Chinese Tech

The Redmi Note 8T was released as a variant of the Redmi Note 8, but with NFC support. Xiaomi is set to release the successor to that device, in the form of the Redmi Note 9T, and details of the phone have now surfaced ahead of launch.

OnePlus has made its newest batch of affordable smartphones available in the United States and Canada. The OnePlus Nord N10 5G will retail for US$299 and the OnePlus Nord N100 for US$179. Both phones can be purchased via T-Mobile and its subsidiary Metro in the coming days.

The leaker Ice Universe claims to have found new AnTuTu benchmarking scores for an unreleased OPPO device, said to be the upcoming Find X3 flagship. Should this be the case, it has beaten the current official #1 in these terms, the Xiaomi Mi 11, as well as the also-rumored fellow Snapdragon 888 phone the iQOO 7 - and by a good margin, too.

Huawei has refreshed its EMUI 11 upgrade plans globally. The OS update has only been delivered to a limited number of handsets so far, while India is yet to receive EMUI 11 at all. Huawei has provided the update to all users of a few devices in some regions, though.

The Honor V40 series of flagship smartphones was allegedly to debut on January 4, 2020. However, the OEM has obviously missed this date, and has instead now apparently set it to the 18th of this month instead. The devices may feature waterfall-style screens at this event - not to mention the Kirin 9000 SoC after all.

AnTuTu has published its December 2020 Android flagship smartphone performance chart and the Xiaomi Mi 11 with the Snapdragon 888 has managed to take the top spot away from the Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ with the Kirin 9000. The Snapdragon 888 vs Kirin 9000 results were very close, but the Mi 11’s 2K 120 Hz display tipped the difference.

OnePlus has started officially teasing its upcoming fitness tracker that will feature useful tools such as SpO2 blood saturation monitoring and real-time heart-rate tracker. The alleged OnePlus Band price in India and its launch date have also been leaked along with some key specifications. The OnePlus Band is expected to cost around ₹2,499 (US$34).

OnePlus has just posted an update about the status of its Android 11-based OxygenOS 11 update. Registrations for the OxygenOS 11 open beta will open up next week for the OnePlus Nord. The OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro will follow suit once OnePlus solves some problems with the OxygenOS 11 build for both devices.

Poco has teased what could be the long-awaited sequel to its flagship killing Pocophone F1. The “F2” is briefly mentioned in a video thanking fans for a successful 2020 suggesting that we could see a Pocophone F2 in 2021. Unfortunately, early indications are it won’t be quite the flagship killer that made the original famous.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 has already been selling by the truckload in China, where it is currently on sale from 3,999 yuan (€505/US$618/£452) for the 8 GB + 128 GB model. While the Chinese OEM has declared the Mi 11 will be going global soon, those eager to get their hands on one before then can preorder the smartphone from €579 (US$709/£519).

The Mi AX6000 router is a powerful new source of home Wi-Fi that Xiaomi will release for the first time on January 8, 2021. The OEM has hyped this cutting-edge product by seeing which device could use its up-to-800Mb/s signal first: an iPhone 12 Pro Max or a brand-new Mi 11.

Motorola is now said to have a second-gen Moto G Stylus in the works. All of its previous leaks have pointed to a chassis for this phablet with quad rear cameras in a vertical orientation. A new tip from OnLeaks contradicts this, however, although it leaves its putative updated screen intact.

OPPO has adopted a complicated approach to releasing its Reno smartphone series worldwide. The devices might have different SoCs for different markets, for example. However, there is now evidence that the well-spec’d new generation recently launched in China will make it into other countries unmodified.

It has been rumored that a HiSilicon Kirin 9010 chipset based on a 3 nm manufacturing process could be released in the second half of 2021, possibly to feature in a Huawei Mate 50 smartphone. On top of that, it’s also believed Qualcomm will produce a Snapdragon 888+ SoC at around the same time.

First benchmarks of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888-powered Xiaomi Mi 11 available via various Weibo posts show significant performance improvements compared to the Snapdragon 865 seem comparable to the Apple A13 Bionic. However, the Snapdragon 888 seems to consume more power than expected leading to increased temperatures and throttling particularly with the Cortex-X1 core.

As powerful as the freshly-launched Mi 11 is, some may have been disappointed when its also-rumored Pro sibling did not debut alongside it. However, the reliable tipster Digital Chat Station asserts that its own launch is still on. It will apparently take place after the Chinese New Year.

Huawei had reportedly removed all Tencent games from its first-party mobile app market, AppGallery, following an objection from the software giant as to how much of the takings it retained from sales of the app in question. This remuneration structure has also led to disagreements between the OEM and other developers.

Xiaomi launched a new, cost-effective 6000mAh phone it called the Redmi Note 9 4G in China recently. It then proceeded to re-brand the device as the 9 Power for the Indian market. Now, a new leak suggests it has yet another new name for an imminent debut in Thailand and possibly Europe.

The Realme 7 series launched as 2020 phones with a combination of mid-range SoCs and premium specs. Now, there are hints that their maker has replacements for them in the works. They come in the form of new Geekbench listings based on a 5G Dimensity platform.

Xiaomi received over 226,000 pre-orders for the Mi 11 and those have translated sweetly to actual sales, with the company announcing that it sold over 350,000 units of the new flagship in just five minutes. That works out to right about US$230 million in sales, no doubt in part due to the Mi 11's outstanding value proposition.

2020 will go down as one of the worst years in history and that's a sentiment that should also be echoed by keen lovers of the smartphone world. Starting with the underwhelming Galaxy S20 Ultra, to the Galaxy Note 20 with its plastic back, down to the trend of selling phones without a charger—2020 sure dropped the ball.

An image claimed to be that of the upcoming Huawei P50 Pro has been posted for the first time. It may show that the flagship will rock yet another of the OEM's waterfall display. According to the new leak, the phone may also go back to a conventional call speaker, having experimented with a magnetic one in its predecessor.

iQOO is slated to launch a Snapdragon 888-powered flagship called the 7 shortly. A new Geekbench 5 listing may confirm this. These preliminary scores may show it is capable of matching up to Xiaomi's new phone based on the same platform in terms of specs and performance.

A noted tech leaker has suggested that Redmi is working on a cheap Snapdragon 888 smartphone that currently has the codename “Haydn model K11”. It’s not known if this is a completely new smartphone line for Redmi or whether it could actually be the long-expected Redmi K40 or Redmi K40 Pro.

The Redmi Note 9 Pro is all set to hit Indian shores as the Xiaomi Mi 10i on January 5. It boasts an impressive feature set consisting of a 120Hz screen, a 108MP camera sensor, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G. The smartphone is expected to cost around INR 18,000 (US$246) in India.

The new Xiaomi Mi 11 has now been unclothed in a teardown video revealing its internal components, layout, and design. The phone's camera hardware has also been detailed, although some may consider the 108 MP camera to be on the aging side.

The OnePlus Band is seemingly in the works and should soon be ready to challenge the Xiaomi Mi Band 5 in the budget wearable sector. Rumors state that the OnePlus Band will be unleashed with a sub-US$40 price tag and may be launched in the Indian market first, where the Xiaomi Mi Band series has dominated affordable fitness tracker sales.

Dasung, the Beijing-based manufacturer of e-ink monitors, has announced its plans via Weibo to create the company's largest display yet. The new model is a 25.3-inch e-ink monitor, much larger than Dasung’s existing 10.3-inch e-ink tablet and 13.3-inch portable e-ink display.

An upcoming IQOO 7 smartphone powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 has made a devastating appearance on the AnTuTu benchmark by clocking over three-quarters of a million points. This puts the IQOO 7, which is to be launched on January 11, beyond the Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Mate 40 Pro+ with their Kirin 9000 chipsets.

Motorola has been busy teasing an upcoming premium phone with an SoC from the Snapdragon 800 series. It may have surfaced in a new set of benchmarking results that might confirm which processor this is to be for the first time. This leak also points to 8GB of RAM and Android 11 out of the box for this device.

After unveiling MIUI 12.5 yesterday, Xiaomi has now supposedly revealed its plans for sending out the update to its devices. Phones like the Mi 10 lead the line, while devices like the Redmi Note 8 Pro and Redmi Note 9 are expected to get it later alongside Android 11.

Motorola is said to be working on upcoming affordable phones with the code-name Capri. This moniker has just popped up again, on Geekbench this time. It hints that this line's Plus variant will be powered by the Snapdragon 662 processor and 4GB of RAM. However, it may have Android 11 out of the box, at least.

Vivo has made the X60 series official. They are the first phones to rock the Exynos 1080 SoC, and also have up to quad rear cameras with Zeiss branding. They start at ~US$536 for an 8GB RAM/128GB internal storage SKU. However, the OEM has also complicated things with the announcement of an additional Pro+ to debut in 2021.

Although in many scenarios the main camera of the Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro delivers at least good results, disaster often strikes when facing various light sources such as the sun and the moon, but not limited to them. In these cases, the results include reflections and artifacts that simply ruin the photos or videos.

iQOO is a premium sub-brand of the smartphone OEM Vivo. It launched the Snapdragon 865-powered 5 series in 2020. Now, there is an indication that these devices will get successors called the 7s. They may reprise iQOO's 120 watt (W) FlashCharge technology.

The display-maker TCL is now the focus of allegations that it has included "backdoor" software in TVs intended for the American market. These suspicions allegedly come from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Then again, the OEM denies the claims, and that the administration in question has yet to bring these accusations to it directly.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 is here, and it comes equipped with Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 888, a QHD+ 120 Hz AMOLED made by Samsung, and all-around impressive hardware. Better still, it's a hell of a bargain at a starting price point of just over US$600.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 smartphone hasn’t even been officially launched yet and it already seems like it will be a great sales success for the company. Over 226,000 people have already signed up for Mi 11 preorders via a single platform. There is some speculation that sales for the Xiaomi Mi 11 series will start in China on January 1, 2021.
Update: The bookings figure has now reached over 400,000.

Xiaomi has opened up registration for MIUI 12.5 beta testing in China and the list of qualifying smartphones has been shared online. While it seems owners of the China ROM variants of the Redmi Note 7, Xiaomi Mi 9, Xiaomi Mi 10, and Redmi K30 can sign up, it seems there will be a wait ahead for Redmi Note 8 and Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite users.

Details and key specifications for Huawei’s upcoming ARM-based laptop have been leaked on social media. It appears the notebook, which currently has the name Qingyun L410, is powered by the 8-core 5G-capable HiSilicon Kirin 990 chipset. It’s not known if the Huawei laptop will be launched outside of China.

A new leak indicates Huawei will add a new variant to the Mate 40 series. Despite looking like its higher-end siblings, it may be a more affordable version of the same. For example, it is rumored to have an older chipset. Then again, it also clearly has wireless charging.

The Vivo X60 series of smartphones will launch on December 28, 2020 - also known as tomorrow. However, its specs may have been spilled ahead of this event. The leaker Digital Chat Station claims to have dug them up on the TENAA website.

Xiaomi has officially confirmed the release date of the next version of its mobile software, MIUI. While one would expect MIUI 13 to succeed MIUI 12, the company appears to be making a brief stopover at MIUI 12.5—a skin that should be an incremental upgrade on MIUI 12.

Owners of the popular Redmi Note 8 Pro smartphone from Xiaomi have started reporting serious problems with the latest MIUI 12 update, which has caused a boot loop issue for some. The glitch is currently associated with Europe models of the Redmi Note 8 Pro and software update V12.0.3.0.QGGEUXM.

A leaked image of an alleged Xiaomi Mi 11 box being compared to the iPhone 12 packaging has led to mounting speculation that Xiaomi has “done an Apple” and decided to not include a charger in the box for the Mi 11. Additionally, it is believed the Chinese OEM might offer a “with charger” option – at an extra cost, of course.
Update: Xiaomi has confirmed there will be no in-box charger.

Several Mi Notebook Pro listings have popped-up on Geekbench sporting both Tiger Lake-H and AMD Cezanne processors. Alongside the Intel Core i7-11370H and Core i5-11300H variants, which are 35 W Tiger Lake-H CPUs, a few listings of the Mi Notebook Pro powered by AMD Cezanne Ryzen 5 5600H APUs are also seen. These leaked results indicate that single-core performance seems to be a prime focus for both Intel and AMD.

Both the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite and Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite bring a lot of phone to the table for very reasonable prices, but it can be a tricky process choosing between the two. While the Mi 10T Lite delivers a 120 Hz refresh rate and 64 MP main camera sensor, the Mi 10 Lite has a beautiful AMOLED panel that helps justify its higher price tag.

The EMUI 11 and Magic UI 4.0 open public testing phase for 14 smartphones and tablets based on the HiSilicon Kirin 980 SoC has started for users in China. Owners of different-region models of devices such as the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, Huawei Mate X, Honor 20 Pro, and Huawei MediaPad M6 can expect the software update by early 2021.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 has been portrayed in a series of marketing renders that reveal the upcoming flagship smartphone in four colors. Leaked live images of the Mi 11 confirm the 108 MP camera and a few other specs. Xiaomi has started teasing additional details ahead of launch, including the use of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus.