Xiaomi’s latest flagships are here

Xiaomi’s latest flagships are here. At the
company’s Beijing event today, CEO Lei Jun
revealed his latest weapons against
Samsung and Apple: the Mi Note and Mi
Note Pro.
Xiaomi Mi Note
The Xiaomi Note is not the successor to the
affordable Redmi Note. The device is a
high-end offering, with a 5.7-inch Full HD
display made by Japan Display,
2.5D Gorilla Glass 3 , a Snapdragon 801
processor, 3GB of RAM, a 13MP rear
camera with OIS, a 4MP front camera with
large 2-micron pixels (just like HTC’s
UltraPixels), a 3,000-mAh battery, and LTE
dual-SIM.
xiaomi mi note
Speaking of design, the Mi Note sports
beautiful glass on both the front and the
back. The protective screen glass is 2.5D,
meaning that its edges are slightly curved,
just like on the Note 4 or iPhone 6 Plus.
The glass on the back is positively curved
however, gently hugging the phone’s
sloping side. We’ve seen glass-backed
devices before, but this is the first design
with a curved glass back – it sure looks
interesting, but durability may take a hit,
even with the sleek metallic frame of the
device.
On stage, Xiaomi’s Lei Jun took potshots
at Apple, which seemed to be his primary
target, and not Samsung and their Note 4
as one would expect. One of the jabs
referred to the iPhone 6’s notorious
protruding camera. There is no such thing
on the Mi Note, which is a svelte 6.95
millimeters. The camera itself is sourced
from Sony (IMX214), with a 6-lens f 2.0
aperture, OIS, and a two-tone flash. Thanks
to the large size of the pixels, the
4MP front shooter should do great in low-
light selfie situations.
Other features highlighted by Xiaomi
include Hi-Fi audio thanks to a ESS audio
decoder and fast charging.
With Xiaomi devices, the price is always a
big part of the story. The Mi Note will be
available for 2299 yuan ($370) for the
16GB storage, and 2799 yuan ($450) for
the more spacious 64GB model. This isn’t
the rock bottom pricing Xiaomi used its
customers with, but then again, the Mi
Note isn’t a budget affair, and that is
visible in everything from specs to design.
Xiaomi Mi Note Pro
Xiaomi is kicking things up a notch with
the 3299 yuan ($530) Mi Note Pro, which
features similar design and specifications
with the following improvements: a 64-bit
Snapdragon 810 processor, a Quad HD
display, 4GB of RAM, and LTE-Cat 9
support for download speeds of up t
450Mbps. The Mi Note Pro will be available
with 64GB of storage.
The Mi Note will become available from Q2
(at least in Singapore), while the Mi Note
Pro’s availability will be announced at a
later point.
What do you think of the new Mi Pro and
Mi Pro Note? Are they what you were
expecting? What about the price?

CES 2015 : Samsung Announces a Diverse Range of Consumer Electronics

Samsung’ s keynote at Consumer
Electronics Show 2015 brought us some
big announcements. One of the main
highlights of the show was the the
Korean brand’ s upcoming flagship TVs ;
these aren’ t just UHD TVs any more but
are SUHD TVs now. Other than this, the
company also pulled the wraps off Milk
VR , portable SSDs and a surprising new
Chef Collection .

1 . Super Ultra High Definition
TV’ s
The company launched the much talked
about 2015 4 K lineup of its flagship TVs
called SUHD TV where S stands for
Super . SUHD lineup, which uses
quantum dot tech, comprising of three
series and nine screen sizes that range
from 48- inches up to 88- inches .
According to the company the new TV
lineup will support both 10 -bit color
and High Dynamic Range .
Samsung 65 JS9500
High Dynamic Range or HDR means that
the TVs , which will be available in 65 ,
78 and 88 -inch versions , will be bright
enough and powerful enough where
colour processing is concerned to
handle sources mastered to deliver a
much wider colour space than you get
with the usual industry video standards.
As the company announced previously ,
all the 2015 TVs will be powered by
Tizen OS . The company said that the
Tizen smart TVs will automatically
search for nearby Samsung mobile
devices and connect to them . The home
network will allow the content to be
easily shared back and forth . “Users can
also watch live broadcasts or TV on their
mobile devices, anywhere on their home
network , even when their TV is powered
off ,” Samsung said.
Samsung SSD T 1

2 . SSD T1
The company has also added there new
variants of SSD T 1 in its offerings .
Available in 250GB , 500GB and 1TB
variants , the drives measure a mere 71
x 53 .2 x 9 .2 mm, which is smaller than
a business card, the company claims . It
supports AES 256- bit encryption, USB
2 .0 and USB 3 .0 along with transfer
speeds of up to 450MB /s . The SSD T 1
models will be made available later this
year .
3 . Milk VR
The company has entered the virtual
reality space with the Milk VR, available
exclusively for its virtual reality device
Gear VR. It will allow users to stream
360- degree video . Along with Milk VR,
Samsung has announced the expansion
of Milk Music and Milk Video to the web
and smart TVs , respectively .
Chef Collection

4 . Chef Collection
The most intriguing announcement was
in the lifestyle section . The company
introduced the Chef Collection ( hardware
for the chefs) along with a new app that
comes with recipes and tips from expert
chefs which will be available for
download for free from Google Play
starting next month .
The announcements for home products
also include new Activ Wash+
technology by Samsung washing
machines . The new top -load washer
comes with built- in sink, water jet and
scrubber and Super Speed technology
that helps cut down on wash time .

CES 2015 : LG Launches the Curvy G Flex 2

The South Korean multinational
company has put forward its best
innovation early in the CES 2015 . The
trade show saw the unveiling of the
curved and powerful LG G Flex 2 , which
is the second offering in the series .
The LG G Flex was launched in the same
trade show last year .
The device like its predecessor can be
bent , but the body retrieves its original
position in 10 seconds as compared to
the G -Flex that took around three
minutes to heal.
Apart from its curvy body , the device
boasts a 5 . 5- inch full HD Curved P-
OLED display, with a resolution of
1920 × 1080 pixels. It is powered by a
Snapdragon 810 Octa - core processor
with 64- bit capability , becoming the
first device to pack the latest and
powerful processing system . The G Flex
2 sports 2 GB of RAM and runs on
Android 5 .0 Lollipop.
Coming onto the camera front , then G
Flex 2 has a 13 MP rear shooter along
with OIS+ and laser auto focus capacity
and a 2 .1 MP front snapper for your
selfie needs. Furthermore the phone
features 16 GB or 32 GB of internal
storage and has a microSD card
support . Above all these, the common
glitch is resolved in this handset with
the Fast Charge feature . Within 40
minutes of charging , the device can,
quite impressively, be charged up to 50
percent .
The connectivity options of the device
include Wi -Fi, Bluetooth Smart Ready
4 .1 , LTE support, USB 2 .0 and NFC. The
handset will be available in two colour
variants – Platinum Silver and Flamenco
Red. The sale of the same will first start
in the South Korean market after
which they will be expanding their reach
to other markets. The price and date of
availability as of now remains unknown.

CES 2015 : Asus Brings Out Zenfone 2 and Camera - focused Zenfone Zoom

Taiwanese smartphone maker , has
launched two new variants of its
blockbuster phone , Zenfone at CES
2015 . The Zenfone 2 and Zenfone
Zoom , both are based on the same
hardware platform and run on Android
5 .0 Lollipop.
The Second Gen Zenfone flaunts a 5 . 5-
inch full HD ( 1920 ×1080 pixels ) IPS
display, with evidently narrower bezels
than its earlier devices. In fact , the
company claims that the phone features
72 percent screen - to-body ratio. As for
power , the smartphone is powered by
Intel ’s 64- bit Atom Z 3580 quad -core
processor clocked at 2 . 3GHz , and it is
paired with 4 GB of RAM.
On the software side ASUS is now
packing Android 5 .0 Lollipop and the
latest version of its Zen UI custom
overlay. On the photography front , the
smartphone features a 13 -megapixel
“ Pixelmaster” camera with an f/ 2 .0
aperture , zero shutter lag , and
according to the company, “the world’s
best HDR technology.

”
On the front , there is a 5 -megapixel
selfie snapper with different features
including a Beautification mode, which
offers real-time image enhancement ,
skin softening and brightening, blush
and colour correction, eye enhancement
and cheek thinning . The Zenfone 2 gets
its juice from a 3 ,000 mAh battery with
fast charging capabilities .
On the other hand , the Zoom boast the
similar specifications as Zenfone 2 but
with serious focus on imaging. The
Zoom sports a 13MP camera that
has 10- element lens, 3 X optical zoom,
and optical image stabilization . The back
of the smartphone is reminiscent of the
Nokia Lumia 1020 .
The Zenfone 2 is priced at $ 199 ( Rs
12 ,600 approximately), and will be
available later this year in March .
However, the availability and price of
the Zoom is yet to be announced