Another Redmi Note 7 flash sale ends in minutes

The new Redmi Note 7 is a massive success in its domestic market. The phone was initially launched in January and arrived for its first flash sale two weeks ago. The sub-brand has been releasing 100,000 units at a time, and they always sold out in an amazingly short amount of time. The last flash sale happened this morning, and another batch was gone, this time for 10 minutes 56 seconds, the company boasted. The Redmi Note 7 is the first device of the subsidiary after it separated as a new brand. The phone is such a hit thanks to its Snapdragon 660 chipset, 6.3" notched Full HD+...

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Moto G7 and G7 Plus European prices revealed

Motorola is unveiling the G7 family at an event in Brazil on February 7, according to past rumors. Ahead of that, we've already seen the entire lineup leaked by Motorola's own website. And today a prolific leakster on Twitter has shared the prices of two of the models. The Moto G7 will start at €300, while the G7 Plus will cost €360. The prices for the G7 Play and G7 Power have previously been leaked. The G7 Play is expected to go for €149 while the G7 Power will be offered for €209. The Moto G7 has a 6.24-inch display with a waterdrop notch and 1080x2270 resolution. It's powered by...

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Galaxy S10+ will have a 12GB/1TB version, 5.8 S10 won't be called Lite

An anonymous tipster has sent us info gleaned from a Samsung representative who had working Galaxy S10 prototypes on hand. First, they make it clear that the S10 will be available in three sizes, stressing that the 5.8" model will not be called "lite". Instead, it will just be the smallest S10 and will have the same chipset and memory as the others. The one exception is a limited premium version of the Galaxy S10+, which will boast 12GB of RAM and 1TB internal storage. The 6.4" S10+ will have three rear cameras and two selfie ones, the other two models will have single selfie cams. The...

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Overall smartphone market is in decline, but the premium segment goes up

While the broader smartphone market was in a slight decline (-2%), the premium smartphone market grew by 18%. Data from Counterpoint Research from December 2018 shows that phones in the above-$400 segment saw the fastest growth. And within that segment, the Apple-created and Apple-led above-$800 grew the most. Apple captured 51% of the premium smartphone market (above-$400), followed by Samsung's 22% and Huawei's 10% thanks to strong P20 and Mate 20 demand. Apple also lead the ultra-premium $800+ market with an 80% share. And while the ultra-premium segment ($800+) was the...

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Concept ad imagines iPhone XI with SE-like design and regular triple camera

Gunho Lee had a dream - a dream of the upcoming iPhone XI with the squared off design of the iPhone 4. And being the skilled 3D artist that he is, he created a concept ad for the new phones, complete with Apple's usual "better than ever" boasting. Do you miss that design? It worked quite well with the relative small iPhones (4 to 5s and the SE), but those sharp corners may not be so great when holding a 6.5" device. We do like Lee's idea of bringing back the Product (RED) color as standard rather than a special edition. This concept also shows a simple triple camera setup, which (to...

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AnTuTu releases an AI performance benchmark for smartphones

AI was the buzzword of 2018 with smartphone manufacturers boasting about their phones' AI capabilities making it really hard to determine if there are any major differences between different handsets. So AnTuTu decided to release a benchmarking tool, which will help weed out the "fake AI" phones and also let phones flex their AI muscles and compete. However, in its blog post, AnTuTu stresses the fact that AI is a more complex matter than the current system performance benchmarks. TheAI Review benchmark tool has two sub-categories - Classification and Object Recognition. The first...

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Counterpoint: Xiaomi becomes India's top smartphone maker, beats Samsung

There were 330 million phones shipped in India last year, 44% of which were smartphones. Xiaomi is now the undisputed leader with a 28% market share in the smartphone segment, having a 4 percentage point lead on Samsung (and it was 5 points in the final quarter). That represents a sizable increase in market share since 2017 while the company's key opponents - Samsung, vivo and Oppo - were stuck in place. Xiaomi recorded its highest shipment numbers in India ever and expanded its offline presence in the country. That said, online smartphone shipments accounted for a record 36% thanks to...

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vivo APEX 2019's full display fingerprint reader impresses on video

The vivo APEX 2019 is a hole-less concept phone and as such its purpose in life is to be cool. And it certainly fit the part, check out this video demo below. There are no buttons on this APEX phone, so it uses the Always-On Display to mark where the touch-sensitive side "buttons" are. Only the Power key has a little nub so you can feel it without looking, but it's not an actual button (just like on the HTC U12+). Most impressive, however, is the in-display fingerprint reader - it covers essentially the whole display. The setup starts at 1:30 and ends just seconds later, as it only...

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vivo V15 Pro to have triple main cam and pop-up selfie shooter

Earlier this month a leakster from China suggested BBK Electronics companies Oppo and vivo are both going for the pop-up mechanism in their phones in 2019. vivo in particular is not hiding its plans about it, but it's always nice to see phisical evidence to back those words. So today the very same guy posted a transparent silicon case for the vivo V15 Pro with a tall cutout on the back and a wide hole on the top for a pop-up shooter. vivo V15 Pro case Looking at the photos, we should expect the very same selfie camera mechanism as the vivo NEX smartphones. The tall hole...

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Redmi X with an in-display fingerprint reader coming on February 15

The name "Redmi X" was first associated with what turned out to be the Redmi Note 7, but the real thing is coming on February 15 as revealed by a teaser poster (note that it doesn't come from an official Xiaomi account). Said poster hints that the X will become the first Redmi to feature an in-display fingerprint reader. This was a premium flagship feature just a year ago. Redmi X teaser poster for a February 15 event (unconfirmed) The Redmi X is expected to be more powerful than the Note 7, perhaps using as Snapdragon 710 instead of a 660. This could be the rumored Redmi Note 7...

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Samsung Galaxy M10 and M20 go official with Infinity-V displays, wide cameras

Samsung's M series is finally off the ground, starting in India. Today Samsung unveiled the Galaxy M10 and the Galaxy M20 as first members of its new midrange lineup. The two phones share large Infinity-V screens (read waterdrop notches), dual cameras on the back with a 13MP regular and 5MP ultra-wide angle modules, dual-SIM, Face unlock and aggressive prices. Samsung Galaxy M20 The Galaxy M20 is the more interesting of the two. It has a 6.3-inch 2340x1080px IPS LCD with a waterdrop notch for the 8MP f/2.0 selfie camera that doubles as a Face Unlock scanner. There's also a...

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Galaxy S10 wireless charger certified by the FCC with 15W output power

The Galaxy S10 phones are due to launch soon and they will bring the first major improvement to Samsung's wireless charging thanks to the Samsung EP-P5200 charger that was certified by the FCC. The new charger is rated at 12V/2.1A input. For comparison the EP-N5100 takes 9V/1.67A input and outputs 9V/1A - that's 9W of power and about 60% efficiency. Assuming a similar performance we can expect around 15W of charging power for the new phones (which lines up with the description of "less than or equal" to 15W). That's as fast as the current Samsung Fast Charge, which outputs 9V/1.67A...

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Samsung to acquire a company with 25x telephoto camera module

Sources familiar with the matter say that Samsung is looking to buy an Israeli-based company, Corephotonics in a deal worth $150 million. That's the team that developed Oppo's periscope camera module with 5x lossless zoom. The collaboration between Oppo and Corephotonics has been going for a few years now and it's unclear yet if the Samsung acquisition will put an end to it. Perhaps Oppo's recently announced 10x zoom was also developed in collaboration with Corephotonics. Corephotonics's latest product is a triple-camera setup achieving a zoom of 25x, although its exact...

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Realme C1 (2019) arrives with more RAM and storage

Last week Realme teased the arrival of a new phone and today the company officially introduced the Realme C1 (2019). It's mostly identical to the original Realme C1 but comes in two new memory configurations - 2/32 GB and 3/32 GB. The announcement comes just days after the Realme C1 reached the 1 million sales milestone. Madhav Sheth, Realme CEO, revealed the device on the official YouTube channel of the company. While it gets more room for entertainment, including games, movies, and photos, the rest of the specs remain the same - 6.2" notched HD+ screen, Snapdragon 450 chipset and...

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Samsung ditches plastic packaging for more sustainable materials

Samsung Electronics sent out a press release, announcing its intention to improve the packaging of its products with more environmentally friendly materials. Starting from the first half of 2019, all phones, tablets, and home appliances will have new packaging, including trays out of pulp molds and new bags wrapping accessories made from eco-friendly materials. Another significant change is the design of the phone chargers which will have a matte finish, instead of the glossy one, thus eliminating the need for a transparent protective film, made out of unrecyclable...

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Oppo developing in-screen camera, embedded in app icon

The trend with cameras inside the screen started in the end of 2018 and looks certain to gain speed throughout 2019. Instead of hiding the selfie camera like some companies, Oppo has decided to go in a completely different direction - the company has just patented the technology to put icons over the cutout. The tiny hole will be part of the icon interface, according to the filling at the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO). Looking at the visualizations, the selfie shooter can be either in the upper left corner, or slightly towards the center. In both cases Oppo is planning...

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