LG to unveil an upgraded version of V30 with AI functions at MWC 2018

LG is working on an upgraded version of its latest flagship device, the V30, which will be launched at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC). The company will launch the new smartphone on February 26.

According to a report by The Korea Herald, the brand is planning to add some artificial intelligence feature on the latest smartphone. “LG is expected to announce new technologies and functions added to the V30 smartphone,” the report noted. The upcoming smartphone will be named as V30+ ‘α’.

One obvious reason behind launching an upgraded version of the V30 is that the company is now planning to retain its existing flagship smartphones for a longer period of time. The move is in line with LG CEO recent remark that it will launch future handsets “when it is needed” and it will not launch it just because other rivals do.

The new report is line with LG’s revamped strategy of launching fewer devices. Jo Seong-jin, Vice Chairman and CEO of LG Electronics has already ordered the team behind G7 to halt recent work related to the development of the latest smartphone. The CEO has said to review the new product from the scratch. This means that the LG G7 is highly unlikely to launch at the MWC 2018.

To recall, LG launched its flagship V30+ smartphone in India in December last year. The smartphone is priced at Rs 44,990 and will be an Amazon exclusive. It will be available for purchase from December 18. LG V30+ is the first device from LG camp that comes equipped with an OLED display panel and it is the second flagship device from the brand to bear the new 18:9 bezel-less display.

Vivo X20 Plus UD press renders, price and launch date leaked online

Vivo recently announced the first in-display fingerprint technology at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2018. Multiple reports suggest that the first smartphone with the latest technology will be none other than  Vivo X20 Plus UD. Now, a leakster has shared the press renders, price and launch date of the same smartphone.

According to a leak by Zyad Atef, the Vivo X20 Plus UD will come with a price tag of Yuan 3998. The smartphone will reportedly launch on January 25 and it is highly likely that Vivo will launch the smartphone in its home country. The tipster also reveals the press renders of the upcoming device as well.

To start with, the Vivo X20 Plus UD design looks a bit similar to the recently-launched X20 Plus. One can see a dual-camera setup at the back panel along with a LED flash, while the front sports a large 18:9 display.

Meanwhile, the smartphone was recently spotted on TENAA, revealing its key specifications. To start with, the Vivo X20 Plus UD will feature 6.43-inch Full HD+ OLED display with a screen resolution of 2160 x 1080 pixels, which is similar to the original X20 Plus. The listing further reveals that the smartphone will be powered by a 2.2GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor along with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage.

Just like X20 Plus, this one will sport a 12-megapixel + 5-megapixel dual rear cameras, while for the front, there will be a 12-megapixel shooter. The smartphone will pack a 3800mAh battery. The X20 Plus UD measures 165.2 x 80.02 x 7.35 mm and weighs 183.1 grams.

Tecno Camon i First Impression: Will it create an Impact?

It is raining mobile phones everywhere nowadays. the latest to join the party is, Tecno, part of China-based Transsion Holdings, which has launched a brand new smartphone in India called the Camon i.  Read it as ‘Come On i.”  We guess company believes in coming up with confusing nomenclature for it devices as Tecno was already a confusing name and now Camon i.  The company has priced it at Rs 8,999 and it will be available through offline channels across India. The smartphone comes in three colour options – Champagne Gold, Midnight Black and City Blue.

The main highlight of the device is its Full View Display. The phone is Tecno’s first phone to arrive with an 18:9 aspect ratio display.  But will it be enough to make a long-lasting impression on the customers? We spent some time with the device and here is our first impression of the smartphone.

Design and Display

Starting with the design, Tecno Camon i comes with a metal unibody which seems to be of decent quality. The round-edged comes with a curved back making the device comfortable to hold in hands. For the quick physical overview, at the top there is a front shooter along with an earpiece and usual array sensors, while at the base, there are onscreen buttons are given on the front.The rear of the device features a single camera with quad LED flash. Just beneath it, there is a circular fingerprint sensor at the centre and below it, one will find the Tecno branding. There are two antenna lines also near the top and the bottom.

On top, we have just a 3.5 mm headphone jack and nothing else. On the bottom, we have a micro USB port, a secondary microphone for noise cancellation and the speaker grill. On the right side, we have power on/off button and volume controls while the left houses a dedicated micro SD card slot and dual-SIM slot.

During our brief testing of the device, Tecno Camon i didn’t look premium but being only 134 grams in weight, the phone is quite light and is comfortable to hold in hand. Coming to the display, which also happens to be the highlight, it comes loaded with a 5.65-inch HD+ display with 1440 x 720 pixels. The display comes with a 2.5D curved glass and bears an aspect ratio of 18:9. During our initial testing, the display did have good viewing angles and colours seem to be decent, but we will reserve our judgment till we review the device.

Hardware and Software

Coming to the hardware specifications, the device is powered by a 1.30GHz MediaTek MT6737 quad-core processor along with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The storage is further expandable to 128GB via microSD card slot. It is too early to comment on the performance of the device, but on papers, it looks like it will give competition to recent smartphones like Infocus Vision 3 and the Micromax Canvas Infinity which were also launched with FullView Display.

On the software side, the Tecno Camon I runs on the old Android 7.0 Nougat with company’s own HIOS UI running on top of it. However, we are not sure if the company will roll out the Oreo update for the device in the future. The user interface has its hits and misses and we will be discussing it thoroughly in our review, so keep a tab on this space.

All the commonly used apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Chrome, Gmail, Youtube opened quite easily and the device did not show any signs of stutters. However, at this price point, we think the company could’ve offered a Snapdragon processor instead of MediaTek.

Camera

Now coming to the device’s other USP, the camera. The company has kept the camera UI pretty simple and you different options like video, photo, beauty and panorama.On the camera front, the device sports a 13-megapixel rear camera with Quad LED flash and PDAF. For the front, there is a 13-megapixel front-facing camera with LED flash. The company claims that the front LED flash can also be used while making video calls. Both cameras on this device have an aperture of f/2.0 and 5P lens which enables the users to capture better images in any light.

The company has claimed that rear camera with 4X flash is optimized with Night Shot Algorithm makes images brighter in low light. That said, the camera performance came out be quite average in our initial testing, but we reserve judgment here for the detailed review.The Tecno Camon i packs a 3050mAh battery which claims to last for one whole day even through heavy usage. On the connectivity front, the smartphone supports 4G VoLTE, WiFi, GPS/AGPS, Bluetooth 4.2, 3.5 mm audio jack, FM radio and micro USB port. It measures 152.2 x 71.1 x 7.75mm. The options are pretty much standard these days. As for the sensors are concerned, it comes with proximity, G-sensor, ambient light, accelerometer and fingerprint sensors.

“To sum up, the Tecno Camon i is a pretty average device at this price point. The smartphone comes with a pretty compact form factor and the Full View display does look beautiful on the device. As for the competition is concerned, at Rs 8,999 it is going to compete with the likes of Micromax Canas Infinity and the recent Infocus Vision 3.”

Android Bug Hunter Awarded Over $100,000 for Exposing Security Flaw in Google Pixel

Google has awarded $112,500 (roughly Rs. 71,83,300) to a security researcher for exposing a security flaw in Google Pixel smartphones. Guang Gong, in August 2017 submitted an exploit chain through the Android Security Rewards (ASR) programme. It was the first working remote exploit chain since the search giant has expanded the ASR program. Gong was awarded $105,000 (roughly Rs.  67,04,40), which Google claims is the highest reward in the ASR programme’s history. Additionally, she was awarded $7,500 (roughly Rs. 4,78,900) under the Chrome Rewards program as well.

The technical details of the exploit were revealed by Google on its Android Developer’s blog on Wednesday. The search giant thanked Gong, who is from Alpha Team, Qihoo 360 Technology, and the entire researcher community for finding and responsibly reporting security vulnerabilities. Meanwhile, Google said the complete set of issues was resolved as part of the December 2017 monthly security update, which patched a total of 42 bugs.

The exploit chain covers two bugs – CVE-2017-5116 and CVE-2017-14904. While the first one is a V8 engine bug that is used to get remote code execution in sandboxed Chrome render process the latter is is a bug in Android’s libgralloc module that is used to escape from Chrome’s sandbox. Google says this exploit chain can be used to inject arbitrary code into system_server by accessing a malicious URL in Chrome.

Google, through the Android Security Rewards programme, recognises the contributions of security researchers working on Android’s security features. As of October 2017, the smartphones covered under the program include Google Pixel 2, Google Pixel and Pixel XL, and Google Pixel C.

In June 2017, Google had increased the ASR payout rewards for remote exploit chain or exploits leading to TrustZone or Verified Boot compromise from $50,000 (roughly Rs. 31,92,600
) to $200,000 (roughly Rs. 1,27,70,300). Through this program, Google has awarded researchers over $1.5 million (roughly Rs. 9,57,77,200) to date, with the top research team earning $300,000 (roughly Rs. 1,91,55,450)for 118 vulnerability reports.

Sony Xperia XZ Pro with Snapdragon 845, 4K OLED display may launch at MWC 2018

Sony has already released three new devices this year and it seems like the company has no plans of slowing down. According to a report by My Drivers, Sony is planning to launch a new device called the Xperia XA Pro at MWC 2018.

As per the report, the device may feature a 5.7-inch 4K OLED display. It is also tipped to be powered by a Snapdragon 845 with 6GB of RAM. It is expected to offer 128GB of in-built storage. On the camera front, the Xperia XA Pro may offer a dual-rear camera setup with one 18MP sensor with 1.33μm pixel size and a 12MP sensor with 1.38μm pixel size. At the front, the device may feature a 13MP camera. Besides this, the phone is tipped to feature a 3420mAh battery as well aws IP68 certification.

Meizu M6s with 18:9 display, fingerprint sensor on side launched in China

Meizu M6s with an 18:9 display, Samsung’s Exynos 7872 processor has been launched in China. Meizu M6s will have a price of Yuan 1,199 for the 64GB version, which comes to Rs 12,000 plus on conversion. The 32GB variant’s price is Yuan 999 or nearly Rs 10,000. There’s no word on when Meizu M6s will come to India. The Meizu M6s is also listed on the company’s US website, though the full specifications page has not yet gone live.

Meizu M6s has a 5.7-inch display with HD+ resolution (1440×720 pixels). Like other smartphones for 2018, this one too sports an 18:9 aspect ratio with really thin bezels on the around the display. Meizu M6s does have a bottom bezel and does not eliminate it completely as we have seen on some other phones. The Meizu M6s is also the first device to be powered by Samsung’s Exynos 7872 hexa-core processor and this has the Mali G71 GPU. Ard Boudeling, who is Meizu’s head of marketing has also tweeted out details and features about the new smartphone.

Meizu M6s has 3GB RAM with two storage options: 32GB and 64GB. The rear camera is 16MP while the front camera is 8MP. The battery is 3,000mAh with fast charging support. However, the Android OS  version has not been specified, though it has the company’s Flyme 6.2 UI on top.