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tigre jogo online JogabilidadeZopo, once the darling of the Chinese smartphone market, is back just in time for Christmas with the recently launched Zopo P5000 and it could be their best phone to date!We’ve had an early Christmas present today all the way from Shenzhen based Zopo! Yup, Zopo is still about and yes they do have a new range of smartphones, possibly the best smartphones ever to ship with the Zopo name stamp on the back!Zopo has sent me the Zopo P5000, their latest flagship phone which comes with all the hardware features that we come to expect from top of the range phones of today, plus a few nice features that actually push the P5000 in front of certain other phones on the market.As usual, I’m starting out with a quick unboxing of the Zopo P5000 and then will follow up with a full review in the coming weeks.Zopo P5000 UnboxingThe P5000 is easily the best looking Zopo phone I鈥檝e had my hands on, and in addition to that it also has the best materials, best build quality and actually features top-end hardware.In the past, Zopo has struggled to keep up with smartphone trends, but the Zopo P5000 is bang right up to date with a 5.99-inch HD+ 18:9 Full-Screen display! This is pretty big news for Zopo, but the hardware highlights don鈥檛 end there!Above that full display screen, you鈥檒l find a 16 megapixel Samsung SP3 f2.0 camera with soft LED flash. The rear has dual lens camera is made up of a 13 megapixel and 5 megapixel Sony IMX258 f2.0 sensor and beneath the attractive metal body is a huge 5000mAh battery!Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramWith a huge battery, the P5000 is slightly thicker than similar metal bodied phones, but less time on charge is more important to most users than the physical size of the phones.Sticking with modern trends, the P5000 uses a Type C USB 2.0 for charging and data transfer, which might not be as desirable as a faster connection but at least it鈥檚 more future-proof than a standard USB which we鈥檙e still seeing on some phones.As the Zopo P5000 has a full-display screen and a 85% screen coverage up front, the fingerprint scanner has had to be moved to the rear of the phone just below the dual camera lens. The fingerprint scanner lens is a little smaller than some brands, but so far it has proven to be fast and accurate.We鈥檙e also impressed to see that Zopo has shipped the P5000 with a largely stock installation of Android 7.0 and that the phone comes with Google Services and the Google Store all installed and working as they should out of the box.The stock Android installation runs smoothly thanks to 4GB Samsung DDR3 RAM and Mediatek Helio P10 1.5Ghz octacore chipset, not the most modern processor but it鈥檚 powerful enough for most uses and supports most common LTE networks too.Other details include 64GB Samsung internal memory, space for a micro SD card and dual nano SIM slots.rodada gr谩tis Jogabilidade

Well, let’s begin with a small lesson on dash cams, shall we? A dash camera is a small digital video camera that mounts to the dashboard of a vehicle and records the drivers journey whenever the car is turned on and moving or on his choice. It is a crucial tool for ensuring safety on the road by assisting the police and insurance companies in case of an accident.A dash cam can help by showing speed, acceleration, time, place, direction, driver behavior and quite possibly revealing聽who was at fault during an accident. For anyone who spends a fair amount of time behind a steering wheel it’s an excellent tool in case of need. In recent years, this type of camera has seen its market share rise exponentially not only as a security measure but also as a form of leisure to record vacations or trips in new places.Manufactured in China and primarily aimed at the budget category AZDOME DAB211 Dash Camera is a good VFM product that provides many functionalities at an affordable price. I really think you’re gonna like it, so let’s go and have a look…Azdome DAB211 – Technical SpecificationsCPU: Ambrerella A12A55Sensor: Ov4689, 4MPLCD: 2,31 LTPS 16:9 non-touchLens: 150 Degree A+HD ultra wide angle, 39 Degree top to bottom adjustmentVideo Resolution: 2560X1440 30fps, 2304X1296 30fps, 1920X1080 30fps/60fpsPhoto Resolution: Max 16MPMemory Card: SD Card (Max 64GB)Power: 5V 1.5ALanguage: MultipleFeatures: Mic, Park Mode,Night vision, GPS, Over Speed Warning, ADAS, G-SensorPackage Contents:聽Dash Camera, User Manual, Cable Clips, Car Charger (x2 USB ports), Suction Mount, 3M Mount, USB Cable X2, Trim removal ToolAzdome DAB211 – UnboxingDespite its affordable price the聽DAB211 dashcam聽boasts a full package that includes the dash camera itself (obviously), a User Manual in English, cable clips, a car charger (x2 USB ports), a suction Mount, a 3M tape mount, two USB Cables (a long one for the car and a short for the pc) and a trim removal tool.聽The only thing missing from the packaging is a micro SD card, so you need to buy one as mean to store your videos. It supports cards up to 64 GB, a decent amount of storage for several hours of video.Azdome DAB211 Main featuresThe dash cam is created from durable plastic with a 2,3 inch non-touch screen in front. On the left side you can find the SDcard placement and an HD out port. On the right side you can find the microphone, the reset option, the power button and a micro usb port. The screen provides information on the present setup and turns out to be simple and easy to use, even for people with no experience.聽The dashcam comes with an internal battery so you can setup the device or see the videos / pictures without having to connect it to a charger. It supports video resolutions at 2560X1440 30fps / HDR 2560X1440 30fps, 2304X1296 30fps, 1920X1080 at 30fps/60fps with quite decent detail, during day or (sometimes) during night.聽The rest of the settings are for the Time Lapse, ADAS (Advanced Driver Alert System), Motion detection, G-Sensor, Parking mode, Split Record mode, Microphone on/off and Anti flicker mode for the display. All options are explained properly in the manual, I have to stress this. There are also options as to change the language, the time, the time zone and other relevant system settings.The camera is quite easy to set up. If you never had a dash cam before, then I suggest you take a good look at the manual since the setup is made once in the beginning before the driving and it must be made in the most correct way, in order to fit to your needs and standards. Unfortunately I did an erroneous set up at the beginning after being hasty to try it, and lost a couple of days of videos! Don’t be afraid of the English Manual, as you will see that it’s clear and very helpful, so please take some time with it. You can buy the聽Azdome DAB211 dash cam from:Aliexpress – Amazon #1 – Amazon #2Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramAfter the initial setup, the placement of the dash cam in the car was much easier. I chose the suction mount, and placed the dash cam right behind the interior rear view mirror. The charger is universal, but in my car it was to long and kept moving in close turns. So my suggestions is that if you already have a car charger for your car model (and you’re OK with it) use it instead. You won’t have any issues 馃檪Again I have to stress out: set the dash cam right. In my case, ADAS was ON as to warn in case of changing lanes and the camera was set to send a warning to protect from collision. The result was like having a siren inside my car all the time 馃檪 It would surely turn my eyes open in case i was half sleeping. Then it kept doing the same noise in a two-lanes road where cars park on the right side due to the limited parking space in Athens. In my opinion safety features tend to turn your attention elsewhere than the street it self. I just couldnt drive with the siren on. I stopped the car and turned off all safety features.聽Azdome DAB211: how to use, check videos etc.I connected the dash cam with my pc and copied the videos as to view them properly, but don’t forget that you can take also pictures turning into the pictures mode. The limitation here is that it takes only 50 photos, but if you think about it it’s not a digital camera for photos, but a dash cam with a specific purpose.During daylight the results where clear and I had no issue to read licence plates (the most important thing to look for in an accident, if the other car drives away). There is an excellent 150 degrees wide view in the front that could be also used as a vacation recording. Very good performance, very decent quality! Well done!During the聽night the image is darker than the one we can see with our own eyes – the same happens when strong sunlight falls directly on the lens. There is some flaring from strong lights like those LED headlights some modern cars use. It is functional and kept recording for a good distance in front of me but the “digital” noise in the video makes certain licence plates difficult to read. Glaring from external lighting to the windshield or the dashboard is visible also and sometimes can “blind” the dash cam but with no significant issues.The parking mode is VERY practical. When it senses vibrations it starts recording for a minute and then it turns off. Motion detection turns on and off the camera automatically when the car is moving. Sadly there is no speed camera warning system. GPS information can be seen in the company software and was mildly accurate, but perhaps the placement of my camera was wrong? I will get back to this when I have better tests to show you.Azdome DAB211 review: verdictGiven the fact that this is a very affordable dash camera, I have to admit that I was impressed. It offers good聽1440P HDR images and video that could possibly become a life saver聽in case of an accident.It provides a full package, with everything included but the SDcard. During the night the image of the recorded video is not that clear, so if you’re one of those who have to work after hours (like truck or taxi drivers for example) you will have to make some sacrifice in quality if you plan to use it. On the other hand, if you plan to use it during the day, then you’re going to get an excellent value for money product – judging from its current price of course.T-Bao/Civiltop is a fairly new laptop manufacturer known for a couple of laptops here and there, but they are an ODM with prior laptop experience. They have released what seems like a decent price proposition, $280USD for a 15.6鈥 Apollo Lake laptop. Well its good when you don’t consider the discounts off the myriad other Apollo Lake laptops, but we’ll talk about that later.T-Bao X8S ReviewThe Apollo Lake laptop market is now filled with many options for you to choose from, ranging from great but expensive (read the Chuwi Lapbook Air) to cheap and good (Chuwi Lapbook 14.1, Jumper EZBook 3 Pro). However, these laptops are almost exclusively 14鈥 and smaller, with next to no options in the 15.6鈥 range. Enter T-Bao鈥檚 X8S, a low cost option for those who want a nice, big screen.T-Bao鈥檚 low cost optionT-Bao X8S SpecificationsProcessorIntel Apollo Lake N3450Display15.6″ 1920×1080 Glossy LCD DisplayRAM6GBStorage64GB eMMCOperating SystemWindows 10Cameras5MP CameraBattery8,000mAhPhysical Dimensions32.80 x 22.00 x 1.80 cm, 1.9 kgBig thanks to Gearbest for providing this review unit.T-Bao X8S HardwareThe body is made of hard, glossy plastic with a rough texture that is not unlikeable. The laptop tapers from back to front and the size of the laptop is incredibly small for a 15.6鈥 screen. In fact, its very close to the XPS15 which also has razor sharp bezels, meaning that the total footprint of this laptop is indeed impressive. Clocking in at 1.9kg, the X8S feels fairly heavy.We also have ports galore, two full size USB 2.0 ports and one USB 3.0 port as well as a microSD card slot for expansion. We have a micro HDMI port as well, but I wish this was a full size HDMI port instead. There sure is room to spare on the sides for full size HDMI ports AND more USB ports, maybe even a USB-C or Microusb port also.The hinge on the laptop is fairly stiff, requiring both hands to open it up. Surrounding the screen are razor thin bezels, giving the screen an illusion of floating. The keyboard here is fairly average, each keycap is made of plastic, and it has adequate travel.The trackpad is large, fairly accurate, and multi-finger gestures work fairly well.Flex cityGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramT-Bao X8S DisplayWe have a 15.6鈥 IPS LCD with a full HD 1920×1080 resolution, and the display is quite a pleasure to look at. Its not the brightest of displays, topping out at around 250 nits, but it displays some decent colours, decently saturated, and fairly good whites, but not as deep blacks. All in all, a good screen that will do the job, just not in direct, strong sunlight.T-Bao X8S AudioThe speakers are average in pretty much all respects, first the volume is average, it doesn鈥檛 get too loud and does get drowned out if there is constant, loud noise. Audio quality is also average, its good enough for your basic use, average clarity, average treble, however bass never gets deep or booming enough.T-Bao X8S BatteryBattery life on the laptop is fairly characteristic for Apollo Lake laptops, it falls in line with other laptops in terms of minutes per mAh. However, it only has an 8000mAh battery, and combine that with a large 15.6鈥 screen and battery life is below average. I get between 5-6 hours of screen on time using Chrome, and a bit more than that using Edge. Charging up the laptop takes about 2 hours.Below average battery lifeT-Bao X8S Software & PerformanceWe have windows 10 activated and we have a fairly responsive eMMC drive which in turn makes the laptop one of the more responsive Apollo lake laptops. the 6gb of ram is good for multitasking, but the bottleneck is still the Apollo lake. gaming wise it can play some basic games, but anything intense you got to bump down to 720p for 30fps.T-Bao X8S ConnectivityIn terms of connectivity, there is no dual band WIFI but the reception and speed of the normal WIFI is actually pretty decent, Bluetooth works well, and the ports are capable of pretty fast transfer speeds.T-Bao X8S Verdict Buy the T-Bao X8SThis laptop isn鈥檛 perfect, its biggest failing would be the build quality. A large 15.6鈥 laptop made of plastic is bound to have a lot of flex, and this one does. It does have below average battery life due to its large screen and slightly inadequate battery, but the rest of the laptop is decent. The T-Bao X8S can be had for $280USD if you can鈥檛 find it on sale and at that price, there are better options, like the smaller Jumper EZBook 3 Pros which regularly can be found for $250 and below. However, this laptop was recently released and its already on sale for $209 at Geekbuying which makes it an absolute steal of a deal, especially for a 15.6鈥 laptop which is rare these days.I guess we can all agree that 2017 is the year of the full display (18:9 ratio) smartphones. Xiaomi Mi Mix started the trend, LG carried on, Samsung Galaxy S8 pushed it forward adding a 19:8 screen ratio and now dozens of other OEM’s have followed their lead. The new combination took over the smartphone market adding a much needed touch of fresh design after a couple of years of stagnant copying of the iPhone 6.Manufacturers rushed to create new models and grab any piece of the market鈥檚 share. MHORSE is not a newcomer in the industry, but a rather shy company from China that chooses to launch specific model from time to time. This month the decided to launch one of the cheapest and most affordable bezel-less, 18:9 smartphones, named MHORSE Pure 1.It comes with a price tag less than $119 and for that money you get 4G/LTE connectivity, plus dual front and back cameras, a truly beautiful design and a fingerprint scanner!impressive quaLITY FOR ITS PRICEMHORSE Pure 1 – Technical SpecificationsCPU鈥 Quad-Core 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A53Chipset鈥 MediaTek MT6737HGPU鈥 ARM Mali-T720 MP2 600MHz, 2-CoresCamera鈥 8 MP+2MP with Single-LED and AF Rear Camera | 5 Megapixel Front cameraMemory鈥 RAM- 3GB | ROM 32GB External Memory Support up to 128GBDisplay鈥 Screen size 5.7 inches HD+ (1440脳720 Pixels)Battery鈥 Removable 4,380 mAh Lithium-PolymerSensors-Proximity Sensor, Accelerometer, Ambient Light, Fingerprint, CompassOperating System鈥 Android 7.0 NougatI/O Interface鈥 1 x Micro SIM Card Slot,1 x Nano SIM Card Slot, microSD/TF Card Slot, Micro USB Port, 3.5mm Audio Out Port, Power Button, Volume Button, Microphone, SpeakerDimensions鈥 279 x 7.3 x 0.98 cmWeight鈥 203 GramsFeatures鈥 LTE CAT4 150 Mbps Download, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps Upload, HSDPA 21 Mbps Download, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps Upload, HSDPA 21 Mbps Download, Computer Sync, OTA Sync, Tethering, VoLTE Support, FM Radio,USB On-The-Go (OTG) Support, Fast Charging Technology, 18:9 Display Aspect Ratio.Basic packageThe box contains the basic stuff for the price range it competes in:one USB cable,a power adapter,a SIM tray ejector needle,a see-through (transparent) silicon case,a warrantyand a User鈥檚 manual in multiple languages (in big clear font).DesignThis is clearly a design focused product. You can read in the back:鈥淒esigned in Italy, Assembled in China鈥滭/p>The sample I reviewed, has the beautiful and shiny Titanium silver color in the back. The curvy panel looks like the front of the Samsung Galaxy S7 combined with the back of Xiaomi Mi 5!The front has small side bezels while larger ones existing in the top and lower part. The 5.7鈥 display comes with a typical (budget) resolution of 1440脳720 pixels (HD+), but still manages to look fine while in everyday use. The colors are vibrant and the viewing angles are great, but it seems that the black color appears washed-out some times. Also while in direct sunlight you need to create a shadow with your other hand to see the display clearly but this is something that can be expected from a really budget Android smartphone.Note also that there is no physical button in the front and the lower bezel of the display is empty. The top one, has another pair of camera lenses, a speaker offering quite decent sound quality, along with proximity and lighting sensors.聽The display has a screen protector on it, but unfortunately the way it has been applied by the company is not impressive. Air bubbles are visible and the top is angled a bit closer to the right. You just don鈥檛 pack a smartphone with 鈥淒esigned in Italy鈥 label with this screen protector application! The MHORSE Pure 1 has a metallic frame and a plastic back panel that has – surprisingly- very good quality. If you take a good look at the back side, and start from the left you can see: the double vertical placed LED flash, the double vertically placed camera and the fingerprint scanner. It was a clear design decision to place all three of them horizontally, similar to the way we can find them on the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 flagship – and this means… trouble. It thus has the same fault as Samsung鈥檚 flagship. When reaching for the scanner your finger touches the camera lenses. If you manage however not to touch the camera with the tip of your finger, then the fingerprint scanner really works and it takes about a second to unlock the screen.聽As I mentioned earlier the plastic back looks great but it will get scratched easily, so – thankfully – the accompanying case in the box will help you with that.NOT LIGHT, BUT SURELY A FUN TO PLAY WITHThe phone is not light I have to stress this. At 203.9 grams it’s surely heavy due to its metallic frame and the large battery you will find inside. Its dimensions are 15.279 x 7.3 x 0.98 cm, so it is smaller than the Xiaomi Mi A1 but surely a lot thicker, giving you the sense of a sturdy well built device. The phone is also available – beside of the Titanium silver variant聽– in black, titanium gold and blue. The blue one is a solid winner as it has a silver frame, turning the phone into a luxury 鈥渋 want to have it now鈥 object.聽Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramIn the bottom of the metallic frame there is a single speaker, a micro-USB port and a microphone. The sound of聽 the microphone is loud although it sounds distorted at maximum volume. The top has a 3.5mm headphone jack! On the right side of the frame you can find the SIM tray. You can fit two micro SIMs inside, or one SIM card along with a microSd card if you want to expand its storage. The power and volume buttons are placed at the left. I am left-handed user and until now (except LG鈥檚 back volume placement) I had to stretch my fingers or use the other hand in order to reach the volume buttons when on a call. So if you’re a right handed person (like almost 90% of the population) you might find the placement weird and uncomfortable. For us 鈥榣efties鈥 this is truly a gift. Using Pure 1 feels so natural to me. I hope more companies will follow on, using buttons on the left side for some of their models.Note also tha the phone supports OTG (On-The-Go) and fast charging features. With the first you can connect it to a huge range of peripherals and flash discs, while with the fast charging feature you can expect it to be fully charged in just under 2 hours.Specs and PerformanceThe M-Horse Pure 1 is using the entry level MTK6737 CPU that is paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The MTK6737 is a quad-core CPU clocked max at 1.3Ghz, announced at mid-2016. The accompanying ARM Mali-T720 MP2 GPU is two-cored and clocked at 650 MHz. All of the above combine normally, providing typical performance for the low-mid segment of the market, with an average Antutu score of approximately 36000. MHORSE Pure 1 is running Android 7.0, with some preinstalled apps and a small touch in the settings. The software runs properly without any issues. You will not break any records for faster app loading but at that price range this can be expected. This is a phone for light usage, and keeping that in mind, M-Horse has done a good job. I played some games, that do not need the latest Mediatek or Qualcomm SoCs to run smoothly, and I had no issues at all. Nougat gimmicks work too. You have two apps running in two windows simultaneously, you can swipe three fingers down to take screenshots etc. M-Horse has added an Intelligent 鈥渁ssist menu鈥 in the Setting menu, to control the available gestures like Double-tap to awake the screen etc. The other menu in the settings that I found really interesting is the one with the “Fingerprint” functions. By touching the sensor you can answer a call, take a photo, and play/pause the music and video players. FM Radio is included too in the application package, something that those of you who are always on the move will surely appreciate!Battery LifeThe phone has a 4380mAh non -removable battery. The results that I got from it aren鈥檛 that amazing. The battery lasted a full day with heavy use and has about 7h of SOT (screen-on time). It is not bad but M-Horse could do much better with a battery pack of almost 5000 mAhs. Perhaps the software needs a bit more tuning? I believe so…Camera performanceThe phone has 4 cameras and seems to be on par with the current flagship trend, as several small OEM manufacturers use it to attract more customers. On the front we have a dual 5MP + 2MP camera and on the back a dual 8MP + 2MP camera. The 鈥楥amera鈥 app offers Video, Photo, Beauty, Panorama and SLR modes. It has HDR and full menu in the settings. Given the budget nature of the smartphone, don鈥檛 expect much from the cameras. The pair of lower+higher resolution lenses is used to gather depth information, as to produce a 鈥榖okeh鈥 effect where the main object has a background blur effect. Bokeh here is simulated on the SLR mode but fails miserably – and it cannot compete against the rest of some under $250 smartphones that have a dual camera.[flickr_set id=”72157690415957854″]With plenty of light, the pictures are 鈥榦k鈥 and better than other same-range mobile phones. At low light conditions however, things are… not that good. The phone follows the path of all budget category phones, having a lot of digital noise and low quality results. At least, the Autofocus function is excellent for the price range, offering fast and reliable performance while in everyday use.ConclusionThe MHORSE Pure 1 has a full-view display and 4G/LTE connectivity, offering really decent value for it鈥檚 super low price (it costs 119$ at the time this review was published). If you want the pros of this phone, then you don’t have to try hard to find them: it’s the software it uses, along with 3GB RAM, 4G/LTE connectivity and a trully reliable fingerprint scanner at the back.Yes, I know that the placement of the scanner is as bad as it can get, but even Samsung failed at that. The camera is proper for the price you’re about to pay, just don鈥檛 use the SLR mode or expect any good results while in low light conditions. I have to say however that the HD+ resolution of its display was a bad choice. Considering the energy needing 5,7 inch display, the company wanted to keep the phone going on for longer times and HD stretches the battery duration a lot.As a left handed person I loved the button placement. This is a good, tight budget phone, that really looks amazing and could become an excellent gift for the Christmas period.Not particularly fond of fitness trackers, I decided to give the MGCool Band 3 a try and see if fitness trackers do make sense. With fitness trackers hitting the market a dime a dozen, the MGCool Band 3 does manage to make a stand for itself, although it does disappoint at certain levels. With the bar set by the Mi Band 2, let’s see if the MGCool Band 3 manages to keep up.MGCool Band 3 SpecificationsProcessorNRF51822Display0.66″ inch OLEDRAM256KPhysical Dimensions24.80 x 2.42 x 1.10 cm, 2.5 gramsOperating SystemProprietarySensorsHeart Rate Sensor, PedometerIP RatingIP68Battery105mAhConnectivityBluetooth 4.0MGCool Band 3 DesignThe Band 3, like many other fitness trackers, features a display for showing you calorie count, real-time heart rate, steps, and last but not the least, time. It would be a real bummer if time weren’t a part of the “watch”. The display is non-touch with a plastic casing on top which is susceptible to scratching and also reveals quite a lot of what is present underneath the casing when exposed to sunlight. The watch does not have any buttons but comes with a touch-sensitive surface located right below the rectangular display. On the back of the watch, lies the heart rate sensor along with the charging pins. The band is made of silicon with stainless steel buckles. Plus points to MGCool for using good quality silicon and buckles that do not wear easily. There are two band colors to chose from, Black and Red. The dial is fixed tight to the strap, so there is no way of changing the strap. The dial is about 4 cm long, but approximately only 1.7 x 1.5 cm is occupied by the display, which seems like a wastage of space. The watch fits snugly on my wrist, with there being instances when I actually forgot that I am wearing it, which is exactly what I was expecting from a tracker. The IP68 rating is a bonus! As far as the build quality is concerned, I have worn the watch day in and out and it got through with flying colours. More points to MGCool. Overall, the design of the Band 3 is good, although I would have loved to see more utilisation of the space on the dial.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramMGCool Band 3 PerformanceThe dial features multiple screens, first of which is the face, that displays the time and heart rate with the connection status. Long press the touch surface and it’ll take you to a menu which on tapping shows you three different watch faces to choose from, one being a cramped analog display. Tapping through the different options gets you to the heart rate, step count, distance walked, calories burnt, sleep tracker, stopwatch, find the phone, and finally the power off option.The heart rate sensor works flawlessly and provides real-time heart rate. The pedometer is adept at tracking steps and the distance covered, thus fulfilling the basic requirements of a fitness tracker. Once paired with the companion app, it vibrates and shows incoming calls and messages although there’s hardly anything that fits on that tiny screen.There is also a ‘raise the hand to view screen’ option that can be configured via the watch companion app. But the Band 3 lost some points amassed in the design and build quality section, in performance, primarily due to the badly designed companion app. The WearFit 2.0 is the watch companion app for the Band 3, and it is not the best out there. There are a few useless options like “Photograph”, which I assumed turned the watch into a Bluetooth remote for my camera, but it just opens up the camera module on the phone. It did manage to track my sleep cycle albeit with a few errors here and there. The battery life is not that great. I could squeeze out a maximum of two weeks with the ‘Raise hand to view’ option, which is less as compared to a few trackers out there.MGCool Band 3 VerdictAnother attractive smartphone from OPPO, but we鈥檙e going to learn if beauty is more than skin deep.OPPO is well established in the smartphone market for making some unique, memorable and highly innovative smartphones. The brand has been responsible for the excelling Find range of flagships, the innovative N series of camera phones and more recently the 鈥楻鈥 series.The current range-topper in the OPPO R series are the R11s and R11s Plus. OPPO has been kind enough to send over the R11s for me to test and review, but before we get to that we should take a look at this beauty in the flesh.While we tend to receive either the black, white or gold versions of phones to review I鈥檓 pretty happy that OPPO decided to give me the red version of this phone. If the red isn鈥檛 to your liking then you can always choose from either champagne or black.The red version of the R11s is also the perfect variant to show off OPPO鈥檚 Starry sky screen design feature. Basically a method of blending the red colour of the body into the edges of the display itself.Of course the screen 18:9 panel just like all top of the line smartphones that are launching. For the R11s OPPO is using a 6.01 inch AMOLED panel (the larger R11s Plus has a 6.43 inch display) with a FHD+ 2160 x 1080 resolution. It鈥檚 early days yet, but so far the screen looks every bit as good as it sounds.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramDespite the large display, the overall size of the OPPO R11s has a compact size that is more like a previous generation 5.5-inch phone. The actual dimensions are 155.1 x 75.5 x 7.1mm with a weight of just 153g.OPPO uses many of the same internal hardware components across both the R11s and R11s Plus. What this means is both phones have the same 64GB internal memory, the option to use a micro SD card and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 chipset.Both phones also boast OPPO鈥檚 class-leading VOOC fast charging system, which in the case of the R11s, can give the 3205mAh battery 2 hours of talk time after only 5 minutes of charging! The charging is so fast you can actually watch the % grow!Another area the R11s shares with the R11s Plus is the camera hardware. The specifications are super impressive with the dual rear cameras module running both a 20 megapixel + 16 megapixel combo with dual F1.7 apertures, This promises fast and accurate daylight processing and stunning low-light/night shots, but we鈥檒l have to test this to see if the promise lives up to performance.IF you鈥檙e a fan of selfies then you鈥檒l love the fact that OPPO has given the R11s a 20 megapixel front camera and that the camera app has all the latest beautification features ready to go. My review R11s comes with the international version of Colour OS 3.2 meaning that it has the full suite of language options built-in plus all Google Services are installed out of the box.

I鈥檝e never been a fanboy of any smartphone or laptop company as I review so many devices on a regular basis, but my relationship with Chuwi devices is as close as it gets. Ever since my first Chuwi device, the Chuwi Vi10, their products have been consistently good, and many of them great also.Chuwi Lapbook Air ReviewThis is without a doubt the finest laptop Chuwi has ever made, and they have created a perfectly balanced laptop that is sure to satisfy everybody looking at an Apollo Lake device. A metal chassis, abundance of ports, and a great screen is just half of what the Lapbook Air offers. However, it has a massive flaw, and that would be the price. The Lapbook Air commands a huge premium over the similarly performing Chuwi Lapbook 14.1 which admittedly doesn鈥檛 have as many accoutrements as this Air, but is good where it counts. Let鈥檚 see what Chuwi has done.Chuwi’s BestChuwi Lapbook Air SpecificationsProcessorIntel Apollo Lake N3450Display14.1″ 1920×1080 Glossy LCD DisplayRAM8GBStorage128GB SSDOperating SystemWindows 10Cameras5MP CameraBattery10,000mAhPhysical Dimensions32.92 x 22.05 x 2.05 cm, 1.74 kgBig thanks to Gearbest for providing this review unit.Chuwi Lapbook Air HardwareThis Chuwi laptop is worthy of the 鈥淎ir鈥 moniker. With a body made of handsome, aircraft grade aluminum, the Air cuts a very nice figure. The chromed, chamfered edges shimmer prettily with the matte body providing a striking contrast (you can tell I鈥檓 gushing at this point).We are given an excellent array of ports, two full size USB ports, a headphone jack (rarer and rarer nowadays), microSD card slot, and a full size HDMI port. Full size HDMI ports on these ultraportable laptops have been life savers on many occasions (on my Xiaomi Air 12) and I salute Chuwi for including one here. If I were to complain about port selection, it would be the lack of a USB-C port (or a microUSB port). I wish companies like Chuwi would not only include these ports but use USB-C for charging instead of regular DC ports.Opening up the laptop, I鈥檓 greeted by black bezels around the screen. These black bezels are not exactly large or unsightly, but they aren鈥檛 tiny either. The Chuwi Lapbook 14.1 had very thin side bezels, why couldn鈥檛 the Chuwi Lapbook Air? Nevertheless, the bezels while not huge are not as small as they could be either.The keyboard here provides adequate travel and adequate feedback when depressed, I was able to type very easily on this laptop. Its backlit as well, but the backlighting is somewhat uneven, making it look slightly cheap. However, the backlighting does come in very useful in dark situations. I do have one complaint, and that would be the pressure required to depress the power button. It鈥檚 the exact same as the other keys, meaning that you will definitely press it by mistake, putting the computer to sleep. I would have much preferred a power key that required significantly more pressure to press than this did.The trackpad here is excellent, very accurate, multi-finger gestures are nice and smooth, it looks like Chinese manufacturers are quickly catching up to their bigger competitors in terms of multi-finger gesture software. Left and right clicks require quite a bit of effort to press, thus I usually rely on a light tap to activate the capacitive click instead of a physical one.The trackpad surface is also unnaturally sticky, to the point of interfering with an otherwise normal finger slide. Wiping it down with a cloth does wear down the surface coating somewhat.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramExquisiteChuwi Lapbook Air DisplayThe 14.1鈥 IPS LCD is glossy, which makes it a pleasure to look at. Colours popped out of the screen and colour saturation was more than satisfactory also. Text looked crisp from regular laptop viewing distances and viewing angles are similarly good. Maximum brightness isn鈥檛 great though, maxing out at 250 nits, not bright enough even in shade outdoors.Chuwi Lapbook Air AudioThe speakers are decidedly the weakest part of the laptop. Audio volume is adequate but not loud, and audio quality involves fairly average treble, below average bass, and less than crystal clear differentiation. Its definitely useable in every day life to watch movies or Youtube, but your phone most likely has better speakers than this for listening to music.Chuwi Lapbook Air BatteryBattery life on the laptop is fairly characteristic for Apollo Lake laptops, the typical 10,000mAh battery can power the laptop for about 6 hours of web browsing if using Chrome and about 8 hours using Microsoft Edge. Understandably, this is at lower brightness levels, turn the brightness up or play a game and battery life will take a nosedive. While this isn鈥檛 ideal battery life, its not out of the ordinary for laptops utilizing the Apollo Lake chipset.Average battery lifeChuwi Lapbook Air Software & PerformanceWe have activated Windows 10 on the laptop and this is installed on a 128GB eMMC. eMMC drives aren鈥檛 the fastest, and this Sandisk eMMC is not the fastest eMMC drive on the market today. I did see slight lag here and there that I didn’t otherwise see on a faster eMMC, but you can still do many聽 basic things with ease, web browsing in Chrome, email, word etc. I was able to do some photo editing and basic video editing on this laptop but its not recommended as video editing is slow. Gaming performance is also typical of Apollo Lake devices, it struggled with 720p DOTA2, outputting 25-30FPS. Civilization 6 at 1080p was reduced to 10-15FPS, basically a slideshow at this point. This is definitely not a gaming laptop but you can run some older and lighter games on this laptop, Stardew Valley runs beautifully. The laptop does get quite warm during gaming and benchmarks, but the internal temperatures never got high enough to throttle the processor.Chuwi Lapbook Air ConnectivityChuwi has installed a dual band WiFi chip inside the laptop which was able to provide some very fast internet speeds, I experienced no issues with speed or range during my testing at all, standing with the best laptops in terms of connectivity. Bluetooth works well with all my devices also.Chuwi Lapbook Air VerdictUnfortunately, I still have to give this Lapbook Air a solid 鈥渄on鈥檛 buy鈥? Even though Chuwi has slam dunked this Lapbook Air, making this pretty much the best Apollo Lake laptop available on the market today, the price is still too high. Selling for a rather exorbitant $379.99 USD, this laptop is not worth the money when a no sale Chuwi Lapbook 14.1鈥 costs $250 and a Jumper EZBook 3 Pro costs $240. Sure, these two latter laptops are worse than the Chuwi Lapbook Air, but not $100 worse. However, bring that price down to $300 or even $330 and the Lapbook Air turns into a solid buy. Buy the Chuwi Lapbook AirOnikuma is a company well known during the past few years for providing a decent range of gaming accessories – but where they trylly do a great job is on their gaming headsets segment (ok, their keyboards too). Recently I got the Onikuma K6 Gaming Headset for a small review and I can safely say that – given its current price at 27鈧?/a> it’s a solid device that offered some impressive performance coming out of its box!It comes with an aggressive look that most gamers will love, but the real question here is: how does it sound? Well here’s my opinion of the Onikuma K6 Gaming Headset after almost 10 days of using it!聽I really enjoyed the sturdyness of the Onikuma K6, as it proved to be quite decent in every day usage. It’s a rather large headphone, with a wide band on top – able to adjust for聽length by about an inch on either side. The ear cups don’t articulate to better hit the sides of your head straight on, but there’s about an inch of pleather-coated padding on both ear cups that removes the need for extra moving parts.Grab the Onikume K6 Gaming Headset from Amazon!One of my main concerns with this headset at first was its weight, as it seems (and feels huge), but in the end I had no issues at all wearing it for several hours聽continuously. The padding on the headband is also very soft, so your head will not ache, and moreover it’s聽just tight enough to not move around, removing the need for constant adjustments while you’re playing.One of the most impressive features of the device is – no doubt- its LED lighting on the outer part of the ear cups. When lit, it looks like a small turbine I guess and in the specific model it’s in red/black color. However when you plug in the USB port that comes with the standard cable of the headset and enable the mic,聽you get an accent that switches between red, green, blue, purple, yellow and teal- depending on which product you bought.It’s a great addition for anyone who wants their gaming gear to light up, and you can always unplug the USB-A cable to go dark.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe聽Onikuma K6 comes with an almost 2,7m long cable that splits at the bottom for USB and 3.5 mm, and there’s another splitter included in the box if you’re using the headset with your PC (which requires mic-in and audio-in).聽 As for consoles, you’ll only get the extra lighting if you plug in with USB, which in a lot of cases isn’t possible because you’re hooked up to your controller. For those of you using the first-generation Xbox One controllers, a separate聽Xbox One Stereo Headset Adapter聽is needed for full functionality.聽Sound performanceI cannot complain about the sound quality, having spent only 26 Euros on this impressive headset. Obviously it’s no match to other higher quality PC Gaming headsets that cost 80-90-100+ Euros but still, it completely covered my needs. It’s great for listening to music, podcasts, some PC gaming and the bass is VERY good!聽There’s a quite thick padding around the cups that does a decent job of cutting out ambient sound around you, giving a nice immersive feeling while you’re in a game. Note that you can also cut-out the mic if you don’t want to talk, or don’t want others listening to you 馃槈What we didn’t likeAfter 10 days of heavy usage, there’s so few things that could have bothered me… in fact only one. I think that some times the headset had mic looping and those were the times that my friends at the Battlefielf Squad told me that they could hear my audio coming from across the mic – especially when the mic volume was turned to max.聽One solution was to put the mic a bit further from my face/mouth. I was then able to realise that it did a very good work, as its sensitivity was good enough to grab sounds even from 1-2 meters far.Onikuma K6 gaming headset: our verdictIf I were to choose a gaming headset based on its worth, then this would be on the first places of my list. If you’re an average user who likes to play typical PC games (NOT heavy duty), enjoys some impressive LED lighting then the聽Onikuma K6 will surely do the job for you.聽It comes with a really long cable, more that 8ft /2.5m long, and provides quite clear sound with some good bass and typical performance. I loved the padding and the size of the ear cups, as they stayed in place for long, with minimal weight on my ears. I think most of you out there will enjoy using it for several hours/day.Vivo has鑱絙een great enough to send over its latest smartphone and the first handset to boast dual front cameras. Read my unboxing and first impressions of the Vivo V5 Plus.Vivo have once again raised the bar and done something that no other smartphone brand has done before. The Vivo V5 Plus might look like your usual, super-stylish, Vivo handset but on closer inspection you’ll notice that this handset boasts a novel feature.Where as most phone makers are focussing on adding dual rear cameras to their smartphones, Vivo has decided to do things the opposite way around with the Vivo V5P and spec the phone with dual front cameras. We’re not talking cheap run of the mill sensors here either, as Vivo has opted for dual 20 mega-pixel sensors!Vivo V5 Plus UnboxingWe’ve been sent the international version of the Vivo V5P which will be readily available in Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, India, Thailand, and Indonesia. The International version of the Vivo V5P comes with English labelling on the packaging, while the device itself comes with Google Play services installed.Inside the packaging is the Vivo V5 Plus, in the usual protective plastic packaging that all Vivo device ship with.Remove the phone and list the flag and you will uncover packages that contain a charge, USB cable, headphones, silicone case, and a screen protector.With other Vivo phones that we have reviewed the headphones included have been pretty high quality units, but those included with the Vivo V5P look more like the cheap earbuds that come with the iPhone.It’s also worth noting that the Vivo V5P comes with a standard USB cable as the phone isn’t equipped with a more modern USB Type C.Vivo V5 Plus First ImpressionsUpon unboxing the Vivo V5P you will be welcomed with quite a stylish smartphone that quite plainly sees inspiration from other mid-range Vivo phones, Oppo devices and, yes, the iPhone.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe unibody design is manufactured from a single piece of alloy so while you can’t remove and replace the built in battery, there is a SIM tray in the gold body for either dual micro SIM cards or a single SIM and micro SD card.Two antenna lines break up the expanse of gold on the rear of the phone, power and volume buttons on the right, 3.5mm headphone jack, Vivo logo and rear 16 megapixel camera make up the rest of the features that are built in to the attractive鑱絞old body.Up front is a 5.5-inch FHD display, a physical button with fingerprint scanner in the chin and those dual 20 mega-pixel front cameras along the top edge of the phone. As mentioned before, these are high-end sensor boasting F2.0 apertures,鑱?P lenses and 1/2.78” sensor size!While it all looks rather good on first look, a few details are missing or not as expected on closer inspection. For one the 16 mega-pixel rear camera sits proud of the phone. I’m not really a fan of cameras that aren’t flush with the body, and the rear camera on the Vivo V5 Plus juts out more than most.Im also not really a fan of the flat 5.5-inch panel across the front of the phone. I’ve become use to a 2.5D curve on my phones and with the display on the Vivo V5 Plus sitting a couple of mm away from the metal chassis I would have preferred a curved glass panel.As it is the Vivo V5 Plus feels a little thicker than other phones, but the good news is Vivo have put that space to good use with a 3160mAh battery living inside along with dual engine fast charging technology and HIFI audio.Other specification highlights for the Vivo V5 Plus include 4GB RAM, 64GB internal memory and Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor.Vivo V5 Plus Review Coming Soon

Over the weekend, a couple of shipments from DHL meant that I spent way lesser time playing cricket and table tennis than I should’ve. Okay, a bit of an exaggeration, but the UMi Z and another phone (keep an eye out!)鑱絛id keep the geek in me busy for quite a while.The UMi Z is touted as one of the first Helio X27 phones in the market. UMi are also having a bit of a crucial time, with a rebranding underway (and possibly change in OEM, according to what I’m hearing). The UMi Z will be the last phone to feature the ‘UMi’ branding.Anyway, coming to the device itself, it’s quite a nice phone to see, hold, and to use (so far). I’ll be honest with you — the rather superlative unboxing experience does add a bit of a bias to this. The last time an unboxing felt so nice was when I received the OPPO Find 5.UMi ship the UMi Z in an all-metal svelte box, that鑱絯ill make it hard to throw away. Besides the phone, UMi also included 3 x phone covers and a tempered glass protector in our test set. None of this stuff I ever use; but I’m truly tempted to use one phone case in particular — the ‘Z’ case. Keen readers will remember UMi made a similar case for the UMi Zero sometime back.The entirety of the contents came in an ‘air cushion’. Inside were 5 boxes — one each for the three cases, tempered glass protector, and the phone.Opening up the retail box, you’re greeted by the UMi Z sitting pretty, with a tab on one end (removed before I took the picture) to take the phone out.Besides the phone, there’s some (high-quality, I must say) accessories you need to get up and running with the UMi Z — a wall charger, USB cable, SIM tray ejection pin and some literature no one’s ever cared about.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramMoving on to the cases — I’m not sure if they’re part of the standard package — we have a flip case (with a magnet on it, so its ‘smart’), a standard silicon case to protect the phone during bumps, etc., and my favourite of the three — the Z case.The flip case. …and the soft-touch (and bendy) silicon case. The swagger-enriched Z case. The phone itself looks a lot like an OPPO. Like one of those selfie expert phones that’s been selling like crazy in India. That said, it also surprisingly feels as well made as an OPPO. To be very honest, I would rather have the grey version if I had the choice. However, I must admit that the golden version is pretty eye candy too, definitely more so in real life than in pictures.I haven’t used the phone very long, but from what I can tell right now is that:it has a great build qualityit looks greatit has a touchscreen that’s not greatit has a fingerprint sensor that’s not greatYou shall be learning more in the review, and me, during the time I use this phone as my daily driver in the coming days. Meanwhile, you can have a look at the phone at the following shops: Gearbest Banggood CooliCool TomTopOukitel鈥檚 been on a rise as of late. They鈥檝e been pumping out devices at a fairly alarming rate, with device after device coming out almost monthly. So when they approached us to review one of their new devices, we were curious to see what they were like.With that they鈥檝e sent us their latest mid-range device, the Oukitel C5 Pro. Marketed as a rugged device with mid-range specs, it鈥檚 just popped up at my doorstep. So, is Oukitel biting off more than they can chew, or is the Oukitel C5 Pro going to surprise us all? Read my first impressions to see what I think.Oukitel C5 Pro: UnboxingUnlike many of the devices I鈥檝e received recently, the Oukitel C5 Pro鈥檚 box makes it clear that this is a mid-range product. Nobody鈥檚 going to look at this box and expect something premium or expensive. But is that necessarily a bad thing for the device? Let鈥檚 take a closer look at it to see. The box features a classic design, with an image of the device up front as well as some of its key selling points. There鈥檚 also an Oukitel logo up at the top of the front, with a nice orange font. The sides are the opposite with the logo in white on a bright orange background, which gives it a very clean look.On the back of the device, we鈥檝e got another image of the device and the logo, as well as the model name and some other specs. Opening the box reveals a slide-out cardboard shelf with the device in its silicone case on top, and the other accessories on the bottom. Overall, the box design is clean and functional, which contrasts the premium and svelte boxes of many other companies. The accessories included are a simple silicone case, the power adapter, the microUSB charging and data cable and the essential el cheapo earphones. A simple bunch of inclusions, pretty much the standard package for most devices. They aren鈥檛 as solid or as well built as the one鈥檚 from Blackview or Honor, but they work well.Oukitel C5 Pro: First ImpressionsThe Oukitel C5 Pro is an interesting device in terms of build quality. The device features a plastic rear that features a camo design, and it鈥檚 removable. Removing said rear reveals the dual sim card slots, the microSD card slot and the incredibly minuscule 2,000mAh battery. There鈥檚 also the speaker and its weird triangular grille.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on Telegram Moving further on the rear, we find the device鈥檚 camera and LED flash. Flip the device over, and you find the device鈥檚 display, with the various sensors and front facing camera at the top. The capacitive touch buttons at the bottom are designed after the Lollipop buttons are sadly not backlit.Going around the device is an aluminum band that holds the power button and volume rocker on the right. The top features the device鈥檚 microUSB port and 3.5mm headphone jack. On the bottom on the hand holds a singular mic, while the left is completely devoid of any ports or buttons. It feels nice and solid. I haven鈥檛 handled that many Oukitel devices aside from the U8, but there鈥檚 one big problem with the build quality instantly. You see, the C5 Pro鈥檚 design on the rear may look interesting and gives the device a unique look, but there鈥檚 a reason it鈥檚 covered with a silicon case out of the box. It鈥檚 incredibly uncomfortable to hold.While the rear panel feels incredibly tough and durable, the design on the back feels very鈥 wrong. It鈥檚 not comfortable to hold and irritating to touch. I can鈥檛 fully describe the feeling, but I鈥檒l do my best. It鈥檚 like cheap satin on a hard plastic sheet, with a texture on it. If you鈥檙e irritated by the sound of two spoons rubbing against each other, this texture will bother you to no end.Moving on, turning on the display reveals a bright vibrant showing that looks pretty nice for the price. On closer inspection however, some flaws are revealed. For starters, there鈥檚 a noticeable gap between the display and the screen. It makes sense for a rugged device, but it does ruin the immersion. Sunlight visibility and brightness settings are quite satisfactory however.Turning on the camera is also quite the disappointment. Unlike many devices these days where the pictures look decent until closer inspection, the C5 Pro鈥檚 camera is just incredibly grainy. Colors are accurate and vibrant, but the the details are completely ruined. I鈥檒l take a look at the settings to see if there鈥檚 anything I could change about it.The Apollo is Vernee’s answer to one of the most successful phones of the 2016, i.e. the鑱絆nePlus 3/3T. While that may be true on an aesthetical鑱?amp; physical level, the same cannot be said about performance & overall usability of the phone.Does that mean the Vernee Apollo has no reason to exist? Well, let’s get into the review to find out!Vernee Apollo鑱絊pecificationsProcessorMediaTek MT6797T Helio X25 @2.5GHz with鑱組ali T880 GPUDisplay5.5閳 2k 2560x1440px, LCD IPS Sharp IGZORAM4GBStorage64GB (expandable)Operating SystemAndroid 6.0 MarshmallowCameras21.0 MP SONY IMX230 PDAF Rear, 8MP Front CameraBattery3180mAhPhysical Properties188g, 152 x 75.6 x 9.3mmVernee Apollo鑱絇ackagingThe Vernee Apollo comes in a big black and heavy box. That’s (the fact that it’s heavy) not entirely because of the phone itself though; Vernee does include a pair of VR goggles to take advantage of the high resolution 2K display for Virtual Reality purposes. Inside the box we also find a 5V/7V/9V – 2A USB charger and an USB type-A to USB type-C charging cable.Vernee Apollo鑱絉eviewDesign & BuildThis department is where the Vernee Apollo shines the most. While the design is rather ordinary and similar to dozens of phones we get to see on GizChina (OnePlus 3(T) being one of them, the build quality is actually pretty top-end.The device feels solid in your hands as it features a thick metal back cover and, while that adds a bit of weight to it, I definitely prefer this to the light and generic-looking phones we find on the market, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is one example.The Apollo also comes with a 2.5D glass coating, nano molding antenna bands, up to 98% metal coverage for the body and an unique matte texture achieved through a 360-degree sand-blasting. The phone has a premium build quality — there’s no doubt about that.On another note, the camera protrudes quite a bit, but do not worry, there’s a thin metal ring that will protect it from getting scratched.Size and weight wise, it’s a big 5.5-inch phone, so no surprises about that. The weight is a bit over my comfort zone and it being made of a smooth metal surface has me holding very carefully every time. I think an ordinary silicon鑱絚ase would fix most of my problems, though. On the plus鑱絪ide, I still haven’t dropped it yet!DisplayThe biggest selling point of the Vernee Apollo is its 2K鑱?560 x 1440px鑱絊harp IGZO IPS display. It is as stunning as you would imagine, super clear and colors are appear to be quite on point.The viewing angles are above the ordinary. With that I mean that you still get to see the screen perfectly at insane angles, definitely more than what you would probably ever need. The display is also very bright but at鑱絫imes you may have to fight to avoid direct sun light as it is a tiny bit reflective (or at least it is with the included screen protector).Since the high resolution 2K display pushed Vernee to include a VR headset in the box, let’s talk about鑱絫he Virtual Reality experience in this section as well.In a word: bad. Beware, it’s not the phone’s fault, but the VR headset they include is pretty pants. It doesn’t even include a button, which is usually just a magnet! How do they think I will get my “VR experience” without a way to start it? If you guys aren’t aware, most VR demos ask you to push a button to begin them, without one you are just left in the home waiting for nothing to happen.That said, this is pretty easy to fix by buying a鑱絚heap VR headset with鑱絘n included button. I only wish鑱絍ernee had thought about it.As far as the actual VR experience goes, it is really interesting and fun. The 2K screen sure does improve the video quality; I had already tried VR on 1080p and it was much more pixelated compared to a 1440p display. I think it’s still too early to get good VR on smartphones, so take it with a grain of salt.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramHardware & PerformanceThe Vernee Apollo comes with鑱給ne of the most powerful CPUs from MediaTek, the Helio X25. This processor can go鑱絬p to 2.5GHz and is paired up with a Mali T880 GPU. Other than that, there is鑱?GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable internal storage.But鑱統ou could have found all this鑱絠nfo in the spec sheet.鑱紿ow does the phone actually perform, though? Well, the Apollo is snappy and you can definitely see an improvement over the older Helio X10. It opens up apps faster and multitasking is rather flawless. Sure there are some minor bugs here and there, but overall the user experience is pretty鑱絞ood.Games also run fine and, while the 2K resolution may only make it worse in some cases, they are still playable. Don’t expect the performance of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821, though.As many MediaTek SoCs, the Helio X25 is not immune to overheating. I’ve noticed it the most while taking photos and recording videos, that also caused the phone to discharge relatively fast. Hopefully they can fix this later in a small update, or even a new Android Nougat ROM.If you’re interested in real numbers, here are its Antutu and Geekbench scores: 4G LTE connectivity is good, at least here in Europe. It supports Band 20, which is pretty fundamental over here. Call quality is good as well, no complains about that. The phone has a Dual SIM / 1 SIM + 1 microSD setup.WiFi and GPS also work flawlessly, meanwhile I’ve been having some problems with Bluetooth (weak signal), I’m not quite sure if it’s the phone itself or my headphones got damaged somehow, I’ll update the review鑱絯hen I finally figure it out.The fingerprint scanner is鑱絧laced on the back and although not recognizing my finger 100% of the times, when it does, it’s鑱絣ightning fast. And no, I’m not over selling it, they use a special algorithm (specially after鑱絫he last update) that recognizes your fingerprint instantly, you need to try it to get an idea!Battery life is decent,鑱絙ut that also depends on your usage habits. The way I use it, I can get through a day, that is if I don’t go out snapping photos or playing games. I sure wish it had a slightly bigger battery or having a more optimized software. Battery fully charges in about 1hr and half with the included charger.Vernee Apollo鑱紺amera & PhotosThe Vernee Apollo sports a 21MP rear camera with an aperture of f/2.2. The shutter speed is fast but not the fastest,鑱絫hat said, if you take your time and hold your phone steady you can get very nice high quality sharp photos. White balance is a bit all over the place, I’ve noticed. Meanwhile the front camera is decent and has a resolution of 8 megapixels.The camera can shoot 4K videos at 30fps, but for some reason they aren’t fully compatible with YouTube.鑱絀 get an error and the upload fails. Meanwhile 1080p videos don’t suffer of this problem.Here are some photos so you can judge for yourself: Without HDR With HDR Without HDR With HDR Without HDR With HDR Creepy Crop Vernee Apollo鑱紾allery Vernee Apollo鑱絉eviewConclusionIn my opinion the Apollo is a missed opportunity for Vernee to create a very appealing鑱絆nePlus 3(T) alternative. Or at least, they shouldn’t have marketed it as such, if not just for the fact that the OnePlus 3(T) packs superior hardware and software support.If you take the鑱絍ernee Apollo鑱絙y itself though, I think it’s a rather spectacular phone. Sure, it is on the heavier side and battery life isn’t amazing, but the build quality is really outstanding, the phone is powerful, snappy and, most importantly, it rocks a stunning 2K display which in my opinion鑱絠s on-par with the best screens present on Samsung flagships and the likes. Buy the Vernee ApolloI鈥檝e been playing around with the Blackview R6 recently, as you can tell from my recent unboxing video. It鈥檚 been a very interesting device so far, and I鈥檓 actually quite pleased by it. My curiosity grew however, and I wanted to see what the company could do with a larger budget and better specs.With that, I鈥檝e received the brand new Blackview P2, which is the company鈥檚 more ambitious device. It features some really interesting specifications and design, and I鈥檝e been looking forward to getting it in my hands. Expectations are pretty high here, just in case you couldn鈥檛 tell.So can the Blackview P2 live up to my expectations, or will it fall flat? It鈥檚 still too early to tell, and I’ll need to put the device through the wringer to actually find out the answer. But for now, you can read on to see my first impressions of the device first.Blackview P2:聽UnboxingThe Blackview P2 comes in the exact same type of box that the previous R6 came in, even in all the small details. It鈥檚 still a normal white box with the same subtle design, logo location and model number sticker in the corner. Of course the model number and specs on the back are different, but aside from that it鈥檚 the same box. Inside the box we get more dejavu, with the phone鈥檚 placement being exactly the same as the R6鈥檚. Next to it is the P2鈥檚 model number, and under that there鈥檚 also the same set of accessories, with minor differences. Instead of the microUSB cable, we have a USB-C cable and an additional USB to USB-C adapter.Aside from that, we鈥檝e got the same set of things, those being the silicone case, instruction manual, el cheapo earphones and wall adapter. The wall adapter this time is different however, it鈥檚 much larger than the R6鈥檚 due to its 9V output which allows it to charge much faster. It鈥檚 somewhat disappointing that it鈥檚 so similar, but it鈥檚 still quite a nice and sturdy box. Left to right: Oukitel C5 Pro, Blackview R6, Blackview P2 Overall the P2鈥檚 box is a good quality, that鈥檚 the general impression I get from this unboxing. I鈥檝e noticed that Blackview has a certain attention to detail that is tough to find with similar companies, and it鈥檚 much appreciated. While I do feel they could鈥檝e done more to distinguish their models, it鈥檚 a minor gripe.Blackview P2:聽First ImpressionsThe Blackview P2, similar to the R6 before it, feels heavy and solid, though it鈥檚 for good reason this time. The device feels and looks sturdy, though by extension it also looks quite chubby and chunky. A metal frame wraps all around the device, presenting us with the familiar sandwich design we鈥檝e seen before.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe rear of the device is mainly aluminum, with small plastic strips at the bottom and the top. Further by the top we have the camera, LED flash and the rather small fingerprint sensor, as well as the Blackview logo. At the bottom we鈥檝e got the CE markings and a message that says 鈥楧esigned by Blackview, Assembled in China鈥? On the right of the device, we have a textured power button and the volume rocker. They鈥檙e quite comfortably placed, which is good. The top features the 3.5mm headphone jack, while the left holds the microSD and sim card slot. And at the bottom of the device we find the USB-C charging port and speaker grilles, though only the left one works.The device features a 2.5d display on the front, and the effect is very noticeable on the black model. At the top of the display, there鈥檚 the front facing camera module, notification LED and earpiece speaker. And below that, we have a pair of capacitive touch buttons which are surprisingly not backlit. This is a truly disappointing find for such a promising device, and I have no idea why Blackview did this. In terms of build quality, the Blackview P2 feels very good. Pulling more parallels from the Blackview R6, the P2 feels incredibly well built to the point that it feels comparable to more expensive devices from big companies like HTC or Huawei. The device is also very ergonomic, featuring subtle curves that make it comfy to handle despite its girth.Display-wise, the P2 may lose out on some points depending on what you prefer. Unlike the Bluboo Dual, the display on the Blackview P2 is slightly more subdued and dull. It鈥檚 still a good panel featuring some incredible viewing angles and accurate colors, it鈥檚 just not as vibrant as the competition. Depending on how you like your displays, this could either be a pro or a con. Camera performance so far ranges from very good to middling. It鈥檚 kind of like your typical Chinese phone shooter, just slightly better than usual. Taking decent photos in low light is actually possible now, but switching on HDR results in some very bad shutter lag. No verdict yet, but I can say you won鈥檛 be buying this for its camera.In terms of UI performance, everything鈥檚 been running smoothly. Most games I鈥檝e played suffered from no to minimal lag, and standard usage has been snappy. Not much to complain about here, and even the battery charges very quickly. Speaking of the battery, the 6,000mAh unit has been quite impressive so far, and I鈥檓 looking forward to putting it to the test..

Earlier this evening Andi was on Facebook Live with the Nubia Z11. Rewatch the video here!Before anyone begins watching this video please keep in mind that the first minute or so is of complete silence as Andi was messing around with the WIFI rather than keeping an eye if he was live or not!In the video Andi goes hands on with the Nubia Z11 flagship smarphone. The top of the range handset boasts 4GB RAM, Snapdragon 820 chipset, 64GB memory and 5.5-inch bezelless display. The video goes through all the features of this amazing smartphone including a few features that are unique to the Nubia range.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramNubia Z11 Video ReviewBluboo鈥檚 been playing it pretty stable these past few years. With some fairly average devices backed by some good prices, they鈥檝e managed to stay relevant for quite a long time. Recently however, the company seems to have become more inspired to make interesting devices. Or at least follow the current trends.Enter the Bluboo Dual, Bluboo鈥檚 attempt at a dual camera device after the popularity of similar devices. It鈥檚 one of their more ambitious devices in recent memory right next to the Bluboo Edge. Curious, I agreed to review it to see what Bluboo has done with the concept.So, is the Bluboo Dual an good聽and thoughtful new product聽with a smart implementation of an interesting feature, or is it merely just a gimmicky device? Read on to see my first impressions of the device.Bluboo Dual: Unboxing The front The rear The Bluboo Dual comes in a svelte black box that looks premium and expensive. It鈥檚 a big difference compared to their earlier box designs, and it鈥檚 quite the improvement too. The box feels solid and tough with enough strength to not get squashed by my hands squeezing it.On the front we get the simple Bluboo logo, along with the 鈥楤eyond your life!鈥 tagline, leaving it simple and understated. The rear features some simple specs, and mine comes with a sample sticker, which is pretty funny. Opening the box reveals the Bluboo Dual itself, and digging further reveals a pair of el cheapo earphones, a micro-USB cable, the power adapter, the sim ejector pin and an instruction booklet. Unfortunately, the folds on the inside are plain white, which I honestly feel should鈥檝e been black to mesh with the box.Unfortunately, there鈥檚 no case included in the box, which is a bummer. Most devices I test these days come with some sort of silicon case, so it鈥檚 somewhat disappointing to see there being none. Anywho, let鈥檚 move on the the meat of the story, the device itself.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramBluboo Dual: First ImpressionsThere鈥檚 not really any elegant way to say this, the Bluboo Dual looks almost exactly like a Rose Gold iPhone 7 Plus. The subtle rounded edges, the dual camera placement, the antennae design, it鈥檚 all reminiscent of Apple鈥檚 big mobile device. As a result, it鈥檚 a relatively good looking device, though quite lacking in terms of originality. In terms of build quality, the Bluboo Dual feels decent. It鈥檚 not shoddily built in any way and it鈥檚 honestly pretty well put together, but it lacks that solid, premium feel that many phones aspire to achieve. Of course, you鈥檇 be hard pressed to find a phone with that quality in the same price tag, but it鈥檚 they are becoming more frequent.The display quality of the Bluboo Dual is actually very good, almost astonishingly so too. The colors are vibrant and natural, while images and text are crispy. This also extends to the viewing angles, which are reminiscent of much more expensive devices. Bluboo鈥檚 managed to get a pretty good panel here.Camera performance so far has been鈥 Kind of lackluster honestly. If you take your time to catch an image and fiddle around in the settings you can get some real good photos. But just straight out the box speed shooting isn鈥檛 something this phone does well. Of course, that鈥檚 just an early impression, digging through more settings should yield some interesting results.Now general performance here definitely takes the back seat to the rest of the specs, which is a shame. I鈥檓 still buggering around searching for a more powerful phone setting, but for now it鈥檚 not optimal. The device definitely has the potential, it鈥檚 just needs a lot more polishing to shine.

The Breakdown If youre looking for an easy to use, affordable electric scrubber for simple hopusehold usage, then this Phaewo Electric Spin Scrubber could surely do the job! Its worth having a look for it. Quality – 7.7 Ease of use – 7.5 Performance – 8.5 Battery – 8.1 Design – 7.9 Daily tasks tend to take a lot of our free time. Any help possible is more than welcomed. Robot vacuums for example is an great accessory for everyone who works long hours and wants to have a social life or time just to relax.My personal drawback is kitchen and bathroom tasks. They look horrible by the end of the week and I dont want to use heavy-duty tile cleaners due to my asthma. Upon to this task, my kids got old enough to eat themselves, thus dropping half the food around the house, either on the wook texture or the carpets. Again usage of heavy cleaners is avoided for allergies and skin irritation.I had to find a solution and a Spin Scrubber was the answer. Phaewo has an amazing electric model with a decent price of 86 euros at the time of this review. You can buy the Phaewo Electric Spin Scrubber using the coupon: JxMUKGXV聽for the price of 70,99鈧? The coupon is valid until June 15.Buy Phaewo Electric Spin Scrubber from Geekmaxi Phaewo Electric Spin Scrubber: Technical specsGeneralType:Cleaning machineModel:聽CX-QXJ100Color:WhiteProduct DetailsPower type: rechargeableBattery: 2x 7.4V / 2000mAh lithium batteryWorking time: 90 minutesRated voltage: 8.4VMaximum power: 84WAdapter: 12V-1A line length 1.5mWeight & SizePackage Weight: 2.65kgPackage Size(L x W x H):690脳210脳100mmPackage Contents1 x Floor mop1 x waxing sponge1 x hard hair flat brush1 x Corner round brush storage base1 x storage stainless steel frame1 x User Maual1 x adapterPhaewo Electric Spin Scrubber: Main FeaturesPowerful Motor:聽The tile cleaner has an 84W motor and two 7.4V rechargeable batteries. Recharging time is about 2.5 hours for a 90-minute cleaning! You only need one device to audaciously clean everything with just the spin of a brush!Easy Storage: The cleaner comes with a free rack. Don’t waste your time on drilling a hole in your wall or in finding a space to store your grout brush and accessories! After cleaning, just hang your wet scrub brush to dry on the rack.Unique Accessories:聽It has a 24-inch long extension handle, no need to bend over your toilet to get those nasty stains. This detachable toilet cleaner’s head is flexible, so you can clean from different angles. Your package also includes 4 different brushes.Water Resistant:聽This scrubber is fully waterproof from the hinge and below. The top part, its handle, is water resistant from splashing water, so don’t immerse it in water.All-around Cleaner:聽You can use this versatile spin brush for the bathroom, different floors, car, walls, windows, glass surfaces, patio furniture, tile grout, shower, toilet, bathtub, and kitchen.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe electric spin Scrubber looks like a an electric standing broom and can be used with or without an extension. It is not heavy to pick and use on wall, but needs both hands for long time usage. It weighs 2.6 kgs. The extension handle is 60 cm long so you can reach the floor and ceiling easily. The head of the scrubber can be bent to 82 degrees for ease of use and the lower part is fully waterproof for water bucket usage. It has an 84W motor and two 7.4V / 2000mAh rechargeable lithium batteries. Recharging takes about an hour and half for 2 to 3 hours for usage depending on the speed of the motor. The 84W power motor has a torque of 40kgf.cm which offers more than enough power for most household tasks. On the scrubber body a LED Display presents the battery percentage and the speeds – you can hear/see that anyway. A button in the display works as on/1st speed/2nd speed/off. The scrubber has a metal rack and a scrubber base when on the closet. It holds the accessories together for easy reach.The accessories are a floor mop which can be used also for glass or metal surfaces like the exterior of your car. I use this mop on the wooden floor to get stains from baby food and i am planning to try it on the car. For car usage and wooden floors also, there is a round sponge. You can use it to apply wax or shining/wood protection cream.The sponge is easy to use with the wood shining cream. Both are quite easy to clean after. I was worried that the cream might not get off the sponge but a bit of soaking did the job.There is a round head brush to use in the corners – in my case glass shower corners and the joining between the wall tiles and the bathtub. I use soda, vinegar and simple cleaners diluted in water. The scrubber does the job and I dont need any toxic cleaners any more. A second hard hair flat brush comes along for floor usage and this is the one I use on the balcony tiles and carpets. The two brushes can be used on grills and/or other metal parts in the garden but I havent tried that yet. I am going to use the round head brush to clean the balcony rails out of sand when weather allows it.There is a usage manual and an adapter inside the main package. From this long description of accessories and daily usage you get the point! You can clean whatever you want! I am more than happy and I fully recommend it.The Breakdown ALLDOCUBE has released its ALLDOCUBE X tablet, It has a fantastic visual experience and offers a range of benefits and a good value for money. Its an ideal Super AMOLED tablet for listening to music, watching videos and reading web pages. DESIGN – 8.5 SCREEN – 9.5 SOUND – 9.0 PERFORMANCE – 7.0 BATTERY – 6.5 CAMERA – 6.0 SOFTWARE – 8.5 As a manufacturer, Alldocube has focused so far on notebooks and tablets. With the ALLDOCUBE X1, they had already launched a promising 8.4″ tablet, now the big brother follows. The ALLDOCUBE X is available in a larger 10.5-inch format and even offers a Super AMOLED panel! Can it meet high expectations? let’s explore and take a closer look at the ALLDOCUBE X: its features, performance and more. SPECIFICATIONSScreen : 10.5″ with a resolution of 2560×1600, Samsung Super AMOLEDProcessor聽: MediaTek MT8176 Hexa-Core CPU (2 core Cortex A72 with a frequency of up to 2.1 Ghz + 4 core Cortex A53 with a frequency of up to 1.7 Ghz)Graphics聽: IMG PowerVR GX6250Sound聽: HiFi Audio DAC AKM AK4376ARAM : 4 GBBuilt-in memory : 64 GB + expansion slot with micro SD memory cards up to 128 Gb – (there’s also a 128GB variant)Wireless interfaces聽: WiFi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 4.1Camera : Rear 8MP + front 8MPBattery聽: 8000 mAh with support for fast charging technology Pump Express 2.0Connectivity: USB type C, 3.5mm jack, fingerprint sensorOperating system聽: Android 8.1Dimensions聽: 243.68 mm 脳 173.14 mm 脳 6.9 mmWeight聽: 500 g UNBOXING Nice packaging design, a minimum of screaming elements – everything is strict and tasteful. They could not resist only at the last moment and slapped the Super AMOLED sticker. But this is really a step forward for Chinese tablets, and in this case it is really something to be proud of.Standard equipment: tablet, charger, cable, documentation and a pin to remove the tray for the memory card. As a bonus from the factory, a high-quality protective film is pasted on the screen.The charger is not simple, but with the support of fast charging technology Pump Express 2.0. It can produce 2A at 5V / 7V / 9V or 1.5A at 12V. The maximum power is 18W. In order to fully charge the tablet battery from 0% to 100%, it took 3.5 hours.DESIGN The design is classic. Unlike smartphones, you can’t get rid of the frames in the tablets. More precisely – it is possible, but ergonomics and convenience will suffer. Frames allow you to confidently hold the tablet in your hands without fear of accidental touch.In the upper part you can see the front camera and the light sensor. The front camera with fixed focus will fit only for video communications. The rear camera has autofocus, but the quality also does not shine. Why? Even in cheap smartphones they put decent cameras, but on tablets they are used extremely rarely.The back cover of the tablet is made of aluminum, treated to matte condition. The tablet is not not slippery and it is pleasant to hold it in hand. Partly due to the low weight and thickness. The thickness of 6.9 mm gives a decidedly nice sensation of use.By default, it is assumed that the tablet will be used in horizontal mode. The buttons for adjusting the volume and locking the screen are placed on the left side.The Fingerprint scanner is on the right side. Very unusual solution and very convenient! Just slide your finger across the edge and it is guaranteed to pass through the scanner. The speed and the accuracy of reading is simply amazing.In addition to the fingerprint scanner, a headphone jack and a USB type C were located on the same side for charging and connecting to a computer. Holding the tablet in a horizontal mode will not prevent you from interfering with the wires from charging or headphones, and your hands will not close the audio speakers, because they were carried to the upper bound.SCREEN The screen is clearly the strongest side of the tablet. Samsung’s Super AMOLED, and that says it all. It uses the same screen as the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 which is for the moment 3 times more expensive than the Alldocube X. Colorful color rendition, high brightness and contrast, endless black color – all these are the advantages of matrices on organic LEDs.And do not forget about the high resolution. With a screen diagonal of 10.5″ and a resolution of 2560×1600 pixels, the detailing reaches 288 ppi! Even with the Apple iPad Pro 2018, this figure is lower. The image looks super realistic, especially if you view content in high quality.All those who have seen Super AMOLED screens with their own eyes, noted that the image is very cool and even live. And since black does not emit light, the themes on a black background look especially beautiful and besides they save a lot of battery power, because unlike IPS matrices, a black pixel does not consume any energy at all.The vertical and horizontal viewing angle is about 180 degrees with absolute preservation of brightness, color and contrast of the image.Another feature of the display, although it already relates more to the software part, is the possibility to switch the tablet to reader mode, when the whole screen becomes monochrome.SOUNDWith the two stereo speakers, this tablet’s sound is amazing. I tried to watch movies with built-in sound and ran various videos from YouTube and play games – everything is perfect. The stereo effect and the volume are really felt.ALLDOCUBE X is equipped with an AKM HiFi audio chip, which is intended to significantly improve the viewing experience of movies. So it’s stereo sound is very satisfying.Of course there is something to complain about – a louder sound appears at the speakers at maximum volume, especially if the source has a high volume level. You just need to turn down the volume by a couple of tick marks.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramSOFTWARE The tablet is running the stock Android 8.1 operating system without pre-instaled apps related to the manufacturer or any bloatware. The manufacturer decided not to make any changes to the system providing the user a clean stock Android. On the main screen, you can place shortcuts and group them into folders, you can also slide up to reach a menu with all installed applications from Google, third-party apps and so on.Settings are also quite standard. In the screen settings, it is possible to hide the navigation buttons, set the automatic activation of the night mode on a schedule (reduces the intensity of blue light), increase the size of the font and the elements, and so on. With standard settings, everything looks very fine.CAMERAThe ALLDOCUBE X has an 8MP front and rear camera, the front camera has fixed focus and it will fit only for video communications. The rear camera has autofocus, but the quality also does not shine. Why? Even in cheap smartphones they put decent cameras, but on tablets they are used extremely rarely. So you can not rely on the camera of this device very much. Here is some shots taken by the rear camera聽 : PERFORMANCE The tablet has a 4Gb of RAM installed, it allows you to work in multitasking mode, open a lot of tabs in the browser and at the same time enjoy high speed when switching between applications. With the 64GB Built-in memory, you can not enjoy installing applications and games, and if you are going on a business trip or vacation – take a small film library. In addition, there is always the possibility to additionally install a memory card.The processor provides a good performance for using apps and browsing the web, in Antutu it scores 102,616 and in Geekbench it achieve 1,608 points in single-core mode and 3951 in multi-core mode. In graphics tests, the result is not very high, so I cant recommend it to gamers. This means that in demanding games, to get a comfortable FPS, you will need to reduce the graphics settings to medium or even low. Another important point – at a long load, the tablet copes well with it, the metal cover dissipates the heat quite well, so the processor does not overheat and does not throttle. The standard 15-minute stress test showed that with a long load of all cores, the performance drops to an average of 94% of the maximum possible.But still the games for this tablet are secondary. The main thing here is the playback of multimedia content, the tablet is equipped with a dual-band WiFi adapter with support for the ac standard. This standard provides a higher speed (if your router supports it). This allows you to watch online any content, even Ultra HD quality. Quality is available in Youtube up to 1440p 60 fps and the tablet reproduces it without any problems.BATTERYIn the final part, let’s talk about the autonomy. On one hand, we have a pretty good battery with a capacity of 8000 mAh, on the other hand – not the most economical processor, a very bright screen and its high resolution. Therefore, the work time will depend primarily on the type of tasks performed and the brightness value of the screen. at 50% of brightness and with video playback on Youtube (1080p quality) I was able to get 6 hours 50 minutes of on-screen time and when playing a video from the internal memory, the time increases up to 7 hours and 56 minutes.But this is of course a simple task for the processor. In the mixed use mode: video through YouTube, use of the browser, few games I came out with about 5 hours of continuous use.The charger that cames in the box support fast charging technology Pump Express 2.0. It can produce 2A at 5V / 7V / 9V or 1.5A at 12V. The maximum power is 18W. In order to fully charge the tablet battery from 0% to 100%, it took about 3.5 hours.ALLDOCUBE F40 Getting a quality quad driver in-ear headphones can be quite a costly enterprise, because models like 1more can cost up to $200. For all more budget conscious customers there are the new ALLDOCUBE F40 coming for a much lower price and sporting the same extra quality quad driver setup.So what makes the ALLDOCUBE F40 earphones special ? Well the makers decided to give it quad driver setup, featuring non-destructive 4 frequency division technology and 8 coil iron. The three dynamic drivers and one balanced armature are divided as follows :ALLDOCUBE is also trying to get some more inspiration from the nature and the anti-oxidation copper core around the neck keeps the vibration isolated from your ears.CONCLUSIONLet’s sum up. The tablet is excellent but it has a number of key features that for some people can become disadvantages:The lack of support for SIM card slot indicates that the tablet is designed mostly for home use.Graphics settings should be reduced to medium and low when playing demanding games.Mediocre autonomy.If we talk about its benefits, then there will be basically everything related to the consumption of audio and video content:Contrast, bright and colorful display with Samsung Super AMOLED premium class screen!The AKM AK4376A audio chip outputs the sound in headphones to the HiFi level. The quality is not inferior tospecialized audio devices HiFi class.Audio speakers are amazing.Fingerprint scanner on the side is very convenient and practical.The amount of RAM and internal memory corresponds to modern needs.WiFi support in standard AC, DualBand (2.4Ghz / 5Ghz).Support for fast charging and the presence of a fast charger it in the kit.Excellent apperance and build quality, materials (metal + glass).Thickness is only at 6.9 mm.OPPO wrapped up 2018 with some impressive smartphones in its portfolio including the mind-boggling Find X and the OPPO R17 Pro. The latter is what we got our hands on and we are excited to share our thoughts with you on OPPOs best R series device of last year. The OPPO R17 Pro series came to India in December and that is when I got a chance to review it which I was waiting to do eagerly. The handset has also been made official in Europe with the OPPO RX17 Pro moniker. It costs 45,990 in India and thats the territory of most flagship phones but the handset comes in just one storage and RAM variant – 8GB + 128GB. It competes with the likes of OnePlus 6T, Samsungs Galaxy S9, and other devices in that price range. Pros : Extremely fast charging – Super VOOCGood Looks and gradient colorsGreat camerasReliable performanceCons :Color OS with Android 8.1 OreoNo headphone jackNo waterproofing or wireless charging DesignMany smartphone enthusiasts know the parallels drawn between OnePlus phones and OPPOs R series. The R17 Pro continues that idea while adding some sparkle to the rear side of the R17 Pro. While the front of the handset has a teardrop notch and a screen very similar to the OnePlus 6T with very slim bezels (even at the bottom), the rear comes with two gradient colour options – Emerald Green (the one which I have) and Radiant Mist. This adds to the attractiveness instead of a simple all-Black coating like the OnePlus 6T. The build quality and materials are also top notch but I hate the slippy glass back as it gives me jitters every time I imagine it falling from my hand. As a matter of fact, it did fall off my pocket and hand a couple of times, thankfully from a relatively low-height area. It survived without any major damage. There were noticeable scuffs on the edges and sides after the fall,聽though the back had no signs of damage at all. OPPO bundles a rubber case with the device but I didnt use it for most of the time as it defeats the purpose of having such an attractive-looking smartphone. To add to that, the expensive handset doesnt come with waterproofing or wireless charging which OPPO should have added to such a premium phone. However, the majority of OPPOs high-end devices dont come with the feature but I would have been overjoyed to have these two things as a feature set for the R17 Pro.聽Display The OPPO R17 Pros Full-HD+ AMOLED panel is top notch. It is one of the areas where parent OPPO beats OnePlus 6T. In fact, coming from a OnePlus 6T itself, I quickly noticed the brightness of the display is much better than the OnePlus device. While one could struggle with brightness issues in outdoor scenarios with the OnePlus flagship, there will be no such fears with the R17 Pro. It also has a good level of low brightness and viewing angles are also no problem. In addition, Cornings latest Gorilla Glass 6 gives peace of mind to users, in case they fear an accidental drop. It comes with a pre-applied screen protector which is a nice gesture from OPPO. Being an AMOLED, the blacks and whites are impressive, however, there are no built-in software settings to tune the colors if a user wants warmer or cooler options. All in all, a great display with a pleasurable viewing experience is what we get on the OPPO R17 Pro. Performance  For a premium handset that is priced Rs 46,000, the R17 Pro with a Snapdragon 710 SoC definitely seems underpowered on paper. Thats more so in India with many lower-priced devices sporting a Snapdragon 845 SoC. Heck, the POCO F1 comes at less than half the price but still has a Snapdragon 845 SoC. While theres no denying that the flagship SoC is obviously better, I for one did not notice any difference in regular usage one bit. There was no lag or frame drops, or stutters on the R17 Pro anywhere in my entire time of use. The high amount of RAM and storage definitely helps but suffice to say the Snapdragon 710 SoC is no slouch and is a reliable performer. Sound quality on the handset is pretty loud and it still doesn’t distort at high volumes although the placement of the speaker leaves a lot to be desired, as other reviewers have also pointed out.As mentioned earlier, day-to-day usage is a breeze although OPPO could learn the art of RAM management from OnePlus. Apps opened fairly fast and I have had no crashes so far. Moderate gaming is also a great experience, especially with the big screen and OPPOs Game Space software that kicks in automatically once you fire up a title. There are almost no noticeable frame drops or lag on titles that I played such as Asphalt 9.Heavy gaming is also no problem with even the most tasking graphics. I played Asphalt 9 and for a few races and I couldnt find any reason to complain. While technically the Snapdragon 710 SoC is a minus on paper for the OPPO R17 Pro, in terms of real-life usage the margins are really thin and I think thats what buyers should see.Software: Color OS 5.2 (Android Oreo 8.1)Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on Telegram Color OS, is in my opinion, the biggest handicap of an otherwise outstanding flagship device from OPPO here. I cant stand to see icons littered all over my home screen and OPPO stays stubborn year after year not including a simple drawer option for those who need it. Take a look at EMUI. Despite being a Chinese ROM, theyve come far and give their users the option of an app drawer if they need it. Is that really hard to do? Thankfully some other annoyances like the persistent notifications have been addressed by the company and are a lot better now. I also direly need a Google Feed integration on my home screen which is not what OPPO plans to add in its Color OS launcher. Theres also no swipe down to show notifications which is another big pain on Color OS. Not to mention the absence of an AOD display on the lock screen which is super useful on the likes of OnePlus 6T. 聽聽聽Hence, Ive moved to a custom launcher called Ruthless. It is close to AmirZs Rootless Launcher but has more customization options, and in my opinion, much better. Not all is gloom and doom though about Color OS. There are some features which arent so bad like the super fast face unlock and the remarkably more accurate on-screen fingerprint reader. Theres a Theme Store for wallpapers and also a Lock screen Magazine that automatically changes wallpapers on the lock screen which is a good feature to have. The battery endurance is also good on the handset although I dont understand why OPPO will not show detailed battery usage stats. like SoT in the battery usage section. Theres also a Phone Manager app which proves handy when you want to clean junk cache files and data in a few taps. OPPO has released Color OS 6.0 with Android Pie in China and I believe the R17 Pro will be one of the first handsets along with Find X to receive the update, whenever that happens. As of now, OPPO has not provided any timelines, as usual. 聽Camera The OPPO R17 Pro is one of the few phones that proves strong in the most vital areas for a high-end smartphone. It has a good build, design, a good battery, a good processor, and also a pretty good camera. Its OPPOs first handset with a triple camera setup which consists of a 12MP + 20MP + 3D TOF sensor. Although, the latter doesnt seem to be working right now but might be activated in the future. Its also the first to boast variable aperture which adds to the quality of images in specific scenarios. It also has OIS for video and supports slow-mo as well as regular video recording at 1080p. However, the camera app is pretty basic but theres an expert mode if youre looking for to do for more granular manual controls. Daylight images are impressive with balanced background and highlights without a lot of oversharpening. Colors are a bit over-emphasized but if you like that, you will be pleased. 聽聽Low-light images are also surprisingly good because of the f/1.5 aperture and the impressive 1.4um pixel size. Theres a dedicated Night photography mode which works well and manages to reduce noise and reproduces good image colors. AI Beautification can be turned on or off if its an annoyance. Portrait mode seems to botch up the borders badly in some cases but works fine in other cases. Theres an AR sticker mode as well in the camera app but I dont think its good enough, to be honest. Apples Animoji is miles ahead and OPPO has a lot of work to do.Selfies turn out to be pretty good as well with good details and sharpness as well as color accuracy. Thankfully, the beauty mode can be turned off when you want it. As for the portrait mode, it works great when it does with edge detection but misses the point sometimes. There’s 1080p video recording and slow-mo available as well.BatteryBattery on the OPPO R17 Pro is as big as the OnePlus 6T and endurance is also close but slightly lower than its OnePlus counterpart. However, both can last you a day with moderate to even heavy usage. When Im working, I use my smartphone sparsely but when Im done I do a lot of media consumption, social media and some gaming as well. Despite that, I rarely felt the need to charge the phone mid-day even when I used it heavily. 聽What really puts the OPPO R17 Pro in a league of its own is the Super VOOC charge, which is mind-blowing to say the least. I was very impressed with OPPO when they first debuted VOOC back with the OPPO Find 7 some years back. And Super VOOC has spoiled me for every other phone in the industry. Suffice to say, its the current industry leader in the fast charging aspect. You can get around a 40% charge within just 10 minutes. And within 20 minutes, youll have around 70% charge which is good to last you easily for a full day if youre an average user. I have never had such peace of mind ever (with regards to battery) in my several years of using a smartphone and thats saying a lot. That said, the biggest downside is that the fast charging works only with OPPOs bundled charging brick. Youll have to carry it around to take advantage. Or, you could buy OPPOs fast charging power bank which is only available in China right now. There are battery saving options as well which goes the standard route to saving some juice for you but I didnt feel the need of it any time of my lengthy usage. Final ThoughtsThe OPPO R17 Pro is a well-rounded package in the flagship arena that gets most of the stuff right. It has a great display, a satisfying camera, a reliable battery with jaw-dropping fast charge, and the looks of a premium handset. There are things like the software that leaves more to desire but, as we all know, those can easily be addressed to a certain extent with launchers from the Play Store. Thankfully, OPPO also included a pair of USB-C earphones which ease your pain of not having a 3.5mm headphone jack.The Breakdown NOA N10 is one surely impressive device, packed with an elegant ceramic body and in my humble opinion it comes out as a semi-luxury phone, one with a price you cannot unsee. If you spend your day with calls, texting, facebook, instagram, and you like having an... affordable jewel in your hands, then you should really add NOA N10 as an option. Appearance – 8.0 Battery life – 6.5 Audio – 8.8 Camera – 7.0 Software – 7.9 Performance – 7.9 Internationally known for the European EISA Awards, EISA聽 (Expert Imaging and Sound Association) started in 1982 when the editors-in-chief from five European photo magazines came together to select The Camera of the Year for the first time. The Association has members in 30 countries located in Europe, Australia, United States, and recently new members from Canada, Japan, India and Hong Kong/China. For over 35 years this organization has chosen the best consumer electronics every year. Over 50 special interest magazines, covering aspects such as audio, video, home cinemas, auto, photo and mobile technologies decide which devices will be the recipients of EISA awards.The award carry a lot of prestige especially to the European market and are much sought from the major electronics companies. Last September EISA presented the awards for 2018-2019 in Berlin. Best smartphone was awarded to Huawei P20 Pro, Nokia 7 Plus took the Consumer smartphone award, Honor 10 took the Lifestyle smartphones award and NOA N10 took the Best Buy smartphone award. NOA who? is a thought coming to many as the much coveted Best Buy (or in market lingo Best VFM) was awarded to an unknown company and not to Xiaomi, Honor or Nokia, globally known for their VFM smartphones.NOA line is created from Hangar18, a Croatian smartphone manufacturer with a strong presence in the SE European region, and a tendency of growth and expansion into the rest of Europe. NOA strives to be the leader in the B smartphone market segment following affordable premium philosophy, and has made great inroads in this field during the last five years.NOA N10 has reached Gizchina HQ and we are curious to see how this outsider managed to win, the most likely to succeed, Far East models on this smartphone category.It has a full notched display, 4GB of RAM, stock Android Oreo, a large 3600mAh battery, three 16MP cameras, 4G LTE, DTS sound and a ceramic back! Face Unlock and a shiny gradient back with a fingerprint sensor, complete this more that good, set of characteristics. The company provides warranty for 2 years.NOA N10 CharacteristicsOS:聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Android 8.1 OreoSoC: 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 MediaTek Helio P23 (MT6763V/WT),CPU: 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 4x 2.5 GHz ARM Cortex-A53, 4x 2.0 GHz ARM Cortex-A53, Cores: 8GPU: 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 ARM Mali-G71 MP2, 700 MHz, Cores: 2ROM:聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 64GB ROM, TF card up to 128GBRAM:聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 4GB LPDDR4x RAM, 1600 MHDisplay: 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 6.18 in, IPS, 1080 x 2246 pixelsFront Camera: 16.0MP cameraBack Camera: 16.0MP + 16.0MP Sony IMX499 Exmor RS, dual back cameraNetwork: 聽聽聽聽聽聽 GSM:850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz, UMTS: 850, 900, 2100 MHz, LTE (FDD): Bands 1, 3, 7, 8, 20, LTE (TDD): Bands 38, 39, 40, 41Bands: 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 5GHz 802.11 b, g, n, Dual band, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wi-Fi DirectSIM:聽聽聽 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 2 Nano SIM Cards, Dual standbyBluetooth:聽聽聽聽聽 4.0 A2DPBattery: 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 3600 mAh, Li-PolymerExtras: 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Gyroscope, Proximity Sensor, GPSDimensions: 75.6 x 155 x 7.9 mmWeight: 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 168 gUnboxingThe smartphone arrives in a white hard paper box. The brand name is written with shiny grey details on top. The bottom of the box has a grey sticker with black letters describing the characteristics and various other information. Inside you will find:1 X NOA N10 smartphone1 X Power adapter1 X USB cable1 X USB-C headphones1 X SIM card eject tool1 X Screen protector1 X Silicone Case1 X Manual and 1 easy to setup guideThe retail box is excellent and full. I like the tempered glass and the headphones, both seen rarely in a smartphones packaging nowadays. N10 arrives protected in sticker, plastic film on the display and plastic film on the back with IMEI / Serial Number details. The packaging is a good proof of what I am about to see later on.DesignThe mobile comes only in Grey. The colour looks like light silver with a distinct metallic mottled finish that reminds me of last years Honor smartphones. It is very masculine and modern. It is clearly one of the best greys you can see in smartphones. It looks astonishingly good in the sun. Very elegant design!In the front we can see a huge 6.18 inch display with a 19:9 aspect ratio. The notch in the top resembles Huawei P20 – it is smaller that my daily driver, Xiaomi Mi 8. There is no protection here that i know of – this is the reason probably the company provides a tempered glass in the retail box.The notch is the place where you can find the microphone, the frontal single selfie camera and the usual pack of sensors. There is no LED flash here so your selfies will suffer in low light conditions. Unfortunately there is no notification light either. The microphone is wide so you wont have to align the smartphone to your ear for a clear sound, an issue found in many smartphones like OnePlus 6.There are very small bezels on the side of the display and a bigger one on the bottom. This is a full view display with excellent ratio to the body. There are no physical keys on the lower bezel.The frame is metallic (aluminum) with matte grey colour. In the right side it has three metallic buttons, two for the volume control and one for the power/lock button. There is a small rattling noise and partial movement when you move your fingers on them but nothing serious to complain about. On the top there is a noise cancellation microphone. In the left you can see a double SIM tray. On the lower part you will find the USB type C port, another noise cancellation microphone on the left of it and a speaker tray on the right of it. As you understood from the retail box content there is no 3.5 mm audio jack. You can use the included headphones, another set of USB-C type headphones or bluetooth ones. In the sides, near the top and on the bottom you can see the four antenna band. They are distinct due to a near black tone of gray.The back panel is made from ceramic material, with curves very similar to those of the Xiaomi Mi 8. Ceramic is much stronger than glass, very sturdy and allows no scratches after lengthy usage.The way the back panel and the side panel join together is perfect. The shiny gradient coloring is just amazing as I have already told you. The glass is a fingerprint magnet as it is usual to the material. The transparent silicone case that comes along in the retail box is perfect,聽 as you could see the glass panel in all of its glory. In the top center of the panel you can find the double camera. On its right there is a double LED flash and on the bottom the fingertip sensor. Under the sensor you can see the brand. The whole vertical area (camera, sensor, logo) are included in a matte grey colored vertical box, that makes a nice antithesis with the rest of the shiny colour.NOA N10 has a small bulge in the camera setup. I use my smartphone a lot on the office desk and I simply hate bulges. Whenever I try to write something most of the smartphones slide like a boat. At least the case, when on, stops any movement.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramNear the bottom of the panel we can see the dts logo, a designed in EU by NOA and CE branding.聽The phone has no waterproof protection. In general this is a wonderful exterior, similar to Xiaomi Mi 8 in all but the camera setup, the smaller notch and the width. N10 is a bit wider. The quality is equal to Xiaomis flagship in any aspect and that is an amazing accomplishment for the small Croatian company.Not surprised NOA got the EISA award, at least from this aspect.HardwareThe screen is the main selling point with a 6.18 inch, 19:9, IPS INCELL display. It has a FHD+ resolution (1080 x 2246) that covers almost 90% of the front with 403 ppi. The display is bright and vivid and has good contrast. It is visible under the midday sun but not as much as I wanted. Viewing angles are excellent. The display is made from AU Optronics Corp., a Taiwanese company, reputed for its quality products. This smartphone comes with the MT6763V/WT SoC known also as Helio P23. It is an 8-core processor with 8 Cortex-A53 cores working at a frequency of 2.5GHz. It is accompanied by a ARM Mali-G71 MP2 GPU working to help with the graphics. Helio P23 and Snapdragon 625 have stellar performance in stability and power usage – they are used today by many companies. There are 4GB of LPDDR4x RAM to assist and G71 is a good GPU. My opinion is that a more modern SoC could be used here. N10 could do much more with a Snapdragon 600 series SoC, and that could attract more people to the brand and the model.The daily usage should not suffer, I had no issues in any task. Of course heavy gaming or multitasking stress the SoC. Benchmark results are better that any other Helio P23 driven smartphone since N10 has a working speed of 2.5 GHz and not the usual 2.0GHz. There are 64GB of ROM in the phone. The internal storage can expand to 128GB with an external SDcard placed in the SIM tray. It supports dual SIM functionality with two nano-SIMs or a nano-SIM and the aforementioned microSD card. Connectivity is great. GSM:850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz, UMTS: 850, 900, 2100 MHz, LTE (FDD): Bands 1, 3, 7, 8, 20, LTE (TDD): Bands 38, 39, 40, 41. The phone is an excellent companion for your travels. The only caveat here is the lack of NFC. The smartphone has a good sensor pack having GPS (A-GPS, Beidou, GLONASS, GPS), Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Gyroscope, Proximity Sensor and FM Radio. Bluetooth has the 4.0 Specification.Navigation works fine with satellites being found fast and having a good precision.聽Audio is more than good, it is excellent!!!聽It supports DTS. That a comprehensive audio solution which offers an improved stereo sound image, internal speaker optimization and a panoramic experience over headphones. There is only a single external speaker at the bottom.Xiaomi Mi 8 sounds like a entry phone next to N10! I really like the execution of the audio department on this smartphone. Wifi is able to connect to 802.11 a/b/g/n, 2.4G/5GHz Dual-band.Call quality is excellent and video calls are good without any issues. Selfie cam has no LED, so keep in mind to have a light source near, when you want to make a video call.SoftwareThe operating system found in the smartphone is stock Android 8.1. I dont know whether N10 will be updated to Android 9 Pie. Last security patch is from October 2018. I had no OTA update and I have no idea whether this smartphone is to be updated constantly or at all. In the settings NOA has added a few touches here and there. In the notification area, we can see NOA care. This is a paid service that covers damages to the phone not included in the warranty. A manual in Serbo-Croatian is included as an application. Intelligent assist has options to use the fingerprint sensor to answer a call, take a photo etc. You can hide the navigation bar from here or alter the position of the buttons. There is the typical three-pointer gesture to take a screenshot that I use a lot, a flip phone to silent option, and some information on Split Screen usage.You can find also a DuraSpeed setting that allows fine-tuned control over foreground and background apps on a toggle based system. If you want more performance you can toggle your prefered application and it will stop running in the background – there will be no updates or notifications on it.Face Unlock worked properly, it is fast and works even in low light environment!!! Is there an IR camera hidden somewhere? Face Unlock is not a 100% safe method to use and I prefer the fast and reliable fingerprint sensor. I can not tell that I am happy with the speed of both the biometric sensors.聽Multitasking works as long you wont open 100 apps – the software tends to kill them, so the SoC can handle the latest processes.Gaming considering the SoC is doable with low graphic settings. Due to the high clocking speed and ARM Mali-G71 MP2 GPU this smartphone is better at gaming than any other Helio P23 or Snapdragon 625 handsets. NOA could add more than 4GB of RAM to keep the smartphone run smoothly for a couple more years.PUBG is playable at medium graphic settings. I did not see the usual lagging typical to P23 SoCs, possibly due to the SoC having a working speed of 2.5GHz and not 2.0GHz.聽Sound is good and loud. There is a single speaker. This is not a phone for audiophiles, but for daily usage I was more than satisfied with the work done from DTA. Buy NOA N10 Smartphone here CameraN10 has a set of Sony IMX 499 sensors in the back. These Sonys sensors are not known to me and I had to check what NOA is claiming with my own eyes. N10 uses the couple of 16 MP cameras to create an image with a resolution of 96 full MPs using photo oversampling technology.聽A third 16MP camera exists in the front that works without the assistance of another flash. As mentioned facial recognition is possible from the selfie-cam. The camera application has all the basic stuff you expect these days. The Settings menu allows a lot of configuration – i like a lot the option for noise reduction in video recording. There are six modes to utilise: HD – a mode where the user is asked to keep N10 stable. A picture is taken with a lot of processing, with a square format and a lot of details. Video recording with flash support. Photo with flash, HDR and filter support. Beauty mode has a lot of configurations and a gradient scale for adding them to our subject face. SLR mode is the specialized bokeh mode. Finally there is Panorama.Selfies are supported by Video, Photo, Beauty and SLR. N10 is a good camera phone.Taking pictures with the main camera is an enjoyable experience. As you can see from the samples the results are more than good outside, even in Athens cloudy sky. Zooming is good, without excelling in the area since it is based solely in software. Nightly or low light shots have a lot of noise and details are blurry but not bad. HDR worked properly without losing details or sharpness. SLR was not of my liking, even with the two Sony lenses. I think NOA needs to update their software in this area. SLR in selfies the single camera uses software to blur the background – the results are bad. This is a disadvantage of all single front camera phones and N10 specific. While the front lense is not mentioned the pictures are great with excellent color and details. Even with the laptop monitor light the results were perfect, more natural than my Mi 8 20MP front lense.Video recording is up to 1080p. The results are ok, mediocre in bright light, extra noisy in low light. The smartphone has no OIS or EIS and the image is shaking so you need to keep your hand steady, which is not always possible. The noise recording is clear and loud.BatteryNOA N10 has a Li-Pol, non removable, 3600 mAh battery. With medium usage the battery is more than capable to keep the phone on all day, as with continuous video playback I got 6 hours of screen-on-time.Sadly there is no fast charging, and the 5V charger takes more than one and half hour to fully charge the battery.ConclusionN10 provides excellent sound and a full clear screen for browsing and media consuming. Camera is quite good in selfies, very good during the day. Night shots depend on the light source. Bokeh and zoom are not to be used in my opinion. Video again is dependant from the light. N10 has no EIS and the results are depending this time from how stable are your hands. With this hardware NOA could do much more. I take comfort that only big companies with big price tags have great results, and that is not always the rule.SoC and RAM specs, come directly from 2017, there is no fast charging and there is a possibility that we might never see an OTA update. So take into account that this is not a device for exsessive gaming or multitasking.

We know gaming products cost relatively more. Take any product made for gamers and you will see they are priced higher. This is true for almost all categories of game products, including laptops, PCs, mice, keyboards, etc. However, this is logical 鈥 gamers have higher requirements concerning not only the appearance but also performance. Recently, in October 2018, Onikuma, which is known in the game industry as the maker of cheap game headphones, launched a new product called K1 Pro. Actually, many game products at this price tag are not able to provide good performance and dont have good build quality. But those who are familiar with this brand should know the Onikuma K1 Pro differs from its rivals a lot.In fact, Onikuma is one of the best-selling budget gaming headset brands on Amazon. It has offered a couple of game headsets that were selling in millions. Among them, the K6, K5, and others have already proven this brand can design good headphones. In this sense, the K1 Pro is a good addition to its line of cheap game headsets.ONIKUMA K1 Pro DesignThe ONIKUMA K1 Pro looks like an ordinary game headset. We mean it has a good combination of different colors (blue and black or red and black). They breathe life into the appearance. This headphone costs around $30, but its look makes us think as we are dealing with a game headphone from a top echelon. This product stands out due to its rugged construction. On both over-ear ear pads and headband, there is a synthetic soft and comfortable leather padding. Of course, there may be many users that dont like leather earpads on cheap products because most of them become a sweaty mess. We mean many gamers prefer a mesh fabric. But this is not the case. The ONIKUMA K1 Pro uses a quality leather, which wont ravel even after long usage. As you guess, the headband is adjustable.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe mic and the headset are fixed on the left ear cup, while the mic switch and volume control are placed on a knob along the knitted audio string. The Onikuma K1 Pro has a cable of 2.2m long. In the end, it has a 3.5mm plug as well as a USB plug to cover all the devices it will connect. To see the LED light effect you have to plug the USB.ONIKUMA K1 Audio PerformanceAs said at the beginning of this review, we pointed out the game headsets should provide an excellent sound experience. Its because they should help users not only to immerse into the game fully but also to hear every voice and detect the enemys position. The ONIKUMA K1 Pro provides an amazing 7.1 surround music performance. It handles bass tests perfectly, without a sound distortion even at maximum volumes.This doesnt mean the Onikuma K1 Pro was expected to provide a subtle audio performance. But due to the high precision 50mm drivers and 3D surround sound effect, it does an excellent job at delivering a crisp sound with better volume ranges. The Onikuma K1 Pro is also a well-balanced product. Thus, both ear pads provide an identical sound volume. Moreover, this simply means gamers wont have to add volume when one ear cup is off.When playing with your friends or online teammates, microphone quality is significant when communicating. Thanks to the noise reduction, the Onikuma K1 Pro helps you pick up your and your friends voice clearly and let the outside noise out of your talk. Actually, the omnidirectional microphone is one of the major improvements made in comparison to old models.The Onikuma K1 Pro is a wired gaming headset that can work with nearly all the latest mainstream gaming devices, including the PlayStation PS4/PS4 Pro, iPad, PSP, as well as the PC, laptop and smartphones with a 3.5mm audio jack. It is also compatible with Microsoft Xbox using a Microsoft adapter. Unfortunately, the latter is not included in the box.When testing the ONIKUMA K1 Pro on the PS4, and the top-of-the-class sub-bass lows give the varied guns plenty of punch. So it wont let you fully immerse in the virtual world you want and your ears wont deafen of sneaky gunshots and explosions. You will hear the personages voice cues and barked orders are clearly picked. However, this headphone performs perfectly in single-player games. The output is really impressive. The background music and various sound effects come out clearly.We know gaming products cost relatively more. Take any product made for gamers and you will see they are priced higher. This is true for almost all categories of game products, including laptops, PCs, mice, keyboards, etc. However, this is logical 鈥 gamers have higher requirements concerning not only the appearance but also performance. Recently, in October 2018, Onikuma, which is known in the game industry as the maker of cheap game headphones, launched a new product called K1 Pro. Actually, many game products at this price tag are not able to provide good performance and dont have good build quality. But those who are familiar with this brand should know the Onikuma K1 Pro differs from its rivals a lot.In fact, Onikuma is one of the best-selling budget gaming headset brands on Amazon. It has offered a couple of game headsets that were selling in millions. Among them, the K6, K5, and others have already proven this brand can design good headphones. In this sense, the K1 Pro is a good addition to its line of cheap game headsets.ONIKUMA K1 Pro DesignThe ONIKUMA K1 Pro looks like an ordinary game headset. We mean it has a good combination of different colors (blue and black or red and black). They breathe life into the appearance. This headphone costs around $30, but its look makes us think as we are dealing with a game headphone from a top echelon. This product stands out due to its rugged construction. On both over-ear ear pads and headband, there is a synthetic soft and comfortable leather padding. Of course, there may be many users that dont like leather earpads on cheap products because most of them become a sweaty mess. We mean many gamers prefer a mesh fabric. But this is not the case. The ONIKUMA K1 Pro uses a quality leather, which wont ravel even after long usage. As you guess, the headband is adjustable.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe mic and the headset are fixed on the left ear cup, while the mic switch and volume control are placed on a knob along the knitted audio string. The Onikuma K1 Pro has a cable of 2.2m long. In the end, it has a 3.5mm plug as well as a USB plug to cover all the devices it will connect. To see the LED light effect you have to plug the USB.ONIKUMA K1 Audio PerformanceAs said at the beginning of this review, we pointed out the game headsets should provide an excellent sound experience. Its because they should help users not only to immerse into the game fully but also to hear every voice and detect the enemys position. The ONIKUMA K1 Pro provides an amazing 7.1 surround music performance. It handles bass tests perfectly, without a sound distortion even at maximum volumes.This doesnt mean the Onikuma K1 Pro was expected to provide a subtle audio performance. But due to the high precision 50mm drivers and 3D surround sound effect, it does an excellent job at delivering a crisp sound with better volume ranges. The Onikuma K1 Pro is also a well-balanced product. Thus, both ear pads provide an identical sound volume. Moreover, this simply means gamers wont have to add volume when one ear cup is off.When playing with your friends or online teammates, microphone quality is significant when communicating. Thanks to the noise reduction, the Onikuma K1 Pro helps you pick up your and your friends voice clearly and let the outside noise out of your talk. Actually, the omnidirectional microphone is one of the major improvements made in comparison to old models.The Onikuma K1 Pro is a wired gaming headset that can work with nearly all the latest mainstream gaming devices, including the PlayStation PS4/PS4 Pro, iPad, PSP, as well as the PC, laptop and smartphones with a 3.5mm audio jack. It is also compatible with Microsoft Xbox using a Microsoft adapter. Unfortunately, the latter is not included in the box.When testing the ONIKUMA K1 Pro on the PS4, and the top-of-the-class sub-bass lows give the varied guns plenty of punch. So it wont let you fully immerse in the virtual world you want and your ears wont deafen of sneaky gunshots and explosions. You will hear the personages voice cues and barked orders are clearly picked. However, this headphone performs perfectly in single-player games. The output is really impressive. The background music and various sound effects come out clearly.Onikuma is a company well known during the past few years for providing a decent range of gaming accessories – but where they trylly do a great job is on their gaming headsets segment (ok, their keyboards too). Recently I got the Onikuma K6 Gaming Headset for a small review and I can safely say that – given its current price at 27鈧 it’s a solid device that offered some impressive performance coming out of its box!It comes with an aggressive look that most gamers will love, but the real question here is: how does it sound? Well here’s my opinion of the Onikuma K6 Gaming Headset after almost 10 days of using it!聽I really enjoyed the sturdyness of the Onikuma K6, as it proved to be quite decent in every day usage. It’s a rather large headphone, with a wide band on top – able to adjust for聽length by about an inch on either side. The ear cups don’t articulate to better hit the sides of your head straight on, but there’s about an inch of pleather-coated padding on both ear cups that removes the need for extra moving parts.Grab the Onikume K6 Gaming Headset from Amazon!One of my main concerns with this headset at first was its weight, as it seems (and feels huge), but in the end I had no issues at all wearing it for several hours聽continuously. The padding on the headband is also very soft, so your head will not ache, and moreover it’s聽just tight enough to not move around, removing the need for constant adjustments while you’re playing.One of the most impressive features of the device is – no doubt- its LED lighting on the outer part of the ear cups. When lit, it looks like a small turbine I guess and in the specific model it’s in red/black color. However when you plug in the USB port that comes with the standard cable of the headset and enable the mic,聽you get an accent that switches between red, green, blue, purple, yellow and teal- depending on which product you bought.It’s a great addition for anyone who wants their gaming gear to light up, and you can always unplug the USB-A cable to go dark.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe聽Onikuma K6 comes with an almost 2,7m long cable that splits at the bottom for USB and 3.5 mm, and there’s another splitter included in the box if you’re using the headset with your PC (which requires mic-in and audio-in).聽 As for consoles, you’ll only get the extra lighting if you plug in with USB, which in a lot of cases isn’t possible because you’re hooked up to your controller. For those of you using the first-generation Xbox One controllers, a separate聽Xbox One Stereo Headset Adapter聽is needed for full functionality.聽Sound performanceI cannot complain about the sound quality, having spent only 26 Euros on this impressive headset. Obviously it’s no match to other higher quality PC Gaming headsets that cost 80-90-100+ Euros but still, it completely covered my needs. It’s great for listening to music, podcasts, some PC gaming and the bass is VERY good!聽There’s a quite thick padding around the cups that does a decent job of cutting out ambient sound around you, giving a nice immersive feeling while you’re in a game. Note that you can also cut-out the mic if you don’t want to talk, or don’t want others listening to you 馃槈What we didn’t likeAfter 10 days of heavy usage, there’s so few things that could have bothered me… in fact only one. I think that some times the headset had mic looping and those were the times that my friends at the Battlefielf Squad told me that they could hear my audio coming from across the mic – especially when the mic volume was turned to max.聽One solution was to put the mic a bit further from my face/mouth. I was then able to realise that it did a very good work, as its sensitivity was good enough to grab sounds even from 1-2 meters far.Onikuma K6 gaming headset: our verdictIf I were to choose a gaming headset based on its worth, then this would be on the first places of my list. If you’re an average user who likes to play typical PC games (NOT heavy duty), enjoys some impressive LED lighting then the聽Onikuma K6 will surely do the job for you.聽It comes with a really long cable, more that 8ft /2.5m long, and provides quite clear sound with some good bass and typical performance. I loved the padding and the size of the ear cups, as they stayed in place for long, with minimal weight on my ears. I think most of you out there will enjoy using it for several hours/day.Tribit is one of those companies that has managed to built a certain reputation over the years, especially when it comes to high-quality audio solutions that dont necessarily break the bank. I have to say that this new XBoom rugged portable speaker is surely leaving up to the myth and maybe more.The impressive mini speaker is currently available at the company’s official Amazon listing for just聽鈧?1.42, and if you ask me – after 10 days of heavu usage – it’s SURELY worth it!聽 Paying for this device will get you a fully waterproof speaker with a solid聽20-hour battery life, and clear audio delivered at a full 24-watts across two 360-degree speakers drivers.Its design is similar to the one the JBL speakers have enforced in the market over the past couple of years, but the price is much lower while performing exceptionally at the same time. So how did this little beauty managed to do in our hands? Have a look at its small review and… go buy it, before you lose the chance.聽Tribit XBoom – Highlights and FeaturesFully Waterproof (IPX7) 鈥撀營t also floatsHuge battery life 鈥 Up to 20 Hours (5200mAH)Bluetooth 4.2 鈥 Range 66 feet (20m)Bass boost button24 Watt drivers and 360掳 soundLinks with a second Tribit XBOOMTribit XBoom – Features and SpecificationsBluetooth聽鈥 Version 4.2Bluetooth Range聽鈥 60 Feet / 10M+Bluetooth Profile聽鈥 A2DP, AVRCP, HFP, HSPDrivers聽鈥 2x45mm, 2x Passive RadiatorsOutput聽鈥 2x12WFrequency Response 鈥撀?0-20KHzBattery Life聽鈥 Up to 20 hoursBattery Size聽鈥 5200mAhCharging time聽鈥 4 Hours (5V,2A)Weight聽鈥 545 gr.Design and Build QualityAs you can easily understand, the Tribit XBOOM shares its looks with the聽JBL Flip4聽Bluetooth speaker, as they share almost the same size and shape. The only thing that’s different between them is those large white PLUS-MINUS controls on the XBOOM compared to the more subtle ones found on the JBL. In my case, I really liked them, they are easy to use and at the same time good looking 馃槈聽One thing I didn’t quite like is the black silicone carrying strap up top, which doesn’t seem to be removable. I must admit that I prefer Ultimate Ears’ approach of a metal ring hidden on the bottom. That being said, you could just cut it off if it really bothers you.The Tribit XBoom has IPX7 certification so – according to the company- it can be used at the sea or while having a swim by your pool – it also floats! – so you can use it with no worries about it being… destroyed by the water.Battery life/Playback timeThere’s a small micro USB cable inside the main package that thunkfully聽charges at 2A, so you won’t spend so much time waiting for its 5200 mAh battery to fully charge! And when this happens be prepared to be blown away as you can easily have more than 20 hours of play back time – even in continuous usage! When compared to the 3000 mAh battery of the JBL Flip 4 opponent and its mere 12 hours of playback time, you can easily understand why this thing is considered as a value for money product in the market.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramSound qualityObviously, the sound quality is the main reason one would consider buying a portable Bluetooth speaker and I can safely say that聽this is one device that doesnt disappoint. Thats not to say the boom name is necessarily 100-percent accurate. No company has yet devised a way to engineer a speaker quite this small and still deliver heart-stopping thumps at every kick of the bass drum or thrum of the bass guitar. Bearing that in mind, the bass tones are substantially more powerful than is often found in a Bluetooth speaker and crystal clear to a point.聽Overall, the quality of noise put out by the XBoom is very good, with clear bass and impressive high frequencies especially with consideration to its price. Yes, some times some bass tones can get washed out and tend to produce some slight static in the higher pitched low tones if both the source volume and speaker are set at maximum volume. That’s not surprising in almost any kind of speakers in this price range, so no harm done.聽If you take a good look at the photos, you may see a button with an X letter on it. This is the XBASS button that can surely improve drastically the whole acoustic experience if you want to crank the volume up and possibly use it while hanging out with friends at home or anywhere else.Below the XBASS button you can find is a robust cover that protects the micro USB and AUX-in port. Now, If youre a nail-biter, youre going to struggle to remove this cover. Using this cover is vital if you want to either charge the speaker, or connect a 3.5mm audio jack.聽Obviously there’s also Bluetooth version 4.2 compatibility, so you can easily connect your smartphone with the Tribit Speaker in 1 second, while offering an extremely reliable signal even at distances exceeding 10m.Special perksIf youve got two XBOOMs they can be linked together by holding down the pairing button for 5 seconds. This will “daisy chain” them, so each speaker will be playing the same audio. This is a cool feature for boosting output and filling larger spaces, but its a bit of a shame they dont pair as left and rights to offer a stereo sound.Think of it as a way to enrich the audio inside a room, with two speakers that produce basically twice the same audio, from opossite directions. Cool feature, that can surely help make a party outdoors in… seconds 馃槈Our verdict

Tribit is one of those companies that has managed to built a certain reputation over the years, especially when it comes to high-quality audio solutions that dont necessarily break the bank. I have to say that this new XBoom rugged portable speaker is surely leaving up to the myth and maybe more.The impressive mini speaker is currently available at the company’s official Amazon listing for just聽鈧?1.42, and if you ask me – after 10 days of heavu usage – it’s SURELY worth it!聽 Paying for this device will get you a fully waterproof speaker with a solid聽20-hour battery life, and clear audio delivered at a full 24-watts across two 360-degree speakers drivers.Its design is similar to the one the JBL speakers have enforced in the market over the past couple of years, but the price is much lower while performing exceptionally at the same time. So how did this little beauty managed to do in our hands? Have a look at its small review and… go buy it, before you lose the chance.聽Tribit XBoom – Highlights and FeaturesFully Waterproof (IPX7) 鈥撀營t also floatsHuge battery life 鈥 Up to 20 Hours (5200mAH)Bluetooth 4.2 鈥 Range 66 feet (20m)Bass boost button24 Watt drivers and 360掳 soundLinks with a second Tribit XBOOMTribit XBoom – Features and SpecificationsBluetooth聽鈥 Version 4.2Bluetooth Range聽鈥 60 Feet / 10M+Bluetooth Profile聽鈥 A2DP, AVRCP, HFP, HSPDrivers聽鈥 2x45mm, 2x Passive RadiatorsOutput聽鈥 2x12WFrequency Response 鈥撀?0-20KHzBattery Life聽鈥 Up to 20 hoursBattery Size聽鈥 5200mAhCharging time聽鈥 4 Hours (5V,2A)Weight聽鈥 545 gr.Design and Build QualityAs you can easily understand, the Tribit XBOOM shares its looks with the聽JBL Flip4聽Bluetooth speaker, as they share almost the same size and shape. The only thing that’s different between them is those large white PLUS-MINUS controls on the XBOOM compared to the more subtle ones found on the JBL. In my case, I really liked them, they are easy to use and at the same time good looking 馃槈聽One thing I didn’t quite like is the black silicone carrying strap up top, which doesn’t seem to be removable. I must admit that I prefer Ultimate Ears’ approach of a metal ring hidden on the bottom. That being said, you could just cut it off if it really bothers you.The Tribit XBoom has IPX7 certification so – according to the company- it can be used at the sea or while having a swim by your pool – it also floats! – so you can use it with no worries about it being… destroyed by the water.Battery life/Playback timeThere’s a small micro USB cable inside the main package that thunkfully聽charges at 2A, so you won’t spend so much time waiting for its 5200 mAh battery to fully charge! And when this happens be prepared to be blown away as you can easily have more than 20 hours of play back time – even in continuous usage! When compared to the 3000 mAh battery of the JBL Flip 4 opponent and its mere 12 hours of playback time, you can easily understand why this thing is considered as a value for money product in the market.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramSound qualityObviously, the sound quality is the main reason one would consider buying a portable Bluetooth speaker and I can safely say that聽this is one device that doesnt disappoint. Thats not to say the boom name is necessarily 100-percent accurate. No company has yet devised a way to engineer a speaker quite this small and still deliver heart-stopping thumps at every kick of the bass drum or thrum of the bass guitar. Bearing that in mind, the bass tones are substantially more powerful than is often found in a Bluetooth speaker and crystal clear to a point.聽Overall, the quality of noise put out by the XBoom is very good, with clear bass and impressive high frequencies especially with consideration to its price. Yes, some times some bass tones can get washed out and tend to produce some slight static in the higher pitched low tones if both the source volume and speaker are set at maximum volume. That’s not surprising in almost any kind of speakers in this price range, so no harm done.聽If you take a good look at the photos, you may see a button with an X letter on it. This is the XBASS button that can surely improve drastically the whole acoustic experience if you want to crank the volume up and possibly use it while hanging out with friends at home or anywhere else.Below the XBASS button you can find is a robust cover that protects the micro USB and AUX-in port. Now, If youre a nail-biter, youre going to struggle to remove this cover. Using this cover is vital if you want to either charge the speaker, or connect a 3.5mm audio jack.聽Obviously there’s also Bluetooth version 4.2 compatibility, so you can easily connect your smartphone with the Tribit Speaker in 1 second, while offering an extremely reliable signal even at distances exceeding 10m.Special perksIf youve got two XBOOMs they can be linked together by holding down the pairing button for 5 seconds. This will “daisy chain” them, so each speaker will be playing the same audio. This is a cool feature for boosting output and filling larger spaces, but its a bit of a shame they dont pair as left and rights to offer a stereo sound.Think of it as a way to enrich the audio inside a room, with two speakers that produce basically twice the same audio, from opossite directions. Cool feature, that can surely help make a party outdoors in… seconds 馃槈Our verdict*.Then wait for your phone to connect to the Wi-Fi network. When the connection is established, you will see a Wi-Fi logo on your smartphone display. You can then go to the Ophelia GPS app and proceed.The app is quite simple to use although it packs some advanced features such as Follow Me Mode 鈥 can lock target automatically to capture the best moments, Point Fly and Track Radius 鈥 can automatically move the drone using the GPS system. You can also make the drone follow a preset route automatically or use 3D VR glasses to see the world through the eyes of a bird.Youll find the image captured by the drone to be stable and fluid due to the 2204 1500KV brushless motors which provide more power and a smoother flying experience while making less noise. The Ophelia HS700 also uses the new enhanced 5G WiFi HD video transmission system for a higher distance so that you can fly farther in a safe way.Below is a video to help you set up this drone if the manual is “too complicated”銆

We finally received the newly released Ophelia HS700 drone. This company is not well known in drone manufacturing but I was quite fascinated with the first impression that it gave me. Personally, I think that this product is perfect for beginners but professionals who love the height and distance will also find this drone useful. In this review, we will discuss the salient details and here are all you need to know.Ophelia HS700 Drone 鈥 Tech SpecsMotor2204 1500KV Brushless MotorCamera12 MP 1080p FHDFlight Time15 MinutesFlight Height/Distance150m high and 1000m distanceBattery2800 mAh Li-Polymer batteryAppOphelia GPS on Google Play StoreController1km distance @ 2.4GHzPhysical Dimensions220 x 220 x 155 mm, about 608gOphelia HS700 鈥 Whats In The BoxThe box of the Ophelia HS700 is quite rich and has multiple accessories that you will need to assemble before you get a working drone. The box itself looks quite matured and the unit I received has a black box with HS700 and some specs written on sides of the box. The box is about the shape of a portable backpack and it is convenient to hold. Inside the box, we can find the following1 x Drone HS700 Ophelia1 x Remote Controller1 x Drone Battery8 x Propellers2 x Landing Gears1 x Camera1 x Camera Mat1 x Phone Holder1 x Balance Charger1 x Charge Transfer Box1 x USB Cable1 x Screwdriver1 x Propeller Spanner1 x Explosion-Proof Bag1 x Manual1 x 8GB TF Card (installed in the camera)Ophelia HS700 鈥 Design & AppearanceThe Holy Stone Ophelia HS700 comes with a sleek design. This drone is not foldable like the DJI Mavic Air and other expensive drones out there but it is portable enough to fit in a very small space thus it will not give you any storage problems. The unit I received comes in black colour with a silver lining which gives it a premium appearance. The body of this device is molded with a top-notch plastic material and only the propeller holder is forged from metal (its 98% covered with plastic). I was particularly impressed with the quality of the plastic build. Even after a few accidents and flying it against a concrete wall (I needed those accidents to confirm the strength of the build material), the drone stayed solid with no scratch and only the propellers sustained very minor scratches.Installation, Flight and FunctionsHonestly, you dont need a “professor” to help you install the components of this drone. The Ophelia HS700 comes with a detailed manual with a simple glance, you will certainly install this drone without problems. Before the flight, please ensure that you have paired the transmitter, calibrate the Gyro and compass. These processes are quite easy and are well outlined in the user manual. The take-off of the Ophelia HS700 and the movements are faster than I anticipated but the controls are cool and steady. After the calibrations, you have to press the power button and the propellers will start spinning. Once the spinning start, you got 10 seconds to take off else the propellers will stop spinning.Although it is listed that the maximum flight height is 120m, it was more like 150m to me and the flight distance hit 800m. The aerodynamic structure of this drone, lightweight body, and slick design significantly increase its flight stability. The Ophelia HS700 reaches a speed of 25 km/h, and up to 60 km/h when flying downwind. It was quite interesting that I was able to fly this drone for about 15 minutes (drones hardly exceed 10 minutes) but the uninteresting part of this is the battery charging time. It took almost 270 minutes for a full charge and there is no spare battery. So you should have it in mind that after 15-18 minutes of fun, you will need to wait for about 300 minutes before you catch some fun again. Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramCameraThis drone comes with a 12 MP 1080p camera with a 120掳 Wide-angle lens and it can be adjusted up to 90掳 manually. It produces FHD images at 1920 x 1080 resolution. It also gives 1080P resolution videos @25fps. Although this drone comes with a FHD camera, the video at a higher height seems shaky and the images got some noise as you can see above. Nevertheless, with a little tweak on the video, it is acceptable. Image of Landscape at Maximum Height, over 120mAPP CompatibilityThe APP is Ophelia GPS and it weighs only 78MB. It is quite easy to use if you choose to use APP control. However, note that you can fly this drone with or without the app. After downloading the app, launch a search of the available Wi-Fi networks and select HolyStoneFPV_We finally received the newly released Ophelia HS700 drone. This company is not well known in drone manufacturing but I was quite fascinated with the first impression that it gave me. Personally, I think that this product is perfect for beginners but professionals who love the height and distance will also find this drone useful. In this review, we will discuss the salient details and here are all you need to know.Ophelia HS700 Drone 鈥 Tech SpecsMotor2204 1500KV Brushless MotorCamera12 MP 1080p FHDFlight Time15 MinutesFlight Height/Distance150m high and 1000m distanceBattery2800 mAh Li-Polymer batteryAppOphelia GPS on Google Play StoreController1km distance @ 2.4GHzPhysical Dimensions220 x 220 x 155 mm, about 608gOphelia HS700 鈥 Whats In The BoxThe box of the Ophelia HS700 is quite rich and has multiple accessories that you will need to assemble before you get a working drone. The box itself looks quite matured and the unit I received has a black box with HS700 and some specs written on sides of the box. The box is about the shape of a portable backpack and it is convenient to hold. Inside the box, we can find the following1 x Drone HS700 Ophelia1 x Remote Controller1 x Drone Battery8 x Propellers2 x Landing Gears1 x Camera1 x Camera Mat1 x Phone Holder1 x Balance Charger1 x Charge Transfer Box1 x USB Cable1 x Screwdriver1 x Propeller Spanner1 x Explosion-Proof Bag1 x Manual1 x 8GB TF Card (installed in the camera)Ophelia HS700 鈥 Design & AppearanceThe Holy Stone Ophelia HS700 comes with a sleek design. This drone is not foldable like the DJI Mavic Air and other expensive drones out there but it is portable enough to fit in a very small space thus it will not give you any storage problems. The unit I received comes in black colour with a silver lining which gives it a premium appearance. The body of this device is molded with a top-notch plastic material and only the propeller holder is forged from metal (its 98% covered with plastic). I was particularly impressed with the quality of the plastic build. Even after a few accidents and flying it against a concrete wall (I needed those accidents to confirm the strength of the build material), the drone stayed solid with no scratch and only the propellers sustained very minor scratches.Installation, Flight and FunctionsHonestly, you dont need a “professor” to help you install the components of this drone. The Ophelia HS700 comes with a detailed manual with a simple glance, you will certainly install this drone without problems. Before the flight, please ensure that you have paired the transmitter, calibrate the Gyro and compass. These processes are quite easy and are well outlined in the user manual. The take-off of the Ophelia HS700 and the movements are faster than I anticipated but the controls are cool and steady. After the calibrations, you have to press the power button and the propellers will start spinning. Once the spinning start, you got 10 seconds to take off else the propellers will stop spinning.Although it is listed that the maximum flight height is 120m, it was more like 150m to me and the flight distance hit 800m. The aerodynamic structure of this drone, lightweight body, and slick design significantly increase its flight stability. The Ophelia HS700 reaches a speed of 25 km/h, and up to 60 km/h when flying downwind. It was quite interesting that I was able to fly this drone for about 15 minutes (drones hardly exceed 10 minutes) but the uninteresting part of this is the battery charging time. It took almost 270 minutes for a full charge and there is no spare battery. So you should have it in mind that after 15-18 minutes of fun, you will need to wait for about 300 minutes before you catch some fun again. Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramCameraThis drone comes with a 12 MP 1080p camera with a 120掳 Wide-angle lens and it can be adjusted up to 90掳 manually. It produces FHD images at 1920 x 1080 resolution. It also gives 1080P resolution videos @25fps. Although this drone comes with a FHD camera, the video at a higher height seems shaky and the images got some noise as you can see above. Nevertheless, with a little tweak on the video, it is acceptable. Image of Landscape at Maximum Height, over 120mAPP CompatibilityThe APP is Ophelia GPS and it weighs only 78MB. It is quite easy to use if you choose to use APP control. However, note that you can fly this drone with or without the app. After downloading the app, launch a search of the available Wi-Fi networks and select HolyStoneFPV_銆

*.Then wait for your phone to connect to the Wi-Fi network. When the connection is established, you will see a Wi-Fi logo on your smartphone display. You can then go to the Ophelia GPS app and proceed.The app is quite simple to use although it packs some advanced features such as Follow Me Mode 鈥 can lock target automatically to capture the best moments, Point Fly and Track Radius 鈥 can automatically move the drone using the GPS system. You can also make the drone follow a preset route automatically or use 3D VR glasses to see the world through the eyes of a bird.Youll find the image captured by the drone to be stable and fluid due to the 2204 1500KV brushless motors which provide more power and a smoother flying experience while making less noise. The Ophelia HS700 also uses the new enhanced 5G WiFi HD video transmission system for a higher distance so that you can fly farther in a safe way.Below is a video to help you set up this drone if the manual is “too complicated”UMIDIGI is once again back in Gizchina HQ, with yet another notched Android smartphone, cloned to the max – but with a VERY decent price and typical specifications! Its not so special name is UMIDIGI One Pro and as you can easily understand, it tries to borrow things (names, specs, design) from other phones (iPhone X, Huawei P20 Pro, Honor etc) but manages to retain its low-end character combined with a very aggressive price that’s just 169$ at the time of this presentation.Compared with smartphones of any other brands present in the market, UMiDIGI One Pro is a beautiful, affordable smartphone and comes with really notable features that most of you might even find interesting. 馃槈Enter the UMiDIGI One Pro, the latest in the onslaught of UMiDiGi devices, this time coming in a beautiful Twilight color that will surely blow your mind!UMiDIGI One Pro ReviewIn terms of overall appearance, body build and form, the UMiDIGI One Pro is your typical Huawei/Honor device – packed with pure Android and lower end specs. Actually, it’s a decent low to mid range model, that excels in design and it’s just average in terms of performance in everyday use. It weighs approximately 190 gr. (despite the fact that it hosts a typical 3250 mAh battery) and its size is聽148 x 71,4 x 8,3 mm. This means that it’s really thin, relatively lightweight and very easy to use with one hand – if anyone’s interested.The UMiDIGI One Pro has its main dual camera on the rear but it saves a special place for its fingerprint sensor, just inside the On/Off button that sits at the right side of the device!Yes, it has borrowed the sensor placement that Sony first established in most of their smartphones, and in my eyes, that’s a good decision. The devices frontal is almost empty apart from the notorious notch that sits at the top of the display. Apart from this, there’s just the screen, a selfie camera (with low-end FaceID-like features) and the earpiece of course.UMiDIGI One Pro SpecificationsDisplay:聽5.86 inch, 1520 x 720 Pixel ScreenCPU:聽MT6763 Octa Core 2.0GHzSystem:聽Android 8.1RAM + ROM:聽4GB RAM + 64GB ROMCamera:聽12.0MP + 5.0MP rear camera + 16.0MP front cameraSensor:聽Proximity Sensor, E-compass, Gravity Sensor, Face ID, Light Sensor, Fingerprint Sensor, Gyroscope, NFCSIM Card:聽Nano SIM card + Nano SIM card / TF cardFeature:聽GPS, A-GPS, GLONASSBluetooth:4.2Networks:聽GSM: B2 / B3 / B5 / B8, CDMA BC0 / BC1 –聽WCDMA: B1 / 2 / 4 / 5 / 8, TD-SCDMA: B34 / 39 –聽FDD-LTE: B1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 8 / 12 / 13 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 25 / 26 / 28A / 28B, TDD-LTE: B34 / 38 / 39 / 40 / 41Big thanks to UMiDiGi for providing this review unit. You can buy one here 馃檪UMiDIGI One Pro Build QualityThe screen is a聽5.86-inches IPS panel, with a resolution of 1520 x 720 pixels. The display comes with 2.5D curved glass with a typical pixel density, equipped with Cornings Gorilla Glass system for screen protection.The impressive “Twilight” colour of this phone really sold me. I pride myself on being immune to colour choice, but man has this purple-blue-green-ish really sold me. Lets ignore the eye catching color for a moment, the build quality here is good but… not excellent.Surely it has improved from the days of the notorious UMI Super, but still it feels plastic some times – and this isn’t at all bad, for a phone at this price range. In any case, the phone is fairly easy to hold, but not as easy as a five-incher, the thinness does make it feel very small though.The body is made out of plastic and metal, along with a special cover at the back that resembles glass (but it’s not). Its build quality is good as I said before but as with every phone that uses a glossy finish it gets easily smudged and you may end up polishing it every couple of minutes with a small cloth :pUMiDIGI One Pro DisplayThe聽One Pro comes with a capacitive IPS display with typical maximum brightness that could make it hard to use only under direct sunlight. As we mentioned earlier, the screen size is 5.86 inches and has a resolution of 720 x 1520 pixels, providing a 19:9 aspect ratio and a staggering 90% screen/body ratio -> that’s according to the manufacturer.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThis display does have a slightly blue/purple tint that is almost unnoticeable in real life but does show quite noticeably on camera. Max brightness tops out around 400 nits which is quite respectable for such a panel, and is also relatively viewable under direct sunlight. Touch sensitivity is excellent and the 19:9 aspect ratio allows for excellent one hand use, typical of that of a 5.2 inch smartphone!UMiDIGI One Pro BatteryThe combination of the built-in 3250mAh battery, IPS display, and the聽Helio P23 (MTK6763) SoC should provide average battery life. And while that holds mostly true, I believe its battery life could definitely be better. I managed to get approximately 5 hours of screen on time with ease, ending the day with 18% left. This comes after about 2 hours of YouTube, about an hour of gaming, 1,5 hours of local video playback, and about 3 hours of Bluetooth music in addition to all the miscellaneous items I performed such as Whatsapp, texting, FaceBook etc.The one area where UMiDiGi has to improve on is the standby battery drain. I was getting a guaranteed 1% battery drain every hour, with it jumping up to 1.5% sometimes. This has to be solved if possible through software. UMIDIGI says that the One Pro supports wireless charging and – it does, but with certain hickups: it has to be placed firmly on the OEM wireless charging pad and the charging rate is not that fast. However for a price of 169$ one could forget about these, plug a USB Type-C cable and get on with his life 馃槈UMiDIGI One Pro SoftwareWe have Android 8.1 Oreo running inside the phone, and I must say that UMiDiGis software optimization has taken a step up again over the older models, with this phone feeling even smoother when moving between home screens, going into settings etc. Launching lots of apps at the same time, on the other hand, is a more ponderous process with the Helio P23 chipset struggling (a bit) to keep up with our needs, with 4GB of RAM being all this phone needs. Not an overkill (like having 6GB), but also not 3GB (which is not enough anymore). The Helio P23 doesnt affect gaming, it’s able to play all the games at 720p without issue, Modern combat, Asphalt, lighter games such as Super Mario Run ran without a hitch, even when I was recording the screen at the same time. The phone gets warm on its back side but never gets burning hot. I also ran a malware scan and didnt find anything. The fingerprint sensor is NOT that accurate, so you will have to train it 2-3 times more in order for it to get to “know” you. Let’s say we had an average of 80% success in identifying my thumb – which could be better I guess.UMiDIGI One Pro Connectivity Reception on this phone is great. The device comes with full 4G support (LFDD-LTE: B1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 8 / 12 / 13 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 25 / 26 / 28A / 28B, TDD-LTE: B34 / 38 / 39 / 40 / 41), it offers very good connectivity inside large cities, with no dropped calls or problems during communication.WiFi speeds are great, an 800MB file takes 4 minutes (on fast WiFi that is), and Bluetooth range is good also. I used the GPS to navigate to work, and it was fairly accurate and fast. No problems with Google Maps, or Sygic navigation 馃檪 Well done UMIDIGI on this. UMiDIGI One Pro CameraThe camera is a welcomed surprise when using it in day mode! It’s photos offer good detail levels and it can be relatively easy to shoot good photos – as you keep your phone relatively still! Don’t worry the phone snaps photos pretty quickly so you dont have to be a statue forever.Colour reproduction ranges from good to great, with colour sometimes being rather average and showing great saturation and vividness other times. HDR mode, on the other hand, should be left disabled at all times, well almost all times. The HDR mode is way too aggressive, trying to equalize bright and dark spots when they arent that far apart in the first place. You have to leave it off unless there are extremely obvious bright and dark spots, e.g. taking a picture of the sun. In those cases, the aggressive HDR does its job well.Moving on to Bokeh mode, which I see more and more as a gimmick, it adds Bokeh in a very unnatural circle, and not only that the overall quality of the photo is lowered as well. There is also a pro photo mode that works quite well and uses very convenient sliders to change the camera settings. The front facing camera is rather typical also.[flickr_set id=”72157695459236610″]Now for the video. The camera app seems to lag behind real life by about 陆 a second. Now a camera lagging behind real life slightly is normal, but 陆 a second is reserved for low-end cameras, not in a $169 device. In addition, the video recording is weirdly laggy, almost like the video is recording normally for a second, then slow for the next. Overall, these items make for an average video experience, and is really a downside to this phone.UMiDIGI One Pro VerdictHands down, this is a very beautiful – and affordable mid-ranger in the market. UMIDIGI shows signs of improvement with every device they launch: first they try to change their support, then they copy the good features of high end phones and combine them with a pure Android 8.1 Oreo UI that surely delivers.Nope I am not certain that you will get a lot of OTA updates with this device. I got TWO wireless OTA updates during the 10 days I had it in my hands, but they brought bug fixes and small performance improvements. I really hope this phone gets Android 9.0 Pie – UMIDIGI has to surprise us and make a turn towards decent after sales support. This will surely help them improve their sales even more.聽This UMiDIGI One Pro at $169,99 is surely one of the phones one should pay attention to, especially if the design of a phone is high on your “plus” list. It offers typical battery life with a 3250 mAh battery, very good built quality, decent display (nothing much) and a solid chipset with 4GB of RAM for decent everyday use.Buy UMIDIGI One Pro from their official shopIf you’re into tech-devices, smartphones and anything related to it, there are a set of things that you can’t live without. Cables, Chargers, Cases are commonly listed by most tech-lovers, however, there is something that particularly gives life to our world of dreams – The Power Strips.While some of us, are from a past when Power Strips were only used to connect devices to an electric current, nowadays they offer a plenty of additional features that expand the usability while also facilitate the life of many users in different environments. BESTEK is one among the companies that are really concerned about delivering products that offer usability, practicality, and portability. Based on this, today we’re going to take a deep look in one of its most recent products – The BESTEK MRJ8002.UNBOXING:The MRJ-8002 came in a simple plain box, no fancy design, and no gimmicks. At first sight, it looks pretty simple, but let’s have in mind that it’s the content what matters. Once again, we can’t judge a book by its cover, and the content does not disappoint. PACKAGE CONTENT:BESTEK MRJ-8002USER MANUALLike previously mentioned the package is just a plain card box hiding the user’s manual and the Power Strip.Get the BESTEK-MRJ8002 from hereBESTEK MRJ-8002:Moving directly to the Power Strip the MRJ-8002 brings a design that is rather different from the standard power strips. Instead of being a simple rectangle with plug holes, it brings a more modern design that stands in an office and fits neatly on top of a table. The BESTEK MRJ-8082 has 8 numbered outlets in total, 4 in the left side and 4 on the right side. The front of the Power Strip is made of a plain black glass finish that goes from the bottom covering the entire top of the device. On the top, we can find 4 USB 3.0 Ports that are protected by small silicone caps that can be easily removed. On the bottom, we have the rotating stand that can be adjusted in order to get the Power Strip fixed over a surface.The 8 sockets support AC Input: 100-125V and comes in the US standard of Plugs. So if you have a ton of devices with EU Plugs, be careful before ordering the BESTEK MRJ-8002. Otherwise, grab some adapters and let the fun begin.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on Telegram The Top USB Port combo is made of three ports with 5V/7.5A Auto 0~2.4A and a single port that brings Qualcomm QuickCharge 2.0 Support V/2.4A, 9V/1.6A, 12V/1.1A. During my tests this latter port managed to deliver the expected results, making my Redmi Note 5 Pro charge from 59% to 90% in less than 40min. These results can vary from user to user and may depend on what you’re running in your phone while it is charging. After inserting the Redmi Note 5 Pro in the QC2.0 port I was a bit disappointed and concerned to see only a 950mA max rate on the Ampere application. However, it took only a few seconds for the Qualcomm QuickCharge 2.0 to take action by doubling the charging rate.The other USB ports are just standard 3.0 ports, so don’t expect more than 2.5A of charging rate on it. However, the combo of USB ports is perfect for placing other devices and also they’ll greatly expand the capabilities of your office. There’s a neat and interesting thing in the BESTEK MRJ-8002. After putting it in the wall socket and pressing the Power button in the rear, the product logo lights up, as well as small indicators of each USB port with their respective capabilities.If you’re into tech-devices, smartphones and anything related to it, there are a set of things that you can’t live without. Cables, Chargers, Cases are commonly listed by most tech-lovers, however, there is something that particularly gives life to our world of dreams – The Power Strips.While some of us, are from a past when Power Strips were only used to connect devices to an electric current, nowadays they offer a plenty of additional features that expand the usability while also facilitate the life of many users in different environments. BESTEK is one among the companies that are really concerned about delivering products that offer usability, practicality, and portability. Based on this, today we’re going to take a deep look in one of its most recent products – The BESTEK MRJ8002.UNBOXING:The MRJ-8002 came in a simple plain box, no fancy design, and no gimmicks. At first sight, it looks pretty simple, but let’s have in mind that it’s the content what matters. Once again, we can’t judge a book by its cover, and the content does not disappoint. PACKAGE CONTENT:BESTEK MRJ-8002USER MANUALLike previously mentioned the package is just a plain card box hiding the user’s manual and the Power Strip.Get the BESTEK-MRJ8002 from hereBESTEK MRJ-8002:Moving directly to the Power Strip the MRJ-8002 brings a design that is rather different from the standard power strips. Instead of being a simple rectangle with plug holes, it brings a more modern design that stands in an office and fits neatly on top of a table. The BESTEK MRJ-8082 has 8 numbered outlets in total, 4 in the left side and 4 on the right side. The front of the Power Strip is made of a plain black glass finish that goes from the bottom covering the entire top of the device. On the top, we can find 4 USB 3.0 Ports that are protected by small silicone caps that can be easily removed. On the bottom, we have the rotating stand that can be adjusted in order to get the Power Strip fixed over a surface.The 8 sockets support AC Input: 100-125V and comes in the US standard of Plugs. So if you have a ton of devices with EU Plugs, be careful before ordering the BESTEK MRJ-8002. Otherwise, grab some adapters and let the fun begin.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on Telegram The Top USB Port combo is made of three ports with 5V/7.5A Auto 0~2.4A and a single port that brings Qualcomm QuickCharge 2.0 Support V/2.4A, 9V/1.6A, 12V/1.1A. During my tests this latter port managed to deliver the expected results, making my Redmi Note 5 Pro charge from 59% to 90% in less than 40min. These results can vary from user to user and may depend on what you’re running in your phone while it is charging. After inserting the Redmi Note 5 Pro in the QC2.0 port I was a bit disappointed and concerned to see only a 950mA max rate on the Ampere application. However, it took only a few seconds for the Qualcomm QuickCharge 2.0 to take action by doubling the charging rate.The other USB ports are just standard 3.0 ports, so don’t expect more than 2.5A of charging rate on it. However, the combo of USB ports is perfect for placing other devices and also they’ll greatly expand the capabilities of your office. There’s a neat and interesting thing in the BESTEK MRJ-8002. After putting it in the wall socket and pressing the Power button in the rear, the product logo lights up, as well as small indicators of each USB port with their respective capabilities.The Meizu 16 is the second flagship from Meizu in less than six months and it represents the pinnacle of the brand’s efforts in 2018. It represents the company’s change in strategy as the brand no longer wants to play just a mid-range and entry-level game. With the 16 (or as they say, 16th), Meizu once again wants a ticket to the big league. The Meizu 16th represents a lot of things, but let’s just say, above all the phone maker wants it to be a smashing hit in the premium smartphone arena. Will it be able to do that? Will it threaten stalwarts likes the Mi 8, the OnePlus 6? Well find out in this full review of the Meizu 16. Meizu 16th Design The Meizu 16s awesome design is truly one to look at and marvel at. You’ll know what i mean when you see the front screen pushing the bezels out of the phone to their death. And Meizu should get brownie points for doing this without reaching for an easy notch solution that everyone in the industry has been doing for the past year. The result is a 92.18% non-intrusive screen real estate and it commands attention for sure. I’ve been using the device for some time and every time I’ve walked into a crowd, this phone gets the gazes and along with it, me as well. Meizu said at the launch event that they have poured hundreds of millions of dollars to cram sensors on the mini bezel at the top and here is the finished product. Theres a small LED as well on the top bezel but it lights up for low battery notifications only and no other stuff. That’s half of the design story. The rear of the design is also very well done. It’s a chassis befitting a flagship. The metal back is coated by a 7 layering process of glass that makes it look like ceramic and is completely minimalistic. The edges curve ever so slightly giving the phone a very good in-hand feel. The rear camera housing is indented and rises above the rest of the surface. Meizu has included a transparent case and you might want to slap it on as the back can get scratched easily. Thankfully for us, we have a White version and we’ve been spared from the fingerprint smudge-fest that is otherwise quite visible on other shades. A word of caution though. Due to being a completely glossy glass finish, the Meizu 16 has to be handled with firm grip. I found the device to be super slippery and it gave me the jitters a couple of times when it could have slipped from my hands. Overall, the design is one of the standouts of the Meizu 16 and for that we’d say, mission accomplished!DisplayThe 聽6.0-inch AMOLED display of the handset gives users a great immersive experience, thanks to those nonexistent bezels on the top and bottom. It is crisp, vibrant, and viewing angles are good. However, outdoor visibility isn’t top notch but it isn’t something you would regret too much. Playing games on the display is very entertaining. In short, I don’t have any qualms for about the display. Being a 6.0 incher, it is great for one-handed use for me personally as I have big hands. Meizu 16th PerformanceSince we’re talking about the overall performance, there are two factors here. The Snapdragon 845 with 8GB of RAM is one. It makes light of everything you throw at it. I played a number of games on it with ease. These include those titles that don’t task the CPU heavily as well as some heavy duty ones like PUBG too. My unit has Play Store and other Google Apps pre-installed and the model number M822H is certified by the EEC. So, this could be a European version. Also, theres almost no bloatware on the device except for some Meizu tools like ToolBox and Recorder which have handy features. Take a look at the AnTuTu score below. The other factor is Flyme OS. This is where I have some feedback for Meizu. Despite such ample fire power sitting at its heart, I noticed lag while doing some mundane tasks albeit not for long. But that’s not the real issue. The first few days were great. And then suddenly one day, my unit started to freeze in the middle of nowhere. This happened around 8 times over the course of just a few hours and there was no pattern to it. It would freeze anywhere and restarting it was the only way I could resume using it. Now, this could be a one-off issue with just my review unit but I have got in touch with their personnel to resolve the issue. Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramUpdate: I tried to find a solution to the problem and changed the default system launcher with a Rootless Pixel Launcher and the issue seems to have vanished. There has no been a single free till date since then.聽Also, Flyme OS doesn’t let you change wallpapers, at least a number of review units I checked didn’t have it. Again, this issue is also totally fixable with updates. So I won’t roast the company on this. Also, RAM management could be better, especially with 8GB you could do a lot more. My unit kept four apps in the cache but beyond that, it would have to reload them as I tried it more than once. One more thing that Meizu needs to fix is the notification system. Some apps simply don’t send notifications at all for no reason. For example, ever since i started using the device, i have never received Slack notifications unless i activated the app. This probably means Flyme OS kills the app in the background but i couldn’t do anything to prevent it. Similarly, other apps also shared the same fate. These are the bugs Meizu needs to fix as soon as possible.聽聽 Besides these minor qualms, Flyme OS is Flyme OS. A lot of the UX remains the same. You still don’t get an app drawer. You get an mBack gesture option that allows swipe from corners to go back. This is something Ive always preferred instead of the bottom screen gestures. Other small and nifty features like swiping down for the notification shade, swiping up for the universal search, double tap to wake the screen are all very nice and useful additions. Dropping the notification shade, there are quick toggles for screenshots, screen recording, eye-friendly mode for night and some more all of which are very useful. Meizu debuted something called Super Swipe that is software working behind the scenes to vastly improve touch response. Then theres mEngine 2.0, a new haptic feedback motor in the Meizu 16th that is supposed to be customizable. However, i didnt find any setting to customize it whatsoever on my phone. On-screen fingerprint readerThe on-screen fingerprint reader is one of the main attractions of the Meizu 16th and it works. Meizu does need to work on the accuracy of the sensor but considering the tech is in its infancy, and the price point at which Meizu offers it, it is mind-blowing. Props to the company for doing that. Theres also face scanning and it is really fast. It works very well in daylight but not so well in dark situations. However, it is much faster than the on screen biometric. 聽Thats pretty much it for the performance and features. Overall, the Meizu 16th is a reliable workhorse and you wont feel short of power when you need it.Call reception, SpeakersIve had no troubles with calls. Reception is great, and the Meizu 16th supports VoLTE. However, you need to activate it from settings to make calls over Jios VoLTE network which I use. Voice is crisp and clear over the earpiece and its great. As for speakers, Im very happy with them. Meizus dual speaker setup helps in even crowded public areas and you can hear your phones volume. At top level it quite louder than the average phone and a good plus to have. 聽Meizu 16th BatteryThe battery on the Meizu 16th is a 3,000mAh juice pack and it has Meizus proprietary mCharge tech which is very close to Oppos VOOC in terms of speeds. It is a life saver when you have small batteries that can deplete quickly. For my unit, my usage varies from day to day. Sometimes Im a heavy user and sometimes Im just an average guy. When Ive used the device heavily, Ive had to charge it in the middle of the day. My typical pattern in such days is a lot of YouTube, social media, and messaging with Wi-Fi always on. While for average use, it can last you by the end of the day. But expect no more. A days use is what youll get in average situations. There are two power saving modes and one particular is the aggressive 鈥楽uper Saving Mode that turns off all lights and features (except for phone) and uses the AMOLED panel like Samsung uses it in the power saving mode. Standby times arent the best though as Ive seen the device lose even 7-10 percent battery overnight. Ive had Xiaomi devices that are excellent at this and lose no more than 3 percent and if Meizu optimizes well, it can do as well. I wouldnt mind having a bigger battery and sacrificing some slimness, but it is what it is. 聽Meizu 16th CameraMeizu has used a dual setup for the rear and the Meizu 16 captures crisp shots with good details as long as youre in good lighting situations. Colours are natural and dont look over-saturated. Focus is a wee bit slow and shutter speed as well. Theres 3x optical zoom on the camera and it works ok but you should expect noise obviously when you use it. Low-light performance drops a bit and you’ll see some noise and loss of sharpness. The camera app is pretty basic. It has a few modes like Panorama, Slow-mo, Time-Lapse and Pro.[flickr_set id=”72157673024110848″]Theres portrait mode for Bokeh effects for the front camera and it works but the edge detection feature needs some fine-tuning. I found its blurring to be very uneven in some cases especially with hair. On the flip side, details are well captured and the image looks crisp and has true-to-life colours. Meizu 16 has HDR mode and you have options to switch it to Auto, on or off. Of course, you do get AI beauty features and there are three levels – No beauty, light beauty, and full beauty mode. 聽It also does 4K video recording and I found an odd bug in the Mp4 files. I recorded the POCO F1 launch event in 4K and I played it back after saving it. For some reason, the file failed to play. This happened with other recorded videos as well. Im not sure what this is but it needs a fix as soon as possible. I have some snaps captured from the cameras below and you want to see them. Meizu 16th Final verdictAs a tall person that never had good balance, when I first saw this pair of hovershoes delivered to me I thought “I’m not sure I’m gonna live long enough to make a review of these”. But, as you can see, I’m still alive and well, so let’s get going with the full review of this amazing and super fun transportation device!KOOWHEEL Hovershoes SpecificationsRange10KMTop聽Speed12KM/HMaximum聽Load聽Weight130KGSMotor聽Size90MMMotor聽Power250W*2Working聽Temp.0鈩?40鈩僊aximum聽Climbing聽Angle9掳Front聽and聽Rear聽Tilt聽Angle80掳Left聽and聽Right聽Tilt聽Angle50掳Battery聽Capacity2AhCharging聽Time2HRecharging聽Time1500Charging聽InputAC100V-240VCharging聽Temp.0鈩?40鈩僀harging聽Output29.4V/1AN.W.3.3KGS*2Dimension227*155*113MMKOOWHEEL Hovershoes UnboxingThe聽KOOWHEEL Hovershoes arrive in a massive box with a ton of聽cushioning so that they get to you in one piece. Inside the box we then find a power adapter for charging, a little bag to carry the wheels with you and the wheels themselves. You don’t need anything more. KOOWHEEL Hovershoes Design & HardwareWell, I’ve never had to deal with this kind of items so I can’t really compare it to anything else. What I can say though, is that they look sleek, they aren’t of some weird color that would probably attract kids. Instead, they’re all black, with some red accents, LEDs that turn red or green depending on the status, the KOOWHEEL logo on top and the name “Hovershoes” on the side.Build quality is really good and I love the four handles (two for each), present on the sides. These make carrying the Hovershoes a simple task; you can also carry them with one hand if you want to. That said, both wheels are pretty heavy at 3.3Kg each, but that’s to be expected. You’re packing a motor, metal wheels and an hopefully big battery inside each of these. Plus they’re entirely made of metal for durability purposes.Overall, the Hovershoes were quite solid, and the fact that they’re still rolling is proof. I think I tested them to their limits and aside a few scratches, they’re still like new.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramKOOWHEEL Hovershoes UsabilityI loved using the聽KOOWHEEL Hovershoes but most importantly, I’m happy I’m still unhurt. I suggest starting out with a couple of supports, I was lucky enough to have some sawhorse table legs lying around, so I used them to help stand up on the wheels.After slowing going forward and back for a couple minutes, I finally tried to go without support and well, I was surprised I didn’t fall.So, I’d say that in around 10 minutes, you’ll be able to learn how to ride these, at home, on a flat surface. I suggest you spend some more time before going on the road as any little bump could break the magic.The聽KOOWHEEL Hovershoes do auto-balance after you turn them on. All you have to do is click the button and then step on them. They’ll auto-calibrate and stay still in an horizontal position. You then move forward by tilting your foot forward, but you probably already know that.These wheels can get quite fast for an home use, meanwhile outside they don’t achieve incredible speeds at聽12Km/h, but then I wouldn’t suggest going and faster. This isn’t an electric bike or scooter, if you mistake on these you can get hurt. So, consider using them as if they were a self-balancing scooter – in pedestrian zones, malls and big houses.KOOWHEEL Hovershoes Battery/RangeI didn’t have a chance of testing the range as I mostly tried them in a parking lot. But I can say that they lasted long enough for me to risk my life a couple times, I’d say over half hour of riding at top speeds (I know because they beep when you reach that) and there was no sign of battery running out juice. This means you can probably use these for an hour, probably more, depending on the speed at which you use them and the angle of climb of the road.More than enough batteryKOOWHEEL Hovershoes VerdictLet’s now get to get verdict, should you get these or not? My answer is: sure, if you can afford them!The聽KOOWHEEL Hovershoes aren’t cheap at $389.99 but they are a lot of fun. If you’re a person that has used a self-balance scooter or other electric transportation vehicle then you already know these type of devices are always pricey.聽KOOWHEEL, albeit dropping the price from an initial $489.99, can’t really do much about it.The materials used on the Hovershoes are premium, the components inside are premium, they work as they’re supposed to, which isn’t always the case with such items and most importantly – they’re unique.If you follow trends and you like to have the latest gadgets, then the聽KOOWHEEL Hovershoes are definitely worth the price as you can hardly find anything like this on the market.Lots of Fun, Worth the Price

In early 2018 Huawei took over the world by announcing their premium P20 series with astounding photographic abilities. P20 arrived with a full notched display copying iPhone X, and shiny gradient colours, borrowed from its sub-company Honor. Copying, borrowing and even cloning, is a method all smartphone companies use. It is a fast way to capture trends and at the same time promote the company that provides the design – a win-win scenario for most. Everybody does it and hopefully will be doing it in the future. If you are looking for a P20 series lookalike that costs way far less than the original flagship while packing as much value as possible at a low price, Umidigi Z2 is your next phone.This is the second smartphone from Umidigi that arrives in my hands after the amazing UMIDIGI A1 Pro this year and i just cant believe how well the company is upgrading its products year after year. While A1 Pro is the undisputable winner in the entry level category, Z2 comes at the middle one, a place where Xiaomi rules with the Redmi series during the past couple of years. So Z2 has to stand its ground and prove its worth and value. It has a full notched display, 6GB of RAM, stock Android Oreo, a large 3850mAh battery with 18W fast charge, four cameras and an amazing array of global band support. Face Unlock and a shiny gradient coloured back with a fingerprint sensor complete this excellent set of characteristics.Umidigi Z2 Technical SpecificationsOS: Android 8.1CPU: MTK6763V Octa Core 2.0GHzGPU: ARM Mali-G71 MP2ROM: 64GB ROM, TF card up to 256GBRAM: 6GB LPDDR4x RAMDisplay: 6.2 inch, 1080 x 2284 pixelsFront Camera: 16.0MP + 8.0MP dual front cameraBack Camera: 16.0MP + 8.0MP dual back cameraNetwork: GSM / WCDMA / FDD-LTEBands: 2G: GSM B2/B3/B5/B8 CDMA BC0/BC1, 3G: WCDMA B1/B2/B4/B5/B8, 4G: FDD-LTE B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B12/B13/B17/B18/B19/B20/B25/B26/B28SIM: 2 Nano SIM Cards, Dual standbyBluetooth: 4.0Battery: 3850 mAhExtras: Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Gyroscope, Proximity Sensor, GPSSize: 153.4 x 74.4 x 8.3 mmWeight: 165g UnboxingThe smartphone arrives in a dark gray to black, hard paper box, with an extra half-cover and crafted texture to prove to you that they care even for the small parts – It is the same package that A1 Pro arrived in. The brand name is written in a gold-copper colour in the box- same colour is used in the logo Link to the World typed in the instructions envelope inside. A thank you card is added inside, with details on how to enter a giveaway competition.The bottom of the box has a black sticker with white letters describing the characteristics, the package contents, a warning not to use non approved batteries and the brands email address. The box has dimensions 180 X 90 X 35 mm and weights 430 grams. Inside you will find:1 X UMIDIGI Z21 X Power adapter1 X USB cable1 X USB to 3.5mm audio jack adapter1 X SIM card eject tool1 X Screen protector1 X Silicone Case1 X Manual in English, Italian, Spanish, German and FrenchThe retail box is excellent and complete according to my… taste. I really liked the silicone case as it has a leather type texture with an excellent grip and protection from fingerprints. Another nice touch is that the usb cable is in red – a color that UMI usually choses for some of their models from time to time.DesignThere are three color versions, Phantom (black), Twilight and Twilight Black. I had the latest version in my hands, yes the Twilight Black. It is bluish and black on the top turning purple at the bottom. I prefer this colour to the other two and it looks astonishingly good in the sun. (look below)In the front we can see a huge 6.2 inch display with a 19:9 aspect ratio. The notch in the top resembles the one used in Huawei P20’s display. There is no protection here that i know of, except from the plastic cover attached to the display. The plastic film will be too scratched in the future, will look bad and will downgrade the – in all respect- clean nice looking panel. Dont think about it, go and buy a tempered glass to replace the film and enhance the panels protection. The notch is the place where you can find the microphone, the front-facing dual camera and the usual pack of sensors. There is no LED flash here so your selfies will suffer in low light conditions. Unfortunately there is no notification light either.There are very small bezels on the side and a bigger one on the bottom. This is a full view display with excellent ratio to body of approximately 90% (according to UMI that is). There are no physical keys on the lower bezel. Bezels are smaller than OnePlus 6 but Z2 has a larger notch.The frame is metallic with a dark grey colouring. In the right side it has two metallic buttons, the volume control and the power/lock button. There is a small rattling noise and partial movement when you move your fingers on them but nothing serious to complain about. On the top there is a noise cancellation microphone. In the left you can see double SIM tray. On the lower part you will find the USB type C port and the speaker trays on the left and right of it. As you understood from the retail box content there is no 3.5 mm audio jack. I know this a trend that keeps the width smaller but I believe that Umidigi should include an audio port. It would be an advantage over the competition. Any way the company wanted a 2018 flagship look and there are very few flagships that keep a 3.5mm port. At the side, near the top and bottom a small part of the antenna bands is visible, having the same colour with the SIM tray, a darker tone or gray.The back panel is made from curved glass, something that we dont easily see in the category except from medium to premium devices that cost a couple hundred US dollars more. The way the back panel and the side panel join together is perfect. The shiny gradient coloring is just amazing as I have already told you. Surely the glass is a fingerprint magnet and if you dont like the black silicone case that comes along in the retail box, a transparent case would be just perfect as you could enjoy the glass panel to all its glory. In the center of the panel you can find the double camera. On its left there is a LED flash and on the bottom a fingertip sensor. I really like that the sensor is larger in diameter from the two equally sized lenses – it makes my finger easier to reach and unlock.I also like that there is no bulge in the camera setup. I use my smartphone a lot on my desk and I simply hate bulges. Whenever I try to write something most of the smartphones slide like a boat. Not Z2.I was really astonished the way Umidigi A1 Pro looked and at this price tag I cant but admire what Umidigi has done again!This is an excellent exterior that easily outperforms in beauty any other plastic or metal smartphones in the price category. Not only that! With the colour gradient it is better looking than double-prized flagships – I can confirm it by having a OnePlus 6 in my other hand. The quality is equal to the flagship-killer and that is an amazing accomplishment for half the price.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramHardwareThe screen is the main selling point with a 6.2 inch, 2.5D curved, 19:9 display. It has a FHD+ resolution (2246 X 1080) that covers 90% of the front with 403 ppi. I dont know who builds this panel but Umidigi keeps a close partnership and usually buys from SHARP. The display is bright and vivid and has good contrast. It is visible under the midday sun but not as much as I wanted. Viewing angles are good and since this is a good panel, I suppose this is another SHARP product.This smartphone comes with the MTK6763V SoC known also as Helio P23. It is an 8-core processor with 8 Cortex-A53 cores working at a frequency of 2.0GHz. It is accompanied by a ARM Mali-G71 MP2 GPU working to help with the graphics. Helio P23 and Snapdragon 625 have stellar performance in stability and power usage, and they are still used today by many companies. There are 6GB of LPDDR4x RAM to assist and the G71 proves to be a good GPU. My opinion is that a newer chip could be found here at the expense of having less RAM/ROM. The daily usage should not suffer, however as I had no issues in any task. Of course heavy gaming or multitasking stress the SoC. Benchmark results are the same as in any other Helio P23 driven smartphone. There are 64GB of ROM in the phone. The internal storage can expand up to 256GB with an external SDcard placed in the SIM tray. It supports dual SIM functionality with two nano-SIMs or a nano-SIM and the aforementioned micorSD card.Connectivity is exceptional. It supports Dual 4G LTE, and nearly all available bands, thus is an excellent tool for people that travel a lot. Is supports 2G: GSM B2/B3/B5/B8 CDMA BC0/BC1, 3G: WCDMA B1/B2/B4/B5/B8 TD-SCDMA B34/B3, 4G: FDD-LTE B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B12/B13/B17/B18/B19/B20/B25/B26/B28, TDD-LTE B34/B38/B39/B40/B41. The only caveat here is the lack of NFC.The smartphone has a good sensor pack having GPS (A-GPS, Beidou, GLONASS, GPS), Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Gyroscope, Proximity Sensor, and FM Radio. Bluetooth has the 4.0 Specification. Navigation works fine with satellites being found fast and having a good precision.Audio is based on a single external speaker at the bottom. It is clear and loud and much better than expected for the price range. Wifi is able to connect to 802.11 a/b/g/n, 2.4G/5GHz Dual-band.Call quality is excellent and video calls are good without any issues. Selfie cam has no LED so keep in mind to have a light source near in video calls.SoftwareThe operating system found in the smartphone is stock Android 8.1. I dont know whether Z2 will be updated to Android 9 Pie. On the first power-on I had an OTA update of 106.43MB! Constant upgrades is the safe path to compete against software oriented companies like Xiaomi or Android One smartphones. So let’s all hope that Umidigi keeps updating Z2, because we cannot say the same for most of their previous models. First boot and set up was fast. I am using Oreo since December so the experience is typical with no issues. In the settings Umidigi has added a few touches here and there. Smart Assistant has options to hide the navigation bar, and flip the buttons, there is a Flip to Mute option for calls, alarms or music and a Sweep QR scanner. Face unlock works properly while having a nice option to lit the display as to brighten up the users face in low light conditions. In the Fingerprint setup there are a lot of options to use the fingerprint sensor. For example you can answer a call or take a screenshot. In the System settings you will find the Android System Update and in the About Phone the Umidigi Wireless Update. The latest Google Security patch level is the one from May – it’s turning a bit old I guess. There is also the well known DuraSpeed setting here as well. This setting allows fine-tuned control over foreground and background apps on a toggle based system. If you want more performance you can toggle your prefered application and it will stop running in the background – there will be no updates or notifications on it.Face Unlock worked in a decent way, it is fast and works most of the time in low light environments with its lit-display option. As always I repeat that it is not a 100% safe method to use and one should prefer the fast and reliable fingerprint sensor. Having said that, I must admit that this is the first phone that Face Unlock is faster to unlock the phone when compared to the two biometric sensors. While the fingerprint sensor works flawlessly the time to lit the display is almost 2 seconds. This is something that Umidigi needs to fix. Multitasking works as long you wont open 100 apps – the software tends to kill them, so the SoC can handle the latest processes.Gaming -considering the SoC- is doable with low graphic settings. Due to the 6GB of LPDDR4x RAM and ARM Mali-G71 MP2 GPU this smartphone is better at gaming than any other Helio P23 or Snapdragon 625 handset. PUGB is playable at medium graphic settings but the experience is lower than Snapdragon 625 smartphones – there are a lot of lags.Sound is good and loud. There is a single speaker. This is not a phone for audiophiles, but for daily usage I was satisfied with the volume and clear sound. My opinion is that is a bit better from the competition in the price range. The back of the phone gets warm even after average usage but nothing more than that. Don’t worry it won’t melt 馃槈CameraThe quad cameras are made from Samsung and consist of a main pair in the back with a 13MP main shooter from Samsung with f/2.0 aperture and a 5MP, f/2.4 aperture lens for the the bokeh effect. A dual LED supports night shots. Facial recognition and selfie countdown are possible from the front camera. The camera application has all the basic stuff you expect these days. There is a Picture and Video main menus with the settings. HDR is seen in a prominent place at the top, while in Picture you can alter with a left to right gesture from the left side between Normal or Bokeh pictures.I cant tell you that I felt happy with the application. It looks and feels very basic and below this price range. You need to swipe to the left or right to access the settings which is typical these days but there is no mark or clues to do so.[flickr_set id=”72157700210394934″]Having said that, the Z2 is a decent camera phone. It is really good in bright light but suffers in low light something usual in this price range. HDR worked properly without losing details or sharpness. Bokeh effect is much better than that of the competition.Taking pictures with the main camera or selfie camera is an enjoyable experience – as you can see from the samples the results are a bit better than that of the competition in the category. In good lighting conditions or outside in bright weather pictures are good. Nightly or low light shots have a lot of noise and details are blurry at least. HDR worked properly without losing details or sharpness.Video recording is up to 1080p. The results are ok, mediocre in bright light, extra noisy in low light. The smartphone has no OIS or EIS and the image is shaking. At least the noise recording is clear and loud.Considering the price I am happy with the whole experience and results.BatteryZ2 has a Li-Pol, non removable, 3850 mAh battery. With medium usage the battery is more than capable to keep the phone lit all the day as with continuous video playback I got 6.5 hours of screen-on-time.The company advertises the quick charge functionality with the 18W charger. It takes 80-90 minutes for a full charge and the device gets a bit warm in the procedure. I didnt see any battery drain in any application or gaming.ConclusionWhat Umidigi did here was to take the typical medium category smartphone and successfully incorporate all the 2018 trends into it. Big full-view bezel-less display, notch, shiny gradient coloring, 6GB RAM, stock Android, quad cameras, face unlock and fast charge, are ALL there in UMIDIGI Z2. The quality of build is very good – i have to stress that.Daily usage is effortless and the battery can keep up until the end. In case of heavy usage the phone has limitations on its SoC even with the existence of high quality RAM.There is no protection or audio jack and you need to consider this by buying a tempered glass and bluetooth headsets. There is no notification light either – something that I find unfortunate.In early 2018 Huawei took over the world by announcing their premium P20 series with astounding photographic abilities. P20 arrived with a full notched display copying iPhone X, and shiny gradient colours, borrowed from its sub-company Honor. Copying, borrowing and even cloning, is a method all smartphone companies use. It is a fast way to capture trends and at the same time promote the company that provides the design – a win-win scenario for most. Everybody does it and hopefully will be doing it in the future. If you are looking for a P20 series lookalike that costs way far less than the original flagship while packing as much value as possible at a low price, Umidigi Z2 is your next phone.This is the second smartphone from Umidigi that arrives in my hands after the amazing UMIDIGI A1 Pro this year and i just cant believe how well the company is upgrading its products year after year. While A1 Pro is the undisputable winner in the entry level category, Z2 comes at the middle one, a place where Xiaomi rules with the Redmi series during the past couple of years. So Z2 has to stand its ground and prove its worth and value. It has a full notched display, 6GB of RAM, stock Android Oreo, a large 3850mAh battery with 18W fast charge, four cameras and an amazing array of global band support. Face Unlock and a shiny gradient coloured back with a fingerprint sensor complete this excellent set of characteristics.Umidigi Z2 Technical SpecificationsOS: Android 8.1CPU: MTK6763V Octa Core 2.0GHzGPU: ARM Mali-G71 MP2ROM: 64GB ROM, TF card up to 256GBRAM: 6GB LPDDR4x RAMDisplay: 6.2 inch, 1080 x 2284 pixelsFront Camera: 16.0MP + 8.0MP dual front cameraBack Camera: 16.0MP + 8.0MP dual back cameraNetwork: GSM / WCDMA / FDD-LTEBands: 2G: GSM B2/B3/B5/B8 CDMA BC0/BC1, 3G: WCDMA B1/B2/B4/B5/B8, 4G: FDD-LTE B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B12/B13/B17/B18/B19/B20/B25/B26/B28SIM: 2 Nano SIM Cards, Dual standbyBluetooth: 4.0Battery: 3850 mAhExtras: Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Gyroscope, Proximity Sensor, GPSSize: 153.4 x 74.4 x 8.3 mmWeight: 165g UnboxingThe smartphone arrives in a dark gray to black, hard paper box, with an extra half-cover and crafted texture to prove to you that they care even for the small parts – It is the same package that A1 Pro arrived in. The brand name is written in a gold-copper colour in the box- same colour is used in the logo Link to the World typed in the instructions envelope inside. A thank you card is added inside, with details on how to enter a giveaway competition.The bottom of the box has a black sticker with white letters describing the characteristics, the package contents, a warning not to use non approved batteries and the brands email address. The box has dimensions 180 X 90 X 35 mm and weights 430 grams. Inside you will find:1 X UMIDIGI Z21 X Power adapter1 X USB cable1 X USB to 3.5mm audio jack adapter1 X SIM card eject tool1 X Screen protector1 X Silicone Case1 X Manual in English, Italian, Spanish, German and FrenchThe retail box is excellent and complete according to my… taste. I really liked the silicone case as it has a leather type texture with an excellent grip and protection from fingerprints. Another nice touch is that the usb cable is in red – a color that UMI usually choses for some of their models from time to time.DesignThere are three color versions, Phantom (black), Twilight and Twilight Black. I had the latest version in my hands, yes the Twilight Black. It is bluish and black on the top turning purple at the bottom. I prefer this colour to the other two and it looks astonishingly good in the sun. (look below)In the front we can see a huge 6.2 inch display with a 19:9 aspect ratio. The notch in the top resembles the one used in Huawei P20’s display. There is no protection here that i know of, except from the plastic cover attached to the display. The plastic film will be too scratched in the future, will look bad and will downgrade the – in all respect- clean nice looking panel. Dont think about it, go and buy a tempered glass to replace the film and enhance the panels protection. The notch is the place where you can find the microphone, the front-facing dual camera and the usual pack of sensors. There is no LED flash here so your selfies will suffer in low light conditions. Unfortunately there is no notification light either.There are very small bezels on the side and a bigger one on the bottom. This is a full view display with excellent ratio to body of approximately 90% (according to UMI that is). There are no physical keys on the lower bezel. Bezels are smaller than OnePlus 6 but Z2 has a larger notch.The frame is metallic with a dark grey colouring. In the right side it has two metallic buttons, the volume control and the power/lock button. There is a small rattling noise and partial movement when you move your fingers on them but nothing serious to complain about. On the top there is a noise cancellation microphone. In the left you can see double SIM tray. On the lower part you will find the USB type C port and the speaker trays on the left and right of it. As you understood from the retail box content there is no 3.5 mm audio jack. I know this a trend that keeps the width smaller but I believe that Umidigi should include an audio port. It would be an advantage over the competition. Any way the company wanted a 2018 flagship look and there are very few flagships that keep a 3.5mm port. At the side, near the top and bottom a small part of the antenna bands is visible, having the same colour with the SIM tray, a darker tone or gray.The back panel is made from curved glass, something that we dont easily see in the category except from medium to premium devices that cost a couple hundred US dollars more. The way the back panel and the side panel join together is perfect. The shiny gradient coloring is just amazing as I have already told you. Surely the glass is a fingerprint magnet and if you dont like the black silicone case that comes along in the retail box, a transparent case would be just perfect as you could enjoy the glass panel to all its glory. In the center of the panel you can find the double camera. On its left there is a LED flash and on the bottom a fingertip sensor. I really like that the sensor is larger in diameter from the two equally sized lenses – it makes my finger easier to reach and unlock.I also like that there is no bulge in the camera setup. I use my smartphone a lot on my desk and I simply hate bulges. Whenever I try to write something most of the smartphones slide like a boat. Not Z2.I was really astonished the way Umidigi A1 Pro looked and at this price tag I cant but admire what Umidigi has done again!This is an excellent exterior that easily outperforms in beauty any other plastic or metal smartphones in the price category. Not only that! With the colour gradient it is better looking than double-prized flagships – I can confirm it by having a OnePlus 6 in my other hand. The quality is equal to the flagship-killer and that is an amazing accomplishment for half the price.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramHardwareThe screen is the main selling point with a 6.2 inch, 2.5D curved, 19:9 display. It has a FHD+ resolution (2246 X 1080) that covers 90% of the front with 403 ppi. I dont know who builds this panel but Umidigi keeps a close partnership and usually buys from SHARP. The display is bright and vivid and has good contrast. It is visible under the midday sun but not as much as I wanted. Viewing angles are good and since this is a good panel, I suppose this is another SHARP product.This smartphone comes with the MTK6763V SoC known also as Helio P23. It is an 8-core processor with 8 Cortex-A53 cores working at a frequency of 2.0GHz. It is accompanied by a ARM Mali-G71 MP2 GPU working to help with the graphics. Helio P23 and Snapdragon 625 have stellar performance in stability and power usage, and they are still used today by many companies. There are 6GB of LPDDR4x RAM to assist and the G71 proves to be a good GPU. My opinion is that a newer chip could be found here at the expense of having less RAM/ROM. The daily usage should not suffer, however as I had no issues in any task. Of course heavy gaming or multitasking stress the SoC. Benchmark results are the same as in any other Helio P23 driven smartphone. There are 64GB of ROM in the phone. The internal storage can expand up to 256GB with an external SDcard placed in the SIM tray. It supports dual SIM functionality with two nano-SIMs or a nano-SIM and the aforementioned micorSD card.Connectivity is exceptional. It supports Dual 4G LTE, and nearly all available bands, thus is an excellent tool for people that travel a lot. Is supports 2G: GSM B2/B3/B5/B8 CDMA BC0/BC1, 3G: WCDMA B1/B2/B4/B5/B8 TD-SCDMA B34/B3, 4G: FDD-LTE B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B12/B13/B17/B18/B19/B20/B25/B26/B28, TDD-LTE B34/B38/B39/B40/B41. The only caveat here is the lack of NFC.The smartphone has a good sensor pack having GPS (A-GPS, Beidou, GLONASS, GPS), Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Gyroscope, Proximity Sensor, and FM Radio. Bluetooth has the 4.0 Specification. Navigation works fine with satellites being found fast and having a good precision.Audio is based on a single external speaker at the bottom. It is clear and loud and much better than expected for the price range. Wifi is able to connect to 802.11 a/b/g/n, 2.4G/5GHz Dual-band.Call quality is excellent and video calls are good without any issues. Selfie cam has no LED so keep in mind to have a light source near in video calls.SoftwareThe operating system found in the smartphone is stock Android 8.1. I dont know whether Z2 will be updated to Android 9 Pie. On the first power-on I had an OTA update of 106.43MB! Constant upgrades is the safe path to compete against software oriented companies like Xiaomi or Android One smartphones. So let’s all hope that Umidigi keeps updating Z2, because we cannot say the same for most of their previous models. First boot and set up was fast. I am using Oreo since December so the experience is typical with no issues. In the settings Umidigi has added a few touches here and there. Smart Assistant has options to hide the navigation bar, and flip the buttons, there is a Flip to Mute option for calls, alarms or music and a Sweep QR scanner. Face unlock works properly while having a nice option to lit the display as to brighten up the users face in low light conditions. In the Fingerprint setup there are a lot of options to use the fingerprint sensor. For example you can answer a call or take a screenshot. In the System settings you will find the Android System Update and in the About Phone the Umidigi Wireless Update. The latest Google Security patch level is the one from May – it’s turning a bit old I guess. There is also the well known DuraSpeed setting here as well. This setting allows fine-tuned control over foreground and background apps on a toggle based system. If you want more performance you can toggle your prefered application and it will stop running in the background – there will be no updates or notifications on it.Face Unlock worked in a decent way, it is fast and works most of the time in low light environments with its lit-display option. As always I repeat that it is not a 100% safe method to use and one should prefer the fast and reliable fingerprint sensor. Having said that, I must admit that this is the first phone that Face Unlock is faster to unlock the phone when compared to the two biometric sensors. While the fingerprint sensor works flawlessly the time to lit the display is almost 2 seconds. This is something that Umidigi needs to fix. Multitasking works as long you wont open 100 apps – the software tends to kill them, so the SoC can handle the latest processes.Gaming -considering the SoC- is doable with low graphic settings. Due to the 6GB of LPDDR4x RAM and ARM Mali-G71 MP2 GPU this smartphone is better at gaming than any other Helio P23 or Snapdragon 625 handset. PUGB is playable at medium graphic settings but the experience is lower than Snapdragon 625 smartphones – there are a lot of lags.Sound is good and loud. There is a single speaker. This is not a phone for audiophiles, but for daily usage I was satisfied with the volume and clear sound. My opinion is that is a bit better from the competition in the price range. The back of the phone gets warm even after average usage but nothing more than that. Don’t worry it won’t melt 馃槈CameraThe quad cameras are made from Samsung and consist of a main pair in the back with a 13MP main shooter from Samsung with f/2.0 aperture and a 5MP, f/2.4 aperture lens for the the bokeh effect. A dual LED supports night shots. Facial recognition and selfie countdown are possible from the front camera. The camera application has all the basic stuff you expect these days. There is a Picture and Video main menus with the settings. HDR is seen in a prominent place at the top, while in Picture you can alter with a left to right gesture from the left side between Normal or Bokeh pictures.I cant tell you that I felt happy with the application. It looks and feels very basic and below this price range. You need to swipe to the left or right to access the settings which is typical these days but there is no mark or clues to do so.[flickr_set id=”72157700210394934″]Having said that, the Z2 is a decent camera phone. It is really good in bright light but suffers in low light something usual in this price range. HDR worked properly without losing details or sharpness. Bokeh effect is much better than that of the competition.Taking pictures with the main camera or selfie camera is an enjoyable experience – as you can see from the samples the results are a bit better than that of the competition in the category. In good lighting conditions or outside in bright weather pictures are good. Nightly or low light shots have a lot of noise and details are blurry at least. HDR worked properly without losing details or sharpness.Video recording is up to 1080p. The results are ok, mediocre in bright light, extra noisy in low light. The smartphone has no OIS or EIS and the image is shaking. At least the noise recording is clear and loud.Considering the price I am happy with the whole experience and results.BatteryZ2 has a Li-Pol, non removable, 3850 mAh battery. With medium usage the battery is more than capable to keep the phone lit all the day as with continuous video playback I got 6.5 hours of screen-on-time.The company advertises the quick charge functionality with the 18W charger. It takes 80-90 minutes for a full charge and the device gets a bit warm in the procedure. I didnt see any battery drain in any application or gaming.ConclusionWhat Umidigi did here was to take the typical medium category smartphone and successfully incorporate all the 2018 trends into it. Big full-view bezel-less display, notch, shiny gradient coloring, 6GB RAM, stock Android, quad cameras, face unlock and fast charge, are ALL there in UMIDIGI Z2. The quality of build is very good – i have to stress that.Daily usage is effortless and the battery can keep up until the end. In case of heavy usage the phone has limitations on its SoC even with the existence of high quality RAM.There is no protection or audio jack and you need to consider this by buying a tempered glass and bluetooth headsets. There is no notification light either – something that I find unfortunate.

Vernee is once again “in the house” here in Gizchina HQ and today they decided to send over one of their slimmest and most efficient rugged Android smartphones and surely one that most of you outgoing professionals out there, will like.聽Say hello to聽Vernee V2 Pro聽a new rugged smartphone -part of their high-end portfolio – equipped with an Helio P23 SoC processor,聽a 2160 x 1080 pixels display and 6GB of RAM for excellent multitasking.Since its official launch some weeks ago, the phone has generally been well received, and we believe, pretty much rightly so. It definitely isn’t a phone that will ‘change everything’, but it’s a fairly nice device – one of聽the slimmest ever designed by the Chinese company and it surely deserves all the praises for this. Let’s take a deeper look in the Vernee V2 Pro review!Vernee V2 Pro: Technical specsDisplay: 5.99 inch, 2160 x 1080 pixels screenCPU: MTK6763 ( Helio P23 ) Octa Core 2GHzSystem: Android 8.1RAM: 6GB – ROM: 64GBCamera: 16.0MP ( SW 21MP )+ 5.0MP rear camera; 8MP ( SW 13MP ) + 5.0MP dual front camerasSensor: G-sensor control, distance sensor, light sensor, electronic compass, gyroscope, geomagnetism, NFC, OTG, fingerprint recognitionSIM Card: dual Nano SIM + dual standbyFeatures: GPS, AGPS, GLONASS, BDSBluetooth: 4.2Dimensions: 164,2 x 79,4 x 12,1 mm / Weight: 259 grNetwork:聽2G: GSM B2, 3, 5, 8 –聽3G: WCDMA B1 / 2 / 4 / 5 / 8 – TD-SCDMA: B34 / 39 –聽4G: FDD-LTE: B1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 8 / 12 / 17 / 19 / 20, BC0 / BC1 – TDD-LTE: B34 / 38 / 39 / 40 / 41Vernee V2 Pro Review: Design & BuildIt’s always good to start from – whats probably the most important factor in a rugged phone 鈥 its build quality and design. As you might have guessed by reading the review introduction, the Vernee V2 Pro comes as a slim, powerfull rugged device, with a large battery and ample RAM/storage, enough to cover the needs of almost any type of user.The smartphone is indeed slim compared to similar devices currently out with 12mm of thickness. Sure, it wont be as thin as an average smartphone, but if you take into consideration that you usually put an external case on them to avoid damages from drops and whatnot, while you dont need one on the already tough V2 Pro, then were not too far off as far as bulkiness goes.聽Right off the bat, the Vernee V2 Pro will remind you of at least 5-6 other typical mid-range models in the market, just pick one, they’re all the same to me. The only real noticeable feature however is the total absence of a front facing fingerprint scanner, something that adds a lot of points to its general design score, leaving a lot of space for its 5.99 inch display to show off a bit.聽At around the $249 mark (while writing this review), the Vernee V2 Pro isn’t the cheapest Chinese device, but I guess that it does the job. While the Chinese are getting to a point where they almost get the hardware right (full display, 4G/LTE, dual NANO SIM, 6GB RAM, microSD support up to 128GB, FM Radio, OTG, NFC etc.), there’s definitely still a void to fill when it’s software we’re talking about. More on that later.聽Combined with a metal finish and some polycarbonate parts on its body (that is prone to smudges on the back side however), the Vernee V2 Pro is surely a quite tempting device to hold and use. Unfortunately it still has large bezels on top and bottom, even though the company has done their best to “hide” them. They’re not huge, don’t get me wrong, but I guess that’s the price to pay to get a quite efficient, full display smartphone with true IP68 certification.聽The glass on top of the 2.5D display seems to (thankfully) feature some kind of oleophobic coating along with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, so you won’t be seeing a lot of smudges there while in everyday use, something that I really liked during my days with this device in my hands.The Vernee V2 Pro is IP68 water and dust proof, which is a great feature to have, albeit 鈥 in this case 鈥 it needs rubber plugs to make it so. So we have one at the bottom for the USB Type-C port with OTG support and another at the top for the 3.5mm audio jack.聽As far as build quality goes, the聽V2 Pro feels really solid in the hand, it does not make any noise when squeezed as well as when shaken. Kudos to Vernee for the high value production quality. You can easily rely on it for hard work, outgoing experiences, some trips to the sea or to the mountains, with out worrying that it may break. It won’t…Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramVernee V2 Pro Review: Hardware & PerformanceEquipped with Mediatek’s Helio P23 SoC along with 6GB RAM and 64GB of storage, one can surely expect the V2 Pro to provide quite impressive everyday use, with no lags or other issues. You can easily get more than decent performance in everyday use, as it will get the job done for everyday chores, extensive social media, Emails, a bit of Skype, Chrome for browsing etc. No lags, no apps freezing thankfully. While the VOS (V OS) is pretty much vanilla Android, there are still a few areas where it can be improved – the camera app for example, and others here and there. As I write this review, I’ve been notified of another OTA which will hopefully make things better. Don’t get me wrong, it’s quite intuitive as a UI, as it comes with several power saving features, some gestures like 3 fingers screenshot, Picture-in-Picture mode, some Pinned Shortcuts that can help increase your productivity etc.It runs on Android 8.1 Oreo, with full Google Apps support: all the stock apps are waiting for you when the device boots, such as聽Gmail, Youtube, Maps, Google Drive, but there are some other 3rd party apps that must accompany every rugged smartphone like a compass, a pedometer, gyroscope and excellet GPS/A-GPS support with fast location fix and more than 10 satellites connected at any time.There’s also a heart rate sensor located at the back, next to the dual camera of the device. It tries to measure our heart-rate with typical success but I would not rely on it for medical reasons, or anything similar. Performance wise, the V2 Pro is right up there with the likes of other Helio P23 phones. In fact it’s pretty zippy thanks to the lightweight OS (unless it’s having a RAM issue).聽I’ve managed to run several apps all at the same time without having any caching issues. I’d go as far as to say that you really don’t need 6GB of RAM at this point in time if your 4GB RAM is accompanied by decent software. But if your phone comes with 6GB RAM, who am I to turn it down? 馃槈 Moving on to the hardware, it’s been a mixed bag of sorts. The display comes with an impressive聽2160 x 1080 pixels resolution and yes, it is doing its best to fulfill all your needs. All in all it packs a nice and bright panel with some amazing back light consistency聽– no light bleeding whatsoever, with impressive clarity given its size. Well done here Vernee! The sound is.. average I must say. Both the earpiece and the built-in loudspeaker offer typical performance. While the earpiece is still doable, the loudspeaker offers poor sound with virtually no bass, a bit lower volume than expected but if you turn off the sound enhancer settings this helps a lot!聽The Vernee V2 Pro has a non-removable 6200mAH Li-Po battery which has a decent fast charging feature. These days people prefer purchasing fast charging battery smartphones, so take into account that this smartphone needs only 150 minutes to charge completely, with the use of the 9V/2A charger you’ll find inside its main package. As for its battery life while in typical usage, I’ve constantly managed to get over 5 hours of screen on time (5-5,5 hours on an average) when mostly on WiFi, and around the 6 hours mark when on 3G/4G. While this is good, it could get better, especially considering the battery size of 6200mAh.聽As I mentioned before, the fingerprint scanner of the device is positioned at the back, just below the main camera. It is not one of the fastest in the market, but it surely gets the job done, offering 0,1 seconds of recognition time, with an average of 95% success rate while in everyday use. Typical stuff there too, don’t expect anything else.Vernee V2 Pro Review: CameraIf you read the title of our review, then you must already know that the V2 Pro is one of the first rugged smartphones out there, equipped with not 3, but 4 cameras: a聽16.0MP + 5.0MP main pair of lenses along with two 8.0MP + 5.0MP front shooters for selfies with bokeh effects. The 16MP lens can use interpolation to increase its resolution to 21MP, but I wouldn’t suggest it. Just use the true 16MPixels of the sensor, it’s much better.聽The main dual camera is definitely potent enough to take some breathtaking shots I’m sure, but again that’s bottle-necked by the software running on the phone. It’s sad to notice that there’s no manual mode on the camera app, something the V2 Pro definitely deserves.聽The camera聽can capture the images at 4608 x 3456 pixels and record some decent videos of 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution @ 30fps.聽It’s a dual setup that manages to聽focus fast, and thanks to its RAM/SoC combination, saving clicked photos is extremely fast also. As you’d expect, the shutter tends to remain open for a little while longer in low-light situations, which means you’ll often end up with blurred photos. This, in turn, will make you miss OIS. There’s an ‘anti shake’ mode in the settings that you can turn on (probably something based on EIS), but it doesn’t work all that well anyway.[flickr_set id=”72157700394121035″]The front camera can also capture images with a maximum resolution of up to 3264 x 2448 pixels but when it comes to recording the video the results are NOT impressive, as it only records 480p videos @ almost 30fps. Fortunately there’s also a front facing flash that can surely brighten up those selfies during the night, with聽beauty mode and facial recognition.Vernee V2 Pro Review: ConclusionIf you’re in the market for a rugged smartphone with affordable price and some impressive technical specs, then the Vernee V2 Pro is definitely a phone that breaks away from the norm! Equipped with a decent chipset, 6GB RAM and 64GB of storage, along with a large battery (6200 mAh) it can surely become the phone you need for those hard working days, or just a heavy duty device if you’re clumsy.Meizu’s much talked about device, the Meizu 16th (Yup, that’s what they call it), is now out. Gizchina were invited at the launch event in Beijing and we also have a review unit of the handset. This is Meizu’s successor to the Meizu 15, which is oddly just around 4 to 5 months old and is now been replaced by a much bigger upgrade. Meizu has also priced the flagship in the most aggressive manner. The base Meizu 16th variant (6GB + 64GB) will set you back by $395. That is an unbelievable price for such flagship grade specifications, especially when it comes with an on-screen fingerprint reader. Yes, both of Meizu’s flagships have the on-screen reader and that is absolutely insane at that price point. Meizu has just two colour variants, the classic Black and White while we’ve heard a Blue version is also coming out soon.First Leaks and live images pointed out to a radical design change mainly for the front of the phone with the flagship duo coming with extremely thin bezels, and they weren’t bluffing. One of the USPs of the phone is the 91.18% screen-to-body ratio that the company spent millions on to get users a cutting edge thin bezel experience, said Meizu at the event. The top bezel hides a number of sensors in that this area and there’s an ear-piece that doubles as a stereo speaker. The front is mostly screen of the Super AMOLED variety. That’s pretty much everything you’ll find on the front. The rear has a glossy finish made with a 7-layer coating process that gives the glass a ceramic feel. The backside curves gently at the edges and the in-hand feel is great and it isn’t as slippery as it would seem to be.Meizu 16th: Contents of the BoxGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramUnboxing the device, the first thing is the phone itself. All else lies beneath it in two small packages. One of the black boxes beneath the phone has a plastic back cover, a USB Type-C cable, and some paperwork. The other box has a charging brick with a rating of 12V – 2A and a SIM ejector tool. That’s pretty much what you get in the box. We had hopes for a headphone in there but that’s probably a trade-off for the price point at which you’re getting the Meizu 16th.Meizu 16th: First ImpressionsWe have the 8GB + 128GB variant with White colour. In our initial hands-on, we were very pleased to see the rear not showing fingerprint smudges as much as the Black version. The phone is very light tipping the scales at around 150 grams and applying the transparent case doesn’t add much girth or weight which is always a good thing. Sadly though, we found the phone to have no slot for a micro SD card, which wouldn’t worry us as much as some guy who bought the 64GB version. We set up the on-screen fingerprint reader quite easily at first boot and our initial testing showed it worked well but it isn’t exactly as fast as your highly reliable traditional scanner.Our unit comes with the Google Play Store and Android Oreo 8.1 with the latest version of Flyme OS. The very first thing we did was to find the gesture system. And man, you’re going to like the new options thrown in by Meizu. We set our phone to gesture navigation and didn’t use the mBack feature. The gesture system allows users to swipe from the left and right edges which we’ve always been a fan of. So, going back requires a short swipe from the left or right edge of the screen. Also, we tried to change the wallpapers and it seems like the current Flyme OS doesn’t support it, very weird. Meizu 16 All in all, we received many “Hey, what an awesome looking phone.” comments even in our short time with it. That does say a lot about the new flagship. It has killer looks, the hardware to match, and hopefully, it lives up to the expectations Meizu has from it. In case you want to check out the unboxing and first impressions video, we’ll leave a link to that below. Stay tuned for the full review coming up soon on our website and the Gizchina YouTube channel.

Apple was, and in some form still is, the driving force behind the improvement of some Android smartphones. The first iPhone was heavily copied and cloned to a huge extend from the rest of the mobile industry and this practice goes on until today. Every year store shelves are filled with similar or exact copies of the latest iPhone design. 2018 trend is a full view, 18:9 aspect ratio display design, with a notch and top-left vertically positioned cameras, copying iPhone X.A few companies stay away from this practice, with Samsung being the strongest example, along with its superior notch-less design in Galaxy S series. Some companies prefer their own full view notch-less design but they keep the iPhone X pack panel positioning: best example being Xiaomis Mi Mix 2s. As you can understand, every trip to a smartphone store today, makes us go very fast from whow! to shear boredom every year – and year after year.Meizu is a relatively small Chinese company with a long history in innovation. With a huge dose of panache Meizu decided to celebrate its 15 years in the smartphone industry by improving its MX line, topping its characteristics. Their creation is called Meizu 15: it has no 18:9 display, no notch, no back-left vertical positioned cameras. Meizu broke the mold of those boring iPhone X copies, with their anniversary Meizu 15, 15 Plus and 15 Lite smartphones, the zenith of MX series.Most would expect a flagship series with top of the selve parts. Meizu did things differently here too. They focused on the middle category (and the relevant price range) by selecting last years Exynos 8895 SoC for the Plus model and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 for the standard model! After a couple of years with low profits, Meizu wanted a smartphone for the masses. With an affordable price their devices could sell easier than a premium flagship that Meizu had planned for the future (Meizu 16 series). The company wanted more and more people to buy their phones, in order to prove to the largest possible extend, their level of expertise and excellence. The standard model arrived in my hands and tries to do exactly that: catch my eye when compared to the more famous Chinese, South Korean and US brands, made by a company that likes to differ.Meizu 15 CharacteristicsDisplay: 5.46-inch (1080 脳 1920 pixels) Full HD Super AMOLED display, 10000:1 contrast ratioSoC: Octa Core Snapdragon 660 14nm Mobile Platform (Quad 2.2GHz Kryo 260 + Quad 1.8GHz Kryo 260 CPUs) with Adreno 512 GPUMemory: 4GB RAM with 64GB / 128GB internal memoryOperational System: Android 7.1.2 (Nougat) with Flyme OS 7Photography: 12MP rear camera with wide-angle lens, 1/2.3鈥 Sony IMX380 sensor, 1.55渭m pixel size, f/1.8 aperture, Four-axis OIS, PDAF, Laser auto-focus, secondary 20MP telephoto lens, Sony IMX350 sensor, f/2.0 aperture, 6-LED ring LED flash. 20MP front-facing camera.Network: 2G: GSM B2/B3/B5/B8, 3G: WCDMA B1/B2/B5/B8, 4G: FDD-LTE B1/B3/B5/B8, TDD-LTE B34/B38/B39/B40/B41Dimensions: 143脳72.7脳7.25 mmWeight: 152gConnectivity: 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 4.2, GPS + GLONASS, USB Type-CBattery: 3000mAh battery with mCharge fast chargingCharacteristics: GPS, Miracast, OTG, Type-C, fingerprint ID, Face Unlock, 3.5mm audio jack, Stereo speakers.Meizu 15 PackagingThe smartphone arrived in a black premium box that has a soft-feel and matte black information and brand marking. It looks and feels luxurious with the Meizu 15th Anniversary written in the tray that keeps the mobile inside.聽 Inside you will find:1 脳 Phone1 脳 Built-in Battery1 脳 Type-C Cable1 脳 Eject Pin1 脳 User Manual1 脳 Power AdapterBeing a 15th Anniversary product I would expect something more like a protective case, etc. Nevertheless, the package is quite pleasing.Meizu 15 DesignFrom the first look in its box, Meizu 15 is a beauty created to be loved unconditionally. The wide聽 body has the 16:9 aspect ratio panel with almost no side bezels (width of 1.175mm), a design reminiscent of MX4. Picking it up you notice the display that has a brighter tone of black than the one of the body. The upper and lower bezels have the same height. The upper has a visible selfie-cam in the center. The speaker is a small horizontal line near the frame. The lower bezel has a fingerprint sensor in the center. No side bezels exist as we said, and that is that, a clean minimal front.The corners of the protective glass dive into the unibody frame. The frame is made from surgical-grade 316L stainless steel and aluminum alloy/composite specially build to feel plastic. The top and bottom have a external noise canceling microphone. On the left side of the phone you’ll find the volume adjustment buttons. The right side has a power button right under the top positioned SIM tray. The bottom has from left to right, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, a USB-C port and a loudspeaker. The buttons do not rattle, their feel and position is great. The back part of the frame is u-shaped, brushed with a horizontal pattern for design seen only when light is reflected on the black variant.Both cameras are located at the top center, positioned vertically with a LED ring below them. On top and bottom we can see the antennae bands near the middle frame in a designed adopted by Meizu long before Apple or anyone else did. The bands have a pattern that looks like the Ancient Greek border lines in pottery and architecture.The fine exterior does absolutely nothing to keep fingerprints or smudges off. With dimensions of 143 X 72.7 X 7.25 mm and weight of 152 grams the smartphone feels compact and it is easy to handle. Feeling it around there are no parts protruding – apart from the camera ring – it rises a bit over the camera glass adding another layer of protection to it.I am adding Meizu 15 in my top 5 beauties of the year, next to Vivo NEX, Oppo Find X, Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus and Xiaomi Mi Mix 2s. The total is an apogee of minimalism. A beauty that derives from clean lines and discretion: Meizu even kept its brand logo hidden in black matte in the back, seen only under the reflection of the light.Meizu 15 HardwareThe display is an OLED panel of 5.46 inches having a 79.8% screen-to-body ratio thanks to the custom panel design by Samsung. Black is deep and colors are bright and saturated. Resolution is up to Full HD (1080 脳 1920 pixels) which is not perfect but not bad for the size. The display is really vivid, it has high contrast with a ppi density of 403. Brightness is excellent, the display is readable under Athenss midsummer sun, and聽 can easily compare to other Samsung AMOLED panels. Viewing angles and color temperature are excellent. The latter can be set from Flyme in case some people prefer warmer or colder colors. While Gorilla Glass is not mentioned I dont believe the company would let their anniversary product unprotected. Another fine touch is that fact that the software adds palm rejection, a nice thing to have with so small side bezels.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramFingerprint reader button works as a home button as seen in all smartphones that keep their reader in front. Meizu took its traditional mBack button and enhanced it to Super mBack. mBack was used to navigate the UI with gestures and Super mBack adds a haptic motor. The haptic motor adds custom feedback to on-screen controls – Ive added my birthday in PUBG Mobile, the smartphone rattling in month and year changes and a wide smile appeared in my face. The button – it is not really a button, just a specific place pushed inside the screen – It is also equipped with pressure sensors to recognize taps and long presses. The fingerprint reader is very accurate and fast and is small enough to impress us with its performance in recognition. Face Unlock works with the selfie cam and the smartphone can be set to wake when picked, but to tell you the truth I rarely used it for unlocking. Meizu is really proud of its work on its facial recognition software. It is very fast with not false positives but struggles in low light conditions – typical of a technology that has no Infrared sensors.The standard model was positioned in the upper part of the middle price category. The reasonable choice was Qualcomms Snapdragon 660, a choice made also from Xiaomi when they decided to downgrade their Mi Note series. SD 660 has eight Kryo 260 cores, 4 clocked at 1.8GHz and 4 at 2.2 GHz. GPU is Adreno 512 and RAM is at 4GB. The SoC has been used in all premium-mid tier smartphones in 2017 and some companies as Oppo used it in their annual flagships. With that said the chipset comes very close to flagship abilities as seen in the benchmark suites. Daily usage is great. Gaming and multitasking have no issues while at the same time its price is kept low.There is no option for expanding the storage space so you need to choose wisely between the 64 and 128 GB models.Meizu 15 supports dual SIM functionality with two nano Sims. It supports 2G: GSM B2/B3/B5/B8, 3G: WCDMA B1/B2/B5/B8, 4G: FDD-LTE B1/B3/B5/B8, TDD-LTE B34/B38/B39/B40/B41. Navigation works flawlessly with satellites being found fast and having good precision.聽Wifi is of 802.11ac/b/g/n standard and Bluetooth of 4.2. Call quality is excellent and video calls are good without any issues.Meizu 15 SoftwareMeizu is known for its lightweight custom Android OS, called Flyme OS that (at the time of this review) is at its 7.0.2 version still being based on Nougat 7.1.1. Meizu’s interface聽is a vast improvement over the previous version (FlyMe 6) and the company claims that is was worked down to pixel level. I am not a Flyme expert, I havent used it since MX4 Pro but I can confirm a few things. Firstly, I have to say well don to its multilingual support, with no Chinese popping up in smaller menus or applications other than the in house browser. It is clean and fast. The design of Flyme 7 is comparable to iOS in some details and its general approach. Minimalism and clean lines as in the exterior are adding a pinch of art, finesse and elegance.At the same time I cant seem to handle mBack or Smart Touch simulated smart button, as the gestures have proven to be more difficult than I had imagined. I believe that my own stock Android smartphone is keeping me off from mastering Flymes philosophy of handling its gimmicks. Always-on display can be enabled along with raise to wake up. The later paired with face recognition makes unlocking effortless. Notification area, search page and task switcher are designed nicely and are very practical to use. Nougat supports split-screen and Flyme has a nice way to support it from the task switcher. Diving in Flyme you can find many options existing in some of the other heavily customized MIUI or EMUI OS’s. Vault, guest mode, multi-user, permission and notifications, all have various options to be customized to your specific needs.聽 Meizu has added a Game mode that prioritizes resources and keeps the user undisturbed from external apps. In house applications are beautiful and you can download anything else from Meizus App Store or Google Play Store of course. I can find only one bad and that is Nougat of course. Flyme should proceed to Oreo as soon as possible, as Android P is already reaching its production stage in a few months. While playing around i found a bug. A simple stupid bug not found in any other smartphone that has passed from my hands ever: I cannot change the background image, either from the themes application of the gallery due to my version not supporting it. Waiting for an update then?Meizu 15 CameraMeizu 15 is to the company what Mi Note 3 is to Xiaomi. The best camera phone ever made from Meizu. Starting with that fact lets describe the camera set-up. Meizu has adopted a dual-camera setup with a main Sony IMX 380 12 megapixel sensor (f/1.8 aperture, 1.55碌m, 1/2.3-inch). The secondary 20 megapixel (1/2.8″, 1.0碌m) is a telephoto lens with two tasks: 2x lossless zoom (can go to 3x interpolated) and bokeh effect. There is a 4-axis OIS, PDAF and laser autofocus. The circular LED consists of six smaller individual LEDs and it’s used for photography along with an extra notification LED existing on the front. There is some AI support here – there where some annotations in night shots but not the plethora of AI support that I have seen in Huawei P20 Pro or other releavant devices. The camera application is clean too, simple to use but I would prefer it to be a bit faster from mode to mode. You can find Portrait (bokeh), Photo, Video and More. The later includes Pro mode, Panorama, Scan, Time-lapse, Slow-Motion and Square. HRD and Beautify along with a small menu of settings provide the most minimal set up seen in such a good camera and price category. Daily pictures and Portrait mode provide excellent examples with bright colors almost equal to this year flagships. HDR is being supported brilliantly without over saturating the pictures while color is represented accurately without adding effects. Night shots have some noise but not enough to disappoint us. They are more than good. Meizu took the latest Sony sensor and added the best software she could produce. This is really Meizus best camera phone by far. There is one extra thing to add on. Optical zoom is one of the best I have found in any smartphone of the same segment![flickr_set id=”72157699287916074″]At the front of the phone,there’s a 20 megapixel selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture. AI is supported here as well and the result is not bad at all. Beautify is supported on both front and back side cameras.Video quality is good but not excellent. 4K and 1080p both at 30fps provide clear videos with good sound. Colours are good, sound is good, zoom is good, for everyday usage there is nothing extra to ask for. Meizu could add image stabilisation, but sadly they did not – probably because it would increase its price.Meizu 15 BatteryA 3000mAh battery is hidden in the sleek metal body of the device, while the AMOLED screen and the energy sufficient Snapdragon 660 provide good results. The phone provides 11-12 SOT in case of direct YouTube video playback which is 5-6 hours of daily usage. The phone made it every night with 10-15% with medium usage. My opinion in smartphones is that battery life is never sufficient and I would prefer the body to be thicker – thus packing a 4000mAh battery.Flyme has two modes to enhance battery life. Low Power mode controls Bluetooth, GPS, sound, haptic engine etc to ensure that you will make it until the end of the day in case you dont have your charger along. Super saving mode changes the home-screen to black and white and disables mostly everything than phone calls and messages. With 32% right now (at the time I am writing these words) I have one day and three hours remaining battery life in case of emergency. Not bad. 馃槈Fast charging is supported with an mCharge 4 charger. This is an excellent charger to include and with a 3000mAh battery you will need to carry it around in case of heavy usage. Charging is fast at only 45 minutes from zero to 100 percent!Meizu 15 ConclusionThis is an anniversary phone for Meizus 15th year in the smartphone industry. Huawei. BBK (Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus) and Xiaomi monopolize the Chinese market and Meizu is strangling to keep a part of the sales.Meizu 15 is the zenith of MX series excellent design, a design we would see in any smartphone today if iPhone X did not exist last year. Meizu provided the best they could: excellent camera, excellent sound, brilliant design, a fast OS and one of the best fast chargers. Meizu did one thing wrong: the price is not low enough unfortunately – not as low as it could be. At $400+ the category is dominated either by flagship killers from OnePlus and Xiaomi or last years flagships that have superior chipsets and overall characteristics. I am not into gaming so my daily usage is more than covered from this beautiful phone. I would love to have it as my daily driver if it was not for that price. Meizu 16 is at the corner so a price drop on the 15 should be imminent in my humble opinion.What Meizu 15 does correctly is to provide a statement to the Chinese market that they can handle being different. If you are not into the “mainstream” products, Meizu 15 is an excellent choice. Meizu is up there with the rest of the great smartphone producers, even if they got a bit sidetracked during the previous years.Apple was, and in some form still is, the driving force behind the improvement of some Android smartphones. The first iPhone was heavily copied and cloned to a huge extend from the rest of the mobile industry and this practice goes on until today. Every year store shelves are filled with similar or exact copies of the latest iPhone design. 2018 trend is a full view, 18:9 aspect ratio display design, with a notch and top-left vertically positioned cameras, copying iPhone X.A few companies stay away from this practice, with Samsung being the strongest example, along with its superior notch-less design in Galaxy S series. Some companies prefer their own full view notch-less design but they keep the iPhone X pack panel positioning: best example being Xiaomis Mi Mix 2s. As you can understand, every trip to a smartphone store today, makes us go very fast from whow! to shear boredom every year – and year after year.Meizu is a relatively small Chinese company with a long history in innovation. With a huge dose of panache Meizu decided to celebrate its 15 years in the smartphone industry by improving its MX line, topping its characteristics. Their creation is called Meizu 15: it has no 18:9 display, no notch, no back-left vertical positioned cameras. Meizu broke the mold of those boring iPhone X copies, with their anniversary Meizu 15, 15 Plus and 15 Lite smartphones, the zenith of MX series.Most would expect a flagship series with top of the selve parts. Meizu did things differently here too. They focused on the middle category (and the relevant price range) by selecting last years Exynos 8895 SoC for the Plus model and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 for the standard model! After a couple of years with low profits, Meizu wanted a smartphone for the masses. With an affordable price their devices could sell easier than a premium flagship that Meizu had planned for the future (Meizu 16 series). The company wanted more and more people to buy their phones, in order to prove to the largest possible extend, their level of expertise and excellence. The standard model arrived in my hands and tries to do exactly that: catch my eye when compared to the more famous Chinese, South Korean and US brands, made by a company that likes to differ.Meizu 15 CharacteristicsDisplay: 5.46-inch (1080 脳 1920 pixels) Full HD Super AMOLED display, 10000:1 contrast ratioSoC: Octa Core Snapdragon 660 14nm Mobile Platform (Quad 2.2GHz Kryo 260 + Quad 1.8GHz Kryo 260 CPUs) with Adreno 512 GPUMemory: 4GB RAM with 64GB / 128GB internal memoryOperational System: Android 7.1.2 (Nougat) with Flyme OS 7Photography: 12MP rear camera with wide-angle lens, 1/2.3鈥 Sony IMX380 sensor, 1.55渭m pixel size, f/1.8 aperture, Four-axis OIS, PDAF, Laser auto-focus, secondary 20MP telephoto lens, Sony IMX350 sensor, f/2.0 aperture, 6-LED ring LED flash. 20MP front-facing camera.Network: 2G: GSM B2/B3/B5/B8, 3G: WCDMA B1/B2/B5/B8, 4G: FDD-LTE B1/B3/B5/B8, TDD-LTE B34/B38/B39/B40/B41Dimensions: 143脳72.7脳7.25 mmWeight: 152gConnectivity: 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 4.2, GPS + GLONASS, USB Type-CBattery: 3000mAh battery with mCharge fast chargingCharacteristics: GPS, Miracast, OTG, Type-C, fingerprint ID, Face Unlock, 3.5mm audio jack, Stereo speakers.Meizu 15 PackagingThe smartphone arrived in a black premium box that has a soft-feel and matte black information and brand marking. It looks and feels luxurious with the Meizu 15th Anniversary written in the tray that keeps the mobile inside.聽 Inside you will find:1 脳 Phone1 脳 Built-in Battery1 脳 Type-C Cable1 脳 Eject Pin1 脳 User Manual1 脳 Power AdapterBeing a 15th Anniversary product I would expect something more like a protective case, etc. Nevertheless, the package is quite pleasing.Meizu 15 DesignFrom the first look in its box, Meizu 15 is a beauty created to be loved unconditionally. The wide聽 body has the 16:9 aspect ratio panel with almost no side bezels (width of 1.175mm), a design reminiscent of MX4. Picking it up you notice the display that has a brighter tone of black than the one of the body. The upper and lower bezels have the same height. The upper has a visible selfie-cam in the center. The speaker is a small horizontal line near the frame. The lower bezel has a fingerprint sensor in the center. No side bezels exist as we said, and that is that, a clean minimal front.The corners of the protective glass dive into the unibody frame. The frame is made from surgical-grade 316L stainless steel and aluminum alloy/composite specially build to feel plastic. The top and bottom have a external noise canceling microphone. On the left side of the phone you’ll find the volume adjustment buttons. The right side has a power button right under the top positioned SIM tray. The bottom has from left to right, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, a USB-C port and a loudspeaker. The buttons do not rattle, their feel and position is great. The back part of the frame is u-shaped, brushed with a horizontal pattern for design seen only when light is reflected on the black variant.Both cameras are located at the top center, positioned vertically with a LED ring below them. On top and bottom we can see the antennae bands near the middle frame in a designed adopted by Meizu long before Apple or anyone else did. The bands have a pattern that looks like the Ancient Greek border lines in pottery and architecture.The fine exterior does absolutely nothing to keep fingerprints or smudges off. With dimensions of 143 X 72.7 X 7.25 mm and weight of 152 grams the smartphone feels compact and it is easy to handle. Feeling it around there are no parts protruding – apart from the camera ring – it rises a bit over the camera glass adding another layer of protection to it.I am adding Meizu 15 in my top 5 beauties of the year, next to Vivo NEX, Oppo Find X, Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus and Xiaomi Mi Mix 2s. The total is an apogee of minimalism. A beauty that derives from clean lines and discretion: Meizu even kept its brand logo hidden in black matte in the back, seen only under the reflection of the light.Meizu 15 HardwareThe display is an OLED panel of 5.46 inches having a 79.8% screen-to-body ratio thanks to the custom panel design by Samsung. Black is deep and colors are bright and saturated. Resolution is up to Full HD (1080 脳 1920 pixels) which is not perfect but not bad for the size. The display is really vivid, it has high contrast with a ppi density of 403. Brightness is excellent, the display is readable under Athenss midsummer sun, and聽 can easily compare to other Samsung AMOLED panels. Viewing angles and color temperature are excellent. The latter can be set from Flyme in case some people prefer warmer or colder colors. While Gorilla Glass is not mentioned I dont believe the company would let their anniversary product unprotected. Another fine touch is that fact that the software adds palm rejection, a nice thing to have with so small side bezels.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramFingerprint reader button works as a home button as seen in all smartphones that keep their reader in front. Meizu took its traditional mBack button and enhanced it to Super mBack. mBack was used to navigate the UI with gestures and Super mBack adds a haptic motor. The haptic motor adds custom feedback to on-screen controls – Ive added my birthday in PUBG Mobile, the smartphone rattling in month and year changes and a wide smile appeared in my face. The button – it is not really a button, just a specific place pushed inside the screen – It is also equipped with pressure sensors to recognize taps and long presses. The fingerprint reader is very accurate and fast and is small enough to impress us with its performance in recognition. Face Unlock works with the selfie cam and the smartphone can be set to wake when picked, but to tell you the truth I rarely used it for unlocking. Meizu is really proud of its work on its facial recognition software. It is very fast with not false positives but struggles in low light conditions – typical of a technology that has no Infrared sensors.The standard model was positioned in the upper part of the middle price category. The reasonable choice was Qualcomms Snapdragon 660, a choice made also from Xiaomi when they decided to downgrade their Mi Note series. SD 660 has eight Kryo 260 cores, 4 clocked at 1.8GHz and 4 at 2.2 GHz. GPU is Adreno 512 and RAM is at 4GB. The SoC has been used in all premium-mid tier smartphones in 2017 and some companies as Oppo used it in their annual flagships. With that said the chipset comes very close to flagship abilities as seen in the benchmark suites. Daily usage is great. Gaming and multitasking have no issues while at the same time its price is kept low.There is no option for expanding the storage space so you need to choose wisely between the 64 and 128 GB models.Meizu 15 supports dual SIM functionality with two nano Sims. It supports 2G: GSM B2/B3/B5/B8, 3G: WCDMA B1/B2/B5/B8, 4G: FDD-LTE B1/B3/B5/B8, TDD-LTE B34/B38/B39/B40/B41. Navigation works flawlessly with satellites being found fast and having good precision.聽Wifi is of 802.11ac/b/g/n standard and Bluetooth of 4.2. Call quality is excellent and video calls are good without any issues.Meizu 15 SoftwareMeizu is known for its lightweight custom Android OS, called Flyme OS that (at the time of this review) is at its 7.0.2 version still being based on Nougat 7.1.1. Meizu’s interface聽is a vast improvement over the previous version (FlyMe 6) and the company claims that is was worked down to pixel level. I am not a Flyme expert, I havent used it since MX4 Pro but I can confirm a few things. Firstly, I have to say well don to its multilingual support, with no Chinese popping up in smaller menus or applications other than the in house browser. It is clean and fast. The design of Flyme 7 is comparable to iOS in some details and its general approach. Minimalism and clean lines as in the exterior are adding a pinch of art, finesse and elegance.At the same time I cant seem to handle mBack or Smart Touch simulated smart button, as the gestures have proven to be more difficult than I had imagined. I believe that my own stock Android smartphone is keeping me off from mastering Flymes philosophy of handling its gimmicks. Always-on display can be enabled along with raise to wake up. The later paired with face recognition makes unlocking effortless. Notification area, search page and task switcher are designed nicely and are very practical to use. Nougat supports split-screen and Flyme has a nice way to support it from the task switcher. Diving in Flyme you can find many options existing in some of the other heavily customized MIUI or EMUI OS’s. Vault, guest mode, multi-user, permission and notifications, all have various options to be customized to your specific needs.聽 Meizu has added a Game mode that prioritizes resources and keeps the user undisturbed from external apps. In house applications are beautiful and you can download anything else from Meizus App Store or Google Play Store of course. I can find only one bad and that is Nougat of course. Flyme should proceed to Oreo as soon as possible, as Android P is already reaching its production stage in a few months. While playing around i found a bug. A simple stupid bug not found in any other smartphone that has passed from my hands ever: I cannot change the background image, either from the themes application of the gallery due to my version not supporting it. Waiting for an update then?Meizu 15 CameraMeizu 15 is to the company what Mi Note 3 is to Xiaomi. The best camera phone ever made from Meizu. Starting with that fact lets describe the camera set-up. Meizu has adopted a dual-camera setup with a main Sony IMX 380 12 megapixel sensor (f/1.8 aperture, 1.55碌m, 1/2.3-inch). The secondary 20 megapixel (1/2.8″, 1.0碌m) is a telephoto lens with two tasks: 2x lossless zoom (can go to 3x interpolated) and bokeh effect. There is a 4-axis OIS, PDAF and laser autofocus. The circular LED consists of six smaller individual LEDs and it’s used for photography along with an extra notification LED existing on the front. There is some AI support here – there where some annotations in night shots but not the plethora of AI support that I have seen in Huawei P20 Pro or other releavant devices. The camera application is clean too, simple to use but I would prefer it to be a bit faster from mode to mode. You can find Portrait (bokeh), Photo, Video and More. The later includes Pro mode, Panorama, Scan, Time-lapse, Slow-Motion and Square. HRD and Beautify along with a small menu of settings provide the most minimal set up seen in such a good camera and price category. Daily pictures and Portrait mode provide excellent examples with bright colors almost equal to this year flagships. HDR is being supported brilliantly without over saturating the pictures while color is represented accurately without adding effects. Night shots have some noise but not enough to disappoint us. They are more than good. Meizu took the latest Sony sensor and added the best software she could produce. This is really Meizus best camera phone by far. There is one extra thing to add on. Optical zoom is one of the best I have found in any smartphone of the same segment![flickr_set id=”72157699287916074″]At the front of the phone,there’s a 20 megapixel selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture. AI is supported here as well and the result is not bad at all. Beautify is supported on both front and back side cameras.Video quality is good but not excellent. 4K and 1080p both at 30fps provide clear videos with good sound. Colours are good, sound is good, zoom is good, for everyday usage there is nothing extra to ask for. Meizu could add image stabilisation, but sadly they did not – probably because it would increase its price.Meizu 15 BatteryA 3000mAh battery is hidden in the sleek metal body of the device, while the AMOLED screen and the energy sufficient Snapdragon 660 provide good results. The phone provides 11-12 SOT in case of direct YouTube video playback which is 5-6 hours of daily usage. The phone made it every night with 10-15% with medium usage. My opinion in smartphones is that battery life is never sufficient and I would prefer the body to be thicker – thus packing a 4000mAh battery.Flyme has two modes to enhance battery life. Low Power mode controls Bluetooth, GPS, sound, haptic engine etc to ensure that you will make it until the end of the day in case you dont have your charger along. Super saving mode changes the home-screen to black and white and disables mostly everything than phone calls and messages. With 32% right now (at the time I am writing these words) I have one day and three hours remaining battery life in case of emergency. Not bad. 馃槈Fast charging is supported with an mCharge 4 charger. This is an excellent charger to include and with a 3000mAh battery you will need to carry it around in case of heavy usage. Charging is fast at only 45 minutes from zero to 100 percent!Meizu 15 ConclusionThis is an anniversary phone for Meizus 15th year in the smartphone industry. Huawei. BBK (Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus) and Xiaomi monopolize the Chinese market and Meizu is strangling to keep a part of the sales.Meizu 15 is the zenith of MX series excellent design, a design we would see in any smartphone today if iPhone X did not exist last year. Meizu provided the best they could: excellent camera, excellent sound, brilliant design, a fast OS and one of the best fast chargers. Meizu did one thing wrong: the price is not low enough unfortunately – not as low as it could be. At $400+ the category is dominated either by flagship killers from OnePlus and Xiaomi or last years flagships that have superior chipsets and overall characteristics. I am not into gaming so my daily usage is more than covered from this beautiful phone. I would love to have it as my daily driver if it was not for that price. Meizu 16 is at the corner so a price drop on the 15 should be imminent in my humble opinion.What Meizu 15 does correctly is to provide a statement to the Chinese market that they can handle being different. If you are not into the “mainstream” products, Meizu 15 is an excellent choice. Meizu is up there with the rest of the great smartphone producers, even if they got a bit sidetracked during the previous years.

The huge demand for bezel-less smartphones has placed several smartphone manufacturers in the middle of a race for the best offering. The advent of 18:9 screens have brought us the possibility of having handsets with large displays, but without sacrificing size, ergonomics and design.Now it’s possible to have a 6-inch smartphone that is comfortable to hold, and also a 5.7-inch smartphone that would sit alongside old 5.2-inch devices. The Chinese smartphone industry is betting high on this new trend, and Umidigi is no exception. The Umidigi A1 Pro is the latest company’s offering for the budget segment, with a nice design, compact display, and specs that don’t compromise the performance of a $99 smartphone. Keep reading, and you’ll know more about this decent package. – Main Specs:Display: 5.5-inch 1440×720 pixels LCD IPS panelCPU: MT6739 Quad-Core 1.5GHzSystem: Android 8.1 OreoStorage: 3GB RAM + 16GB ROMCameras: 13MP + 5MP f/2.0 dual back cameras and 5MP f/2.4 front-facing snapperSensors: Gravity Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Gyroscope, Magnetic Field SensorFeatures: GPS, GlonassBluetooth: 4.0SIM Card: Dual SIM Dual Standby, 2 Nano SIM or 1 Nano SIM + microSD cardNetworks: 2G: GSM B2/3/5/83G: WCDMA B1/2/4/5/84G: LTE FDD B1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/19/20LTE TDD B38/40/41Size: 145.3 x 69.1 x 8.5mmWeight: 173gBattery: 3150mAhPackage and Accessories:The Umidigi A1 Pro comes inside a plain black package with the Umidigi Logo written in gold letters. There is cool cover above the standard box, you’ll just need to swipe it to have access to the box with all the contents. Behind the box, we have some details about the Umidigi A1 Pro specifications.Inside the box we have the standard set of acessories that Umidigi often includes with most of its handsets:Protective CaseSmall ManualUSB Type-C casePower Adapter 5V/2AScreen Protector (Installed on the phone)Sim NeedleOf course, this isn’t the biggest package of accessories provided by a manufacturer, but it’s good to have the enough for the daily adventures. I dunno how the glass rear back would stand against non-flat surfaces, also it’s good to have a screen protector for avoiding unnecessary scratches.When it comes to the main package itself, Umidigi provided a long USB Type-C cable that seems to be made of quality materials. Judging from this, I really need to say how impressive is to have the new standard on a 99$ smartphone – for example Xiaomi could learn a thing or two from these small companies.Design:The strongest point of Umidigi A1 Pro, to not mention the price, is its design. The handset mixes the best of design languages to combine into a phone that for sure doesn’t look to be cheap as it is. While on the front we have a 5.5-inch 18:9 display that could easily be confused as a 5.0-inch smartphone, on the back Umidigi choose a glossy back that really makes the device stand out against competition on this segment. The dual-camera setup is vertically aligned on the middle of the phone, with the dual LED flash marking its presence as well.The materials itself doesn’t look to be really made out of glass, but of a thin plastic frame, however, the look is what matters… as a consequence, the back of this handset is a fingerprint magnet, and should scratch easily. So grab the back cover included on the package.Turning back to the display, Umidigi deserves some applause for trimming down the 5.5-inch display to a 5.0-inch pocket-friendly form factor. Is this result of a wizardry? Of course not, it’s one of the results achieved by the 18:9 trend, large and taller displays that does not hurt design. On the top portion of the smartphone, we can spot the 5MP selfie snapper, the ear speaker, and the sensors. Unfortunately, there’s no Notification LED which the absence is really annoying.If you’re looking for a cheap phone that fits perfectly on your pocket, the A1 Pro is a good choice. I’ve been using bigger than 5.5-inch smartphones for the past years, and this smartphone really looks smaller than it is, but the 5.5-inch HD+ display is really there.Moving to the bottom of the smartphone, we can find the USB C port alongside the 3.5mm headphone jack, that marks a presence here. With the addition of USB Type-C, Umidigi could have chosen to drop the old headphone port, but thankfully the company decided to keep the old and loved port. On the bottom, we can also find the speaker grill and the microphone.Moving to the top, we can find the SIM tray, where the user can opt between using Dual SIM nano cards or a single SIM + microSD for further expanding the 16GB onboard storage.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramTo conclude the design section of this review, the Umidigi A1 Pro houses the Volume and Power button on the right side, while on the left there’s nothing to write about. Worth mentioning that in order to make a compact phone, Umidigi had to place the 173g of this smartphone in a minor form-factor, so the phone feels heavier and thicker (8.3mm) than it looks.Hardware:The strong selling point of this smartphone, probably won’t be its hardware but everything that you can acquire with this combination of specs. The display itself is one of the good sides of this smartphone, despite its 1440×720 pixels of resolution, the display looks good enough for multimedia content and everyday usage. However, against strong sunlight, its visibility becomes compromised, out of this scenario you can easily spot the content on this compact 18:9 panel.This budget, beauty and pocket-friendly smartphone are powered by MediaTek’s favorite processor for the budget segment – The 1.5GHz QuadCore MT6739 SoC. The processor itself is a cost-effective chipset made for the low-end segment its 1.5GHz 4xA53 cores can handle most tasks, while also offering a low energy consumption. The graphical power is ensured by the MG PowerVR GE8100 GPU clocked at 570MHz.This combination of specs makes a smartphone that can handle average tasks like web-browsing, social media apps, multimedia content, however, things start to be a little messy when you try to play games, you’ll be able to play casual games but the more intensive graphical gaming will have a poor performance. Thankfully, Umidigi included 3GB of RAM on this smartphone, so you won’t have applications resetting in the background all the time. When it comes to storage we have 16GB that can be further expanded via a microSD card. The handset supports dual SIM dual standby funcionality, its coverage includes the following networks/frequencies:2G: GSM B2/3/5/83G: WCDMA B1/2/4/5/84G: LTE FDD B1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/19/20LTE TDD B38/40/41The sensor package inside this smartphone is composed of the Accelerometer Sensor, Light Sensor, Orientation Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Gyroscope, Magnetic Field Sensor and Pressure Sensor. The Bluetooth 4.0 is pretty stable on this smartphone, so I could easily hear music through my Bluetooth Headphone without drops or any kind of issue. The navigation power is ensured by GPS, A-GPS, and Glonass. The lock times can be a little longer if you are inside the house, but they are pretty fast and precise if you’re outside. The WiFi connectivity also works pretty fine with good reception and zero drops, LTE is fast and Call Quality is also great. Video Calls are also stable, but can become a little laggy if you’re running a lot of tasks in the background.Software:One of the amazing characteristics of this smartphone is on the fact that it is running Android 8.1 Oreo right out the box. It’s amazing to see Umidigi providing an updated version of Android, while some other manufacturers are still shipping phones with the two years old Android 7.1.2.The software itself is complete stock, there some customizations made by Umi here or there, but the main part is made of Google’s Pure 8.1 Oreo. The interface is entirely pure without any kind of fancy menu or weird icon pack if you enjoy the experience of an Android One smartphone will really love this handset. One of the custom additions made by Umi on the A1 Pro is the addition of a Face Unlock feature.To enroll your face, you’ll just need to find the “Face Unlock” section in the main Settings menu, after that you can “Start Enroll” and place your face on the circle to get your face recognized. It works only when the screen is on, and isn’t more convenient than placing your finger on the fingerprint sensor, however, if you like new things you can try the Face Unlock feature.Worth noting, that since Umidigi A1 Pro comes with Android 8.1 Oreo it has Project Treble compatibility. That means that the device could theoretically receive faster updates once that Google releases new versions of Android, but we don’t know if this will be the case since Umidigi isn’t a company with a good update track for its smartphones. However, the Treble viability could facilitate the process of porting a from the handset. I tried to flash a Custom Treble GSI (Generic System Image) on the A1 Pro, without success and the phone got stuck at boot. Let’s see if in the future we’ll have a GSI that is compatible with A1 Pro, for now, Treble is just a cool addition to this phone. The handset comes with Android 8.1.0 and brings the April Google Security Patch. Right on the top of the About Phone menu, we can see the Wireless Update option, there we can find if Umidigi has provided any kind of update for the smartphone.Camera:Of course, one of the main market strategies adopted by Umidigi with the A1 Pro uses the dual-camera setup placed on this smartphone back. The setup consists of a pair of 13MP and 5MP sensors with f/2.0 lens aperture. The camera application itself is pretty simple bringing the Photo, Video, Panorama, Beauty, and Bokeh Mode. The Photo, Video and Panorama modes are self-explanatory, while the Beauty mode consists in a kind of beautify effect pre-loaded when you take a picture, it can be useful for selfies, but the results look rather generic. The Bokeh effect tries to mimic the loved effect of Portrait pictures, however, on the practice, it is far from perfection. Like we have seen on previous smartphones equipped with two cameras, the Bokeh effect is nothing more than a blur effect towards a circle that you can adjust. The rear camera can take up to 13MP pictures and record up to 1080p 30FPS video footages. It has EZL mode for reducing the shooter delay, Anti-shake mode, EIS, Auto Scene detection, Timer mode, White Balance control and Anti-flicker. During the sunlight I could take some decent pictures with the A1 Pro, the problem comes at night. Overall, the focus speed is decent enough for fast snaps, and pictures are detailed in most scenarios. When it comes to the Bokeh effect, it isn’t the best way to take portrait pictures, and you’ll need some tweaking in order to take decent pictures with that blurred effect. The pair of dual cameras does a decent job in what Umidigi proposes with the A1 Pro, it’s a $99 phone that can take good-looking pictures in light environments. Turn off the lights, and you’ll have a lot of noise everywhere. However, even in dark conditions, the pictures are “usable” enough. The double LED flash also make wonder in some extreme situations, so it’ll be a good friend, of course, if you don’t mind using it. The selfie camera in counterpart surprised me in a good sense. The 5MP f/2.4 unit can take some detailed pictures of the sunlight, and doesn’t lose much its quality inside the house or in darker environments. The Beauty mode can improve the selfies, but that results in pictures that are too much artificial for my taste.The camera can take some decent video footages as well, however, don’t expect to see the more smooth and stable videos. While EIS is present, the results achieved with it are just average and 30FPS is only the bare minimum nowadays, however, take in mind that this is a smartphone made for the low-end budget segment.Battery:The Umidigi A1 Pro packs a non-removable 3,150mAh battery. This capacity is more than enough for an entire day of usage, due to the low-end processor and the resolution it is easy to get through an entire day of work and arrive at home with more than 20% of juice.Of course, if you’re a gaming person you can easily drain this battery, especially when this processor and GPU doesn’t seem to enjoy gaming sections. Furthermore, the MT6739 still is made of the old 28nm architecture, that can’t stand against the benefits of newer SoCs made at the 14nm process. I just hope that MediaTek starts to ship its new line of 12nm processors for the low-end segment and let the old MT673x line have a rest. Through a day of medium usage that consists of some hours of web-browsing, Telegram, WhatsApp, and Slack, I was able to achieve 5 hours of screen usage with 10% of battery left. Of course, the results could be better with some tweaking on the software. If you’re a heavy user, then you’ll probably get 3:30 to 4:00 hours of screen usage.If you charge your phone during the night, you’ll probably have more than enough juice to use it for the entire day. But if you’ll need to charge your phone, Umidigi provided a 5V/2A charger that can fully charge the A1 Pro in 1hour and a half.Conclusion:If you’re looking for a good backup phone that can easily fit in your pocket, but that also have a beauty tall display the Umidigi A1 Pro is a good choice of a smartphone on the $99 segment. Also, it is a perfect phone for kids due to its cost and small form-factor.One of the things that I really enjoyed during my usage is that despite the not-so-fast processor the 3GB of RAM provided a pleasant experience with apps being kept on the background. At this segment is pretty common to see handsets with just 2GB of RAM, while it is enough amount, 2GB is just the bare minimum for Android, so having 3GB of RAM is a great advantage of A1 Pro against its competition on the segment. Also, worths noting that this cheap package includes the new USB Type-C standard, it doesn’t seem to be made of poor materials and works as it should. So, in 2018 is there any excuse for keep using micro USB ports?The downsides of this smartphone? Well, before putting any nail on the A1 coffin, I would like to say that at $99 it’s hard to find something that succeeds on every aspect and the A1 Pro does a decent job in what it is proposed to do. Of course, camera performance could be better at night, but it’s hard to find a good phone below the $400 price ratio that can perform well at night. The worse aspect of this phone should be the choice of processor, the MT6739 really isn’t enough anymore for today’s standards. A good octa-core processor like the MT6750 would be a perfect choice for this smartphone, even if it increases a little on the price.The Notification LED is also absent here, probably for cutting some costs, but would an RGB or single-light LED really make a big difference on the final price? It’s a matter of taste, but I’ve been using the LED as a notification reminder during the past years since I usually use my phone in the Do Not Disturb mode. The only way to avoid delayed notifications is to use a custom app for Ambient Mode.Microwear recently released two new products one of which is the premium Microwear L2 smartwatch, the other is a smart bracelet called Microwear X2 or X2 Plus. Thanks to the company, we were able to review both the smart accessories. Here we share our thoughts about the Microwear X2.Microwear X2DesignThe Microwear X2 is the company’s first smartband. Unlike the L2, the X2 is more of a round-design wearable although the screen or dial inside is rectangular. Also, the screen itself isn’t touch responsive but you can interact with it through touch via a touch button below the screen.In terms of design, it is a different product which is unlike the metal-made L2 but is also a lot cheaper. The straps are also made of edible silicone instead of stainless steel. The sporty and trendy look of the bracelet hints that it is made to withstand daily wear and tear and is suitable for sports enthusiasts.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe Microwear X2 also has IP68 waterproofing like the Microwear L2 which is great for a bracelet that costs nothing more than $32. The highlight of the bracelet is its great battery life due to the smaller OLED screen. The watch’s 480mAh battery can last you 180 days in standby mode and advertised regular use is 70 to 90 days. The battery life on the Microwear X2 is so good, I haven’t had to charge the wearable ever since it came out of the box. The 0.96-inch display is quite bright, has a wide colour gamut, and high contrast.Microwear X2: Fitness FeaturesIn terms of features, the standout function is blood oxygen as well as blood pressure measurement. This is probably something we missed on the Microwear L2 and it makes the X2 a true fitness companion. The measurements work very well especially the heart rate tracker gives strong clues of pulse. Also, it does measure heart rate in real time so that takes it a step further than the Microwear L2 which doesn’t measure blood pressure levels. Besides, it has all the 8 sports and fitness tracking modes like the L2 including running, riding, climbing, badminton and so on.If you forgot, it also has a dedicated mode for measuring your performance in intimate moments just like the L2. The running mode was fairly accurate when it came to the accuracy of steps take. However, we didn’t get to try out the other modes like badminton sadly. Still, the amount of options at the modest price of $33 is really great.Navigation and Smart Features The navigation of these modes is quite easy. You use the touch-sensitive button beneath the display to scroll between different apps and modes. Once you’re on a particular mode, you use the side keys to enter the app.The Microwear doesn’t skip on the smart functions of a watch either with notification pushing available. The watch will sync with both iOS and Android phones and give users missed call notifications, messages, and more. Only you won’t be able to receive calls because it doesn’t have a speaker. However, you can’t reply to the notifications on the X2 itself. There are six to seven different watch faces which range from a simple analog style clock to different digital designs. The digital faces display more information like steps, heart rate, date and some display temperature as well. Visit Microwear Official SiteFinal thoughts: You can’t go wrong with it聽Microwear recently released two new products one of which is the premium Microwear L2 smartwatch, the other is a smart bracelet called Microwear X2 or X2 Plus. Thanks to the company, we were able to review both the smart accessories. Here we share our thoughts about the Microwear X2.Microwear X2DesignThe Microwear X2 is the company’s first smartband. Unlike the L2, the X2 is more of a round-design wearable although the screen or dial inside is rectangular. Also, the screen itself isn’t touch responsive but you can interact with it through touch via a touch button below the screen.In terms of design, it is a different product which is unlike the metal-made L2 but is also a lot cheaper. The straps are also made of edible silicone instead of stainless steel. The sporty and trendy look of the bracelet hints that it is made to withstand daily wear and tear and is suitable for sports enthusiasts.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe Microwear X2 also has IP68 waterproofing like the Microwear L2 which is great for a bracelet that costs nothing more than $32. The highlight of the bracelet is its great battery life due to the smaller OLED screen. The watch’s 480mAh battery can last you 180 days in standby mode and advertised regular use is 70 to 90 days. The battery life on the Microwear X2 is so good, I haven’t had to charge the wearable ever since it came out of the box. The 0.96-inch display is quite bright, has a wide colour gamut, and high contrast.Microwear X2: Fitness FeaturesIn terms of features, the standout function is blood oxygen as well as blood pressure measurement. This is probably something we missed on the Microwear L2 and it makes the X2 a true fitness companion. The measurements work very well especially the heart rate tracker gives strong clues of pulse. Also, it does measure heart rate in real time so that takes it a step further than the Microwear L2 which doesn’t measure blood pressure levels. Besides, it has all the 8 sports and fitness tracking modes like the L2 including running, riding, climbing, badminton and so on.If you forgot, it also has a dedicated mode for measuring your performance in intimate moments just like the L2. The running mode was fairly accurate when it came to the accuracy of steps take. However, we didn’t get to try out the other modes like badminton sadly. Still, the amount of options at the modest price of $33 is really great.Navigation and Smart Features The navigation of these modes is quite easy. You use the touch-sensitive button beneath the display to scroll between different apps and modes. Once you’re on a particular mode, you use the side keys to enter the app.The Microwear doesn’t skip on the smart functions of a watch either with notification pushing available. The watch will sync with both iOS and Android phones and give users missed call notifications, messages, and more. Only you won’t be able to receive calls because it doesn’t have a speaker. However, you can’t reply to the notifications on the X2 itself. There are six to seven different watch faces which range from a simple analog style clock to different digital designs. The digital faces display more information like steps, heart rate, date and some display temperature as well. Visit Microwear Official SiteFinal thoughts: You can’t go wrong with it聽Microwear is a Chinese brand that mostly dabbles in accessories like sports watches, fitness bands, and Android watches. It is a seven-year-old brand whose latest product is the Microwear L2 (Waterproof) smartwatch that launched around ten days ago. The company was kind enough to send us a review unit and we used the smartwatch extensively and here’s our review of the same.Microwear L2: DesignIn terms of design, the Microwear L2 is a very neatly crafted wearable and the one that reached us was a Black variant that comes with a USB charger cable and some user guides. It has really well built stainless steel straps that look premium just like the smartwatch itself. The straps are also adjustable in accordance to your wrist size with a hook buckle as and when needed and the buckle has a flip lock. The one sent to me fit me perfectly and I didn’t need to change adjust anything. The straps can be replaced and the company also has silicone straps if you don’t like metal straps.Talking about the dial, it is circular and most importantly it is IP68 waterproof-rated. So, you can practically dive with it. However, IP68 is limited to 1.5 meters and around 30 minutes. The watch is bit hefty but it isn’t something you can’t live with. The watch weighs around 70 grams.Microwear L2: Specs Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe Microwear L2 has a 1.3-inch display with 240 x 240p resolution. In our daily use, we found it to be serving its purpose well. Viewing angles on it are good, brightness is also good, and daylight visibility is also not an issue. The display is touch responsive and worked well in our regular use of the device. It also has two physical buttons that can aid in navigation. If you’re looking for more basic specs here they are:CPU: 1.1GHz MTK2502RAM: 32MROM: 32MCompatible OS: Android 4.4 and above, IOS 8.0 and aboveBattery: 380 mAh, 2-3 working daysBluetooth Version: 3.0, 4.0 Visit Microwear Official SiteMicrowear L2: FeaturesWhere the Microwear L2 really shines is in its features and battery life. Not only can it serve as a smartwatch, it can also double up as a fitness companion. For the former, I was able to use the built-in calculator, alarm clock, calendar, stopwatch, and music apps very comfortably. Needless to say, it connects with both iOS and Android for calls and message alerts. The L2 uses Bluetooth 4.0 and can take and receive calls all by itself, thanks to the integrated speaker. This is a really great feature especially the price at which it is being offered. It can also display notifications from Facebook, and Twitter and it supports around 20 languages which include most of the European ones.If you’re a sports fanatic, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see the Microwear L2 tracks 10 types of sports activities. This includes walking, running, swimming, cycling, mountain climbing, basketball, and many more. I was able to use the mode and it tracked my running and walking perfectly. It also has an optical heart rate monitor that can work also in a motion state. The L2 can also measure atmospheric pressure with a barometer and it also has a compass, something greatly useful for hill climbers and travellers.Other important features include a sedentary reminder that alerts you when you’ve been sitting for too long. The sleep monitor comes with a chart that allows users to gauge sleep quality over time and I found it to be handy. Interestingly, the Microwear L2 can also be used as a smart remote camera, I found.If you’re a casual fitness lover or someone who doesn’t do extreme sports or someone who isn’t stats-driven sports enthusiast then I think the Microwear L2 is for you, especially if you don’t want to spend more.The other highlighted feature of the smartwatch is its battery. It promises a standby of 100 hours and 10 hours of continuous use while on Bluetooth. In our use, we were quite happy to see it push through our whole day of regular use and that’s the best you can ask from a smartwatch right now.Final thoughts

With the popularity of smart wearable devices, more and more customers are switching to fitness trackers from classic watches and bracelets. Though the market is full of various brands that are offering different smartbands, the Xiaomis models stand out. The first two generations of Mi Bands were popular due to the sense of technology and practicality. Thats why they were accepted by customers easily. However, the Mi Band 2 was launched two years ago. And the company has had to update this product line. It happened on May 31, which the manufacturer announced the Xiaomi Mi Band 3. It got much attention from all corners of the globe. So we should find out what changes made it catch users eyes.Also Check Xiaomi Mi Band 3 DealXiaomi Mi Band 3 DesignIn recent years, Xiaomi products have come in changed packaging. The Mi Band 3 is no exception. Compared with the previous two generations of bands, the Xiaomi Mi Band 3 has a distinctly different packaging style. Instead of a yellow paper box, it uses a new style of white flip plastic design. The main body of the product can also be seen directly through the outer packaging.The box includes the main body of the Mi Band 3, the wristband, the charging cable, and the manual. Though there are various color options, including black, blue, and orange, the main body is black for all variants. Even聽the聽translucent variant uses the graphite black body.The appearance is the biggest difference between the Xiaomi Mi Band 3 and the previous two generations of bracelets. The main body of this version is treated with a black process that hides the non-pressable button. The bracelet panel is treated with a UV coating process and is covered with an anti-fingerprint coating. As for the look and feel experience, the Mi Band 3 has a stronger sense of integration, with a more exquisite and compact texture than the previous two generations.The back of the body is still equipped with a photoelectric heart rate sensor, which will have a green light when working. It is worth mentioning the treatment of the back of the main body is different from the previous models. It adopts a treatment process similar to that of the wristband.The charging connectors are on the bottom. Compared with the traditional USB interface, the charging method eliminates the inconvenience caused by plugging and unplugging, and also saves valuable internal space.In the first two generations, the problem related to the separation of the main body from the wristband has been solved in the Mi Band 3. Now it adopts a larger nesting area on the wristband to securely hold the main body on the wristband. According to the introduction, the Xiaomi Mi Band 3 adopts a two-color one-piece molding process of encapsulation to increase the ring area to achieve tight meshing.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe wristband is basically connected to the front of the body, and there is no obvious separation between them. It should be noted that the Mi Band 3 cannot be separated from the wristband from the front (outside), but needs to be separated from the back (inside). In other words, the bands body can be effectively prevented from falling off inadvertently.The design of the wristband is identical to the previous model. It uses the same snap-on solution. However, the manufacturer has used a higher quality material, which is felt from the first touch. Its skin-like texture hints we are dealing with a well-designed product.In addition to the difference in the appearance of the main body, the screen is further enlarged. So it not only looks different but also provides better touch operations. The Xiaomi Mi Band 3 uses a 0.78-inch OLED display with a resolution of 128 x 80 and a 193ppi pixel density. As the company likes to say, this band can display up to 24 Chinese characters. And from this point of view, it has obvious advantages over other bracelets on the market.Xiaomi Mi Band 3 OperationsCompared with the previous generation, the full-screen touch scheme significantly enriches the interaction mode.One of the Xiaomi Mi Band 3s selling points is the 5ATM waterproofing certification. Thus, it can be used when swimming. But we should note the screen loses its touch functionality in the water like many smartphones.In line with the previous Mi bracelet, it is also used on the smartphone with the 鈥楳i Fit app, and the sync process is also the same. Through the app, users can view the status, function management, etc. The Xiaomi Mi Band 3 supports many reminder functions such as the sedentary reminder, event reminder, etc. Plus, it supports a real-time heart rate detection function and views sleep quality.Thanks to the screen size increase, the Mi Band 3 can implement way more functions directly from the bodys screen. Say, we can view the date and time, bands status, motion information, heart rate, weather forecast, mobile notifications, and so on. All operations can be listed by sliding on the screen and selecting via a long press.If the motion information and other data are shown in a common way, the message notification function has been updated. Now the Xiaomi Mi Band 3 will show the message content by swiping left and right on the screen.Even do not dream of replying to those messages via the Mi Band 3.One of the features we liked most is the ability to use the stopwatch, find the phone, and dial style options directly from the screen. No need to open the APP to implement these operations.Chinese companies have grown very fond of rugged smartphones over the past few years, and – no doubt- Blackview is one of them! Their latest beast may not be IP68 certified, but it surely can be considered (by their standards at least) as their flagship for this year and if you take into account its main specs, price and performance then I guess you can give them some credit.It’s called Blackview P10000 Pro and its main features are self explanatory if you pay attention to its name: 11000 mAh (yes, not just 10.000mAh!) battery and Premium (Pro) design combined, in order to provide a very decent device that can surely stay far from its charger for more than 3-4 days, while offering premium quality in everyday use and impressive camera performance.So is it another addition to Blackview’s large portfolio of large battery smartphones or does it truly deliver in terms of usability, performance, camera and – obviously- battery life? Keep reading and you will surely find out what it’s all about…Blackview P10000 Pro – Main specsDisplay: 6.0 inch 2160 x 1080 pixels IPS screenCPU: MTK6763 Octa Core 2.0GHzSystem: Android 7.1Storage: 4GB RAM + 64GB ROMCameras: 16.0MP + 0.3MP dual back cameras and 13.0MP + 0.3MP dual front camerasSensors: Gravity Sensor, Gyroscope, Geomagnetic Sensor, Proximity SensorFeatures: GPS, GlonassBluetooth: 4.1SIM Card: dual SIM dual standby, 2 x Nano SIM card and a TF card can be inserted at the same timeNetworks: 2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz – 3G: WCDMA 900/2100MHz – 4G: FDD-LTE B1/B3/B7/B8/B20Size: 16.50 x 7.70 x 1.46 cmWeight: 293 gr.Battery: 11.000 mAhBasic packageWhen you first buy the device, you will find it inside a white hard paper box with the band name and it’s main specifications. The box has dimensions 1.50 x 21.50 x 5.20 cm and weights 775 grams. Inside you will find:Back Case x 1Blackview P10000 Pro x 1Earphones x 1Earphones Adapter x 1English Manual x 1OTG Cable x 1Phone Holder x 1Power Adapter x 1Screen Protector x 1SIM Needle x 1USB Cable x 1As always, Blackview has once again offered one of the most complete packages you will find in the market, and this can only be good. All of the accessories are in white colour, but what stands out is the large black case that completely covers the huge device, while protecting it from scratches. Don’t forget, this isn’t an IP68 certified phone, so you will NEED a protective case if you’re a bit clumsy like me 馃槈DesignThe first impression we had from this mobile phone is that it could be a piece missing from… the Batmobile or a Transformers figure. Most large battery phones are usually “ugly”, leaving design in the last place of their priorities. This is NOT the case with P10000 Pro as the phone looks quite impressive and boasts quality. The materials are made to withstand and you will find polycarbonate alloys in the main body “hugging” the phone thus protecting it. For a phone equipped with an 11.000 mAh battery, the Blackview P10000 Pro has similar dimensions to a large 5.5 inch phone, sized at 16.50 x 7.70 x 1.46 cm, but a lot heavier at 293 grams. The device is available in 2 different variants, Mirror Silver and Mirror Grey. Note that the phone we had during the test was the Mirror Grey one and -in my opinion- possibly the best color choice out of the pair.The front has a 6 inch, 18:9 aspect ratio display, covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 5. An extra protective film is applied upon. There is no physical button in the lower bezel and a very small hole on the left side hides the microphone.The frame is made from aluminium and magnesium and is exposing only the middle part of each side, with screws that are visible as a design aspect. It looks industrial and good indeed. The right side has four metallic buttons: volume rocker, the power/lock button and the fingerprint sensor that has been moved there. The other side has a cover for the SIM tray and at the lower frame we can see the USB-C charging slot. Due to the depth of the metal cover, the USB-C cable has a long tip, longer than usual cables – in order to reach it. In case you forgot your charger and charging cable, other USB-C charging cables wont do the job.The back of the phone has an industrial – business design that looks nice, along with the camera installation/LED flash and the company logo available in plain sight. The 2 main cameras are positioned vertically in the top center with the LED flash right below. All in all it looks great – to me at least 馃槈The lower part of the back panel has the brand in a silver texture with angled lines engraved on it. Under it with small black letters one can read: Designed by Blackview Assembled in China. Blackview is a Hong Kong company and probably wants you to notice that for some weird reason 馃檪The bezel sizes are reasonable. To the left and right of the screen they are very thin. The top of the phone houses all of the speakers, cameras, and sensors, and it still manages to keep a fairly low profile. The bottom chin could be a LOT smaller, but its manageable.There is a lot of details and a lot of work done on the exterior of the smartphone and i can only say good words for it.HardwareThe 6 inch display is the main selling point of Blackview P10000 Pro. It has a FHD+ resolution (2160 x 1080 pixels) that covers a typical percentage of the front side, leaving quite large bezels on top and bottom. It can depict 16.7 million colors with a relatively average PPI. However the display is bright and vivid and comes with a really high contrast. Note that this display is an IPS panel, manufactured by Sharp. Its a reasonable display that produces a nice image. It would have been nice to see a UHD resolution, but that would significantly impact the battery life.This business-like smartphone comes with an MTK6763 chipset also known as Helio P23. Thats comprised of eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores, four of which are clocked at up to 2.0GHz while the remaining four are clocked at 1.51GHz. It is accompanied by a dual core Mali-G71 MP2 GPU working at 700MHz. The processor is found on most middle category phones and is quite reliable, having no issues. Blackview added a typical 4GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage, that can also be expanded with a maximum of 128GB microSD card. It supports dual SIM functionality with two nano-SIMs along with a microSD slot – thankfully!It also supports 4G: FDD B1 2100MHz, FDD B20 800MHz, FDD B3 1800MHz, FDD B7 2600MHz, FDD B8 900MHz, 3G: WCDMA Band 1 (2100MHz), Band 8 (900MHz) and 2G: GSM Band 2 (1900MHz), Band 3 (1800MHz), Band 5 (850MHz), Band 8 (900MHz).The smartphone comes with a whole lot of sensors, such as Rotation Vector, Gyroscope, Geomagnetic, Proximity, Light, Gravity, Acceleration, Liner Acceleration and Direction Sensors. There’s also Bluetooth 4.2 compativility, while its navigation features support GPS, A-GPS and Glonass, working fine with all the available satellites being locked on fast with impressive precision.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on Telegram Compass works flawlessly as well, along with full Wifi 802.11 b/g/n and WiFi Hotspot support. Call quality is excellent and video calls are good without any issues.SoftwareThe operating system found in the smartphone is based on Android 7.1 but it’s not “vanilla” Android. It’s the typical Blackview – pimped ROM, that has been modified by the Chinese manufacturer in certain features.After setting up the account – a normal procedure for all phones – the user sees a blacked out skin, with metal looking icons in all system apps. Notification screen and settings are also skinned. The black look is nice and suits the external industrial look. Notification bar has all the available options someone could ask for. Except from the usual ones found in pure Android Nougat, one can find Eye protection – a functionality that dims the screen to filter blue light, QRcode – opens a qrcode scanner, and Screen Record – records the screen when touched, adding a red circle in the screen that has to be touched to stop the recording. More options exist when setting up the bar: Hotspot, Invert colors, Data saver, and Cast. When the user adds Developer Options in the Notification setup the user can also see Android Easter Egg, Show layout bounds, Profile GPU rendering and Nearby (Google Play services).Long pressing the display in the Home screen reveals the usual menu that allows access to the Wallpapers, Widgets and Settings options. Selecting the Wallpapers we see a Blackview app with options for Themes, Lock and Desktop wallpapers. Themes has only the metallic look and there is no option to download more like in Xiaomis MIUI. Read more about Blackview P10000 Pro.Official SiteOne thing that makes this device stand out is the Face Recognition software you will find inside. It promises to accurately recognize your face with very good (but not impeccable) results, especially in out door activities. It doesn’t work well when in dark rooms as it doesn’t have Infra Red sensors (like iPhone X for example). In any case the Face Recognition looks good as an add on, but I wouldn’t rely my phone’s sensitive data on this. You’d better use the fingerprint sensor placed on the side. Inside the app launcher, you will find all the pre-installed applications from Google, along with some added from Blackview, such as Browser, a Compass, ETWS (presents alerts and has many options to show these alerts by voice, vibration and sound), a File Manager, a typical FM Radio receiver, Music, Sound Recorder, Torch and System Manager. System Manager has a menu where the user can set a Power Manager, clean Rubbish, Freeze apps, Autoboot apps, Lock apps and Auto clean. There is no bloatware, which is a nice differentiation from other Chinese ROMs. Next are the Display, Notifications, Sound, Apps, Storage, Battery and Memory. Blackview has added some touches here. Sound has an audio enhancement option that can boost the speaker volume. Battery has a Standby intelligent power saving along with Performance and power saving options. The latter has Sports and Normal mode. Memory has a Background auto clean memory option that cleans up the memory a few seconds after the display turns off. There are also some other gesture, usability options such as:Gesture – has a single option to double click the power button to open the cameraFull Screen mode – selects the applications the can open in full screenSOS call – has settings for a SOS function as to activate calls/sms/flash for helpGesture motion – it enables multiple operations using gestures on the displayGesture Unlock – similar option to the aboveOne-handed mode – enables a smaller UI by sliding sideways on the bottom of the screenFast Capture – uses the volume buttons to fast capture screenshots or videoSplit Screen – a help screen on how to enable split screen on NougatQRCode Scan – a simple barcode scanner etc.My impressions are excellent from using the software. It is fast, it can handle multitasking and I just loved all the options provided by the P10000 Pro. Not bad Blackview, not bad at all…CameraThe monstrous P10000 Pro has a really decent camera, one that allows for typical photos during daylight, really adequate shots during night and the same goes for the videos (recorded in 3gp format). Image quality is reasonable enough in strong light or simpler scenes. The front facing cameras have two lenses. One for a wide angle, and the other for a minor zoom. The dual rear cameras work the same.The double camera setup in the back consists of a 16MP main shooter and a 0,3MP secondary telephoto lens specially-tuned for low-light conditions in a mode Blackview calls Super Night Shooting. The main Sony IMX298 camera has f / 2.0 aperture and the secondary f / 2.2. A LED flash helps in low light shots. The dual camera selfie shooter has a 13.0MP + 0.3MP resolution (Sony IMX135 main lens), offering typical selfie/portrait shots with the help of a forward face LED soft-flash alongside the usual ambient light sensor.[flickr_set id=”72157694962498702″]The included camera app is basic, but it gets the job done. You have several options for fake bokeh, or beauty mode. Theres a basic black and white filter provided, as well HDR mode. HDR modes takes multiple pictures at different exposures, then combine the images. You dont have any additional configuration options, but it does a good job at capturing more detail in the shadows.Each mode has its own settings. For example, if you want to shoot video, there are options for Scene mode (night, sunset, portrait, night portrait, etc), Video quality (set as FHD), location, shutter sound etc.I used the aperture mode a lot. Most budget smartphones with a double camera setup create a bokeh effect using the software and blurring the background around the main object. The aperture mode here does a real job focusing and blurring the background having a setting to open-close the cameras aperture. I really enjoyed it and is one of the best portrait/bokeh setups I have seen. Pro mode has options to alter the white balance, ISO, focus and light. People that like to take manual pictures will appreciate the setup. Photo mode has also a filter selection like Sepia, Mon, Negative, and a typical HDR mode.Selfies have only Video, Photo, Beauty and Mono modes. The main object here is well presented but the surroundings look like it is wider and closer to the screen. It is like looking at a mirror whose angles are closer to you shaped like the inside of a spoon. The image is clear but my head looked very small over a huge chest. Some people might like this setup, but I am not one of them.While the camera can just about keep up for photos, it cannot for video. Theres no option to shoot in high frame rates, or even any resolution higher than 1080p. Footage struggles to look sharp, even if the colors are good.BatteryP10000 Pro packs a non-removable, 11.000 mAh battery. This allegedly provides enough power to run the phone for seven days. While seven days might be a bit of a stretch unless you are a very light user, you can realistically expect to achieve 3 to 4 days of solid use.Blackview suggest the following usage times can be achieved:Phone calls: 60 hoursListening to music: 80 hoursWatching videos: 40 hoursStandby: 1200 hours (50 days)Playing games: 18 hoursWhile some of these times are very optimistic, not all of them are impossible to achieve, especially if you limit the energy heavy usage such as the screen, wireless, or updates.There’s no need to feel bad about it however, as the device comes with 5V/5A fast charging charger, that is able to charge the phone in -roughly- 70 minutes, heating up at the same time the back panel of the device.Using the OTG cable you can also charge any other electronic device something very helpful when you are working or having fun outdoors.ConclusionThis is an excellent large battery phone that offers a nice modern-looking display, equipped with a good set of dual cameras. The processor, combined with 4GB RAM and 64GB of ROM offer a smooth everyday experience without any issues in multitasking or heavy gaming. Battery is great in terms of stand by time and the huge internal storage offers many choices in time spending when no WiFi or data connection exists.I enjoyed the many features of the UI, especially the camera application. Don’t forget that it’s a true business smartphone, offering an FM radio, a compass, GPS navigation, an alarm receiver and an alarm sender. It comes pre-installed with all the necessary “goodies” from Google and Blackview has added anything missing like extra gesture support, a file manager, a more versatile music player, a system manager application etc.I have to admit that Blackview’s flagship model provides almost everything one would expect from a mid-range, business-like smartphone – giving a lot of credits to its durability, performance and sturdiness. The Face Unlock feature is good but… not it doesn’t work always so don’t rely on it. No, really don’t!

Chinese companies have grown very fond of rugged smartphones over the past few years, and – no doubt- Blackview is one of them! Their latest beast may not be IP68 certified, but it surely can be considered (by their standards at least) as their flagship for this year and if you take into account its main specs, price and performance then I guess you can give them some credit.It’s called Blackview P10000 Pro and its main features are self explanatory if you pay attention to its name: 11000 mAh (yes, not just 10.000mAh!) battery and Premium (Pro) design combined, in order to provide a very decent device that can surely stay far from its charger for more than 3-4 days, while offering premium quality in everyday use and impressive camera performance.So is it another addition to Blackview’s large portfolio of large battery smartphones or does it truly deliver in terms of usability, performance, camera and – obviously- battery life? Keep reading and you will surely find out what it’s all about…Blackview P10000 Pro – Main specsDisplay: 6.0 inch 2160 x 1080 pixels IPS screenCPU: MTK6763 Octa Core 2.0GHzSystem: Android 7.1Storage: 4GB RAM + 64GB ROMCameras: 16.0MP + 0.3MP dual back cameras and 13.0MP + 0.3MP dual front camerasSensors: Gravity Sensor, Gyroscope, Geomagnetic Sensor, Proximity SensorFeatures: GPS, GlonassBluetooth: 4.1SIM Card: dual SIM dual standby, 2 x Nano SIM card and a TF card can be inserted at the same timeNetworks: 2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz – 3G: WCDMA 900/2100MHz – 4G: FDD-LTE B1/B3/B7/B8/B20Size: 16.50 x 7.70 x 1.46 cmWeight: 293 gr.Battery: 11.000 mAhBasic packageWhen you first buy the device, you will find it inside a white hard paper box with the band name and it’s main specifications. The box has dimensions 1.50 x 21.50 x 5.20 cm and weights 775 grams. Inside you will find:Back Case x 1Blackview P10000 Pro x 1Earphones x 1Earphones Adapter x 1English Manual x 1OTG Cable x 1Phone Holder x 1Power Adapter x 1Screen Protector x 1SIM Needle x 1USB Cable x 1As always, Blackview has once again offered one of the most complete packages you will find in the market, and this can only be good. All of the accessories are in white colour, but what stands out is the large black case that completely covers the huge device, while protecting it from scratches. Don’t forget, this isn’t an IP68 certified phone, so you will NEED a protective case if you’re a bit clumsy like me 馃槈DesignThe first impression we had from this mobile phone is that it could be a piece missing from… the Batmobile or a Transformers figure. Most large battery phones are usually “ugly”, leaving design in the last place of their priorities. This is NOT the case with P10000 Pro as the phone looks quite impressive and boasts quality. The materials are made to withstand and you will find polycarbonate alloys in the main body “hugging” the phone thus protecting it. For a phone equipped with an 11.000 mAh battery, the Blackview P10000 Pro has similar dimensions to a large 5.5 inch phone, sized at 16.50 x 7.70 x 1.46 cm, but a lot heavier at 293 grams. The device is available in 2 different variants, Mirror Silver and Mirror Grey. Note that the phone we had during the test was the Mirror Grey one and -in my opinion- possibly the best color choice out of the pair.The front has a 6 inch, 18:9 aspect ratio display, covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 5. An extra protective film is applied upon. There is no physical button in the lower bezel and a very small hole on the left side hides the microphone.The frame is made from aluminium and magnesium and is exposing only the middle part of each side, with screws that are visible as a design aspect. It looks industrial and good indeed. The right side has four metallic buttons: volume rocker, the power/lock button and the fingerprint sensor that has been moved there. The other side has a cover for the SIM tray and at the lower frame we can see the USB-C charging slot. Due to the depth of the metal cover, the USB-C cable has a long tip, longer than usual cables – in order to reach it. In case you forgot your charger and charging cable, other USB-C charging cables wont do the job.The back of the phone has an industrial – business design that looks nice, along with the camera installation/LED flash and the company logo available in plain sight. The 2 main cameras are positioned vertically in the top center with the LED flash right below. All in all it looks great – to me at least 馃槈The lower part of the back panel has the brand in a silver texture with angled lines engraved on it. Under it with small black letters one can read: Designed by Blackview Assembled in China. Blackview is a Hong Kong company and probably wants you to notice that for some weird reason 馃檪The bezel sizes are reasonable. To the left and right of the screen they are very thin. The top of the phone houses all of the speakers, cameras, and sensors, and it still manages to keep a fairly low profile. The bottom chin could be a LOT smaller, but its manageable.There is a lot of details and a lot of work done on the exterior of the smartphone and i can only say good words for it.HardwareThe 6 inch display is the main selling point of Blackview P10000 Pro. It has a FHD+ resolution (2160 x 1080 pixels) that covers a typical percentage of the front side, leaving quite large bezels on top and bottom. It can depict 16.7 million colors with a relatively average PPI. However the display is bright and vivid and comes with a really high contrast. Note that this display is an IPS panel, manufactured by Sharp. Its a reasonable display that produces a nice image. It would have been nice to see a UHD resolution, but that would significantly impact the battery life.This business-like smartphone comes with an MTK6763 chipset also known as Helio P23. Thats comprised of eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores, four of which are clocked at up to 2.0GHz while the remaining four are clocked at 1.51GHz. It is accompanied by a dual core Mali-G71 MP2 GPU working at 700MHz. The processor is found on most middle category phones and is quite reliable, having no issues. Blackview added a typical 4GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage, that can also be expanded with a maximum of 128GB microSD card. It supports dual SIM functionality with two nano-SIMs along with a microSD slot – thankfully!It also supports 4G: FDD B1 2100MHz, FDD B20 800MHz, FDD B3 1800MHz, FDD B7 2600MHz, FDD B8 900MHz, 3G: WCDMA Band 1 (2100MHz), Band 8 (900MHz) and 2G: GSM Band 2 (1900MHz), Band 3 (1800MHz), Band 5 (850MHz), Band 8 (900MHz).The smartphone comes with a whole lot of sensors, such as Rotation Vector, Gyroscope, Geomagnetic, Proximity, Light, Gravity, Acceleration, Liner Acceleration and Direction Sensors. There’s also Bluetooth 4.2 compativility, while its navigation features support GPS, A-GPS and Glonass, working fine with all the available satellites being locked on fast with impressive precision.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on Telegram Compass works flawlessly as well, along with full Wifi 802.11 b/g/n and WiFi Hotspot support. Call quality is excellent and video calls are good without any issues.SoftwareThe operating system found in the smartphone is based on Android 7.1 but it’s not “vanilla” Android. It’s the typical Blackview – pimped ROM, that has been modified by the Chinese manufacturer in certain features.After setting up the account – a normal procedure for all phones – the user sees a blacked out skin, with metal looking icons in all system apps. Notification screen and settings are also skinned. The black look is nice and suits the external industrial look. Notification bar has all the available options someone could ask for. Except from the usual ones found in pure Android Nougat, one can find Eye protection – a functionality that dims the screen to filter blue light, QRcode – opens a qrcode scanner, and Screen Record – records the screen when touched, adding a red circle in the screen that has to be touched to stop the recording. More options exist when setting up the bar: Hotspot, Invert colors, Data saver, and Cast. When the user adds Developer Options in the Notification setup the user can also see Android Easter Egg, Show layout bounds, Profile GPU rendering and Nearby (Google Play services).Long pressing the display in the Home screen reveals the usual menu that allows access to the Wallpapers, Widgets and Settings options. Selecting the Wallpapers we see a Blackview app with options for Themes, Lock and Desktop wallpapers. Themes has only the metallic look and there is no option to download more like in Xiaomis MIUI. Read more about Blackview P10000 Pro.Official SiteOne thing that makes this device stand out is the Face Recognition software you will find inside. It promises to accurately recognize your face with very good (but not impeccable) results, especially in out door activities. It doesn’t work well when in dark rooms as it doesn’t have Infra Red sensors (like iPhone X for example). In any case the Face Recognition looks good as an add on, but I wouldn’t rely my phone’s sensitive data on this. You’d better use the fingerprint sensor placed on the side. Inside the app launcher, you will find all the pre-installed applications from Google, along with some added from Blackview, such as Browser, a Compass, ETWS (presents alerts and has many options to show these alerts by voice, vibration and sound), a File Manager, a typical FM Radio receiver, Music, Sound Recorder, Torch and System Manager. System Manager has a menu where the user can set a Power Manager, clean Rubbish, Freeze apps, Autoboot apps, Lock apps and Auto clean. There is no bloatware, which is a nice differentiation from other Chinese ROMs. Next are the Display, Notifications, Sound, Apps, Storage, Battery and Memory. Blackview has added some touches here. Sound has an audio enhancement option that can boost the speaker volume. Battery has a Standby intelligent power saving along with Performance and power saving options. The latter has Sports and Normal mode. Memory has a Background auto clean memory option that cleans up the memory a few seconds after the display turns off. There are also some other gesture, usability options such as:Gesture – has a single option to double click the power button to open the cameraFull Screen mode – selects the applications the can open in full screenSOS call – has settings for a SOS function as to activate calls/sms/flash for helpGesture motion – it enables multiple operations using gestures on the displayGesture Unlock – similar option to the aboveOne-handed mode – enables a smaller UI by sliding sideways on the bottom of the screenFast Capture – uses the volume buttons to fast capture screenshots or videoSplit Screen – a help screen on how to enable split screen on NougatQRCode Scan – a simple barcode scanner etc.My impressions are excellent from using the software. It is fast, it can handle multitasking and I just loved all the options provided by the P10000 Pro. Not bad Blackview, not bad at all…CameraThe monstrous P10000 Pro has a really decent camera, one that allows for typical photos during daylight, really adequate shots during night and the same goes for the videos (recorded in 3gp format). Image quality is reasonable enough in strong light or simpler scenes. The front facing cameras have two lenses. One for a wide angle, and the other for a minor zoom. The dual rear cameras work the same.The double camera setup in the back consists of a 16MP main shooter and a 0,3MP secondary telephoto lens specially-tuned for low-light conditions in a mode Blackview calls Super Night Shooting. The main Sony IMX298 camera has f / 2.0 aperture and the secondary f / 2.2. A LED flash helps in low light shots. The dual camera selfie shooter has a 13.0MP + 0.3MP resolution (Sony IMX135 main lens), offering typical selfie/portrait shots with the help of a forward face LED soft-flash alongside the usual ambient light sensor.[flickr_set id=”72157694962498702″]The included camera app is basic, but it gets the job done. You have several options for fake bokeh, or beauty mode. Theres a basic black and white filter provided, as well HDR mode. HDR modes takes multiple pictures at different exposures, then combine the images. You dont have any additional configuration options, but it does a good job at capturing more detail in the shadows.Each mode has its own settings. For example, if you want to shoot video, there are options for Scene mode (night, sunset, portrait, night portrait, etc), Video quality (set as FHD), location, shutter sound etc.I used the aperture mode a lot. Most budget smartphones with a double camera setup create a bokeh effect using the software and blurring the background around the main object. The aperture mode here does a real job focusing and blurring the background having a setting to open-close the cameras aperture. I really enjoyed it and is one of the best portrait/bokeh setups I have seen. Pro mode has options to alter the white balance, ISO, focus and light. People that like to take manual pictures will appreciate the setup. Photo mode has also a filter selection like Sepia, Mon, Negative, and a typical HDR mode.Selfies have only Video, Photo, Beauty and Mono modes. The main object here is well presented but the surroundings look like it is wider and closer to the screen. It is like looking at a mirror whose angles are closer to you shaped like the inside of a spoon. The image is clear but my head looked very small over a huge chest. Some people might like this setup, but I am not one of them.While the camera can just about keep up for photos, it cannot for video. Theres no option to shoot in high frame rates, or even any resolution higher than 1080p. Footage struggles to look sharp, even if the colors are good.BatteryP10000 Pro packs a non-removable, 11.000 mAh battery. This allegedly provides enough power to run the phone for seven days. While seven days might be a bit of a stretch unless you are a very light user, you can realistically expect to achieve 3 to 4 days of solid use.Blackview suggest the following usage times can be achieved:Phone calls: 60 hoursListening to music: 80 hoursWatching videos: 40 hoursStandby: 1200 hours (50 days)Playing games: 18 hoursWhile some of these times are very optimistic, not all of them are impossible to achieve, especially if you limit the energy heavy usage such as the screen, wireless, or updates.There’s no need to feel bad about it however, as the device comes with 5V/5A fast charging charger, that is able to charge the phone in -roughly- 70 minutes, heating up at the same time the back panel of the device.Using the OTG cable you can also charge any other electronic device something very helpful when you are working or having fun outdoors.ConclusionThis is an excellent large battery phone that offers a nice modern-looking display, equipped with a good set of dual cameras. The processor, combined with 4GB RAM and 64GB of ROM offer a smooth everyday experience without any issues in multitasking or heavy gaming. Battery is great in terms of stand by time and the huge internal storage offers many choices in time spending when no WiFi or data connection exists.I enjoyed the many features of the UI, especially the camera application. Don’t forget that it’s a true business smartphone, offering an FM radio, a compass, GPS navigation, an alarm receiver and an alarm sender. It comes pre-installed with all the necessary “goodies” from Google and Blackview has added anything missing like extra gesture support, a file manager, a more versatile music player, a system manager application etc.I have to admit that Blackview’s flagship model provides almost everything one would expect from a mid-range, business-like smartphone – giving a lot of credits to its durability, performance and sturdiness. The Face Unlock feature is good but… not it doesn’t work always so don’t rely on it. No, really don’t!Smart speakers or virtual assistants, whatever name you decide to call them, they are very useful, handy, and they are winning the world. There is a statistics showing smart speakers are now owned by one in six Americans. Those products are not only used in home automation, but also in business. Initially, maybe the smart speakers have been launched with another purpose in mind. But now everything has entirely changed. Say, Amazon Echo should be made to boost the sales. The Google Home is ideal for making searches. The Apple HomePod provides superb sound quality and works perfect with Siri. This list is too long. And as you see, each of them may have an original mission. But what about business? Why the smart speakers cant be used for business purposes? They sport all the necessary features to make your business work more efficiently. Of course, they may help in daily office tasks and during conference meetings. In this sense, the Jabra brand seems to be a step forward in comparison to other smart speaker makers. But a few days ago eMeet introduced the first AI smart conference speaker dubbed as the OfficeCore M2. The Jabra 710 has been very popular recently. But with the launch of this amazing speaker, eMeet is going to get the crown.Actually, eMeet has a huge experience in making smart conference speakers. Its previous flagship, the OfficeCore M1 was very popular and was competing with the Jabra 510. As for the OfficeCore M2, it is targeting the Jabra 710, we guess. Our protagonist was announced back on May 15. It made a huge stir because eMeet develops and markets high-tech conferencing devices, came in with a high-performance Bluetooth portable speakerphone that integrates the functionality of VoiceIA algorithm background noise and echo suppression, AI algorithm sound capture and automatic volume adjustment, 4 high sensitive MEMS digital microphones array, and Bluetooth 4.2 technology into a compact and portable device. Thus, we are dealing with a conference speaker that will fix all the bugs met during multi-person meetings and calls. We also know how annoying badly adjusted microphones can be during conferences. So as the name suggests, the eMeet OfficeCore M2 should provide corresponding solutions.In order to take a look at its look, learn the hardware features, and find out what business-oriented features it comes with, we have got our hands on it. So lets dig deeper and test it.eMeet OfficeCore M2 UnboxingIn comparison to the OfficeCore M1, this model is more compact. Therefore, it can be placed in a smaller box. The company has done just that. The OfficeCOre M2 is placed in a black box (at least, the one we got was black). Inside the package, we can find two cables (USB and AUX), a user manual in a few languages (including English), and the speaker itself.Note: there are models that are packed with a Bluetooth USB adapter. The one we got doesnt have.eMeet OfficeCore M2 AppearanceThe first thing caught our eyes is its more compact design. The top surface is slant. In the central part, we can find the main operational keys. They are not press-able. By the way, this is the second biggest difference. So you will interfere with the OfficeCore M2 through taps and touches, of course, when you are not using voice commands.The overall size and weight are familiar to other models on the market. It comes with dimensions of 125x125x35mm and weighs 300 grams only. However, unlike the previous model, there is no carrying case. So you should acquire it separately.As we said, the keys are placed in the central part. The one on the top is the intelligent assistant button. On the opposite area, we can see the power on/off button. The input source switch button and the volume down button are on the left area. The answering/hanging up telephone button and the volume up button are on the right. There is also a status indicating light above the power button. Finally, the mute/recording button is in the very center.Apart from this, a few interfaces are placed on the side. They include a lock hole, an AUX audio input, a 3.5mm audio jack input, a micro USB port, and four microphone holes placed around the perimeter.At last, as you can see, the speaker grill is on the top. So the sound comes not from the bottom. This also means you can put in on any surface without worrying the sound will be muffled.eMeet OfficeCore M2 PerformanceBefore we start you should be informed there are several variants of this product. The one we are testing is the simplest version. However, there are also the OfficeCore M2ce, OfficeCore M2 Record, and OfficeCore M2ce Record. This simply means the one we are reviewing has no recording ability.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramTo turn it on, just press and keep the power button for three seconds. The speaker will light up. Like the previous model, there is a light strip around the edge.Bringing plug-and-play and multiple connection solutions, the eMeet speaker can connect in seconds with virtually any smart devices and integrates seamlessly with all communication platforms via Bluetooth, the AUX port, or via USB wire. Though it comes in a compact size, there is a built-in 2500mAh Li-ion battery, which allows users to easily move anywhere. So your conference calls will take place in any available places. By the way, the battery provides 12 hours of continuous talk-time and fully recharge in 3-4 hours.You can check the status of the remaining power by short pressing the power button. If the power state is low, the light strip will be red. When everything is ok, its green. By the way, the OfficeCore M2 supports OTG charging. So you can use your smartphone or a power bank to charge it. The same can be done when connected to the laptop.As we said, first, you can connect it to the computer or laptop via the USB cable. This is the most common thing you can do.As we are dealing with a smart speaker that can be used for listening audio, there is a special AUX support. So you can use the corresponding cable to connect through the AUX interface.But we guess you would like to use wireless technologies. Use the Bluetooth option to connect it to your phone. When it is paired, the indicator will stop blinking. By the way, it is packed with a Bluetooth 4.2 (Qualcomm CSR8670) module, compared to the 4.1 version of the Jabra 710.Note: If there are several sources, choose the one you need via the voice source switch button. You will have a hunch which source you are at by colors. Say, when it is blue, you are connected via Bluetooth; when it is white, you are connected via the AUX source; and finally, when it is green, you are using the USB connectivity option.The eMeet OfficeCore M2 is packed with 4 high sensitive MEMS digital omnidirectional microphones that can catch the sound from all sides (360 degrees support). Many will think this number is not sufficient because the M1 comes with six speakers. The next group of users will be satisfied with this number when comparing with the Jabras 1 microphone. But the truth is we are dealing with a smart product. Unlike its competitors, this model is able to recognize the origin of the sound due to the intervention of AI. The OfficeCore M2 sports an intelligent LED lamp that indicates the direction from where the sound comes. So the one who is talking can know whether his/her voice is being picked up or not. These microphones accurately identify human voice positions to only capture vocal sound to a distance up to 33ft away with 12 people in one room (8-10 meters away (against the 3-5 meters of the Jabra and the 8 meters of OfficeCore M1)). So the users only hear what matters most.As for the sound quality and the speaker, our protagonist comes with a sound output increased by 300% and the microphone pick-up distance increased by 150%. The AI algorithm for noise suppression and echo cancellation has increased by 200% while the full duplex calling effect increased by 180%. When turning the volume up or down a blue LED turns on and off step by step to indicate the volume level. In addition, there are LED indicators for the battery level as well as a mute indicator that turns the LED red whenever microphones are muted.The call buttons operation is simple 鈥 press it when you want to answer the call and press again to hang up. But if you want to reject the call, press it for 3 seconds.This conference speaker can count on Artificial Intelligence and a DNN-based VoiceIA algorithm (Deep Neural Network) that effectively eliminates background noise and deliver natural two-way conversations. So we can state the eMeet OfficeCore M2 is the most sophisticated, portable Bluetooth speakerphone available today.The eMeet OfficeCore M2 is compatible with multiple software and platforms, including Skype, Avaya, Gizmo Project, Wechat, Google Gtalk and many others. Plus, it supports most digital assistants (Siri, Cortana or Google Now). So there is nothing comparable with the Jabra 710 that only supports Skype, Microsoft Lync, Cisco, Avaya, FaceTime and a few others.You just have to tap the button on the top to call the voice assistant installed on your phone. Through voice commands, you can make phone calls, send messages, learn about weather and make other operations implemented through smart speakers.At last, the M2 features multipoint connection that allows infinite expandability by linking together via wire as many M2 speakerphones as the user want to enjoy superior sound for the best voice collaboration, while the Jabra speaker can only be interfaced with another device and M1 does not support this function.

Vernee is once again “in the house” here in Gizchina HQ and today they decided to send over their slimmest ever Android smartphone and surely one that most of those novices out there will love in an instant.It’s called Vernee M6 and it’s part of their聽mid-range portfolio, equipped with an MT6750 processor, an HD display and 4GB of RAM (which is pretty typical for smartphones within this price range).Since its official launch some weeks ago, the phone has generally been well received, and we believe, pretty much rightly so. It definitely isn’t a phone that will ‘change everything’, but it’s a fairly nice device – the slimmest ever designed by the Chinese company and it surely deserves all the praises for this. Let’s take a deeper look in the Vernee M6 review!Vernee M6: Technical specsDisplay:聽5.7 inch 1440 x 720 pixels IPS screenSize: 15.40 x 7.32 x 0.69 cm / 6.06 x 2.88 x 0.27 inchesWeight: 150 gr.CPU:聽MTK6750 Octa Core 1.5GHzGPU: Mali-T860 MP2System:聽Android 7.0Storage:聽4GB RAM + 64GB ROMCameras:聽13.0MP ( SW 16.0MP )聽back camera and聽8.0MP ( SW 13.0MP )聽front cameraBattery: 3300 mAhSensors:聽Ambient Light Sensor, E-compass, Gravity Sensor, Proximity SensorFeatures:聽GPS, GLONASS, OTG, Audio Jack 3.5mmBluetooth:聽4.0SIM Card:聽dual SIM dual standby, 1 Nano SIM card + 1 Nano SIM card and 1 TF card can be inserted at the same timeNetwork: SIM 1:聽GSM B2/B3/B5/B8 –聽WCDMA B1/B5/B8 –聽CDMA BC0 –聽FDD-LTE B1/B3/B5/B7/B8/B19/B20 –聽TDD-LTE B38/40SIM 2:聽GSM B2/B3/B5/B8 –聽WCDMA B1/B5/B8Vernee M6 Review: Design & BuildRight off the bat, the Vernee M6 will remind you of at least 5-6 other typical mid-range models in the market, just pick one, they’re all the same to me. The only real noticeable feature however is the total absence of a front facing fingerprint scanner, something that adds a lot of points to its general design score, leaving a lot of space for its 5.7 inch HD+ display to show off a bit.At around the $150 mark ($149 while writing this review), the Vernee M6 isn’t the cheapest Chinese device, but I guess that it does the job. While the Chinese are getting to a point where they almost get the hardware right (full display, 4G/LTE, dual SIM, 4GB RAM, etc.), there’s definitely still a void to fill when it’s software we’re talking about. More on that later.Combined with a metal finish and an elegantly designed body (that is prone to smudges on the back side however), the Vernee M6 is definitely a treat to the eyes. What it could’ve done with, as mentioned, is a bit of heft to it.One gripe with the build I have is that the bezels on top and above the display are not as tiny as one would like to believe, or as they’re shown in some promo photos. They’re not huge, don’t get me wrong, but I guess that’s the price to pay (plus 149$) to get a budget, full display smartphone with a mere 6.9mm of thickness.Also, the SIM and microSD trays seem shaky. At first I thought they hadn’t fit in place well enough, but despite ensuring that they had, the wobble in the trays remained. Perhaps something Vernee could take care of in their future models.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramWhile Vernee as a brand is more or less new in the market, I’m pretty sure they have faces on their team that have been around for a while… which makes mistakes like these a little irritating. The glass on top of the 2.5D display seems to (thankfully) feature some kind of oleophobic coating, so you won’t be seeing a lot of smudges there while in everyday use, something that I really liked during my days with this device in my hands.聽Despite its metal finish, the rear of the phone does feel like plastic at times (especially when you’re taking the phone in your hands for the first time), but I can confirm it’s metal. Vernee probably could work on this a bit more as well, i.e., on giving the metal a more ‘metallic’ feel.Vernee M6 Review: Hardware & PerformanceGiven the kind of pedigree the phone had (courtesy MTK6750 SoC), I was expecting to see a semi-average, typical performance. Yes, it performed exactly as one would expect, with this well known – and heavily used- chipset by Mediatek. Decent performance in everyday use, it will get the job done for everyday chores, some social media, Emails, a bit of Skype, Chrome for browsing etc, but don’t expect anything more. So you won’t get performance-hungry gaming titles, no super swift everyday response for proffesional, heavy duty users etc. It’s a typical mid-ranger device, priced at 149,99$ – that’s all. You get the point, don’t you? While the OS is pretty much vanilla Android, there’s still a few glitches here and there. As I write this review, I’ve been notified of another OTA which will hopefully make things better. Performance wise, the M6 is right up there with the likes of other MT6750 phones. In fact it’s pretty zippy thanks to the lightweight OS (unless it’s having a RAM issue).聽I’ve managed to run quite a few apps all at the same time without having any caching issues. I’d go as far as to say that you really don’t need 6GB of RAM at this point in time if your 4GB RAM is accompanied by decent software. All in all, I’d give the M6 a 7.5/10 for it’s performance. Good thing here is that there’s still scope for it to get to 8-8.5 with improved software!!Moving on to the hardware, it’s been a mixed bag of sorts. The display is a HD+ IPS unit — at 1440 x 720 pixels resolution and yes, I know some of you would prefer a FHD+ panel, but guys, the chipset won’t manage, come on. The display all in all, packs a nice and bright panel with some amazing back light consistency聽– no light bleeding whatsoever. Well done here Vernee! The sound is.. not what I expected. Both the earpiece and the built-in loudspeaker offer average performance. While the earpiece is still doable, the loudspeaker offers poor sound with virtually no bass, a bit lower volume than expected but if you turn off the sound enhancer settings this helps a lot!The Vernee M6 has a non-removable Li-Po battery which has no fast charging feature. These days people prefer purchasing fast charging battery smartphones, so take into account that this smartphone needs almost 2.5 hours to charge completely. As for its battery life while in typical usage, I’ve constantly managed to get over 4,5 hours of screen on time (4-5 hours on an average) when mostly on WiFi, and around the 5 hours mark when on 3G/4G. While this is good, it could get better, especially considering the battery size of 3300mAh.As I mentioned before, the fingerprint scanner of the device is positioned at the back, just below the main camera. It is not one of the fastest in the market, but it surely gets the job done, offering 0,1 seconds of recognition time, with an average of 95% success rate while in everyday use. Typical stuff there too, don’t expect anything else.Vernee M6 Review: CameraDespite the lack of features and a poor HDR mode, the Vernee M6 can take some decent photos. The 16MP camera sensor (13MP in fact, and uses interpolation) is definitely potent enough to take some breathtaking shots I’m sure, but again that’s bottle-necked by the software running on the phone. It’s sad to notice that there’s no manual mode on the camera app, somethin2121g the M6 definitely deserves. The camera focuses fast, and thanks to its RAM/SoC combination, saving clicked photos is extremely fast also. As you’d expect, the shutter tends to remain open for a little while longer in low-light situations, which means you’ll often end up with blurred photos. This, in turn, will make you miss OIS. There’s an ‘anti shake’ mode in the settings that you can turn on (probably something based on EIS), but it doesn’t work all that well anyway.[flickr_set id=”72157669180293368″]The device also features a single LED flash, 0.2-second fast focus and f/2.0 aperture. And there’s a selfie camera placed in front, packing an 8MP sensor (13MP with interpolation) with beauty mode and facial recognition.As for video, there’s no 4K video support, just full HD (1080p) at less than 30fps.Vernee M6 Review: ConclusionThe Vernee M6 is definitely a phone that breaks away from the norm, and tried to go the extra mile, providing an exceptional everyday “grip” with its 6.9mm of thickness – it’s really slim, you’re gonna love it- along with typical performance and an average battery life.China Mobile is the Chinese equivalent of Vodafone in Europe, AT&T in the USA, and Vodafone (again) in India so its not surprising that they released a cell phone.However, what is surprising is the price, and we dive in deep.China Mobile A3s ReviewStarting at just $65, the China Mobile A3s forces everyone to rethink what a budget phone can offer, undercutting the king of the budget segment, the Redmi 5A by a good $30, a fortune in this price range.Does China Mobiles attempt at reigning supreme in the budget market succeed?$65China Mobile A3s SpecificationsProcessorSnapdragon 425 ProcessorDisplay5.2 1280×720 IPS DisplayRAM2GBStorage16GB eMMCOperating SystemAndroid 7.1 NougatCameras8MP Rear, 5MP FrontBattery2,800mAhPhysical Dimensions74.0 mm x 148.0 mm x 8.7 mm, 150gChina Mobile A3s HardwareAs is expected in the budget segment, the phone has a hard, plastic exterior that has the advantage of being very light and fairly strong while forgoing the premium feeling you get with metal and glass phones. The result is a phone that is fairly droppable due to its light weight and durable body, something that cannot be said of any glass covered flagship made.The phone utilizes a microUSB connector and a 3.5mm headphone jack, a port that gets rarer as the phone price goes up. Capacitive buttons are included (my favourite!) below the screen.The phone does not look sleek or beautiful, with large bezels surrounding the screen, however the phone is still relatively compact by 2018 standards and easy to hold also. In my opinion, the A3s is ugly enough that there will be some people who would rather die than be caught using a phone like this, however at the price I dont think its right to complain.Light, Durable, UglyChina Mobile A3s DisplayThe phone has a decent IPS LCD display with a 720p resolution, and it looks fine. In my opinion, IPS LCD technology has advanced to the point where good looking displays can be made relatively cheaply. I do have a complaint about this phone though, and that would be maximum brightness. Its fairly hard to see in direct, bright sunlight.Its fineChina Mobile A3s AudioWe find adequate speakers on the China Mobile A3s, the volume gets adequately loud, the quality is adequate, its nothing special, youre going to miss the bass on action heavy movie scenes and bass heavy tracks, but its perfectly serviceable.China Mobile A3s BatteryThe China Mobile A3s gets slightly less battery life than I would have expected when you combine the Snapdragon 425 and a 2,800mAh battery.The most similar phone to this would be the Xiaomi Redmi 4A, and I was able to get around 5-6 hours of screen on time consisting of web browsing, some Youtube, and some photos, no gaming in this mix. While that is a respectable result, Im fairly certain that you should be able to squeeze out about an hour of so more screen on time, owing mostly to software optimization. I was seeing faster than normal standby battery drain than should be appropriate, and hopefully it can be fixed in the next OTA update.Not BadGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramChina Mobile A3s Software & PerformanceAndroid 7.1 Nougat is included in the phone, and there is a light skin that replaces the notification shade and settings menu. The launcher is also changed to remove the app drawer, but a custom launcher fixes that quick. The stock keyboard on this phone is Touchpal, something Ive seen on other budget devices, and Im not a fan, I always switch to Google Keyboard.Performance is somewhat slow on the stock launcher, replace it with NOVA launcher and its much zippier. App launch speed is fairly typical for the Snapdragon 425, it does take a moment to launch bigger apps, but its mostly good enough for your basic social media and web surfing.Multitasking is hard on this device. 2GB of RAM is not enough in 2018 and the end result of that is that whenever you minimize an app, it basically clears it from memory if you open another app because there isnt enough, resulting in the app relaunching every time.You can do some light gaming like Clash Royale or Candy Crush, however dont expect this to play PubG or Modern Combat.The fingerprint sensor works very well, it is very accurate and fairly quick when you consider the price, no its not a Oneplus 5T, but it takes a reasonable amount of time to unlock.China Mobile A3s ConnectivityThis phone is almost completely incompatible in North America, but it does fully support European bands so European residents need not worry.WiFi reception is quite stellar on this device as is Bluetooth connectivity and range, however GPS does not work as well as I expected, locking on was fairly slow and the GPS jumped around a little bit.China Mobile A3s Camera The cameras here can take some very decent photos. If you take macro shots you can get some very nice detail, colour saturation, and dynamic contrast. However in suboptimal conditions, grain is introduced almost immediately. Colour reproduction actually stays fairly similar but the detail takes a nosedive.It has a fairly slow shutter speed which means motion blur is introduced with moderate movement.The front facing camera is pretty bad, its 2MP interpolated to 5MP, so you can guess how bad its going to be.You can film up to 1080p video, but the detail level is closer to 720p. Colour reproduction is actually still pretty decent, but detail is bad enough to make the video quality bad.China Mobile A3s Camera Gallery China Mobile A3s VerdictMost of the phone can be described as good enough, which is definitely considered praise when you account for the measly price tag with the next step up a good $30 more, namely the Xiaomi Redmi 5A. Theres no doubt the Redmi 5A is a better phone than the China Mobile A3s, but is it $30 better? Not in my opinion.

The Chinese smartphone market is flooded with manufacturers and the competition is really strong. While we can call the likes of Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo “first class” Chinese smartphone manufacturers, the likes of Bluboo falls in the “second class” category. Bluboo tried to do something spectacular with the Bluboo S3 as it combines a massive 6-inch display (almost 91% screen-to-body ratio) with a monstrous 8,500 mAh battery. After the initial announcement of this device at MWC 2018, this smartphone hit the market on April 18 and I have now received a Maple Gold unit for review.Bluboo S3 – Succinct SpecsProcessorMediaTek MTK6750T Octa-core processor clocking 1.5GHzDisplay6-inch 1080 x 2160P 18:9 FHD+ DisplayRAM4GBStorage64GB eMMCOperating SystemAndroid 7.0 Nougat (Android 8.0 On its way)Cameras21MP/5MP Rear Cameras, 13MP FrontBattery8,500mAh聽12V/2A fast chargePhysical Dimensions157.8 x 75.5 x 1.1 mm, 282gBluboo S3 – What’s In The BoxThe box of the Bluboo S3 is quite rich and it has multiple interface聽options such that you wouldn’t need to buy a connecting medium. The box itself looks quite matured and the unit I received has a black box with “Bluboo 8500 mAh” written in the top left corner which is advertising the huge battery of this smartphone. “S3” is stylishly written at the bottom of the front surface of the box. In the box, we can find the following1 x Bluboo S3 smartphone unit1 x Power Adapter1 x USB Cable1 x USB 3.0 Type-C to USB 3.0 Type-A connector1 x USB 3.0 Type-C to Headphone port cable1 x USB 2.0 Type-A to USB 3.0 Type-C/Micro USB 5 Pin/Apple Lighting connector1 x Screen protector1 x phone pouch1x Sim Tray ejector pinA user manual in multiple languages Bluboo S3 – Design & AppearanceAt first glance, there is nothing out of the ordinary in the design of the Bluboo S3. However, a closer look gives a different idea. The rear has a skid proof texture design which gives some sort of friction between the palm and the device thus preventing easy falls. The rear is molded from a golden plastic material which flexes when a small force is applied, however, I can only hope that this beautiful Maple Gold colour doesn’t聽wear off easily. Its rear is curved on all four edges聽for a better grip and handheld feel though the sides have聽more curvature than the top/bottom.聽聽The sides are molded from a zinc alloy using the time-consuming CNC laser process. When you pick up this smartphone, you can’t help but notice its massive 282g weight which is not surprising given its huge battery. The fingerprint sensor is lodged in the back just beneath the vertically aligned dual rear cameras and the LED flash lies astride them to the left.聽The fingerprint sensor is quite good, it is well positioned and it unlocks the phone even while in sleep mode. There were a few times where I needed two scans for the fingerprint sensor to respond but overall, it responds at first touch. We have the SIM tray on the right side and the power/volume button to the left. Thus there is nothing out of the ordinary here. The only port on this phone is a USB-Type-C port which doubles for charging and for headphone. Generally, the design of the Bluboo S3 is good especially the rear design which compliments its weight.This smartphone supports two nano-SIMs and an SD card. However, it should be noted that the two SIMs and SD card cannot be used simultaneously. You have two options, either you use two SIMs with no SD card or you use one SIM and the SD card. Be careful with the SIM tray as you pull it out, it is quite fragile and I almost destroyed it.Bluboo S3 Hardware & PerformanceThe Bluboo S3 is powered by a MediaTek聽MTK6750T processor which certainly has its shortcomings.聽One thing I noticed is that within a short time of usage, the zinc alloy sides of the Bluboo S3 becomes so hot (definitely above 40 degrees) and the company did not include an option to cool down the phone when overheating but thanks to the heat absorbing pouch, this shortfall can be curtailed. This phone comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage which can be expanded up to 256GB. The RAM makes multitasking great and it is just sufficient because there is barely anyone that needs more than 4GB in a smartphone. Enough storage means that you are safe from downloading fears. City Racing using Xiaomi Mi Note 2 (GPU: Adreno 530) City Racing using Bluboo S3 (GPU: Mali-T860 MP2). Notice the colour loss The graphics are handled by an ARM Mali T860 GPU @650MHz which falls short of requirements for graphically demanding games. I tried it with City Racing and聽Asphalt 8. It could barely display the proper colours of sections of the game and it was a bit slower than usual. For its current $150 price tag which could rise to $200, this will be a gamble for gamers.SoftwareThe operating system of Bluboo S3 looks just like stock Android but the company has added a few tweaks which allow you to聽update the app icons, themes, and wallpapers. This smartphone currently runs on Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box but the Android Oreo update is coming. Well, the Face ID will be supported when the device is updated to Android Oreo. Since the Oreo update is not currently available in my region, I have to exercise some patience.Generally, the operability of this device is seamless but I noticed some聽bugs in the Bluetooth where it would turn on automatically and attempt to connect with my Xiaomi Mi AI speaker. However, when the speaker is turned off, the Bluetooth seems to behave better. Unfortunately, I NEVER turn off my speaker so it was quite annoying. In addition, when the phone is put on flight mode and returned back to normal, the Bluetooth automatically turns on. These bugs can be easily fixed with an OTA so it shouldn’t be a problem.DisplayBluboo S3 is not left out in the current 18:9 aspect ratio trend which recently penetrated the smartphone manufacturing industry. You wouldn’t need more than 70% brightness even in outdoor environments which is great. However, the colours are not very saturated and it seems a bit whitish. Nevertheless, this smartphone is equipped with MiraVision which significantly enhanced the image quality. Touch sensitivity and viewing angle are perfect. Generally, it was absolutely fun to fiddle this smartphone. This 6-inch phone with聽2160 x 1080 display resolution comes with a screen guard on the display and in the box, you also find an extra screen guard.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramSound QualityBluboo S3 sound quality is not the best in the smartphone industry but it is fair enough for the price. Its got a lot of treble with little or no bass. Its speaker volume needed about 70% for effective hearing. However, calls via headphone are far better and online audio/video calls ran smoothly since it supports聽VoLTE. Overall, the sound quality is acceptable.CameraThe Bluboo S3 comes with Samsung made camera sensors. On the rear, we have a聽21MP+5MP dual cameras while in front, we have a聽13MP shooter. I took the joy of taking some images with these cameras to assess their performance.Dual Rear CamerasThe聽21MP+5MP dual cameras actually did not disappoint in a bright light environment. However, the same can not be said for low-light situations. Its images during the day are quite good and you can see the colour saturation in most of the green photos. There is no noise and the image details are well captured. The background blur feature works quite well and the PIP mode (lets you capture an object and your face simultaneously) is also another interesting feature. Background Blur effect Moving Vehicle Rear camera PIP mode. The image is blur because the phone is heated During the night, the situation changes. The images are just average and you can see a significant amount of noise in the background. Interestingly, the rear camera captures moving objects (cars, animals, etc) with high precision which is quite cool but it is not equipped with anti-shake so you can’t be jittering while you take photos. Background Blur Effect Selfie ShooterThe selfie shooter did not fall short of my expectation of a 13MP camera. Its images have good details and colour saturation during the day but at night, the situation is similar to what I observed in the rear camera. When indoors (daytime), a bit of noise comes into the image but generally, it is impressive. Indoor image has some noise Front camera PIP mode Overall, I can not say that the camera department of Bluboo S3 is excellent but I can confidently say that it is well above average. Poor CPU Affects CameraThis sub-section became very necessary because of what I observed as I went on a photo taking spree. I never put off my data connection, I’m always on my phone so you can call me a heavy user. The Bluboo S3 was pretty worked up when I started taking my last set of images. It was freaking hot (many thanks to its highly insulative pouch and plastic rear, I didn’t notice the rising temperature) and I got this error message“Device is too hot. Camera will exit in 30 seconds. Please try again later.”At this point, I still kept shooting photos but the camera collapsed after 30 seconds as warned. Being a stubborn phone user, I was curious so I kept bringing up the camera each time it went down. After a while, it couldn’t shoot decent images anymore and I had to wait for about 20/30 minutes before it came back to normal. This is caused by the uncontrolled heating of the processor. In addition, I couldn’t delete images from the camera when the error message popped up. I had to wait till the phone cooled to perform the function.Battery – Save The Best For LastFor the Bluboo S3聽Review, I saved the best for last. This is the ONLY section of this smartphone I can score 100%+ without hesitation. The Bluboo S3 has a monstrous 8500 mAh battery with ultra-fast 12V/2A charging and 1A output reverse charging function. It gets to full charge in about 2.5 hours. I carried out a couple of tests on this battery and the results were EXCELLENT. On moderate usage, it can last for 6 days while on standby mode, you get 42 days.Video TestI charged the Bluboo S3 to 100% and set the brightness and volume at 70%, my data connection was on and I connected the volume output to a Bluetooth speaker. After one hour of watching an FHD+ video at聽2160 x 1080 resolution, I had 99%. After another 30 minutes, I had 96% and after another 30 minutes, I had 93%. This means that only 7% power was lost in 2hours of video time. With this performance, the Bluboo S3 will conveniently give you 18 hours video time.Hotspot/Internet TestThis consumes more power than any other aspect of this phone. The phone was set as described in the video test. The hotspot and data were put on. After one hour of usage, I had 93% power remaining. With this, the Bluboo S3 will deliver 14 hours of constant hotspot/internet browsing time. However, if you just put on the hotspot but you are not fiddling the phone, the battery lasts much more (over 20 hours)Gaming TestI set the Bluboo S3 as聽described in the video test with an active data connection and played City Racing. After one hour of gaming, I lost only 1%. After another one hour, I lost 2%. Doing the math, this smartphone delivers nothing less than 50 hours gaming time (may vary with the game demands). But gamers may not appreciate this power capability because the gaming graphics loses colour in some sections as stated earlier and the phone gets quite hot too (you will definitely need the pouch to prevent the heat).Powerbank FunctionUsing the聽USB 3.0 Type-C to USB 3.0 Type-A connector, I was able to charge my No. 1 D7 Pro W smartwatch phone to 100% with the Bluboo S3 within 4hours. It also charged my feature phone but when I tried it with my Mi Note 2, it didn’t add any percentage to the battery but the Mi Note 2 didn’t lose power.Zebronics Max Pro Gaming Keyboard Review:The craziest thing about Mechanical Keyboards is that they tend to bridge the gap between the new generation non-tactile keyboards to the ones from the typewriter era. Most budget keyboards today use dome-switch technology, which helps to budget the expenses of the manufacturer. But leading to posses a relatively lacky and mushy feel to its users. This is what mechanical keyboards are trying to solve by offering a tactile feedback for each button press. Once you choose to shift to a mechanical keyboard, then you might never shift back. In this line-up Zebronics has released a new add-on to its max series: the Zebronics Max Pro!Design:Talking about the design, there are some major aesthetic changes that elevates the design & overall feel, making the Zebronics Max Pro a worthy follow-up to its predecessor.This time Zebronics has choose to adapt the black matte exterior instead of the glossy finish. The keyboard weighs around 1.3kgs and is designed to withstand stress, thus offering a rigid experience. The only drawback I saw on the design aspect is that it lacks a wrist rest. This is one major feature I look forward when purchasing a gaming keyboard. But yes! if you’re looking for a durable keyboard that respects the scarcity of your desk space, then I think the Zebronics Max Pro will suit your choice. Also this time Zebronics has done a great job in choosing the perfect font, it certainly offers justice to the overall design choice. The device has a 1.8m Braided Cable which is really flexible & rigid. The best part is that the matte surface does not attract too many fingerprints as well.The Max Pro is every gamer’s Dream Budget KeyboardGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramGaming & Features:One of the key features of a good mechanical keyboard is called N-Key Rollover. This feature helps to detect each key-press independently. Which means you wouldn’t miss to record a key when several keys are pressed simultaneously. And that’s perfectly been carried out by the Zebronics Max Pro. The Keys are pretty tactile and gives a great feel while coding or playing games. Usually most of the mechanical keyboards use Cherry MX switches but leading to an increased net price. Thus Zebronics wanted to make the keyboard affordable by choosing the Outemu Switches. When I first heard that Zebronics are using Outemu, I didn’t actually have a good feel about this choice. Though it did kind-off prove me wrong! The Outemu switches are crisp, loud, and gives a pretty tactile feedback.After a well-received K1, Koolnee launched the K1 Trio which is just its second smartphone launch. However, it sure as hell doesn’t look like one. Even the Koolnee K1 was a very well-built phone and it received a lot of attention. The Koolnee K1 Tri aspires to be something more than the Koolnee K1. It wants to provide modern features like extremely thin bezels and an overall great phone at a very affordable price.We used the phone for quite some time and we’re upbeat about the latest smartphone. We’ll let you know about them in detail in our review below. Also, the final verdict will be at the end for which we will first pen down our experiences with the device.Koolnee K1 Trio Looks and BuildThe Koolnee K1 Trio amazes with its looks and charm. It has a sleek and silky smooth metal design with a unique colour. At the top, it leaves a very slender room for the earpiece and a couple of sensors. At the bottom is a sizable chin for the biometrics. Apart from that, its almost edge to edge. A minor gripe was the placement of the volume button and power button on the opposite side. I had trouble using it in landscape mode as I accidentally pressed one of those buttons quite a few times. As I said in the unboxing, it is heavy and I never got used to the extra weight of the device. It is manageable in daily use though. You’ll feel the extra grams during your long in-hand sessions.The front fingerprint reader is good enough for daily use but not as fast as, say, the Redmi Note 5 Pro. However, it is very accurate. I almost never had to double scan my finger in my days of use. The rear has a curved 4D Glass design but I doubt its glass as it seems plasticy when you knock it. The handset is a bit slippery and smudgy too but not as much as the Honor 9 Lite. The corners are also steel-made with chamfered edges, the likes you’ve seen on the Galaxy S6. All in all, the Koolnee K1 Trio has just an awesome design fit to be in the premium segment.DisplayThe front 6.0-inch screen is the star of the show that makes the smartphone a joy for multimedia users. The display of the Koolnee K1 Trio is colour accurate and very bright. You’re not going to have trouble in outdoor usage with it. Also, the viewing angles are great too. Touch sensitivity is perfect as well and you couldn’t ask for more with this display. I, for once, was satisfied with the ample real estate when I played games.Sound QualitySound levels were a bit on the lower side than most average speakers, I must say. During my content consumption, I found myself cranking up the volume to high levels many times to get desired levels. But, it doesn’t differ by much. If you’re alone by yourself, you won’t notice that much of a difference. Call quality was via the earpiece was good but the phone doesn’t support VoLTE which I use in India. So, I had to take. The headphone jack also does its job and won’t get you complaining if you’re used to average quality.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramPerformance The Koolnee K1 Trio possesses the MediaTek Helio P23 chipset. In my regular tasks, the processor served well most of the time. There were instances where the CPU would skip a heartbeat but that was pretty rare. All I’m saying is that it isn’t as fluid as the Snapdragon 630 series. If you’re coming from something like that, you’ll notice the difference straight away. Also, at such a low price point, the handset has 6GB of RAM and 12GB of storage which I found to be a very welcome addition. That amount of RAM does help the processor in multitasking and games and I found myself downloading a lot of content because of that huge extra onboard storage. That amount of storage is a highlight of the K1 Trio with a $240 price tag.Casual gaming isn’t at all a worry on this phone as I tried a number of titles like Clash of Clans and Crash of Cars both of which aren’t graphically intensive. Some graphically intensive games like Asphalt 8 for example mostly work well but you can notice some frame drops in a while. In conclusion, the Helio P23 while not as buttery smooth as the Snapdragon 636, it can get your job done.SoftwareIn terms of software, the Koolnee K1 Trio comes with a very close to stock UI. There’s absolutely no bloatware on the phone which is pleasant to see. Even though it is mostly stock, Koolnee does throw in some good customization tweaks in the mix. It comes with Face Unlock which I found to be working reasonably well. Its home button also doubles as a one-touch navigation key. The on-screen navigation buttons can be disabled if users wish to do so. It isn’t anywhere near as fast as the OnePlus 5T version though. Also, low light is where it isn’t ideal to use. I do feel the lack of the notification LED on the phone.聽I encountered some bugs in the UX whereby the Bluetooth would turn on randomly along with the GPS and it was annoying. However, this might get fixed with an OTA.The Koolnee K1 Trio comes with Android 7.1.1 and we’re not sure whether we’ll see Android Oreo on this. At least we haven’t heard about an official confirmation. The UX does need some polishing here and there. At places, there are obvious wrong English wordings and sentences that don’t make sense at all. Thankfully, these are issues that can be fixed with software updates.BatteryThe battery is another highlight of the phone. The heaviness of the device can be overlooked by the 4,200mAh battery. The handset lasted me a day easily even at times of heavy use. Koolnee has optimized the software well for longevity. You’ll have to be resilient to push this battery to its limits. Sadly, it doesn’t come with fast charging or USB Type-C. Without it, the K1 Trio is quite slow to charge. I mostly charge my devices at night and I never needed to charge the K1 Trio mid-day.CameraI kept the camera for the last part because it is the weakest point of the Koolnee K1 Trio. That is more so in the case of the selfie shooter. Apart from being positioned a bit awkwardly, the K1 Trio selfie camera just lacks the quality for daily use. It picks grainy shots with noise even in daylight situations. And there isn’t adequate detail at all. And you can forget about night shots since day shots even aren’t good enough. It does have a beauty mode but the best you can get out of this shooter is with plenty of light. Even then it lacks colour accuracy. Well, there are compromises to be made with the Koolnee K1 Trio, and the biggest one is in the selfie department. The rear camera is much more bearable than the selfie lens. It manages to capture good details and colour accuracy is good as well. It does tend to overexpose and oversaturate in some situations. Also, it doesn’t have an auto HDR mode and the lens takes a lot of time to focus on subjects. Take a look at the images we took with the rear shooters in the above gallery.Koolnee K1 Trio: Final ThoughtsIt took a while to arrive but its finally here. We know we’re a bit late with this one but customs and legal hurdles got in way of the package and hence the delay. The Koolnee K1 Trio promises to be your Xiaomi Mi Mix on a budget. Its UPS is the tri-bezel-less screen which is bezel-less from three sides. That’s why it’s called K1 Trio. Coming from Koolnee, an established decade-old manufacturer, it is one of the premium products in their portfolio alongside the Koolnee K1. Koolnee isn’t that much known outside of China but with the tagline “Beyond Expectations,” the company has plans to expand to other countries in Asia.Koolnee K1 Trio: UnboxingThe review unit we received came in a plain white box with just a simple Koolnee branding on the top. That’s it. There aren’t any colours or phone images on the top of the box. Inside you get the phone itself, a standard wall charger and a micro USB adapter, and some booklets and manuals. There’s no back cover although the phone did have a pre-applied screen protector. Oh, and you also do get a SIM ejector tool. That’s pretty much it for the unboxing experience.Koolnee K1 Trio: First ImpressionsMy first impressions for the Koolnee K1 Trio were like, “Wow, this is a great build and design”. For around $250, you get a premium glossy shiny build that will definitely turn heads. I know because mine did. There are two colour options for the Koolnee K1 Trio. The review unit I got was the cool Blue colour. It is somewhat reminiscent of the Coral Blue on the Galaxy S9. It just looks different than all other blue colours and stands out of the crowd. However, the front has a different shade of Blue than the back.Also, the full metal-build of the phone comes with curved edges at the back which makes holding the phone easy. I could also see the back cameras rise above the chassis and create a small bump. The handset also has chamfered edges again made entirely out of metal.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe front has what Koolnee calls 4D Glass on top of a 6.0-inch Full-HD+ display. And it does look good with those minimal bezels, I must say. It is worth noting that the top does have a bezel albeit a very slim one that houses the ear-piece and a couple of sensors. Still, the front design of the handset just looks great and you’ll love the look of it. The bottom chin is somewhat thick as it houses a fingerprint reader. But it is still smaller than the one on the likes of the Maze Alpha. I didn’t mind the bottom bezel much especially because I like a front fingerprint reader.On the other hand, the 8MP selfie shooter is also on the bottom which was a pretty awkward experience for me. If you’ve used the Mi Mix or any other phone with a bottom selfie camera, you know what I mean.Also, I found the Koolnee K1 Trio to be somewhat heavy. That is even after using a Redmi Note 5 Pro. I noticed the phone remarkably weighs around 214 grams which is obviously heavier than most phones in this range. We can understand this might be due to the 4,200mAh juice pack and the metal build. The rear is very prone to get smudges and fingerprints on the rear side so you’ll have to keep a cloth with you if you don’t want that.The volume buttons are on the left while the power button is on the right side and this can be a bit problematic when you use the phone in landscape mode. The buttons are just a bit wobbly, especially the volume button, but they work well.

I have to be honest, I’m a guy who doesn’t use Bluetooth headsets/earbuds/headphones in his everyday life. I don’t find them to be comfortable for once, but I also tend to always bring my phone to my ear every time it rings – and perhaps that’s not the smartest thing I could do.I also hate cords and having huge headphones protruding from my head so all of the above have led me to a life of solitude – as far as 螔luetooth聽headsets/earbuds/ headphones are concerned. That’s why when I got this small beauty called聽Wavefun Micro Mini Earbud, I wasn’t THAT “hyped” to do a review –聽 I admit it. Alas I was mistaken… and that’s the reason why:Wavefun Micro Mini Earbud: basic packageWAVEFUN Micro Mini Bluetooth EarpieceMagnetic USB Charging DockWhite Color Gift BoxS/M/L Black Ear TipsEnglish User ManualIt’s really easy to activate and connect your phone to the聽Wavefun Micro Mini Earbud the first time you receive its package. Just turn it on by pressing continuously the first (protruding) button until the notification LED in the middle pulses in red-blue color – indicating that it’s waiting to pair with your smartphone. Go to the Bluetooth Settings of your device, locate the WAVEFUN Micro device and select it. That’s all, pairing complete 馃檪Wavefun Micro Mini Earbud: main featuresMINI & LIGHT WEIGHT: It’s surely one of the smallest earbuds on the market, weighing only 3,9 gr. while providing exceptional ease of use and portability. Its dimensions are聽3.5 x 2.4 x 1.1 inches making it REALLY easy to misplace or even lose it, so try to be careful where you place it when you’re not using it.聽In fact I did manage to misplace it for a couple of days, but I finally remembered that I had placed it inside my trouser’s pocket once. And thankfully my wife hadn’t put it yet in the washing machine.COMFORT & SECURE FIT IN EITHER EAR: It’s ergonomically-designed and in its basic package you will find 3 different sized ear plugs, that ensure a great snug and secure fit in your ear, no matter which one you prefer: left or right.聽It fits exceptionally in the ear. It doesn’t move at all, and you can easily use it while running, walking, cycling or whatever you do that needs excessive body movement. Trust me, as long as you choose the right ear plug, you won’t have any issue with its fit in your ear.聽Very good SOUND quality: It’s excellent for everyday phone calls, with impressive maximum volume, enabling you to use it even in crowded areas, or while you’re in a busy street, or in a room full of people talking. The caller will NOT complain about the clarity of your voice, but you won’t complain either about the volume of each phone call.聽It’s louder than other budget Bluetooth earbuds that are available in the market, providing a decent communication experience for the average user.聽Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramIf you want to listen to music on the other hand (why would anyone would use a single earbud for music?) then you won’t be impressed. It’s Bluetooth 4.1 compatible and uses a聽CSR8610 chip for audio, providing decent treble and non-existent bass obviously. Don’t get me wrong, you can enjoy your favorite songs from your phone if you want, but surely there are way better stereo headsets and headphones in the market that provide excellent music quality.聽Note also that it has voice notifications like 芦Power On/Power Off, Phone Connected, Phone Disconnected etc).You’re gonna love its MAGNETIC USB CHARGER: It’s really easy to charge it using it, just by connecting it to any available USB port: on your PC, laptop, on a power outlet with an adaptor, directly from a power bank etc.聽You only have to place the Earbud close to the hole of its charger and instantly the magnets there will attract it with significant strength, making sure it doesn’t slip. A red indicator light shines when it’s charging and it goes off when charging is complete 馃槈 It’s that simple.It takes approximately 1 hour to fully charge it, enabling you to talk for almost 5 hours straight before it needs to be recharged. Alternatively you can keep it in stand by mode for several days (80 hours or so), depending the use of course.DUAL BUTTONS, for easy Siri/Google Assistant support: Given its REALLY small size, one would think that there would be no space for extra buttons etc. Fortunately this is NOT the case here, as the聽Wavefun Micro Mini Earbud comes with two buttons: one for the typical聽answer/end and play /Pause functions and a second to reduce volume and skip songs.聽It’s also compatible with most Smartphone Assistants such as Siri (iOS), Google Assistant (Generic Android), Bixby (Samsung) etc. You can easily activate it by聽holding the main button for 2 seconds.聽Given its current price, I really cannot find something negative to tell about this gem that could possibly change the way I have been using smartphones all my life :p And that’s making me use a Bluetooth headset/Earbud during the everyday use of my smartphone.聽Just make sure you always know where you put it, and that you don’t misplace it (like I did). I know there are several other similar gadgets out there (at the same price range) but all I can say for this specific is that it SURELY is worth its money.聽Smartisan is not an old company. Founded in May 2012, theyve released less than 10 phones to date mostly in the Chinese market. The phone in question is the Smartisan Nut Pro 2, a very promising smartphone with a promising price tag. In addition audiophiles, this is most likely the best phone loudspeaker you can buy on the market today, more details in the audio section below.Smartisan Nut Pro 2 ReviewPersonally, the Snapdragon 660 processor is the perfect mix of power and battery efficiency for me, and Ive used three of them to date, the Xiaomi Mi Note 3, the Elephone U Pro, and the Smartisan Nut Pro 2. Ive praised the Mi Note 3 as a great but overpriced device (but is frequently on sale), and its objectively the best phone out of these three. That being said, the Smartisan Nut Pro 2 comes close, very close, and heres why.Very PromisingSmartisan Nut Pro 2 SpecificationsProcessorSnapdragon 660 Octacore ProcessorDisplay5.99 2160×1080 IPS LCDRAM3/4/6GBStorage32/64/128/256GB eMMCOperating SystemAndroid 7.1 NougatCameras12MP IMX386 with OIS, 20MP FrontBattery3,500mAhPhysical Dimensions15.44 x 7.34 x 0.74 cm, 156gSmartisan Nut Pro 2 HardwareIve never been a fan of glass phones, but lately my daily drivers have all been glass, and the Smartisan Nut Pro 2 is my latest daily driver with a glass back. That being said, the phone is very well made and unbelievably light. Combine the featherweight 156g and perfect weight distribution and the Nut Pro 2 feels like slippery, light Styrofoam in your hand.This thing is solid, a metal band keeping the guts of the phone firmly in place, and dropping this on a wooden floor yielded absolutely no scratches, just my heart hitting the floor in fear. While I like the design of the phone, fairly boxy, and a dual tone black/bronze colour scheme, the boxiness does make the phone feel larger than say the curved Mi Note 3 or stunning Elephone U Pro, but it does have fairly minimal bezels.A lack of a headphone jack could be a dealbreaker for some.Insanely LightSmartisan Nut Pro 2 DisplayIm probably going to get a bunch of crap for saying this, but Ill go ahead and say it anyway. The Smartisan Nut Pro 2s LCD display is THE best LCD display Ive ever seen. The primary driver for my love of the display is the insanely high contrast, higher than any LCD display Ive ever seen (that includes the majors like Samsung, Apple, LG, Sony). In fact its good enough that moving from an AMOLED display to this LCD isnt a major transition in terms of colour saturation (I like oversaturated colours if you noticed).Max brightness tops out around 550 nits which allows for easy sunlight legibility, and touch sensitivity is excellent, easily useable with cloth gloves.I do have one complaint, and the auto brightness is very aggressive. In pretty much 98% of situations, the brightness could be lowered by a good 20% and still be more than bright enough for use. Thats a lot of battery needlessly wasted.Smartisan Nut Pro 2 AudioIll get less crap for saying this than my adulation of the display, but the speakers here are the best phone speakers Ive never heard by far.While the Galaxy S9 might have the best speakers yet in a Samsung phone, the Smartisan Nut Pro 2 still surpasses the S9 and every other phone Ive heard comfortably.Where the Nut Pro 2 excels is audio quality. No matter what kind of audio youre playing, an action movie like the Avengers, a conversation filled TV show, or any kind of music, the Smartisan has a rich, vibrant body that not only provides copious amounts of bass but is clear and undistorted at the same time. While other phones might deliver similar volumes and clarity, they lack the rich, vibrant body the Smartisan has. Even youtube videos without bass heavy tracks give comfortable amounts of low frequencies that emulate the real sound a lot better than toher devices.Where the audio diverges a little bit is the bass output. Its a lot more punchy and deep than any other smartphone Ive used (except the Razer phone), however the Smartisan outputs more of a natural, non-fatiguing bass without being muddy. Its not as deep or rich as the Google Home or Apple Homepod, but its a cell phone for crying out loud.One area where the Smartisan might not match up to the Galaxy S9 or the iPhone X would be volume, but even within this supposed downside is a ray of sunshine. Sure, the S9 or the X are louder, but at the very top end of the S9/iPhone Xs speaker volumes, you can hear the speakers are slightly unbalanced, with mids and highs slightly overpowering the bass which results in slightly harsher sound quality. The Smartisan at its maximum volume sounds just as natural as it would at low volume, no change in the balance or power of each set of frequencies.Quick edit to discuss the ZTE Axon 7, I have used it and while the ZTE is able to output much heavier bass and has incredible stereo separation compared to the Smartisan Nut Pro 2, the bass on the Axon 7 is muddier than the Smartisan and the audio output on the Axon 7 is generally less crystal clear or natural than the Smartisan, hard to believe, I know.Smartisan Nut Pro 2 BatteryIve seen slightly better battery life out of other Snapdragon 660 phones than the Smartisan Nut Pro 2, specifically the Xiaomi Mi Note 3. I can still get 10 hours of screen on time easily on the Smartisan, but the standby battery drain is higher than Ive seen on other devices and I hope Smartisan fixes it as soon as possible, because battery drain during smartphone use is actually fairly reasonable, even doing things like Youtube, gaming, or taking photos.Dont forget the auto brightness is fairly aggressive, so youre losing a good 5-10% (estimate) off the top of the battery life also.Batterys GoodSmartisan Nut Pro 2 Software & PerformanceThe phone I obtained came with a reseller custom ROM with Google Services stuffed into the ROM, resulting in frequent freezing, copious amounts of lag, and the inability to update. I had to perform a deepflash operation to get the stock ROM back onto the phone but once it was on, I was quite satisfied.The Smartisan comes with Android 7.1 Nougat with no promises from Smartisan updating to Android 8.0 Oreo.Smartisans UI is a direct skin of the skeumorphic design language of the iPhone 4 era, with the settings menu a direct copy of iOS. Whether you like it or not is personal opinion, but I suspect many people reading this would probably dislike it.Smartisan has added three major features to Android, namely Big Bang, One Touch, and Idea Pills. Big Bang is basically Google Translate baked into the phone that allows you to translate almost anything including photos, while Idea Pills is in essence a quick note taking app that allows one to quickly take text notes or voice messages to capture fleeting inspiration. There is a dedicated Idea Pills hardware button that allows one to access the function easily, and unfortunately this button cannot be remapped to something else.One Touch is the only function that I personally find the most useful and fairly innovative. Activating One Touch (by hardware combo or swiping from a phone corner) shrinks to screen down to allow for very quick and intuitive copy and pasting between apps, something I do use occasionally.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe Smartisan UI is very polished and fast and while I do find launching apps on this phone a smidge slower than the Mi Note 3s MIUI9, its still very well polished and bug free.Multitasking on my 6GB unit was flawless, and gaming on the phone was perfect also, the phone got warm after about 30 minutes of gaming.The fingerprint sensor is fast and very accurate even with ripped or wet fingers, and face unlock is slightly slower than other phones but is good enough to use on a daily basis, even at night with minimal lighting.Smartisan Nut Pro 2 ConnectivityThe Smartisan Nut Pro 2 supports a rather unorthodox assortment of LTE bands, namely 1,2,3,4,5,7,8.Users in Canada will be pleased as the Nut Pro 2 is fully supported on Rogers, Bell and any subsidiaries that use these two networks, but Telus users will have to pass.Its a little more complicated in the USA, but suffice it to say that you will get 3G connecitivity on all the carriers (that are not CDMA) but 4G doesnt work on all of them.Sprint is completely incompatible with the Smartisan while AT&T and Verizon do use bands 2,4,5, however these 3 bands are not the carriers main bands and thus you wont get 4G connectivity in large swathes of the states. Buy the Smartisan Nut Pro 2The only carrier which is compatible with the Smartisan is T-Mobile. T-Mo uses band 4 and 12 as their main network bands with band 4 being more widespread than band 12. This means that the Smartisan will work on T-Mobile in certain cities.This phone will also work for any European users, but in a rather unconventional move this phone does not support LTE Band 20, just bands 3 and 7. It will still work, but do be careful.WiFi reception, Bluetooth reception, and GPS performance are all excellent. The 256GB version of this phone supports NFC while the phones with smaller storage capacities don’t. I installed Android Pay on this phone to check if it worked, and it looks like it does.Smartisan Nut Pro 2 CameraThe Smartisan Nut Pro 2 utilizes the IMX386 sensor with OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) which results in very good photos in daylight. Detail in these photos is excellent, and in all actuality I believe the sharpening algorithm used by Smartisan is slightly better than Xiaomis Mi Note 3, zooming into each photo as far as you can yields fairly aliased edges, something that the Mi Note 3 cant quite match.However, where the Smartisan does fall behind is colour reproduction. While the colours in photos are generally pretty accurate, they arent as pretty or deeply saturated the same way the Mi Note 3 does. Colours do look a little drab unless youre taking a photo of something exceptionally colourful. This seems to me to be a software decision as opposed to a lack of optimization, as the colours are generally fairly true to life without being oversaturated.HDR mode works very well in high dynamic range environments but washes the photos out in photos where HDR is not needed.The bokeh mode here is quite stellar. While there is no option to adjust bokeh while youre taking the photo, you can adjust it after the fact which in my opinion is a better option. The foreground/background separation is quite good and the edges are fairly separated, however the camera does make mistakes sometimes and will occasionally put a small part of the foreground into the background.Low light performance is decent also as the OIS helps keep the phone steady to avoid introducing blur into the photo and to keep the shutter open longer. While you do get some noise and grain in each low light photo, its not a horrible amount.The front facing camera is surprisingly good quality. With a high 20MP count, photos taken with this front camera are actually a lot better than rear cameras on many phones below $150. Great detail, decent colour reproduction, and fairly good dynamic range. It is capable of taking decent 1080p video as well.The rear facing camera is capable of filming 4K video at a 4:3 aspect ratio without stabilization, and a cropped 16:9 aspect ratio with stabilization on.The stabilization on the phone is unreal. Filming my dog while walking produced a video that looked like it was filmed using a gimbal, and even a full tilt sprint yielded very useable footage. The video is cropped somewhat (by 10-15%) so you do lose out on some pixels with stabilization on, and for the vast majority of people, its worth it.The video quality is very sharp brimming with detail as long as there is not a lot of movement in the video. Once you do introduce movement, you get a lot of ugly artifacting which looks to me to be a software issue and the 4K video looks a lot more like noisy 1080p.Smartisan Nut Pro 2 Camera Gallery Smartisan Nut Pro 2 VerdictThe Nut Pro 2 is a stellar phone by almost all measures of the word. It hits all the important checkboxes, a well built body, incredible display and speakers, good battery life and performance, and a great camera. However, there are a couple of items that could be dealbreakers depending on your preferences.First of all, its glass, and glass phone haters need not apply (ironically its my daily driver). The software is a direct copy of 2014 iOS and is locked down in strange places, and finally the video camera starts artifacting if too much motion is introduced.While these issues can be deal breakers, they are a small price to pay for such a great device. I recommend purchasing the 32/64GB version of this phone as that seems to be the best bang for your buck, starting at just $315USD at various retailers, youre not going to find a much better phone than this. Buy the Smartisan Nut Pro 2

Smartisan is not an old company. Founded in May 2012, theyve released less than 10 phones to date mostly in the Chinese market. The phone in question is the Smartisan Nut Pro 2, a very promising smartphone with a promising price tag. In addition audiophiles, this is most likely the best phone loudspeaker you can buy on the market today, more details in the audio section below.Smartisan Nut Pro 2 ReviewPersonally, the Snapdragon 660 processor is the perfect mix of power and battery efficiency for me, and Ive used three of them to date, the Xiaomi Mi Note 3, the Elephone U Pro, and the Smartisan Nut Pro 2. Ive praised the Mi Note 3 as a great but overpriced device (but is frequently on sale), and its objectively the best phone out of these three. That being said, the Smartisan Nut Pro 2 comes close, very close, and heres why.Very PromisingSmartisan Nut Pro 2 SpecificationsProcessorSnapdragon 660 Octacore ProcessorDisplay5.99 2160×1080 IPS LCDRAM3/4/6GBStorage32/64/128/256GB eMMCOperating SystemAndroid 7.1 NougatCameras12MP IMX386 with OIS, 20MP FrontBattery3,500mAhPhysical Dimensions15.44 x 7.34 x 0.74 cm, 156gSmartisan Nut Pro 2 HardwareIve never been a fan of glass phones, but lately my daily drivers have all been glass, and the Smartisan Nut Pro 2 is my latest daily driver with a glass back. That being said, the phone is very well made and unbelievably light. Combine the featherweight 156g and perfect weight distribution and the Nut Pro 2 feels like slippery, light Styrofoam in your hand.This thing is solid, a metal band keeping the guts of the phone firmly in place, and dropping this on a wooden floor yielded absolutely no scratches, just my heart hitting the floor in fear. While I like the design of the phone, fairly boxy, and a dual tone black/bronze colour scheme, the boxiness does make the phone feel larger than say the curved Mi Note 3 or stunning Elephone U Pro, but it does have fairly minimal bezels.A lack of a headphone jack could be a dealbreaker for some.Insanely LightSmartisan Nut Pro 2 DisplayIm probably going to get a bunch of crap for saying this, but Ill go ahead and say it anyway. The Smartisan Nut Pro 2s LCD display is THE best LCD display Ive ever seen. The primary driver for my love of the display is the insanely high contrast, higher than any LCD display Ive ever seen (that includes the majors like Samsung, Apple, LG, Sony). In fact its good enough that moving from an AMOLED display to this LCD isnt a major transition in terms of colour saturation (I like oversaturated colours if you noticed).Max brightness tops out around 550 nits which allows for easy sunlight legibility, and touch sensitivity is excellent, easily useable with cloth gloves.I do have one complaint, and the auto brightness is very aggressive. In pretty much 98% of situations, the brightness could be lowered by a good 20% and still be more than bright enough for use. Thats a lot of battery needlessly wasted.Smartisan Nut Pro 2 AudioIll get less crap for saying this than my adulation of the display, but the speakers here are the best phone speakers Ive never heard by far.While the Galaxy S9 might have the best speakers yet in a Samsung phone, the Smartisan Nut Pro 2 still surpasses the S9 and every other phone Ive heard comfortably.Where the Nut Pro 2 excels is audio quality. No matter what kind of audio youre playing, an action movie like the Avengers, a conversation filled TV show, or any kind of music, the Smartisan has a rich, vibrant body that not only provides copious amounts of bass but is clear and undistorted at the same time. While other phones might deliver similar volumes and clarity, they lack the rich, vibrant body the Smartisan has. Even youtube videos without bass heavy tracks give comfortable amounts of low frequencies that emulate the real sound a lot better than toher devices.Where the audio diverges a little bit is the bass output. Its a lot more punchy and deep than any other smartphone Ive used (except the Razer phone), however the Smartisan outputs more of a natural, non-fatiguing bass without being muddy. Its not as deep or rich as the Google Home or Apple Homepod, but its a cell phone for crying out loud.One area where the Smartisan might not match up to the Galaxy S9 or the iPhone X would be volume, but even within this supposed downside is a ray of sunshine. Sure, the S9 or the X are louder, but at the very top end of the S9/iPhone Xs speaker volumes, you can hear the speakers are slightly unbalanced, with mids and highs slightly overpowering the bass which results in slightly harsher sound quality. The Smartisan at its maximum volume sounds just as natural as it would at low volume, no change in the balance or power of each set of frequencies.Quick edit to discuss the ZTE Axon 7, I have used it and while the ZTE is able to output much heavier bass and has incredible stereo separation compared to the Smartisan Nut Pro 2, the bass on the Axon 7 is muddier than the Smartisan and the audio output on the Axon 7 is generally less crystal clear or natural than the Smartisan, hard to believe, I know.Smartisan Nut Pro 2 BatteryIve seen slightly better battery life out of other Snapdragon 660 phones than the Smartisan Nut Pro 2, specifically the Xiaomi Mi Note 3. I can still get 10 hours of screen on time easily on the Smartisan, but the standby battery drain is higher than Ive seen on other devices and I hope Smartisan fixes it as soon as possible, because battery drain during smartphone use is actually fairly reasonable, even doing things like Youtube, gaming, or taking photos.Dont forget the auto brightness is fairly aggressive, so youre losing a good 5-10% (estimate) off the top of the battery life also.Batterys GoodSmartisan Nut Pro 2 Software & PerformanceThe phone I obtained came with a reseller custom ROM with Google Services stuffed into the ROM, resulting in frequent freezing, copious amounts of lag, and the inability to update. I had to perform a deepflash operation to get the stock ROM back onto the phone but once it was on, I was quite satisfied.The Smartisan comes with Android 7.1 Nougat with no promises from Smartisan updating to Android 8.0 Oreo.Smartisans UI is a direct skin of the skeumorphic design language of the iPhone 4 era, with the settings menu a direct copy of iOS. Whether you like it or not is personal opinion, but I suspect many people reading this would probably dislike it.Smartisan has added three major features to Android, namely Big Bang, One Touch, and Idea Pills. Big Bang is basically Google Translate baked into the phone that allows you to translate almost anything including photos, while Idea Pills is in essence a quick note taking app that allows one to quickly take text notes or voice messages to capture fleeting inspiration. There is a dedicated Idea Pills hardware button that allows one to access the function easily, and unfortunately this button cannot be remapped to something else.One Touch is the only function that I personally find the most useful and fairly innovative. Activating One Touch (by hardware combo or swiping from a phone corner) shrinks to screen down to allow for very quick and intuitive copy and pasting between apps, something I do use occasionally.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe Smartisan UI is very polished and fast and while I do find launching apps on this phone a smidge slower than the Mi Note 3s MIUI9, its still very well polished and bug free.Multitasking on my 6GB unit was flawless, and gaming on the phone was perfect also, the phone got warm after about 30 minutes of gaming.The fingerprint sensor is fast and very accurate even with ripped or wet fingers, and face unlock is slightly slower than other phones but is good enough to use on a daily basis, even at night with minimal lighting.Smartisan Nut Pro 2 ConnectivityThe Smartisan Nut Pro 2 supports a rather unorthodox assortment of LTE bands, namely 1,2,3,4,5,7,8.Users in Canada will be pleased as the Nut Pro 2 is fully supported on Rogers, Bell and any subsidiaries that use these two networks, but Telus users will have to pass.Its a little more complicated in the USA, but suffice it to say that you will get 3G connecitivity on all the carriers (that are not CDMA) but 4G doesnt work on all of them.Sprint is completely incompatible with the Smartisan while AT&T and Verizon do use bands 2,4,5, however these 3 bands are not the carriers main bands and thus you wont get 4G connectivity in large swathes of the states. Buy the Smartisan Nut Pro 2The only carrier which is compatible with the Smartisan is T-Mobile. T-Mo uses band 4 and 12 as their main network bands with band 4 being more widespread than band 12. This means that the Smartisan will work on T-Mobile in certain cities.This phone will also work for any European users, but in a rather unconventional move this phone does not support LTE Band 20, just bands 3 and 7. It will still work, but do be careful.WiFi reception, Bluetooth reception, and GPS performance are all excellent. The 256GB version of this phone supports NFC while the phones with smaller storage capacities don’t. I installed Android Pay on this phone to check if it worked, and it looks like it does.Smartisan Nut Pro 2 CameraThe Smartisan Nut Pro 2 utilizes the IMX386 sensor with OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) which results in very good photos in daylight. Detail in these photos is excellent, and in all actuality I believe the sharpening algorithm used by Smartisan is slightly better than Xiaomis Mi Note 3, zooming into each photo as far as you can yields fairly aliased edges, something that the Mi Note 3 cant quite match.However, where the Smartisan does fall behind is colour reproduction. While the colours in photos are generally pretty accurate, they arent as pretty or deeply saturated the same way the Mi Note 3 does. Colours do look a little drab unless youre taking a photo of something exceptionally colourful. This seems to me to be a software decision as opposed to a lack of optimization, as the colours are generally fairly true to life without being oversaturated.HDR mode works very well in high dynamic range environments but washes the photos out in photos where HDR is not needed.The bokeh mode here is quite stellar. While there is no option to adjust bokeh while youre taking the photo, you can adjust it after the fact which in my opinion is a better option. The foreground/background separation is quite good and the edges are fairly separated, however the camera does make mistakes sometimes and will occasionally put a small part of the foreground into the background.Low light performance is decent also as the OIS helps keep the phone steady to avoid introducing blur into the photo and to keep the shutter open longer. While you do get some noise and grain in each low light photo, its not a horrible amount.The front facing camera is surprisingly good quality. With a high 20MP count, photos taken with this front camera are actually a lot better than rear cameras on many phones below $150. Great detail, decent colour reproduction, and fairly good dynamic range. It is capable of taking decent 1080p video as well.The rear facing camera is capable of filming 4K video at a 4:3 aspect ratio without stabilization, and a cropped 16:9 aspect ratio with stabilization on.The stabilization on the phone is unreal. Filming my dog while walking produced a video that looked like it was filmed using a gimbal, and even a full tilt sprint yielded very useable footage. The video is cropped somewhat (by 10-15%) so you do lose out on some pixels with stabilization on, and for the vast majority of people, its worth it.The video quality is very sharp brimming with detail as long as there is not a lot of movement in the video. Once you do introduce movement, you get a lot of ugly artifacting which looks to me to be a software issue and the 4K video looks a lot more like noisy 1080p.Smartisan Nut Pro 2 Camera Gallery Smartisan Nut Pro 2 VerdictThe Nut Pro 2 is a stellar phone by almost all measures of the word. It hits all the important checkboxes, a well built body, incredible display and speakers, good battery life and performance, and a great camera. However, there are a couple of items that could be dealbreakers depending on your preferences.First of all, its glass, and glass phone haters need not apply (ironically its my daily driver). The software is a direct copy of 2014 iOS and is locked down in strange places, and finally the video camera starts artifacting if too much motion is introduced.While these issues can be deal breakers, they are a small price to pay for such a great device. I recommend purchasing the 32/64GB version of this phone as that seems to be the best bang for your buck, starting at just $315USD at various retailers, youre not going to find a much better phone than this. Buy the Smartisan Nut Pro 2This is one of those reviews where you read how bad of a trainwreck it is, and after you read it, let me know if this changes your perspective on Chuwi.Chuwi Hi9 ReviewI was honestly pretty excited for the Chuwi Hi9 as I was looking for a great 8.4 tablet for media consumption as my Xiaomi 3:2 Mipad 3 was getting on my nerves in certain situations.However, a major issue coupled with a myriad other smaller problems prevent this from being a seller even on firesale.WreckedChuwi Hi9 SpecificationsProcessorMTK8173 Octacore ProcessorDisplay8.4 2560×1600 IPS LCDRAM4GBStorage64GB eMMCOperating SystemAndroid 6.0 MarshmallowCameras8MP Camera, 2MP FrontBattery5,000mAhPhysical Dimensions21.60 x 12.80 x 0.70 cm, 373gChuwi Hi9 HardwareThe build quality was promising. It was made of matte plastic which is one of my favourite materials for use in a tablet or phone. It has that nice rubbery feeling that is pleasing to touch and unfortunately picks up fingerprints also. However, this thing creaks louder than an old man with arthritis. Grab both ends of the tablet and twist it lightly and it creaks to no end. It feels very cheaply made and unfortunately is cheaply made also.Promotional pictures suggested a tablet with minimal bezels, but they are far from that. While the bezels are not hideously massive, they are quite different from what the promo pictures suggested, with fairly sizeable side bezels and a large and bottom bezel. This is definitely not a beautiful device.There is a microUSB slot and a microSD card slot included up top also.Creaks like an old manChuwi Hi9 DisplayThe display is pretty much the only good part of this device, a pretty good quality LCD display with a high resolution of 2560×1600. I have to say that the display looks very good, reading comics and watching content is an absolute pleasure. With the 16:10 aspect ratio, letterboxing is minimal on TV shows and less severe on movies. In my opinion, 16:10 is the best aspect ratio for reading manga/comics as well. Maximum brightness tops out around 400 nits, not bad, and can be used barely in sunlight. However, this is where we encounter the first major problem, the touch sensitivity is very bad. Ive reviewed many tablets and the sensitivity is one of the worse ones around, dragging your finger across the screen without enough force will cause the screen to stop registering your finger, and it honestly hampers the overall experience quite a bit. My feeling is that Chuwi tried cutting costs by using a smaller touch module than was required, causing sensitivity to be rather bad.Chuwi Hi9 AudioAudio quality is barely average, quality is generally very hollow and tinny with a lack of bass. In addition, you do get distortion at max volume which is a bit disappointing.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramChuwi Hi9 BatteryThe 5000mAh battery gives an average of about 5 hours of screen on time which is nowhere near enough for any serious tablet user. The culprit here would be twofold, the Mediatek CPU not being power efficient and a lack of power optimization, which means that the battery is not utilized to its full capacity.Batterys no goodChuwi Hi9 Software & PerformanceApart from the poor touch performance, the software on the Hi9 doesnt fare well either. We see here Android 7.1 Nougat and slightly laggy performance most likely due to the high resolution of 2560×1600. Swiping between home screens and accessing the notifications tray has some slight lag that isnt present in other tablets like the Mi Pad 3, however launching apps is fairly fast and multitasking isnt a problem either.Playing intense games at smooth framerates was difficult due to the high resolution, however less intense games ran quite well. The tablet did get fairly warm during gaming but never got burning hot.Chuwi Hi9 ConnectivityThe WiFi performance is a dealbreaker here. WiFi speeds top out around 10 feet (3m) away from the router, but any farther than that (5-10m) and WiFi speeds drop by at least half and latency (ping) shoots through the roof. Once you move closer to the 12m range (or add walls inbetween) and WiFi just stops working. Its quite ridiculous how bad the WiFi reception is on the Chuwi Hi9, and it doesnt look like software updates are going to do anything. Both cameras are fairly low quality that is to be expected from tablets in general.Chuwi Hi9 VerdictThe Chuwi Hi9 is promising on paper only as Chuwis execution is rather poor. Dismal WiFi reception coupled with lacking touch sensitivity makes this a solid dont buy for anyone looking for a tablet.While the display is fairly nice, other minor problems like creaky build quality and subpar battery life hamper the already crippled tablet to the point of no return. Hopefully Chuwi pulls its pants up for the next tablet, the Chuwi Hi9 Air. Buy the Chuwi Hi9

Oukitel is one of many China-based smartphone OEMs and during the past few years has managed to launch some really interesting devices that boast impressive standby times and all-in-all decent聽performance. However this time, they decided to go with the “notch” flow and managed to be one of the first Android OEM’s that designed their own version of an iPhone – X clone, called Oukitel U18.The device is surely something you won’t forget about the first time you see its display, when this impressive notch pops out from the top of the panel. It’s the first of its kind in the U Series and quite possibly one of the most interesting iPhone X clones out there.Our little friend here packs a聽4,000mAh battery inside, providing impressive stand by/talk time results that you will surely enjoy, but it’s still low priced (just $159) and has decent everyday performance, with no problems or mishaps.Let’s have a closer look on what this affordable device can do, OK?Solid Build and the notch stands outOukitel U18 review – Technical specsThe Oukitel U18 packs聽a 5,85-inch 720p (1512 x 720) display which is extremely tough (up to 9H hardness), being able to withstand more than 800MPa of stress value. It’s equipped with Mediatek’s聽MT6750T SoC, paired with a Mali-T860 MP2 GPU, 4GB of RAM as well as 64GB of internal storage (it’s NOT expandable unfortunately) for apps, games, and media. On its back we can find a dual camera setup with a 13-megapixel snapper (16-megapixel interpolated) +5MP secondary lens, along with a LED flash next to it. There’s also an 8-megapixel shooter (for… typical selfie shots I am afraid) available up front.This is one of the first iPhone X clones as we foretold you, and it runs on Android 7.0 Nougat – with no way of knowing yet if it will get some Oreo upgrades. It’s not stock Android, no, but it’s really close to pure Android, as Oukitel has managed to add just some of their very own features (mostly gestures), a typical, light-weight launcher and a (not that impressive) icon theme.Oukitel U18 main Features:Display:聽5.85 inch 1512 x 720 pixels HD+ screenCPU:聽MTK6750T Octa Core 1.5GHzSystem:聽Android 7.0Storage:聽4GB RAM + 64GB ROMCameras:聽13.0MP + 5.0MP ( SW 16.0MP + 5.0MP )聽dual back cameras and聽8.0MP ( SW 13.0MP )聽front cameraNetworks:聽2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz –聽3G: WCDMA 900/2100MHz –聽4G: FDD-LTE B1/B3/B7/B8/B20Hardware And Build qualityLet’s start with the “elephant” in the room OK? The first thing you notice when this phone appears in front of you (out of its box) is the notch that’s placed on the top of the display. It’s almost half the panel in width and聽 -in it- you will find the selfie camera, a proximity sensor along with the speaker.聽I have to admit that when you lookthis U18 model from upfront you get the feeling that it is indeed a decent iPhone X clone. The display however is not as impressive as the OLED panel that the iPhone has, but it still does the job I guess. It has a resolution of just聽1512 x 720 pixels (HD+), a size of 5,85 inches with 21:9 ratio and a really impressive brightness even in broad daylight.聽If you’ve had an Oukitel smartphone in the past, then you’d probably know that they’re almost all bulky devices. The same thing applies to the Oukitel U18 model I’m afraid, as it weighs 213 grams and it’s approximately 10mm thick. However these numbers feel normal on this type of phones – specifically the ones with large batteries like most Oukitel smartphones. This one packs a 4000 mAh battery so it’s more or less expected to be this heavy, but it’s also really durable with an extremely solid build. It’s made out of metal and some parts plastic, in case you were wondering.聽Oukitel decided to create a number of videos recently, in order to promote this device, and pretty much every one of them boasted about its battery life and the notch of course. Here’s one of them just for… the fun of it:In everyday use, the Oukitel U18 may be heavy but still, there’s a reason one will choose this phone isn’t there? It has a small footprint thanks to its 21:9 aspect ratio display, so it can easily fit into most pockets, or allow for one handed use with impressive performance (for a budget Android smartphone that is).Oh, let’s not forget that there’s a fingerprint scanner placed at the back of the device, providing quite fast fingerprint recognition with almost 90% success rate. You can use it to lock applications, unlock the phone and it can “read” fingerprints in 360 degrees.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramConnectivity/Call performanceConnectivity/Call performance is聽one of the most important (and deciding) factors for me, when I test a phone. How good it sounds, what type of signal reception it has and how well its speaker works. The Oukitel U18 did quite well in this test by my standards.聽The phone call quality was satisfactory, but nothing that is worth bragging about. I was able to call others and receive calls on this device without any issues, with quite good sound quality and volume.I found its speaker to be “rough” I guess, with loud “noise” when ringtones were played back, but nothing that could disappoint me I guess. I have to say that the microphone was quite solid and the overall connectivity via both data and Wi-Fi networks was consistent. I didnt experience any problems with 3G/4G or Wi-Fi during my tests, all web pages/social networks were easily accessible via WiFi but the signal strength when I was a bit far from my router dropped quite easily.I didn’t face any disconnections thankfully but the WiFi range drops rapidly after 10-12 meters walk from the WiFi router. The 4G speeds were average, with good reception wherever I went, zero dropped calls/connections and a decent all in all performance.Battery consumptionWell here’s where this phone (and most Oukitel devices) does a decent job! One of the main selling points of the Oukitel U18 is its battery life, and for a good reason. It comes with 4000 mAh capacity, but the Android 7.0 operating system is beautifully optimized to offer great standby and talk times, that will surely – SURELY – satisfy you.The Oukitel U18 can stay away from its charger for almost 2 days if you use it wisely, and offers good stand by times when you put it to rest. I “pushed” the device as much as I could:聽I played some games, browsed the internet, did tons of messaging and YouTube, phone calls as well but it just went from 74% to 49% by the end of the first day, confirming that it’s a decent “energy” phone. In any case, I know you will ask yourselves, so here it is:quite bezel-less, with decent battery times but… that’s all there’s to expect. Camera: not the iPhone-X clone you’d hope forFirst of all: don’t choose the phones of this category (devices with large batteries) purely for their imaging features. It’s not where they’re good at, and they know it. You should know it too. So the Oukitel U18 confirms all of the above and proves to be an average camera phone equipped with a dual camera setup on its back, equipped with a 13-megapixel snapper (16-megapixel interpolated) + a 5MP secondary lens, along with a LED flash next to it.Its main camera can shoot decent photos in good lighting conditions (the colors could be better overall), but it tends to provide somewhat colder images than it should. When the light isnt that good, however, it doesnt perform that well, as expected with most Chinese smartphones in this category and price range. It can also shoot FHD (1080p) videos at 25 fps, with average quality and some high contrast issues. There are also several other settings and modes such as FaceBeauty Shot, HDR, Blur, Mono, Panorama, PRO (allows the user to make his own adjustments manually) etc.[flickr_set id=”72157664477382347″]There’s also a LED flash placed next to the main camera. It manages to light up the images, but it doesn’t do what it should: it basically ruins selfies, letting them turn out unnatural and youll probably opt not to use flash, at least in most situations.聽The same goes for the 8MP selfie camera that’s placed in front, inside the notch obviously.聽The images lack details and are nothing to brag about, thats for sure, but it will do more than a good job if you shoot selfies from time to time, and the same goes for video calls via Skype etc.Operating System – Nougat insideThe Oukitel U18 runs on Android 7.0.1 Nougat with a simple icon theme and a typical lockscreen made by the Chinese company, so it’s not “pure” Android, but it’s really “lightweight” and easy to move around in the menus. Oukitel uses their own launcher with some special effects, desktop settings for those of you who love to tweak a bit their phones and includes a set of Gesture Options.聽You can, for example, double tap the capacitive home button in order to wake up the device, and you can do the same in order to lock it. All of these gestures can be disabled in settings by the way. As far as the notification shade, settings and a number of other parts of the software are concerned, this is stock Android 7.0 Nougat. It’s one of the reasons Oukitel U18 manages to perform as it should, and its definitely a huge “plus” for this smartphone.So, is it worth it?Oukitel is surely one of the decent聽manufacturers if you’re in the market for an affordable device with solid battery life. This one goes a step further and tries to take advantage of this whole “notch frenzy”, providing a smartphone that – when you look its front side- is very similar to the iPhone X, with a semi-bezel less display, a notch and a decent price.聽I must say that this model from Oukitel was quite decent in its battery performance -even though its 4000 mAh capacity is NOT the largest in the market today. However, it performs well in average – everyday use, and most novice or semi-experienced Android users will enjoy it – no doubt about it. After all its price nowadays (approximately 159$) is great for those who have limited budget to spend on a phone.It really looks like UMiDiGi is on a streak these past months, releasing a new flagship phone every now and then, before the old one has even reached the hands of consumers. But with so many competitors in the market, the OEM Chinese company is trying to upgrade the smartphones it produces, by adding many more features to the new ones. Compared with smartphones of any other brands present in the market,聽UMIDIGI S2 Lite聽is a beautiful, affordable smartphone and comes with really interesting features.Enter the UMiDiGi S2 Lite, the latest in the onslaught of UMiDiGi devices, this time coming in bright red.UMiDiGi S2 Lite聽ReviewIn terms of overall appearance, body build and form, the UMIDIGI S2 Lite takes resemblance from its predecessors, the S2 and S2 Pro. Actually, theres a 99% chance you would fail at differentiating the three devices on the basis of looks if placed side by side. It weighs approximately 186 gr. (thanks to its massive 5100 mAh battery) and its size is聽158 x 74,8 x 8,8 mm. This means that it’s really thin for a phone with such a large battery- and this is good, believe me.The UMiDIGI S2 Lite has its main dual camera on the rear and a fingerprint sensor right below them. On the front, there is neither no capacitive button nor home button. The devices frontal is almost empty. Only the screen, selfie camera and secondary earpiece play occupancy.UMiDiGi S2 Lite聽SpecificationsDisplay:聽5.99 inch 1440 x 720 pixels Capacitive 5 points screenCPU:聽MTK6750T Octa Core 1.5GHzSystem:聽Android 7.0Storage:聽4GB RAM + 32GB ROMCameras:聽16.0MP + 5.0MP聽dual back cameras and聽5.0MP聽front cameraSensors:聽Gravity Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor, E-compassFeatures:聽GPSBluetooth:聽4.0SIM Card:聽dual SIM dual standby, 2 x nano SIM card and 1 TF card can be inserted at the same timeNetworks:聽2G: GSM B2/B3/B5/B8 –聽3G: WCDMA B1/B2/B5/B8 –聽4G: FDD-LTE B1/B3/B7/B8/B20Big thanks to UMiDiGi for providing this review unit. You can buy one here 馃檪UMiDiGi S2 Lite聽Build QualityThe screen is a聽5.99-inches IPS panel, with a HD+ resolution of 720 x 1440 pixels. The display comes with 2.5D curved glass with a聽268.78 PPI pixel density, equipped with Cornings Gorilla Glass system for screen protection.The bright, chili red colour of this phone really sold me. I pride myself on being immune to colour choice, but man has this red really sold me. Lets ignore the eye catching color for a moment, the build quality here is good but… not excellent. It looks and feels like every previous UMiDiGi phone all the way back to the UMi Super which isnt totally a bad thing. The phone is fairly easy to hold, but not as easy as a five-incher, the thinness does make it feel very small though.The metal body is well made, the metal feels a bit thin on the back and tolerances are generally sharp with one possible exception; the camera module. Im not sure if this is a quality control issue or a design choice, but the dual camera module is about a half a millimeter off center (up and down). This does not affect the functionality or performance of the phone in any way.聽UMIDIGI S2 Lite DisplayThe S2 Lite has a rear camera on its back with a finger sensor below it. It has no home button or menu bottom in the front. As we mentioned earlier, the screen size is 5.99 inches and has HD resolution of 720 x 1440 pixels. The display has 2.5D curved glass and Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection.This display does have a slightly blue/purple tint that is almost unnoticeable in real life but does show quite noticeably on camera. Max brightness tops out around 400 nits which is quite respectable for such a panel, and is also quite easily viewable under direct sunlight. Touch sensitivity is excellent and Gorilla Glass 4 provides scratch protection and a smooth surface to swipe on.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramUMIDIGI S2 Lite BatteryThe combination of the 5100mAh battery, IPS display, and the聽MTK6750T SoC should provide great battery life. And while that holds mostly true, I believe its battery life could definitely be better. I managed to get approximately 6,3 hours of screen on time with ease, ending the day with 20% left. This consisted of about 2 hours of YouTube, about an hour of gaming, 2 hours of local video playback, and about 4 hours of Bluetooth music in addition to all the miscellaneous items I performed such as Whatsapp, texting, FaceBook etc.The one area where UMiDiGi has to improve on is the standby battery drain. I was getting a guaranteed 1% battery drain every hour, with it jumping up to 1.5% sometimes. This has to be solved if possible through software. Charging the phone through USB-C took me about 2.5 hours without using a MediaTek PumpExpress charger.UMIDIGI S2 Lite SoftwareWe have Android 7.0 Nougat running inside the phone, and I must say that UMiDiGis software optimization has taken a step up again over the older models, with this phone feeling even smoother when moving between home screens, going into settings etc. Launching lots of apps at the same time, on the other hand, is a more ponderous process with the MTK6750T chipset struggling (a bit) to keep up with our needs, with 4GB of RAM being all this phone needs. Not an overkill (like having 6GB), but also not 3GB (which is not enough anymore). The MTK6750T doesnt affect gaming, it’s able to play all the games at 720p without issue, Modern combat, Asphalt, lighter games such as Super Mario Run ran without a hitch, even when I was recording the screen at the same time. The phone gets warm on its back side but never gets burning hot. I also ran a malware scan and didnt find anything. The fingerprint sensor is very accurate and works with wet fingerprints, but it’s quite slow.UMIDIGI S2 Lite Connectivity Reception on this phone is great. The device comes with full 4G support (LTE: FDD B1 2100MHz,FDD B20 800MHz,FDD B3 1800MHz,FDD B7 2600MHz,FDD B8 900MHz), it offers very good connectivity inside large cities, with no dropped calls or problems during communication. WiFi speeds are great, an 800MB file takes 4 minutes (on fast WiFi that is), and Bluetooth range is good also. I used the GPS to navigate to work, and it was fairly accurate and fast. There is no NFC so you cannot use Android Pay. UMIDIGI S2 Lite CameraThe camera is the weakest part of the phone, I am afraid. While I hesitate to call the entire camera bad, the photos dont come out amazing either. In normal mode, detail is not bad as long as you keep your phone relatively still, the phone snaps photos pretty quickly so you dont have to be a statue forever.Colour reproduction ranges from OK to great, with colour sometimes being rather average and showing great saturation and vividness other times. HDR mode, on the other hand, should be left disabled at all times, well almost all times. The HDR mode is way too aggressive, trying to equalize bright and dark spots when they arent that far apart in the first place. You have to leave it off unless there are extremely obvious bright and dark spots, e.g. taking a picture of the sun. In those cases, the aggressive HDR does its job well.Moving on to Bokeh mode, which I see more and more as a gimmick, it adds Bokeh in a very unnatural circle, and not only that the overall quality of the photo is lowered as well. There is also a pro photo mode that works quite well and uses very convenient sliders to change the camera settings. The front facing camera is rather average also.[flickr_set id=”72157693447901825″]Now for the video. The camera app seems to lag behind real life by about 陆 a second. Now a camera lagging behind real life slightly is normal, but 陆 a second is reserved for low-end cameras, not in a $170 device. In addition, the video recording is weirdly laggy, almost like the video is recording normally for a second, then slow for the next. Overall, these items make for an unpleasant video experience, and is really a downside to this phone.UMiDiGi S2 Lite聽VerdictHands down, this is a very beautiful – and affordable mid-ranger in the market. It is indeed a “Lite” variant of a very powerful smartphone (UMIDIGI S2) but still remains quite impressive in everyday use, with a complete package, decent performance but simply adequate camera.This S2 Lite at $169 is surely one of the phones one should pay attention to, especially if the design of a phone is high on your “plus” list. It offers impressive battery life with a 5100 mAh battery, very good built quality, decent display (nothing much) and an adequate chipset with 4GB of RAM for decent everyday use. Buy the UMIDIGI S2 Lite from Gearbest