Two major Chinese battery companies, Guoxuan High-Tech, and EVE Energy, are reportedly planning significant investments in the United States by establishing battery manufacturing facilities.

Guoxuan High-Tech’s subsidiary, Guoxuan USA, intends to construct a battery factory with an annual production capacity of 40 GWh in Illinois. EVE Energy, on the other hand, has announced a joint venture with a $2.64 billion investment commitment for battery production.

China’s Battery Industry’s Global Vision

These moves signal the companies’ interest in the U.S. market and underscore China’s battery manufacturing industry’s global ambitions and competitiveness. Both Guoxuan High-Tech and EVE Energy claim to have taken precautionary measures to ensure the safety and efficiency of their U.S. investments.

Guoxuan High-Tech has asserted that it has a dedicated international team that conducts comprehensive assessments and reports in advance to address potential risks and challenges. EVE Energy has also engaged in extensive information exchange with its partners to mitigate potential risks.

While uncertainties remain regarding these investment plans, they are expected to introduce new competitive dynamics into the U.S. battery market. Additionally, these investments align with China’s strategy to internationalize its battery manufacturing industry and bolster the global presence of this sector.

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(Via)

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Chinese Technology giant and the world’s largest video game company, Tencent, has fired more than 100 employees over allegations of fraud, corruption, and embezzlement. The company reported more than 10 employees to the Police, with one of the employees being sentenced to three years in prison for accepting bribes from a competitor. There are six other cases that have resulted in imprisonment. 

The numbers prove that the size of internal corruption is larger and more severe in 2022 than the previous years. As a part of its anti-corruption campaign, Tencent has started annual reporting of the number of corruption and fraud cases found within the company. Some of the cases of 2022 include employees from the company’s News and Media content group and its famous TiMi and Lightspeed gaming studios. 

Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Tencent Pony Ma admitted that the corruption level is severe within the company. Last month in an internal company meeting, he gave an intense speech highlighting the problems within the company’s management, gaming business, WeChat platform, and other subsidiaries. He stated, “the internal corruption is really shocking, involving some managers. This year, Tencent introduced the digital capability for anti-fraud by collecting reimbursement within the company and the data of external suppliers.”

In response to the corruption allegations, the firm said that it had a zero-tolerance policy against such behavior and would blacklist the people and parties involved in such shady business. The company also said that external firms and businesses involved in such transactions will be barred from future contracts. 

In the last couple of years, Tencent has been involved in controversies and has been a target of the censorship campaign of the Chinese government. The biggest video game company in the world was under an 18-month ban from launching new games. The ban was lifted last September when the government approved a new batch of licenses, including one for Tencent’s action game, Metal Slug: Awakening. TiMi studios, a subsidiary of Tencent that developed this game, was also reportedly involved in the corruption scandal.

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(Source)

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In the past couple of years, Huawei has been under scrutiny, especially regarding its possible ties with the Chinese Government. The company has dodged these claims so far by repeating that it “is a private company wholly owned by its employees,” with an “Employee Shareholding Scheme that involves 96,768 employee shareholders.”

While that might have cooled down some questions about the company’s ownership structure for the time being, a new research paper, titled ‘Who Owns Huawei?’ and published by Christopher Balding of Fulbright University Vietnam and Donald C. Clarke of George Washington University Law School questions the validity of Huawei’s employee ownership claim. The research paper reportedly used publicly available resources to chart out Huawei’s ownership and control structure. The paper concludes that Huawei is not actually owned by its employees, unlike what the company has claimed time and again.

• RELATED: Germany clears Huawei for 5G infrastructure

The research paper throws light on the fact that 100% of Huawei is owned by a holding company called Huawei Investment and Holding. Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Huawei actually owns only about 1.14% of this holding company, while the remaining ~99% is owned by an entity called ‘trade union committee’.

The paper adds that Huawei hasn’t revealed anything about this trade union committee, either about its members or its decision-making process. The usual nature of trade union committees in China further fuel the mystery about this entity.

The authors argue that “Given the public nature of trade unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union committee is genuine, and if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.”

• READ MORE: US-based MIT terminates partnership with Huawei and ZTE

So, the authors claim that we can’t completely rule out the possibility that Huawei may indeed be owned or controlled by the government.

As for the 96,768 employee shareholders often mentioned by the company in reports, the paper states that they just participate in the profit-sharing scheme and not in the decision making of the trade union. They have nothing to do with financing or control. The paper further adds that these shares are canceled when an employee leaves the company.

Huawei did respond to this study to telecoms.com refuting the claims by saying that they are based on unreliable sources and speculations. Find an excerpt of the statement below.

“This report, released by Professor Christopher Balding and Professor Donald Clarke, was based on unreliable sources and speculations, without an understanding of all the facts. They have not verified the information in the report with Huawei, and their conclusions are completely unsubstantiated. Huawei is a private company wholly owned by its employees. No government agency or outside organization holds shares in Huawei or has any control over Huawei. 

If you are interested in reading more about this study, hit the source link down below.

(Source, Via)

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It’s the year of bezel-less smartphones and now, you can get one for as less as $110. Well, at this price, you don’t exactly have a true bezel-less screen, but there are a few options that take you near the bezel-less design. The Leagoo KIICAA Mix is one of these cheap bezel-less options that’s available in the market right now and today we try to find out whether the phone is as good as it seems on paper in the Leagoo KIICAA Mix Review.

Get the Leagoo KIICAA Mix for just $109.99 from Gearbest.

IN THE BOX

• Phone
• Type-C Charger
• Type-C earphones
• Manual
• SIM Ejector Tool
• Silicone Case

DESIGN

The first thing you notice about the phone is that its compact. And not just compact according to 5.5-inch standards, it’s as small as a 5-inch smartphone. For example, comparing the 5-inch Redmi 4A with the 5.5-inch KIICAA Mix reveals that the phone is only as tall as the 4A. It does compensate the larger screen size with a few additional mm in width, but overall, it’s one of the most compact 5.5-inchers that you’ll find in the market. Given its $110 pricing, this is really a commendable feat.

One hand operation is going to be easy with its compact form factor and 157 g weight. The overall design is pretty simple. Buttons on the right are tactile and responsive, the bottom features USB Type-C port and a speaker, on the left you have the dual SIM hybrid slot and on top you have the earpiece. Yes, this brings us to one of the biggest design flaws in the KIICAA Mix. The earpiece, which traditionally lies on the front, is shifted to the top to accommodate the bezel-less design. But this results in bad call quality. I mean, you can hardly hear what the person on the other side is trying to say. It’s that bad! I have been using the phone for more than a week and I always had to ask the person calling on my phone to call back on my second number. You can’t have a conversation lasting more than a couple of minutes on the KIICAA Mix, and even if you try hard enough, you’d start missing a lot of sentences in between. 

[envira-gallery id=”155511″]

Moving on, the front features a fingerprint embedded home button and it’s as good as other phones in this segment. It’s actually a multi-purpose button that acts as a home button, back button, and a recent apps button.

Apart from the earpiece, rest of the design is pretty solid. It’s actually a shame that the ear piece is this bad. The compact form factor makes this phone a very comfortable handset for everyday use. It’s really hard to find an equally compact 5.5-incher anywhere near this price, especially with FHD 1080p display. 

DISPLAY

The display is kind of a surprise. Considering its $110 price, when I got the Leagoo KIICAA Mix review unit, I expected an average screen with dull levels of saturation. That wasn’t the case with the phone. The phone has a vibrant display, which is nearly bezel-less on three sides. It’s a FHD 1080p panel and the overall quality is better than the similarly priced Redmi Note 5A.

The brightness levels are good and even outdoor visibility is satisfactory. Thanks to this 1080p display panel, watching videos on the screen is a pleasure. 

At this price, it’s really hard to find a better screen.

PERFORMANCE

The MT6750T octa-core chip manages to handle everything with ease. The UI is snappy and apps open up pretty quickly. For some reason, youtube took more time to load than the Snapdragon 425 powered 5A, but in most cases, the KIICAA Mix was faster to open up applications.

Games like subway surfer run with ease, but what’s really impressive is that even higher-end graphic games like Modern Combat 5 run well with minimal lag on the device. Considering how the same game lagged on the Redmi Note 5A, I would have to say that the graphics performance of the device is pretty good. 

In short, the performance of the $110 Leagoo KIICAA Mix is quite impressive for its price! Plus, you get ample 32GB of storage for all your videos and docs.

Here are some key specs of the Leagoo KIICAA Mix.

• Display: 5.5 inch, 1920 x 1080 Pixel screen
• CPU: MTK6750T Octa Core 1.5GHz
• System: Android 7.0
• RAM + ROM: 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM
• Camera: 13MP front camera + 13MP + 2MP rear cameras
• SIM Card: dual SIM dual standby. Nano + Nano SIM
• Feature: GPSA / GPS
• Bluetooth: 4.0

SOFTWARE

The Leagoo KIICAA Mix runs on Android 7 Nougat and the overall UI performance is smooth. Unlike other companies who have moved towards stock Android UI, Leagoo has a customized launcher, which I’m not a big fan of! There’s no app drawer and the overall UI is quite different from vanilla Android experience. It’s not too bad, but I always prefer stock Android over custom launchers, and I wish the company would have opted for a simple setup. That said, you get used to the UI quickly and its something that won’t bother you in the long run.

[envira-gallery id=”155559″]

CONNECTIVITY

Connectivity wise, everything is good. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, all have solid coverage. But speakers are a let down. The sound output is low and the quality is mediocre. Plus, there’s no headphone jack and you have to live with the provided USB Type-C earphones, which suck. The sound comes out hollow and its noway near to the good quality 3.5mm headphones that we are used to. Now I might be a bit too harsh in saying that the provided Type-C headphones suck, but the company didn’t even provide a 3.5mm to Type-C connector inside the box. So, even though its as good as other stock headphones that you get with cheap phones, you can’t use any other headphones, simply because there’s no connector. I feel the company could have included the adapter to make things a lot easier. 

BATTERY

The 3000mAh battery is not very large, but it manages to power the device for a day. Moderate usage ranging from watching a few videos, playing a game and browsing on 4G brought the battery down to 10% by the end of the day. But that’s pretty decent. The phone also charges pretty quickly – it goes from 10% to 100% in less than 1.5 hours.

CAMERA

I always tend to keep camera at last for local Chinese phones, simply because they tend to suck. Things are the same in this Leagoo KIICAA Mix review because the phone, as usual, comes with issues like slow focus, unusable portrait mode, and dull colors ruining the camera experience. That said, I could take a few decent shots a couple of times, but the results are never consistent. There’s nothing more to elaborate about the camera, so its best to look at the provided samples to check out its quality. Be advised, it’s just average. 

The front camera is decent for a few selfies.

Original samples can be found from here.

CONCLUSION

To sum up, the Leagoo KIICAA Mix is a fantastic phone with a couple of big flaws. I loved the compact body, its vibrant display and snappy performance, but things like bad call quality and no headphone jack does ruin the experience. In many ways, the phone could have outdone the Redmi Note 5A which is currently one of the best 5.5-inchers in the price range. But it’s the simple things like call quality and headphone jack that matter the most to a regular user and if that’s flawed, it’s really hard to recommend the phone for everyday use.

Get the Leagoo KIICAA Mix for just $109.99 from Gearbest.

The post Leagoo KIICAA Mix Review: An Amazing $110 Smartphone With A Big Flaw appeared first on Gizmochina.

Meizu has produced quite a few smartphones this year and the M3 is one of the most affordable ones. Learn more in our full review.

Thanks to Gearbest for sending Meizu M3 for a review.

Meizu M3 Review: VIDEO REVIEW

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_IR8Ck6QYY[/embedyt]

Meizu M3 Review: UNBOXING

In the box, you can find a wall charger, USB cable, SIM ejector pin and some paperwork.

Meizu M3 Review: SPECS

Meizu M3 Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY

Meizu M3 is a very compact phone due to its 5” display and it looks like a shrunk down Meizu M2 Note.

Speaking of the display, it sports just a 720p resolution but it still quite sharp and good display for a budget phone like this. The only complaint would be that it could be slightly brighter for outdoor use.

We have a 5MP shooter along with a notification LED light on the top.

On the bottom, there is just a physical home button and you can either physically press to take you home or just tap it and it acts as a back button. Unfortunately, the phone lacks a fingerprint scanner.

Although the device uses glossy plastic in its construction, the phone is well-built and it feels solid. In fact, it is really comfortable to hold it in the hand due to rounded corners on the back. We have a 13MP camera with f/2.2 aperture on the back coupled with a dual-tone dual LED flash.

The loudspeaker sits on the bottom and the sound quality is actually pretty good for the phone this cheap.

The buttons are on the right, they are clicky and tactile.

We have a hybrid SIM card slot, which can take either 2 SIM cards or a combo of 1 SIM and the microSD card.

Overall, the Meizu M3 is a well-constructed phone and it feels great in the hand.

Meizu M3 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

Meizu M3 has some pretty decent specs for the price. My review unit sports an octa-core Mediatek 6750 chip with the clock speeds of 1.5GHz, 2 GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage.

The day-to-day performance of the UI is fast but the gaming performance is kind of a letdown. The phone lags quite a bit when playing Asphalt 8 even at the lowest graphics.

Meizu M3 Review: BENCHMARKS

Meizu M3 Review: USER INTERFACE

My Meizu M3 unit has FlyMe OS 5.1, which is built on top of Android 5.1. My review unit has a fully de-bloated ROM with multi-languages and Google Play services pre-installed.

If you are familiar with the FlyMe OS, you will feel right at home. There is no app tray but there are some neat features. For example, you can swipe down anywhere on the screen to open up the notification shade. If you swipe from the bottom, you will open up your recent apps and this is one of my favourite features.

We have a bunch of other features, plenty of customization options, various tweaks and settings to play with. Just to name a few, you can use choose from a variety of themes, use gesture controls, which work fine and so on.

Overall, the FlymeOS runs fast and fluid, I didn’t have a single hiccup on a daily basis.

Meizu M3 Review: IMAGE QUALITY

The 13MP camera is far from perfect but it can produce one of the better-looking images in a sub-$120 phone.

Most of the daylight shots will look good but one of the shortcomings is a poor dynamic range adjustment. Luckily, the HDR mode does a pretty good job solving this issue.

The low-light camera performance is okay for the phone this cheap but keep in mind that cheap phones usually don’t take great night shots.

The 1080p video looks pretty good and the footage is one of the best in class. See a video review for a video sample.

A 5MP selfie shooter can take some nice photos that will definitely do the trick for social media.

Meizu M3 Review: CONNECTIVITY

As for connectivity, you should not expect any issues with neither of the options that include wifi, Bluetooth, GPS or call quality.

Meizu M3 Review: BATTERY LIFE

The phone has an embedded 2870mAh battery that performs well. I could constantly get over 5 hours of SOT on a mixed use, which is a good result.

Meizu M3 Review: CONCLUSIONS

Meizu M3 is one of the better phones in this price range.

Sure, some may say that it lacks some common features like a fingerprint scanner and fast charging but the phone has a good display and great build quality.

Also, the device is fast on a daily basis, it has a good battery and one of the better cameras in its price range.

However, you have to keep in mind that the phone will struggle handling the 3D games and it lacks premium materials like metal in its build.

Overall, Meizu M3 is a great phone for the price of just $116 despite a few shortcomings.

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