Weekly Wrap-Up #30 : Samsung Galaxy S8, Xiaomi Mi 6, LG G6, HTC U 11, Moto C & More….

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Happy Monday to all and new Weekly Wrap-up from Phone Radar is here. Get the glimpse of all the happenings in the smartphone sector from the last seven days. There are man smartphones that are made available for sale in the last week in India. More than the low-cost devices, we have seen a quite a few flagship launches. Talking about the upcoming devices, we will be seeing few more major launches in the next few days in India and China. Also, check out the list of upcoming smartphones to know about the new smartphone launches that are scheduled for the next few weeks.

• Last week, Samsung has officially launched the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus smartphones in the Indian market. The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus will be retailing at Rs. 57,900 and Rs. 64,900 respectively. They are now available to pre-order, and the company is offering the latest wireless charging dock with Quick Charge support for free. The sale of the latest flagship Galaxy devices will start from May 5th and can be purchased from Flipkart, Samsung e-stores, and several other offline retailers. Unlike in the U.S, the Indian users will get the Exynos 8895 SoC inside their devices instead of the Snapdragon 835 powered SoC. The device supports dual SIM dual standby and offers 4G VoLTE connectivity. The Galaxy S8 comes in Midnight Black and Maple Gold colors, whereas the Galaxy S8 Plus additionally comes in Coral Blue color. Within the package, we can also find the $100 worth AKG earphones. Talking about the Samsung DeX, it is priced at Rs. 8,999 and will be soon available in the market. Soon, we will also see the launch of Samsung Gear VR headset and the new Gear 360 camera.

• We all expected Xiaomi to launch the Mi 6 and Mi 6 Plus smartphone in China, but the company came up with only the smaller Mi 6. However, the Mi 6 Plus was later got certified confirming the possible launch in the next few weeks. Talking about the Mi 6, it comes with the same 5.15-inch display with Full HD display as seen on the Mi 5. It sports a glass back body using the four-sided curved glass. It comes with a Snapdragon 835 SoC coupled with 6GB of RAM and 64GB/128GB of internal storage. There is a dual camera setup on the rear featuring 12MP wide-angle lens and another 12-megapixel telephoto lens that offer 2X lossless zoom. It is backed by a 3,350mAh non-removable battery but lacks the Quick Charge 4.0 support. There is no 3.5mm Audio port and comes only with USB Type-C port for charging and connecting earphones. Beneath the display is the fingerprint sensor that sits under the glass. The company showcased the ceramic and silver edition smartphones. The glass back variants with 64GB and 128GB storage are priced at 2,499 Yuan and 2,899 Yuan respectively.
• Transsion Holdings, the company behind the iTel brand, has come up with a new smartphone brand called Tecno Mobile. The Hong Kong-based company has a good market presence in the African countries and now, it is looking to repeat the same in the second largest smartphone market. At its launch event held last week in New Delhi, the company announced the Tecno i3, i3 Pro, i5, i5 Pro, and i7 smartphones. All these devices support 4G VoLTE and can be used with Jio 4G SIM. The pricing of these devices starts from Rs. 7,990 and will be sold via offline retail stores. They will be running on the slightly tweaked OS called HiOS based on Android 7.0 Nougat. Initially, the devices will be available only in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Punjab.
• Samsung Pay was made available in the Indian market in March. The company is also working on introducing the Samsung Pay on other smartphones via Samsung Pay Mini. As of now, the Samsung Pay is limited to high-end Samsung smartphones. In India, still many banks have to offer support for Samsung Pay. Last week update of 84MB size brought the UPI integration to the app. Unlike the Android Pay or Apple Pay, the Samsung Pay can be used with both NFC and MST technologies. Since not many payment terminals in India support NFC, Samsung Pay with the MST support has the edge over other payment services. The user can also add the PayTM wallet into the Samsung pay account.

• The HTC U has been in the leaks for quite a few months, and a few days back, the company has confirmed the official launch event to be held on May 16th in Taipei, New York, and London. Just after the CES 2017 event in January, HTC unveiled the new flagship U series by launching the HTC U Play and U Ultra. Now, the new HTC U will be coming with the similar glossy finish body. Few recent leaks also suggest the device to be officially called HTC U 11. Evan Blass has earlier confirmed the device to support Edge Sense technology which recognizes gestures directly on the frame. The device will pack Snapdragon 835 SoC, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of onboard storage. From the teaser image, the device looks much slimmer than the earlier launched HTC U devices.
• Lenovo will be launching the new Moto Z2 and Moto Z2 Force smartphones soon in the market. Even the company is expected to launch two devices as the successor to the Moto E3 Power – the Moto E4 and Moto E4 Plus. The recent leaked also added a new Moto C series and the first two devices to come from this series are the Moto C and Moto C Plus. The leaked images reveal the first look of these devices. Talking about the new Moto C series, it will be priced cheaper than the Moto E devices and comes with a plastic body featuring basic internal specifications. Both these devices have the front facing LED flash for capturing images and shooting videos even in low light conditions. The Moto Z2 and Z2 Force are said to bring back the 3,5mm Audio jack which was missed on the first gen Moto Z devices. It even comes with a dual camera setup on the rear and the Moto G5 like oval shaped fingerprint sensor on the front.
• The earlier launched Panasonic Eluga Ray Max and Eluga Ray X smartphones went on sale exclusively on Flipkart. These are first smartphones to get the in-house virtual assistant called Arbo. Both the devices support dual SIM dual standby and offer 4G VoLTE connectivity for using with the Jio 4G SIM. The Panasonic Eluga Ray X is priced at Rs. 8,999 and comes in Gold, Rose Gold, and Space Grey color options. On the other hand, the Eluga Ray Max with 32GB and 64GB of onboard storage costs Rs. 11,499 and Rs. 12,499 respectively. Even the OPPO F3 Plus with the dual selfie cameras was made available in the last week in the new Black color. Earlier to this, it came only in the Gold color option. It is retailing at the same Rs. 30,900 price and sports the same specifications. Soon we will also the see the launch of the OPPO F3 smartphone sporting dual camera setup on the front.

• LG opened the pre-orders for the LG G6 in the last week, and today, it was officially launched at the event held in New Delhi. Unlike the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, the LG G6 comes with Snapdragon 821 SoC. The device comes with glass back body, and it is also IP68 certified making it the water and dust resistant. On the front is a 5.7-inch FullVision display with Quad HD+ resolution. It sports dual 13MP sensors on the rear with OIS 2.0 and PDAF. For selfies, there is a 5MP front camera with f/2.2 aperture and 100-degree wide-angle lens. It is priced at Rs. 51,990 which is lower than what the Galaxy S8 costs in India. The company is also offering Rs. 7,000 cashback on the initial pre-orders along with 50% discount on the LG Tone Active+ HBS-A100 wireless headset. In India, the LG G6 will be available only in Astro Black and Ice Platinum color options. LG is also offering Rs. 14,100 worth of in-game currency for the mobile games including Cookie Jam, Temple Run 2, Spider-Man Unlimited and others.

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