Top news of 2018: Q3

With the FIFA World Cup raising competitive spirits, we decided to run our own championship - the Smartphone World Cup. The final pit the Galaxy S9+ versus the OnePlus 6 and it became our most-read news article for Q3 (and here's the result of the match). The launch of the Xiaomi Redmi Y2 caused a disproportionate amount of excitement for a $140 phone, but that was good news for both Xiaomi and Amazon (which had exclusivity in India). On the other end of the spectrum, the iPhone rumor roundup and eventual launch were also a defining moment of the July-September quarter. The iPhone XR...

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Xiaomi launches 128GB variant of Poco F1 Armoured Edition in India

Xiaomi has launched a new variant of the Poco F1 (globally known as Pocophone F1) in India. More specifically, this is a variant of the Armoured Edition. While previously this particular color variant could only be purchased in the top of the line configuration of 256GB storage and 8GB RAM, the new variant has 128GB storage and 6GB RAM instead. This will make the Armoured Edition more accessible, as it now starts at INR 23,999 ($342) for the 128GB model compared to the INR 28,999 ($413) for the 256GB model. As before, there is also the 64GB model, which also comes with 6GB...

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Xiaomi launches 128GB variant of Poco F1 in India

Xiaomi has launched a new variant of the Poco F1 (globally known as Pocophone F1) in India. More specifically, this is a variant of the Armoured Edition. While previously this particular color variant could only be purchased in the top of the line configuration of 256GB storage and 8GB RAM, the new variant has 128GB storage and 6GB RAM instead. This will make the Armoured Edition more accessible, as it now starts at INR 23,999 ($342) for the 128GB model compared to the INR 28,999 ($413) for the 256GB model. As before, there is also the 64GB model, which also comes with 6GB...

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Xiaomi launches Mi Play in China with 10GB free monthly data for a year

Xiaomi has launched a new budget smartphone in China, called the Mi Play. The phone is priced at ¥1099 ($159). The phone is available in three colors, blue, red and black. The Mi Play has a modern design, with thin bezels and a notch on the front and a glossy back with two tone gradient finish that looks remarkably similar to Huawei nova 3. The display is 5.84-inch with a 19:9 aspect ratio and 2280x1080 resolution. The rest of the hardware is a bit underwhelming but understandable considering the price. The phone runs on the new 12nm MediaTek Helio P35 chipset, with octa-core...

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Testing a smartphone: A tour around the Honor device laboratory

Smartphones are such advanced pieces of technology and their process of manufacturing, developing and testing is quite fascinating. All major companies have their own testing centers where they make sure the phone in our hands will be able to take a beating. We got the opportunity to tour the Device Laboratory of the joint Huawei/Honor R&D center in Beijing to see what how its phones are tested. The Twist Tester First the phones get to the Twist Tester, where pressure in all directions is applied. The aim is not to break the phone, but to see if it bends to the allowed limit...

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Top 10 most popular reviews of 2018: Q2

Now that we're done with January, February and March it's time to take a look at the most popular reviews of the spring of 2018. The months of April, May and June aren't as filled with heavy hitters as the months of the CES and MWC, but we still got to test the Huawei P20 Pro, the OnePlus 6, the Xiaomi Mi 8 and the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S. These are the early-year flagships of their respective companies and were tasked with carrying the maker's flagship banner for most of the year. We got our first experience with a triple flagship camera (regular, tele and monochrome) but as we now...

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