Lenovo unveils A Plus and P2 smartphone at IFA 2016

Similar to other smartphone makers, the Chinese manufacturer Lenovo also introduced its handsets at IFA 2016. The company has announced its Lenovo A Plus and Lenovo P2 with a price tag of EUR 69 (nearly Rs. 5,200) and EUR 249 (nearly Rs. 18,500) respectively.

Initially both of the smartphones will be available in European markets, while, soon they will reach to the Indian shores and other major smartphone markets. Lenovo has announced that it will launch the 4GB of RAM with 64GB storage model of the Lenovo P2 in China.

Lenovo P2

The Lenovo P2 comes featured with a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080×1920 pixels) Amoled display which is coupled with a 5-megapixel of front-facing camera. While, for primary photography solution the manufacturer offers a 13-megapixel of the rear camera with dual LED flash.

Running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, the smartphone is powered by a 2.0 GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor which is coupled with 3GB of RAM. For internal storage, the phone comes up with 32GB of eMMC while it also support microSD cards for external storage.

The Lenovo P2 is successor to the battery-centric Lenovo P1 smartphone, and hence, it is fueled with a 5100 mAh of battery. With a cool set of specs the smartphone would attract users who demand a powerful battery in their phone.

Lenovo A Plus

The budget smartphone, Lenovo A Plus boasts a 4.5-inch FWVGA (480×854 pixels) display, 5-megapixel rear with LED flash and also houses a 2-megapixel front camera. It runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop which is supported by a 1.3 GHz MediaTek MT6580 processor coupled with 1GB of RAM. There is 8GB of storage which is further expandable up to 32GB by using a microSD card.

Tags: IFA, IFA 2016, lenovo, Lenovo A Plus Price, Lenovo A Plus Specifications, Lenovo Mobiles, Lenovo P2 Price, Lenovo P2 Specifications, Mobiles
Source: Lenovo unveils A Plus and P2 smartphone at IFA 2016

The Chinese are coming. Samsung is steady. So the iPhone 7 has to impress

Last year's iPhone 6S does not seem to have generated the consumer buzz of previous Apple smartphones. Photograph: Eric Risberg/AP

Wireless-only headphones? Dual rear cameras? Pressure-sensitive sensors? This year, as every year, the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco will be crammed to the rafters with press and Apple well-wishers waiting for the pomp, circumstance and technical revelations of another iPhone launch. But this one, on Wednesday, is more important for Apple than it has been for a while.

After the huge success of 2014's iPhone 6 – which introduced a completely new design with larger screen sizes, attracting more people switching from rival Android phones than ever before – 2015's iPhone 6S has been a bit of a damp squib in terms of consumer buzz. And encroaching competition from China means Apple faces arguably the most competitive market conditions it has ever seen.

Not that sales have been anything to sniff at. Apple still shipped millions of iPhones over the last two years – more than 225m last year and more than 230m expected this year, according to analysts Gartner. But enthusiasm for the 6S has been at a level markedly below the model it replaced. Overall iPhone sales have been down by between 5m and 10m a quarter year-on-year since the 6S launched, despite the contribution of the newer, smaller iPhone SE, which has been popular in Europe.

That was in the face of the overall smartphone market increasing in size by 200m devices, reaching 1.4bn phones sold to end users in 2015.

As a consequence, Apple's share of the smartphone market fell in the last three quarters to 11.7%, according to data from analysts IDC. Apple's arch-rival Samsung, the world's largest smartphone manufacturer, stayed relatively constant with a share of roughly 23% in the same period; it was the likes of China's Huawei, which jumped from just over 5% to closer to 8.5% year-on-year, that saw the gains.

IDC's Francisco Jeronimo says: "The biggest challenge facing Apple is the decline in the smartphone market we're going to see as device penetration hits 80-85%." At that point, he says, it's not about attracting buyers who are purchasing their first smartphone – "it's about convincing existing users to upgrade and attracting buyers from other brands".

The rising stars of the Chinese smartphone industry, including Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi, have turned from making cheap and cheerful products to producing desirable phones featuring refined functions found on much more expensive rivals. It is these companies, many contend, that are eating into Apple's bottom line.

Apple is not alone in being undercut by comparable devices costing as little as one-third the price: Samsung has managed to maintain pace, but previously big-name Android manufacturers such as HTC, Sony and LG have struggled to stay competitive.

Jeronimo says: "I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple overtaken by Huawei as the second-largest smartphone manufacturer in the world in the next two years. Apple is just not investing as much money at the point of sale as Samsung in the face of Huawei's rapid rise."

Perhaps market share isn't the be-all and end-all, but it has affected Apple's bottom line: the company has posted two straight quarters of year-on-year declines in revenue.

So what does Apple have in response to the growing competition? Reports indicate the company will be more or less sticking to the tried-and-trusted iPhone 6 design externally, with an aluminium back, curved sides and glass front. The 6 and 6S were almost indistinguishable when placed side by side, and if rumours are to be believed, the same will be true of the iPhone 7 (or whatever it ends up being called).

Instead, Apple is expected to improve the technology inside the device – as it and everyone else does every year. The iPhone's familiar home button may see its first big change since the introduction of a fingerprint sensor in 2013 by becoming pressure-sensitive, according to Bloomberg.

Dual rear cameras have also become relatively common in the last year, with manufacturers such as Huawei and LG launching several phones sporting two lenses on the back. Apple could do the same, providing extra functions and improving low-light performance.

Perhaps, though, the rumour that has caused the most commotion is that Apple will be ditching the long-lived headphone jack. The ubiquitous 3.5mm socket, which is common to smartphones, tablets, computers, games consoles, televisions and hi-fis alike, could be going the way of the dodo, leaving only Apple's Lightning port in its place – and rendering almost any set of older wired headphones obsolete without an adapter.

Jeronimo says: "For Apple, it's about managing the expectations of its massive installed base – no one in the industry has larger – and encouraging them to spend more within the Apple ecosystem and on services, as people upgrade more slowly and smartphone innovation becomes more and more incremental."

Source: The Chinese are coming. Samsung is steady. So the iPhone 7 has to impress

Opportunities arise in Southeast Asian smartphone market

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Smartphone shipments in Southeast Asia grew 6.5% year-over-year (YoY) during Q2 2016, reaching 28 million devices, according to the IDC.

Southeast Asia is a growth hot spot for the smartphone market. Along with India and South America, this region is providing stakeholders in the industry, such as app developers, mobile operators, and device makers, with substantial opportunities amid the decelerating global smartphone market.

In particular, the report highlights three trends in Southeast Asia:

Slow 4G adoption was triggered by carrier deals. In a rush to upgrade customers from 2G networks to 3G networks, carriers began offering substantial deals to users, including free data and heavily discounted smartphones, the IDC notes. This reduced the number of potential 4G customers in the region. However, the market is changing, as 4G networks are accounting for a larger share, ushering in greater device performance.

Demand for high-end devices is increasing. Lower-tiered devices will continue to account for a majority of device shipments in the region; in Q2 2016, they accounted for 68%. Nevertheless, as users look to replace their devices, it's likely they will look to premium devices for better specifications and performance. This will encourage usage of more data-heavy apps and allow advertisers to serve richer ads.

Local and Chinese vendors are eating up the market. Just as in India, local and China-based vendors are able to undercut larger retailers, flooding the market with highly affordable low-end devices. These vendors will begin shifting this strategy as the Southeast Asian market starts upgrading to premium models, making low-end devices an unsustainable business model.

App downloads in Southeast Asia are on the upswing. This growth will be further ignited by the overall shift to better-performing devices and cell networks. This provides a significant opportunity for businesses and developers looking to increase their global footprint in the region, or APAC generally.

Keep in mind, though, that the global smartphone market is expected to slow considerably over the next few years. Despite a record-setting holiday quarter, 2015 was likely the last year of double-digit growth for smartphone shipments.

Mature markets were at the heart of this year's deceleration. Adoption has reached new highs in key markets in the United States, Europe, and China. The pool of first-time buyers in these countries is shrinking rapidly, and sales are now primarily coming from phone upgrades.

Meanwhile, emerging markets will continue to see robust shipment growth. India and Indonesia, in particular, will help fuel a large share of the shipments growth within the global smartphone market over the next few years.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on smartphones by country that forecasts the market through 2021 to reflect slower, stabilizing growth in the long term.

Here are some key points from the report:

The global smartphone market is still growing at a steady pace due to more widespread adoption in emerging markets. We estimate the global market will hit about 2.1 billion units shipped in 2021.

Shipments growth over the past few years has been driven by the falling price of smartphones, which has made handsets more accessible in emerging markets. The average selling price of a smartphone in India nearly halved between 2010 and 2015.

With relatively low smartphone penetration, we forecast Indian smartphone shipments to grow rapidly over the next five years. Nevertheless, India has a long way to go before it surpasses China as the world's leading market for smart handsets. India is estimated to account for roughly 10% of the global smartphone market in 2016, considerably less than China's 30% share.

The global platform wars are over, even as smartphone adoption continues to rise across various markets worldwide. Android and iOS are estimated to account for 97.3% of global platform market share in 2015, compared to 96.3% last year.

Apple closed the year with another strong quarter on the back of its iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus launches. Still, the vendor saw a slight decline in YoY growth of its share of the market in the face of stiff competition from Samsung and Chinese vendors such as Huawei.

In full, the report:

Forecasts global smartphone shipments through 2021.

Explores why India is the next high-growth smartphone market.

Breaks down the global smartphone platform wars.

Discusses smartphone vendor performance market share.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:

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Source: Opportunities arise in Southeast Asian smartphone market

Report: Samsung to recall phones after explosion claims

By YOUKYUNG LEEAP Technology Writer

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Samsung will issue a global recall of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone as soon as this weekend after its investigation on explosion claims found batteries were at fault, according to South Korea's Yonhap News.

Samsung Electronics refused comment on the report on Friday. It said it was conducting the inspection with its partners.

"We will share the findings as soon as possible. Samsung is fully committed to providing the highest quality products to our consumers," the company said in a statement.

The company was due to hold a news conference later Friday about the findings of its investigation and plans for the Galaxy Note 7.

Samsung launched the Note 7 on Aug. 19 in some markets, including South Korea and the U.S. Shipments were delayed in South Korea this week for extra quality control testing after reports that batteries of some of the jumbo smartphones exploded while they were being charged.

South Korean high school teacher Park Soo-Jung said she rushed to buy the Galaxy Note 7, pre-ordering and then activating it on Aug. 19, its official launch date.

The 34-year-old living in the port city of Busan said by email that she was bruised when she rushed out of bed after her phone burst into flames, filling her bedroom with smoke smelling of chemicals.

Park said she's having second thoughts about buying another newly released tech gadget, especially after losing all her personal data stored in the destroyed Note 7.

An employee of a Samsung service center in Busan who visited Park's school to retrieve the scorched phone confirmed that her Galaxy Note 7 caught fire and said the sample was sent to the company's headquarters.

Park said Samsung offered her a full refund and compensation of 300,000 won ($269). She did not accept the compensation.

"If the exploded phone in flame was near my head, I would not have been able to write this post," she said in a popular online forum on Thursday, where she shared a photo of the scorched Note 7 and described dousing the burning phone with water.

Citing an unnamed company official, Yonhap said Samsung's investigation has found that faulty batteries have caused phones to catch fire. It said Samsung estimates that the number of Galaxy Note 7 phones with the faulty battery accounts for "less than 0.1 percent" of the products in the market. Samsung is discussing how to resolve the issue with Verizon and its other partners, the official told Yonhap.

SK Telecom, South Korea's largest mobile carrier, said about 400,000 units of the Galaxy Note 7 were estimated to have been sold in South Korea.

Samsung beat expectations with stellar earnings in the latest quarter and its stock price was at a record high before news emerged of the Note 7's battery problems. The company's shares rose 0.8 percent early Friday after falling 2 percent the day before.

Despite the investigation in South Korea, Samsung went ahead with its scheduled launch Thursday of the Galaxy Note 7 in China. Company officials did not reply to questions about how Samsung determined which phones are deemed safe and which require further testing. It did not say if those phones are different from the ones sold in South Korea.

Yonhap News said five or six explosions were reported by consumers, including Park's case, citing pictures and reports of severely damaged phones shared in local online communities, social media and YouTube. Other photos and accounts, other than Park's, could not be immediately verified.

There were no confirmed reports of any injuries.

It is unusual for Samsung to confirm a delay in sales of a device, and rare for it to cite a quality issue.

"Every year, there have been accidents of battery explosions but it is the first time that six or seven cases happened within such a short period after the launch of a new product," said Ha Joon-doo, an analyst at Shinhan Investment Corp.

The Galaxy Note 7 smartphone is the latest iteration of Samsung's Note series that feature a giant screen and a stylus and usually inherit designs and features of the Galaxy S series that debut in the spring. Samsung also added an iris scanner to the Note 7, which lets users unlock the phone by detecting patterns in the eyes.

Even before the issue of battery explosions emerged, supplies were not keeping up with higher-than-expected demand for the smartphone.

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Source: Report: Samsung to recall phones after explosion claims

Bezel-Less Nubia Z11 Android Smartphone To Launch Worldwide This September

Chinese phone maker Nubia is set to launch the Z11, an Android smartphone featuring a bezel-less design, this September. The handset will be available in 14 countries including the United States, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Thailand and India.

Nubia, which is a brand owned by ZTE, first announced the Z11 back in June and was made available in China in July. The brand isn't that well-known in the West, but with the global launch of the handset, that's about to change.

The Nubia Z11 comes with a screen-to-body ratio of 80 percent. Photo: Nubia

The Nubia Z11 comes with a 5.5-inch full HD 1080p IPS display and it looks like it doesn't have any bezels on either sides. It has a screen-to-body ratio of 81 percent, making it look like users are just holding a screen.

Under the hood, the Nubia Z11 is powered by a Snapdragon 820 processor with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. If that's not enough, users can also pick up the 128GB model which comes with 6GB of RAM. Either way, users will still be able to expand storage via microSD.

The Nubia Z11 is only 7.5mm thick. Photo: Nubia

In terms of photography, the Nubia Z11 comes with a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera which uses a Sony IMX298 sensor. The camera features an aperture of f/2.0, software image stabilization and phase detection autofocus, according to Engadget.

Accompanying the 16-megapixel camera on the back is a fingerprint sensor. The Nubia Z11 also comes with USB Type-C and a 3,000 mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 30 support. It runs Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with Nubia UI 4.0 running on top.

In the audio department, Nubia didn't skimp out on the Z11. The device comes with an AK4376 sound chip and hardware to provide HiFi+ audio quality. The speakers also have Dolby Atmos Surround Sound support.

The Nubia Z11 will be available in starting in September and will sell for €499 or around $557 for the standard silver and grey models. There's also a special black gold color option which costs €599 or around $668. The handset will be available from Nubia's website, Amazon, eBay and other online retailers, according to The Verge.

Pricing for the Nubia Z11 Photo: Nubia

Source: Bezel-Less Nubia Z11 Android Smartphone To Launch Worldwide This September

Now, LeEco to assemble smartphones in India

NEW DELHI: Joining peers such as Xiaomi, Vivo and Gionee, Chinese handset maker LeEco will assemble its smartphones in India, investing Rs 50 crore in the facility.

Set up in partnership with Compal Electronics, the facility in Greater Noida will have an initial capacity of 60,000 units a month. This will be ramped up to 2,00,000 by the end of December.

"We have partnered with Compal for the facility and will start with the assembly of Le2. We will invest Rs 35 crore to start with and have earmarked another Rs 12-15 crore for the ramp-up," LeEco COO Smart Electronics Business Atul Jain told PTI.

He added that the facility, spread over 2,00,000 sq ft, will provide jobs to nearly 200 people.

"India will be a global export hub... We are already there in China, Hong Kong and will soon start selling in Russia, Indonesia and the US," he said. Le2, which was launched two months ago, has already sold 2,00,000 units in India.

"The facility will provide us about 6-8 p er cent cost benefit," he said, adding that LeEco has a similar partnership with Compal for its facility in China.

India attracted investment from 37 mobile manufacturing companies in the last one year that have generated 40,000 direct jobs and 1.25 lakh indirect employment. These include the likes of Xiaomi, Vivo, Gionee, Karbonn, Lava, Micromax, Intex, Jivi, iTel, and MTech.

"Handset manufacturing in India rose 185 per cent in value terms in 2015-16 to Rs 54,000 crore and is expected to touch Rs 94,000 crore this fiscal," IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Also, according to estimates, FDI in electronic manufacturing has touched an all-time high of Rs 1.23 lakh crore in 2016. LeEco launched its handsets in India in January this year and televisions a few weeks ago. The company has already sold one million units of smartphones in India.

"The partnership with Compal is non-exclusive and both partners can work with other players," he said

Source: Now, LeEco to assemble smartphones in India

Images Of Meizu’s Star Trek-Themed Smartphone Surface

According to leaked images doing the rounds of the Chinese media, Meizu may be in line to release a Star Trek edition smartphone sooner rather than later. While not much is known about the device itself in terms of its hardware specifications, the image above seems to show off the Star Trek logo on the back of the phone, just above the speaker grill. Curiously, however, the device looks fairly regular at first glance, with not a whole lot going on in terms of themes or color schemes, which is something you might have expected from a device that comes with a movie or cartoon theme. Either way, as the image below indicates, the launcher will also be customized by the looks of it, but the app drawer will continue to remain conspicuous by its absence, as is to be expected considering this is a Meizu-branded smartphone.

The new Meizu Star Trek comes at a time when the latest Star Trek movie, 'Star Trek Beyond', is about to hit movie theaters in China, so the collaboration will likely bring publicity both for Meizu and for Paramount Pictures. According to reports, the movie will be released in China this Friday, September 2nd. There is, however, no info on when the phone will be launched. There's also no word at the moment on whether the upcoming phone from Meizu will be just a limited edition model of an existing device, or if the company is bringing an all-new smartphone to the market, so we'll have to wait to see how this whole thing actually plays out.

Limited edition smartphones themed around movies or cartoons are hardly a novelty. Samsung has already launched Avengers-themed Iron-Man editions of its premium smartphones, as well as Avenger-themed accessories featuring The Hulk, Thor, Captain America and Iron Man. Batman is yet another popular character that has featured prominently in Samsung phones, including this year's 'Injustice Edition' Galaxy S7 Edge. Chinese smartphone manufacturers haven't shied away from tying up with movie franchises either. OPPO brought out its Transformers-themed Find 7 and Vivo collaborated with Marvel for its Iron Man and Captain America-themed V3 and V3 Max smartphones earlier this year.

Source: Images Of Meizu's Star Trek-Themed Smartphone Surface