Xiaomi patents a smartphone design with in-built earbuds

Xiaomi patents a full-screen smartphone with an under-screen camera and a compartment to store your wireless earbuds in China and Netherlands. The patent renders show earbuds slot into cylindrical shafts at the top of the phone, which can double as a loudspeaker as well.

This is not the first time Xiaomi has shown interest in a bold design idea that looks very intriguing. Having released phones like the Mix and the Mix Alpha that defied conventional smartphone designs in the past, Xiaomi has a history of experimenting with new designs.

Inspired by the new patents, LetsGoDigital has created design renders as per their imagination of the idea. 

According to the two patents, the phone will have two holes at the top that will accommodate wireless earbuds. The earbuds point upward when placed into the shaft, but it can pivot at different angles to fit the ears well. The idea is very similar to how Samsung provides the S-Pen in the Note series handsets. 

By the looks of it, the earbuds might also double as a loudspeaker when it's in the slot. 

Can we see this in a future smartphone?

It's too early to say if it is going to be seen on a future smartphone, but it's a design that can be made possible after working on the underlying issues. For example, such a compartment will require a lot of space depending on the size of the earbuds. A lot of components will have to be readjusted and replaced by smaller parts, which will entail high manufacturing costs. Similarly, making compact earbuds with good battery life and sound isn't an easy combo to make under a budget. Also, this might add bulk to the smartphone, which is not something many would look forward to.

Moreover, if the earbuds use the smartphone's battery to charge, the capacity will also need to be increased. And not to forget, OEMs have been ditching the 3.5mm audio jack (a single unit) to fit bigger batteries on phones. This will be a big challenge. 

Aside from the production cost, the company will also have to take care of hygiene too. The earbuds will be exposed to the outside world, doubling as a loudspeaker and will then go into your ears. So this is something that the company will have to consider too. 

In case Xiaomi can achieve this design, it might not cost anything that an ordinary user can afford for at least three generations. The benefits, however, are tempting. Having earbuds inside the phone means you don't need to carry an additional device with you and fewer chances of forgetting them unless you forget your phone. 

Likely, this design will not become commercial anytime soon. However, we do feel that if achieved this is a more useful design for a future phone compared to the, Mi Mix Alpha, which is not more than just an all-screen gimmick.

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Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 starting at Rs 60,990 launched in India

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 has launched in India as a thin and light laptop that comes with the latest hardware inside. The company announced the IdeaPad Slim 3 last month in June and now the Slim 5 takes it a notch higher as it is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 processor. 

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 is listed in a single variant on the official India website priced at Rs 60,990 and comes with 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD storage. It is available in a single colour, Graphite Grey, online. The listing was first spotted by TechnoSports who reported that the IdeaPad Slim 5 is also listed on Amazon India but is priced at Rs 66,950.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 specifications and features

The IdeaPad Slim 5 features a 14-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) resolution anti-glare display with 300 nits of brightness and 100% sRGB colour range. The screen is surrounded by narrow bezels, the top one measuring less than 7mm, the left and right ones measuring 4.3mm and bottom bezel measuring less than 10mm.

The Slim 5 is powered by AMD Ryzen 7 4700U processor with Radeon graphics and runs on Windows 10 Home. This is paired with upto 16GB RAM and upto 1TB HDD/SSD M.2 storage options to choose from. Having said that, currently the only variant listed on the website comes with 8GB RAM / 256GB SSD.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 packs in a 57Wh three-cell battery that is able to provide upto 12 hours worth of battery life with support for Quick Charge 2.0. Lenovo claims that a 15-minute charge can top-up the battery for a 3-hour long use.

There’s a privacy shutter on the webcam and the power button doubles up as a fingerprint reader. The IdeaPad Slim 5 comes with upward-firing stereo speakers tuned by Dolby Audio. It also comes with support for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1.

As for the I/O ports, the IdeaPad Slim 5 comes with two USB-A 3.1 ports, a USB Type-C port, an HDMI port, an SD card reader and a headphone/mic combo jack.

 

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Sony HT-G700 31-Channel Soundbar With Dolby Atmos launched in India for Rs 39,990

Sony recently launched the HT-G700 Soundbar in the US and the device is now available in India. The Sony HT-G700 3.1 soundbar has the front three channels in the bar itself and also comes with a wireless subwoofer. We have seen the Sony HT-Z9F Dolby Atmos enabled soundbar launch in India in 2019. It was also a 3.1 channel soundbar with the optional rear speakers to give users a surround sound effect. You can read our review of the Sony HT-Z9F here. Coming back to the HT-G700 the soundbar has an Immersive AE (audio Engine) which simulates a surround sound experience from the soundbar for content which is not mastered in Dolby Atmos. Let’s dive deep and take a look at everything the soundbar has to offer. 

Sony HT-G700 Features and Specifications

The Sony HT-G700 soundbar is a 3.1 soundbar which means that instead of the traditional two drivers in the soundbar, there are three. The only other time we have seen this setup is with the Philps TAPB603 soundbar and you can read more about it here. The soundbar is accompanied by a wireless subwoofer and syncing them is as easy as plugging them into the wall and switching it on. 

The Sony HT-G700 supports Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. It comes with a simple easy to use remote control and has a button labelled Immersive AE to enhance audio which is not in Dolby Atmos. The remote control lets you toggle through a bunch of modes including Standard, Cinema and Music. It also lets you control the volume level, subwoofer level and more.  The soundbar can get pretty loud as it has a sound output of 400 W. For inputs, it has Optical-audio input, USB type A, Bluetooth Version 5, 1 HDMI output that supports eARC and 1 HDMI input for passthrough with support for 4K at 60Hz and Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. It does not support WiFi which is a bummer. 

Sony HT-G700 Price

The Sony HT-G700 Soundbar is available in India for Rs 39,990. It is cheaper than its US price which is $600 (Rs 45,000 approx. directly converted)

In addition to the HT-G700, Sony currently has three Dolby Atmos enabled soundbars it sells in India. One is the above-mentioned HT-Z9F, the other is the HT-X8500 (read our review here) and the last one is the premium HT-ST5000. 

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Nubia Red Magic 5S With Snapdragon 865 SoC, 144Hz Display Launched: Price, Specifications

Nubia Red Magic 5S has debuted as the newest member in the brand's Red Magic series of gaming smartphones after the Red Magic 5G and Red Magic 5G Lite. The phone features an upgraded cooling system ICE 4.0 that is backed by a centrifugal fan with a speed of up to 15,000rpm.

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CES 2021 to be all-digital over Coronavirus Covid-19 concerns

CES (Consumer Electronics Show), the annual consumer technology conference held by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) will move to an all-digital experience for CES 2021 which is currently scheduled to take place between January 6-9, 2021. CES is by far, the largest consumer technology expos in the world aside from COMPUTEX. The show, which is held in Las Vegas every year, sees some of the largest product unveils and launches of said year. Earlier this year, CES ASIA which takes place in Shanghai every year in June was indefinitely postponed. Other noteworthy major tech shows that have been postponed or switched to a digital format this year include NVIDIA GTC, COMPUTEX 2020, Game Developers Conference 2020, SIGGRAPH20, MWC 2020, Google I/O, Facebook F8, Adobe Summit and AWS Summit. 

"Amid the pandemic and growing global health concerns about the spread of COVID-19, it's just not possible to safely convene tens of thousands of people in Las Vegas in early January 2021 to meet and do business in person,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CTA. “Technology helps us all work, learn and connect during the pandemic — and that innovation will also help us reimagine CES 2021 and bring together the tech community in a meaningful way. By shifting to an all-digital platform for 2021, we can deliver a unique experience that helps our exhibitors connect with existing and new audiences."

CES 2021 Dates, Attendees, Tickets, Location, Exhibitors

Exhibiting at CES or attending CES, for that matter, is no joke. CES Exhibitors vie for prime real-estate on the show-floor a whole year in advance. Even attendees have to plan their trips months in advance if they are to secure flight tickets and hotel rooms at reasonable prices. While the move to an all-digital format will certainly make things easier for attendees, it will affect exhibitors adversely since digital events can never match up to their physical avatars, at least not any of the digital conferences we’ve been to have held a candle to their physical counterparts. 

CES 2021 in the new digital format is scheduled to be held on January 6-9, 2021. However, CTA has stated that CES 2022 will return to Las Vegas in the same old physical format. The main show floors at CES are restricted to journalists, analysts and trade partners, and even that doesn’t help much with the overcrowding. Aside from the overcrowding, there are simultaneous events happening at CES which adds a whole new dimension to the show. Major exhibitors often coordinate with each other so as to not have overlaps but the little guys always have to go the extra mile to get any airtime. It would be interesting to see who exhibitors and attendees manage with everything moving online.

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Android smartphones can now help COVID-19 research through distributed computing

You can now contribute towards COVID-19 research using your Android smartphone. Neocortix, a mobile distributed computing company today announced Arm 65-bit support for major distributed computing research programmes – Folding@home and Rosetta@home. By enabling the support, all the Arm-based Android mobile phones, Raspberry Pi and servers will now be able to contribute their spare computing power to find a vaccine to beat COVID-19.

 

The two projects are helping researchers around the globe in developing medicine and vaccines for the noble Coronavirus. Although the programs are old, neither of them could support ARM-based devices earlier. By adding ARM support, billions of devices running powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon and Samsung Exynos chipsets lend their power.

 

Android smartphones can now help COVID-19 research

 

The Cloud Services Platform by Neocortix allows the extra capacity of individual mobile phones to be harnessed into a single, unified computational engine. On a larger scale, with millions of phone processors running together, they can equal the computing performance of the world's most advanced supercomputers.

 

Folding@home director Dr Greg Bowman said, "we've been watching the increasing computational power of phones and other mobile devices for years. This collaboration with Neocortix and Arm provided the perfect opportunity to tap into these resources to accelerate our COVID-19 research."

 

While support for mobile devices has just been added, these distributed computing projects have received immense help from home users who use multi-core CPUs and GPUs in their PCs. A lot of cryptocurrency mining machines also contribute, which are best suited for data crunching projects like these. In March, Engadget reported that the distributed computing project is now working with about 470 petaflops of output, which is enough to eclipse the world's top seven supercomputers combined. Around 400,000 new people had joined Folding@home's fight against Covid-19 using computers in March.

 

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Oppo Reno 4 Pro launch confirmed for July 31 in India: Heres what you need to know

Oppo Reno 4 Pro is confirmed to launch in India on July 31 and is a bit different from the Oppo Reno 4 series that was launched in China in June 2020. In that, the Indian variant of the Reno 4 Pro is rumoured to come with a quad-camera setup on the back, unlike the Chinese variant that has three rear cameras.

Moreover, there is a possibility that the Reno 4 Pro that launches in India could be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G instead of the Snapdragon 765G. Otherwise, the phone is expected to come with a 6.55-inch AMOLED screen with 90Hz refresh rate and support for 65W fast charging out-of-the-box. Oppo Reno 4 Pro launches in India on July 31 and will go on sale on Amazon India. Here's a brief look at the specifications of the Reno 4 Pro that launched in China.

Oppo Reno 4 Pro specifications

Oppo Reno4 Pro features a 6.55-inch Full HD+ (2400 x 1080 pixels) resolution AMOLED screen with punch-hole cutout on the top-left corner that gives it a 20:9 aspect ratio. The display supports a 90Hz high refresh rate and is certified for HDR10+ playback. The screen is further topped by a layer of Gorilla Glass 6 for added protection against daily wear and tear.

It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G with an octa-core CPU and Adreno 620 GPU. It is paired with upto 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. 

The Reno 4 Pro has three cameras on the back which consists of a primary 48MP with f/1.7 aperture, a 13MP telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom and a 12MP ultra-wide-angle camera with 120-degree field-of-view. The rear cameras are capable of shooting in 4K at 30fps with support for optical image stabilization. On the front, housed within the punch-hole cutout is a 32MP selfie camera. 

It is equipped with a 4,000mAh battery with support for 65W fast charging via SuperVOOC 2.0 fast-charging adapter that Oppo claims can go from 0-100% in 36 minutes.

 

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