Smartphone manfuacturers seems to be obsessed about screen bezels. We have seen a few bezel-less smartphones from Chinese companies like Nubia, but now local smartphone makers like Ulefone are also invested in this technology. We have been hearing about the company’s first bezel-less smartphone, namely the Ulefone Future since MWC 2016, and now, the phone will finally go on pre-sale from May 4.
As a part of the initial promotion of the handset, the company will be offering the Ulefone Future for just $199.99, instead of the original price tag of $249.99. This is a good $70 discount from the earlier revealed price tag, making it quite an attractive option. However, this price is only for a limited number of units.
The company informs us that 2000 units of the Ulefone Future will be made available for sale on May 4 at 5PM (GMT +8) via 10 different partner stores of the company simultaneously. After the flash sale is over, the phone will be available for purchase for a slightly higher price tag of $239.99 until the pre-sale period is over i.e. May 25. This price includes the various accessories that the company will be providing along with your purchase, like 9V 2~3A fast charger, USB Type-C cable, USB Type-C to MicroUSB adapter, TPU case, screen protector, and dust plug. In case you are wondering, the orders placed during the flash sale at $199.99 will only come with the USB Type-C cable for accessories.
Coming to the specs of the phone, the Ulefone Future will come a bezel-less 5.5-inch display with the Helio P10 octa-core chip inside and 4GB of RAM. There will be 32GB of storage on board, a side mounted fingerprint scanner, 16MP Samsung S5K3P3 rear camera sensor with PDAF and dual tone LED flash and a 3000mAh battery with 9V 2A~3A fast charge. As for software, the phone runs on Android 6.0.
There will be two colors available to choose from, grey and golden.
In the past few years, Huawei has invested a lot in its smartphone division. The company sold over 100 million phones in 2015 alone and is all set to best this figure by a considerable margin this year. This month itself, Huawei released two new devices, namely the high-end Huawei P9 flagship and the mid-range affordable Huawei 5C. But there are many other phones to come like the Huawei Honor V8 and even the mighty Mate 9. While technically, it has been just a few months since the current generation Mate 8 started selling, rumors about the next gen model have already started to come in.
Yesterday, Pan Jiutang revealed some of the possible specs of the Huawei Kirin 960 chipset. Along with that information, he further added that Huawei’s Mate 9 flagship will feature this chip inside, most likely making it the first in the market. The upcoming Kirin 960 is expected to be much better than Kirin 950, featuring the still unannounced ARM’s Artemis cores and an octa-core architecture.
Along with this information, he also revealed that Huawei Mate 9 could come with 20MP dual rear cameras. As we know, the company is not new to the concept of dual cameras, with the most recent flagship Huawei P9 featuring 12MP dual cameras certified by Leica. While the source didn’t reveal whether the setup on the Mate 9 will also be certified by Leica, it’s possible, since Huawei seems to be invested heavily in this partnership with the legendary lens maker.
The Kirin 960 chip is also expected to upgrade the baseband to support Cat. 12 LTE speeds as well as CDMA networks. So, it could become the first true full netcom chipset from the company. Even the GPU is expected to be upgraded to an octa-core setup, which would definitely boost the graphics performance of the chip.
So, it looks like the Mate 9 is going to be a powerful flagship. Considering the usual release period of the company, we can expect the Mate 9 to meet us sometime late 2016.
According to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker for the first quarter of 2016, Oppo and Vivo have tipped off Xiaomi and Lenovo from the top 5 smartphone vendors in Q1 2016. Samsung, Apple, and Huawei remain at the top 3 positions. Overall, there were 334.9 million smartphones shipped worldwide in the first quarter of 2016, IDC said.
Samsung‘s smartphone shipments declined 0.6 percent. Galaxy S7 and S7 edge and J-series were the focus areas for Samsung. While Apple’s smartphone volumes slipped to 51.2 million units, down 16.3 percent, a first in 13 years.
Huawei has on the other hand gained from the likes of P9, Mate Series, and Nexus 6, along with entry level devices from its Honor brand. Huawei shipped 27.5 million devices with a growth of over 58 percent!
OPPO registered a growth of staggering 153.2 percent and shipped 18.5 million smartphones. OPPO’s growth has been the strongest among the top 5 smartphone makers in the world. Although OPPO is a very unfamiliar name in western countries, it derives 20 percent of its sales from overseas markets.
Vivo, which clocked 123.8 percent growth has less than 10 percent of its overall sales from markets outside China. The company shipped 14.3 million units during this time.
“Lenovo benefited with ASPs below US$150 in 2013, and Xiaomi picked up the mantle with ASPs below $200 in 2014 and 2015. Now Huawei, OPPO, and vivo, which play mainly in the sub-$250 range, are positioned for a strong 2016,” said Melissa Chau, senior research manager with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.
Apple also has faced a steep decline of approximately 25 percent, still it is at number 2 with an overall market share of 15 percent globally. While, Samsung’s numbers were roughly the same for the quarter of global smartphone sales.
Along with the Xiaomi Max, we can expect to meet the Xaiomi Mi Band 2 as well as the new MIUI 8 OS at the May 10 event. However, we still haven’t received any official confirmations from the company regarding the existence or the launch of a Mi smartwatch. But that just changed today, as Liu De, the co-founder and Vice President of Xiaomi revealed at a conference in Beijing that the Mi smartwatch does exist and is ready!
He further added that the company will announce the wearable in the second half of 2016, which means sometime after May. It looks like the launch of the smartwatch has been slightly delayed as the CEO of Huami, the company which actually manufacturers the Mi Band had revealed the Mi Band as well as the Mi smartwatch will meet us in Q2 2016. After hearing Liu De’s comment today, it looks like the watch will most likely debut only after a few months.
This is the first time the company has acknowledged the existence of the Mi smartwatch. This comes just after the company released a new smartwatch for kids priced at just 299 Yuan ($46). So, it looks like the company has quite the interest in the wearable industry. Not surprising given that it’s Mi Band wearable is doing so well.
He also revealed that the company currently is not planning to release automobiles, unlike rivals such as LeEco. Instead, it is interested in products catering to the needs of short travel, so we can expect products such as electric bikes and self-balancing walking robots like Ninebot. Finally, he said that the company would focus on establishing offline outlets this year. He also gave a figure, so we can expect around 60 such outlets by the end of the year.
Given that an executive has already confirmed the existence and launch of the Mi smartwatch, we can soon expect more details about the wearable in the coming days. Meanwhile, let’s wait and see what Xiaomi has in store for us for the next Mi Band version on May 10.
After announcing the Huawei P9 flagships earlier this month, the company has revealed a new mid-range smartphone, the Huawei 5C in China. This particular model will succeed the Huawei Honor 4C smartphone that was released back in 2015. The phone comes with modest specs, but with an aggressive price tag of $138.
As for the design, the Honor 5C comes with an all metal body, which looks quite premium for its price. You get Honor branding on both the front as well. There’s a fingerprint sensor at the back, just below the camera. So, overall, Huawei seems to have done a good job with the phone’s design.
Coming to the specs, the Huawei Honor 5C will feature the new Kirin 650 octa-core chipset as expected. It will be built on 16nm FinFet Plus process from TSMC. Further, there is Mali-T830 MP2 GPU, with support for Cat. 6 LTE networks. The phone will sport a 5.2-inch 1080p display with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage. There will be a 16MP rear camera with an 8MP front facing shooter. The battery is also decent, with a capacity of 3000mAh. As for the software, the phone will run on Android Marshmallow 6.0 with EMUI 4.1 on top.
Huawei also reveals the phone features fingerprint 2.0 standard, which can unlock the device in just 0.5 seconds. It also supports fingerprint payments, something that will come in handy soon since Huawei Pay has been launched in China.
There’s another version of the phone, dual 4G variant one that retails for 999 Yuan ($154). So, what are your thoughts on this cheap phone from Huawei?
Off late Chinese Smartphone industry has matured to a great extent. The configuration and quality of devices can easily be compared to flagships of major global brands. Every device that comes out has top notch hardware, however, what these phones lack in, if at all, is the quality research that goes into creating a perfect device.
Over the period of time and after gaining experience in the market brands like, Xiaomi, Huawei etc. have started innovating. For Instance, Mi 5 has an incredible 4-axis image stabilisation technology which produces amazingly stable videos and images even if the device is highly mobile. Huawei P9 is a dual camera phone with Lecia certification!! The Meizu PRO 6 is not far behind, as the phone is equipped with ten ring flash at the back. These sort of innovative products come with experience and these three, Mi, Meizu and Huawei are leading in innovation.
Another young brand that is quietly innovating and is trying to come up with a really good all-round device is OnePlus. Yesterday evening, OnePlus CEO, Liu Zuohu aka Pete Lau posted a photo on his microblogging a/c with a caption “Park”. On first look, one may simply ignore this as a random shot. But if you closely see the image, then you realise that it is captured with a mobile device. Now relate the same with the upcoming OnePlus 3 for a moment and everything falls in place.
This image has near perfect Depth of Field or Bokeh Effect, the details captured, colour reproduction is worth noticing. Is Liu Zuohu trying to hint that the highlight of “OnePlus 3” will be its camera? Prior to this post as well we know that OnePlus is working on its next flagship which is most likely to be launched in May, thus his post becomes very relevant.
What we already know about OnePlus 3 is that it will have Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB ram along with 64GB internal storage. It may come with 2 memory option, like its predecessors. It will have an 8MP front and 16 MP rear camera and will support full NetCom. Other features may include a fingerprint sensor and fast charge. But for the price will OnePlus still continue with around $300 for the OnePlus 3 ?
Every once in a while, our sources send us information about upcoming smartphones. Today, we have received some pictures of the cases of the upcoming Moto G4 handset. These images conform with the earlier leaked design of the handset.
So, what can we take from these leaked cases for the Moto G4? First of all, it looks like the company will incorporate a square physical home button on the device. Previous leaks have from leaksters such as NWE have already shown us this unique design in images, so it doesn’t come as a surprise. Another interesting thing revealed by these cases is the camera setup at the back. Traditionally, smartphone manufacturers prefer placing the camera sensor and the flash horizontally at the back. However, this time around, the company has arranged the sensor and flash in a vertical setup. Also, from the image, it looks like the power and volume buttons are placed on the right side of the device. The headphone jack would be on top, right in the center.
According to previous rumors, there will be two versions in the Moto G lineup this year, namely the Moto G4 and the Moto G4 Plus. Both the handsets are said to come with a 5.5-inch display which would be interesting since the current generation Moto G handset features a much more compact 5-inch screen. Other specs of the Moto G4 include 13MP rear camera and 16GB of internal storage. The G4 Plus is said to come with the same sized screen but with a better 16MP rear shooter.
Recently, Xiaomi released two new versions of the Mi 5 flagship, namely Mi 5 Gold Edition and Mi 5 Pro White Edition with a glass body. However, it looks like Xiaomi might have many more Mi 5 versions in the coming months. According to the latest rumors from China, the company seems to be preparing a number of special colors as well as materials for the device.
So, what are all the expected versions of the Xiaomi Mi 5? First up, and the one we are most interested about is the Xiaomi Mi 5 dual camera edition. While information about the setup or release date is unclear at the moment, if it turns out to be true, it would be the first dual camera smartphone from the company. Naturally, given the setup, we can expect the phone to be costlier than the current models and the specs should be similar to the Mi 5 Pro top-end edition.
Next up, is the Xiaomi Mi 5 Metal edition. This particular model should come with an all metal body instead of glass or ceramic as found on the Mi 5 and Mi 5 Pro black version respectively. So, customers would be able to choose between three different materials for the Mi 5 including the all metal one.
Even there are different color options for the Mi 5. For the first time, you can choose between Mi 5 Gold and Purple colors and these models will go on sale in the next flash sale on Friday. There are Black and White versions of the device as well.
To make things easier to distinguish, the company can release these models with different names, such as Mi 5 dual or Mi 5 Metal. But at present, we don’t have concrete details about the same. What we do know is that the company is trying out different materials and colors for its flagship and we could soon see additional versions of the device.
Stay tuned for more details in the coming days. Meanwhile, check out our previous coverage on the new Gold edition of the Mi 5. I have explained the different versions there, which should help you to understand the number of variants available in the market right now.
Mi will be officially releasing Mi Max, Mi Band 2 and MIUI8 on 10th May, we are already aware of that. What we also know is that Mi Max will have a 6.4” screen and is designed for heavy users as it will house a huge battery too. However, its price along with some important features have also been leaked now.
Sources now have revealed information more than Mi’s liking. The Mi Max will be sporting a 1080p 6.44-inches screen, equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 processor. It will come with a HUGE 4500mAh battery, a fingerprint sensor at the back and will support dual SIM China Netcom. All this, priced at just 1299 CNY or USD $200!!
However, on the basis of the information received from the 3C certification centre, Mi Max, unfortunately, will not support fast charging technology. It may take up to 3.5 hours to charge its mammoth 4500mAh battery from 0-100%. However, we still feel that this price of 1299 CNY or USD $200 is very impressive.
Today, we saw details about the Kirin 960 as well as the Snapdragon 830 chipsets. The same source also revealed some details about the upcoming Mediatek flagship chipset, namely the Helio X30. Today’s report comes via two different sources, one is a noted analyst, Pan Jiutang who also revealed details about the above two chips and another is a frequent leakster black_digital, who had previously revealed info about the X30 chip.
So, let’s see what Mediatek could have in store for us for 2016. According to the analyst, the Helio X30 chip will come with the same deca-core architecture as the X20 and X25 chips. It will be built on the 10nm manufacturing node from TSMC. But the cores will be slightly different. The chip will be a combination of the new ARM Artemis cores, Cortex A53 and Cortex A35 cores. However, the source didn’t reveal the exact number of each cores. For GPU, MediaTek Helio X30 could use PowerVR graphics which would be a good upgrade from the Mali chips. The chip would also support 8GB RAM modules revealed the source. Other possible specs include upgraded video and audio features. Finally, he revealed that the chip should score around 160,000 on the AnTuTu benchmark.
Adding to this information, Black Digital released more details on Weibo. He said that the Helio X30 should also come with quad channel LPDDR4 RAM with support for up to 8GB memory. Plus, the storage would be super fast as the chip would support UFS 2.1 standard.
Helio X20 and X25 chips were left out from the pack of Samsung, Qualcomm and even Huawei flagship chips because they supported UFS 2.0. On the other hand, MTK chips only supported eMMC storage standard, which was clearly a let down. Looks like MTK is going to fix this issue with the new generation Helio X30.
Like mentioned above, this is not the first time we are hearing about the Helio X30. Lots of details were leaked about a month ago, and you can check out the info from our previous coverage.
Chinese Mobile brand Huawei has been really active off late. Honor 5C is scheduled for a launch tomorrow and now as per the recent news, Honor V8 will be launched on May 10.
Although Huawei releases flagship phones under the P series or Mate series, its sub-brand Honor’s flagship V8 is also a powerful device. Honor V8 will have the similar dual camera like P9 and will be the first phone with a 2K screen from Huawei.
The company has released four new teasers for the device. You can check them out from above.
According to TENAA certification, V8 comes with a Full metal body, 2.5D arc glass design, Fingerprint sensor on the rear panel along with a 5.7 inch 5.7-inch 1080p / 2K screen, Kirin 955/950 octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, 32 / 64GB storage.
The front camera on the phone is 8MP while the rear one is a 12 MP shooter. Honor V8 comes with a 3400mAH battery and EMUI 4.1 on top of Android 6.0. Huawei does not want to leave any stone unturned in promoting this phone and is aggressively promoting the launch as even Xiaomi has announced an event where it will launch its phablet Mi Max, Mi Band 2 and MIUI 8 on the same day.
A limited edition of V8 will also be launched with the movie “X-men: Apocalypse”.
After the success of the Snapdragon 820 chipset, which powers most flagship smartphones in the market right now, Qualcomm will be preparing to release the next generation version of the Snapdragon flagship chipset, most likely called as the Snapdragon 830.
So, what upgrades can we expect to see on the new chip? Analyst Pan Jiutang revealed a lot of details about the upcoming chipsets like Kirin 960, Helio X30 and even Snapdragon 830 (MSM 8998) earlier today. So, we have an idea about the possible upgrades.
He reveals that the Qualcomm will stick with Kryo cores for the Snapdragon 830, but increase the number to eight-cores. Current generation Snapdragon 820 comes with just quad Kryo cores, so imagine the performance we will see with eight such cores. Moreover, the chip is expected to be built on a much more efficient 10nm process. On the connectivity department, we can expect support for the super fast Cat. 16 LTE networks.
From the above specs, it looks like next year as well, Snapdragon 830 could rule the market. We just hope that the chip is optimized for efficiency and no problems such as overheating plague it like the SD810. This is not the first time we are hearing about the SD830. Earlier rumors have given out a quite detailed information about the SD823, SD828 and SD830 chipsets. Check that out from the previous link.
Huawei has come a long way as a smartphone chipmaker. The company’s new Kirin 950 and 955 chipsets are good enough to compete with MediaTek’s top end flagship SoCs. Naturally, we could expect the upcoming Kirin 960 chipset to be even more powerful and today, we have got some details about the chip from the noted analyst from China, Pan Jiutang.
Kirin 950
He reveals today that Kirin 960 may not be a huge upgrade as compared to the current generation Kirin 955, but still there are some things that are going to change like the Cores inside. Huawei will reportedly stick with TSMC’s 16nm process for the Kirin 960, but the high-end Cortex A72 cores inside will be replaced by its successor, Artemis cores. So, the Kirin 960 will be a combination of Artemis cores and Cortex A53 cores in an octa-core architecture.
In terms of GPU, the company is said to upgrade to an octa-core one, much-needed upgrade from the current quad-core Mali-T880 MP4 GPU found in the Kirin 950. Finally, the chip is said to come with support for Cat. 12 LTE networks and CDMA networks, becoming the first true full netcom chip from the company. These specs would also make the most powerful chip from the company till date!
It is still early to know whether this information will turn out to be true, but the analyst is usually right with his predictions. We can expect official details sometime in the second half of the year.
MIUI 8 seems to have improved a lot in terms of functions, fonts, UI and visual effects.
The look and feel of MIUI 8 have completely changed from MIUI 7 as we saw in the first video that was released along with the official announcement, the notification bar, especially, has been redesigned totally.
Today, Mi cofounder, Hong Feng, shared a sneak peak of MIUI 8 in a video on Weibo. This video showed how one can create notes using an app called Mi Notes. Using a finger swipe downwards, a user will be able to create a new note and with two fingers swipe upwards, the notes can be deleted.
As for the visual effects, it’s really impossible to describe, you must watch the video here to feel the difference.
360 Mobiles, formerly known as Qiku released the budget 360 F4 and the F4 Pro model back in March. However, the company had revealed back then that there were two other smartphone lineups this year, namely the mid-range 360 N series and the top-end 360 Q series. Now, it looks like the 360 N4 mid-ranger has just passed through the TENAA certification.
Looks wise, the phone seems just normal. It comes with a white plastic body with a fingerprint sensor and the 360 logo at the back. The front seems to feature 2.5D glass.
As for the specs, the phone will be powered by the deca-core Helio X20 chipset clocked at 2GHz. This is much lower than the 2.3GHz clock speed of the X20, so it could be an underclocked version. Since MTK is known to release multiple variants of its chipsets, it is a possibility.
As for the other specs, you get 4GB of RAM on board and a 5.5-inch 1080p display. There will be 32GB of expandable storage with a 3000mAh battery, rear fingerprint sensor, dual SIM , 4G LTE, 13MP front and a 5MP rear camera. The 360 N4 will run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It isn’t the thinnest phone that we have seen with a 3000mAh battery at 8.4mm, but I guess, it’s acceptable. Also, it weighs about 160 grams.
Considering the specs of the device, the 360 N4 would be a good competitor to the recently announced Le 2 mid-ranger. It comes with similar specs and cost just 1099 Yuan ($170). So, expect the pricing to be on the similar lines for the N4.
So, it looks like the leaked photos of the new 360 smartphone wasn’t of the N4. The design looked premium and with dual cameras on board, it could be of the 360 Q series!
Now that the Vernee Thor is out of the pre-sale period and will soon start shipping, our focus is going to turn on the next major product launch from the company, namely the Vernee Apollo Lite. Most of the features of the phone have already been revealed by the company, and now, Vernee informs us that the phone will be coming with a customized IGZO LCD screen from Sharp.
So, what’s so special with an IGZO display? Vernee reveals a few details about the technology. IGZO stands for Indium Gallium Zinc and Oxygen and these crystals make for a unique crystalline structure that supports consistently stable performance. This helps deliver high resolution, natural color screen and also helps power consumption, especially for still image display. Further, the panel is said to come with operational improvements and ultra-sensitivity.
(Image Source: Sharp-world.com)
To recap, the Vernee Thor comes with a 5.5-inch 1080p panel. It aims to be the world’s cheapest Helio X20 smartphone in the market starting at just $199.99. Although less powerful than competitors like SD820 and Exynos 8890, the Mediatek flagship chip is a worthy processor capable of handling intensive tasks. In fact, the Helio X20 inside the ZOPO Speed 8 with similar configurations managed to score above 91K on AnTuTu.
Rest of the specs are as follows:
5.5 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel display
MediaTek Helio x20 MT6797 processor
4GB of RAM
32GB of storage
16 MP rear camera
5MP front camera
USB Type-C
Dual-SIM support (one SIM card slot can also be used as a microSD card reader)
Android 6.0
For $200, these specs are quite good. The company will launch the device in May, so stay tuned for more updates soon.
After the recent launches, Huawei seems to be pretty quiet about the launch of their new processor Kirin 650. According to the rumors, Huawei Honor 5C will be released on 28th April and its highlight will be the all new Kirin 650 processor in it.
As per the leaks on the benchmark site, Geekbench, Kirin 650 is an octa-core processor and is clocked at 1.7GHZ. It single core score is 881 while the multi-core score is 3781. Its multi-core processing seems to be better than that of Mediatek P10’s score of 3371.
As for the complete details, Kirin 650 uses an octa-core A53 (4 × 1.7GHz + 4 × 2.0GHz) architecture, 16nm technology, Mali880MP2 GPU and supports LTE Cat.6 technology. It is, however, not clear whether Kirin 650 will support full Netcom.
If this processor is not released before the Huawei P9 youth version, Honor 5C would be the first device equipped with the Kirin 650 processor. Honor 5c will house a 5.2-inch 1080p screen, 2GB RAM/16GB internal storage and will be running on Android 6.0 system. Honor 4C was released almost a year back and is due for an update.
In terms of the camera, this device will come with an 8MP front camera and 13 MP rear camera and a 2900mAh battery will power the device. Honor 5C will house a fingerprint sensor at the back side of the device and will have a full metal body with gold, silver and gray color options.
The launch is tomorrow, so more details coming your way in the next 24 hours.
I have received numerous emails from readers asking about the gold version of the Xiaomi Mi 5 flagship. Now, we finally have a date! Xiaomi has just announced that the Xiaomi Mi 5 Gold Edition will go on sale from April 29, 10AM. This will be the first time this particular color is being made available for the device. Fans had to wait long (around 2 months), but finally, their patience has paid off.
According to the official website, the Mi 5 Gold Edition will come in standard and high versions. This also means that the gold version will feature 3D glass and not ceramic. Not surprising, since even the recently announced Mi 5 Pro White version comes with a glass back. So, the Mi 5 Pro is still limited to two colors at the moment, white and black.
The standard version of the Xiaomi Mi 5 Gold Edition will come with Snapdragon 820 clocked at 1.8GHz, Adreno 530 @ 510MHz, 3GB of RAM, 32GB UFS 2.0 storage and front facing fingerprint sensor. The phone retails for 1999 Yuan ($308). The high version features an overclocked Snapdragon 820 @ 2.15GHz and Adreno 510 @ 624MHz, 64GB storage but retains the 3GB RAM on board. This particular edition retails for 2299 Yuan ($354). The Mi 5 Pro version increases the RAM and storage to 4GB and 128GB respectively. And this particular model retails for $416. But there are only two colors available, white and black.
The Mi 5 Pro version increases the RAM and storage to 4GB and 128GB respectively. And this particular model retails for $416. But there are only two colors available, white and black.
The newly announced Mi 5 Pro white and Mi 5 Gold editions will go on sale on the April 29 flash sale. In case you are wondering, since the Mi 5 Pro white comes with a 3D glass body, the price will be lower than the black edition. This particular model will retail for 2599 Yuan i.e. around $400.
To sum up, Xiaomi is now offering the Mi 5 Pro at four different price points. The standard ($308) and high ($354) version will be available in black, white, purple and gold colors.
The Mi 5 Pro with a glass back comes in white color and retails at $400.
The Mi 5 Pro with ceramic body comes in black and retails for $416.
All models except Mi 5 Pro Ceramic black edition will be available for purchase on the flash sale on Friday.
Blackview has produced quite a few budget phones and the A8 model is probably the best we’ve tested so far. It costs just $50 and it is a good device for the price. Learn more in the full review.
It was a pleasant surprise when we saw that Blackview included some nice extras like a flip-style case and a pair of earphones with this $50 phone.
Blackview A8 Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY
It is pretty cool that this cheap phone has a metal frame that goes all around the device, the buttons are tactile and the overall build quality is great.
The loudspeaker is not going to impress you much but it is actually not bad at all for a cheap phone and it easily rival some $100 devices.
The backplate can be removed and underneath it you can find a replaceable 2000mAh battery, 2 SIM card slots and the microSD card slot. Keep in mind that the phone does not support 4G network but the 3G signal reception is good and I didn’t have call quality issues.
The phone feels nice in the hand too. The only shortcomings would be non-backlit capacitive buttons and the lack of the notification LED light. Instead, you are getting a front firing LED flash for night selfies.
The phone has a 5” 720p display and it is probably the best we’ve seen on the $50 phone. It is sharp and vivid and you can’t ask more from a phone this cheap.
Blackview A8 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
The Blackview A8 is not going to be your next powerhouse device but the specs are pretty good for the price. It sports a quad-core 1.3GHz MTK6580 chip, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of expandable storage.
This phone is definitely not for gamers but it is still possible to play games like Asphalt 8 on the lowest graphics settings.
Blackview A8 Review: BENCHMARKS
Blackview A8 Review: USER INTERFACE
The phone runs on Android 5.1 with Blackview’s skin on top of it, which removes an app tray but adds some features and customization options.
There are some themes, skins and some nice looking widgets to play with. Also, you can find some gesture controls, which work very slowly.
The UI performance is good but not perfect. You can expect some minor hiccups or skipped frames in animations. On the other hand, I didn’t have any major lags.
Blackview A8 Review: CAMERA
The image quality is not really impressive but this is what you have to expect from a $50 phone. Still, you can get some okay looking daylight images that could be used for social media. However, don’t expect great results in low-light.
Blackview A8 Review: BATTERY LIFE
The 2000mAh battery will give you just around 3 hours of screen-on time on a mixed use, which is not very impressive.
Blackview A8 Review: CONCLUSIONS
Blackview A8 is a phone that has a great build quality and even metal frame in its construction and it costs just $50.
Also, it has decent HD display, the UI has some extra features and the phone is easily manageable in one hand.
However, you should expect some minor hiccups in the UI and the battery life could be better.
Still, the phone is a great offering for $50. In fact, it is one of the best we’ve tested in this price range of phones and it can be highly recommended for those who are on a very tight budget.
Meizu has just releasedthe new Flyme 5.1.5.0 Stable release for a number of devices like the Meizu MX5, MX5e, PRo 5, MX4 Pro, MX4, M2 Note, M2, M1 Note and Meizu Metal. So, that’s a lot of devices getting the new Flyme version. While there are some notable upgrades available to many devices in this new version, the biggest benefit will be for the Pro 5 flagship. This new Flyme version will add VoLTE support for the flagship model which enables high definition voice and video calls.
Other features added by this version include browser support for flash to play videos, ad blocking, Wi-Fi network diagnostics, slide to camera from lock screen, power consumption manager and a lot more as mentioned in the change log below.
One thing to note here is that while upgrading the Meizu MX4 model, you might not be able to see the progress on the screen. However, on the background the update will be running. Hence, once you start the upgrade, don’t restart or downgrade until the process is completely finished. You can check out all the details, including the download links from down below.
– Desktop editing: adding mobile support under Utility mode icons and widget
– Optimization: prompt desktop editing position adjustment
Update log | WLAN
– Network speed: new network speed function, a key to view the current network speed
– Network Diagnostics: new network diagnostic function, a key to detect the current network status
– Entrance: Settings – Wi-Fi – Click on the currently connected hotspot enters details page
– Fix: After a Wi-Fi switch to the data network will pop up authentication information
Update log | browser
– Intro: increased functionality for the first time to launch a new intro
– Ad blocking: browser settings increase the “ad blocking” switch
– Flash: Support Flash Player mainstream video site
Update log | install external applications
– Optimization: Depending on the installation source and application versions to distinguish between different installation scenarios, detailed display application permissions and chargeback risk
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