In case you were wondering how much Google makes from Android, here’s some idea. Thanks to an Oracle lawyer, we now know that Google has made $31 billion USD in revenue from its Android Operating System. From this, the company earned a profit of around $22 billion. So, this means the company’s profit margin for Android is nearly 70%!
Google does not reveal financial information about Android separately. So the company is not happy with the Oracle Lawyer revealing such sensitive information. It further states that the lawyer got this information from confidential internal financial documents which were never meant to be made public.
The two major sources of the company’s profits from Android come via advertisements on phones and Google Play store. So, it looks like the company is making a lot of money from its Android business.
However, if you consider that Android was launched way back in 2008, i.e. nearly eight years back, this figure is not that surprising. Apple generates this amount in iPhone sales in just a quarter. But the margin is what’s interesting here, as even Apple (although not directly comparable to Android) enjoys only around 40% margin on its iPhones.
So, what do you think about these figures for Android? Are you surprised?
LeEco, formerly known as LeTV recently entered the Indian smartphone market with its budget Le 1S and high-end Le Max smartphones. Le 1S is going to be the first phone available to purchase in the country when it goes on sale on Feb 2. Like tradition, the company has already started accepting registrations for the event, from Jan 20. Now, the company reports that it has already received more than 100,000 registrations for the Feb 2 sale day in just one day.
This is a tremendous achievement for the company, who just entered the market just recently. Although LeEco has been marketing its brand throughout the country via its social media brands, the company launched its first three devices only this Wednesday.
With such tremendous response for the device, the company has managed to set a new record in India. It’s the first smartphone company to have crossed over 100,000 pre-sale registrations in 24 hours for a smartphone in the price bracket upwards of Rs. 10,000.
The phone is priced aggressively in the country, at Rs. 10,999 ($162) and goes on sale on Feb 2 at 12 pm. What’s more, if you have an Axis Bank debit card, you can further get a discount of 10% on this price, making the deal sweeter.
The Le 1S features Helio X10 Turbo edition with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. At the back, you get a 13MP camera while up front a 5MP shooter. The display is of 5.5-inches with FHD 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. As for the battery, you have a 3000mAh capacity battery on board with fast charge that will give you 3.5 hours of talktime in just 5 minutes of charging. Moreover, you have a fingerprint sensor on the back as well.
So, it looks like a pretty good deal! With the company planning to launch 555 service centers throughout India, it looks like LeEco is planning to build a strong presence in the country.
Xiaomi has released quite a few great affordable smartphones lately. Firstly, we have the recently reviewed Redmi Note 3, which turned out to be one of the best in class. This time around we have a just released very affordable Redmi 3. Find out if it is any good in our full Xiaomi Redmi 3 review.
139.3 x 69.6 x 8.5 mm (5.48 x 2.74 x 0.33 in) / 144g
OS
MIUI 7.1 (based on Android 5.1.1)
Storage
16GB (expandable via microSD card slot up to 128GB)
Xiaomi Redmi 3 Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY
When it comes the design, we are looking at a very compact phone as it has a 5” display and it is similar to the iPhone 6s in terms of the overall footprint.
Speaking of display, we have just a 720p panel, which was chosen to keep the low cost of the phone. It is not a bad panel though as it is quite bright, it has good viewing angles and natural colour reproduction. However, it is not as sharp as 1080p panels and you can notice that immediately. Also, the colours could look more vibrant to my taste.
On the front we have a 5MP selfie camera and some other usual stuff, and on the bottom there are 3 capacitive buttons, which are, however, not backlit. A funny thing is that Xiaomi implemented a notification LED light right below the home button (not on the top side of the device like the majority of phones).
The backplate is made of metal (except for the top and bottom parts for antennas) and it has some nice looking diamond shape patterns, which also hide most of visible smudges.
As far as optics, we are looking at 13MP camera with PDAF and a single LED flash.
On the bottom there is just a speaker grill.
The buttons are located on the right, they are also metal-made and have a good tactile response.
The left side is where you can find a dual SIM card slot, where one slot also doubles as an optional microSD card slot for storage expansion up to 128GB.
On the top there is a headset jack and the IR blaster to control devices like TV and on the bottom you can find the micro USB port.
Overall, I’m really happy with the design of the Redmi 3. It feels nice in the hand, it is very compact and almost all-metal design makes it look like a premium phone. However, the backlight for capacitive buttons would have been nice.
Xiaomi Redmi 3 Review: UI
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Xiaomi Redmi 3 comes with MIUI 7.1, which is built on top of Android 5.1. As usual, there is no app tray and all apps sit on the home-screens.
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If you are not yet familiar with the MIUI, it has tons of customisation options, which include a wide choice of themes, wallpapers, fonts and so on. You can select from a few pre-installed ones or simply go to the online theme store where you will find thousands of different themes to suit everyone’s taste. Also, you can highly customise the LED light, assign different tasks to capacitive buttons and so on.
MIUI 7.1 runs fast and fluid most of the times. There were just a few minor hiccups but they are not even worth complaining about. Overall, I’m happy with the way the user interface works on a daily basis especially if you consider a feature set and customisation options it offers.
Xiaomi Redmi 3 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMACE
Xiaomi Redmi 3 has a pretty good hardware as it sports an octa-core Snapdragon 616 chip with the clocks speeds of up to 1.5GHz, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage.
Although the phone is far from being the synthetic benchmark champion but it performs really well in 3D gaming.
Asphalt 8 runs perfectly on medium graphics and there were just a few minor skipped frames on the highest graphics settings, so you may enjoy playing even the most demanding games on the Redmi 3.
Finally, the phone does not heat up much even after 30 minutes of gaming.
Xiaomi Redmi 3 Review: MULTIMEDIA
Watching full-HD content is a blast as videos in different formats play smoothly. The sound via earphones is pretty good with a loud volume output and clear sound for a budget device.
As far as the loudspeaker, it is pretty good too. While it is definitely not the best but it has a reasonable amount of depth and it does not sound tinny like a lot of cheap phones.
Xiaomi Redmi 3 Review: CAMERA
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The MIUI camera app is fast and easy to use and there are a few shooting modes and settings to play with. However, I don’t like that picture taking and video recording modes are separated.
Xiaomi Redmi 3 Review: IMAGE QUALITY
Xiaomi Redmi 3 vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Camera Comparison:
The 13MP camera takes pictures very fast thanks to PDAF system. But what about the image quality?
Daylight images turn out to be pretty good. There is a reasonable amount of details, colour reproduction is very accurate and most of the pictures look pretty sharp.
However, some of the pictures have softer focus on the corners or in some parts of the image or uneven focus throughout the image. Also, I had a few slightly blurry shots meaning that auto-focus is not always reliable.
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When it comes to indoor and lower-lit environments, it is a hit or miss situation. Most of the times, the Redmi 3 will take a good and sharp looking image but other times you may face some camera’s struggles like less details than expected, uneven focus or even blurry shots. In addition, sceneries I took pictures of didn’t look that good on the camera’s viewfinder and thus I used tap-to-focus technique in a lot of shots to be 100% sure about the correct object the sensor focuses.
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As far as night shots, they do not impress. There is a low amount of details and a lot of noise in each and every picture. To be honest, they looked a lot better on the phone than on the computer’s screen.
1080p video is not bad for the phone this cheap. However, the footage looks a bit shaky and the camera could capture a bit more details. See a video review for a video sample.
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As for selfie shooter, it will do the trick for social media but I suggest you taking images in good lighting conditions.
All in all, the Redmi 3 has a decent camera for daylight images but it becomes inconsistent in lower-lit situations and it kind of disappoints at night.
On the other hand, maybe we shouldn’t be so picky for the phone this cheap, right?
All the connectivity options work great. Call quality is okay and signal reception is excellent. Also, Wifi, GPS and Bluetooth are working fine. However, I was disappointed as the phone does not support 5GHz Wifi connection.
Xiaomi Redmi 3 Review: BATTERY LIFE
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The Xiaomi Redmi 3 has a huge 4100mAh non-removable battery. It sounds really impressive considering a 5” 720p display and it delivers in real life.
In fact, the battery is one of the best in class. I could not squeeze the battery out in one day even on heavy usage that involved gaming, installing lots of apps, watching a lot videos, taking pictures, browsing the web and so on.
I was able to achieve over 7 hours of screen-on time with max. auto brightness setting of the screen. That means that you can achieve even more impressive results if you reduce the brightness or don’t use the phone that heavily like I did during my testing period.
Finally, Xiaomi claims that the Redmi 3 has a fast charging feature. It took me just over 3.5h to charge the phone. While it is not the fastest charging time I’ve seen, it is not a bad result for the battery this huge.
Xiaomi Redmi 3 Review: CONCLUSIONS
So, there you have it, another affordable yet awesome Xiaomi. The Redmi 3 costs just $107 in China which is simply ridiculous. As always, you would need to pay extra for third-party resellers if you want to order the phone in the West and it will cost you less than $150.
Still, I believe the Redmi 3 is well worth the price. You are getting a very compact phone with a premium metal design, good build quality, quite a powerful hardware, good gaming performance, feature-rich user interface and some other good stuff.
The battery life is definitely one of the selling points here and the Redmi 3 is definitely for those who use their phones day in, day out.
However, while the screen is definitely good for a 720p panel, we would love to start seeing 1080p displays even on the cheapest devices.
Also, the camera is not bad for daylight images but it faces various issues with less lighting and there were times that it really disappointed.
Last complaint would be non-backlit capacitive buttons but it is definitely not a deal breaker.
At the end of the day, the Xiaomi Redmi 3 is a very easy recommendation especially for those on a budget. It brings a powerful hardware and it does most of the things right without breaking your bank. Some features may be even improved with future software updates, some may not but you have to keep in mind that you are not paying a fortune for this device.
Recently, we have seen a number of budget smartphones running on the Helio X10 MT6795 chipset. This performance oriented chip which was initially only available on upper mid-range flagship smartphones, suddenly came as a savior to the low-end devices, breathing in new life into them. All the major Chinese manufacturers have used this chip quite frequently on devices like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, Meizu MX5 and even LeTV Le 1S. However, it looks like the chip may have some problems in connecting to Wi-Fi.
Back when the Meizu MX5 was released, many users reported in various forums about problems associated with the phone’s Wi-Fi. Similarly, Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 users have also had similar complaints. Even Le 1S users have reported of similar issues with Wi-Fi. Earlier it was said that MIUI or Flyme OS could the reason for this issue. But since many users from different manufacturers are facing the same issue, it looks like the MT6795 Helio X10 chipset that’s running inside all these devices could be the real culprit.
So, if you have been facing Wi-Fi connectivity issues on your MT6795 powered phone, it’s likely that your chipset which integrates the Wi-Fi chip is the cause of the problem. We still don’t know how severe is this issue, but even if it’s minor, connectivity drops is not something we would expect on phones from respectable manufacturers like Xiaomi or Meizu.
Let us know in the comments section below whether you have come across such Wi-Fi drops in your Helio X10 powered smartphones.
Not a day goes by without news about Xiaomi’s upcoming flagship, the Xiaomi Mi 5. We already know a lot about the device, thanks to its leaks and renders, and latest information has given us some idea about the phone’s pricing.
Xiaomi Mi 5 is confirmed to come with the powerful Snapdragon 820 chipset on board, which means that the phone is targeted at the high-end market. The company executive had earlier said that it wants to make its mark in the high-end market, i.e. in the 3000 Yuan segment ($455) this year. So, we are expecting the Xiaomi Mi 5 with top of the line specifications and a price tag around $400.
Latest information reveals that the Mi 5 will come in two editions, namely a standard variant and a premium variant. The standard edition will reportedly be priced around 2499 Yuan ($379) and will feature Snapdragon 820, 3GB RAM + 16GB storage, 16MP rear camera with OIS, and a 5.2-inch 1080p display. On the other hand, the premium edition will feature the same specs but increases memory combination to 4GB + 64GB storage. The premium version will be priced at 2999 Yuan ($455).
While this may be a bit costly as compared to Xiaomi’s previous smartphones, it will turn out to be relatively well priced. The only Snapdragon 820 powered smartphone announced this year, namely Le Max Pro is rumored to cost around $535. That’s almost $100 higher than the high-end Xiaomi Mi 5 variant.
Of course, at this moment, we can’t really confirm these prices. But expect the final figures to be somewhere near this. As for the release date, it should be after February 20, possible on Feb 23.
Xiaomi is yet to release invites for the event, so we will have to wait for a few days at least to get this information confirmed.
Meanwhile, the company could announce something in addition to the Mi 5 at the event, since its going to be around 2 hours long. Read more about that from here.
Late last month, we reported that Android 6.0 based MIUI 7 has entered closed beta for a bunch of Xiaomi models like the Mi Note, Mi 4, Mi 3 etc. Now, it looks like the ROM is finally getting to the next stage as a screenshot from a user reveals that the Mi Note is getting an updated developer ROM based on the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow version.
The screenshot reveals that the build number of the new ROM will be MRA58K and the phone runs on the new MIUI 7 version based on Android Marshmallow. It is said that the ROM will be available to download this week and you can update your developer ROM to this version pretty soon.
It’s actually great to see Android 6.0 on the Mi Note within a few months of the new version’s release. However, if you are looking for a stable build, it may take some time. Especially since the development will be slow during early February when China celebrates its annual Spring Festival. So, you can expect a stable release of MIUI 7 based on Android 6.0 sometime after the festival.
LeEco, formerly known as LeTV made its official entry in India earlier today with three important smartphones, namely Le 1S, Le Max and the Le Max Sapphire Edition. While the first two are quite aggressively priced, the Sapphire Edition will reportedly cost a lot in the country, even beating the iPhone 6S in terms of pricing.
All the three models were already announced in China, so in terms of specs, there are no surprises. Hence, let’s directly take a look at some India specific details such as pricing and availability before recapping the specifications.
First of all, the Le 1S model will be the company budget offering the country, priced aggressively at just Rs. 10,999 ($161). The phone will be available for purchase via the usual flash sale model on February 2 at 12pm. Users can register for the sale from January 20 6pm onwards until 11AM on February 2.
As for the high-end Le Max model, the phone will be available for sale on Flipkart on February 16. The 64GB variant will be priced at Rs. 32,999 ($485) and the 128GB variant at Rs. 36,999 ($543).
Finally, coming to one of the costliest smartphones that you can buy in the country right now, the Le Max Sapphire Edition, it will cost you a whopping Rs. 69,999 which comes to $1027. Not cheap, but then, you get the hard to crack sapphire glass on top. The company knows that this is going to be a special product and hence, its available to buy only via invites, that too limited to a total of 1000 units.
Coming to the specs, the Le 1S features a 5.5-inch 1080p display with 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, 13MP rear camera, 5MP front shooter, aluminum body, and a 3000mAh battery. Not at all a bad deal for $161.
As for the Le Max, it comes with a powerful 2GHz Snapdragon 810 chipset with 4GB RAM, 64GB/ 128GB storage options, 21MP Sony IMX230 rear camera, 4MP Ultrapixel front camera, 6.33-inch QHD 2560 x 1440p display and a decent 3400mAh battery.
Further, the company adds that its going to invest a lot in the country this year. LeEco is currently working to build a network of around 555 service stations in India, and a large R&D center with around 1000 employees working on a number of LeEco products like TVs, smartphones and accessories.
Given that LeEco aka LeTV is actually focused on its core business of video streaming, the company has partnered with Eros Film company and live channel provider YuppTV. So, it looks like LeEco, in just one year, will build a strong presence in the country.
It looks like the internet won’t stay quite until the Xiaomi Mi 5 launches officially. In just one day, we have come across multiple leaks about the upcoming flagship device, which really shows the excitement level among fans.
Now, the latest alleged images of the Mi 5 flagship shows us the back of the device for the first time. And to our surprise, we can see a rear placed fingerprint sensor.
Now, this makes things confusing. The majority of the Xiaomi Mi 5 images that we have seen recently confirms a physical home button up front. Now, since Xiaomi’s smartphones don’t usually come with a physical home button, we assumed that this button will most likely come with a fingerprint sensor as well. However, things get confusing after this image shows us the sensor at the back. So, it’s possible that these Xiaomi Mi 5 images are of an early prototype model.
These images reveal that the phone will have a large camera sensor at the back along with a standard LED flash and Laser Autofocus as well. The overall body seems to be made out of metal, which contradicts recent rumors which said that the phone will come with 2.5D glass both on the front as well as the back. This is why we suspect that these are two different devices.
So, one of these designs could be an early prototype. Or this could be an entirely different smartphone, maybe the successor to the company’s Mi Note series. At this moment, these Xiaomi Mi 5 images make things more confusing, so we better wait for some more clarification in the coming days.
Meanwhile, let us know which of these two design you prefer? The one that was leaked in white or the one leaked today?
We have reviewed a bunch of affordable yet well designed phones from China and Cubot S600 is no exception. Find out more in our unboxing and first impressions article.
The phone ships with charging plug, USB cable, SIM ejector pin, documentation, a tempered glass screen protector and a nice TPU case.
Cubot S600: DESIGN and FIRST IMPRESSIONS
First of all, I was immediately impressed by the design of the phone. It uses a very high quality metal band around the device and 2.5D glass on the front and back. The device feels like a flagship phone due to its excellent build and the choice of materials.
On the front we have an 8MP shooter, all usual stuff and LED flash. On the bottom there are nicely backlit capacitive buttons.
The back is made of glass and it is a huge fingerprint magnet on the black review unit we have.
As far as optics, we have a 16MP camera with dual LED flash. The fingerprint scanner is right below, which was really easy to setup and it is both fast and accurate to use.
The buttons are located on the right side and the are also made of metal. They are easy to press and tactile but the volume rocker is not of the highest quality but it may be just my review unit. The problem is that once I want to press volume up, I need to push the button kind of in the middle, not at the top.
On the left there is a dual micro SIM card slot. One slot also doubles as a microSD card slot.
The headset jack is on the top and the micro USB charging port is on the bottom.
So far I’ve been impressed with the Cubot S600 mainly due to its great design and build quality. It literally feels like expensive handset in the hand. Also, the UI seems to be working fast and the fingerprint sensor does its job very well.
However, we need to spend some more time with the device testing it. Stay tuned for a full review.
The contents of the packaging include only the USB charging plug and the cable.
Blackview BV2000s: DESIGN and FIRST IMPRESSIONS
When it comes to the design, nothing has really changed in comparison to the BV2000 model. The phone is made of matt plastic and it feels comfortably in the hand due to rounded corners.
The device has a 5″ display, which is okay to look at but it only has a 720p resolution. It is definitely not the sharpest out there but it is quite good considering a low price of the phone.
On the top we have a 2MP camera, LED light and some other usual stuff. On the bottom there are 3 non-backlit capacitive buttons.
The back is made of matt plastic and thus the fingerprints are not that visible.
As far as optics, we have an 8MP snapper and a dual LED flash.
Under the hood you can find a usual combo on China phones: two SIM card slots and the microSD card slot.
The buttons are located on the right and they are made of plastic. I can’t say they are of a bad quality but they feel a bit mushy.
The headset jack and the micro USB port are on the top.
Overall, the Blackview BV2000s is well made cheap device. It does not look or feel premium but it does not look very cheap either. Matt plastic finish and rounded corners definitely help with the grip. Also, 5″ display makes this phone compact and manageable with one hand.
The specs of this phone do not impress but the Blackview BV2000s is all about budget. So far the phone looks and feels nice for a $68 device but we have to use it for some time. Stay tuned for a full review.
Earlier today, a couple of new media invitations of Meizu surfaced online, hinting at the possibility of a new smartphone launch. While many predict the new launch could be from the budget Blue Charm range, some rumors claim that the upcoming phone is possibly the Meizu MX6 flagship.
According to the latest rumors, Meizu will release the MX6 flagship earlier than tradition this year. The company will reportedly launch the device sometime around March, which is just a few weeks away. Considering this launch period, it’s possible that today’s leaked invites are for the flagship launch event.
It is said that the Meizu MX6 flagship will be designed on the same lines as last year’s MX5. However, the bezels will be ultra-thin and the phone will feature a metal frame + glass design. As for the specs, AnTuTu had recently given out some details about the phone’s hardware.
The Meizu MX6 is said to come with Mediatek’s powerful deca-core Helio X20 processor. The phone revealed by the benchmarking app featured 3GB RAM, Mali-T880 MP4 GPU and Android 6.0. While the display size was not leaked, the resolution is said to be FHD i.e. 1920 x 1080 pixels.
However, some rumors give out an even powerful hardware for the MX6. The device will reportedly come with 4GB of RAM, 20.7MP rear camera, 8MP front-facing shooter and a large 4000mAh battery.
Unfortunately, as of now, nothing can be confirmed as Meizu has not yet officially scheduled an event for a new device. So, even if these invites are real and for the MX6 flagship, we will have to wait at least for a few days to hear something from the company.
We are just a couple of weeks away from the official unveiling of the Xiaomi Mi 5 flagship. Fans have been waiting for the company to launch this device for more than a year now. But Xiaomi is taking its time to develop and release the device, probably because it’s one of the most important products the year. The Mi 5 is expected to come with top-end specs, including the newly launched Qualcomm flagship, Snapdragon 820. Given that the phone will feature such high-end tech, we have been wondering whether the company will price the device higher than Mi 4 (1999 Yuan i.e. $304).
Earlier leaked Mi 5
Now, a new rumor via the Chinese social networking website Weibo reveals that the Xiaomi Mi 5 could be priced more than 3500 Yuan which comes to around $532. The source says that the price could even go higher, but he didn’t give a specific upper limit.
This is contrary to what we heard about Mi 5’s pricing in the past. The company was expected to price the phone somewhere around 2499 Yuan which comes to around $380. The high-end version was rumored to cost somewhere in the 3000 Yuan range ($450). So, this pricing is really not what we are expecting from a Xiaomi flagship.
As for the specs, the Xiaomi Mi 5 is confirmed to come with Snapdragon 820 quad-core chip onboard. Other rumored features include 4GB of RAM, 32GB storage, 5.2-inch display with 2K resolution, 16MP rear + 8MP front cameras and a 3600mAh battery. There are even rumors about 3D touch feature on the device.
So, Mi 5 is definitely going to be a powerful device. Considering that the phone ends up with these specs, would you be willing to shell out anywhere upwards of $500 for the device?
Huawei managed to sell more than 109 million smartphones in 2015. The company is all set to increase this figure in 2016, as there are a number of devices in the pipeline that will meet us this year.
One of the devices that will launch sometime in the coming months is the Huawei P9. We have already learnt a lot of information about the device, thanks to the past rumors. Now, a new report have emerged citing a person with knowledge of the company’s plans, stating that the upcoming Huawei P9 flagship will come in four different version.
Apart from the regular version, the Huawei P9 will feature a ‘Lite’ version and a ‘Max’ version. The third model will be a premium device with high-end features, however, at the time of the report, the source was not entirely sure about premium version. However, if this models sees the light of the day, then it would come with a larger screen and better camera. In fact, it is said that the premium version would focus on the camera especially, with a possibility of a dual camera setup along with some additional features.
As for the release date, we may see these devices at MWC 2016 in Barcelona. However, its possible that the company might schedule an event sometime after MWC, in a separate launch event.
Apart from today’s report, the P9 was leaked in renders a few days earlier, which featured a physical home button. As for the specs, the phone is expected to come with a 5.2-inch FHD 1080p display, with Kirin 950 under the hood, 3000mAh battery and a whopping 6GB of RAM.
Hopefully, things will get clearer in the coming days. Stay tuned for more details.
LeEco former known as LeTV has been teasing its entry in India for the past few weeks. Now the wait has almost come to an end for Indian fans as the company will officially unveil two new devices at tomorrow’s event in Gurgaon, India. One of them is the large screen phablet, namely the Le Max with a massive 6.33-inch display while the second one will be the Le 1S, catering to the budget segment.
Both the phones will most likely be sold exclusively via the retailer Flipkart. The e-commerce site recently released a teaser with the silhouette of the two phones, confirming their arrival on the website. Further, LeEco has revealed that the company will customize the new smartphones according to the needs of the Indian consumers. Unfortunately, we still don’t know what the company means by such customizations, but things will get clearer tomorrow.
Apart from announcing these two devices, LeEco will also reportedly reveal more details about its plans in the country including future partnerships. Also, it may showcase the other smartphones at the event that were launched in 2015.
As for the specs, the Le Max flagship comes with a 6.33-inch 2K display with Snapdragon 810 chipset under the hood and 4GB RAM. There will be ample storage on board, thanks to 64GB internal memory. At the back, you will find a 21MP shooter while, up front, there will be a 4MP Ultrapixel camera. As for the software, the phone comes with Android Lollipop onboard with the company’s own skin called EUI on top.
The mid-range Le 1S model,comes with Helio X10 inside with 3GB RAM and 32GB of non-expandable internal storage. There will be a large 5.5-inch display with FHD 1080p resolution and a 3000mah battery onboard. At the back, there is a 13MP camera while you will find a 5MP shooter up front.
Since we already know the specs of both the device, tomorrow’s event will be special in the sense that we will get to know both the device’s Indian pricing as well as what all customizations/ changes the company has made for the India-specific release.
As promised, LeEco will live stream the entire event tomorrow, and you can check that out directly from the youtube video down below.
According to the latest information from a Chinese analyst, Huawei shipped more than 40% of its smartphones outside of the domestic market. That’s quite an impressive figure considering that the company managed to ship more than 100 million units in 2015 alone.
Huawei reportedly sold a total of 109.015 million units last year, with an annual growth rate of nearly 45%. Out of these, 63 million smartphones were shipped domestically in China, which comes to around 58%. The rest 42% of phones were shipped outside the country.
Even with such impressive figures, both domestically and globally, the company hasn’t managed to take the top spot in China. During a recent event, Xiaomi’s President had revealed that it shipped over 70 million smartphones last year, which was lower than the initial target of 80 million but still, it was the first in the country. So, it looks like Xiaomi has sold over 63 million phones in the domestic market. It looks like the company meant that its still first in terms of market share in China for the year 2015.
Although a win inside of China, Xiaomi has a long way to catch up with Huawei. The latter has a very strong presence internationally, and with its entry into the US market with products such as the Honor 5X and the Huawei Mate 8, we can expect Huawei to ship more units this year. So, it won’t be easy to close the gap between the two companies which is currently over 30 million units.
So, do you think Xiaomi can close in the lead secured by Huawei last year?
Elephone announced a bunch of new products at its event on Friday last week. We saw the brand new Elephone P9000, Edge and Lite variants at the event along with a brand new Elephone W2 smartwatch.
Elephone P9000
The phone came with pretty powerful specs, however at the time of the event, the company did not reveal the official price tag of any of the products. Now, Elephone has revealed the pricing for its Elephone P9000 and P9000 Lite models (given below). However, if you were interested to know the price for the Edge model, you will have to wait for a few more weeks.
ELEPHONE P9000 & P9000 Lite PRICING
Elephone reveals that the P9000 will be priced at $269.99 which is the same price we spotted the device on the company’s store earlier. However, if you were one of the users who participated in the company’s crowdfunding campaign that launched back in December, you can get the device for as low as $219.99, using the discount code generated then. Similarly, the P9000 Lite is priced at $219.99, but with the coupon code generated during the campaign, you can get it for as low as $169.99. Now, this turns out to be a pretty good deal, considering the specs that you get on both the devices.
So, for just $169.99, you can get hold of the Lite model that features 4GB of RAM with Helio P10 on board. This would make it one of the best deals in the market right now. Other specs on the Lite model include 32GB of storage, Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box and 5.5-inch FHD 1080p display. There’s a 13MP rear camera and some smart software features as well.
On the other hand, the $269.99/ $219.99 Elephone P9000 flagship model comes with all the above specs (and a better rear camera sensor), along with additional features such as Wireless Charging, fingerprint scanner and NFC.
So, what do you think about the pricing? Does $269.99 sound good enough for a Helio P10 + 4GB RAM powered smartphone?
Also, did you participate in the crowdfunding campaign from Elephone last month?
ZOPO has been teasing its upcoming ZOPO Speed 8 flagship for the past few weeks. This is the successor to the popular Speed 7 smartphone which was announced last year. The phone will be powered by the powerful Helio X20 deca-core chipset, which will also make it one of the first phones to come with this SoC. While we have not yet seen the performance of the chip in real life, with four Cortex A72 cores and six other efficient Cortex A53 cores, Helio X20 is going to be one of the fastest SoCs of this year.
ZOPO also confirms that the Speed 8 flagship will come with NFC feature, which will help it to make digital payments. Other confirmed specs of the device include Helio X20, 4GB of RAM, rear placed fingerprint sensor and Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS out of the box.
Apart from this information, the company also revealed the new slogan for the device, “Not Just Fast”. Also, the manufacturer revealed that Jorge Lorenzo, MotoGP Champion and the company’s brand ambassador will be present at the unveiling of the device in Barcelona on February 24 at MWC 2016. You will also find his newly launched SHARK helmet with ZOPO’s branding at the event.
So far, the Speed 8 looks like a great device with top-end specs. From the teaser images, the phone seems to be well designed as well. Now, if the company prices the device appropriately, we can expect a pretty good response for the device.
Anyways, stay tuned to the site as we will be bringing more news about the upcoming Speed 8 soon.
14.350 x 7.140 x 0.780 cm / 5.650 x 2.811 x 0.307 inches
OS
Android 5.1
Storage
16GB (expandable via microSD card slot up 128GB)
Blackview Omega Pro Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY
When it comes to the design, we are looking at phone that is really well constructed and it uses a metal frame around the device and glass on the front and back.
Also, the phone is quite compact as it sports a 5” display, which is actually pretty good as it has a decent brightness output, natural looking colours and good viewing angles. However, the panel has just a 720p resolution.
Blackview Omega Pro has a 2MP shooter on the front top and usual capacitive buttons on the bottom, which, however, are not backlit.
On the glass back, which is a ridiculous fingerprint magnet, there is a 13MP camera.
The buttons are located on the left side. While I’m not a huge fan of the placement of them, at least they have a good tactile feedback.
The dual nano SIM card slot, where one card also doubles as an optional microSD card slot is located on the right.
A headset jack is on the top and the micro USB port is on the bottom.
Overall, the Blackview Omega Pro is a really well made device and the build quality is excellent. However, I didn’t like the placement of the buttons on the left side and you have to keep in mind that the glass back is a fingerprint magnet.
Blackview Omega Pro Review: UI
Blackview Omega Pro runs on Android 5.1 with Blackview’s skin on top of it. Basically, you are getting a stock Android but the company removed the app tray, redesigned some icons and added a bit of extra features.
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For example, you can customise the phone with the themes, wallpapers and so on.
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Also, there are some gesture controls, which work great but they are not the fastest to respond.
All in all, the UI is running smoothly even with lots of apps installed and running in the background. Also, a little bit of extra functionality is always great. However, the lack of the app tray may make you want to install a third-party launcher unless you love seeing your apps on the home screens.
Blackview Omega Pro Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
The Blackview Omega Pro has an octa-core MTK6753 chip with the clock speeds of 1.3GHz, 3GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage.
This hardware is definitely enough for daily tasks and it can also handle the 3D gaming quite well.
There were no major lags while playing Asphalt 8 even on the highest graphics setting. Well, you may see some skipped frames but they will be just minor.
Blackview Omega Pro Review: MULTIMEDIA
When it comes to multimedia, the video playback is nice and smooth. However, I was kind of disappointed with the loudspeaker. While it is not the worst I’ve heard, it is really quite.
Blackview Omega Pro Review: CAMERA
The images that are captured by the rear camera of the phone are not always impressive. While you can take some okay looking daylight images, you will also get a lot of shots with uneven focus and not very impressive amount of details.
Decent indoor and low-light shots are possible but naturally they have more noise and less details.
Blackview Omega Pro Review: CONNECTIVITY
I didn’t have any complaints about the connectivity options. Wifi is working well, Bluetooth is good, GPS is pretty accurate and the call quality is decent.
Blackview Omega Pro Review: BATTERY LIFE
The built-in 2200mAh battery does not sound very impressive on paper and it has an average performance in real life. It will get you through the day as I could get around 3.5h of screen-on time and my usage involved browsing the web, Facebook, a little bit of gaming and taking some pictures.
Blackview Omega Pro Review: CONCLUSIONS
Blackview Omega Pro is a nice looking and well crafted device that costs just below $150 and we need to answer if it is worth the price.
Besides the great design, it has a decent screen, fast UI and pretty good gaming performance.
However, while the camera is not bad, it could be more consistent as some of the shots may have uneven focus or less amount of details.
Other disadvantages would be a quiet loudspeaker and just average battery life.
All in all, Blackview Omega Pro is still worth the price but it does not mean you shouldn’t check out what the competition has to offer in this price category.
Recently, Nubia revealed via its Weibo page that it was going to announce a new model in the company’s aesthetic Prague series, called as the Nubia Prague S. Like promised, the company has taken the wraps off the device a couple of hours ago in China. The device starts at a price tag of 2399 Yuan ($364), which tells us that the company is targeting the upper mid-range segment with this device.
Like the beautiful My Prague model launched last year, the company has paid special attention on the overall design of the new Prague S. The phone is thin and comes with 2.5D glass on both the sides, along with a metal frame. So, the overall design of the phone looks quite attractive. Plus, you get two color options to choose from, namely white and gold.
As for the hardware specs, the Prague S model comes with the mid-range Snapdragon 615 chipset under the hood. Unfortunately, this is not a chip that we expected to be inside a $364 smartphone, but then if you are not a power user, the chip should suffice just fine. However, in the memory department, the company does not disappoint. You can choose between two storage options, 3GB + 64GB or 4GB + 64GB. It’s good to see that both versions feature large 64GB internal storage. As for the display, you get a compact 5.2-inch FHD 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution Super AMOLED display.
Nubia smartphones are known for their cameras, and this particular device does not disappoint, at least in terms of specs. The Prague S comes with a 13MP Samsung ISOCELL sensor with 5P Lens and fast 0.2s focus. Further, you have the company’s popular NeoVision 5.2 software which will enhance the camera experience on the device. Up front, you have a powerful 8MP selfie camera with special features such as manual whitening, face lift etc. Further, the dedicated camera button on the left will make sure that your selfies come out perfect.
As for the connectivity features, you have the usual stuff like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, along with Hi-Fi audio. The battery is decent, with a capacity of 2200mAh. It helps that the phone supports fast charge. The company claims that 10 minutes of charging will give you 25% of charge.
Other highlighted features of the device include support for the company’s FiT touch technology (Frame interactive tech), which was found initially on the Nubia Z9 and Eye recognition. So, no fingerprint sensor on board. The phone supports dual SIM dual standby with 4G LTE.
Considering its 2.5D glass body and the specs, we might think that the OnePlus X turns out to be a good competitor for the device. So, for the addition of Eye Recognition, Hi-Fi and some other features, do you think the Prague S is worth paying $364?
A week back, Xiaomi announced the Redmi 3 budget smartphone, which turned out one of the best low-cost devices we have seen till date. The phone came with a 5-inch 720p display and a large 4100mAh battery which meant that you could use the device for days without having to charge it. Moreover, such a large battery was put inside a relatively compact 8.5mm thin body, which once again was quite impressive. Other specs of the device like 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, 13MP rear camera with PDAF, 5MP front shooter and an all metal body are all best in its class. And you get all this for just $105!
Given that the company managed to keep the thickness of the body limited to 8.5mm, we had to see how the company stuffed all the components inside the device. So, below is a teardown of the Xiaomi Redmi 3 smartphone.
Some of the key highlights of the Redmi 3 teardown are as follows:
Redmi 3 comes with a metal body with a plaid design on the back shell.
The back cover is extremely thin, measuring just 0.3mm. This is probably why Xiaomi decided to use metal body instead of plastic as the latter won’t be strong if it’s so thin.
The unboxing revealed that in case you ever plan to replace the 4100mAh battery inside the Redmi 3, you will void the official warranty.
The camera is protected by a sturdy Zinc Alloy frame.
Xiaomi has applied a reasonable amount of thermal paste on top of the chipset and flash memory chips in order to avoid overheating issues.
You can check out all the Redmi 3 teardown pictures of the device from down below.
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