Author: chris eilers

The next Generation of Smartphones with Ultra HD Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 and 4GB RAM just launched and are available to order. These Spec Beasts are sold by the Canadian manufacturer Intrinsyc and are truly high end models. They are meant for smartphone producers and Android Developers for testing and optimization of the next generation of Android Flagships and Apps. 

The Spec Beast sports a 64 Bit Qualcomm Octa-Core Ultra HD Snapdragon 810, with Adreno 430 and Qualcomm Hexagon V56 DSP. Further Specs include a whopping 4GB of LP-DDR4 RAM, 32GB of RAM, Micro-SD, and 2K 6.2″ screen with a 2560 x 1600 resolution. The battery is at 3020 mAh and gets charged with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0. The phone is running on Android L.

The Main Camera of the phone is a 13MP shooter with 4K video function and 4MP front camera with 1080p video function. The phone has 8 inbuilt mics and you get additional features with fingerprint sensor, temperature and humidty sensor.

At the same time Intrinsyc is launching a tablet with the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 and 4GB of RAM. The tablet features a 10.1″ screen with 3840 x 2160 resolution. The internal memory is at 64GB and extendable via Micro-SD. The tablet features the same 4K 13MP main camera and 4MP front shooter. Additionally it has two 3D IR cameras on board. It will be delivered with a huge 7560mAH battery.

Both the phone and the tablet will start shipping in the middle of december for 799USD and 999USD each. They are not intended for normal customers, but show us really well what we can expect of new flagships in 2015!

Snapdragon 810 Phone Specs:

• Processor : Snapdragon 810 64-bit octa-core processor
• Display: 6.17” QHD (2560×1600) 490ppi
• Memory: 4 GB LP-DDR4 and 32 GB eMMC 5.0
• Cameras : Rear: 13 MP with OIS, Dual LED flash (4K at 30 fps, 1080p @ 60fps)  and Front: 4 MP AF(1080p at 120 fps)

Nokia, from many believed to be dead after the acquisition by Microsoft stays in the news. First Nokia is launching a new low-cost Android tablet now the Nokia Lumia took the “world largest selfie” up to date. The picture was taken by the Nokia Lumia 730 that is officially ” Made for Selfies” with its 5MP Front Camera.

Arranged by Microsoft and CocaCola was a Selfie taken of 1151 people taken by the 5 Megapixel Camera of the Lumia 730. The “World’s biggest Selfie” was taken in Bangladesh, and all participants needed to sign in to join the Selfie.

Previous Selfie Records by Guiness Book of Records are the biggest selfie chain, with 279 people standing in line and taking selfies. Also the internet hyped Oscar Selfie from Ellen DeGeneres got approved. Microsoft and Nokia are still waiting for confirmation if the picture really will make the “worlds largest Selfie”.

There are already some competitors with the same Idea, as Lava tried to get the record by taking a selfie of 1000 people with the camera of their Iris X5 phone. This selfie has not been confirmed either though.

When Xiaomi launched the popular Xiaomi MI4, they also introduced the MI BAND. The MI BAND, is Xiaomi’s first fitness tracker at a very affordable price of only 79 Yuan, thats 13 USD or RM43.

Now the Xiaomi MIBAND already passed the certifications on the local malaysian SIRIM database, which means it could be coming very soon officially to Malaysia. We cant say exactly how fast though, we are also still waiting for the Xiaomi MI Router with 1 Terrabyte Harddrive.

The Xiaomi MI Band targets other fitness trackers like the FitBit, and Xiaomi is following the trend of smart wearables. Although of course you can not compare it to super high end fitness trackers, like Polar Watches, you still get IP67 water resistance and a 30 days lasting battery.

The Xiaomi Mi Band can connect via bluetooth 4.0 to all Android devices, not only Xiaomi phones. Ios support is in development and will launch in december.

For the functionality in tracking your steps and sleeping patterns, it seems to work surprisingly well for this price level. It does not sport a LCD display as you can see, but the Xiaomi MI BAND comes with LED notification lights and even vibration for alerts. Summarized if you search for a stylish entry level Fitness tracker, a price under RM50 for the Xiaomi MI Band is definitely a good deal.

By now a lot of other chinese companys have taken the popular Xiaomi MI4 as an inspiration and rolemodel. Of those smartphones the Zeaplus M4 seems to be by far the cheapest up to now.

If you have never heard off Zeaplus so far, that is because the brand is completely new and hasnt launched a single physcial device yet. Zeaplus has some good ideas though, they want to be mainly launching low-cost versions of the Fan’s favourite phones.

For the Zeaplus M4, after the Xiaomi MI4, its produced in the same factory as other chinese brands like the Elephone P4000, Doogee DG850 and No1. Mi4. Zeaplus plans to launch the M4 for under 100USD (333RM)

The Zeaplus M4 will sport a 5″ HD display 1280 x 720, metal alloy body, 8MP Camera and 2MP Selfie Cam. The phone runs on Android 4.4 KitKat. The Zeaplus M4 will be powered by a quadcore MT6582, and doesnt sport LTE.

I cant really say I like clone fones, but for this price the Zeaplus M4 has some interesting features like Gorilla Glas display, SD Card, alloy body and big HD display. For 99USD this is quite an interesting phone.

What do you think of the Zeaplus M4? Could this be interesting, maybe as a present?

No matter if you like Xiaomi or not, it is really remarkable what Xiaomi achieved so far. Xiaomi, just founded in 2010, produced their first smartphone ever, just mere three years ago in 2011. Now in 2014 – with the Xiaomi Mi4 and Redmi models, Xiaomi is officially the world’s third largest smartphone maker judging by Sales. Xiaomi achieved this just by selling in Asia so far – they didnt attack Apple as Nr 2. and Samsung Nr 1. in their Home Markets just yet.

To really have the knowledge to see that Xiaomi just needed three years in producing smartphones to be the Number three in the Business, is necessary to understand Xiaomi’s CEO Lei JUN newest statement. Lei JUn just announce on a press conference in China that Xiaomi will be the Number 1 in Smartphone Sales Worldwide in 5-10 years, kicking Samsung and Apple from their throne!

Top Five Smartphone Vendors Q3 2014

Naturally in 5-10 years a lot of things can happen. For once especially Samsung could wake up and see that Xiaomi is not too far behind and eating up their market shares. Judging by Xiaomi’s success and popularity so far, we and also Xiaomi’s competitors should take Lei Jun very serious with this plan and consider this possibility to be true.

In fact, if Xiaomi had the producing capacity, they could expand to USA and Europe right now and their Sales would jump instantly by a lot.

Lei Jun said that Xiaomi plans to be Number 1 Worldwide at a press conference in China, where he also announced that Xiaomi has 70 Million active users at the moment. Xiaomi plans to raise this number to 200 million active users in 2015, so they plan to sell a further incredible 100 Million Smartphones for the next year.

What do you think of Lei Jun’s Claim? Is it realistic?

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Today launched the long awaited Meizu MX4 Pro, the big brother of the Meizu MX4 Flagship. We have for you all specs, details and some first hands-on pictures from the MX4 Pro Launch Event!

Meizu takes quite a bit of risk with launching their main Flagship the Meizu MX4 Pro so late in the year. One the one hand now they need to compete with all the models already on the market from Xiaomi, OnePlus and Huawei and also their own Meizu MX4. On the other hand they will need to compete with next years flagships like the Honor 7 and Oppo Find 9. After our first looks at the Meizu MX4 Pro we think the MX4 Pro has what it takes to stay well in the battle.

Meizu surprised many of us with the choice of the Eight-Core Samsung Exynos 5430 Processor for the MX4 Pro. The Eight Core Exynos 5430 Processor is the same we can find in the Samsung Galaxy Alpha. Its a true OctaCore Processor, since it works with big.LITTLE technology, and all cores can run at the great time for excellent multi-core performance. The processor also has the newest hexa-core Mali-T628 MP6 GPU. We are not exactly sure why Meizu choose this processor for the MX4 Pro and not the Exynos 5433 of the Galaxy Note 4, but we are very sure it will be able the super high resolution without worry. We will also post some benchmarks later, but as always the real world performance counts.

Compared to the Meizu MX4, the MX4 Pro is a tad larger with a 5.5 ” display and thicker bezels of 2.8mm. Overall the MX4 Pro is pretty slim though with only 77mm, which is very impressive for a 5.5″ smartphone. The Display takes up full 76.5% of the whole smartphone front, which is a good screen to front ratio.

Speaking of Display, with a 2K 5.5″ Screen and a resolution of 2560 x 1536 combined with 546ppi, the MX4 PRO might just have one of the best 2K screens available at the moment. The MX4 Pro screen integrates a negative LCD with Backlight, to improve the screen visibility and reduce battery consumption. Similiar to the LG G3 the Pro also has Panel Self Refresh to increase battery life.

Knowing that 2K displays are taxing for the battery, Meizu increased the battery life to a 3350mAH battery. According to Meizu that lasts 1.5 days with LTE usage. The MX 4PRO sports FDD-LTE and TDD-LTE, and of course 3G and GSM too. We will soon see if the battery life expectations are correct.

One of the biggest changes on the MX4 Pro is the Fingerprint Scanner in the Home Button. The Scanner is protected with Sapphire Glass and within 500ms the Meizu Touch System will decide if you are the legit owner of the phone via Fingerprint Scan. In contrast to other Android Fingerprint Scanners this one is touch and not swipe activated like the Samsung variants for example. All data is stores in ARM-trusted zones and encrypted.

The Main Camera stays the same as on the MX4 with the 20.7 mega-pixel Sony Beast. Meizu integrated Sapphire glass though and a new ISP with an advanced algorithm, for less noise and purer colors. With the new ISP the MX4 Pro can 30 pictures per sec, record 4K HDR videos and 100fps slow motion videos as well. Meizu improved the front cameras as well to an 5MP shooter with F2.2 aperture and pixel size of 1.4 μm, to make full usage of Flyme 4.0 new beautification feature.

As many of you could tell already from the Teaser Images the MX4 Pro also got a make over for audio hardware. The MX4 Pro sports an OPA1612 operation amplifier to maximise dynamic ranges and get very low distortion. In combinatioon with the amplifier works a ESS 9018 DAC Audio chip. This audio team makes the MX4 Pro definitely interesting for music lovers.

The rest of the MX4 Pro hardware stays the same with the MX4 with FDD-LTE, TD-LTE, 20.7MP Camera and Flyme 4.0 on Android 4.4 with a lot of themes to use.

The Meizu MX4 Pro will retail at a very attractive price of 2499 Yuan (1375RM) for the 16GB Version and no international launch dates yet. For 2K 5.5″ display, Octa-Core Samsung Exynos Processor, 3GB RAM, 20.7MP Sony Camera the Meizu MX4 Pro is definitely a very hot deal. Well done Meizu!

Earlier this week Nubia announced a “Big Move” for today and now we know what it is. Finally the Nubia Z7 Flagship will officially start selling on Nubia’s official website and Jingdong with reservation.

The Nubia Z7 Flagship was announced together with the sister models Nubia Z Max and Mini already on July 8th this year. While both the Sister Models Nubia Z Mini and Max already start selling worldwide, the Nubia Z7 Flagship just goes on Sale with today.

The Nubia Z7 is a real Beast though. It sports a 5.5 inch 2K screen with 2560×1440 resolution and a very high pixel density of 538ppi, like the LG G3. Also it sports Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 with 3GB of RAM and includes 32GB of internal memory.

For the Main Camera the Nubia Z7 sports a 13MP Camera with Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) and Dual LED Flash. The 13MP Shooter has a F2.0 aperture and comes with inbuilt professional photo software NeoVision 4.0. This is really a smartphone for photo lovers, you also get independent focus, exposure lock and focus lock for shooting moving objects and much more features.

Nubia Z7 Camera Water Drops Shoot

Nubia Z7 Camera Sunrise Shoot

Nubia Z7 Camera ndependent White Balance Adjustment

Nubia Z7 Camera Photo Proof

Additionally the Nubia Z7 sports 4G LTE, and also Dual SIM and actually supports Dual 4G – awesome! For using Hi-Fi Sound the Nubia Z7 comes with AK4961 top audio chip.

Now lets come to the most critical point – the price. The Nubia Z7 will start selling today for 3456 Yuan (1895RM), 565 USD is quite high. We admit these specs are very nice, but today there is already the next generation processor launched on Nexus 6 and Note 4, for the same price level. Lets wait for the Meizu MX4 Pro Pricing which will launch also today and see who is the real Flagship Killer.

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Nokia takes us all by surprise and launches the new Nokia N1 Android Lollipop 5.0 Tablet. Just a few month ago, Nokia finished the Sale of their Devices Devision to Microsoft, we all thought that would be the end and now this! A new tablet for just 245 USD.

Nokia takes us all by surprise and launches the new Nokia N1 Android Tablet. Just a few month ago, Nokia finished the Sale of their Devices Devision to Microsoft, we all thought that would be the end and now this!

After Nokia sold to Microsoft, we all though this would be the end of the Finnish company that so many of you loved. Especially because Nokia is not allowed to actually produce competing products to “Microsoft Lumia” and “Microsoft Mobile” till 2016. But Nokia got tricky. The new Nokia N1 Tablet is technichally not a Nokia product. Foxconn, is licensing the Nokia Brand, their design and the “Launcher Software” for the N1 tablet.

Lets take a quick glance at the Nokia N1 itself. The N1 tablet sports a gorgeous 7.9″ display with a “retina” 2048 x 1536 resolution and is made completely from a single piece of anodised aluminium. For further design, the N1 definitely took some inspirations from Apple’s iPad mini. Especially the layout of camera sensor, speakers and headphones but also the metal alloy, reminds on Apple’s smallest tablet, the iPad Mini.

But Nokia, would not be Nokia, if they would just produce the next “Apple-Copy” for you. The Nokia N1 Android tablet has actually some typical Nokia design parts. Nokia’s N1 tablet will be the first tablet ever to sport the next generation USB type C connector. Also, Nokia actually achieved to make the Nokia N1 tablet thinner at 6.9mm and less heavy at 318g then the iPad Mini. And of course the N1 tablet runs on Nokia’s Z Launcher for Android with the newest Android Version 5.0 Lollipop on top.

The N1 tablet specs further include a quadcore 64-bit Intel Z3580 Moorefield processor at 2.3Ghz, PowerVR G6430 GPU and 2GB of RAM. The Main Camera is a 8MP Shooter and you get a 5 Megapixel Front Camera. For internal memory the Nokia N1 comes with 32GB.

Nokia N1 Tablet Specs:

• Display: 7.9-inch, 2048×1536 (4:3) IPS LCD with Gorilla Glass 3 and fully laminated zero air gap display
• Processor: 64-bit 2.3GHz Intel Atom Z3580 processor, PowerVR G6430 GPU with 2GB RAM
• ROM: 32GB built-in memory (non-expandable)
• Camera: 8 megapixel rear camera, 5 megapixel front camera
• Audio: Dual channel 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi with MIMO, Bluetooth 4.0
• USB: Micro-USB 2.0 with a Type-C reversible connector
• Speakers: Stereo speakers
• Battery: 5300mAh battery
• Design: Unibody aluminum design; available in Natural Aluminum or Lava Gray colors

The Nokia N1 will launch in China first for 2015 Chinese New year and will sell at a very competitive 249 USD (840RM). That is a very competitive pricing for those specs and the Nokia Brand Quality on top of this Android Lollipop 5.0 tablet. After China the N1 will come to other markets, including Russia and Europe. Hopefully we sill see it launch on a global Scale soon.

Huawei is quite successful with their two brand strategy. Huawei uses the “Honor Brand” for low to mid-end phones and “Huawei” for their High-End Flagships like Ascend Mate 7. Now Huawei’s Launch plan for 2015 has been leaked and shows the full range of seven new Huawei’s planned Flagships with 4999 Yuan for the most expensive new Flagship D8.

Huawei has already a quite large assortment with Mate 7 on the upper end and the Honor 3C series on the lower end, but it seems they will launch SEVEN new phones next year to keep up with the competition. As you can see in the chart Huawei is planning four low to mid end models with the Honor Brand and three more high end Flagships under the Huawei Brand for several thousand yuan. The Huawei P8 will be the first release next year and is expected to launch at the CES 2015 in January and the latest release will be the Honor 7X, that will launch in December next year.

In terms os specs we are happy to see that all seven of the new Huawei phones will all sport 5″ screens and above. The lower end Honor Play 5 and 5X will sport Qualcomm processors, while Huawei will use their own Kirin 930 and Kirin 950 CPU for all Huawei and Honor Mid-End and High-End Flagships. For the material choice, all High End Models will come with Sapphire Screen and metallic bodys while the Honor Play series will be manufactured from plastic.

The next generation of the Huawei Honor 3 series, the Honor 5 Play device will sport a 5″ 720p screen, 2GB of RAM and 8GB of RAM. The Honor 5Play is expected to launch in March next year with Qualcomm processor at 699 yuan. The higher speced Honor 5 Play X will sport a HD 5.5 inch screen, otherwise unchanged specs for 999yuan and will launch September next year.

For the Mid to Flagship Series we will see an update to the Honor 6 phone with two models, the Honor 7 which will launch in June and Honor 7X. The new Honor 7 will sport a 5″ Full HD screen, 3GB RAM, 16GB Rom and the newest version of Huawei’s Kirin 930. The updated Honor 7X will come in Winter next year and will sport a larger 5.5 inch Full HD screen. Both phones the Honor 7 and 7X are expected to sell at 1999 yuan, slightly more expensive then the Honor 6 now.

The absolute High End Flagship from Huawei next year will be the Huawei D8. The D8 will sport a 5.5″ 2K sapphire display, the newest Kirin 950 processor, whopping 4GB of RAM and 64ROM. The Huawei D8 will launch in May next year and has an premium price of 4999 yuan.

While this plan is obviously not yet confirmed by Huawei, judging the specs and dates of launch this information looks like the real deal. Basically Huawei is following their Two Brand Strategy and placing importance on the development of their own inhouse Kirin processor series. But as always we need to see to the official launch, maybe Huawei has some more aces up their sleeve.

Huawei having big success with their Ascend P7 phone, so we are not surprised that there will be a Huawei Ascnend P8 Series. Now we see leaks of the new Ascend P8 and seriously isn’t that a bit early?

The Leaked images show part of the new Huawei Ascend P8 according to China Tech News Media. The new Ascend P8 will sport a 5.2-inch FULL HD display with 1920 x 1080 resolution and will probably have a 2.5D curved edge. The positive value of 2.5 dioptren means that the display is a convex lens/glass, similiar to the Lumia 1020 display.

Huawei Phones TimeLine Leaked:

Probably the Huawei Ascend P8 will also sport huawei’s newest Kirin 930 processor. The Kirin 930 is an extremely powerful CPU with 8Cores and built on 16nm architecture. The Kirin Processor series definitely does not need to hide versus the Snapdragon Series as we see in various tests of the Honor 6 with the Kirin 920.

The Final piece of information is that the Ascend P8 will be made of ceramic and metal-really looking forward to the launch. There is no news on launch date but probably not earlier then the CES 2015.

Finally Malaysia has their first Xiaomi Exclusive Service Centre in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The Exclusive Xiaomi Service Center is located very centrally in Low Yat Plaza to give customers the best service and support possible. Xiaomi promises a two-hour turnaround repair time for smartphone repairs and services.

THe new exclusive center is at actually the sixth official authorised Xiaomi exclusive service center in Malaysia and located on the fourth floor of the premium mall. Additionally to being a pure service center, Xiaomi also showcases products that are not available yet in Malaysia.

That means you can have a look at the Xiaomi MIPad and the very interesting 49inch 4K MI TV2, next to countless huge Xiaomi Bunnies. You are very welcome to visit and spend time with the new devices to try the Xiaomi Brand for yourself.

One question, that is very important for many of you is the subject of AP sets. Since Xiaomi products are always available only in limited quality or not yet at all like the Xiaomi Mi4, the question is if you can get them still repaired at the Service Center in KL. The General Xiaomi Manager for Malaysia, stated that the new Mi Exclusive Service Center will only accept Xiaomi devices bought in Malaysia, not those AP sets from other countries like China.

In addition to the news of the new Xiaomi Exclusive Service Center, Xiaomi also announced the launch of their newest gadget, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G. The new Redmi Note 4G will sell at RM589 and gets the Snapdragon 400 CPU clocked at 1.6Ghz instead of the MTK processor in the older Note. Additionally you will only get Single Sim instead of Dual Sim on the NOTE 4G.

You can check the new New Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G here on the official Xiaomi Website yet, where it is live.

The Meizu MX4 Pro is going to launch on Wednesday 19.11 If you rather want to wait for the official launch now, do not read further, since now GFX Bench has revealed the Meizu MX4 Pro Specs.

In the last week Meizu CEO Li Nan has announced that the Meizu MX4 will neither sport a 64Bit Mediatek Processor nor the Samsung Exynos 5433 chipset. Since then fans have been discussing wildly what specs we would be seing on the new Meizu phone this wednesday.

Now the Meizu MX4 Pro has been spotted on GFX Bench, revealing that it will sport Samsung’s Exynos 5430 octacore processor. The Samsung Exynos 5430 has been launched earlier this year and was the first processor produced with 20nm HKMG process, making the processor more power efficient.

The Exynos 5430 was first used in the Samsung Galaxy Alpha Chipset this year. You get a true Octa-Core Processor with big.LITTLE technology, so all eight cores can run at the asame time, giving great multi-core performance. The processor also sports the latest hexa-core Mali-T628 MP6 GPU.As you can see in benchmarks the Exynos 5430 processor on Galaxy Alpha with only 2GB RAM can definitely play in the Flagship League.

The GFX Database also revealed other Meizu MX4 Pro specs of 3GB RAM, a 5.5 inch 2K display with 2560 x 1536 resolution. For the camera users will see probably the same Sony 20.7 mega-pixel rear camera as in MX4 and for the Front Shooter a 5MP Front Camera. These specs still need to be confirmed officially, but they fit very well with previous leaks and rumours.

For the pricing we have seen various flyers suggesting the price level at around 3199 Yuan, which would be at 1750RM for the launch in China. Lets wait for wednesday though to see the official pricing and Specs of the MX4 Pro. The Meizu MX4 will launch at a very competitve RM1099 this month in Malaysia, so I would be surprised to see the MX4 Pro at such a high price.