Canalys: Online smartphone sales in India reach 35% in Q2 2018

Canalys published its detailed analysis of the smartphone market in India. According to the company, 35% of all sales were done online, growing over 65% year-on-year. The total amount of devices is more than 12 million units, which although not much as an absolute number, shows massive improvement in the online habits of Indian consumers. The leading platforms used in Q2 were Flipkart, Amazon, and others which took 91% of the share, while the other 9% are in-house vendor retailers. Brand-wise, Xiaomi phones were 54% of the total, followed by Samsung and Huawei, respectively 13% and...

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Huge Huawei Mate 20 Pro leak outs all details, including UK pricing

Huawei is preparing a big event in London for the unveiling of its Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro smartphones (and possibly even a Mate 20X gaming handset) next week. But today a huge leak out of Germany may have spoiled everything that's going to be presented on stage regarding the Mate 20 Pro. Some new official-looking press renders were leaked too, alongside UK pricing. Let's start with that. For the version with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which is the base model, you'll need to shell out £899. There will be other variants with 8GB of RAM and 256 or 512GB of storage. That's a £100...

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iOS 12 is now on 50% of devices, Apple reveals

About a week ago a third party analytics firm told us that iOS 12 was already running on 47.54% of compatible Apple devices, a very short time after its release. Today the Cupertino company itself has published official adoption data. As of October 10, iOS 12 was installed on 50% of all compatible devices, and 53% of devices introduced within the last four years. iOS 11 is understandably the second most used version, coming in at 39% (of all devices) and 40% (of four-year old devices and newer). Previous iOS iterations only make up 11% and 7% of the pie, respectively. As usual,...

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Verizon will sell a special version of the Nokia 2.1 soon

Nokia is making inroads into the US, it seems, after HMD Global hired a team to expand the presence of its phones over there. Some of its smartphones can already be purchased unlocked in the States, but soon you'll be able to buy one from Verizon. We're talking about the Nokia 2.1V, which will be a special version of the 2.1 built for the carrier known as Big Red. It's unclear if there will be any spec differences between the vanilla model and Verizon's, but until we find out anything about that you can savour the following leaked image of the Nokia 2.1V's back. The inevitable...

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Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie gets updated to Android 8.1 Oreo

Asus is today releasing the update to Android 8.1 Oreo for two versions of the Zenfone 4 Selfie launched last year. We're talking about both the ZD553KL and the ZB553KL. The good news has been announced by the company on its official forums. For both phones, the new software version is 15.0400.1809.405. After installing the update you'll be on Android 8.1 and ZenUI 5.0. Keep in mind that this is a phased rollout, which will take about one week to reach all the devices that are out there in the wild. If you are impatient and haven't received the notification yet, go to Settings >...

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Huawei Enjoy 9 Plus and Enjoy Max go on pre-order on October 15

Yesterday a leak revealed that Huawei was getting ready to sell the already announced Honor 8X Max as the Enjoy Max in some markets, and today it's become clear that one of those is China. Over in the company's home country, the Enjoy Max will go up for pre-order alongside the Enjoy 9 Plus on October 15 through Suning, a local online retailer. The Enjoy 9 Plus is very similar to the smaller Honor 8X in specs and looks, but not identical. The Enjoy 9 Plus will also be known as the Huawei Y9 (2019) in other markets. It comes with a 6.5-inch 1080x2340 touchscreen with a notch, the...

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Honor 8X hands-on review

Honor and its increasingly distant Huawei parent have mostly adopted the practice of over-saturating the market with a plethora of extremely similar models. It's perfectly understandable if you get confused at times. We frequently find ourselves puzzled by "different, but same, but different" devices.

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Xiaomi Black Shark global website hints at international launch

Xiaomi's first gaming smartphone, the Black Shark, was a success according to the tech media or at least by those who were able to get a hold of the handset for a full review. After all, the availability is pretty limited and the phone can only be found in China. But judging from the new landing page that Xiaomi has set up, things might change soon. Announced back in April, the phone will finally step outside of China, at least according to the global.blackshark.com website. Unfortunately, though, the latter doesn't reveal much - it only says "Unleashing soon." There's also a form in...

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The Honor 8C is a budget phone with a 6.26" screen, solid CPU and 4,000mAh battery

The Honor 8X was introduced in Europe, meanwhile the Honor 8C was unveiled in China. It's available for pre-order now and is coming out next week. The price is CNY 1,100 for the 4/32GB model - that's $160/€140/£120 (the 8X is £225 in the UK). There's also a 4/64GB version for CNY 1,400. Honor 8C in Magic Night Black, Platinum Gold and Aurora Blue So, what does that kind of money buy you? A 6.26" IPS LCD with 720 x 1,520px resolution. It has a notch and (according to official numbers) covers 86.6% of the front surface. The Honor 8C packs a Snapdragon 632 chipset, which is...

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Tim Cook visits China, tries to help with disappointing iPhone XS sales in the country

Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, is currently in China attending meetings and will reportedly try to help the local Apple branch to boost its sales after a disappointing iPhone XS launch. Still, one of the main reason for visiting the country is to strengthen the company's relationship with Shanghai. The CEO met with the secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in hopes of further improving the relationship between the US and China. Tim Cook also attended a board meeting at the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management and some even speculate that he's going to meet the Chinese...

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EMUI 9.0 arrives in India with market-specific features

Huawei teased the EMUI 9.0 based on Android Pie behind closed doors at IFA 2018 in Berlin. The new user interface will be officially introduced to the global audience at the Huawei Mate 20 launch in London next week, but the marketing departments all over the world already started with the local introductions. Latest info comes from India where the Huawei branch just introduced EMUI 9.0 with market-specific features. The update will bring local languages support, Indian national calendar and deeper Paytm integration. Other features that come with EMUI 9.0 include better one-hand...

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vivo Z3i is a rebranded V11i in China

vivo released the V11 in Inda back in September and it's now stepping out of the country as vivo Z3i in China. Essentially, the V11 (also know as V11i and the Z3i are the same but there are some small details that set those two apart. We've got the same MediaTek Helio P60 chipset on board but instead of offering two memory options, the Chinese have a limited choice - 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Just for the record, the V11i came with either 4GB/128GB or 6GB/64GB. The screen features the same waterdrop notch design, 6.3-inch IPS panel, and 1080 x 2280 pixels...

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Honor Magic 2 appears in official video teaser

Honor teased the Magic 2 slider smartphone at IFA 2018 and promised it will arrive before the end of the year. We already saw the official teaser with the announcement date of October 31, but a video teaser, likely an ad for the Chinese TV, just popped up on social media, giving us one more glance of the upcoming device. The video is keeping it simple - just some fancy colorful twirls and upbeat music to prepare you for the late October launch. At one point we also see the back panel that has a vertical dual camera setup in the upper left corner, coupled with a flash below. The...

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Nokia 3.1 Plus unveiled in India with a 6" screen, dual camera and larger battery

The new Nokia 3.1 Plus brings a roomy 6.0" screen to the entry-level Android One market. The Plus model offers dual camera photography, a fingerprint reader and, of course, a larger battery over its sibling, the Nokia 3.1. The screen has an 18:9 aspect ratio and keeps the resolution at 720 x 1,440px. So, it's not the sharpest, but the screen is bigger than what the 6.1 Plus and 5.1 Plus have to offer. And, unlike those two, it doesn't have a notch. The back houses a dual camera - the 13MP f/2.0 main module is joined by a 5MP depth sensor. It's used for bokeh effects, naturally....

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Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018) is the world's first quad camera smartphone

Samsung is introducing the world's first phone with a quad camera on the back - the Galaxy A9 (2018). It comes shortly after Samsung's first triple camera phone, the Galaxy A7 (2018), and builds on it with the addition of a telephoto camera. Between it and the ultra-wide angle camera, you can choose to focus on a detail or capture more of the scene. The tele camera offers 2x optical zoom over the main camera and captures 10MP images. The main camera is a 24MP shooter with a bright f/1.7 lens, suitable for daylight and nighttime shots. The 120° ultra-wide angle camera sports an 8MP...

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OnePlus 6T in-display fingerprint reader will be optical, OnePlus confirms

OnePlus 6T's standout feature is undoubtedly the in-display fingerprint reader but just like everyone else out there, we are wondering if it's going to be any good. After all, the technology hasn't matured yet and makers need some time to perfect it to make it work just as good as a regular scanner. To clear some of the confusion, OnePlus just confirmed that the phone will be using an optical type of fingerprint reader. If this doesn't ring any bells, let us clarify. According to most, ultrasonic fingerprint readers are more accurate than optical ones due to the fact that ultrasound...

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Watch the Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018) stream here

We have been hearing about a Samsung event called "4x Fun" for quite some time. Although we expected a smartphone with four cameras, we were quite impressed to learn that all of the sensors are actually on the back, lined in a vertical setup. The phone will be called Galaxy A9 (2018) and will be launched in Kuala Lumpur later today, and you can follow the event live. The new phone, also rumored to be called Galaxy A9s, will have a Snapdragon 660 chipset, 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage. The screen is likely to be AMOLED with 18:9 ratio, similar to the Galaxy A8 (2018) and the Galaxy A8+...

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Huawei Mate 20 and 20 Pro Polish prices revealed

We are less than a week away from the announcement of the Huawei Mate 20 and 20 Pro on October 16 but rumors just don't seem to be slowing down. Today's one is all about prices and it comes from a Polish tech website that got a hold of the pricing for both handsets from a local carrier. According to Android.com.pl, the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro will cost PLN 2,999 and PLN 4,299, respectively, which equates to around $800 and $1,149. Pretty steep pricing for the Pro version, isn't it? Well, we can't be absolutely sure of those prices, but the website claims they are on point and got them...

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