Long before the advent of modern-day touchscreen smartphones, BlackBerrry ruled the smartphone market. If you have memories of using phones in the early 2000s, you would know what I’m talking about. Thanks to the keypads of that time, messaging wasn’t fun and the push notification which we can’t live without these days was something unheard of. That is why BlackBerry phones with nostalgic physical QWERTY keypad became everyone’s favorite. But that’s coming to an end now – a recent tweet implies that we will no longer see any phone under the iconic BlackBerry brand, as its mobile adventure has finally come to an end.
But didn’t they quit in 2016?
The Reason
BlackBerry started losing its ground on the smartphone business since the arrival touchscreen devices. It all started at the beginning of Apple’s iPhones. BlackBerry has no real answer to Apple’s iOS. It is why the company’s first all-touch smartphone – the BlackBerry Storm couldn’t regain the company’s status in the market. Android only made the situation worse for the brand. The company tried to bounce back with BlackBerry 10 OS in 2013 but in vain. It even switched to Android in 2015 with the BlackBerry Priv but it was already too late.
Following the disappointments in the smartphone market, BlackBerry, in 2016, decided to end all the hardware development and to outsource that function to partners. Those partners were TCL Communication, BB Meriah Putih and Optiemus Infracom. While the other two had licenses for South Asia and Indonesia, TCL had a license for the rest of the world. Since then, BlackBerry has been focusing on the software business while its partners have been bringing out phones under the brand.
BlackBerry, TCL adventure – The End
After acquiring the near-global license right form BlackBerry, TCL launched quite a few smartphones under the brand such as the BlackBerry Motion. Other notable ones are those under the BlackBerry Key series of smartphones such as KeyOne, Key 2, and Keys2 LE. Even TCL rebranded the Alcatel Idol 4 to launch it as BlackBerry DTEK50.
BlackBerry’s end confirmed
The latest tweet by BlackBerry Mobile twitter handle has revealed that BlackBerry won’t be renewing its license agreement with TCL Communication. The agreement is set to expire on August 31, 2020. TCL will have no right to design, manufacture, or sell any new BlackBerry mobile devices. However, TCL will continue to provide support for the existing portfolio of mobile devices including customer service and warranty service until August 31, 2022. Since TCL has the near-global rights, the end of the BlackBerry-TCL license agreement might rest the BlackBerry-branded devices forever.
The announcement makes us believe that it’s actually TCL Communication which is not willing to renew the agreement. Afterall, TCL will start selling high-end smartphones under its own name from this year. TCL already has a smartphone under its belt in the form of TCL Plex. Now, it looks to expand its smartphone portfolio with the upcoming TCL 10 series lineup of smartphones which include TCL Pro, TCL 10 5G, and TCL 10L. We will know more about these devices in the upcoming World Mobile Congress. As of now, these phones will be launched no later than Q2 2020 after they are officially unveiled in the MWC 2020.
Also, check out our comparison between Samsung Note 10 and Samsung Note 10 Lite!
*flashback to 10 years ago* “Hey, whaddya wanna be when you grow up?” “An astronaut!” “A scientist!” “A doctor!” “A chef!”
Videography really hadn’t caught up with the mainstream crowd back then. But now, borne by the overwhelming popularity of the internet, every kid on the block (figuratively of course) wants to be a YouTuber or a vlogger. No, I’m not complaining about that at all; do what makes you happy, more power to you! After all, I’m a fan of good cinematography myself. While a regular camera or a smartphone alone will do the trick for your basic video shooting purposes, you’ll need something more to get those cinematic shots. Something to hold your device in place so your footages don’t come out all shaky and nauseating like that of 2008’s Cloverfield.
Well, that’s what gimbals are for! It stabilizes your videos by electronically adjusting the 2 or 3-axis (depending upon the gimbal’s configuration), due to which the camera rotates about an axis only. But of course, not everyone has access to expensive professional camera setup and thus an equally expensive DSLR gimbal. Modern-day smartphones’ cameras have gotten crazy good these days and while you obviously can’t get a DSLR-level output, footages from a smartphone are commendable, to say the least. Therefore today, we are comparing two of the best mobile gimbals you can buy right now in Nepal – the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 and the Zhiyun Smooth-Q2. You can find the video samples of each gimbal in our review video down below, where most of the footages have been shot from the Huawei Nova 5T.
DJI Osmo Mobile 3
We at GadgetByte have been using the DJI Osmo Mobile 2 as our go-to mobile gimbal for the past year and the newer Osmo Mobile 3 has been a welcome upgrade. This 3-axis gimbal comes on a lightweight and foldable design with some other interesting features. For a couple of thousand rupees more, you can get the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 Combo which includes a mini tripod (stand) and a carry case, which is the one we have.
Specifications
Dimensions:
Unfolded: 11.22 x 4.92 x 4.06-inches
Folded: 6.18 x 5.12 x 1.81-inches
Weight: 405gm
Compatible Phones:
Weight: 200+/-30gm
Width: 2.44 – 3.46-inches
Thickness: ≤ 0.37 inch
Battery: 2450 mAh Li-Ion; 17.64Wh; 7.2V; Up to 15 hours*
Charging: Under 2.5 hours (via a 10W charger)
Gimbal Range:
Pan: -162.5º to 170.3º
Roll: -85.1º to 252.2º
Tilt: -104.5º to 235.7º
Max Controllable Speed: 120º/s
Tracking: ActiveTrack 3.0
Slow-motion: Up to 1080p @240fps
Connectivity: Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.0, USB Type-C
Companion App: DJI Mimo [Google Play Store | Apple App Store]
Price in Nepal: Rs. 18,900 (for DJI Osmo Mobile 3 Combo)
Build & Design
DJI Osmo Mobile 3 has everything going for it and what we liked the most about it is its design and build quality. The company is emphasizing on eased prolonged usage with its lightweight structure. Also, the rubber handle has a grippy and ergonomic design due to the 15º angled rubber handle. Moreover, the button placement is commendable as well.
You can easily reach out to any button with zero trouble. A little room for improvement that we found is that, though the trigger button on the back works fine, it isn’t clicky enough. The LED notification is just as good and doesn’t blare into your eyes either.
Videography & Stabilization
Now let’s get to stabilization, which is unsurprisingly fantastic. The videos are smooth as they can get. The Osmo Mobile 3’s improved ActiveTrack 3.0 intelligently track’s human subject’s movements while keeping them in the center, which only works on “Follow” and “Tilt Locked” mode, and not on the “FPV” mode. This can be easily triggered by a single press of the trigger button on the back. Here, the “Sports Mode” helps capture stabilized footages even in high-speed scenarios. We tried it and the resulting videos were still solid as a rock.
The Hyperlapse and Timelapse videos come out great as well, with the ability to set interval, recording duration, and capture path. Additionally, the Gesture Control allows you to trigger the shutter remotely via the “Palm” or “V” gesture. Also, you can shoot 180º and 3 x 3 matrix style panoramas.
Design
1 of 3
With phone
Folded
Unfolded
Furthermore, DJI has embedded the Osmo Mobile 3 with a bunch of video-presets using which you can generate cinematic footage with ease. Though the small 2450 mAh battery may be throwing you off, don’t worry. It lasts long enough and charges pretty quickly too. The DJI Osmo Mobile 3 gets you the smoothest videos, no surprise there. We tried shooting videos in almost every mode including Sport, and there were no jittery or unstable results. And since carrying around this gimbal is easy due to its light-weight and superb grip, we could easily shoot videos for hours.
App: DJI Mimo
Coming to the app, you can connect your smartphone and the gimbal via the DJI Mimo app. It has an easy-to-navigate interface with lots of features and the pairing is instantaneous. Through the app itself, you can edit and share your videos with the DJI community or other social networking sites. Through the app’s camera, you can meddle around various settings including that of the gimbal itself. Since you can’t change the Follow mode (Follow, Tilt-Locked, FPV) from the buttons on the stabilizer, you can only do that via the app.
DJI Osmo Mobile 3 Rating (1-10)
Specifications
Score
Design
8.5
Features
9
Stabilization
9.5
Ease of use
9.5
App
8.5
Value for money
9
Overall
9
DJI Osmo Mobile 3 vs Zhiyun Smooth-Q2
1 of 2
Zhiyun Smooth-Q2
Emphasizing on compactness and portability, the Zhiyun Smooth-Q2 is another great mobile gimbal. A cool feature that you get on the Q2 is the Vortex mode, which lets you take 360º barrel shots on the pan axis. Also, it has a big battery that lets you charge your smartphone via the stabilizer itself through its Micro USB port. However, there’s a strict warning to not use this port to charge the gimbal itself. Let’s find out more.
Specifications
Dimensions: 8.03 x 4.02 x 1.65-inches
Weight: 450gm
Compatible Phones:
Weight: 75 – 260gm
Width: 2.17 – 3.39-inches
Battery: 4500 mAh Li-Ion; 16.2Wh; 5V; Up to 17 hours*
Charging: Under 3 hours
Gimbal Range:
Pan: 360º
Roll: 265º
Tilt: 305º
Direct Control of Native Camera: Yes
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.0, USB Type-C
Companion App: ZY Play [Google Play Store | Apple App Store]
Price in Nepal: Rs. 18,900
Build & Design
While the Osmo 3 emphasized on its build quality and design, Zhiyun is taking a different route with its Smooth-Q2 gimbal – the portability. This thing is small, adequately small. Despite its size, the Q2 is heavy on the hands because of the aluminum build.
If you’re using any gimbal for the first time, the Zhiyun Q2 might be a little challenging since it is comparatively a little difficult to get used to. Adding to the portability, the phone holder here is easily removable. While traveling, you can have the phone holder clamped into your phone, so you easily swap in the phone into the gimbal when necessary.
Here, due to the compact form factor, the button placement is far from ideal. However, we didn’t encounter any difficulty operating them.
Videography & Stabilization
The video stabilization here is great. For optimal results, however, you’ll have to hold the gimbal like you would hold a remote – with a slight downward tilt. When holding it normally, the motor on the back is prone to appear in the footage, especially when shooting from a wide-angle lens.
Even when shooting videos on a high-speed scenario, the gimbal does a great job of stabilizing the video. Moreover, the Zhiyun Smooth-Q2 has a feature called the “Vortex Mode”. With this, you can shoot cool 360º videos which you can’t with the DJI Osmo Mobile 3. Similarly, though the Q2 doesn’t come with a stand, its base is flat enough to place it in smooth-enough places.
App: ZY Play
“ZY Play” is the Zhiyun Q2’s companion app. The app is pretty simple but you’ll occasionally get an advertisement pop-up from Zhiyun itself, which is unskippable and lasts a couple of seconds. Now that’s poor UX right there. You are essentially restricting your users from quickly accessing your product. Besides this, there’s no other complaint from our end. Ultimately, there’s a minimal level of settings you can play around via the app since you can get to most of them via the stabilizer itself.
Zhiyun Smooth-Q2 Rating (1-10)
Specifications
Score
Design
9
Features
9
Stabilization
9.5
Ease of use
8
App
7.5
Value for money
9
Overall
8.67
Conclusion
So, that was it for our comparison of the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 and the Zhiyun Smooth-Q2 mobile gimbal. Both devices offer excellent video stabilization, with plenty of features as well. The DJI Osmo Mobile 3 is very easy to use and offers a great number of functionalities, while the Zhiyun Smooth-Q2 adds portability on top of being an excellent standalone stabilizer. Both have their own perks and it may come to personal preference regarding which one is better of the two.
MediaTek launched its first-ever gaming chipsets last year and they were awesome. Helio G90 and G90T despite being mid-range gaming processors, were really up to the competition. We got to see the G90T in the Xiaomi Note 8 Pro and suffice to say the performance was really wonderful. And now after almost a year, the company has decided to expand the G lineup with the Helio G80 chipset.
The Helio G80 comes as a third chipset in MediaTek’s range of budget gaming processors. And this one slot right between the G90/G90T and G70.
Built upon a 12nm process, the Helio G80 offers an Octa-core CPU. The CPU consists of two ARM Cortex-A75 cores clocked at 2.0GHz. Moreover, six ARM Cortex-A55 cores are there too. And they are clocked at a maximum frequency of 1.8GHz.
As for GPU, it has ARM’s Mali-G52. It is the same one that was there in the Helio G70. However, this one is overclocked at 950MHz whereas G70’s offered the only 820MHz.
Helio G80, as other G series SoC’s, is focused at gamer’s looking for high performance at an affordable price. Therefore, it comes with a host of MediaTek’s special features. These include HyperEngine mobile gaming enhancements, multi-camera support, integrated Voice on Wakeup (VoW), and more.
VoW helps to considerably lower power consumption for voice assistance services. And the HyperEngine offers smooth gaming experience as seen on Helio G90. Moreover, the other benefit of HyperEngine is the switch to LTE + WiFi connectivity during gameplay. Especially helpful during slow internet connection. Moreover, it also actively manages CPU and GPU performance for stable gameplay.
Helio G80 availability
The Helio G80 is expected to launch later this month in India. And soon after that it should be available in the global market as well.
It is really appreciable that MediTek is coming up with a mid-range, low-cost solution for gaming enthusiasts. Moreover, their gaming chipsets do not compromise in the performance side either. Hopefully, the Helio G80 won’t disappoint either.
Meanwhile don’t miss out on our review of Xiaomi Note 8 Pro, the first high-profile smartphone with Helio G90T.
We may not be a fan of the technology but the concept of foldable smartphones has already taken off. Top players like Samsung, Huawei are going all-in to stay ahead in the foldable smartphone technology. Samsung, Huawei, and Motorola have tried their luck with their idea of a foldable smartphone. The phones may differ in manufacturer and patent they are based on, but they all come with a primary concern – durability. The phones are prone to accidental damages. The folding mechanism, the screen panel all have their weakness. The race now is about who overcomes them first. And a recent report suggests Samsung has found a solution for damage-prone panel with UTG (Ultra-Thin Glass) technology.
Ultra-Thin Technology
Problems of the Samsung Fold
When Samsung initially launched the Samsung Galaxy Fold, it was far from a perfect product. It came with a lot of problems. So much so, that the company had to postpone the actual launch event to overcome them. The folding mechanism was a bit of a problem but not as big as a problem the users faced with it. The original Samsung Galaxy Fold came with a thin plastic player on top of the screen. Many users mistook it for a screen protector and removed it – only to end up with a broken display.
The UTG patent
Samsung needed to fix that in their future releases. And for that, Samsung has come up with UTG. According to a report by LetsGoDigital, Samsung has filed a new patent titled UTG to European Union Intellectual Property Office. Though Samsung hasn’t disclosed anything about it, we believe that it stands for Ultra-Thin Glass.
Perks of Ultra-Thin Glass
The Ultra-Thin Glass will try to overcome the problems that the original plastic-coated display had. Technically, glass is more scratch-resistant than plastic so, using a glass instead of plastic does make sense. However, we don’t know if the property holds true for glass that is as thin as a human hair. According to reports, the thickness of the glass may range from 30microns to about 100microns.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip
But there are also some downsides. Ultra-Thin Glasses require a complex manufacturing process, which isn’t cheap. And it will ultimately be reflected in the smartphone’s price.
The upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Flip is set to be the first phone to adopt this technology. Samsung will also include it in their future foldable phones.
Since the Mobile World Congress (MWC) is well around the corner, we all are excited about what is has in store for us. The event will undoubtedly give us an insight into the trends the smartphone world is going to witness throughout the year. Talking about trends, this is the year when 5G smartphones will take over the entire smartphone market. Almost all the big players in the game have joined the 5G bandwagon. Though 5G sounds tempting, it is not going to be cheap. That is why some of these brands are also focusing on the lower end of the market. Leaks suggest Nokia, which has already confirmed the launch of a 5G phone in MWC, will unveil an affordable phone dubbed Nokia 5.2 aka Captain America.
Nokia Mobile World Congres 2020 Event
At the end of the year 2019, Nokia made an announcement that it will arrive at the MWC 2020 with a new 5G smartphone. Company’s Product Officer, Juho Sarvikas, confirmed the news via an official press release. It read:
“Our highest priority for 2020 is making 5G more accessible – bringing an affordable yet premium grade, future proof 5G experience for the best possible performance in NSA and SA networks with the Snapdragon 765 Mobile Platform.”
At this point in time, we can say it with confidence that Nokia won’t be releasing a flagship smartphone at the event. Nokia 9.2 will be unveiled later this year which made us believe that the phone Juho Sarvikas was talking about was Nokia 8.2.
Nokia is all geared up for the event. It has already started giving out invites for its event on February 23. The registration will go live at 4 PM local time then the actual event will kick-off about half an hour late.
Talks of Nokia 5.2 “Captain America”
Since Nokia won’t be launching Nokia 9.2 at the event, Nokia 8.2 powered by Snapdragon 765G will be the highlight of Nokia’s event. And if the recent leaks are to be believed, it will be accompanied by Nokia Captain America a.k.a Nokia 5.2.
A Leakster, who goes by the name of Evan Blass, introduced us to the upcoming Nokia Captain America through his twitter handle. The pictures -though not the prettiest- reveal a phone with quad-camera setup at back.
Design
The quad-camera setup is the first thing we noticed on the device. The four camera sensors are housed inside a circular camera module. The module creates a slight bump on the rear surface. At the center of the module, there is an LED flash. The four sensors are arranged around the LED flash. There is a fingerprint scanner just below the camera module.
Nokia 5.2 aka Captain America
The display on the front comes with waterdrop notch for the front shooter. The volume rocker and the power button are placed on the right side of the device. The charging port is located at the bottom of the device.
Rumored Specs
Considering the fact that the device hasn’t been confirmed officially, the information about its specs is scarce. The phone will come with a 6GB RAM and 64GB storage onboard. However, we can expect the phone to come in other memory configurations as well.
Nokia 5.2 Launch and Pricing
After the official unveiling at the MWC 2020, Nokia will launch Captain America somewhere around March. As of now, the 6/64GB variant will cost around $180 (~NPR 20,600) which in our view is quite impressive. But it is too soon to judge. Let’s see what Nokia has in store for us this year at WMC.
Also, check out our favorite budget gaming laptop!
Lately, smartphone manufacturers are spinning off their sub-brands, for launching products different than the brand image of the parent company. Realme has already been a successful brand after separating from Oppo. Currently, Poco is also enjoying hype after it is spun-off from Xiaomi. Now there is another sub-brand trying to follow in on the footsteps – iQOO. The news of Vivo spinning off iQOO came to attention as early as January. iQOO has now confirmed that it will come with the first SD 865 powered 5G smartphone in the Indian subcontinent.
iQOO
It was not long ago when Vivo announced iQOO as its sub-brand last year. iQOO (pronounced eye-Koo) stands for I Quest On and On. With the iQOO, Vivo looked to conquer the emerging smartphone gaming segment. iQOO and it’s monster variant was the first releases company. Fast forward to today, iQOO is now a well-known brand in China that offers a performance-focused premium line.
The reason behind the spin-off
iQOO is following the footsteps of Realme and Poco. Interestingly, all these brands were spun-off to focus on the South Asian market, especially India. The strategy does make sense because India is now the biggest smartphone market in the world. And for the size of the market, it is also equally priced sensitive. Brands like Realme and Poco which offer bangs for the bucks are quite successful. These success stories have now lured iQOO to India.
iQOO India’s Announcement
iQOO India has already announced that it will be coming to the Indian market. Gagan Arora, iQOO’s Director of Marketing, has already confirmed the news. Last time we talked about them, we predicted that iQOO will make noises with a new device when it lands on the Indian subcontinent. Gagan Arora has also confirmed that iQOO will be coming to India with not only one but two devices. However, the highlight of the two will be the one powered by Snapdragon 865 processor.
iQOO 5G smartphone powered by SD 865
iQOO’s 5G smartphone will be the first in India to come with Snapdragon 865 under the hood. Though the company hasn’t authenticated the information officially, given its reputation, anything below the Snapdragon 865 will be a sheer disappointment. All the phones by iQOO have come with flagship-grade chipsets such as SD 845 and SD 855. The device will be aimed at gamers and will offer tough competition to the Black Shark line up of smartphones.
The phone will first go on sale online. Only after then the company will roll it out through offline shops.
Also, check out our comparison between Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Lite!
Nokia has launched its latest Android One smartphone, the Nokia C1 in Nepal. The phone is targeted for people who are ready to move on from their feature phones to an entry-level smartphone. But is it the best phone in the entry-level price range in Nepal?
Nokia C1 Overview
Talking of features, the Nokia C1 features a 5.45- inches display with 480 x 960px resolution. The panel here is an IPS one which is protected by the toughened glass to protect the screen from potential scratches. On top of the display, you can see a selfie camera which is a 5MP shooter accompanied by an LED flash.
At the back too, there is a 5MP shooter along with an LED flash.
The phone features an average 2,500 mAh battery to power the low power display and it charges over Micro USB port. As for the chipset, it is powered an unknown quad-core CPU. The Nokia C1 comes bearing 1GB RAM and 16GB inbuilt storage. The storage can further be expanded by a microSD card up to 64GB.
As for other features of the device, you get FM radio and dual SIM support. However, there is no LTE support as the max it goes is 3G. The phone supports WiFi 4 as well.
The major focus of the phone is the fact that it runs on the Android 9 Go edition. saGo apps will help reduce data usage and will take less storage, which is a good thing for entry-level smartphones.
Nokia C1 Specifications:
Body: 147.6 x 71.4 x 8.7 mm
Display:5.45 inches IPS LCD panel
Resolution: 480 x 960 pixels, 18:9 ratio
CPU: Unknown Quad-core 1.3 GHz
RAM: 1GB
Storage: 16GB (expandable up to 64 via a microSD card)
Teletalk Pvt. Ltd., the authorized distributor of Nokia mobiles, launched the Nokia C1 in Nepal for a price of Rs. 6,499. However, it is now available for Rs. 7,199. You can buy the phone from various mobile retail shops all over Nepal.
Model Name
Old Price
New Price in Nepal
Nokia C1
Rs. 6,499
Rs. 7,199
If you have little more to spend on, we recommend you to go for Redmi Go. With an additional thousand price, you will get better screen resolution, better performer and a bigger battery.
Ever taken time out of your busy schedule to think about the type of storage in your smartphone? Maybe you have; maybe you haven’t, but my bet would be on the fact that probably have not. Basically, smartphones come with either slower eMMC storage or a faster UFS. The UFS storage in contemporary smartphones is available in 2 variants: UFS 2.1 and UFS 3.0. However, a new one that’s making rounds on the internet is UFS 3.1.
Until now, Universal Flash Storage, or more popularly known as UFS was deemed to be faster than eMMC. And that is the reason why it is found in most flagships and currently in mid-range devices to. All this has led eMMC to be limited to just the entry-level devices.
However, now JEDEC Solid State Technology Association has unveiled UFS 3.1. It comes as a successor of UFS 3.0 that we got to see in Samsung and OnePlus devices last year.
The burning issue now and maybe forever will be on how to minimize power consumption and deliver high-performance. And that is exactly the UFS 3.1 concerns itself with. By introducing three major new improvements, JEDEC has designed the UFS 3.1 for mobile and computing apps with high-performance requirements.
The first improvement that they have made is the Write Booster. It is an SLC non-volatile cache that amplifies write speed. The next one is called DeepSleep, specially designed for low-cost systems. It is a new UFS device low power state. The main target being the aforementioned low-cost system that share UFS voltage regulators with other functions.
Finally, the third major improvement in UFS 3.1 is the performance throttling notification. Basically what it does is that it will notify the host if storage performance is throttled due to high temperature.
Another major announcement made by JEDEC is a companion standard. UFS Host Performance Booster (HPB) Extension as it has been labeled gives an option to cache the UFS device logical-to-physical address map in the system’s DRAM.
However, we still don’t know when we’ll get to see this new storage standard. But history suggests, one should be on the lookout for Samsung flagships for these sort of changes.
Well, Huawei overtook Apple to become the second-biggest smartphone brand in 2019. While Huawei was eying for the top spot, things didn’t go that well for the Chinese firm. Following the trade ban imposed by the US government, Huawei’s plan to beat Samsung didn’t really take off. We were yet to see how it would affect the global ranking between the smartphone brands. The overall standings for the 2019 year are already out. Let’s dive deeper into the figures and numbers to find which smartphone brands celebrated the highest sales volume in 2019.
Biggest smartphone brands in 2019!
Samsung: Still the King of Smartphone World
Independent results from Strategy Analytics, Counterpoint Research and Canalys reveal Huawei has climbed up to the number two spot despite facing ban from the US. Throughout the year, Huawei sold about 240 million phones which is higher than Apple’s statistics by about 40 million. As of now, Samsung still holds the crown of the biggest smartphone brand in the world. Bettering its last year’s performance, it shipped out about 298.1 million smartphones worldwide.
The unprecedented growth of Huawei
Despite the ban, Huawei continues to grow as a smartphone market and that too by a great margin over the last year. Yes, you heard it right- Huawei’s global smartphone sales in 2019 grew by a whopping 17.6%. This has resulted in the growth of Huawei’s global market share from 14.8% in 2018 to around 17% in 2019.
That is an unprecedented growth considering the fact that the overall smartphone market has declined in the same duration. Xiaomi ranks second on the Annual growth chart with a 4% growth. Compare that to Huawei’s number, you would know how significant Huawei’s growth is. Compared to Huawei, Samsung only managed 2% growth while Apple saw a decrease in sales by about 7%.
Looking at the annual growth, you would think Huawei has no reason to worry about but that is far from the actual case. Huawei has a lot to worry about. According to the report by Counterpoint Research, only 40% of Huawei’s total shipments were outside of China. While Huawei enjoys success in its home country, people outside China are now shifting to other alternatives. This is quite evident by the drip in sales in the Q4 of 2019.
Apple enjoys the holiday sales
Apple lost to both Samsung and Huawei in the run for the biggest smartphone brand. It couldn’t even match its 2018 sales figures. But there is a silver lining as well- Apple managed to top the Q4 smartphone sales for the third year in a row. It managed to sell 78.4 million smartphones in the Holiday period. While Samsung and Huawei experienced drip in sales in the last quarter, Apple’s global shipment grew in the same period. If only the Q4 sales were considered, Apple would have topped the other two smartphone brands in the annual growth chart with a growth of 9%. However, it would still fall behind Xiaomi which saw a 23% sales boost in Q4 of 2019 in comparison to Q4 of 2018.
So, those were the biggest smartphone brands in 2019. What do you think 2020 has in store for us? Comment down below!
Learn how Huawei is marching towards Google-less future!
We don’t hear much about tablets these days, but are they really out of fashion? Samsung certainly hopes it’s not. But why though? Well, that’s because Samsung has announced the Galaxy Tab S6 5G. It is the world’s first tablet to come with 5G capabilities.
Yup, you read that correctly. The Galaxy Tab S6 5G has debuted in South Korea, the home of Samsung mobiles. Sales of the device will start immediately from today itself. However, the sale will be limited to South Korea for now.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 5G overview
This tab comes as a 5G variant of the Galaxy Tab S6 that was launched last year. It still uses the same Snapdragon 855 chipset. However, this time it is accompanied by Qualcomm’s X50 modem.
Other than that rest of the specs are pretty much identical to the Tab S6. Well, it was bound to so cause the new one is only supposed to be the 5G model of the same device.
The device boasts a 10.5-inch QHD+ Super AMOLED display with an aspect ratio of 16:10. Moreover, it has quad speakers and dual-cam setup on the back.
The back camera consists of a 13MP primary lens and a 5MP ultra-wide sensor. As for the front camera, it is 8MP. The device is powered by a 7, 040mAh battery that supports 15W fast-charging.
You also get a S-pen that can be magnetically attached to the back of your tablet and it
charges automatically while it is attached.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 5G Specifications:
Display: 10.5″ Super AMOLED display with QHD+ resolution (2560 x 1600 pixels), 16:10 aspect ratio
Rear Camera: Dual, 13 MP Primary with f/2.0 aperture + 5 MP ultra-wide with f/2.2 aperture.
The Galaxy Tab S6 5G will come in a single 6GB/128GB configuration as opposed to the non-5G variant that had an 8GB model too. And the device is priced at KRW 999,900 (USD 850).
Multiple discounts are also available for early birds such as discounted keyboard book cover, limited edition S-Pens, and more. As of now, the device is only available in South Korea and its availability elsewhere cannot be said with any certainty.
