Honor, the smartphone sub-brand under the Huawei Consumer Business Group, is launching two new smartphones in its home market of China: the aptly named Honor X10 Max and the Honor 30 Lite. The X10 Max has a tablet-esque 7.09-inch display, while the 30 Lite has a “smaller” 6.5-inch display. One of the most interesting features of these new phones is that they are powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 800 chip.
Back in May of this year, the U.S. government blocked many chip makers from supplying chips to Huawei. This meant that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), one of the largest contract chip makers, was blocked from fabricating Huawei’s HiSilicon chips. Thus, Huawei and Honor had to look elsewhere to procure chips for its smartphones, and it just so happens that MediaTek recently launched a 5G chip for upper mid-range smartphones. Huawei and Honor are turning to MediaTek Dimensity chipsets for some new devices, and that’s what we’re now seeing in the new Honor X10 Max and 30 Lite.
Honor X10 Max
As mentioned, the Honor X10 Max is a very large smartphone with a massive 7.09-inch display. It’s literally bigger than some tablets, which brings up the question “what even is a tablet anymore?” Anyway, this is a 5G-capable device powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 800 SoC, 6/8GB of RAM, 64/128GB of storage, and a 5,000mAh battery.
Other features for the Honor X10 Max include a 48MP main camera with 10X digital zoom and a 2MP depth sensor. It has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, 3.5mm headphone jack, and 22.5W wired charging. The phone launches with Magic UI 3.1.1 based on Android 10 with no Google apps.
Software: Magic UI 3.1.1 based on Android 10, no Google apps
Connectivity: 5G NR/4G LTE/3G/2G, NFC, Bluetooth 5.1
Security: Side-mounted fingerprint scanner
Audio: 3.5mm headphone jack
Colors: Probing Black, Racing Blue, Lightspeed Silver
Honor 30 Lite
The Honor 30 Lite is another 5G-enabled smartphone featuring the MediaTek Dimensity 800 SoC. It’s combined with 6/8GB of RAM, 64/128GB of storage, and a 4,000mAh battery. The display is slightly smaller coming in at 6.5-inches, but this is still a pretty large device.
Rounding out the remaining specifications, the Honor 30 Lite has a 48MP main camera, 8MP wide-angle camera, and 2MP depth sensor. It also has the same side-mounted fingerprint scanner, 3.5mm headphone jack, and 22.5W wired charging. The phone launches with Magic UI 3.1.1 based on Android 10 with no Google apps.
Software: Magic UI 3.1.1 based on Android 10, no Google apps
Connectivity: 5G NR/4G LTE/3G/2G, NFC, Bluetooth 5.1
Security: Side-mounted fingerprint scanner
Audio: 3.5mm headphone jack
Colors: Magic Night Black, Wizard of Oz, Summer Rainbow, Phantom Silver
Price & Availability
The Honor X10 Max will be available starting July 3rd in the Chinese Mainland market. It comes in 6GB+64GB for RMB 1899, 6GB+128GB for RMB 2099, and 8GB+128GB for RMB 2499. The Honor 30 Lite is also coming to the Chinese Mainland market. It will be available starting July 8th with a starting price of RMB 1699.
Motorola quietly revealed the One Fusion+ without an announcement last month and it later launched in India as well. The previously leaked non-Plus Motorola One Fusion model was nowhere to be seen, but today the company is making both devices official.
As you can probably guess by the lack of a “+” symbol, the Motorola One Fusion is a slightly less powerful model. One (no pun intended) of the biggest areas of focus for Motorola is the camera. The main camera is 48MP and it has Quad Pixel technology. The second camera is 8MP with a 118-degree field of view. They are joined by a 5MP macro camera and 2MP depth sensor.
In terms of power, the Motorola One Fusion has the Snapdragon 710 SoC, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a 5,000mAh battery. The display is 6.5-inches with a center notch for the 8MP selfie camera and 720p resolution. The phone launches with Android 10 and Motorola’s customizations.
The Motorola One Fusion is available beginning today, July 2nd, across various countries in Latin America. It comes in Emerald Green and Deep Saphire Blue colors. The phone will also arrive in KSA and UAE in the coming month.
Google’s strategy with the Android Auto phone interface has been confusing, to say the least. For a while, you could simply use the Android Auto app as a head unit-like experience on your phone. That’s still basically the current situation, but how we got here is complicated. The most recent update to the phone interface makes Google Maps work better in landscape mode.
A new Google Maps UI is rolling out now for the Android Auto experience. The update is actually through Maps, not the Android Auto app. Regardless, the new UI makes Maps work a lot better in landscape mode, which is how a lot of people use their phones when mounted in a car. The changes are present in portrait mode as well, though it’s not as noticeable.
The menus and banners that appear at the bottom of the screen now “float.” This means they aren’t tied to the width of the screen, which becomes important in landscape mode. Rather than stretching the full width and blocking a lot of the Google Maps view, the menus and banners are pushed to the side. You can pull up the menu and still mostly see where you’re going.
So what’s going on with Android Auto for phones, anyway? A little over a year ago, Google announced the phone app would be dropped in favor of Google Assistant‘s Driving Mode. A few months later, the company backtracked and said they would be releasing a separate app called “Android Auto for Phone Screens.” That app eventually launched, which is where we’re at today (still waiting for Assistant Driving Mode).
Both the old Android Auto and new Android Auto for Phone Screens apps are in the Play Store and some phones can see both. The reason for that, as explained by XDA’s Mishaal Rahman, is the plain “Android Auto” app is now part of the GMS apps package and it’s pre-installed on Android 10 devices. It’s only there for beaming the car interface to your vehicle’s head-unit. The Android Auto for Phone Screens app is simply a shortcut to the phone interface until Google Assistant Driving Mode rolls out.
Again, this new UI is rolling out through Google Maps v10.45 (download APK), but it’s only visible through Android Auto for Phone Screens. We would expect the Maps UI in the standalone app to adopt this behavior as well.
One UI 2.1 is the latest iteration of Samsung’s custom skin on top of Android 10, which has recently been rolled out to the Galaxy Tab S4 and the Galaxy Tab S5e. After servicing the premium segment, the company is now bringing Android 10 to its budget tier tablets. Both the 8-inch and the 10.1-inch models of the Galaxy Tab A (2019) lineup have picked up the Android 10 update in different regions, although the One UI 2.1 layer found in these devices might lack a few ‘premium’ features.
The global LTE variant of the 8″ Galaxy Tab A 2019 (model number SM-T295) has received the One UI 2.1 update in the XEV region, which is the code used by Samsung to denote Vietnam. The build number of the new firmware is T295XXU3BTFE, and it bumps the Android security patch level (SPL) to July 2020. The current update is not compatible with other regional models (SM-T295C/T295N/T297) or the Wi-Fi only variant (SM-T290) of this tablet.
Thanks to XDA Senior Member snifing for the screenshot!
There is another SKU of the 8-inch 2019 Galaxy Tab A that comes with the S Pen. Its LTE variant (model number SM-P205) has also received the stable Android 10/One UI 2.1 update with July 2020 security patches. At the time of reporting, the OTA with build number P205DXU5BTFB is rolling out in the Philippines. The update delivery process is expected to be scaled up in the coming weeks.
Galaxy Tab A 10.1
The Exynos 7904-powered Galaxy Tab A 10.1 was launched back in February 2019 with Android Pie onboard. The LTE variant of the tablet (model number SM-T515) is now getting its first major Android OS update in the form of software version T515XXU4BTFK. The OTA is available only in Italy as of now. Once again, the Wi-Fi only variant is excluded from the initial rollout.
In case you want to skip the waiting queue and download the new firmware package for your tablet from the Samsung update server right now, check out XDA’s in-house tools like SamFirm and Frija.
Last year, the Pandora app got its first major revamp in a long time. The app was looking a little outdated and the company hoped a refresh could breathe new life into the aging service. One thing that wasn’t present in the redesign was a dark theme, despite many Android apps adding it at the time. Thankfully, that feature has finally arrived along with some other goodies.
Pandora for Android now supports Android 10’s system-wide dark theme setting. As per usual, the dark theme is not pure black, it’s a very dark shade of blue. The dark theme is present everywhere except the media player, which is the same shade of blue in dark and light mode. There’s no toggle in the app itself, so you’re stuck with whatever the system theme is set at.
In addition to the dark theme, Pandora now supports offline podcasts for Plus and Premium subscribers. This is a handy feature for saving podcasts to listen to when you’re not connected to Wi-Fi. It’s unfortunate that Pandora is putting the feature behind a paywall, though, as many free podcast players have it. Plus costs $5 per month and Premium is $10 per month.
These new features are rolling out to Pandora for Android right now. Download the app from the Play Store below. Pandora is certainly not the titan of the music industry it used to be, but it still fills a certain niche that some people enjoy. Do you use Pandora?
When OnePlus entered the smartphone market back in 2014, a lot of critics doubted the company and its ability to survive within a hyper-competitive market. Six years later, OnePlus’ presence in the same market is about to reach another milestone. 2020 marks the year that OnePlus will go back to releasing a more affordable smartphone in the form of the OnePlus Nord. OnePlus is also reinvigorating its presence in the TV space with the newly launched OnePlus TV U series and OnePlus TV Y series. The three new TVs add onto the existing OnePlus TV 55 Q1 and Q1 Pro, bolstering the product portfolio and giving users more options than ever in experiencing OxygenOS on the TV.
OxygenOS remains at the heart of the OnePlus TV, and the TV hardware draws inspiration for its “burdenless design” experience from the software. The new OnePlus TV U series features a minimal form factor and a sleek build with a 95% screen-to-body ratio, encouraging the vibrant 4K display to demand most of your attention. While the hardware is definitely enticing, especially with the 55″ LED display occupying center stage and the 4-unit 30W speakers drawing you into the moment, the software also plays a crucial role in ensuring that the users can effortlessly focus on what matters the most on a TV: the content and the experience. With the OnePlus TV U series, the company is focusing on a burdenless design that extends to all aspects of the device: both hardware and software. We had the opportunity to interact with OnePlus Founder and CEO Mr. Pete Lau and learn more about the burdenless design experience on the new OnePlus TVs.
“As a global tech company, the ultimate goal for us has always been to unlock the full potential of technology, to provide seamless integration of the four connected zones (the home, the office, the car, and the self) in a person’s daily life. In 2019, we took our first big step towards the OnePlus ecosystem goal with the OnePlus Q1 Series, to provide meaningful innovations for a connected future. In 2020, we are working towards bringing our signature burdenless experience to more categories and segments.”
“Burdenless Design” as a philosophy extends to both the hardware and the software on the new TV. The results on the hardware are much more noticeable within the first look — an expansive display, minimal bezels, a non-intrusive speaker setup, redesigned stands, carbon fiber back texture, and a panel to hide all the ports. It’s when you venture into the software end of things where the changes become more subtle, but in contrast, much more critical. The smaller touches lend themselves to an experience that is greater than the sum of its parts. And that has been OnePlus’ aim with OxygenOS on its OnePlus TV.
As Mr. Lau mentions, and as we have seen through the years on its smartphones, OxygenOS has always been centered around providing a software experience that is clean, intuitive, and minimal by design. The amalgamation of these three qualities makes it one of the most loved operating systems within the Android community, and to a great extent, we can’t help but agree. OnePlus is adopting the same principles to the experience on the TV, aiming to provide an experience that is fresh yet has the distinct reliability of OxygenOS.
OxygenOS is noticed atop the Android TV 9.0 interface in the form of touches like Oxygen Play, Content Calendar, OnePlus Connect, Data Saver Plus, Kids Mode, and integrations of both the leading digital assistants: Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa on the leading OnePlus U series.
“Another great example of how we aim to deliver a ‘burdenless connected experience’ is OnePlus Connect.”
OnePlus Connect is one of the bridging solutions for communication between the TV and your smartphone. While you can obviously control the TV through its remote, the OnePlus Connect app adds a layer of convenience that augments the functions of the remote. Within OnePlus Connect, you can control the TV using trackpad control on your smartphone, whereas features like TypeSync alleviate you from the hassle of cursor typing on the TV remote by letting you type through the ever-familiar smartphone. Quick App Switch lets you switch between apps quickly on your TV, while the inbuilt screenshot functions let you screenshot the content on your TV and inset it within a render of the TV. And when you get a call on your TV, the OnePlus TV smartly lowers down its own volume so that your personal conversation becomes your top priority.
A TV is a social gadget, and it very likely is used by more than one person in the family. So naturally, all of these controls and options should also extend to more than one person. Mr. Lau mentions that OnePlus received plenty of such community feedback from the Q1 series in 2019, and these have helped the app deliver a better, well-rounded experience. So now, OnePlus Connect allows connections with up to 5 devices on the same TV, letting each user within the family have their own personalized and intuitive experience. OnePlus Connect is available on both Google Play and Apple Store, so you don’t need to lock yourself into the OnePlus ecosystem just for tighter integration as we see on other brands.
“With our Never Settle mentality and our burdenless design philosophy, we do not focus on software and hardware in isolation. We believe that a truly burdenless experience can only be achieved when software innovations and great industrial design work seamlessly together.”
The burdenless experience extends onto Oxygen Play, which is the content discovery solution within OxygenOS on OnePlus TV. The idea is to empower the user to discover a diverse world of movies and content series across a variety of content partners. As Mr. Lau mentions, Oxygen Play is powered by more than 15 OTT partners, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Disney+ Hotstar, Spotify, Zee5, Voot, and others. And the list is only bound to grow further alongside deeper integrations.
“We have always worked hard to build strong relationships with content providers in India, and we look forward to growing our content catalog even further in 2020.”
OnePlus attributes a lot of its success to its community and its members. The OnePlus One catapulted to success thanks to the reception from the community members, and every smartphone from OnePlus since then has rested upon the safe shoulders of its community. So it comes as no surprise that the community also had a role to play on this software experience beyond the feature suggestion within the OnePlus app. Meet the OnePlus TV Product Ninjas.
The OnePlus TV Product Ninjas is a new kind of a community program wherein OnePlus invited community members who are enthusiastic about the OnePlus TV to come together, collaborate and build some key features along with the OnePlus TV product team. Mr. Lau says that they have hosted three formal webinars in collaboration with the Closed Beta Tester group, and have hosted more than 10 group discussions on the official TV Product Ninja Slack group. The result of this community feedback can be seen in the form of features such as Kids Mode (i.e., Parental Control) and Data Saver Plus. Kids Mode lets parents monitor and manage the content that their children can watch, alongside controls over viewing hours to ensure digital wellness for their children. Data Saver allows users to easily limit network bandwidth, enable and disable background data usage, and limit video resolutions to their own data preferences.
“OnePlus has always been a community-centric brand. Over the years, we have taken a lot of pride in how we take into account the feedback of our users at every stage of the design and development of its devices.”
And since the feedback cycle forms a part of their core product development, we couldn’t help but drop in some of our own. We suggested a beta tester track for the TVs as well, to which Mr. Lau informed us that there is already a team of beta testers that rigorously test features and provide feedback before the update goes live. We also suggested providing offline update packages for TVs, similar to the ones we have come to expect for OnePlus’ smartphones under the very popular Open Beta programs. Mr. Lau remarked that this is certainly an interesting suggestion that they would consider.
All things considered, the new OnePlus TV U series is a milestone for OnePlus, one that makes clear its ambitions for the years to come. Perhaps as a lesson from 2014, we shouldn’t be so quick to write off OnePlus in this segment just yet.
OnePlus is far from the brand it started as. But, it has lately been switching lanes and retargeting for a target group it had abandoned in the past few years with its products’ steeply rising prices. Besides inching a bit more towards the premium smartphone brand, OnePlus also entered the smart TV segment last year with two QLED TVs launched alongside the OnePlus 7T. The cheapest of the TVs cost about $990 and that invite blunt criticism for the company that once usurped other “premium” brands. Learning from this criticism, OnePlus is now launching a new, much affordable U Series and Y Series of Android TVs specifically for India.
The OnePlus TV U Series comprises three variants – a 55-inch 4K model, a 43-inch Full HD model, and a 32-inch HD-ready model, which is primarily in the same category as other smartphone brands pitting in the smart TV category. All of these TV run on Android TV Pie software with OnePlus’ custom content recommendation interface called OxygenPlay.
OnePlus TV U Series 55″ 4K
Out of the three OnePlus TV models, the 55″ flagship variant in the U Series has evidently received more attention from the brand – and is liable to receive the same from fans – than the other two. It features a super sleek metal chassis and aluminum alloy frame. The panel hinges onto a thicker block which carries the motherboard, the speaker assembly, and the ports. This block, much like the more premium OnePlus Q1 55 and 55 Pro QLED TVs, is covered with a layer of carbon fiber textured material, giving the TV a very premium appearance. Additionally, OnePlus uses a removable cover to veil the ports, resulting in a cleaner design.
When it comes to the display, the 55″ LED (presumably LED-backlit LCD) panel has a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels. When it comes to color accuracy, the TV is claimed to support 93% of DCI-P3 color gamut versus the 96% accuracy of its more premium QLED TV range. In addition, the OnePlus TV U Series 55″ 4K model also comes with support for HDR formats including Dolby Vision, HDR10/10+. and HLG. OnePlus calls the entire package a “Cinematic Display”.
The OnePlus TV U Series has a dedicated Gamma Engine that uses a dynamic gamma curve to optimize the colors by recognizing different scenes and faces. In addition, the Gamma Engine also enables motion estimation, motion compensation (MEMC) for upscaling frame rates, and anti-aliasing for smoothening out sharp creases.
The OnePlus TV U1 rocks a quad-core MediaTek MT5887 chipset inside with four Cortex A53 cores. For an unhindered browsing experience, it gets 3GB of RAM along with 16GB of internal storage.
When it comes to audio, the OnePlus TV U1 comes with 30W speakers including two full-range speakers and two tweeters for boosted treble. It also comes with Dolby Atmos support to enhance the sound quality for a better surround sound experience on supported content. These speakers are rotated 90º to allow more space for reverberation.
The OnePlus TV U1 also comes with a smart remote with dedicated Netflix and Prime Video buttons. The remote resembles the first-gen remote that was shipped with the brand’s QLED TVs and later replaced – with the addition of Netflix support on the OnePlus Q1 series.
OnePlus TV Y Series 43″ Full HD and 32″ HD-Ready
Te more affordable OnePlus TV Y Series with two models – a 43-inch Full HD model and a 32-inch HD-ready (1366×768) model – tags along with the more premium U Series. The two TVs also support the same color accuracy and Gamma Engine optimizations with for improvements in colors as well as dynamic contrast, anti-aliasing, and noise reduction features but lacks the more advanced MEMC feature.
The OnePlus TV Y1 43 and 32 come with a 20W speaker setup along with Dolby Audio. The TVs have relatively thicker bezels and a visibly economized design as compared to the flagship model in the U series.
The OnePlus Y Series TVs get 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage.
Oxygen Play and Oxygen Connect
With the new OnePlus TVs, the company is vying to project its content discovery platform Oxygen Play as a “burdenless software experience” complementing the minimally intrusive design. Oxygen Play, just like Xiaomi’s PatchWall recommends you video content from OTT apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, etc. In addition, the interface also allows you to set reminders for movies or shows to save for later.
The OnePlus TV U1 55 also gets exclusive features such as Data Saver for low bandwidth networks and a Kids Mode so that parents can control the watch time and content for their children. These features will also be available for the Q series TVs via an OTA update.
OnePlus CEO Pete Lau shared their insights about software experience with us in an exclusive interview. Make sure you check that out!
The TVs also support Oxygen Connect which can be used to control the TV using an Android or iOS device. You can connect up to five devices over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to control the TV without the remote. It comes with features such as:
TypeSync to avert the jarring typing experience on Android TV,
Smart Volume Control for automatically lowering down TV when you receive a call
Quick App Switch to jump between apps on the TV
Trackpad control as an alternative to the traditional D-pad
Screenshot capture, and
Wi-Fi sharing for easily connecting to a Wi-Fi network on the TV using your phone.
Price & Availability
The OnePlus TV U1 55″ is priced at ₹49,999 (~$670). On the other hand, the OnePlus TV Y1 43″ comes for ₹22,999 (~$310) and the 32″ model is priced at ₹12,999 (~$175). Notable, these prices for the cheaper models are neck-and-neck with the TVs launched by sister brand Realme. All of the OnePlus TVs will be available via Amazon India starting July 5th.
On the purchase of the 55″ and 43″ variants, buyers can avail a free Amazon Echo Dot priced at Rs. 3,499. Meanwhile, for the 32″ inch variant, the Echo Dot can be availed for ₹1,999 only. This time, the side stands will be included within the box for all the models.
