Gionee has announced a new midrange smartphone in Nepal. Named as F103, the phone will is priced at Rs.16,000 and competes against other popular smartphones in the same segment including the Samsung Galax J5 and Huawei Gplay Mini.
Here are the key specs of the Gionee F103:
5-inch HD (720×1280 pixels) IPS display
Dragontrail glass for protection
MediaTek MT6735 SoC
1.3GHz Cortex®-A53 64-bit quad-core processor
ARM Mali™-T720 graphics
2GB of RAM
16GB inbuilt storage; expandable via microSD card (up to 32GB)
One of the most amazing features of the Gionee F103 is its design. It features a glass back panel and sports a metal frame. The phone will be available in three Color Options: Pearl White, Dawn white and Black. It is available for purchase from different Gionee stores located all over Nepal.
At IFA Berlin, Huawei officially revealed the Mate S which is a high-end device that is made from the foundation of Mate 7. It offers high-end hardware and some unique features like the force touch and fingerprint sensor on the back. Powering the Mate S is the Huawei’s own HiSilicon Kirin935 SoC with 3GB of RAM which goes head to head with the Snapdragon 810 in terms of performance. The device is pretty slim at just 7.2mm and has a full metal body.
What’s unique about this device is the force touch display it holds. The display in the Mate S senses how hard a user is pressing on the screen. Huawei is using force touch to provide users with gesture controls like pressing harder over an image in the gallery or camera app for magnifying the preview of the picture and a strong press in the corner of the phone’s display to access app shortcuts. This will also subsequently improve the knuckle gestures that was introduced with HuaweiP8. Huawei is the first smartphone company to bring this technology to market, but Apple was set to bring force touch on the next iteration of iPhone line-up. But the disappointing thing about the Mate S is that force touch feature will be present in only the 128GB variant of the device.
Full Specs of Huawei Mate S
5-inch AMOLED full HD display(1920×1080 pixels) with 401ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 4 Protection
Android 5.1 Lollipop
HiSilicon Kirin 935 octa-core Chipset
ARM Cortex A53 1.5GHz quad-core, ARM Cortex A53 2.2GHz quad-core CPU
Mali-T628 MP4 GPU
3GB LPDDR3 RAM
32GB, 63GB, 128GB internal storage, Expandable up to 128GB
Bluetooth 4.1
NFC
Fingerprint Sensor
13MP rear AF camera f/2.0, OIS, BSI, dual-LED, dual-tone flash
Lava Smartphone Nepal has launched a midrange smartphone, the Iris X9, in Nepal. The phone is priced at Rs.18,990 and is available for purchase on the Lava stores all across the nation. Lava claims that the handset is perfect for Nepali market and will compete with fast-growing rivals.
The Lava Iris X9 features a 5.5 inch 720P display which is protected By Dragon Trail Glass. It is powered by a 1.3 Ghz quad-core MediaTek processor coupled with Mali-400MP2 GPU. It has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of inbuilt storage that can be further expanded via microSD card slot.
The phone sports a 13-megapixel rear autofocus camera with LED flash and an 8-megapixel front camera. In terms of connectivity, the Lava Iris X9 includes dual 3G SIM slots, Wi-Fi, GPS/ A-GPS, Bluetooth, and Micro-USB options. It runs on Google Android Lollipop 5.0 and packs 2500mAh lithium-ion battery providing talk-time of 8 hours and standby time of 250 hours.
Sony has launched their first premium phone of 2015 — the Xperia Z5 premium, the world’s first smartphone to feature 4K display. The phone features a 5.5-inch display with a resolution of 2160×3840 pixel resulting in a whopping pixel density of 806ppi.
Last year, we saw the rise of QuadHD 2K display on smartphones like LG G4 and Galaxy S6, but no one anticipated we would see the 4K display on a smartphone this year. There is going to be a big debate on whether the 4K display on a smartphone is a good thing since such a high resolution won’t provide any visual advantage over QHD or even 1080p. Moreover, the 4K display doesn’t make sense if you take battery life into perspective.
Fans React to 4K display on a smartphone:
Apart from the 4K display, the Xperia Z5 Premium sports a new camera sensor — Sony’s IMX230, which is a 23MP 1/2.3″ sensor with 1.12-micron pixels. The lens used has a 35mm equivalent focal length of 24mm and an aperture of F/2.0. The camera can capture 4K videos at 30fps with improved Intelligent Active Mode and SteadyShot technology for smooth, sharp videos at day and at night. There is a 5MP front shooter with an Exmor R sensor that has a 25mm wide-angle lens for group photos.
Under the hood, the Xperia Z5 Premium sports a latest and greatest Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor with big.LITTLE architecture for better balance in performance and battery life. The Z5 Premium uses a stainless steel frame and comes with IP65/68 rating for dust and water resistance.
Sony Xperia Z5 PremiumFull specs:
5.5-inch IPS LCD @ 2160×3840 pixels, 806ppi
Qualcomm MSM8994 Snapdragon 810
ARM Cortex A53 1.5GHz quad-core, ARM Cortex A57 2.0GHz quad-core
Sony has also launched Xperia Z5 and Xperia Z5 compact. The Xperia Z5 has a 5.2 inch 1080P display whereas the Z5 compact has a 4.6 inch 1080P display. Both these handset sports the exact same hardware specs underneath — the same processor, RAM, and camera sensor.
Xperia Z5
Xperia Z5 compact
5.2″ 1920×1080 IPS LCD
4.6″ 1280×720 IPS LCD
Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 MSM8994
Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 MSM8994
23MP/5MP cameras
23MP/5MP cameras
2900mAh
2700mAh
146 x 72 x 7.3 mm; 154gms
127 x 65 x 8.9 mm; 138gms
The Xperia Z5 Premium will be available for purchase starting from November and will come in single and dual-SIM versions. The Xperia Z5 and Z5 compact will be available earlier in October. Sony is yet to confirm on the pricing of these phones.
Today at IFA Berlin, Acer has made its mark with the Predator series of Android devices — one of the most powerful computing machine made for high-end heavy gaming. Named as Predator 6 (Smartphone) and Predator 8 (Tablet) are one of the most aggressively designed handheld gaming electronics.
Predator 6: Gaming Smartphone
It is an aggressively powerful device sporting a deca-core MediaTek HelioX20 processor coupled with 4GB of RAM. HelioX20 is the next-gen chipset from MediaTek which goes head to head with Snapdragon 810 and even the Snapdragon 820 if you take into account the specs based on the recent leaks.
“This will dominate any games you throw at it,” an Acer executive said during the press conference
It sports a 6 inch display with 720p resolution which will make the device energy efficient. It has got a metallic back with sharp angles and red accents. Predator 6 has a 21MP rear camera, as well as four front-facing speakers for that ultimate gaming and media consumption experience. Other than some basic specs, Acer didn’t mention much about the device as this product is set to launch for next year and Acer still has some improvements to make
If waiting for a gaming smartphone makes you desperate, then you might consider going for a gaming tablet for the meantime. As Acer has announced another product on the predator line-up , the Predator 8 gaming tablet.
Predator 8: Gaming Tablet
Predator 8 is a 8-inch device with full HD screen(1920×1080). It also follows the same aggressive design concept as the Predator 6. It also sports four front-facing speakers with virtual surround sound. It holds a new technology named “TacSense” which provides enhanced tactile feedback from games. Powering this device is the Intel Atom x7-Z8700 processor with 2GB of RAM. Acer has alot to say about Predator8’s screen, its screen has a 100 percent NTSC color gamut rating and the display is highly precise. It houses a 2×2 MIMO Wi-Fi for improved connectivity. It packs 32/64GB Internal Storage which can be expanded via MicroSD card.
Acer will launch the Predator 8 on November 6 in North America starting at $299.
Samsung launched a low-end budget phone; Galaxy J1 Ace which is exactly a Galaxy J1 but with a SuperAMOLED screen and a cheaper price tag. It is probably the most basic phone in Samsung’s Galaxy series.
Samsung made no official announcement of the device and it’s already set for sell on South Asian countries, as this phone was first spotted on Indian market.
All of its specs are similar to the Galaxy J1, except the unusual SuperAMOLED screen on a low-end smartphone which is an absolute charm for this phone.
Specs:
4.3-inch (480 x 800 pixels) Super AMOLED display
1.3 Ghz dual-core processor with Mali 400 GPU
512MB RAM
4GB internal storage with MicroSD card support up to 64GB
Android 4.4.4 KitKat
5 MP rear facing camera and 2 MP front facing camera
1800 mAh battery
This phone will be available in Nepali Market for about Rs.10,500.
Today at IFA, ASUS has announced a new flagship gaming laptop that packs an idiosyncratic feature which makes it different from other laptops. The GX700 series laptop features a closed loop liquid cooling system for a better heat sink and enhanced performance.
Other specs of GX700 include:
3840×2160 17.3-inch IPS display with G-SYNC
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M
K-series Skylake processor
NVME 128/256/512 GB SSD & up to 2TB SATA HDD
With the new water cooling technology coupled with latest Intel 6th gen K-series Skylake processor and NVIDIA GTX 980 Graphics, this could make a pretty powerful laptop. The GX700 will be released in Q4, but the price is yet to be announced.
Computer Association of Nepal (CAN) has postponed the eight software event–CAN Softech 2015 which was scheduled to start from tomorrow i.e 3rd of Sept.,2015. The federation has decided to postpone the event because of the current political situation.
CAN has been organising such event for the last seven years to promote the software industry and aware people with the latest tech developments, but to the dismay to the fans and tech enthusiasts, the event has been postponed despite CAN claiming that all the stalls were booked and were well prepared.
CAN has not given us the exact date on when the event has been shifted, however, we should expect the event to happen before the end of this year.
A team of former tech giants Apple, Google, and HTC have developed a new smartphone, Robin, that could eradicate the most annoying feature of today’s smartphone:Limited Storage. The company, Nextbit, tackles that problem by creating a cloud-based storage solution.
Nextbit believes that the OS, system UI, and applications take a big chunk of your smartphone storage and creating an integrated cloud OS would solve such problems. The company is also offering a smart, automatic way of uploading your photos and other data to make room on the smartphones local storage space. The company is offering a private 100GB storage box to all Robin users.
When your phone runs short on storage, the device will intelligently transfer the least-used apps to the cloud, and then delete them from your phone to save storage. If you need to run that particular application again, the device will download it and move other apps else to the cloud to make room for the new application.
Apart from the Cloud service, the device actually has some great hardware specs.
5.2-inch full-HD (1080×1920 pixels) display
Qualcomm’s hexa-core Snapdragon 808 processor
3GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage (with no microSD card slot).
fingerprint sensor
a 13-megapixel rear camera, a 5-megapixel front-facing camera
2680mAh battery with a USB Type-C charging port
Dual front speakers
Connectivity: Single SIM, LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, and GPS.
The Nextbit Robin is available for purchase through Kickstarter with a $500,000 funding goal. The first 1,000 users only have to US$299 while the other have to raise the price to $349. The device will only begin shipping from January 2016.
Recently, Huawei launched the budget friendly P8 Lite in Nepal for Rs.28,999. As the name suggests, Huawei P8 Lite is a mid-range version of the flagship P8. The P8 Lite has some astounding specs But how does the phone perform in the real world? Let us find out in this review.
Design
Huawei P8 Lite features the same design language as the company’s flagship. However, the P8 Lite swaps out the premium metal outfit of the flagship in favor of plastic one, which is what you get these days in a midrange devices. Having said that, the plastic body on this phone doesn’t feel cheap like other plastic body phones from Samsung and Micromax. The plastic material on the back of this device has a nice hairline finish that shields the back from scratches and the display is also protected by a corning gorilla glass 3.
In terms of ergonomics, the device feels very light obviously because of all the plastic that is being used. At first impression, it might feel uncomfortable to hold in your hand, but you will get used to as the time passes. The left side of the phone is clean, while the right side houses a volume button, power button, a hybrid slot that can be either be used as a SIM card slot or a microSD expansion slot.
The second slot is for 4G SIM. The buttons are laid out conveniently and it is easily reachable with one hand. The buttons are also quite responsive. Over the top, there is a 3.5mm headphone jack and a noise canceling microphone.
On the bottom, there is a micro USB port, a single speaker, and a microphone. On the front of the display is a 5 MP front-facing camera and a notification LED, with the Huawei branding in a rather weird position below the screen.
My opinion of the P8 Lite’s design and build quality is inspiring. It is easily one of the best-looking smartphones in its price range.
Display:
P8 Lite offers a 5 inch 720P IPS display resulting in a decent pixel density of 294PPI. The screen is protected by a corning gorilla glass 3 which will help the display from minor scratches and drops. Despite the ever growing presence of 1080P displays in midrange smartphones, the 720P display on the P8 Lite still manages to produce enough detail and sharpness.
However, There are 2 notable weaknesses with the display of P8 lite: Firstly, the screen radiates a cold color temperature that inclines to have inaccurate color reproduction. Secondly, the display is quite dim, and normally you have to keep the brightness at 100% to use it comfortably. Despite inaccurate color reproduction and dimness, the display touch sensitivity is good overall.
Software UI:
I have never thought that I would say this: The Software UI on the P8 Lite is freaking awesome. It runs on Android Lollipop 5.0 with Emotion UI 3.1 layered on top of it. The UI has taken some inspiration from iOS 8. Obviously, there is no app drawer and you need to manage all your apps on the home screen, but the UI offers so much.
I have always complained about the system UI on Huawei smartphones, but the new Emotion UI completely changes the perspective on how you use your android phone.
Lock Screen (EMUI 3.1) Home Screen (EMUI 3.1) Notifications and Settings (EMUI 3.1) Lollipop, Multitasking, and Themes Dialer and Music Simple UI and Power Saving Features Display Color Edit, Motion Control and One hand UI
Performance:
Under the hood, P8 Lite packs Huawei’s in-house octa-core Kirin 620 processor, clocked at 1.5 GHz, and is backed by MALI400 MP4 GPU and 2 GB of RAM. Users might be skeptical with the unfamiliarity of this processor as users like is to have a Qualcomm chipset on their phone. But to be candid, the Kirin 620 processor has proven to be quite an able performer. There is hardly any noticeable lag. The overall experience is fluid, and the UI was fast and responsive.
As far as heating is concerned, the phone heats up exponentially when you are using mobile data and while playing high-end games. The Cortex A53 64 bit cores coupled with MALI 400MP4 GPU is able to cope with most of the high-end games, although at medium settings.
Camera:
The P8 Lite features a 13 MP rear camera with a f/2.2 aperture with BSI, and an LED flash. I have mixed feelings regarding the camera. On the positive note, it can capture quality outdoor photos with accurate color reproduction and details. However, the phone suffers a lot during low light condition. Even with the help of flash, the picture is not aspiring as during the daylight.
The camera app looks very similar to the one seen on iOS 8. It’s simple and hence effective. It has different modes like HDR, All-Focus Mode, and a beauty mode.
EMUI 3.1 Camera Interface
The front-facing 5 MP camera is rather disappointing. There are so many phones these days with really good front snapper for eg. The Samsung Galaxy J7 features a wide angle lens with LED flash, but that’s not the case with the P8 lite front snapper. The 5MP camera on the P8 lite is just mediocre and there is no wide angle lens too.
MULTIMEDIA:
The audio on the P8 Lite is really astonishing. Audio output through its mono speaker reaches a whopping 79 dB and is louder than other mid-range phones.
BATTERY:
P8 features a 2200mAh non-removable battery and in real world usage, you should be able to a full day on mediocre usage. On papers, 2200 mAh battery might not look promising, but surprisingly the battery life is great thanks to a lower resolution 720P screen and less powerful Cortex A53 CPUs.
Verdict:
Overall, I really liked this phone. Apart from the display which is a bit dim in my opinion and not so good selfie camera, all the other aspects like design, build, performance and battery life are top notch. If you are looking for a smartphone at around Rs. 26,000-Rs.27,000 price bracket then you should consider this phone.
