Chinese Tech

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OPPO is now rumored to have yet more new Reno-series Android smartphones to launch before the end of 2022. The allegedly upcoming 9 and 9 Pro are tipped to launch with processors from Qualcomm and MediaTek respectively that can be described as tried-and-tested rather than brand new. They are also expected to land with main cameras that are, while high-res, also nothing new to the market.

The iQOO Neo7 has yet to launch; however, it is said to do so as a new Android smartphone with a top-end MediaTek Dimensity 9000-series SoC, fast charging and a 120Hz display. Now, it has allegedly sneaked its way into a Chinese celebrity's hands ahead of its debut. Should a resulting snap of the device prove genuine, it has a rear camera hump that could have been ported directly from a Vivo X80-series flagship.

A new camera test published earlier today doesn't test the actual photographic chops of the most high-profile flagship phones on the market. Instead, it focuses on shutter lag—an important camera quality, especially for those who photograph dynamic subjects like pets.

The new Roma laptops with RISC-V technology are powered by an Alibaba T-Head TH1520 quad-core SoC with integrated NPU and Imagination Technologies GPU. Prices start at US$1499 and Alibaba is offering three distinct packages that include additional gifts like wireless controllers, headphones, speakers and smartwatches.

The Poco X4 Pro was widely considered to be something of a disappointment in part due to the unimpressive Snapdragon 695 it was equipped with. According to new information, the Poco X5 is on the way—and it could arrive with a much more powerful chipset.

AnTuTu has now released its performance rankings for the month of September. The Asus ROG Phone 6D leads the pack, in no small part thanks to the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 Plus and its class-leading CPU performance.

The Reno8 series are Android smartphones from OPPO that boosted their mid-range appeal with extra-fast SuperVOOC 80W charging. Their 2023 successors, however, are now thought to drop the prospect of upholding or improving on this reputation by going with a trend recently set by Huawei and Xiaomi instead. It involves new charging tech that, while potentially more compatible across brands, is much slower than anything OPPO has achieved alone as of late.

iQOO is Vivo's performance-focused sub-brand of Android smartphones, and is as such now expected to go all-out for the most speed and power in 2023. A new tip from an eminent leaker now hints at the very latest display technology from Samsung in the upcoming premium devices, which are also now believed to start with at amount of RAM normally seen in only the highest end of flagship SKUs.

Vivo has now acknowledged rumors of a launch for an even higher-end Plus version of its flagship-grade X80 Pro Android smartphone - however, it has also revealed that those plans have just been cancelled. The OEM has reportedly decided to redirect its efforts to a debut for next-gen X90-series devices instead, a Pro+ model included.

Xiaomi has now officially confirmed a date for its next major global launch event. The company will debut a host of devices on October 4, with the Xiaomi 12T series expected to be the stars of the show—other potential debutants including the Redmi Pad and Xiaomi Smart Band 7 Pro.

Two years and over one million units sold since its introduction, the MediaTek Helio G90-powered S96 Pro gets an update that keeps the overall design but improves the essentials. Doogee's S96 GT sports a MediaTek Helio G95, runs Android 12 out of the box, and is set to hit the market next month.

Xiaomi has claimed that it can have its first electric car on the market by 2024. Now, one of its latest patents hint at the latest step in achieving this goal. The OEM's dedicated EV division has invented what could be its answer to systems such as Tesla's Supercharger facilities.

Although Xiaomi still has to confirm it, the second iteration of its TV box should come out soon as it recently surfaced on the FCC certification website. The model number is MDZ-28-AA and its tech sheet includes 4K HDR video rendering, Bluetooth (BR+EDR, LE), as well as both WiFi 2.4 and 5 GHz.

The competition on the budget-oriented handheld console is about to heat up as One-Netbook is preparing to launch a 6-inch screen model powered by AMD's Mendocino APUs with Zen 2 cores and RDNA2 iGPU.

Xiaomi is geared to launch its next smartphone in China next week. This device, the Xiaomi Civi 2, will have the honor of being the first smartphone to copy Apple's centered pill as seen on the iPhone 14 Pro models. It will, however, opt for two 32 MP selfie cameras instead.

Huawei's latest range of premium phablets launched with 4G/LTE-only versions of their flagship-grade chipsets due to the US governmental embargoes under which the OEM operates. However, according to an eminent leaker, a Mate 50 customer may now buy a new third-party accessory that confers sub-6GHz connectivity to the device. The cases are even equipped with their own chipset for this purpose.

Xiaomi is finally set to bring the Band 7 Pro over to the global market as the Smart Band 7 Pro. Ahead of its launch, however, a new leak has now revealed its pricing as well as other important details of the smartwatch-esque fitness tracker.

With MIUI 13.5 still stuck in the future, Xiaomi is now updating the Mi 10T Pro (and non-Pro, as usual) handsets with the latest security patch from Google. The size of the update is 301 MB, and there is nothing special to mention about the MIUI 13.0.9 Global Stable package apart from the increased security it promises.

Renowned leaker Ice Universe says that some Samsung Electronics executives are insisting on an Exynos 2300-powered Galaxy S23 to be launched alongside the Snapdragon models. It goes against multiple reports from earlier which suggested that the flagships would exclusively use Qualcomm silicon.

Vivo has announced that it will launch an X Fold Plus later in 2022. Now, the upcoming foldable Android flagship may have surfaced on the AnTuTu website, 120Hz display driven by the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor and all. These specs may have powered it to well over a million points on this benchmark, which may be a considerable improvement over its predecessor.

The carrier China Telecom is tipped to start selling the new Galaxy Z Flip4 and Fold4 soon, albeit in the guise of heavily-customized rebrands. According to a famous leaker, they will join the premium W series, which did much the same thing with the Fold3 of 2021. Therefore, there may be more exclusive accents and price-tags easily exceeding US$2,000 in these variants' futures.

The Vivo Y32t seems like the world's most unassuming new budget Android smartphone on first look, with an HD+ display, 13+2MP rear cameras and 4G/LTE-only connectivity. However, it is interesting in that it has SKUs with either MediaTek Helio-series or Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs. They have started at under US$160 in China.

The Redmi Pad is set to debut as Xiaomi's first Redmi-branded tablet. Ahead of its launch, however, information has now surfaced about its color options and configuration, along with confirmation of a WiFi-only model.

Honor has just unleashed a competitor into the budget 5G Android smartphone market with the X40; now, OPPO has sent the latest addition to its 2022 K10 series to challenge it. The two devices start at the same price with similar battery capacities and display refresh rates; however, one's advantages might outweigh those of the other for some consumers.

Vivo has just registered a new product with the Chinese authority TENAA that, as is abundantly clear by the look of it, is the anticipated late-2022 refresh of the OEM's first-gen X Fold flagship smartphone. Its most valid leak to date might have uncovered one of the 'new' top-end Android foldable's most marketable upgrades already.

While phones like the Sharp Aquos R7 and Xperia Pro-I already launched with 1-inch (or 1-inch type) camera sensors, the Xiaomi 12S Ultra was the first the utilize it properly and receive the adequate media attention. The list of phones with such a sensor is set to lengthen next year, too, it appears with the Xiaomi 13 Pro tipped to be joined by phones from OPPO, Vivo, and Honor

MIUI theme developers have created Dynamic Island-style themes for Xiaomi phones. The themes, which are currently available only for Xiaomi Chinese ROMs, show notifications and music activity around the notch area similar to Apple's implementation in the iPhone 14 Pro series.

Renders of the OnePlus 11 Pro have now leaked well ahead of its launch, providing the clearest idea yet of what OnePlus's next-gen flagship will look like. Back on the cards is the alert slider that was so ruefully absent on the OnePlus 10T, along with Hasselblad camera branding.

According to a new leak, mid-range smartphones next year will make the switch from FHD+ to 1.5K displays, with a resultant display pixel density in the 450 ppi range. Samsung, on the other hand, looks geared to equip the Galaxy S23 and S23+ with FHD+ screens once more, with the S22+ currently offering a miserly 393 ppi.

Xiaomi's CEO, Lei Jun, is still backing his company to become as big in the automotive industry as it currently is in the consumer-tech space. It is now said to get started with a 4-door vehicle equipped with the OEM's very own autonomous driving technology. The potentially affordable car is to be made in an equally first-party factory in China.

Current OnePlus 11 Pro leaks tip the OnePlus 10 Pro's successor to be a proper flagship phone with all the bells and whistles that entails. The vanilla OnePlus 11, however, looks set to be a less accomplished offering.

Doogee has big plans for the end of the year, with an entire family of devices powered by 6 nm MediaTek Dimensity processors in the making. The V30 family will include the regular edition, as well as the V30 Pro, V30 Max, and V30 Max Pro. These rugged handsets should hit the market in about two months.

The X40 is an OLED-display Android smartphone now revealed to launch alongside a wider portfolio of new products, a laptop and a tablet included, later in September 2022. Now, the OEM has decided to get ahead of itself by revealing that it will debut in 3 different colorways with a generous battery capacity despite its "thin and light" status.

Redmi's latest variation on the G Pro (also known as the RedmiBook Pro) gaming laptop line has been revealed as a 16-inch PC with RTX 3060 graphics for its high refresh rate display. It also features the Ryzen 7 6800H processor and an HDMI 2.1 port, all available to pre-order for just under US$1,100 in China from today (September 7, 2022).

The Xiaomi 12T has now broken cover. The phone seems to have gone on sale in Peru before an official announcement, with the lucky buyer now revealing live images, major specs, and pricing of the sub-premium phone ahead of its launch.

While the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 gave the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 a beating earlier this year, new reports indicate the status quo will be restored with the next generation of flagship chipsets, with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 set to outperform MediaTek's Dimensity 9000 successor.

The Mate 50 E has the same Harmony OS 3 UI and basic design of the rest of its new premium smartphone series. It also has the same main rear camera and display as the vanilla 50, although the E variant has a premium mid-range Qualcomm SoC rather than a flagship-grade processor.

The Mate 50 RS has premiered as the highest-end of its new smartphone series. Its appearance has been altered in partnership with the Porsche Design Studio, although it has the same display as the 50 Pro. Despite its 4G/LTE-only nature, its single SKU has debuted at a price staggeringly close to US$2,000.

The latest MateBook E variant from Huawei is a Go today (September 6, 2022). The convertible has a 12.35-inch display with 120Hz SKUs and a 2.5K display compatible with the OEM's latest stylus. It runs Windows 11 using the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 processor and, as such, starts much cheaper than its flagship sibling in China.

Huawei has now launched the Mate 50 series in China, two years after the debut of the Mate 40 lineup. The Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro are both powered by a 4G-only variant of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, and feature premium hardware across the board.

One of Honor's top executives has been inspired by the recent sighting of a double rainbow over Beijing to drop a teaser for a new Android smartphone from this OEM with a design that apparently echoes the meme-worthy phenomenon. The teaser has given rise to rumors of a new top-end model that could match even the Xiaomi 12S Ultra in terms of camera specs.

According to word on the grapevine, Vivo will bring a new foldable phone to the market shortly. This device, the Vivo X Fold S or Vivo X Fold Plus, will compete directly with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 in the Chinese market and new leaks have now revealed most details of the premium foldable ahead of its launch.

Huawei typically backs the latest generation of its Mate line of flagship devices as super-premium phablets with the most innovative features possible. The recent changes in the OEM's fortunes notwithstanding, it now asserts that the upcoming 50 series will be no different. The company has now confirmed variable apertures for their XMAGE cameras outright, although it remains content to only hints at more unique specs also rumored to be found in the iPhone 14 series.

Huawei displayed its latest MateBook X Pro 2022 ultrabook at IFA 2022 today. The MateBook X Pro comes equipped with a 14.2-inch 3.1K screen and is powered by the Intel Core i7-1260P processor. Huawei also includes its Free Touch navigation system with additional gesture support, and a Super Device function that seamless connects to other Huawei devices in the vicinity.

A new leak now purports to show off the Redmi Pad and Xiaomi 12T Pro ahead of launch. The latter appears to sport a 200 MP camera just as rumored, with a rear design language consistent with other Xiaomi 12 series phones this year.

The Redmi Pad will be Xiaomi's first truly budget tablet and is expected to take on devices like the Realme Pad X and the OPPO Pad Air. More details of the affordable tablet have now also been revealed, with an alleged MediaTek Helio G99 beneath the hood being one notable takeaway.

The P50 Pocket is Huawei's inaugural clamshell foldable smartphone that launched in early 2022. Now, it seems the OEM may launch an updated model without delay. It seems to have a larger secondary display and battery capacity than that of the Pocket, albeit with less of an eye-catching finish and an unchanged design otherwise.

Xiaomi has launched the Mi NoteBook Pro 120 and Mi NoteBook Pro 120G in India. These are incremental upgrades to last year's Mi NoteBook Pro lineup with 12th gen Alder Lake Core i5 processors and Nvidia GeForce MX550 graphics in the 120G variant. Xiaomi has also increased the refresh rate of the display to 120 Hz with improved color accuracy claims.