Chinese Tech

The new version of MIUI, Xiaomi's skin for Android, is officially open for development, according to an OEM executive. This announcement was made recently at the Xiaomi MIUI Core Experience Annual Meeting. Therefore, this new OS, MIUI 11, is likely to be installed on new Xiaomi flagships when they are released later this year.

The Snapdragon 675 will likely be the most popular sub-premium SoC this year, as it's one of the select few SoCs that support Sony's 48 MP IMX586 sensor. The chipset made its way over to Geekbench and AnTuTu and managed to outperform the Snapdragon 710, an SoC that logically should be more powerful.

OPPO is capable of producing some streamlined, appealing premium handsets. However, they all have one main drawback as expensive flagships: they lack wireless charging. Now that the OEM has joined the Wireless Power Consortium, this situation may change soon.

A relatively unknown leaker has posted an image of a heretofore unseen, notchless phone, portrayed as lined up against a another that could be the OnePlus 6T. This phone exhibits what looks like the OnePlus Launcher, and, like the '6T', is shown in an unwieldy prototype case. However, this new leak also has some odd discrepancies.

Vivo intends to impress everyone at MWC 2019 with an innovative smartphone design that is codenamed "The Waterdrop." It's still unclear how the handheld will look and work, but the first leaks suggest it will have a fluid design, with rounded corners, glass edges that meld into the body and a display that could be encased in glass.

The Redmi Note 7 was launched yesterday but word on the grapevine claims the company is set to release another phone, but this time with a more impressive camera sensor and SoC.

According to preliminary estimates by Gartner, Lenovo was the world’s largest PC vendor in 2018 in terms of units shipped. The Chinese company was at the top of the pile for the last quarter of the year (4Q18) and beat out HP and Dell for the year overall. However, Lenovo only came third for 4Q18 shipments in the US, behind HP and Dell.

Powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor, the HiSense U30 is a handset with a 6.3-inch O-Infinity display that features a 20 MP selfie shooter and a 48 + 5 MP main camera setup. Now on display at CES, it is scheduled to go on sale in March in China, Russia, and some European markets.

According to the rendered images and 360-degree video by 91mobiles and OnLeaks, the Nokia 8.1 Plus will join the Nova 4, Galaxy A8s, and the other handsets that come with a camera hole in the display to accommodate the selfie shooter. There is also a vertical dual camera setup with a LED flash, as well as a rear-mounted fingerprint reader.

Redmi's CEO, Lei Jun, has indicated that it will release a phone powered by the latest premium Snapdragon chipset. The executive made remarks to this effect when asked if the newly-release Redmi Note 7 is the new Xiaomi sub-brand's flagship on Weibo. Coincidentally, the brand has also announced that it will be making another device with the Sony IMX586 48MP sensor.

A few months after launching the Redmi Note 6 Pro, Xiaomi has now launched the Redmi Note 7, although this new device will carry the Redmi crest instead of a Xiaomi one. The mid-ranger features a Snapdragon 660, a massive 48 MP rear camera, and a Type-C USB port. Price begin at US$150.

Three months after it was released in China, Xiaomi has finally brought the Mi Mix 3 to Europe. The device features a capable dual rear camera setup, an AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 845 and a bunch of interesting specifications. MSRP is €549.

Although the TicWatch E2 was unveiled a few months ago, it still has to reach the market. However, Mobvoi is showing it off at CES next to the TicWatch S2, and both should become available for purchase in the future. Sadly, there are no official launch dates or prices to talk about yet.

The high-end Huawei Mate 20 Pro model with 8 GB of memory and no less than 256 GB of internal storage space is now available in China with two new color choices. The Fragrant Red and Comet Blue Mate 20 Pro units can be acquired from Vmall for CN¥6799 — the equivalent of about US$1,000.

Lenovo has announced the transformable Yoga Mouse with laser presenter. This sleek-looking peripheral has the ability to turn from a V-shaped mouse into a flat laser presenter with just a simple twist of a hinge. Up to 1600 DPI tracking promises accurate mouse movement, and the four-button device weighs in at just 0.14 lbs (63 g).

Lenovo has unveiled the 2-in-1 Smart Tab P10 tablet and Smart Dock. The versatile P10 device offers typical usage scenarios in Tablet Mode, but when it is added to the Smart Dock it switches to Show Mode and incorporates Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant for hands-free interaction. It’s then simple enough to use the smart screen to watch videos or listen to music.

Lenovo’s new Smart Tab M10 tablet with Smart Dock has been revealed. The 10.1-inch tablet comes with a Smart Dock and Amazon Alexa to beef up its potential usage scenarios. Users can easily integrate the device from the Chinese manufacturer into their smart home and use it to help with day-to-day tasks around the house or simply enjoy its Smart Screen ability.

Lenovo has introduced a new device to its Smart Home family: The Lenovo Smart Clock. According to the Chinese manufacturer, the Smart Clock can learn the sleeping habits of users and comes with Google Assistant, so it should offer quite a lot more features than just telling the time and waking you up in the morning.

MediaTek has unveiled its new silicon for connectivity at CES 2019. This chipset is compatible with next-generation WiFi (Wi-Fi 6, or 802.11ax) and also delivers Bluetooth access points. It supports 2x2, 4x4 and multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO). It is also flexible enough to adapt to any changes in the new WiFi standard before it becomes official later this year.

Intel and Alibaba are now working together on AI-driven athlete tracking solutions for the Olympic Games 2020 and beyond. The technology uses both existing and upcoming Intel hardware and the Alibaba Cloud infrastructure and will improve both the training process and the audience experience during the actual events.

Meizu's CEO, Jack Wong, has teased the pending launch of a new device, the Meizu Note 9. The Note 9 will be powered by the yet unreleased Snapdragon 6150—likely to be called the Snapdragon 655—and will feature a 48 MP camera sensor.

Huawei has released Android Pie kernel sources for its devices running on the Kirin 970 and Kirin 980 SoCs. This will enable community developers to work on the devices more effectively, although the lack of official bootloader support makes the whole thing almost pointless.

Lenovo aims to become more competitive in the mobile gaming market with the Legion Y740, the company's latest flagship gaming laptop. The Y740 comes in two sizes, a 15-inch and a 17-inch model. Both variants sport Intel's 8th generation H-series CPUs, up to 32 GB of DDR4 RAM, and up to a 512 GB PCIe SSD / 512 GB SATA SSD or 2 TB HDD combo. The 15-inch model will come with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q, while the 17-inch model gets the powerful GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q. The Legion Y740 is expected to be available next month for $1750 (15-inch) or $1980 (17-inch).

Lenovo's latest gaming monitors are beasts that boast high refresh rates. The Legion Y44w is a massive 43.6-inch Ultrawide (3840x1200, 32:10) FreeSync monitor with a 144 Hz refresh rate. The Legion Y27gq is a 27-inch QHD (2560x1440, 16:9) G-Sync display with a blazing fast 240 Hz refresh rate.

The 13.3-inch laptop is 1.6 mm thinner than the 2018 MacBook Air and has a higher 88 percent screen-to-body ratio. Its Whiskey Lake-U options should provide a significant boost in CPU performance over the passively-cooled Amber Lake-Y processor in the Apple equivalent. The MateBook 13 launches later this month for a starting price of $999 USD.

The tablet will have a suite of "Kid's Corner" applications designed to enhance eye safety and control usage time. Harman Kardon quad speakers, EMUI 8.0 with Oreo, 32 GB of storage, MicroSD slot, and WACOM-compatible touchscreen round up the list of features.

Announced earlier today, the Huawei Kunpeng 920 is a new processor for big data, distributed storage, and ARM-native application scenarios. According to its creators, the Kunpeng 920 is the industry's most powerful Advanced RISC Machine (ARM)-based processor. Its launch date is still unknown for now.

The 0.48 percent stake acquisition comes less than a month after Xiaomi and the world's third-largest LCD TV manufacturer, TCL, entered a strategic partnership that involves joint efforts in many fields. The agreement focuses on the development of various hardware parts and the integration of TCL devices into Xiaomi's ecosystem of IoT and smart home devices.

Clevo is showcasing a wide variety of gaming laptop models powered by Nvidia's freshly announced RTX 2000-series mobility GPUs. There are models that come with Intel's gen 9 and gen 8 desktop-grade CPUs and all the new mobility GPUs from Nvidia are featured, including the Max-Q variants that are integrated in world's first 16.1-inch slim gaming models.

New renders of Huawei's upcoimg P30 flagship have surfaced, revealing a device with a triple rear camera setup, a glass back with a gradient finish, a circular notch, and no visible fingerprint reader. Oh, and there's a headphone jack present too.

The Honor V20 was released in China a few weeks ago. The device will be making its way to the global market on January 22 as the Honor View 20, and a new report reveals that it will also come with a shocking increase in MSRP for the European market.

Traces of a new Android One device have been discovered in Xiaomi's MIUI 10 firmware. The phone could be the Mi A3—or something completely unexpected. It will apparently also have support for NFC, which would make it the first Xiaomi Android One phone to do so.

An official Huawei Twitter account (@Huawei) has been caught sending its celebratory New Year's message from an iPhone. It was quickly picked up by the vlogger MKBHD on his own Twitter feed. A Reuters report claims that the employees responsible for this mishap had been fined and sanctioned by the company, as it "damaged the Huawei brand".

The Xiaomi Mi 9 is likely to be the OEM's 2019 flagship. Earlier leaks indicated that it will incorporate a triple-camera set-up, as well as the Snapdragon 855. Gizchina claims to have access to an exclusive 'report' that shares more details on the Mi 9. They include an in-display fingerprint sensor, a waterdrop notch and a starting RAM SKU of 6GB.

The Moto Z3 Play was something of a disappointing release, and Motorola will be hoping to spice things up a bit with the Z4 Play this year. Renders of the device have now surfaced, teasing a waterdrop notch and, possibly, an under-display fingerprint reader.

Yesterday, Xiaomi announced that its Redmi series of phones would no longer just be a line of phones and will now be a sub-brand of its own, a move that mirrors the relationship between Huawei and Honor, or OPPO and Realme.

The 14.1-inch LapBook Pro will have bezels just 5.8 mm thick, 64 GB of soldered eMMC 5.1 storage, and an empty M.2 slot for expansion. Chuwi has also managed to include the webcam along the top edge of the screen unlike on the Huawei.

A new video recently released on Evan Blass’ Twitter account appears to show a foldable device, allegedly manufactured by Xiaomi, in action. The well-known tipster isn’t himself sure of the video’s veracity, but it has been garnering a considerable amount of comments from excited viewers. Fake or not, it certainly offers an enticing glimpse into one of 2019’s hottest technologies.

This does not happen too often, but December 2018 brought an all-Chinese roster for the best performing Android handhelds. ZTE's Nubia Red Magic Mars and Nubia X managed to place first and 10th, respectively. Huawei showed a solid presence with five models and proved it really is the second largest phone-maker after Samsung. Xiaomi and OnePlus got pushed to the lower half this time.

Press renders of the Honor 8A smartphone have been released. The images show the device to have a central waterdrop notch on the front accompanied by a bezel at the bottom with the maker’s name emblazoned on it. The smartphone’s rear shows a single 13 MP camera with a flash beneath it, and there is another “Honor” logo at the bottom.

The Kirin 710-powered Huawei P Smart 2019 features a 6.21-inch display with a pearl-shaped notch and promises to deliver "a superior smartphone experience at an accessible price point" starting next week. The United Kingdom will be the first country to receive it, but other markets should follow in the months to come.

The Pocophone F2 may be the second device to come from the popular Xiaomi brand POCO. A new concept illustration for this smartphone suggests that it may upgrade to a newer, more waterdrop-like notch rather than the larger, iPhone-esque one of last year. It seems that this device has also made it onto Geekbench; according to these listings, it will stick with the Snapdragon 845 of yesteryear.

The Huawei P20 Pro started the triple rear camera revolution last year, and the Mate 20 Pro all but perfected it. Word on the grapevine claims the upcoming P30 Pro will feature four rear cameras, and Huawei could go one step further with the Mate 30 Pro by equipping it with a penta-lens setup.

The Chinese consumer electronics company Oppo has applied for a trademark for “Limn” with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). The application was made at the end of December and comes under the Nice classification number 9, which includes computers, tablets, and smartphones. There has been some speculation that Oppo may be planning on releasing a foldable tablet.

Apple retained a majority in the premium smartphone market in the third quarter of 2018, as iPhones made up 47% of all phones sold in it. Samsung achieved second place in this arena, with 22% of the market share. On the other hand, the growth of this market was driven by increased brand diversity; for example, Huawei captured a share of over 10% for the first time this year.

Motorola has officially confirmed the start of the Android Pie update rollout to its Moto G6 Plus mid-ranger. There’s no word on when the cheaper G6 phones, the G6 and G6 Play, will receive their own updates, though.

Royole is an OEM whose main claim to fame is that it released the first ever flexible smartphone. It is bringing this product to CES, alongside others that, as the company claims, include electronics-enhanced clothing, a "smart writing pad" and more flexible displays. Royole asserts that the latter are ready for production.

The second-generation Vivo Nex was received with a distinct amount of interest, particularly due to the way in which its dual-screen design addressed the need to use its single compound camera module for selfies. Now, a new TENAA page for the OEM suggests that a version of the phone with the mid-tier Snapdragon 710 processor is on the way.

Competition in the smartphone industry has led to sketchy advertising practices, especially in China where such shenanigans are almost encouraged. Fake camera samples, technically correct claims, and a circus of intentional crookery.