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Huawei Mate 20 pro Review: The Innovator of 2018

GadgetByte

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January 4, 2019

Huawei Mate 20 pro Review: The Innovator of 2018

The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is probably one of the most talked about smartphones from this year. It has won the hearts of lots of reviewers, and it even won that blind smartphone camera test from MKBHD. And at a time where each smartphone has to win the innovation game to be in the race, the Mate 20 pro definitely stands out in the crowd.

The Huawei Mate 20 pro is an absolute beast of a device and if you are thinking of getting it, you should. To tell you why this article will give you not just 6 but 7 major aspects that make this device a worthy purchase.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Specifications

Display: 6.39-inch AMOLED display, Gorilla Glass protection
Resolution: Full-HD+ (1440× 3120 pixels), 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 538 PPI
OS: Android 9.0 (Pie) with EMUI 9.0 on the top
Chipset: Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 980, 7nm mobile platform
CPU: Octa-core (2×2.6 GHz Cortex-A76 & 2×1.92 GHz Cortex-A76 & 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A55)
GPU: Mali G76 MP10
RAM: 6GB
Storage: 128GB; Nano memory (NM) card slot for memory expansion (Uses SIM2 slot)
Rear Camera: Triple camera – (40 MP, f/1.8, 27mm (wide), 1/1.7″, PDAF/Laser AF) + (20 MP, f/2.2, 16mm (ultrawide), 1/2.7″, PDAF/Laser AF 8 MP, f/2.4, 80mm (telephoto), 1/4″, 5x optical zoom, OIS, PDAF/Laser AF), Leica Optics, Dual-LED flash
Front Camera: 24 MP, f/2.0
Sensors: Face ID, Fingerprint (under display), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, barometer, compass
Connectivity: Dual SIM (Nano SIM + Nano SIM/NM), Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5, GPS + GLONASS, USB Type-C, No 3.5mm headphone jack
Battery: 4200mAh with Supercharge technology (40W fast charging), Supports Wireless Fast charging (15watts) and reverse wireless charging
Colors: Emerald Green, Midnight Blue, Twilight, Pink Gold, Black
Latest Price: Rs. 1,29,900

Design

The first aspect I will talk about is the design. Well, looking at the phone, at first sight, you definitely get some good reactions. The green version of the Mate 20 Pro has this pattern design on the back, that sets itself apart from the rest of the traditional glass backs. The new design looks great and once you run your nails through it, you kind of want to do it again and again. But, if asked, one should definitely go for the Green version because it looks way more appealing than the regular Black version. Plus you get textured back with the Green one.

But this back is somewhat a negative aspect of this device as well because the glass back is very slippery. And although it looks very premium, you will have to be extra careful whenever using it. One piece of advice, if you are using this device, cover it with a case at all times. Plus that will also help get rid of the fingerprints that cover up the back.

The power button here comes in a different color, so that’s a neat touch. And even with the large size, the buttons are placed in an ergonomic fashion. There is a metallic bracket on the middle, just like most of the glass-built phones.

Also read: Huawei Mobiles Price in Nepal

Display

Let’s talk about the display now. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro comes with a 6.4-inch display with a notch on the top. Even though the Mate 20 features the waterdrop notch, this one here has this wide notch which houses Face Recognition sensor. There is a little bit of a chin on the bottom, and the talking points about this display are the curves on the left and right which are not as immersive as other curved phones.

But it’s the same display that shines brightly here. This is probably the second best display on any Android smartphone right now, after the Galaxy Note 9. You should actually hold the phone on your hand to know its quality.

The AMOLED panel helps with the WQHD+ display to result in a crisp one that is well saturated and quite vibrant. It gets bright, without any obstruction under direct sunlight. Now in the previous years, one would probably say that phones other than Samsung’s had a lot to do in terms of display, but this time, it’s actually great. There is nothing to complain about. And the viewing angle is great too like you would want on a flagship phone. The device also lets you toggle its resolution. So, just like in some of the Samsung devices, the Mate 20 Pro has an option to change the resolution. This definitely helps with preserving battery. However, unlike Samsung, the display only shows the time, date and battery percentage with the Always-on-display toggled, there is no support for 3^rd party app notifications with the feature.

Performance

Now let’s talk about the aspect which can actually make or break a smartphone, the performance! The Mate 20 Pro is among the couple of smartphones that features a 7nm chipset. The Kirin 980 is a direct competitor to the Snapdragon 845. And what a great work Huawei has done with this CPU. There are fast phones, and then there are the faster ones. Well, Huawei’s new device lies among the top ones on that list, as I have had absolutely no issues whatsoever with the phone. I am using the Galaxy Note 9 as my primary device, and reviewing the Mate 20 Pro, well I think they are neck-to-neck. Both the phones have served me well without lagging behind or stuttering.

While playing games too, the graphical side of things links well with the CPU to provide users with the best result possible. Games like PubG has been a great experience. Now there was this issue I faced at first. I could not play PubG on High Definition and HDR setting, which is weird for a phone that comes in a hefty price tag. But after a couple of updates, there have been no problems.

The A12 Bionic chipset from Apple is the fastest, but the Mate 20 Pro with its Kirin 980 is not so far behind. Check out the scores from some of the benchmark tests I conducted on the phone.

Software and UI

On to the software now, the Mate 20 Pro runs on Huawei’s very own EMUI on top of Android Pie. We have been praising Huawei for bettering their software over the years, but it’s high time Huawei starts thinking about the future of EMUI. There are still unwanted apps on the device that are forced on to the user. If a user really wants these apps, they will download it. Yes, there is ample RAM and the chipset is fast, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Huawei can push unwanted applications to its users.

Also, its UI is still reminiscent of iOS, and the settings app clearly tells the tale here. And even with the customizations in place, Huawei really needs to work on its software, if it really wants its phones to shine brighter than the rest. But there is still a silver lining, some of these customizations here, like the knuckle gesture to capture screenshots, come in really handy.

Camera

The Huawei P20 Pro was the first smartphones with triple lenses. Fast forward to the present, there are lots of smartphones with 3 cameras, and the Mate 20 Pro is an addition to that list. However, the cameras that are on this device serve a different purpose than the ones on the P20 Pro.

For starters, there is an ultra-wide camera instead of a monochrome sensor, and wow doesn’t this really work.

Even when the subject is closer, the camera can really work its way to bring out the widest view possible. You will definitely need a good DSLR camera with a wide lens just to capture something like this, and here is the mate 20 pro doing it with its Leica branded lenses. This feature comes in handy when you have a lot to capture in a small space. Check out some wide angle samples below:

Huawei-Mate-20-pro-wide-angle-camera-samples

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The wide-angle mode is displayed as 0.6x while the phone can get up to 5x hybrid zoom. And going through the 0.6x to 3x to 5x, there is no significant loss in quality. So, that’s a plus.

Huawei Mate 20 pro Normal vs Wide angle samples

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Then there are normal samples with the best of image quality. The pictures come out having a mixture of a good amount of saturation and colors. They are sharp and are really pleasing to the eye.

Huawei Mate 20 pro normal camera samples

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Huawei smartphones are known for overexposing images at times, and while the Mate 20 Pro has really improved on this aspect, there are times where the pictures are slightly overexposed. The color tone is correctly done, though, as it is natural, and the dynamic range is great! The shadow details and highlight details are well pronounced on the pictures. HDR also helps to cut down on the exposure at times to help shoot a better “colored” photo.

Talking about the portraits, well, I think Huawei should be doing better work here. The pictures with the portrait mode, images came out with an unnatural cut. It, however, does a good job by identifying all the faces on the picture. But if the depth of field is taken into account, some pictures come out with a good surrounding depth even when you don’t tap on the pictures for focus.

Huawei Mate 20 pro camera samples Portrait images

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In terms of night time, the Mate 20 Pro does exceptional work in capturing the best of photos. There is ample saturation, details on the pictures, and the contrast and color tone are very natural. You will certainly love taking a stroll with the Mate 20 Pro during night time too.

Huawei-mate-20-pro-night-time-camera-samples

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There is also a Night Mode on this phone, and while that might sound impressive, the feature has some conditions applied. While the Pixel 3 actually changes night into day with its Nightscape, the Mate 20 Pro’s Night mode only works when there are slight hints of light on the subject. However, when there is no light focusing on the subject, the picture is just dark.

On the front lies a 24MP camera for taking selfies. One thing the Mate 20 Pro has in common with its Samsung compatriots is the selfie. Samsung still has a lot to do with the selfies on its flagships, and the Mate 20 Pro is no different. There are phones from Oppo and Vivo that take a better detailed and better-colored image. So, we can completely skip saying the tech jargons to conclude that the selfie camera is just okay on this phone.

Huawei-Mate-20-pro-selfie-samples

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The video quality is great though. Even with shaky hands, you can expect stabilized videos with this one! The stabilization was again seen in the videos captured during night time. However, there were lots of hints of noise on it.

Check out high-resolution samples here.

Battery

The battery on this device is large, it’s the largest on 2018’s flagship measuring at 4200 mAh. In comparison, the iPhone XS Max has 3174 mAh battery, while the OnePlus 6T features a 3700 mAh battery. The Note 9 is the only one that comes close with its 4000 mAh one in place. The most amazing thing about this aspect except for the battery life itself is the fact that Huawei has included such a large battery inside this slim body.

Let’s talk about battery life now. While using the Mate 20 pro on the highest resolution, it battery provided me 6-7 hours of on-screen time. It might look a lot less for a phone with a large battery, but this is the figure that came up during heavy usage. I gamed a lot, went through a lot of applications, and made the phone really work its way! You can easily last for around 6-7 hours with this battery under normal usage. So, if you are looking for great battery life on a flagship smartphone, this is the one you should get.

However, there is this issue most of us have to deal with. Whenever the battery percent touches 2, the phone automatically shuts down, which is a bummer for someone who forgets to keep track of the battery life.

On the brighter side, this battery is backed up by Huawei’s Super Charge 40W technology that charged up from 0 to 100 % in just around an hour. So, apart from Oppo R17’s Super VOOC charge, this is the fastest you can get right now.

Extras

The final aspect to be covering here is the extras. Now, this might not sound like a major piece of a smartphone, but we have gotten to a point where they can actually make or break a smartphone.

The Huawei Mate 20 Pro has an under-display fingerprint scanner that’s fast. Now, there are times when it didn’t read my print 100% of the time, but over time, it can get faster. Huawei also has its dual user feature which can be triggered through two different fingerprints.

In front lies the 3D face unlock which Huawei claims is among the most accurate. To make it that accurate, Huawei has the infrared camera and a flood illuminator on the notch of the device. While it is definitely accurate, this sensor takes some time before unlocking the phone. The pause is minimum, but you do notice it.

The phone is IP68 just liked its competitors, so you can definitely use it for some underwater pictures.

The reverse charging on this device sounds quite impressive. No, it won’t come in use most of the times, but during emergencies, you will be able to offer help to your friends letting them charge their dying phones. It works 100% of the times, and kudos to Huawei for this innovation. But this charging is very, very slow then you expect. It’s even slower than any charger you pick up from a store. So, it will take a lot of time before Huawei actually gets this right.

The speaker on this phone is great as well. I have liked watching movies on this stereo setup. If you look closely, there are no speaker grills on the bottom of the phone. This is because Huawei has placed the speaker inside the USB C port. Yes, the audio actually plays from inside the port. But the sound isn’t as loud as I expected. And when you’re charging the phone there is a slight change in the sound level.

There are some areas where Huawei should have gone with something else. Like the storage. The Mate 20 Pro available in Nepal comes with 128 GB internal memory. For its expansion, it has Huawei’s nano SD card slot which isn’t as popular as the microSD card slot and will cost a lot more than a normal card. And apart from that, it is not available in the Nepali market as well. So, the 128GB variant is the only option you have right now.

Conclusion

The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is an expensive phone. It’s even more expensive than the Note 9 here in Nepal. But this device here packs in a lot more than all the other flagship smartphones offer. It is the innovator of 2018, and will really make a great couple with someone like a business person, or as GSM Arena said, travels a lot. Also, it is a great phone with good cameras. Huawei has done a lot of homework to bring out this beast of a phone and Kudos to Huawei for this!

Also Watch: My pick for the best flagship phones of 2018!

Samsung Galaxy M30 tipped to have a huge battery and Triple Camera setup

GadgetByte

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January 4, 2019

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Samsung Galaxy M30 tipped to have a huge battery and Triple Camera setup

Leaks for the Galaxy M series just keep on surfacing. And today is all about the Samsung Galaxy M30. We already know the Galaxy M20 will come with a 5000mAh battery and seems like the Galaxy M30 is also getting blessed with the same feature.

Apart from the 5000mAh battery, we also get a 6.38-inch Infinity V display with Full-HD+ (1080 x 2280 pixels) resolution. Rumors also gave us an idea about the Galaxy M30’s camera setup. The back is expected to feature triple camera setup, 13MP + 5MP + 5MP, while the front gets a 16MP selfie shooter.

Dimensions of the smartphone will be of 159 x 75.1 x 8.4mm. The RAM and storage are hinted to be at 4GB and 64GB/128GB respectively. As for software, it will most probably boot with Android 8.1 Oreo.

The M-series line of smartphones is expected to launch somewhere at the end of January or early February. There are no words on pricing as of now. But seeing Samsung’s purpose of launching these devices, they should provide real value for money experience.

Consequently, the M-series lineup of smartphones is the answer to Samsung’s losing battle with the Chinese manufacturers in the budget and mid-range segment. This has been a major problem for the Korean based tech giant in terms of popularity and in its sheer shipment volumes.

Samsung Galaxy M10, M20 & M40

In other news, the Samsung M20 has also been spotted going through the FCC certifications. The published documents include a 6.13-inch Infinity V display, Exynos 7885 and a 5000mAh battery. Nothing new was revealed, but this does add a bit more credibility to our past leaks of the Galaxy M20.

Also Read: Samsung Galaxy A50 to launch with a huge battery & multiple camera setup

The Galaxy M10, on the other hand, gets a 6-inch Infinity V display, 3400mAh battery and runs on the Exynos 7870 SoC. Finally, the Galaxy M40 remains to be the only smartphone form this lineup to still remain in the shadows. But considering the back to back leaks of the new Samsung Galaxy devices, it may not take us too long to know about the features and specs of the Galaxy M40 as well.

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Pocophone F1 “Gone with the Wind” – Sold out in Nepal!

GadgetByte

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January 2, 2019

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Pocophone F1 “Gone with the Wind” – Sold out in Nepal!

The Pocophone F1 was something unexpected that took the world by storm when it came out. Mostly, for its flagship prowess for a very aggressive price. And so, there were confusions whether this phone belonged to a mid-range device or a flagship. And honestly, there’s no answer to that. The Pocophone F1 features a flagship processor of 2018, which is the Snapdragon 845, and all other things were above average, maybe, except the design.

And despite all its efforts, it still failed to be the number one phone because Xiaomi achieved the price through exclusive deals for retailers, MIUI ads and losses for the startup glory. Nevertheless, it was a smart purchase all around the world. And there were so many queries about the phone before it came to Nepal.

And thanks to Daraz.com.np, the phone made its way here, albeit for a brief period of time. Making its debut in Nepal via Daraz 11.11 sales day, the phone was exclusively available in Nepal. And the price was also pretty close to international pricing, around Rs.35000.

And so, when it was here, people swept through the online marketplace for the phone. There were initially some problems for acquiring the phone, but it did get to buyer’s hands. And the phone sold pretty quickly. Pre-bookings went through the roof, and Teletalk, which was the body responsible for bringing the phone to Nepal had brought about 2000 pieces. And it appears, all of them have been sold out!

So, despite many of you enquiring about the Pocophone F1, it is now, no longer available in Nepal officially. The Pocophone F1 came and went away with the wind.

And Teletalk has no intentions to restock the Pocophone F1 again. Partly, because there are rumors surfacing about the Pocophone F2, so, they might be bringing that one here instead. Of course, that’s all rumors for now, so, let’s wait and see.

However, the Pocophone F1 is not entirely gone. Traces of it remain in the form of some products brought via Grey channels, and some stores around New Road still sell them. There might be some difference in pricing, but if you really want it, then, you’ll have to pay.

Acer Predator Helios 300 2018 Review – Perfect for the Price!

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GadgetByte

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January 1, 2019

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Acer Predator Helios 300 2018 Review – Perfect for the Price!

On paper, the Acer Predator Helios 300 2018 looks like the best laptop you can buy for the price, right now. Considering its features, hardware, display, and price, it looks like a great deal for a gaming laptop. That’s good and all, but the full story doesn’t end there.

The 2017 version of the Helios 300 offered similar value for money. Gamers were more than happy to shell out the money for it. The successor just improves on its predecessor even more, but is it worth upgrading?

Acer Predator Helios 300 2018 Specifications

Design and Build: Metal body, Plastic bottom panel, 15.35” x 10.62” x 1.06”, 2.56 kg
Display: 15.6″ Full HD (1920 x 1080), 92% sRGB, IPS, 144Hz, non-touch matte
Processor: Hexa-core 8^th gen i7-8750H processor, Base-Clock @ 2.2 GHz, Turbo Boost Clock up to 4.1 GHz
RAM: DDR4 16 GB (2x slots, upgradeable up to 32 GB)
Graphics: 6 GB NVidia GeForce GTX 1060
Battery: 48Wh (Up-to 3 hours)
Adapter: 180 Watts
Storage: 256 GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
Webcam: 720p Webcam
Connectivity: 802.11 ac Intel Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v4.1
Ports: 1x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.1 gen 1, HDMI, mic/earphone, SD card reader, LAN, Kensington Lock
Price: Rs. 165,000

Design and Build

The build quality on this laptop leaves very little to complain about. A mix of aluminum and plastic, all around with very little screen or keyboard flex. It gets red accent all around aided mostly by black. A classic gaming laptop theme untouched by the RGB hype. Or maybe it was just a cost-cutting necessity.

acer predator helios 300 2018 design & build

Open the laptop and you are greeted by what looks like a terrible excuse of a palm rest. But, when you actually put your hands on it, it is actually pretty cool! I mean, you get the cool metallic-luster feel on it. The display follows the same trend with unnecessary huge bezels on all four sides. So, until the time you actually turn on the laptop, there is no excitement at all.

The bottom is made up of plastic, with four large rubber padding at the corners. A huge set of air vents to keep the laptop cool. Then, there are two easy access compartments. In the most traditional but a very convenient way, you can access the hard disk or the RAM slots with just one screw each. If you want the whole back panel off you will need to unscrew more screws.

The lid has a huge predator logo on the center with two red lines that run through the lid. At the back, there is a huge exhaust vent, although not all of it is functional; i.e. air flows only through some small openings in the vent. Finally, if we talk numbers, dimensions of the laptop comes in at 15.4″ x 10.5″ x 1.1″ and weights 2.7 Kilograms.

Display

This is where the magic happens, thanks to the 15.6-inch FHD IPS display with a 144Hz refresh rate. It’s really fast, and you will feel it right from the start. Just moving the cursor around is enough for you to notice the smoothness the super fast screen brings to the table. Once you use this display, any other panel with a traditional 60Hz refresh rate will feel slow.

The panel isn’t bad either. The FHD resolution is pretty much perfect for the GPU. The display also produces pretty accurate colors, covering over 90% of the sRGB color spectrum. It’s great for gaming, while at the same time should not disappoint part-time photo or video editors. I must say, it’s a really nice display, as compared to the competition.

Coming back to the 144Hz, which is pretty much the highlight of this laptop. Yes, the relatively fast panel does add up to the final cost of the laptop but trust me, it’s worth it. Gaming has never been this engaging, everything is just smooth. Especially when a game can utilize the full potential of the display, it’s just awesome.

Performance

As for performance, the Intel Core i7-8750H is a great performer. It’s fast, keeps the laptop running fluid and utilizes the GTX 1060 to it’s maximum. It gets six cores, twelve threads, with a base clock of 2.2GHz and 4.1GHz on boost. Since we’ve seen this processor a dozen times now, there’s nothing new to say. It’s the best processor for gaming on a laptop at this price range.

Gaming Performance

This is one of the aspects of this laptop that leaves a lot to be desired. The 144Hz panel discussed earlier demands fps! But the hardware inside cannot deliver. If it was a regular laptop with a 60Hz display, the performance could have been pretty great. But the 6 GB GTX 1060 cannot compliment the fast screen that well, and so, there is so much of displayable frames unused. And it just feels like there’s so much potential, but most of it is restricted.

While gaming, the rame rates were pretty high, above 60 on most games we threw at it, at high settings. But to reach that sweet 144Hz threshold, I found myself lowering the graphics quality a lot.

For instance, games like Fifa 19 did run at a healthy 110-120fps. But I still lowered the graphics to around medium to reach somewhere around 150fps. It was an absolute improvement, or maybe it was just me but I felt it was better. The bad graphics quality was really no match for the smooth gameplay.

Acer Predator Helios 300 2018
Infogram

Thermals

One of the main factors that refrained the previous generation Helios 300 from greatness was its thermal performance. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t par with some other laptops in its competition. This time it’s a bit different as the thermals have noticeably improved. It does heat up, but only after longer loads of time, and keeps the maximum temperature at a controllable rate.

Of course, you can throttle the fans to the maximum, which is around 6000 rpm. The laptop gets very noisy in this mode, but at least it stays cool. Yes, the laptop still throttles, but it’s not as bad as its predecessor. There were a few times when games actually stuttered for two or three seconds, but that was once every half hour or so and didn’t bother me much.

Storage and Battery

This laptop comes with only a 256 GB SSD with an empty slot to fit a 2.5″ hard drive. Read speeds maxed out at around 1575 MBPS and write speeds of around 597 MBPS. If you want more storage you can just add a hard drive, and the M.2 SSD itself is easily replaceable. At these speeds, you probably won’t be upgrading, but just for the record, you can.

As for battery life, this laptop get is a puny 48Wh battery, which by the numbers, isn’t enough. Paired with a six-core processor, a GTX 1060 and that 144Hz display, I barely got around 3 hours of light usage. If you wanna game on battery, don’t expect anything over an hour. We could call this a bad battery performance, but well, it’s just how gaming laptops are.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The keyboard isn’t actually bad, it’s just soft. Depending on your preference, some might like it, most will definitely hate it. The key travel was fine, but it just doesn’t give you that satisfying feedback. It’s a mushy keyboard, and there is no going around that. It has backlighting, but only RED. If the Red looks intrusive, you have no choice but to turn it off. But the keyboard is of high quality and should last you until the end of your laptop’s lifetime.

The other thing I have to complain about is the placement of the keys itself. The power button is just another key right beside the ‘End’ key and that, for some reason felt like a fake power button. MacBooks, despite the same keyboard layout, do these types of power buttons pretty well, but it is just poorly implemented on this one. The arrow keys were also a bit problematic, nothing you cannot get used to though.

The trackpad isn’t really good, however. It uses Windows Precision drivers and the gestures worked fine, but the tracking seemed so out of place. You would probably want to buy an external mouse for daily usage. Then again, you probably were going to anyway, since gaming with a trackpad is not normal.

Connectivity

Connectivity wise, the laptop has a lot in store. Starting off with the USB-C port that doesn’t support ThunderBolt 3, the only downside as long as connectivity is concerned. It’s not exactly a deal breaker but that could have been a great addition.

It gets the Intel 9560ac Wi-Fi, which is also replaceable while the Bluetooth 4.0 module is built in. There is a 720p webcam up top which up on par with other laptops, and by that, I mean very average. The laptop charges via a 180-watt charger, and finally the laptop houses two dual speakers which produce clear and loud audio but lacks bass.

acer predator helio 300 2018 ports right

As for port selection, you get a Kensington lock, Ethernet port, HDMI, USB-C, and an SD card reader on the left. On the right resides one USB Type A port, a headphone jack, and a charging port. So, you can clearly see there have been no compromises made on the selection of ports.

Conclusion

You now know almost everything you need to know about the laptop. It’s a good performer, has a fast display, not that heavy or thick, has good thermal performance, looks nice, and is built well. Also, it costs right between other laptops like Dell G7 or the HP Omen 15T, that are pretty priced in the same bracket, flaunts similar internals but don’t feature a 144Hz display.

You probably know by now that this laptop can impress you a lot. For Rs. 1,65,000, you are getting so much, to begin with. But if they could have improved the thermals just a little, this laptop would have been just perfect. For now, let’s just call this a real value for money, or a bang for your buck! And given that your budget fits the asking price of this laptop, you won’t regret buying the Acer Predator Helios 300 2018.

Acer Predator Helios 300 2018 Nutshell

Pros	Cons
Display	Trackpad
Performance	Thermals could have been even better
Build and Design	No RGB
Gaming Performance	Battery Life
Value for Money	Keyboard
Connectivity	No ThunderBolt Support

Vivo launching 3 new phones in Nepal soon

GadgetByte

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December 31, 2018

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Vivo launching 3 new phones in Nepal soon

Vivo is mostly known for its range of good mid-range phones in Nepal. The Vivo V11 Pro was one of the best phones that made debut in 2018. And along with the Vivo V11, it was well-received. Vivo’s Y-series are also a popular range of lower mid-range phones in Nepal. And now, Vivo is on the verge of expanding its Y-series lineup with three new handsets in Nepal. The three phones are Vivo Y95, Vivo Y91 and the Vivo Y91i and these feature the typical 2018 looks with large displays and water-drop notches. And all three of these are similar in terms of many aspects.

Vivo Y95 Overview

The Vivo Y95 features a large 6.2″ IPS LCD display with 19:9 aspect ratio and HD+ resolution. With dual camera setup at the back, the primary lens is a 13 MP sensor, which is supported by a 2 MP depth sensor. The front camera is a 20 MP sensor for good selfies.

Under the hood, you get an octa-core Snapdragon 439 chipset with 4 GB of RAM. That is a typical low-end mid-range chipset. You also get 64 GB of storage on-board which is expandable via microSD. There is also a large 4030 mAh battery to power the device. In the software department, the Vivo Y95 runs on Android 8.1 Oreo with Vivo’s FunTouch OS 4.5 on top.

Vivo Y95 Specifications:

Display: 6.2-inch IPS LCD HD+ (1520 x 720), 19:9 aspect ratio
Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 439
GPU: Adreno 505
Operating System: Android Oreo 8.1 with Funtouch OS 4.5
RAM: 4 GB
Storage: 64 GB expandable up to 256 GB
Rear Camera: Dual 13MP, f/2.2 aperture + 2MP, f/2.4 aperture
Front Camera: 20 MP
SIM (s): Dual Nano SIM
Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, WiFi Direct, Bluetooth 4.2
Sensors: Fingerprint, accelerometer, proximity, compass
Colors: Starry Black, Aurora Red
Battery: Non-removable 4,030 mAh battery

Vivo Y91

The Vivo Y91 is pretty much similar to the Y95. It just looks like a slightly toned down variant of the Y95. This phone, too, comes with a 6.2″ LCD display and HD+ resolution. Other things, too, are pretty much the same. It also has the Snapdragon 439 chipset, but the difference is it has 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB storage. However, this one also comes in a 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage variant.

The other difference lies in the selfie camera as this one features an 8 MP selfie camera. Other things remain the same, with the dual rear camera comprising of a 13 MP regular camera and a 2 MP depth sensor as well. The battery size is the same 4030 mAh in this one as well.

vivo Y91 Specifications:

Display: 6.2-inch IPS LCD HD+(1520 x 720), 19:9 aspect ratio
Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 439
GPU: Adreno 505
Operating System: Android Oreo 8.1 with Funtouch OS 4.5
RAM: 2GB/3GB
Storage: 16GB/32 GB, expandable up to 256 GB
Rear Camera: Dual 13MP, f/2.2 aperture + 2MP, f/2.4 aperture
Front Camera: 8 MP
SIM (s): Dual Nano SIM
Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, WiFi Direct, Bluetooth 4.2
Sensors: Fingerprint, accelerometer, proximity, compass
Battery: Non-removable 4,030 mAh battery

Vivo Y91i

The Vivo Y91i looks very different from the Y91. It has a large notch up top and only a single camera at the back. Also, it has 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage. Other things remain the same, with this one, too, featuring a 6.2″ LCD display with HD+ resolution, and an 8 MP selfie camera. Also, it has the same Snapdragon 439, and the same 4030 mAh battery. Probably, Vivo will be launching the Y91’s 2GB/16 GB variant as the Y91i.

Vivo Y91i Specifications:

Display: 6.2-inch IPS LCD HD+ (1520 x 720), 19:9 aspect ratio
Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 439
GPU: Adreno 505
Operating System: Android Oreo 8.1 with Funtouch OS 4.5
RAM: 2 GB
Storage: 16 GB expandable up to 256 GB
Rear Camera: Single, 13MP with f/2.2 aperture
Front Camera: 8 MP
SIM (s): Dual Nano SIM
Connectivity: Wi-Fi b/g/n, WiFi Direct, Bluetooth 4.2
Sensors: Fingerprint, accelerometer, proximity, compass
Battery: Non-removable 4,030 mAh battery

So, these are the three phones from Vivo that are coming soon in Nepal. The pricing is yet unknown, but we are expecting all three phones to be under Rs.30000 in Nepal.

ASUS ROG Strix Hero II Review – Is it Hero enough?

Asus
Reviews

GadgetByte

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December 31, 2018

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ASUS ROG Strix Hero II Review – Is it Hero enough?

With faster screens appealing to the masses more and more, gaming laptops these days really try to integrate one in their devices. And why not? A good gaming laptop does not mean only unparalleled performance but good visuals and sounds as well. The ASUS ROG Strix Hero II is one such laptop with a super-fast screen and great audio. But what else does it pack?

ASUS ROG Strix Hero II Specifications:

Design and Build: Metal lid, plastic body, 36.1 x 26.2 x 2.61 cm, 2.4 kg
Display: 15.6″ Full HD (1920 x 1080), 93% sRGB & 70% Adobe RGB, 72% NTSC Color Gamut, 320 nits peak brightness with Anti-Glare
Keyboard: ASUS Aura RGB Gaming Keyboard, RGB backlighting, 1.4 mm key travel
Processor: Hexa-core 8^th gen i7-8750H processor, Base-Clock @ 2.2 GHz, Turbo Boost Clock up to 4.1 GHz
RAM: DDR4 16 GB (2x slots, upgradeable up to 32 GB)
Graphics: 6 GB NVidia GeForce GTX 1060
Battery: 4-cell 66 Watt-hours (up to 3 hours of backup)
Adapter: 180 Watts
Storage: 256 GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD + 1 TB FireCuda SSHD
Webcam: 720p Webcam
Connectivity: 802.11 ac Gigabit Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v5.0
Ports: 3 x USB A 3.1, 1 x USB-C (No Thunderbolt 3 support), 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack, 1 x HDMI, 1 x Mini-display, 1 x RJ-45 Ethernet, 1 x SDcard slot
Price: Rs.210,000 ($1550 international)

Design

The design of the laptop is pretty clever! It is something that you won’t see every day.

The whole laptop chassis has a square boxed design, and it’s a bit different than what we are used to seeing on others. It looks pretty cool, with a striking factor about how it looks. I’d describe it as elegant and futuristic. The laptop is not very slim for but it still maintains a small form factor even for a 15.6” laptop. It weighs 2.4 kg without the charger, which is okay, for a gaming laptop.

The outer lid is made of aluminum with brushed texture and ROG logo on the side. The logo glows, and can switch colors, which of course, is programmable just like the keyboard lighting inside. You get a two-tone design on the lid with a slash. One half is hairline brushed while the other is anodized. The lid also is designed to reveal the notification LEDs when closed too.

There’s also a light-strip up front, which seems a bit pointless. But of course, some might like it. The build of the laptop is plastic. But it does appear sturdy to look and feel and there’s no flex when pressed whatsoever. A metal build all over would definitely have been better, but it’s not. Still, it has a pretty great feel and heft, there’s not much to complain about.

The air vents are at the back and there’s also one on the right side. Also, these vents at the back are also cleverly designed to keep the laptop cool while also preventing accumulating dust. The design is the most appealing factor. Its sharp, arcane and stands out.

Display

On the display front, the laptop has a 15.6” Full HD panel with a 144 Hz refresh rate and 3 milliseconds of response time. That makes it another of the few laptops with one of the fastest screens on the market which is great for gaming. MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) games tend to be very fast paced and screen like these are a treat.

The 144 Hz refresh rate certainly helps push out a good number of frames per second, and 3 milliseconds of response time make your actions look very fluid. Also, the bezels around the display are pretty thin, making it look great. But that leads to this awkwardly placed webcam down on the right.

The overall screen is smooth and the picture quality is fantastic! The picture quality is crisp, colors pop out everywhere, details look amazing and there’s nothing to complain about the image & video quality.

The brightness is about 320 nits, which is good enough too. The color accuracy is not bad with 93% standard RGB, 72% NTSC Color Gamut Coverage and 70% Adobe RGB. This works very well for gaming, but if you’re into editing stuff, there are better options out there.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The keyboard layout is somewhat different than other gaming laptops. It also features some additional hot keys for volume, microphone and the ROG Gaming Centre, which can help you take some quick actions in the middle of the game. This is a nice additional feature to have. But the position of the arrow keys seems a bit off, and it’s easy to confuse them most of the time.

The feedback from the chiclet keyboard is very good. You also get soft “clicky” sounds which can be pretty satisfying. There’s about 1.4 mm of key travel, and that is good enough for me.

The backlighting is not too harsh either and looks good nonetheless. The one thing that differentiates this ASUS ROG Strix Hero II from the Scar II is the highlighted keys. The Scar II has W-A-S-D transparent while this has Q-W-E-R. Which means that this laptop is meant for MOBA gamers while the Scar II is for those who’re into First Person Shooters.

The backlighting has various modes and can be customized but it is not as comprehensive as the MSI GE63 Raider RGB’s. But yes, it is a simple yet good keyboard.

The trackpad is also very nice. With Windows Precision Drivers, it tracks really well and the gestures are solid. The dedicated hardware buttons are nice as well, and even though you might have a mouse plugged in most of the time, the touchpad is really good.

Performance

In the power side of things, it features the latest Hexa-core 8^th-gen Intel i7-8750H processor, coupled with 16 GB RAM at 2666 MHz frequency. And the performance is as expected. You can fly through multi-tasking nicely. You can have as many things running on the background as you want, and no app seems to be heavy enough to over-work it.

As for benchmarks, Cinbench 15 scores 174 points for single-core performance whereas 1203 for multi-core performance.

Gaming on this machine is pretty good too. It features the Nvidia GTX 1060 with 6 GB of Video Memory. And while that is a pretty solid performer, it feels somewhat inadequate to compliment the super-fast screen all that well. In our gaming tests, highly graphic intensive games like PUBG resulted in about 40 frames per second on maximum settings and about 50 on low. CS:GO displayed 60 in highest settings, about 80 on medium and 90 on high settings, on average.

But the beauty of the screen is reflected in MOBA games like Dota 2 and Paladin’s. Paladin’s on Ultra Settings averages on 80 frames per second. But there’s always so much going on in the game, yet the screen captures every moment without a hitch. The same goes for Dota 2 as well.

Yet I cannot help but wonder, if, maybe, this had a GTX 1070 in it, you’d get better frames. But the 1060 does a good job too.

Also, you have this ROG Gaming Center that looks something straight out of a Sci-Fi movie. This helps you regulate various settings for the games like change fan settings. It also gives you System information about core temperatures and memory used. But it is a bit complex to use, and it can take some time to get used to.

Thermals

As for thermals, they’re pretty good too. The max inner temperatures can go to 75 and 78 for CPU and GPU respectively. But there is no throttling.

You have three fan modes: Silent, Balanced and Over Boost. The laptop has HyperCool Pro thermal system with dual 12V fans, triple radiators and a heatsink, which do a fairly good job of keeping the laptop cool and without throttling.

Storage

Storage wise, there is a 256 GB M.2 NVMe PCI SSD, and a 1 TB FireCuda SSHD as well. So, for storage, you’re well sorted. On our tests, the SSD gave us about 1570 MB/s of read speeds and 870 MB/s of write speeds.

The SSHD is different that your regular HDD. These drives have a small amount of SSD built-in like a cache memory and stores your most important files on the SSD part, so that you have better access to it.

Ports

As for ports, you get enough of them as well. On the left, there is a power jack, an RJ45 Ethernet port, a mini Display port, an HDMI 2.0 port, two USB A’s, a USB Type-C (without Thunderbolt 3 support) and an Audio-jack.

The right side has a Kensington lock slot, another USB A and an SD-card reader.

Battery

The battery is the part where gaming laptops tend to struggle. And this one is no different. It has a 4-cell 66 Watt-hour battery. And it lasted merely 2.5 hours on normal usage and about 50 minutes while gaming.

But I think that was a problem with my unit. As it is a 66 Whr battery, which should give us more battery life. But nevertheless, you definitely need to carry around a charger with you, as it won’t last a whole day.

Conclusion

So, all in all, the ASUS ROG Strix Hero II is a good gaming machine. If you get this, you’ll have something that catches your eye, one of the fastest screen for a laptop, and also great sound quality.

To talk about the bad aspects of the laptop, you have a bad web-cam in a bad position. The quality is muddy, and noisy and just not good at all. Plus, the awkward position makes it worse. Also, there are 2 RAM slots if you want to upgrade the laptop but it has 12 screws underneath and is a bit difficult to open up. In addition, there’s no Thunderbolt 3 support.

This laptop is priced at $1550 or Rs.210000, here in Nepal. And the problem with that is, it seems a bit expensive for a GTX 1060. I, personally, would be a bit reluctant to pay that much for a GTX 1060. And there are other laptops in a similar price range with better performance. If it had a 1070, it would, hands down, be the best laptop at this price.

You also get the Acer Predator Helios 300 2018 with the same specs and screen that one costs a lot less at Rs.165000. If you don’t really care about the aesthetics, that can be a better choice. But for the extra cost, you get a better keyboard, better sound quality, better design and build too. So, it’s up to you.

Pros:

Great Design and build
Great Display with Super-fast screen
Good performance
Good thermals

Cons:

Poor battery life
Bad webcam quality and placement
GTX 1060 for the price

Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro Review: Really an upgrade over Note 5 AI?

GadgetByte

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December 31, 2018

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Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro Review: Really an upgrade over Note 5 AI?

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI or the Redmi Note 5 Pro was one of the best value for money smartphones especially when it comes to the lower midrange price. And because of the same reason, I did recommend the device to our followers in a number of occasions as well. Recently, Xiaomi launched the successor of the device. But how much of an upgrade has the Redmi Note 6 Pro brought on the table? And can it fill the shoes of its predecessor? Let’s find out in Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro Review.

Camera

Let’s start with the camera. The camera is the biggest highlight of the phone and the presence of quad-camera setup readily cues that. The phone comes with a dual camera setup at the back and there are other two on the front.

The rear camera is aligned vertically in an iPhone XS style with LED flash in between. The camera duo at the back comprises of 12MP and 5MP sensor and the hardware setup is similar to that on the Redmi Note 5 AI. Despite the similarities on the hardware, you can see significant improvements on the Note 6 Pro when it comes to capturing the images. The images captured from the Note 6 Pro looks vibrant and colors seem to pop out more. A photography geek would find it to be slightly oversaturated; however, it looks way better than the undersaturated images from the Note 5 AI.

Details are well-preserved and color accuracy is also slightly better on the Note 6 Pro. I didn’t notice any sort of any sort of focusing issues either. All thanks to the Dual-pixel Phase Detection Autofocus on the phone.

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Dynamic range is decent and you can enhance the dynamic shots by turning on the HDR mode. The HDR mode doesn’t overprocess here, though it pulls out some details in the shadows keeping the overall sharpness of the image intact. It is not the best I have seen from a midranger, but considering the price, the job it did was respectable.

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The phone also has an AI mode, which detects the object in focus and the AI is said to do some processing to make it look better. However, I did not notice any significant differences.

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And when it comes to the lowlight images, the captured images tend to lose some details. And the noises and grains are also quite noticeable. However, it did a better than the Note 5 AI. It feels really good to see this sort of improvements.

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Since there are two cameras, you can capture portrait images as well. The edge detection capabilities have considerably improved from the Note 5 AI. And this time, the amount of blur on the background looks more natural. So I was satisfied with the portrait images captured from the device.

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Now let’s move on to the selfie part. And even for the selfies, Xiaomi has packed two cameras on the front. Well, the 20MP primary camera does most of the job here and the secondary 2MP camera just gathers depth information of the subject. So with both the cameras in action, you can capture portrait selfies as well. And portrait selfies looks remarkable with proper edge detection and the right amount of blur intensity. Normal selfies also look good in a similar fashion so there is nothing much to complain here too.

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But the sad part is, the phone can only shoot videos in 1080p and 30fos at maximum. So you won’t be able to capture 4k videos. But even at the Full-HD resolution, Note 6 Pro does a great job. Colors look true to life, focusing is great, and the video contains a decent amount of details. And the good thing here is the presence of Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS). The EIS does a great job on suppressing the shakes and vibration on the videos. And I must praise the Note 6 Pro here as the videos captured from it are better than that from most of the midrangers available at a similar price.

For high-quality images, Click here.

Display

On the display front, the Redmi Note 6 is slightly bigger than its predecessor. Xiaomi stretched the screen from 6-inch on the Note 5 AI to 6.26-inch on the Note 6 Pro without increasing the size of the phone. So, you can already guess, it has a higher screen to body ratio.

The bezels and chin have been slashed significantly. But to increase the screen to body ratio, Xiaomi this time implemented a notch on the top. And this is one of the very noticeable differences between the Note 5 AI and Note 6 Pro. Although this created a slight bump in the screen to body ratio, the notch looks really ugly in this device and is annoying at the same time. Xiaomi could have implemented a teardrop/dew-drop style of notch like that on the Vivo V11 and the Oppo F9 but that’s not the case here. If you hate the notch on this device, you can also hide it with a black bar on the top. But since the display on this device is an IPS panel and not an AMOLED one, hiding the notch with the black bar won’t save you any battery juice.

And continuing with the display, Redmi Note 6 Pro features Full-HD+ resolution and this time with a 19:9 aspect ratio. At a pixel density of 403PPI, the contents on the screen look really sharp. And talking about color accuracy, it is decent enough considering the price. But when it comes to the color temperature of the display, I notice the display being slightly deviated to a warmer tone. The phone also has a color wheel to adjust the color temperature of the screen, however, I couldn’t exactly obtain the balanced color temperature. So, you have to live with that!

In terms of brightness, the screen glows with the maximum brightness of 480 nits, which is slightly lower than 530 nits brightness on the Redmi Note 5 AI. Nevertheless, the screen is legible even on the outdoors, which is the good part. You won’t face any issues even while viewing contents on the broad daylight. And since there is an ambient light sensor to adjust the display brightness according to the light of the surroundings, there won’t be any hassles on adjusting the display brightness every now and then. So, kudos to Xiaomi!

Redmi Note 6 Pro also has a notification LED on the top. But just like its predecessor, the LED blinks white and the color is non-adjustable. The LED is also dim when it comes to the brightness so you can’t see the blinking LED at times even when you are just a few feet away. I think Xiaomi should really give thoughts on bringing bright and colorful notification LED from next time around.

Design & Build

On the design side, you won’t see anything new and innovative here. Xiaomi implemented the same old-school design with metallic body capped with plastic material on the top and on the bottom. But this time, even the frame is plastic, which may invite reliability issue over time. Since other smartphone OEMs are incorporating premium plastic or glass back on their phone, I think, Xiaomi should also start implementing some modern design language.

Nonetheless, the device looks sturdy and feels decently premium on the hold. Although the device weighs 182 grams, the weight is evenly distributed throughout its body so it does not feel hefty especially when it’s on the hand. So I didn’t face any discomfort even while using the device.

Performance

Note 6 Pro launched nearly nine months after the launch of the Note 5 Pro. But there is barely any upgrade on the performance front. Just like its predecessor, the Note 6 pro comes with Snapdragon 636 chipset packing 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage on its sleeve. So, as you would expect, there were hardly any differences while running any app or game and multitasking between them. After nine months, we definitely expect an upgrade right? Well, you are not getting that here.

Nonetheless, the Snapdragon 636 is a decent chipset and handles most of the day to day tasks without a fuss. I played Asphalt 9 and also ran PUBG in the medium settings. And while playing the games, I did not notice any major lags and stutters. But occasionally, you will notice a slight drop in frame rates. If only Xiaomi had opted for Snapdragon 660 or the MediaTek Helio P60, there would have been fewer such issues. Well, we should probably have to wait for the Redmi 7 Pro to really get that sort of upgrade.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
Infogram

Software

On the software side, the phone comes with an Android Oreo 8.1 with MIUI 9.5 out of the box. The MIUI 9.5 was heavy and cluttered. But I didn’t have to spend much time with that cluttered UI. Shortly after I got the handset for the review, the phone received MIUI 10.0.5 update. The new MIUI is much more polished and much more optimized than the 9.5. So users will surely enjoy using the device with new UI. However, ads appear here and there in the UI, which results in the bitter user experience. I turned off every setting related to the ads on the UI but still, it didn’t stop.

When people spend their hard-earned money on a new device, they expect a clean and delightful user experience. Come on Xiaomi, please don’t take that away from your users. Also, there are tons of bloatware, which I did not find myself using much. And the sad part is most of them cannot be uninstalled or disabled.

But except for the presence of bloatware and Ads issue, there is plenty of reasons to like about the new MIUI. In the new UI, what I liked the most is the gesture mode. You can replace the on-screen buttons with the finger gestures. Swiping up quickly minimizes the apps and brings the home screen, swiping up and pausing for a while shows the recent apps and swiping to the right let the user go back in the menu. Although the device is fun to use by navigating with the gestures, it took quite a while for me to get accustomed with this feature.

Security

On the security side of things, you get a fingerprint sensor and Face Unlock feature as a biometric authentication tool. The fingerprint sensor was fast and accurate. So I was duly pleased with it. However, Face Unlock feature is not easily accessible for all the users.

The feature is limited to some specific regions only. I didn’t try and test every available location to confirm if the service is available in that region. However, I would like you to know that it wasn’t available when I set the region to Nepal but the feature popped up when I set the region to India. It was a similar case even on the Redmi Note 5 AI. So I couldn’t quite understand why Xiaomi is doing this type of discrimination to its users.

Battery

Providing bigger batteries is one of the biggest traits of Xiaomi smartphones. And this time, it is no different. It comes with a huge 4000mAh battery to inject the power juice to the phone. With the massive battery on the board, the phone is capable of providing a prolonged backup as well. The handset provided me a remarkable 8.5 hours of screen on time. On the normal use, a fully charged Note 6 Pro can last for nearly two days.

Although the battery backup on the phone fairly pleased me, the presence of the MicroUSB 2.0 port didn’t impress me at all. Also, charging the device was a pain in the neck. This time too, Xiaomi has included a 10-watt adapter, which is quite a sluggish performer, when it comes to the charging the device. When I used the stock charger, it took nearly around half an hour to charge the handset from 0 to 30%. And I had wait for around two and half hour till the device get fully charged. Although Xiaomi claims that the device supports Quick Charge 3.0, you won’t get a fast charger on the box. So if you want to accelerate the charging speed, you should have to buy a separate fast charger.

Conclusion

To sum it up, the Note 6 Pro is a great device and I am not denying it. Although it brought some subtle upgrades over the Note 5 AI, I don’t think the device is worth all the price it’s asking at the moment. You can get better alternatives at a similar price. ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2, Realme 2 Pro, and Honor 8x would be the quick examples.

Even in Nepal, just by adding a couple of thousands, you can get the Huawei Y9 2019 and the Xiaomi MI A2, which are a great performer on both camera and gaming front. And if you can push the budget further, you can also buy the Pocophone F1. The Pocophone packs a flagship-grade processor, better battery backup, and even the cameras are great than the Note 6 Pro. So as of now, the Redmi Note 6 Pro is no go from my side.

Samsung Galaxy A50 to launch with a huge battery & multiple camera setup

GadgetByte

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December 30, 2018

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Samsung Galaxy A50 to launch with a huge battery & multiple camera setup

Samsung seems to be going aggressive with their naming schemes for 2019. The new Samsung Galaxy A50 is set to launch sometime in 2019. Previously rumored to launch with the Exynos 7 9610, new rumors have surfaced for the product.

Also Read: Samsung Galaxy A10 Coming: A high-end A-series smartphone

The first of which is the 4000mAh battery, although a bit small if compared to the Galaxy M20’s 5000mAh unit. We have seen the Galaxy Note 9 with same amount of battery life perform well, and this one should be no exception.

The other part of the rumor is the 24MP camera, which should act as the primary rear sensor. We are still unsure of the other cameras at the rear or the front. But we are expecting there to be more than one at the back and at the front.

We already know that the Samsung Galaxy A50 will come with an Exynos 7 9610 SoC. It’s single core GeekBench score is comparable to the Snapdragon 660 while the multi-core score is close to the SD636. The processor will come paired with 4GB RAM and 64/128GB storage.

Also Read: Samsung Galaxy A9 2018 review

A factor that we found was interesting was the inclusion of the Android 9 Pie. Going by the past history, only the flagship, or in this case the Galaxy S10 would debut the newest version of Android for Samsung. This could mean that the A50 will launch after the S10 is official and up in stores.

Also Read: Moto G7 series launch dates, specs and rumors

We have no idea about when the Samsung Galaxy A50 will be launching nor do we know about the pricing. We do have very slight hints that this phone will come with wireless charging and an optical under-display fingerprint scanner.

Also Watch: Samsung Galaxy A9 2018 review

Details of two Xiaomi Flagships phones for 2019 surfaces online

GadgetByte

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December 30, 2018

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Details of two Xiaomi Flagships phones for 2019 surfaces online

We are expecting Xiaomi to launch two new flagships in 2019, namely the Mi Mix 4 and Xiaomi Mi 9. That list does not include whatever Xiaomi is planning for the Pocophone series or their gaming lineup. While none of the phones are expected to launch anytime soon, a few of their features have leaked online.

This information comes from a research note from GF Securities of Hong Kong. The first piece of information is the inclusion of a Snapdragon 855 SoC, not a huge surprise here. The second speculation is about the smartphone’s inclusion of triple camera setups, a first for Xiaomi itself.

Yes, both the Mi 9 and the Mi Mix 4 is expected to feature triple cameras. One of the triple cameras will be an optical zoom lens. The lens will not be increasing the thickness of the devices, according to the notes.

Read More: Xiaomi Mi Play Debuts in China

Other rumors also include a foldable display for the Mi Mix 4. Although, this won’t be much of a surprise either seeing how the Mi Mix lineup has come up with unique and unusual form factors.

Likewise, the possibility of multiple versions of these devices is also highly likely. One of the versions should end up featuring 5G connectivity. The Mi 9 might launch around May while the Mi Mix 4 will be announced at a later date, probably October of next year.

Also Watch: Xiaomi MI 8 Review!

Huawei P Smart 2019 will go on sale from January 2

GadgetByte

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December 30, 2018

0

Huawei P Smart 2019 will go on sale from January 2

The Huawei P Smart 2019 is now official. Moreover, the device is expected to start shipments from January 2 in Europe. And even the pricing has been revealed explicitly .

The smartphone features a 6.21″ LTPS IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1080×2340 pixels (19.5:9 aspect ratio). The display will come with Eye Comfort mode and a screen to body ratio of 83.1%.

Internals include a 12nm Hisilicon Kirin 710 processor paired with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The inbuilt internal storage will be expandable via a MicroSD card slot. However, the SD card use the SIM 2 Slot.

Also Read: Deal Alert: Huawei Nova 3i receives price drop

On the camera department, the Huawei P Smart 2019 features a dual camera setup at the back. It’s a 13MP f/2.2 primary lens aided by a 2MP depth sensor. The front gets an 8MP sensor with an HDR support.

Likewise, the device runs on Android Pie 9.0 with EMUI 9.0 on top. A 3400mAh battery keeps the device up and running, although lacks fast charging. It’s a 5V/2A 10W charging setup through MicroUSB 2.0.

Also Read: Best smartphone to buy in Nepal

The Huawei P Smart 2019 will be available in two colors, Black and Aurora Blue. While the smartphone will start shipping on January 2 in Europe, it will be available starting January 11 in the UK for £149 via different carriers plans.

Huawei P Smart 2019 Specifications:

Display: 6.21″ LTPS IPS LCD 1080×2340 pixels (19.5:9 aspect ratio)
Processor: Hisilicon Kirin 710 SoC
RAM: 3GB
Storage: 64GB expandable via MicroSD
Rear Camera: 13MP f/2.2, 2MP depth sensor
Front Camera: 8MP
Battery: 3400mAh (5V/2A charging)
Connectivity: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2, MicroUSB 2.0
OS: Android Pie 9.0 with EMUI 9.0
Colors: Black, Aurora Blue
Price: €250 (in Europe); Equivalent to $286 or Rs. 32,000 in Nepal