Tech Grid

The current Antutu benchmark topper, the Mate 40 pro+ from Huawei was beaten by IQOO 7 powered by the Snapdragon 888 chipset. The device scored 752,935 points also beating the Qualcomm Reference device powered by the 888 chipset. IQOO 7 had 12Gb of LPDDR5 ram and 256Gb of UFS 3.1 storage. The benchmark was run by a prototype, so performance bumps can be noticed in the retail unit of the IQOO 7. The device also has a 1080p 120hz OLED display. The battery is a 4000mah cell and comes with 120W superfast charging. The device will be unveiled on January 11, 2021.  

Vivo X60 and X60 pro to sport Samsung's new Exynos 1080 chipsets and is available for pre-order in China. International availability is not confirmed yet. Another variant, the X60 pro+ will be announced in January with the Snapdragon 888 chipset. The X60 has 1080p OLED 120hz display with HDR10+ support. The device has 8Gb of ram and comes in 128Gb and 256Gb storage options. The battery has 4,300mah capacity and supports 33W fast charging. The cameras consists of a 48MP main sensor, a 13MP 2X telephoto lens and a 13MP 120-degree FoV ultrawide lens which also doubles as a macro lens. Coming to the X60 pro, the device is available with 12Gb of ram and 256Gb of internal storage. The camera system gets a spec bump with an 8MP 5X periscope zoom lens along with other lenses same as the X60. The device has a 4,200mah battery with 33W fast charging. Both the devices has a 32MP selfie shooter.  Both the phones have the 5nm Exynos 1080 and comes with Android 11 with Origin OS on top. The pric

Xiaomi Mi 11 launched in China and it looks very impressive. They didn't launch a Pro or a Max model, its just the vanilla Mi 11. The phone has a stunning 6.81 inch QHD+ variable refresh rate 120hz display, it a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 480hz touch sampling rate, 1500nits of peak brightness and is made of E4 OLED material. The screen itself is gorgeous to look at.  Mi 11 has the latest Snapdragon 888 with 8 or 12 Gb of LPDDR5 ram and performance is not an issue with this phone. It runs on the latest MiUI 12.5 based on Android 11 out of the box. The phone is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus and metal rails in the sides. It has an under display fingerprint scanner which is capable of heart rate monitoring, the first time in a phone. The phone has a 4600mah cell which supports 55W fast charging and 50W wireless charging with 10W reverse wireless charging. Even though Xiaomi has removed the charger from the box, they will provide a GaN 65W charger free of cost if you don't have

When Apple ditched the 3.5 mm headphone jack in 2017, other tech company's mocked Apple for their action and the following year in 2018 many android manufacturers also ditched the headphone jack in their devices.  Well history is repeating itself as Apple removed the chargers from the iPhone 12 series, many manufacturers mocked Apple telling that charger is an essential and shouldn't be removed. Now Mi 11 series will not come with chargers in the box and Samsung is also rumoured to ditch the chargers from their S21 lineup because of environmental reasons.  Mi CEO tweeted out saying that Mi 11 series will not have chargers in the box  due to environmental reasons and also said that consumers will have idle chargers that is not used and turn up to be a waste of energy and resources.  

OnePlus normally launches two new phones at the start of a year followed by a 'T' version of their earlier released phones at the end of a year. But next year OnePlus will be launching a lite version alongside the 9 and the 9 pro with similar specs as the OnePlus 8T launched this year. The OnePlus 9lite may come with this year's specs compared to its older brothers who will be getting all the bells and whistles of  next year. The 9 lite will come with the Snapdragon 865, cameras comparable to the 8T and a plastic back to reduce cost. The display will be a 1080p OLED display with 90 or 120hz refresh rate.  The 9 and 9pro will have the new 888 SoC with Leica cameras for much improved optics and a price tag from $700-$900 while the 9 lite will be starting at $600.

The flagship SoC from Samsung has beaten Qualcomm's 888 SoC in terms of multicore performance on Geekbench. According to twitter tipster Ice Universe, Exynos 2100 scores 1,108 in single-core and 3,963 points in multicore tests. The Snapdragon counterpart scores 1,135 single-core points and 3,794 multicore points.  Samsung is yet to comment on the ISP and AI capabilities of the Exynos 2100, while the Snapdragon 888 features a triple ISP setup and hexagon AI processor with improved AI features from last year. The Exynos 2100 will be unveiled alongside the Galaxy S21 smartphone series on Jan 14 2021. 

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini manufactured in Chennai will hit stores in 2 months. Taiwanese phone manufacturer Foxconn unit in Chennai is running 12 hour shifts for Made in India iPhone 12 to hit stores. Currently Foxconn manufactures iPhone 11 and XR, two of the most selling iPhones in India.  Made in India iPhones will cheaper as taxes and tariffs will be less compared to exported ones from other countries. Currently iPhone 12 is retailing for RS79,000 which is very high compared to just Rs60,000 which is the converted price from $800. iPhone 12 mini will be delayed due to violence at Wistron facility in Bengaluru due to wage anomalies.  Apple has put a hold on wistron facility until corrective actions are taken. 

Qualcomm and Google announced their collaboration to simplify and bring 4 years of Android updates to smartphones powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. Under Project Treble devices running on Snapdragon chipsets (from SD888 onwards) will receive security updates and new android versions for the next four years.  Project Treble will enable OEMs to upgrade their devices to the latest Android versions without worrying about Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset specific software. This is a huge leap in terms of android updates which is not always guaranteed in the Android world. OnePlus provides android updates to their devices for 3 years and recently Samsung also started providing 3 years of updates for their flagship devices. This will be divert some Apple customers into Android space because from the coming year Android smartphones with Snapdragon chipsets will be getting long term software support just like iPhones and increase the longevity of Android smartphones from 1-2 years to 4+ wit

Twitter tipster says Oneplus 9 will come with 50MP Leica cameras. Cameras will also be one of Oneplus's main attention this year as earlier models received a bit of heat due to the ok cameras and excellent everything else. Bringing Leica into the game will help Oneplus to secure that top spot with onther contenders like Samsung, Huawei and Apple. Last years Oneplus 8 pro had excellent rear cameras, but the front camera was average and customers did not like that.  Leaked photos of the Oneplus 9 shows two big sensors and a small one inside a rectangular housing like the Oneplus 8T with 'Ultrashot' written on it. Oneplus 9 is rumoured to come with a 6.55 inch FHD 120hz OLED display with HDR10+ support. As usual, every Oneplus flagship comes with Qualcomms latest flagship chipset and the Oneplus 9 will sport the new Snapdragon 888 SoC. The phone will have around 4,500 mah battery and android 11 out of the box.

Qualcomm shared the benchmark results of their new flagship chipset, the snapdragon 888. The reference device was powered by the 888SoC , 12 Gb of LPDDR5 RAM, 512 Gb of UFS 3.0 storage and a 120hz FHD display. The benchmarks that were run includes Antutu benchmark, Geekbench, GFX Bench etc. The chipset managed an average score of 7,35,489 in Antutu, beating the current champion, the Mate 40 pro+ which scored 6,98,654 points. Last gen 865 powered Mi 10 ultra scored 6,71,045 points. In Geekbench 5, the single core points were 1,135 and 3,749 in multi-core test. This is a 20% increase in single core and 10% increase in multicore results from the last gen 865. But, the Apple A14 bionic chipset has a single-core performance of 1,600+ points and 4,100+ in multi-core tests, and the upcoming Exynos 2100 is also said to have better benchmark results than the Snapdragon 888.  Here is a complete list of benchmark scores of the SnapDragon 888:-

Dell revamped the XPS 13 line with the new 11gen Intel CPUs in September, and now these machines are now available in India. These laptops have very thin bezels and looks premium with all metal build. The core i5 model is available for Rs1,50,000, and the core i7 model will be available from January next year. It has two color variants: Platinum silver with black carbon fiber palm rest and frost with arctic white woven glass fibre palm rest. The XPS 13 comes with windows 10 pro pre-installed. The display is a 1,920 x 1,200 non-touch display which covers 100% sRBG color space. If you go for the i7 model, there is an option for a 3,840 x 2,400 touch screen HDR400 display which covers 90% of the P3 color gamete and 500nits of brightness. It is powered by the latest core i5 or i7 with Intel iris xe graphics, upto16 gb of DDR4 ram and 1TB of PCIe NVME SSD storage. For connectivity, XPS 13 has 2 thunderbolt 4 ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a SD card slot, killer AX 1650  wifi 6 and bluetooth

I have been using the LG G8X for the past one month as my daily, and here are the things that I came to notice. The phone has excellent performance thanks to the snapdragon 855, which is still a powerful chip. The phone hasn't lagged or stuttered even once. The build quality is amazing. The phone has gorilla glass 4 on the front and back with metal side rails and feels premium in the hand, but it is very slippery, so a case or skin is recommended. The 4000 mah battery is great. I have been getting 5+ hours of screen on time everyday. The phone also supports fast charging, and the 18watt charger given in the box can juice up the phone from 0-100 in an hour and a half. The screen is a G-OLED which has great viewing angles and color reproduction. The brightness is okay for outdoor viewing, but is not clearly visible under direct sunlight. The speaker at the bottom paired with the earpiece acts a nice stereo pair. There is distortion at very high volume, but 80-90% volume is excellent

Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi to launch their new flagship phones, the Mi 11 and the Mi 11 pro on 29 Dec this year. These phones will be available for consumers at the beginning of 2021 as a new years gift from Xiaomi according to Gizmochina. The global launch is not yet confirmed but will arrive after a couple of weeks after the announcement. The specs of the phone include the latest and greatest snapdragon 888 SoC, with 8 or 12 gigs of ram and 128 or 256 gigs of internal storage. The pro variant gets 4970 mah battery while the vanilla Mi 11 gets 4780 mah battery, and both will get 55watt wired charging. Both the phones will support wireless charging as well.  The Mi 11 series will have 6-inch + SAMOLED display with 120hz refresh rate, and a punch hole cutout for the front facing selfie camera. The camera on the Mi 11 is a triple camera setup with a 108 megapixel main lens, 13 megapixel ultrawide and 5 megapixel telephoto lens. Whereas the pro variant gets a 108 megapixel main lens

 LG as a part of its explorer project is experimenting on new smartphone technologies and form factors. The company released its first swiveling phone, LG Wing in November 2020 as a part of its explorer project and teased the arrival of the LG Rollable in the event. Leaks are showing up revealing the design and some specs of the device. LG Rollable has a rolling display on both its sides unlike other rollables which have a rolling display only on one side of  the device. The phone should have motorized hinges that rolls the display to become a tablet sized screen or the user can pull from the sides to extend the display. The phone will have an OLED screen with a punch hole camera or an under display camera.  LG has filed a trademark under the European Union for the names "LG Rollable" and "LG Slide" on Nov 2020. The pricing may range from $1400 to $2000 as other foldables in the market. The camera and other specs are not yet revealed. The phone will run on android 1

Realme to announce their new Buds Air Pro and Watch S & S Pro on 23 Dec. The company teased the arrival of their new gadgets in their social media handles, providing a hint of its features along with it. The company is yet to unveil the prices of the new products, but it should be less than what other brands are offering. Specifications There isn't much about what to expect from the Buds Air pro other than the fact that it supports active noise cancellation. The watch S & S pro will have round amoled 454 x 454 screens, with 450 nits brightness and 1,00,000:1 contrast ratio. Additional features includes GPS, 5ATM water resistance,  heart rate, blood oxygen monitoring, and 14 days of battery life. Both the Watch  S & S Pro and the Buds Air pro will be available on Flipkart after the launch on 23 Dec at 12:30 pm as tweeted by Realme CEO Madhav Seth. The product advertisement and marketing posters features actress Shraddha Kapoor, who is Realme's brand ambassador since

When it comes to over-hear noise cancelling headphones, Sony leaded the industry with their wh1000 series. And now, the competition just got more stiffer as Apple introduced the Airpods Max. The latest and greatest noise cancelling king the wh1000-xm4 costs $350, but can be available for around $300, but Apple just dropped the Airpods Max with a price tag of $550, which got people thinking about it. Lets compare them to see that if Sony will remain the king or does Apple take the crown? Apple AirPods Max takes it from Sony in terms of build quality. Apple uses high quality stainless steel for the body, aluminum for the earcups and memory foam for the headband. They are superior materials in every way compared to plastic used in Sony. But dont take it wrong, the xm4 is also really built well and is really comfortable to use. In terms of sound quality Apple uses custom built 40mm drivers and they sound extremely good. The H1 chip inside both earcups provide computational audio with adapt

OPPO announced their new Reno 5 series in China, and will be globally launched on December 24 2020. The company announced 3 phones, Reno 5G , Reno pro 5G and is yet to announce the Reno pro+. All 3 of them have super fast charging, 90HZ Oled displays with quad cameras. They also sport OPPO's new color OS 11.1 on top of Android 11. Reno 5 5G Specifications The Reno 5 5G has the snapdragon 765g processor, quad cameras which consists of a 64mp main camera, 8mp ultrawide, 2 megapixel macro and depth camera. The front camera is a 32 mp shooter. The phone is available in 8gb + 128gb and 12gb + 256gb variants. The phone has a beautiful 2400 x 1080p 90 Hz OLED display with 410ppi pixel density. It comes with a 4,300 mah battery with SuperVOOC 65watt fast charging. The 8gb variant costs around 30,000 rupees and 33,500 for the 12gb variant. Reno Pro 5G Specifications Reno Pro has the same display and camera setup as the Reno 5. The phone is powered by the  Mediatek Dimenstiy 1000+ chipset wh

Google photos is ending its free unlimited storage from June 2021. But all the photos and video that are uploaded before June 2021 is exempt from the cap. Google will however still provide 15 gb of free storage that comes with every google account. This limited storage move is to encourage people to subscribe to Google One subscription which costs $2 a month for 100 Gb of storage which is still cheap considering other cloud storage services and the features that Google photos provide. In the Photos app, you can find out how long your free storage may last by based on your frequency of uploads. Google will also notify when your 15 Gb limit is about to reach by email or notifications. By an average, a typical person takes about 3 years to fill up their free 15 Gb. Google photos currently stores about 4 trillion photos and is increasing at a rate of 28 billion photos a week. To continue to provide services of its ever growing users, this move is a step in the right direction.

Apple released $550 Airpods Max Apple launched their new addition to the Airpods family through their youtube channel yesterday. The AirPods Max has an over ear design with features like active noise cancellation, automatic equalizer, spatial audio etc. The headphones comes with a lightning to USB-C cable and the weirdest headphone case ever seen. The headphones has a crown to adjust audio and a button to change between noise cancellation mode and transparency mode. The headband is made of stainless steel a breathable mesh canopy for an "acoustically optimised" audio experience. The headphones are fitted with 40mm dynamic drivers and a H1 chip. Apple promises 20 hours of playback time with ANC on, and 5 mins of charging can deliver 1.5 hours of playback time. However their pricing is too high when noise cancelling kings like the Sony wh-1000xm4 and the Bose NC700 exists for $200 cheap. But the pricing gets more confusing as the Indian retail price for Airpods Max is $815. The

Apple current Intel Macbook Pro 16-inch is currently outperformed by their M1 Macbook pro 13-inch they released this November in their One More Thing event. Currently reports are floating around suggesting that Apple is working on a new M1X chip for their bigger and higher end Macbook Pro 16. The M1X has 12 cores, 8 of which are high performance cores and 4 high efficiency cores. Their entry level M1 Macbook Air is comparatively powerful than Windows laptops in its price range and the release of the new Macbook Pro 16 may pose a threat to higher end windows laptops if not in graphics, but certainly in CPU performance and the battery life on an M1X powered macbook should thrash other competition as laptops with the M1 chip has the best battery life compared to other PCs, so the M1X should be more powerful and efficient than its predecessors. 

Final renders of the Galaxy S21 series out. The ultra looks   fantastic. Here's how next years most anticipated flagships, the S21 series from Samsung will look like. The S21 and the S21 plus design wise looks the same but in different dimensions, the S21 plus is a bigger device than the S21. But the ultra model looks so futuristic and credits to the design team for bringing such a big change to smartphone backs. The phone has glass on both sides with a metal sides and camera housing which melts into the side for that astonishing new look.  The S21 is 6.2 inches, S21plus is 6.7 inches and the ultra is a massive 6.8 inches diagonally. All three smartphones will be launched in January 2021. The rumoured date is 14 January but it may change upon further notice from the company.  

Samsung maybe working on a 600 megapixel camera sensor. Twitter leaker IceUniverse tweeted a photo which looked like a document about Samsung's massive 600 megapixel sensor. The camera bump is about 22mm and the camera housing may take upto 12% of the back of a smartphone. In the last couple of years smartphone camera sensors started getting bigger and bigger form 5 megapixels to 8 then 12 and now we have 48 , 64 and 108 megapixel sensors. Samsung produces their own ISOCELL sensors which include the HM2,HM1,HMX etc which are high-end sensors in the smartphone world. Human eyes are around 500 megapixels and these massive 600 megapixel sensors are designed to provide real life-like photos and videos, 

                                                                                                                                     credits: Shacknews Samsung S21 ultra has the most impressive camera system in a 2021 flagship. The phone was announced on 14 January 2021 with the Snapdragon 888 SoC or Exynos 2100 depending on your location. The phones camera specs and looks is mesmerizing. The camera system consists of the new 108 megapixel HM3 sensor as the primary camera, a 12megapixel ultrawide lens with 120 degree FoV, a 10megapixel 3X telephoto lens for shorter range zoom and a 10 megapixel 10X optical zoom camera for zooming in on farther subjects(or spying). Both the telephoto lenses has a 130percent larger pixel size than last year and the 100X space zoom quality also has a big increase. The phone has a zoom lock feature which locks the frame when you zoom longer to reduce blurry pictures.  Those 2 ten megapixel 1.22um sensors are the best in its class. They have a large apertur