Honor 9X, MagicWatch 2, Band 5i launched in India: Know price, specs, more

Honor 9X is Honor’s first pop-up selfie camera. The Honor Magic Watch 2 and Band 5i, on the other hand, are the first fitness wearables to launch under company’s “1+8+N” ecosystem products

Technology News: Chinese smartphone maker Huawei’s digital brand Honor on Tuesday launched in India the Honor 9X smartphone, Honor MagicWatch 2 and Honor Band 5i. Successor of the Honor 8X, the Honor 9X is the company’s first pop-up selfie camera phone. The Honor Magic Watch 2 and Honor Band 5i, on the other hand, are the first fitness wearables to launch under company’s “1+8+N” ecosystem products.

Honor 9X: Price in India and sale details

The Honor 9X comes in 4GB RAM + 64GB internal storage and 6GB RAM + 128GB internal storage configurations, priced at Rs 13,999 and Rs 16,999, respectively. As for the colour variants, the phone will be available in sapphire blue and midnight black colours. The phone will go on sale from January 19, exclusively on home-grown e-commerce platform Flipkart.

Honor 9X: Key specifications

The Honor 9X has a 6.59-inch fullHD+ screen. It is powered by Kirin 710 system-on-chip, mated with up to 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. The phone has triple camera set-up on the back, featuring a 48-megapixel primary sensor of an f/1.8 aperture, an 8MP ultra-wide sensor of 120-degree field-of-view (FoV), and a 2MP depth sensor. The phone has a 16MP selfie camera, which is a part of the pop-up module that comes out from the top. The phone boots Android Pie operating system-based EMUI 9.1.0 user interface. Powering the device is a 4,000 mAh battery….

Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite to cost Rs 39,990, pre-orders to start from Jan 23

Galaxy S10 Lite will house 48MP main camera, 12MP ‘Ultra Wide’ and 5MP ‘Macro’ sensors alongside the new ‘Super Steady OIS

Technology News: Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite that will be available in India in the first week of February for Rs 39,999 can be pre-ordered on Flipkart from January 23. The e-commerce platform has set up a landing page that reveals the pre-order date for Galaxy S10 Lite. The much-anticipated device in one variant is likely to cost Rs 39,999 — giving Chinese player OnePlus a tough competition in this price segment, industry sources told IANS on Saturday.

The smartphone will give a renewed push to Samsung’s strategy in the premium segment (priced above Rs 30,000), where its flagship smartphones Galaxy S and Note series have traditionally done very well. Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite will house 48MP main camera, 12MP ‘Ultra Wide’ and 5MP ‘Macro’ sensors alongside the new ‘Super Steady OIS (optical image stabilisation)’. The device will feature a 32MP Selfie camera.

The device will come with 6.7-inch, edge-to-edge Infinity-O display, large 4,500mAh battery with super-fast charging and Samsung’s ecosystem of apps and services, including Samsung Pay.

Samsung announced new Galaxy S10 Lite along with another flagship Galaxy Note10 Lite smartphone earlier this month. Galaxy Note 10 Lite comes with a 6.70-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1080×2400 pixels at a pixel density of 394 pixels per inch (ppi). It comes with 6GB RAM, runs Android 10 and is powered by a 4500mAh non-removable battery. Note 10 Lite on the rear packs a 12MP primary camera, a secondary 12MP camera and a third 12MP sensor. The device sports a 32MP camera on the front.

Samsung is retrieving all Galaxy Fold samples distributed to reviewers

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is retrieving all Galaxy Fold samples distributed to reviewers to investigate reports of broken screens, a day after it postponed the phone’s launch

Technology News: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is retrieving all Galaxy Fold samples distributed to reviewers to investigate reports of broken screens, a day after it postponed the phone’s launch, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday. The retrieval comes as the world’s biggest smartphone maker met with embarrassment ahead of the foldable device’s U.S. release on April 26, with a handful of technology journalists reporting breaks, bulges and blinking screens after a day’s use.

The South Korean tech giant postponed the handset’s launch for an unspecified period of time while it investigated the matter. It said initial findings showed the issues could be associated with impact on exposed areas of the hinges A representative declined to comment further on Tuesday.

Samsung’s share price was 0.4 percent lower as of 0425 GMT, in a flat Seoul market. However, parts suppliers fell, with hinge maker KH Vatec Co Ltd shedding 3.1 percent. A person with direct knowledge of the supply chain said KH Vatec conducted an internal review of hinges used in the Samsung Galaxy Fold and found no defects. The supplier declined to comment. In March, Samsung released a video showing robots folding Galaxy Fold handsets 200,000 times for its durability test.

Samsung’s head of IT and mobile communications, DJ Koh, has repeatedly said foldables are the future of smartphones. Though the issue does not hurt Samsung’s balance sheet, the postponement damages the firm’s effort to showcase itself as an innovative first mover, not a fast follower, analysts said. In some cases, reviewers had peeled off a layer of film which they mistook for a disposable screen protector.

“It’s disastrous that Samsung sent samples to reviewers without clear instructions on how to handle the device, and that the firm needs to fix screen flickering,” said analyst Kim Young-woo at SK Securities. One Samsung employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “On the bright side, we have an opportunity to nail down this issue and fix it before selling the phones to a massive audience, so they won’t have same complaints.”

Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie: A mid-range smartphone with good dual front cameras

Priced at Rs 14,999, the phone is superb for selfie lovers, but its overall performance and battery disappoint

 

 

 

 

The concept of front camera in phones dates back to the time when mobile phone makers were toying with the idea of internet-enabled devices with video call features. But the front camera’s journey has come a long way since: What used to be a video camera with pixelated output is now much more advanced and packed with robust features to meet millennials’ growing demand for tools that help them stay updated on social media platforms.

 

Taiwanese electronics giant Asus is among the smartphone makers that have taken the front camera game very seriously and are innovating to make it even better. With the announcement of the Zenfone 4 Selfie series, the company has brought to the table two smartphones with dual selfie cameras – the Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro and Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie (dual camera). Also announced recently was an entry-level smartphone with software-based enhancements for the front camera.

 

Business Standard reviewed the dual-front-camera variant of the Zenfone 4 Selfie to test its camera capabilities, besides the overall smartphone performance. Here are our observations: