Huawei Mate 30 Pro might be the first smartphone to come with HongMeng OS.
Since Google banned Huawei from using Android on its devices, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer started taking its software game seriously. The company recently announced that they will be coming with their own operating system dubbed, HongMeng OS. Ren Zhengfa, CEO of the company has some interesting claim.
We have heard quite enough about Huawei's upcoming operating system over the news. Zhengfa, in an interview for the French magazine Le Point, told that the HongMeng OS can be installed on network switches, routers, data centres as well as smartphones. If that is the case, the operating system is quite similar to Google’s Fuchsia OS.
Further, the CEO of the company also claims that the upcoming operating system will be faster than Google's Android, which they have been using on their phone until now. As the OS will also come for laptops and computers, the comapny claimed that HongMeng OS will run faster in comparison to Apple's MacOS.
This news might not be as surprising since we have already heard leaks and rumours about the operating system. However, we will need to test out the OS first in order to believe those claims. So, we need to wait for the company to announce the upcoming software, whcih is most likely to happen at the upcoming Huawei’s Developer Conference.
Meanwhile, the US government recently lifted the ban from Huawei, which now allows Google to provide Android to the Chinese company. However, the company will still develop HongMeng OS to ensure such bans do not damage their business model.
PUBG or PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is one of the best battle royale games. The game is available on multiple platforms including Xbox, PlayStation, PC and mobile. Since the PC version of the game needed high specifications, the company solved the problem by introducing PUBG Lite to the market. Here's everything you need to know about downloading PUBG Lite in India.
How to download?
The light version of the battle royale game, PUBG, is now available at lite.pubg.com. Anyone can head over to the link and tap on the download option on the top right corner to download the installation files. The installation file weighs in at around 64MB. However, that file will download additional files, which will come in at around 2GB in size. Apart from that, it will also download and install software like Microsoft Visual C++, updated .NET Framework and DirectX 11 if required.
The users can also download Nvidia or AMD graphics drivers from the same page. Also, the users will be asked to log in to their PUBG account or they will need to create one.
System Requirements
Although PUBG Lite is technically playable on almost every computer, it still has some basic needs. According to the company's website, the user's PC should have at least an Intel Core i3 processor, Intel HD Graphics 4000, 4GB of RAM and 4GB of disk space. Apart from that, the system should have at least Windows 7.
If you want a smooth experience, then your PC should be equipped with an Intel Core i5 CPU or higher. It should have at least 8GB of RAM and 4GB of available storage. For graphics, the PC should have at least an AMD Radeon HD7870 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 GPU.
PUBG Lite has launched with Hindi language support for the players in India. Also, a lot of the UI elements have been changed to support the local language.
Xiaomi India has recently launched the entry-level Redmi 7A smartphone in the country. The device is a successor to the last year's Redmi 6A. While the phone has a great set of specifications for the price, it comes with another hidden talent. Redmi 7A is one of the very few smartphones to come with 2-years warranty.
Xiaomi, for the first time ever, is offering 2 years warrant to consumers buying any variant of the Redmi 7A in India. The smartphone will go on sale in India on July 11 at 12 noon. It will be available via multiple channels including Flipkart, Mi.com and Mi Home stores. The company claims that the smartphone will be later available across other retail stores as well.
Xiaomi has confirmed that the entry-level smartphone will also soon get an OTA update which will bring AI scene detection feature.
The Redmi 7A is an entry-level smartphone that features a 5.45-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1440x720 pixels. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 439 processor. It packs in 2GB of RAM and up to 32GB of onboard storage. The device runs on Android 9 Pie based MIUI 10 out of the box. All of this is backed by a 4,000mAh battery.
On the optics front, the device sports a 12-megapixel with f/2.2 aperture. Up front, there is a 5-megapixel selfie shooter with AI-based software features.
Lenovo Z comes with a triple camera setup at the back.
Lenovo has just launched a new mid-range smartphone in China dubbed Lenovo Z6. The smartphone comes with a waterdrop style notch, a triple camera setup at the back and a glass sandwich design. Since the phone is currently available only in China, here are some alternatives you can consider.
Poco F1
Xiaomi Poco F1 is one of the best smartphones in the price segment.
Although Poco F1 is now almost a year old now, it is the only smartphone that offers flagship grade specifications under Rs. 20,000. The smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset and comes with up to 8GB of RAM. The Poco F1 is currently available in India at a starting price of Rs. 17,999.
Redmi Note 7 Pro
Redmi Note 7 Pro comes with a waterdrop style notch.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro also brings great value for money. The device comes with a 6.3-inch FullHD+ display with a waterdrop style notch up front. It is powered by the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 chipset coupled with up to 6GB of RAM. It is available at a starting price of just Rs. 13,999.
Realme 3 Pro
Realme 3 Pro comes with a gradient back design.
Realme 3 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 processor. It comes with up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. One of the key highlights of the smartphone is the 32-megapixel selfie camera. All of this comes at a starting price of Rs. 13,999.
Samsung Galaxy A50 sports an in-display fingerprint scanner.
Samsung Galaxy A50 has a lot to offer for a starting price of Rs. 18,490. The smartphone comes with an interesting set of features including the in-display fingerprint scanner and a Super AMOLED display. It is powered by the Exynos 9610 processor coupled with up to 6GB of RAM. The smartphone comes with a triple camera setup at the back and a waterdrop style notch up front.
Vivo Z1 Pro
Vivo Z1 Pro comes with a punch hole design up front.
Vivo Z1 Pro was recently launched in India with an impressive set of specifications and features. The smartphone features a punch hole design and comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 processor. The device is available in India for a starting price of just Rs. 14,999.
Vivo Z1 Pro comes with a punch hole design up front.
Vivo India has just launched a new smartphone in India, the Vivo Z1 Pro. It is a mid-range smartphone that comes with a punch-hole display, a triple camera setup at the back and much more. For a price of Rs. 14,990, the Vivo Z1 Pro has a lot on offer. Here's what the competition has to offer.
Redmi Note 7 Pro
Redmi Note 7 Pro comes with a waterdrop style notch.
If you want to save some money, Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro brings great value for money. The device comes with a 6.3-inch FullHD+ display with a waterdrop style notch up front. It is powered by the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 chipset coupled with up to 6GB of RAM. It is available at a starting price of just Rs. 13,999.
Realme 3 Pro
Realme 3 Pro comes with a gradient back design.
In case you need similar performance for a lower price, the Realme 3 Pro should be your pick. The smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 processor. It comes with up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. One of the key highlights of the smartphone is the 32-megapixel selfie camera. All of this comes at a starting price of Rs. 13,999.
Samsung Galaxy M30
Samsung Galaxy M30 sports a Super AMOLED Infinity U display.
Currently, with the Samsung Galaxy M30, the company is managing to stand against the players like Xiaomi and Realme. It comes with a 6.4-inch fullHD+ Super AMOLED Infinity-U Display and it is powered by the octa-core Exynos 7904 processor paired with up to 6GB of RAM. The runs on Samsung Experience v9.5 built on top of Google's Android 8.1 Oreo. It is available at a starting price of Rs. 14,990.
Honor Play
Honor Play comes with flagship grade hardware at a relatively lower price
If the design is something you can look pass by, Honor Play can offer flagship-grade hardware at a relatively lower price point. The device is powered by the Kirin 970 chipset and comes with up to 6GB of RAM. It runs on EMUI build on top of Google's Android Pie. Honor Play is currently available at a starting price of Rs. 13,999.
Oppo K1
Oppo K1 is one of the very few smartphones to feature an in-display fingerprint scanner at this price segment. Also, it comes with an AMOLED display, which is great for watching content. It comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor coupled with 4GB of RAM. Priced at Rs. 16,990, the Oppo K1 has a lot to offer.
Tata Sky is one of the best and leading DTH service providers in India, which is a joint venture of Tata groups started in 2006. Tata Sky is the first to provide multiple products and services like customized packages, a la carte, "Personal Video Recorder" (PVR), interactive service and much more.
Tata Sky offers a wide range of packages on any budget by selecting the required channels to watch and modify them in the future. It provides over 600 channels in more than 10 languages, which gives the subscribers redefined viewing experience in the country. Also, Tata Sky has categorised these channels into different packs which a user opts as common to view.
Dhamaka
Tata Sky's Dhamaka pack features 256 channels under 12 categories consisting of 37 popular channels. It covers a huge number of South Regional and Rest of India Regional channels in the pack such as Hindi entertainment, news, and movies. Dhamaka pack is priced at Rs. 220 per month.
Dhamaka 199
Dhamaka 199 packs with the 171 channels which is a Mid-budget pack considering the basic channels to watch in all categories. It covers the channel categories such as movies, news, sports, kids, music and more at the price of just Rs. 199 per month.
My 99
My 99 is a basic package which focuses on the basic channels which are required for viewing time to time bases like sports, entertainment, music, movies and more. My 99 is a budget-friendly pack which is priced tag as Rs. 99 per month.
Hindi basic is a pack of 76 channels with 32 popular channels priced at Rs. 181 per month. This pack covers most of the basic Hindi entertainment, news, sports, music, movies and much more. This pack also offers in other languages such as English basic, Tamil Basic, Telugu basic and so on.
Family Kids
Family Kids pack contains 91 channels which are suitable for women and kids covering the channels of entertainment, cartoons, music and movies. This pack also contains the common channels of news and sports to make it as a basic pack for family content viewing at the price of Rs. 212 per month.
DishTV is one of the best-selling DTH services in India. The company offers a wide selection of channels, which might often end up confusing the customers. So, we have made it easier for you to choose the right plan by listing down the top five best DTH plans available for DishTV.
Bharat Combo
In case you don't watch much TV or you just want the cheapest pack possible, the Bharat Combo will be the best choice for you. At just Rs. 130 a month, the pack brings in over 30 channels including Sony Pal, Star Utsav and more.
Swagat
In case you are looking for a decent package, the Swagat pack on DishTV might be just the right choice. It comes with over 180 channels and services including Sony Max, Zee Cinema, Bindaas, Sab, MTV Beats, Zing and more. Swagat pack is available for just Rs. 213 a month.
Super Family
As the name suggests, Super Family pack suits the best for families with different needs. The pack offers up to 197 channels and services including &Pictures, B4U Movies, Star Plus, 9XM, Discovery Kids, Star Sports and more. DishTV customers can activate the pack at just Rs. 265 per month.
Maxi Sports
If you want the most channels including all the sports channels you ever wanted, the Maxi Sports pack is for you. At just Rs. 326 per month, the DishTV users can get access to over 213 channels and services.
The people who are looking for a flagship plan with no compromises should consider the Titanium pack. It comes with over 225 channels and users need to pay a fee of just Rs. 385 per month.
Google has rolled out Android Q's fourth developer preview.
Android Q developer preview was introduced to the public a couple of months ago now. With the details Google gave at the Google I/O 2019, Android will catch up to iOS in terms of the user experience finally after all these years. This iteration focuses a lot on data privacy and the security flaw that Android has been plagued with for so long.
I have been running the latest beta build of Android Q on one of my devices since over a month now. The Android Q is not just a minor iteration that it looks like to the users, it is a complete overall from the inside. So let's take a look at what Android Q has to offer and why you should be eager for it to roll out to your device.
Smoothness of Android Q
Android Q brings a new level of smoothness to Android
In the past, iOS has been known to provide a smooth experience. There is a reason I used to use an iPhone for such a long time. Android has become a lot smoother, especially the stock Android on the Pixel series, but over time that also bogs down. With Android Q, the experience has become smooth and does not jitter at all even on the Beta build. Users praise Oxygen OS for its smoothness. With this iteration, Android might finally match the smoothness of iOS.
Starting from Android 6.0 Marshmallow, the users are presented with an annoying persistent popup for location permission, however, it has stopped many data snooping apps to operate without letting the users know. With Android Q, those won't go away but will get minor updates to make the experience better.
Android Q Notification Control
Android Q Location Permissions
If you are a privacy geek and want your data to stay on your phone, then you will love this update. The settings app provides a more elaborated look at all the permissions and its related settings under one roof. Also, location permission has been improved to add a new scenario dubber "Allow only while using the app". So if you close the application it won't be able to gather location information even when it was allowed to gather location permission when it was opened. This feature has been in the iOS devices and was much needed.
With Android Pie, Google implemented a gesture-based navigation system, which had one major annoyance. You have to swipe up twice on the pill to open the home drawer. One swipe simple opened up the multitasking menu. The pill and the back button which showed up when needed, took as much space as the old three-button navigation bar so it didn't save any space really.
Android Q Navigation Gestures are a big improvement of Android Pie
Android Q brings a new gesture-based navigation system which looks like to be well thought of and ironed out completely well, except for some bugs which are to be expected from a developer build. You need to swipe up from anywhere in the system to go home, swiping it and holding it will bring the multitasking menu, which is like what we have seen in the iPhone X series. The back button is removed and instead, there is a swipe from the edge to go back, which is great as it will make going back on big screen devices a bit easier. It gives users a bigger display to interact with as the bottom bar takes a lot less space.
The dark mode is also finally here, for which the users have been raving about for so long. Live transcribe which is not yet here will change the way users consume media on their smartphone.
Conclusion
With Android Q, Google has definitely stepped up their UX game. Android can finally match iOS in terms of user experience. The dark mode is a welcomed change, the new navigation gesture is something that will bring joy to gesture-based navigation geeks. The new location permission change and other permissions change will hugely impact the data privacy on Android. The under the hood changes such as Project Mainline will help decrease Android Fragmentation.
Airtel TV is now available on the web apart from the iOS and Android apps.
In India, there are various telecommunication services which offer a wide range of prepaid and postpaid services in budget-friendly packages. Airtel offers its users an online content service, dubbed Airtel TV which was recently named as one of the best video-on-demand (VOD) services.
In the Airtel TV app, subscribers can access live TV channels, on-demand services, movies, TV series and more. Now, the company has developed a web interface for the same allowing users to access these services on the web.
Airtel TV application and web features
Airtel is currently offering 115 Live TV channels on its web platform. This makes it one of the few VOD and Live TV services, which can be accessed through the web. Airtel subscribers can visit the company's official website, where they can log-in through an OTP. After logging in the user can navigate to the Live TV section and can select any of the offered channels to watch.
Users can access these features for free, which includes the Airtel TV app and its Web interface. The app offers consumers 350+ Live Entertainment, Music, Sports, Movies, News, Lifestyle, Kids channels. Also, the company offers users content in multiple languages like English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and more.
Additionally, It offers consumers more than 10,000 movies, TV shows from partner applications like ZEE5, Alt Balaji, Hungama, Eros Now and more. This gives subscribers a wide area of entertainment access, which includes everything under one application.
The app also comes with features like Dark mode, brightness adjustments, picture-in-picture mode and more. In picture-in-picture mode, users can pinch out of the streaming video to view other content or simply use the application for some other stuff. All of these new features are available inside of the Airtel TV application.
Now, during the ongoing G20 summit Trump has announced that the trade ban on Huawei has been lifted by the US.
A few days back the United States President, Donald Trump banned the trade benefits with China which started a trade war between both the countries. This affected many tech brands in the market, mainly Huawei. After the ban, US companies were forced to cut all business ties with Huawei.
Now, during the ongoing G20 summit Trump has announced that the trade ban on Huawei has been lifted by the US. Now, Huawei is set to get back its Android License back from Google. This means that now all Huawei and Honor phones will be able to get Android security updates and system updates. These devices will also be able to run Google services.
According to a report, by the PC World, "While it's unclear whether that extends to the 5G network technology that Huawei is developing, it most certainly applies to Google and Android."
Huawei has said that its sub-brand Honor, which was also affected by the trade war will also be getting the security updates and patches by the Google, which will help them to improve their new flagship smartphones like Honor 20 series.
After the restriction was lifted, many companies like Corning, Intel, Microsoft, ARM and more have announced that their tie-ups are back with Huawei. And that they will start their businesses like they used to do before the trade ban between the US and China was implemented.
Huawei and Honor users will also be allowed access to Google's Play Store, which is one of the biggest platforms for downloading apps on Android.
