ASUS launches a series of affordable Chromebooks for students in India starting at Rs 17,999

ASUS is expanding its product portfolio in the consumer laptop space in India today by launching a handful of new Chromebooks. The company has launched as many as 6 new Chromebooks today and they all will be available to purchase starting July 22 for a starting price of Rs 17,999.

ASUS's new affordable Chromebook lineup includes the Chromebook C223, Chromebook C423, Chromebook C523, Chromebook Flip C214, Chromebook C423, and lastly, the Chromebook C523. Out of these, only two models come with a touchscreen variant, whereas others have a non-touch TN panel. All these Chromebooks are powered by Intel's Celeron processors.

Specifications

Without getting into too many details, let's quickly go through the specifications of each Chromebook -

As you can see, we're not looking at any high-end units here. Pretty much all the new Chromebooks are very basic when it comes to the hardware but the idea to keep them simple and affordable for students looking to get their hands on a device for home education.

ASUS Chromebook Pricing & Availablity

ASUS mentioned earlier, all the new Chromebooks will go on sale starting July 22 at 12 PM. The Chromebook C223 is the most affordable out of the bunch, starting at an introductory price of Rs 17,999. The ASUS Chromebook C423 (Non-touch) costs Rs 19,999 whereas its touchscreen variant will cost you Rs 23,999. The Chromebook C523 (non-touch) is priced at Rs 20,999 and its touchscreen variant is priced at Rs 24,999. Lastly, the Chromebook Flip C214 has launched in India for Rs 23,999.

Chromebooks have been around for many years now, but it's safe to say that there's been a surge in popularity and demand for them in the market lately. The ongoing COIVD-19 pandemic triggered the need for affordable laptops, especially for students trying to learn from home. We hope to see more manufacturers bring Chromebooks to India.

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Nothing Ear 1 transparent design revealed in new leak ahead of July 27 launch

Nothing Ear 1 is all set to launch on July 27 in India and a new leak reveals the transparent design of these upcoming truly wireless earbuds. The Ear 1 is the first product from Carl Pei’s Nothing and the company has been teasing it for quite a while. Moreover, Nothing has also revealed the price of the Ear 1 TWS earbuds before the launch and it will be priced at Rs 5,999 which is less than its global pricing. 

A new leak by Twitter user Ayush Verma reveals the transparent design of the TWS earbuds. The image posted by Ayush shows us the transparent case with an offset hinge and also gives a glimpse of the minimal design of the earbuds. We can notice a tiny stem that has contact points for charging. Nothing is going for a minimal look with its first wireless earphones and there seems to be a white layer in the housing to hide the internals.

NOTHING EAR-1 So, here is the image of the Case of the upcoming Ear-1 (showing the positioning of the earphones). I guess, the white layer will hide the circuit and the battery of the case, as contact points to earphones are also coming from that white part only.#NothingEar1 pic.twitter.com/KUJloIUFec

— Ayush Verma (@iayush_ayush) July 15, 2021

The earbuds have red and black elements that are likely the microphones for active noise cancellation. While this latest leak does seem in line with the official renders released so far, we will advise our readers to take it with a pinch of salt.

Nothing Ear 1 has a transparent design courtesy of the company’s partnership with Teenage Engineering which is a Swedish design collective known for its minimal take on products. 

Nothing has also announced that it will be auctioning the first 100 pairs of Ear 1 TWS earbuds almost a week before the official launch on StockX. The Nothing Ear 1 will go on sale via StockX on July 19 at 6:30 PM IST and this gives a chance to enthusiasts to try out the earphones well before the rest of the world.

Carl Pei announced his new venture called Nothing earlier this year as a “new forward-thinking consumer technology company” after he departed from OnePlus last year in October. Since then, Nothing has managed to secure investments to the tune of $22 million from major investors including GV (Alphabet’s venture capital arm), Steve Huffman (Reddit), Kevin Lin (Twitch), Tony Fadell (inventor of iPod), Youtuber Casey Neistat and Kunal Shah (CRED). Nothing has also acquired Andy Rubin’s now-defunct smartphone brand, Essential.

Nothing Ear 1 TWS earphones are set to launch on July 27 at 6:30 PM IST in India.

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Nokia set to launch a new phone thatll never require a case again on 27 July 2021

Nokia Mobile India made a mysterious tweet a few days ago teasing a super sturdy smartphone. What caught people's attention is the text written on the phone case of the upcoming Nokia smartphone. It read "With our newest Nokia phone, you will never need a case again 27.07.21."

Upcoming Nokia smartphone specifications

In the teaser photo, the Nokia smartphone sports a quad-lens setup placed inside a rounded camera array, similar to a OnePlus 7T. The smartphone also features a “ZEISS” branding in the middle of four lenses, leading us to believe that the camera will be one of its main highlights. The rounded camera housing is a common feature in several upcoming Nokia smartphones like Nokia C20 Plus, C30 etc. 

Since Nokia is urging you to forget about a case it seems logical that its rumoured phone will have a very sturdy design. However, the phone in the teased photo looks quite slim and unlike other sturdy smartphones on the market. 

The teased Nokia smartphone also has an LED flash placed separately from the camera housing. In the photo, the handset looks quite big, probably around 6-inches tall and on one side it features the power button while the volume rockers seem to be on the other side. The upcoming Nokia smartphone also has a small case cutout below the volume rockers. 

According to GSM Arena, the rumoured device could be the Nokia XR20 which popped up on Geekbench some time ago. The listing also revealed key specifications of the unknown smartphone. It features Android 11 as a pre-installed OS with 4GB RAM and a Snapdragon 450 5G SoC. 

These technical specs make the rumoured Nokia phone seem like an entry-level device. Nokia has had a history of releasing affordable smartphones with great cameras. If the teaser photo is any indication, we could see a budget photography phone from Nokia very soon. 

The rumoured Nokia smartphone will launch on 27 July 2021. 

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OnePlus issues clarification on OP 9 CPU throttling, claims smartphone SoCs overkill in certain scenarios

Earlier this month, the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro were caught in the midst of a controversy that has since raised several uncomfortable questions for the company. While initially, the company chose to not say much on the CPU throttling controversy, it has now released a new statement where it appears to be laying part of the blame for the issue at Qualcomm's end. 

In a new statement, OnePlus has explained that it had to make optimisations and throttle the power of the CPU in some scenarios simply because the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 found inside the OnePlus 9 series phones is overkill for most tasks. These include social media apps, browsers and even casual games. 

OnePlus has further explained that the optimisations are also a result of the company shifting its focus from providing overkill performance to actually improving the overall experience of using the device by effectively handling overheating and power consumption.

In a statement, it said, "In recent years, the performance of smartphone SoCs has reached a point where their power is often overkilling in certain scenarios for many apps including social media, browsers and even some light gaming. With this in mind, our team has shifted its attention from simply providing sheer performance to providing the performance you expect from our devices while reducing power consumption and heat dissipation. To be more precise, we want to match each app with the most appropriate performance it needs.

In the case of the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro, when you open apps or heavy games, the Snapdragon 888 processor, including the super powerful X1 CPU core, will run at full speed to provide the best performance. But with actions that do not require the maximum power, like reading a webpage or scrolling through Twitter and Instagram, it’s not necessary for the CPU to run at almost 3GHz to do that smoothly. The OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro reduce the CPU frequency in these scenarios to reduce power consumption and heat dissipation while maintaining a smooth experience."

It is interesting to note that with this statement OnePlus has laid much of the blame for these optimisations at Qualcomm's end. It appears to be suggesting that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset has been designed in a way that its performance core runs too hot and consume too much battery. While Qualcomm has chosen not to respond on the matter yet, it's likely that clarification from its end may come out really soon, especially now that it has been dragged into the issue. 

How did the controversy start?

The whole controversy started when earlier in the month a report from AnandTech claimed that OnePlus 9 series phones are being allowed to run full throttle only in certain applications such as benchmarks and graphics-intensive gaming titles.

An in-depth analysis of the phone's performance by the publication revealed that the OnePlus 9 Pro has been running at full speeds only in benchmark apps but not applications such as Google Chrome and Twitter. This prompted benchmarking application, Geekbench, to term it as benchmark manipulation and delist the OnePlus 9 and the OnePlus 9 Pro from its platform.

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OnePlus Nord 2 price leaks ahead of July 22 launch in India

OnePlus Nord 2 is all set to launch on July 22 in India and a new leak allegedly reveals the price of the successor to the OnePlus Nord that debuted in 2020. OnePlus has been teasing the key specifications of the Nord 2 in the heads up to the launch. We already know that the Nord 2 is slated to be the first phone from OnePlus that is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 processor.

According to a report by 91Mobiles and popular tipster Yogesh Brar, the OnePlus Nord 2 will be priced starting at Rs 31,999 for the base variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. The maxed-out model with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage is said to be priced at Rs 34,999.

If true, this happens to be a significant increase in the price of the Nord 2 considering that the original Nord was priced starting at Rs 24,999. OnePlus recently launched the Nord CE in India which is a toned-down version of the original Nord starting at Rs 22,999. We will advise our readers to take this with a pinch of salt till we hear the official price from OnePlus on July 22.

In addition, the latest leak also reveals some key specifications of the Nord 2 including details about the cameras, battery and more. Here’s everything you need to know about the Nord 2.

OnePlus Nord 2 leaked specifications

The OnePlus Nord 2 is confirmed to feature a 6.43-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display that supports a 90Hz refresh rate and is HDR10+ certified. The screen is expected to be topped with a layer of Gorilla Glass 5 and likely features an in-display fingerprint reader as well.

OnePlus Nord 2 is also confirmed to be powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 5G processor that will be paired with upto 12GB RAM and 256GB storage variants. The Nord 2 is also expected to run OxygenOS 11.3 which is based on Android 11 and is the latest version with a unified codebase of OxygenOS and ColorOS.

As for the cameras, the latest rumours indicate that the Nord 2 has triple cameras on the back headlined by a 50MP camera based on a Sony IMX766 sensor, 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera and 2MP macro camera. The primary camera sensor seems to be the same one that we have seen on the OnePlus 9, 9 Pro and Find X3 Pro. 

The OnePlus Nord 2 is also expected to be fitted with a 4,500mAh battery that supports 65W fast charging out-of-the-box.

Furthermore, OnePlus Nord 2 is expected to be available in two colours at launch: Grey Sierra and Blue Haze. There could also be a special edition with a leather finish on offer that’s rumoured to be named Green Woods.

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POCO F3 GT Price in India tipped to be under Rs 30,000, features 120Hz screen and dual JBL speakers

POCO F3 GT India launch is just around the corner and we already have an official confirmation on its pricing. Although POCO F3 GT has no official date, we know that it will launch later this month. The information comes from an India Today interview featuring Mr Anuj Sharma, Country director, POCO India. In terms of design and features the POCO F3 GT is a rebranded Redmi K40 gaming edition available in China.

POCO F3 GT India launch timeline, specs, price revealed

During the interview, Mr Sharma revealed that POCO F3 GT will have a price tag of less than Rs 30,000 although he didn’t provide any specific figure. POCO F3 GT top variant will most likely cost somewhere around Rs 35,000. Additionally, he mentioned that POCO India is preparing for a launch at the end of this month. 

POCO F3 GT is one of the most awaited gaming smartphones because of its impressive specifications. As per reports, the POCO F3 GT will come with a 6.67-inch 1080p HDR10+ certified AMOLED screen with an aspect ratio of 20:9, which is a first for the POCO series. According to Mr Sharma, the new display uses DC dimming technology which adjusts the backlight by regulating the amount of current the screen draws.

The punchy display will also have a 120Hz refresh rate and a Mediatek Dimensity 1200 SoC to make full use of its by pushing higher frames. For reference, the Dimensity 1200 chip is comparable in performance to a Snapdragon 865 SoC, which is a flagship-level processor from yesteryear and still very capable.

POCO F3 GT gets a 8GB + 128GB variant along with a 12GB + 256GB model. To power the high-tech hardware, the POCO F3 GT uses a 5,065 mAh battery with support for 67W of fast charging. The smartphone will come pre-installed with Android 11 with MIUI 12.5 on top. In terms of connectivity, POCO F3 GT will have a USB-type C port, support for 5G, WiFi 6, Bluetooth V5.2, and GPS

POCO F3 GT will also satisfy camera nerds thanks to a triple camera setup featuring a 64MP(f/1.7) main sensor, a 2MP (f/2.4) macro lens and an 8MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide sensor.

Additional noteworthy POCO F3 GT features include dual JBL-tuned speakers, support for Dolby Atmos, a frame made from aerospace-grade aluminium alloy and a glass body.

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Call of Duty: Mobile Beta Test Kicks Off, Brings Content From Upcoming Season 6, 7 for Android, iOS Users

Call of Duty: Mobile beta test has started allowing players to get an early look at what’s to come in Season 6. The latest beta build is available for both Android and iOS users through an ‘apk’ and Test Flight programme, respectively.

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