Honor 5A Releasing On June 12 In China Confirms Teaser

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Jun 7, 2016

While Huawei has a solid top-end flagship lineup, the company is also present in the budget market and has some decent offerings. We had already seen the Honor 5A and Honor 5A Plus before, thanks to their TENAA listings and now, Huawei’s Honor sub-brand has released a new teaser on its Weibo page revealing that the Honor 5A will be announced on June 12.

Since we saw two models on TENAA, on June 12, the company should announce two models as well. The Honor 5A will be the smaller sibling coming with a 5-inch 720p display, on the other hand, the Honor 5A Plus will come with a 5.5-inch 720p display. Apart from the size, the phones also differ in terms of their design and placement of their camera sensors. You can check out both the phones in the images in below.

Honor 5a Plus vs Honor 5a

As for the specs, the Honor 5A will come with a 1.3GHz quad-core processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage. At the back, there will be a 13MP camera, while up front, you get a 2MP shooter. Inside its 8.9mm body, the phone features a 2200mAh battery.

Coming to the Honor 5A Plus, TENAA reveals that the phone will come with a 1.5GHz octa-core processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage. At the back, you get a 13MP camera as well, but the front shooter is upgraded to an 8MP sensor. Inside its 8.45mm body, you get a 3000mAh battery.

Since Honor 5A series phones are going to be targeted at the low-end market, you can expect it to start at 699 Yuan ($106). The competition in this segment is really fierce, and yesterday, we just saw the entry of ZTE’s Blade A2 handset that comes with pretty good specs for its price. You can check out the TENAA listing of the Honor 5A and 5A Plus from here.

ASUS ZenFone 3 Deluxe May Feature Snapdragon 821 Instead of 823

By

Joel Joseph

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Jun 6, 2016

Recently, we heard that the ASUS Zenfone 3 Deluxe model, which is the top-end variant in the lineup will have another version reportedly sold in some Asian countries. The major difference in the new model would be that it will be powered by the Snapdragon 823 chipset. However, now, we have just spotted a promotional material of the ASUS ZenFone 3 Deluxe which reveals that the phone is powered by Snapdragon 821 and not Snapdragon 823. So, the SD821 powered variant of the device could be announced later.

From what we could make out from the promotional material of the device, it looks like the Snapdragon 821 chip will upgrade the clock speed to 2.3GHz. The Snapdragon 820 is clocked at 2.15GHz, so this will be a slight upgrade. Rest of the specs seems to be the same, like 14nm manufacturing node, and Adreno 530 GPU. So, this could be the overclocked version of the chipset.

But, what about Snapdragon 823? Well, earlier we had heard rumors that Snapdragon 821 was renamed to Snapdragon 823, but looks like that didn’t happen. Further, IHS analyst Kevin Wang said earlier today that the flagships of the second half of 2016 will be powered by Snapdragon 821 and not Snapdragon 823.

The name doesn’t matter much. Whether it’s called the Snapdragon 821 or Snapdragon 823, the chip would just be a gentle upgrade to the existing Snapdragon 820 SoC. This makes sense, because 820 is already a powerful chip, and even if it was going to be upgraded within a year, it should be only a gentle one.

What are your thoughts? Do we need an even faster Snapdragon chip for 2016 flagships?

ZUK Z2 Hands On Preview (Video)

By

Joel Joseph

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Jun 6, 2016

Lenovo’s sub-brand ZUK was established last year to attract the younger generation crowd who would like to have the best specs at the best price. ZUK Z1 managed to capture all of our attention and with the ZUK Z2 Pro and ZUK Z2 models, the company has pretty much established that it is here to take on the market. The ZUK Z2 in particular, is an important flagship for the company as it takes on Xiaomi’s mighty Mi5. What makes ZUK Z2 interesting is that it’s cheaper than the Mi 5, yet comes with a faster clocked Snapdragon 820 processor @ 2.15GHz as well as 4GB of RAM on board. This gave the Z2 an edge over the few months old Mi5. Check out our full comparison with Xiaomi Mi5 from here.

The ZUK Z2 is quite popular in China at the moment, and within three days the company managed to get over 6 million registrations for the first flash sale that is going to be held tomorrow morning. Given that this is a major flagship, we managed to get an early sample of the ZUK Z2. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the time for a full-fledged unboxing or review of the device, but those videos should come up soon.

What we do bring today is a preview video of the ZUK Z2 in action. In case, you were wondering how the ZUK Z2 looked in real life, and performed, this video should give you a basic idea about the phone. Check out this 5-incher from down below. Also, you can currently pre-order the ZUK Z2 from OPPOMART for $329. TThe phone starts shipping from June 20 and will come with google play services pre-installed on the device.

Five Different OnePlus 3 Cases Spotted on Zauba Listing

By

Joel Joseph

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Jun 6, 2016

As we near the announcement of the OnePlus 3 flagship, more information about the device has been coming up online. We already saw the new live leak of the flagship along with some camera samples taken from the rear camera shared directly by the company CEO, Pete Lau. Now, we have spotted new at least five different cases for the OnePlus 3 on the Indian import listing website, Zauba.

The website reveals five different back covers — bamboo, karbon, sandstone, black apricot and rosewood. Well, it’s not really surprising to see plenty of case options for the OnePlus 3 given that the previous two flagships were famous for the sandstone and wood back covers. So, anyone who didn’t like the metal design that we saw in the renders before, these cases could be a good and cheap way to give your phone a decent wood makeover.

OnePlus 3 is all set to go on sale on June 16 in China. The company CEO has revealed that the supply will be adequate and it is said that the stock is over a million. If the phone is going to be sold in millions, it becomes necessary for the company to make its accessories also available in plenty.

We still don’t know when the new phone will go on sale internationally, but we can expect more details in the next few days. Stay tuned to gizmochina for more updates on the upcoming OnePlus 3.

Thanks Ravi for the tip!

(Source)

More OnePlus 3 Live Images Appear

By

Habeeb Onawole

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Jun 6, 2016

OnePlus doesn’t want you to stop thinking about the upcoming OnePlus 3, so they’ve been regularly dropping bits and pieces about it. And I’m sure we are going to keep getting them till the 15th of June.

This time around what we have for you are live images of the OnePlus 3 (OP3) . The version in the picture is grey and appears to be wearing a transparent case compared to the black version spotted last month. We can also see that the OnePlus logo is missing, so this is most likely one of the prototypes running around. Thinking about it now, it’s possible for people to have seen the phone in public but not know it’s the OP3 since it’s not wearing their trademark logo. Plus, the design looks quite familiar, so you might not have taken it for a new OnePlus device.

The OnePlus 3 will be sporting a 5.5″ AMOLED FHD screen, Snapdragon 820, 4GB or 6GB of RAM, 3000mAh battery, and a fingerprint scanner. It will also bring back NFC support which was removed on the OP2 and ditching the invite system.

Pricing is still not known yet but OnePlus offered 1000 units for sale today at 2999 Yuan ($450) per unit. However, if the final price turns out to be less, buyers should expect a refund. More details on the sale here.

Also, in case you missed, here are some camera samples from the new flagship.

(Twitter)

LeEco Said To Release A New Snapdragon 823 Flagship at MWC Shanghai this month

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Joel Joseph

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Jun 6, 2016

LeEco surprised us everyone by announcing the first Snapdragon 820 powered smartphone in the market, namely the Le Max Pro. Although the phone wasn’t sold to the regular consumers in plenty, the company does hold the title of the first manufacturer with SD820 phone. Now, it looks like this Chinese company is going to boast of another great title this year.

According to Chinese media, LeEco is said to be working on a brand new Snapdragon 823 powered smartphone and it is expected to be announced at Mobile World Congress at Shanghai that starts at the end of this month, from June 29 and goes on till July 1. If true, LeEco will probably become the first smartphone maker to release a Snapdragon 823 powered phone!

According to rumors, Snapdragon 823 will come with slightly upgraded specs as compared to the already powerful SD820. The company is said to have increased the clock speed, with other upgrades such as Adreno 530 GPU, X12 LTE baseband and Cat.12 / 13 support. Other possible specs include support for 8GB DDR4 memory and 25MP camera sensor. The Galaxy Note 6 is long rumored to be using this new chip and so is the ASUS ZenFone Deluxe model for some Asian markets.

The Snapdragon 820 is already a powerful chipset and there’s hardly any other chips in the market that can match the performance of this beast. So, it would be interesting to see what the Snapdragon 823 brings to the table. We expect a slight boost in performance (because there’s actually no need for a significant increase right now) along with GPU and some connectivity upgrades as mentioned above.

Considering Snapdragon 820 smartphones started entering the market by February 2016, it would be really surprising if Snapdragon 823 phones make it to the market so early. Qualcomm usually follows yearly release period for its chips, but looks like that’s changing this year.

Anyway, it’s still too early to comment as we don’t have official details, but expect more details soon.

Xiaomi Will Soon Launch Its New Smartwatch, Reveals Analyst

By

Joel Joseph

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Jun 6, 2016

A few days back, Xiaomi released the much anticipated Xiaomi Mi Band 2 in China, costing just 149 Yuan ($22). However, the new generation Mi band is not the only wearable that we will be seeing from the company this year. For the first time, Xiaomi is said to be working on a smartwatch and the device was earlier confirmed to be released sometime in the second half of 2016. The confirmation came directly from the CEO of Huami, the company who is responsible for the manufacturing of the Mi Bands.

Now, the noted analyst, Pan Jiutang from China reveals that the new smartwatch should be released by the company soon. He also says that the power consumption of the new Xiaomi smartwatch should be similar to Garmin’s wearables. Finally, he asked his followers what would be the ideal price tag for the new sports watch from the company and gave two options, 999 Yuan ($152) and 1599 Yuan ($243). Well, considering that he revealed two specific price figures for the new Xiaomi smartwatch, it is speculated that there could be two variants that would be priced at 999 Yuan and 1599 Yuan respectively.

Also, since Huami CEO and now Pan Jiutang confirmed that the Xiaomi smartwatch exists, we now have to wait for an official announcement. Considering that the company’s Mi Band 2 costs $22, the Mi smartwatch at 999 Yuan may be a bit costlier than expected.

What do you think? If the Xiaomi smartwatch looks good and has a decent battery life, would you be ready to shell out around $152 for the wearable?

Meizu M3S: Meizu’s New Phone Scheduled to Launch June 13

By

Habeeb Onawole

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Jun 6, 2016

Exactly a week from today, Meizu will be holding a conference. The invitation to the event which holds a metallic key already hints that the device to be launched is going to be clad in metal.

China’s Sina tech has now been able to confirm that the device is called the Meizu M3S. So, the phone won’t be called as the Meizu M3 Metal like we previously speculated. The M3S is said to feature a 5″ HD screen, powered by a MediaTek MT6750 Octa-Core process clocked at 1.5GHz. It’ll come in two RAM and ROM variants, viz.: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM, and a 3GB RAM version with 32GB of built-in storage. Both versions will support SD card slots, feature 13MP rear cameras and 5MP front facing cameras, fingerprint scanners, and also be available in a variety of colors.

However, there’s no information regarding what version of Android it’ll launch with seeing that the M3 Note and M3 both arrived with Android 5.1 with no mention of an update yet.

The Meizu M3S is expected to be priced at 799 Yuan ($121) and 899 Yuan ($136) for the 2GB RAM and 3GB RAM versions respectively.

New OnePlus 3 Rear Camera Samples Revealed By CEO

By

Joel Joseph

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Jun 6, 2016

We are just a few days away from the official launch of the OnePlus 3 flagship. The company is already hyping the device, even selling limited 1000 units of the new device earlier today for 2999 Yuan ($456) in China. Unsurprisingly, the limited units were reportedly sold out in a just a matter of a second. Now, the next option for fans is to wait for the official launch of the device, on June 14 (June 15 in China). The company has confirmed that the phone will go on sale the very next day in China (i.e. June 16). And guess what, the company is said to have stocked millions of units for the sale day. The CEO also reaffirmed today that the stock will be adequate.

OnePlus One and OnePlus 2 had very good cameras, so we naturally expect the new generation OnePlus 3 to keep up the tradition of coming with a powerful rear snapper. From the previous TENAA listing, we saw that the phone came with a 16MP sensor at the back. We have also seen a couple of camera samples revealed directly from the company’s CEO. Now, CEO Pete Lau has just revealed three more pictures taken from the OnePlus 3 and they all look quite good. You can check them out from down below. The color reproduction looks really good, and there’s a good amount of detail as well. What do you think?

For the first time, OnePlus is going to release a phone with a metal body. TENAA pictures as well as earlier leaks have pretty much confirmed the metal design on the device. As for the specs, the phone is expected to come with a 5.5-inch 1080p display, powered by the mighty Snapdragon 820 quad-core processor. For memory, you can expect 4GB /6GB RAM versions with 64GB of inbuilt storage. At the back, the phone is said to come with a 16MP camera while up front you will find an 8MP shooter. The battery is going to be of decent capacity — 3000mAh but the highlight is most likely going to be the VOOC fast charging technology (still unconfirmed). As for software, the phone should run on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow based on OxygenOS (HydrogenOS in China).

As the release is nearing, expect more details about the phone soon.

Meanwhile, you can check out the camera samples revealed by the CEO a few days back from down below.

OnePlus 3 Rear Camera Sample

OnePlus 3 Front Camera Sample

Lenovo’s Project Tango Smartphone Rumored To Come With 6.4-inch 2K Display

By

Joel Joseph

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Jun 6, 2016

Ever since last year, we have been hearing about Google’s Project Tango which uses complex sensors and cameras on board the smartphone to map the space around the user in real time. This is really an interesting project and it is said that we will see the consumer version of Project Tango sometime later this year. Lenovo and Google had announced their partnership for this project earlier at CES 2016 and now, some more details about this Project Tango consumer ready device have cropped up online, thanks to the noted leakster, Evan Blass aka evleaks.

Evan revealed that Lenovo’s first Project Tango smartphone will be a large screen device and will be called as the LEnovo PHAB2 Pro. He also revealed that the phone will feature a 6.4-inch display, which is in line with what Google had said a while back. The company had confirmed that the phone’s display would be less than 6.5-inches but at that time, we were expecting something significantly smaller and not a 6.4-inch phablet. Another information revealed by Evan was that the phone feature a 2K resolution display. For such a massive size, 2K resolution sounds appropriate, since the pixel density comes to a good 459 ppi.

As for the pricing, we know for sure that the phone will be priced below $500.

In case you are wondering, Project Tango has many possible practical applications like finding measurements of a room, or even placing virtual furnitures inside a place. So, without having to use tapes or measurements, it will help to create 3D maps of rooms and other indoor locations.

Lenovo is expected to release the new PHAB2 Pro at Lenovo Tech World 2016. Hopefully, we’ll have more to talk about this device after the event.

(source)

Huawei Unveils A Custom 16-core Processor, But Not For Smartphones

By

Joel Joseph

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Jun 5, 2016

Huawei is one of the top five smartphone manufacturers in the market right now. But the company is also a player in the server market. We have heard about the servers from the company before, but the one that Huawei released recently is definitely worth our attention. The company has, for the first time, released a server powered by a processor with 16-core custom architecture.

Huawei has been making considerable progress in the silicon industry, thanks to its Hisilicon chipset department. Although the earlier Kirin chips from the company were not that impressive, the ones that have been released recently, like the Kirin 955 and 950 are quite powerful and efficient, putting Huawei smartphones at par with most flagships in the market. But Huawei uses ARM’s stock architecture on its Kirin chips for smartphones. On the other hand, for its new server, the company has reportedly used a self-developed 64-bit processor Hi1612a architecture, manufactured on TSMC’s 16nm process, with up to 16 cores on board and compatible with ARMv8-A instruction set. Further, the company is said to hold some IP rights related to large data analysis, cloud computing and information search.

But Huawei uses ARM’s stock architecture on its Kirin chips for smartphones. On the other hand, for its new server, the company has reportedly used a self-developed 64-bit processor Hi1612a architecture, manufactured on TSMC’s 16nm process, with up to 16 cores on board and compatible with ARMv8-A instruction set. Further, the company is said to hold some IP rights related to large data analysis, cloud computing and information search.

Huawei’s processors for smartphones have been till now limited to eight-core architecture. It is said that the company decided to develop a custom architecture for its new server because the server market is a very complex. There are a lot of factors to be considered like stability, reliability, long-term supply etc, but the development period could be long. Hence, the company had the time to develop its own custom architecture for its new product.

However, when it comes to the consumer smartphone market, the company will reportedly stick with ARM’s stock architecture because the development period is really short. So, it doesn’t look like Huawei plans to release a custom processor for smartphones and consumer market anytime soon.

Still, it’s good to see Huawei’s silicon arm progressing.

(via)

Photographs of the Moto Z and its Replaceable Style Mods Surface

By

Habeeb Onawole

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Jun 5, 2016

The Moto Z is Motorola’s flagship for the year and in what appears to be a strange coincidence, we see Motorola ditch the X name for Z, and Sony abandon the Xperia Z line for Xperia X.

The Lenovo-owned company is doing things differently this year by providing what is called StyleMods and MotoMods. The Stylemods are replaceable stylish covers which you can purchase to give your phone a new look and will come in leather, wood, and ballistic nylon. Since Motorola is going this way, it seems we won’t be seeing the much loved MotoMaker customization anymore.

The MotoMods on the other hand, are modular attachments similar to what LG came up with for the G5. The MotoMods add new functions to the phone by connecting to the 16-pin port present at the base of the Moto Z. There is a MotoMod that upgrades the camera of the phone by giving it a dedicated shutter button, lens cover, and probably optical zoom.

The Moto Z is said to feature an AMOLED screen with the same shatter shield technology seen on the Motorola Droid Turbo 2. The release date for the phone is just 4 days away, and we’ll sure provide you with new details once we get our hands on them

(source)

OnePlus 3 Scores Well on Latest Geekbench Benchmark Test

By

Habeeb Onawole

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Jun 5, 2016

While the official release for the OnePlus 3 is still about a week away, we already have a good idea of what to expect, although there’s a possibility that we shall be getting multiple variants of the OnePlus 3. This geekbench results is for a 6GB RAM version, running Android Marshmallow, and with a Snapdragon 820 processor.
The OnePlus 3 (OP3) has been put through multiple benchmarking tests in the past and the results are pretty consistent. For the latest tests dated 4th of June, the OP3 has a single-core score of 2394 and a multi-core score of 5635. Two previous tests ran a day before the latest one shows the OP3 achieving single-core scores of 2277 and 2400, and multi-core scores of 5157 and 5516. Another test ran in April showed the OP3 with the same RAM and SoC configuration achieving a single-core score of 2094 and multi-core score of 4944. From this we can see that the phone has indeed undergone some optimizations.

The OP3 is said to feature a 5.5” FHD display, a 16MP rear camera, 8MP for selfies, 3000mAh battery, and either 32GB or 64GB of ROM. The launch date is on the 14th and is going to happen on the company’s Loop VR Platform.

Big Question

Is 6GB RAM really necessary? Or should manufacturers rather focus on proper RAM optimization?

(via)

Lenovo 1080p IP Camera: Half the Price of Xiaomi’s YI Camera 2

By

Habeeb Onawole

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Jun 4, 2016

A little while back, a Lenovo Taobao crowdfunding for a 1080P smart surveillance camera was launched for half the price of a Xiaomi YI Camera 2. The Yi Camera 2 is priced at 399 Yuan ($60) with a year of Ali Cloud storage service at 120 Yuan while Lenovo’s smart camera is priced at 199 Yuan ($30) with the same cloud storage service at 180 Yuan.

Lenovo’s smart camera, called Snowman, (you can tell where the idea for the name came from) takes a few design cues from the BB8 droid in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, in the sense that the camera is balanced upon a detachable magnetic spherical base. The spherical base allows the camera to be moved around in a complete circle (360°) albeit manually and has a flat base that lets you mount it on walls.

The camera supports 1080P recording at 15fps, has 110° of horizontal viewing angle, 140° of diagonal viewing angle, and has SD card support of up to 128GB.

Other features include a 2MP sensor, 64MB RAM, 16MB ROM, 2-way audio, smart motion detection, automatic recording, phone alerts, and night vision sensor. Power input is 5V 1.5A. There’s Wi-Fi support with a bunch of security protections as well.

The camera is expected to retail for 289 Yuan ($44) for those who didn’t pledge during the crowdfunding.

ZUK Z2 Gets Over 6 Million Registrations For Its First Sale In China

By

Joel Joseph

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Jun 3, 2016

Smartphones are a big deal in China, with almost everyone looking to get hold of the latest flagship in the market. We have seen Xiaomi phones getting millions of registrations for the flash sales of their flagship models, and looks like ZUK is joining the party as well. ZUK has just revealed that it has received over 6 million registrations for the first sale of ZUK Z2 smartphone in China. This is actually not that surprising given that the device is priced at 1799 Yuan ($273) and it is one of the cheapest Snapdragon 820 powered smartphones that you can buy right now! What’s even more impressive is that the company got so many registrations in just three days, and there are still three days left for the first sale.

ZUK Z2 will officially go on sale in the country on June 7 at 10:00 AM. I sure hope ZUK has prepared enough units to fulfill the immense demand for the new handset.

Looks wise, the ZUK Z2 is similar to the Z2 Pro, coming with a metal frame and glass body. The company says the 68.88mm width of the device is ideal for one hand operation. Specs-wise, the phone is really impressive, coming with Snapdragon 820, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage as standard. The ZUI 2.0 comes with a special overclocking feature which increases the clock speed of the chipset from 2.15GHz up to 2.3GHz. At the back, there will be a 13MP rear camera with LED flash, PDAF and CAF, while up front, you get an 8MP shooter. The battery is pretty large as well, measuring 3500mAh in capacity and with Quick Charge 3.0, filling it up will be a piece of cake. You can read more about the specs of the device from here.

We will have to wait and see how many more registrations the phone gets before its first flash sale. We should get this news in the next few days.

New Huawei Daydream Supported Phone to Launch This Fall

By

Habeeb Onawole

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Jun 3, 2016

A few weeks ago during Google’s I/O conference, Daydream, it’s virtual reality platform for android was announced with a release date set for Fall. Google has however stated that most top phones in the market are unlikely to qualify for Daydream support as they want to set a high standard. Huawei’s Nexus 6P is however recommended for DIY developers of Daydream.

With this new development, the head of Huawei’s CEO , Richard Yu, mentioned in an interview with Wall Street Journal that the tech giant will launch a new Daydream supported phone during the fall as well.

He also mentioned that the company’s partnership with German optics specialist, Leica, which resulted in the birth of the Huawei P9, is expected to go on for the next five years.

Another important info Mr. Yu divulged during the interview is the company’s plans to start offering phones via US carriers, stating that plans are already in motion for that to begin.

Now the question is if consumers will be willing to put on hold getting new phones till Daydream supported ones are announced?

Le Max 2 6GB RAM Version Finally Up For Sale In China!

By

Joel Joseph

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Jun 3, 2016

LeEco announced the Le Max 2 flagship along with two other devices back in April this year. The Max 2 came in two variants, one with 4GB of RAM and another with 6GB of RAM on board. However, up till now, LeEco was only selling the 4GB RAM model in China. I have received a lot of emails from our readers asking about the 6GB RAM version and now, finally, there is some good news. LeEco announced today that the Le Max 2 6GB RAM version is up for pre-sale.

You can pre-order the device right now via the official company store, and you can expect delivery in the next two to three weeks. The company is also reportedly going to make the device up for open sale, but we haven’t got any dates for the same. Given that the phone is finally on presale in China, you can expect third party retailers l ike LETVMart to start selling and shipping the device soon.

With 6GB of RAM onboard, the LeEco Le Max 2 is really a power flagship. It comes with Snapdragon 820 chipset with a large 5.7-inch 2K display on board. There will be 64GB of internal storage and a battery measuring 3100mAh in capacity. At the back, you get a 21MP sensor, while up front, there’s an 8MP shooter. Priced officially at 2699 Yuan ($409), there’s hardly any competition for the device in its price segment.

Meanwhile, check out our review of the Le Max 2 4GB RAM flagship from here.

You can Pre-order Le Max 2 From LeTVMart

Limited OnePlus 3 Units Goes On Sale In China On June 6

By

Joel Joseph

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Jun 3, 2016

OnePlus 3 is going to sell its upcoming OnePlus 3 flagship even before its official launch. The company has just revealed that a few limited units (1000) will be up for sale on June 6. So, you could very well be one of the first users to get hold of the device in China. The company has priced the device at 2999 Yuan (around $455). OnePlus adds that this is not the official price tag of the product, instead, this price is for the early adopters. It’s likely that the OnePlus 3 flagship starts at a much lower figure than this, as revealed by earlier rumors.

So, why would you even consider paying $455 for the new device? Well, if you want to be one of the first ones to experience the OnePlus 3, then this is a good opportunity. Further, the company is said to give out a few extra presents to the early adopters. What makes this sale interesting is that the price you pay will be matched by the official price tag announced on June 15 in China. So, if the official price is greater than 2999 Yuan, you will have to shell out more to compensate for the difference. If the price is less than this figure, OnePlus will refund the difference back to you. Further, you have 7 days to cancel the order — till June 14 6PM Beijing time, i.e. if you change your mind.

As for the shipments, the OnePlus 3 will be shipped on the same day as the announcement, i.e. June 15. So, your OnePlus 3 should arrive at least a couple of days before the regular orders.

You can check out more details about this sale from here (in Chinese): http://rush.oneplus.cn/a-smarter-gift.html

If you don’t want to shell out this much for the device, you can try to get into the peer community review program from the company. Read more about that from here.

Snapdragon 625 vs Snapdragon 617 vs Snapdragon 652: First Benchmark Comparison

By

Joel Joseph

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Jun 2, 2016

ASUS announced the new ZenFone 3 smartphone, which was one of the first phones to feature the 14nm based Snapdragon 625 chipset. Interestingly, Samsung recently announced the Galaxy C7 handset in China, which also came with the same Snapdragon 625 chip. Since this is a new chip from Qualcomm, we are eager to see the first set of benchmark results for the SoC, and looks like they are quite satisfactory. Although the ZenFone 3 wasn’t available for testing, the Galaxy C7 was, which meant that we can see the initial performance of the chipset. The results come from a Chinese website, who tested out the C7 with Snapdragon 625 on board.

These scores also help us to compare Snapdragon 625 vs Snapdragon 617 vs Snapdragon 652.

The Snapdragon 625 SoC, like its name suggests, is placed between the Snapdragon 617 and Snapdragon 652 chipsets. And the benchmark scores reveal that it performs perfectly, according to its placement.

In the AnTuTu test, the Galaxy C7 powered by SD625 managed to score just above 60,000 points. In the geekbench 3 test, this chip managed to get 782 in the single core test and 4330 in the multi-core test.

Now, the results for Snapdragon 625 vs Snapdragon 617 are just as we expected. The Snapdragon 617 chip which is placed below the 625 scores just above 700 points in the Geekbench 3 single-core test and around 3100 points in the multi-core test. Since even the Snapdragon 625 chip is based on Cortex A53 cores in an eight core architecture, the single core test is similar, around 780 points. On the other hand, Qualcomm has bumped up the clock speed from 1.5Ghz on the SD617 to 2GHz on the SD625, and hence, we see a great improvement in the multi-core test scores (4330) on the new chip. In case you are wondering, Snapdragon 617 gets around 45K on AnTuTu, which is way less than SD625’s core of 60K+.

Now, coming to the Snapdragon 652 vs Snapdragon 625 comparison, we referred to the score posted by the mighty OPPO R9 Plus. It managed to get a score of around 82,000 in the AnTuTu test and 1518 (single-core) and 4899 (multi-core) in the Geekbench 3 tests. As you can see, this is clearly better than the scores on Snapdragon 625 that we saw above. The Cortex A72 cores definitely help the SD652 out-perform the SD625.

As always, we would like to note that benchmarks tests only tell one part of the story. But it does give us an idea about the basic Snapdragon 625 vs Snapdragon 617 vs Snapdragon 652 performance.

So, what do you think about the new Snapdragon 625? Seems like a powerful SoC that can drive the mid-range market.

Xiaomi’s Mi Band 2 Already Up For Pre-order On Geekbuying

By

Joel Joseph

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Jun 2, 2016

Xiaomi announced the new Mi Band 2 wearable earlier today for an amazing price tag of 149 Yuan which comes to just $22. Now, just a few hours after the band’s release, Geekbuying has started accepting pre-orders for the new device. Of course, you will have to shell out a little premium when buying from the third party retailer, but at $39.99, it still within the reach of many buyers. Remember this is a pre-order for the device and the retailer has listed June 30 as the delivery time. Considering that the band goes on sale in China only on June 7, this seems pretty decent.

As for the features of the device, we have already listed them in detail here. To recap, the Mi Band 2 comes with an anti-allergic, anti-slip strap in black, orange and blue colors. Like its predecessor, its IP67 certified, meaning dust and water proof. The biggest upgrade on the new wearable is the OLED screen on board with a button on top to change modes. This doesn’t really severely affect the band’s battery life, as the company claims that it should run for up to 20 days on a single charge.

You will find the usual activity tracker features such as pedometer, heart rate monitor, steps tracker, sleep monitor, alarm, sedentary vibration alert etc.

You can check out the listing on Geekbuying from the link given below.

Pre-order Xiaomi Mi Band 2 from Geekbuying