by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Investing, Large Enterprise, Markets, Technology
By Krishna SinhaChaudhury,
New Delhi : Smartphones with bezel-less screens have become one of the biggest trends this year with handset majors like Samsung, Apple, LG and Micromax turning to displays with 18:9 aspect ratio for an immersive viewing experience.
But it was Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi that started the buzz last year with Mi Mix — the first Android smartphone to ditch thick bezels and the traditional aspect ratio of 16:9.
Mi Mix was introduced as a concept phone, and this year the company has taken a step further with the introduction of Mi Mix 2 that has a premium design language and refined ergonomics.
The Rs 35,999 smartphone falls in the “affordable flagship” category and is being seen as the company’s attempt to break away from its usual “value-for-money” image.
How does it fare when it comes to real-world performance? Let’s see.
At the first glance, Mi Mix 2 impresses with its ceramic body and premium looks. The frame is made of 7-series aluminium alloy that renders a sturdy feel, appears to be strong enough to withstand a few falls.
The ceramic back has a glossy finish and catches light that makes it look incredible. In fact, it is the only mainstream ceramic smartphone that competes with Android co-creator Andy Rubin’s “Essential” phone which is not yet available in India.
The 5.99-inch IPS display has good brightness levels that helps lessen the reflective nature of the glass.
Moreover, the Corning Gorilla Glass 4 on the front, an 18K gold-plated camera ring and gold-coloured “Mix designed by Xiaomi” branding at the rear makes the device stand out in the crowd.
Mi Mix 2’s primary 12MP camera equipped with Sony IMX386 sensor is the same that comes with the company’s flagship Mi 6 smartphone.
The rear shooter with an f/2.0 aperture, phase detection auto-focus (PDAF) and dual LED flash captured good photos, with enough details in proper light only.
Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset with 6GB RAM that results in smooth performance.
Xiaomi’s custom user interface (UI) MIUI 8 based on Android Nougat 7.1.2 is decent enough. However, fans of stock Android operating system (OS) may dislike the interface because it has slightly larger square icons for apps and customisation is limited.
In addition to impressive looks, we found the smartphone’s battery life to be among the best.
The phone runs a 3,400mAh battery but there is almost zero battery drain when the device is idle, unlike many flagship phones out there.
Having said that, we also did not notice the smartphone getting heated up during browsing or while running multiple applications in the background.
The battery lasted a little over a day on moderate usage which should appeal to most users.
What does not work?
Unlike what we had expected, there was noticeable distortion in the images in low-light conditions and inconsistent ambient lighting.
The location of 5MP front camera is rather awkward as it has been moved down to the chin of the device. It is capable of taking selfies that are not up to the mark.
Conclusion: Mi Mix 2 is a good attempt by Xiaomi to break away from its usual “budget smartphone brand” image. The smartphone has an appealing ceramic body phone and offers good battery life. However, smartphones such as OnePlus 5 and Honor 8 Pro easily outperform it in terms of camera performance.
(Krishna SinhaChaudhury can be contacted at krishna.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Markets, SMEs, Technology
By Vivek Singh Chauhan,
New Delhi : Aiming to carve out a place for itself in India’s highly competitive mid-range smartphone market, TECNO Mobile, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Transsion Holdings, has introduced TECNO i5 Pro that offers solid battery back-up and a fairly decent camera. The phone is priced at Rs 12,990.
Apart from being budget-friendly and offering almost all features that other smartphones in the same range provide, TECNO i5 Pro has additional attributes like “rocket charging” that would make staying in touch much more convenient for people on the go.
Let’s see what works for the device.
As far as design is concerned, the device has chamfered edges with volume rocker and power button on the right bumper. A micro-USB charger port is placed at the bottom while a jack is placed on the top.
The device comes with a 4,000mAh battery that, after continuous usage including light gaming, surfing the Internet, along with music playback and moderate using for calling purposes, lasted for more than a day.
The 5.5-inch HD IPS display device has “rocket charging” technology that helps charge the device super fast. Our review smartphone was fully charged in an hour-and-a-half.
Another distinct feature is the 13MP rear shooter with auto-focus, quad-LED flash, f/2.0 aperture and 8MP front camera with LED flash.
With few editing features in the camera app, the photos taken by the rear camera in well-lit conditions were impressive. The 8MP selfie camera performance was above average.
The Tecno i5 Pro is powered by 1.44GHz quad-core MediaTek 6737T processor and it comes with 3GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 128GB.
The device runs Android Nougat 7.0 with HiOS skin on top with less bloatware.
In comparision, Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 offers 4GB RAM and 64GB on-board memory at Rs 12,999.
What doesn’t work.
The fingerprint sensor has a weak response making the accessibility to applications difficult for users. We experienced lag when we opened several apps simultaneously.
The smartphone is a little difficult to operate with one hand.
Conclusion: With good battery back-up and camera quality, TECNO i5 Pro has a place in the sub-15,000 segment.
(Vivek Singh Chauhan can be contacted at vivek.c@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Markets, Medium Enterprise, Sales, SMEs, Technology
By Krishna SinhaChaudhury,
New Delhi : While some of us were thinking smartphone innovation is slowly running out of steam, Huawei has debuted “Honor 9i” with a dual camera set-up in the front as well as the rear, along with bezel-less display.
In the mid-price segment, the device is the first in India to come with a quad-camera system and bezel-less “FullVision” display for an immersive viewing experience.
At Rs 17,999 and with many firsts, how does Honor 9i fare when it comes to real-world performance?
Here is what we think of it.
The smartphone’s 5.9-inch FHD+ edge-to-edge display coupled with the 2.5D curved glass caught our attention the moment we switched the phone on.
The display is bright, has accurate colour reproduction and good sunlight legibility.
“Honor 9i” has beautifully accommodated a big screen into a small frame and how! The device has 83 per cent screen-to-body ratio which, interestingly, is at par with flagship Android smartphones from the stables of Samsung, LG and others.
The metal unibody build of the device exudes a premium feel.
The smartphone has antenna bands running at the top and bottom of the device, similar to what we have seen in the Honor 8 Pro.
The 16MP + 2MP vertical dual camera set-up at the rear captured good images in daylight with enough details and good colour balance.
The additional 2MP sensors on both front and rear captured depth data to produce images with “Bokeh” effect.
The rear shooter has handy features such as night-shot, panorama, HDR, portrait mode, pro-photo, capture smiles, light painting, time-lapse, slow-mo and watermark, among others.
An interesting addition is the “moving picture” feature that is similar to what we first saw in the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus. It lets the user create a moving image instead of capturing a still photo.
Honor 9i’s camera performance did not disappoint us much in low-light conditions either (we would have loved more detailed pictures, though).
The 13MP + 2MP selfie camera equipped with “selfie toning” flash — which is diffused white light for imaging in low- light conditions — is quite capable.
However, there was loss of details in the selfies when the “beauty level” was set to the highest.
It is impressive to see a decent 3,340mAh battery crammed into a fairly slim 7.5-mm body.
We did not find the phone getting heated while browsing videos or playing games.
The fingerprint sensor is very accurate and unlocks the device in a snap.
Huawei’s own mid-range “Hisilicon Kirin 659” chipset powers the device and does it well. The phone handled day-to-day tasks with ease.
We did not find any significant sluggishness while browsing the internet, running multiple applications and social media accounts.
Honor 9i sports 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage (expandable up to 128GB via Micro-SD card) which is quite standard for a smartphone in the sub-Rs 20,000 segment.
The device runs on the Android 7.0 Nougat operating system (OS) with the company’s custom EMUI 5.1 skin.
What does not work?
The 3,340mAh battery lasted only around 16-17 hours on single charge.
Considering the price, lack of a USB Type-C port in the device was disappointing.
Conclusion: Honor 9i’s solid frame with no visible creaks and taller-than-wide built is a delight to see and use. A capable camera and wholesome experience make it an interesting alternative to Nokia 6 and Moto G5S Plus.
(Krishna SinhaChaudhury can be contacted at krishna.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Investing, Large Enterprise, Markets, Technology
New Delhi : Expanding its ELITE series, domestic smartphone maker Swipe Technologies on Saturday launched 4G-enabled “ELITE Pro” featuring 5-inch HD IPS display at Rs 6,999.
Powered by 1.4GHz Quad-core processor, “ELITE Pro” comes with 3GB RAM and 32GB ROM which is expandable up to 64GB. It will be available on Snapdeal from October 8.
“‘Swipe ELITE Pro’ is power packed with features that stands on our promise of delivering true quality at the true value of money,” said Shripal Gandhi, Founder and CEO, Swipe Technologies, in a statement.
The smartphone is equipped with a fingerprint scanner for locking and sports 13MP rear camera and 8MP front camera.
The device runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow and is packed with 2500mAh battery.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Economy, Large Enterprise, Markets, News, Sales, Technology
Panaji : Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has launched “Honor 9i” smartphone with four cameras and bezel-less display in India for Rs 17,999 but it would cost more in other countries, a top company executive has said.
“Huawei would introduce Honor 9i — that saw its global launch from India on Thursday — at a higher price in all other countries,” P. Sanjeev, Vice President, Sales, Huawei India-Consumer Business Group, told IANS on the sidelines of the global launch here.
A major highlight of the device is the 16MP dual-lens rear camera with flash and 13MP + 13MP front camera set-up at the front with “selfie toning” flash.
“Buyers in Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 price bracket have tripled in India. The requirements of the users have also increased. So, to be fair to a consumer, we kept the price reasonable to help them upgrade further,” Sanjeev added.
The company, however, did not reveal which countries this device would debut next.
The Chinese handset giant recently surpassed Cupertino-based Apple in global smartphone sales consistently for June and July this year.
According to Counterpoint Research’s latest ‘Market Pulse for July 2017’, the Chinese handset maker is now at second spot after South Korean giant Samsung globally.
Meanwhile, unlike other Chinese smartphone makers like Xiaomi and Lenovo, the company does not want to open dedicated retail stores in the country.
The company also maintained that its offline sales expansion strategy is very much in place.
“We are putting the money on service. We have built exclusive service centres in 17 cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Bengaluru, among others,” Sanjeev said.
“Almost half of the business of smartphones comes from these cities,” he added.
With 20 percent overseas smartphones shipments year-on-year (YoY), Huawei is one of the fastest-growing Chinese smartphone makers.
—IANS
