So far this year, Lenovo has launched ten smartphones. However, all those phones were released under the Motorola brand name. Today, it has taken the wraps of its own Lenovo branded phone, the K8 Note.

Lenovo K8 Note Design

The K8 Note employs a mixture of polycarbonate and metal for its body which is not unusual for a mid-range phone. The metal back (and frame) is of premium quality and has two thin antenna lines that appear like silver bands adorning the phone. Lenovo has adopted a vertical setup for the dual rear cameras and the housing is slightly raised from the rest of the body.

Up front, the K8 Note doesn’t hide its huge top and bottom bezels, though they appear less imposing on the black variant. There are capacitive buttons gracing the lower bezel; and a camera, earpiece and LED flash adorning the top.

The power button sits on the right just like the volume rocker but has a textured feel to let you distinguish one from the other. On the left side is a programmable music key that is painted red on both color variants and has a Play and Pause symbol inscribed on it.

Lenovo K8 Note Cameras

Like the newly announced Moto G5S Plus, the K8 Note comes with dual rear cameras. The configuration is a 13MP PureCel® Plus sensor paired with a 5MP secondary sensor that captures depth information. This allows for real-time bokeh effects and SLR-quality portrait images. The front facing camera is a 13MP sensor with a beautification mode and a dedicated LED flash for night-time selfies.

Lenovo K8 Note Specs

The K8 Note is the first smartphone to come with the Helio X23 processor. The deca-core chipset was announced in December 2016 along with the Helio X27 as successors to the Helio X20 and Helio X25. Eight months later it appears in its first phone. The tri-cluster chip is clocked at 2.3GHz and has a Mali-T880 GPU. Mediatek says it offers a 20% overall increase in performance.

The Lenovo K8 Note has a 5.5-inch display with a 1080p resolution and Gorilla Glass protection. It comes with either 3GB of RAM and 32GB ROM or 4GB of RAM and 64GB ROM. Both versions have dedicated microSD card slots for up to 128GB of extra storage.

Just as Lenovo promised that its phones will henceforth come with stock Android, the Lenovo K8 Note is the first to do so. It runs Android 7.1.1 out of the box with Google Assistant. Lenovo also adds that the K8 Note is guaranteed to get updated to the next version of Android.

The K8 Note has dual SIM slots with support for 4G LTE (special emphasis on bands 3, 5, and 40 for the Indian market) and VoLTE. There is a fingerprint scanner below the dual cameras and a 4,000mAh battery with 15W turbo-charging. The 15W turbo charge isn’t the only leaf Lenovo has borrowed from its Motorola brand. The K8 Note also has a splash proof nano-coating.

Other features include dual band WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2, a 3.5mm audio jack at the top and a micro USB port at the bottom. There is also Dolby Atmos for improved audio quality, and TheatreMax for an immersive experience when watching videos with a pair of VR glasses.

READ MORE: Lenovo Folio Foldable Concept Showcased at Tech World 2017

Lenovo K8 Note Price and Availability

The Lenovo K8 Note will come in Venom Black and Fine Gold. The 3GB RAM variant will sell for Rs. 12,999 (~$203) and the 4GB RAM model will have a Rs. 13,999 (~$219)price tag. It will be available as an Amazon India exclusive and will go on sale on the 18th of August at exactly 12PM local time.

The post The K8 Note Is Official & Lenovo Kills It With The World’s First Helio X23 Smartphone appeared first on Gizmochina.

LeEco finally launched its much-touted flagship smartphone with AI technology and it turns out the device is an upgraded version of last year’s Le Pro 3 flagship. The LeEco Le Pro 3 AI Edition as it is called, is a little different from the Le Pro 3 in design and the hardware is an entirely different ball game.

We bring you some fresh photos of the Le Pro 3 AI Edition so we can see how it differs from the Le Pro 3. The Le Pro 3 AI Edition is available in gold, rose gold, and black, so what we have here is the gold coloured variant. If you compare the Le Pro 3 and Le Pro 3 AI (both pictured above), the two flagships could be said to be similar in their front design. The display comes with the same near bezel-less design at the sides and that black borders just won’t go away. There is absolutely no physical home button at the front as it is a virtual affair.

Where there are marked differences in design is at the rear aspect where the Le Pro 3 AI Edition uses a fused antenna design located at the border edge just like is found on the iPhone 7 and OPPO R9S. The most prominent design feature is the design of the dual cameras making it look like the face of the cartoon character – Biscuit man. The Le Pro 3 came with a single rear camera but here we have a dual setup. The rear fingerprint sensor is still located under the camera as well as the LeEco logo at the extreme end.

We just can’t complete this without reminding you that the Le Pro 3 AI comes with artificial intelligence called Lele. Lele is a voice-activated intelligent assistant, so there is no special button to activate it. Also, instead of a Snapdragon 821 chipset, there are two models with Helio X23 and Helio X27 processor respectively. Both versions come with 4GB of RAM while the base version has a 32GB storage and the higher version a 64GB storage.

Related: Dual Camera LeEco Le Pro 3 AI Edition is Official: Helio X27 & ¥2399 ($350) Price

If you are disappointed by the choice of a MediaTek SoC on the new smartphones, perhaps their prices will cheer you up. The base version of the Le Pro 3 AI Edition is priced at 1799 Yuan (~$260) while the Helio X27-powered model goes up for 2399 Yuan ($350). The new smartphone is already up for pre-orders and will go on sale on April 14. There are more images of the LeEco Le Pro 3 AI Edition down below.

The post LeEco Le Pro 3 AI Edition With Dual Cameras: Hands-on pictures appeared first on Gizmochina.

Its been a long wait for LeEco’s dual camera flagship and today the Chinese manufacturer has taken the wraps of their new device. The new smartphone called the Le Pro 3 AI Edition features a bunch of new cool features, most notably its new AI Assistant.

The LeEco Le Pro 3 AI Edition is available in two variants. There is a base version with 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and a Helio X23 processor clocked at 2.3GHz. The high end version has the same RAM but doubles the ROM t0 64GB and is powered by Mediatek’s deca-core 2.6GHz Helio X27 chipset.

Le Pro 3 AI Edition
DIMENSIONS / WEIGHT	152.4 x 75.1 x 7.5mm 168 grams
DISPLAY	5.5-inch 1920 x 1080p 403 ppi 600nit Max Brightness
CPU	Standard: Helio X23@ 2.3GHz Eco Edition: Helio X27@2.6GHz
MEMORY	Standard: 4GB + 32GB Eco Edition: 4GB + 64GB
CAMERAS: REAR	13MP + 13MP (B/W + Color) Dual Cameras f/2.0, PDAF, dual LED flash, 4K/ 1080p @ 30 fps video recording 720p@120 fps slo-mo
CAMERA: FRONT	8MP 1.4um pixel f/2.2, 76.5 degree wide angle lens
BATTERY	4000mAh
OS	EMUI 5.9 (Android M)
CONNECTIVITY	2.4G / 5G Wi-Fi 802.11 ac Bluetooth 4.2 NFC Infrared Sensor Dual SIM (two Nano SIMs)
4G LTE Bands	FDD LTE: B1/ 3 / 7 TDD LTE: B38 / 39 / 40 / 41
PRICE / Release	Standard: 1799 Yuan ($260) Eco: 2399 Yuan ($350) APRIL 14 Release

Le Pro 3 AI Edition Dual Cameras

The Le Pro 3 AI Edition has two 13MP dual cameras on the rear that work in the RGB + monochrome format. Combined with what LeEco calls LE IMAGE AI Engine, users should be able to take clearer and sharper images under low light conditions. The camera app has also got a number of upgraded features. The cameras sit in a single housing along with the dual LED flash giving it a sort of smiley face akin to a Japanese forest spirit.

LeLe AI Assistant

LeEco’s AI assistant is called LeLe. While it may not sound fancy like Siri or Alexa, it does have some very interesting features. LeLe can be activated when the screen is off and will allow you carry out a number of functions by voice alone. It is integrated with all LeECo apps and also works with a number of third party applications too. If you are shopping, LeLe is smart enough to bring up payment options like AliPay. The interesting thing about LeLe is that it learns over time and gets better at what it does.

Le Pro 3 AI Edition Price

The base version of the Le Pro 3 AI Edition is priced at ¥1799 (~$260) while the Helio X27 model sells for ¥2399 ($350). Pre-orders begin at 1400hrs today before going on sale at 1000hrs on the 14th of April. The Le Pro 3 AI Edition is available in gold, rose gold, and black.

The post Dual Camera LeEco Le Pro 3 AI Edition is Official: Helio X27 & ¥2399 ($350) Price appeared first on Gizmochina.

MediaTek has today announced two new high-end chips in its MTK series bringing with them some level of upgrades. The two System-on-chips are upgrades of the Helio X2o chip coming in as Helio X23 and X27.

According to MediaTek’s official website, the Helio X23 and X27 comes with  upgrades in thier overall performance, video shooting quality and low power consumption. Both the Helio X23 and X27 chip adopts the deca-core three cluster architecture made up of two 2 ARM Cortex-A72 cores, 4 ARM Cortex-A53 cores and another 4 ARM Cortex -A53 cores. It uses Pilot 3.0 heterogeneous computing technology which brings precision to task scheduling and core allocation and improvement in both processor performance and power consumption.

Thre Helio X27 chip will move to an increasd 2.6GHz frequency when compared with the high-end Helio X25.The GPU is also upgraded to 875MHz. The overall performance is also said to have increased by 20% above the X25. There are also improvements in the web browsing experience and application start-up speed.

 Further, the MediaTek Helio X23 and X27 chips are equipped with an upgraded version of the Imagiq image signal processor (ISP), which not only enhance full-pixel dual-core fast focus (Dual PD) function, but also integrates color (Color) and monochrome (Mono) Depth of field camera functions in order to achieve both quality and functionality during the shooting experience. The Imagiq upgraded version brings along picture clarity, saturation, exposure control, character performance and large aperture effects, etc. and significantly provides a colorful “lens” life for smart phone users.

Read More: Mediatek Announces Helio P15 SoC: To Succeed Helio P10

That’s not all, the MediaTek Helio X23 and X27 are both equipped with Envelope Tracking Module, which can dynamically adjust the output voltage according to the strength of the output signal of the power amplifier, thus greatly improving the efficiency of the power amplifier and reducing the power consumption and Heat. The new chips provide maximum power savings of about 15%. The chips also bring along a reduction in the screen power consumption by about 25%.

The post MediaTek Announces Two New High-End Chips – Helio X23 & X27 appeared first on Gizmochina.