First up, Samsung’s joining the app lockdown party! Their new Auto Blocker feature is playing bouncer to unauthorized apps. But is this added security worth the trade-off in freedom?

Meanwhile, Xiaomi’s turning heads with their 14 Civi Limited Edition. Spoiler alert: it’s panda-themed! But is this black-and-white beauty more than just a pretty face? We’ve got the scoop on this limited drop.

Speaking of Xiaomi, they’re also reaching for the stars – or at least the sun. Their latest patent hints at solar-powered wearables. Could this be the end of nightly charging rituals?

And for those who like their phones thin and tough, Motorola’s got you covered. The Edge 50 is claiming the title of world’s slimmest MIL-810-certified phone. But can it survive your pocket and a war zone?All the juicy details on these stories are in today’s roundup below.

After Apple, Samsung becomes the next to prevent users from sideloading apps

Samsung shared a post earlier this month saying “Protect your Galaxy device with the Auto Blocker feature”. Samsung’s OneUI 6 based on Android 14 comes with a security feature called Auto Blocker, which is located in the Security and Privacy settings. It reportedly protects your Galaxy device by preventing the installation of applications from unauthorized sources The Auto Blocker feature is enabled by default, however, you can disable it during the setup process.

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Xiaomi 14 Civi Limited Edition with Panda Design to launch in India on July 29

The Xiaomi 14 Civi was announced in India back in June. Now, the company has announced that this device is arriving in a Limited Edition variant in the region. Xiaomi has revealed that the Xiaomi 14 Civi Limited Edition with the Panda Design is dropping in India next week.

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Xiaomi’s future wearable could offer much improved battery life with this new technology

Xiaomi has recently submitted a patent application about the use of solar energy to charge wearable devices. According to the records of the Tianyancha Intellectual Property Information Platform, the patent application has been approved.

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Motorola Edge 50 design renders leak ahead of Indian launch

Motorola is expanding its Edge 50 series in India. New renders of the Edge 50 have appeared via 91mobiles, following leaks of the Edge 50 Neo. Described as the world’s slimmest MIL-810-certified phone, the device is expected to launch soon via Flipkart.

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The post Gizmochina Daily: Samsung Locks Down Apps, Xiaomi Goes Panda & Solar Powered Wearables? appeared first on Gizmochina.

Xiaomi’s wearable brand has proved to be very popular right from the Mi Band 2 to the smartwatch era. A recent report by Canalys showed that the brand surpassed Apple in Q2 2021 to emerge as the number one wearable brand globally. While that may not last for too long considering it was after the release of the Apple Watch Series 7, it shows how far the brand has come in the wearable market.

Xiaomi’s wearables continue to make waves in the market and this year’s Single’s festival (11.11) is yet another opportunity to prove that. Data released by the company shows that it sold over two million wearable devices just 30 minutes into the 11.11 campaign.

On Jingdogn (JD.com), Xiaomi’s most-popular wearable devices include the Redmi Watch 2, Mi Rabbit Children’s Phone Watch 5C, Mi Watch Color 2 among others. Among them, the Redmi Watch 2 smartwatch is a new wearable device launched by Redmi in October. The smartwatch is on offer for a decent 339 yuan (~$53) price tag. The Redmi Watch 2 is equipped with a 1.6-inch AMOLED display and comes with NFC as well as a 5ATM waterproof rating. It also comes with support for blood oxygen detection and 24-hour heart rate monitoring. There are also up to 117 sports modes including most of the favorite sports. It packs a decent battery that can last up to 12 days on a single charge and supports magnetic charging.

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Xiaomi’s best selling Mi Band lineup has got a new update today: the Mi Band 5. The new wearable brings significant upgrades to the company’s smart band family, including a new magnetic charging design, a larger dynamic OLED display, and new sports modes. The band also comes with a brighter display that goes up to 450 nits, improving its visibility outdoors.

Larger Display with 100+ Animated Watchfaces

The new Mi Band 5 retains the same pill-shaped design of the Mi Band 4 and has a variety of wristband colors. You can choose the TPU wristband in eight different colors which include – graphite black, deep space blue, dynamic orange, bronze purple, vibrant yellow, light green, dark cyan, and ivory.

The Xiaomi Mi Band 5 comes with a large 1.2-inch dynamic color AMOLED display, protected by a scratch-resistant 2.5D glass on top. This marks a significant increase in its screen size (more than 20%), allowing more information to be displayed at a glance. Another highlight of the new display is the support for new dynamic animated watchfaces. You get over 100 new animated watchfaces and there are some special ones based on characters from popular series’ like Neon Genesis Evangelion (EVA), Hatsune Miku, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Case Closed.

As mentioned above, Xiaomi has also increased the peak brightness of the Mi Band 5’s AMOLED panel, increasing it to 450 nits from 400 nits on its predecessor. You also get five levels of brightness adjustment.

Better Health Tracking

New Indoor Sports Modes

Considering the current situation across the globe where indoor / home exercises are gaining popularity, Xiaomi has added five new indoor modes for the newly launched Mi Band 5. This includes indoor machine and floor exercises like rowing machine, elliptical machine, skipping rope, yoga, and indoor cycling /spinning. This combined with the already available six exercise modes like swimming, walking, cycling, etc gives you a total of 11 specific tailor-made sports modes on the new wearable.

 More Accurate Heart Rate and Sleep Tracking

The Mi Band 5 comes with a photoplethysmogram (PPG) biosensor for accurate 24 x 7 heart rate monitoring. Xiaomi claims that the new wearable increases the accuracy of irregular heart rate monitoring by up to 50%. Sleep tracking also gets an upgrade and its accuracy has gone up by 40%. It can also show you how many hours of REM sleep you’ve had every night, in addition to deep and light sleep.

Xiaomi Mi Band 5, for the first time, will also calculate your Personal Activity Intelligence (PAI) score. PAI is calculated by monitoring your heart rate and gives you a fair idea of your physical activity every week. A PAI score of 100 or more in a week indicates that you have an active lifestyle.

 Magnetic Charging solves the biggest Pain Point of its Predecessors

Each generation of the Mi Band has had at least 2 weeks of battery life. But charging the device was a painful process – you had to manually remove the device from the wristband and place it in the charging cradle. Plus, there were a lot of complaints regarding the charger’s design.

The Xiaomi Mi Band 5 finally solves this pain point by using a magnetic charger. The charger easily connects to the two charging pins on the device, so you no longer have to remove it from the wristband.

The new Mi Band comes with 14-day battery life, so you just have to do it once every two weeks. It’s also waterproof up to 50 meters – just like its predecessor.

Xiaomi Mi Band 5 Pricing & Availability

The Mi Band 5 comes in two variants – NFC and non-NFC. The NFC variant is slightly more expensive at 229 yuan (~$32) but the non-NFC variant is priced at just 189 yuan (~$27).

The Mi Band 5 will go on sale on June 18 at 10 AM in China.

Honestly, the new Mi Band 5 raises the bar for smartbands this year. With a larger display and better health tracking, you get a lot of features for its sub-$30 pricing!

Love the new Mi Band 5? Don’t forget to participate in our Mi Band 5 giveaway for a chance to win it!

The post Xiaomi Mi Band 5 launched with a Larger OLED Display, Better HR monitoring & Magnetic Charging appeared first on Gizmochina.

Xiaomi has officially confirmed the existence of the Xiaomi Mi Band wearable. However, a few days back, Xiaomi CEO revealed that the new band’s release was going to be delayed by around a month due to mass production issues. We had first seen the Mi Band 2 on the hands of the Xiaomi CEO, Lei Jun a couple of weeks back. Now, new pictures of the same device have cropped up online revealing more details about the smart band.

Thanks to the earlier leaks, we already knew that the new Mi Band 2 was going to come with a display on board. This new leak again confirms the LED display on the wearable, which now shows a lot more information than previous generation models. Given that the Mi Band and the Mi Band 1S just had indicator lights (white or colored depending upon model), users had to check their connected smartphone for details. But with the display on top, the new wearable can show more details.

So, what information can we expect to see on the LED display of the new Mi Band 2? Today’s leak reveals that the smart band will be able to display the battery left in percentage, steps taken, speed, heart rate and time through its screen. So, you no longer have to check your smartphone app for these details.

While we aren’t sure whether this is the final version of the new band or an engineering prototype, it is said that Xiaomi will keep its price cheap. The Mi Band models sold well because they were super cheap, costing less than $20. So, it makes sense that the new Mi Band 2 comes at a cost-effective price tag as well.

Since the company is facing production issues with the new Mi Band version, we are not quite sure whether we will hear anything about the device at today’s conference.

To remind you, Xiaomi will announce the Max phablet and the MIUI 8 OS at the event today in China. Even Huawei has an event today for the unveiling of the Honor V8 flagship with dual cameras. So, stay tuned to gizmochina as we bring more news in the next few hours.

The post Xiaomi Mi Band 2 With Display Detailed In A New Set Of Pictures appeared first on Gizmochina.

Along with the Xiaomi Max, we can expect to meet the Xaiomi Mi Band 2 as well as the new MIUI 8 OS at the May 10 event. However, we still haven’t received any official confirmations from the company regarding the existence or the launch of a Mi smartwatch. But that just changed today, as Liu De, the co-founder and Vice President of Xiaomi revealed at a conference in Beijing that the Mi smartwatch does exist and is ready!

He further added that the company will announce the wearable in the second half of 2016, which means sometime after May. It looks like the launch of the smartwatch has been slightly delayed as the CEO of Huami, the company which actually manufacturers the Mi Band had revealed the Mi Band as well as the Mi smartwatch will meet us in Q2 2016. After hearing Liu De’s comment today, it looks like the watch will most likely debut only after a few months.

This is the first time the company has acknowledged the existence of the Mi smartwatch. This comes just after the company released a new smartwatch for kids priced at just 299 Yuan ($46). So, it looks like the company has quite the interest in the wearable industry. Not surprising given that it’s Mi Band wearable is doing so well.

He also revealed that the company currently is not planning to release automobiles, unlike rivals such as LeEco. Instead, it is interested in products catering to the needs of short travel, so we can expect products such as electric bikes and self-balancing walking robots like Ninebot. Finally, he said that the company would focus on establishing offline outlets this year. He also gave a figure, so we can expect around 60 such outlets by the end of the year.

Given that an executive has already confirmed the existence and launch of the Mi smartwatch, we can soon expect more details about the wearable in the coming days. Meanwhile, let’s wait and see what Xiaomi has in store for us for the next Mi Band version on May 10.

Till that time, you can check out the details revealed by Huami CEO, Wang about the two wearables from here.

The post Xiaomi Official Confirms Mi Smartwatch Launch In Second Half Of 2016 appeared first on Gizmochina.

Xiaomi smartwatch made the headlines last year for quite some time, however, soon, the rumors died down. Till now, we haven’t seen a full-fledged smartwatch from the company. Instead, Xiaomi has focused on its Mi Band wearable which is doing quite well, releasing the new Mi Band 1S model with heart rate sensor on board.

Xiaomi does not personally manufacture these Mi Band wearables, instead, its partner company, Huami takes care of the process. Hence, although, we call it the Xiaomi Mi Band, it’s actually made by Huami. Now, Huami’s CEO Wang has revealed a few details about the second generation model of the Xiaomi Mi Band as well as Xiaomi smartwatch. It looks like, once again, Huami is manufacturing these two devices.

First up, CEO Wang confirmed that both, the Mi Band 2 and the Xiaomi smartwatch will debut in the next two months, within Q2 2016. The major selling point of the new Band version will be the small display on board. So, it looks like the Mi Band 2 will be able to show you a lot more information than its previous generation, reducing reliance on the connected smartphone.

As for the price, the new Band will be slightly costlier than the previous generation model. To recap, the Mi Band 1S with heart rate sensor retails for 99 Yuan (~$16) in China. Another important information revealed by him was that the new version will abandon the “Mi” branding. It will be called as the Band 2, but we are not sure of the exact name.

Now, coming to the most interesting part of the interview, CEO Wang confirmed that Xiaomi smartwatch with a display exists and will meet us in Q2 2016. The watch will feature a larger screen than the Band 2, and focus on a particular function. Smartwatch manufacturers are particularly keen on health-related functions, so we may see the smartwatch boast of such features. But, apart from the existence of the device as well as the release timing, nothing else is confirmed.

Finally, remember the Amazfit smart wearable that we read about back in September, 2015? He confirms that a new generation version of the wearable is also coming, but only in the second half of the year.

So, now that these two devices have been almost confirmed, we hope to see a lot more information about them in the coming days.

Adding a display on the new Band 2 won’t be a bad idea, as long as it provides a decent battery life. The definition of decent differs from one person to another, but personally, I feel a week’s battery life on the new Band with a display would be just great. My Mi Band lasts for around three weeks on a single charge, so I would expect the new version to give me, at least, a week’s life.

So, what do you think? Happy to hear that the new Band 2 comes with a display?

(Source)

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