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iPhone 12 and 12 Pro Review: So Much To Love

Yural Maskey

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December 10, 2020

iPhone 12 and 12 Pro Review: So Much To Love

If you’ve been following us on Instagram, you would know that I’ve had the new iPhone 12 with me for almost a month now. With this, everyone’s been asking me for my review of the phone. To be completely honest with you, because it’s my first iPhone in ages, I wanted to use it for at least a month or so—instead of rushing to come up with a review. And finally, here I am with my full review of the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro.

iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro Specifications:

Dimension: 146.7 x 7.4 x 71.5mm | iPhone 12: 164gm | 12 Pro: 189gm
Display: 6.1-inch (2532×1170 pixels) OLED Super Retina XDR display, 460ppi
Chipset: Six-core A14 Bionic 64-bit processor, 16-core Neural Engine
Storage:
- iPhone 12: 64GB, 128GB, 256GB
- iPhone 12 Pro: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB
Operating System: iOS 14
SIM: Dual SIM (nano + eSIM)
Back Camera:
– 12MP wide-angle f/1.7 primary camera, 7-elements lens, OIS, True Tone flash with Slow Sync, 4K Dolby Vision video recording at 60 fps,
– 12MP 120° Ultra Wide f/2.4 camera, 7-elements lens|
– (only 12 Pro) 12MP f/2.0 telephoto lens, 2x optical zoom, 52mm focal length, 6-elements lens, OIS
– (only 12 Pro) LiDAR scanner for AR workloads, night portraits, etc.
Front Camera: 12MP front camera with f/2.2 aperture, 1080p video recording, Retina Flash, Dolby Vision HDR recording up to 30 fps, 4K video recording at 60 fps, Slo‑mo 1080p at 120 fps
Security: TrueDepth camera for FaceID facial recognition
Connectivity: 5G (sub-6GHz and mmWave), Gigabit LTE with 4×4 MIMO and LAA, 802.11ax Wi‑Fi 6 with 2×2 MIMO, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, GPS with GLONASS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and Beidou
Other features: Water and dust resistance (IP68), Stereo speakers
Color options:
- iPhone 12: White, Black, Green, Blue, (PRODUCT)RED
- iPhone 12 Pro: Graphite, Silver, Gold, Pacific Blue
Battery: 2815mAh; 20W fast charging, 7.5W Qi Wireless Charging; 15W MagSafe Wireless Charger (No charger included in the box)

iPhone 12, 12 Pro Review:

Before moving ahead, I must tell you the reason why I skipped the 12 Pro and got the standard iPhone 12 instead. The thing is, here in Nepal (and even in India for that matter) the iPhone 12 Pro is ridiculously overpriced.

iPhone 12 Price
Storage	US	Nepal	India
64GB	$829	NPR 134,000	INR 79,900
128GB	$879	NPR 142,000	INR 84,900
256GB	$979	NPR 158,000	INR 94,900
iPhone 12 Pro Price
Storage	US	Nepal	India
128GB	$999	NPR 170,000	INR 119,900
256GB	$1099	NPR 187,000	INR 129,900
512GB	$1299	NPR 220,000	INR 149,900

As you can see from the table here, in the US, the 128GB variant of the iPhone 12 Pro is only $120 more than that of the iPhone 12. However, the difference in this part of the world is a staggering 28K (~$238). And surprisingly in India, the deviation is an outrageous INR 35K (~$475), which I simply don’t understand. The launch of Apple’s official website was supposed to be a step in a positive direction, but here we are.

Anyway, because of that, I got myself the iPhone 12 (128GB) variant. I also tested it against the iPhone 12 Pro that my friend bought to come with this review. And to be honest, there aren’t too many differences between them, at least for me. Another reason I didn’t go with the Pro. Both of them come in this new boxy flat design that reminds me of my first iPhone. This “new” aesthetics makes it different and visibly unique from practically every other smartphone you see in 2020.

Design & Build

Glass front/back, aluminum/stainless steel frame
Flat edge on the sides, IP68 dust/water resistance

Having said that, the 12 Pro has a slightly premium design than that of the iPhone 12, with a matte finish at the back and a stainless steel frame. This frame also makes for an overall heavier device. While many of you might like your phone to have that heft, for me, the iPhone 12 feels just right, despite both phones sharing the same dimension

Regardless, in my usage, the iPhone 12 successfully managed to survive a couple of accidental drops from about 2 feet—major thanks to the Ceramic Shield on the front of the glass. But, you need to be aware of the fact that the ceramic protection is exclusive to the front of the phone, and not the back.

Scratch resistance?

Unfortunately, I got this nasty scratch on the front despite being really careful with it. So, while the ceramic shield most definitely offers a better drop resistance, it’s still not big on scratch immunity. In the end, I felt obligated to put on tempered glass. The only thing I dislike about the updated design is how the camera module attracts so much dirt… all the time. Every time I open up the camera to take a picture, I would first have to wipe off the dirt. And as you could figure, things got really annoying, really fast.

Overall, in terms of design, yes, the iPhone 12 Pro is more premium of the two. But for the majority of us, it isn’t going to even matter because let’s face it, at the end of the day, we are going to a back cover for added protection and grip anyway. And that’s especially true in the case of the iPhone 12 Pro since the stainless steel is really slippery.

Display

6.1-inches OLED Super Retina XDR panel
Dolby Vision compliant, 1200 nits peak brightness
Standard 60Hz refresh rate, Ceramic Shield protection

The similarities between the two phones extend to their displays as well. Here, both the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro have the same OLED panel. Now this one’s a really positive development because historically speaking, the non-Pro iPhone would have an LCD panel while the superior OLED display would be reserved for the expensive variants only. In fact, even the cheapest iPhone of this year—the 12 Mini features an OLED screen.

Despite all this, the OLED panel is not minded blogging in any way; considering just how far the industry has come when it comes to smartphone displays. Apple is still sticking to the good-old’ 60Hz refresh rate. If you have used a flagship Android device of the past year, like the OnePlus 8 Pro or the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro feel ordinary, at least that’s my finding from this review. But again, this display is more than good enough with excellent sharpness and color accuracy. Although the vibrancy is not as punchy as premium Samsung phones, I am not complaining.

The touch response has been great too—no accidental touches or unresponsive inputs throughout my usage. Furthermore, I also had no problems regarding its brightness even when using it outdoor, especially during winter when I often tend to sun bask outside my office. The iPhone 12 Pro does have a slight edge here as it can go up to 800 nits of brightness as compared to 625 on the regular iPhone 12. But trust me when I say that 625 nits on the iPhone 12 is plenty enough.

Cameras

12MP wide, 12MP ultrawide cameras (iPhone 12)
Plus 12MP telephoto lens, LiDAR scanner (only 12 Pro)
12MP TrueDepth camera with FaceID

Cameras

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Okay, while things between the two phones sound incredibly similar up until now—almost to the point that you’d question the validity of the expensive 12 Pro entirely, the reason you might want to spend a little extra cash is the cameras. While the iPhone 12 comes with a measly dual-camera setup, you get an extra telephoto lens and a LiDAR scanner.

Normal Images

Before going on about the additional sensors, let’s talk about the common lenses first. Both the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro have exactly the same wide and ultra-wide-angle lens.

Normal

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On my camera tests too, I found the quality to be identical—as expected.

Wideangle Images

Wideangle

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From regular day time to wide-angle to low-light to portrait shots, it’s like clicking photos from the same phone.

Nighttime Images

Nighttime

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And as you’d expect from an iPhone, the image quality is stellar. The images have great details, exposure, dynamic range, and aren’t oversaturated either.

Selfie Images

The selfies from the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro are incredibly similar as well.

Selfie

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It can capture plenty of detail with great background exposure, while fairly maintaining the color tone of the subject as well.

Telephoto Images

The only uptick with the 12 Pro is when taking photos of faraway objects since it has a dedicated 2x telephoto zoom lens. But for me, the digital zoom on the iPhone 12 works perfectly fine.

Zoom

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Yes, the quality on the iPhone 12 Pro is obviously a tad bit better; especially while taking 2x zoom videos as well as in 2x portraits, but that’s about it. Plus, we’ve already seen far superior telephoto lenses from the likes of Huawei and Samsung. So it’s not too surprising to come to the conclusion that the telephoto lens on the iPhone 12 Pro isn’t revolutionary by any means.

LiDAR scanner

As I mentioned earlier, iPhone 12 Pro also has a LiDAR sensor and throughout my review, I didn’t find it to be a game-changer as Apple would want you to believe. Of course, it has its benefits, but that, unfortunately, didn’t resonate with my use case. Let me briefly explain what LiDAR actually is.

Short for Light Detection and Ranging, LiDAR is more like the TOF (Time Of Flight) sensor we saw on Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Ultra. While TOF works by shooting a single beam of laser/infrared light and measuring the time it takes to return, LiDAR takes things to next level with multiple beams of laser all around for depth-sensing. Apple claims that the LiDAR scanner on the iPhone 12 Pro series can effectively measure object depth up to 5 meters away.

D = (speed of light X time taken by LASER to hit the subject and come back) / 2

Because of this, the LiDAR scanner brings two improvements in terms of photography:

Good portraits in low-light conditions
Better, faster focusing

Nighttime Portrait Images

Having said that, I did try comparing the nighttime portrait images from the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro for this review.

Nighttime Portrait

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To my dismay, I found little to none difference between the actual quality of the two photos. Same with focusing.

Despite photography, the LiDAR scanner comes useful in other areas like augmented reality (AR), 3D scanning, and such. You might’ve seen some videos floating around the internet on how people are measuring someone’s height with the iPhone 12 Pro. Yep, thank LiDAR for that. It also lets you measure the dimensions of other objects. While these do sound fun and kinda-sorta useful, I wasn’t particularly excited with the sensor during my time with the phone.

Dolby Vision HDR recording

Moving on, the new iPhone 12 series are also the first devices to support shooting and editing 10-bit Dolby Vision HDR videos. Even though we’ve seen HDR recording capability from other smartphones in the past, all of them use open source metadata platform like HDR10. The reason Dolby Vision is superior to the other standards is because of its use of dynamic metadata. What this means is that all the enriched colors, contrast info is dynamically adjusted on a frame-by-frame basis—instead of how HDR10 sends static metadata. A one-for-all kind of deal.

This achievement has been made entirely possible because of the new A14 Bionic chip and its ISP. While all phones in the iPhone 12 series share the same silicon, the iPhone 12 can only shoot Dolby Vision videos at 30fps, whereas the 12 Pro can go up to 60fps.

Memory configuration

That’s because of the difference in their RAM capacity since the iPhone 12 only has 4GB of RAM whereas the Pro has 2GB more. Like I mentioned before, if you wish to edit the footage in post, you can enable it in the settings too. But not everyone needs or can make use of Dolby Vision recording. And for them, regular videos from the 12 or 12 Pro will do just fine.

Anyhow, just being able to shoot in Dolby Vision is just half the battle since watching it requires a Dolby Vision-capable display itself. And unless you’re fine with the relatively small display of an iPhone, I’m willing to bet that many of us might not have a compatible TV/monitor. Likewise, even YouTube doesn’t support it for now—just the standard HDR. But, this could change in the future with more people making videos in Dolby Vision format.

ProRAW for pros

Similarly, the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max now support the ProRAW image format since the iOS 14.3 beta update. Allowing you to manually adjust settings like white balance, exposure, contrast, etc. in the post without introducing a drop in picture quality is something especially alluring to professional photographers.

But what bugs me is Apple’s decision to not include this “software feature” on the non-Pro iPhone 12 models. So typical. Obviously, the iPhone 12 is more than capable to capture RAW images as it has the same A14 Bionic chipset and a similar camera setup as the 12 Pro. So hopefully, Apple will have a change of heart in the future, but if it doesn’t—I won’t be surprised.

Performance

Hexa-core Apple A14 Bionic SoC (5nm)
4/6GB RAM with up to 512GB storage (fixed)

Speaking of the A14 Bionic, Apple has once again proved that they are the best when it comes to performance. I’ve been using Samsung flagships for the past couple of years and switching to the iPhone 12, I could almost instantly notice the jump in performance. The A14 is so powerful that even in like 3-4 years, it will still be able to power through your everyday needs without a hiccup. The same, I cannot say about the Android flagships like the OnePlus 8T or the Galaxy S20 FE. That has always been one of the strongest feats of an iPhone and with the 12 series, the legacy continues.

Still and all, it does leave a few things to be desired. Like, I miss a smooth refresh rate experience transitioning from my Android phone. Just imagine, the A14 + 120Hz would’ve been a killer combo. But, Apple is still holding on to the smooth tech for now.

Besides the cameras, everything else on the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro are the same. You get the same stereo speaker which produces balanced sound. It’s not the best speakers you can find on a smartphone as I think the ASUS ROG Phone 3 and the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra are better for that matter. Still, the audio from the iPhone 12’s speaker setup is acceptable as well.

Swift iOS

Moreover, the vibration motor and its haptic feedback have been really good and I like how iOS complements the hardware to provide a better overall experience. The Face ID is still here, although the rumors of Apple resurrecting the Touch ID on iPhones had me excited. It is really fast, secure, and accurate. But during these trying times when everyone is wearing a mask, I would’ve had to use the passcode almost all the time.

Battery

2815mAh battery with 20W fast charging
7.5W Qi Wireless Charging, 15W MagSafe Wireless Charger

Finally, let’s get into the battery life. Both iPhone 12 and 12 Pro are powered by the same 2815mAh cell. That’s not a big battery compared to Android flagships, or is it? During my usage, I was able to get a decent, if not great battery life out of it. Playing games for like an hour or two every day resulted in like 5 hours of SOT, whereas on a day when I didn’t play games, I got around 6 to 7 hours screen-on-time. I just wished that Apple would’ve gone with a slightly bigger battery. For now, I give iPhone 12, 12 Pro’s battery life a B+.

There are also a lot of users complaining about battery drain issues and network signal drop, but I haven’t encountered such issues yet—so that’s nice.

And yeah, as you might’ve heard by now, Apple is revolutionizing the way phones are sold by excluding a charging brick, or wired earbuds inside the box. This move hasn’t been immune to controversies though. On the one hand, yes, it does help with reducing carbon emissions. But on the other hand, people now have to pay extra for something so elementary to a smartphone experience.

Overruled

Interestingly, the company has been forced to ship iPhone 12 series with earpods in France citing radiation laws; while buyers in Brazil will still enjoy a power adapter inside the box—thanks to a government mandate.

So, I got myself an 18W charger from last year instead of the new 20W charger since they’re not that different, to begin with. The 20W adapter can push up to 15W of power to a MagSafe charger but as things stand, MagSafe is just too slow for me as it takes like 3 hours to charge the iPhone 12. Maybe next year it will be faster—we will have to wait and see.

Conclusion

Overall, after using the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro for almost a month now for review, I think I will keep using it as my primary phone for a while. Apple has been clever enough to properly differentiate the iPhone 12 from its Pro siblings. Therefore, in the end, it isn’t too difficult for people to choose between the two.

Still, if you are someone from in the US or other countries where the difference between the 12 and 12 Pro isn’t significant, you might want to get the 12 Pro instead without giving too much thought. But if you are someone from Nepal or especially India, you should definitely get the iPhone 12 over 12 Pro unless the 12 Pro’s price drops in the next few days. That’s because even though the 12 Pro is objectively superior between the two, the regional price difference makes it unappealing compared to the standard iPhone 12.

Watch our video review of iPhone 12 and 12 Pro.

iPhone 12, 12 Pro Review: Pros & Cons

Pros:

Premium, durable design with a flat edge
Excellent OLED display with Dolby Vision
Best-in-class performance thanks to A14
iOS is as optimized, well-designed as ever
Excellent cameras, especially for videos
10-bit Dolby Vision HDR recording, ProRAW

Cons:

As usual, iPhones’ global pricing is inconsistent
No high refresh rate on an iPhone yet
12 Pro’s telephoto lens not as impressive
No charger, earpods inside the box
Battery life could’ve been slightly better

OPPO Watch Review: Emulating Apple (But Not Quite)

Nikhil Shrestha

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December 9, 2020

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OPPO Watch Review: Emulating Apple (But Not Quite)

Apple has this, sort of, unparalleled triumph in the world of smartwatches. While Samsung’s alternatives are pretty good in themselves, ultimately, they don’t compare. Recently, OPPO joined the smartwatch market with something that’s almost a carbon copy of the last-gen Apple Watch. This Wear OS-powered OPPO Watch made headlines throughout the world about how it looks exactly like an Apple Watch, while not being an Apple Watch, thus tempting us for a review.

Well, having your product’s identity defined by a rival product wouldn’t exactly be the first objective off the top of my head when designing something new. But hey, OPPO went on to do exactly that, so the comparison is 100% warranted. And I was quite intrigued to see the product receive high remarks from so many tech blogs. Allow me to discuss my findings of the OPPO Watch in this review.

OPPO Watch Specifications:

Specifications	41mm		46mm
Dimension, Weight	1.63 x 1.43 x 0.45”, 30.1gm		1.81 x 1.54 x 0.45”, 39.3gm
Color options	Black, Pink Gold, Silver Mist		Black, Glossy Gold
Bottom case	Plastic		Ceramic + Plastic
Water resistance	3ATM (30 meters)		5ATM (50 meters)
Display	1.6” Rigid AMOLED panel		1.91” AMOLED Flexible Dual-Curved panel
Resolution	320 x 360 pixels		402 x 476 pixels
Battery	300mAh (Up to 24 hours)		430mAh (Up to 36 hours)
Watch frame	Aluminum alloy
Strap	Fluororubber (proprietary)
Power input	5V/1.5A (Watch VOOC Flash Charging)
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 (28nm), Ambiq Micro Apollo3 Wireless
CPU, GPU	Quad-core 1.09 GHz Cortex-A7, Adreno 304
Operating system	Google’s Wear OS (International)
Memory	1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage
Connectivity	WiFi (2.4GHz), Bluetooth 4.2 (BLE), NFC, GPS (with A-GPS, Glonass)
Sensors	Tri-axial acceleration, Gyroscope, Geomagnetic, Barometer, Optical heartbeat, Capacitance, Ambient light
Companion app	Wear OS (Android \| iOS), HeyTap Health (Android \| iOS)
Price in Nepal	Rs. 24,990	Rs. 34,990

OPPO Watch Review:

Design & Build

Apple Watch-like squarish design
Comfortable rubber straps
3/5ATM water resistance

Starting with the design, as I mentioned earlier, it bears a striking resemblance to an Apple Watch. From its square-ish screen to a similar strap mechanism, this thing is a definite head-turner. My review unit is the OPPO Watch 46mm (WiFi-only) version, whereas it is available in 41mm and 46mm (WiFi + LTE) models as well. While the larger 46mm option is available in either Black or Glossy Gold colors, the 41mm OPPO Watch can be found in Black, Pink Gold, and Silver Mist variants.

Personally, the larger of the two looks quite big on my hands—although comfort is not an issue. Besides the obvious difference in screen real-estate and battery size, the 41 & 46mm OPPO Watch differs in terms of build quality too. While both variants’ frame is made from aluminum alloy, the rear panel is all plastic on the smaller 41mm option, whereas the heart-rate sensor module is protected with ceramic on the other. Likewise, the water resistance level is downgraded from 5ATM in 46mm to 3ATM in the smaller alternative.

Rubber Strap

Moving on, the fluororubber strap on the OPPO Watch is reminiscent of a regular silicon material but feels slightly less flexible. The Apple Watch-like mechanism has been tweaked with a band retainer/loop, so as to avoid a potential design lawsuit, possibly. This “compromise” does have its flaws as I’ve already lost one of the two loops that come inside the box. Now that’s because of how easy it is for the loop to come off the strap, if not handled with finesse.

Despite all these, make no mistake, the watch is very comfortable to wear—even when you’re walking or running. I didn’t experience any skin irritation or allergy from putting it on, which is fantastic. The durability does remain a matter of concern though. Because the company has prioritized fashionable aesthetics, it is not the most enduring of smartwatches. Even without any significant impact, I’ve managed to get a couple of dents on the top frame of my unit—and I can’t help but wonder what would happen to it upon a heavy-impact collision or fall.

Display

1.6/1.91″ AMOLED panel (curved/rigid)
Gorilla Glass/SCHOTT Xensation protection

Getting to the display, the 46mm variant of the OPPO Watch comes with a bigger 1.91” AMOLED screen that has a subtle curve on the side. Similarly, it is protected by SCHOTT Xensation 3D glass. On the other hand, the smaller 41mm option has a flat AMOLED panel with Gorilla Glass protection.

With a 402×476 resolution and a 326ppi, everything looks absolutely incredible on this watch. There is no noticeable pixelation of any kind and the content on the screen looks sharp. Plus, the colors, contrast are excellent as well. With 5 levels of brightness to choose from, I had no visibility issue with the watch even under direct sunlight.

Here, the device also comes with an ambient light sensor. During my review, I set the brightness level on OPPO Watch to “automatic”, where it would automatically switch the illumination level depending upon the surrounding lighting condition. While this feature does work pretty well, the time it takes to switch between the brightness level is abnormally long—compared to how we’ve been conditioned to the same functionality on our smartphones.

Watch face

In terms of watch faces, it comes with very few selections by default, but one can always more download from the Play Store.

Watch Faces (default + downloaded)

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Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t find one that vibed with me so I ultimately decided to go with custom images as the watch face, which switch upon each screen wake-up (or I can change them with a single tap). You can also change the watch face by long-pressing the home screen, or via the HeyTap Health app.

Performance, Wear OS

Quad-core Snapdragon Wear 3100 SoC (28nm)
Plus, Ambiq Micro Apollo3 Wireless processor
1GB RAM plus 8GB internal storage

Powering the international variant of the OPPO Watch is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 3100, alongside the Ambiq Micro Apollo3 Wireless SoC. Here, while the Wear 3100 handles regular functionalities, the Ambiq Micro is a secondary processor to support low-power threads and aid in power saver mode. This setup is fortified with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage.

Now, there’s also a Chinese variant of the OPPO Watch, which swaps the Snapdragon Wear 3100 with Wear 2500 and runs on ColorOS Watch instead of Wear OS.

Anyway, as much as I would’ve preferred the newer Wear 4100 silicon (found in recent smartwatches like Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3), I don’t have any complaint regarding the performance on this watch. From UI animations to transitions, everything is very smooth, and apps open up pretty quickly as well. On rare occasions, the UI would also freeze for a bit when updating the apps, but I wouldn’t entirely hold that against the terrific cumulative performance. The navigation though is a bit of a hassle.

Navigation

OPPO Watch perfectly demonstrated how spoiled I’d become with Samsung Galaxy Watch3’s rotating bezel. Since the former solely relies on taps and swipes, getting from one menu to the other feels like forever. It does come with two buttons on the right for navigation—a home (which also doubles as an app drawer), and a customizable button with an emerald green accent. By default, it triggers the workout app and I left it be since I found the setting perfect for my use case.

Swiping to the left gets you to the Google Assistant page, and I don’t understand why but it also includes “inspirational quotations” for some reason. And while there is an option to trigger the assistant with the “Ok, Google” command, I couldn’t get it to work—not even once. Not sure what’s going on there. By swiping down from the top, you can toggle various controls like settings, power saver mode, etc. However, you can’t add to or change the layout in any way and weirdly, the command center can only be accessed when you’re on the home screen—further complicating the process.

Notifications

Similarly, all the notifications are neatly arranged at the bottom. Being a smartwatch, it also supports actionable notifications, and one can reply to messages from the watch itself. You can choose to dictate, type, or draw up an emoji reply. The default keyboard’s layout is quite cramped, but I was quite surprised to find out how accurately I could type on this tiny thing. Swipe-typing is even easier if you’re familiar with the format.

HeyTap Health

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While you can go back from a screen via a swipe to the left, it doesn’t work when you’re using the keyboard. Additionally, choosing which apps display notification can be customized from the aforementioned app, or the watch itself.

A limiting experience

Likewise, all the widgets (called Tiles) are organized on the right side of the screen. But what’s annoying is that the OPPO Watch can only store up to 5 tiles at a time. This feels really limiting for a smartwatch, especially one of this stature. I mean, it’s a pretty damning limitation, wouldn’t you agree? Besides all these, the watch also supports gesture navigation. By flicking your wrist, you can pull up the command center, notification panel, app drawer, or jump to the home screen. Though not perfect, I would say that it works better than expected.

Moving on, the watch includes two layouts for the app drawer. Personally, I’m fond of the traditional list view, but there’s also a 3×3 grid layout with circular icons that I’m sure many would prefer instead. There’s also this neat shortcut on the Play Store, that lets you install select apps from your phone, that are available on the Wear OS platform—eliminating the need to separately search them. Talking about apps, since Spotify doesn’t officially work in Nepal, I couldn’t install it on the watch. I would’ve been grateful if it came pre-installed, but unfortunately, that’s not the case.

You can make and receive calls on the OPPO Watch too, although I was quite disappointed with it throughout my review period. The call quality leaves much to be desired. I constantly got a complaint about how my voice sounded muffled, unclear from the receiver’s end even when I was indoors—all the while I could hear them quite well from the watch’s speaker. The sound quality is fairly decent and is actually quite useful when interacting with the Google Assistant.

Health, Fitness, Sleep Tracking

5 workout modes, no automatic detection
Over 5 dozen workout modes under “Fit Workout”
No SpO2 monitoring, women’s health recording

Okay, let’s talk about the fitness tracking features now. The Watch comes with OPPO’s own 5 workout modes, which consist of fitness run, fat burn run, outdoor walk, outdoor cycling, and swimming. Regrettably, it can’t automatically detect a workout—a feature I dearly miss, coming from the Galaxy Watch 3.

Moreover, under “Fit Workout”, you’ll find more than 5 dozen workout modes. Some of them include: yoga, treadmill running, biking, dancing, golf, pilates, and… flossing? What?! Yeah, I suppose it can be considered as a workout but now way would I want to see an adult floss. I found the 5-min workouts particularly more useful than all these. It includes a range of activities, which are tailored for a different purpose, or a different time of the day.

5-min workout

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There are five 5-min workouts altogether: morning energizer, get moving, full-body workout, fat blaster, and bedtime stretches—while each of them is comprised of 8-9 distinct exercises. This is really ingenious of OPPO considering how most of us can’t dedicate hours of our day to get fit. A sad reality of our concrete civilization.

Audio-visual guide

In addition, OPPO Watch also gives an audio-visual guide to usher you through the workout, which was a feature I was quite curious about going into the review. But in my unit, I only got audio feedback under the “get moving” and “bedtime stretches” workouts. I can’t speak with 100% certainty if that’s how it’s supposed to be or not—although it definitely feels like it should.

Likewise, the watch also periodically reminds you to get up and exercise a little, if it senses you sitting still for about an hour. If you find the reminder annoying, you can set it off altogether. Other notable exercise includes breathing, which is really useful when you feel like you’re stressed out. Besides, like every other smartwatch, the OPPO Watch lets you set a per-day target for various activities like steps, workout, calories burnt, etc. And if you meet them at any point in the day, it gives you a swift reminder as well.

Fitness, Sleep Tracking

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On top of all this, it also supports 24-hour heart rate monitoring and sleep monitoring. Seeing it miss out on such important fitness tracking as blood oxygen, women’s health is incredibly disheartening, seeing how it is priced as a premium smartwatch. I did find its sleep tracking to be pretty accurate as it managed to record my time to sleep, awake time, and wake up time almost precisely. Every morning, you also get a notification about your sleep cycle, but it is delivered way too late—almost an hour or more after you’ve woken up.

Built-in GPS

OPPO Watch also has a built-in GPS and I found its location tracking to be fairly correct. There is a flaw in the GPS-locking mechanism though, but not in the way you’re probably imagining. The thing is, whenever I started any workout, I would get a “Searching for GPS” marquee for quite some time, suggesting that the watch is taking too long to lock-in GPS.

Location Tracking

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But when my impatience would get the best of me and I would hit start on the workout anyway, turns out, the GPS reading had already set-in. So, at this point, I’m just waiting for an update to fix this issue, I’m afraid.

All this data can be viewed to their full extent using the HeyTap Health app. But you’d be surprised to know that you are required to download a separate “WearOS” app at first to pair the two devices. While the app works fine and all, having used smartwatches from Samsung and Huawei, this one takes particularly long to sync data between the phone and the watch. Additionally, I would’ve liked the ability to zoom in on my trail on the app as well.

Battery Life

Either 300/430mAh battery
5V/1.5A Watch VOOC Flash Charging

Getting to the battery, the 46mm OPPO Watch comes with a 430mAh cell. The company advertises that it can get you up to 21 days of battery life, and that could very possibly be the most misleading statement I’ve heard in a while. Yes, technically it might get you that much juice but the thing to note here is that the claimed battery life is strictly under power saver mode the entire time. And who in their right mind would buy a smartwatch, only to wear it devoid of almost 99% of functionality.

Even under the power saver mode, it can track your heart rate and step, so that’s nice I guess. I obviously used it normally and didn’t turn on Always-on Display (AoD) either. Under this “smart mode”, OPPO says the battery should last about 30 hours, but I struggled to get it throughout the day and clocked in about 21 hours almost every day. Turning on the battery saving mode at say 20% (you also get an automatic notification when the juice is low, btw) can go on to last a full day, which is amazing.

In terms of charging, the OPPO Watch supports 5V/1.5A Watch VOOC Flash Charging that can fully juice up the battery in about an hour. It uses a proprietary charger that clasps the watch magnetically. Unlike other company’s smartwatches, this fast charging mechanism is a breath of fresh air, although I’m not sure what level of impact it’ll have on the battery health in the long run.

Conclusion

To conclude this review, the OPPO Watch is—like most other OPPO products, a fashion-first smartwatch. Its Apple Watch resemblance may be an attractive aspect to many, but when it comes to Apple’s level of health tracking and fitness monitoring, the company still has a long way to go. The display is excellent and WearOS plays pretty nice, but sadly, it emulates the worst part of its inspiration too, which is the battery life. So, while I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to those looking for an absolute premium smartwatch experience, it will more than suffice the needs of an average user.

Check out our video review of the OPPO Watch.

OPPO Watch Review: Pros & Cons

Pros:

The squarish design looks fashionable
Excellent display with rich colors & sharpness
Wear OS performs fairly smooth
Audio-visual guidance on certain workouts
Step, sleep tracking is fairly accurate
Watch VOOC Flash Charging

Cons:

The design makes for a less durable build quality
Tap, swipe navigation isn’t convenient
“Ok Google” command simply doesn’t work
Can’t add more than 5 widgets on the home screen
No automatic workout detection
The battery struggles to last throughout the day

OnePlus Nord N10 5G Launched in Nepal: Best phone under 40k?

OnePlus

Pratima Adhikari

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December 9, 2020

0

OnePlus Nord N10 5G Launched in Nepal: Best phone under 40k?

With the success of Oneplus Nord in a premium midrange segment, Oneplus Nepal has also launched another mid-range phone in the form of Oneplus Nord N10 5G. It is a slightly cheaper version of the original Oneplus Nord. Let’s learn more about the Oneplus Nord N10 5G along with its price and availability in Nepal.

OnePlus Nord N10 5G Overview

The OnePlus Nord N10 5G features a 6.49-inch FHD+ display with a 90Hz refresh rate and Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The display panel is an IPS LCD instead of an AMOLED we saw on the Oneplus Nord. Hence, don’t expect the same level of contrast and colors on the N10.

As for performance, the device is powered by Snapdragon 690. It is currently the cheapest 5G chipset in the Snapdragon lineup. It features two cores based on Cortex A77. The rest of the cores are based on Cortex A55. The graphics will be handled by Adreno 619L, which is slightly inferior to that of Adreno 620 used on the Snapdragon 765G of the Oneplus Nord. The integrated X51 modem supports the sub-6Hz 5G band but misses out on the faster mmWave band.

At the back, the device will flaunt a quad-camera setup. There’s a new 64MP primary camera which is accompanied by an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera. Completing the setup is a gimmicky 2MP monochrome sensor and a 2MP macro camera. The main 64MP lacks OIS but can shoot videos in 4K 30fps and 1080P 60fps with EIS.

In terms of looks, the Nord N10 looks similar to that of the cheaper N100. The back is made of polycarbonate with a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. There’s a punch hole at the left side of the display that houses a 16MP selfie camera. Finally, fueling the device is a 4,300mAh battery with Warp Charge 30T charging.

OnePlus Nord N10 5G Specifications:

Display: 6.49” IPS LCD (1080 x 2400 pixels) FHD+ panel; 90Hz refresh rate
Protection: Gorilla Glass 3
Dimensions: 163 x 74.7 x 8.95mm; Weight: 190g
Software: Android 10 with Oxygen OS 10.5
Rear Camera: Quad, 64MP primary lens, 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, 2 MP lens, 2MP lens
Front Camera: 16MP
Chipset: Octa-core 8nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 690
CPU: 2GHz x 2 Cortex A77+1.8GHz x 6 Cortex A55
GPU: Adreno 619L
RAM: 6GB LPDDR4X
Storage: 128GB UFS 2.1, expandable memory up to 512GB with microSD
Audio: Stereo Speakers, 3.5mm headphone jack
Battery: 4300mAh, Warp Charge 30T charging (Type C)
Color Option: Midnight Ice

OnePlus Nord N10 5G Price and Availability in Nepal

OnePlus Nord N10 5G Price in Nepal is set at Rs. 39,490. It is currently available for pre-order from sastodeal and Daraz and select retail shops all over Nepal. At this price, it will go head-to-head against the likes of Vivo V20 SE and Samsung Galaxy M51.

Smartphone Model	Price in Nepal
Oneplus Nord N10 5G	NPR 39,490

Smart Data Packs: Price, Volume, & Validity Period [December 2020]

Guides
Smart

GadgetByte

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December 8, 2020

0

Smart Data Packs: Price, Volume, & Validity Period [December 2020]

Established in 2008, Smart Telecom ranks third in our list of best telecom service providers in Nepal. It provides 2G and 4G services in the country, while the latter is limited to mere 19 districts. Smart is known for its affordable internet plans. Today, we will be taking a look at all the data packs that Smart Telecom provides including the price, volume, and validity period.

Smart Internet Rates without Data Packs

If you aren’t subscribed to any data pack, Smart Telecom charges you Rs. 1.92 for every 1MB of data. The rate is uniform over both 2G and 4G networks.

Smart Data Packs: Volume, Price & Validity

1. Smart Recharge Pack

As a Smart user, you get a bonus with every recharge worth Rs. 100 or above. The bonus includes free 4G data packs, talk time, and SMS. It also increases with the recharge amount and so does its validity period. You can use the bonus talk time and bonus data to connect to your friends with different network providers.

Recharge amount	Bonus	Validity period
Rs. 100	400MB 4G Data 10 minutes talk time 10 SMS	7 days
Rs. 200	800MB 4G Data 20 minutes talk time 20 SMS	15 days
Rs. 500	3GB 4G Data 100 minutes talk time 100 SMS	30 days
Rs. 1000	6GB 4G Data 200 minutes talk time 200 SMS	30 days

2. Smart Weekly Combo Pack

Smart Weekly Combo Pack was brought during the ongoing pandemic to help users connect with their loved ones at affordable rates. Under this pack, users get 3GB of data and unlimited talk time within Smart networks for a price of Rs. 98.

Pack Name	Volume	Activation	Price	Validity
Smart Weekly Combo Data Pack	3GB Data Unlimited talk time within Smart network	141721#	Rs. 98	7 days

Also Read: Nepal Telecom Data Packs [Updated]

3. Smart Work From Home Pack

Like the previous one, Smart Work From Home Pack was also announced during the lockdown, to facilitate users who are having a hard time working from home. It is very helpful for students who are attending online classes from home. For just Rs. 382, you get 45GB of data with 30 days’ validity period. The catch is, you can only use the data between 6 AM and 6 PM.

Pack Name	Volume	Activation	Price	Validity
Smart Work From Home	45 GB Data (6 AM to 6 PM)	141711#	Rs 381.79	30 days

4. Smart Data Packs

When Smart decided to phase out its unlimited data packs, it did so by doubling the volume on its volume-based data packs as compensation. The Double Data pack offers double the volume than its predecessors offered but at the same price. Since then, Smart has made some changes to the packages and has been advertising it simply as Smart Data Packs.

Data Volume	Activation	Price	Validity
100MB + 100MB	141316#	Rs. 11.49	1 day
500MB + 500MB	141311#	Rs. 37.03	1 day
1GB + 1GB	141312#	Rs. 88.11	7 days
1GB + 1GB	141313#	Rs. 113.64	15 days
2GB + 2GB	141314#	Rs. 254.10	30 days
5GB + 5GB	141315#	Rs. 407.33	30 days
20GB	141326#	Rs. 509.48	30 days

5. Unlimited Night Pack

There is also an unlimited night pack for night owls out there. Upon subscription, users can access unlimited data starting from 11 PM to 6 AM the next day.

Pack Name	Activation	Price	Validity
Unlimited Night Pack	141331#	Rs. 19	11 PM – 6 AM

If we compare these rates to other telecom service providers in the country, we can see that Smart provides data at the cheapest rates. But are you satisfied with the quality of services? While its competitors provide unlimited packs with an hour of validity, Smart doesn’t have one. Personally, I would have liked a night data pack as well, which is rare these days in any network. Do share your thoughts in the comment section below.

You might also be interested in:

Ncell Data Packs [Updated]

NTC Data Packs [Updated]

Samsung is developing a 600MP camera sensor for smartphones

Samsung

GadgetByte

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December 7, 2020

0

Samsung is developing a 600MP camera sensor for smartphones

Back in April this year, Samsung Newsroom published an editorial on how Samsung is rivaling the human eye. The editorial by Yongin Park boasted about Samsung’s advancement in the image sensor technology and what the company is eyeing for the future. It was in this article where it was mentioned that the South Korean company is looking to develop a 600MP camera. And now, a popular leakster IceUniverse has confirmed that Samsung is indeed working on a 600MP smartphone camera sensor.

Higher resolution trend in smartphone cameras

Today, we see smartphone companies boast about picture sizes (measured in megapixels) that their devices capture. 48MP or 64MP cameras have now become normal in mid-range phones. While flagship phones now come with camera sensors of up to 108MP. Samsung does have a hand in this trend of increasing megapixels in smartphone cameras. In fact, it was the first to announce a 64MP sensor. Around half a year later, it then announced a 108MP camera. Just some weeks ago, we saw Xiaomi adopt Samsung’s latest 108MP camera – Isocell HM2 in the Redmi Note 9 Pro 5G.

Higher the number of pixel, the smaller the size

The issue with higher resolution smartphone cameras is that the real state of the smartphone is limited. Thus, we can’t fit in a sensor the size of a digital camera. So cramping in more pixels is only possible when the size of these pixels is very small. For instance, individual pixels in the HM1 measures only 0.8um. Tiny pixels can’t trap enough light and thus cannot produce enough details, especially when paired with a small sensor.

Pixel-binning

This is where pixel-binning comes in. Almost all higher resolution smartphone cameras make use of this technique. Here, a bunch of tiny pixels is treated as a single pixel. For example, Samsung’s Nonacell technology allows one 0.8um pixel to function as a single 2.4um pixel.

Also Read: ISOCELL Vizion is Samsung’s answer to the Apple-Sony ToF Partnership.

Samsung 600MP Smartphone Camera Sensor

Samsung is now planning a major leap to 600MP. In case you don’t know, normal human eyes have a resolution of 576MP. So, if 600MP is beyond what our normal eyes can notice, why is Samsung working on it? The slide leaked by IceUniverse reveals that Samsung wants to use the 600MP sensor to improve the 4K/8K video recording. The company knows that trend of 4K/8K video recording in smartphones is not going to slow down. The 600MP sensor will allow the camera to take zoomed videos without losing much detail.

Samsung believes that sensors that can capture invisible light will turn out to be beneficial in the longer run. The company proposes sensors with an ultraviolet light perception that can diagnose skin cancer by differentiating between healthy and cancerous cells. Similarly, infrared sensors can be used for quality control in agriculture and other industries.

However, there are some problems that come with it. For instance, to accumulate 600MP pixels the size of the sensor will be around 1/0.57”. It’s way bigger than the 1/1.3” sensor used in mainstream 108MP cameras. The new sensor is expected to cover around 12% of the rear panel of the device. And the problem doesn’t end here. The 600MP sensor will also require the camera to be around 22mm thick (with the camera bump), which is way thicker than most of the smartphones out there.

Samsung 600MP smartphone camera sensor availability

So the question remains – will the next Samsung flagship smartphone come equipped with a 600MP camera? And the answer is no. As mentioned above, Samsung has a lot of things to improve. While we can expect the company to launch a 600MP camera sensor eventually in the future, we won’t be seeing such technology anytime soon.

Watch: Galaxy S20 FE Vs Oneplus 8T – ultimate camera comparison

Gionee convicted of secretly implanting Trojan horse in over 20 million phones

Gionee

GadgetByte

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December 6, 2020

0

Gionee convicted of secretly implanting Trojan horse in over 20 million phones

Chinese smartphones are popular for being cheap and affordable. This is also the reason they have been popular in price-conscious markets like ours. While these brands offer capable hardware for less, there have been questions about how they manage to earn profits. Many of these companies include ads and bloatware in their custom skin to raise cash. However, many generate cash through malpractices. Earlier this year, we reported Tecno stealing money from its customer with out-of-the-box malware. And now, another report claims Gionee of earning money illegally through a Trojan horse.

Gionee and Trojan Horse

The China Judgement Document Network has found Gionee guilty of illegal control of computer information systems. According to the published verdict, the Chinese smartphone company was successful in implanting a Trojan horse in more than 20 million Gionee smartphones. The app was used to generate illegal business and illicit fortunes.

Method

The Shenzhen Zhipu Technology Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Gionee, included the Trojan horse through an update of the Story Lock Screen app. The company is responsible for software development and advertising business.

The act was in collaboration with the Beijing Baice Company. The Trojan Horse was updated along with the app using a “Live Pull” method. Later they used a “Dark Horse Platform” plug-in to make the pull live operation more efficient. From December 2018 to October 2019, the company was able to successfully implement the Pull Live monthly update 2.88 billion times.

Earning

As per the report by cnBeta, the Shenzen Zhipu Technology company claimed 70% of the revenue. The rest went to the Beijing Baice Company. The revenue and expenses of the company are estimated to be 27.85 million Yuan and 8.425 million Yuan, respectively.

The Chinese court has found Xu Li, the legal representative of the company, guilty along with Zhu Ying, Jia Zhengqiang, and Pan Qi. They will have to serve up to three years and six months of jail term. They will also have to pay a fine of up to 200,000 Yuan. However, the three are first time offenders and have pleaded guilty and thus are liable to clemency in accordance with the law.

Check out our review of Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 10.4 (2020).

NRB addresses international payment system in the review of monetary policy (2020/21)

Featured

GadgetByte

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December 4, 2020

0

NRB addresses international payment system in the review of monetary policy (2020/21)

Earlier this week, we reported that Nepal Rastra Bank is carrying out an internal discussion for an international payment system in the country. And yesterday, the issue was addressed in the first quarter review of monetary policy (2020-2021). Let’s dive deeper into the provision of an international payment system in the first quarter review of monetary policy.

An international payment system in Nepal

The topic caught some momentum when Maha Prasad Adhikari, the Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank, hinted that one could soon make payments in foreign currency for international products from Nepal. It was in response to a question put forward to him during the first session of the FonePay Digital Economy Conclave. The Governor assured that the central bank is serious on the matter and is working to develop a robust system for the same.

International payment in monetary policy

International Payment has been addressed in the first quarter review of Monetary Policy (2020–2021). The policy states an arrangement to provide foreign currency exchange facility up to a certain amount to import foreign goods and services via an online medium. This aligns with the Governor’s statement imposing a transaction limit of $500 for each individual. NRB will also be reviewing the fee that payment service providers are charging for electronic payment.

Present condition without an international payment system

Digital entrepreneurs and students will benefit the most from an international payment gateway. The major businesses in the world are making the transition to the cloud. But the ones based in Nepal are behind because of the payment restriction. There are few service providers with licenses for the same but not everyone has access to them. Thus, there is a need for a platform that allows the individual to make direct payments to international service providers

Similarly, the present condition has also given rise to frauds. People have to go through middlemen whenever they have to pay for international products. These middlemen charge heavy fees for each transaction. Some don’t even deliver goods after receiving payments. Some are selling trial versions of subscription-based products for premium prices. So, eliminating these middlemen and being in control of your own finances is a pretty big deal; and we can’t wait to see the system in action.

Watch our review of the Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 gaming laptop.

Infinx Zero 8i announced with toned-down camera specifications

Infinix

GadgetByte

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December 4, 2020

0

Infinx Zero 8i announced with toned-down camera specifications

Infinix has announced a cheaper option for the Zero 8 that the company unveiled back in August. Like the vanilla model, the new Infinix Zero 8i is a mid-range phone with a gaming-focused chipset, high refresh rate, and fast charging technology. Let’s take a closer look at the specs, features, expected price, and availability of Infinix Zero 8i in Nepal.

Infinix Zero 8i Overview:

Design and Display

The Zero 8i looks strikingly similar to the Zero 8. Both feature a 6.85-inch LCD screen with FHD+ resolution. The pill-shaped cut-out on the top left corner houses the dual-front camera setup. The display comes with support for a 90Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch sampling rate. At the back, the phone flaunts the company’s gem cut design. It also houses the rhombus-shaped camera module.

Performance and Memory

The device is powered by MediaTek’s Helio G90T chipset. It’s a gaming chipset based on TSMC’s 12nm FinFET process. It consists of two Cortex A76 cores for power (@ 2.05 GHz) and six Cortex A55 cores for efficiency. It’s a proven performer in the mid-range smartphone segment. Infinix has paired it with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The latter can be expanded up to 256GB using an external microSD card.

Camera

The major difference between the Infinix Zero 8 and Zero 8i is in the camera. The latter comes with a 48MP primary camera. To compare, Infinix Zero 8 features a 64MP Sony IMX686 sensor. The 48MP sensor is accompanied by an 8MP ultra-wide camera. The rest of the quad-camera setup is composed of a 2MP depth sensor and an AI lens.

On the front, Infinix has scaled down the selfie camera from 48MP to 16MP. The 8MP ultra-wide has remained unchanged. Like most of the company’s offerings, it also comes with a dual-flash for the front-facing camera.

Also Read: Infinix Mobiles Price in Nepal [Updated]

Rest of the specs

Infinxi Zero 8i is backed by a 4,500mAh battery. The device supports 33W fast charging. The fingerprint sensor is integrated onto the power button on the side. The device ships with XOS 7.0 based on Android 10.

Infinix Zero 8i Specifications:

Dimensions: 168.74×76.08×9.07mm; 210.5
Design: Gem Cut Finish
Display: 6.85″ IPS LCD; 90Hz refresh rate; 180Hz sampling rate
Resolution: FHD+
Rear Camera: Quad,
– 48MP primary lens
– 8MP Ultra-wide angle camera
– Depth sensor
– AI lens
– Quad-LED flash
Front Camera: Dual,
– 16MP primary selfie camera
– 8MP Ultra-wide angle camera
– Dual-LED flash
Chipset: MediaTek Helio G90T; 12nm Mobile Platform
OS: XOS 7 based on Android 10
RAM: 8GB
Audio: DTS Audio
Storage: 128GB, expandable
Battery: 4,500mAh, 33W SuperCharge
Security: Fingerprint (side-mounted), Face Unlock

Infinix Zero 8i Price in Nepal and Availability

Infinix Zero 8i will go on sale in India through Flipkart for INR 14,999. If it launches here, we expect the price of Infinix Zero 8i in Nepal to be around NPR 25,000 for the 8/128GB.

Smartphone Model	Price in India	Price in Nepal (Expected)
Infinix Zero 8i	INR 14,999	NPR 25,000

Check out our review of the Infinix Note 7.

DJI could launch an FPV racing drone as early as next year

GadgetByte

-

December 3, 2020

0

DJI could launch an FPV racing drone as early as next year

When it comes to drones, DJI is as good as it can get. This China-based company ranks among the world the top of the world when it comes to aerial photography system. DJI makes drones for general consumers, professionals, and even enterprises. A recent leak suggests that the company is steeping its foot on drone racing with its upcoming drone. In this post, we will take a look at all the rumors and leaks about the upcoming DJI FPV drone.

DJI FPV Drone Rumor Roundup

Initial rumors

Talks of DJI launching a First Person View (FPV) racing drone is not new with initial rumors dating back to last year. The company did release an FPV kit last year too. However, there was no progress in the story until August, when a blurred picture of the alleged racing drone surfaced on the internet. And now, a Twitter handle by the name of OstilaLV has leaked the real-life image of the device along with its features.

Leaked design and packaging

The picture shows the packaging of the racing drone with “DJI FPV Combo” written over it. The combo includes the FPV Drone, its controller, and FPV Goggles.

The drone looks different than anything from DJI, ever. It has a two-tone design with red patches on two of the four motors. The picture of the googles on the box shows four antennas placed at different angles. Likewise, the controller features two joysticks and two trigger buttons. Between the two triggers, there is an antenna that allows it to communicate with the drone.

Also Read:
- DJI drones price in Nepal [Updated] | Rules and regulation

Rumored Features

According to the leak, the FPV drone will support up to three flight modes. It will be able to attain a maximum speed of up to 150kph. There will be an FPV camera built-in the drone. The user will be able to control the tilt angle using a remote. It will also be equipped with a GPS system for Return to Home (RTH) function. This feature in drones allows them to return to its home location safely if the users lose sight of their device. Talking about the video capability, the DJI FPV will be able to record up to 4K 60fps videos. The drone will have 5-inch props and a 6S battery.

DJI FPV Drone Expected Launch Date

According to the source, the evaluation model of the DJI FPV Drone has been sent to select resellers. OstiaLV suggests that we might see the drone as early as next month.

Drone Model	Expected Launch Date
DJI FPV Drone	January 2021

Watch our long-term review of the OnePlus 8T.

Asus ZenBook 14 UM425 Review: The Ryzen Renaissance

Nikhil Shrestha

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December 2, 2020

0

Asus ZenBook 14 UM425 Review: The Ryzen Renaissance

With the introduction of AMD’s Ryzen “Renoir” CPU, thin-and-light notebooks no longer need to sacrifice relative performance to achieve maximum portability. Today, I might just have the best value notebook you can buy right now. I’ve been carrying around the Asus ZenBook 14 2020 (UM425IA) with Ryzen 4500U as my primary laptop for almost 2 months now. So just how good is the Asus ZenBook 14 2020, let’s discover in this review.

Asus ZenBook 14 UM425 Specifications:

Design & Build: All-metal body with spun-metal cover, 12.56W x 8.27D x 0.56H-inches, 1.22 kg (2.69 lbs) / 1.13 kg (2.49 lbs), MIL-STD-810G compliant
Color options: Lilac Mist, Pine Grey
Display: 14.0-inches Anti-glare IPS LCD panel, LED-backlit, 100% sRGB coverage, 60Hz refresh rate, 90% screen-to-body ratio, 250 / 400 nits brightness
Resolution: FHD (1920×1080) resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio
Keyboard: Backlit Chiclet (single color), 1.4mm key travel
Trackpad: Glass-covered, Precision Touchpad (PTP), NumberPad 2.0
Processor: AMD Ryzen Renoir CPUs (7nm): Ryzen 5 4500U (2.3GHz, up to 4.0GHz) or Ryzen 7 4700U (2.0GHz, up to 4.1GHz)
RAM: 8 / 16GB LPDDR4X RAM @3733MHz (non-upgradeable)
Storage: 256GB / 512GB / 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD (upgradeable)
Graphics: AMD Radeon Graphics (integrated), No dedicated GPU
Audio: Asus SonicMaster stereo audio, Harman Kardon certified
Battery: 4-cell 67 Watt-hours Li-Ion battery (4S1P)
Power Supply: Type-C, 65W AC Adapter (19V/3.42A)
Webcam: IR webcam (720p) with Windows Hello support
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 ax (Intel WiFi AX200), Bluetooth 5.0
I/O ports: 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, Micro SD card reader
What’s in the box: Laptop, power adapter, protective cover, USB-C to Audio dongle, USB-A to LAN dongle
Price in Nepal: Rs. 114,000 (Ryzen 5 4500U, 250 nits, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD)

Asus ZenBook 14 UM425 Review:

Its Ryzen 4000 series CPU convinced me even further to basically ditch the idea of getting the Dell XPS 13 or MacBook Air for now—both of which cost almost double as the ZenBook 14 here in Nepal. My unit is equipped with the hexa-core Ryzen 4500U CPU, integrated Radeon graphics, 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, 512GB of NVMe PCIe SSD, and a 250-nits display. All this for around NPR 110K (~$930) is a pretty sweet deal in this part of the world.

But in the US, you can get the one with a dedicated NVIDIA MX350 GPU at around $650. Also, I was really shocked to see this laptop listed for INR 86K in India which roughly converts to a whopping $1160.

Design and Build Quality

Thin, lightweight, and premium build quality
ErgoLift hinge for better typing, airflow
No 3.5mm headphone jack, ethernet port

Anyway, after having used the device for 2 months, what I can tell you without a doubt is that the ZenBook 14 is the best value notebook currently available in the market. With its surprisingly premium build quality, what Asus has managed to achieve with the device is quite remarkable. Unlike the Acer Swift 3 2020 (Intel) that we reviewed a while back, the ZenBook 14 looks and feels a heck of a lot more compelling.

It has an all-metal build and weighs just 1.22 kilograms (or 2.7 pounds). So, carrying it on my backpack is a great relief for my back—and is appreciable to anyone who is constantly on the run. The lid has the classic spun-metal finish, with an off-center Asus branding. And yeah, you can open it up with just one hand too. I didn’t notice any flex on the lid but unfortunately, it does pick up fingerprints and smudges rather easily.

Pretty durable

It can’t tilt to a flat 180º degree, but that’s fine by me. Asus ships the ZenBook 14 in Pine Grey color in most of the markets, but a Lilac Mist option is also available in some. Additionally, it is also MIL-STD-810G certified, thus ensuring durability in the long-run.

Like we’ve seen in other ZenBook laptops in the past, this one comes with an ErgoLift hinge design as well. By inclining the base of the device by 3º, it allows for a better typing experience, and a more efficient cooling mechanism by providing the air vents at the bottom more room to breathe. Similarly, the four rubber feet provide a fairly solid grip and don’t let the laptop slide off that easily. The two speaker grills can be found at either corner and because of the way they’re positioned, the ZenBook 14’s speakers don’t get blocked or muffled when laid on a flat surface or a lap.

A questionable port selection

Getting to the ports, Asus has boldly ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack on this laptop—and there’s no ethernet connection either. Now, the former may be a big bummer to creative professionals or even casual users. But as a consolation, the company ships USB-C adapters for both inside the box. Regardless, you’ll find a standard HDMI 2.0 and 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports on the left. While the Intel variant (UX425) of the ZenBook 14 also supports Thunderbolt 3, this one doesn’t.

Ports

1 of 2

You can charge the laptop using either of the USB-C connection. Furthermore, it also supports PD (Power Delivery) certified Type-C chargers on top of the AC adapter, for 65W fast charging. On the right, there’s a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A and a Micro SD card reader. The USB-A port feels like a blessing considering how manufacturers are going all out with just the USB-C port in thin-and-light machines these days. Still, I find it weird that Asus went for a Micro SD card slot instead of a regular one. That would’ve been my ideal choice.

All in all, the ZenBook 14 is an incredibly well-built notebook which raises the bar for how good a budget laptop should be. It is sturdy, thin, lightweight—and therefore gets a top point for portability. The omission of the headphone jack is a weird decision though.

Display

14″ Anti-glare FHD IPS LCD panel (LED-backlit)
250 / 400 nits of brightness, 100% sRGB color gamut

Coming to the display, the ZenBook 14 has a 14” anti-glare FHD IPS panel. Thanks to the 4-sided NanoEdge display’s slim bezels, Asus has managed to pack in a 14-inch screen on such a small footprint, making this laptop one of the world’s thinnest device of its kind. As a result, the ZenBook 14 achieves an impressive 90% screen-to-body ratio. Likewise, there are two configurations of the display—one with 250 nits of brightness, and the other with 400 nits.

The one I have with me has a 250 nits screen, but I highly recommend you get the 400 nits option if available. The thing is, besides higher brightness itself, this config also uses a power-efficient 1W display, contrary to the 2.5W display on the 250 nits one. Other than this, both options have the same 100% sRGB color gamut.

Talking about brightness, I’m someone who mostly uses the laptop indoors so 250 nits fared just fine for me. But when taking it outdoors on a bright sunny day, visibility does take a big hit. The viewing angles are quite good and its anti-reflective properties make it easier to use in a well-lit room—distraction-free. I did notice a dismissible level of backlight bleed on the bottom right corner of the display, but that’s visible only when viewing an entirely pitch-black content.

What about color accuracy?

Now, the color accuracy portion of this Asus ZenBook 14 review is where it gets interesting. In its factory setting, the color levels were absolutely horrendous. Everything looked abnormal, and with a high-contrast pastel effect to them. Human subjects especially came off way too smooth and almost cartoonish. But, I’m happy to say that after a bunch of driver updates, and playing around with the default color calibration settings for some time, the color quality of the panel now looks pretty good.

Still, I would hesitate to recommend this laptop for professional photo editing purposes, although the silicon itself is pretty competent. Having said that, it is more than fine for regular usages like content consumption, web browsing, or even light editing tasks. It is sharp enough for you to notice any sort of pixelation and the colors are adequately punchy as well. In addition, you can also choose from different color presets, or adjust the color temperature using the MyASUS app. The “Eye Care” feature is especially useful as according to the company, it reduces blue light emission by up to 30% for a stress-free viewing experience.

Automatic brightness adjustment

By default, ZenBook 14 has automatic brightness is turned on. This was particularly annoying to me as I’m someone who has to frequently switch between a bright (MS Office) and a dark screen (Chrome). And as you can imagine, having the display swing about the brightness that often is incredibly distracting. It had been a while since I last used an all-AMD laptop and couldn’t figure out the way to turn it off. Thankfully, after a bit of looking it up, I found that this setting is called “Vari-Bright” inside the AMD Radeon Software and duly disabled it.

Keyboard and Trackpad

Backlit chiclet-style keyboard (single color)
Glass trackpad with NumberPad 2.0

Moving on, ZenBook 14 has an edge-to-edge keyboard. The chiclet-style keys are well spaced and as far as I can tell, don’t rattle either—except for the Backspace key, which rattles worse than the spacebar. Weird. With a 1.4mm key travel, they aren’t that noisy or mushy. Therefore, I had an enjoyable typing experience on this machine. The arrow keys are well positioned too. The keyboard deck does flex a bit, but only with an abnormal amount of pressure, so that’s nothing to worry about.

I’m someone who tends to use Function keys a lot for renaming files, jumping to the address bar, or opening an app in full-screen. So, having to press the function keys alongside the Fn key isn’t something I’d want. Luckily, you can toggle between function and hotkey priority mode from the MyASUS app, or through the Fn + Escape shortcut. Similarly, there are a bunch of useful features that you can toggle from the function keys like dialing the brightness up/down, disabling touchpad, etc. The one I found particularly useful was the camera control since I can easily turn it on/off with the shortcut.

Backlit keyboard

Given that the webcam doesn’t have a privacy shutter, this is an intuitive alternative. Anyway, the keyboard is backlit, and you can choose from 3 levels of brightness. They light up quite nice and I had no problem operating the keyboard in a dark room. Since the ZenBook 14 is targeted towards conventional users like students, enterprise customers, etc. Asus has skipped RGB lighting on this laptop.

On the other hand, the ZenBook 14 has a wide glass trackpad. While most other manufacturers tend to stick with a plastic trackpad on a device of this price range, Asus is one-upping them all. It has integrated left and right keys, both of which click well enough. Overall, the trackpad is smooth and feels really nice to use. It supports Windows Precision drivers as well and thus can trigger Windows gestures with no hiccup. Additionally, the trackpad also makes up for the expected lack of a Numpad.

NumberPad 2.0

Here, even though it’s not a secondary screen like in other premium ZenBook laptops from the company, the NumberPad 2.0 lets you use the trackpad as a number pad. There’s a neat shortcut at the top-right corner to turn it on, while you can also adjust the illumination by long-pressing the top-left icon. It even supports cursor control, but for interacting on an input field it’s better to turn it off. Sliding down from the top-left edge of the trackpad also opens the calculator app.

Now, even though everything sounds good up until now, I did face a few problems with this trackpad. First off, because of its width and the relative height of the keyboard chassis, my right hand would accidentally press the right key every now and then. Also, shifting from the typing posture to using the trackpad, my scrolling gesture would sometimes be mistaken for the Windows Timeline shortcut instead.

Performance

AMD Ryzen 5 4500U or Ryzen 7 4700U processor (15W)
Integrated AMD Radeon graphics (No dedicated GPU)
8/16GB LPDDR4X soldered RAM, up to 1TB PCIe 3.0 SSD

Time to talk about performance. Powering the Asus ZenBook 14 UM425IA is the AMD Ryzen 4500U CPU and Radeon integrated graphics. Manufactured under the 7nm process, the 4500U is a hexa-core processor with 6 cores and 6 threads. As one would imagine, it is not high-performance silicon and therefore has a 15W TDP. It has a base clock of 2.3GHz and a maximum boost clock of up to 4.0GHz. Similarly, the Radeon graphics is clocked at 1500MHz. Depending upon the region, ZenBook 14 is also available in the Ryzen 7 4700U configuration, which is an octa-core processor with a boost clock of 4.1GHz.

In terms of memory, you can choose between 8/16GB of LPDDR4X RAM. But be careful before making the choice since the RAM stick is soldered into the motherboard and you can’t upgrade it later on. On the contrary, you can upgrade the SSD if you want. Here, my unit comes with 8GB of dual-channel memory @3733MHz and 512GB of M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD.

Compromised SSD quality

Unfortunately, the read/write speed of the onboard SSD isn’t that great for an NVMe SSD. It is clear from this CrystalDiskMark reading that one of the areas that Asus has compromised to bring minimize the cost of ZenBook 14 is storage. Still, app installation, opening time is fast enough, and usually, the laptop boots up in 10 seconds or less.

For light to medium usage, this laptop can handle everything you throw at it. Simultaneously browsing the web with a couple of tabs, editing word documents, using Photoshop is a breeze for this Renoir-powered laptop. Under this, the ZenBook 14 doesn’t heat up either, averaging at around 34º CPU temperature (monitored using Core Temp). You can select between two fan profiles and the “Whisper mode” lives up to its name. The fan rarely turns on under this mode, which is ideal for office settings.

Benchmark and Thermals

But playing eSports titles or running heavy benchmark does raise the temperature quite significantly. I ran the Cinebench R23 test and the laptop quickly rose to around 74º. This is not unbearably hot and you can bring down the temperature by switching to the “Standard” fan profile. Here, I ran the same benchmark under the said fan settings; and the result was significant enough to suggest thermal throttling.

ZenBook 14 UM425IA – Cinebench R23

Standard Mode: CPU (Multi-Core) – 5185, CPU (Single-Core) – 1155
Whisper Mode: CPU (Multi-Core) – 4440, CPU (Single-Core) – 1074

Cinebench R23

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Before you get any wrong idea, I must mention that I spaced out the two tests so that the laptop remained at a standard temperature at the start.

Because of its compact size, the ZenBook 14 only has a single heatpipe and a single fan setup—not the most effective cooling system. Yet, to reiterate, this silicon isn’t meant for heavy users anyway. The integrated Radeon Graphics is really impressive in itself, easily outperforming the competing GPU on Intel processors. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to run AAA titles on this laptop; although eSports titles and light games can run well enough. Let’s take a look at the Geekbench 5 OpenCL score for reference, and also the single, multi-core score white we’re at it.

ZenBook 14 UM425IA – Geekbench 5

CPU: Single-Core – 1085, Multi-Core – 4388
OpenCL (Compute): 10812

Geekbench 5

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Gaming

I tried CS: GO and Fifa 21 on it and got fairly respectable FPS. Under high settings, I got 28-30fps in CS: GO, while the number jumped to 55-60fps under medium settings. Similarly, Fifa 21 is absolutely unplayable in Ultra rendering quality and 4x MSAA with mere 12fps on average. But, toning down the respective settings to Medium and 2x, I could easily get 30-35fps.

Gameplay

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To note, continuous gaming on the ZenBook 14 could be an issue though—especially with the laptop placed on your lap as things can get really hot, really fast. After about 30 minutes of CS: GO, the CPU temp soared to 88º and I had to get it off my lap as the heat was almost unbearable. The top portion of the keyboard also gets quite hot, although I had no problem typing on it. The fan noise itself isn’t that loud and it is almost unnoticeable in an ambient setting with plenty of white noise.

Moving on, the MyASUS app is pretty useful as well. You can change different settings, perform diagnostic, download the latest drivers, etc. Interestingly, I faced an issue with WiFi auto-connection, even though the laptop has a stellar Intel WiFi-6 AX200 card. But to solve my issue, I had to download the appropriate driver from the web. Furthermore, you can also link your phone with the ZenBook 14 and make calls, view notifications, etc. on the laptop itself. Using this, you can also transfer files to-and-from the phone.

Battery, Speakers, and Webcam

4-cell 67 Wh Li-Ion battery (65W USB-C charging)
Harman/Kardon certified stereo speaker system
IR webcam (720p) with Windows Hello support

Here, the ZenBook 14 has a 67Whr 4-cell Li-ion battery. Asus claims up to 22 hours of endurance on the 1W/400 nits display option. On my 250 nits unit, I managed to consistently get around 8-9 hours of battery life. I would normally keep the brightness at about 40-50%, battery set to the best performance, and whisper mode turned on. My usage mostly consisted of editing word documents, browsing the web with multiple tabs open, light Photoshop editing every-now-and-then, and a couple of minutes of gaming here and there as well.

Besides the impressive battery mileage, charging the laptop is quite fast too. It can go from 0 to 100% in about 1 hour and 50 minutes. The 65W charger is lightweight and comfortable to carry around too. Its fast-charging feature can also top-up the charge up to 60% in just 50 minutes. And like I mentioned earlier, you can also use a PD-certified 65W fast charger for the ZenBook 14.

Harman/Kardon audio

On to the speakers, you get a stereo speaker system certified by Harman/Kardon. Simply put, I really like this audio setup. The speaker can get plenty loud and there’s even a hint of bass. The treble isn’t that enjoyable and the audio gets slightly muffled under full volume. Still and all, this speaker will fare you well on your movie binging sessions.

Like most other laptops in the market, the Asus ZenBook 14 has a 720p webcam. It’s not mind-blowingly good, but better than the one on other laptops in this price range. The overall image does look a bit soft, although it is passable for your regular video-call needs. The audio pickup from the built-in array microphone is quite good too. Although this laptop doesn’t have a fingerprint sensor, the IR sensor-enabled Windows Hello unlocks the device incredibly fast.

Conclusion

Wrapping it all up, as you can tell by now, the ZenBook 14 UM425IA is a beast of a notebook—zero doubt about that. The Ryzen variant easily outperforms the Intel configuration, even though the latter costs slightly more in almost every market. For casual users who seek portability and sufficient power, this is an excellent choice. The exclusion of a headphone jack may be a deal-breaker for many. But if you’re someone who can look past that, the sheer performance, premium design, decent display, and other quirks should be more than enough to sway you.

Watch our video review of the Asus ZenBook 14 UM425.

Asus ZenBook 14 UM425 Review: Pros & Cons

Pros:

Excellent value for money—an easy recommendation
Thin, lightweight, and a premium metallic build
Decent display quality with 100% sRGB color gamut
Comfortable typing experience, glass trackpad
Best-in-class performance thanks to AMD Renoir CPU
Terrific battery life (easily lasts throughout the day)
Great stereo speaker system, a decent webcam quality
Portable USB Type-C charging (supports PD too)

Cons:

The absence of a 3.5mm jack may be a turnoff to many
Color accuracy may require a manual calibration
The base can get uncomfortably hot under heavy load
SSD sequential read/write speed is not up to the mark