LG, the South Korean electronics giant, has created a name of its own on the global electronics market. Their products are used worldwide. They manufacture quite a variety of electronics one of which are smartphones.
If rumors are to be believed, LG is all set to come up with a new smartphone to be released under its ‘G’ series.
The new phone will be a follow-up to the LG G6 which was launched last year. Despite the excellence in performance G6 was overshadowed because of the competition.
Evan Blass, who is known for credible leaks, has leaked some information regarding an upcoming LG flagship phone. The phone is to release in June this year. The smartphone is codenamed ‘Judy’. From what we understand, and after considering its specs, this device is probably the LG G7.
Supposedly, the device will have an MLCD+ display which apparently is brighter than standard IPS LCD screens. We would not need to increase the brightness while out in the sun. This means an increase in battery life. Oh, and the battery consumption will be lowered by 35 percent.
LG G7 Rumored Design.
The display will be of 18:9 aspect ratio with the screen standing 6.1-inch tall. The length of the phone might not sound practical enough but the narrower width and minimal bezels will make holding the phone convenient.
The LG G7 will come with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset, which seems to be a common feature in the smartphones of 2018. It will have 64 GB of internal storage along with 4 GB of RAM which might be a bit disappointing to some as most flagship smartphones have 6 GB of RAM, but Android’s RAM management these days is much better!
In the camera department, the LG G7 will have dual rear cameras 16-megapixels each. However, there are still no leaks regarding the front-facing camera of the G7.
The LG G7 will be IP68 certified which means it will be water, dust, and impact resistant. Wireless charging is another feature that makes the G7 worth the wait. It was also mentioned that the LG G7 will have ‘boombox’ stereo speakers.
We will be able to know how much of it is true only once the phone is out in the market. If the rumors are true, the phone seems pretty promising with the MLCD+ display and the Snapdragon 845 SoC. Let’s wait and see if the LG G7 is what we are expecting it to be. The rumors already have our hopes high!
The Chinese company UMIDIGI is all set to launch its new flagship, the UMIDIGI Z2. This device may turn a lot of heads with the rumored 7000 mAh battery capacity. In addition to that, it is also said to feature a notch at the top of the display. The notch will supposedly carry dual selfie cameras, earpiece and a couple of sensors. With all these, the device is said to be the world’s first 6.2-inch “top-notch” flagship smartphone with FHD+ resolution.
Surprises don’t end yet because the display is also said to come equipped with an in-display fingerprint scanner. Similarly, the display will sport rounded edges over a 6.2-inch FHD+ body with 2246*1080 screen resolution.
Along with the display and the cameras, NFC will also be a part of the offering. Just like the UMIDIGI Crystal, that has a type-C USB and dual camera setup on the back, this one is anticipated to have the same.
Rumours have it that the phone will ship with Synaptic’s Clear ID in-display fingerprint scanner, which is one of its type that is available currently out on the market. Those scanners only work with OLED panels, so we expect the UMIDIGI Z2 to come equipped with an OLED screen.
Similar to what other phones UMIDIGI has brought to us, the Z2 will supposedly have a flagship-grade Snapdragon 835 SoC. This will be the first Umidigi smartphone to feature Qualcomm processor.
In terms of storage, the Umidigi Z2 is all set to feature 6GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage with microSD card expansion slot.
The rumored 7000 mAh battery is yet another attention seeking attribute of the device. The specifications UMIDIGI is bringing to the table with the Z2 certainly look striking. Testing the performance of the phone in real life is going to be a lot of fun.
Adding to this is an official announcement from UMIDIGI, on its Twitter account saying that “UMIDIGI Z2 is much more amazing than people expected”. This has surely risen expectations of the people!
That being said, wait for the UMIDIGI Z2 will just be a while longer as the company is all set to introduce the device to the world and even the Nepali market very soon.
Smartphones are in high demand these days. That’s why there’s an ever-going competition in between the smartphone manufacturers. They are constantly bringing up the ideas through which they can strengthen their hold in the global market. Recently, CIA, FBI, and NSA have warned authorities and the public against some companies following some security issues.
One of the companies is Huawei. The Chinese tech giant which has a firm hold in the global market has recently faced a setback. In fact, a series of setbacks. Let’s find out how.
In 2012, the Congress warned federal authorities from using Huawei and ZTE phones.
In January this year, AT&T stepped out from the partnership deal between these two.
Recently, the intelligence agencies based in the US – CIA, FBI, and NSA have warned even the public from using the Huawei and ZTE phones.
Well, we are not unknown about the rivalries between China and the US. The clash of ideology between these nations aroused from China being a communist/socialist and the US being the capitalist nation. This is a political issue but how does it affect on whether the Americans use a Chinese brand’s phone or not?
According to FBI director Cris Wray, “It provides the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information, and it provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage.”
The American intelligence agencies are wary of the fact that the Chinese government might invade their national security and steal the data through their smartphone companies. That’s why they even warned the public from using products and services from these companies. Maybe security is not just the issue, the competition of market is a problem as well. As these are the products of a nation whose economic growth is rapid.
What do Huawei and ZTE have to say about this issue?
While this much is being said and done against these companies, they come up for their defense. Both of the companies have their own say regarding this issue.
“We operate in 170 countries where there is trust with governments and customers. We pose no greater cybersecurity risk than other vendors,” Huawei said.
“As a publicly traded company, we are committed to adhering to all applicable laws and regulations of the United States, work with carriers to pass strict testing protocols, and adhere to the highest business standards,” said ZTE. To which ZTE had once said, the company’s chipsets incorporated in their phones and devices are manufactured in the US itself. That’s quite a point.
Huawei has its stronghold in middle and eastern European nations, which out-numbers Apple in some parts. Huawei had addressed the last minute scraped deal with AT&T at CES 2018 this year by stating it as a ‘big loss’ to the company.
According to the Verge, “US lawmakers are currently considering a bill that would ban government employees from using Huawei and ZTE phones altogether.”
The strong ties between these Chinese smartphones and networks giants are also being considered as one of the important reasons why they are being looked at with suspicion.
Not even technology is untouched by the rivalry among nations and their clash in ideology is reflecting on the global market as well. Will these companies be able to make their space in the American market by negotiating and convincing the US agencies? Or will they be restricted as per the news?
While technology is considered to be a bridge towards better relationships between the nations, seems like this will further make the rivalry grow stronger.
Google has been our ‘go to’ search engine ever since we started knowing about the internet. Whenever we are to search something, Google is the word we type in the browser’s search bar. That’s how inclined we are to searching through google.
Throughout years, Google has been adding to its features to make the experience better. And it has recently made some changes to the searching experience.
Followed by the complaint filed to European commission by Getty images in 2016, Google has made some changes to the image search this week.
1. It has removed the ‘view image’ option.
2. It has removed the ‘search image’ option.
Google tweeted: “Today we’re launching some changes on Google Images to help connect users and useful websites. This will include removing the View Image button. The Visit button remains, so users can see images in the context of the web pages they’re on. The Search by Image button is also being removed. Reverse image search *still works* through the way most people use it, from the search bar of Google Images”.
Apparently, such changes have been made because of the copyright issues. As the images have been used without citing the source time and again.
Now, with the ‘visit’ option, people will be directed to the website from where the image is sourced. The copyright disclaimer has also been re-written in bigger fonts.
This has provided Getty images with some relief. “This agreement between Getty Images and Google sets the stage for a very productive, collaborative relationship between our companies,” said the CEO of Getty images, Dawn Airey.
This has made the users angry. At least, some tweets indicate so. A tweet reads, “Worst change in the history of mankind.” Others have found why they should opt for Bing or similar search engines where they have ‘view image’ button.
While this makes the legality part stronger, the convenience of people has been compromised with. People can still view the pictures in isolation by the help of ‘open image in new tab option’. But this definitely requires extra clicks.
Google’s search liaison, Danny Suvillian tweeted, “they are designed to strike a balance between serving user needs and publisher concerns, both stakeholders we value.” Since the users don’t seem to be happy, ‘serving user needs’ part is still in question while publisher concerns have definitely been addressed.
“Congratulations, You’ve won an iPhone 7”. You might be familiar with the pop-ups like that, which starts with a spinning wheel and gives this amazing good but fake news with a vibration or an annoying sound. If you were ever irritated with the pop-ups like that and with annoying ads in the website pages, then there is good news for you. Google Chrome is killing such annoying online ads and pop-ups as an attempt to improve the users’ experience while surfing the internet.
Needless to say, the online ads are excruciatingly annoying. While browsing the content on a website, the ads increase the load time of the pages. And sometimes because of the enormous size of the ad banners, it hides the content and acts as a speed breaker at times. To add more, some websites include irritating pop-ups notifying about the flash sales or sales campaign, which sometimes begins with auto-play videos in the startup. These are some of the ways to make income by the publisher. However, such irksome behavior of the publishers has given rise to the use of a number of Ad-blocker plug-ins to get rid of those ads and pop-ups.
With that being said, the main purpose of the Google here is to brutally obliterate the intrusive ads. But all the ads on the web are not going to be removed from their respective websites.
To get better insights, Google conducted a survey among the group of 40,000 internet users and took a test of the user experiences over the certain types of ads. And in the survey, the majority of people had found the prestitial ads to be most intrusive of all.
So, starting with February 15th, Google started blocking all the intrusive ads, which does not follow the Google Ad guidelines. And only the Ads that follow the Better Ads Standards will be welcomed on any website. However, despite the inclusion of non-intrusive Ads on the website, one should also take note of the Ad density. Users usually find the sites with higher high ad density displeasing, so Google evaluates the website by examining a sample of pages from the site. After the evaluation, Google checks if the website complies with the guidelines and takes necessary actions.
This campaign by Google looks like a devoted gesture for an improved user experience. However, it might bring black clouds over the income of the publishers. This is just a presumption, so how will this campaign fares and how will it bring improvements in the users’ behaviors, there is more yet to see.
Oppo has brought a special limited edition of Oppo F5 featuring Dashing Blue which perfectly mirrors the color of an eye-catching effect on the rear of the body.The Oppo F5 Dashing Blue is a classic and bold color that stands out for itself or indeed can blend in with your fashion style. The Oppo F5 Dashing Blue Limited Edition is introduced in Nepal targetting the romantic couples for this love season.
The rear panel of the phone happens to be reflective, giving off a mirror-like effect when exposed to light. While the other specifications of the blue edition remain the same as the variants of OPPO F5 phones.
The F5 Dashing Blue has a 6-inch full HD+ display which blends beautifully with its thin frame of 7.5mm. It possesses near bezel-less display, an 18:9 aspect ratio, 2.5D curved glass laid on top of it. Oppo F5 runs on Colors OS 3.2 based on Android 7.1.1 Nougat. It is powered by octa-core processor which is ready to heat up your activity and experience keeping a steady temperature of the device.
In terms of memory, Oppo F5 houses on 4GB/6GB RAM and has an internal memory of 32GB/64GB (expandable to 256GB). And unlike phones nowadays, it has a total of 3 slots for Dual Nano Sim cards and a micro SD. However, the main highlight of the limited edition F5 is its camera. Oppo F5 Dashing Blue has a 16MP rear-facing shooter and a 20MP selfie camera. It is designed to personalize beautification of subjects in selfies. The phone has a fingerprint sensor as well as a Facial Unlock which is quick and convenient. Also, Oppo F5 offers a battery of 3200mAh.
OPPO F5 Dashing Blue Specifications
6-inch Full HD+ (2160X1080 pixels) display
Dimensions: 156.5 x 76 x 75.5 mm
Octa-core MediaTek MT6763T processor
4GB RAM, 32GB internal memory, expandable with microSD up to 256GB
Android v7.1.1 (Nougat)
16 MP Rear Camera with LED flash
20 MP AI-powered Selfie camera
3200 mAh battery
Dual Nano Sim Card & micro SD (Dedicated slot)
Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, Wifi 2.4/5GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n, OTG
Distance, Fingerprint, Proximity, Accelerometer, Ambient light and Gyroscope sensors
It could be a dream of an uncountable number of people to find a smartphone that has stupendous potential in the camera department and still available at an affordable price. And focusing the people with such mindset, Colors had brought the Colors S11 which had an impressive dual selfie camera up front. It was launched in the mid-January and had been the first online exclusive smartphone in Nepal back then. The same smartphone has now expanded its territory and is available for the offline purchase.
Colors S11 comes with a 5.2-inch display, which offers an HD resolution. At this size, the smartphone feels comfortable to hold and is even easy for the single-handed use. Since the smartphone being the camera-centric handset, it comes with remarkable 8MP twin cameras on the front end. With this kind of setup, users can get a wide-angle shot of 120-degrees. So one should not worry about having a friend or family member to be out of the frame even while taking a selfie in a large group of people. On the back, there is a single 8MP shooter.
Powering the Colors S11 is MediaTek MT6737W chipset backed by 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. And there is a dedicated slot for the Micro SD card if the onboard storage turned out to be insufficient. The smartphone is fueled by a 3000mAh battery and comes with Android Nougat OS out of the box.
Colors S11 Specifications
5.2-inch IPS LCD display, HD (720 x 1280 pixels) resolution @282 PPI
Finding a good budget smartphone is cumbersome these days. To keep the prices low, compromises are made here and there. However, the Moto E4 seems quite somewhat promising in terms of specs even at the budget price point. But how will the smartphone fare in the real-life scenario? Let’s find in this Moto E4 review.
Motorola Moto E4 Specifications
5.0 inches(720 x 1280) @294ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 3 Protection with Oleophobic Coating
Android 7.1.1 Nougat
Fingerprint sensor
MediaTek MT6737 Quadcore
2GB RAM
16GB Internal Storage, Expandable up to 128 GB.
8MP Rear Camera with f/2.2 aperture.
5MP Front Facing Camera with f/2.2 aperture.
Removable Li-Ion 2800 mAh battery with Fast Charging
Moto E4 Price in Nepal: Rs. 16,290
Design and Build
The smartphone is a miniature version of its sibling, the Moto E4 Plus. The plastic body provided with a metallic finish and the texture on the power button is barely distinguishable. However, the smartphone gives the vibe of metallic build and feels cold quite often in this chilly weather.
Bezel-less displays are quite trendy these days. However, the Moto E4 has not adopted that alluring design. The smartphone has pretty generous bezels on the forehead and the chin. The forehead has been the habitat for the ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, and the earpiece. Likewise, there is a secluded fingerprint sensor on the chip. The sensor is oblong in shape and has fiercely pushed the touch buttons to the screen. There is also a notification LED on the phone but barely serves the purpose. The only time I found the LED lit was while charging handset during the switched off condition.
And talking about the buttons, the Moto E4 has accumulated all the buttons on its right edge. With the power button positioned at an absolute middle and the volume rockers placed just above it, they are easily reachable and provide good haptic feedback on the press. On the top, there is a 3.5mm headphone jack and micro USB slot lies meticulously on the button. The speaker, on the other hand, lies on the lower back of the phone.
Display
The smartphone possesses a 5-inch HD display with 2.5D glass on the top. The pixel density of 294PPI may not seem top-notch in the papers but on the use, the display is satisfyingly crisp and users will barely have an issue. Users would rather enjoy its smooth touchscreen crafted with 2.5D glass and a sensational oleophobic coating. Viewing angle is also fairly decent with an impressive color reproduction. To add more, the display is shielded with Gorilla glass 3 to evade the vulnerabilities regarding the scratches. However, the screen is a notorious smudge magnet and needs cleaning quite often although having an oleophobic coating.
Software and UI
On the software side, Moto E4 is gifted with clean Android Nougat on its system. With just the home-baked Moto app on the shelf, the smartphone lacks the additional touch from the manufacturer. And this is the major advantage with the Moto E4 as the additional customizations and presence of bloatware make the device sluggish and devours the RAM and internal storage of the phone.
The Moto app has Moto actions and Moto display options inside. With the one button navigation option in the Moto action, the fingerprint sensor can be used as a trackpad to replace the on-screen buttons with gestures. There is also swipe to shrink the screen, which narrows down the content in a smaller screen and assists in single hand usability. Likewise, the Night display in the Moto display turns on the blue light filter during the night hours and helps to regulate the sleep cycle.
Performance
Moto E4 is powered by MediaTek 6737 processor aided by 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The presence of 16GB of onboard storage is nothing out of ordinary at this price point. But the presence of a dedicated slot for the storage expansion definitely is, which lets the users boost the storage without sacrificing the SIM2 slot.
Talking about the performance, I find no issues on loading and running of light apps and games. None of the apps ever crashed or stopped with error messages. However, there was a slight delay while loading heavier games and few stutters were evident on the play. Some heavy titles like Dead Trigger 2, Into the Dead 2, and PES were still playable even with the minor hiccups. And the most praiseworthy of all was the device did not heated much even while playing the games for hours.
Talking about the camera, the smartphone gives the vibe of a camera phone with its protruded camera bump on the back and LED flash on both ends. However, on the use, I had mixed feelings about it. The 8MP camera on the back was not too shabby and took some decent shots. Photos were fine on the phone’s screen but lacked the sharpness when zoomed or viewed in larger screens. There was also decent color accuracy most of the times but in some images, I noticed yellow tints. Low light shots were satisfactory if not better. Except for few noises and grains, there were no issues on low light shots and the details within the image were easily traceable.
The 5MP front camera was not bad either. It pulled out some social media ready selfies without a fuss. And for the ones, who crave for the beautified selfies in the real time, there is an inbuilt beauty mode. Skin tones are made fairer and facial skins are smoothened in the beautified selfies. Such effects make you look better at times but the facial details are obliterated in most of the cases. And talking about the low light selfies, I was quite disappointed with the front LED flash because of its blinding light. Additionally, the skin looked washed out, which was pretty devastating.
The inefficient HDR mode, sluggish autofocus and the lack of pro mode is a bummer on the phone. And in a nutshell, there is nothing to brag about the cameras in the E4.
Moto E4 camera samples
1 of 10
Low light shot
Image with yellow tint
Image with yellow tint
Selfie with beauty mode off
Selfie with beauty mode on
Battery
Beneath the removable back of the Moto E4, there is a 2800mAh removable battery. On my normal daily use, the phone usually backed me up for one complete day. Back up was satisfactory to me but charging the device was a pain in the neck. Although it supports fast charging, I’m disappointed that Motorola provides a stock charger of 5V, 1A, which takes around 2 and a half hours to get it fully charged. You have to spend few extra bucks to buy a separate fast charger. I tried to charge the device with a fast charger of 5V, 2A, and the charging was fast with 0 to 100 within one and a half hour. But the fastest charge would be to buy a separate battery and swap it whenever the other is empty.
Conclusion
To keep the prices low, compromises are inescapable in the budget smartphones. And the Moto E4 has not broken that streak. However, considering the price, the smartphone has not opted in for middling performance on any major fields. The stock Android, sturdy design, and the inclusion of snappy fingerprint are duly remarkable. And the overall performance of the device looks balanced. A better processor and a slightly bigger battery would have been icing on the cake but nonetheless, the Moto E4 is still one of the rockstars in the arena of budget smartphones.
Instagram was launched in 2010 exclusively for the iOS users. The aim was to make it a platform through which people could communicate through pictures. It gained massive popularity (100,000 users) just within a week. The number has consistently grown through years.
The platform which was limited to just being a photo sharing app slowly upgraded with various updates. The first one was hashtags. Both Instagram and hashtags contributed to each other’s popularity. Then the updates like Insta-filters, tilt-shift, and acceptance of high-resolution pictures were made.
Instagram made its way to the Android Play store in April 2012. The popularity reached its peak with a million downloads within a single day. Insta-direct, a few editing functions, boomerang, new icon, Insta-stories, image zoom, live streaming, uploading multiple photos at a time etc. are the updates Instagram has come up with throughout the years.
Just when we feel like that’s all, Instagram has come up with multiple new updates to our surprise. This time, the update that Instagram is intending to come up with might/might not be as exciting to the users.
Following Snapchat’s footsteps, Instagram is now coming up with an update which will notify the creator of the story if we take screenshots. It is similar but not the same.
The notification part is definitely similar but the notification will only be visible to the uploader once they go to the ‘story views’ section. Beside the name of the person who took a screenshot of the story will be a camera-shutter logo. While in Snapchat, the notifications are instantly pushed to devices.
If seen from a security point of a view, this keeps the uploader aware. But at the same time, it is not as secure as we think of it to be. Or, we could say, this update will not be fully functional. Why? Because notifications can be prevented if the screenshots are taken while putting the phones on flight-mode. This makes the update kind of futile.
Hence, how effective or necessary this update is, will be known once it is available to everybody. For now, waiting is the key.
Chinese smartphone brand Gionee has slashed the price of its latest selfie oriented smartphone, Gionee A1 Lite. Launched for Rs. 25,999, the A1 Lite is now available for Rs. 20,570. You can redeem the offer from the nearest retail outlets.
This price drop will definitely lure selfie lovers as the phone is equipped with a high-res 20MP camera. It also features a whopping 4000mAh battery which provided excellent backup on our review. The 5.3-inch display has an HD resolution which might turn off few users, but the IPS LCD screen is satisfactory. The 1.3Ghz octa-core processor from MediaTek and 3GB of RAM gives smooth experience in day-to-day use, but the gaming performance is average at best.
The 13MP Sony lens on the A1 Lite has f/2.0 aperture, Phase Detection autofocus, and dual-LED flash. It has 32GB of internal storage which you can expand it via microSD card up to 128GB. It runs on Android 7.0 Nougat with Amigo 4.0 UI layered on top. Connectivity option includes dual SIM with 4G LTE, 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and USB OTG. You can check out our full review here:
Gionee A1 Lite Specs:
Display: 5.3 inch IPS display with 1280*720 pixel (282 ppi)
Protection: 2.5D curved glass with Corning Gorilla Glass 3
Processor: 1.3 GHz Octa-core 64 bit MediaTek MT6753 Soc with Mali-T720MP3 GPU
