We were really happy about the Xiaomi Redmi 3 and we even called it the best cheap phone at the time of our review. The device had a to offer for a very low price. It seems like that Xiaomi wants to take cheap phones a new level with the Redmi 3 Pro. We have all the great features of the Redmi 3 but the company added some significant upgrades to the device. Learn more in our Xiaomi Redmi 3 unboxing and first impressions article.
The packaging is the same as the the one that came with the Redmi 3. The contents of the box include a power plug, USB cable, instruction manuals and SIM ejector pin.
The main specs of the Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro include a 5″ 720p display, octa-core Snapdragon 616 chip (up to 1.5GHz), 3GB of RAM, 32GB of expandable storage via the microSD card slot, 13MP camera on the back, 5MP shooter on the front, 4100mAh battery (non-removable), fingerprint scanner, dual-SIM support.
Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro: DESIGN and FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Once I first picked the phone up I noticed that the build quality is slightly better than the Redmi 3.
There is no major difference but the buttons have slightly better tactile feedback and there are absolutely no moving parts on the device (the Redmi 3’s back cover moved a little if pressed harder).
We have the same buttons and ports layout.
One of the major addition is a fingerprint scanner. I set it up initially and it works absolutely fine. It is fast, accurate and it automatically wakes the phone up from the standby mode and unlocks the device.
The initial impressions on the Redmi 3 Pro are nothing but positive. The device is compact, feels great in the hand and that gold colour review unit we have looks gorgeous.
We have spent just an hour with the device but everything is running fast and fluid. Keep in mind that the Chinese version does not have Google Services pre-installed but it is very easy to do that.
We will be using the Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro and testing it very carefully as always. Stay tuned to Gizmochina for a full review.
Meizu has officially announced the Meizu Pro 6 flagship, which is one of the most important phones for the company this year. We had already learned a lot about the device from company executives as well as teasers, but, now, everything including specs, features, camera, and pricing are out in the open. There’s a lot of new information about the Pro 6, which is why I have divided the info into different segments down below. It will be easier to browse through all the information this way.
So, let’s see what Meizu Pro 6 brings to the table.
Meizu Pro 6 DESIGN:
First of all, Meizu is using a brand new design for the Pro 6 smartphone. The company had already showcased the new antenna design on the device, and today, it has confirmed it officially. The phone comes with a 2.5D glass front with a CNC cut body for its premium looks. The special antenna design helps in better coverage, which Meizu claims is much better than the iPhone 6S. The buttons are placed well inside its grooves and the overall design looks simple yet premium.
Meizu Pro 6 is also the company’s thinnest device till date, featuring a 7.25mm body. The company has also managed to reduce the board area inside by up to 30%, reducing the overall size of the phone. Although it’s a matter of individual preference, but personally, I think Meizu has done a very good job with the design.
SCREEN:
The Meizu Pro 6 comes with a 5.2-inch Super AMOLED FHD 1920 x 1080p display with 2.5D glass and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on top. The company boasts that the borders are ultra-narrow measuring just 0.715mm, which is one of the thinnest borders we have seen. Other specs of the display include 450 Nit brightness, 100 and 423PPI pixel density. During the conference, Meizu specifically pointed out that the minimum display brightness is just 3 Nits to ensure that you don’t strain your eyes at night.
Meizu Pro 6 Specs:
No surprises here. The Meizu Pro 6 comes with the new Helio X25 deca-core chipset clocked at 2.5GHz. The chip features 2 x Cortex A72 cores and 8 x Cortex A53 cores. The company said that it decided to go with Helio X25 because it believes in the balance of performance and energy efficiency. Inside, there will be Mali-T880 MP4 GPU. As for memory, the phone comes with 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM and 32GB of eMMC 5.1 storage as standard. The company has reportedly made over 70 hardware and software optimizations on the device.
The Pro 6 also features the new USB 3.1 standard Type-C port which supports transfer speeds up to 5Gbps. The phone supports full netcom meaning it will work on all three carriers in China. Other connectivity features include dual SIM dual standby, VoLTE and Cat 6. support for transfer up to 300Mbps.
Meizu also reveals that the Pro 6 comes with the new mCharge 3.0 standard which can charge at 24W. This means you can charge the 2560mAh battery in the device to 100% in just 60 minutes. A simple 10-minute charge would give you 26% charge. mCharge 3.0 also comes with triple protection to ensure the safety of your phone.
You also get a mTouch 2.1 360 degrees fingerprint sensor embedded into the home button up front.
NEW FEATURES:
So, apart from the unique antenna design on the Pro 6, Meizu also comes with a couple of interesting new features.
First is the Hi-Fi Lite, which is a less power consuming version of the traditional Hi-Fi standard. The Hi-Fi Lite reportedly consumes 55% less power than the traditional standard. The phone features a cirrus logic chip and DAC amplifier for the best sound output. Further, there’s the company’s mSound tech with NXP chip.
Another new feature on the Meizu Pro 6 is 3D Press. This is Meizu’s name for pressure sensitive display. The company has added a new layer of capacitive pressure sensing to enable user gestures. The company also adds that Flyme OS will come with 20 apps that support 3D Press. This number could increase soon after the release.
Like expected, the Pro 6 also features the new 10-flash tech at the back, but more about that in the camera department.
Meizu Pro 6 CAMERA:
The Meizu Pro 6 comes with a capable camera sensor at the back, which is the Sony IMX230 with 21MP resolution and f/2.2 aperture. The sensor is supported by PDAF with focus times of just 0.07 seconds. Meizu also revealed that it has reduced the thickness of the camera module by 14% to blend well with the thin design of the Pro 6.
Now, coming to the most interesting part, the Pro 6 features a 10-LED flash setup. This is a combination of alternating cold and warm LED lights arranged in a ring design. This reportedly increases the brightness of the flash dramatically, helping you take best shots even at night. Further, the new setup with a new ISP translates into a range which is 4x better than Laser Autofocus.
On the front, the phone comes with a 5MP f/2.0 shooter.
Here are some camera samples taken from the Meizu Pro 6.
Meizu Pro 6 PRICING:
The Meizu Pro 6 will be much cheaper than what we initially thought. The phone starts at 2499 Yuan for the 32GB variant ($386) and goes up to 2799 Yuan for the 64GB variant ($432). The company is already taking pre-order registrations for the phone. It will start selling from April 23.
Do you think that the 5.15-inch Xiaomi Mi 5 flagship is just too small for you? Were you craving for a large screen Xiaomi phablet? Well, this seems to be your lucky day as the company is ready to enter a new smartphone segment, namely the phablet market. Remember yesterday we reported that a few verified accounts of Xiaomi, namely Xiaomi Max, Xiaomi Plus, Xiaomi Big etc cropped up online? Well, Xiaomi has confirmed that it plans to launch a new large screen smartphone. Now, the company is asking users to vote for their favorite name for the device.
There are four options, Xiaomi Max, Xiaomi Pro, Xiaomi Plus and then Xiaomi Big. To my surprise, at present, Xiaomi fans think that Xiaomi Big is the best name for the phablet with over 13,000 votes. The Xiaomi Max is the second favorite name with 11,700 votes and the other two, Pro and Plus are not really in the competition with hardly 5K votes. If you have an account on Weibo, go ahead and vote from here.
At present, the largest screen is found on the Xiaomi Mi Note, which is more than a year old now. But if the company is making such a big deal about the large screen on the upcoming device, then it’s highly likely that the phone comes with a 6-inch+ display.
There are a few speculations about this large screen phone as well. First of all, rumors say that it will be called as the Xiaomi Max lineup and will feature a 6.4-inch display. The Xiaomi Max lineup will be powered by the Snapdragon 820. However, there’s reportedly another new lineup in the works, which will be mid-range and will be called as the Redmi Max series. This lineup will also feature 6.4-inch display phones but with Helio X25 chipset inside.
So, end of the day, Xiaomi will have three main high-end smartphones, each targeted at different screen size lovers. The Xiaomi Mi series will targeted at the compact 5.2-inch market, the Mi Note will target the slightly bigger 5.7-inch display market while the Xiaomi Max series will be the phablet lineup with 6.4-inch screen.
However, these are just speculations at the moment, and we will have to wait for official details to confirm this information.
Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun had revealed a week back that the company would significantly increase the production capacity of Xiaomi Mi 5 in April. Once that was done, we could expect more stock to be available for purchase during the flash sales organized by the company.
Now, a new report quoting industry chain sources in China state that Lei Jun is confident about increasing the capacity and the supply shortage problem would be greatly reduced by next month.
The same source further revealed that originally, Xiaomi planned to maintain a stock of around 1.5 million units, but assessing the current demand for the phone, the company has added additional stock, taking the total to 2.5 million units. This means the company increased the stock by a good 1 million units than what it previously had planned.
This is definitely good news for Xiaomi fans as many were disappointed with the phone not being available for purchase despite a few flash sales. In every sale, the Mi 5 went out of stock in less than a few minutes, which meant there were a number of users who ended up missing the sale. But with this much addition in stock, we can now expect users in China, India and even worldwide (via resellers) to get their orders fulfilled.
We hope that in this 2.5 million units, there are a lot of Black Mi 5 editions. The black borders on the screen blend well in the black version. On the other hand, it stands out in the white version which is why many users prefer the former than the latter version.
So, we can now expect Xiaomi to stock up the Mi 5 in plenty during the coming flash sales so that it lasts more than a few minutes. This is good news for Indian Xiaomi fans as well as it should mean more stock for them as well.
After waiting for about a week, Meizu will finally unveil the Pro 6 flagship tomorrow at an event in Beijing. The phone has been making the rumor rounds for the past one month, and we already know a lot of details about the device. But when it comes to Meizu Pro 6 price tag, we are still unsure. Rumors say that the phone won’t be cheap, and we could be seeing it in the 3000 Yuan range ($465).
While we still have no official information on the Pro 6’s price, Meizu’s VP, Li Nan, like always, have given us a clue, at least that’s what we think.
This afternoon, Li Nan posted something on his official Weibo page. Nothing unusual about the post, except that it was sent using the Galaxy S7 Edge. To those unfamiliar with Weibo, you can see the device that was used to post the message on his/ her account, which is what some sharp fans managed to point out.
When asked, why use Samsung instead of Meizu, Li Nan replied by saying that he naturally couldn’t hang out with the Pro 6 in hand. So, he decided to take a similarly priced product, namely the Galaxy S7 Edge.
Now, is Li Nan hinting that the Pro 6 is priced close to S7 Edge? If that’s the case, then expect the Meizu Pro 6 to retail at 5000 Yuan ($773). Well, that would be just too high. Even HTC was smart enough to price its new HTC 10 at $700 which less than what we initially expected.
To be honest, $773 for Meizu Pro 6 is just too far-fetched. So, we better wait for the official Pro 6 price tag revealed by the company tomorrow. If earlier rumors are to be believed, it should be anywhere around $460.
Nubia Z11 Mini is all set to be announced on April 19. While we don’t know whether the two other rumored devices in the lineup, the Nubia Z11 Max and the Z11 will be showcased at the event, for now, the company seems to be focusing on the small screen flagship.
The company has started teasing the new device, and has already confirmed that it will come in a small form factor. And now, the general manager of Nubia smartphones, Ni Fei has revealed a new interesting feature of the device.
According to the latest post from the GM, Nubia Z11 Mini will most likely come with a Super Screen Video capture mode, which is basically a feature to record your screen. Instead of just taking a picture of the screen, this particular mode will take a video of the screen in action, just like screen capture on your desktop PC or laptop. You can see a live demo of the Super Screen capture mode from the video down below.
This particular feature could be directly embedded into the Nubia UI, and can be a good selling point for the OS. You could easily capture your screen live, while playing games or make tutorial videos without much fuss. Not a unique feature, still it can come in handy in some cases. Ni Fei also revealed that there would be new UI changes and optimizations on the upcoming Nubia version to improve the overall experience using the device. More details will be revealed in the coming days to the launch.
Nubia’s screen recording in action
Meanwhile, we can also expect the company to reveal a few of the hardware features of the Nubia Z11 before April 19, when the phone will finally be official.
LeEco executives have already confirmed that the Le 2 flagship smartphone will release soon. Now, an unknown smartphone was spotted at an event for the LeEco Sports division, which could be the new Le 2 smartphone. The event was for the B Round funding of the Sports division of the company, wherein an executive was seen with the new device in hand.
It looks quite similar to the Le Max Pro handset, but Chinese media are of the opinion that this is a new device, most likely the Le 2. These pictures were directly released by the company’s official account earlier today.
While we are still doubtful about the identity of the phone in hand, what we do know is that the company is planning to release a new phone on April 20. LeEco has just released a new teaser via its Le smartphone official channel, where it starts a countdown for 8 days to the event.
Given that we have been hearing a lot about the Le 2 smartphone for the past few weeks, its very likely that the phone will meet us at the event on April 20. The specs as well as the design of the phone have already been leaked a couple of times, so we know what to expect.
Recent TENAA listing of the Le 2 revealed that the phone will come with Helio X20 chip inside with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. There will be a 5.5-inch 1080p display on board. At the back, the phone will feature a 16MP shooter with dual tone flash and a fingerprint sensor. The phone comes with Android 6.0 with EUI and a 3000mAh battery.
This should be just one of the two versions of the Le 2. Another version is rumored to come with either Snapdragon 820 or Snapdragon 652 chip inside. Expect more details in the coming days.
As a consumer, we often tend to limit our view to the specs and the outer design of the smartphone. But a phone is more than a combination of its specs, as it involves a lot of processing to get into its final form.
Elephone recently released a new video showing off the manufacturing process of the Elephone P9000. This gives us a pretty good insight as to what goes into making the flagship smartphone. The company reveals that there are 21 complex processes involved in the manufacturing of the P9000 and these processes are shown in the new video. You can check that out from above.
This is a good way to show its customers how much effort is put into designing and making a product. With a strong body, premium design and powerful specs, the overall package is quite impressive.
To recap, the Elephone P9000 was one of the first phones to feature Helio P10 octa-core chipset with 4GB of RAM on board. There will be 32GB of internal storage and a 5.5-inch FHD 1080p display on board. Other features of the Elephone P9000 include Quick Charge support, Wireless Charging, 13MP rear camera with Laser Focus, 1.6mm thin bezels, fingerprint sensor, NFC, and a 3080mAh battery. The specs of the P9000 are similar to the recently released OPPO R9, so you can check their comparison from here.
Unlike some local Chinese smartphone companies, UMi seems to be spending some time developing the ROMs for its new devices. The company had promised earlier to provide timely updates for improving the overall software experience of the device and recently, the company started updating the UMi Touch to a new version. This makes it the second update for the device since its launch a few weeks back. The new update will upgrade the software to UMITOUCH.V3.03_20160409. Like the upgrade number suggests, the update started rolling out yesterday.
If you are wondering how to update your smartphone, just go to Settings > About Phone> Wireless Update > Check For Updates > Update. It’s as simple as updating any other Android smartphone, so shouldn’t be a problem for most users.
So, here are the three major improvements as revealed by the company that you will see in the new software version for the UMi Touch.
Optimize battery management software to improve the durability of the battery. Take you to experience the power of 4000 mAh, 24 hours 4G browsing, 60 hours 2G call time, 92 hours music playback, 15 days standby time.
Improve reaction speed of camera. Take you to experience a much better 13 megapixal SONY IMX 328 CMOS, speed focusing and taking pictures.
Optimize the camera effect. Take you to experience a much better 13 megapixal SONY IMX 328 CMOS, stable imaging Pixel rate up to 280.8MHz 2D noise reduction.
The company urges users to immediately update their smartphones to the new version for a better experience. Further, it reveals that there are more updates on the way with better optimizations.
As for the specs, the UMi Touch comes with a 5.5-inch FHD display with a front placed fingerprint sensor. There will be 3GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, 13MP Sony IMX328 camera, dual SIM support with 4G LTE and 4000mAh battery. It will be running the new Android 6.0 version out of the box.
Smartphone companies have multiple lineups targeted at different price segments. Recently, 360 Mobiles, formerly known as QiKu unveiled the 360 F4 smartphone which was a low cost device aimed to compete with the likes of Redmi 3 Pro. Now, the company has started teasing its next smartphone in the works, namely the 360 N4. And guess what, this is going to be a mid-range handset with a Helio chipset inside.
The company had revealed earlier that there would be three different smartphone lineups under the brand, namely the F series which is low-end segment, the N series which is the mid-range segment and the Q series which will be the high-end segment. So, the new 360 N4 smartphone will lie in the mid-range segment.
The new teaser revealed today says Hello _20 chipset. The blank could either be the Helio X20 flagship chip or it could be Helio P20 chip. Given that the latter is not yet announced, I think it’s safe to assume that the new 360 N4 will come with Helio X20. Another reason to say this is because we have already seen a deca-core powered smartphone from the company in an earlier AnTuTu listing and this could be that device. Another possibility is that the teaser is actually saying “Hello 820”, which would mean that SD820 powers the device, but it seems unlikely at the moment.
Back in March, we had seen the QK1503-M02 model with Helio X20 under the hood. Other specs revealed by AnTuTu included 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, and a 1080p FHD screen with an unknown display size. At the back, the phone had a 13MP camera while up front, a 5MP shooter. It ran on Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS.
So, now, it could be time for 360 Mobiles to finally unveil this new mid-range smartphone. Release date is not yet known, but since the company has started teasing the device, expect to meet the device within this month.
Blackview has been busy lately, focusing on its low-end and mid-range devices like the Blackview Ultra Plus and the Blackview A8. However, the company does not want to limit itself to the low-end market, which is why Blackview is developing a relatively powerful flagship for the year 2016. The upcoming device, called the Blackview R7 was already revealed in a couple of pictures late December last year, but now, the company confirms a few more details about the device.
The most important news today is the pricing of the Blackview R7. The company has confirmed that the phone will be available for purchase at just $159.99 via online retailers. The phone will be officially launched soon and the sales will start sometime in May 2016.
Now you must be thinking that $159.99 is a pretty high figure for a Blackview smartphone. But it does have good specs to justify the price. The phone is powered by the Helio P10 MT6755 octa-core chip that is used by a number of mid-range flagships in the market, including the OPPO R9. Further, there will be a 5.5-inch 1080p FHD display with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 and 2.5D arc screen. The phone is said to feature a borderless screen design.
As for the memory, the Blackview R7 will come with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage further expandable up to 128GB via MicroSD. At the back, there will be a 13MP camera sensor, while up front, you get an 8MP sensor. The fingerprint sensor will also be located at the back. The body will be made out of metal to give it a premium look. Finally, the phone will come with the Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS on top. And yes, there will be a 3500mAh battery on board.
As you can see, these are pretty good specs for a $159.99 smartphone. Even the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro or the Meizu M3 Note which retails at the same price don’t offer this much value for the money.
Now, all we have to do is wait for the official release of the device which will be in May.
We have reviewed quite a few charging solutions and this time around we have a Tronsmart Titan 10A/90W 5-Port USB charging station in our labs. Find out more in a full review.
The device comes in a neat looking box and the contents include the charging station itself, a power cord and some documentation.
DESIGN
The Tronsmart charger is made of high-quality plastic and the build quality is excellent despite not using any premium materials like metal.
On one side there is a power input port and the power on/off switch, which works great and it doesn’t seem to break anytime soon.
The star of the show here are 5 USB ports and all of them have a combined power output of 90W or 18W per port. A key feature is that each port supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 technology and a smart charging tech, which detects the device you plugged in and charges it at the maximum speed possible.
There is not much going on the bottom side. A great thing is that there are rubber pads that help with the grip and prevent the charging station from sliding on the table.
Overall, I’m very happy with the design and build quality of the Tronsmart Titan charging station. Also, it is very compact and lightweight given the feature set it has.
FUNCTIONALITY
You can charge 5 devices at the same time and it worked fine during my testing period.
Once you power on the device, a green LED light up.
We have tested the charging station with various devices that included the ones which support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 feature (e.g. Letv Le 1 Pro) and the ones that don’t . Our test results have shown that the Tronsmart charging station is indeed capable of providing very fast charging speeds. In fact, the device even outperformed the original chargers that are shipped with smartphones (e.g. Lenovo ZUK Z1).
CONCLUSIONS
The Tronsmart Titan 10A/90W 5-Port USB Charger Charging Station does what it is being advertised for. It has 5 ports that are capable of charging your gadgets quickly.
A great thing that this charging station supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 but if your smartphone or other device does not have Snapdragon chip, the Tronsmart charger is still able of recognising the type of the device you connected to it and provides the fastest charging speeds possible.
All in all, Tronsmart Titan 10A/90W 5-Port USB Charger Charging Station may not be the only product of its kind but does all the thing right and it can be recommended to buy if you are in the market of charging stations.
Meizu recently unveiled the Meizu M3 Note mid-range smartphone which managed to catch our attention mainly because it was cheap and powerful. The phone came with pretty impressive specs for the 799 Yuan price tag that it asks, which translates to roughly $124.
Like most Chinese smartphone makers these days, the company decided to sell the device via the flash sale model and the first sale for the device was today, via the company’s official website. While we knew that the demand for the phone was strong, now, Meizu has given us an official figure for the Meizu M3 Note sales in the first sale.
Meizu revealed today that it sold 100,000 Meizu M3 Note units within 7 minutes in the first ever flash sale for the device. Considering this smartphone brand managed to sell about 20 million phones in the year 2015, this is an impressive figure. The super cheap pricing, premium looks and capable hardware are some of the reasons why this phone is in demand in China.
The Meizu M3 Note comes in a premium metal body ditching the polycarbonate body used in its predecessors. The phone features the Helio P10 octa-core processor with 2GB / 3GB RAM versions and 16GB / 32GB storage options. There will be a 13MP camera at the back and a 5MP front-facing shooter. The screen is of 5.5-inches with 1080p resolution. As for the battery, it’s large, measuring 4100mAh capacity. Pricing starts at $124 and goes to $154 for the 3GB + 32GB variant. You can read all about the M3 Note from here.
Those who couldn’t get hold of the device in the first flash sale, the next sale is on April 18 on the company
Vernee Thor is one of the few mid-range handsets that have caught out attention lately. The new model from the startup company comes with a good design and a 5-inch display which has a special anti-fingerprint oil to ensure that it is not affected by fingerprints. In fact, this screen is protected from other things as well, which the company showcases in the first ever video of the Vernee Thor.
Thanks to the anti-fingerprint oil coating, nothing sticks on the display of the device. As you can see in the video, you don’t have to worry about any greasy food item or liquid making a stain on your screen. The anti-fingerprint oil protects the phone pretty. The 5-inch screen features a resolution of 720p.
As for the other specs, the Vernee Thor comes with the MT6753 octa-core chipset with 3GB of RAM on board and 16GB of expandable internal storage. There will be a 13MP camera at the back and a 2800mAh battery inside to power the device.
Overall, at $119.99, the Vernee Thor is a value for money device. But thanks to the promotions and coupons available via retailers, you can get the device for even less. For example, OPPOMART is selling the phone for just $99.99. You can find the coupon code and the purchase link from this article.
An hour back, we revealed that the new Ivvi i3 smartphone with Snapdragon 430 was launched. The phone came with mid-range specs and is quite costly, starting at $355. However, despite its mid-range hardware, the phone comes with a premium metal body that looks quite good. In fact, the phone boasts of 99.2% metal in its body, which means metal lovers are in for a treat.
Apart from the premium metal body, the Ivvi i3 features an arc back, which ensures that you get a good grip on the device. Further, the company has worked with Qualcomm to improve efficiency of the device as well as use a special multi-antenna technology to enable support for all the three major carriers (full netcom) in China.
As for the body itself, the phone is just 6.5mm thin. In fact, at its thinnest point, the phone is just 4.2mm thick, which is pretty impressive. This also makes it thinner than the 6.6mm OPPO R9. Being such a thin device, the camera protrudes a little.
Everything at the back is symmetrical, with the camera sensor, dual tone LED flash and fingerprint sensor placed exactly in the middle. Coming to the front, the phone features on-screen buttons with thin black borders around the screen and camera and other sensors on top.
The phone is powered by the mid-range Snapdragon 430 chipset, making it the first in the market. If you are interested in the specs of the phone, you can read all about it from our launch article here.
Meanwhile, check out the Ivvi i3 in pictures from down below courtesy of Anzhuo.
In case you have heard of the Ivvi brand, its smartphones are known for its super thin profile. The company just launched a new phone in the lineup, called as the Ivvi i3 and this particular model too boasts of a thin metal body. The phone measures just 6.55mm in thickness which is thinner than the recently launched OPPO R9 measuring 6.6mm. It’s lighter as well, weighing just 140 grams as compared to 145 grams of the R9.
Before we move on to the specs, which are quite interesting, the phone features a metal body with an arc design. The company has used 99.2% metal for the body, so there’s hardly any plastic. Further, there’s 2.5D curved glass up front. The phone is quite symmetric as well, featuring the camera sensor at the center. The flash as well as the fingerprint sensor follows the same symmetric design, placed exactly at the center of the back cover. The front is simple, featuring on screen buttons (but there’s still considerable space under the display) and the front camera and sensors on top.
The specs are interesting because the Ivvi i3 is the world’s first smartphone to feature the new Snapdragon 430 chipset. This particular processor was first announced back in September last year and now, it has finally started ending up on phones. The chip features 4 x Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.4GHz and 4 x Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.1GHz. There will be Adreno 505 GPU on board with support for Cat 4 LTE networks.
From the processor point of view, this looks like a lower mid-range handset. Qualcomm’s 400 series chipsets were never known for their performance, rather the chips in the series focused on energy efficiency. But interestingly, Ivvi has put 4GB of RAM inside this device, to boost performance to some extent. There will be 32GB/ 64GB / 128GB storage options which is further expandable up to 128GB via MicroSD. The display is compact, measuring 5.2-inches but with just 720p resolution.
Then there’s a 13MP rear camera with PDAF and an 8MP front shooter with intelligent beauty 2.0 software. Other features include a standard MicroUSB cable, 2450mAh battery, dual SIM card slot (hybrid), Android 6.0 with a special fast software mode and 4G LTE support. There’s a fingerprint sensor at the back as well which unlocks in just 0.1 seconds.
Now coming on to the most interesting part of the phone, i.e. the pricing, it starts at 2299 Yuan ($355) for the 32GB variant, 2499 ($386) for the 64GB variant and goes up to 2799 ($432) for the 128GB variant.
Overall, the Ivvi i3 is a combination of high-end and low-end specs. The phone features a premium metal body that looks beautiful in gold. Then there are powerful specs like 4GB of RAM, 32GB, 64GB and even 128GB expandable storage options, a decent 13MP + 8MP cameras and Android 6.0. But what’s surprising is the processor, which is best placed in the lower mid-range segment and the display which features just 720p resolution. Then there’s the pricing, which is pretty high. So, we can’t really call it a premium mid-ranger.
Every quarter, AnTuTu reveals the top smartphones in the market, and iPhones and Samsung Galaxy flagships have pretty much been on top of the rankings. However, this year, with more and more Chinese smartphone manufacturers releasing powerful handsets, there has been a slight reshuffle in the list. The new AnTuTu top 10 performance smartphone list for Q1 2016 contains 5 Chinese flagships. Not surprising since we have seen some powerhouses from Chinese handset makers in the past few months.
Last year, since AnTuTu went cross platform, iPhone 6S Plus pretty much dominated with the Apple A9 underneath. But now, things have reshuffled, with Xiaomi Mi 5 flagship on top with a score of 136,875. In case you are wondering, AnTuTu has taken the average score of a device, taking into consideration at least 500 different data samples. This statistic is for the first quarter of 2016, starting from Jan 1 to March 31.
After the Xiaomi Mi 5, there’s the Galaxy S7 / S7 Edge. One thing to note here is that Galaxy S7 could have beaten Mi 5, if it was not using 2K display which does take a toll on the scores. Next up was iPhone 6S, with a score very close to the S7. After these three phones, comes the Huawei Mate 8. But there’s a difference of 42K points between the third and the fourth place. Still, seeing Kirin 950 in the list is pretty impressive and shows how much the Kirin family has evolved in the past few years.
Rest of the places are taken by last year’s models, except for Vivo XPlay 5 Standard edition with Snapdragon 652. Now, you must be wondering why the XPlay 5 Elite version didn’t make it to this list, especially considering it comes with Snapdragon 820 and a whopping 6GB of RAM. AnTuTu has given an explanation for this as it says that only 18 data items were available for the device, which was too low. So, although the phone’s average comes out close to 130298, it wasn’t included in the list. Maybe in the Q2 results, we will see this powerhouse included.
So, do you think this list will change in Q2 2016? Which upcoming phone are you most excited about?
Vernee Thor is a good looking mid-range smartphone which was just launched recently. Being the first smartphone from the company, we are all excited to see the device in action. The phone features pretty good specs for its $119, but you can purchase the device for even less via some retailers.
Now, OPPOMART is offering the Vernee Thor smartphone for just $99.99. That’s a good $20 OFF the official price tag of the device, making it a great deal. You just have to use the discount code: VENE20 after adding it to the shopping cart to pre-order the phone at this price.
To recap, the Vernee Thor comes with an anti-fingerprint oil on the screen as well as a black rubber paint at the back for improved grip. The phone sports a compact 5-inch 720p display with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Inside, you get the tried and tested MT6753 octa-core processor with 3GB of RAM on board. There will be 16GB of expandable storage as well. In case you remember, the MT6753 powered many mid-range smartphones of last year that cost more than $150. So, it’s a decent chip good enough to power a $99 smartphone today.
At the back, the Thor features a 13MP rear camera while up front, there will be a 5MP shooter. The phone supports 4G LTE networks and comes with Android 6.0 out of the box. You get a 2800mAh battery inside, which is quite decent and good enough for a day. Finally, there will be a fingerprint sensor at the back as well.
OPPOMART has currently listed the black and gray variants of the Vernee Thor up for pre-order at $99.99. You can check out more details about the listing from the link given below.
Xiaomi officially unveiled its flagship smartphone for the year, the Xiaomi Mi 5 late February. It has been more than a month since the phone went on sale, still there are thousands of users, in China as well as in India who haven’t got hold of the device. The popularity of the Mi 5 is not surprising given that its base variant comes with the powerful Snapdragon 820 chip at just 1999 Yuan ($310).
We know that the production of the Mi 5 has still not reached its full capacity, which means there are a lot of fans who are still unable to purchase the Mi 5 in China via the numerous flash sales organized by the company. Some even criticized Xiaomi for deliberately limiting the stock to create hype for the device.
Now, Kevin Wang, the noted analyst from IHS technology reveals that Xiaomi is not purposely limiting the stock for creating a hype, instead, the production of the Mi 5 is simply unable to keep up with the demand. In addition to this, Kevin suggested that Xiaomi should make more black versions instead of the white Mi 5s since the black borders around the screen are clearly visible in the white variant.
Earlier it was reported that Foxconn and Inventec, the two companies given the task of manufacturing the device, are working overtime to fulfill orders for the Xiaomi Mi 5. But it could take a few more weeks for the production to ramp up, as CEO Lei Jun had revealed previously that the capacity of production will increase significantly by April.
Well, even at this moment, the demand is just too high for the Mi 5. So, fans who have been waiting for the device will need to have more patience.
So, did any readers out here manage to get hold of the Mi 5 in the flash sales in China or India?
Most flagships today come with fast charging. Given that top-end smartphones tend to have the best hardware underneath, it becomes necessary for the phone to feature a battery which is large and charges as fast as possible. Meizu will soon be unveiling its Pro 6 flagship smartphone on April 13 and the company confirmed today that the phone will come with fast charging technology. However, there’s more, the company hints that this tech makes sure that the phone’s battery is not damaged during the process. The teaser says, “They (companies) tell you the fastest charging times, why do they not mention the life of the battery?”.
Meizu Pro 6 could be using its own fast charging technology dubbed as mCharge (this could be mCharge 2.0) which ensures that the battery inside the phone is not damaged. Or it could use Mediatek’s PE (Pump Express) fast charging and utilize some kind of battery protection technology. Whatever the case maybe, this teaser confirms that the phone will have some kind of tech to ensure the protection of the battery.
There are a lot of fast charging technologies currently available in the market, like Qualcomm’s Quick Charge, Mediatek’s Pump Express and even OPPO’s Super VOOC fast charge. The first two charging technologies use high voltage to speed up the charging process. High voltage often leads to heat generation, which is not good news for your battery life. On the other hand, OPPO’s VOOC fast charging uses a low-voltage 5V charger to ensure that the heat is kept to a minimum and the life of the battery is not adversely affected. Well, Meizu’s new Pro 6 could come with a similar charging tech as OPPO, using low voltage.
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