Xiaomi this week launched its ‘new big’ Mi Max phablet in India at an event in Delhi. The smartphone was announced in China last month.
The Xiaomi Mi Max packs a 6.44-inch 1080p 2.5D curved glass display, is powered by an Hexa-Core Snapdragon 650 or Octa-Core Snapdragon 652 SoC, runs on MIUI 7 based on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow), has a 16-megapixel rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, PDAF and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera.
It also has hybrid SIM slot that lets you use the second slot as a microSD expansion slot when required. It packs a huge 4850mAh battery. We unboxed the smartphone recently, check out the video below and read our full review here.
The Xiaomi Mi Max comes in gold, silver and light grey colors and is priced at Rs. 14,999 for the 3GB of RAM with 32GB of storage version and the Snapdragon 652, 4GB of RAM and 128GB storage version is priced at Rs. 19,999. It will go on sale through mi.com starting from July 6th. It will also be made available through Amazon.in, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Tata CLiQ and Paytm from July 13th.
Reliance Retail launched Lyf Earth 2, successor of the Earth 1 that was launched earlier this year. The company also launched Lyf Flame 5, the company’s latest budget 4G smartphone with VoLTE in the Flame.
It has a 5-inch 1080p screen with 2.5D curved glass display, 72.1% screen-to-body ratio, is powered by an Octa-Core Snapdragon 615 SoC and runs on Android 5.1.1 (Lollipop). It has a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, Laser autofocus and has a 13-megapixel front-facing camera.
It has 7.2mm thick aluminium alloy frame, comes with a fingerprint sensor below the display. It also comes with retina scanning option to unlock the smartphone.
The Lyf Flame 5 has a 4-inch WVGA screen, is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, runs on Android 5.1 (Lollipop) and has a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, similar to the Lyf Flame 6, but this has a 5-megapixel auto focus rear camera with LED flash.
The Lyf Earth 2 comes in Green, White, Gold and Midnight Black colors and is priced at Rs. 21,599. The Lyf Flame 5 comes in black color and is priced at Rs. 3,999 (MOP), same as the Lyf 3, Lyf 4 and Lyf 6 smartphone. It is available through offline retailers.
Micromax launched Canvas Unite 4 and Canvas Unite 4 Pro, two new smartphones in the Canvas Unite series. Both these have a 5-inch HD screen, pack a 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, 5-megapixel front-facing camera, fingerprint sensor and come with 4G LTE connectivity. Checkout full specifications here.
The Micromax Canvas Unite 4 comes in Champagne Gold, grey and silver colors, is priced at Rs. 6,999 and will be available through retail stores. The Canvas Unite 4 Pro comes in Champagne Gold color, is priced at Rs. 7,499 and will be available through exclusively through Snapdeal from June 30th.
iBall launched Andi 5G Blink 4G, it’s latest 4G smartphone which is also the company’s first smartphone running Android 6.0 (Marshmallow). It has a 5-inch FWVGA screen, is powered by a quad-core MediaTek SoC, has a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera.
The iBall Andi 5G Blink 4G comes in Rose Gold and Special Gold colors, is priced at Rs. 5,999 and is available across India.
Weekly Announcements
Vivo finally announced its X7 and X7 Plus smartphones in China this week. The X7 has a 5.2-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display ultra-narrow bezels and the X7 Plus has a 5.7-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display with 1.75mm ultra-narrow frame. Both these have a unibody metal design, 16-megapixel front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture along with soft LED flash, 4GB of RAM and a fingerprint sensor embedded into the home button.
The vivo X7 and X7 Plus come in Gold and Rose Gold colors. The vivo X7 is priced at 2498 yuan (US$ 375 / Rs. 25,380 approx.) and will go on sale in China starting through several platforms from July 7th. The vivo X7 Plus price will be announced on the sale date, which is July 15th.
Bang and Olufsen, popular for its audio products introduced a new Beoplay H5 wireless earphones. It uses Bluetooth 4.2 to connect to devices and also has support for aptX and AAC codecs for a clear audio output.
The earpiece have magnets so that you can wear it around your neck when not used. Clicking the magnets together automatically powers down the earphones to save battery. It has a 100mAh battery, 50mAh on each earbuds that promises battery life of up to 5 hours on a single charge using the bundled magnetic cubic charger.
The Bang and Olufsen Beoplay H5 comes in Black and Dusty Rose colors and costs €249 / £199 / $249 (Rs. 16,770 approx.).
Wileyfox, a smartphone brand based in the UK has introduced Spark, Spark+ and Spark X, its latest smartphones running on the Cyanogen OS 13 based on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) in the new Spark series. These have a 720p screen, are powered by a Quad-Core MediaTek MT6735 SoC, pack a 8-megapixel front camera, and come with dual-SIM support along with 4G LTE connectivity.
The Wileyfox Spark, Spark+ and Spark X come in Sandstone Black and White colors and are priced at £89.99 (US$ 120 / Rs. 8125 approx.), £114.99 (US$ 153 / Rs. 10380 approx.) and £129.99 (US$ 173 / Rs. 11735 approx.), respectively.
Western Digital announced 256GB SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I card at the MWC 2016 Asia in Shanghai, which becomes the fastest 256GB microSD card in the world offering read speeds of up to 100MB/s and write speeds of up to 90MB/s.
It has also introduced 256GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card, Premium Edition with read speeds of up to 95MB/s.
The SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card, Premium Edition is priced at an MSRP of US$ 149.99 (Rs. 10,145 approx.) and will go on sale starting from August 2016 worldwide.
ZTE announced nubia Z11, it’s latest high-end smartphone in the nubia series in China, as it had promised. It packs a 5.5-inch 1080p 2.5D curved glass bezel-less display with 81% screen-to-body ratio, is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 820 SoC, runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with nubia UI 4.0, has a 16-megapixel rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, phase-detection auto-focus (PDAF), Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and a 8-megapixel front-facing camera. Checkout our hands on video below.
The ZTE nubia Z11 comes in Gold, Gray and Silver colors and is priced at 2499 yuan (US$ 376 / Rs. 25525 approx.) for the 4GB RAM with 64GB storage variant. The 6GB RAM with 128GB storage variant comes in Coffee Gold color and is priced at 3499 yuan (US$ 527 / Rs. 35,730 approx.). It will go on sale starting from July 6th.
HP has announced an affordable Chromebook 11 G5 laptop that features a slimmed-down design and a narrower display bezels. It is thinner and lighter than previous generation Chromebooks.
The Chromebook 11 G5 comes in optional touch screen option for 11.6 inch display. HP claims it offers upto 12.5 hours of battery life on non-touch screen devices while upto 11 hours for touch screen ones. It is powered by an Intel Celeron N3060 processor.
It comes with USB 3.1 Gen 1 port, AC plug LED, HDMI port, Micro SD card reader and webcam. The HP Chromebook 11 G5 starts at $189 and will hit retail stores in October and channel partners starting in July.