We are sure Huawei must have thrown a party for its staff after this news was announced. The company’s Senior Vice President, Yu Chengdong Yu Chengdong announced on his Weibo page that the company has shipped 60.56 million phones this year which is an increase of 25% from last year.
This is exciting news for the company as this figure is the annual target for quite a number of manufacturers seeing that we’ve just started the second half of the year.
The company’s smartphone revenue for the first half which increased by 41% from last year is about 77.4 billion Yuan ($11.59 bn). The company’s share of the global smartphone market is now at 11.4%, coming in at third place behind Samsung and Apple.
Worldwide Growth
The company has also posted details of their market in certain countries such as the UK where they have 3.9% of the market, 6.7% in France and 9.6% in Germany. The company has also recorded a 700% brand growth in Egypt, 200% in Chile and 134% in Peru.
Part of the company’s top products include the Mate 8, the P9 and P9 Plus, the MateBook and the Huawei Watch
Counterpoint, a market research firm, has released the top performing smartphone brands for June 2016. The firm also revealed the top selling phones in the Chinese market for June 2016 and surprisingly the Oppo R9 tops the list.
Looking at the stats for the smartphone brands, it is surprising how Oppo has gone from a brand which had less than 10% of the market in June 2014 and June 2015 to having 22.9% of the market which is more than what Samsung, Xiaomi, and Apple pulled for the month combined.
Xiaomi which had roughly 15% of the market last year, dropped by more than half this year. Another winner is Vivo who has moved from having less than 10% to grabbing 17.4% of the market.
Top Selling Smartphone
For the top selling smartphones, the Oppo R9 is the best selling phone followed closely by Apple’s iPhone 6s, and LeEco’s Le 2 at the third position. Apple phones are still much loved in China as we can see that the iPhone 6s Plus and the iPhone SE released back in March makes it to the list at the 4th and 6th position respectively.
Chip-maker MediaTek has confirmed some of the specifications of its expected high-power Helio X30 chipset which has been making the headlines of late. In an interview with Sun Chanhxu, MediaTek COO Zhu Shangzu threw more light on the Helio X30.
Zhu Shangzu expressed his optimism that this year’s X-series and P-series will significantly improve the consumer perception of the MTK brand, hence the quest to manufacture high-end flagship capable chipsets that could see them being featured in flagship phones.
Also, on the specifications, Zhu Shangzu confirmed that the Helio X30 will be manufactured by TSMC using 10nm manufacturing process. The processor will also provide support for 3 baseband carrier aggregation, Cat. 10 – Cat. 12 network baseband. Also, MediaTek shelved the ARM Mali GPU on this one and instead opted for a PowerVR GPU which the MediaTek says provides better performance and more efficient power consumption.
In summary, the Helio X30 would rank as the latest among MediaTek’s second generation of deca-core processors which consist of adual-core2.8GHzA73 next-gen architecture code-named Artemis, 4 x A53(2.2GHz) cores and 4 x A35(2GHz) cores.
In the aspect of memory, the Helio X30 will support four channels LPDDR4 RAM, up to 8GB RAM storage modules, and support for UFS 2.1 technical standards.
We won’t be seeing the Helio X30-powered smartphones very soon as MediaTek has scheduled November for mass production of the Helio P20, its latest addition in the lower P-Series and also MediaTek’s first chip using 16nm process announced in February. Thus considering the available time frame, the Helio X30 isn’t expected to feature in smartphones until sometime around the middle of next year.
The Xiaomi Xiaoyi Small Ants smart camera has received good reviews and patronage since the first model with a 720p resolution was outed. The company quickly followed up the release with the Small Ant 2 with 1080p resolution with the price starting at 399 Yuan ($61). Recently, a new high-end model that sports a massive 4K display resolution was announced and became available via crowdfunding starting at 1199 yuan ($180).
Quite surprisingly, there’s been a hike in the price of the Small Ants 3 with 4K resolution which is available via online shops, Jingdong, Lynx and other major stores. The Small Ants 3 Smart cam now carries an exorbitant price tag of 1629 yuan ($244) on Jingdong. The price hike only affected the new 4k version, which is an indication that demand for the device is spiking.
The Small Ants 4k motion camera crams a Sony IMX377 sensor and also uses the US Ambarella A9SE75 processor with Broadcom BCM43340 dual-band chip.
Related: Xiaomi Yi Smart Camera 2 Announced With New Features
Other features include a Bosch BMI160 si-ais gyro sensor, with seven high definition optical glass lenses, and 330PPI gorilla retina touchscreen. The device packs an ATL professional custom 1400mAh battery which can provide up to two hours of 4K / 30-frame film recording level. The Small Ants motion camera also supports 157-degree wide-angle camera, 5G WiFi connectivity and has a variety of professional level camera and video mode.
For 1626 yuan, you’re not only getting the Small Ants 4k Smart cam but also a self-timer motion camera lever and Bluetooth.
F-Wheel today launched their newest hoverboard, the iCarbot. The hoverboard has a unique patented design with 4 wheels, with the front two wheels powering the hoverboard while the rear two wheels acting as support for extra comfort and stability. It is available in two colors, black and white, with the black one having red accents in the wheels and the white one having black accents. The board looks stylish as well as sturdy and is lightweight with only weighing 3.4 kilograms. It has a rated carrying capacity of 120 kilograms and can easily carry people with footwear or large feet, owing to its 39 centimeters length and 32 centimeters width. Also it has a beastly Lithium Ion(Li-Ion) battery, which lasts till 15 to 20 kilometers in the speeds of 12 kilometers per hour and supports fast charge, completely charging under 2 hours. It also has the capability to move even in inclines below 15 degrees,Also, the electric hoverboard can easily be controlled by any Android or iOS phone with the app also showing the battery status as well as the location of the hoverboard. According to the company, the hoverboard was designed in collaboration with a German group, to ensure the highest levels of quality and satisfaction to the buyer and also to cater to their national as well as their international audience.
Check out some images below as shared by F-Wheel-
Also check out the videos below to check out how its works and how it looks-
A spokesperson speaking on the behalf of F-Wheel said that their main motivation for developing this product is to make short distance travel comfortable as well as eco-friendly. They also say that it provides a stylish way for personal mobility where one can move easily without breaking a sweat. The company has built this product following stringent quality standards and by following the “Six Sigma” quality manufacturing process.
F-Wheel is a major maker of hoverboards in China, with its products being in the top 3 rank in the country. The first batch of preorders for the product are already sold out, with the second round of preorders open on their website for $461.
A real life image of a man using what appears to be the Xiaomi Mi Notebook was posted online today. The image shows the side view of an all-metal PC which fits the description of the Mi Notebook, although the Mi logo is not visible. The picture also shows the Mi Notebook sporting very thin bezels.
From the image we can confirm it will indeed have a USB Type-C port for charging. There’s also a full size port beside it which should probably USB 3.0.
Another picture shows a close-up view of the arrow keys which also double as page keys and home and end keys.
Previous leaks revealed the price and a new bunch of specs. The standard version will cost 3999 Yuan (roughly $600) and will feature a low power Intel Core-i5 processor, 8GB DDR4 RAM, and 256GB of SSD storage.
The Mi Notebook Pro on the other hand will feature a 15.6″ screen, an Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor, an NVIDIA GTX 970M 4GB DDR5 graphics card, 16GB DDR4 RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage all for a 6699 Yuan (roughly $1000) price tag.
There’s also a spec comparison sheet which compares the Mi Notebook Pro to other PCs such as the Lenovo Yoga 700, an Asus ROG PC, and the Macbook Pro. While it isn’t the cheapest on the list, it still holds the award for value for money seeing as it offers more storage than the Lenovo and Macbook Pro and has the same graphics card as the ASUS ROG. The sheet also shows that the Mi Notebook Pro will be able to offer up to 6 hours of battery life.
Huawei’s Honor Note 8 which was the subject of a recent GIF image teaser has got a release date! According to a recent image teaser, the Honor Note 8 would be unveiled in a ceremony billed for next month, precisely August 1st. A Note 8 popping in the first day of the 8th Month of the year. Isn’t that one great coincidence?
The device sports an expansive 6.6-inch screen with an equally magnificient 2k display resolution. At this point in time, we also know that the Honor Note 8 will also come equipped with a Kirin 950 pocessorwhile there seems to be another version with an higher Kirin 955 chipset. The device is also touted to feature two memory versions, one with 3GB RAM and 32GB ROM and another with $GB RAM and 64GB of built-in storage, both expandable.
The Honor Note 8 will feature a 13MP rear-facing camera with LED flash and an ample 8MP front-facing camera. In addition, The Note 8 comes with a USB Type-C interface and would be fired up by a massive 4400mAh battery with fast charging. There’s also a fingerprint sensor at the back which gives cause for concern about unlocking the wide phone under one handed operation.
The Honor Note 8 reportedly carries a price tag of 1999 Yuan ($300) for the 3GB model and 2299 Yuan ($344) for the 4GB model.
Xiaomi’s sub brand, Mijia, launched a refillable pen today called the Mi Pen with a price tag of 19 Yuan ($2.85). Surprised? We are too. Xiaomi said all their smart home products will come under the Mijia brand name, but is this pen smart? No, it isn’t. It also doesn’t magically store all what you write but it still falls under home products sort of, so that counts, right?
The pen uses Swiss PREMEC Refills with quick drying Japanese mikuni ink, which doesn’t fade easily or break. Mijia says the ink does not easily dry up even if you do not use the pen for a long time.
The pen comes in white and black colour options, has a diameter of 9.5mm to ensure it offers a comfortable grip while writing, and also features a 120° spin which reveals or hides the pen’s 0.5mm high-precision tungsten ball tip.
Mijia has taken great care in manufacturing the parts of the pen. The connectors are made out of metal and the rotating member is made of copper which has a life span of 50,000 rotations.
The Mi Pen looks nice and will make for a great gift. You can just buy a bunch of them and give to your kids or friends going to college.
It all starts with a nice looking presentation for a desk lamp. We can see that the Xiaomi put a lot of attention to detail with the Apple-like power plug and some nice extras like a cable management clip.
Xiaomi Smart LED Desk Lamp Review: DESIGN and FEATURES
The Xiaomi desk lamp looks gorgeous and it has a nice looking minimalistic design. The tubes are made out of aluminum and the base is made out of quality matt plastic, which does not attract any fingerprints.
You can adjust the arm of the lamp up/down and the latching mechanism works gracefully.
Speaking of the LED light itself, it has 6W of power and it can provide up to 300lm of brightness. It is not too bright but bright enough for reading and doing other stuff by the desk.
You can turn on the lamp by pressing the knob and adjust the brightness by rotating it. If you press down and rotate the knob, you will adjust the colour temperature. If you double click the knob, you will toggle the “pomodoro” timer.
What makes this LED desk lamp smart is the integrated wifi and the ability to control it via the Mi Home app, which is an application made by Xiaomi to control all kinds of smart devices like a smart Yeelight LED bulb, which is probably the best cheap Philips Hue light alternative.
The setup is pretty straightforward. All you have to do is select your location as China (Mainland), connect to your home wifi network within the app and select the LED lamp from the list of discovered devices.
Within the app, you can manually adjust the brightness and color temperature and select from the pre-set reading and PC modes. The “Pomodoro” mode is actually a pretty good idea. If you turn it on, the lamp will start flashing every 45 mins to remind you that you have to rest your eyes. Also, there are some other neat features like a sleep timer, kids mode and so on.
Xiaomi Smart LED Desk Lamp Review: CONCLUSIONS
I’ve used the lamp for quite a while now and everything has been working fine so far.
I really love the design and fantastic build quality of it and the fact that it can be controlled via the Wifi network.
However, a few complaints would be that you cannot swivel of the arm of the lamp to the sides like some other lamps do. Also, it would have been great if Xiaomi managed to hide that red cable.
On the other hand, these are just minor complaints. At the current price of just above $50, this desk LED lamp may not be the one and only device of its kind but it is definitely worth checking out if you are in the market of awesome-looking smart desk LED lamps.
This new teaser has a lot of hints such as a sketch of a chain link indicating that it will feature a chain strap and also a sketch of a leather strap. If you look closely, you will see one of the sketches shows a watch with a crown dial and another with a push button. There is also one with a small dial and thick round bezels and another one with a large dial and thin bezels. it wouldn’t come as a surprise if Meizu releases multiple versions since some people have large wrists and others have small wrists. The smaller one might also be targeted at females.
Huawei has announced its result for the first half of this year, showing promising results. In a statement published today, the Chinese mobile giant disclosed that the company’s revenue within the period is estimated at about 245.5 billion yuan (about $37 billion) which is an estimated increase of 40% growth in revenue.
The statement did not disclose the results from the different divisions of the multidimensional Huawei Technologies and news about that is expected in coming days.
It is on record that Huawei achieved a total revenue of about 395 billion yuan last year, with the Consumer Business Group division comprising smartphones, smartwatches, laptops and others making up about 129.1 billion yuan of the entire amount.
According to Yu Chengdong, Chief Executive Officer of Huawei Consumer Business Group, Huawei’s ultimate goal is to overtake Samsung and Apple as the largest smartphone maker globally. Samsung and Apple presently occupy the first two positions as the highest revenue generating smartphone companies in the World, Huawei comes in at third position.
Huawei is targeting an overall revenue of $75 billion for the entire year, and that figure has almost been halved by this H1 result. The company is hoping that with the release of it Honor 8 flagship and other devices expected to hit the market during the second half of the year, sales of its devices would drive a rise in revenue such that earning might even surpass the targeted amount.
Lenovo-owned Motorola’s flagship Moto Z and Moto Z Force smartphones which were announced months back is now up for pre-orders in the US available exclusively to US mobile carrier Verizon Wireless. The device will remain for some time exclusive to Verizon after which a network unlocked version will be rolled out.
The latest news about Moto Z and Z Force is that the devices would roll out in China by early September. As earlier reported, the version that would be unveiled in China would come pre-loaded with the One UI which is actually Lenovo’s Vibe UI 3.0 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. This interface will be exclusive to devices shipping to China so it is no surprise that the UI doesn’t feature the Google Play Store but rather sports what appears to be a Chinese app store on the home screen.
There are also news about the price of the flagship devices with the Moto Z said to start at 2998 yuan ($448), whereas the Moto Z Force is rumored to carry a price tag of about 5288 yuan ($790).
The contents of the packaging include the bracelet itself and some documentation.
DESIGN and FEATURES
The smart band features decent design and pretty good build quality. The device can be taken out of the band and charger via the USB port.
Surprisingly, the band is pretty comfortable to wear.
iWown i5 Plus has all the basic features that most of the entry-level fitness bands have: a clock, a step counter, distance walked, the number of calories burned and so on. All of those numbers are displayed on the 0.91″ OLED Screen, which is not the best out there but it enough even for outdoor use.
We found the pedometer feature to be pretty accurate. There were some extra steps counted but the inaccuracies were not that huge.
The smart band can be also connected to your phone and synced using an app, which is pretty simple and easy to use. A great feature that this smart bracelet has is the ability to display the notifications from quite a few apps.
BATTERY LIFE
The battery life is one of the weakest points of this device. We could only get around 4 days of active use, which is okay for a bracelet this cheap but the result is far from the best considering what the competition has to offer.
CONCLUSIONS
iWown i5 Plus is a pretty basic smart band, which does its job for the price. It costs just below $19 and it has a lot to offer for the price.
One of the best features is an Oled display, which displays all the necessary info. Also, the ability to charge it via the regular USB port makes it more versatile than some other fitness bands.
All in all, iWown i5 Plus is a surprisingly good smart band for the price if you are okay with charging it every 4 days and you want to pay just half the price of some other options like the Xiaomi Mi Band 2.
We all love wallpapers but we love changing them more. The wallpaper on our phones sometimes reflect our mood or the kind of person we are.
Our phones usually ship with a bunch of wallpapers from the factory. Sometimes these wallpapers are really beautiful, other times they are just meh. So if you are itching for a bunch of factory wallpapers to spice up your phone you should probably check out these Galaxy Note 7 wallpapers leaked by Sir Hydarnes.
The S-Pen image which we have seen in leaked photos of the phone is also included and comes in 4 varieties.
The ones above are compressed, if you want the full resolution images which are in PNG, you can download them here. It’s about 28 MB in size.
Last week we covered the announcement of Oppo’s new phone, the Oppo F1s which you should read here if you have not done so yet.
The company has started sending out press invites for the launch of the camera-centric phone. The event will take place in India on the 3rd day of August at noon.
Oppo has kept its lips sealed with respect to the specs of the phone but rumours floating around say the Oppo F1s will feature a 16MP front camera which is indeed stepping up the selfie revolution; and a home key that doubles as a fingerprint scanner which unlocks the phone in just 0.22 seconds.
If the 16MP front facing camera rumour is indeed true, then it wouldn’t be setting any record as Vivo recently launched the Vivo X7 and X7 Plus which both feature 16MP front facing cameras with flash.
Chinese media giant, LeEco has bought more stake in Coolpad Group Limited becoming the company’s largest shareholder. LeEco which used to have 18% of the total stakes after injecting about $350 million into the ODM back in 2015 have now bought an additional 11% stake putting them in the controller’s seat.
LeEco has mentioned that this new development will not affect the operations at Coolpad but will see both companies partnering on future projects. The acquisition will possibly favour LeEco a lot as Coolpad is one of the largest ODMs (original design manufacturers) in China with clients like India’s Micromax, therefore reducing manufacturing costs for future phones.
LeEco has teased a couple of posters which might be hinting at a new product in the not too distant future or a different thing entirely. We can’t say for now. But we’ll let you know once we get more details.
A Chinese website whose name translates to ”the first handset world” posted the sales made in June by mobile phone manufacturers in China. The statistics which are for offline sales and cover 25 provinces and 167 cities, were obtained from the major chain stores around the areas covered.
Coming in at the top is Huawei. They have cemented their hold in the Chinese market, which shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the success of the Huawei P9 and its siblings. The company’s sub-brand, Honor, also makes it to the list but sits at the 13th position.
BBK Electronics owned Oppo and Vivo also maintain the second and third spots respectively. The surprise starts when Shenzen based company, Gionee overtakes Samsung (which sits at number 5) and Apple by moving up 2 positions to number 4.
Apple has dropped two positions and sits at number 6. Coolpad retains the 7th position and Meizu follows closely at number 8.
Xiaomi comes in at number 9 after losing their former position to Meizu. This is not a surprise as the tech giant has sold majority of its phones online. The company however has started making plans to focus on offline sales by opening brick and mortar stores in major cities.
The market of smartwatches is crowded and we have a bunch of products that are produced by smaller Chinese companies. Haier G6 is one of the offerings that cost just above $50 and looks like a great gadget on paper. Learn more in our full review.
In the box, there is a magnetic charger and some instruction manuals.
Haier G6 Smartwatch Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY
The Haier G6 smartwatch is not a standalone smartwatch as it may look like but it has quite a few features. As far as design and build quality goes, it is pretty good as the watch itself uses a metal ring.
However, the PU leather strap feels kind of cheap and it may wear off quite soon.
We have a built-in speaker (which has just a mediocre sound quality), mic and a physical multi-functional button, which allows you to operate the device.
As far as display goes, it is good for a smartwatch but don’t expect a lot of pixels here.
Haier G6 Smartwatch Review: FEATURES and FUNCTIONALITY
Since it is a watch after all, it has quite a few pre-installed watch faces to choose from.
The user interface is pretty simple and easy to use. Also, I didn’t have any lags.
The watch connects to your phone via Bluetooth and I didn’t have any issues with that. We have some basic telephony features that work okay. However, I could not sync my contacts or messages with the smartwatch as I always got “Failed to sync” message.
The smartwatch can be also used as a hands-free device and the call quality is okay but people on the other end will hear that you are you are calling from a different device than a smartphone.
We have quite a few additional features and customization options. Most of them work fine but I found the remote camera feature to be pretty useless (at least on the OnePlus 3 I’ve tested with).
Last but not least we have some fitness-related features like pedometer, sedentary reminder, stopwatch and a heart-rate sensor. I compared the results with the Xiaomi Mi Band 2 and I was pleasantly surprised that the numbers were quite similar, meaning that the integrated sensors are pretty accurate.
Haier G6 Smartwatch Review: THE APP
Haier G6 Smartwatch Review: BATTERY LIFE
The battery life is one of the weak points of all smartwatches that have colour displays. I could get just around 3 days of continuous use before I needed to recharge.
Haier G6 Smartwatch Review: CONCLUSIONS
The Haier G6 is a feature-packed smartwatch that delivers in quite a few ways but it is not a perfect device.
It has a great build quality but the PU leather strap may wear off pretty quickly.
It is great that fitness-related features work fine but we found some bugs like in the remote camera shutter feature, which fails to launch phone’s camera. Also, we had quite a few issues syncing the contacts and messages from the phone.
Last but not least, the battery life could be better but this applies to most of the smartwatches in this price range.
All in all, the Haier G6 Smartwatch is a feature-packed device that has quite a lot to offer but you have to consider some shortcomings before making a purchase.
OnePlus 3 is adding another plus to its kitty just days after we got the awesome news that we’d be seeing the Soft Gold version of the device. Now, an official version of Team Win Recovery Project (TWRP) for the OnePlus 3 has been released.
Before the release, the OnePlus 3 made this all possible by making its firmware bootloader easily unlockable. For reasons best known to them, some other phone manufacturers usually make it difficult, if not impossible to root their Android devices by restricting access to their brand’s bootloader. OnePlus is keeping up with its policy of making the OnePlus 3 accessible, not only for purchase at affordable cost but also for exploration of the capabilities of the flagship.
For those who don’t know, Team Win Recovery Project (TWRP), is an open-source software custom recovery image for Android-based devices. It provides a touchscreen-enabled interface which allows users to install third-party firmware and backup the current system, which are often unsupported by stock recovery images. It is, therefore, often installed when rooting Android devices.
Let it be known though, that rooting of smartphone isn’t for novice but for those that have got the expertise. One wrong move and the phone might get permanently damaged. So, in case you have never rooted your phone before, proceed with caution and if you’re not sure what you need root for, go play Pokemon Go.
For those who’ve got the expertise, if you’re interested in exploring the capabilities of your OnePlus 3 by rooting it, you start by unlocking developer options under settings and allowing OEM unlocks and USB debugging. Then, you simply write down the following line “fastboot devices” and then “fastboot oem unlock” in the command line / terminal.
Then, you can proceed with flashing recovery by installing TWRP on your OnePlus 3 and hitting the big install button in the TWRP app. Once you do all this, your phone should be rooted and ready for all your experiments with it.
Thanks to the numerous leaks, rumors and further coverage of the Redmi Pro and the Xiaomi Notebook, there would hardly be any fans on the internet who are unaware about the July 27 conference from Xiaomi next week. Recently, there has been so much information about these two products that Gizmochina’s majority of the Chinese news coverage have been focused on these two devices.
Just a few minutes back, we reported that Xiaomi Redmi Pro is confirmed to feature Helio X25 deca-core chip and dual cameras. Now, real life images of the Redmi Pro’s metal back have just surfaced online, giving us a better look at the upcoming handset. Like what we saw in the earlier leak, the new images confirm that the phone will come with a brushed metal body. This is definitely a change from the smooth metal finish on previous Redmi models that have been announced by the company.
Since we have seen that there is no fingerprint sensor at the back, it would most likely end up on the front, embedded into the home button. The previous leak had confirmed the presence of dual cameras on the top of the back panel and this one confirms the same design.
This design looks quite premium thanks to its brushed metal finish and with powerful specs like Helio X25, OLED display, and dual cameras, the Redmi Pro will definitely give other mid-range flagships a run for their money. Considering these specs, the phone will be costlier than existing Redmi handsets. If the rumored 1499 Yuan ($225) price tag turns out to be true, the phone would be one of the best value for money handsets in the market today!
Earlier leaked image of the Redmi Pro
How much are you willing to pay for the Redmi Pro with these specs?
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