Author: chris eilers

Samsung is next to Apple one of the few phone manufacturers that actually make a decent profit. The last quarter in 2014 Samsung experienced a significant decrease in profit though. Samsung’s consolidated revenue was 44.7 Billion, compared to 56 Billion
USD for the same time in Q3 2013. That is Samsung’s lowest profit in 3 years, since Q3 2011.

Traditionally for Samsung, the mobile category has been the most profitable in the last years. Now the mobile categories is actually causing the most worries for Samsung, with a drop in Sales of more then 15%. The operating profit actually decreased to 1, 653 million USD, from $4,179 million in Q2 and nearly $6,350 million in 2013.

The reason for the big drop in Sales and Profit is according to Samsung that they sold mostly cheaper and midrange products this quarter. The Samsung Galaxy S5 Sales dropped and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 launched pretty late in Quarter 3.

The tablet sales with the Galaxy Tab S series, actually improved but not enough to compensate for mis-performing phone sales. Samsung expects higher sales and profits in the holiday season and with the Note 4. They still have to fight though with high competition especially in the holiday season.

Samsung TV sales also show nearly zero profit. Actually the only business of Samsung that increased Profit and Sales is the semiconductor business for Samsung.

Especially in South East Asia but also worldwide Samsung is in a tough spot. They face increasing competition on both ends. On the one hand there is the ongoing war with Apple for Premium Flagships. On the other hand brands like Xiaomi, Huawei and OnePlus increasingly take sales of the lower and mid-range phones from Samsung.

After Oppo introduced their N3 camera smartphont, they also introduced their first 64-bit smartphone. Their OPPO R5 is the thinnest smartphone worldwide. At 4.85mm thickness, the Oppo R5, is beating the Current record holder, the Gionee Elife S5.1, by nearly 1mm.

Other then being the “slimmest phone in the world,” as Oppo claims, the R5 sports a 5.2 AMOLED screen with Full HD 1080p resolution, and a pixel density of 423 ppi. The device is sporting QualComm’s midrange 64-bit Snapdragon 615 CPU. The Snapdragon 615 comes with Eight Core A53 Processor at 1.5 Ghz, Adreno 405 GPU and 2GB of RAM. Inside the Oppo R5 is a scpecial cooling element from liquid metal, to take heat away from the Snapdragon Chipset.

Oppo R5 vs iPhone 6

The main camera of the R5 is a 13MP Sony IMX214 with F2.0 aperture and the Selfie Cam is at 5.0 MP. The Main Camera sticks out of the case, like you can see in the pictures. It can record 2160p video at 30fps and 1080p@60fps, and has a slow motion mode with 720p.

Despite being the slimmest phone worldwide, the Oppo R5 still features a 2000mAH battery, which can be charged very quick with VOOC mini rapid charge. Also it has TDD/FDD LTE support. The Oppo R5 is missing a 3.5mm audio jack, so you will have to use the microUSB to audio converter, which comes out of the box.

Like all OPPO phones, the OPPO R5 is a bit pricey at USD 499(1642RM) and we dont have the exact launch date yet.

Huawei officially announced the 64 BIT Honor 4X mid range smartphone. The dual sim phone is available for PreOrder in China from only 1299CNY (212USD/695RM)The shipments will begin next week from November 6th.

The best news for the Huawei Honor 4X is that it will not only with both China Mobile and China Unicom, but with 50 international networks in the whole world. The Honor 4X sports a 64Bit Snapdragon 410 CPU at 1.2 GHZ and support for 2g, 3g and 4G on GSM, WCDMA, TD-SCDAM, TD-LTE and FDD-LTE networks.

There is no confirmation yet, which bands exactly the Honor 4X covers, but probably most of the big European and Asian ones will be featured.

The other specs of Honor device are fairly standard. The Honor 4X sports a 5.5 inch 720p display, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage that can be extendend via Micro SD. The 4X also comes with a 13MP Sony Main Camera with F2.0 aperture, 5.0 MP Selfie Cam and 3000mAH battery life. Huawei promises up to 72 hours of battery life.

The Huawei Honor 4X runs on Android 4.4 KitKat with Huawei’s EMUI 3.0 OS. It sports a 7.9mm thin body.

For this specs the Huawei Honor 4X pricing of 1299 Yuan is very competitive. Huawei did not announce yet when the global launch going to be.

Xiaomi and Xiaomi fans have once more reason to celebrate. According to IHS iSuppli, Xiaomi is now the third largest phone manufacturer worldwide. In the reports we can see that Xiaomi sold 19 million smartphones in third quarter of 2014. With this Number Xiaomi overtook Huawei, who managed to sell 16.8 Million smartphones for Q3 2014.

Xiaomi was founded 4 years ago, in 2010, originally as an developer for Android OS. Their first products was Android based MIUI OS and evolved from there to manufacturing smartphones.

Xiaomi has been growing very strongly in the last years. In 2012 they sold 5.7 Million phones and already 18.7 Million phones for 2013. In 2014 they sold 11 Million in Q1 and 15.1 Million in Q2 of 2014.

Xiaomi Product Family ( Beautiful Pic by: Ginie Chin and Aslyy Chin)

While Xiaomi is growing strongly in global markets, China is still the main driver for their Sales. According to researchers from Strategy Analytics 14.6 Million out of the 15.1 Million Sales in Q2 were from China.

While the Lion’s Share of XIaomi’s Sales is still from China, they drive their Global Expansion agressively with the latest markets of India, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Especially in India they managed to raise a lot of awareness and a lot of Redmi and Mi3 Phones.

While these numbers look very good for Xiaomi, competiton in China is getting fierce. Xiaomi is fighting against Huawei and Lenovo to defend their third place. Meanwhile new competitors like Meizu and OnePLus entered the game with very competitive products and promising Sales.

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The OnePLus One phone has been super successful, only stopped by OnePLus own capacity to fulfill customer demands. Now a second generation phone, OnePlus Two is on the Table and it will sport OnePlus own developed OS instead of Cyanogen Mod.

Peter Lau, the current CEO of OnePLus gave an interview about the impact of companies like OnePlus on the phone market and customers in general. In this interview Peter Lau also gave his opinion on the future of OnePlus and their products.

Peter Lau confirmed in the Interview, that OnePLus is working on a second edition of the OnePlus One phone and that they are building their own ROM development at the moment. The goal of the Oppo funded OnePLus is to create a OnePLus Android ROM that will ship with the OnePlus Two.

At the moment the international version of the OnePlus One comes with Cyanogen MOD while the chinese version sports Oppo’s Color OS. The development of an own OnePlus ROM would allow OnePLus more independence and further freedom from OPPO. It is not clear yet if a OnePLus ROM would mean the end of Cyanogen MOD OS on OnePLus phones.

Buy the OnePlus One without Invite Now 

Especially Cyanogen MOD seems to be very popular with customers. So it is possible that there will be two versions available of the OnePlus Two. In the Interview the CEO further says, that OnePLus has been profitable this year and that they are selling more then 1000phones a day.

This is of course dwarfed by Sales Numbers of Xiaomi and Meizu in China. While the OnePLus One is definitely a great phone, it’s still hard to get your hands the OPO. Lets hope things get better with the OnePlus Two.

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We know Asus to support their users and update their devices with the newest Android versions, even though it sometimes can take a bit longer for the newest updates. It seems Asus will keep this pattern with their Zenfone series and the newest Zenfone Android 5.0 Lollipop Update.

LG, Sony and HTC already made official statements for their Lollipop updates, but we are still waiting for Asus official Android annoucement. Meanwhile we found a leaked roadmap that shows Asus Plan for the Android Lollipop Update.

As you can see all Asus Zenfones, from the Asus Zenfone 4, Zenfone 4 A450CG, Asus Zenfone 5, Zenfone 6 and Asus Zenfone 5LTE the whole Zenfone Generation will be getting the Android Lollipop Update coming April 2015.

Also the very attractive Asus Padfone S will be getting Android Lollipop 2015, the PadFone Infinity 2 in June 2015. Probably even more Asus gadgets will be getting the Android 5.0 Lollipop OS Update in 2015, but Asus is still silent on that matter.

Huawei’s strategy seems to be to launch products at exact the same time as their competitors. This strategy we can see once more with the Launch of the Huawei Honor 4X on October 29th, the exact same date the Oppo N3 is supposed to launch.

With just a few days to the big launch date, Huawei showed us some more teasers today to hint at the Huawei Honor 4X specs. We are pretty sure that the number 64 points at a 64Bit processor in the Huawei Honor 4X. The other pictures we see, seem to be hinting at the camera function of the new Huawei phone.

So judging by these teasers what can we actually expect by Huawei newest gadget? Well both Qualcomm and Mediatek would have suitable 64bit chips for a midrange Honor 4X available. Also there is the option of Huawei’s inhouse Hisilicon Kirin chipset as an option. According to newest informations we will see the Snapdragon 410 64 Bit Chipset, clocked at 1.2GHz on the Honor 4x.

We expect to get at least a 13 megapixel camera for the Honor 4X with LED Flash. For the Selfie Cam the Honor 4X will probably get a 5MP Shooter.

Other specs for the Huawei Honor 4X should be a 5.5 inch HD display, 2GB of RAM and Dual Sim, Micro SD, LTE and Android 4.4. According to our information the starting price for China will be as low as 150USD!

After facing intense competition from Meizu, Xiaomi is launching two new low-cost versions of the popular Xiaomi Mi4 Phone.

Insider sources reveal now that the Xiaomi Mi4 3G version will be priced at 1599 Yuan (261 USD/856RM) and the 4G Version will sell at 1799 Yuan (294/964RM USD). Both versions of the low- cost Xiaomi Mi4 will start selling on the Big Sale in China on 11. November.

The low-cost version of the Xiaomi MI4 has been showing on TEENAA earlier this year. The main difference to the current Xiaomi Mi4, other then the price difference, is 2GB instead of 3GB RAM. Also the phone will get 16GB of internal storage instead of 32GB ROM. The other specs of the Low Cost Mi4 will not change with 5-inch Full HD Screen (1920x1080p) and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801. The phone also comes with 13 megapixel main Camera and 5 Megapixel Selfie Cam. The Low Cost Mi4 also comes with Android 4.4 pre installed with Xiaomi’s MIUI V6 on top.

Low-cost-Xiaomi-Mi4-TENAA

The Launch of the low-cost Xiaomi Mi4 does not come surprising for us. Xiaomi has been facing intense competition lately from Meizu and their Meizu MX4 Flagship. The Meizu MX4 is priced at 1799 Yuan and actually selling so well, that Meizu even has problems filling all the demand for the phone. Xiaomi has the Redmi Line on the lower cost end to compete with the cheaper Meizu MX4, but it the MX4 is really a step higher in terms of power and specs then the Xiaomi Redmi series.

There have been rumors that Xiaomi is launching a new high end Redmi phone to compete with Meizu MX4, but it seems Xiaomi is starting with a cheaper Xiaomi Mi4 targeted at Meizu MX4 first.

Meizu teaming up with AliBaba also launched a special version of the MX4 the Meizu MX4 Silverwing Edition. Basically it is the white version of the very popular SIlver Meizu MX4. It got the name “Silver Wings” from a limited version of the MX3, which was proposed by Meizu Fans and launched early 2014.

The Meizu MX4 “Silver Wings” has also the 20.7 MP Sony Camera, Eight Core MT6595 processor, 2GB of RAM and LTE. IT will also sell for 1799 YUAN in China. So far we are still waiting for word of the international launch for this version.

The LG G3 phone will get Android Lollipop end of this year in December, according to LG Officials in Europe. The lg representatives from Belgium and Netherlands did not give more specific timelines for Android 5.0 on the Lg G3, since we expect an official LG statement soon.

Most probably the LG G2 PRO will also get the newest Android in Decemeber since the two phones are the current LG Flagships. We think though that more LG phones might get Android Lollipop soon, like the LG G2, LG G3 S, G3 Stylus and the more mid rangers L90 and L70 phones.

It is not hundert percent clear yet, how LG plans to customize their Optimus UI for Android 5.0 Lollipop. While the newest Android is very clean, LG traditionally adds a lot of additional feautures and gadgets to their UI. Lets hope they incorporate Lollipo in a clean and user focused way.

Sony, HTC and Motorola already created lists of their devices which will get the newest Android Updates next.

The physical stores of Oppo have started taking pre-orders for the Oppo N3 in China. They are also confirming some of the specs and pricing of the new Camera focused Oppo device.

Oppo has hundreds of physical stores in China, and similiar to the launch of the Oppo Find 7, these stores have already started to take Pre-Orders and confirmed the pricing of the newest Oppo Phone.

The hand written signs you see on the pictures are typical for these chinese stores and confirm the latest specs of the Oppo N3 Phone. Even if you cant translate the chinese signs, you can see that the display will be a 5.5 inch Full HD 1080, and the camera will be a 16MegaPixel rotating device.

As you can see the shops also mention the Pre-Order price which is set at nearly unbelievable 4928Yuan (700USD). That means that the new N3 will cost nearly double as much as Xiaomi Mi4, OnePLus One and Meizu MX4. The Oppo N3 is definitely not cheap!

The rest of the signs says that the Oppo N3 is available for Pre-Order now and that the N3 is the first phone in the world with a motorised electronic camera that moves. That means that earlier rumours about a motorised camera on the N3 will be most probably true.

The cooperation between the Heavyweight E-Commerce AliBaba and Phone Manufacturer Meizu seems off to a good start. The Cooperation between Meizu and AliBaba is not only for Hardware but also deeply connected on system level. Meizu and AliBaba recently introduced a “Flyme Powered by YunOS” Version of the popular Meizu MX4. The Phone will get a combination of the best features in design and UI of Flyme with functions of security and payments from YunOs. The YunOs3.0 Version of the Gold Meizu MX4 was introduced on 22.10 and customer can pay 99yuan to reserve a version.

The Official Pre Sale Method is open to November 10 but already now after just two days all Meizu MX4 Yunos Version are sold out. Based on the Pre-Orders all 20.000 units of the Meizu MX4 got snapped up, and customers paid 99 Yuan to reserve their favorite smartphone.

On the contrary the Philips Aurora i966, the smartphone that AliBaba created in cooperation with Philips struggles to sell. In two days just a merely 600 customers bought the Philips i966. These days really brands like Meizu and Xiaomi just dominate the market with their awesome specs at very affordable prices. With 1799 Yuan the Meizu MX4 cost only 50% of the Philips i966 at comparable SPecs.

Additionally we hear that customers so far really love the YunOs Operating System. It seems that AliBaba is going the right way, in comparison with Amazon and creating a real Operating System, not only a phone to sell more products on their E-Commerce Store.

So far we dont have confirmation yet if the Meizu MX4 YunOs will come to other countries yet, but well keep you updated. Chinese customers who missed the Pre-Orders can buy again at the Big Chinese Sales on 11.11.

What do you think of the Meizu MX4 YunOs Launch and the Launching of AliBaba’s own OS?

Source: (China)