This week Google announced its most expected Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones along with several other devices such as Pixelbook, new Daydream View, Home Mini, Home Max and Pixel Buds. Amazon launched the Echo series of Alexa-powered smart speakers in India. Huawei’s Honor brand launched the Honor 9i in the country, check out all the new launches and announcements in the weekly roundup.
Google unveiled its Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones at an event in San Francisco. The Pixel 2 has a 5-inch 1080p screen and the Pixel 2 XL comes with a 6-inch QHD+ pOLED screen. Both the phones are powered by an Octa-Core Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform, pack 4GB of RAM, come in 64GB and 128GB storage versions, feature a 12.2MP rear camera with flash, OIS, EIS, f/1.8 aperture, laser + dual pixel phase detection, 8MP front camera and IP67 ratings for dust and water resistance.
The Google Pixel 2 comes in Kinda Blue, Just Black and Clearly White colors, starts at Rs. 61,000 in India and goes on sale from November 1st. The Pixel 2 XL comes in Just Black and Black & White colors, starts at Rs. 73,000 and goes on sale from November 15th.
Google also unveiled new Daydream View VR headset. The new Daydream View has high-performance lenses, which result in better image clarity and a wider field of view. It sports a premium two-tone fabric that makes the headset soft and light.
The refreshed Google Daydream View headset will be available in Charcoal color in India and will be sold exclusively on Flipkart for Rs. 7999 starting November 1st, 2017.
Google introduced Pixelbook convertible laptop running Chrome OS with support for Google Assistant with a dedicated Assistant key. It has a 12.3-inch touchscreen display with 3:2 aspect ratio and a thin backlit keyboard with soft-touch keys. It is powered by 7th generation Intel Core i5 / i7 processor, has up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB SSD storage.
Google Pixelbook comes in three configurations starting at $999 (Rs. 65,030 approx.) and goes up to $1649 (Rs. 1,07,340 approx.) for the Core i7, 16GB RAM and 512GB NVMe SSD version.
Google also announced Pixel Buds, its first wireless headphones with support for Google Assistant that gets activated when you touch and hold the right earbud so that you can play music, make a phone call, or get directions without touching the phone. You can also swipe forward or backward to control volume and tap to play or pause your music. It has a fabric loop for comfortable, secure, and quick to adjust experience.
It has a 120mAh battery that offers 5 hours of listening time and the 620mAh battery on the charging case offers up to 24 hours of listening time. It comes in Just Black, Clearly White and Kinda Blue colors, is priced at $159 (Rs. 10,350 approx.) and will be available in November in the U.S.
Google announced Google Home Mini smart speaker as an answer to Amazon’s Echo Dot. It sports the similar fabric speaker grill at the top and a plastic-looking base at the bottom. It is priced at $49 and will start shipping starting October 19.
It also announced Google Home Max at the Pixel 2, a premium smart speaker that sports dual 4.5-inch high-excursion woofers. It is the first speaker from Google that comes with Smart Sound, a new audio experience powered by Google’s artificial intelligence.
It is priced at $399 (Rs. 25960 approx.) and comes with 12 months of ad-free YouTube Music. It will be available for pre-prder starting November 13 from the Google Store, Best Buy and other retailers.
Finally, Google also announced new tiny camera called Google Clips that hooks onto your daily things like shirt, table, chair and will automatically record a seven-second video, rather a moving image. It is compact and weighs just 60.5 grams. It is priced at $249 (Rs. 16200 approx.) and will available soon.
Huawei’s Honor Brand launched Honor 9i with dual front and rear cameras in India. It was introduced as Maimang 6 in China and as Nova 2i in Malaysia, has a 5.9-inch Full HD+ 18:9 Full screen 2.5D curved glass display with minimal bezels, 16-megapixel rear camera with a 2-megapixel secondary camera to capture depth information and a 13-megapixel front camera with a secondary 2-megapixel camera.
It comes in Aurora Blue, Graphite Black and Prestige Gold colors, is priced at Rs. 17,999 and will be available exclusively on Flipkart starting from October 14th.
It also launched the Honor MediaPad T3 and Honor MediaPad T3 10 tablets in India Both these have a metal body, come pre-installed with MS Office, come with 4G LTE support with voice calling capabilities, are powered by Snapdragon 425 and run Android 7.0 (Nougat).
The Honor MediaPad T3 is priced at Rs. 12,999, and the MediaPad T3 10 is priced at Rs. 14,999 for the 2GB RAM with 16GB storage version and the 3GB RAM with 32GB storage version costs Rs. 16,999, but you can get them from Flipkart at a discounted rate of Rs. 10,999, Rs. 12,999 and Rs. 14,999, respectively.
Huawei’s Honor brand also launched the Honor Holly 4, successor of last year’s Honor Holly 3 in India. It was introduced as Honor 6A in China back in May and packs a 5-inch HD display, is powered by Snapdragon 430 Mobile Platform, runs on Android 7.0 (Nougat) with EMUI 5.1 on top, has a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, PDAF and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera.
It comes in Grey, Gold and Silver colors, is priced at Rs. 11,999 (MOP) and is available across all Honor partner stores across India.
Amazon this week launched three Alexa powered smart speakers – Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot in India. The new Echo and Echo Plus smart speakers were announced last week in the US.
Amazon Echo is priced at Rs. 9,999, the Echo Dot at Rs. 4,499 and the Echo Plus at Rs. 14,999. These are available by invitation to customers in India at Amazon.in and you get 30% discount along with 1 year free Prime membership. These will ship beginning the week of October 30th.
Alcatel this week launched U5 HD, the company’s latest budget smartphone with 4G VoLTE support in India. It has a 5-inch HD screen, is powered by a quad-core MediaTek MT6737 processor, runs on Android 7.0 (Nougat), comes with dual SIM support, has a metallic design for a premium look and packs a 2200mAh battery.
It comes in Metallic Black and Metallic Gold colors, is priced at Rs. 5,999 and will be available exclusively on Flipkart.
Lenovo this week introduced a limited-edition ThinkPad Anniversary Edition 25, as part of its celebration of the 25th anniversary of the ThinkPad lineup. The original ThinkPad 700C was announced on October 5, 1992 and the new ThinkPad T470 and has modern-day specifications including a Intel Core i7-7500U processor with discrete NVIDIA GeForce 940MX graphics and a 14-inch full HD display with touch.
The ThinkPad Anniversary Edition will be available in limited quantities in select countries, starting at US$ 1899 (Rs. 12,4270 approx.).
HP this week announced new HP Spectre 13 and HP Spectre x360 notebooks. Both the devices are powered by 8th Generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors. The Spectre 13 is a laptop while the Spectre x360 is a convertible. The Spectre 13 starts at $1,299.99 and the Spectre x360 starts at $1,149.99. Both these will be available from October 29.
Western Digital introduced new SanDisk SD and microSD cards line-up for the Automotive and specialized industrial applications. The company claims that these cards work in extreme and radical situations as they come with health status monitor capability, special data retention mechanisms. They are faster than their predecessors thus enabling them to handle tasks like surveying commercial drones and automobile dash cameras.