual cameras). But Huawei isn’t the only Chinese company interested in using dual cameras on its smartphones as recent reports have said that LeEco and Xiaomi are also going to release dual camera phones.

Now, we might have our first glimpse of the real image of a Xiaomi smartphone with dual cameras at the back. Unlike other dual camera phones, it looks like Xiaomi’s new smartphone will come with two large sensors aligned vertically. In between the two camera sensors, we can see dual LED flash.

As for the design, the phone comes with a brushed metal finish. Both the sides are curved, which should ensure better grip and we can see the volume and power buttons are located on the right side. Further, there’s the Mi logo on the back, revealing that this is a Xiaomi phone.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3Xiaomi Redmi 3img_5764 — redmi note 3

So, if you look closely, the raw design of this leaked handset is very much similar to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. But instead of the fingerprint sensor at the back, in its place, we have the second camera sensor. This probably means that this particular model comes with a home button embedded sensor up front. This could also mean that this is a Redmi model and not the company’s flagship Mi series. Could it be the Redmi Note 4? It’s too early to say anything right now, but it is a possibility.

This image of the Mi device comes just a few hours after a leaked image of the young Chinese actor Haoran Liu holding this leaked dual camera Xiaomi phone cropped up online. Considering that Liu was just signed as the official spokesperson of Xiaomi’s Redmi lineup, it is very much possible that the phone we see in the image is the upcoming Redmi Note 4.

What do you think?

Gionee Rumored to Infuse Their phones with Security Chip

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Jul 11, 2016

While we are looking forward to the launch of the Gionee M6 Pro, a sketch of a new Gionee phone was leaked online. The image which shows the usual chips associated with mobile devices, viz.: CPU and GPU, also features a third chip.

The CPU which is the brain of the phone, handles all the instructions we send to our phones with the efficiency of the CPU determined by how quickly these instructions are carried out. While the GPU is designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to display.

So why does this sketch feature a third chip? Speculations floating around says it is a security chip and the phone sporting it will be the world’s first mass-produced device to achieve hardware-level security.

Gionee’s phones such as the M5, M5 Plus,and S8 are targeted at the business class. For this demographic, security is very important, hence Gionee’s reason to take security level higher by including a dedicated chip in the phone.

There are currently no details about how it is supposed to work but once we get our hands on more information we sure will let you know.

On a side note, Gionee announced a collaboration with famous film director, Feng Xiaogang, and movie star, Shawn. The result of the collaboration is an upcoming film translated to ”Mobile Core Wars”. There is a possibility that the security chip might be related to the movie in one way or the other.

Did A Chinese Celebrity Just Pose With the New iPhone 7?

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Jul 11, 2016

Apple will soon release the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus models, most likely around September this year. The leaks about these two devices are already coming in fast but earlier today, the Chinese media went crazy after celebrity Cecelia posted a new photo on her Weibo account. It looked as if she was holding a new generation of the iPhone, as the design of the Apple device in her hand was a bit different than the current generation models.

Unfortunately, the picture isn’t very clear and zooming in doesn’t help in making out the key details of the phone’s back. But what made the Chinese media go crazy about the phone was that it didn’t have any antenna lines on the back. In case of the iPhone 6S, there are two antenna lines that go through the back of the device, which are clearly visible. However, in this case, there were no visible antenna lines, which is exactly what we expect from the new iPhone 7.

While the overall design of the iPhone 7 is said to be similar to the previous generation, as per the leaks and rumors which have been pretty consistent regarding this matter, the new iPhones should feature less obvious antenna lines, as they have been moved to the top and the bottom portion of the back cover. There seem to be some differences in the camera module as well, but they are less evident in this picture.

iphone6s-gray-select-2015 — iPhone 6S Gray 64GB

Anyway, at this moment, we can’t really confirm whether this is the iPhone 7.

So, what do you think? Does it look like the new iPhone 7 model?

ZOPO Will Release Three New Phones This Month In Its Color Series

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Jul 10, 2016

ZOPO is gearing up to release three new smartphones in its youth-oriented Color lineup this month. The three new phones, namely the ZOPO F2, F5 and C3 will be entry-level models coming with modest specs and cheap pricing. All the three models will be powered by the new MT6737 quad-core chipset with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The ROM is expandable up to 64GB via MicroSD. Also, all three models sport 8MP rear camera and 2MP front facing shooter with LED flash on both the locations.

So, if you are wondering what are the differences between these models, then note that the ZOPO Color F2 comes with a larger 5.5-inch HD display with a 2300mAh battery inside its 8.5mm body and has white, gold and black color options. The Color F5 comes with a smaller 5-inch HD IPS display, a unique textured back cover design, 2100mAh battery and an 8.5mm thin body. Finally, the Color C3 comes with a different design, smoother and curvier than the above two, an 8.8mm thin body and five different color options that include Rose Gold, Champagne Gold, Black, Blue, and Silver. While the F2 and F5 feature fingerprint sensors, the C3 doesn’t have one. All three phones come with Android 6 Marshmallow on top.

The new ZOPO Color phones also come with special software features such as PiP video (picture in picture) which allows you to play videos while using other apps, App lock using fingerprint and PIN, Gallery control, fingerprint camera control, and multi-account operation, that allows two accounts to work simultaneously on the same application. All three models are coming to Europe.

For more details, check out the company website from here.

Xiaomi To Focus on Offline Sales In the Future

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Jul 10, 2016

Xiaomi was pushed out of the top 5 phone manufacturers last quarter. The surprising fact was that it was ousted by rivals like Oppo and Vivo. These two Chinese companies which are subsidiaries of BBK Electronics, focused on offline sales to get into the top 5. This is something Xiaomi has never done.

Xiaomi has always sold their devices online by using flash sales, they also had to contend with supply issues. These problems will no longer surface next year as Xiaomi plans to set up brick and mortar stores in major cities and have already put in place solutions to increase supply.

The CEO of Xiaomi, Lei Jun, says the company will be building over 1000 physical stores over the next couple of years which are to be 250 square meters large and expected to make monthly sales entering 50 million Yuan based on findings that physical stores make as much as 1.43 million Yuan daily.

While Xiaomi is primarily known for making phones, the company makes a bunch of other stuffs too such as TVs, drones, air purifiers, rice cookers, bluetooth speakers, smart scooters, and smart bikes. Lei Jun says the stores will have about 50 to 100 types of products, and it will be a great idea if these stores will offer some of these relatively unknown products for sale.

Real Photos of Meizu MX6 Surfaces: Looks a Lot Like The Pro 6

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Jul 10, 2016

The Meizu Pro 6 is expected to launch on July 19. Yesterday, photos of the MX6 showed up on microblogging site, Weibo. The pictures show the Meizu MX6 sharing quite a number of design features to the already released Meizu Pro 6, further confirming the news from last week about the CEO not pleased with the similarities between both devices.

The only notable physical differences between both devices are the screen size and screen type. Where the Pro 6 sports a 5.2” FHD Super AMOLED screen, the MX6 is given a 5.5” FHD IPS screen.

The Meizu MX6 is said to feature 4GB of RAM with the option for 32GB or 64GB of internal storage, a 12MP primary camera and a 5MP secondary camera, and a Helio X20 processor.

The MX6 is being marketed as a mid-range device and should be priced competitively. While we are still in the dark about the exact price, we presume it will be between $290 to $320. Meizu has also teased a version of the MX6 running Ubuntu, for fans of the OS which already has a price tag of €399 ($440).

Leagoo M5: First Nano All-Metal Closed Loop Frame Smartphone

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Jul 9, 2016

Leagoo has a new device called the Leagoo M5 and they are touting it as the first nano all-metal closed loop frame smartphone in the world. That is a pretty long description and I’m sure you do want to know what that means.

Leagoo, in their own words says they have ”finally solved an engineering challenge after days of testing and focus to achieve a smooth and delicate all-metal frame body which has a tougher structure and delivers an amazing hand feeling”. To put it in simpler words, the phone features a tougher build quality and an amazing hand feel.

Leagoo says you should’t worry about the device suffering damages when it falls as the phone has been designed with a shock-proof panel to absorb falls.

The Leagoo M5 has a 5.0” 2.5D HD bullet-proof glass display, 2GB RAM, 16GB ROM which can be expanded to 128GB via a SD card slot, 1.3GHz MTK6580A processor, an 8MP rear camera with flash, 5Mp for selfies, a 2300mAh battery said to last more than a day, and a fingerprint scanner that unlocks the phone in 0.19 seconds. The M5 also runs Leagoo’s Freeme OS 6.0 which is based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, and has dual SIM slots with only 3G and 2G networks supported.

The Leagoo M5 is available in galaxy white, champagne gold, and titanium grey. There is no info about the price, but Leagoo says it is sure going to affordable.

Get $20 off The Umi Super on TomTop

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Jul 9, 2016

The Umi Super is the latest flagship device from Umi and it has received generally positive reviews since its release.

The all-metal device sports a 5.5” FHD screen, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of ROM, a Mediatek Helio P10 processor clocked at 2.0 GHz, and a 4000mAh battery with Mediatek’s Pump Express Fast Charge technology, all for a price tag of $219.99; passing for one of the cheapest 4GB RAM devices in the market right now.

Online mall, TomTop is however offering customers a $20 coupon if you purchase a unit from their site, which brings down the price to $199.99. So if you’ve been holding off purchasing this phone just to save a few bucks, you should head over to TomTop and apply the coupon code: 20Super.

The code is supposed to be valid till 15th of this month.

Other features of the Umi Super includes a 5MP front facing camera and 13MP rear shooter, a fingerprint scanner, a SD card slot that can take up to 128GB, and Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Gionee M6 to be launched on 26th July, Comes with 5000mAh battery

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Jitendra Soni

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Jul 8, 2016

Gionee M6 just passed TENAA certification today and now is all set to be launched soon. In fact, Gionee has already planned an event in China on 26th July. So in all probability, M6 may be announced during that event.

The Gionee M6 comes with a 5.5″ AMOLED screen with a fullHD resolution and a Snapdragon 652 processor powers the device. It will come with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage.

Gionee M6 is will be a dual sim device running on Android 6.0 out of the box and will come with a fingerprint sensor located at the back. It will be a housed in a full metal body and will house a 13MP camera rear camera along coupled with an 8MP front facing camera.

The highlight of Gionee M series is the marathon battery associated with it and M6 is no exception. It comes with 5000 mAh battery to power the device. There are rumors about another device, the Gionee M6 Plus, however not much is known about that and we will have to wait till the official announcement.

Bluboo Maya Max Full specs revealed: 6-inch display, 4200mAh & More

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Jul 8, 2016

A fresh leak about the specs details of the expected Bluboo Maya Max has surfaced online and its put to rest speculations about the specs the device will pop clutching. The leak which packs lots of juicy details about the device, is coming barely a month after an image render of the device appeared on the internet.

The leak details the Bluboo Maya Max as featuring a large 6-inch JDI display with 720pixel resolution. You don’t have to worry about the large display cracking up when the device falls as there is a Gorilla Glass 4 protective shield over the display. The device is also said to be made of an aluminum alloy unibody and has IP63 certification which means that it is dustproof and has protection against spraying water. Can you beat that?

The device will be powered by a 2.5GHz Octa-core MediaTek MT6750 processor with Mali-T860 GPU. The processor is backed up by a 3GB RAM and the device provides a nice 32GB inbuilt storage bank.

If you’re a camera freak, the Bluboo Maya isn’t going to disappoint you with a cool 13MP rear facing camera that sports a Sony IMX 214 sensor. The device also features an 8MP camera up front for selfie snapshots.

The Bluboo Maya Max boots Android 6.0 Marshmallow from launch day and crams a very massive 4200mAh battery pack under its hood.

Looks like Bluboo isn’t a bit ready to compromise on Maya Max’s sound quality because the Maya Max is tipped to carry an upgraded version of its audio management chip. The chip will be used by the device for independent audio processing decoding to support HiFi audio. The exquisite Maya Max also packs NXP’s Smart PA module, which is said to be audio amplifiers for portable devices. NXP is a well-established player in the audio market, so we should expect an outstanding quality speaker on the Maya Max.

Connectivity options available on the device include 2G, 3G, 4G VoLTe and CAT 6. I can’t forget to mention that the Bluboo Max has a Fingerprint sensor as well as USB Type-C standard data cable port which wasn’t featured on the Bluboo Maya released recently.

It is expected that the Bluboo Maya Max will be unveiled this month or in August but that cannot be confirmed now. We hope to get more details about when the device will launch soon until then, keep wondering about what price the Maya Max will carry.

Nubia stocking heavily for July 13 sale of the Nubia Z11 flagship

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