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Samsung Galaxy A70s Long Term Review: Great Multimedia Device!

Pratima Adhikari

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December 27, 2019

Samsung Galaxy A70s Long Term Review: Great Multimedia Device!

Alright, today I have the Samsung Galaxy A70s. It has been my primary phone for more than a month now. At first, I was a little put off by the fact that there is a minimal upgrade in the A70s from the Galaxy A70. But now that I have used this phone, I have a slight change in my opinion. What changed? Let’s talk about it in this review!

Samsung Galaxy A70s Specifications

Display: 6.7-inch Super AMOLED display, FHD+ resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio
Rear Camera: Triple cameras
– 64 MP primary camera, f/1.8
– 5 MP depth sensor, f/2.2
– 8 MP wide-angle lens
– LED flash
Front Camera: 32 MP, f/2.0
OS: Android v9.0 Pie
CPU: Octa-core 2.0 GHz (Snapdragon 675)
RAM: 6 GB DDR4
Storage: 128 GB internal, expandable via microSD card slot up to 512GB
Sensors: Fingerprint (under display), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
Connectivity: Dual SIM (nano + nano), Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS + GLONASS, USB Type-C
Battery: 4,500mAh with 25W Fast Charging (included inside the box)
Color Options: Prism Crush Red, Prism Crush White, Prism Crush Black
Price in Nepal: Rs. 43,799

Display

Okay, above all, the first thing I look for in a phone is the quality of the display. Because you interact with it at all times, it needs to be good.

The Samsung Galaxy A70s with its 6.7 inches Super AMOLED screen has given me an unforgettable display experience. This is among the best displays I have seen in a phone of this price range.

And because this is an AMOLED panel, its contrast is simply amazing. I’ve had the best time watching videos on YouTube and even reading e-books on it. The large screen expands the gaming experience as well. The phone also has Widevine L1 certification, so if you are someone who watches Netflix and Amazon Prime videos on your phone, you can watch it in HD resolution.

Additionally, the A70s gives you the option to go full screen with navigation gestures, which makes the already big-screen look even bigger.

Battery

What’s also big on this phone is the battery size. Its large screen definitely needs a lot of power which the phone generously provides with its 4500 mAh battery. On a full charge, I got over a day with moderate usage, which I think is pretty good.

Before the Samsung Galaxy A70s, I used the Redmi Note 8 Pro as my daily driver which has the same 4500 mah battery capacity. However, the A70s performs better because of three reasons:

The energy-efficient AMOLED display
MediaTek processor on the Note 8 Pro isn’t as power-efficient as the ones from Qualcomm
Excellent Software optimization of the A70s.

So, with a big display and excellent battery life at the helm, I think the A70s is definitely one of the best mid-range smartphones for a multimedia experience.

The charging on the A70s is quite fast too. You get a 25W charger inside the box that charges the battery in about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Also, it’s not your normal charger that has a USB A to USB C plugins. This one, like the Galaxy Note 10 Plus, has a Type C to Type C outlet which makes the power delivery faster than the USB A outlets.

Design

Now, with the huge battery, you might think that the phone is all bulky and heavy. However, you get a slim and light form factor on the A70s.

I don’t know how Samsung has managed to achieve this, because I recently reviewed the Galaxy A50s and it was thin and light as well despite featuring a big battery, and the same is the case with the A70s.

On the contrary, phones from other manufacturers with 4000 mAh battery in the same price range have a have significantly bulky design, so kudos to Samsung!

Similarly, the precious 3.5mm headphone jack still lives on and the audio output from the speaker is also good, if not great.

Buttons & Port placement

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More about the design, the back of the A70s is plastic which is slightly disappointing because the competing smartphones like the Redmi K20 Pro and Vivo V17 Pro are giving a glass design. Still, the A70s’ back looks good with its gradient pattern.

Nevertheless, since it’s plastic, it bears higher chances of getting scratched up. So if you are planning on getting this phone, you’d better case it up. By the way, you get a clear case inside the box, which for me has lasted well and I think it will go on for 2 months or so.

Performance

Okay, now let’s get to the performance. The A70s uses the same chipset as the Galaxy A70, the Snapdragon 675. And though it is an excellent mid-range chipset, for the price the phone asks, I had expected more; considering the K20 Pro offers the best-in-class processor for a more or less similar price. When comparing the benchmarks, you can see by just how much the K20 Pro trumps over the Samsung Galaxy A70s.

Take PUBG gameplay for example. In the K20 Pro, you can have a smooth experience even in Ultra frame rate and HD graphics but here the maximum you can go is High frame rates and HD graphics. And even in the recommended settings, you will experience some lags here and there. So, I would advise you to play PUBG in medium settings to get a smoother gameplay experience.

Having said that, normal performance is very good and will not disappoint you in any way. The UI here does not feel slow or laggy, which was the case with Samsung M30s and A50s which feature Exynos 9611.

With Samsung, the design and display are almost always satisfactory if not praiseworthy. But what it’s pathetic at is the implementation of a fingerprint sensor. The optical fingerprint reader on the A70s is slow and not that reliable either. There have been instances when it has refused to accept my fingerprint.

It was the same on the Galaxy A50, the A50s, the A70. And the “legacy” continues on with the A70s. I really hope Samsung looks into this in their future offerings.

The Face Unlock too is nothing to write home about. It is relatively slower than the Chinese phones out there. But since it’s software-based and not very reliable, I kept it shut altogether!

And because One UI is one of my favorite Android skins, I have been waiting for the One UI 2.0 to come on the A70s which is said to arrive sometime in April.

Camera

Okay, now other things aside, what I have really-really liked about the Samsung Galaxy A70s is the camera. Although the only difference in camera specs from last time is a jump from 32MP to 64MP primary camera, the cameras here on the A70s is totally praiseworthy.

Spec-wise, you get the triple cameras in a horizontal fashion here. There is a 64MP primary lens with Samsung’s own GW1 sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, and a 5MP depth sensor.

Talking about the primary lens, the images produced have the right balance of saturation and contrast and so the photos from the A70s look pleasing. However, if you want an extra pop in colors, you can use the scene optimizer feature, which you will have to manually turn on by going into the settings.

Primary Lens Sample Images

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Though Redmi Note 8 Pro and Realme XT use the same GW1 sensor, the images on the A70s are far livelier in comparison. Hence, Samsung’s software optimization is spot on.

The ultra-wide images too have the same kind of color reproduction as the main lens. This is certainly the kind of camera that you’ll like to capture landscapes with. Check out these samples I took and do let me know in the comments if you like them!

Normal v Wide Angle Sample Images

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Portrait images are not the best when it comes to edge-detection though. But they certainly do look nice with good colors and natural-looking bokeh! And you can also change the background effect and blur amount before and after taking pictures, so you can choose by yourself the amount of bokeh you like!

Portrait Sample Images

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However, Samsung has skipped the 2X telephoto zoom lens on the A70s, while the market’s flooding with smartphones with one.

Moving on to low-light performance, I think this is one area where the Samsung Galaxy A70s shines as compared to its predecessor A70. The night time images, while a little noisy, are surprisingly brighter and better after the camera processes it.

Normal v Night Mode Sample Images

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The night mode images are substantially brighter than the normal night time images. The camera seems to do a lot of processing which makes the end result bright and slightly more detailed. So, the night mode in here does a better job than what I found on A50s or the M30s.

Video-wise, you get options of shooting in HD, FHD and UHD among which the videos in FHD are stabilized, thanks to EIS. And the video quality I must say is up to the mark. The UHD videos lack stabilization despite having a good amount of colors and details. You also have an option to shoot wide-angle videos or the super steady mode which are again, pretty stabilized.

But still, Samsung doesn’t provide you the option to switch from normal to wide-angle in the same video. Maybe it’s because of the hardware limitation because the Note 10 comes equipped with it. Also, there’s no 60fps video recording under any resolution on the A70s which seems unusual for a camera of this potential.

Now let’s get to the selfies. You get a 32MP sensor and looking at these images, you be the judge. The photos have pleasing colors with okay-ish details. More importantly, the skin tone looks really good.

Selfie Sample Images

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Selfie portraits look equally pleasing though it’s the software that’s producing the bokeh. There’s a negligible degree of inaccuracy in edge-detection here and there, but I am willing to give it the benefit of doubt because the end result isn’t downright miserable.

Portrait Selfie Sample Images

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And as it is with other Samsung phones, you get slow-mo, super slow-mo and hyper-lapse features on the A70s as well.

Conclusion

So, as I said in the beginning, I don’t hold the same opinion about this phone after getting to use it. Though there is no significant upgrade from its predecessor, especially in the performance department, the Samsung Galaxy A70s is still a good phone, especially for the multimedia fanatics out there. Its huge AMOLED display paired with a large battery makes it the holy grail for people who indulge in YouTube or other content streaming platforms a lot.

And with the recent price drop, A70s does manage to make its mark as a viable mid-range smartphone. But again, if Samsung had gone with a better SoC like the SD 730G or even last-gen flagship Exynos chipset, it would have catered every audience, including the gamers. So, yes, if you are a hard-core gamer, I would still advise you to go with the K20 Pro, otherwise, the A70s ticks all the boxes for a good mid-ranger!

Samsung Galaxy A70s Pros & Cons

Pros:

Beautiful design and gorgeous display
Commendable battery life
Great camera performance

Cons:

The chipset could’ve been better
Optical fingerprint scanner and face unlock are considerably slow
Plastic back makes the phone feel cheaper

Lenovo to introduce a Gaming Smartphone under the “Legion” lineup

GadgetByte

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December 27, 2019

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Lenovo to introduce a Gaming Smartphone under the “Legion” lineup

Believe me or not, gaming smartphones are a thing now. Though, not as popular as other gaming platforms, it still is a market segment with great potential. That is why it has caught the attention of many leading brands. Companies like Razer, Xiaomi, ZTE, and Asus all have tried their luck at gaming smartphones. With Lenovo joining the bandwagon as well, soon, there’s going to be a Lenovo Legion gaming smartphone in the market! Are you excited?

Lenovo Legion and its Gaming Connection

Lenovo has been in the gaming industry for quite a while now. It all started in 2015 with a partnership with Razer. The two brands together introduced a lineup of Razer edition Lenovo PCs. The first PC under this line up debuted at CES 2016. With the name as big as Razer tied to its PCs, Lenovo did well in the market.

Later, Lenovo launched a brand called “Legion” to look after the gaming segment. It started with the announcement of two gaming-focused PCs – Y720 and Y520 at the CES 2017. Since then, the Lenovo Legion series has been pretty successful with its lineup of gaming laptops and PCs.

Also, read about Top gaming Laptops In Nepal

nubia red magic 3 pubg gaming smartphone — Nubia Red Magic 3

Lenovo’s gaming smartphone

Talks about Lenovo’s gaming smartphone started as early as April 2019. The Vice President of the Chinese firm, Chang Cheng, hinted that the launch of the company’s first gaming smartphone could take place in 2020. He didn’t mention anything about the device regarding its specs. With 2019 coming to an end, Lenovo has now set up a new page dedicated to gaming smartphones on Chinese microblogging site Weibo.

A rough translation of one of the page reads “Did you Know?? A gaming smartphone is on the way“.

The words from the Vice President, together with the new Weibo page makes us believe that a new gaming smartphone from the company is underway.

Also, check out the best premium mid-range gaming phones in Nepal

Smartphone Under Legion?

Legion is a well-known name in the gaming industry. And if Lenovo launches a gaming smartphone, it only makes sense for the company to do it under the Legion brand taking advantage of the market the Legion has a grip of; a strategy that the company used in its partnership with Razer.

Market Competition

There are already some big names in the smartphone gaming segments such as Xiaomi’s Black Shark, Asus ROG Phone II, Razer Phone 2, and ZTE’s Nubia Red Magic 3. It will be interesting to see what Lenovo has to add to this segment.

Samsung Galaxy M31 emerges on the Geekbench Test Database

GadgetByte

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December 27, 2019

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Samsung Galaxy M31 emerges on the Geekbench Test Database

Last year, Samsung came up with the all-new M-series and revamped A-series. It was an effort from the Korean giant to regain its market share in the budget and mid-range segment. The M-series enjoyed much-needed success in the market. And now with the start of the new year, Samsung is planning to build on that success. Recently a phone has surfaced online which is thought to be the Samsung Galaxy M31.

Samsung Galaxy M31 first grabbed the attention of the world when it passed through the Geekbench test. The SM-M315F modeled device scored 348 points in Geekbench’s single-core test and managed to score 1,214 points in the multi-core test.

samsung-galaxy-m30-launched — Samsung Galaxy M30

What we had thought…

It isn’t the first time the Samsung Galaxy M31 has hit the news. Previously, a rumor about the device’s specifications created anticipation among fans. We even informed you about the rumored specifications. Rumor had it that the Galaxy M31 would come with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 665 packed in. It was also set to feature a triple camera setup on the back which included a 48MP primary camera along with a 12MP wide-angle camera and a 5MP depth sensor. It was also said to come with 6GB of RAM in the basic variant.

Geekbench Database Reveals…

The test didn’t reveal just scores. It also pointed towards some key specifications of the Samsung Galaxy M31; most notably the processor. The database from the test revealed that the phone is powered by Samsung’s Exynos 9611 chipset; the one we also saw in the Samsung Galaxy M30s. The chipset has 8 cores (4 x 2.3Ghz Cortex-A73 + 4 x 1.7Ghz Cortex- A53). The phone will come with Mali- G72 MP3 to handle the graphics. It will ship with Android 10 with Samsung’s One UI on top. As for the memory, the device will come with the previously rumored 6GB of RAM.

We would love to learn more about the specification of the device but sadly, the Geekbench test doesn’t reveal much. So we can’t do anything but wait until the full specification of the device is revealed.

Samsung Galaxy M31 Price and Availability

Samsung Galaxy M31 is expected to launch in early 2020. It will be a mid-range device and will face stiff competition from other mid-range devices from brands like Xiaomi.

Check out our review of the Samsung Galaxy A70s:

Samsung Galaxy A50s Review: An Excellent Camera Phone

Pratima Adhikari

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December 26, 2019

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Samsung Galaxy A50s Review: An Excellent Camera Phone

Just roll back like a year ago, Samsung J-series and A-series were not performing well, and hence we saw Samsung dominance fall. In India, Xiaomi dethroned Samsung for the number 1 spot and Realme, a relatively new name back then, emerged in the smartphone battle. The phone that I’ll be talking about today, the Samsung Galaxy A50s, will not help the company’s cause, I’ll tell you that!

But Samsung is not a brand that would sit silently watching its market share dip. So, they launched the M-series intended to challenge the online phones from Xiaomi and Realme. And they also revamped the A-series for the offline markets.

And to be honest, Samsung did well with its first wave of M and A-series in the first and second quarter of 2019. We’ve reviewed almost every Samsung phone since then and honestly, they were quite refreshing.

Now, coming back to the present context, Samsung has released the ‘s’ variants of its new A-series. And looking at the specs of all of these phones, they don’t deserve to be called as “an upgrade”. Also, the competing smartphones from Xiaomi and Realme are getting better with each iteration. This further puts Samsung in a dreadful misery.

However, Samsung has dropped the prices of all of these S-variants in Nepal. Because the original price was just not competitive enough.

The Galaxy A50s, that I have with me today, originally retailed for Rs. 42,000 which has since been dropped to Rs. 33,599 and I think this should have been the launch price of this phone, to begin with. Anyways, the question is, should you get the A50s? And how does it fare against the competition? Let’s dig into it.

Samsung Galaxy A50s Specifications

Body: 6.24 x 2.93 x 0.30 inches; 169 gm (5.96 oz)
Display: 6.4 inches Super AMOLED Infinity-U
Resolution: Full-HD+ (1080 x 2340 pixels), 19.5:9 ratio
Chipset: Exynos 9611, 10nm process
CPU: Octa-core (4×2.3 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53)
GPU: Mali-G72 MP3
RAM: 4GB/6GB
Storage: 128GB UFS 2.1 (expandable up to 512GB)
Rear Camera: Triple Camera;
– 48MP, f/2.0, 1/2″ Sony IMX 582 sensor
– 8MP, f/2.2 ultra-wide lens
– 5MP, f/2.2 depth sensor
– LED Flash
Front Camera: Single – 32MP, f/2.0
OS & UI: Android Pie with Samsung One UI on top
Battery: Non-removable 4000 mAh; USB Type C
Colors: Prism Crush Black, Prism Crush White, Prism Crush Violet
Price in Nepal: Rs. 33,599

Design & Display

So, the first thing that remains more or less unchanged from the Galaxy A50 is the design.

You get the same plastic back which evidently will get scratches after prolonged usage, so better case it up! One minor change is this one has this gradient back, which is more pleasing to the eyes than the regular A50.

Samsung Galaxy A50s Side View

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However, one thing I’ve really liked about this phone is how slim it is! It measures 7.7mm in thickness and when comparing it with other popular midrange phones like the Redmi Note 8 Pro or the Realme XT, the difference can easily be realized.

Moreover, the sleekness is achieved without compromising on the phone’s battery as the A50s comes with a 4000 mAh battery as well. Add this to the lightweight build, I can see people liking the overall design of the A50s.

What’s equally good here is the display. You get a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED Full-HD panel whose quality, as expected from a Samsung phone’s, is top-notch. And BTW there’s a tiny U-shaped notch on the top. The display produces excellent contrast, good colors, and is fairly bright. So using it outdoors should not be any problem.

Camera

On the subject of liking things about the A50s, its cameras are impressive as well.

You get an improved 48MP lens and Samsung has done a very good job with software optimization. The picture quality is definitely better than what you get from the Galaxy M30s or the Redmi Note 8 Pro or the Realme XT.

Samsung Galaxy A50s Normal Image Samples

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Mind you, all of these phones are cheaper than the A50s. So with this, you get what you pay for.

The second 8MP wide-angle lens is above average! Detail wise it’s okay, but the colors are generally lively and pleasing.

Samsung Galaxy A50s Wide Angle Images

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The portrait shots too are commendable with good subject focus, colors, background blur, and edge detection. Another point in the bank to Samsung for its awesome software optimization!

Samsung Galaxy A50s Portrait Images

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On the front, there’s a 32MP selfie camera residing inside the notch. And like the ones on the back, I’m a fan of these as well. From dynamic range to colors to details, the selfies from the A50s will not disappoint you.

Samsung Galaxy A50s Selfie Images

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The selfie portraits also work really well, with a good focus on the subject and background blur. However, its edge detection resides in the grey area with lots of room for improvement.

Samsung Galaxy A50s Portrait Selfie Images

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The videos are okay for the price. You don’t get the OIS, but the Gyro EIS does a good job for 1080P videos. And as expected, there is no option for 60fps here, but Samsung has included videography features like Slow-Mo, Super Slo-Mo, and Super Steady Mode here.

The only aspect I didn’t like about the A50s camera is the night mode. It overexposes the night time images making it unusual.

Samsung Galaxy A50s Normal vs Night Mode Images

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And Samsung had the exact same issue with the M30s. So, frankly, I am really disappointed that they haven’t yet rolled out an update to fix this issue.

Battery

As I’ve already mentioned before, there’s a 4000mAh battery powering this device, which will provide you with good battery life.

On the charging front, Samsung is still using a 15W charger, and I think this is another area where the company has compromised as they should have gone with 25W charger like in its bigger sibling Galaxy A70s.

Performance & Gaming

Though I can live up with the 15W charger, what I can’t understand is the decision from Samsung to pack the Exynos 9611 chipset on the A50s. If you don’t know, it’s basically the same as the Exynos 9610 on the A50.

Thus, the performance of 6-month old A50 and the A50s is near-identical, which I think is a big letdown. The Exynos 9611 is based on 10nm, so it’s comparatively energy-efficient although its CPU and GPU performance aren’t comparable to that of the Snapdragon 730G or the Helio G90T.

And I have also told this in my M30s review, about One UI not being very optimized for midrange chipset, and the same is the case with the A50s. So, you will obviously not feel the UI as smooth as say the Note 10 or the S10. Hopefully, that will get solved when Samsung releases the One UI 2.0.

I know it sounds unfair, but I believe that shouldn’t be the case. You are paying top dollars for the A50s and the UI/UX just shouldn’t be the way it is.

Anyways, if you are coming from a budget phone, A50s will serve you well. The multitasking is great, browsing and chatting are swift and you will not have any problem playing high-end games like PUBG in high graphics and High Frame rates.

So, yah, the performance isn’t bad. However, it’s just that competition is providing better SoC at this price and Samsung seems to ignore the fact that many consumers here in South Asia look for better performance in the midrange segment.

Another thing that Samsung is hopelessly pathetic at is its slow optical fingerprint sensor. Even if I forgave its delay, I cannot stand the fact that it just doesn’t read my fingerprint sometimes. The A50 had the same issue, and I was expecting the new version to have faster ones. After all, an optical fingerprint scanner is not a new tech anymore.

Conclusion

So, overall, I have mixed feelings about the A50s. Actually, this entire video would have been a rant if Samsung hadn’t dropped the price. But since they did, it’s not a bad phone entirely. You get a Super AMOLED display whose quality is hard to find at this price range, the cameras are good and as I said earlier, I can see people liking the design because of its thin and light form factor.

However, the overall performance, especially the UI/UX part, is just about average, and you will get a much faster performance at a lesser price. So, if you are one of those who value performance more, you should be looking somewhere else. Otherwise, with the recent price drop, the Samsung Galaxy A50s does make sense.

Samsung Galaxy A50s Pros & Cons

Pros:

Slim and sleek design
Great Super AMOLED display
Excellent camera performance

Cons:

The chipset could’ve been better
The optical fingerprint scanner is a hit or miss
One UI doesn’t feel optimized for a mid-range phone

iBoysoft Data Recovery Review: A handy tool to recover your lost and deleted files!

GadgetByte

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December 26, 2019

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iBoysoft Data Recovery Review: A handy tool to recover your lost and deleted files!

Marry in haste and repent in leisure. We are well aware of this proverb yet due to our carelessness and hasty nature, we make mistakes on time and often. And one of such mistakes is deleting the files off of the computer. Most of such deleted files can be retrieved from the recycle bin if they’ve have deleted with the simple “Delete” button. But if you’ve permanently deleted the files, you are doomed. But in recent times, many data recovery software is coming up in the market. They come with their own quirks and helps the users restore the deleted files. However, not all of them are consistent when it comes to recovering the removed files. But promising better features and luring recovery characteristics, iBoysoft Data Recovery software has surfaced in the market. So we thought why not give it a try. So after over a week of testing, here is our iBoysoft Data Recovery Review.

How to get it?

You can easily get the software on their website. They have software both for Windows data recovery and Mac data recovery. So based on the operating system of your computer, you can get it for yourself. The software comes in two options: Free and Premium. As the name implies, the free variant won’t cost you anything to install the software and to recover the files. However, as the free version comes with just a limited set of features, you won’t be able to make full use of its potential.

The Premium version will cost you $69.95, $199, and S299 for the Home, Professional, and Technician edition respectively. But for the academic users (teachers, students, educational staff, etc.), government departments, charity, and non-profit organizations, iBoysoft is providing a noteworthy 20% discount in the purchase of the software.

With the Home edition, you will get a lifetime license key of the software, which you can use it just for one PC. Similarly, with some added features, Professional edition lets you use the license key for up to two PCs. The Technician Edition is the richest of all when it comes to features. If you have the Technician edition, you will be able to recover files from five different PCs.

Ease of use

iBoysoft is fairly easy to use. When you run the software, you will see a window with various drives (both internals and externals), just like the window you see while pressing the “My Computer” or “This PC” button on Windows PCs. Due to the familiar UI, it’s really easy to navigate.

You can press any of the drives, from which you have to recover the deleted files and press next. The software will then take some time to scan through the drive. It involves processes like Rebuilding Partition structure, Reading NTFS File record, Building Virtual File System and Saving Scan results. And these processes concludes, a new window pops up, which shows the files inside the drive selected.

Since the deleted files are marked with a red crossmark [x], they are easier to find. But if you have too many files and folders on your drive, it can be cumbersome to locate the deleted file/folder you wished to recover. For such cases, you can go near the bottom-left corner, where you can get to select “Only show deleted files”. That way, you can save a lot of time from coping with the crowd of files and folders and locate the deleted files/folders really quick.

If that didn’t help, you can use the search tool inside the software. This could be the most convenient way to locate files if you know the deleted file name.

iBoysoft Data Recovery Tool Features

Since it’s a data recovery tool, the primary and essential feature of it is to recover your lost and deleted files. And the tool has its own quirks when it comes to recovering such files.

As I mentioned earlier, the preliminary step to recovering the files is to scan the drive. And there are two ways you can scan a drive. The Quick Scan option prioritizes new and big files. The “Deep Scan Mode”, on the other hand, tries to find more files inside the drive. So with the “Deep Scan” feature turned on, you will have a better chance of finding your lost/deleted files and recovering it successfully.

Although it’s a useful feature and most of the time full-proof, it takes a considerate amount of time to scan through the drive. So make sure you have plenty of time before starting the recovery process. On my use, deep scanning of a 200GB drive took me over 3 hours and that was really frustrating. So to cope up with the issue, developers have included the “Save Session” feature, which you can access through the Hamburger Button near the top left corner. With the “Save Session” feature, you can save the scan results to your PC and access the drive whenever you feel like recovering the deleted. It saves the files in .sr format and the good thing is you can rename those files as well. This helps to easily find the files and scan up the drive really quick.

In the new session, you can access these scan results simply going through the same Hamburger Button on the top left corner and clicking the “Load Sessions” feature.

Once you scan through the drive and get inside, you can see files and folders inside it. As the non-existing (deleted or lost) files are marked with red crossmarks, it’s easy to identify them. Furthermore, you get to preview the deleted files. So before recovering the files, you can be sure that it’s the same file you wanted to recover. However, during my use, I achieved success only with small-sized images and text files. So there is that.

You also get the Bitlocker Data Recovery feature with the software. But since the version I used was Home edition, it was not available by default. If you want to use that feature, you should go with a Professional edition.

Recovery

The process to recover the files is really easy. Firstly, you need to select the file to be recovered, secondly, press the “Recover” button and select the location, where you want to save the file. Then bam, you’ll have the file restored to your computer. But if you are using the Free version, you can only restore the files and folders up to 1GB. So keep that in mind while starting the recovery process.

Although the recovery process sounds fairly simple, the process is not all sunshine and roses. In multiple scenarios, the software showed files with the file size of 0KB, which were barely any good to recover. And some of the files had correct file size, however, they didn’t function well after they got recovered.

So I presented concerns about this issue and asked personnel from iBoysoft. I got a reply that the success rate in recovering the data depends on various factors like storage device type, how data got lost, if new and big files have been added to the system, etc. Even on their website, it has been mentioned that the software doesn’t offer any guarantee that the lost/deleted files are 100% recoverable. Even if recovered, the files could get corrupted and may not work as expected.

But clarifying the statement, the personnel from iBoysoft explained that if a new file has been added to the drive, it would take up the memory location used by the previous or the deleted files. And that makes it hard it recover a fully functional file. He also pointed out that it was the reason why most of the files didn’t work during my use.

The statement implied that the success rate hugely depends on how freshly it had been deleted. So I deleted multiple files from my laptop and tried to recover them. And this time, I had a better success rate. The success rate further improved while recovering the files from removable flash drives. And that offered me some consolation.

Memory Consumption

Since the software is fairly light (3.36MB for Windows PC), it doesn’t use up much space on your computer. Even while scanning the drive (the process at which it uses maximum resources), the memory usage and CPU usage reach up to 70% and 25% respectively. So even for the non-powerful computers, running the software shouldn’t be that alarming.

Conclusion

As the need for data recovery is at a peaking phase, the iBoysoft made a good attempt to fill the gap. It has user-friendly UI so navigating the features is hassle-free. And since most of the features can be accessed in the free version, you don’t essentially have to pay for the tool unless you need to store bulk files. But despite these niceties, there are still a lot of things to improve. I would’ve totally loved and fully recommend the software if it had been a little more consistent with the restored files. So I hope the iBoysoft team will work on the flaws I mentioned and release a software update to make it even better.

Realme to embark on a new adventure with Realme Fitness Band

GadgetByte

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December 26, 2019

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Realme to embark on a new adventure with Realme Fitness Band

Realme, a sub-brand of Oppo, introduced itself to the world in May 2018 through the launch of Realme 1. Since then it has rejoiced popularity, especially in the Indian market where it has been looked on as a fierce competitor to Xiaomi. Lately, the brand is expanding its portfolio by launching different accessories. And it has been revealed that a Realme fitness band is underway.

The news about the fitness band was confirmed by Madhav Sheth who is also the company’s CEO. Realme has a monthly program in its Indian youtube channel called “#AskMadhav”, where the CEO directly answers the questions submitted by the fans. The announcement came through the thirteenth edition of the monthly video series.

Realme Fitness Band: Launch

When asked about the rumors, he confirmed that Realme is working on a fitness band. He even added that it could even launch as early as the first half of 2020. If Realme brings the product to the market it will compete against its counterpart from Xiaomi, Huawei, and others. Through the same video, he also confirmed that Realme’s flashing tool is expected to launch in the Q1 of 2020.

From the words of the CEO of the company, it looks like Realme is determined to star as the “Largest Tech-lifestyle” brand in India through its “Realme for Every Indian” mission. To achieve the mission, the company will be focusing on four big segments – smartphones, ColorOS, IoT, and Realme PaySa. The brand will be working on the Big Four to achieve the mission in 2020.

Also, read about Realme Buds.

It seems obvious that the company is following the footsteps of Xiaomi, which has already excelled at expanding its products and services beyond smartphones. It has already started bearing fruits. Xiaomi recorded record profit at $7.63 billion for the Q3 of 2019 and interestingly, the major portion of that ($2.22 billion) came from Xiaomi’s IoT components and consumer electronics devices.

Will the Realme excel on its plan? Its something we need to wait before we find the answers.

Check out our review of the Nokia 7.2 if you haven’t already!

Nokia 7.2 Review: A love-hate relationship

Nikhil Shrestha

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December 25, 2019

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Nokia 7.2 Review: A love-hate relationship

Nokia – a brand that you’re most likely already familiar with. By now I’m sure most of you guys already know the rise and fall of the company in the smartphone industry. After its acquisition by “HMD Global Oy“, a Finnish company, we’ve been seeing plenty of Android smartphones under the “Nokia” branding.

Here in Nepal, the company recently received a new distributor in the form of TeleTalk Pvt. Ltd. which has launched the Nokia 7.2 (codenamed “Daredevil” who is my favorite superhero too btw) at an attractively competitive price. Though the phone’s pricing is more than fair compared to the global arena, does it hold out against the competition in the domestic market? Read on to find out in our review of the new Nokia 7.2.

Nokia 7.2 Specifications

Body: 6.30 x 2.96 x 0.33 inches; 180 gm
Display: 6.3-inches IPS LCD “PureDisplay” panel
Resolution: Full-HD+ (2280 x 1080 pixels); 19:9 aspect ratio
Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 660; 14nm Mobile Platform
CPU: Octa-core (4×2.2 GHz Kryo 260 & 4×1.8 GHz Kryo 260)
GPU: Adreno 512
RAM: 4 / 6GB
Storage: 64 / 128GB (expandable up to 512GB via a dedicated SD card slot)
Software & UI: Android 9.0 (Pie); Android One
Rear Camera: Triple-camera;
– 48 MP, f/1.8, PDAF primary shooter
– 8 MP, f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle lens
– 5MP Depth Sensor
– LED flash
Front Camera: 20MP, f/2.0 aperture
Fingerprint sensor: Physical (rear-mounted)
Connectivity: Dual-SIM (Nano), WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, NFC, Bluetooth 5.0, AGPS/GPS/GLONASS/GALILEO/BDS, USB Type-C
Battery: 3500 mAh battery with 10W Charging
Colors: Cyan Green, Charcoal, Ice
Price in Nepal: Rs. 23,999

Design & Build

Design is Nokia 7.2’s forte. It is built with a “high-tech polymer composite” material which, the company claims is twice as strong as regular polycarbonate yet half the weight of aluminum. With the metal frame and a glass back, the phone is quite slippery so I’d strongly advise pairing it with a case. Nevertheless, holding the phone feels super-premium with its curved finish.

The back also holds the triple rear-camera and the LED flash in a circular module, which I’ll get on to in more detail later in the review. Similarly, the physical fingerprint scanner is just below the camera module.

Button placement on the Nokia 7.2 is commendable as well. The volume rockers and the power button are on the right of the phone. Accessing them with one hand wasn’t a problem for me although I have fairly small hands. Interestingly, there’s no dedicated notification LED in the front of the phone here which has been compensated with one on the power button. There’s a slow glow-and-fade animation for every notification.

Though definitely unique, I found it to be counter-productive and not very useful since you can’t see the glow when the phone is placed straight below yourself. Like, you know, how you usually lay down your phone. I firmly believe that utility shouldn’t be sacrificed for design. Additionally, it only glows white so there’s no per-app notification color either.

On the left, you get the dedicated Google Assistant button and the SIM tray which can house two nano-SIM cards alongside a microSD card. Some people may find the button useful but I’m already comfortable with triggering the assistant with voice, so I had the button remapped to toggle on the flashlight on a double-tap instead. There’s only the option to either enable or disable the Google Assistant in Nokia 7.2’s settings, so I had to use a third-party app to remap the assistant button.

Moving on, the 3.5mm headphone jack lives on (thank god) on top of the phone next to the secondary microphone. Similarly, there’s the standard USB Type-C port on the bottom, as well as the primary microphone and the single-firing speaker. The audio output is decently loud as well. However, I often found my fingers blocking the speaker grille on my gaming sessions. On a different note, I have the “Charcoal” color variant of the phone while it also comes in “Cyan Green” and “Ice” options.

Display

I have quite many things to say about Nokia 7.2’s display so let’s get going with it. It has a 6.3-inch “PureDisplay” IPS LCD panel with a Full-HD+ resolution on a 19:9 aspect ratio and 400ppi. Additionally, the brightness maxes out on 500nits which is pretty decent for a mid-range phone. Similarly, the Nokia 7.2 supports the HDR10 standard with the ability for real-time HDR conversion. For protection, it has Corning Gorilla Glass 3, which is… not impressive for a 2019 phone.

Under the PureDisplay settings, you can also turn on “Auto White Balance” which reduces the blue tinge around the phone’s display. Toggling settings under “Dynamic Mode” adjusts the phone’s display according to the type of app you’re using.

For an LCD panel, the Nokia 7.2’s display is admirable, to say the least. I found it to be sufficiently bright enough even when I was outdoors. Also, the phone’s color accuracy and contrast are well to my liking.

Moreover, Nokia 7.2 has a teardrop notch on the top for the selfie camera, while there’s a significantly large chin with the “Nokia” branding. The side bezels are minimal but noticeable regardless. With this, the phone achieves 82.4% screen-to-body-ratio.

Now, the Nokia 7.2’s display has natively rounded corners like with most smartphones these days. However, there’s a visible discoloration around the top edges, which can be observed especially when content on the phone is predominantly white.

I loved content consumption on the Nokia 7.2 with its “SDR to HDR” quality conversion. Watching HDR videos on YouTube was amazing! However, I found that turning on PureDisplay messed up with the app and Quick Settings menu’s coloration.

Thing is, I’m a “Dark Mode” fanboy (though I’d rather Google implement true black dark mode rather than gray) and set my app’s theme to dark wherever available. When I turned on PureDisplay, I found that YouTube’s color scheme would start misbehaving. The UI’s dark mode would turn even more washed-out grey than usual, with clouds of white kind of flowing around the app. Turning off PureDisplay would take things back to normal.

I was curious whether the issue could be traced to the YouTube app or PureDisplay itself. So, I installed “YouTube Vanced”, which is a modded version of the regular YouTube app with a black dark theme, Picture-in-Picture (PiP) support, background play, and many more features. Though there was no problem with YT Vanced’s UI, the phone’s quick settings menu would still suffer from discoloration. Turns out, Nokia’s got some work to do!

Camera

The Nokia 7.2 has a triple camera setup on the back with the coveted “ZEISS” branding. The company has been using Zeiss optics for a long time and it has been one of the most compelling selling points of Nokia smartphones in recent times. Here, you get a 48MP primary lens with Quad-Pixel Binning, an 8MP ultrawide sensor with 118º FOV, a 5MP depth sensor, and the LED flash inside a bumpy circular module reminiscent of the long lost Nokia Lumia 1020.

For taking the sample photos, I used the native Nokia camera app and turned off the “AI Scene Detection” option which isn’t very accurate, to begin with. However, there’s also a GCam port for the Nokia 7.2.

Images from the primary lens are praiseworthy. Though they tend to be on the warmer side, the photos preserve fine amounts of detail with decent saturation. Similarly, the image sharpness and the dynamic range is something I like about Nokia 7.2’s camera as well. Comparing it with that of the Redmi Note 8 Pro, I found that the Nokia 7.2 had a better dynamic range while images from the Note 8 Pro were a little washed out.

Primary Lens - Camera Samples

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Moving on, the wide-angle camera is hit-or-miss. It does manage to produce overall good-looking photos but the colors are a wildly washed out. Similarly, details on the wide-angle shots aren’t good either, with noticeable pixelation starting from the first pinch of zoom. The Note 8 Pro, however, had even worse detail preservation compared to the Nokia 7.2.

Normal vs Wide angle - Camera Samples

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On to the portrait shots, the edge detection on the Nokia 7.2 doesn’t work as well as you’d want to. It would sometimes majorly miss out on the subject’s edges (especially on top), when maximizing the bokeh effect, thus resulting in jarring photos. Putting the portrait from the Nokia 7.2 and Note 8 Pro (with minimal bokeh) side-by-side, we can see that the latter has a slight beautification, while the Nokia 7.2 results in washed-out subjects.

Portrait Lens - Camera Samples

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Coming to the front, we have the 20MP camera inside a teardrop notch which embeds Qual-Pixel binning as well. The selfies are depressingly lacking in color reproduction and look bizarre. They look washed out making you wonder about your natural skin tone. Comparatively, the Note 8 Pro produces better selfies though they feel slightly unnatural and reddish, in regards to the beautification.

Similarly, edge detection on selfie-portraits shares a similar fate to the primary lens counterpart. The edge detection is flawed and like with the regular selfies, the results are washed out. Note 8 Pro’s selfie portraits, on the other hand, are streets ahead than that of the Nokia 7.2, though there’s an unnecessary level of added beautification.

Normal vs Portrait Selfies - Camera Samples

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Moving on to videos, the phone is capable of shooting 4K @ 30fps. The stabilization is pretty good thanks to the gyro-EIS, which only works when shooting videos in 1080p. Color reproduction and audio capture are noteworthy too. However, “focus” is something the phone struggles on in terms of videography.

Nokia has been marketing the Nokia 7.2 for its camera capabilities and to a certain degree, it delivers on the promise. All in all, though it has certain things going for it, the aggregate results are inconsistent.

Performance

Here’s where the compromises begin to critically hurt the Nokia 7.2. I don’t know why, but the company has gone with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 660 (14nm) chipset with Adreno 512 GPU. Mind you, this was released way-way back in Q2 2017. So you be the judge as to whether Nokia made a smart choice with the SoC on the Nokia 7.2 or not.

Comparing the 7.2 with other phones in a similar price range like the Redmi Note 7 Pro and Xiaomi Mi A3 is enough to break your heart. Both competitors come with a newer, more powerful chipset. Though Snapdragon 660 isn’t entirely an incompetent SoC, it should be obvious that the chipset shouldn’t be powering mid-range smartphones in 2019. Let’s just look at the benchmark scores.

Nokia 7.2 Benchmarks

AnTuTu v8: 173,472
- CPU: 75,138; GPU: 36,301; Memory: 35,094; UX: 26,939
Geekbench 5
- Single-Core: 339; Multi-Core: 1,523
- OpenCL: 614
AndroBench
- Sequential Read: 279.0 MB/s
- Sequential Write: 207.42 MB/s
PC Mark
- Work 2.0 (Performance): 6,025
3D Mark
- Sling Shot Extreme – OpenGL ES 3.1: 1,355
- Sling Shot Extreme – Vulkan: 1,299

Oof, those aren’t very impressive for the price.

Don’t get me wrong. Like I said before, it’s a good chip, but not a good choice for the device and it shows. There are no frequent lags like maybe I’m making it out to be but occasionally, it’s observable. I’ve been using the 4/64GB variant (there’s also 6GB RAM and up to 128GB memory configuration available) of the Nokia 7.2 as my secondary device for about a month now.

In my time with the phone, I used it for playing a few games, browsing the web, watching videos on YouTube, and that’s about it. Talking about gaming, I played Call of Duty, PUBG, and Injustice 2 on the phone. I was only able to push CoD‘s Graphics Quality to Medium and the Frame Rate to High. Despite the negligible lags here and there, the overall gameplay was smooth.

Similarly, PUBG set the Graphics to Medium by default on my Nokia 7.2. Here, I could push the Graphics to HD and Frame Rate to High. Turning on Anti-Aliasing and Shadows as well, there were no issues in the gameplay. The phone did get mildly warm, but there was no significant lag.

On the other hand, Injustice 2 ran smooth like butter since it’s comparatively less taxing on the CPU and GPU. The details were fine and I had fun playing Injustice 2 on the phone.

Multi-tasking wasn’t much of a problem either. In fact, I was surprised by Nokia 7.2’s memory management. It was able to keep multiple apps and games in memory and I could fluently switch between them. Let me once again remind you that my review unit had only 4GB of RAM.

Software & UI

Another thing that I really liked about the Nokia 7.2 was the software. Since it’s part of the “Android One” program, you get stock Android here sans any bloatware apps. Also, the program guarantees that the phone will get at least 2 years of system upgrades and up to 3 years of monthly security updates.

If I was in the market for a new smartphone, I’d always look for one with stock Android or something close. I’m an advocate for a clean smartphone experience and the phone didn’t disappoint.

The animations and transitions were fluid, though I occasionally noticed some lags when opening certain apps or games. However, gestures in Android Pie (9.0) haven’t been my cup of tea though I like the new style of navigation in Android 10.

I wish the Nokia 7.2 would get the Android 10 update sooner so that the awful Pie gestures would just go away. This is a subjective thing, and therefore we could agree to disagree on the feasibility of gesture navigation in Android Pie.

Battery & Security

Nokia has managed to pack an ok-ish 3500 mAh AI-assisted Adaptive battery inside the Nokia 7.2. Adding insult to the injury is the fact that it only supports 10W charging despite the chipset being capable of Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 4 technology. Come on man, I was rooting for you! Due to this, the battery performance on the phone isn’t on par with 2019’s standard.

As I mentioned before, Nokia 7.2 was my secondary device. However, the screen usage time would net out to 3-3.5 hours daily on average. It certainly did get me through the day with about 30% battery remaining. Charging speed as you can expect didn’t blow me away. It took me somewhere in the ballpark of 2 hours to juice up the phone from 0 to 100%.

Talking about security, a fingerprint sensor is present on the back below the camera array. It is definitely not the fastest one that I’ve used so there’s that. Also, forget unlocking the phone when your hand is a little sweaty because the sensor wouldn’t recognize my finger at such a situation.

Moreover, the software-based face-unlock is no good either. It’s just too slow! Pair this with the fact that these aren’t much secure, face-unlock isn’t the way to go on the Nokia 7.2. At most times, I’d use the fingerprint scanner and go for the good-old patterns when trouble came knocking.

Extras

Hm, what else does the phone have? Yes, the 3 months’ worth Google One subscription! Valued at dollar ninety-nine a month, you get 100GB of cloud storage across Google’s suite of applications like Photos, Drive, etc.

Conclusion

The Nokia 7.2 is a mixed-bag of a phone. On one hand, the design and the stock Android experience of the device are something you’ll cherish. However, the price-to-performance ratio doesn’t quite add up, especially considering the options in the market. The pricing of the Nokia 7.2, especially in the European region is absolutely atrocious though it has a competitive asking cost in Nepal.

Nokia 7.2 Pros & Cons

Pros:

Stunning design & build
Decent camera performance
Stock Android with guaranteed upgrades
Good audio performance
Good display with decent brightness and HDR10 support

Cons:

The chipset could’ve been better
Small battery & slow charging
Notification LED on the power button is counter-productive
Comparatively slow fingerprint and face-unlock

Huawei Mobile Services launched: Another step towards a Google-less Future?

GadgetByte

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December 25, 2019

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Huawei Mobile Services launched: Another step towards a Google-less Future?

The US trade ban on Huawei was one of the most talked-about sagas in the tech world in 2019. Huawei is now compelled to march towards a Google-less future and in that process, it has taken a new step with the launch of its mobile service dubbed the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS).

Why Huawei Mobile Services?

In a controversial chain of events, Huawei, the second-biggest smartphone brand in the world, was restricted to carry out transactions with US-based companies. We all know that Android is an open-source program. But most of its success is due to Google’s Play Services which is only available through a license from Google. Google, being a US-based company, has scrapped Huawei of its license. Since then Huawei has been putting a lot of effort into developing its ecosystem to overcome the dependency on Google.

The company has released two services – Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) and HMS Core, both in its beta stage in the Chinese market. The Huawei Mobile Services is said to improve performance experience. It also comes with several bug fixes and a handful of new features such as Huawei account, message notification, wallet service, and an internal payment system.

HMS Core

Talking about the HMS Core, it is a small app that is developed in a marketplace model. It will integrate the download and installation of basic HMS services. It is supposed to let developers integrate HMS services into their apps in an efficient manner.

Huawei Mobile Services (HMS)

Huawei also has its ecosystem – Huawei Mobile Services. And it has shown some signs of progress. As per the company, the HMS is now being used by more than a million developers. The HMS core also has more than, 450,000 apps on the platform.

Huawei HMS AppGallery — Huawei AppGallery

A while ago, Huawei did come up with its OS. Though the Hongmeng/Harmony OS is available only in its TV, it is also expected to power Huawei’s smartphones in the near future.

In spite of all the efforts that are being put into it; achieving a google-less future still seems a daunting task – even for someone as big as Huawei. So, the question remains – can Huawei achieve the impossible? We would love to hear your views on it.

MSI Prestige 15 SC Review: An eXcellent XPS alternative!

Pratima Adhikari

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December 24, 2019

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MSI Prestige 15 SC Review: An eXcellent XPS alternative!

Buying a laptop can be tricky; so many things to look out for, so many things to figure out before choosing one. But the fundamental still remains the same, what will you be using it for? For those who game a lot, sheer performance will be all that matters while a slim form factor and an extensive battery life are crucial for content creators and frequent travelers. And today, I have the MSI Prestige 15 SC laptop.

Now, looking at it from the outside, there is nothing very striking about it and looks like your usual Ultrabook. But on the inside, it packs some pretty interesting stuff.

This one here has the latest Intel 6-core i7 10^th Gen processor paired with the GTX 1650 MaxQ graphics. And since this combination is pretty rare for a laptop intended towards content creators, I was very interested to test this guy out. So, let’s get straight into it.

MSI Prestige 15 SC Specifications:

Design & Build: Aluminum Body; 14.05W x 9.20D x 0.63H-inches; 1.6kg
Display: 15.6″ Full-HD IPSmatte panel(1920 x 1080); 95% sRGB, 73% Adobe RGB, 63% NTSC Color Gamut
Keyboard: MSI Keyboard with white backlighting
Processor: Intel Core i7-10710U
RAM: DDR4 16 GB in dual-channel
Graphics: 4 GB GDDR5 NVidia GeForce GTX 1650 MaxQ
Battery: 4-cell 82 Watt-hours
AC Adapter: 90 Watts
Storage: 512GB NVME SSD (with one M.2 SSD slot available too)
Webcam: 720p Web-cam
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 ax Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, Fingerprint scanner
Ports: 2x Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2, 1x HDMI, 1x Audio, 2x Type-A USB 3.2 Gen 2, 1x Micro SD slot
Price in Nepal: Rs. 180,000 ($1,399 international)

Design & Build

As you can see here, the design is top-notch.

MSI Prestige 15 SC - Design

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It has an aluminum body wherein the lid has the classic MSI dragon logo. It’s also thin, light and easy to carry around.

The lid has some flex in it. But then again, you have to compromise a little with a laptop so thin. By the way, it only measures 15.9mm in thickness and has a weight of mere 1.6 kilos. It’s not as feather-light like the Acer Swift but is still portable enough to carry around.

Port selection too is very good for an Ultrabook. On the left, you get two Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports both of which support Thunderbolt 3.0, an HDMI port, and an audio port. On the right, you are greeted with two Type-A USB3.2 Gen2, and surprisingly, a Micro SD card slot too.

MSI Prestige 15 SC Ports

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But since this laptop is intended for the content creators, MSI should have gone with an SD card slot instead.

Charging here is done via the USB C ports for which you get a 90-watt adapter.

Display

Now, about the display, this one has a 15.6 inches FHD IPS matte screen. There is a 4K variant of it too that claims to have 100% RGB, but this one is a slightly toned-down version.

Having said that it is fairly color accurate with 95% SRGB, 73% Adobe RGB and 63% of NTSC Color Gamut coverage. For me, it did a good job on my photoshop and video editing needs. However, I am not keeping aside the fact that the 4K version will give you marginally better color coverage.

I also found the display to be fairly bright. However, it is not that bright to be used outdoors. MSI has included tons of color profiles which you can change from the MSI Creator Center or the MSI True Color app.

The screen also bends 180 degrees which is something I have always wanted on my Dell XPS 15. And what’s cool about this is the fact that you can rotate the display to show content to people sitting right opposite to you.

On the aesthetics side, you get very thin bezels on the screen which kind of makes the laptop look bigger than it is. On the top center of it, you get a 720p webcam whose quality is strictly average, with a subpar microphone.

Similarly, the 2x 2W stereo speaker is also quite average, so it’s not good for listening to music, watching videos, or other stuff.

Keyboard

Below the screen, you get the MSI Keyboard. It is not the steel series one like we’re used to seeing on MSI’s gaming units. The keyboard is very comfortable nonetheless and is very easy to get used to.

I come from the XPS 15 keyboard which is one of the best I have used so far. However, I’ve come to like this too.

This keyboard does have backlighting but only glows in one shade of white. There are three levels of the backlight which you can adjust using the F8 button.

Right below the keyboard, you have the trackpad which I felt is not the best thing about the Prestige 15. On my use, it has been prone to frequent accidental touches while typing, which went on to being frustrating at times. And it is not the most accurate one out there either.

On the top left of it, there is a fingerprint sensor that gives the laptop a very nice touch. So overall, I felt the design of it is quite solid and sturdy.

Performance

Alright, let’s get on to the performance. It’s fired up with Intel’s latest Core i7- 10710U Comet Lake processor.

This is a 6 core-12 threads 10^th gen CPU with 15Watt TDP, although it is configurable up to 25W as well. So, as compared to the 45Watt Intel 9^th gen i7 9750H, this one here is more energy efficient.

You also get 16GB RAM in dual channel and a relatively fast 512GB of NVME SSD. There is also a vacant M.2 Slot, in case you need more storage.

Normal tasks yielded absolutely no problems whatsoever, as one might expect from a laptop of this caliber. The multitasking capabilities were also quite impressive. I had over 15 google tabs opened at once, did some photo editing at the same time and still, the laptop showed no sign of fatigue.

MSI Prestige 15 SC and Dell XPS 15 comparision — MSI Prestige 15 SC & Dell XPS 15

Then I moved on to some heavy tasks like editing videos. The Galaxy A70s video that we recently published; we edited that in this machine. And the editing part was quite fluid as well.

There were some hiccups while using the Adobe After Effects, but Premier Pro had no such issue. The rendering time wasn’t bad at all.

It took around 20 minutes to render the aforementioned video. In comparison, our main editing PC with the Intel i7-9700K processor and RTX 2070 was slightly faster at 17 minutes.

So, yes, this one is capable of light to moderate editing. And also, if you are a graphic designer or a front-end developer, the 10^th gen U-processor will not result in any performance issue.

Gaming

Now, even though this is not a gaming rig, the MSI Prestige 15 does have a fairly powerful Nvidia GTX 1650 MaxQ GPU.

However, when I played games on it, for the optimal performance, I used the High-Performance Mode which you can turn it on using MSI’s Creator Centre. Here, you can choose between High Performance, Balanced, Silent, and Super Battery. You can also create a shortcut key (a macro) for when to activate these modes, based on the task you are doing.

Games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Fry Cry 5, and Apex Legends were playable at around 50fps at max settings, which is not bad at all. I also played Battlefield in medium settings and got around 60fps with no stutters or lag. Midtier games like FIFA 20, CS Go, and Dota 2 works flawlessly at max settings and fps over 120.

Average FPS count of games at max settings:

Shadow of the Tomb Raider: 41
Far Cry 5: 51
Apex Legends: 58
Battlefield: ~60
FIFA 20, CS GO, Dota 2: Over 120

Talking about the thermals, it does run quite hot especially while playing games. It’s hot especially on the top, near the hinge area where the air exhaust lies.

The CPU temperature is also usually over 90 degrees while gaming for over 30 minutes, whereas the GPU is a little bit cooler. However, you can tune the fans to turn it to the max, which by the way, gets very loud! But again, this will also solve the throttling and heating issue.

So, yeah, the Prestige 15 isn’t any gamer’s fantasy laptop. There’s no arguing there. It’s for someone who works all day and takes a break to enjoy some gameplay.

Battery-life on the MSI Prestige 15 is very impressive though, and that’s the perk of having a low powered CPU.

You can get around 9-10 hours of battery life on this FHD version while using it for browsing and watching YouTube videos. For more intensive activities like Photoshop, you will get around 4-5 hours of battery which I think is commendable.

Conclusion

So, here’s my verdict about the MSI Prestige 15: I think it’s a great Ultrabook, especially for a market like Nepal where the Dell XPS 15 and the MacBook Pro 13 costs you a fortune. The Prestige 15 is priced at 1.8 lakhs Nepali Rupee whereas the XPS 15 and MacBook Pro 13 cost well over 2.5 lakhs.

Although the XPS 15 offers you a faster CPU and a better build, the Prestige 15 holds its own ground with a fairly good display, excellent battery life, and an overall good enough performance.

So, if you want to save some money and get a decent XPS 15 alternative, I would recommend the Prestige 15 to the content creators. And also, if you are a Civil engineer or a mechanical engineer who uses AutoCAD or Solid works kind of software and are traveling a lot on-site, this is a very good option.

Sastodeal brings New year’s Cell-A-Bration to start off the New Year

GadgetByte

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December 23, 2019

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Sastodeal brings New year’s Cell-A-Bration to start off the New Year

Lucrative deals and schemes keep emerging in the market from time to time. And with the new year knocking at the door, we can only expect to have more deals to take advantage of. Talking about deals, Sastodeal has partnered with Cellpay to bring “SastoDeal New year’s Cell-A-Bration”. The campaign starts right from December 24 and will last till January 2, 2020.

Under this scheme, one can avail up to 40% discounts on your first purchase order through the e-commerce site. The discounted amount will be deposited as loyal points in your Cellpay’s account. The maximum discount offered is 1000 Loyal Points. What we need to know is one loyal point equivalents to Re. 1 Nepalese Rupees. They will also be providing an extra 10% discount on checkout and free delivery service on a few selected brands. Nothing further has been said about this particular scheme.

Cellpay

In case you are hearing about Cellpay for the first time, it is an e-payment system through which we can pay for our transactions online. In Nepal, the most popular means of paying online is through the available e-wallet system. Cellpay helps you pay directly from the bank without the intervention of any e-wallets. Since the money is going to stay in your bank account you’ll have better control of your money and you can avail advantages that the e-wallets deprive you of. But it isn’t free; you need to pay a nominal amount for the transaction fee depending upon the size of the transaction.

Also read: Samsung Christmas & New Year Offer

Requirements

In order to take advantage of this offer, you need to link your Cellpay account to your bank account. You can download Cellpay’s app from the App Store or the Google Play Store. You can link your bank account by going over to the Manage Account section of the app. For this, you need to have subscribed to mobile banking service and the details you enter must match with the record at Bank. Further details can be found on Cellpay’s website.