It’s been a while now since Ncell launched its 4G service in cities like Kathmandu and 3 other places. Now after exactly 2 months, the Axiata Group company has announced that Ncell has rolled out its 4G services in 17 cities across Nepal.
Ncell also promises to expand the availability over the country as soon as possible. If you happen to live in any of these cities, you need a few things to enjoy Ncell 4G:
4G enabled phone
Ncell’s 4G enabled SIM (U-SIM)
If you don’t have a U-SIM, you can easily upgrade your existing Ncell SIM card to a U-SIM for free of cost. All you need to do is visit the nearest Ncell Center or Shop near you with your citizenship or any form of authentication you used to acquire your SIM. They are also offering 30-days of free music streaming via Yonder Music app; just dial *324# for activation.
After the launch of the budget phone Zopo C3, Everest Tech Pvt. Ltd, the official distributor of Zopo mobiles in Nepal has brought a new mid-range phone, the Zopo Speed X. The phone was also recently launched worldwide and this is an instant launch here in Nepal. The Zopo Speed X comes with a sleek metal body and is priced at Rs.20,900 in Nepal.
Zopo Speed X sports a 5-inch Full HD IPS display with pixel density of 441PPI. The phone with Speed on its name is powered by the mediocre MediaTek’s MT6753 Octa-Core Processor. The chipset used has been used in a lot of other mid-range phones like the ZTE Blade V7 Lite, Infocus M680, Gionee S6s and many others. So with that processor and 3GB of RAM, the phone should be adequate for your day to day usage. For storage, the phone comes with 32GB of internal storage which can be expanded up to 128GB via Micro SD Card.
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Coming down to the Camera section, the phone gets really interesting with its Dual Camera setup (13MP and 2MP shooter). The dual camera setup helps in the Bokeh effect making the background blur. Up front, the phone houses a 13MP selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture and flash. The phone is running on Android 7.0 Nougat with Zopo’s own custom UI. The phone also incorporates a fingerprint sensor on the back which Zopo claims will unlock the phones within 0.16s. The phone is backed up by a 2680mAhbattery.
Specifications of Zopo Speed X:
5-inch (1080*1920)pixel with 441ppi
No Protection Mentioned
Android 7.0 Nougat
MediaTek MT6753 SoC with 1.3GHz Octa-core Processor
3GB RAM; 32GB Internal Storage, Expandable up to 128GB
13+2MP Primary Camera with f/2.2 aperture
13MP Secondary Camera with f/2.0 aperture and front facing flash
Vatsal Impex Pvt. Ltd., the authorized distributor of Xiaomi products in Nepal, has launched its flagship smartphone of 2017 — the Xiaomi Mi6 in Nepal. Announced 3 months ago in China, the Mi6 offers flagship grade specs at a lower price compared to existing flagships from Samsung or Sony.
Xiaomi Mi6 Specs:
The Xiaomi Mi6 sports a 5.15-inch FullHD IPS LCD display with a pixel density of 428ppi. The display is very bright at 600 nits and also very dim at 1.2 nits. It is powered by a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 835 chipset with octa-core Kryo 280 CPU (4×2.4GHz + 4×1.9GHz) and Adreno 540 GPU. It is also aided by 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The decision to use a 1080P panel will surely yield better performance compared to QHD displays of Galaxy S8 or LG G6.
Xiaomi Mi6 is available in Black color option in Nepal.
In the camera department, the Xiaomi Mi6 has the all-new Dual 12MP camera setup. The first one is a 12MP Sony IMX386 sensor with 27mm f/1.8 lens and 1.25µm pixels. It is assisted by a 4-axis OIS, phase detection auto focus, and dual-LED flash. The second camera is a 12MP telephoto lens with 56mm f/2.6 lens and 1.00µm pixels. The second lens lacks OIS. The front houses an 8MP selfie camera.
The Xiaomi Mi6 has a 3,350mAh battery with quick charge 3.0 support (55% charge in 30 minutes). Connectivity option includes Dual Nano SIM slots with 4G LTE (Cat.16 with 1Gbps of download speed), Dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, GPS/GLONASS/Beidou, Bluetooth v5.0, NFC, USB Type-C port, and IR blaster. The Xiaomi Mi 6 lacks FM radio and 3.5mm earphone jack, but Xiaomi is providing a Type-C-to-analog jack adapter inside the box. It is currently running on MIUI 8 base on Android 7.1 Nougat.
There are stereo speakers on the bottom and a fingerprint scanner on the front.
You can buy the Xiaomi Mi 6 in Nepal for Rs. 54,999 starting today from its official website or from authorized retail stores all over Nepal. So, what do you think about the Xiaomi Mi6 (Considering the specs and price)? Let us know in the poll down below.
In July 2017, Tesla began production of their latest mass market electric car – the Tesla Model 3. At the end of last month, Tesla organized an event to distribute 20 of its production cars to its customers who had booked them well over a year ago. In total Tesla made 50 production cars last month out of which 20 went on for post production testing, and 30 were meant for the customers. This event was as usual hosted by the CEO of Tesla – Elon Musk.
Tesla Model 3
Tesla Model 3 is the world’s most affordable pure electric car with the longest range of 300 miles. It’s base priced model is priced at the US $35,000. Tesla is making two variants of the model 3. The Standard option will be the base variant that will have a range of 220 miles. It will go 0-60mph in 5.6 seconds and will have a top speed of 130 mph. On the other hand, the Long range variant will have 310 miles of range and an acceleration of 5.1 seconds. It will have a top speed of 140 mph.
The surprising fact of the Model 3 is that it will not have a driver instrumentation panel like that of the Model S. There will be a large 15-inch center infotainment screen that will display all the required information. Elon Musk says that the future cars will be more or less autonomous. Therefore, a driver doesn’t need to gaze upon the instrumentation panel constantly. All the speed, range, lane requirements will continuously be monitored by computers onboard in the car. The base version of Model 3 will come as a standard with autonomous hardware and fast charging capabilities.
Model 3 Production
Tesla is in plans to meet the initial production target of 5 thousand cars a week. They are hopeful that they can produce 10 thousand vehicles a week later on. In the event, Elon Musk emotionally thanked the customers who bought the Model S and the Model X. This helped them build the insanely cheap Model 3 for the masses. He also stated that if customers order a Model 3 now, they will get it within a year. But if they order a Model S or a Model X as of now, they will get it in about 1 to 2 months.
What’s happening here in Nepal?
After the fuel crisis in 2016, sales of electric scooters started blooming here in Kathmandu. Now, as the crisis of gas is at its minimum, people have forgotten the misery of the crisis. The only electric car that is being sold here in Nepal is the Mahindra e2o priced at 25 lakhs. If the production of fuel declines in the world, developing countries like ours will be the first to get hit by the crisis. For a country which is trying to be independent in electricity, electric cars would be the best way to reduce the petroleum dependency to some extent at-least. For an electric car to run in Kathmandu, it doesn’t even require the range like that of Model 3. It is due to the fact that Kathmandu and all the other major cities are concentrated in a radius of 10 kilometers.
What do you think about electric car and scooters running here in Nepal? Also if you own an electric vehicle, how has it treated you? Write down your views in the comments below!
The state owned telecom service provider in Nepal, NTC has announced a few exciting offers. Ranging from its internet services to the GSM/CDMA line, all of the services gets a few “promotional offers”. These offers are valid for the next 90 days.
The first offer is for the unlimited ADSL users. They can now enjoy internet speeds of up to 1mbps for just Rs 1000 per month (including tax). This will be a huge improvement for people who have been using internet speeds of 256kbps for Rs 1017.
The volume based ADSL users also get price cuts. You can check the new rates for 1mbps internet speeds below.
Volume (GB)
Price
15
Rs 300
25
Rs 500
40
Rs 700
The previous rate was Rs 1980 for 15GB of data, so this is also a huge step in the right direction. All of the above-mentioned packages come with one month validity period.
Likewise, the installment cost has also gone down significantly. The old price of Rs 500 has been slashed down to Rs 300 for the volume based users and Rs 200 for the unlimited ADSL users.
The FTTH users can also enjoy double the volume they were getting at the same price. The new volumes for the 10mbps internet packages are:
Data (GB)
Validity (Months)
240
3
500
6
1200
12
For the 100mbps package, you get 1200GB with a validity of 12 months.
Lastly, something for the GSM/CDMA users. If you happen to receive an international call of more than 7 minutes within the time frame of a week, you get 7 mins talk time and 7 SMS for free. But do keep in mind these free calls and SMS are only applicable within the NTC network.
All of these new offers are definitely a step in the right direction, certainly due to that fact that their previous offerings were uninspiring. The new offers are certainly not up to par with other internet service providers, but it’s a huge improvement none the less.
After the success of the Mate 9,Huawei looks like launching its successor — the Mate 10 very soon. The CEO of Huawei himself confirmed it in an interview.
The CEO said that the Mate 10 will come with a “full-screened display” which makes it “near bezel-less”. He also promised “longer battery life”, “Quicker charging speeds”, and “better photography capabilities compared to the next iPhone”. In addition to all these, the Kirin 970 chipset will also debut with the Huawei Mate 10.
All of these comes with no surprises. What was surprising was the Huawei’s decision to give-up on the low-end smartphone market. The CEO himself confirmed that Huawei will stop making low-end smartphones blaming the profit margins were extremely low.
The margin in this is extremely low, and it’s not making enough profit. So do expect only mid-range and high-end smartphones from Huawei. – Richard Yu, CEo Huawei
Huawei recently launched its low-end phone in Nepal. Called the Y5 2017, Huawei has priced the device at Rs. 15,600 and comes with features like 5-inch display, quad-core CPU, 2GB RAM, 8MP primary camera, 5MP front camera, and a 3000mAh battery. The budget oriented Huawei Y5 2017 hopes to compete with Xiaomi’s Redmi 4A, Samsung’s On7 Pro, and Gionee’s X1 in the low-end competitive market.
Micromax Selfie 2 is currently listed on the company’s official website. The highlight of the device is its 8MP wide angle Sony made front facing camera capable of taking real time bokeh effect.
The website shows the front camera is a Sony made IMX135 sensor with f/2.0 aperture. It has a 5P Lens that is HDR ready, can take real time bokeh effect, wide angle capability and has a blur glass IR filter. It also shows one touch shot and face beauty mode.
The back camera is a 13MP OV 8856 sensor with f/2.0 with an 84-degree Field of view. It’s capable of auto scene detection, panorama and what Micromax claims Super Pixel 5200M.
The Micromax Selfie 2 is running on the MediaTek MT6737 SoC paired with 3GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. The battery is a 3000mAh capacity and it runs on the latest Android Nougat. The phone also features a fingerprint sensor at the back.
Pricing and availability are yet to be revealed, but the website claims a 100-day replacement warranty on hardware failures. Check their listing here.
Chinese smartphone brand Gionee has launched its budget oriented smartphone — the Gionee X1. It is priced at Rs. 13,999 (approx US$136). It is now available in Nepal and will soon be available in India, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, and Philippines.
Gionee X1 Features:
The Gionee X1 has a 5-inch IPS HD display (720 x 1280 pixels and 294 ppi) with no protection mentioned. It is powered by a MediaTek (MT6737) SoC with a 1.3Ghz quad-core 64bit processor and Mali-T720 MP2 GPU. It has 2GB of DDR3 RAM and 16GB of onboard storage. You can expand the storage via a dedicated microSD card slot for upto 256GB.
Gionee has been launching smartphones with tagline “Super Selfie Super Battery” and the Gionee X1 is no exception here. It boasts an 8-megapixel front and back camera. The front houses a F/2.4 lens and the back houses a F/2.2 lens. Both are assisted by an LED flash. It also has a 3000mAh battery which the company claim will provide 209 hours of standby on 4G network, 27 hours of talk time on the 2G network, 18.5 hours of music, and 5 hours of video playback.
The Gionee X1 is currently running on Android 7.0 Nougat with Amigo UI 4.0 layered on top. It measures 144.3*72.2*8.8mm in dimension. It will be available in 4 color options: Black, Gold, Red, Blue. Connectivity wise, the Gionee X1 has dual nano SIM slots with 4G LTE (TDD+FDD), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, micro USB with OTG support, and GPS. It has all the sensors like Fingerprint, Gravity, compass, and Gyro.
What AMD mean by “True Quad-Core” is that the Ryzen 3 offers four actual cores. Compare that to what Intel’s offering at the same price bracket with just two cores and four threads.
The Ryzen 3 series has two models — the 1200 and 1300X. Ryzen 3 1200 costs $109 (NRs. 11,500) whereas the 1300X will cost you about $129 (NRs. 13,500).
Ryzen 3 1200 has four cores with four threads with a base clock of 3.1GHz and boost clock of 3.4GHz. It has a TDP of 65W.
The 1300X also has four cores with four threads, but with a base clock of 3.5Ghz and boost clock of 3.7GHz. But with XFR the clock speeds go up to 3.9GHz, although you will have to shell out another $59 for Wreath Max cooler with RGB lighting. It also shares the same TDP of 65W.
Both processors are compatible with X370, B350 and A320 motherboards.
And both processors are based on the socket AM4 platform. The biggest downside of Ryzen processors is they also don’t come with onboard GPU.
These new processors from AMD will compete with Intel’s Core i3 processors (7100U), which are all dual core processors with four threads.
And both the processors are overclockable as well, though, only supported on the B350 motherboard. The i3s are overclockable too, but you will need a more expensive Z270 motherboard. So that’s another advantage for AMD.
Samsung, being the best-selling smartphone brand in Nepal opts to garner the customers of different budget ranges. Among the different budget segments available, Samsung has a strong hold on the mid-range segment and the Galaxy J-series has been quite popular on the run. And among the confusingly large lineups of the Galaxy J-series, a new name has been added to the list. Bearing the price tag of Rs. 28, 290, the eagerly awaited lad from Samsung, the Samsung Galaxy J7 Max launched in Nepal.
Latest Price: Rs. 26,290 [Last updated on: December 6, 2018]
Samsung Galaxy J7 Max, the handsome lad in a metallic outfit is quite a phablet with the large screen of 5.7-inches. Though the J7 Max is deprived of Samsung’s own Super AMOLED display, it bears PLS (Plane to Line Switching) LCD, which Samsung claims to provide enhanced image quality, improved viewing angle, 10% increase in brightness and 15% decrease in production cost offering an increased flexibility over IPS displays. The display offers a Full-HD resolution packing a pixel density of 386PPI.
Samsung Galaxy J7 Max flaunts a 5.7-inch Full HD display. It’s a PLS display with a pixel density of 386ppi.
On the software side, Samsung Galaxy J7 Max comes with Android Nougat out of the box with Samsung’s custom UI on the top. The UI offers a galore of useful features like Dual-messenger for cloning apps, S Secure to lock and mask apps for maintaining privacy, etc. The device is powered by MediaTek Helio P20 chipset aided by Mali-T880MP2 GPU. Peeking at the memory, Samsung has been quite generous with 4GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage and most importantly a dedicated SDcard slot for memory expansion.
Samsung Galaxy J7 Max Sports a metal unibody which looks and feels premium.
Above all, Samsung Galaxy J7 Max embraces impressive cameras. Both on the front and back resides a 13MP camera accompanied by the LED flash. The rear camera has a wide aperture of f/1.7 capable of taking impressive shots even on low lights. Around the rear camera, there is a ring to alert about the notifications. The ring is called Smart Glow Ring, whose glowing color can be selected as per the user preference. The selfie shooter on the front has an aperture of f/1.9, which does not disappoint on the performance. The aperture of f/1.9 is fairly wide to inlet sufficient amount of light and ensures decent shots even on the dark. In the case of insufficiency of light, one can always make a use of the selfie flash.
The highlight of the Samsung Galaxy J7 Max has to be its 13MP camera with F/1.7 aperture lens and LED flash.
To acknowledge users’ privacy and to provide security to it, the phone has welcomed the fingerprint sensor, which dwells on the home button. The J7 Max has also embraced a gyro sensor. The presence of gyro sensor has made itself useful for watching 360-degree videos, playing VR (virtual reality) games and so on. There is a powerhouse of 3300mAh non-removable battery to keep the device nourished.
Samsung has included Dual SIM slots (4G +3G) and a dedicated microSD card slot in the Galaxy J7 Max.
Samsung Galaxy J7 Max specs:
Dimension: 156.7 x 78.8 x 8.1 mm; Weight: 179g
5.7 Inch Full HD PLS Display
Android v7.0 Nougat
4 GB RAM
32 GB ROM
Dedicated SDcard slot for memory expansion up to 256 GB
Octa-Core MediaTek MT6757 Helio P20 Processor
13 MP Rear Camera with f/1.7 aperture, LED Flash
13 MP Front Facing Camera with f/1.9 aperture and LED Flash
Dual SIM (Nano + Nano)
4G connectivity, WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, A-GPS, USB OTG
What do you think about the new Samsung Galaxy J7 Max? What are the good, bad and ugly features of the phone? Will it be one of the top smartphones under 30000? Drop your thoughts in the comment section.
