Xiaomi Mi NoteBook 14 with Core i3 processor confirmed to launch soon in India

Xiaomi Mi NoteBook 14 with 10th generation Intel Core i3 processor is confirmed to launch soon in India. After the launch of the Mi NoteBook 14 (Core i5) and Mi NoteBook 14 Horizon Edition earlier in June this year, this will be the third laptop from the company to make it to the country in the affordable laptop range. The company has teased the key specifications along with a picture of its upcoming laptop.

Manu Kumar Jain, MD at Xiaomi India took to Twitter to announce that the company is preparing to expand its laptop portfolio and will launch the Mi NoteBook 14 powered by the 10th generation Intel Core i3 processor soon. The tweet was accompanied by an image of the laptop teasing the key feature-set. 

Going by the image, the upcoming Mi NoteBook 14 is powered by the 10th gen Intel Core i3 processor with 256GB SSD storage. The laptop is expected to be thin and lightweight, weighing in at 1.5 kilograms. Moreover, unlike its existing laptops in the Mi NoteBook 14 range, the Core i3 variant also features an in-built webcam on top. 

While the company has not revealed the actual launch date of the Core i3 variant of the Mi NoteBook 14, it is expected to launch in the coming weeks with some “festive offers” as stated in Jain’s tweet. Currently, laptops with the similar configuration-set such as the ones in Lenovo IdeaPad or Dell Inspiron series are priced between Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 and it will be interesting to see whether Xiaomi is able to undercut these or offer better features in the range.

The Mi NoteBook 14 powered by the 10th generation Intel Core i5 processor with NVIDIA GeForce MX250 graphics and paired with 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD is currently priced starting at Rs 41,999. It features a 14-inch Full HD display and is sleek and lightweight.

The Mi NoteBook 14 Horizon Edition, on the other hand, features a 1080p anti-glare display and is powered by the 10th generation Intel Core i7 processor with NVIDIA GeForce MX350 graphics. This is paired with 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD storage making it lightweight at 1.35 kilograms. The Horizon Edition is priced starting at Rs 51,999 in India. You can read our extensive review here or watch the review video below.

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OnePlus 8T Review

The OnePlus 8T doesn't really bring anything new to the table, but polishes and refines the previous lineup to reach a middle point. The OnePlus 8T is basically the OnePlus 8 that adds the 120Hz refresh rate from the OnePlus 8 Pro, and adds 65W fast charging, to create what is easily one of the best Android experiences out there.

With the Pro Model largely absent from this year’s fall lineup for OnePlus, all eyes are on the OnePlus 8T, which seems to sit cozily between the OnePlus 8 and the OnePlus 8 Pro. It borrows quite a few features from the OnePlus 8 Pro, including the primary camera sensor and the display, but also adds new things like 65W fast charging and UFS 3.1 storage. Like OnePlus has stated over the years, the T series was brought in to capitalise on the new developments that break in the second half of the year.  Hardware like the chipset and other components also tend to become cheaper by the second half of the year, and the overall offering gives a lot more value for money than the products launched in the first half of the year. The OnePlus 7T did more or less the same thing by imbibing the high refresh rate display from its Pro sibling, and becoming one of the best value flagships of 2019. With the OnePlus 8T Pro not seeing the light of the day, the onus on the OnePlus 8T to prove itself in the market is a lot higher. Can it succeed? Let’s find out —

Performance

With OnePlus opting out of the speed-binned variant of the Snapdragon 865, the benchmark scores of the OnePlus 8T remain largely the same as its predecessor. Interestingly, the OnePlus 8T goes back to using LPDDR4X RAM, instead of LPDDR5 used on both the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro earlier this year. This after a detailed forum post on how the latest RAM module improves operating speed, definitely feels like a compromise on paper, and the benchmark scores also reflect that when compared to the OnePlus 8. That certainly feels odd, but might disappoint the speed enthusiasts who buy a OnePlus flagship thinking that it’s the latest and the best.

Thankfully, the real world performance is reassuring, and is actually a testament to the fact that benchmark scores and real world usage are poles apart. The lower scores should ideally indicate that the OnePlus 8 should feel faster than the OnePlus 8T, but set the refresh rate to 90Hz on the 8T, and we guarantee you won’t see any difference in the speed at which the phone boots up, unlocks and launches apps. It’s definitely a good thing as the OnePlus 8 was already plenty fast and gets the job done effortlessly. The 120Hz refresh rate is the only thing that seems to separate the experience of using the phone. It’s ever so slightly smoother, like how the 8 Pro was as compared to the OnePlus 8.

The dual stereo speakers are loud, with audible sound separation, making watching episodes on the pot a lot more immersive. The on-screen fingerprint sensor works just as fast as the 8 Pro, but if you have face unlock enabled, you won’t even need to use it. The storage is also blazing fast. All the photos I clicked on the phone got transferred in less than 5 minutes. That was around 4GB of data.

Gaming

OnePlus flagships have always offered the best gaming experience without the extra buttons and triggers found in a typical gaming phone. And the OnePlus 8T is no different, and unlike the OnePlus 8 Pro, doesn’t heat up excessively. I tried my hand on a few rounds of Call of Duty: Mobile’s Team Deathmatch, and it’s really the best it can get right now. Having built a habit of playing COD on the ROG Phone 3, I didn’t feel a big difference in gameplay, except for missing the AirTriggers. The touch sensitivity and the large surface area is perfect for quickly moving around and aiming, and the response times are near accurate on a good Wi-Fi connection.

The game ran at 60 FPS at 100% stability, and it only got slightly warm after three matches. Now, despite having a 120Hz display, none of the mainstream Android games will run at 120FPS. 90FPS on Fortnite has been promised, but that’s likely going to be at the cost of low quality graphics.

Software

The OnePlus 8T did give me a chance to explore the new OxygenOS 11 to its fullest, and that’s the real charm of using the device. Not the flagship hardware as such, because now that I’ve had a taste of the same experience on mid-range hardware, there are reasons to believe spending upwards of Rs 40,000 will not make much of a difference in the overall experience, when it comes to OnePlus smartphones.

Nevertheless, OxygenOS 11 is still eluding the Nord, with the 8 series being the only one with it for now. There are improvements across the board, some incremental and some game-changing, like the Always-on display. That is one big missing piece that makes OxygenOS the best Android skin in my books. It disappeared from the OnePlus 6, and returned with more powers on the OnePlus 8T. It’s called Ambient Display and it’s always-on, and now shows the number of times you have unlocked the phone throughout the day in a minimalist visual.

OnePlus has removed the OnePlus Slate Font and replaced it with Sans, which did take a little time for me to get used to. Menu titles are big and bold, sub-menus have rounded corners; you can also customise the icon shapes, the colour accents and

There’s also a pull-out game bar you can use to toggle settings on the fly, quick access to Google Home devices and more. It’s not a major visual upgrade as such, and the UI still feels just as smooth, slick and fast. I doubt there’s anything more OnePlus can do here.

Camera

With the OnePlus 8T in place, we now have three OnePlus smartphones using the same 48MP camera sensor, including the OnePlus 8 and the OnePlus Nord. This, when the competition has already moved on to larger sensors seems quite ‘unsettling’ for OnePlus. The performance I felt was being held back for this reason. The ultrawide camera is also the same as before, but there’s now a larger macro camera and a 2MP monochrome lens.

The camera performance, as a result of the hardware, isn’t anything groundbreaking. The output is ever so slightly better than the OnePlus Nord, but nowhere close to the results from the OnePlus 8 Pro. Both the OnePlus Nord and the OnePlus 8 Pro also carry a warm tinge in photos shot in the day, which the 8T gets right. The colours are nicely balanced, and even with a dominance of green in the frame, the white balance is not off.

OnePlus 8T

OnePlus Nord

OnePlus 8 Pro

The level of details in photos shot from the primary 48MP camera is similar to the OnePlus 8 and the OnePlus Nord. You can crop by at least 2x without losing the details too much. The overall sharpness, including the center and the edges are uniformly good, and the dynamic range is just shy of what the 8 Pro can produce with its larger sensor.

 

The ultrawide lens too outputs sharp, clean photos given the source of light is ample and not directly in the frame. In the day, the 16MP shooter produces sharp details in the center, with very little distortion in the corners. The colours are also quite consistent moving from the primary to the ultrawide lens.

The good thing is that the ultrawide lens now works with the Nightscape mode, and there’s a definite improvement in using the lens in lowlight. Don’t think iPhone standards, but at least you are now able to get a lot more light in through the small aperture, details be damned.

The Nightscape mode using the primary lens, is now faster than before, and pushes the brightness of the frame to make it look like it’s morning. I’m guessing there are admirers of this effect, but personally, I like to keep my photos natural, and the Nightscape mode by default doesn’t allow it. You need to dial down the exposure level to reduce the brightness, at the cost of darker shadows.

OnePlus 8T

OnePlus Nord

OnePlus 8 Pro

The OnePlus 8T also brings a larger macro lens, even as the 8 Pro simply uses the primary camera to take macro shots. The macro camera seens to have focus issues. It hardly got the details from the flower I was trying to capture.

Overall, the camera performance is sort of disappointing. Not that the photos aren't sharp and detailed. But the camera performance in OnePlus smartphones seems to have hit a plateau. The 8T camera could have done better with a larger sensor, and we’re unsure whether it was cost-cutting or, using up stock of older sensors that made OnePlus stick to a camera sensor launched two years back, even as smartphones like the Mi 10 and the Vivo X50 Pro innovated on using larger sensors and newer stabilisation methods. OnePlus' flagship lineup this year lacks that lustre. So if you are planning to get the OnePlus 8T for its camera performance, there are better options in the same price range.

Battery

The battery is where the OnePlus 8T will put all other OnePlus flagships to shame. After sticking to 30W fast charging for years, the 8T embraces hyperfast 65W fast charging, and what an impact it makes! It’s not the first time we are seeing 65W fast charging on a smartphone before. OnePlus’ BBK sibling Realme and Oppo have already outed smartphones with the technology, and you can avail that speed for as low as Rs 14,999. On the OnePlus 8T, the 65W only adds on to the long list of flagship features and makes this one even more compelling amidst competition. You will anyway have trouble draining the 4500mAh battery on the 8T. The optimisations in place keeps the battery drain extremely conservative when you are doing simple tasks like texting, browsing Twitter or even video calling. That’s usually how my morning goes, and from 100%, the battery drained only to 93% after the usual morning routine.

Even with heavy usage sprinkled with gaming, streaming content on Netflix and taking plenty of photos and videos, the OnePlus 8T lasts till the evening. And the moment the charge hits 15%, you can just plug it for 10 minutes to bring the battery level up to 50%. The total time it takes to charge the phone to full capacity is just over 30 minutes. Trust me, it’s a game-changer.

Design and Display

Another place that saw big changes is the design. The OnePlus 8T is now more in line with the OnePlus Nord’s design philosophy. OnePlus switched to a glossy glass finish and used a broader camera module in the top corner, housing four cameras and two flash modules. The frame is built out of aluminum and feels quite resilient. The phone is also as heavy as the OnePlus 8 Pro, and putting it in a cover makes it even heavier. The punch-hole camera, the speaker arrangement and the alert slider has been retained from its predecessor, and thankfully, the screen is now flat, and shows no glare or colour shift along the edges. Sadly, the OnePlus 8T is not water resistant and IP68 certified like the OnePlus 8 Pro.

Speaking of the display, this really feels like the best panel we have seen on a OnePlus device. The 6.55-inch AMOLED display is tuned to produce bright and saturated colours with deep blacks and high contrast. Using the phone in Dark Mode is a charm, and watching HDR videos on YouTube is just as charming. Netflix still hasn’t certified the 8T yet, but that won’t take long. The panel is also ideal for gaming as the touch sampling rate can hit a claimed 240Hz. But here’s what’s missing — While the panel does sport 120Hz refresh, there’s no MEMC chip inside in the 8T to upscale videos to up to 120 fps, like the OnePlus 8 Pro. The resolution is also lower on the 8T’s panel. As a result, the OnePlus 8 Pro’s display visually remains the best, but I just prefer the flat screen more than the sharply curved edges.

Bottomline

With one of the smoothest displays, hyperfast charging, and a premium design, the OnePlus 8T offers almost everything one wants from a smartphone in 2020. Only the camera holds it back from challenging the stalwarts in the market, even its own Pro sibling. What it does offer is one of the best value for money devices out there. The 8+128GB variant launched at Rs 42,999 and goes up to Rs 45,999 for the 12+256GB variant, in line with the Xiaomi Mi 10 and the OnePlus 8. The OnePlus 8T is perfect if the camera is not the highest priority, but gaming, watching movies and speedy usage, is. It’s not as ergonomic as the Mi 10 or the OnePlus 8, because of its weight and thickness, but boy is it fast!

Photos by Prateek Khatri

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Asus ROG Phone 3 price officially slashed by Rs 3,000 in India

Asus ROG Phone 3 has received a price cut bringing down its price by Rs 3,000 in India. The gaming phone was launched on July 22 at a starting price of Rs 49,999 in India but now the company has officially slashed the price and it now starts at Rs 46,999 for the base variant.

The ROG Phone 3 is the third iteration in the series of gaming phones by Asus that features all the bells and whistles that one would expect from a gaming phone. It’s powered by a flagship Snapdragon processor with a high refresh rate screen and a high-capacity battery to boot.

Asus ROG Phone 3 price cut details

Asus has discounted the prices of the ROG Phone 3 across the three variants it currently sells in India. The base variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage now starts at Rs 46,999 down from its original price of Rs 49,999 while the 12GB+128GB variant now retails at Rs 49,999 down from Rs 52,999 followed by the 12GB+256GB variant retailing at Rs 54,999 over its original price of Rs 57,999.

Asus has revealed that the price cut is now reflected on Flipkart. Moreover, Axis Bank debit and credit card users can purchase the ROG Phone 3 at an additional 10% discount during the Big Diwali Sale on Flipkart that’s being held between October 29 and November 4. 

In our extensive review of the ROG Phone 3 that you can read here, we noted that “Every element of the smartphone has been decided with gaming in mind. An insanely responsive display, cutting-edge hardware, AirTriggers, and loud audio, offers an unfair advantage against other players using vanilla smartphones. It’s not that you will get better frame rates from the popular games from this phone, but aiming, shooting and moving is the most responsive on the ROG Phone 3.”

Asus ROG Phone 3 specifications

Asus ROG Phone 3 is built featuring a metal-glass sandwich design and measures 9.8 millimetres in thickness, weighing in at 240 grams. It features a 6.59-inch Full HD+ (2340 x 1080 pixels) resolution AMOLED screen with a 144Hz high refresh rate and HDR10+ certification. It is embedded with an in-display fingerprint sensor for fast unlock speeds and is topped with a layer of Gorilla Glass 6.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus chipset lies at the heart of the ROG Phone 3 with an octa-core CPU and Adreno 650 GPU. This is further paired with upto 12GB RAM LPDDR5 and 256GB UFS 3.1 storage options to choose from, with the phone running on Android 10 based ROG UI out-of-the-box.

The ROG Phone 3 comes with a triple camera setup that consists of a primary 64MP camera with an f/1.8 aperture, a 13MP ultra-wide-angle camera with 125-degree field-of-view and a 5MP macro camera. On the front, there is a 24MP selfie camera with an f/2.0 aperture.  The rear cameras are capable of recording in 8K UHD at 30FPS and 4K UHD at up to 60FPS with support for OIS and EIS.

Asus ROG Phone 3 comes equipped with a 6,000mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging out-of-the-box.

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Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 Review

The GeForce RTX 3070 offers as much power as previous-gen flagships and could help popularise ray tracing, though it's still relatively expensive.

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OnePlus CEO Pete Lau teases OnePlus 8T Cyberpunk 2077 Limited Edition on Weibo

OnePlus CEO Pete Lau has teased the OnePlus 8T Cyberpunk 2077 Limited Edition smartphone on Weibo. It's not the first teaser from the company, the announcement was first made at the OnePlus 8T launch event in China. The company announced that it has partnered with Polish video game developer CD Projekt Red on a special edition of the OnePlus 8T.

The phone is dubbed as the OnePlus 8T Cyberpunk 2077 Limited Edition. The pre-orders for the phone will start on November 4. The latest teaser image of the phone shows a lime-yellow, grey and black accent, which is what we've seen on official Cyberpunk 2077 posters as well. We can also make out a different textured finish on the grey coloured back that could either be just a print or a different material altogether. The teaser also shows the top part of the rectangular camera bump of the 8T which has the Cyberpunk 2077 logo printed on it. It's all that the new teaser reveals.

Going by the previous teaser, OnePlus might use the hint of yellow on power/volume buttons. 

That's all the information we have of the upcoming limited edition OnePlus 8T Cyberpunk Edition. Although going by OnePlus' track record, users are likely to see a Cyberpunk 2077 theme pre-installed on the phone with a special retail box and accessories like covers and accent coloured charging cable with adapter. 

OnePlus 8T Cyberpunk 2077 Limited Edition rumoured specifications

Weibo has been the active source of all updates about the limited edition model. A few days ago, a tipster shared on the Chinese social networking site that the limited edition OnePlus 8T may come with 12GB RAM + 256GB storage and may be priced at CNY 3,999 (approx Rs. 43,600). 

Since it's just another iteration of the OnePlus 8T, it's pretty likely to have the same basic specs. It should run Android 11 with OxygenOS 11. The screen size on the 8T is 6.55-inch with AMOLED display having full-HD+ (1,080x2,400 pixels) resolution with 120Hz refresh rate. The phone will be powered by the Snapdragon 865 SoC paired with 12GB of RAM. Just like the other specs, it's likely to have the same camera module as the regular OnePlus 8T and a 4,500mAh battery with Warp Charge 65 fast charging support.

OnePlus has kept mum on its availability in India at this point. So it's unlikely to make its entry at the same time as in the Chinese market, but take it with a pinch of salt. There's no official information on its availability in other regions.

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3 Indian teams to feature in Garenas Free Fire Continental Series: Asia tournament

The teams, format and schedule for Garena’s Free Fire Continental Series have been announced and Indian will be represented by three teams in the Asia series of the tournament. The other two series will be held in the Americas and EMEA. India will be represented by Total Gaming Esports, who won the Free Fire Indian Championship 2020 that was held a few months back. They will be joined by Team CRX Elite and XTZ Esports (previously known as Stalwart Esports) who placed second and third in that competition.

Participating countries and prizes

The Asia series will include India, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Americas series will include Brazil and the rest of Latin America. The EMEA series will feature Europe, Russia, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)  

Each of the three series will have prize money of $300,000 for a total of $900,000 in total. 

Schedule and seeding

Each of the series will be held simultaneously and will consist of two stages. The Play-ins and the Grand Finals. While the exact date is yet to be confirmed, Garena has revealed that Play-ins will take place on either November 21 or 21, while the Grand Finals will be held on either November 28 or 29. 

The top-seeded teams from each local-level tournament will earn direct entry to each series’ respective Grand Finals. The rest will earn their place in the Grand Finals defeating other teams in the region. 

Format

Teams will battle over six rounds across three maps, namely Bermuda, Purgatory and Kalahari. Points will be awarded based on the round ranking and number of kills. All three series will follow the same format. 

Details such as final line-ups and broadcast schedules will be announced over the coming weeks.

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PlayStation India website lists November 19 launch for PS5 once again and then removes it

We’re less than a month away from the release of the PS5 and the Xbox Series X/S and as we’ve said a million times before, the hype is literally unreal. It's the same in India as well. Fans of both consoles have been waiting for them to drop. Microsoft essentially dropped the mic and have confirmed that both the Xbox Series X and the Series S will launch on November 10 in India, keeping in line with the global release date. PlayStation, on the other hand, have been playing coy with the Indian release date of the PS5. Sure, Sony had a few issues to iron out with the whole trademark controversy and according to a report on Detectivegaming.com, seem to have solved that problem for now, but we still haven’t got a confirmation of when it’ll be hitting Indian shores as yet!

Sony did update the Indian PS5 webpage with the November 19th launch date but have now taken down it down with just a plain PlayStation 5 logo replacing the launch date. As you can see from the screenshot above, Sony did goof up and post the launch date as 19 November but took it down soon after. We’re not sure when the PS5 will actually launch in India, but we’re hoping that it’ll be available at last this year and not in 2021. 

Sony has already announced the price of the PS5 in India with the disc version being priced at Rs 49,999 and the Digital Edition coming in at Rs 39,999. You can read more about that here. If you want to know how much more we in India have to shell out for the PS5, here's a quick and helpful comparison of how much the PS5 costs in other countries.  

 

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