Chinese Tech

Despite winning a victory against Apple earlier this week, Qualcomm is continuing to pressure the iPhone manufacturer in China. Qualcomm is petitioning Chinese courts to expand the ban of iPhone sales to include the iPhone XR, Xs, and Xs Max. However, Apple is claiming that these devices should not be included in the initial ban as they run iOS 12. Chinese courts have yet to make a decision.

The Huawei Nova 4 is set to be released on December 17. However, it now seems as though we may already know everything there is to know about the phone. This apparently now includes the device's color options.

Initially thought to be an answer for Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855, Samsung's Exynos 9820 or Huawei's Kirin 980, the Helio P90 seems to be aimed at premium mid-to-high-end phones. It still uses the 12 nm manufacturing process, so it cannot really compete with the latest high-end SoCs, but it does come with a more powerful GPU and an impressive APU 2.0 A.I. architecture that supports Google Lens and ARCore applications.

New leaks suggest that Huawei is to release its own smart TV product, and that it may be here as early as the first half of 2019. This is based on claims that the company has filed a patent for a "Huawei AI Window". The rumor may make sense, as more and more traditional smartphone OEMs are moving into this new market.

Prior to the release of its 2018 flagship, OnePlus had publicly committed to bringing Pie to its 2016 and 2017 phones. This week, the company partially delivered on this promise, releasing a new beta of its OyxgenOS software based on the newest version of Android for the 5 and 5T. The beta also includes the new OnePlus UI for Pie.

OnePlus launched the OnePlus 6T a few months and, for the first time ever, sold the device under the umbrella of a US carrier. That move has apparently paid off in style, with the company confirming that the OnePlus 6T has outsold the OnePlus 6 by 249% in the US.

Huawei has announced the launch of its new budget Enjoy 9. The phone will sport dual rear cameras, a Snapdragon 450, and a big 4000 mAh battery. A fingerprint reader is missing, however, and there may just be better value options on the market.

Xiaomi has showcased the fact that 5G is for IoT devices too. This was done via a Tweet by a company spokesperson, containing a video showing how quickly the 5G-enabled variant of the Mi Mix 3 could relay commands to a connected lamp. Therefore, 5G may be an exciting prospect for smart-home fans too.

Gizchina claims to have unearthed a slide showing details on the specs of the upcoming Huawei 'punch-hole' camera pioneer device, the Nova 4. This slide appears to clearly indicate that this phone will have two separate variants, one of which will have a novel 48MP sensor in its triple-rear-camera setup and one that will not. This slide also suggests that the Nova 4 will ship with the Kirin 970, not the 980.

Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer, Meng Wanzhou, has been granted bail at a hearing in a court in Canada on Tuesday (December 11). The executive’s bail has been set at CA$10 million (~US$7.5 million) and she has had to give up her Chinese and Hong Kong passports. In a possible act of retaliation, Chinese officials have detained a Canadian citizen.

Supermicro has published a letter to its customers to explicitly state that no evidence of tampering was discovered in its hardware during a recent thorough internal review. An article from Bloomberg claimed that Supermicro products had been compromised by Chinese spy chips, which had then affected servers used by companies like Amazon and Apple.

A phone that may have been the Vivo Nex 2 - as this phone has been alleged to come with 10GB in RAM and the Snapdragon (SD) 845 appeared on Geekbench recently. However, another device from the same company with a completely different model number has surfaced on this same benchmark site. Oddly, this 'new Vivo' also has the SD 845 and 10GB RAM.

Honor recently unveiled a new feature to address slow connections in situations of overloaded or throttled public WiFi in its newer smartphones. This adaptation, known as Link Turbo, is described as capable of delivering consistent data-transfer speeds regardless of how busy a certain wireless service is. In practice, it appears it may be a different or improved form of aggressive hand-over to LTE in a phone's OS.

OnePlus unveiled its special McLaren edition of the 6T today in the UK. This version of the OEM's current flagship comes with 10GB of RAM and improved fast charging. The McLaren Edition will become available in two days and cost US$699.

Huawei is set to unveil its new premium phone, the Honor V20, on December 26. The device will feature a single rear camera, albeit a 48 MP one.

Xiaomi spokesperson Lin Bin recently teased a new Xiaomi phone featuring a 48 MP camera. Initial reports claimed it could be a flagship of sorts but new information shows that is rather unlikely, as the device is said to be powered by the new mid-range Snapdragon 675.

Get the Asus Zenfone 3 Zoom for just $150 USD or the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite for $260 USD by the end of the month. The Christmas sale includes some of the cheapest imported smartphones and tablets online. As usual, be sure to check compatible network bands before committing to a purchase as oversea returns would likely be slow.

Xiaomi is now said to be developing a new smart speaker soon. The main difference between this one and the OEM's existing line-up of such products is that this one will have both AI and a touchscreen. This rumor is derived from a new registration with Bluetooth SIG for a Xiaomi product with all the specifications necessary for the two attributes.

The pop-up camera module was one of 2018's most innovative alternatives to the smartphone notch. Elephone is developing a phone that elaborates on Vivo's original concept somewhat by adding a dual camera to the mechanism. This device, the PX, is available on Indiegogo for about US$249 at present.

The Snapdragon 855 was unveiled a few days ago, and one of the biggest talking points was its 5G modem. Most companies will release 5G phones in 2019 and OnePlus is billed to be among the first, although the device could very well come with an MSRP in the region of US$800.

The Xiaomi Mi A2 received the Android Pie beta last month and got the stable update just about a week later. The last-gen Mi A1 has now received its Pie beta, and there's a chance it gets the final, stable update before the year runs out.

Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft have all suffered on the stock market today amid growing concerns over US-China trade relations. While some investors have been selling stock to reduce the chance of risk, others have been nervously watching recent events such as the trade talks between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping and the arrest of a high-ranking Huawei executive.

Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer, Meng Wanzhou, has appeared in court in Canada today. The high-level executive was at the Supreme Court of British Columbia for her bail hearing where she listened to the reasons behind her recent arrest. American officials want Meng to be extradited to the US to face charges of offenses relating to fraud.

Although he did not confirm the name of the handset — which might be the Xiaomi Mi 9 — Lin Bin has recently shown a teaser of a 48 MP camera phone. If no other Chinese brand that often goes for the "first one to release" crown — such as Oppo or VIVO — launches such a handset first, the Xiaomi Mi 9 could become the first 48 MP handset.

Gorilla Glass, which has become a nearly indispensable component of fullscreen phones everywhere, is most likely to become available in a form that can protect flexible displays for phones. However, Corning has indicated that it may not be there by the time the first generation of these devices are ready for production.

The View 20, a Honor device likely to be shipped with the Kirin 980, is to be launched at an event in Paris on January 20, 2019. This is according to a leaked teaser image GizChina claims to have found, in addition to internal Huawei code that may pertain to the device. This material also hints at a punch-hole selfie cam for the View 20.

A spokesperson for the Canadian Department of Justice has confirmed the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the current Chief Financial Officer and Deputy Chairwoman of Huawei Technologies. It’s believed Meng was detained by Canadian authorities for possible extradition to the US. Meng Wanzhou, also known as Sabrina Meng, is the daughter of Huawei’s founder and president, Ren Zhengfei.

POCO has released a new MIUI 10 beta for its popular flagship, the F1. It adds "super low light mode" as well as the ability to capture slow-motion videos at 960 frames per second. These new features may make the super-affordable Snapdragon 845 phone even more popular.

The OnePlus 6 and 6T grabbed the ninth and sixth place in the top 10 in terms of Antutu benchmarks for November. However, the Kirin 980 allowed Huawei to bag all top 3 rankings, and the Honor Magic 2 to come in fourth. The rest of this list was made up by Snapdragon 845-powered devices.

The Moto G7 will be bang right in the middle of the next-gen Moto G lineup. The device is expected to feature a 6.24-inch display with a teardrop notch, dual rear cameras, and a 3000 mAh battery.

Lenovo is planning on launching its Z5s smartphone in China on December 6, and it could end up being the first smartphone on the market to have a punch-hole design for the selfie camera. The Z5s is expected to feature a rear-facing triple camera setup while the front-facing camera is located in the top center. Both Samsung and Huawei are expected to release products with similar design features very soon.

Huawei has posted a promotional image on the company’s Weibo page to announce the release date in China for the Nova 4 smartphone: December 17. The successor of the Nova 3 device comes with the latest alternative to the notch/teardrop solutions. The Huawei Nova 4 will feature a punch-hole cut-out, with the selfie camera located in the top left-hand corner.

To say the Vivo Nex was a unique device would be an understatement. It was the first smartphone to include a motorized front camera module, thus saving screen real estate. Nevertheless, the OEM has announced that 2 million units of the Nex have been sold since its release in June 2018.

A new report on the wearables market shows that Xiaomi was the single biggest company in this space in the third quarter of 2018, keeping Apple as the runner-up in terms of market share. The market also grew by 21.7% in general compared to last year. This was attributed to the release of new products and increased uptake in the Asia-Pacific region.

New details about the Vivo NEX 2 have emerged online. Vivo has now updated its website with marketing material hinting at what features the device may have. The company will supposedly unveil its latest NEX smartphone on December 11.

The most affordable slate by Barnes & Noble has just received a refresh without jumping over the US$50 sweet spot. Its specs now include 16 GB of storage space, a "vivid and bright" 7-inch IPS display, as well as up to 7 hours of battery life while reading, watching videos, and browsing the web.

Honor's current-gen mainstream premium phones are the Honor V10 and Honor 10. The successors to the duo are expected to be the Honor V20 and Honor 11, but while the former should be out by now, it would appear that it is still in development.

New data from market research company Gartner depicts a strong third quarter 2018 for Chinese manufacturers Huawei and Xiaomi. Both companies managed to increase their global smartphone market share from 3Q17, whilst the big hitters Apple and Samsung have experienced flat growth and considerably diminished market share, respectively. Overall worldwide smartphone sales have risen by 1.4%.

OPPO has announced that it has been successful in a test involving using WeChat for a video call over 5G. It was made using a phone customized with 5G-compatible hardware. This breakthrough puts the Chinese OEM one step closer to commercializing hardware based on the new radio standard.

A new report from a Korean media outlet details Huawei's plans to introduce an in-house OS for its mobile devices. Should this prospect be realized, the Chinese company may drop its Android skin (EMUI) for completely separate software along the lines of Tizen or, well...iOS. This suggests that Huawei wants to build its own ecosystem for the use of its hardware.

Recently, the news of a theft of Samsung tech secrets by a supplier to the company has come to light. As a result, more than one Chinese company may have gotten its hands on the ability to make folding screens of its own. Samsung now estimates that the damage done to its revenues as a result could easily exceed US$5 billion dollars.

MediaTek has been conservative with its SoC releases of recent but could be set to release something truly competitive in the sub-premium market in the near future, with reports of a looming Helio P90 launch surfacing.

Huawei has announced that full-screen gesture controls shown on its Mate 20 Pro — and in beta on the Mate 10 Pro — are now coming to the Huawei P20 and Huawei P20 Pro with the full release of EMUI 9.0 in China.

The first noticeable result of the new strategic partnership that involves Xiaomi and IKEA will come forward next month when IKEA's line of smart lighting products will be connected to the IoT platform of the Chinese company. Obviously, more IKEA smart home products should get the Xiaomi treatment in 2019.

MediaTek started out as a provider of mobile SoCs for emerging Chinese smartphone makers. Up until now, the Taiwanese company presented solid entry-level and mid-range solutions, but, with the upcoming Helio P90, MediaTek is aiming to compete with the best SoCs from Qualcomm, Apple and Samsung. The Helio P90 SoC was recently teased as a "powerful" and "efficient" chip with "groundbreaking AI."

The world's first pop-up-camera phone, the Vivo Nex, is set to launch in Europe soon. According to a new report, it may cost as much as €849 (about US$967) in this region. On the other hand, as this is mainly based on rumor so far, this story should be treated at least a little skeptically at this point.

Huawei, in partnership with the New Zealand telecommunications company Spark, has had its proposal to provide 5G hardware for the country blocked. This action was taken by the NZ Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). The body stresses that this decision was not specifically related to any possible connection between Huawei and the Chinese government.

Foldable phones will surely be one of next year's highlights for revolutionary tech. Most of the big names have already scheduled showcasing events for their foldable phones. Samsung and LG will present their models at CES in January, while Chinese manufacturers like Huawei and, more recently, Oppo are expected to reveal their handsets at MWC 2019 in February.

Advertised as a "Salute to Speed," the upcoming OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition will be unveiled on December 11, at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking. This limited edition handset is expected to be the first OnePlus device to feature 10 GB of memory and 256 GB of internal storage space.