Chinese Tech

The Razer Phone 2 might be launching sometime in December 2018 according to Razer Vice President Chen Xiaoping who revealed this information during the just concluded ChinaJoy entertainment expo. Given the launch timeframe, it is being speculated that the Razer Phone 2 might feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC.

Recently AMD designed an SoC for ZhongShan Subor's new console the Z+. While previous console SoCs used Jaguar CPU cores which were based on AMD's previous generation of architectures and mid range Polaris GPU cores, this new SoC uses Zen and Vega cores and is the latest console SoC from AMD. Now more details are available about the console and the processor itself.

The Mi Mix 3 is rumored to get a major display upgrade with Samsung's OLED screens instead of the usual IPS LCDs. The thin bezels suggest the existence of a pop-up selfie cam, while the rear would be getting an impressive tri-camera setup. The phone will also be among the first to integrate wireless quick charging and it will cost ~US$569.

The Pocophone F1 has not yet been officially unveiled, but it looks like the phone is already available on the Romanian site PC Garage. For only ~US$487 users can now get a Snapdragon 845 handheld with 6 GB RAM and 64 GB storage, a notched 5.99-inch 1080+ IPS screen, dual 12 MP + 5 MP rear camera setup, 20 MP selfie shooter and a generous 4,000 mAh battery with quick charge features.

Xiaomi's Director of Product Marketing, Zhi Zhiyuan, has confirmed that the company has no plans of releasing an Mi Max 3 Pro. Previous word claimed that the Pro variant of the newly launched Mi Max 3 would be powered by a Snapdragon 710.

Huawei has now launched its latest device in India. The Honor Play is notable for being the cheapest device to be released with Huawei's flagship Kirin 970 SoC.

It is likely that at least one of the next devices to be released by Oppo will be of the R17 line of phones. A Chinese certification may have given more weight to this rumor, and also indicates how the front panel of such phones will look. It will apparently include a display notch, albeit a minimal one.

The Xiaomi Pocophone F1 has made its way to the AnTuTu benchmark posting an impressive score of 285302. This is higher than most Snapdragon 845-based flagships and could likely be the result of the liquid cooling mechanism that helps minimize throttling due to heat.

A couple of B2B sites have started listing Lenovo laptops that feature the upcoming Intel 'Whiskey Lake-U' CPUs. The notebooks include the Lenovo s730 and IdeaPad 730S powered by the Intel Core i5-8265U and the Lenovo Yoga 730 powered by the Intel Core i7-8565U. Not much information is available about these notebooks right now but we can expect them to be officially announced during IFA 2018.

A recent smartphone sales report for the first half of 2018 by Sigmaintell Consulting shows that Huawei shipped more than 25 million handsets (out of a 100 million total) with a notched display during the given period, followed by Apple with over 20 million units. The third position goes to Chinese brand OPPO.

Even though the first custom AIB models for the next gen Nvidia GeForce GTX GPUs are supposed to be announced in early September, MAXSUN - a relatively new Nvidia AIB partner - teased what seems to be like a next generation flagship card that comes with triple-fan custom cooling, RGB lighting and dual slot design.

OnePlus overtook Samsung and Apple to become the biggest smartphone brand in India's premium smartphone segment, with the OnePlus accounting for 30% of sales of premium devices in Q2.

Thanks to record-breaking P20/Pro smartphone sales and additional support from the secondary Honor brand, Huawei snagged Apple's second place for most handhelds sold in Q2 2018. The Chinese company also aims to break into the U.S. market, a move that could pose some serious problems for Samsung's leading position.

With its unique build and features, the Oppo Find X is a potential wave of the future. For example, it features a unique motorized pop-up camera However, it also rivals the iPhone X in terms of cost. Can its build quality justify its price tag?

The 3 and 3T were the OnePlus flagships two years ago. Despite this, their manufacturer appears to have committed to update them to the latest version of Android. The phones currently run stock Oxygen OS (OOS) based on Oreo 8.0.

The Moto Z3 Play will feature the Snapdragon 660 SoC with the usual complement of 4/6 GB RAM and 64/128 GB storage, plus it also gets a bigger 3,300 mAh battery. Although it gets a slightly smaller 4,850 mAh battery, the Moto E3 Plus will get a Snapdragon 430 octa-core SoC coupled with 3/4/6 GB RAM and 32/64/128 GB storage, respectively.

A few OnePlus 6 handsets are reportedly suffering from screen flickering issues when the adaptive brightness feature is enabled. The handset seems to flicker between two brightness levels when the brightness goes high. OnePlus is yet to acknowledge and provide a fix for the issue.

The 13.3-inch laptop will fit right in between the 12.3-inch LapBook and 14.1-inch LapBook Air. The inexpensive laptop will rely on the 6 W Celeron N4100 for yet another low-power lightweight offering from the Chinese manufacturer. Let's hope that construction quality will be better this time around.

Sources in the industry are saying that Huawei is looking to beat Samsung in the run up to launching the first foldable smartphone. The flexible OLED panels for this device will be made by BOE and Huawei is expected to launch such phones in limited quantities much before Samsung in early 2019.

The Xiaomi Pocophone F1 has surfaced in the Bluetooth SIG certification that reveals a few interesting facts about the smartphone. The Pocophone F1 will be powered by a liquid-cooled Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC and will come with at least 6 GB of RAM along with a dual camera setup. The Pocophone F1 is touted to be the cheapest smartphone that will sport the Snapdragon 845 and will first hit Europe followed by India.

Meizu's upcoming Meizu 16 flagship has made its way over to popular benchmark platform AnTuTu, and recorded some pretty impressive numbers in the process.

The Honor Note 10 has, over the past week, made appearances on certification websites and retail outlets, giving us a clearer idea of what we'll be getting from Huawei's next premium device.

The Meizu 16 will feature a 6-inch screen, a Snapdragon 710 SoC and a 2,950 mAh battery, while the 16 Plus model will come with a 6.5-inch screen, a Snapdragon 845 SoC and a 3,570 mAh battery. Both models get thin side-bezels, no notch, dual rear camera setup and curved glass backs. The official launch date is scheduled for August 8.

Honor yesterday announced the arrival of the Honor 9N for the Indian market. The midrange handset will be exclusive to Flipkart and is essentially identical to the Honor 9i. Shipments start from July 31 with prices starting from ₹11,999 (US$174).

According to Chinese site ITHome, the Kirin 980 will integrate a quad ARM Cortex-A77 core cluster clocked at 2.8 GHz and one ARM Cortex-A55 core cluster. The GPU will be developed by HiSilicon and it is said to be 50%faster than the Adreno 630. The next gen SoC will not support 5G communications, but it will get an updated NPU for AI applications.

Xiaomi has made the Mi A2 and Mi A2 Lite official at a Madrid event today. The European launch of the Mi A2 signals the arrival of the Chinese smartphone maker on the global arena and the Mi A2 looks to build upon the success of its predecessor. These new Android One smartphones will soon launch in 40 markets worldwide.

Although the Chinese brand might not hit its planned sales target of 200 million units for the entire year, reaching the 100 million units milestone is also quite impressive. Compared to 7 years ago, Huawei managed to increase its smartphone sales by no less than 51 times.

The Chinese company reports that it should sell 200 million handsets by the end of 2018, which would bring it fairly close to Apple's target. At this rate, Huawei is expecting to overtake Apple in global sales at some point in 2019. The US and Indian markets should help Huawei further their plans in this respect, although the US embargoes could hinder this development.

The latest financial report coming from TSMC reveals that the Taiwanese company experienced some revenue problems in the first half of 2018 due to the crypto market depreciation, but the foundries are expecting substantial profits in the second half over great demand for next gen GPUs and mobile chips.

After numerous leaks and teasers, the Xiaomi Mi Max 3 is finally here. Xiaomi's new phablet inherits a lot of specifications from the Redmi Note 5 including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC and dual cameras but the standout features of the Mi Max 3 are the 6.9-inch FHD+ 18:9 display and its 5,500 mAh battery.

Taiwanese SoC maker MediaTek is expanding the 12 nm Helio SoC family with the A-series that is dedicated to entry-level devices. The Helio A22 SoC is already featured in the Xiaomi Redmi 6A and comes with four ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 2.0 GHz. Most important features are the LPDDR3/4X support, LTE cat 7/13 capabilities, and advanced AI application compatibility.

The OnePlus 6 made its way over to DxOMark yesterday and achieved scores placing it on par with traditional juggernauts like the iPhone X, Google Pixel 2, and Huawei Mate Pro. Of course, it's a lot more impressive when you consider the fact that the OnePlus 6 is a current-gen device and costs significantly less than its peers.

More details of Huawei’s upcoming flagship, the Mate 20, have surfaced. According to the reports, the device will feature OLED panels made by Chinese company BOE, and not Samsung as previously touted. It could also ship with five cameras.

Some Xiaomi fans have always had a feeling that the Mi 8 Explorer was nothing but a concept showpiece by Xiaomi. They may be proven wrong soon, though, with reports claiming that the device could go on sale on July 24.

The teaser of the upcoming rebranded Mi 6X does not reveal much, but the essentials are supposed to be the same as in the case of the very popular Mi A1 when compared to the Mi 5X. Basically, the Mi A2 will have the same specs as the Mi 6X but will run stock Android instead of using Xiaomi's MIUI interface.

Integrating a 6.9-inch LCD screen and a 5,500 mAh battery, Xiaomi's Mi Mix 3 looks like a decent upgrade over the Max 2 version. The Chinese phablet will be powered by a Snapdragon 636 SoC coupled with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage, but there will also be versions with 3/6 GB RAM and 32/128 GB storage, respectively.

ZTE has paid off the huge US$1.4 billion fine issued by the US government over a month ago. This means that the Chinese company is finally back in business and can now negotiate deals with US companies.

According to Honor, three million units of the Honor 10 have been shipped. The device was released in the last week of April, so this is an impressive figure—one that comes amidst a plethora of other successes recorded by the company.

The XPC SH370R6 supports Coffee Lake CPUs up to i7-8700K with max 95 W TDP, plus there's enough room for up to 64 GB of DDR4-2666 RAM, 4 SATA bays and even a PCIe 3.0 16x slot for discrete GPUs. While it is not the most compact barebone out there, the new XPC SH370R6 can easily replace the usual desktop PCs or even more cumbersome workstations.

Xiaomi's upcoming Android One Mi A2 was listed on a Polish retail website yesterday alongside a smaller Lite variant. The listings give us a better idea of what to expect from the devices, with the A2 Lite looking to be a rebranded Redmi 6 Pro.

Purported live images of the upcoming Honor Note 10 have surfaced, showing a device with a gigantic screen and, thankfully, no notch. The device could be launched sometime towards the end of the month.

Although it also has a notched display, the same Kirin 970 processor and the dual-camera setup present in the Honor 10, the upcoming Huawei Nova 3 sports a larger screen and a rear-mounted fingerprint reader. According to the latest leaks, this 6.3-inch phablet will launch in China on July 18.

A comparison of various different quick charge technologies has shown that Huawei SuperCharge has the highest charge rate, along with OnePlus Dash Charge. Meanwhile, the non-OEM specific technologies trail behind, as does Apple Fast Charge.

According to a recent trademark filing with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, the next-gen Huawei Mate device will be the Mate 20. This is still a bit far from an official confirmation, but it definitely minimizes the chances to see the Mate 11 showing up first, as some rumors have been suggesting.

The Vivo Nex flagship, which is widely known for its fullscreen display design with a pop-up selfie camera and an in-display fingerprint reader, is expected to hit Russia, Malaysia, Taiwan, India, and Hong Kong by the end of the month. Sadly, its availability for other markets has not been confirmed yet.

The yet to be announced OPPO A3s seems to be a re-branded OPPO A5 and features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB internal storage, a dual camera setup on the back, as well as a massive 6.2-inch notched display. Sadly, the screen resolution is very low for this size — only 1,280 x 720 pixels.

The upcoming Xiaomi POCOPHONE landed at FCC with two variants, both featuring 6 GB of memory. However, one of them sports 64 GB of internal storage space, while the other offers 128 GB. The draft of the handset's back also reveals a vertical dual camera setup. Sadly, there is not much else to talk about yet.

AnTuTu's list of the best-performing handheld devices updated for June shows a clear Chinese dominance. Of the ten featured devices, only three are non-Chinese (Samsung Galaxy S9+/S9 and Sony Xperia XZ2). Topping the chart is Xiaomi's Black Shark gaming smartphone, while the last position is occupied by another gaming smartphone - the Nubia Red Magic.

Xiaomi’s growth has been meteoric. The company made advances into Europe last year and is set to pay the US a visit in 2019, if company Vice President Wang Xiang’s words are anything to go by.

A post of Xiaomi’s MIUI forums has revealed what devices will receive the MIUI 10 update. Of course, only a select few of those devices will receive a MIUI 10 based on Android Oreo.