Phones like ZenFone Max Pro M2 come with a 5,000 battery
Smartphones are becoming an essential part of our lives and we are mostly looking at them all day long. Be it for work or for play, users need big batteries on their smartphones without shredding a lot of cash. From the recently launched Redmi Note 7 Pro to Samsung Galaxy M30, here are the top 5 budget smartphone options with massive batteries inside.
Redmi Note 7 Pro
Redmi Note 7 Pro comes with a 48-megapixel camera at the back
Redmi Note 7 Pro recently stepped into the Indian market and currently offers the most value for your money. The device is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor, which is quite powerful as well as power efficient. It is backed by a massive 4,000mAh battery. The smartphone is available at a starting price of Rs. 13,999.
Asus ZenFone Max Pro M2
Asus ZenFone Max Pro M2 sports a dual-camera setup at the back
Asus ZenFone Max Pro M2 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 chipset paired with up to 6GB of RAM. The device comes with a humongous 5,000mAh battery. It also sports a 6.2-inch FullHD+ IPS LCD display. Asus ZenFone Max Pro M2 is currently available at a starting price of Rs. 9,999.
Samsung Galaxy M30
Samsung Galaxy M30 sports a Super AMOLED Infinity U display
Samsung recently launched the Galaxy M30 smartphone in India. The device 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. While the AMOLED display here will help in saving battery, it also packs a large 5,000mAh battery. It is available at a starting price of Rs. 14,990.
Poco F1
Poco F1 is one of the best smartphones in the segment
If you want both performance as well as great battery life, then you cannot go wrong with the Poco F1. It comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, which is extremely powerful and power efficient. It packs in up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. All of this is backed by a 4,000mAh battery. Xiaomi Poco F1 is currently available at a starting price of Rs. 19,990.
Samsung Galaxy A50
Samsung Galaxy A50 sports an in-display fingerprint scanner
Samsung Galaxy A50 has a lot to offer for a starting price of Rs. 19,999. The smartphone comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner and a Super AMOLED display. It is powered by the Exynos 9610 processor coupled with up to 6GB of RAM. Moreover, it has a massive 4,000mAh battery under the hood.
Xiaomi unveiled the Mi A1 back in September 2017. Xiaomi Mi A1 is now well over a year old now. The smartphone has now updated to Android 9.0 Pie and is getting regular security update, which is rare in the budget smartphone segment.
The company will be providing support for the device for one more year of security updates. This makes the Mi A1 one of the best-used budget smartphones to buy. But, should you go out and get yourself one?
Xiaomi Mi A1: Specifications
Xiaomi Mi A1 sports a 5.5-inch, 16:9 aspect ratio, IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. The smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset clocked at 1.3GHz. The device comes with 4GB of RAM paired with 64GB onboard storage. All of this is backed by a 3,080mAh battery.
The Mi A1 sports a USB-Type C port.
On the optics front, there are two 12-megapixel f/2.2 aperture and f/2.6 aperture 2x zoom sensors on the back. On the front, there is a 5-megapixel sensor for taking selfies.
Xiaomi Mi A1: Design
In my opinion, the design of the Mi A1 is one of the best ever design on a budget segment smartphone. It sports a metal and glass design, which feels amazing in hand. Most smartphones in this price range still sport a plastic or a polycarbonate back instead of metal. Also, the device sports a USB Type-C port, which is rare in this price segment and is a welcomed feature.
The design of this smartphone looks a lot like the iPhone 7+.
The only issue with the design is that it sports a 16:9 aspect ratio display. The smartphone was launched back when 18:9 aspect ratio displays weren't common. Due to that, the smartphone has thick bezels all around, which make the device look dated.
Mi A1: Software
Xiaomi Mi A1 is a part of Google's Android One program. This means the smartphone was guaranteed to receive two years of major software updates and three years of security updates.
The smartphone currently runs Google's latest Android 9.0 Pie operating system in its stock configuration. The device was originally launched with Android 7.0 Nougat.
Xiaomi Mi A1 is part of Android One, hence it runs stock Android.
This makes the Xiaomi Mi A1 one of the very few mid-range smartphones that get regular updates and is now updated to the latest Android version by the manufacturer. Also, Mi A1 runs on the stock Android UI with the same elements as the Pixel devices. This makes the smartphone a little faster and I personally prefer the look and functionality of stock Android over a heavily modified version.
Xiaomi Mi A1: Camera
Xiaomi Mi A1 sports two 12-megapixel f/2.2 aperture and f/2.6 aperture 2x zoom lens on the back. For selfies, there is a 5-megapixel sensor on the front.
Outdoor Rear Camera
Norma(left) vs 2x Zoom (Right)
Indoor Rear Camera
Indoor Front Camera
The rear camera on the device offers good colours with great saturation. The details aren't that good. However, the camera is still better than what you will get in this price range. The story with the front camera is the same.
Mi A1: Conclusion
Xiaomi Mi A1, being more than a year old budget smartphone still holds up great. The smartphone is available for around Rs. 8,000 in the used market. In that price range, the performance, and software, as well as the design, is better than anything you can buy in this price range.
Mi A1 is still one of the better looking smartphones in its price range.
However, you can also buy a new smartphone in this price range. Especially the metal back design as most of the smartphones in this segment sports a plastic or polycarbonate back. One thing you will miss with the Mi A1 is warranty. Also, the big bezels might be a bit troublesome.
So if you are looking to buy a great smartphone in this budget, the Mi A1 is still a great choice unless you have to have the warranty.
The Q Explorist Hr is here with a heart rate sensor and NFC. But is it good enough?
Smart wearable market is catching on quite quickly, with big technology players like Apple and Samsung adding in new features to make smartwatches look useful to the average consumer.
However, they all forget one major thing, that a watch is more than a piece of technology or something to see the time with, its an accessory that complements your looks. That's where traditional watch manufacturers like Fossil come into play.
One of the best-looking smartwatches currently available in the market and we have high hopes from their latest Fossil Q Explorist HR smartwatch. The device is priced at Rs 19,999, making it much cheaper than competitor smartwatches from Samsung and Apple. However, is the Fossil Q Explorist HR worth your money or not? Let's find out in our detailed review of the smartwatch.
Fossil Q Explorist HR Review: Design
Fossil Q Explorist HR is certainly not lightweight and slim. However, that does not feel like a bad thing as it feels like a real chronograph watch, which you are wearing in your hand. Quality of the materials is very traditional and boils down to one's personal preference of a watch. Fossil maintains its legacy of it being a great timepiece manufacturer. However, I feel that this design is a bit of a hit and a miss.
The smartwatch with the rubber back helps preserve the leather.
The smartwatch comes in a variety of finishes ranging from a gold case to a gunmetal silver case and leather bands to metal bands to help suit your preferences. The 22mm black leather strap is nicely made and stitched on the top of a silicone strap. There is also coloured buckle in the end to accent the look. The leather straps are stitched on silicone watch straps to protect the leather from any damage that can take place by sweat and other things. The bands are interchangeable and have a quick release button to open.
One bad thing about the leather variant of the watch is that the silicone back doesn't allow your skin to feel the real leather, which could be a disappointment for some.
The metal body of my unit is made out of polished and anodized gold metal which looks and feels great on touch. The crown and the dial are of the same colour offering a uniform look. The black and gold combination of my unit is not that tasteful, but fossil offers options with a variety of different materials and colours.
The straps are easily detachable if you wanna switch it up later down the road.
Fossil Q Explorist HR also comes with a heart rate sensor located on the bottom of the device with two concentric rings covering it to act as charging points. The bezel on the display is shiny compared to the brushed finish on the last generation, which feels more toy like and less like a real timepiece.
The design of the Q Explorist HR is more of a smartwatch than a real timepiece, which is a noticeable shift in design when compared to its predecessor. With things like a watch, the design is totally dependent on the person's taste.
Fossil Q Explorist HR Review: Display
Fossil Q Explorist HR sports a 1.4-inch, fully circular AMOLED display with a display resolution of 454 x 454 pixels. The same display panel was used in its predecessor, which is perfectly fine. The display is neither too tiny nor large and AMOLED offers true blacks and better battery performance compared to a standard LCD.
The display of the Fossil Q Explorist Hr is great for usage in all situations
The narrow black bezel around the display get hidden with most of the watch faces I used. The viewing angles are great, with the display being bright enough for outdoor usage and dim enough to be used perfectly in an indoor environment.
The only complain I have with the display is that the always-on display of the watch is not quite viewable outdoors under direct sunlight.
Fossil Q Explorist HR Review: Performance
The Q Explorist HR runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor, which is a last generation smartwatch processor. This is because the smartwatch was released just before the arrival of the Wear 3100 processor, which greatly focuses on the battery life, and performance.
The old processor shows its age with minute lags and low performance overall. The upgrade to Wear OS 2.6 version H has helped fix a lot of performance issues. Issues like tilt to wake up taking a long time and not responding some times and occasional shutters in the UI.
The heart rate sensor is quite a good thing to have running in the background.
Ignoring the software issues and the slow and dated processor, the performance of the watch is what you would expect from it. The GPS is quite accurate with the step tracking being a little dodgy when compared to a fitness tracker like the Honor Band 4 Running Edition or a Mi Band 3. The heart rate sensor is accurate. The rotating crown and the buttons feel sturdy and have a satisfying click to them. Fossil even fixed the crown button's sensitivity issue that prevailed Explorist HR's predecessor. It is not as satisfying as mechanical watch buttons, but does the job without any hiccup.
The addition of NFC for Google Pay is a great feature, however, sadly it isn't available in India as of now. Also, the NFC hardware could be used for various other purposes, which is a missed opportunity by the company.
Fossil Q Explorist HR Review: Battery Life
Coming from the previous generation, the battery life of the Q Explorist HR is quite impressive. With my phone connected to the watch 24x7 and heart rate monitoring turned on, which checked my heart rate every 20 minutes, the watch managed to give me around a day of battery life. Which is impressive as the previous generation without the heart rate monitoring struggled to give me even days worth of battery life.
The q Explorist Hr gets rid of the induction-based charging methods.
The always on display consumes a lot of battery too. In my testing, heart rate monitoring and the always on display consume almost the same amount of battery. With everything turned off the watch is able to last around 2 working days and with everything on, it is able to last a little less than a workday. All of this, was with the aeroplane mode turned off and the watch connected to my smartphone.
The new charger in the HR which gets rid of the induction-based charging, offers a little faster charging time. It took the watch a little more than an hour to charge from complete zero to full with a standard 1amp wall adapter.
Fossil Q Explorist HR Review: Conclusion
The Fossil Q Explorist HR starts at Rs 19,999. At that price, it undercuts most of its competitors, which really makes this smartwatch as one of the most affordable smartwatches in the market as of now. Along with the watch quality and the aesthetics, which alternatives from other brands seem to miss, the Explorist HR is one of the best smartwatches for the price.
Overall, the Fossil Q Explorist Hr offers great value for the price.
The quick release straps and customisation you get with the watch is quite amazing. If we ignore the ageing processor and the bugs of Wear OS, the watch is almost perfect. For the price you pay, you cannot get something better in the market as of now.
Also, the improvements of the Q Explorist HR over the Q Explorist are enough to make a person want to upgrade to the latest version.
TikTok is a popular media sharing app where users share short videos
TikTok, the popular media sharing app, removes over six million videos in India. The company justifies this move by claiming that these videos violated their community guidelines since July 2018. It is an effort towards making the millions of users feel safe and comfortable within the community and it will also empower them with the right tools and resources.
Helena Lersch, Director, Global Public Policy, TikTok said, “As a global community, safety has been one of TikTok’s key priorities. The launch of our age-gate feature in addition to our existing takedown of content that violates our Community Guidelines reinforce our ongoing commitment to ensure that our platform remains a safe and positive space for our Indian users and we discharge our obligations under the Intermediary Guidelines of India, in a meaningful manner. We are looking forward to introducing more relevant features and initiatives to help Indian users be safe and continue to enhance their experience with TikTok.”
Apart from removing videos, TikTok has also introduced a new age restriction for the new users. Now, the app will allow only people above 13 years of age to create an account on the platform. This feature is here to ensure that underage users do not use the application.
Notably, such changes come right after the launch of TikTok’s Safety Center and resource pages made to tackle anti-bullying in 10 major local languages. These Indian languages include Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Oriya.
WhatsApp to soon allow users to ignore archived chats
WhatsApp, the popular cross-platform messaging application, has been working on quite a lot of new features lately. A recent report suggests, WhatsApp is bringing a new feature called "Ignore archived chat." As the name suggests, it will allow users to keep archived chats archived even if a new message arrives in one of those chats.
The feature was first spotted back in October 2018 and it was touted as "Vacation mode" at that time. According to WABetaInfo, the new feature will arrive with the new Android beta 2.19.101 update. This will allow users to totally ignore certain groups or people on WhatsApp.
However, it is to be noted that not all users on the latest beta version will see these new features. The company has rolled it out to a small number of people as a test. It is expected to arrive for other users within the next few weeks. While the Archived chats feature can be found in the main menu, the new Ignore archived chats will be part of WhatsApp Settings > Notifications.
In order to setup Ignore Archived chat feature, users will need to head over to WhatsApp Settings and select Notifications. Here, users will find the feature, which will make sure that the chats can only get unarchived when a user wants it to. Unlike what happens now, the archived chats will remain archived even if new notifications arrive.
Apart from this, WhatsApp has also introduced new features lately, which include the ability to send up to 30 audio files, frequently forwarded messages feature and much more.
PUBG Mobile 0.12.0 update is just around the corner.
PUBG Mobile has confirmed the much-awaited 0.12.0 update. Tencent Games claims that the update will be made available on April 16 and users should expect a server downtime before that. With the new update, the game will get a new Darkest Night mode along with a few other features.
According to the patch notes released by the company, the upcoming 0.12.0 update will bring Survive Till Dawn 2.0, which is an upgrade to the already available PUBG Mobile x Resident Evil 2 survival game mode. The new upgrade will be revamped with new gruesome ghouls and never-before-seen ballistic weaponry for even more nightmarish gameplay.
As mentioned earlier, there will also be a new Darkest Night mode, where players can team up or even drop-in solo to survive the undead invasion and toxic gas until evacuation. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Mobile has finally added the Spectator Mode, which will allow the players to observe the action live by spectating the matches of their friends, Crew and Clan members.
Apart from that, the new update also brings crosshair modifications The red dot, holographic, 2x scope and 3x scopes can now be adjusted to different colours. Users can even customise the shape variations of the red dot reticle.
The 0.12.0 update is currently available only under the PUBG Mobile's Beta program. The stable version users can expect the update by April 16. Notably, there is no cure to the PUBG addition with this update. Hopefully, the company will bring something with the new big update.
WhatsApp's latest beta update brings a new audio picker
WhatsApp, in the past couple of months, has introduced plenty of features, which are mainly focused on making the user experience better. The social media application's upcoming update will allow users to send a total of 30 audio files at once. This is made possible with the implementation of a new audio picker.
According to a report by WABetaInfo, the new feature is a part of the 2.19.89 WhatsApp Beta update. Earlier, users were only allowed to send one audio file at a time. With the help of the new audio picker, the users will be able to choose up to 30 audio files from their library.
As of now, the feature is only available on the latest Beta version of the application. However, it will be delivered to the masses with the next stable update. In order to use it, users will need to open a chat first. Once in a chat window, click on the attach file icon and hit audio. Now you will see a list of music from your library. You can select multiple tracks and hit the send icon on the bottom right corner.
WhatsApp has been bringing a ton of new features lately. Recently, the Facebook-owned app introduced TouchID support for iPhones. They also introduced two new features called "Frequently forwarded messages" and "Who can add me in groups." The company is also testing features like Dark Mode and more.
Samsung recently hosted an event in Bangkok, where it showcased a couple of A-series smartphones. One of them was the all-new Samsung Galaxy A80. The key highlight of the phone is an all-screen display and a rotating pop-up selfie camera. The smartphone is priced at EUR 649 (roughly Rs. 50,000) and will be available by end of May. Here are some of the alternatives you can consider.
Vivo V15 Pro
Vivo V15 Pro comes with a 32-megapixel pop-up selfie camera
In case you are really fascinated by a pop-up selfie camera, the Vivo V15 Pro already has one. It comes with a 32-megapixel pop-up selfie camera and the 5th generation in-display fingerprint scanner. The device also sports a 48-megapixel camera at the back. The device is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 coupled with 6GB of RAM. All of this comes in at a price of Rs. 28,999.
OnePlus 6T is one of the best smartphones at the price range. It sports a water drop style notch and comes with flagship grade hardware including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset. OnePlus 6T is currently available at a starting price of Rs. 37,999. However, we would suggest waiting for OnePlus 7 as it is just around the corner.
Samsung Galaxy S10e is the company's cheapest flagship offering.
With the Samsung Galaxy, A80 does bring quite a lot of innovation, the Galaxy S10e being a flagship brings better performance. It brings tons of features like a punch hole camera design, reverse wireless charging, flagship grade specifications and much more. The Samsung Galaxy S10e is available at a starting price of Rs. 55,900.
Honor View 20 comes with the company's flagship Kirin 980 chipset, which is based on a 7nm process. The smartphone also sports a punch hole design and it comes with a 48-megapixel camera at the back. The smartphone is available in India with a price tag of Rs. 37,999.
LG V40 ThinQ
LG V40 ThinQ is available in four colour variants.
LG V40 ThinQ is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 coupled with 6GB of RAM. It not only sports the 3.5mm headphone jack with a quad-DAC setup, which improves the sound quality a significant margin.
Realme 2 Pro sports a water drop style notch up front.
Realme is soon going to launch its latest flagship smartphone, dubbed Realme 3 Pro. To pave the way for it, the company has introduced a permanent price cut of Rs. 1,000 across all three RAM/internal storage variants. The company has also slashed the prices of its Realme U1.
Now, the base variant of the Realme 2 Pro with 4GB of RAM paired with 64GB internal storage is now available at Rs. 11,990, the 6GB RAM/64GB internal storage variant is available at Rs. 13,990 and the 8GB RAM/128GB internal storage variant is available at Rs. 15,990.
Realme 2 Pro sports a 6.3-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels and a waterdrop notch. It comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 chipset paired with Adreno 512 GPU for graphics. It packs in up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage, which is further expandable using a microSD card. All of this is backed by a 3,500mAh battery and the phone currently runs on Android 8.1 Oreo based ColorOS.
As for the optics, the device sports a dual-camera setup at the back consisting of a 16-megapixel primary and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. Up front, there is a 16-megapixel selfie shooter with f/2.0 aperture.
To recall, Realme 2 Pro was earlier available at a starting price of Rs. 13,990. While the 6GB+64GB variant retails for Rs. 15,990, top of the line 8GB+128GB variant comes in with a price tag of Rs. 17,990. However, now these new prices have been updated everywhere the device is available at.
Twitter takes action to limit the number of spammers on the platform.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are making multiple types of precautions to limit the number of spammers. Twitter has just announced a limit onto the number of followers that can be added to an account on a single day. This step is expected to, if not omit, at least slowdown spammers.
According to a recent tweet by Twitter Safety, the new filter is supposed to help prevent spammers from adding a large number of followers and then deleting them in a bulk. Such actions will now result in violating Twitter's policies. While the earlier limit for deleting or adding followers was set to 1,000 per day, it is now capped to just 400 per day.
Follow, unfollow, follow, unfollow. Who does that? Spammers. So we’re changing the number of accounts you can follow each day from 1,000 to 400. Don’t worry, you’ll be just fine.
These new policies will make spam accounts less effective and more expensive to operate. Yoel Roth, Head of Site Integrity, Twitter, said, "First things first: You can’t stop spam, bots, or other types of manipulation with rate limits alone. However, rate limits *do* make each spam account less effective, slower, and more expensive to operate."
He further added, "We found that nearly half of all accounts who made more than 400 follows per day were churning. That amounted to more than 20 million follows each day, and a high rate of blocks and spam reports — a clear signal that inorganic follows are super annoying."
