This week, Huawei launched its much-anticipated flagship P9 smartphone in India as it had promised. The smartphone was first announced back in April and packs a dual 12-megapixel rear camera module.
The Huawei P9 has a 5.2-inch 1080p AMOLED 2.5D curved glass display, has a fingerprint sensor on the back with 3D fingerprint sensor technology, full-metal body and is just 6.95mm thick. The rear camera features Leica SUMMARIT lenses and 1.25-micron pixels promising brilliant image quality in low-light conditions. It also has an independent depth measurement chip and proprietary hybrid-focus technology.
The Huawei P9 comes in Mystic Silver, Titanium Grey and Prestige Gold colors and is priced at Rs. 39,999 in India. It is exclusively available from Flipkart.
Check out our Huawei P9 Unboxing below and read our full review here.
Alongside the P9 smartphone, the company also launched Huawei Watch with stainless steel band, which was first launched in India back in April with leather band. It has a 1.4-inch (400 x 400 pixels) circular AMOLED display with 10,000:1 high contrast ratio, scratch-proof sapphire crystal lens and has cold-forged stainless steel frame. It has built-in heart rate monitor, 6-Axis motion sensors and is also water resistant with IP67 ratings.
The Stainless Steel Huawei Watch comes in Silver color and is priced at Rs. 22,999. It is available exclusively from Flipkart. Huawei Watch with leather band is now down to Rs. 19,999 and is also available from Flipkart.
Meanwhile in China, Huawei also announced G9 Plus, a few months after introducing the G9 Lite smartphone.
The Huawei G9 Plus has a 5.5-inch 1080p display, is powered by an Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 processor and runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with Huawei EMUI 4.1 on top. It has a 16-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization (OIS), phase-detection auto-focus (PDAF), dual-tone LED flash and a 8-megapixel front-facing camera.
The Huawei G9 Plus comes in Gold, Silver and Rose Gold colors and is priced at 2399 yuan (US$ 360 / Rs. 24150 approx.), and is already available from online stores in China.
Asus this week launched all new Zenfone series – the Zenfone 3, Zenfone 3 Laser, Zenfone 3 Ultra and Zenfone 3 Deluxe smartphones at an event in India. All these were introduced at the Computex 2016 in May, come with 1080p displays and have a fingerprint sensor on the back.
The Asus Zenfone 3 comes in two screen sizes – 5.2-inch and 5.5-inch 1080p display with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. It is powered by Snapdragon 625 SoC, runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with ZenUI and has a 16-megapixel rear camera and an8-megapixel camera.
The Zenfone 3 Laser has a 5.5-inch 1080p display with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection and 77% screen-to-body ratio. It is powered by Snapdragon 430 SoC, runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with ZenUI and has a 13-megapixel rear camera with Sony IMX214 sensor and 2nd gen laser auto focus that lets you focus in 0.03 seconds.
The Asus Zenfone 3 Ultra comes with big 6.8-inch display, Snapdragon 652 processor, 4GB RAM, 64GB of onboard storage, 23-megapixel camera, and a fingerprint sensor. Check full specifications here.
The Asus Zenfone 3 5.2-inch version with 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage (ZE520KL) is priced at Rs. 21,999 and the 5.5-inch version with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage (ZE552KL) is priced at Rs. 27,999. It is already available through all major e-commerce sites like Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdealand in chain stores like Sangeetha Mobiles as well.
The ZenFone 3 Deluxe 64GB version with Snapdragon 820 is priced at Rs. 49,999 and the high-end 256GB storage version with Snapdragon 821 is priced at Rs. 62,999. The ZenFone 3 Ultra is priced at Rs. 49,999. Asus also launched the Zenfone 3 Laser in India for Rs. 18,999. These phones will be available from September 2016 across all major e-commerce sites and Asus Exclusive across India.
Asus also launched the ZenBook 3 notebook and Transformer 3 Pro 2-in-1 in India.
The ZenBook 3 is sleek and crafted from aerospace-grade aluminium alloy. It has a metal finish, measures 11.9mm and weigh 910 g. It sports 12.5-inch display and has a wide 72% NTSC color gamut with scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass 4 on top.
The company claims upto 9 hours of battery life for the ZenBook 3 and it comes with fast-charge technology that brings ZenBook 3’s battery up to 60% capacity in just 49 minutes.
The ZenBook 3 is priced at Rs. 1,47,990 and comes in Roya blue, Rose Gold and Quartz Grey colors. It will be available from October 2016 onwards across all major ecommerce sites, Asus Exclusive Stores and leading retail stores.
The Transformer 3 Pro 2-in-1 is also made of aluminum, is only 8.35mm thin and features diamond-cut detailing. The Transformer 3 Pro has an integrated metal kickstand with a stepless hinge that lets users set the device at different viewing angle up to 170°. It comes bundled with Asus Transformer Cover Keyboard which is backlit and provides laptop-grade 1.4mm key travel for a comfortable typing experience. The device sports a 12.6-inch display with a resolution of 2880 by 1920 and a 275ppi pixel density and a gamut of 121% sRGB color space for rich, vibrant colors.
The Transformer 3 Pro is powered by an Intel Core i7 processor and has up to a 1TB PCIe x4 SSD and 16GB of 2133MHz RAM for the ultimate performance. The USB Type-C connector supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 devices at speeds up to 10Gbps, and Thunderbolt 3 provides fast 40Gbps data transfers and support for dual external 4K UHD displays. In addition, the device comes with USB 3.0 and HDMI ports. There is a 13MP rear camera and a front-facing camera with Windows Hello facial recognition that enables password free log in with just a quick glance.
Asus Transformer 3 Pro 2-in-1 is priced at Rs. 1,44,990 and comes in Gold color. It will be available from October 2016 onwards across all major ecommerce sites, Asus Exclusive Stores and leading retail stores.
Reliance Retail launched two new LYF series smartphones – the LYF Flame 7 and the LYF Wind 7. Both the smartphones run Android 5.1 (Lollipop) and have 4G Voice over LTE (VoLTE), similar to other LYF smartphones. The budget Lyf Flame 7 also has a textured finish on the back and Asahi Dragontrail Glass protection for display. Check full specifications here.
The LYF Flame 7 comes in Black color and is priced at Rs. 3499, and the LYF Wind 7 comes in Black, White and Blue colors and is priced at Rs. 6999.
Intel unveiled a new chip module called as Joule that comes with Real Sense depth-sensing camera targeted at Internet of Things (IoT).
Intel says Joule module is a high performance system-on-module (SOM) in a tiny, low-power package which is ideal for computer vision, robotics, drones, industrial IoT, VR, AR, micro-servers and other applications that require high-end edge computing. The Intel Joule module is available in two models – 570x and 550x and supports 4K video and WiFi.
The Intel Joule 570x developer kit is available for sale at the 2016 Intel Developer Conference in San Francisco, and will begin shipping in September through Intel reseller partners.
Lastly, LeEco and Coolpad jointly announced their first smartphone dubbed the Cool 1. LeEco recently became the major stake holder in Coolpad.
The new Cool 1 comes with dual 13-megapixel rear cameras with f/2.0 aperture, phase-detection auto-focus (PDAF) and dual-tone LED flash. The phone has a 5.5-inch 1080p display, is powered by an Octa-Core Snapdragon 652 SoC and runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with EUI on top.
Other features include a fingerprint sensor, dual-SIM with 4G VoLTE support, and a 4060mAh battery with fast charging.
The Cool1 comes in Gold, Silver and Rose Gold colors and is priced at 1099 yuan (US$ 166 / Rs. 11,080 approx.) for 3GB RAM with 32GB storage version, 1499 yuan (US$ 226 / Rs. 15,125 approx.) for the 4GB RAM with 32GB storage version and the 4GB RAM with 64GB storage costs 1699 yuan (US$ 256 / Rs. 17,135 approx.). It is now available for order from Coolpad website, LeMall and Jd.com and goes on sale from August 24th.