Moto G5 clears FCC with 3,000mAh battery

The Motorola Moto G5 and G5 Plus are seemingly set for a Barcelona unveiling next month, but oddly it's been just the Plus version that's been the star in recent rumors. Well, it's the non-Plus that's stopped by the FCC, for a change.

The US telecom regulator has given it the green light, and even if it's typically not the most prolific source of intel, sifting through the papers you could still find a few interesting bits. For one, the G5 will support NFC - a first for the G-series (if you don't count certain regional versions of the Moto G4 Play, as pointed out in the comments).

The other thing, revealed by the FCC filing, is battery capacity - listed at 3,000mAh, it's slightly less than the floating 3,100mAh number for the Plus. The phone will come with a fast charger capable of outputting 14.4W at either 9V/1.6A or 12V/1.2A, as well as 5V/1.6A. You'd also be intrigued to find out that the bundled USB cable will be 1-meter long. Or not.

The rest of the so far established specs of the Moto G5 include a 5.5-inch FullHD display, 16GB of storage and a 13MP/5MP camera combo. For more, we'll need to wait until February 26.

Vivo V5 Plus is now available for pre-order in India for Rs 27,980

Vivo is all set to launch its next smartphone, the Vivo V5 Plus on January 23rd, 2017. However, the device is already up for pre-order via retail stores, claims Mahesh Telecom from Mumbai. The device was previously available for pre-orders in Malaysia for a price tag of RM 1,799 (approx. Rs 27,454) and was also spotted on an Indian Retailer's website. Mahesh Telecom claims that the device is available for pre-order for Rs 27,980, however, the company hasn't come up with any official Indian pricing for the device. Further, all the customers pre-booking the device will also get a complimentary VR box. 

As far as the specifications are concerned, the V5 Plus features a 5.5-inch Full HD (1920x1080 pixels) display with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection. It is powered by a 1.8GHz Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 (MSM8976) processor coupled with Adreno 506 GPU along with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage which is further expandable storage up to 128GB. 

The main highlight of the device is the dual front-facing camera setup which is a combination of a 20-megapixel sensor and an 8-megapixel sensor along with Moonlight Glow flash while at the back, there is another 20-megapixel camera on the rear as well. The camera features include Face Beauty, Panorama, HDR, Night, Ultra HD, PPT, Motion Track, Professional, Slow, Fast, Voice Shutter, Touch Capture, Palm, Timer, Gender Detection, Filter, and Watermark. The smartphone runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow and will be powered by a 3160 mAh Li-Polymer non-removable battery with fast charging support. Besides, the device offers Dual SIM, 4G with VoLTE, Bluetooth 4.1, A-GPS, GLONASS, with Google Maps, Wifi-802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Accelerometer, Gyro Sensor, and Geomagnetic Sensor. The device measures 153.8 x 75.5 x 7.55 mm and weighs 156g with a fingerprint scanner embedded in the Home Button at the front.

New Motorola phone with Snapdragon 835 SoC, and Android 7.1.1 spotted on Geekbench

A new Motorola phone has appeared on the Geekbench benchmarking website. Listed as Motorola XT1650, the device - the listing reveals - is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 chipset, and has 4GB of RAM.

Aside from this, the listing also reveals that the device runs Android Nougat version 7.1.1. Sadly, nothing else is currently known about this flagship at the moment, but given the model number (XT1650), it could well be the Moto Z (2017).

Nokia's Comeback: Nokia 6 sold out in one minute

Seems like Nokia's comeback in the smartphone industry is on track with the company's expectations. After receiving over 250,000 registrations in the first 24 hours earlier this week, the first sale of the Nokia 6 saw the device get sold out in a minute. The first flash sale took place in China via e-commerce website JD.com. However, it is still unknown as to how many units of the device went up for sale yesterday. 

Nokia 6  is priced at CNY 1,699 (approx. Rs 16,700) and is expected to hit the Indian shores soon. On the other hand, HMD Global is also expected to launch some more Nokia smartphones, of which one of them could be the recently rumoured Nokia 8.

Talking about the specifications, Nokia 6 comes with a 5.5-inch full HD with a screen resolution of 1920x1080 pixels and 2.5d curved display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection.The company claims that it has taken 55 minutes to machine a single Nokia 6 from a solid block of 6000 series aluminium and received two separate anodising processes. Under the hood, the device is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor along with Adreno 505 GPU. The phone is backed by 4GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage, which can be further expanded up to 128GB via microSD. It also houses a fingerprint scanner, which is embedded in its home button.

On the camera front, the smartphone flaunts a 16-megapixel camera with PDAF, 1.0um sensor, f/2.0 aperture, and dual-tone LED flash. While at the front, we have an 8-megapixel front-facing camera with a 1.12um sensor and f/2.0 aperture for selfies and video calling. The Nokia 6 runs on the latest Android 7.0 Nougat and is powered by a 3000mAh non-removable battery. On the connectivity front, the smartphone offers Dual SIM, 4G LTE, WiFi (802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, OTG support, Dual speakers, Dual smart amplifiers, and Dolby Atmos. 

OnePlus opens its first Experience store in Bengaluru

1+ has finally opened up its first Experience store today in Bengaluru. The store is one of its kind and will shelf all the OnePlus products to experience. As reported earlier, the store is located at Hira Property No. 5, New No. 213, Brigade Road, Bangalore (read Bengaluru) and is one of the biggest stores on the most popular high-street retail hub and CBD of Bangalore - Brigade Road. However, note that the official opening of the store for the public will happen tomorrow i.e. 7th January at 2 PM. The entire store is spread across 14,000 square meters and is divided into four zones. There is an independent service centre in the basement, a retail cum community zone on the ground and intermediate floors, an office space on the upper floors and a cafe cum lounge area on the rooftop.

Further, the store is a result of the skills of both local and international architects including the renowned Husna Rehman of Fulcrum Studio from India and Infinity Design and Engineering.

OnePlus claims that the new Experience store will provide customers with a first-hand opportunity to come and have an immersive experience of all our products including smartphones, accessories and lifestyle merchandise. However, the store will only let customers experience the product and the official purchase will be done by company's official e-commerce partner Amazon India.

In addition to the regular display and retail activities, the OnePlus Experience Centre will act as a hub of various community engagement activities. All OnePlus fans are encouraged to visit the store and participate. To start with, OnePlus will be setting up an augmented reality game to illustrate its proprietary Dash Charge feature in a very engaging manner. Not only this, the company will also support the local technology and startup ecosystem by conducting regular workshops, knowledge sessions etc.

Huawei Honor 6X is expected to be launched in India on January 24

After announcing Huawei Honor 6X at CES 2017 and delivering a briefing about the device in India late last month, Huawei has finally started sending out the invites for the India launch of its new smartphone. Though the invite doesn't reveal the name or any specifications but as claimed by previous rumours, the device is likely to be the Honor 6X.

Quickly briefing you through the specifications, the new Honor 6X is Huawei's cheapest smartphone which comes with a dual-camera set-up at the back. Inside, it runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with EMUI v4.1 on top and is powered by a Kirin 655 Octa-Core (4 cores at 2.1GHz + 4 cores at 1.7GHz) chipset with Mali-T830MP2 GPU paired with 3GB RAM + 32GB internal storage or 4GB RAM + 64GB internal storage. In both the cases, the internal storage is expandable via microSD card. Other than that, it comes with a 5.5-inch (1080x1920 pixels) full-HD IPS display with 2.5D curved glass protection. Yesterday, we also reported (http://www.themobileindian.com/news/20933_Honor-6X-to-get-Android-Nougat-update-sometime-in-Q2-2017) that the device will get Android 7.0 Nougat sometime in Q2 2017. Further, the new updates will also bring Huawei's new EMUI 5.0.

Coming back to the optics, The set up comes with phase detection autofocus (PDAF), LED flash etc. At the front, there is an 8-megapxel sensor for selfies. The rear camera setup on the Honor 6X is more like the one we saw in HTC One M8. The set up lets you dig into and play with shallow depth of field and one can change the focus of an image post clicking it. For the juice, there is a 3340 mAh battery inside. It also sports a fingerprint sensor at the back which is fairly accurate and responsive.

We have no information about India pricing as of now, however, the pricing is rumoured to be similar to that in China. In China, the device is priced at CNY 999 (roughly Rs. 9,900) for 32GB + 3GB RAM, CNY 1,299 (roughly Rs. 12,900) for 32GB + 4GB RAM, and CNY 1,599 (roughly Rs. 15,800) for 64GB + 4GB RAM. We are not really sure as to which variants will make it to India.

Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro with 6GB RAM to launch in India soon-Report

The Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro which was launched in China in October last year is expected to be launched in India thisJanuary. As per a report of MySmartprice, Samsung will be launching its first Galaxy C series smartphone in India by month end.

The report says that along with the smartphone, Samsung will also launch its smartwatch- Gear S3. Also, note that we had earlier reported that Samsung Galaxy Gear S3 might come to India in January 2017.

The Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro was launched at 3199 Yuan or approximately Rs 31,670 in China in Gold and Rose Gold colour variants. Later, the company also announced black colour variant in its home country, South Korea.

Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro a 6-inch display with full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) AMOLED display. It is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 653 (4 x 1.95GHz + 4 x 1.44GHz) processor and Adreno 510 GPU. The phone has a 6GB RAM, 64GB internal memory and 256GB expandable memory slot. The smartphone runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow operating system and is backed up by a 4,000 mAh battery with fast charging technology. The device also features a fingerprint sensor on the home button.

The Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro has a 16-megapixel shooter on the back with dual-tone LED flash, f/1.9 aperture and a 16-megapixel selfie camera. On the connectivity front, the device offers Dual SIM, 4G LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, NFC and a USB Type C. The handset measures 162.9 x 80.7 x 6.9 mm and weighs 185 grams.

Samsung had unveiled its Gear S3 line-up last year at IFA 2016. The Gear S3 comes in two variants - a rugged designed 'Frontier' and elegantly designed 'Classic' model. While the Frontier variant is designed for any occasion, the Classic variant is designed as a luxury watch with careful attention to detail such as size, shape etc. Both the variants are water resistant (IP68 certified) and have built-in GPS, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC support and WiFi. In addition to this, the Frontier variant also has its own 3G/LTE chip for mobile payments anywhere through Samsung Pay and LTE connectivity, though this feature will be region specific.

Recollecting the technical specifications, in the front, the Gear S3 sports a 1.3 inch Circular Super AMOLED display with 360 x 360-pixel resolution and Corning Gorilla Glass SR+ for protection. The new smart watch from the South Korean giant is powered by 1 GHz Dual-Core processor paired with 768MB RAM and 4GB internal memory. The Gear S3 runs on Tizen based wearable platform 2.3.2 and has a 380mAh Li-ion battery which interestingly supports wireless charging. Regarding the sensors, both the variants have Accelerometer, Gyro, Barometer, HRM and Ambient Light sensor.

Samsung Galaxy J1 4G launched in India for Rs 6,890

Samsung has today silently launched its new smartphone, Samsung Galaxy J1 4G for Rs 6,890. The smartphone is currently listed on the company's official website in Gold, Black and White colour variants. The Samsung Galaxy J1 4G is same as Samsung Galaxy J1 (2016) which was unveiled last year in international markets. It is the successor of Samsung Galaxy J1 which was launched in India in February 2015 for Rs 7,190.

As far as specs are concerned, the Galaxy J1 4G features a 4.5-inch (480x800 pixel resolution) Super AMOLED display which is slightly bigger than the 4.3-inch display of the original Galaxy J1. The new Galaxy J1 is powered by the 1.3 GHz Spreadrum SC7727SE quad-core processor and Mali-400 GPU. It has 1GB RAM, 8GB of internal storage and expandable memory of 128GB via micro sd card slot. The device runs on Android-based operating system, however, Android version is not mentioned on Samsung's website. But we expect it to be Android Lollipop since it was launched with Lollipop OS globally.

The smartphone flaunts a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. The device is backed up by a 2050mAh battery which claims to offer up to 12 hours of talk time on 3G network. On the connectivity front, the handset offers 4G LTE with VoLTE, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, Micro USB, Accelerometer and Proximity Sensor. The device measures 132.6 x 69.3 x 8.9 mm and weighs 131 grams.

The original Samsung Galaxy J1 has a 4.3-inch touchscreen with 480x800 pixels resolution, 1.2 GHz dual core processor, 512 MB RAM, 4 GB ROM, and a micro SD card slot for 64 GB capacity. The Galaxy J1 is based on Android 4.4 KitKat operating system and has a 5-megapixel autofocus rear camera with a LED flash. Besides, it has a 2-megapixel front camera, dual SIM and an 1850 mAh Li-Ion battery that claims to offers 10 hours of 3G talk time. The earlier Samsung Galaxy J1 model also offers FM radio, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi, WiFi Direct, GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS, Proximity sensor, and Accelerometer.

BHIM app already No 1 on PlayStore, has hit 3 million download mark

Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, had launched the BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) app on 30th December 2016 and it has started trending on Google PlayStore. Just four days after its launch, BHIM app witnessed over 3 million downloads and is rated No 1 on the Play Store, claimed Niti Ayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

The exact tweet read - "Bhim App - 3 million download since launch, No 1 on Play Store in India amongst all apps, over 500,000 transactions since launch. #MakeinIndia."

If you are not aware, BHIM is a simplified payment platform to facilitate UPI (Unified Payment Interface) and USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) payment methods. As of now, the app is only available on Google Play Store and works in English or Hindi language. Being a Central Government initiative, most of the Indian commercial banks are already on board for this payment system including State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Bank of India, Canara Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Punjab National Bank, among others.

We tried the new BHIM app and found the process to be simple and easy.

OnePlus rolls out OxygenOS 3.5.6 update for the OnePlus 2 with network issue fix

Last month, OnePlus rolled out the OxygenOS 3.5.5 update for the OnePlus 2 only to pull it back after some time when several users started facing issues with the network. As per the complaints, many users claimed that the network on their OnePlus 2 after the update use to drop abnormally. Fortunately, OnePlus has now rolled out a fresh OxygenOS 3.5.6 update with the network issue fix.

Moreover, most of the users complaining about this issue happened to use Airtel or Reliance Jio Network. Also, the issue would pop up only when one use to switch on the mobile data whereas with Wi-Fi, the mobile network would behave just fine.

As always, the update is rolled out via OTA (over the air) and is an incremental update which implies that the update will be first rolled out to a small set of users after which gradually the update reaches everyone within a week or two.

OxygenOS 3.5.6 brings in a new Battery Saving Mode, App Lock (in Security and Fingerprint settings), Gaming Mode (Settings > Developer Options), Additional customizations for Alet Slider, Revamped UI and Volume Adjustment Bar, and other stability enhancements and bug fixes. Shelf is now clean and more customizable.

Meanwhile, OnePlus surprised us all on this new year's eve by rolling out stable Android Nougat update for the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T

More info reportedly leaks on Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 before CES 2017

The info comes from noted gadget leaker Evan “@evleaks” Blass, who apparently got a hold of an internal Qualcomm press release on the Snapdragon 835. Some of the features center on graphics. The press release says the new chip will have 25 percent faster 3D graphic rendering compared to the older Snapdragon 820, along 60 times more display colors. The Snapdragon 835 will also have 20 percent less motion-to-photon latency.

Smartphone cameras will also get some zoom and stabilization improvements with the new chip, along with better and faster auto-focus. The Snapdragon 835 was made on a new 10nm design, and it will be 30 percent smaller than the Snapdragon 820. This should allow smartphones to be thinner while still adding larger batteries. The chip will also use 40 percent less power while still getting a 27 percent performance increase. Qualcomm has already announced that the chip will support Quick Charge 4, which should be capable of adding five hours of battery life with just 5 minutes of charging time.

While Qualcomm has yet to announce which phones will get the Snapdragon 835 processor, ASUS has already hinted it will reveal a phone with the new chip at CES this week.

Lenovo P2 with 5,100mAh battery coming to India soon

Lenovo P2 which was officially unveiled back in September last year and went on sale a couple of months later, will soon be launched in India. This was revealed by the India subsidiary of the Chinese company in a tweet.

How often do you your way because of low phone battery? Travel fearlessly with the longest lasting battery #LenovoP2 #Powerhouse coming soon pic.twitter.com/d4LZ3Thfut

— Lenovo India (@Lenovo_in) January 2, 2017

Specs-wise, the phone is powered by a Snapdragon 625 chipset, and sports a 5.5-inch full HD display. RAM options include 3GB and 4GB, while storage is 32GB. In terms of camera, the P2 features a 13MP/5MP combo. A large, 5,100mAh battery is there to keep the lights on.

The handset launched carrying a price tag of €249/€299 in Europe. There is currently no information on exactly how much it'll cost in India.