We've had our say, now it's our readers' chance to pick a winner. Which flagship gets the tip-top mark for 2017? Cast your ballot and find out on New Year's Day!
The post Vote for your top flagship smartphone of 2017! appeared first on Pocketnow.
Come see why VPN Unlimited is a customer and critic favorite today. You can get unlimited access for the low price of $29.99 after the price drop. That's 94% off the original price!
The post PC Mag’s Top VPN for 2017 — 94% off! appeared first on Pocketnow.
Apple today released a message to its customers in line with the ongoing 'iPhone slow down' controversy. The message comes with an apology for forcing older iPhones to slow down in order to preserve their battery lives.
In the post, Apple attempts to explain its actions and make up for the issues faced by its customers. The company said it would never intentionally shorten the life of an Apple product.
To mollify its customers, Apple announced a discount on battery replacements for those using an iPhone 6 or later. In the US, new replacement cost has been brought down to $29, which represents an impressive discount over the $80 Apple usually charges.
For Indian customers, Apple is offering over 50 percent discount on battery replacements in the country. The company has confirmed that battery replacement in India will now cost Rs. 2000 plus taxes, whereas it used to be Rs. 6000 and above. This revised price is for batteries on the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, 7 and 7 Plus.
However, the offer will only be applicable from January through to December 2018. According to Apple, it will also introduce new elements to iOS 11 that provides more battery related information to users. As part of that effort, Apple also introduced a lengthy new support document covering “iPhone Battery and Performance.”
Many iPhone owners have believed that Apple has been intentionally slowing down their devices for years, usually with the assumption that Apple was trying to force people into buying newer phones.
The truth, according to Apple's letter, is that as iPhones age, their batteries don’t remain strong enough to properly power the processor. So, Apple slows them down a bit so as to keep the device functional. The battery is unable to deliver the current required to run the processor at peak speeds, and may lead to a device shut down.
As we mentioned in our previous coverage, Apple already essentially announced that it was doing this with the release of iOS 10.2.1, which was meant to stop some iPhone 6 units from unexpectedly shutting down.
All that the patch notes said at the time, though, was that 10.2.1 "improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone." And that improvement worked, and it worked quickly.
Unfortunately, the true nature of that fix wasn’t revealed by Apple itself; instead, it came from independent researchers such as Geekbench's John Poole who showed how Apple was significantly throttling the iPhone 6 and other phones, leading to accusations of betrayal of trust, lawsuits, and general anger.
Hopefully cheaper battery replacements turn out to be a big step in restoring that trust, but considering that there was already a cynical belief that Apple was mishandling its customers in place, the aftershocks might be felt for a while yet.
Motorola today announced a permanent price cut on the Moto G5S Plus, the company's budget dual camera smartphone. With this price cut, the Moto G5S Plus is now available for Rs. 14,999, down from its launch price of Rs. 15,999.
The Rs. 1000 price cut puts the smartphone in contention with the Xiaomi Mi A1, Honor 7X and more. This price cut also reduces the price difference between the Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S from Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 1,000.
The Moto G5S Plus is available exclusively on Amazon India and Moto Hub stores, in Lunar Grey and Blush Gold colour options. Let’s take a look at the specifications of the device.
The Moto G5S Plus runs on Android 7.1 Nougat and is expected to get an upgrade for Android 8.0 Oreo soon. The device comes with a 5.5-inch full HD IPS LCD display with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution.
It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor and the Adreno 506 GPU. It comes with 4GB RAM and 64 GB storage, which can be expanded to 256GB via a microSD card.
Coming to the camera department, the Moto G5S Plus features two 13MP cameras with f/2.0 aperture and dual LED flash. On the front, the device sports an 8MP shooter with f/2.0 aperture and LED flash.
The Moto G5S Plus is powered by a 3,000mAh battery and comes with Fast Charge. In terms of connectivity, it supports 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS and microUSB 2.0. The fingerprint sensor in mounted on the front, along with the home button.
Xiaomi may follow Apple's footsteps and ditch the fingerprint sensor in its upcoming flagship device, the Mi 7. According to a report by My Drivers, Xiaomi may use 3D face unlock technology, similar to FaceID on the iPhone X.
This new report contradicts earlier rumours about Xiaomi using an under-display fingerprint sensor to minimise the bezels on the device. The company was expected to use Synaptics' recently announced under-display fingerprint sensor.
Incidentally, the in-display fingerprint sensor were supported by renders published by GizChina. The renders revealed both the front and back of the device showing features like dual cameras and an 18:9 display with minimal bezels. The edge-to-edge bezel-less display makes the device look similar to the Mi Mix 2.
Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun had earlier confirmed that the Mi 7 will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor. But not much is known about the device yet.
Earlier this year, Qualcomm and Vivo had demonstrated the in-display fingerprint sensor – even though the demonstration was on a prototype device, the technology seemed impressive, albeit a little slow. The slow response times could have pushed Xiaomi to change its plans and ditch the fingerprint sensor for its next flagship device, taking the iPhone X route.
Apple today released a letter explaining that it’s very, very sorry for that whole bit about forcing older iPhones to slow down in order to preserve their batteries.
As a way of attempting to make up for what it calls the “misunderstanding,” the company is now letting anyone who has an iPhone 6 or later iPhone to come in and replace their batteries for just $29, which represents an impressive discount over the $80 Apple usually charges.
The company also states that the batteries are “consumable components,” and that wording will likely lead to renewed criticisms that Apple should allow us to replace our batteries ourselves.
Unfortunately, the offer is only in place through from January through December of 2018, but Apple also claims that it will also introduce new elements to a future iOS 11 update that give a little more information about your battery’s health. As part of that effort, Apple also introduced a lengthy new support document covering “iPhone Battery and Performance.”
Many iPhone owners have believed that Apple has been intentionally slowing down their devices or years, usually with the assumption that Apple was trying to get people to keep buying newer phones than the ones they had.
The truth, according to Apple's letter, is that it’s a little more complex than that. As the newer iPhones since the iPhone 6 age, their batteries don’t remain strong enough to properly power the processor, and so Apple slows them down a bit so as to keep the processors functional.
As we mentioned in our previous coverage, Apple already essentially announced that it was doing this with the release of iOS 10.2.1, which was meant to stop some iPhone 6 units from unexpectedly shutting down.
All that the patch notes said at the time, though, was that 10.2.1 "improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone." And that improvement worked, and it worked quickly.
Unfortunately, the true nature of that fix wasn’t revealed by Apple itself; instead, it came from independent researchers such as Geekbench's John Poole who showed how Apple was significantly throttling the iPhone 6 and other phones, leading to accusations of betrayal of trust, lawsuits, and general anger.
Hopefully cheaper battery replacements turn out to be a big step in restoring that trust, but considering that there was already a cynical belief that Apple was mishandling its customers in place, the aftershocks might be felt for a while yet.
Chinese smartphone makers have in recent times started dominating in the budget and midrange segment in India. With companies like Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and others leading the market in terms of both market share as well as mindshare, customers have a lot of options across different price ranges.
Although the Chinese brands are huge in number in it comes to India, only a few are well accepted by Indian consumers. Brands like Meizu, Nubia, Coolpad are still known by a large chunk of audiences but they are still thriving to get a solid identity on local soil.
From the entry level to the upper mid-range, for the selfie lovers to those who want raw specs and almost stock Android, there’s something for everyone.
Today we take a look at the top 10 smartphones from Chinese brands in India.
The OnePlus 5T is an upgraded version of the flagship device OnePlus 5 which the company launched in June 2017. The phone is available in two variants – 6GB/64GB and 8GB/128GB. Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset, the phone runs on Android 7.1.2 Nougat which will be upgraded to Android Oreo in the beginning of 2018. It has Oxygen OS on top of Android which is responsible for the interface.
The highlight of the phone is its bigger display. It sports a 6.01-inch full HD AMOLED panel with an aspect ratio of 18:9. A 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 5 coating protects the screen from damage. However, it lacks the QHD resolution. It gets its daily dose of power from a 3,300mAh battery which supports Dash Charge.
In the camera department, the phone has a dual camera setup on the rear. It includes a 16-megapixel Sony IMX 398 sensor with an aperture size of f/1.7 and 27.22mm focal length and a 20-megapixel Sony IMX 376K sensor with the similar aperture size and focal length. The front camera comprises of a 16-megapixel IMX 371 sensor with an aperture size of f/2.0. The back also includes a fingerprint sensor above the logo.
Apart from the two above mentioned variants, OnePlus has launched a Star Wars Limited Edition variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage.
It is available at a starting price of Rs 32,999.
Xiaomi Mi A1 is an outcome of Xiaomi’s partnership with Google. It is the first Xiaomi phone with stock Android and is one of the most popular mid-range device of the year. The phone comes with a 5.5-inch full HD display with 2.5D curved glass coating on the top. It runs on Android 7.1 Nougat. The company promised that the phone will receive the Android Oreo update by the end of 2017 and according to the recent reports it has started rolling out the beta version of the software.
The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, 4GB RAM and an internal storage of 64GB which is expandable up to 128GB via microSD card. On the camera front, the phone has a dual camera setup on the rear with a 12-megapixel wide angle lens supported by a 12-megapixel telephoto lens. A 5-megapixel front shutter with 36 smart beauty profiles and face recognition sits above the display. It has a 3080mAh battery which lasts for a day. The fingerprint sensor is placed at the back of the phone.
The phone was launched in three colour variants – Gold, Rose Gold and Black, but now on the occasion of New Year, the company has launched a Special Edition Red colour variant, available for a limited time. It is available for Rs 14,999 in India.
The Moto G5 Plus is the successor of the G4 Plus from Lenovo backed Motorola. It comes with a 5.2-inch full HD IPS LCD display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and runs on Android 7.0 Nougat with some customisations from Motorola. The device starts at Rs. 14,999.
In terms of Performance, the Moto G5 Plus comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, Adreno 506 GPU, 3GB or 4GB RAM, 16GB or 32GB storage, microSD expansion support, 3,000mAh battery with Turbo charging and a fingerprint sensor.
Coming to the camera department, the device sports a 12MP primary camera with f/1.7 aperture, dual pixel autofocus and dual LED flash, along with a 5MP front camera with f/2.2 aperture.
The Honor 7X is the first mid-range phone to come with an aspect ratio of 18:9, the feature which is commonly found on the flagship phones. It has a 5.9-inch full HD+ display which is vibrant and provides a great experience to the user. The phone is powered by Kirin 659 chipset backed by a 4GB RAM and an internal storage of 32GB. There is also a 64GB storage variant available in the market. The storage in both the variants is expandable up to 256GB via micro SD card.
The phone runs on Android 7.0 Nougat under the company’s custom EMUI (Emotion UI) 5.1. It has a 3,340mAh battery which provides sufficient fuel to sail you through your daily task but it does not support fast charging. It features a dual-camera setup on the back which comprises of a 16-megapixel primary sensor and 2-megapixel depth sensing lens. On the front, there is a 8-megapixel sensor which sits above the big display.
In terms of price, the 32GB and 63GB variant of Honor 7X are priced at Rs 12,999 and Rs 15,999 respectively.
Launched in August 2017, the Moto G5S Plus comes with an all-metal unibody design and curved corners which give it a premium feel in hand. It is powered by the similar Snapdragon 625 chipset, 4GB RAM and Adreno 506 GPU which the company used in G5 Plus. The phone has an internal storage capacity of 64GB which can be further extended up to 128GB via micro SD card.
Moto G5S Plus carries a 5.5-inch full HD display with a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 coating on the top. Its 3000mAh battery provides enough fuel for the whole day. It also supports TurboCharging through which you can get up to six hours of battery life in just 15 minutes. The phone is also splash resistant, thanks to the nano-coating.
Coming to the camera department, the Moto G5S Plus sports a dual camera setup on the rear with 13-megapixel sensors along with a dual LED flash. It has an 8-megapixel wide-angle lens and LED flash on the front. The phone is available on Amazon India at a price tag of Rs 15,999.
Oppo F5 is one of the latest addition to the company’s selfie expert series after Oppo F3. The 18:9 aspect ratio was the most trending feature of 2017 which Oppo also decided to put in the F5. It features a big 6-inch full HD+ display and a screen to body ratio of 84.2 percent. The highlight of the phone is its Facial unlock and the AI Beauty Technology which is said to be the first AI-based beautifying technology in India
The phone comes with a MediaTek MT6763T chipset coupled with 4GB or 6GB RAM and 32GB or 64GB of onboard storage. The user can extend the storage capacity to 265GB through a microSD card. While the phone has a 16-megapixel primary lens, it has a 20-megapixel sensor on the front which delivers excellent quality of selfies to the user.
Coming to the price, the 4GB and the 6GB variant of the phone are priced at Rs 19,990 and Rs 24,990 respectively.
While the other OEMs were busy in making smartphones with dual camera setup, Huawei went a step further with Honor 9i. It launched the phone with four cameras – 16-megapixel + 2-megapixel on the rear and 13-megapixel + 2-megapixel on the front.
Under the hood, the phone is powered by an octa-core Kirin 659 chipset, dual-core Mali T830 GPU, 4GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The phone also has a micro SD card slot. It is loaded with Android 7.0 Nougat with EMUI 5.1 on the top.
The Honor 9i comes with a 5.9-inch full HD+ display with a 3,340mAh underneath. It is available in three colour variants – Prestige Gold, Aurora Blue and Graphite Black at Rs 17,999.
After launching Redmi Y1 and Y1 Lite in India, Xiaomi recently unveiled Redmi 5A in the market. The phone comes in two variants - 2GB/16GB and 3GB/32GB. The storage capacity is further expandable by 128GB via microSD card. Pitched as the "Desh Ka Smartphone" by the company, Redmi 5A features a 5-inch HD display and runs on Android 7.0 Nougat with MIUI 9 on the top.
The daily tasks are managed by a quad-core Snapdragon 425 chipset and an Adreno 308 GPU handles the graphics of the phone. The phone comes with a 13-megapixel primary sensor with an aperture size of f/2.2 and a 5-megapixel secondary lens of f/2.0 aperture size. It gets its daily dose of power from a 3000mAh battery.
Redmi 5A is available in Gold, Rose Gold and Dark Grey colour variants with prices starting from Rs 4,999.
This budget device from Xiaomi is one of the highest selling device from the company in India. Xiaomi has reportedly sold over 5 million units of the Redmi Note 4 in India in just 6 months. The company sold 1 million units of the Redmi Note 4 in just 45 days of its first sale on January 23. While Xiaomi has not been able to capture the flagship segment, it has had good success in the budget segment with the Redmi and Redmi Note series.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 comes with a 5.5-inch full HD IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and runs on Android 7.0 Nougat skinned with MIUI on top. The device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor clubbed with Adreno 506 GPU, and comes in 2GB, 3GB and 4GB RAM variants. It comes with 32GB or 64GB of internal storage that can be further expanded via microSD card.
Coming to the camera department, the Redmi Note 4 features a 13MP primary camera with f/2.0 aperture, PDAF, 1.12 µm pixel size and dual LED flash, clubbed with a 5MP secondary camera with f/2,0 aperture. The Redmi Note 4 is powered by a 4,000mAh battery but lacks fast charge support. The device starts at Rs. 9,999.
Coolpad had launched the Cool Play 6 at event in Dubai on August 20 with a price tag of Rs. 14,999. The device comes with a dual camera setup on the back, 6GB RAM, Snapdragon 653 processor and runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat.
The Coolpad Cool Play 6 features a 5.5-inch full HD IPS LCD display and runs on Anrdoid 7.1.1 Nougat with Journey UI on top, with a promised upgrade to Android O. In terms of performance, the device comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 653 processor, Adreno 510 GPU, 6GB RAM, 64GB internal storage and a 4,000mAh battery.
Coming to the camera department, the Coolpad Cool Play 6 features a dual camera setup. It comes with dual 13MP cameras with f/2.0 aperture, PDAF and a dual LED flash along with an 8MP front camera with f/2.2 aperture.
