As Christmas and New Year is just around the corner, companies are bringing attractive offers for its customers. Samsung and a PayTM Mall have partnered up to bring up to Rs. 8,000 cash back on the company's smartphones. The best part of this deal is that people do not have to be scared of any online scam, as to avail this the customer will need to walk-in to a Samsung store. Once the person selects the smartphone at the store, he will just need to scan the Paytm Mall QR code at the store and pay for the device.
“Our partnership with Paytm Mall will make it easier for customers to buy Samsung smartphones at never-seen-before prices. This offer gives us an opportunity to give more value to our customers. We will continue to wow our customers with such offers. This partnership is also a great example of Samsung’s ‘Make for India’ initiative in our distribution channels. We strongly believe in co-prosperity and this partnership gives us the perfect opportunity to work together with our trade partners on an unprecedented scale,” said, Mohandeep Singh, Senior Vice President, Samsung India.
The cashback offer is currently valid on the flagships Samsung Galaxy S8, S8 Plus and Galaxy Note 8. There is also cashback offers for the popular Galaxy C9 Pro, C7 Pro and the mid-range Galaxy J5 Prime. Aside from the PayTM cashback, the company is also conducting a 'Christmas Carnival' sale where they will be offering attractive deals and great discounts on the range of smartphones, speakers, audio accessories, wearable devices and televisions. The sale will be from December 8 to 15, 2017 and will also have no-cost EMI options on the recently launched Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro and Gear Sport.
Meanwhile, Samsung is also hosting 'Happy Hours' sale on Amazon India on December 12 from 12 PM to 2 PM where the company will offer discounts of up to Rs. 6,700 on its smartphones.
The smartphone industry is drastically growing where companies have started to manage to give good devices to customers at a cheaper price. As the bezel-less displays became a trend in the premium segment of smartphones, companies like Xiaomi and Honor bought the same to the mid-range segment. Currently, the mid-range market is being dominated by Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus, Honor 7X and the Xiaomi Mi A1. Here is a quick comparison which will help you choose one of these mid-range titans.
Honor 7X
Honor recently unveiled their budget-oriented Honor 7X with a bezel-less display to bring a tough competition for LG Q6 and the Micromax Canvas Infinity. The Honor 7X sports a 5.93-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1080x2160 pixels and an 18:9 aspect ratio. The smartphone runs on the company's homegrown HiSilicon Kirin 659 chipset coupled with 4GB of RAM. There are two storage options for the Honor 7X which include 32GB and 64GB.
On the optics front, the Honor 7X features a dual-camera setup at the back consisting of a 16-megapixel sensor combined with a 2-megapixel sensor. Up front, there is an 8-megapixel selfie shooter. Under the hood, there is a 3,340mAh battery powering up the internals.
Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
The Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus was recently launched by the company and just like most Xiaomi devices, this one also has a lot going on under its hood at a relatively cheaper price. The Redmi 5 Plus features a 5.99-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1080x2160 pixels and an 18:9 aspect ratio. The smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 SoC coupled with Adreno 506 GPU. The device is available in two variants, one with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage and the other with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage.
The Redmi 5 Plus is backed by a 4,000mAh battery and runs on MIUI 9 based on Android 7.1.2 Nougat. In the camera department, the Redmi 5 Plus sports a 12-megapixel camera at the back while there is a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies and video calling.
Xiaomi Mi A1
Xiaomi Mi A1 was launched by Xiaomi in collaboration with Google under the Android One programme. The smartphone delivers great performance but does look a bit outdated due to the huge bezels. The Xiaomi Mi A1 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor which is an octa-core chipset clocked at 2GHz. The smartphone features a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1080x1920 pixels. The device packs in 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage.
As for the optics, the Mi A1 comes with a 12-megapixel dual camera setup at the back with a dual tone LED flash. Up front, there is a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies and video calling. The Mi A1 is backed by a 3,080mAh battery and runs on stock Android 7.1.2 Nougat which will soon be updated to Android 8.0 Oreo.
Verdict
No matter whichever device you choose from the above options, they will satisfy your basic smartphone needs easily. The choice you make depends on your extra needs like the ones who want the best camera out of the lot can opt-in for the Honor 7X while performance nerds can go in for the Xiaomi Mi A1. The people who are on a tight budget and want to get the cheapest of the lot without losing much of features can just grab the Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus.
Samsung launched the Galaxy S8 about 7 months ago while the Note 8 is on the market not for so long. As Samsung likes to spice up the things over stock Android by using their own UI which they currently like to call Samsung Experience UI. As the Experience UI is a bit heavy and the smartphones come with a bunch of bloatware, these devices tend to get a bit slow over time. So here are few simple steps that will make your Galaxy S8 or Galaxy Note 8 faster than before.
1.) Turn on Performance mode
Samsung likes to optimize its devices in such a way that the smartphone manages between delivering a decent amount of battery life and a decent performance. Most people forget to change the default settings and use the device as it was delivered out of the box. The company offers few tweaks on the Settings page which can boost up the performance of your device maxing up your smartphone's CPU but decreasing the battery backup. To turn on the performance mode, head over to Settings>Device Maintenance and select Performance Mode.
2.) Keep it Updated!
It is highly recommended to keep your Android or iOS smartphone always up to date. These updates bring optimisations, improvements and much more. If you receive any OTA (Over-the-Air) software update or any app updates on the Google Play store, just make sure your install every update.
3.) Keep it Lite!
Keep your Galaxy Note 8 or Galaxy S8 free of junk by deleting unnecessary data and applications. To uninstall unnecessary applications, head over to Settings>Apps. Here you will find a list of applications out of which you can go and uninstall the ones you do not need. Also, you can consider installing Lite applications like, Facebook Lite, Skype Lite and more which are optimized to take up less space and use less CPU which will ultimately give you better performance.
4.) Tweak the Resolution
With the new Samsung devices, the company lets its users choose one of the three resolutions which let people decide battery life or quality. Higher the resolution, more the GPU would be used which will cause a mild decrease in performance as well as battery life. We recommend you to keep the resolution at FHD+ as that can offer the perfect balance.
If the above steps did not help you enough to bring up the speed, these tweaks might help.
Head over to Settings
Tap on About Phone and go to Software Information
Now tap 7 times on Build Number
These steps will enable Developer Options which will be available on the bottom of the Settings page. Go to Developer Options and scroll over to Window animation scale. Now change all the Animation scales to 0.5x from 1x. This will not speed up your phone's performance, however, it will make your smartphone feel a lot faster as the animations will run quicker.
In 2017, most of the smartphone manufacturers shifted to an all-new full-screen design by minimizing the bezels and switching the aspect ratio from 16:9 to 18:9. There was this one brand who stuck to their standard design, Sony, even with its flagship devices of the year. However, the company might have decided to change the story for its upcoming devices of 2018. Sony's upcoming smartphones have been leaked on a Georgian website showing of a near bezel-less display.
Source: Vortex.ge
The leaked images of the upcoming Sony Xperia devices show off the new design language with minimal bezels and a dual camera setup at the back. Two devices have been leaked where one has a glass back and looks a lot similar to the Xperia XZ Premium. The other device looks to have a metal back and has a fingerprint scanner at the back below the camera setup. A rear-facing fingerprint scanner is something new to see with Sony's smartphones as they usually place the sensor on the power button.
The images also give us a clue that the upcoming devices will come with a USB Type-C port for charging and data syncing. As we do not see a 3.5mm audio jack, the Type-C port could also be used for audio output. According to the rumours, the upcoming flagship by Sony will sport a 5.5-inch 4K display and will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset. The device will pack in 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Both the upcoming devices will run on Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box.
Oppo, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer, has launched the Oppo F5 Youth in India which is a much affordable version of the company's flagship. This smartphone was also teased during the launch of the Oppo F5 in India and was then first seen in the Philippines. The highlights of the smartphone include the 18:9 display with minimal bezels and the 16-megapixel selfie shooter.
Specifications
In terms of specifications, the Oppo F5 Youth features a 6-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1080x2160 pixels and an aspect ratio of 18:9. The smartphone is powered by the MediaTek MT6763T Helio P23 chipset which is an octa-core chipset clocked at 2.5GHz. The device packs in 3GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage which is further expandable up to 256GB using a microSD card. The Oppo F5 Youth is backed by a 3,200mAh battery and runs on ColorOS 3.2 based on Android 7.1 Nougat.
On the optics front, the Oppo F5 Youth sports a 13-megapixel at the back with an aperture of f/2.2 and a LED flash. Up front, there is a 16-megapixel selfie shooter with f/2.0 aperture. The phone also comes with a fingerprint scanner at the back below the camera setup. The device comes with support for Dual Nano SIM, 4G LTE, VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, microUSB 2.0 and A-GPS.
Price and Availability
The Oppo F5 Youth is launched in India at a price of Rs.16,990. The smartphone will go on sale in the country starting today, December 8 via both online and offline markets. The phone will be available in Gold and Black colour variants.
OnePlus recently unveiled their latest flagship smartphone, the OnePlus 5T. The smartphone has already started receiving update fixing some of the software issues making the experience better for its users. The latest OxygenOS 4.7.4 brings improvements to the Camera app for which the company has received feedback from the users. The new software update also brings optimizations in audio performance from the speakers and earphones along with some battery performance improvements. OnePlus has also tuned the vibration settings and improved the stability of fingerprint sensor and the GPS.
OnePlus 5T
The OxygenOS 4.7.4 update is still based on Android Nougat and the OTA should hit the devices soon at a size of approximately 285MB. The update is mainly focused on the camera improvements and bring other optimizations and improvemts to the table. The company is also working on bringing the Open Beta Android Oreo update for those who want to test an early build of the operating system on their OnePlus 5T.
To recall, OnePlus recently released OxygenOS 5.0 OTA update which brought Android 8.0 Oreo along with features like Picture-in-Picture mode and Parallel application. The update was released after being under beta testing for a few weeks. The company also released the OxygenOS Open Beta 1 update for the OnePlus 5 which is based on Android Oreo and brings a couple of features. OnePlus 5T is also expected to get the Android Oreo-based OxygenOS stable update earlier next month.
Xiaomi, the Chinese tech giant, has unveiled two new smartphones under its budget segment, the Redmi 5 and the Redmi 5 Plus. The Redmi 5 is a successor to the company's already popular Redmi 4 while the Redmi 5 Plus is a new addition to the family. The smartphones have currently been introduced in the company's home country China. Xiaomi is most likely to bring these devices to India as the predecessor Redmi 4 was a hit in the market.
As far as the specifications are concerned, the Xiaomi Redmi 5 sports a 5.7-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1440x720 pixels while the Redmi 5 Plus comes with a larger 5.99-inch display with a resolution of 2160x1080 pixels. The Redmi 5 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 SoC whereas the Redmi 5 Plus has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset at its heart. Both the smartphones come with a fingerprint sensor at the back and run on MIUI 9 custom ROM based on Android 7.1.2 Nougat.
The Redmi 5 is launched in two variants, one with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard storage and the other with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. The Redmi 5 Plus has a base variant with 3GB of RAM and 32GB variant and a variant with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage. Storage on both the devices is expandable up to 256GB using a microSD card. The Redmi 5 comes with a 3,300mAh battery while the Redmi 5 Plus is backed by a 4,000mAh battery.
On the optics front, both the smartphones feature a 12-megapixel rear camera with f/2.2 aperture and a LED flash. Up front, the smartphones come with a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies and video calls.
As the smartphones are currently only available in China, the Redmi 5 starts at a price of CNY 799 (roughly Rs. 7,800). The base variant of the Redmi 5 Plus retails for CNY 999 which (roughly Rs. 9,700) The company recently launched the Redmi 5A in India and is expected to bring these devices soon to the country.
Bharti Airtel, Indian telecommunications company in collaboration with Intex, an Indian smartphone manufacturer has come up with a range of budget-friendly 4G smartphones. Both companys have introduced three new smartphones, the Intex Aqua Lions N1, Aqua A4 and the Aqua S3. Customers can grab the smartphones by making a down payment of Rs. 3,149, Rs. 3,499 or Rs. 5879 depending on the model they choose. The companies will also offer a cashback of Rs. 1,500 making the effective price of Lions N1, Aqua A4, Aqua S3 at Rs. 1,649, Rs. 1,999 and Rs. 4,379 respectively.
Ajai Puri, Chief Operating Officer (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel said, “We are really pleased to see the continued positive response to our ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative from customers as well as smartphone manufacturers. We are delighted to have Intex on board as a partner and their brand familiarity plus distribution reach will add to our affordable smartphone proposition and offer more choice to our customers. We look forward to working with them towards empowering every Indian with a 4G smartphone.”
Speaking on the collaboration with Airtel, Nidhi Markanday, Director, Intex Technologies, said, “For Intex, consumers come first and we look at the benefits they get from our partnerships and offerings. We are delighted to launch the all-new Aqua LIONS N1 exclusively under the ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative to drive the adoption of 4G smartphones. The strategic tie-up with Airtel will help Intex offer very affordable smartphones that will accelerate the shift of feature phone users to the smartphone without pinching the pocket.”
In terms of specifications, the Intex Aqua Lions N1 and the Aqua A4 feature a 4-inch WVGA display while the Aqua S3 features a larger 5-inch HD IPS LCD display. The Lions N1 is powered by a 1.1GHz MTK processor whereas the Aqua A4 and the Aqua S3 are powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor. The smartphones are backed by a 1,400mAh, 1,750mAh and a 2,450mAh battery respectively. The Aqua Lions N1 and the Aqua A4 come with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage while the Aqua S3 packs in 2GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard storage. All these smartphones support expandable storage and run on Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box.
Asus recently launched their Zenfone 4 Selfie series phones, with the aim of pure domination in the pure selfie phone market. With the Zenfone Live Asus launched a few months ago which focused on the live streaming and applying filters, the Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro aims at creating perfect selfie by using a combination of a dual 12-megapixel front camera with a software with Asus like to call the 24-megapixel DuoPixel front camera. So is it really that good? That's the question we went out to answer.
Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro
The Zenfone 4 Selfie pro comes with a dual 12-megapixel front camera powered by a Snapdragon 625 and 4GB of RAM backed up by a 3,000mAh battery the device makes up for a pretty good device of paper. The rear camera 16-megapixel single camera. The front cameras include a 12-megapixel wide-angle and a 12-megapixel telephoto lens. The display is a 5.5-inch full HD AMOLED display.
The device has a full metal body design with a fingerprint sensor on the front which doubles up as a home button. And yes it includes a 3.5mm headphone jack but comes with a micro-USB instead of USB-C. The phone is running on Android 7.1.1 with ZenUI 4 with a promise of Android Oreo at least.
Design
With a 2.5D curved glass and a metal body, the device feels premium in the hand. At the first look, the device looks great and it feels great. The device is also weighing only 147grams and measuring 7mmin thickness the phones feels ultralight. Asus also includes a high-quality transparent case with the phone for the people who like to have some extra protection.
Front
Back
The front composes of the 5.5-inch full HD AMOLED display with the DuoPixel camera at the usual place and the fingerprint in the front below the display. The fingerprint sensor doubles as a home button, with the back and recent button being backlight capacitive buttons.
The back is made out of metal which looks and feels great. The two horizontal antenna lines at the top and bottom of the phone are only really whats plastic at the back. The back camera is in the centre with flash unit its left side. The camera has a minute you won't even notice in everyday usage. There is only one Asus branding on the phone that to at the centre back which offers a very clean look.
Left
Right
Top
Bottom
The power and volume buttons are placed on the right side with the power button being textured. It's always a welcomed addition. The buttons are also finished in metal. The top houses a secondary microphone for noise cancellation. The sim card tray is on the left. The device has a hybrid dual sim card slot. The bottom of the phones houses a micro-USB charging slot along with the headphone jack and speaker and primary microphone.
With the all-metal design and a small plastic lip around to glass and back ensures the phone will take a beating without any major damage. Asus also includes a clear case in the box for the people who like to keep their phone as good as new.
Software
The device runs on Android 7.1.1 with Asus's ZenUI 4 on the top. The company promised the device will get the Android 8.0 update so that's nothing worry about. The device runs great with no lag and nothing is different from something usual. The Asus ZenUI has always featured a great UI customization and a smooth experience.
Performance
The performance is a major area of concern in any device. The device was made for great perfect selfies so we don't consider the performance to be a big issue. To our surprise, the device performed equally well as it takes photos. The device comes with a Snapdragon 625 coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of memory. The device was able to run all day to day tasks pretty smooth as well as didn’t lag a bit while gaming.
AnTuTu and GeekBench
We ran our usual AnTuTu benchmarks and the GeekBench benchmark to evaluate the performance of the phone. The AnTuTu yielded a score of 65097 which is impressive and the GeekBench yield a single core score of 877 and multi-core score of 4330. The performance numbers of the device on paper were good enough for the value.
The phone handles basic tasks like web browsing and facebook WhatsApp and Snapchat real well.
Also, the device also handles heavy gaming such as Need For Speed: No Limits without any issue.
Display
The device has a good 5.5-inch(1080×1920) full HD AMOLED display with great sunlight readability with full brightness. The colours are very vibrant and vivid. The display is up to the mark. There is an outdoor mode for increasing the brightness to the highest possible for sunlight readability.The device also has an always-on feature but as it doesn't have an OLED display, the whole display is kept on during that and it impacts battery way much.
Camera
The Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro has a dual camera setup at the front with a wide angle lens for wide-angle shots to cover more in one image and a telephoto lens. The setup is a 12-megapixel plus 12-megapixel f/2.0 aperture in the front and a 16-megapixel f/2.0 aperture at the back.
The indoor shots with adequate lighting are great with good light exposure and focus. The exterior shots also show the same characteristics with the sunlight shining brightly. This makes the rear 16MP f/2.0 aperture camera look good. Also, it offers some stability in the images when the hands are moving. There is a software-enabled rear portrait mode but it needs adequate lighting and stability and time to process. Also, it looks like its software-based so we won't recommend using it. The lowlight camera is also really good.
LowLight with Flash
LowLight without Flash
Obviously is called the Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro, meaning its a selfie-focused device so that's the most important part of the phone. The one thing we keen on testing was that 24 MP DuoPixel camera technology which Asus said to the best in the industry. It's basically two 12MP camera sensors combining to provide a seemingly 24MP photo. Also, there is a wide-angle mode for the front snapper.
WideAngle
24MP DuoPixel
The wide angle mode does what it says with a good 12MP wide-angle camera taking photos which is better than many phones back camera like the Infocus Turbo 5 Plus. The 24MP DuoPixel magic happens when you go into camera setting and turn on the 24MP DuoPixel checkbox. The front cameras are able to capture photos in high resolution with an incredible amount of information with perfect white balance and surprising depth. This can be used to take selfie portrait photos with great quality if Asus chooses to enable it in a future update. It gets full approval for the being the selfie phone.
Battery
Packing a 3,000mAh battery the phone lasts almost a day with the need for charging at the night with constant usage and mild gaming. The charging time with the included charger is around two and a half hours which is pretty standard for the included 2 amp charger.
PC Mark Work 2.0
We ran the PC Mark’s Work 2.0 Battery Life test which subjects the phone to heavy usage and finds out the battery life in that condition. The device yielded a result of 9 hours and 38 minutes which is up to the mark of these smartphones. The battery could better but that was the needed to make the super light and thin phone. Depending on the personal choice the compromise turned out to be good.
Conclusion
The Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro comes with a price tag of Rs. 23,999 and performs great in all the segments. But that being said we felt the phone is a bit more expensive than what it should be. If the device cost somewhere around Rs. 20,000-21,000 or less the Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro would have been a great phone to own. Also with the 2017 trend of shrinking bezels and 18:9 resolution display the device looks kinda out-dated. If your primary focus is a camera or the selfies this is the device to purchase but if you looking for an all-rounder phone we think its a little expensive. That being said the included high-quality case in the box justifies the price a bit but not that much. With the discounts of various sales, if you can get this phone for Rs. 21,000 or less, this is the perfect phone for one to purchase.
LG, the South Korean giant, is now gearing up to launch the much anticipated LG V30+ in India. The smartphone was first unveiled at the IFA 2017 in Berlin. The smartphone is a premium flagship offering from the company and competes directly against other premium smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and the Apple iPhone X. LG is now finally bringing the device to India by holding an event in New Delhi on December 13 for which the company has rolled out the media invites.
Earlier reports suggest that the smartphone is expected to launch at a price of Rs. 47,990. Is this comes true, it will bring a really tough competition to the likes of Samsung, Apple and Google. The LG V30+ comes with flagship like specification with a bunch of premium features.
The LG V30+ is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC coupled with the Adreno 540 GPU. The smartphone sports a 6-inch POLED display with a resolution of 1440x2880 pixels and an 18:9 aspect ratio. The V30+ packs in 4GB of RAM coupled with 128GB of onboard storage which is further expandable up to 256GB using a microSD card. The device runs on Android 7.1.2 Nougat with LG's UX 6.0+ skin layered on top of it. The phone is backed by a 3,300mAh battery.
On the optics front, the LG V30+ features a dual-camera setup at the back consisting of a 16-megapixel sensor combined with a 13-megapixel sensor with phase detection and laser autofocus and a LED flash. Up front, there is a 5-megapixel selfie camera with f/2.2 aperture.
