MediaTek has announced a new addition to its Helio family with the launch of the Helio P95 processor. The MediaTek Helio P95 is a successor to the Helio P90 that was launched back in December 2018 and brings along several improvements across GPU, camera, connectivity, and AI.
By and large, the Helio P95 isn’t a drastic upgrade over its predecessor. It continues to employ the same CPU architecture, featuring 2x ARM Cortex-A75 performance cores clocked at 2.2GHz and 6x ARM Cortex-A55 efficiency cores running at 2.0GHz. The PowerVR GM 9446 GPU is also unchanged from the last generation but MediaTek says it now offers 10% more performance. The AI Processing Unit (APU) has also received a claimed 10% performance gain over the last generation.
The Helio P95’s triple Image Signal Processor (ISP) now supports a single 64MP sensor, a step up from 48MP, or up to 24MP and 16MP in dual camera setup and can handle 14-bit RAW and 10-bit YUV processing. It also receives a range of AI-based camera enhancements including 5-person human pose tracking, full-body avatar AR, 3D pose tracking, AR/MR acceleration, and a new AK-NR low-light camera mode.
For gaming, the Helio P95 supports the MediaTek HyperEngine technology, the first in the P-series, which according to the company, offers various hardware and software-level enhancements for an improved gaming experience.
In terms of connectivity, the MediaTek Helio P95 features 4G LTE WorldMode modem with LTE Cat-12 download and Cat-13 upload speeds. It also supports Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, 4×4 MIMO, 3CA, 256QAM, and 4G dual SIM VoLTE.
MediaTek hasn’t revealed when we should expect to see devices hitting the market with the Helio P95. But given the chipset’s modest improvements, it’s safe to assume its application will be limited to the budget and entry-level smartphones.
Update 1 (02/27/2020 @ 02:58 AM ET): The Xiaomi Mi A3’s Android One updates has been delayed because of the COVID-19 outbreak and its ripple effects. Scroll to the bottom for more information. The article as published on January 15, 2020, is preserved as below.
The Xiaomi Mi A3 was launched in July 2019 with Android 9 Pie, and the good-looking smartphone made its way to India a month later. Being an Android One device, users expected that the Google-flavored Android UX would receive fairly quick updates to the latest version of Android. But that hasn’t really been the case, as the phone continues to be on Android Pie straight into 2020. Now, Xiaomi has finally broken silence on when the phone will receive its official update to Android 10.
Thanks for your excitement and patience. Glad to announce the update will be out in mid February for Mi A3.
According to a response by Xiaomi India’s official Twitter account, the Android 10 update for the Xiaomi Mi A3 will begin its rollout in mid-February 2020. While this is not an exact date but a wide date range around the middle of the month, this does give users an approximate ETA for when they can expect the update to land on the phone.
Xiaomi has already released the kernel sources for the Mi A3’s Android 10 update, alongside the kernel sources for the Mi A2’s update. We took an educated guess that the update would be on the horizon, and for the Mi A2, it was — the Mi A2’s Android 10 update was spotted a day later. We do not know why the Mi A3’s update is this delayed, but we certainly do prefer communication from Xiaomi over radio silence. We hope that the update does release sooner rather than later; but for official rollouts, the stability of the update takes priority over the promptness of update delivery since the average user can get deeply impacted by unattended critical bugs. If you simply cannot wait to try out Android 10 on the phone, you can always install an Android 10 custom ROM on the Mi A3.
Update: Xiaomi Mi A3’s Android 10 update has been delayed because of COVID-19
The novel Corona virus has had a profound impact on global businesses, including those related to smartphones. MWC 2020 was called off due to COVID-19 fears, and the tech industry, in general, has also seen ripple effects of the same affecting its 2020 schedule. COVID-19 has also caused an extended break in several regions of China, which has caused issues with hardware supply chains as well as software development. Sadly, the Xiaomi Mi A3’s much-awaited Android 10 update is also seeing a delay because of these issues.
Hi everyone,
Over the past few days a lot of you have reached out to us regarding the pending Android 10 update on Mi A3. The update was scheduled for mid February but it has been delayed due to the extended shutdown due to the global outbreak of coronavirus. (1/2)
In a two-part tweet, Mr. Sumit Sonal, Brand Lead for Mi at Xiaomi India, has addressed the delay of the Android 10 update for the Mi A3. The shutdown caused by COVID-19 is the cause of the delay, and there isn’t much that Xiaomi can do about this unfortunate situation at this stage. Consequently and understandably, there is no new timeline promised for the update.
Chinese OEM Vivo was expected to showcase its APEX 2020 concept smartphone at the Mobile World Congress trade show this year. However, the trade show was canceled due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and therefore, the APEX 2020 announcement was delayed. Although Vivo had pulled out of the event before it was officially canceled, the company had already gone ahead and set up advertisements for the concept smartphone around the venue in Barcelona. Thanks to this, we got our first look at the device late last week and we learned that the device will feature a gimbal-like stabilization technology on the primary 48MP camera and 5-7.5x optical zoom on the secondary camera. Now, just a day ahead of the official announcement, Vivo has released a teaser for the APEX 2020 concept on Weibo, revealing another interesting detail about the device.
According to the post in question, the Vivo APEX 2020 concept will be officially revealed tomorrow and it will feature ultra-fast flash wireless charging. While the post doesn’t highlight the wattage of the fast charging technology on the device, the attached poster has a graphic that spells out 60W. This leads us to believe that the APEX 2020 concept will feature 60W fast wireless charging, something that we haven’t seen on any previous smartphone.
However, given that the APEX 2020 is a concept smartphone, the 60W fast wireless technology is probably not close to commercialization in mass-market devices. Another issue that plagues wireless charging is that it generates a lot of heat and this issue will, most likely, amplify manyfold on the APEX 2020 concept as it’s transferring significantly more power than any other smartphone wireless charging technology out there. This is probably the reason why the technology is currently being tested on a concept smartphone. Nonetheless, it will be quite interesting to see how Vivo managed to achieve such a feat on the APEX 2020 and how it will translate to real-world use.
The rise in popularity of mobile gaming has prompted a number of big companies associated with PC gaming, like ASUS and Razer, to jump ship and introduce their own gaming smartphone. The segment has received significant attention from traditional smartphone manufacturers as well, who’ve introduced a completely new range of devices targeted at mobile gamers. Among these is Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi, who’s Black Shark lineup of smartphones offers top-of-the-line specifications and a gamery design at a rather affordable price point. The company launched the Black Shark 2 Pro back in July last year, featuring a Snapdragon 855 Plus SoC and 12GB of RAM at a compelling price of just $435. This year, the company is expected to launch the Black Shark 3 and we now have a few key details about the upcoming device.
In a recent string of posts on Chinese social media platform Weibo, Xiaomi’s co-founder Lei Jun has revealed some juicy details about the upcoming Black Shark device. As per the post, the upcoming Black Shark 3 will be launched in China on March 3rd and the device will feature a unique magnetic charging port on the back panel. A video about this new charging port reveals that the Black Shark 3 will come with a proprietary charger that will magnetically attach to the charging port and will feature 65W fast charging support.
The new magnetic charger is expected to offer better ergonomics for users who wish to play games while charging the device. In his post, Jun further reveals that the device will be powered by a 4,720mAh battery that’s split into two and placed on either side of the motherboard. The 65W fast charging technology will be able to charge up the device to 2780mAh (or about 60%) in just 15 minutes, which is definitely quite impressive. Additionally, Jun reveals that the number of battery charging cycles on the device has been greatly increased which will ensure device longevity. Interestingly, the image also reveals that the device will feature Tencent branding on the back, which suggests that we might see some special features or optimizations on the phone for games from the Chinese publisher.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro and the Huawei P30 Pro are two very awesome devices that, aside from being flagship devices powered by the Kirin 980 processor and running EMUI, also happen to be phones with lots of features in tow, such as awesome cameras, wireless charging, curved displays, and more. They serve as a testament to Huawei’s abilities in the premium spectrum, and they’re evidently very high-end phones. But one feature that they also happen to carry is an under-display fingerprint sensor: they were actually among the first phones to be launched with such biometric technology, which became mainstream with high-end devices and some mid-range smartphones throughout 2019 and well into 2020.
The fingerprint sensor used in these phones is optical, which means that it needs light in order to pick up your fingerprint properly. As such, the fingerprint sensor’s area lights up whenever it’s going to recognize a fingerprint, often also triggering a fancy animation. You probably haven’t thought about modifying them or customizing them, but as it turns out, it is entirely possible for both phones by following a simple guide in our forums, if this is something that you would be interested in doing. This will only work for Huawei’s always-on display and not for the lock screen animation.
Most of these animations are based on the ones of other phones or they’re entirely custom, and feature a bright circle in the middle which is what your phone uses for picking up your fingerprint. There are some animations, however, that don’t feature this circle, at least from the GIF previews in the forum posts. While I haven’t tried them personally and thus can’t confirm this, it sounds like some of the designs could hamper the fingerprint sensor’s functionality, since it is, after all, an optical sensor. It can easily be reverted if this is the case, though.
Head over to our forums for instructions on how to do this.
LG officially took the wraps off the LG V60 ThinQ earlier today. As with the previously launched LG G8X ThinQ and LG V50 ThinQ, this device also supports LG’s Dual Screen attachment. XDA TV‘s TK Bay had a chance to take a look at this device before launch to give you his first impressions of LG’s latest attempt at a dual screen experience.
TK focuses a lot on the phone’s audio and video capabilities. In fact, the entire hands-on video was recorded with the LG V60 ThinQ. Though the video wasn’t shot in ideal conditions, you can get a general feel for the video quality and the audio quality. One thing TK mentions in the video is the new “Video Voice Bokeh” feature, which uses the four microphones on the phone to isolate speaking voices. This feature really comes in handy when you’re talking to the camera.
The Dual Screen attachment is a big part of LG’s strategy right now. TK doesn’t focus a lot of time on this attachment, but it’s essentially the same thing we saw with the G8X. The Dual Screen display is the same size as the phone itself (6.8-inches complete with a faux notch). LG’s approach is more like the Surface Duo than the Galaxy Fold, but the nice thing is you can always remove the second display if you don’t want it.
Again, check out TK’s video above to really get an idea of the video and audio recording capabilities. In a sea of phones with similar designs and specifications, LG has decided to focus on media capabilities. Will the LG V60 ThinQ be the device to break them out of the rut?
Specifications
LG V60 ThinQ (T-Mobile variant)
Dimensions & Weight
169.3 x 77.6 x 8.9mm
214 g
Display
6.8-inch Full HD+ P-OLED
2460×1080 pixels, 395 PPI
20.5:9 aspect ratio
500 nits brightness
83.1% screen-to-body ratio
Gorilla Glass 5
SoC
Qualcomm Snapdragon 865:
1x Kryo 585 Prime core (ARM Cortex-A77 based) clocked at 2.84GHz
3x Kryo 585 Performance cores (ARM Cortex-A77 based) clocked at 2.4GHz)
4x Kryo 585 Efficiency cores (ARM Cortex-A55 based) clocked at 1.8GHz
Update 7 (2/26/20 @ 4:35 PM ET): Google has applied to the U.S. government for a license to do business with Huawei once again.
Update 6 (11/22/19 @ 12:25 AM ET): The US Commerce Department has granted a license to Microsoft, allowing it to export “mass market” software to Huawei.
Update 5 (11/20/19 @ 4:50 PM ET): The US Commerce Department confirmed some companies are being given licenses to do business with Huawei.
Update 4 (8/28/19 @ 10:10 AM ET): The US Commerce Department received over 130 requests to continue working with Huawei after the ban.
Update 3 (8/10/19 @ 2:30 AM ET): US Government is holding off on making a decision on the licenses for U.S. companies to restart business with Huawei as China retaliated with its own measures.
Update 2 (7/4/19 @ 7:20 AM ET): US Government Staff has been told to continue treating Huawei as “blacklisted”.
Update 1 (7/1/19 @ 3:28 PM ET): This should come as no surprise, but President Trump’s remarks needed some clarification by members of his administration. More details below. The article as published on June 29, 2019, is also preserved as below.
The latest development in the Huawei trade ban saga comes directly from the ongoing G20 summit wherein US President Donald Trump announced that “U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei.” This is a major reprieve to Huawei, which was suffering from the political tensions between the USA and China.
“U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei. We’re talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem with it. I said that’s O.K., that we will keep selling that product, these are American companies that make these products. That’s very complex, by the way. I’ve agreed to allow them to continue to sell that product so that American companies will continue.”
Donald Trump, President of the USA, and Xi Jinping, President of China, agreed to a cease-fire in the trade battle between the two countries. As negotiations are expected to resume on this political topic, Mr. Trump says he will grant Huawei some relief by allowing US-based companies to resume sales. The US administration is now expected to hold meetings on how to deal with Huawei and its presence on the “entity list,” as the relief does not explicitly remove Huawei from the said list. The announcement made during the summit does not go into any particular details with the scope of relief, so further details are awaited on this end.
Nonetheless, this announcement comes as a major relief for all stakeholders. After the first announcement of the executive order, US-based companies like Google, Qualcomm, and many others had suspended business with Huawei, only to resume it in a limited form after the Chinese company was granted a “temporary general license.” Even UK-based company ARM was affected by the trade restrictions. Because of the uncertainty around Huawei and its smartphones, the company was expecting its international smartphone sales to drop by as much as 40-60%. Devices like the Honor 20 Pro were one of the first victims of the trade ban, as the availability of the phone was no longer certain. Now, with this relief in hand, we expect companies to resume their business operations with Huawei and Honor.
This article was updated at 3:25 PM ET to reflect that ARM is based in the UK.
Update 1: Only Widely Available Goods
Per Reuters, Larry Kudlow, the National Economic Council chairman, told Fox News Sunday that President Donald Trump’s decision to allow sales of U.S. technology supplies to Huawei only applies to products that are readily available around the world.
“All that is going to happen is Commerce will grant some additional licenses where there is a general availability…[U.S. microfirm chips in particular] are selling products that are widely available from other countries…This [is] not a general amnestry…The national security concerns remain paramount.” – Larry Kudlow, chairman of the National Economic Council
The details of this agreement are still vague and not final, so we’ll have to wait and see exactly what firms will no longer be restricted from selling products to Huawei. Two Senate Republicans, Marco Rubio and Lindsay Graham, are worried about this latest concession to Huawei, with the former proposing legislation to keep the restrictions in place and the latter warning of “a lot of pushback.” Democrat Chuck Schumer also expressed his disapproval with the trade talks. With bipartisan support for keeping American companies away from doing business with Huawei, it seems that the Chinese giant’s struggles are not over yet.
Update 2: US Government Staff told to treat Huawei as blacklisted only
As per another Reuters report, the US government staff has been told to treat Huawei as blacklisted, effectively nullifying the President’s word.
Mr. John Sonderman, Deputy Director of the Office of Export Enforcement within the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), sent an email to the enforcement staff clarifying how agents should approach license requests by firms seeking approval to sell to Huawei. According to the email, all such applications should be considered on merit and flagged with language noting that “This party is on the Entity List. Evaluate the associated license review policy under part 744”, citing regulations that include the Entity List and the “presumption of denial” licensing policy that is applied to blacklisted companies.
A presumption of denial implies strict review and most licenses reviewed under it are not approved. The email is the only guidance that enforcement officials have received after Trump’s announcement, and it does not improve Huawei’s practical position.
Update 3: US Government holds off on Huawei license decision
The US Government is holding off on deciding on the licenses to be issued to US companies to resume their business with Huawei. The Department of Commerce has received 50 requests from US companies for the special license that they need in order to supply goods to Huawei, but the government is unwilling to decide just yet as China has retaliated with a decision to not purchase US farming goods. The government maintains that the promise to allow reprieve to Huawei was contingent on China beefing up its purchases from American farmers. And as that has not happened, there was no reprieve. The trade war between USA and China does not appear to be de-escalating as the countries are acting and reacting to each other in politically inclined ways that go beyond the scope of our coverage as a technology portal.
In connected news, Huawei also announced its own first-party operating system called Harmony OS. The company still maintains that Harmony OS is not intended to compete against Android, and that Android remains the first choice for Huawei and Honor smartphones and tablets. Harmony OS is intended to be a “Plan B”, which will be used if and only if Plan Android is no longer realizable. The upcoming Huawei Mate 30 series has not received its Google Play Services certification yet because of the trade ban; so unless the trade ban situation is rectified, we might just see Huawei being forced to use the alternative.
Reuters is reporting that the US Commerce Department received over 130 applications from companies for licenses to sell to Huawei. This is after the department postponed the trade ban for another 90 days. In July, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross disclosed receiving only around 50 applications. No licenses have been granted yet as the Commerce Department is unclear on what to do. “Nobody in the executive branch knows what (Trump) wants and they’re all afraid to make a decision without knowing that,” said William Reinsch, a former Commerce Department official.
Update 5: Licenses Being Given
Back in August when we last updated this article, we mentioned that the US Commerce Department received over 130 applications from companies to sell to Huawei. Now, those license applications total nearly 300. The US is now approving roughly a quarter of those applications, according to The Washington Post. The Commerce Department notified some companies, mainly firms that build telecommunications equipment, that it intends to deny their applications, in which case they have 20 days to appeal. We don’t know exactly which companies were approved, though WaPo cited the Semiconductor Industry Association as saying that semiconductor companies were among the first to be approved. If Google ends up being one of the approved companies, they will be able to certify Android devices with GMS, such as the Huawei Mate 30.
Update 6: Microsoft granted license to export “mass market” software to Huawei
According to a report from Reuters, Microsoft has been granted a license from the US Department of Commerce to export “mass-market” software to Huawei. Microsoft declined to comment beyond its statement on which products had been approved, and the Commerce Department declined to comment as well.
It is unknown at this stage whether Google has been granted a license yet.
According to a new report, Google has applied for a license to resume business with Huawei. This would allow future Huawei devices to ship with Google services once again. Google would not be the only company granted a license, as Microsoft has already been granted one. There is no word on the time table for this decision to be made.
