Month: May 2020

Huawei’s Honor had surprised everyone with the Honor 9X. The premium mid-range smartphone has been of the greatest hits of the company and now it seems that the company is gearing up to launch a successor for this highly-succesful handset. Now, the company is gearing up to launch the Honor 9X Pro in India, three months after its global launch. This comes in a moment when the first news about the next entry in lineup dubbed Honor X10 is taking the headlines. But let’s keep our focus in the 9X Pro.

According to a tweet from Honor India, there is a new product coming for India with a Kirin 810 chipset. Moreover, the company is reported to have accidentally confirmed the name in a tweet that has since been deleted. Unfortunately, the company didn’t reveal the launch date. However, a report from IANS states that it will be launched on May 12 and will be available on Flipkart.

HONOR 9X PRO SPECIFICATIONS

The Honor 9X Pro is powered by the AI-driven Kirin 810 Octa-Core SoC. It comes paired with either 6GB or 8GB of RAM and 256GB of Internal Storage. These specifications are built around a 6.59-inch IPS LCD display with FHD+ resolution. It has a triple-camera setup on the back comprising a 48MP main + 8MP Ultrawide + 2MP depth sensors. The handset is a truly bezel-less thanks to a motorized 16MP pop-up camera solution.

The phone draws power from a 4,000mAh battery and includes Honor’s Magic UI 3.0 based on Android 10. According to rumors, it will cost between Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 20,000 in India. In Europe, for instance, it retails at 249 Euros and you get the 6GB RAM + 256GB storage model.

YouTube celebrity Linus Sebastian recently reviewed a very peculiar Intel B150 motherboard from Chinese motherboard manufacturer Zeal-All. The ZA-SK1050 knits Intel’s LGA1511 socket with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti onto the same PCB. The manufacturer has never made our best motherboards list, but Zeal-All has been offering this type of product for a while now and the ZA-SK1050 seems to be its latest creation.

The ZA-SK1050 measures 235 x 197.5mm so it doesn’t really belong to any established form factors. If we had to classify the motherboad, it would fit in between the FlexATX and microATX categories. The upper half of the ZA-SK1050 is everything you would expect from a pocket friendly motherboard from 2017.

Zeal-All built the motherboard around Intel’s budget B150 chipset and LGA1151 socket. Consequently, it can support both 6th and 7th Generation Core processors that belong to the Skylake and Kaby Lake families, respectively. The motherboard doesn’t have any power connectors though as all power comes through the single 19V DC port. Finally, a pair of SODIMM DDR4 memory slots are present to offer housing up to a maximum of 32GB of DDR4-2133 memory.

Instead of using expansion slots, Zeal-All has implemented an embedded approach. The manufacturer has slapped a discrete GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card onto the ZA-SK1050 by soldering the GPU and memory chips onto the motherboard’s PCB itself. A heatsink with an accompanying cooling fan actively keeps the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti’s operating temperatures in check.

The ZA-SK1050 comes with a pretty uncommon I/O interface design as well. The motherboard comes with four SATA III ports in total. Curiously, two of them are placed on the rear panel. There’s a mSATA interface for accommodating SSDs of the same nature. Additionally, the motherboard supplies a mPCIe port for adding a wireless module further down the line. The remaining cocktail of internal connectors includes two USB 2.0 headers, one USB 3.0 header, four 4-pin fan connectors, two LVDS headers, two SATA connectors, LPC port (which looks like an HDMI port) for factory debugging, speaker header and the usual front panel connector.

The motherboard’s rear panel is home to a clear CMOS button, one HDMI port that outputs images at a 2K resolution, four USB 3.0 ports and one JSATA connector. The Gigabit Ethernet port is based of Realtek’s RTL8111E Ethernet controller. The ALC662 audio codec is also from Realtek and powers the two 3.5mm audio jacks.

The ZA-SK1050 supports various types of hardware monitoring, such as temperature, voltage and system power management. The list of supported operating systems consists of Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10.

Zeal-All sells the ZA-SK1050 motherboard on Alibaba for between $345 and $365. Admittedly, B150 motherboards are very hard to come by nowadays. But when they were available, the motherboards generally costed around $50 to $150. The cheapest GeForce GTX 1050 Ti on the market starts at $150. A B150 motherboard and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti combo would set you back $200, which is way cheaper than rolling with Zeal-All’s offering. However, the ZA-SK1050’s real value would likely lie with some type of AIO PC, an embedded system or a PC for cyber cafes, which are extremely popular in China.

OnePlus is one of the best companies when it comes to providing software updates for its devices. The company not only prioritize newer devices but keeps good support for the old handsets as well. Today, the company is rolling out a new OxygenOS Open Beta 13 update for the OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro. Meanwhile, the OnePlus 7T and 7T Pro are getting Open Beta 3. The new Open Beta builds bring April 2020 security patch and other bugfixes.

It’s interesting to point out that the Open Beta 13 for the OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro replaces the buggy Open Beta 12 that had to be rolled back. Users that are still running the Open Beta 11 will get the newer update via OTA. Apart from the newer security patches, the camera lens dirt detection feature is also making way for the last year’s devices. The changelog is pretty much the same for the four smartphones.

OXYGENOS OPEN BETA 13 FOR ONEPLUS 7 AND 7 PRO / OPEN BETA 3 FOR OP7T AND 7T PRO

SYSTEM

Optimized the volume adjustment to improve user experience

Added the missing recording icon in-call screen

Updated Android security patch to 2020.04

Fixed known issues and improved system stability

PHONE

Added the ringing duration info for missed calls

Now you can switch your mobile data on phone calls supported with VoLTE

CAMERA

Added a feature that can now detect dirt on the camera lens, prompting a quick cleanup for better image and video quality.

Microsoft has revealed some of the first third-party games that will be optimised for its next-generation console, the Xbox Series X.

The Xbox livestream featured previously unseen footage of the highly anticipated Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.

But many viewers complained too little gameplay was displayed.

Both Microsoft and PlayStation-maker Sony have promised to deliver their latest consoles in time for Christmas 2020.

Typically, Microsoft holds an annual showcase of games at the E3 show in Los Angeles.

But this year’s conference was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Instead, the gaming giant showcased a series of upcoming games developed by third-party studios in a livestream.

They included:

racing game Dirt 5, which will let players drive around in ultra-high definition 4K at 60 frames per second (fps) or switch down to a lower resolution for even smoother gameplay at 120fps

mystery-horror game The Medium, which will take advantage of the Xbox Series X’s ray-tracing capabilities, to deliver advanced lighting effects

Second Extinction, in which players work as a team to take down large groups of mutated dinosaurs

Speaking during the livestream, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla creative director Ashraf Ismail – from developer Ubisoft – said the new console offered significant improvements for players.

“Assassin’s Creed has always been committed to new technology in order to push the most immersive experience that we possibly can.” he said.

“To have incredibly fast loading times means we can remove some of the friction from the immersion.

“Norway and dark-ages England are breathing, living worlds.

“So to be able to push them further is really wonderful for us.”

Several of the new games will be part of Microsoft’s “smart delivery” deal, which lets people play games they have purchased on any compatible Xbox console they own.

For example, a player who buys a game on the Xbox One S and then upgrades to an Xbox Series X will not have to buy the game again, if it is part of the deal.

However, many viewers complained Microsoft had promised to show off “gameplay” but the stream had mostly featured trailers and pre-rendered cinematic game footage.

“Where was the gameplay?” asked one viewer on YouTube.

“Do they know the difference?” asked another.

Microsoft said it would host another stream in July, revealing games from its own studios.

That will include Halo Infinite, a new game from the hugely successful Halo franchise.