GadgetByte Nepal

Sony yesterday launched the all new range a series professional mirror-less camera, the Sony A9, for basically intended for wildlife and sports photography. However, it doesn’t mean it will not serve your general photography needs like events, lifestyle, and vlogs.

The new Sony a9 comes with 24.2 megapixels, high-speed, blackout-free continuous shooting at up to 20fps. It has a 60 AF/AE tracking calculations per second 10, a maximum shutter speed of up to 1/32,000 second and scattered 693 AF points.

The camera is priced at $4,500 and will begin shipping in May. The lens will be available for $2,500 and begin shipping in July. I personally think the camera is definitely going to threaten the existence of the 1Dx II and D5 from Nikon with the price tag it carries. Sony says it has also improved its battery which was the biggest drawback on Sony A7rii and they have also introduced joystick on the side of the screen for easy focus movement and selection.

Regarding its availability and price in Nepal, it’s yet to be confirmed. However, it surely will catch the attention of Nepali photographers who are just keen on using Canon’s or Nikon’s. I personally being a commercial photographer cannot just wait to get the hands of this camera .

A subsidiary of the Apex Group, Apex Digital is proving to be a successful store in a short period of time. Apex Group opened its first smart store in the form of Apex Digital in October last year. Fast forward six months and the company looks set to open its ninth smart store in Nepal.

With the slogan of “Bishwas Chari, Nepal Bhari”, Apex Digital has been opening lots of stores outside the Kathmandu Valley and all over Nepal. It has smart stores up and running in places like Dang, Narayangadh, Itahari and Kathmandu valley among others. The company is undoubtedly the first of its kind to emphasize its stores in all places of Nepal.

En route to opening 40 chain stores by 2074, Apex Digital opened its ninth smart store at Mainroad, Biratnagar. At the store, customers will get an on-hand experience and get to use the smartphone for a while before buying them. Mr. Prakash Subedhi, the Brand Manager of Apex Digital, said, “The Smart Store at Mainroad, Biratnagar – a place you need to visit where the customers can have hands-on experience with touch, feel and compare various brands of mobile handsets and accessories under one roof.”

Apex Digital is currently selling smartphones from multinational brands like Samsung, Nokia, OnePlus, Oppo, HTC, Gionee, ZTE, Xiaomi, Lenovo, ZOPO, and Micromax. It also sells branded accessories of these products.

On the occasion of the grand opening of the store, Apex Digital is giving gifts to their visitors where every store visitor’s name will be up for a special lucky draw. Also, buyers will be able to enjoy 3 months of replacement guarantee on every product they purchase. This offer is, however, valid only for a short time.

Mr. Pratik Dhungel, the Retail Manager of Apex Digital, said, “The company, on the occasion of the opening, has announced various attractive discounts and special gifts. On every purchase of mobile handsets, the customers will receive a special gift hamper.”

ZTE Axon 7 was termed as the flagship killer of last year. Price at $400, it offered a lot of great features like AMOLED display, Snapdragon 820, 4GB RAM, 20MP Camera, Stereo Speakers and the list goes on and on. The phone was also pretty solid and hit all the right spots for a flagship phone. Now ZTE is taking naming convention from Apple and launching the new upgraded version of ZTE Axon 7, the Axon 7s.

Nothing much has changed in the Axon 7s apart from the upgrade to the processor. The Axon 7s is powered by the Snapdragon 821 processor which is an upgrade from the 820 in Axon 7. Apart from that, the visual change we can see is the speaker grill. The speaker grill takes up most of the upper bezel of the phone and looks really disturbing on the render. According to ZTE, most of the specs of the phone will remain the same but despite having said that, hasn’t completely revealed all the specs of the phone. So we speculate, the display is going to be the same 5.5-inch Super AMOLED  with a QHD resolution. Also, the rear camera is going to be the same 20MP shooter and we might see an upgrade on the front to 16MP from 8MP. There’ll be 4GB of RAM and 64GB Internal Storage. Backing up the device will be a 3250mAh battery. Not to forget, the phone also comes with a forced touch display.

ZTE also announced the release of ZTE Axon Max which will come with the similar specs as the Axon 7s but with a larger 4,100mAh battery.

Mirabook is simply a device that turns your smartphone into a laptop. In an every developing world of technology, where almost everyone owns a phone, the Mirabook is a great addition.

Mirabook is basically a laptop with uses your smartphone’s brains to work. Why do I need a Laptop without brains you ask?  Everyone simply cannot afford or don’t exactly need a laptop. And smartphones cannot do everything, so in the middle comes the Mirabook by Miraxess.

This simple device connects to your smartphone through that sweet USB C on your phone. This enables you to own a laptop for basic productivity purpose for a lot less. And it supports Android, Ubuntu, and Windows phones. 

Let’s turn to the technical part. The device looks like a laptop with a 13.3-inch 1080p screen and a keyboard. The ports include an HDMI, two USB Type-A ports, a USB Type-C port (for charging), headphone jack and SD card slot. Miraxess also claims 24-hour battery but we will believe it when we see it.

You can expect to buy this device from 2018 if everything goes as planned and it is expected to cost about $299. You can check the details here.

Turing Robotics Industries (TRI) launched the Turing Phone back in 2015 which was dubbed as the Unhackable and Unbreakable phone. Now after 2 years of pause, the company is back again with a new product, the Turing Phone Appasionato. The phone, unlike the previous version, doesn’t claim to be Unhackable, but instead, it is the first widely manufactured phone made out of Liquidmorphium.

Build quality and toughness seems to be the words at play here. The phone is made out of Liquidmorphium, a type of alloy that is more durable than steel and titanium. Beautiful design and sturdy build quality are definitely what we crave for, but the phones these days have to sacrifice the toughness for the beauty of the phone. Liquidmorphium can definitely change that. The phone will also have diamond-like carbon coating which provides a high-tech ceramic feel and makes the device less prone to scratches. And most importantly, it will use ultra-strong sapphire glass for its display. It is the same glass Apple uses for the lens of the iPhone Cameras. With this, we could finally be heading towards a future with shatterless displays.

Despite the build quality, most of the internals of the phone are of outdated. The phone is powered by Snapdragon 820 Processor and comes with Adreno 530 GPU. The phone will be running on Android 7.1.1. Apart from this, not much has been revealed about the phone. The phone has a long way to go until its release date, which is in September. So many things could change during that time. But apart from specs, the unique thing about the phone is, it provides it’s own Personal Assistant and concierge service named “Sir Alan.”

The Turing Phone Appassionato will come in two variants, namely: Elite PX8 which costs $1,099; and the Premium Luxury Edition GX8, costing $1,599. It’s not clear, what’s the difference between these two models and for the price it costs it should definitely be something remarkable.