Garena Free Fire August roadmap revealed: Era of Gold Diamond Royale, Bright August Event and more

Garena Free Fire recently rolled out the OB23 update for the game and as one might expect, it introduced a whole bunch of new features and additions to the game. Now though, the developers have revealed the roadmap for the month of August, giving players a glimpse of what to expect over the coming weeks. 

Elite Pass Season 27 Pre-Order (July 29 to July 31)

Free Fire players who pre-order the Season 21 Elite Pass will get a unique Japanese-inspired mask that will make them stand out from the rest. 

Elite Pass Challenge (July 29 to August 2)

Elite Pass users are challenged to defeat other players to earn loot crates. Players are encouraged to play every day in order to maximise their winnings. 

Era of Gold Diamond royale (July 30 to August 25)

This event will go on for almost the entirety of August and  gives players the opportunity to earn the Era of Gold outfit which sports a black and gold look and a matching mask.

Cold Steel Mode Comeback (July 31 to August 6)

Cold Steel Mode makes a comeback for a limited time. This mode sees players fight it out with nothing but throwing knives, leading to a game of skill and strategy.

Power Balance Webevent (July 31 to August 18)

This event sees players choose two grand prices and when one side is dominated, the player will win that prize. However, if the player is skilled enough to charge both sides, they will win both the selected prizes.

Order Challenger Groza Weapon Royale (July 31 to August 18)

The new Order Challenger Groza Weapon Royale will give players the chance to earn the unique Order Challenger Groza.

Bright August Event (August 2 to August 15)

The Bright August Event gives players the chance to earn up to 16 crates each day. All players need to do is “play, kill and survive” in order to win the crates.

Steffi Graffitti (August 4 to August 10)

The Steffi Graffitti event gives players the opportunity to win football jerseys. However, it should be noted that the event name seems to be an homage to Steffi Graff, one of the most decorated tennis players of all time and also someone who was famously not a football player.

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Oppo Watch with upto 21-day battery life launched in India: Features and pricing

Oppo Watch has been launched in India alongside the Oppo Reno 4 Pro and marks the company’s foray into the smart wearables segment. The Oppo Watch is powered by Google’s WearOS and comes with all the premium smartwatch features such as heart-rate monitoring and advanced health tracking. 

Oppo Watch price and availability

Oppo Watch is priced starting at Rs 14,990 in India for the 41mm variant and Rs 19,990 for the 46mm model. The smartwatch is scheduled to go on sale from August 10 in India across major online and offline stores.

Oppo Watch specifications and features

Oppo Watch comes in two sizes, 46mm and 41mm with an aluminium alloy build and matte finish. The 46mm watch is available in Black and Glossy Gold colours while the 41mm watch comes in Black, Pink Gold and Silver Mist colours to choose from. The 46mm variant weighs 39.3 grams while the 41mm model weighs 30.1 grams. There are two buttons on the right edge of the Oppo Watch, a Home button and a multi-function button.

The Oppo Watch 46mm is resistant to water by up to 50 meters and the 41mm by up to 30 meters. 

The Watch features a 1.91-inch 3D curved AMOLED screen with a 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut range. It comes with support for multiple watch faces that users can set from their smartphones. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 and runs on WearOS by Google, paired with 1GB RAM and 8GB storage. It connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth 4.2 and comes with a host of sensors including an acceleration sensor, gyroscope, geomagnetic sensor, barometric sensor, optical heart rate sensor, ambient light sensor and more.

The 46mm variant packs in a 430mAh battery which can last for 36 hours on smart mode and upto 21 days on power saver mode. The 41mm model is equipped with a 300mAh battery that offers upto 24 hours of battery life in smart mode and upto 14 days battery backup in power saver mode.

The Oppo Watch comes with different workout modes like outdoor walk, cycling, swimming, fat burn run, 5-minute workouts and more. This smartwatch keeps an active track of your heart with four optical sensors for accurate heart-rate monitoring. The watch also measures your sleeping habits and also comes with a guided breathing exercises mode.

The Oppo watch supports VOOC flash charging which is capable of recharging the smartwatch from 0-46% in 15 minutes and 0-100% in 75 minutes.

 

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Sony launches worlds widest zoom lens with an f28 aperture

Sony has announced the brand new FE 12-24mm f/2.8 GM lens for its mirrorless lineup. This is a lens that’s a part of the G Master series of lenses from Sony for its full-frame mirrorless cameras, although it is also compatible with its APS-C portfolio. However, what’s special about the lens is that it’s the world’s widest full-frame lens with a fixed aperture of f/2.8.

The Sony FE 12-24mm f/2.8 is a fairly large and heavy lens, tipping the scale at 874 grams, measuring 5.39 inches in length and 3.84 inches in diameter. This large size of the lens is due to the complex optical configuration, which includes three XA Extreme Aspherical elements, two super extra-low dispersion (ED) elements as well as a single aspherical lens element. The aspherical and XA elements serve the purpose of controlling fringing and chromatic aberration on ultra-wide lenses, aspherical elements do the same when these ultra-wide lenses also have a large aperture. The aperture assembly utilizes 9 blades, giving the bokeh a circular characteristic. The lens construction also offers a dedicated focus hold button, while also incorporating dust and weather sealing. The lens does not include a filter thread at the front.

Sony launches world's widest zoom lens with an f/2.8 aperture

Up until now, a major breakthrough in lens design has been fairly slow. For decades, the lenses on offer have had standard focal lengths, paired with a standard aperture. For example, it was understood that zoom lenses would not have an aperture larger than f/2.8, since it would make the lens too bulky and expensive to market. However, Sigma broke through that decade-old chokehold when the company announced the 24-35mm f/2.0 lens. This was the world’s first zoom lens with an f/2.0 aperture, signalling that the first party lens-makers had enjoyed their comfort zone long enough. Prior to this, the only major lens redesign we saw was with the introduction of higher resolution DSLRs (30MP+) as the lenses available at the time did not have the resolution to match the sensors, introducing diffraction artefact into images that had been shot at f/8 or smaller. OIS was another area where we saw slow and steady improvement, with Canon and Nikon lenses going from 3-stops of effective OIS to 4 and now, even more. However, Sigma was the first to break the barrier of optical design challenge within the realm of what was considered a fair asking price. Since then, Sony and Canon have stepped up their game significantly.

With Canon finally foraying into the professional mirrorless space with the EOS R lineup, the new RF lenses have been nothing short of an engineering marvel themselves. While they were quick to bring their popular EF lenses to the RF portfolio, such as the 85mm f/1.2L, the 50mm f/1.2L and even the 24-70/24-105 combos, the real engineering marvel was the 24-70mm f/2.0L USM. While Sigma’s lens offered a relatively small zoom range, Canon’s covers a very popular focal length, while offering a larger aperture. Nikon, for its part, redesigned their Noct lens for the modern high-resolution sensor, releasing the Nikkor Z Noct 58mm f/0.95 for its Nikon Z series of mirrorless cameras.

Ultra-wide zoom lenses for well over a decade have been stuck at the 16mm end if the lens had to be a full-frame lens and also pack an f/2.8 aperture. There are prime lenses available with an aperture of f/2.8 that are much wider, and even APS-C lenses that advertise a focal length as wide as 11mm with an aperture of f/2.8. However, the latter does not cover the entire area of a full-frame sensor and when attached to an APC-S body, offers only a cropped focal length. Basically, you’re not really getting the 11mm FOV. The new Sony FE 12-24mm f/2.8 finally brings everything together; full-frame compatibility, a large aperture and a 12mm wide-end.

Sadly, this kind of feat does not come cheap. The Sony FE 12-24mm f/2.8 has a price tag of Rs 2,99,990 and is available across all Sony Center, Alpha Flagship stores, Sony authorized dealers and major electronic stores.

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Honor 9A, 9S launched: Google Apps support, price, availability

The Honor 9A and Honor 9S smartphones have been announced in India, along with Honor’s first laptop in India - The MagicBook 15. The Honor 9A and Honor 9S are the latest from the brand to come to India, after the Honor 9X Pro and like the previous few releases, both of them run on Huawei Mobile Services and relies on the Huawei AppGallery for apps. The Honor MagicBook 15 is the company’s first laptop in India and comes with the AMD Ryzen 5 CPU under the hood. it is priced Rs 39,990.

The Honor 9A and 9S launched in India via a livestream and the smartphones will go on sale starting 6th August at 12 PM. The Honor 9A is an Amazon exclusive while the Honor 9S will be available on Flipkart.

Honor 9A, Honor 9S price in India

The Honor 9A is priced at Rs 9,999 with a special discount for buyers ordering it in the first sale, taking the price down to Rs 8,999 with a Rs 1,000 discount. There’s also an additional 10 per cent discount for HDFC card users and No Cost EMI options of 6 months.

The Honor 9S is priced at Rs 6,499 and will be offered with no-cost EMI options and a discount of Rs 500 for those purchasing it during the first sale, bringing the price down to Rs 5,999.

Honor 9A specifications and features

The Honor 9A is an entry-level smartphone, and with a 6.3-inch HD+ display and an octa-core Helio P22 SoC with 3GB RAM and 64GB storage, it’s the more powerful of the two. The Honor 9A also comes with a 5,000mAh battery under the hood. The 9A also offers a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor and runs on Android 10 with Honor’s own MagicUI 3.1 on top. There’s also expandable storage support up to 512GB with a dedicated microSD slot and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Huawei’s Party Mode feature is also present.

The Honor 9S comes with a triple camera setup led by a 13MP primary camera with f/1.8 lens, along with a 5MP ultrawide camera with 120-degree FOV and a 2MP depth sensor for portraits. On the front, there is an 8MP selfie shooter.

Honor 9S specifications and features

The Honor 9S is the more affordable, and less powerful of the two. It features a 5.45-inch HD+ display with the MediaTek Helio P22 under the hood as well, but there’s just 2GB RAM and 32GB storage, and a smaller 3020mAh battery, which Honor claims delivers 17 hours of video playback. There’s also a dedicated microSD card slot. The Honor 9S runs on Android 10 as well with MagicUI 3.1 on top.

There’s a single 8MP primary camera with f/2.0 aperture at the back and a 5MP selfie shooter up front.

Does the Honor 9A and Honor 9S support Google Apps?

The burning question that pops up every time a Honor or Huawei smartphone launches these days, is whether they run on Huawei’s own Huawei Mobile Services or the default Google services that powers every other Android device in India? The answer is no. Like the Honor 9X Pro, the entry-level Honor 9A and Honor 9S also runs on Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) with Huawei AppGallery as the app store. There are ways to access your emails and apps like YouTube, but you won’t be able to enjoy the benefits of using Google Maps or Google Pay. You will also not be able to use WhatsApp on the phones. You can read more about how Honor's is tackling the absence of Google apps here.

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Oppo Reno 4 Pro launched in India starting at Rs 34,990: specifications and availability

Oppo Reno 4 Pro has launched in India as the successor to the Reno 3 Pro and comes with support for 65W fast charging, quad cameras on the back, high refresh rate display and more. The Reno 4 Pro is part of the Reno 4 series that was announced by Oppo earlier in June, however, the Indian variant comes with a slightly different feature set than its Chinese counterpart.

For instance, the Indian Reno 4 Pro is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G chipset rather than Snapdragon 765G, the latter we’ve seen on the recently launched OnePlus Nord. Let’s take a brief look at the specifications, pricing and availability of the Oppo Reno 4 Pro.

Oppo Reno 4 Pro pricing and availability

Oppo Reno 4 Pro starts at Rs 34,990 for the base variant with 8GB RAM. The Reno 4 Pro goes on sale from August 5 on Amazon India, Flipkart and offline retailers.

Oppo Reno 4 Pro specifications

Oppo Reno 4 Pro is very thin and lightweight and comes with an anti-glare matte finish on the rear which is soft-to-touch. It measures 7.7 millimetres in thickness and weighs around 161 grams. The phone features a 6.5-inch Full HD+ () resolution AMOLED screen with a 90Hz high-refresh-rate and a single punch-hole cutout on the top-left corner that houses the selfie camera.

The Reno 4 Pro is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G with an octa-core CPU and Adreno 618 GPU. This is paired with 8GB RAM and upto 256GB storage options to choose from. It runs on ColorOS 7.2 which is based on Android 10.

Oppo Reno 4 Pro comes with a quad-camera setup on the back that consists of a primary 48MP with f/1.7 aperture, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera, a 2MP monochrome camera and a 2MP macro camera. 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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Indian Government imposes a restriction on import of colour TVs, aims to boost local manufacturing

The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has announced a restriction on the import of colour TVs in India. The import restriction changes the import policy on TVs in India from “free” to “restricted”. 

According to the DGFT, “Other colour, Television sets of screen size up to 36 cm, television sets of screen size exceeding 36 cm but not exceeding 54 cm, television sets of screen size exceeding 54 cm but not exceeding 68 cm, television sets of screen size exceeding 68 cm but not exceeding 74 cm, television sets of screen size exceeding 74 cm but not exceeding 87 cm, television sets of screen size exceeding 87 cm but not exceeding 105 cm, television sets of screen size exceeding 105 cm, liquid crystal display television set of screen size below 63 cm and other” will be impacted by the change in the policy.

DGFT has vide Notification No. 22/2015-2020 dated 30.07.2020 notified the change in Import Policy of colour television sets under HS codes 8528 7211 to 8528 7219. For more details, please refer to the link below -https://t.co/ugxp9CPxiW

— DGFT (@dgftindia) July 30, 2020

The statement goes on to say, "Actual user conditions would not be applicable for importers applying for an authorization to import the goods 'Restricted' in this Notification. The procedure for grant of license will be separately issued by DGFT". 

Indian Government imposes a restriction on import of colour TVs

When it comes to the TV market, India imported TVs worth $781 million in the year ending 31 March 2020. Over $400 million worth of TVs were imported from Vietnam and nearly $300 million worth of Tvs were imported from China. According to the Economic Times, “around 35% of TV sets sold in the country are imported”.

How this change in policy affects the import of TVs is something only time will tell. It is obvious that the move is done to boost the local manufacturing of TVs in India. Digit reached out to a number of TV brands selling their products in India and the following is what they had to say.

Satish Padmanabhan, Head of Sales at Sony India said, “Sony has been investing heavily to shift local manufacturing of televisions to India since 2015. Currently, we are successfully manufacturing 99% of BRAVIA televisions in India and we are quite satisfied with the production quality, which is at par with global standards and well accepted by our Indian consumers. We have faith in the Government and this step has built the right momentum for India’s journey to becoming self-reliant.” 

Avneet Singh Marwah, CEO Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd, a Kodak Brand Licensee and Exclusive Brand Licensee of Thomson TVs in India said, "This is a great move for assembling in India, but for a self-reliant India, we need to complete ecosystem of value addition. We need to have component and panel display manufacturing plant in India." He goes on to say, “The new announcement by DGFT will be a step towards encouraging homegrown brands to invest in manufacturing capabilities within India and lead to more employment, technology advancement and local partnerships”.

The government of India banned 59 Chinese apps in India including TikTok and you can read about the 59 banned apps here. The Indian Government has banned 47 new apps that were allowing access to banned Chinese apps. And you can read more about it here.

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Ubisoft’s Hyper Scape Stable Release Coming to PC, PS4, Xbox One on August 11 for Free

Ubisoft’s Hyper Scape will be released on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on August 11, the company announced on Twitter. The free to play battle royale game is currently available in beta on PC and will finally come to all three platforms on August 11.

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