The Maze Blade is the second device from newcomer Maze. Their first device is the Maze Alpha, a bezel-less phone set to take on Xiaomi’s Mi MIX. The Maze Blade is being marketed as the budget-killer and from the images looks to be set on that path.

A first look at the Maze Blade and it reminds you of another device, the Sony Xperia Z5. From the 7H glass back to the circular physical power button on the right side of the anodized aluminium frame, to the huge front bezels, its more than a striking resemblance.

Where it differs from Sony’s phone is in the position of the fingerprint scanner which sits in front. Another difference is in the outlay of the rear camera setup and the use of capacitive buttons. Fans of the Xperia Z5’s design will definitely like the Maze Blade.

The Maze Blade is not just a good-looking device. It also packs some interesting specs. There is  3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and the screen is a 5.5-inches FHD display. The rear camera on is a 13MP Sony IMX 214 sensor with OIS and EIS. Now that is something you don’t see in a budget device.  Up front sits an 8MP Sony IMX 179 84° wide-angle camera.

The Maze Blade is powered by a MT6753 octa-core processor clocked at 1.3GHz which draws power from a 3000mAh battery. There is Android 6.0 Marshmallow running on it and support for dual SIMs and a memory card.

The phone measures 158.5 x 77 x 8 mm and weighs 190g. It is available in gold, silver, and black and will go on sale early this month on different online platforms. There is no price yet but we expect the Maze Blade will not only be killing the other budget phones with its looks but also its price.

The post The Maze Blade Looks Familiar in New Promotional Video and Images appeared first on Gizmochina.

Although Qualcomm is the generally better known chip manufacturer, Mediatek SoCs are also gaining some popularity in the last few months. Not just Chinese and budget manufacturers, but also well known companies are using the chips made from this Chinese chip maker.

Now, a report claims that the company has a long list of releases scheduled for 2015. We recently saw the MT6752 and MT6732 64-bit SoCs from the company based on the Cortex A53 architecture. Then there is the Mediatek MT6795, the fastest of them all, running on a 64-bit Cortex A57 + Cortex 53 architecture and built upon a 28nm process. Unfortunately, even this latest processor didn’t support the ultra high speed 4G LTE Category 6 networks i.e. LTE Advanced network.

However, according to this new document, Mediatek does have a processor under development which will be built upon the 20nm process and will support this high speed Cat. 6 network which theoretically can provide download speeds of up to 300 Mbps. The report also says that the MT6795 64-bit processor has entered mass production which means, we will soon see a lot of high end smartphones using this SoC.

There are five more SoC’s that are expected to be released in the Q2 2015. The MT6753, MT6735 and the MT6735M are all built upon the Cortex A53 architecture and 28nm process. This is going to be the company’s mid-range offering but the  highlight of these processors is the support for LTE+C2K networks. This means, the devices which run this processor will support CDMA networks too. The MT6753 is an octa-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz, the Mt6735 has four processors clocked at 1.5Ghz and finally the MT6735M processor also has four cores but clocked at just 1.0 GHz.

There are two other low cost SoC which are expected to hit the markets by the end of Q2/ start of Q3 2015. They are the MT6582 (quad-core clokced at 1.3GHz) and the MT6570 (Dual-core clocked at 1.3Ghz).

The upcoming MT67XX is the one which will directly compete with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 chipset as it also supports Cat. 6 LTE networks.

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