China has hit Alibaba, one of the country’s biggest online retailers, with a record $2.8 billion (18.2 billion yuan) fine, after an investigation found the ecommerce giant violated China’s anti-monopoly law, The New York Times reported. The fine, which represents 4 percent of Alibaba’s 2019 domestic sales, is three times higher than the $975 billion fine China imposed on US chip company Qualcomm back in 2015.
The Chinese government launched an investigation into Alibaba in December to determine whether the company was preventing merchants from selling their products on other platforms. China’s market regulator found that Alibaba’s practices had a negative effect on online retail competition and innovation. Alibaba used data and algorithms to strengthen its own position in the marketplace, resulting in an “improper competitive advantage,” China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said in a statement. The company will have to reduce its anticompetitive tactics and provide compliance reports to the government for the next three years.
Alibaba said in a statement it accepted the fine and pledged to make improvements to better serve its “responsibility to society.”
“We will further strengthen our focus on customer value creation and customer experience, as well as continuing to introduce measures to lower entry barriers and business costs of operating on our platforms,” the company’s statement reads. “We are committed to ensuring an operating environment for our merchants and partners that is more open, more equitable, more efficient and more inclusive in sharing the fruits of growth.”
The hefty fine is not likely to hurt Alibaba’s bottom line too severely, however; in February, the company reported a third quarter profit — for the final three months of calendar year 2020 alone— of $12 billion.
Lypertek is a relatively new brand in consumer audio, so much so that they essentially appeared out of nowhere globally with three similar-sounding products, the MEVI, BEVI, and TEVI. The last one, TEVI, is their true wireless earbuds solution and garnered rave reviews, especially at its going price back then, and things have improved even more with a nice price cut as well as a rebranding. Gone is the TEVI name unless you take a look at the company website, and we instead have the PurePlay Z3. I was working with a local PR firm in the UK on a couple of different things, and they expressed interest in coverage of these having sung praises galore. Thanks again to Lypertek for providing a sample to TechPowerUp over their marketing agency!
At first glance, there is not much to differentiate the PurePlay Z3 from the vast majority of similar true wireless (TWS) earbuds in the market today. Recognizing also that this is not a brand-new product, the rebranding is an effort from the company to have it better fit with its goals to be a leader in consumer audio. Targeting a neutral sound profile, Lypertek wants to offer great battery life and tactile buttons along with good wireless codec support, all at an excellent $69.99. This new, reduced price tag is what mostly got me interested, having used plenty of more expensive TWS earbuds from larger brands, including Audio-Technica, and so here we are taking a quick look at the Lypertek PurePlay Z3.
Packaging and Accessories
The product box comes with a plastic seal all around, and removing it reveals a fairly squarish design with the company logo and product name on the front and on either side of a render of the ear buds. On the back are the salient marketing features listed, and a visual representation of the contents greets us on the side. A single seal keeps the box intact, and then we see a wraparound top that unfurls to reveal the contents inside. Lypertek includes the quick start guide (online copy here) and a thank you note in a separate pouch. The ear buds and case are placed inside a piece of foam that has cutouts to snugly hold the three items, with a tab at the top to help lift this layer to reveal the other accessories underneath.
I do like the unboxing experience of the PurePlay Z3, with clean layers and markings throughout and a good balance of function and form. The final set of accessories come inside a cardboard box with labels which reveal it contains replacement ear tips, and it is placed in a recess customized for the box with more cardboard around for further protection. Lypertek includes three sets of replacement tips, with size S and L silicone tips as well as a set of size M foam ear tips, which are nice to see since these make for a more snug fit with better isolation for those who prefer it or are allergic to silicone.
Closer Look
The case is instrumental to true wireless earphones, providing storage and charging capability at the same time, and the Lypertek version takes on a familiar form factor in the shape of a rounded pill (~80x40x30 mm) that opens in the middle. There is a notch to aid with this, and we see indicator LEDs underneath, on the black plastic rim that goes around to the other side, which has a USB Type-C port for charging underneath a solid hinge. The entire case is out of plastic, but differentiates itself from most others with a well-done fabric finish in a blue color. There is another color option, ivory, which looks more golden in the photos I have seen. A carry strap and the Lypertek logo on top complete the exterior, and opening the box reveals the charging specifications.
The TWS earbuds do not in my opinion set themselves apart visually in the sea of similar-looking products available today, especially from the side. This is a working formula that has been successful, so I can understand adoption of the same. This version is predominantly black, including at the front, with a chrome ring around the tactile button on each bud for accentuation. We see the Lypertek logo and product name as well, and these are small and light enough to where you won’t experience fatigue over even longer listening sessions if they fit well. There are indicator LEDs on the front, and a vent to access the integrated microphone on each. The stems are about average in length and come with the medium silicone tips pre-installed. These are a safe default, but I recommend trying the others to be sure. The FlexFit foam tips were the best for me, allowing for a snug and comfortable fit.
There is an 800 mAh battery inside, which is charged at a maximum rate of 700 mA at 5 V and outputs 50 mA at the same voltage for each of the two pods that fit the earbuds. This means seven charging cycles are theoretically possible, but after accounting for electrical losses at each step, six cycles are more realistic.
Setup and Audio
Out of the box, you will need to press and hold the two earbuds for a second to turn them on. An audio message reflecting the status of each earbud is played as well, and a double click turns on pairing mode. A compatible Bluetooth device, of which there are several here owing to the Bluetooth 5.0 LE protocol compatibility, will see and pair with one earbud first before doing the same with the other. This is due to support of Qualcomm’s TrueWireless Plus technology, and partly how these earbuds have an automatic battery-based switching mode for uniform battery charging and adaptive switching between the primary and secondary bud. As with the Creative Outlier Gold earphones, there is also mono mode for when you use a single earbud and leave the other in the case.
Battery life is a key metric for TWS earbuds, and these promise 10 hours of use when fully charged. I hit over 9 hours regularly at ~60% volume on my phone, and the included charger provides for another six charge cycles. Charging them with the case takes about 90 minutes, and there is a quick charge mode by default, wherein 15 min gives you up to 2 hours of listening time. The indicator LEDs on the case show the progress of charging the case in 25% increments, which can take much longer depending on the source. The case does not support any quick charging in itself that I saw. Regardless, this makes for very respectable battery lives to where I got a week on average while commuting, going for walks or exercising outdoors over the ~3 weeks of testing. These are also IPx7 waterproof for the more intense physical workouts, or even a quick shower, which makes the PurePlay Z3 a good audio solution for the gym and outdoors.
The buttons on each bud allow for more once paired, including media playback and volume controls, as well as pulling up the OS assistant on iOS and Android. The included microphones are decent for calls and smart assistant voice control, but do feel more like an afterthought compared to the listening hardware, which are a 6 mm graphene drivers, an unnamed Qualcomm 32-bit triple-core Bluetooth audio SoC, an equally unnamed Kalimba DSP and, you guessed it, unnamed DAC/amp combination. In addition to the standard SBC codec, these also support aptX and AAC. Nothing more, which is a shame as I would have liked to see some newer, improved codecs adopted despite the age of the product.
Here’s where things stand for audio listening—you are not going to get the deepest bass or fantastic highs. Lypertek tuned the sound signature to a neutral profile. As someone who listens to a lot of classical music and smooth jazz when using these outdoors and sometimes even while writing a review on TechPowerUp, I personally dig this a lot. The neutral profile means you are more likely to hear audio as the creator intended, which in stereo mode and when isolated well makes for a very good listening experience. The sound stage is not very big, and there is distinct separation of the two channels, but you do get detailed notes for orchestral music in particular in return. Vocals take a small hit compared to just about everything else I have on hand, including the Creative Outlier Gold, Audio-Technica CK3TW, CKS5TW, and ANC300TW, and the EVA2020 x final, as well as a couple of other Bluetooth earphones that are not of the true wireless type. For instrumental music in particular, however, this thing hangs with the best of them, and did I mention the rest are all more expensive?
Lypertek wants $89.90 for the black version of the PurePlay Z3and $79.90 for the ivory variant, for customers in the USA, although street pricing seems lower in general at ~$75 for the black version as of the time of writing, which makes the Lypertek PurePlay Z3 a fantastic buy. The company does seem to have distributors and resellers in mostly Europe and Asia, however, where things are arguably even better priced. The only item of note is the company expressing outright that it is not tuned towards bass or treble, so do keep that in ind. I appreciate the battery life and case design even if it does feel quite similar to the Sennheiser Momentum TWS case, and the tactile buttons on each earbud make the controls easy to use on the go as well. The rebranding exercise seems to be taking forever, however, with even the company website still claiming the TEVI name. But be it the TEVI or PurePlay Z3, it should be right up there at the top of your considerations.
(Pocket-lint) – The gaming phone market shows no signs of slowing down. Indeed, just 20 hours prior to revealing our verdict on this very device, the Red Magic 6, Lenovo revealed its next-gen Legion Duel gaming monster.
Except, interestingly, the Red Magic 6 has a bit of a headline feature that the Lenovo lacks: there’s a 165Hz screen refresh rate, which, at the time of writing, is the fastest you’ll find in a gaming phone – or, indeed, any phone to date – to make for super smooth visuals.
The Red Magic 6 is all about its gaming focus elsewhere, too, thanks to a top tier processor, stacks of RAM, plus a built-in cooling fan. So does all that make it a case of game on, or should you go game elsewhere?
Design & Display
6.8-inch OLED panel, 1080 x 2400 resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio
165Hz refresh rate, 500Hz touch sampling rate
Dimensions: 170 x 77 x 9.7mm / Weight: 220g
Finish options: Eclipse Black, Aurora
Dedicated switch for Game Space
Under-display fingerprint scanner
Built-in shoulder triggers
3.5mm headphone jack
Visually speaking the Red Magic 6 looks much like the Red Magic 5G and 5S devices that came before it. Except it’s actually a little bit bigger. Yup, as if those aforementioned slabs weren’t substantial enough, Nubia has gone and installed a yet bigger screen – up from 6.65-inches to 6.8-inches – making for a slightly wider overall package (although, thankfully, it’s a slither thinner than its predecessors).
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In this Eclipse Black finish it’s also approaching subdued for a gaming phone. Perhaps that’s because the 5S we had came in a so-called ‘Pulse’ colourway. Which was loud to say the least. Not that the Red Magic 6 lacks some flashy “look at me” moments – helped along for the most part by rear lighting that can be set to various colours and patterns based on notifications, calls, gameplay and more (or switched off entirely, if you prefer).
The principal attraction of the Red Magic 6, we think, is its screen. This 6.8-inch OLED panel is quite the monster, plus it’s equipped with some headline-grabbing features. First, it’s flat, not curved, which makes it very practical for gaming (and anything, really, which is why we see curved screens on the decline). Second, it’s got a 165Hz refresh rate, meaning it can refresh that many times every second if you want – or select from 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz from the settings instead to conserve battery. It’s bright, too, with a 630 nits peak brightness claimed.
We’re always a little on the fence about fast-refresh panels, though, as the Red Magic 6’s sell over the 5S is basically 144Hz vs 165Hz. Will your eyes notice those extra 21 cycles per second? No, it’s not humanly possible. But it’s there, so it’s “one better” on paper nonetheless. You’ll most certainly see a big jump from the base 60Hz, though, so there’s obvious benefit to having a higher refresh rate panel. Plus, with 500Hz sampling rate, it’s super responsive to finger taps.
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Not that you have to just tap the screen. Being a gaming phone, Red Magic continues with its gaming focus, which includes integrated shoulder triggers to one edge, which you can programme for certain games. You can even adjust the screen’s responsiveness in zones using the Game Space application.
Activating Game Space is a simple case of flicking the red switch to the upper left side (facing) of the device. It’s a nice touch, able to transport you into a games carousel, along with the ability to select various key options – such as do not disturb (DND), permitting specific apps to notify (such as Discord in a pop-up overlay), controlling lighting, the cooling fan, and screen refresh rate.
We just wish that switching into Game Space would automatically apply selected presets. For example, we’d (perhaps) activate 165Hz when in the space, but drop that to 90Hz once done and flicking the switch back to ‘normal’ for our everyday activities. But that doesn’t happen – the selected refresh rate remains in play, so you have to manually adjust it.
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Elsewhere in terms of design, the Red Magic 6, rather unusually, features a 3.5mm headphone jack. So you can plug in your wired headphones. That’s an increasing rarity for high-end devices, although we suspect most will just use Bluetooth anyway.
Performance & Battery
Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 platform, 12GB LPDDR5 RAM
128GB UFS 3.1 storage, no microSD card slot
5050mAh battery capacity, 66W fast-charge
Turbofan and liquid cooling system
Dual-Core Cooler accessory
Wi-Fi 6E (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac)
5G connectivity
So why is the Red Magic 6 so chunky, at almost a full centimetre wide? There’s a number of reasons: the massive battery capacity (5,050mAh), the integrated physical cooling fan, the spatial capacity to ensure airflow won’t overheat the processor inside. And that’s just three reasons.
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There’s no doubting the Red Magic 6 has got the goods when it comes to power. Utilising Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 platform, alongside 12GB RAM, there’s nothing more powerful inside phones right now. Which makes the asking price of this phone all the more phenomenal.
Motorola’s new Moto G9 Plus is a stunner of a phone – find out why, right here
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For most people the difference between a Snapdragon 888 and, say, 870 isn’t going to make much difference for casual use. But the Red Magic 6 is all about gaming – so it has a processor that can put in the extra work to eke out those extra frame-rates and graphical options that you might otherwise not get elsewhere.
That said, only so many games are able to really tuck in. The same goes with the refresh rate debate: which games will genuinely benefit from 165Hz? Not many, perhaps none at all. Running Red Magic’s own FPS checker in real-time showed that many of our favourites – South Park: Phone Destroyer being the main, PUBG Mobile being the other – apparently max out at 31fps. Surely an error on Red Magic’s software? Because PUBG Mobile can run at 90fps.
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That self administered punch to the face aside, however, and the Red Magic 6 does a darn good job when it comes to playing games. There’s no delay, no fuss with fidelity, no issues with graphics textures, and so forth. It’s about as good as it gets.
However, that cooling fan doesn’t half make a lot of noise. It’s whirring sound whistles quite irritatingly. Having it on will undoubtedly use up power, too, so we’ve opted for leaving the standard cooling system minus the additional fans to take care of things. It’s a good job you can manually adjust this from the settings shade – because the fan also activates when fast-charging kicks in, unless you tell it not to.
The reason for that is the fast-charging, at 66W, is really quick. You can fill it from dead in under 40 minutes, assuming you have the correct plug at the wall, which is borderline ridiculous. Pop it on a slower recharge and you’ll be kinder to the battery’s health, but it’ll take a fair lot longer.
As for realistic longevity per charge. With this phone, more than most, that’s going to depend on how much you game. We’ve found the battery life a little unpredictable in general, with a day of ‘normal use’ (at 90Hz, note) and some gaming thrown in delivering close to 15 hours. That’s fine for a single day, except there are some moments when the battery will bomb and that’ll leave you reaching for the charger when you might not usually expect so – and that can render the 165Hz plus cooling fan as limited time options.
It would also be remiss to not speak on software, which here is Red Magic OS (V4.0), built over Google’s Android 11 operating system. It’s fairly harmless, in that it has various obtuse Themes, but there are some fundamentals that are just broken.
Notifications, for one, are scruffy, filling up layers per app in a not-too-useful format. But at least, unlike with the Poco X3 Pro, we get consistent notifications, eh?
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The home screen also can’t accept new apps being dragged from the app drawer and onto it as icons – they just vanish, unless you load multiple apps into a folder and drag them from there. It’s a ridiculous and irksome bug. That, in a sense, is indicative of what to expect when it comes to software experience: a unique yet unpredictable one.
Cameras
Triple rear system:
Main (26mm): 64-megapixel, f/1.8 aperture, 0.8µm pixel size
Wide (13mm): 8 MP, f/2.0, 1.12µm
Macro: 2MP
Selfie camera: 8MP, f/2.0
One area where we’ve been critical of previous Red Magic devices is with the cameras. Although the Red Magic 6 doesn’t get away Scot-free by any means, its main camera is fairly decent – outshining the likes of the Moto G100, that’s for sure.
Thankfully the rear of this phone is slightly curved so it slots into the hand pretty elegantly. There’s no giant camera bump in the way. No unwarranted protrusions or oddities. But that’s because the cameras here simply aren’t as high-end as you’ll find in some devices.
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According to the specification, the Red Magic 6 has a 64-megapixel main sensor (a S5KGW3 – which is Samsung’s GW3 sensor) that squeezes images down to 16-megapixels by using one-in-four processing. Then there’s an 8MP wide-angle (a HI846, so a typical Hynix sensor). Lastly there’s a 2MP macro for close-ups (the OV02A10, supplied by OmniVision).
Thing is, the camera app doesn’t offer any wide-angle shooting. It’s not to be found anywhere. So you can already forget about getting any ultra-wides out of this device. Yet another problem of the software, perhaps?
The macro, given that it’s just 2-megapixels, is also of really poor quality – so we doubt you’ll ever want to use it. At least the system does prompt you to use it when very close to a subject, though, and the magnifying glass-style focus symbol on the screen is particularly useful to get in-focus shots. Not that they’ll be all that sharp, given the limit in quality.
So it all falls to the main lens to sell the camera system. Think of the Red Magic 6 as a single camera and it’s reasonably successful. The real-time phase-detection autofocus is snappy at showing what it’s focusing onto. The quality of images is fairly decent in a variety of conditions, too. Oversharpened, sure, but there’s detail here that could easily be negated by a lesser setup.
Just make sure you turn off the watermark feature (as you can see from the gallery above, we didn’t) – because it’s on by default, will plaster your images with unwanted words that you can’t remove, and it’s still beyond perplexing to us that this is an acceptable practice. Kill the watermark default already.
Not that you’ll be taking pictures, right? You’ll be playing games. Because, ultimately, that’s what the Red Magic 6 is all about.
Verdict
If you’re in the market for a gaming phone then the Red Magic 6 has a lot going for it: it’s well priced, it’s seriously powerful, and it has a faster screen refresh rate than you’ll find on any other phone right now.
Thing is, whether you’ll get genuine use from 165Hz is a whole other matter. And with it active the cooling fan’s whining drone sound isn’t delicate on the ears. Plus it rather affects the battery life for the worse.
That there is physical fan-based cooling, however, is testament to how gaming-focused this phone is. With its Game Space dedicated switch, too, there’s quick-access to controls and gaming-specific settings.
Just like its predecessors, the Red Magic 6 does what it sets out to achieve: being an alluring gaming phone. But while it’s “game on” in that regard, it’s “game off” for everyday use – where the software comes up short, the sheer size approaches unwieldy, and the cameras are way off their billing.
Also consider
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Lenovo Legion Phone Duel
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Ok, so it’s the first-gen model – the second-gen has just been announced – and it’s pricier than the Red Magic. But with the Lenovo’s side-positioned pop-up camera and dual charging facility, it’s a super-powered gaming device unlike anything else on the market.
HMD is announcing six new midrange devices today led by the Nokia X20, a midrange handset priced starting at €349 / £299.99 (around $415). It will release in “select markets globally” such as the UK starting next month, but we’re still waiting on HMD to confirm exact US pricing and availability. I’ve been using the phone running near-final software over the past week, which has been enough to get some rough first impressions about the device.
To be frank, the Nokia X20 isn’t the most exciting device. But HMD’s promises about ongoing software and hardware support for the phone make it compelling.
The Nokia X20 is specced like a device at this price point is expected to be. It’s powered by a modest Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 processor paired with either 6 or 8GB of RAM (my device has 6GB), 128GB of expandable storage, and a 4,470mAh battery. It’s got a 6.67-inch, 1080p 60Hz display with a small hole-punch notch and four rear cameras including an ultrawide, macro, and depth sensor.
There’s a side-mounted fingerprint sensor on the right of the device.
The company says it’ll provide three years of monthly security updates for the X20 after launch, three years of OS updates, and to ensure the hardware doesn’t give up the ghost before software support ends, it’s also extending its normal manufacturer’s warranty by an extra year. “In the majority of places,” a company spokesperson says, “that extends it to three years.” If all goes to plan, the Nokia X20 should still be under warranty when it receives its Android 14 update.
In the past, HMD has generally been good at updating its phones over time, though ComputerWorld’sAndroid 11 upgrade tracker reports that it’s been more sluggish lately. Recently, HMD updated its Nokia 8.1 and Nokia 3.2, which released in 2018 and 2019, to Android 11 as part of an upgrade roadmap that includes over a dozen of its devices.
Three years of security updates is a little less than the four years Samsung recently said it would offer for its Galaxy devices, but Samsung’s warranty varies between one and two years depending on whether you’re in the US or UK. Apple recently updated its 2015 iPhone 6S to iOS 14 (five years after its release), but its standard limited warranty also typically only covers new phones for between one and two years.
Along with aiming for three years of use, HMD has also made a couple of other decisions with the Nokia X20 in the name of being eco-friendly. First, in the EU it’s joining Apple and others by not including a power brick in the box, just a USB-C cable. What you do get in the box is a 100 percent compostable phone case. It’s a neat idea producing a case that won’t end up in a landfill, but the accessory itself is frustrating to use. The portion of the case that covers the phone’s volume rocker just isn’t flexible enough, making it hard to press the side of the button that I wanted.
The speed and performance of the phone was generally fine, but I saw the occasional hitch while switching quickly between apps, which made me question how this phone will perform after three years of OS updates. Otherwise, I didn’t have any problems with performance in everyday usage. The X20 supports Sub-6GHz 5G, which won’t matter much to you now but could in three years’ time.
You can find a selection of photo samples below, but in my time with the phone I was underwhelmed by the Nokia X20’s camera performance. The phone has a total of four rear cameras: a 64-megapixel main camera, a 5-megapixel ultrawide, a 2-megapixel depth sensor, and a 2-megapixel macro.
HMD Nokia X20, macro camera.
Ultrawide camera.
Performance in daylight is broadly fine, but when things are more dimly lit you quickly start to lose detail and definition. Neither the ultrawide camera nor the macro camera have the resolution to take decent photographs, and the 2-megapixel macro camera in particular is a pointless and puzzling inclusion.
HMD’s Nokia X20 can’t make any big claims about being a flagship hit, but its modest price tag and HMD’s promises about continued support could make it a safe, dependable smartphone if that’s what you’re after.
HMD is announcing six new midrange Nokia phones today, ranging in price from €75 (around $90) up to €349 (around $415). At the top, there’s the X-series, consisting of the X10 and X20, followed by the G-series G10 and G20, and then finally, there’s the entry-level C10 and C20 from the C-series.
HMD’s pitch for these phones is the length of time it’s offering support, with even the cheapest C-series phones due to receive two years of quarterly security updates. Meanwhile, G-series phones will receive two years of Android OS updates and three years of monthly security updates. Finally, the X-series gets three years of OS updates, three years of monthly security updates, and an extended warranty that HMD says should mean it’s covered for three years in many of its release markets.
The HMD Nokia X20.Image: HMD
At the top of the six-phone lineup is the X20, which HMD says will be priced at the equivalent of €349 (£299.99, around $415) around the world. It’s got a 6.67-inch 1080p display, with a hole-punch cutout in the top-center for its 32-megapixel selfie camera, while on the back, you’ll find a circular camera bump containing four cameras: a 64-megapixel main camera, a 5-megapixel ultrawide, a 2-megapixel depth camera, and a 2-megapixel macro.
Internally, the X20 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 and 4,470mAh battery, with either 6 or 8GB of RAM and 128GB of expandable storage. It runs Android 11 out of the box and includes three years of OS updates that HMD says will take it through to Android 14. Security is handled by a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, and there’s also a dedicated Google Assistant button on the left. I’ve been using the Nokia X20 for the past week, and you can read my first-hand impressions here.
The HMD Nokia X10.Image: HMD
A step down from the X20 is the Nokia X10 at €309 (£249.99, around $367). It shares a lot of the DNA of its older sibling. It’s also running on a Snapdragon 480, with a 4,470mAh battery and has a 6.67-inch 1080p display. But it’s available with slightly lower specs: a minimum of 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, and its main camera and selfie camera at lower resolutions of 48-megapixels and 8-megapixels, respectively.
Next is the G-series, which is led by the Nokia G20 at €159 (£129.99, around $189). Its screen is a little smaller at 6.5 inches and has a lower resolution of 720p. Internally, it’s using a MediaTek G35 processor with a 5,050mAh battery, upwards of 4GB of RAM, and up to 128GB of expandable storage. You still get four rear cameras, though: a 48-megapixel main camera, a 5-megapixel ultrawide, a 2-megapixel macro, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. Around front, there’s a notch containing an 8-megapixel camera.
The G20 is joined by the Nokia G10 at €139 (£109.99, around $165). Its display and battery have the same specs as the G20, but it’s got a less powerful MediaTek G25 processor, with 3 or 4GB of RAM and 32 or 64GB of expandable storage. Around back, you only get three cameras: a 13-megapixel main camera, a 2-megapixel macro, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. The Nokia G10 has an 8-megapixel selfie camera.
Right at the bottom of the newly revamped lineup is the C-series, which HMD says is designed for people who would previously have bought non-smart feature phones. Both the Nokia C20 at €89 (£79, around $105) and the Nokia C10 at €75 (around $90) have 6.5-inch 720p displays, a single rear 5-megapixel camera, a 5-megapixel selfie camera, and are running Google’s lightweight Go edition of Android 11. The C20 has a Unisoc SC9863a processor, while the C10 has a Unisoc SC7331e processor. Both are available with 1 or 2GB of RAM, 16 or 32GB of expandable storage, and removable 3,000mAh batteries that charge over Micro USB.
The naming schemes may be different than previous Nokia lines, but with its six new devices, HMD is focusing on its traditional strengths: affordable phones with lengthy support periods. We’re still waiting for HMD to confirm exact US pricing and availability for the handsets, but the G10 and C20 will be available in “select markets” starting later this month, the X20 and G20 will launch in May, and the X10 and C10 will launch in June.
Google has started rolling out the April Android security update for Pixel phones, and it looks like it’s brought some performance improvements to the most recent devices. Google says the update includes “performance optimizations for certain graphics-intensive apps and games” on the Pixel 5 and 4A 5G, and, as noted by XDA Developers, some testers are noticing substantially improved GPU performance on the Pixel 5.
Anandtech previously found that the Pixel 5 turned in much worse GPU results than other phones using the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chip. Now, the site’s reviewer Andrei Frumusanu says that performance on his Pixel 5 has been “essentially doubled” from the review’s initial figures and is now “in line or better than other 765G phones.” Benchmarks don’t necessarily translate into real-world results, of course, but combined with Google’s reference to optimizations for graphics-intensive apps, it does sound like GPU performance should be better with the new release.
In addition, Google says that the Pixel 5 and 4A 5G should receive “improvements to camera quality” in some third-party apps. There’s also a fix for a startup freezing bug on Pixel 4 and 5 devices, as well as one for missing home grid settings on the Pixel 3 and 4 generations of phones.
Popular CPU temperature monitoring utility Core Temp recently got patched to version 1.17 with a few new updates, including support for not only Intel and AMD’s latest and best CPUs, but some chips yet to be released as well.
Core Temp version 1.17 adds full support for Rocket-Lake-S, which includes chips like the new Core i9-11900K. It also brings preliminary support for both Intel’s 12th Gen Alder Lake desktop CPUs, which aren’t expected to arrive until late 2021 or early 2022, and Intel’s 3D-stacked Meteor Lake chips, poised for a 2023 release.
It’s very interesting to see Alder Lake support already because this new CPU architecture is radically different from anything Intel has produced so far. That means it will need some new types of monitoring to measure CPU core temperatures. Similar to the design of Arm chips, like the Apple M1 and other smartphone chips from Qualcomm and Samsung, the line will introduce a hybrid architecture. In the case of Alder Lake, this is a hybrid x86 architecture with two tiers of CPU cores: One set of high-performance cores and one set of high-efficiency cores.
Alder Lake will also be Intel’s first desktop architecture to finally move off the super mature 14nm process and will instead use Intel’s newly refined 10nm SuperFin process. SuperFin promises to achieve much higher performance-per-watt compared to 14nm.
So to monitor temperatures, programs like CoreTemp will have to monitor both the high-performance cores and the low-power cores, plus all the other sensors like CPU die and package temperature. Hopefully, CoreTemp will figure out a way to give users all this data without being overwhelming or confusing.
This same logic should also apply to Meteor Lake, which (for now) is also believed to have a hybrid x86 architecture featuring low-power and high-performance cores. Unlike Alder Lake, Meteor Lake is expected to be shipped on Intel’s new 7nm EUV process. We don’t know the exact details on this node, but it should provide a hefty efficiency upgrade over 10nm SuperFin if Intel wants to maintain its competitive edge against TSMC’s 7nm and 5nm nodes.
Speaking of TSMC, Intel is planning on using some of TSMC’s silicon for select Meteor Lake products in the future to offset recent delays related to its homebrewed 7nm node. To make this a reality, Meteor Lake will come with a 3D-stacked architecture, which will allow Intel to swap out Intel silicon for TSMC silicon and vise-versa.
Other Updates and Bug Fixes
In addition to new support for Intel CPUs, Core Temp version 1.17 also adds full support for AMD’s latest Ryzen 5000 processors, as well as its for Zen 2 -based APUs, which include all of AMD’s Ryzen 4000 mobile CPUs and some of AMD’s Ryzen 5000 mobile processors.
The update also brings numerous bug fixes, which we’ve listed below.
“Unsupported CPU” message when only some cores have HT enabled
AMD Epyc Rome/Threadripper 3rd gen platform detection
Gemini Lake platform detection
Whiskey Lake codename
Incorrect VID reporting on some Celeron/Pentium processors
Crash on Intel Banias based (Pentium/Celeron M) processors
Turbo multiplier detection on Nehalem/Westmere
Bugs related to response to DPI changesVID reporting on some AMD Athlon64 processors
Changes:
AMD Bulldozer based processors now display the amount of modules/threads instead of cores/threads
Improve accuracy of information on unsupported Intel CPUs
If you had to choose: would you choose a sharper screen on your smartphone, or a smoother-scrolling one? This year, budget phone buyers may be asking themselves that question: the OnePlus Nord N100, Moto G50, and the new Samsung Galaxy F12 and M12 all refresh their screens 90 times per second (which is good!) but with a lower-than-optimal screen resolution of 720p. That’s the same resolution as a Galaxy Nexus from 2011.
Compared to your average iPhone, that’s a paltry number of pixels. Since the iPhone 4 debuted in 2010, every Apple handset has offered at least 326 pixels per inch (PPI), enough so you can’t make out those individual pixels with the naked eye at typical viewing distances. (The marketing term is “retina display.”) Here, the PPI would be more like 270.
And yet Apple has never offered an iPhone with a high-refresh-rate screen, which we’ve often found to be one of the most desirable features on high-end and mid-range smartphones since it makes everything you do (not just games) feel much smoother. (Apple might make it happen later this year.)
But the Galaxy F12 and M12, the OnePlus and Moto all show that high-refresh doesn’t need to be a high-end feature at all, or even a $300 one like we recently saw with the OnePlus Nord N10 5G. The Samsung phones in particular cost under $150 each, as long as you’re willing to sacrifice pixels to get there.
In other ways, the 9,999-rupee handsets seem like they might be decent picks too: they’re based on the same basic platform as the Galaxy A12 and its four-camera array, but with a larger 6,000mAh battery that dwarfs many others on the market. You get a sidemounted fingerprint sensor. Just note while its 8nm Exynos 850 processor might sound shiny and new, it’s not comparable with Qualcomm’s recent 800-series Snapdragon chips. It’s closer to 2019’s Snapdragon 665 in performance.
It’s not clear whether either of these phones will come to the US quite yet. The OnePlus Nord N100 already has, and the G50 launched in Europe late last month.
Google’s next Pixel flagship — the presumably named “Pixel 6” — will reportedly feature a Google-designed GS101 “Whitechapel” SoC (system on a chip), a first for the company, as reported by 9to5Google and XDA-Developers.
9to5Google’s report claims Google is working on two phones that will feature the Arm-based GS101 — presumed to be a flagship device to succeed last year’s Pixel 5 and a Pixel 4A 5G follow-up.
XDA’s report, meanwhile, goes into further detail on the new SoC, claiming the GS101 chips will feature a “three cluster setup with a TPU (Tensor Processing Unit)” for machine learning applications. (For reference, Qualcomm’s own flagship Snapdragon 888 uses Arm’s Cortex-X1 / Cortex-A78 / Cortex-A55 as a triple cluster CPU setup.) Additionally, the new SoC may feature an integrated security chip, similar to the Titan M.
The idea of Google making a custom TPU or security chip isn’t new: Google has previously made TPUs for servers and the Pixel 4’s Neural Core, along with the discrete Titan M chip on its current phones. But the custom-designed GS101 would presumably allow the company to integrate those features on a deeper level.
Rumors of the Whitechapel chips have circulated since last year when Axios reported that Google was looking to develop its own in-house chips for use in Pixel and Chromebook devices. That report claimed the company would be optimizing its chip for Google’s machine learning technology — something the XDA report corroborates. The GS101 chip for the 2021 Pixel lineup would be the first fruits of the Whitechapel project, although Axios’ original report noted that Chromebook chips weren’t expected until further in the future.
9to5Google’s report also includes references to a “Slider” codename tied to the new device, which it says is also connected to Samsung’s Exynos SoCs (which the company uses on Galaxy smartphone devices outside the US). Samsung’s involvement on the manufacturing side — which Axios also reported last year — would make sense, as one of the largest manufacturers of smartphone semiconductors.
The idea of Google-designed chips is a compelling one. Apple has long touted its tightly integrated software and hardware stack as a key part of how its iPhones, iPads, and now, its Mac computers are able to run so well — a key part of which is the company’s custom-designed A-series and M-series chips.
Google — and almost every other Android manufacturer, save Samsung and Huawei — doesn’t have that advantage. It instead relies on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips, which dominate the Android marketplace in the US. Oftentimes, an Android device lives or dies on how well its manufacturer is able to synergize Qualcomm’s chips, Google’s software, and its own hardware designs. Similarly, the fact that, at their core, almost every Android device runs on the same chipset and the same software makes it difficult for any one model to stand out.
But a Google-designed GS101 chip brings a tantalizing promise: that Google could bring an Apple-like boost in speed, performance, and battery life to Android (and specifically, its Pixel lineup) with a similar level of control over the hardware design, software, and processor. It’s an intriguing idea — assuming Google can pull it off.
That said, building a smartphone processor at the level of Apple or Qualcomm isn’t easy. While both companies use Arm as a common base, they’ve spent years refining those basic building blocks with customizations to suit their needs. Apple has been using custom designs in its processors since the 2012’s A6 design (as opposed to previous models that used licensed CPU designs from Arm itself). Qualcomm takes a similar approach in its modern processors, using custom Kryo cores that are semi-customized versions of Arm’s base Cortex designs.
It might take Google a few generations to fine-tune its Pixel chips. But if Google can actually deliver on a proper customized chip that’s built from the ground up to be specifically designed for Android’s software and the Pixel’s hardware, it could be the key to transforming the Pixel line from a sideshow to a true smartphone powerhouse.
Arm this week announced Armv9, its latest instruction set architecture that will power a broad range of processors and system-on-chips that will be launched in the coming years. The new ISA promises to enable designers to build SoCs with multiple special-purpose accelerators for artificial intelligence (AI), machine leading, digital signal processing (DSP), and security. Arm believes that SoCs and CPUs with specialized accelerators will better address existing and upcoming challenges of computing.
Arm’s Armv8 ISA unveiled a decade ago introduced 64-bit instructions, advanced SIMD instructions, cryptography extensions, virtualization, AMBA5 CHI (coherent hub interface), and a number of others. To a large degree, the Armv8 was a development of the general-purpose processor paradigm, which implicates that a CPU should perform all the tasks that a system needs. While this concept has been around for some time and will continue to exist for many reasons, special-purpose accelerators such as those used for AI/ML, graphics processing, IoT, and DSP are not only faster, but are also more energy efficient. To that end, Arm decided to build an ISA that is not only generally fast, but is more suitable for heterogeneous SoCs with accelerators aimed at all types of applications, from IoT to servers.
It is noteworthy that Arm expects CPUs based on its Armv9 instruction set architecture to offer a more than 30% performance increase over the next two generations of mobile and infrastructure processors (codenamed Matterhorn and Makalu), so performance of PCs, servers, smartphones, and other Arm-powered devices will continue to increase at a rather rapid pace.
(Image credit: Arm)
But the addition of heterogeneous processing capabilities will offer even more substantial gains, according to Arm. To make heterogeneous SoCs more robust, Arm promises new methods to increase frequency, bandwidth, and cache size, and reduce memory latency to amplify the performance of Armv9-based CPUs.
“The increasing complexity of use cases from edge to cloud cannot be addressed with a one-size-fits-all solution,” said Henry Sanders, corporate vice president and chief technology officer, Azure Edge and Platforms at Microsoft. “As a result, heterogeneous compute is becoming more ubiquitous, requiring greater synergy among hardware and software developers.”
One of the key features of Arm’s v9 ISA is the Confidential Compute Architecture (CCA) that protects potions of code and data from access or modification while in-use by making computations in a hardware-based secure environment. Arm’s CCA relies on the so-called Realms that are separated from both the secure and non-secure worlds. To some degree, Realms can be compared to sandboxes used by software. Meanwhile, Realms will use both software and hardware resources. Realms will be useful not only for client devices such as PCs or smartphones, but for servers as well as edge computing devices.
“A good example of this synergy between hardware and software are the ArmV9 confidential compute features which were developed in close collaboration with Microsoft,” added Sanders. “Arm is in a unique position to accelerate heterogeneous computing at the heart of an ecosystem, fostering open innovation on an architecture powering billions of devices.”
In addition, to address demanding AI/ML and DSP workloads, Arm teamed up with Fujitsu to design Scalable Vector Extension 2 (SVE2) technology for Armv9. Fujitsu’s custom Arm processors that are used for the Fugaku supercomputer already support SVE instructions. Going forward Arm intends to add ‘substantial enhancements in matrix multiplication within the CPU,’ which is a similar approach that Intel will support with its AMX technology featured by its upcoming Sapphire Rapids CPUs.
“The launch of the Armv9 architecture signals a new era for our company; a globally-pervasive platform driving secure AI-driven computing that will enable our ecosystem of more than 1,000 partners well into the 2030s,” said Simon Segars, CEO of Arm. “The Armv9 roadmap contains multiple new elements addressing the need for specialized compute from the smallest sensor to the largest supercomputer, but none are as important as the need to secure the world’s data.”
To date, numerous companies already announced support for Armv9, including Google, Foxconn, Microsoft, Nvidia, NXP, Marvell, Renesas, Unity, Samsung, Siemens, Volkswagen, Zoom, and others.
Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is planning to continue its push into hardware devices with a new pair of augmented-reality glasses and a drone, according to a report by The Information. The Spectacles will reportedly include displays so the wearer can see the AR effects without having to use their phone — a feature that was notably missing from the all the Spectacles that came before.
One of The Information’s sources says that the new Spectacles will be meant for developers and creators, rather than consumers — though you could probably argue that, at $380, the Spectacles 3 are already mostly limited to that market as well. As the article points out, though, the intention is likely to have the developers make lenses and experiences that consumers will use at some point in the future.
If the new Spectacles act as an AR headset, it could be the culmination of what the company has been working towards with the first three versions of the product. Currently, the Spectacles are mainly capture devices, acting as head-mounted cameras with the bulk of the processing being done on the user’s phone. This hasn’t necessarily been a recipe for success: the company lost $40 million when it was stuck with unsold inventory of the original pair, and the company’s hardware head left shortly after the second-generation glasses came out.
If the reports about the new Spectacles are true, it could indicate that Snap isn’t backing down from its hardware dreams — the company’s CEO has said that AR hardware will be part of what defines Snap by the end of this decade. If it wants to continue pushing its AR glasses, it seems like it will have to contend with competition from the likes of Apple and Facebook— both companies seem to be developing their own face-mounted wearables.
As for the drone, there’s precious little information about it. There have been rumors about Snap working on a drone for years, and back in 2017 it acquired a drone company. The Information also reports that Snap invested $20 million into a Chinese drone company as well. There’s no information on when the drone will ship, but the report’s sources say that it’s recently been made the priority of Snap Lab, a hardware group at Snap.
In other AR headset news, The Information also reported today that the headset teased by Pokémon Go creator Niantic is actually a reference design made by Qualcomm — the two companies announced that they were partnering back in 2019. Niantic is also reportedly looking to go the developer-first route as well.
Four years after accusing Qualcomm of abusing monopoly power to charge phone makers additional licensing fees for its modems — and seven months after seemingly losing that battle in a federal circuit court — the Federal Trade Commission has decided to throw in the towel. It’s no longer planning to appeal to the Supreme Court, which means the case is done.
If that were all, I probably wouldn’t be writing it up for The Verge since things are exactly where we left off in August.But then I saw the FTC’s explanation for why it’s dropping the case, and… well, just read it:
Given the significant headwinds facing the Commission in this matter, the FTC will not petition the Supreme Court to review the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in FTC v. Qualcomm. The FTC’s staff did an exceptional job presenting the case, and I continue to believe that the district court’s conclusion that Qualcomm violated the antitrust laws was entirely correct and that the court of appeals erred in concluding otherwise. Now more than ever, the FTC and other law enforcement agencies need to boldly enforce the antitrust laws to guard against abusive behavior by dominant firms, including in high-technology markets and those that involve intellectual property. I am particularly concerned about the potential for anticompetitive or unfair behavior in the context of standard setting and the FTC will closely monitor conduct in this arena.
Let me get this straight: the FTC believes it was right about this case, believes it was important, believes that “now more than ever” it needs to “boldly enforce the antitrust laws” and is “particularly concerned” about cases like this… and yet, it’s not even taking the step of seeing whether the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case because of “significant headwinds”?
Perhaps the FTC has bigger fish to fry right now, or perhaps it’s afraid it will simply lose again. It’s not cheap to petition the Supreme Court, after all; in 2013, a lawyer who’s done it repeatedly told Marketplace that a petition can easily cost a quarter of a million dollars. Or perhaps the FTC’s acting chair simply doesn’t think a vote to petition the Supreme Court would pass, given the current staffing split between two Republican and two Democratic FTC commissioners.
But the FTC’s tortured public statement doesn’t say those things. It feels a little more like a cry for help from America’s antitrust enforcer, an enforcer with a budget that’s admittedly less than $350 million a year and an enforcer that’s repeatedly let big tech companies go with a slap on the wrist — such as fining Google roughly 37 hours worth of profit for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) with YouTube or issuing a record-breaking $5 billion fine to Facebook that was so weak, Facebook’s stock price actually went up.
There are signs the FTC might possibly change in meaningful ways, and my colleague Makena Kelly has written about them at length, including Congress potentially modifying the law to make it easier to bring lawsuits against Big Tech, and the strong possibility that influential antitrust scholar Lina Khan may soon help run the FTC with President Biden’s nomination. In the meanwhile, the agency that believes Qualcomm has a monopoly — the agency we expect to bust such a monopoly if so — is just going to let this one go.
(Pocket-lint) – Huawei’s second generation of its foldable smartphone comes in the form of the Mate X2, while Xiaomi’s foldable phone is called the Mi Mix Fold.
Both follow a similar design to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold series after Huawei changed the format of the folding device from its predecessor – the Mate X and Xs- moving from a foldable display on the outside, to an inward folding display.
If you’re in the market for a vertically folding smartphone, here is how the Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold, Huawei Mate X2 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 compare.
Design
Mi Mix Fold: 173.3 x 133.4 x 7.6mm unfolded / 173.3 x 69.8mm x 17.2mm folded / 317g (Black) 332g (ceramic)
Mate X2: 161.8 x 145.8 x 4.4-8.2mm unfolded / 161.8 x 74.6 x 13.6-14.7mm folded / 295g
Z Fold 2: 159.2 x 128.2 x 6.9mm unfolded / 159.2 x 68 x 16.8mm folded / 282g
The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold has a vertical folding display in a book-style design, like the Huawei Mate X2 and Galaxy Z Fold 2. It comes with a glass or special edition ceramic back and there is a prominent camera housing in the top left corner. There’s a metal frame, large display and a single punch hole camera in the top right corner when folded.
When unfolded, the Mi Mix Fold has an 8.01-inch display and a precision based hinge. There is a small gap when folded though, like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2. It comes in Black or Special Edition Ceramic finishes.
The Huawei Mate X2 meanwhile, also features a vertical folding display. There’s a glass rear with a prominent rectangular camera housing in the top left corner, a metal frame and a full display with dual cut-out cameras on the front when folded.
When unfolded, the Mate X2 has a large 8-inch screen. The hinge is multi-dimensional, creating a water dropped-shaped cavity for the display when the phone is folded, allowing for no gap at all when shut, resulting in a different design to the Mi Mix Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 2. There’s also a wedge-like design that is just 4.4mm at the slimmest point. It comes in White, Black, Crystal Blue and Crystal Pink colours.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 has a similar form to the Huawei Mate X2 and Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold in that it offers a vertical fold in a book-style design. It too has a glass rear, with a rectangular camera housing in the top left corner, as well as a metal frame. Like the Mi Mix Fold, it has a single, punch hole camera on the front when folded but it is centralised rather than positioned to the right.
When unfolded, the Galaxy Z Fold 2 has a slightly smaller 7.6-inch display than the Huawei Mate X2 and Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold. It’s hinge allows for multiple viewing angles but there is a slight gap at the fold of the device when folded. It comes in Mystic Bronze and Mystic Black colours.
The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold has a 6.5-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2520 x 840 resolution and a pixel density of 409ppi on the front when folded. It has a 27:9 screen ratio and a 90Hz refresh rate. There’s a punch hole camera in the top right, and the bezels are slightly larger than the Huawei and Samsung alternatives.
When unfolded, the Mi Mix Fold has a 8.01-inch display WQHD+ resolution, 1 billion colours and a 4:3 aspect ratio. It has a 60Hz refresh rate.
The Huawei Mate X2 has a 6.45-inch OLED display with resolution of 2700 x 1160 and a pixel density of 456ppi on the front when folded, making it fractionally smaller than the Mi Mix Fold, though with slimmer bezels. It features a 21:9 aspect ratio and a 90Hz refresh rate. As mentioned above, the X2 has dual punch-hole front cameras in the top left of the display.
When unfolded, the Mate X2 has an 8-inch OLED display with a 2480 x 2200 resolution, which results in a pixel density of 413ppi. The unfolded display has a ratio of 8:7.1. It too has a 90Hz refresh rate.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 has a 6.23-inch external display, making it slightly smaller than the Mate X2 and Mi Mix Fold. It too is an AMOLED panel and it offers a resolution of 2260 x 816 pixels and an aspect ratio of 25:9.
When unfolded, the Galaxy Z Fold 2 has an internal display of 7.6-inches – which is the smallest of the three devices being compared here. It’s Dynamic AMOLED and it has a 2208 x 1768 pixel resolution, resulting in a pixel density of 372ppi. It also has a 120Hz refresh rate and supports HDR10+.
Cameras
Mi Mix Fold: Triple rear camera (108MP + Liquid Lens 8MP + 13MP), 20MP front
Mate X2: Quad rear camera (50MP+16MP+12MP+8MP), 16MP front
Z Fold 2: Triple rear (12MP+12MP+12MP), 10MP front
The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold has three lenses on its rear, with a 108-megapixel main sensor with 2.1µm pixels and a 7P lens, along with a 13-megapixel ultra wide angle lens with a 123-degree field of view.
There is also an 8-megapixel liquid lens on the rear that uses the principle of human eye bionics and a special chip created by Xiaomi to change the radius of curvature of the spherical surface. It allows the one lens to cover two functions, enabling 3x optical zoom, up to 30x digital and a minimum focus distance of 3cm. The front camera on the Mix Mix Fold is a 20-megapixel snapper.
The Huawei Mate X2 has a quad camera on the rear, which features Leica technology, like Huawei’s other flagship smartphones. The camera setup includes a 50-megapixel main sensor, 16-megapixel ultra-wide angle sensor, 12-megapixel telephoto sensor, and an 8-megapixel SuperZoom sensor.
The main sensor has a f/1.9 aperture and OIS, the Ultra-wide sensor has a f/2.2 aperture, the telephoto sensor has a f/2.4 aperture and OIS with 3x optical zoom, while the SuperZoom sensor has a f/4.4 aperture, OIS and 10x optical zoom. The front camera is 16-megapixels wide angle with a f/2.2 aperture.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 has a triple rear camera, comprised of a 12-megapixel main camera, 12-megapixel telephoto sensor and 12-megapixel Ultra-wide sensor.
The main camera has an f/1.6 aperture, dual pixel phase-detection autofocus and OIS, the telephoto lens has an aperture of f/2.4 and OIS and the ultra-wide sensor has an aperture of f/2.2. There is also a 10-megapixel front camera.
The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 chipset. It’s a 5G handset and it comes with 12GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage. The Special Edition Ceramic model has 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage though.
There’s a 5020mAh battery under its hood that supports Xiaomi’s 67W fast charging. The software is MIUI 12, based on Android 10 and there features like a one click option to close down things like GPS for security, as well as a Desktop Mode with a three-finger swipe.
The Huawei Mate X2 runs on Huawei’s own 5nm Kirin 9000 platform. It too is a 5G device. It is supported by 8GB of RAM and it comes in 256GB and 512GB storage variants.
It has a 4500mAh battery under the hood that supports Huawei’s 25W SuperCharge. Huawei’s own Harmony OS can be installed over the company’s usual EMUI interface running on top of Android.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 Plus chipset, supported by 12GB of RAM and it comes in 256GB and 512GB storage options.
There’s a 4500mAh battery running the Fold 2, which supports 25W wired charging, 11W wireless charging and 4.5W reverse wireless charging. It runs Android with Samsung’s One UI over the top and there are some great multi-tasking features that make great use of the screen when unfolded.
Price
Mi Mix Fold: Equivalent of £1105/$1550, China
Mate X2: Equivalent of £1985/$2785, China
Z Fold 2: £1799, $1999
The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold costs RMB 9999, 10,999 or 12,999, starting at the equivalent of $1550 or £1105. It will be available in China from 15 April.
The Huawei Mate X2 costs RMB 17,999 or 18,999, starting at the equivalent of $2785 or £1985. It is available in China only for now.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 costs £1799 in the UK and $1999 in the US.
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Conclusion
The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold and Huawei Mate X2 is only available in the Chinese market at the moment but while the Mate X2 is a little more expensive than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2, the M Mix Fold is cheaper.
On a spec-by-spec comparison, these three devices are similar and while the Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold tips the scales in several areas, the other two devices have their fair share of wins too.
The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold has larger displays both interior and exterior than both the Huawei and Samsung. It also offers the most advanced Qualcomm chipset, the largest battery of the three devices, the fastest wired charging capabilities and it has an interesting camera setup with its liquid lens.
The Mate X2 arguably has a more streamlined design, an extra camera on the rear and a wide-angle front camera. It also has only fractionally smaller displays than the Mi Mix Fold.
The Galaxy Z Fold 2 has more RAM than the Mate X2 but the same as the Mi Mix Fold. It also has a higher refresh rate on the internal display though and it offers a more user-friendly software experience, as well as supporting Google services – the latter of which the Mate X2 does not offer. The Z Fold 2 has less cameras than Huawei but the triple rear camera does offer great results.
The Samsung is more widely available than both the Mate X2 and the Mi Mix Fold so while the Mi Mix 2 and Mate X2 might win on some specification areas, you’ll need to live in China to get your hands on them for now. It’s also worth remembering the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is tipped for a July 2021 launch.
(Pocket-lint) – Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi has five phones within its Mi 11 range. Not all are available in all markets, but with so many options, it’s good to know how they all compare.
Here is how the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra stacks up against the Mi 11 Pro, Mi 11, Mi 11i and Mi 11 Lite 5G. Which is the right Xiaomi Mi 11 device for you? Let us help you figure it out.
Design
Mi 11 Lite: 160.5 x 75.7 x 6.8mm, 159g
Mi 11i: 163.7 x 76.4 x 7.8 mm, 196g, IP53
Mi 11: 164.3 x 74.6 x 8.1mm, 196g
Mi 11 Pro: 164.3 x 74.6 x 8.5mm, 208g, IP68
Mi 11 Ultra: 164.3 x 74.6 x 8.38mm, 234g, IP68
The Xiaomi Mi 11 devices all share similarities when it comes to design, though the Mi 11 Ultra has a much more prominent camera housing on the rear with a second display, setting it apart from the other four devices. None of them look identical, but you can tell they are from the same family.
All the five Mi 11 devices feature a punch hole camera on the front, all positioned in the top left corner, except the Mi 11i that has the front camera in the centre at the top of its flat display. The Mi 11 Lite also has a flat display, while the Mi 11, Mi 11 Pro and Mi 11 Ultra all have curved displays.
The material finishes and colours differ between all five models. The Mi 11 Ultra has a ceramic back, while the Mi 11 comes in glass and leather options. The Mi 11 Pro, Mi 11i and Mi 11 Lite all have a glass back with aluminium frames. Only the Mi 11 Ultra and Mi 11 Pro are IP68 water and dust resistant, while the Mi 11i is IP53 rated. The other two have no official IP rating.
The Mi 11, Mi 11 Pro and Mi 11 Ultra are all a similar size, sharing the same display with an optical under-display fingerprint reader, while the Mi 11i and Mi 11 Lite are smaller, with the Mi 11 Lite being the smallest and lightest. Both the Mi 11i and Mi 11 Lite have physical fingerprint readers on their side.
Display
Mi 11 Lite: 6.55-inch, flat AMOLED, 2400 x 1080 (401ppi), 90Hz, HDR10+, 800nits
Mi 11i: 6.67-inch, flat AMOLED, 2400 x 1080 (395ppi), 120Hz, HDR10+, 1300nits
Mi 11: 6.81-inches, curved AMOLED, 3200 x 1440 (515ppi), 120Hz, HDR10+, 1500nits
Mi 11 Pro: 6.81-inches, curved AMOLED, 3200 x 1440 (515ppi), 120Hz, HDR10+, 1500nits
Mi 11 Ultra: 6.81-inch, curved AMOLED, 3200 x 1440 (515ppi), 120Hz, HDR10+, 1700nits / 1.1-inch rear AMOLED display, 124 x 294
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, Mi 11 Pro and Mi 11 all have a 6.81-inch curved AMOLED display with a 3200 x 1440 pixel resolution for a pixel density of 515ppi. They all offer a 120Hz refresh rate and one billion colours. The Mi 11 and Mi 11 Pro have a maximum brightness of 1500nits, while the Mi 11 Ultra ups this to 1700nits.
The Mi 11 Ultra also has a secondary 1.1-inch display on its rear within the camera housing. This secondary AMOLED display will show notifications, as well as rear camera selfie previews. It has a 294 x 124 pixel resolution and it’s an always on display.
The Mi 11i has a 6.67-inch flat display, so slightly smaller than the Mi 11, Mi 11 Pro and Mi 11 Ultra. It drops the resolution to Full HD+, resulting in a pixel density of 395ppi, but it retains the 120Hz refresh rate. It has a maximum brightness of 1300nits.
The Mi 11 Lite has the smallest display of the five devices being compared here, with a 6.55-inch screen, like the OnePlus 9. It has a Full HD+ display like the Mi 11i, though a sharper pixel density at 401ppi thanks to the smaller size. It drops the refresh rate to 90Hz though and the maximum brightness to 800nits.
All five Mi 11 devices support HDR10+.
Hardware and specs
Mi 11 Lite: Qualcomm SD780G, 6/8GB RAM, 128/256GB storage
Mi 11i: Qualcomm SD888, 8GB RAM, 128/256GB storage
Mi 11: Qualcomm SD888, 8GB RAM, 128/256GB storage
Mi 11 Pro: Qualcomm SD888, 8/12GB RAM, 128/256GB storage
Mi 11 Ultra: Qualcomm SD888, 8/12GB RAM, 256/512GB storage
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, Mi 11 Pro, Mi 11 and Mi 11i all run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset. They all come with 8GB of RAM as a base model, but the Mi 11 Pro and Mi 11 Ultra are both available in 12GB of RAM models too.
The Mi 11i, Mi 11 and Mi 11 Pro all have 128GB as the base storage too, with a 256GB option, while the Mi 11 Ultra has 256GB as a base and 512GB as the second option. All are 5G devices.
The Mi 11 Lite runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 780G chipset with 6GB or 8GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of storage. The model we are comparing in this feature is the 5G handset, though there is also an LTE model of the Mi 11 Lite.
None of the Mi 11 devices have microSD support for storage expansion, except the China model of the Mi 11 Lite.
The Mi 11 Ultra, Mi 11 Pro, Mi 11 and Mi 11i all have dual stereo speakers, while the Mi 11 Lite has dual speakers. None of the models feature a 3.5mm headphone jack and all support 24-bit audio. The Mi 11 Ultra and Mi 11 Pro’s speakers are tuned by Harmon Kardon.
Battery and charging
Mi 11 Lite: 4250mAh, 33W fast charging
Mi 11i: 4520mAh, 33W fast charging
Mi 11: 4600mAh, 55W fast charging, 50W wireless, 10W reverse
Mi 11 Pro: 5000mAh, 67W fast charging, 67W wireless, 10W reverse
Mi 11 Ultra: 5000mAh, 67W fast charging, 67W wireless, 10W reverse
In terms of battery capacity, the Mi 11 Pro and Mi 11 Ultra both have a 5000mAh call under their hoods. They also both support 67W fast wired and wireless charging, along with 10W reverse wireless charging.
The Mi 11 has a slightly smaller 4600mAh battery with 55W fast wired charging, 50W wireless charging and 10W reverse wireless charging.
The Mi 11i has a 4520mAh battery and the Mi 11 Lite has a 4250mAh battery. Both have 33W wired charging, but no support for wireless charging or reverse wireless charging.
Camera
Mi 11 Lite: Triple (64MP main + 8MP ultra wide + 5MP macro), 20MP front
Mi 11i: Triple (108MP main + 8MP ultra wide + 5MP macro), 20MP front
Mi 11: Triple (108MP main + 13MP ultra wide + 5MP macro), 20MP front
Mi 11 Pro: Triple (50MP main + 8MP telephoto + 13MP ultra wide), 20MP front
Mi 11 Ultra: Triple (50MP main + 48MP ultra wide + 48MP telephoto), 20MP front
All five of the Xiaomi Mi 11 devices being compared in this feature have a triple rear camera, but they are all made up of different sensors. They all have a 20-megapixel front camera though.
The Mi 11 Ultra has a 50-megapixel main camera sensor with an aperture f/2.0 and optical image stabilisation (OIS), a 48-megapixel ultra wide sensor with a f/2.2 aperture and 128-degree field of view and a 48-megapixel telephoto sensor with an aperture of f/4.1, OIS and 5x optical zoom.
The Mi 11 Pro has a 50-megapixel main camera sensor with an aperture of f/2.0 and OIS, an 8-megapixel telephoto lens with OIS and 5x optical zoom and a 13-megapixel ultra wide sensor with f/2.4 aperture and a 123-degree field of view.
The Mi 11 has a 108-megapixel main camera sensor with an f/1.9 aperture and OIS, a 13-megapixel ultra wide sensor with an f/2.4 aperture and a 123-degree field of view, and a 5-megapixel macro sensor with an aperture of f/2.4.
The Mi 11i has a 108-megapixel main camera sensor with an aperture of f/1.8, an 8-megapixel ultra wide sensor with an aperture of f/2.2 and a 119-degree field of view and a 5-megapixel macro sensor with a f/2.4 aperture.
Finally, the Mi 11 Lite has a 64-megapixel main camera with an aperture of f/1.8, an 8-megapixel ultra wide sensor with an aperture of f/2.2 and a 5-megapixel macro sensor with an aperture of f/2.4.
Conclusion
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and Mi 11 Pro are similar in terms of specifications, though the Mi 11 Ultra has that second display on the rear, a more capable camera on paper, brighter main display, ceramic design and more storage as an option.
The Xiaomi Mi 11 sits just under the 11 Pro, offering the same display, but a smaller battery capacity, slightly slower charging capabilities and different rear camera makeup. It also doesn’t have the 12GB of RAM model option like the Mi 11 Pro and it isn’t waterproof.
The Xiaomi Mi 11i has a flat and smaller display over the Mi 11, a different camera make up again, a smaller battery and slower charging capablities again, as well as a lack of wireless charging support. It has the same core hardware as the Mi 11 though, as well as an IP53 rating.
The Xiaomi Mi Lite meanwhile is the most affordable in the Mi 11 pack, but it drops its camera capabilities compared to the Mi 11i, offers a smaller battery capacity, but the same charging capabilities as the Mi 11, a lower refresh rate display and a lower RAM model option.
Xiaomi is gunning for the title of best Android phone 2021, and with the Mi 11 Ultra, it might have a pretty strong chance. The handset boasts a 6.8in OLED with a resolution of 1440 x 3200 pixels, and a refresh rate of 120Hz. A high refresh rate means less blur – which is especially handy during fast-moving action scenes or gaming.
It also has a tiny 1.1in AMOLED screen on the back which can show notification alerts. Or you can use it to frame selfies with the main cameras.
The phone boasts a triple camera setup, offering a 50MP main camera, 48MP ultra-wide and 48MP telephoto (5x optical, 120x digital zoom) lens. And on the front? A 20MP selfie snapper.
The internal specs are just as impressive. We’re talking Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 chipset, 12GB of RAM, and a 5000mAh battery that supports 67W wired and wireless charging. The Mi 11 Pro can also juice up your other devices – just place them on the back and let the wireless charging tech do its thing.
Budget a little tighter? Xiaomi also launched a cut-price smartphone called the Xiaomi Mi 11 5G Lite at the same event. This offers a 6.55in AMOLED screen with an FHD+ resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels. Despite being more affordable, it still offers 5G connectivity, and the 90Hz refresh rate is still better than a lot of pricier rivals (iPhones, we’re looking at you).
Camera-wise, it has a 64MP main, 8MP ultra-wide and 5MP telemacro lens (the latter is for up-close pictures). It too has a 20MP front-facer.
It’s the first phone with the Qualcomm 780G processor, and comes with either 6GB or 8GB of RAM. The 4250mAh battery has 22W wired charging.
Both phones should go on sale next month, joining the Mi 11 (which was announced in January but only went on sale recently). We’re still awaiting pricing details.
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