2019 seems to be the year of the budget phones. We are seeing a lot of budget-oriented smartphones launch every other day. Lenovo also seems to be getting into the act as the company has just unveiled the Lenovo K6 Enjoy. Like I mentioned before, the phone is meant for as a low budget mid-range smartphone.
Lenovo K6 Enjoy Overview
The Lenovo K6 Enjoy boasts a triple camera setup on the rear. The design on the back looks a lot like a couple of Huawei smartphones. There is a 12-megapixel primary camera aligned with a 5-megapixel depth sensor and an 8-megapixel telephoto lens. There are dual LED lights aided the camera setup as well. The phone has an 8-megapixel selfie shooter that is able to capture Full HD videos just like the rear camera.
Talking about the display, the Lenovo K6 Enjoy sports a 6.22-inch IPS LCD display with HD resolution. It has an aspect ratio of 19:9 and has a waterdrop notch on top of it. Under the hood, the Lenovo K6 Play is powered by the MediaTek Helio P22 chipset. There is 4 GB RAM and PowerVR GE8320 coupling the CPU. The K6 Enjoy runs on Android 9.0 Pie out of the box.
For storage purpose, the Lenovo K6 Enjoy comes in two variants – 64 GB and 128 GB. It does have support for an external memory card but users will have to choose between an extra SIM or the card itself. The device has a 3,300 mAh battery which should last well due to the HD display the phone comes with.
Lenovo K6 Enjoy Specifications
Display: 6.22-inch IPS LCD HD+ display, 19:9 aspect ratio
Battery: 3,300 mAh; Type-C charging port with Fast Charging
Lenovo K6 Enjoy Price and Availability
The Lenovo K6 Enjoy runs for 1,398 Yuan ($208) in the Chinese market. This price applied for its base variant. Lenovo hasn’t talked about the device’s availability and pricing in other countries, though.
We have been hearing quite a lot of the midrange Google Pixel device. And the speculations churned in the rumor mill for a considerate amount of time. Early rumors suggested the name of the upcoming Google’s midrange device to be Google Pixel Lite. However, the device is shaping to release in the form of Google Pixel 3a and Google Pixel 3a XL. And Google’s official website has confirmed the names of these upcoming devices.
A recent listing in Google’s store refueled the speculations. Although the listing is no more available in the store, some of the tech bloggers managed to get the screenshot of the website. Some of the tech bloggers also decoded the possible launch date of the device. Although the month and day of the official launch of the device are yet under the unveil, the handset can possibly make a debut on mid-year. so if the clues are correct, the handset may come all in glory on the month of June or July.
According to the recent leaks, the smaller of the two or the Pixel 3a will come with a 5.6-inch display. And talking about the bigger one, the Pixel 3a XL will sport a 6.0-inch screen. Both of the handsets are said to feature Full-HD+ OLED display in 18:9 and 18.5:9 aspect ratio respectively.
3.5mm headphone jack is seemingly lost in the oblivion in the Pixel books. But this antique piece of tech is supposed to make a comeback on the Pixel 3a and 3a XL. So good news for the audiophiles!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyJwQwSpgWM
Apart from that, the processor used on the device is also coming to the limelight. Rumors suggest that the smaller handset will get the Snapdragon 670 chipset. As far as the bigger or the better one is concerned, the phone will supposedly get the Snapdragon 710. Both of the devices will be getting 4GB of RAM. Since the flagship Pixel devices haven’t crossed the 4GB RAM benchmark, so we cannot even expect more than 4GB RAM on this one.
When Oppo announced its Reno sub-brand and teased the Oppo Reno smartphone with a new type of pop-up camera, everyone was awe-inspired. The handset created even more excitements among the tech enthusiasts when Oppo announced the launch date of the device. The device is slated to launch on 10th of April. Ahead of the launch, Oppo started taking pre-orders for the device. And to lure people into pre-ordering the handset, Oppo also divulged the major specs of the device on the optics front.
The smartphone will come with a triple camera setup at the back. The first and most important one of the bunch would be the telephoto camera. In MWC 2019 event, Oppo showcased the periscope style lens with a capability to capture images with 10x lossless optical zooming. And that would be the major highlight in the upcoming Oppo Reno smartphone. We recently saw Huawei pushing its optical zooming capabilities up to 5x in the Huawei P30 Pro. The feature got everyone flabbergasted. So it would be even interesting to see Oppo doing its part in that respect. Oppo is said to use a 13MP sensor for this lens.
The phone will embrace 48MP Sony IMX 586 sensor as the primary snapper. With a ton of pixels in the sensor, we can expect some sharp details of the subject in the images. Lastly, there will be an ultra-wide-angle lens, which will come aboard with an 8MP sensor. The ultra-wide-angle shooter in this device will reportedly encompass the 120-degree field of view into the images.
Apart from that, the pre-order listing has also revealed the memory variants of the device. As far as the listing goes, the phone will come in three memory configurations: 6GB/128GB, 6GB/256GB, and 8GB/256GB. Even on the processor side, Oppo has made segregation. One of the devices will come with flagship Snapdragon 855 chipset, whereas the inexpensive one will flaunt Snapdragon 710. The listing also cues three color variants of the device: Black, Blue, and Green.
Oppo has still kept some of the specs under the veil to announce it in a full-fledged way in the launch event. However, Oppo revealed that the phone would come with an AMOLED panel with the 93.1-percent screen-to-body ratio on the display front. The phone will also get Android Pie out of the box. And needless say, there will be Oppo’s ColorOS 6.0 on the top.
The selfie expert is yet to flash the nitty-gritty details of the phone. However, the company boldly assured that the Oppo Reno 10X Zoom Edition smartphone will get the dual-frequency GPS. If that’s true then the handset will be amazingly accurate when it comes to the GPS tracking.
When it comes to portable speakers, there are highly portable speakers like the JBL Clip 3, and ones like these as well – Charge 4. JBL’s Charge lineup is the one that has a built-in power-bank inside it. And that does come in handy sometimes. But what else does this speaker pack besides that? Let’s find out in this JBL Charge 4 Review.
Controls: Activate Bluetooth, power on/off, volume
Battery: Rechargeable
Recharge Time: 5.5 hours
Battery Backup (Up To): 20 hours
Protection: Waterproof (IPX7 certified)
Speaker Channel Type: Mono
Amplification Type: Active
Transmission Range: 9 meters
Intelligent Assistant Compatible: Google Assistant, Siri
Hands-Free Function: Yes
Amplification Type: Active
Audio Amplifier: Integrated
Dimensions: 22 x 9.5 x 9.3 cm
Weight: 960 grams
Color Options: Desert Sand, Mustard Yellow, Dusty Pink, Grey Stone, River Teal, Fiesta Red, Ocean Blue, Midnight Black, Steel White, and Forest Green
Price: Rs. 19,500
Design
As it is with most of JBL speakers, the design and form factor tend not to change all that much. It is the same as the JBL Charge 3. But this one is slightly bigger than its predecessor. And so, its slightly heavier as well. At some 950 grams, portability takes a major hit! Well, it is portable, just not something you’d want to carry around all day long.
As for the looks, it is kind of cylindrical with side-firing passive radiators. The whole of the speaker is wrapped in a cloth and metallic grille. But it seems it’s easily scratch-able. It rests on a raised rubber-pad surface to avoid rolling around. There’s also a flap with the “Charge 4” written on it, that houses a 3.5mm headphone jack, a USB-C port for charging it, and a USB-A port for you to charge your phone with.
The top houses the control panel with the Power button, Bluetooth button, Volume buttons, Play / Pause button, and a JBL Connect+ button. The play/pause button can also skip a track when pressed twice on your phone. And the JBL Connect+ can allow you to link other JBL wireless speakers to play the same audio.
This speaker is also IPX7 rated for water and dust resistance. You can submerge it up to 1 meter for about 30 minutes, so, perfect for pool parties and such and even rain-festivals.
Sound Quality
Hmmm…about the sound quality, I am not really sure what to make of it. I mean the sound quality is good enough, but there is just too much bass. The first thing you’ll notice is how loud the speaker can get. It’s really really loud even for something with a mono audio output.
That’s right. Even there is space enough for dual drivers, there’s only one that outputs 30 Watts of audio. However, you can’t really tell the difference until you get really close to it.
I wouldn’t advise listening to songs on the highest of volumes because that can really set you off. It’s loud as it is, even in normal volumes. But that kind of makes it perfect for house parties too, so, depends on your needs as well.
As I already said, this thing packs a lot of bass. So, if you want something with bass, then, this one could be the right choice. The bass in this one actually subdues other aspects of the audio, so, I couldn’t really get the exact highs and lows on tracks.
It can handle instrumentals really well, but the problem lies in the vocals. The passive bass radiators add to the already high bass, or maybe they make the bass high, but the end result is it subdues the vocals, so, understanding lyrics of some of your songs could be a bit difficult. So, it’s not really for those lyrical ones. It’s mostly suited for instrumentals.
Now, for me, I test all speakers with “Bohemian Rhapsody”. It kind of happens to be my favorite song as well. And in that song, the speaker does great on the instrumental part. The audio is clear and it is also on the brighter side, but as soon as the Freddie starts singing, his vocals seem to get drowned by the drum sounds.
This thing has also got the head-room, i.e. the ratio of distortion to the volume is also pretty balanced. That is, even at high volumes, there is no distortion, but then again, you can’t listen to it at high volumes.
So, this speaker can almost handle all kinds of music including metal – it’s just that the bass is overpowered, and that can put many people off.
Connectivity and Battery
The JBL Charge 4 comes with Bluetooth 4.2, so, you get the standard 30 feet connection. But as usual, connecting it is very easy. Just pair it once, and then, it connects to your device automatically.
As for the latency, you will notice a very slight amount of it. It will not even be noticeable while watching music videos, but watching movies can show you slightest delays of like 0.3 seconds or so. And that, I guess, is normal.
There’s also the JBL Connect+, which I already mentioned. You can connect quite a few JBL speakers compatible with this feature, so, for larger parties, this can work as well.
As for the battery, this speaker packs a giant 7800 mAh battery, which claims about 20 hours of battery life. Now, that is the same amount of battery life as the Charge 3. And you can’t quite get full 20 hours, but only up to like 17 hours on medium volumes and something like 13 on high. Of course, that can mean like 4-5 days of battery for a normal user. And it takes like 4 hours to fully charge. There’s also LED indicators to show you the battery levels, which is good.
And yes, the charge 4 can charge your other phones or earphones as well, and the charging speed seems okay too. Charging my Galaxy S10e on it and the regular way showed me, more or less, similar charging times.
Conclusion
Okay, now I feel like that the JBL Charge 4 is a good speaker, but I think the price is asking a bit too much. A $150 price tag or about Rs.19500 in Nepal is enough for me to put it aside. Honestly, I would never invest that much money on a portable speaker. I’d rather buy those larger home speakers or woofers for this kind of money.
But hey, that’s just me. Because if you have got the money, and want a portable speaker for pool parties or house get-togethers, then, this can be a great option. And this one particularly feels like it’s meant to be used at parties, and not like, when you’re alone or something. Because this one is pretty loud to be used in your own room.
Plus, the battery seems to last like forever. I didn’t have to charge it for like a week in my usage terms.
The only problem lies with the price here. For me, it just doesn’t provide that value for money we all look for. Plus, you do get a lot of deals on last gen Charge 3 which is more similar to this one.
If an alleged stolen part of the iPhone XI (iPhone 11) is to be believed, the iPhone XI could feature triple cameras on the back. At a time when most of the flagship phones like the Samsung Galaxy S10 and the Huawei P30 Pro already feature three lenses on the rear, the iPhone XI looks set for the same path as well.
An image of the part was posted on Weibo, a Chinese social media site. The image showcases a metallic part which has a lot of suggestions that it is from an iPhone. There is a square cutout on the top corner of the phone, and a large hole on the middle, which should be for the adding in the wireless charging coil. According to the image, the part was stolen from Foxconn which is Apple’s manufacturing company. The chassis also has a hole for an LED light.
According to rumors, Apple will supposedly add the two way wireless charging feature. Samsung and Huawei have already added the feature on their smartphones. Samsung has the Power Share feature while the Huawei P30 Pro has the Reverse Wireless Charging feature.
Now there aren’t any information about what the lenses might represent. Apple might go for a wide-angle lens just like its competitors or add the third lens for Augmented Reality feature.
As for the battery, the iPhone XS and XS Max’s successors might have 20 to 25% and 10 to 15% larger batteries on the respective smartphones. And considering the fact that the Apple Airpods 2 still have Lightning connector rather than a USB-C connection.
Apple will unveil its 2019 flagship series in around five months. They have a huge task of making Apple’s smartphone shine at a time when even the best of brands are having a hard time selling their devices. Also, they need to do a huge design overhaul as phones from Samsung and Huawei are nailing it in the design front.
AMD is on fire here!! With their upcoming Navi GPU and 3000 series processors. Both the lineups are based on a 7nm process, which is also a major part of their growing interest. Lisa Su, AMD’s chief executive officer will be on stage revealing both of these products on May 27, at the Computex 2019.
“I am honored to deliver the opening keynote this year and provide new details about the next generation of high-performance AMD platforms and products.”
-Lisa SU
Both the Navi GPUs and 3000 series CPUs are meant for us consumers. But AMD isn’t stopping there, set to unveil the enterprise-focused 7nm Epyc CPUs aimed at servers and data centers. This means that AMD is about to cover all the bases, including consumer CPUs, GPUs and enterprise CPUs.
The 3rd generation or the 3000 series Ryzen CPUs will be based on the new Zen 2 architecture. The first generation of Zen architecture has already established AMD’s presence in the desktop PC platform. Following that, the Zen 2 architecture is only going to further increase their dominance.
With the increasing adoption, AMD is expected to see its share significantly increase in the notebook market
– DigiTimes
With promises to boost the Instruction Per Cycle, clock speeds and core count, we are looking at huge improvements over its predecessors. Furthermore, with Intel’s CPU shortage problems, OEMs are even more heading over to AMD based CPUs for their portable gaming devices. This will only be upping AMD’s adoption rate even further.
The new platform will need new chipsets, and their new x570 motherboard is here to do just that. According to DigiTimes, shipment for the 500 series motherboards should rise thanks to their “strong price to performance ratio”. It will also be the first platform in the whole industry to support PCIe Gen 4 technology.
Navi (What the Radeon VII should have been)
While their CPUs has received a fair share of success, their GPU business hasn’t received a similar reception. But their upcoming Navi architecture is here to change that. We do not exactly know much about the GPU, but we are expecting to see it bring a host of improvements over it’s Vega architecture.
Will the consumers’ response well to Navi? We will have to wait until the second half of 2019 for all the details.
Since the announcement of Redmi Note 7 in China, all the Nepalese tech enthusiasts were eager to see the smartphone make a debut in Nepal. And MI Nepal finally made everyone’s dream come true. Now the Redmi Note 7 is available for purchase in Nepal. That’s not all, MI Nepal also launched the budget-oriented Redmi 7. With these new phones on the smartphone bazaar, we can expect some tussles in the budget and mid-range smartphone territory.
Redmi 7 Overview:
Usually, budget phones come with cheap design and their mediocrity are conspicuous on the first glance. But polarizing itself from the rest of the crowd, Redmi 7 comes with a premium design for the price. The handset comes with a plastic back, which looks quite premium for the price it’s asking. On the top, the back of the device comes with a gradient color tone. So despite being a budget-oriented device, the handset offers an excellent look and feel.
On the display side, the Redmi 7 comes with a 6.26-inch IPS panel. The screen on the handset features HD+ resolution, which is usually a norm for the budget devices. On top of the display lies a tiny notch, which gives the device a trendy outlook.
Talking about the performance, the phone enjoys Snapdragon 632 chipset aided with either 2GB or 3GB of RAM. In terms of storage, users can get an option to choose between 16GB and 32GB variants. There is also a dedicated SD card slot for the people, who plan to extend the storable memory on the phone.
On the optics front, the phone enjoys 12MP + 2MP setup at the back. And with two rear cameras at its helm, this budget device can also capture the portrait images. There is an 8MP front camera dedicated for the selfies. When it comes to the software, the phone boots on latest Android Pie out of the box. As far as the battery is concerned, a sizable 4000mAh battery promises a prolonged endurance.
Redmi 7 Specifications:
Display: 6.26-inch IPS display with Gorilla Glass 5 Protection
Resolution: HD+ (720 x 1520 pixels); 19:9 aspect ratio @ 269PPI
Battery: 4000mAh with 10W charging; Uses Micro USB 2.0 port
Colors: Black, Blue, Red
Price: Rs. 14,999 (2/16GB) | Rs. 16,999 (3/32GB)
Redmi Note 7 Overview:
Design wise, the Redmi 7 and Redmi Note 7 are barely distinguishable. Both of them get the Glass material on the front and on the back. And to ensure the safety of the front and the rear panel, a tough Gorilla Glass 5 has also been provided on the top.
In terms of display, the Note 7 is equipped with a 6.3-inch IPS panel. And the screen here is enriched with Full-HD+ resolution. So, at a pixel density of 409PPI, the contents on the screen look sufficiently sharp. The display on the device also has a tiny water-drop style cutout on the top. Since the cutout is very small, it doesn’t bother much while viewing the contents.
Performance has always been a strong suit of Redmi devices. And it’s no exception here. The handset flaunts a capable Snapdragon 660 chipset. And paired that with 3GB/4GB of RAM, even the high-end games like PUBG and Asphalt 9 are playable at decent frame rates.
But the major highlight of the device is its camera. The phone boasts a 48MP Samsung’s ISO cell GM1 sensor. With such a high-res sensor on the board, the handset can pull in some extra amount of light and some extra amount of details in the images. So we can expect the images from the device to be bright and sharp. However, the handset is capable of capturing 12MP images (unless you go into the Pro mode). The phone does 4-in-1 pixel binningto merge the pixel and to output a sharp photograph. When it comes to the front camera, a 13MP selfie snapper comes into action on capturing selfies, unlocking the device via Face unlock feature and while video calling.
The phone is powered by Android 9 Pie and flavored by MIUI 10 on the top. The battery on the device is 4000mAh, which also comes with the 18W fast charging support. Also, the charging port here is a USB Type-C port and the handset is the first Redmi device to come with this feature.
Samsung showed its audacity by bringing hole punch display on the flagship S10 series devices. Although the small punch-hole cutout on the display is less obtrusive, Samsung doesn’t have plans to stick to that display design for a longer time. Samsung is planning to go all out to bring all-screen display (or “New Infinity Display” in their language) in the future. For that, Samsung is working on the in-display selfie camera, which, however, may not come into commercial production for a year or two. So for the time being, Samsung plans to implement a sliding camera setup to get rid of the nuisance caused by notches, punch holes, and ugly bezels. And it’s coming into reality sooner than expected. A video recently appeared on the internet, which showed Samsung Galaxy A90 (allegedly) featuring sliding and rotating cameras.
Source: WaqarKhanHD
Ice Universe (@UniverseIce), quite a renowned expert to know about the feature and design of the unreleased Samsung phones recently retweeted a post. The post contains the alleged Samsung Galaxy A90 2019’s video. And the tweet bore the caption “Almost completely correct”. The original video tweet was from Waqar Khan (@WaqarKhanHD), who posted the video with a special hashtag #NotAprilFoolsJoke. Although we haven’t heard any sorts of leaks or unannounced products, the video looks promising. And it thoroughly matches with all the previous leaks and rumors about the Galaxy A90. Furthermore, the caption from the Ice Universe has also fueled the speculation.
The handset encompasses a slider mechanism on the back, which houses a dual camera setup. The cameras are aligned in a horizontal configuration with an LED flash in between. When the slider goes up, this dual camera is rotatable. So when capturing the selfies, it can be rotated towards the front and normally can be switched to the back. Since the handset has two movable parts (slider and rotatable cameras), the durability of the device could a concern if the device comes into life. Vivo V15 Pro guarantees 300,000 pops. And if Samsung gives us similar numbers in the launch event, it will see many smiling faces.
In the video, when the slider was pulled down, the cameras were always facing backward. So it’s not clear if we can shut the slider with the cameras facing forward. If that’s possible, the camera could be protected from the dust and scratches.
The video was centered on portraying Samsung Galaxy A90’s sliding and rotatable cameras. There was no mention of other features of the device. Earlier rumors suggested that the phone will have three cameras at the back. A 48MP, f/2.0 main camera, 8MP, f/2.4 ultra-wide-angle camera, and a ToF lens. So was the Ice Universe’s caption implying the lack of the third lens? Well, we may have to wait for the launch of the device. And the device will be officially unveiled on the 10th of April.
Honor Play 8A, or simply Honor 8A, is a budget-oriented device by Honor. It is basically targeted towards first-time users who are looking for a good looking phone with better entertainment options. But since the Honor 9A is already on works should you pay the price for Honor 8A?
Honor 8A Overview:
Going by the specs, the Honor Play 8A is a typical budget phone. It comes with a plastic back and the rear panel houses a single camera. The rear camera on this device comes with 13MP resolution. On the front lies an 8MP selfie shooter, which dwells on the small cutout in the display. And talking about the display here, the phone enjoys a 6.09-inch IPS screen, which comes with HD+ resolution.
The phone is powered by Helio P35 chipset with 2GB of RAM at its disposal. On the storage side, there is 32GB of onboard memory. The phone also has a dedicated SD card slot for easy expansion of the system memory.
When it comes to the software, the phone boots on Android Pie (v9.0) out of the box with EMUI 9 on the top. The battery on this device has a 3020mAh battery, which should provide a decent backup for the internals used.
1 of 2
Gold
Blue
Considering it as a budget phone, the Honor Play 8A packs decent internals for on most of the aspects. However, the phone conspicuously lacks a fingerprint scanner. Since most of the budget smartphones these days come with fingerprint scanners, the absence of that feature here is an absolute bummer. Nonetheless, you can use the in-built face unlock feature to unlock the device.
Honor Play 8A specifications:
Display: 6.09-inch LCD display
Resolution: HD+ (720 x 1560 pixels), 19.5:9 aspect ratio @ 281PPI
The price of Honor Play 8A in Nepal is Rs 15,590 and it is available through select offline and online retail shops in Nepal.
Model Name
Price in Nepal
Honor 8A
Rs 15,590
If you are looking for the same design and entertainment at a cheaper price, you can go with Honor 8A Lite. If you want to look for something with more value for money, Redmi 8 is the way to go.
It won’t be a surprise when you see a tangled nest of wires in the corner of a table. Untangling your charging cable to charge your smartphone from such nested loops of the wires is frustrating at times. And to solve this very issue, smartphone manufacturers are striving to make their handsets compatible with the wireless charging. But has it been effective on the run? How has this technology evolved over the years? And is wireless really the future? Let’s discuss on it.
The Past
Before I dive straight into the concept of wireless electricity, let me explain how the electricity actually evolved. It all began when Michael Faraday, also known as the father of electricity discovered the underlying principles of electromagnetic induction. He stated that in the presence of alternating or the changing magnetic field, an electromagnetic force is produced across an electric conductor. We generally understand the electromotive force as a voltage, which drives current in any circuit. Since the technology is still used to generate electric power even to this day, you can easily guess what a breakthrough discovery it was at that time. No doubt, it really changed the fate of science forever.
Although Faraday did experimental verification of this breakthrough discovery, he couldn’t quite establish the relationship between electricity and magnetism in terms of mathematical expression. But James C Maxwell, an apprentice of Faraday, later developed a mathematical relationship between electricity and magnetism. The scientist also discovered Light as an electromagnetic wave.
Thomas Alba Edition was also a big hero at that time. He discovered the incandescent light and also constructed the first ever electric powerhouse, which produced 30KW of DC power back then. But at the same time as the Edition, there was another ingenious scientist named Nicholas Tesla, who invented AC or the alternating current and saw quite a lot of potential on it. And in the late 1800s, Tesla used the idea to demonstrate the concept of resonant inductive coupling by lighting an incandescent lamp wirelessly.
Wireless Bulbs
The invention was visionary and way ahead of its time. However, scientists used the concept just for the innovation and development of motors and transformers, which was still a big thing by the way. The major obstacle for the development of wireless technology back then was the size constraints of the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) design.
But in the 1990s and early 2000s, the technology advanced quite a bit and wireless technology slowly started to take shape. The early implementations were on the consumer electronics devices. You might’ve heard about the Oral-B rechargeable toothbrushes. Well, Oral-B rechargeable toothbrushes are one of the first devices to charge under Wireless charging mechanism.
But it took a while for the technology to be implemented on smartphones. Back in the CES 2009, Palm Inc. announced its Pre smartphone with an optional inductive charger accessory, which carried the company’s proprietary name “Touchstone”. That’s surprising, right? When Apple’s iPhones and Samsung’s Galaxies take almost all the titles for innovations, the entry of a new smartphone brand with such a compelling feature was definitely awe-inspiring.
[You can watch from 47:45 onwards to know about its wireless charging feature]
But that’s not all. The inductive wireless charging technology on the device was also integrated with the software. So when a user gets an incoming call, his Palm Pre phone charging wirelessly, he can simply pick the phone up from the Touchstone to answer the call automatically. And pressing the answer button with the phone on the Touchstone used to answer the call in a hands-free mode. So, needless to mention, it was an awe-inspiring innovation. And even to this day, the smartphone is still remembered as the handset with the technology ahead of its time. But due to some pitfalls, the smartphone didn’t receive all the attention it deserved.
Since the wireless charging technology was starting to take pace, different charging standards were introduced. You might have heard about the PMA (Power Matter Alliance) and the Qi Standard. Each standard has its own set of operating systems. They also use different transmission frequencies and connection protocols. So a device compatible with one standard may not be compatible with the other standard.
In the case of PMA and Qi, the operating mechanism is vastly similar. Both of them are based on inductive charging mechanism in which electrical energy transfers from charging pad to the charging device using an electromagnetic field. However, the major difference lies in the wavelength used. Qi works on a 100 – 205 kHz band whereas the PMA makes use of the 277 – 357 kHz band. That’s the reason why one standard doesn’t work with another.
With that little info, let’s continue with the evolution of wireless charging.
After Palm, Nokia joined the party. Nokia launched the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 smartphones in September 2012, which had integrated inductive charging and inductive charging feature with an accessory back respectively. Those smartphones were based on the Qi standard of wireless charging. It was quickly followed by Google. In October of 2012, Google, in collaboration with LG launched the Nexus 4, which was also based on the Qi standard. After that, a lot of companies followed the bandwagon and the Qi standard gained quite a momentum. Motorola, HTC, Samsung, and lately Apple also included wireless charging feature all based on the Qi standard. That’s one of the reasons why Qi standard is so popular these days.
But PMA standard was left far behind. Although some companies favored the PMA standard slightly by including the dual standard, the PMA standard couldn’t make any significant progress in the long run. Samsung and Blackberry had included Dual standard of wireless charging in their flagship devices in 2015. It means that the Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 Edge and the Blackberry Priv used to charge wireless both through the PMA and Qi chargers. But PMA these days is nowhere to be heard.
How does Wireless Charging work?
With this history, you might have gained insight into the evolution of the wireless charging. But how does a wireless charging takes place? You might be wondering about that too! Keep calm; I am going to answer that too.
In the wireless power transfer mechanism, again the Faraday’s law of electromagnetic induction comes into play. And it inherently requires two conducting units: one the transmitting device and the other receiving device. The transmitting device features a power input port, a PCB board with an Oscillator circuit, and a Transmission Coil with the tightly wound copper element. When the transmitting device is connected to the power supply, it draws electric power from the power source and drives the transmitter coil. The transmitter coil operates at a high frequency and the oscillator circuit helps it to achieve that. So when the transmitter coil gets triggered, it creates high frequency alternating magnetic field.
Transmitting Mechanism
And when the receiving device is nearby, the magnetic flux produced by the transmitter coil is cut by the conductor of the receiver coil. This leads to the production of an electromotive force or the voltage in the receiver coil. And as I mentioned earlier, it happens all due to the Faraday’s law.
Receiving Mechanism
The voltage, however, will have a very high frequency and cannot be used directly to charge our phone or any other devices. Charging the battery in any electronic devices requires a direct current. So this high-frequency AC power is not useful for direct use. To make it useful, the receiving device is equipped with the circuitry to convert the AC quantity into DC and filter circuit to suppress the unwanted harmonics. This is the basic principle of the wireless charging also known the Inductive charging mechanism. There have also been quite researches and developments on the wireless charging through Infrared, Microwave, UltraSound, and laser beams. However, those concepts haven’t come into mainstream use as of now.
The Present
So where are we? Although there haven’t yet seen the major breakthrough yet, there surely have been some progress. In different countries, charging stations have been established to charge electric vehicles wirelessly. And in the smartphone technology, Huaweibrought the reverse wireless charging feature through which receiving and sharing the power has been much easier and convenient. The feature also made debut in the recently launched Samsung Galaxy S10 devices. So we might be able to see this feature in other devices too.
Advantages of Wireless Charging
Why so many companies are tussling to provide the wireless charging feature? You might be curious about that. With the wireless charging, the charging cables don’t wear out very fast, which is a prominent case in the wired charging. Also, it’s really easy and convenient to charge the device, just keeping the device on the charging pad starts to refill the battery. And since there is no cable or conductor directly involved, there are fewer chances of shocks and electrical hazards.
Disadvantages of Wireless Charging
But after everything you know, you might be wondering why the progress is happening at such a slow pace. And why other major tech companies haven’t shifted into the wireless ecosystem? Well, the major constraint has been the distance. The electronic devices only charge when they are placed right on the top of the charging pad. It also needs to be placed perfectly parallel on the charging pad. And this can be frustrating at times.
Since the device always has to be placed on or nearby the charging pad, it can barely be used while charging. This is one of the major cause of why the users mostly choose to charge their devices through wired means.
Another reason is efficiency. Wireless charging takes places at a very slow rate compared to the conventional wired charging. And since the ultrafast charging technology like Oppo’s Super VOOC and Huawei’s Super Charge technology is evolving, the slow charging speed in the wireless mechanism is not as enticing.
Also, the inefficient charging mechanism produces a considerate amount of heat, which also affects the battery life in the long run. Plus there is the compatibility issue. There is a fair number of charging standards like Qi, Rezence, and PMA. A device is usually compatible with only one charging standard. And since this kind of chargers hasn’t been mainstream like the Micro USB and USB Type-C chargers, people usually prefer using the wired means of charging when they are outside the home or when traveling.
Where are we heading?
Wireless charging looks very tantalizing. You don’t even have to connect your device to the wall charger and it starts juicing up. How cool is that? And the progress made through ultrasound, Infrared, and through laser technology has left the tech community awe-inspired.
However, in a study conducted by Wireless Power Consortium, the creator of Qi standard, they found that Qi standard has the efficiency of wireless charging to be 59.4% whereas their arch rival Rezence has an efficiency of 39.6%. And these statistics is absolutely repelling. It also begs a question. At the time, when the world is going through the energy crisis, is wireless charging really that essential?
Statistics have shown that there were over 4.5 billion people using the mobiles in 2018. And the number is only growing. Also, there are more devices to consider like electric vehicles and other consumer electronics devices. What would happen if all these devices start charging through the wireless means? Well, electricity generation has to be doubled for compensation.
So maybe, just maybe, should we have to wait for the right time to switch to the wireless ecosystem? When the power transfer process is efficient and the charging speed is fast? I guess it would be better if we see an ultrafast and efficient wired charging technology and more efficient batteries for the time being. What do you think? Do let us know in the comments.
