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Showing posts from March, 2019

Huawei P30 Pro to arrive in India on Amazon

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Huawei launched the P30 and P30 Pro on the global scene, but the phone is yet to hit India. Today the company posted a landing page on Amazon, preparing fans for the local market launch. Sadly, the website is yet to reveal any details like pricing, color options, pre-order and launch dates, etc. We only know the most powerful variant will be the 8/256 GB option for the P30 Pro, and we are likely to see the vanilla P30 arrive as well. Usually, the P30 Lite is part of the family only on paper, so the Kirin 710-powered midranger is probably due for a separate launch later this...

Top 10 trending phones of week 13

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Samsung started a massive offensive with its refreshed Galaxy A and Galaxy M series. Last week we saw seven devices by the Korean manufacturer in our Top 10 list, but this time they got reduced to just six, making way for the newly announced Huawei P30 and Huawei P30 Pro. However, Samsung Galaxy A50 keeps its top spot, followed by the Huawei's flagship with 10x zoom and then by another new announcement from this week - Samsung Galaxy A70. The Redmi Note 7 and Redmi Note 7 Pro saw themselves kicked out of the podium, taking spots four and five this week. Then we have the vanilla Huawei...

Week 13 in review: Huawei P30 family is finally official

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The star of the past week is definitely the Huawei P30 Pro that was finally unveiled in Paris, France. It was accompanied by the vanilla P30 and plenty of gadgets, while their more affordable sibling P30 Lite silently started popping up in random markets. Xiaomi tried to rain on Huawei's parade, mocking the P30 and P30 Pro for using a dated chipset, despite the Kirin 980 actually being the latest by HiSilicon. The company also posted another teaser of its foldable device and suggested 100W charging might be around the block. In other news, Samsung Galaxy A70 went official, more Oppo...

Nokia 9 PureView in for review

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Ever since the return of Nokia under HMD Global ownership in the beginning of 2017, everyone's been asking where the proper flagship is. The Nokia 8 was sort of that, but it failed to impress, and then the Nokia 8 Sirocco missed the mark too, if it was even going for it at all. In comes the Nokia 9 PureView. PureView is more than a brand - the moniker holds an iconic status among Nokia loyalists thanks to phones like the Nokia 808 and the Lumia 1020 that were unmatched in their camera prowess back in their days. The Nokia 9 PureView has big shoes to fill then, and it certainly...

How to install Linux on the Chuwi Hi10 Air

There’s a lot of Chinese brands putting out exceptional devices at the moment–just have a look at brands like Huawei, Xiaomi, and OnePlus for examples of this. But the Chinese market is big, and there’s a lot more than meets the eye when it comes to Chinese OEMs. Chuwi currently figures as one of these lesser-known Chinese brands, but nonetheless, their devices are still worthy of attention and still have a place for discussion in our forums. The Chuwi Hi10 Air is one of such devices, and being Windows-based (and x86-based), you can get Linux up and running on it with relative ease. XDA Recognized Developer Myself5 has made a guide for those interested in getting Linux working on their tablet. Check it out now! Check out Linux for the Chuwi Hi10 Air now! The post How to install Linux on the Chuwi Hi10 Air appeared first on xda-developers .

Weekly poll: can the Huawei P30 and P30 Pro win your affections?

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Huawei redefined mobile photography this week with the unveiling of its P30 flagships. The phones also adopted OLED acoustic screens and reduced the size of the notch. Let's take a closer look. The 125mm periscope telephoto camera is the crown jewel of the Huawei P30 Pro. It has a fixed focal length, but advanced image processing and data taken from the high-resolution 40MP SuperSpectrum sensor provides a smooth zoom from 1x to nearly 5x (optical), 10x (hybrid) and 50x (digital). SuperSpectrum refers to a custom sensor from Sony that uses yellow pixels instead of blue. The main...

Not all Bluetooth 5-enabled smartphones are created equally, here’s why

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Bluetooth, despite being there since day one of modern smartphones, is still evolving. A new iteration of the Bluetooth specification is released every few years, the latest of which is Bluetooth 5 , announced in 2016. While the majority of smartphones these days officially support it, a large number of smartphones are missing key functionalities defined in the Bluetooth 5 specification. This was recently highlighted in post on Reddit which caught our attention. Bluetooth 5 brings many new improvements and optimizations, but several of them are sadly optional. What this means is that smartphone manufacturers can correctly claim their device supports Bluetooth 5 while missing some of the key improvements in the specification. New PHYs One of the important new features that the Bluetooth 5 specification defined is a choice of three PHYs. PHY is an acronym for Physical Layer, which, in essence, is the chipset. At a minimum, chipsets must support LE 1M PHY to support Bluetooth 5. LE 1M ...

Counterclockwise: water resistant phones

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Water was never a friend to electronics, but there have always been phones with an adventurous spirit that have protection against the elements. The Benefone Esc! from 1999, famous for being the first cell phone with a built-in GPS receiver, was shock and water resistant. But that was before phones were given official IP codes, so we'll fast forward to 2008. But first, a crash course on what the numbers mean. The first digit measures the protection against solid particles, the second is protection against liquids. We'll focus on the second digit. IPX3 Spraying water ...

Omnia Music Player is a new Material Design audio player with Google Cast and Android Auto support

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Music Players are a dime a dozen on the Google Play Store, but good music players are rarer. There are a bunch of popular players that have built up their fan following over the years, but it doesn’t hurt to have more options. With that in mind, meet Omnia Music Player , a new audio player with Material Design, Google Cast and Android Auto support, and more. Omnia Music Player - Features Features:  Free of advertisements. High-resolution audio output. Lossless audio support such as APE. OpenSL / AudioTrack based output methods. Gorgeous user interface with material design. Manage and play music by album, artist, folder, and genre. Smart playlists with most played, recently played, and newly added tracks. Automatic sync missing album/artist images. Fast search across albums, artists, and songs. Volume normalization based on ReplayGain Built-in metadata tag editor (mp3 and more). Display lyrics (embedded and lrc file). Resizable home screen widget. Gapless...

Xiaomi Mi 9 Review – A contender for the best value flagship smartphone

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Chinese consumer electronics company Xiaomi unveiled its latest low-cost flagship smartphone, the Xiaomi Mi 9, late last month . While the latest premium smartphones from Samsung and Huawei push the $1000 mark, Xiaomi’s Mi 9 starts at nearly half that price. On paper, Xiaomi doesn’t seem to be making very many compromises with the Mi 9. It’s one of the first smartphones to launch with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, and the first smartphone to support 20W wireless charging. It has a triple rear camera setup including a 48MP sensor, telephoto lens, and wide-angle lens. It has a fifth-generation optical under-display fingerprint scanner, a gradient back with a holographic effect, and nearly bezel-less design with a tiny notch. High-end specs aren’t enough to give you a decent experience on their own; it’s up to Xiaomi to take full advantage of the Mi 9’s hardware so you don’t notice where they may have cut corners. There are compromises nearly everywhere, but when you’re getting a f...