This week Huawei’s Honor introduced Honor V9 with dual rear cameras and Honor 8 Lite smartphones in China, HTC launched U Ultra and U Play smartphones, LG launched LG K10 (2017) in India and lots more that happened this week in our weekly roundup.
Huawei’s Honor brand this week announced Honor V9 with dual 12-megapixel rear cameras with laser auto focus and 1.76-micron pixel size promising brilliant image quality in low-light conditions.
It packs a 5.7-inch Quad HD 2.5D curved glass display, is powered by an Octa-Core Kirin 960 SoC and runs on Android 7.0 (Nougat) with EMUI 5 on top. It has a Fingerprint sensor, Infrared sensor and packs a 4000mAh battery.
The Honor V9 comes in Midnight black, Flame Red, Platinum Gold and Aurora blue colors and starts at 2599 yuan (US$ 377 / Rs. 25,280 approx.) for the 4GB RAM with 64GB storage version and goes up to 3499 yuan (US$ 508 / Rs. 34,035 approx.) for the top-end 6GB RAM with 128GB storage version. It will go on sale from February 28th in China.
Honor also introduced Honor 8 Lite in China. It has a 12-megapixel single rear camera instead of dual 12-megapixel rear cameras on the Honor 8, is powered by an Octa-Core Kirin 655 processor and runs Android 7.0 (Nougat) with EMUI 5.0 out of the box.
The Honor 8 Lite comes in Gold, Blue, Black and White colors and is priced at 1099 yuan (US$ 159 / Rs. 10,690 approx.) for the 3GB RAM with 32GB storage version and goes up to 1599 yuan (US$ 232/ Rs. 15,550 approx.) for the top-end 4GB RAM with 64GB storage version. It will also go on sale from February 28.
HTC launched its flagship U Ultra smartphone and U Play in India. The HTC U Ultra comes with a 2-inch 520 PPI secondary touch-screen display above the main 5.7-inch Quad HD display.
The U Play has a 5.2-inch 1080p display without a secondary screen and is powered by an Octa-Core MediaTek Helio P10 processor, has 16-megapixel front and rear cameras and a fingerprint sensor on the front.
Both the phone has a glass finish on the front and back, a metal frame and the rear glass is fully curved at all four edges. Both the phones have USB Type-C and they lack a 3.5mm audio jack.
The HTC U Ultra comes in Brilliant Black, Cosmetic Pink and Sapphire Blue Black colors, is priced at Rs. 59,990 (MOP) and will be available from March 6th. The HTC U Play comes in Iceberg White, Indigo Blue, Black Oil and Cosmic Pink Gold colors and is priced at Rs. 39,990 (MOP).
LG launched K10 (2017) smartphone. It comes with India-specific SOS 112 emergency calling when you press the power button three times or pressing the SoS option in the menu, as recommended by India’s telecom ministry. The smartphone that is ‘Made in India’ was launched by Telecom and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
The main highlight of the K10 is its 120-degree wide-angle selfie lens. It has a fingerprint scanner on the back, a metallic U-frame with a slim 7.9mm profile along with 5.3-inch HD In-cell Touch display with 2.5D Arc Glass design.
The LG K10 (2017) comes in Black, Titanium and Gold colors and is priced at Rs. 13,990.
LG announced X power2 in the ‘X series’ and the successor of last year’s X Power smartphone ahead of MWC 2017. It packs a 4500mAh battery, a 5.5-inch HD In-cell Touch display and is powered by a faster 1.5GHz Octa-Core processor. It runs on Android 7.0 (Nougat) out of the box. It comes with 4G LTE support, 13MP rear camera, 5MP front camera with wide-angle lens, 1.5GB / 2GB RAM, 16GB internal memory along with an expansion slot.
The LG X power2 comes in Black Titan, Shiny Titan, Shiny Gold and Shiny Blue colors and will roll out beginning in March in the Latin America followed by key markets in United States, Asia, Europe and other regions.
HP this week launched Omen series of gaming laptops and desktops in India. The new Omen series includes five laptop models, a gaming desktop, a monitor, a headset, keyboard, mouse and a mousepad.
The HP Omen 15.6 inch display and 17.3 inch display laptops starts at Rs. 79,990 and Rs. 139,990 respectively. The OMEN Desktop starts at Rs. 139,990, OMEN by HP Keyboard is priced at Rs. 9,999, Headset at Rs. 7,499, Mouse at Rs.5,499 and Mouse pad at Rs. 2,199. All these devices will be available starting March 15.
Swipe launched Elite 3, a budget smartphone with 4G VoLTE support. It packs a 5-inch HD screen, is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with Indus OS with and support for 12 regional languages. It has an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera.
It comes in Space Grey and Champagne Gold colors, is priced at Rs. 5499 and is available exclusively on Flipkart.
Panasonic this week launched Toughpad FZ-F1 and Toughpad FZ-N1, two new rugged handheld devices and Toughpad FZ-A2, its latest rugged tablet targeted at enterprise.
All the devices are IP65 certified for dust and water resistance. The Toughpad FZ-F1 and FZ-N1 also have MIL-STD-810G ratings with drop rating of 6 feet, so they can stand up to the abuse of the most demanding usage environments and also submersible, in up to 3.3 feet of water for 30 minutes.
The Panasonic Toughpad FZ-F1 and FZ-N1 start at Rs 1.09 lakhs and Rs 99,000, respectively and the Toughpad FZ-A2 starts at 1.20 lakhs.
Lenovo launched Vibe K5 Note smartphone with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. Apart from this the specifications are same as the original K5 Note that was launched back in August last year. It comes in Grey and Gold colors, is priced at Rs. 13,499 and will is available exclusively from Flipkart.
Portronics launched Sound Slick Bluetooth Soundbar with 30W output. The single piece sound system has Bluetooth 4.0, USB, AUX IN and AUX OUT. This allows you to connect the speaker to TV, smartphone and more. It is priced at Rs. 3499, but you can get if for as low as Rs. 2949 from online retailers like Amazon.in and Flipkart.
Portronics also launched Harmonics Talky, a Bluetooth in-ear earbud for hands-free calls and music listening. It has 8mm strong magnetic speaker with Acoustic Echo Reduction technology and Enhanced Noise Cancellation technology to filter out the external noise and enable clearer sound during the calls or while listening to music.
It is very small measuring just 18 mm in length and weighs just 4.9 grams, has multi-point support so that it can connect with two devices simultaneously andcomes with three sizes of earplugs for all ear shapes and sizes.
The Portronics Harmonics Talky comes in Black color, is priced at Rs. 1,199 and is available from online and offline stores. You can get it for as low as Rs. 949 from Amazon.in.
We will have a lot of announcements at the MWC in Barcelona next week. Check out our MWC 2017 coverage here.