Gree Electric is a major home appliance maker and had even manufactured smartphones as well. However, the company is now discontinuing its handset operations following a decline in its smartphone sales.

Gree disbands its smartphone unit

For those unaware, the company is a known consumer electronic products maker and is known for its air conditioners. But the brand sought to diversify its product line and had even announced its entry into the smartphone market. Its first even handset model was announced back in 2015, however, with certain official claiming that the brand even had potential to easily surpass Xiaomi as well in the handset market.

But just a couple of years into this segment, the company has announced its exit from the market. Notably, this news also arrives as the smartphone shipments in the Chinese market fell by 11 percent in the first quarter of this year. This marks the lowest ever levels in a decade. Thus, Gree has disbanded the core team of its smartphone unit, as per a report from the Chinese media outlet Jiemian.

But unfortunately, the brand has yet to respond to any requests for a comment on this matter. Back in 2021, we had even covered the launched of the Gree TOSOT G7 model, which was a rebranded Meizu 18X. The company clearly didn’t catch up to or even outperform Xiaomi and it is likely planning on consolidating its efforts to its core operations. This is all the information we have at the moment, so stick around for more updates.

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Chinese electric appliances company Gree has launched a new smartphone in its home country under its Tosot brand. The device goes by the name of GREE TOSOT G7. Despite being a new phone, there’s nothing new here. That’s because it is a rebranded Meizu 18X.

The GREE TOSOT G7 comes in two memory configurations – 8GB + 128GB and 8GB + 256GB.These two variants are priced at ¥2,959 and ¥3,099 respectively. For comparison, the same models of Meizu 18X are much cheaper at ¥2,599 and ¥2,799 respectively.

Apart from differences in price, they are basically the same handset inside out, except for a couple of changes. 

The GREE TOSOT G7 runs Android-based HALO UI 6.0 and has a ‘64MP Matrix AI Camera’ text below the cameras as well as TOSOT branding at the bottom of the rear panel. On the other hand, the Meizu 18X runs Flyme 9.2 based on Android 11 and features ‘18X Dark Vision’ text underneath the cameras as well as MEIZU branding at the back panel’s bottom.

To know about the entire specs of the latest Gree smartphones, you can take a look at our Meizu 18X’s launch story. The highlights of this phone include a 6.67-inch 10-bit FHD+ 120Hz OLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 870, LPDDR4x RAM, UFS 3.1 storage, 64MP + 8MP + 2MP triple rear camera setup, 13MP selfie camera, 4,300mAh battery, and 30W fast charging.

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Samsung, just like any other company, applies hundreds of patents every year. Amongst them, Smart Home Application is one area that gets a lot of significance from the company. That looks to be true, as the company is reportedly the World’s second-largest Smart Home Patent Applicant this year.

According to a report by Business Korea(via Sammobile), incoPat, a Chinese patent information analysis company has released a “2020 Global Smart Home Invention Patent Rankings” list. Samsung, which occupies 2nd position in the list, has filed over 909 Smart Home patent applications in total this year. The list reportedly has China’s “Haier” at the top with 1,163 patent applications.

Do note that the report talks only about the Patent Applications list and Holders’ list. Both are entirely different as not all patents get approved. Plus, there is no mention of Patent acquisition anywhere in the report.

Also, as per the report, the ranking list is based on the number of smart-home related patent applications in major areas Globally from January-September 2020. That said, there is another report by Germany’s patent information company IPlytics in August.

EDITOR’S PICK: Samsung patents speaker designs, showcases a rollable display

It says that Samsung overtakes its competitors in Smart Home Patent Applications cumulatively. Accordingly, Samsung has filed about 9,447 patent applications since 2006. Consequently, it leads the pack which has Huawei in Second with 1,774 patent applications.

This not only shows a sizeable gap but also shows the commitment of Samsung to be the frontrunner of Smart Home Tech. Samsung is giving a lot of importance to Smart Home Tech recently. It already has “Bixby” which has the potential to become an AI voice assistant like competitors. Additionally, there is SmartThings for IoT.

Coming back, the rest of the report talks about the other companies and their patent application numbers behind Samsung. The Third and Fourth places are occupied by China’s Gree(878), and Midea(812). South Korea’s LG bags the Fifth place with 782 patent applications. Lastly, the rest of the list has some biggies like the USA’s Google(474), Apple(328), Japan’s Panasonic, and Sony(~280 each).

UP NEXT: Samsung patents an all-display Smartphone with Transparent housing and Sliding cameras

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The popular Chinese consumer electronic brand, Gree, has recently applied for an interesting new patent. The patent was applied for back in January 2020 and details an air conditioned sofa.

According to the patent description, the unique sofa will have a body through an air inlet, and outlet will be present. In other words, the sofa’s body could have its temperature to be controlled through air flow. The body of the Gree sofa will house a fan and an apparent cooling mechanism as well to reproduce the cooling effect of air conditioners.

Editor’s Pick: Xiaomi to launch TWS earbuds in the Indian market under Redmi Phone Plus strategy

This cooling mechanism is said to be more efficient and effective than traditional air conditioners. The Gree sofa can possibly provide local cooling in regards to the users’ position. In other words, it can cool the surface area where the user is in contact with. This would essentially make it a lot more efficient and lower power consumption by only targetting areas that require cooling rather than cooling the entire sofa body.

Unfortunately, we have no design images or schematics of the product at the moment. Furthermore, even its specifications or mechanisms haven’t been detailed in the application. The patent was applied for in China’s Intellectual Property Office in Beijing but it is uncertain if Gree will actually develop such a product. So take this with a grain of salt for now.

UP NEXT: Used OnePlus 8 Pros are selling for hundreds of dollars above MSRP due to scarcity

(Via)

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Gree recently held a program in China dubbed “Walking into Gree” and which was broadcast live. Dong Mingzhu, chairman of Gree Electric revealed during the broadcast that the company had previously developed an anti-virus purifier due to the high risk of person-to-person spread of various classes of viruses during social interaction. Even though the products are available, they were not developed for Coronavirus.

Mingzhu also disclosed that when the Coronavirus outbreak began during the Spring Festival holiday, the factory worked overtime and took a bit of research. It spent almost two months to create a new technology to be able to tackle the Coronavirus strain. The company says the project was a success but Mingzhu regretted that the research and development of this device was a bit late. She opined that if they had been able to complete the product development one month or a month and a half before the outbreak, many medical staffs would not have been infected.

China has made tremendous progress in containing the spread of the virus. While the technology may not be needed, there are several countries like the US, UK, Italy, Australia, among others which would find it useful as the virus overwhelm their health facilities. Unfortunately, the company didi not reveal further details of the product or its launch plans.

UP NEXT: OnePlus 8 TPU Case goes on sale on GizTop; confirms design

(source)

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According to a new report, Gree has officially patented a new design for a foldable smartphone. The patent was applied for earlier this year back in April and has finally been successfully granted.

Gree electronics is better widely known for its consumer grade electronics which includes home appliances like refrigerators, air conditioners and more. Alongside this, the company also provides services and equipment within the same field for commercial entities as well (the best example being the central air conditioning in commercial buildings).

Notably, the company has also had some experience with smartphones in the past, with its Gree smartphones series. However, the smartphones from the company were definitely not well received with a few critics the devices as a failure in entering the smartphone market. The company has since not released any device with the latest being Gree smartphone 2 seen back in 2017.

Editor’s Pick: Huawei reportedly gets green light to provide Britain’s non-core 5G networks

Thus, it is interesting considering the company is willing to bounce back into the market especially with the foldable smartphone category; which is one of the latest and popular trends that many OEMs wish to capture, similar to Samsung and Huawei. Furthermore, Gree also applied patents for facial recognition and scanning methods alongside a new graphical user interface among other things.

So, it seems that the company is taking the launch of a foldable smartphone very seriously. Unfortunately, exact details and specifications regarding the upcoming smartphone with a bendable display are still unknown. We will have to wait for an official announcement which should arrive sometime in 2020, so stay tuned.

UP NEXT: Samsung to launch a clamshell foldable smartphone ahead of Galaxy S11 series

(Via)

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Xiaomi CEO, Lei Jun seems to have lost a bet with Gree Electric Appliances Inc. Chairwoman, Dong Mingzhu. This comes after Gree reported 2018’s total revenue at 198 billion yuan yesterday. The bet, made by Lei Jun on national television, back in December 2013, said that Xiaomi’s revenues would surpass Gree in the next five years. However, Xiaomi’s revenue for the same period was just 174.915 billion yuan, a good 20 billion yuan less than Gree’s figure.

While we still don’t know whether Lei Jun would keep his side of the bet, if he decides to do so, it would cost him 1 billion yuan, and that’s nearly $150 million. At the time of making this bet, it was like David challenging Goliath, with Gree beating Xiaomi in every single department, right from revenue, factories, to even employees. But Lei Jun was betting on the company’s solid online sales model, which has helped the company become one of the top smartphone companies in the world.

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It’s worth mentioning that Lei Jun’s initial bet was for just 1 yuan. However, Gree’s Chairwoman, Dong Mingzhu, raised that bet to 1 billion yuan.

Xiaomi or Lei Jun is yet to comment on this matter.

(Source)

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Since 2015, Xiaomi has released numerous smart home products as the demand for such devices have been growing rapidly. It seems that the company will be soon introducing a new full inverter air conditioner.

At the end of June, an air conditioner with model number KFR-35GW / 01ZM was spotted receiving 3C certification in China. It is manufactured by Sichuan Changhong Electronic Technology Co. Ltd and it was also found that the product be launching as full inverter air conditioner by Xiaomi.

Insiders from Sichuan Changhong foundry has revealed that Xiaomi’s air conditioner is ready and there will be multiple models of Xiaomi’s air conditioning products. Xiaomi has been working on air conditioning product since the past the three years and it seems that its arrival is finally drawing near.

It has been by the insiders that Xiaomi’s full inverter air conditioner is arriving soon and it is expected to be at least $500 cheaper than similar products from other brands. Such an aggressive pricing will compel users to buy the first air conditioner from Xiaomi.

Read More: Xiaomi Teases Launch of Smallest Mi TV Slated For July 18

In 2015, Xiaomi had teamed up with Midea, a private Chinese firm that specializes in electronic consumer goods, to manufacture a smart AC unit. However, the co-operation between the two companies drew ire from Gree’s president Dong Mingzhu. She commented on the collaboration between Xiaomi and Midea as “two swindlers working together make it into a fraud group.”

The i-Youth Smart Air Conditioner that was the product launched by Xiaomi and Midea was met with lukewarm response from the consumers. Industry watchers feel that since Xiaomi does not have its own AC manufacturing factory, it won’t be easy for Xiaomi to gain good market share in short time.

However, the low-priced air conditioner from the company will cause a price war with other brands. The specifications of the Xiaomi full inverter air conditioner have not surfaced yet. At present, Gree and Midea are the two leading air-conditioning brands in China followed by Haier. The market share of Xiaomi is 7 percent in the air conditioning market.

(source)

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A recent survey in China has revealed that Huawei is the favorite domestic brand among a lot of folks who responded to the survey. The survey was carried out by the Global network of global public opinion survey centre and the categories were domestic brands, as well as a foreign brands category and a third on others.

On the entire domestic brands spanning various industries and not only the technology sector, Huawei came far ahead with 51.3%. Its closest rival SF came in at 39.9%. Another surprise inclusion is Gree which sits at number 3with 37,3%. Gree is a technological giant in China with its products cutting across several areas, including smartphones. Haier and Midea complete the top 5 with 37.1% and 28.4% respectively. Except you factor Gree as a smartphone brand, the next position where a major player in the smartphone industry comes in is at number 6 with Lenovo claiming that spot. Lenovo is closely followed by social media giant WeChat, and finally, e-commerce platforms TMall.com, Taobao and Jingdong (JD.com) complete the list.

This recent survey result is an indication of the popularity of Huawei in China and this popularity is likely because of their leading role in the telecoms sector including aspects such as mobile phones, tablets, wearables, broadband devices and home devices. It is noteworthy also, that Huawei’s smartphone division also sits at number 3 position in the global smartphone top 3 spots.

Read Also: New Huawei Phone with OLED Display and 4000mAh Battery Seen at TENAA

The survey also factors the top 10 least favorite brands, perhaps due to their poor customer relationship or difficulty transacting business with them. Here we have outfits like Bank of China, Mengui, Agricultural Bank of China, Zhongtai Automobile but thankfully, there is no technology brand.

On the foreign brands, Mercedes-Benz and Apple jointly occupy the number one spot of top 10 favorites while they are followed by BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, Nike, Siemens Appliances, Adidas, Philips and Siemens electronics. The list is a reflection of the classy taste of the Chinese public especially the younger populace.

On the opposite end (least favorite), the top 5 spot is surprisingly occupied by companies in the food industry; McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut. It might interest you to note that the global leader in the smartphone industry, Samsung is listed among the top 10 least favorite or blacklisted brands, alongside fellow Korean company Lotte. Toyota and Honda, two Japanese brands are also on the list. Shocking, isn’t it? We can’t say for sure, the criteria used or the research methodology deployed to collate these data, so it’s just apt that we don’t take this survey too serious.

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Qualcomm just announced the Snapdragon 835 chip and it wasn’t surprising that the Samsung Galaxy S8 is said to be the first device to use the new system-on-chip. It also wasn’t surprising either that Xiaomi’s next flagship is rumored to be the first domestic device in China to use the chip. What is coming out as a surprise is that Gree, a relatively less known electronics manufacturer will use the SD 835 chip on its next Gree phone.

Well-known industry analyst, Pan Jiutang, made the disclosure that the company is working on a Snapdragon 835 project which is underway. The analyst made this known in a Weibo post while disclosing that the Chinese company was in the process of releasing a 5.5-inch smaller version of the Gree Phone 2 which hit the market sometime in May this year with a 6-inch display.

Read Also: HMD Global Oy Officially Unveiled As the New Home of Nokia-Branded Phones

The Gree Phone 2 came with a Snapdragon 820 chip on board as well as 4GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage, an 8MP front camera and 16MP rear camera setup. The Gree Phone 2 was priced around 3,300 Yuan so we expect the next flagship with SD 835 to be way more. That won’t be anytime soon, though, as the Galaxy S8 which would be the first to have the SD 835 SoC won’t drop until next year.

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GREE is a famous consumer electronic manufacturer in China. The company entered the smartphone industry last year, like many other tech companies have done in recent times, however, the first generation smartphones didn’t get the attention the company would have expected. Now, GREE is back again, this time with a flagship with powerful hardware and good looks. While we would have expected the phone to be announced with much fan fare, the company decided to unveil it silently this year.

So, what does GREE 2 offer to the consumers? First of all, the phone will come with a metal unibody design. It is going to be large owing to the massive 6-inch display up front, and we can clearly see that it is not going to be an easy handset to operate with one hand. But for phablet lovers, the phone is going to be a treat, especially because it comes with a high-resolution 2K display.  Coming to the front, the bezels seem to be decently thin, and no thick ugly black borders on the sides. There is a physical home button up front, just below the display which supports fingerprint recognition.

Specs of the GREE 2 are really powerful, starting with the quad-core Snapdragon 820 chipset under the hood. There will be 4GB of RAM on board and 64GB of internal storage. Given the large 6-inch display with 2K resolution, the phone will come with a decently large non-removable battery as well, of 4000mAh capacity. At the back, the phone features a 16MP rear camera sensor while up front, you will get an 8MP shooter. As for the software, the phone runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow OS out of the box.

Finally, for the pricing, GREE 2 isn’t very cheap. The phone will go on sale early June for a price tag of 3300 Yuan which comes to $504. Despite its higher price tag as compared to rival such as LeEco Max 2 and ZUK Z2 Pro flagships, we will have to wait and see how this new smartphone from GREE sells in China.

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Dong Mingzhu, the Chairman of GREE Electric revealed earlier today that GREE will be starting the sale of its smartphones in the market pretty soon. However, the company is yet to announce the official price tag of the device.

GREE smartphone won’t just focus on taking calls but its aims to be much more than a phone. Mingzhu said that GREE smartphone can also act as an intelligent controller which that can monitor home security. It can also control air-conditioners and other appliances, which shouldn’t be a surprise since the company’s primary market is consumer appliances like these.

Thanks to the TENAA listing, we know the specs of the device. The GREE smartphone will be an entry level device with a 5-inch 720p display powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core Chipset. There will be 1GB of RAM along with 8GB of internal storage which can be further expanded up to 32GB. AS for the camera, there will be an 8MP shooter at the back along with a modest 2MP front facing shooter. Finally, the phone will run on Android 4.4.4 KitKat OS.

Of course, with such modest specs, don’t expect the price tag to be higher than 599 Yuan. We have seen the leaked images of the device earlier and they look quite good for an entry level smartphone.

Anyways, we will update with more information about the pricing and full feature list in the coming days. So, stay tuned!

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Recently, the GREE G0111 mobile phone got leaked again in some high definition pictures.

From the images, it looks like the phone has a good built, It comes with narrow bezels in black color. However, the color on the back is silver. In addition, it should be noted that the rear shell on Gree mobile phone is made of plastic material, but it feels good. It does not have a app drawer but has all the apps on the homescreen similar to other Chinese phones. Xiaomi’s MIUI has a similar design. In the configuration, the phone is using a 5-inch 720p screen, equipped with 410 quad-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor with 2MP front and 5MP Rear camera. It has 1GB RAM and 8GB internal memory, It also supports SD memory card expansion,  and supports China Unicom 4G / 3G and GSM networks, The Gree smartphone does not support dual SIM dual standby which can be considered as a drawback. It is said that the phone will run on Android 4.4.4. As for the price, expect it to be around 599 Yuan.

Source

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We already know China’s Gree Electric is interested in making smartphones. In fact, we have seen two images of the said Gree smartphone sporting a metal body. Now, it looks like we have some more news about the upcoming Gree smartphone as the device just hit TENAA.

A device named Gree G0111 was recently spotted on TENAA featuring similar looks as the ones that we saw a few days back. The phone has a very unique design as the top edges are sharp, however the bottom ones are round. The back is white in color while the front is completely black. Interestingly, we see a plastic body instead of the metal one that was leaked back.

As for the tech specs, the Gree smartphone features a Snapdragon 410 processor with 1GB RAM and 8GB of expandable internal storage. The phone measures just 8.8mm in thickness and will weigh about 118 grams. There will be a 5-inch display with HD 720p resolution. At the back, there will be a 5MP rear camera while up front, you will find a 2MP shooter.

For connectivity, the phone will support 4G, 3G and GSM networks. The full list of supported frequencies are given below:

Other features include Android 4.4 KitKat, Infrared sensor, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi etc.

Judging from the specs, it looks like the phone will be targeted at the entry level 4G enabled market. So, it should retail around the same price as Xiaomi’s Redmi 2 and Meizu M1.

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Just a day back we reported that Gree Electric, the famous appliance manufacturer from China was keen to enter the smartphone industry. We had also got a set of pictures which revealed the handset in full glory.

Today, less than 24 hours the first ever leak, we have some news about the pricing of the handset. The Gree smartphone is said to be priced at 1000 Yuan ($161). This is actually a pretty sweet spot given that the phone will directly compete with Xiaomi’s affordable phablet, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G. There’s a bunch of other smartphones in this price segment like the recently announced Meizu M1 Note phablet which comes with amazing hardware for its price. And Meizu being an established manufacturer in the domestic market, it will be interesting how Gree plans to compete with both the companies in this crowded smartphone industry.

The best way to compete with these devices will be with great hardware. Meizu M1 Note by itself proved that an octa-core processor with 2GB RAM could be incorporated in a phone in this price range and we can expect such specs in the new device. As of now, there’s no information about the exact tech specs of the device but we can expect them soon.

Gree Electric’s CEO Dong Mingzhu is known for her aggressive business strategies and it is said that the company aims to sell over 100 million smartphones in 2015 alone. This is a pretty ambitious goal, especially when this particular device is the first smartphone from the company. Also, we have to take into consideration the existing market leaders such as Xiaomi which lead the smartphone sales in the domestic market.

The leaked pictures reveal a traditional design, but with a premium metal finish. Also, the phone looks huge, especially with the large borders besides the display. From the images, it looks like the screen is about 5.5-inches, which is exactly the same size as the Meizu M1 Note and Xiaomi Redmi Note.

From all the information we have received till now, the Gree smartphone does look promising. However, lets wait and watch what exactly the new entrant in the industry has in store for us.

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