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Chinese smartphone manufacturer HTC introduce it's first flagship smartphone U12+. Last year HTC won back mindshare with its flagship U11 phone, the elegance and appealing imaging and video of which made it an attractive alternative to big-spending rivals. An even stronger U11+ a few months later proved that this was no one-off. But with the U12+, HTC has, like Liverpool's Loris Karius, committed two quite inexplicable unforced errors.
HTC’s new U12+ smartphone has been thoughtfully designed with features to enhance the user experience while providing a unique translucent look that’s like nothing else on the market. Unfortunately, it also has two major shortcomings. This notchless smartphone features top of the line technical specifications and feels solid in the hand, but it lacks sufficient battery power and widespread Canadian availability.
The six-inch Quad HD (2,880 x 1,440) super LCD 6 display, with 18:9 aspect ratio and with no notch, is powered by 2.8GHz Qualcomm 845 chip set with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage capacity. The hybrid-style SIM tray supports microSD card up to 2TB. The bad news is that HTC is sticking to LCD display with 537 pixels per inch density rather than the AMOLED. It runs on Android Oreo and it is upgradeable to Android P (next OS version). The phone is water and dust resistant and weighs 188 grams.
This time around, HTC is upping the ante with the second generation of Edge Sense, its squeeze-driven navigation tool. First, you set up your squeeze-force level — how hard you have to press to trigger an action — by squeezing your phone with your preferred pressure level three times. To test it, the device prompts you to squeeze to fill up a balloon, then release the pressure to launch it. You then test the double-tap feature, which pins a mini window to the bottom right or bottom left of the display for easier one-handed use.
Edge Sense's default settings are a short squeeze to launch the Camera app, a double tap on the side frame for one-handed mode and a holding gesture to keep your phone in portrait mode as you lie down to read. Most phones will automatically flip to landscape mode if you hold them sideways, but this Edge Sense gesture prevents that from happening. You can assign other actions for all but the holding gesture in Settings > Edge Sense.
Camera have four lenses
Camera-wise, the U12+’s dual front-facing shooter takes very clear selfies with a tendency toward overexposed highlights, though not to an excessive level. In the perfect lighting or in less than ideal lighting conditions, the U12+ takes detailed and clear photos. When it’s dark, however, the selfie shooter doesn’t do quite as good of a job. Due to the phone not having a front-facing flash, those pictures don’t get too bright. There’s a screen-flash feature, however, it’s not perfect and in most situations it doesn’t provide enough light. The dual rear-facing camera takes crisp, sharp, vivid and full of colour images. The pictures are more akin to the Samsung Galaxy S9 than the Google Pixel 2 XL, meaning colours are more saturated. Like the front-facing camera, the rear setup tends to overexpose rather than under, however, I haven’t found that it does this to an unbearable point. Users can also manually adapt the bokeh effect, allowing them to choose how blurry they want the background, this feature worked very well. Additionally, the camera features quick auto focus, something I enjoyed.
Battery and sound
The HTC U12+ also features 3,500mAh battery, and while the phone is a powerhouse and runs smoothly, it doesn’t last long on a single charge. Someone using it with very low usage would find that it’d get them through the day. However, with medium usage, which includes one hour of Netflix, 33 minutes of YouTube and about an hour-and-a-half of listening to music on Google Play Music, the phone lasted about 12.5 hours. The fast charger can fully charge the device within an hour-and-a-half and get it to 50 percent in a little more than thirty minutes. The phone’s speaker is very loud. While its volume is a little quieter measured with the Sound Meter app.
The U12+ also has a feature called ‘Activity Reader’ that reads out messages, calendar events and announces who’s calling when connected to a wired or wireless headset. Users can set it so the phone doesn’t do this if the display is on. The phone is good, but definitely not great. One of the biggest reasons is the price. The U12+ costs $1,099 (for the 64GB of storage and 6GB of RAM) and is not available at any Canadian carrier. This doesn’t compare favourably to the OnePlus 6, which retails at $699. The unfortunate thing is the U12+ might be worth that cost if it was available at carriers on a two-year subsidy. For those who don’t mind paying full price, though, this is definitely a good choice.
- Fast battery charging: 50% in 35 min (Quick Charge 3.0)
- XviD/MP4/H.265 player
- MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV/FLAC player
- Document editor
- Photo/video editor
Xiaomi Redmi 6, Redmi 6A launch with Face Unlock and 18:9 display
Chinise smartphone manufacturere Xiaomi held an event in China for the launch of the budget smartphone Xiaomi Redmi 6 and Redmi 6A. The new smartphones are the successors to the Redmi 5 and Redmi 5A entry-level smartphones. Both the Redmi 6 phones have a similar 5.45-inches display with the 18:9 aspect ratio. Both Redmi 6 and Redmi 6A will go on sale in China from June 15. There’s no word on when the new Redmi 6 will make their way to the Indian market. The new Redmi 6, Redmi 6A will be powered by MIUI 10 on Android Oreo.
Xiaomi co-founder Lin Bin had earlier shared a poster for the launch event on his Weibo page, which indicated Redmi 6 series would be revealed. Xiaomi was expected to launch three Redmi 6 phones; a Redmi 6 Pro or Redmi 6 Plus was also speculated with a notch design, though that phone has not been revealed. Redmi 6 Plus or Mi A2 Lite as some reports have said, was spotted on China’s TENAA certification website.
Xiaomi Redmi 6: Full specifications
Xiaomi Redmi 6 comes with a 5.45-inch display with 18:9 aspect ratio. The smartphone runs on MediaTek Helio P22 processor and is available in 3GB and 4GB RAM variants with 32GB and 64GB storage respectively.
The smartphone has a dual-camera setup on the back that consists of 12-megapixel and 5-megapixel sensors. It has a 5-megapixel selfie-camera. Just like the recent Redmi phones, Xiaomi Redmi 6 also comes with Artificial Intelligence (AI), mainly integrated into the camera. The smartphone also supports facial recognition for unlocking the phone. The base model of Redmi 6 is priced at CNY 799, which is Rs 8,000 approximately
Redmi 6A: Full specifications
Xiaomi Redmi 6A comes with a similar set of specifications except that it runs on MediaTek A22 processor coupled with 2GB of RAM. The phone comes with 16GB of built-in storage. On the back, Redmi 6A sports 13-megapixel and 5-megapixel sensors. The smartphone has a 3,000mAh battery. Xiaomi claims the MIUI onboard has been optimised for Redmi 6A, reducing system apps’ memory usage by about 30%. The base model of Redmi 6A is priced at CNY 599, which is Rs 6,300 approximately.
“Redmi 6 offers many AI-enabled functions. When you pick up the phone, the screen will automatically wake and you can unlock the phone with AI Face Unlock. By integrating with the phone’s camera, Xiaomi’s proprietary Xiao Ai voice assistant can recognize plants, vehicles, living environments, as well as items for price comparison. For certain scenarios Xiao Ai can translate English, French, Japanese, Korean, German, Spanish and Hindi into Chinese. Xiao Ai can also detect SMS messages sent by fake mobile base stations set up by scammers, protecting users against possible attacks,” said Xiaomi on its website.
After multiple delays in getting regulatory clearance, Facebook-owned WhatsApp is finally set to roll out its payment feature to all Indian users in the first week of June 2018. A report suggests that the UPI-based in-app payment services will be taken off from its current beta phase and will be rolled out for all the Indian users.
WhatsApp has been got permission from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to start working on the feature. WhatsApp payment services to the whole of India as early as next week in an attempt to win market share, even though its partners aren’t all ready, said people familiar with the matter. The messaging app will partner with HDFC Bank Ltd, ICICI Bank Ltd and Axis Bank Ltd to process the transfers, and State Bank of India will join once it has the necessary systems in place, the people said. Facebook was aiming for a full rollout with four partners but decided to go ahead with just three as its rivals were racing ahead, the people said, asking not to be named as the information isn’t public.
WhatsApp will be serious competitor to the popular digital wallets and payment apps like Paytm, Google Tez, PhonePe and so on. When the existing solutions are compared, Paytm recorded a huge 200 million user base in February 2018 and the rest are still fairly new in the race. So, it’s a good time and opportunity for WhatsApp to foray into the league and make the most out of its user base. With over 200 million monthly active users, WhatsApp surely poses as a solid threat to its rivals.
Experts suggest though the WhatsApp Pay option would more or less work on the same principle of sending and receiving payments, its ability to allow users to do it while chatting makes it a natural winner.
WhatsApp does not add an extra layer of security like Google does with its Tez payments app, but you do need to verify each payment using your UPI pin. Once set up, all you need to do is enter an amount and verify it using the UPI ID and the amount will be credited to the recipient's account.
Facebook-owned WhatsApp is yet to announce anything officially yet, but with pressure from competitors Paytm and Google Tez, Facebook may go ahead and announce a widespread roll-out by next week, despite SBI's systems not really ready yet.
Chinese tech company Smartisan has taken the wraps off its latest flagship, the Smartisan R1. The phone packs in more storage than some personal computers available on the market. Is storage the only speciality of the device? Not really. Let’s find out what the phone has to offer.
Smartisan is one manufacturer that stands out with its design, the smartphone features a bezel-less display with a notch at the top. The display practically reaches the top with a cut-out for the front-facing camera and a slit for the earpiece. display is pretty big too, spanning 6.17-inches across, having a resolution of 2242 x 1080 pixels, and an 18.7:9 aspect ratio. In a world where notches reign supreme, Smartisan has embraced the trend but has decided to follow the path of the Essential PH-1. It has a 6.17-inch pressure sensitive display with a 2242 x 1080 resolution and an 18.7:9 aspect ratio. It is covered with Gorilla Glass 3, has a 1500:1 contrast ratio, and a 96% color gamut (DCI-P3).
The display practically reaches the top with a cut-out for the front-facing camera and a slit for the earpiece. There is a moderately-sized bezel at the bottom which gives the Smartisan R1 an 84% screen-to-body ratio. Talking about the design, the phone does manage to check the right boxes as well. It is made up of grade 7 aluminium giving it a premium feel. The phone does have a fingerprint sensor which is located on the back and is very aesthetically embedded into the brand’s logo. The power and volume rockers located on the sides are circular in shape, which is a nice design element.
Smartisan R1 specifications
Smartisan has packed flagship specs into this device but has also set a record with it. For the first time in the history of mobile phones, we have a device with 1TB of built-in storage! Yes, the Smartisan R1 has 1 terabyte of internal storage and its UFS 2.1. The rest of the specs are also impressive. The Smartisan R1 is powered by the the latest Snapdragon 845 processor made by Qualcomm ticking at 2.8GHz coupled to the Adreno 630 GPU. This ensures that the phone aces almost any game or app you can throw at it. It will also come with either 6GB or 8GB of RAM, so multitasking should never be a problem with this device.
6GB RAM + 64GB storage
6GB RAM + 128GB storage
8GB RAM + 128GB storage
8GB RAM + 1TB storage.
The Smartisan R1 has dual rear cameras. Which has a primary sensor is a 12MP Sony IMX363 sensor with a f/1.8 aperture, 1.4 μm pixel size, 4-axis OIS, and dual PD extreme focus. The second is a 20MP Sony IMX350 with a f/1.75 aperture, 1μm pixel size, and 6P lens.
The front camera is a 24MP sensor with a f/2.0 aperture ArcSoft ray algorithm and AI real-time beauty mode.
The latest offering from Smartisan checks all the right boxes as far as connectivity is concerned, offering 3G and 4G with VoLTE, Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band WiFi and a USB Type C port for charging and data transfer. In the battery department, it features a 3,600 mAh unit which is fairly large to last through a day’s use. In addition to that, it also has support for Quick Charge 4+ and wireless charging. Unfortunately, the phone does ditch the 3.5mm audio jack in lieu of which, you will have to make use of the type-C port or connect through Bluetooth.
The phone will be available in two colour variants in China viz. Pure White and Carbon Black. The phone isn’t way too expensive either and is priced just like the OnePlus 5T and the upcoming OnePlus 6. The 1TB variant, however, is priced more premium.
The Smartisan R1 is priced at
RMB 3,499 (approximately Rs 37,200) for 6GB RAM + 64GB storage.
RMB 3,999 (approximately Rs 42,500) for 6GB RAM + 128GB storage.
RMB 4,499 (approximately Rs 47,800) for 8GB RAM + 128GB storage.
RMB 8,848 (approximately Rs. 94,000) for 8GB RAM + 1TB storage.
The phone is available in Carbon Black and Pure White colors. The latter is only available in 128GB storage variants. At the moment, the Smartisan R1 is only selling in China right now.
