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LG Velvet announced with 3D Arc Design and Raindrop Camera

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GadgetByte

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April 14, 2020

LG Velvet announced with 3D Arc Design and Raindrop Camera

LG is a huge name in the consumer electronic market. However, in recent times, the brand is failing to make an impact in the smartphone market. During the CES 2020, the company’s CEO Kwon Bong-Seok hinted that the brand is working on new releases which will hopefully help the company turn the tide to its favor. The first of those releases looks to the upcoming LG Velvet. LG recently announced this phone will come with a “radical” new design. Let’s learn about all the rumors, and leaks surrounding the upcoming LG Velvet.

LG’s New Smartphone Lineup

At CES 2020, CEO Kwon Bong-Seok not only promised steady new releases but also added that the new devices will come packed with woo factors to woo the customers. The woo factor in the LG Velvet is its design. When we talk about smartphones today, the specifications takes the center stage. However, all the recent devices look similar in terms of specs with only a few tweaks separating them.

LG’s solution to the problem is a new smartphone lineup that will focus on design factors that will distinguish it from the rest. LG promises that the new lineup, which includes the LG Velvet, will come with tactile elegance that will be unique to itself. Also, the devices under this new lineup will not be distinguished with alphanumeric designation but with expressive monikers that capture the essence of the device better.

Check out the specs of Oppo Ace 2

LG Velvet: What we know so far

LG Velvet is the first device to adopt the company’s new philosophy. The “Velvet” is for the lustrous smoothness and premium softness of the device. It will feature a 3D curve design and the symmetrical flowing form factor is said to be pleasing to the eyes.

Check out the specs of LG V60 ThinQ

On the back, the cameras are arranged in a setup which the company is calling Raindrop. The sensors aren’t enclosed inside a single module and are arranged vertically in descending order in terms of size. The LED flash resides at the bottom of the setup. While other brands are experimenting with practically all types of geometrically shaped modules, the raindrop camera does look unique.

Leaks and Rumors

Even with the official announcement, LG hasn’t revealed any live images of the LG Velvet. It released some design sketches before the announcement and the logo on the day of the announcement. But thanks to Ice Universe, we now know how the device will look in reality. Ice Universe leaked live images of the Velvet in the twitter.

The device comes with a glass back which curves at both edges symmetrical to the curve of the display panel. Overall the design looks both sleek and slim. The device comes with a tiny circular cut-out on the front and will likely feature an AMOLED display with an optical fingerprint sensor integrated under the screen.

Check out TCL 10 series

As far as the specs are concerned, LG hasn’t dropped even a single hint. But analyzing the press release, the device won’t be way off the recent trend in the smartphone world. In 2020 we have seen a lot of devices that incorporate Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 5G chipset and now brands are shifting towards more affordable Snapdragon 765G. The latter seems to align with initial rumors regarding the device. However, we need to wait for the official confirmation regarding other details about the device.

LG Velvet Launch & Availability

Given the official announcement, the launch date of the LG Velvet must be within the reach. If the rumors are to be believed, the brand will be unveiling the device through an event on May 15.

Check out our long-term review of Realme 6 Pro!

Oppo Ace 2 unveiled with the fastest wireless charging in a smartphone

GadgetByte

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April 13, 2020

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Oppo Ace 2 unveiled with the fastest wireless charging in a smartphone

It hasn’t even been a year since Oppo unveiled the Reno Ace and now the company is has lifted the curtain off its successor. However, this time the company is making Ace a series of its own by the introduction of the Oppo Ace 2. Let’s check out the full specs, price, and availability of Oppo Ace 2.

Oppo Ace 2 Overview

Since its predecessor was introduced under the Reno series, the upcoming Oppo Ace 2 will be the first in the series if Oppo decides to continue the new Ace series further down the line. With the new device, Oppo looks to build on the Reno Ace particularly in the wireless charging technology.

Design and Display

Screens with higher refresh rates are on the trend these days and it looks like Oppo doesn’t want to miss out. The 6.5-inch AMOLED panel in the Ace 2 will come with a screen with support for up to 90Hz refresh rate. There is a circular cutout on the top left corner to house the selfie camera. To top it off, it comes with a 180Hz response rate. The panel boasts a peak brightness of up to 800nits. The company claims that the screen covers over 96% of the DCI-P3 colors and is effective at reducing eye strain.

On the back, the device flaunts a 3D curve design. The quad-camera setup is housed inside a circular camera bump. The LED flash resides outside the bump. Since the fingerprint sensor is integrated under the screen, the rear panel looks clean with only the camera module and the company’s logo.

Check out the specs of the Oppo Find X2

Performance and Memory

Like every other flagship devices this year, the Oppo Ace 2 will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 SoC. The chipset will come with Snapdragon X55 modem for 5G connectivity. Users can choose between three memory configurations – 8/128GB, 8/256GB, and 12/512GB. The internal storage on the device is based on UFS 3.0 technology respectively. The 8GB variants are all based on LPDDR4x whereas the 12GB is based on the LPDDR5 technology. For gamers, the device will come with 4D haptic gaming vibration 2.0 and 4D constant cooling technology. With HyperBoost 3.0, the brand claims that users can enjoy Peace Elite at 90fps for prolonged periods.

Camera

As with the majority of the gaming smartphones out there in the market, the camera setup on the Oppo Ace 2 isn’t anything extraordinary. The quad-camera setup on the back comes with a 48MP IMX586 as the primary sensor. It is accompanied by an 8MP ultra-wide sensor with 119-degree FOV, a 2MP portrait camera, and 2MP Black and White sensor. On the front, Oppo has included a 16MP selfie camera inside the punch-hole.

Check out the price of Oppo Reno 3 in Nepal

Battery and Others

The highlight of the Reno Ace was its 65W Super VOOC 2.0 Flash Charge support which is still the fastest wired charging available in a smartphone. Its successor retains the technology for the 4,000mAh battery. It also comes with support for 40W Super AirVOOC wireless charging. You can squeeze out an hour of usage with only 5 minutes of charging. In a recent battery test, the device lasted 12hours on continuous video playback and 7 hours on gaming. The test was conducted with the brightness level maintained at 50%. It also supports 10W reverse charging technology. The device has dual stereo speakers and Dolby Atmos support.

Check out OnePlus Warp Charge 30 Wireless

Oppo Ace 2 Specifications

Display: 6.5-inches AMOLED display
Resolution: Full-HD+ (2400 × 1080 pixels), 20:9 aspect ratio
Chipset: Snapdragon 865; 7nm+ Mobile Platform
CPU: Octa-core (1×2.84 GHz Kryo 585 & 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 585 & 4×1.8 GHz Kryo 585)
GPU: Adreno 640
RAM: 8GB (LPDDR4X) / 12GB(LPDDR5)
Storage: 128GB / 256GB UFS 3.0
Rear Camera: Quad-camera – 48MP f/1.7 sensor, 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide lens, 2MP portrait camera, 2MP Black and White camera
Fingerprint sensor: On-screen
Audio: 3.5mm audio jack, Dual stereo speakers, Dolby Atmos
Battery: 4000 mAh battery, 65W SuperVOOC Flash Charge 2.0, 40W wireless charge, 10W reverse wireless charging
Color: Black, Silver, Purple

Check out the price of Oppo F15 in Nepal

Oppo Ace 2 Price and Availability

Oppo Ace 2 will go on sale in China starting from April 20. The Oppo Ace 2 comes with a price tag of 3999 Yuan for the 8/128GB, 4399 Yuan for 8/256GB and 4599 Yuan for 12/512GB variant. However, we will have to wait for the official information regarding the price and availability of Oppo Ace 2 in the international market.

Model Name	Price	Availability
Oppo Ace 2(8/128GB)	3,999 Yuan (~NPR 70,000)	April 20 (China)
Oppo Ace 2(8/256GB)	4,399 Yuan(~NPR 77,000)	April 20 (China)
Oppo Ace 2(12/512GB)	4,599 Yuan (~NPR 80,000)	April 20 (China)

So, what features of the device are you excited you? How do you think about the 40W fast charging technology? Share your opinions with us.

Check out our long-term review of Realme 6 Pro!

iPhone 9 now available for Pre-order on Chinese Ecommerce Website

GadgetByte

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April 11, 2020

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iPhone 9 now available for Pre-order on Chinese Ecommerce Website

Apple launched the iPhone SE back in 2016. While it came with a borrowed look of previous iPhones, it did come with updated hardware and cheaper price-tag. People expected Apple to come with its successor but that is yet to happen. However, we might be closer to witness iPhone SE2 or iPhone 9 (or whatever they will call it) which is expected to launch this year. Amidst all the speculation, a Chinese e-commerce site has listed the device under iPhone 9 moniker for pre-orders.

iPhone 9 Pre-order in China

iPhone 9 has again grabbed headlines as it has supposedly available for pre-orders in China. Chine e-commerce Jingdong (JD.com) has listed the device for pre-orders. The product page on the site doesn’t reveal anything about the device itself. The product image is a phone covered with red cloth. The phone doesn’t come with 5G connectivity and will use a lightning connector.

Another site, Verizon also mentions the iPhone 9 on its trade-in page but it doesn’t reveal any information about the device. A well-known device accessories brand RhinoShield has also listed cases for iPhone 9 on its site in Germany.

So will it be called iPhone 9? Though all of the sites are referencing the upcoming iPhone as iPhone 9, I still doubt if the name has been finalized. Many reports suggest it will be called iPhone SE 2020. The iPhone 9 used by all these sites may be placeholders for the device moniker until Apple announces the name officially.

Check out the price of iPhones in Nepal

iPhone 9 Leaks and Rumors

Design leaks

Back in January, OnLeaks shared some renders thought to be of the upcoming iPhone 9. But later a video of the alleged iPhone 9 surfaced on the internet. Though both of the leaks share some common traits, we don’t know which one to trust as differences in both are also noticeable.

OnLeaks predicted the device to come with curved edges whereas the device in the video comes with a flat edge. Also, the video shows an iPhone branding on the back below the Apple logo. If you remember, Apple ditched the branding in its latest iPhone 11. The renders from the OnLeaks doesn’t have the branding either. However, the thick bezels and the single-camera setup from both the leaks look identical.

Rumored Specs

Like the iPhone SE, the iPhone 9 is said to be a mix of older iPhone form factor and modern hardware. It will likely come with a 4.7-inch display with bezels at both the top and bottom of the screen and a Touch ID Home Button. Under the hood, it will be powered by the A13 Bionic processor which should outperform Android devices at its price range.

It will probably come with a Liquid Crystal Polymer antenna (LCP antenna) for better network connectivity. Following the latest trends of the iPhone, it will most likely come without the 3.5mm headphone jack.

iPhone 9 Launch and Price

iPhone 9 will carry forward the legacy of the iPhone SE. It will be an affordable alternative to the present lineup of available iPhones. The phone is expected to start at $399. The device was said to go official early on but the mass production was affected by the outbreak of coronavirus. And now, Apple looks ready to unveil the device which could happen later this month or in early May.

So what do you think of all the rumors and leaks surrounding the upcoming iPhone 9? Are you excited about the next affordable iPhone? Let us know with your comments.

Check out our comparison between Oneplus 7T and Samsung Note 10 Lite!

Sastodeal accused of stealing promotional content from Thulo: How serious is the issue?

Nikhil Shrestha

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April 10, 2020

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Sastodeal accused of stealing promotional content from Thulo: How serious is the issue?

Desperate times call for desperate measures. The supply of essential goods has been the prime issue of concern during the country-wide lockdown against the spread of COVID-19. And to meet those demands, big businesses and even small entrepreneurs have shifted their business model from selling one type of product to those essential goods. That’s absolutely commendable on their part – doing what needs be. Relating it all to the matter at hand, Sastodeal being one of the leading e-commerce platforms in the country, has also ventured in the mission to fulfill people’s current demands.

Let me remind you that Sastodeal isn’t typically the one to deal with products like foods, groceries, and others. The company has crossed paths with certain items like induction cookers in the past, but that’s only because electronic and other lifestyle products are its primary business. And its ability to adapt to the current trend deserves all the praise. After all, they do have resources to facilitate deliveries, from their online portal to the employees – all you gotta do is introduce suppliers of such commodities into the system.

Everything was going fine, and by fine I mean how every online shopping platform facilitating the essential deliveries including Sastodeal are being overwhelmed with orders. But we came to stumble upon the news of how Sastodeal was, without permission, using the product photographs and their description of such goods on their website from Thulo.

Sastodeal Thulo watermark on product — Left: A product with Thulo’s watermark (circled) on Sastodeal.com (now removed) | Right: Same product on Thulo.com

Here, Thulo.com is another prominent e-commerce platform in Nepal that has been serving all kinds of products including essential goods right from the start. As a result, they have a large catalog of product images and descriptions accumulated throughout the years. In terms of the content itself, there’s no way to secure the exclusivity. But the team at Thulo has been implementing a watermark of the company’s logo into many of the product images photographed and edited using in-house resources.

What Thulo’s co-founder says

Bibek Karki, (co-founder, Thulo), after noticing the “mistake” from Sastodeal’s end had apparently contacted Amun Thapa (founder & CEO, Sastodeal) about the issue. However, after feeling a lack of reciprocation on the gravity of the situation, Mr. Karki took it to Entrepreneurs for Nepal (Facebook) to vent about the absence of a proper response.

The primary complaint here seems to be how Sastodeal was handling the whole ordeal. Mr. Karki had messaged Mr. Thapa regarding the matter at hand about a week ago but was met with zero progress. If you follow-up on that Facebook thread, you’ll even find Mr. Karki vowing that he’d provide Sastodeal and other similar platforms with their existing photographic resources if asked. These are trying times and our collective co-operation will only get us through this. However, that simply isn’t a valid justification against unauthorized usage of some else’s property.

The harsh truth about copyright regulations in Nepal’s context is that it’s almost non-existent.

We have been in Thulo’s shoes ourselves and understand how the blatant copy of one’s property can be disheartening. It is clear that every single one of the e-commerce platforms in Nepal currently facilitating the delivery of essential goods is operating at capacity and how this may have outweighed the evident copyright issue. But that’s a fairly avoidable complication right there.

Also read: E-commerce platforms offering delivery of essential goods during the lockdown

The other side of the story

Before decisively putting blame on Sastodeal, you gotta remember that it’s a marketplace as well, meaning the company allows third-party sellers (vendors) to sell their products alongside Sastodeal’s own arsenal of offerings. According to them, those vendors are given backend panel to upload product images, descriptions, etc. while a team performs a moderate level of quality check, especially in terms of pricing.

Moving on, many of us may have an inaccurate mental image about the operational size of Sastodeal. After all, it goes head-to-head against Daraz, Nepal’s leading e-commerce platform and a company backed by Alibaba itself. Therefore it must have similar resources, no? Sadly no. Apparently, Daraz’s system doesn’t allow any watermarked or similarly altered images to be uploaded by its vendors. Maybe that’s a simple thing to program, maybe not. Still, impressive!

Speaking strictly in terms of customer experience, it may seem similar. But the sheer volume & resources of Sastodeal is nowhere near that of Daraz. It is a Nepali startup (can we still call it a startup after all these years?) company with local investments, working with local talents. And while they are already jam-packed with orders for essential items, the copied contents and images of Thulo may have gone unnoticed in the eyes of its QC team.

The vendor in question here is “SupplyBox“, who has copied images (with Thulo’s watermark) and description in their products up for sale at Sastodeal. These have since been removed from the site and Sastodeal has even issued an apologetic statement on it, but you get why Thulo is upset with it. We’re not saying the vendor is exclusively to blame because being a mediator, Sastodeal should have a clear control regarding what goes on in its platform.

It all boils down to this!

Unauthorized usage of someone else’s work is simply not acceptable – no argument there. Thulo is right to call out Sastodeal on its lack of swift and appropriate response. They are absolutely swamped but the company should figure out how to delegate its resources properly so that one’s way of operation doesn’t come at the expense of others.

People have been spitballing ideas like taking a legal course of action or just leaving it be. In a sensitive time like this, companies should be working together to help out the needy in any way they can, by co-ordinating & sharing their resources. However, that can’t be a just ground for what’s happened here.

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Samsung Galaxy A51 5G launched – Samsung’s cheapest 5G Phone

GadgetByte

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April 10, 2020

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Samsung Galaxy A51 5G launched – Samsung’s cheapest 5G Phone

After the Galaxy S20 lineup, Samsung is now strengthening its mid-range offerings. Among the company’s latest offerings in this price segment is the newly announced Samsung Galaxy A51 5G which will be available later this summer.

Samsung Galaxy A51 5G Overview

Samsung Galaxy A51 is the company’s take on affordable 5G smartphones. It comes with a few upgrades to the specs of the regular Galaxy A51. You can also compare it with the new Samsung Galaxy A71 5G which comes with a similar set of features that includes the 5G connectivity options.