Announcements Huawei Honor 8, Nubia Z11 and Axon 7, Meizu MX6, patents Apple and Samsung, Google smartwatch rumors Nexus and other news …
Announcements
The last weeks have been rich in interesting announcements. First of all, it is worth noting Huawei Honor 8, which was introduced in China on the 11th. Despite the fact that this is a device of the middle price segment (the cost in the home market is from $ 298 to $ 373, depending on the version) and, in theory, there should not be enough stars from the sky, it looks surprisingly great.
Interesting body colors (the novelty will be offered in white, gold, black, pink and blue versions), fashionable 2.5D glass both on the front and on the back, dual main camera 2×12 MP, quite decent hardware for such a price – in general, the device has enough pluses. The only question is how, when and at what price it will be sold outside of China.
The technical characteristics of the smartphone are as follows:
- 5.2-inch screen with resolution Full HD and 2.5D glass
- Kirin 950 Octa-Core 1.8GHz
- 3/4 GB RAM
- 32/64 GB of internal memory
- Dual main camera 2×12 MP
- Front camera 8 MP
- OS Android 6.0 with EMUI 4.1 shell
- 3000mAh battery
- Supports NFC, 4G / LTE networks and dual SIM cards
- Fingerprint sensor
- USB Type-C port
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Apparently, the buyers really liked the smartphone. In any case, by July 15, the number of pre-orders exceeded 5 million.
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Another big event this week is the presentation of Meizu MX6. The announcement turned out to be very calm, and only in the good sense of the word. This time, there were no attempts to make a revolution out of the blue, because of which the event lost a little, but the smartphone itself only won. We will still hear a lot about all sorts of super-innovations at the upcoming presentations Apple and Samsung, while Meizu now just needed not to lose face and release a worthy heir to the MX line. The smartphone will start selling just closer to September, when all the loud announcements have already died down. And after them there will probably be a lot of people who, after watching the presentations and looking at the price tag, will decide that there is no point in overpaying for new flagships Apple and Samsung.
Moreover, Meizu did a good job on bugs. In particular, we did a good job on the camera (in any case, this impression is formed from the first reviews), which has always been their weak point. They say that Sony has prepared a special version of the IMX 386 sensor specifically for the MX6, which greatly affected the photo quality.
Meizu MX6. First glance
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ZTE has presented smartphones Nubia Z11 and Axon 7. The devices of the Nubia line catch first of all with their design, which I just want to call SonyStyle. Not that there was something completely new in the appearance of these devices, but the design still looks fresh for our market. In any case, personally in my opinion.
It's a pity that apart from the design, the devices really have nothing to boast about, these are solid middlings without any special frills. And Android 5.x in low-end models is embarrassing.
While the Nubia Z11 line reminds me of Sony's style, the ZTE Axon 7 is strongly associated with the HTC One. There is no such thing as copying or cloning of speech, but the general style (again, in my personal opinion) is clearly visible. By the way, ZTE claims that Designworks, which is part of the group BMW, had a hand in the design of the smartphone.
The main focus of the smartphone was on sound. The novelty is equipped with two speakers with two specialized chips AK4961 and AK4490 from AKM, providing Hi-Fi sound and supporting Dolby Atmos surround sound technology.
Another distinctive feature of the smartphone is the display with a resolution of 2560 × 1440. In this case, such a resolution really makes sense, because the smartphone is compatible with the Google Daydream virtual reality platform.
Main technical characteristics of ZTE AXON 7:
- Support for communication standards: 4G / LTE; 3G TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, CDMA 1X / EVDO; GSM GPRS / EDGE; two slots for SIM cards
- Dimensions: 151.7 x 75 x 7.9mm
- Weight: 175g
- Processor: 2.15 GHz, Quad Core, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820
- Platform: MiFavor4.0 (based on Android 6.0)
- Display: 5.5-inch, AMOLED, 2560 × 1440 pixels, 2.5D glass
- Main camera: 20 MP, phase detection autofocus and closed-loop, optical image stabilization
- Front camera: 8 MP, fixed focus
- Memory: 4/6 GB of RAM, 64/128 GB of built-in, slot for microSD memory cards (up to 128 GB)
- Communications: Wi-Fi 802.11, Bluetooth v4.1, USB Type-C, NFC, GPS / A-GPS / GLONASS, 3.5 mm audio jack
- Battery: 3250 mAh, fast charging Quick Charge 3.0
- Misc: Force Touch (premium), fingerprint scanner, accelerometer, proximity and light sensors, gyroscope, electronic compass, Hall sensor
First look at the new Nubia Z11 and Axon 7 line
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Samsung and Apple
Both companies continue to file patents for everything related to curved displays and foldable devices.
The Koreans have invented and patented a system of mechanical 'muscles' that will allow the flexible display to be flexed and extended safely. Outwardly, such 'muscles' look like a network of plates located parallel to each other, capable of bending under external influence.
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The patent Apple is less informative, it can only be understood that it is a display with rounded edges. The patent specification says that in this way the area of 'dead' space around the display will be minimized and every millimeter can be used to display information.
The patent does not say whether there will be any additional control elements on the rounded edges.
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The next patent is much more interesting, even if it has nothing to do with curved devices. We are talking about a socket for Smart Connector, which, according to rumors, will be in the new iPhone.
According to the patent, the connector will have a 'self-tightening' coating and is virtually invisible. The connector will be able to freely penetrate this cover, but pull out the cable and the empty hole will tighten again.
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Unusual devices
The cat is said to have nine lives. And if this is really so, then Tizen clearly belongs to the cat family – how many times this OS was buried and then dug up again, I can't remember.
Over the past couple of weeks, several leaks about the Samsung Z2 smartphone, which should run on the OS Tizen, have hit the network at once. For example, the device managed to appear on the WiFi Alliance website and Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG):
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The smartphone is expected to receive rather modest specifications: a 4.5-inch screen, 1 GB of RAM and a 2,000 mAh battery.
And also a page from the user manual got into the network, where you can see the design of the smartphone:
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Rumors continue to swirl around the addition of Android Wear smartwatches to the Nexus lineup this year. It is unclear who will be the manufacturer, only the codenames of the watches are known – Angelfish and Swordfish. It is assumed that the first model will receive a large display and support for LTE and GPS, while the second model will be smaller and will not receive support for additional protocols.
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In the GFXBench benchmark, an unknown smartphone Motorola, which fans of the brand have already christened Moto X (2016), managed to light up. The 'stuffing' of the smartphone does not cause much interest, everything is more or less standard: Snapdragon 820, 5.5 '' QHD display, 4GB of RAM. But the camera is much more interesting. Judging by the screenshot, it will be double, 21 + 13 MP.
I wonder if the smartphone will support proprietary modules? And most importantly – will its design be made in the spirit of classic Moto devices or will we have another experiment by Chinese designers?
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