ULTIMATE TOP 10 Smartphones in India in 2019 [From 7k to 1 Lac]

Brief Review:

Realme after splitting from Oppo was not very successful thanks to the likes of Xiaomi’s Note series and now the Redmi series. However, everything started changing with the release of the Realme 3 Pro. The 3 Pro provides best in class processor, battery life and fast charging capabilities for a price that rivaled the like of the Redmi Note 7 Pro.

Now, with the release of the Realme C2, Realme plans of taking the Redmi 6 head on and the Redmi 7 to an extent. Will Realme be able to knock the competition or has the huge success of the Realme 3 pro got into their heads. Today we look into the short review of the Realme C2 and like always read on to find out.

The C2 comes with what Realme like to call a diamond cut finish at the back. This design is achieved by using Nano-scale composite particles and Realme for sure like to brag about it. Other design aspects involve the power button on the right and nothing on top apart from the secondary microphone. The volume rockers with the sim and dedicated memory card slot expandable up to 256GB,  reside to the left. Finally, the primary microphone the headphone jack and the speaker grill sit at the bottom of the phone. The phone also comes with a splash proof coating although it is to be noted that Realme makes no promises of the phone being waterproof.

Considering the fact that Realme has added a Nano-water coating and has a great diamond cut design. There are two color options at the time of writing this review: Diamond Black and Diamond Blue. Overall, this is what can be expected of a phone that starts at a price tag of below 6K and Realme has done a pretty fine job in this department.

Now as the price tag of the device is pretty low let us not expect great display with the best of resolutions. However, Realme did not cheap out with the display department here. The C2 comes with an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 6.1-inch with an HD+ resolution at 1560X720p dew-drop notch display. Thanks to the notch the phone is able to reach a screen to body ratio of 89.35%.  This is a great panel especially considering the price tag. Realme has even gone further in adding a gorilla glass protection which for a budget of under 6000. They don’t mention which generation of the glass is being used but yes, it’s good to have some sort of protection than having nothing at all.

All in all, the display used is a pretty good one for the price of the phone and Realme has simply done a great job just like the prior department too.

Now, this is one department where Realme has simply knocked the competition out of the waters. This is thanks to the inclusion of a whopping 4000mAh battery in the phone. Now, if the display used by the phone were FHD+ or if the Processor used was top of the line, more on this later. We would have said that it’s pretty decent battery capacity. However, the C2 comes with an HD+ display and a low-powered processor. This coupled the huge 4000mAh battery and the aggressive power management by ColorOS 6 makes for the great battery life of around 2 days.

The phone will easily last any light user for 2 whole days and when put to heavy usage will undoubtedly last a full one day. This in our book is simply amazing.

The camera is another department that Realme has done a pretty decent job. The rear cameras are a combination of a primary 13MP F2.2 shooter coupled with a 2MP F2.4 depth sensor. Now, considering the price the cameras play pretty fair in our opinion. It can shoot 1080p videos and has an option for portrait photos and 4X maximum zoom. The selfie camera is a 5MP shooter of F2.0 aperture and has support for 2D facial unlock, AI beautification and portrait shots too. The selfie shooter turns out to be slightly more capable than the rear ones thanks to the lower aperture.

Pictures from the rear camera will be good in daylight but will also most definitely turn out slightly soft. This is expected of a phone with such a low price tag, no complaints there. However, this in no sense means that the camera is useless or anything. It is just that if you are expecting great photography out of these lenses, we would suggest you all to look elsewhere.

This is probably the greatest selling point of this smartphone. The Realme C2 comes with a MediaTek helio P22 Processor. The P22 is an 8-core processor containing 8 A-53 cores clocked at 2.0GHz. This is a 12nm processor that provides huge power efficiency. For the price that the phone comes at makes the C2 the cheapest phone to come with the P22 a title that was owned by the Redmi 6 previously. The P22 scores a 78010 on AnTuTu Benchmark and is a pretty good score for the price that the phone comes in. The GPU, IMG PowerVR GE8320, on the other hand, is not as competitive as the CPU. However, it is good to run day to day task. Depending on the model that you choose the phone comes in 2 variants a 2/16 GB version and a 3/32 GB version. Like we said day to day task should not restrict the performance of the phone. However, it is to be noted that if you plan on gaming on the phone, we would suggest you look into other viable options in the higher budget segment.

As we know that the hardware of the phone as good as it might be, it is nothing if it is not backed by good software in the software front the C2 comes equipped with ColorOS 6.0 atop android 9 pie.  Yes, it’s true that the ColorOS is a huge departure from stock android. However, it is way snappier and sleeker than its inception. This is definitely a daily driver material and will not disappoint the users.

Before we wrap the review up let us take a dive on the pricing. The 2/16 GB variant comes in at rupees 5999 and the top end model comes in at 3/32 GB and a price tag of rupees 7999. At this price the phone that it competes directly with the Redmi 6 which also comes with almost exact same specs. Realme has priced the Realme C2 at an extremely completive price. If your budget is extremely tight then we suggest you go for the C2. There is no IP rating so keep the phone away from water and dust.

But if you do end up buying this phone, we are pretty sure you wouldn’t be disappointed with it. Until next time keep reading my friends.

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OnePlus took the entire market by a huge storm when it first released it's OnePlus One in the year 2014. It carried the best in class specs, A feature-rich operating system. Last but definitely not the least the price tag of under 20000. That was the One plus Mantra over the years. Best in class specs, at half the price of the flagships of the market.

Well, over the years the price has obviously gone up due to the use of premium materials and latest specs. Fast forward to 2019 sadly, you don’t get to buy it at the old less than $300 price tag. But what you get in return is a phone that is filled with the latest and powerful hardware to the brim and like their promise at half the price of a similar flagship phone from Samsung, Google an iPhone.

So has OnePlus finally settled going against their “Never Settle” motto. Or is it still going to be the flagship killer that it has always promised in delivering? This is the short review of the OnePlus 7 Pro. Like always read on to find out. Like we always say that if a phone checks the 5 boxes it a great one. In no particular order: Build and design, Display, Battery life, Camera and finally Performance.

OnePlus once was the pioneer of bringing best in class design and improvised with every phone they had released up till the 3T. From the 5 lineups, OnePlus has sort of settled with design choices that just works and resonates highly with what the other players have to offer. The same goes for the OnePlus 7 Pro.

With the OnePlus 7 pro, we get a much more premium looking phone that basically competes with the flagships of the other brands. Much like its smaller sibling the OnePlus 7 the 7 Pro also follows a few design cue that is come to expect of a 2019 flagship. Gorilla glass 5 to the back and curved Gorilla Glass 5 to the front. Triple camera to the back with button placements just like the OnePlus 7. The power button and alert slider to the right. Secondary noise cancellation mic to the top along with the pop-up selfie camera. Volume buttons to the left with primary microphone, Type C port, dual SIM card slot to the bottom. Just like the regular OnePlus 7, there is a primary bottom firing speaker and the earpiece doubles as a stereo speaker system which is also tuned with Dolby Atmos.

All in all, what OnePlus has provided the 7 Pro is pretty much on par with the rich kids (Samsung and the Apples) of the market.

Coming to the display, OnePlus has believed in delivering the best FHD+ display in the market. Well, this belief of theirs is most definitely not seen 7 Pro but also holds a huge trick up its sleeve. That said what OnePlus has to offer with the 7 Pro is truly revolutionary. This is because the 7 Pro is the world first phone to have a Fluid AMOLED display. What is that? Well, this is a QHD+ display, to begin with running at 3120 x 1440p. The cherry on the this is the first of its kind QHD+ display that runs a 90Hz refresh rate panel.

The panel of the 7 Pro also curves at the edges to give this premium Samsung like edge screen look. Ring any bell? Yes, this is because the panel is made by Samsung themselves. It does not end there. The 7 Pro has also received an A+ grade from DisplayMate for being the best-in-class. OnePlus was also able to achieve a high 93.22% screen to body ratio. This also is the largest OnePlus phone to date at a whopping 6.7 inch. The best part of this high refresh rate high-resolution screen is also HDR 10+ certified. As for the panel itself its completely edge to edge thanks to no notch and a very small chin, more on this later. The OnePlus 7 Pro display is simply a joy to use and you will definitely not be disappointed. 

One plus has always offered the best-in-class battery life thank the optimization of their OxygenOS, more on this later. With the 6T last year one plus had already bettered on their great battery life. The 7 Pro comes with a massive 4000mAh battery and not only that it comes with WARP Charge 30. This charges the larger battery of the 7 Pro 34% faster than the smaller one on the regular OnePlus 7. As the name suggests the WARP charger is a 30W one and is included in the box, apple please learn a thing or two. The WARP Charge 30 charger can charge the 7 Pro to 50 percent in just 20 minutes.

However, it is to be noted that if you would be using the phone display at 90Hz all the time battery life will most definitely take a hit. Even then this is definitely easily a one-day phone. All in all, the battery life on the 7 Pro is never going to disappoint you.

Coming to the camera review of the OnePlus 7 Pro. Let us first get the specs out of the way. The primary rear sensor on the Pro is a 48MP F1.6 Sony IMX 586 lens which is coupled by an 8MP F2.4 Telephoto and a 16MP F2.2 Ultra-Wide angle up to 117 degrees. The selfie shooter is a 16MP F2.0 Sony IMX 471 shooter and comes in the form of a pop-up selfie camera to achieve that immersive bezel-less display.

Photos out of the primary lens are well detailed and capture great images in day-light. It is also a pretty decent performer when it comes to low light too. The 8MP telephoto gets you 3X optical zoom which is better than the 2X optical zoom provided by the likes of Samsung S10 Plus and Apple’s iPhone XS. Photos taken with the telephoto will have that tad bit of more detail when you have zoomed in.

The 16MP Ultra-Wide on the 7 Pro is no slouch either. It is simply a champ and gives a way better field of view. The 7 Pro truly delivers with what is seen on most flagships of 2019 so far. Well, the 7 Pro comes with standard camera features. Google lens is baked right into the camera app, with features like 480 slow-mo till one minute and nightscape 2.0. The latter is not a great option though as its still no match when compared to the Pixels night mode.

The selfie camera also brings with itself a very capable 16MP lens and captures tons of details and is a great shooter overall. It also brings with itself portrait shots and 2D facial unlock capabilities. However, the latter is not as fast as before thanks to the pop-up camera that takes 2 to 3 extra seconds now to pop-up.

However, with the pop-up camera, the OnePlus 7 Pro gets its much glorified 93.22% screen to body ratio. OnePlus claims that the pop-up camera is good to use for 150 times for 5.5 years. Only time will tell if this is true provided you buy a 7 Pro and use it for 5.5 years. OnePlus also claims that they have used an anti-dust mechanism to keep the dust and dirt away. The pop-up camera also comes equipped with software sorcery that can detect any sort of drop causing the camera to automatically retract itself to prevent damage.

It is time to talk about the performance capabilities of the OnePlus 7 Pro. It is one area where OnePlus has dominated the smartphone market is in providing the absolute best smartphone performance. This continues even with the 7 Pro too. The 7 Pro comes with the latest and greatest Qualcomm Snapdragon 855. This smartphone comes in 3 variants having 6GB RAM with 128 GB storage, 8GB RAM with 256 GB storage, and 12GB RAM with 256 GB storage.

This powerful Snapdragon 855 is coupled with UFS 3.0 based storage which is touted to be 2 times faster than UFS 2.1 resulting in a whopping 361038 on the AnTuTu benchmark. This is the highest any non-gaming android phone has ever scored. Now the 7 Pro with its 90Hz display takes performance to the very next level. Day to day task will be a breeze to run, with games playing at the highest frames rate without any drop-in frame rate all thanks to the Adreno 640 inside you can rest assured for great performance overall.

Now, if you are reading this article you must definitely, be knowing of the OxygenOS UI that runs the software side of things. Personally, we feel that OxygenOS is much better than Stock vanilla Android. This is so as the UI is very close to stock Android with very few thoughtful upgrades. Performance on the 7 Pro is simply going to be butter smooth.

Overall, the 7 Pro is still the undisputed champion when it comes to performance.

Let us take a peek into the price before wrapping things up. OnePlus 7 Pro comes in 3 variants with the 6/128 GB variant costing Rs 48999, the 8/256 GB variant costing Rs 52999  and finally Rs 57999 for the top of the line 12/256 GB variant.

If you all follow our blog regularly we had said in our Pixel 3A and 3A XL review that it’s going to get a tough competition from the OnePlus 7 series. Now with the 7 Pro, it is even truer.  Guess what? We were damn right. Yes, it is true that the 3A series has a much better camera than the 7 series. But there is way more to a smartphone than just the camera. The overall package that you get with the 7 Pro is simply second to none.

Yes, the 7 Pro does have its shortcoming and yes it no more the $300 smartphone that we adored. The camera isn’t the best. The pop-up camera is still vulnerable to drops and so is the new edge screen. But once you look past these, the phone behind it is a solid buy especially considering its price point.

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Brief Review:

Samsung Galaxy A70 is an under 30000 smartphone from Samsung after it redefined its own phones for the under 10000 and under 20000 budget with the launch of Samsung Galaxy A20 and Samsung Galaxy A50. Let us check out how Samsung A70 does in this brief review of its features and specifications.

Samsung Galaxy A70 comes with a big 6.7-inch AMOLED display which is bright and has one of the best color reproduction. It has a Full HD Plus resolution and is perfect for media consumption like watching movies, playing games and much more. You will not feel a tinge of lack in the display quality. Coming to the build quality, the back in the build of polycarbonate with gradient colors design. Surely the phone looks good with a notch display and a colorful back but the polycarbonate build is a little hit comparing the market standard of glass build.

Coming to the processor powering the Galaxy A70, we get the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 which is built on 11nm process and is a power efficient chipset. The 675 has a top the clock speed of 2.0Ghz and is the only Snapdragon 600 series processor which is built on the Kryo 460 architecture with a configuration of 6 Cortex-A55 and 2 Cortex-A76 cores. This is complemented by the Adreno 612 on the GPU making the 675 an overall powerful processor.

This is the same processor we saw on the Redmi Note 7 Pro. With Snapdragon 675 you get 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. The phone scores around 170979 on the AnTuTu benchmarks and promises of a good overall performance. The multitasking and gaming performance showed no lag and we could use the phone smoothly.  You can expand the inbuilt storage up to 512 GB using a dedicated SD card slot.  Gaming offers a good experience and you can easily play at the maximum graphics setting.

Let us now catch up with the Camera specifications and review the quality of images the Galaxy A70 captures. It has a triple rear camera with the 32MP primary sensor, 8 MP ultra wide sensor and a 5 MP depth sensor. On the front camera, we have a single 32 MP sensor. Both the front and rear camera work great and capture images with great detailing, sharpness, and colors are brilliant. The 32MP sensor by defaults captures pictures in 12 MP to keep the size in control but you can manually switch to 32 MP to get more detailing. The portrait shots are perfect and you can control the intensity of the blur. 

The camera struggles a bit in the low light and Samsung needs for some improvement in this domain. Overall the camera is a good pick for the under 30k budget. 

Coming to the software, the A70 comes with a much refined One UI which is one of the best software from Samsung and is based on Android Pie. The software is a cleaner and lighter version of the Samsung UI ever launched. You will surely find a good software experience on Galaxy A70.

Let us talk about the battery, on the A70 where we get a big 4500 mAh capacity which gives a battery backup of around 1.5 days easily. You also get a 25 W charger bundles in the box and a Type C port for charging. The phone supports fast charging and can quickly charge the phone in around 100 minutes. 

The smartphones come with an always-on display which is one of the flagship features in Samsung phone. There is an in display fingerprint sensor which works quite accurately and is fast enough. There is no IP rating on this phone so you need to protect the phone from water and dust. The phone is splash proof to some extent. 

Among other features, the phone also supports Samsung Pay so you can easily pay at POS without carrying your credit and debit cards. 

Overall the Samsung Galaxy A70 is a great smartphone when considering the Samsung brand trust, great design, good camera, big internal storage, and a powerful battery backup with fast charging. The processor for the price range is decent but can handle most of the tasks easily. Owing to the OnePlus 7 launch, the expectation of the phone stands at the more powerful processor which somewhat lowers the value for money score of the phone. 

If you have a budget of around 30000 and are looking for a Samsung phone, the Galaxy A70 can fulfill your requirement.

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Brief Review:

Last year when Huawei launched their Mate 20 Pro, we the geeks in the Tech world thought that it was probably the best phone of 2018. The Mate 20 Pro came with a behemoth of specs with tech filled in it to the brim. It checked about 90% of the 5 boxes that make a great smartphone. The 5 boxes being: Build and design, Battery life, Display, Camera and finally Performance.

There are times when you can’t push the boundaries of technology any further but only improve on what you have. This goes especially when we are talking about phones like the Mate 20 Pro which is already an amazing smartphone. However, Huawei broke their own barriers and surprised the Tech Community with the launch of The P30 Pro. The flagship phone from Huawei for the year 2019. Read on to find out how does it fairs in the likes of other phones like the S10 series from Samsung and the iPhone Xs series from Apple.

So, like always lets being with Build and Design.

In simple terms, the P30 pro is Exactly what one should expect from a 2019 flagship. Glass and glass sandwich on both the front and back, with curved corners to sit perfectly in the hand. In fact, the phone is also curved like Samsung flagship on the edges to not only make an aesthetic statement but also make it super easy for holding the device itself much like the Mate 20 Pro. The other design queue that the P30 pro inherits is the texture and differently colored power button. It is simply needless to say that Huawei pays massive attention to details when comes to design features. Continuing with the whole Gradient back design Huawei’s offering 2 new gradient back options this year. Breathing Crystal and Aurora. Apart from this other design choices remain power and volume rockers to the right of the device. IR blaster and secondary microphone to the top. Nothing on the left.  And the SIM slot primary microphone, Type C port and the speaker grill to the bottom in the same order. Like we said Huawei has got the design just perfectly perfect.

Now coming to the display, we have a beautiful dewdrop notched 6.47 inches to the front. The display is an OLED one with a resolution of 2340x1080 topping at FHD+. Now, we know some of you all would say isn’t it a flagship phone which isn’t it quad HD, the Mate 20 Pro was QHD why not this one? Well, the simple answer is this that first, you get a battery endurance that you get nowhere else, more on that later. For 99% of the time, you would not even notice a difference. With that said what really matters is the panel itself which needless to say is beautiful. Covers the wide color gamut of DCI-P3 which means is this that colors simply pop on this display. Watching content on this is simply going to be amazing.

Coming to what powers this beast is the tried and tested HI-Silicon Kirin 980 processor. Huawei’s very own in-house processor. We have talked about the greatness of this processor in our previous review of the Mate 20 Pro and are going to talk about it again. This processor is the reason why we called the P30 Pro a beast in the first place. The Kirin 980 comes with 2 Cortex-A76 at 2.6GHz, 2 Cortex-A76 at 1.93GHz and 4 Cortex-A55’s at 1.8GHz. This combined with the fact that this is a 7nm processor with a 2^nd gen dual NPU delivers a phone which is simply put is a breeze to use. The GPU again is handled by the very powerful Mali-G76 and much like the Mate 20 Pro, graphics related task like playing games is just a joy to use. This powerful processor is supported with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of internal storage. You get a Hybrid sim slot to expand the storage by 256 GB using a nano SD card. Overall the P30 Pro scores an Antutu of 309056 which is impressive and more or less a top value for a flagship in 2019.

Now, coming finally to the most pivoting feature of the P30 pro. The feature that makes Huawei brand the phone saying “Rewrite the Rules of Photography”. Now, its no surprise that Huawei like its other flagship phones have worked with Leica for the camera department and what we have with the P30 Pro can only be called revolutionary. With the Mate 20 Pro, we thought the Tri camera setup was an overkill, Huawei went a step ahead in putting 4 cameras at the back. Let’s crunch some numbers here for your understanding in this camera review of P30 Pro.

The rear camera setup gets a 40MP F1.6 OIS primary shooter, a 20MP Ultra-Wide Angle f2.2 lens, an 8MP f3.4 Telephoto lens which is also OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) and finally a TOF or Time of Flight sensor. Now don’t be mistaken the 40MP sensor with the one used on the Mate 20 Pro. In a world where traditional smartphone and even professional DSLR’s use an RGB or RED, GREEN and BLUE pixels Huawei uses something called RYB sensor. This is basically 25% RED pixel, 25% Blue pixel and 50% Yellow pixel. By doing this Huawei is able to capture 40% more light compared to any phone camera on planet earth. Even the crazy Penta Lens Nokia Pureview 9 with its 5 lenses cannot pull this off. This naturally results not only in great daytime pictures but also perfectly detailed night shots too.

The Pixel 3's night mode which was once the crowned jewel of night photography falls flat down to the normal auto mode of the P30 pro. The night mode, however, turned on only gets better, to begin with. The Ultra-Wide Angle is the same as the Mate 20 Pro with macro shot capability till up to 2.5cm. Now we come to the 8MP telephoto lens and boy has Huawei delivered this time. This lens provides up to a whopping 5X optical zoom this is the highest Optical based zoom on any commercially available phone right now, period. The capabilities of the sensor only begin to unfold at 5X massive zoom when Huawei breaks boundaries again.

With the P30 Pro Huawei is doing something called a Hybrid Digital shot which is basically combining the primary sensor and the Telephoto lens to deliver a massive 10X zoom. If that was not enough, with the help of AI and digital camera capabilities the P30 pro can deliver up to a surreal 50x zoom. Now that is insane. We really don’t know why would you be needing 50X zoom but yeah its there. It’s exactly like the time OnePlus introduced 6GB RAM on their OnePlus 3 and people called it an overkill. Well, it seems that Huawei’s done it with their camera.

The 4^th camera in the quad camera setup is not exactly a camera but a sensor. The TOF sensor is basically a 3-D mapper which not only allows for better portrait shot but it can also do fancy tricks like measuring dimensions of objects in Realtime.

The front selfie camera is a 32MP F2.0 sensor and again it is a great shooter too capturing great details with amazing picture quality. To wrap the camera department up in one word it is truly” Revolutionary” as Huawei claims the camera to be.

Last but not least we have the battery department. The P30 pro comes equipped with a massive 4200 mAh battery. This coupled with the 7nm processor, the FHD+ display and Huawei’s aggressive battery management means you can use the phone for an entire day and walk into the morning of the next day without a hiccup. Wanna charge it back quickly? Huawei’s got their customers covered them too by providing the much glorified 40W SuperCharger in the box. The charger is able to charge the phone from 0 to 70 percent in around 30 minutes. Not only this but the P30 pro also has support for 15W fast wireless charging too. All in all, the P30 pro simply delivers when it comes to the battery department.  This phone also supports wireless and reverse wireless charging so you can also charge other wireless phones using your P30 Pro.

We finally walk into the climax of the phone. Like we have said before no phone is perfect and nor is the P30 Pro. The only drawback on this phone is the proprietary EMUI of the company. It simply makes the phone cluttered with features. Now lets us simply say this that if you are stock android users, EMUI is simply going to annoy you. However, if you are ready to live with it and throw on a launcher atop, what you have is a phone that is simply going to deliver. The EMUI v9.1.0 is based on the Android 9.0. It checks all the 5 boxes of a great phone that we talked about. The P30 Pro smartphone comes with an IP68 dust and water resistance so you will find your phone safe in the case of any accidental damage from water or dust.

This phone has an in-display fingerprint sensor which is fast compared to the previous version of the in-display sensor seen in other phones. Also P30 Pro supports face unlocking which is extremely fast and accurate but is misses on the 3D mapping to ensure the highest security level of the face unlocking. There is no headphone jack and no USB Type C to 3.5 mm jack converter as was seen in the Mate 20 Pro. So we can say P30 Pro is a little toned down version in some area with improvements in other.

You can buy Huawei P30 Pro for Rs 71990 exclusively on Amazon India. Concluding this brief review of P30 Pro, we can say that it is a great attraction for people looking for a stylish smartphone with a powerful processor and stupendous camera. A bigger battery is like icing on the cake and adds to the net worth of this phone.  For those 72K what it’s worth, We can say buy it if you are looking for the absolute best in class camera phone and a great phone overall in general.

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Redmi smartphones have been feeling the competitive pressure from the likes of Realme 2 Pro, Samsung M series. Redmi Note 6 Pro did not see much updates apart from camera and got a subdued response, not something Xiaomi is used to. Here we go through the Redmi Note 7 Pro and bring out its top features, specifications and the pricing. With Redmi Note 7 Pro, Xiaomi looks to again outdo the market and put themselves ahead to reclaim the top tag.

Redmi Note 7 Pro comes with a 6.3 inch IPS display with a Full HD plus resolution. There is a dot notch on the top which holds the selfie camera and the phone has an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. The display looks perfectly bright and has punchier colors. It is not an AMOLED display but of great standard that your experience will not fall short while watching movies or playing games. The back of the phone is built of glass and has a gradient color look which we have seen in the phones from Honor similar to the Honor 10 Lite. It is the first time Redmi has introduced glass back in the budget segment phones. Previous Redmi Note series phones were not used to focus on looks but with Note 7 Pro, Xiaomi has also looked to strengthen this area as well.

The phone comes with the Gorilla Glass 5 on both the front and back and the build quality is very strong. Xiaomi has been teasing the phone in many of its videos for durability. The phone has decent build quality but not the best as it failed in the bend test. There is a transparent case bundled in the box so you can use it to further add protection to it.

For the processor, Xiaomi has finally decided to move ahead from the Snapdragon 636 for which they were heavily trolled on the social media. The Redmi Note 7 Pro features the Snapdragon 675 processor and works very smooth. On the AnTuTu benchmark, Note 7 scores every massive 1,80,808 point which is the best score for a phone at this price. Redmi Note 7 Pro has been launched in 2 variants, 4 GB RAM with 64 GB storage and 6 GB with 128 GB storage. There is a hybrid sim slot to use it as a dual sim phone or expand the storage up to 256 GB, something which Xiaomi might want to update in future phones by bringing a dedicated storage space with dual sim support.

Performance wise, the phone works like a charm and we did not find any lag or heating issues even with extended usage. Redmi has been marketing the phone with the keyword “Next level” and we feel the phone truly delivers on the expectation. It supports true multitasking and we opened multiple apps and games and the phone responded quickly. Snapdragon 675 in a smartphone under 15000 certainly raises the expectations of the next smartphones in 2019.

Now coming to the most awaited part of this the Note 7 Pro review, a feature where no other company has even reached close by to what Xiaomi offers, the Camera. Here Note 7 Pro has a dual rear camera with 48 MP f/1.8 Sony IMX 586 sensor and a 5 MP f/2.4 secondary sensor. We found the camera shots were full of details and the color accuracy and saturation were spot on. The close-up shots retain a good level of sharpness which looks natural and soothing to eyes. 

The portrait shots work well and are able to perfectly blur the background in most of the scenario to pop out the subject but there were some scenarios where some objects did not get blur. These small improvements can be made anytime with the software upgrades as the portrait works fine in most of the shots. The 48 MP sensor is a true 48 MP and images look same crisp and do not lose the shine at every point of zoom in. It is highest ever sensor seen in a smartphone. Here each image comes to be in GB size and to avoid the memory being filled quickly, Redmi has introduced the 48 MP option in the Pro mode, while the normal mode would click images in 12 MP. You can easily switch to 48MP from the camera app options.

Note 7 Pro also introduces a Night Mode for low light images. We observed that this mode does a decent job by clicking a near to accurate pictures. The shots had very limited noise and the lampshades, the sky seems to be captured properly with proper details of the surrounding. Certainly, with Note 7 Pro, Redmi has once again taken the competition to the next level. The camera also supports HDR, short video, AI features and filters as part of other features of the camera and all of them to deliver on the expectations. 

For the selfie shots, Note 7 Pro has a 13 MP sensor and supports HDR and AI mode. The selfie images are crisp, beautiful with a good level of details. The portrait shots also blur decently well. Overall, the selfie camera has a lower Megapixel sensor from the Redmi Note 6 Pro 20 MP but the performance is slightly better. Overall the camera quality is top notch and one of the main highlights of this Redmi Note 7 Pro.

From the software perspective, the phone runs on MIUI 10 which is based on the Android Pie and brings in a lot of useful software features but the MIUI bloatware somewhat kills the fun. Depending on how used to you are to the MI apps and bloatware, you may feel comfortable with the software.

The battery has a capacity of 4000 mAh which easily lasts for more than a day in medium usage and at least a day with heavy usage. Though the battery capacity remains the same, the phone weight has gone a little up to 186 grams. On the other hand, Redmi has also taken the fight to next level by introducing a Type C port for charging which the industry experts have been waiting for a long time. The phone supports fast charging but the bundled charger is a 10 W charger so you will have to buy a fast charger to use the quick charge support

Redmi has kept the 3.5 mm headphone jack alive, there is also an IR blaster available to use your phone as a remote for home appliances. There is a notification LED available at the bottom. There is no IP rating as such but Redmi claims that the phone is splash proof but we have not tested it yet. For unlocking, this phone has a fingerprint sensor on the back and also supports face unlocking using the front camera and both the method work super fast and accurate.

Coming to the pricing, Redmi variants look to keep the whole budget segment engaged and happy. The 4GB-64GB variants costs Rs 13,999, 6GB-128GB costs 16,999 . Depending on your usage and budget, you can look to choose any of the above variants.

Overall the smartphone does a great job and we can say excellent given the price range of around 15000. The looks are gorgeous, the processor sees a decent upside and the camera performance is of another level. Introduction of Type C and fast charging are like icing on the cake.

Xiaomi is currently fully focused to get the Redmi Note 7 Pro rolling well and with such powerful specifications and features, we are sure Redmi is going to get a good reward from its user base. First half of 2019 in seeing smartphone launch like Redmi Note 7 Pro which would set the tone for the second half.

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Galaxy S10 is the latest and greatest from Samsung for 2019. At the price point of Rs.66,900, the Galaxy S10 has been marketed to rival the Apple iPhone XR/XS and beat it in every aspect possible. What users are going to see is the new mixed metal and glass design that looks stunning in the eyes, combined with a new P2-inspired tri-camera system along with upgraded internals and the latest technology infused into the smartphone.

Having an edge-to-edge 6.1-inch display with very thin bezels the Galaxy S10 comes with what Samsung calls as an Infinity-O display that cuts a small oval on the top edge of the screen for the front-facing cameras. Having Qualcomm’s first ultrasonic in-screen fingerprint scanner which unlocks the phone using soundwaves and having the capability of up to 1TB of storage (Now that’s what we call a pocket hard disk). Also, Samsung will feature 5G on this device, but it will come later.

While the new Infinity-O display will be a somewhat of obstruction for new users as it has the first punch hole camera in the family, spending some time with the phone will definitely make the users to become used to with the new display. Talking about the display, it has a 6.1-inch display with a Super AMOLED panel that has a Quad-HD+ resolution along with sloping edges and has HDR10+ support. These features make the S10 a visual delight and since the new display will be able to reach around 1200 nits of brightness as compared to the 600 nits on the previous S- series, HDR content at outdoor daylight won’t be a problem. The display panel is simply gorgeous and is a treat to look at. It is the best display we have ever seen on a smartphone to date.

Other than that, the S10 also features the new in display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor which has been showcased on phones like the Oneplus 6T and Huawei Mate 20 Pro but that was an optical sensor and was slow. Here the fingerprint sensor is lightning fast and works really well.

Enough with the screen, let us take a quick glimpse on the Galaxy S10 Camera which has a triple rear camera setup: 16MP+12MP+12MP. It does feature the same optically stabilized 12-megapixel main sensor of its predecessor which can shift between f/1.5 and f/2.4 and also a 16-megapixel ultra-wide angle and another 12-megapixel wide-angle sensor. In terms of lens sensors, the 12 Megapixel wide angle lens does provide OIS with a 77-degree FOV in comparison to the 16 Megapixel Ultra-Wide which does not have any OIS but produces around 123-degree FOV.  

Judging by the pictures taken from the camera, it is wise to say that the although the Ultra-Wide photos do cover up a lot of scenery from the single lens, however, it still lacks in terms of quality in comparison to the 12 Megapixel telephoto lens and 16 MP wide angle lens. The overall performance of the rear camera is excellent and it takes great pictures indoors and outdoors with plenty of details, good dynamic range, natural-looking colors, and good contrast.

While the rear camera has not something special design-wise, the front, however, sets a new tone as being the 1st ever punch hole camera for Samsung the 10-Megapixel Front-facing camera takes great quality selfies for the users and when added with the AI camera  features such as Shot Suggestions, AI mode, and Bright Night Low-Light Mode, the  Samsung Galaxy S10 produces by far the best images offered by Samsung. And as for video recording is concerned, 4K recording at 60 fps with EIS is what the users get for the S10.

Now, let’s talk about what’s inside the Galaxy S10 that powers this beast up. The US variant of the S10 is powered by Snapdragon 855 chipset while the rest of the world get Exynos 9820 chipset. The Exynos 9820 is similar to Snapdragon 855 in performance and handles every app and game with ease. You can play games like PUBG at the highest settings without any lag whatsoever.

Coming to the RAM availability, the S10 has kept the 8GB RAM model as standard and users can choose between 128 GB or 512 GB of internal storage as standard. That’s a huge load of space considering the smartphone can support up to a revolutionary of 1 TB of Storage Space.

As for the OS the S10 arrives with the One UI on the Google’s Android 9 Pie which is quite simplistic in looks and offers a very smooth performance on the device without any bugs and lets the AI of the smartphone take additional steps for better performance by bringing in feature like the Bixby Routines that recognizes the users pattern of work and changes the connectivity of the phone according to it and also the Fast App launcher which learns the users app preferences on a time of the day and preloads those apps on the background so that they could run faster. And for gamers, the S10 has a vapor chamber cooling system for intense gaming on the phone and uses the Unity gaming Engine and Dolby Atmos for tuning sounds. 

Considering the battery life, a 3400mAh battery isn’t the largest when competing to the other phones in the market. But the device features fast charging which uses a USB Type C connector and additional features like Fast Wireless Charging 2.0 that’s Turbo Charges the S10 on the Samsung Wireless Charger Duo Pad without any phone overheating.

Also, the Phone has Wireless PowerShare, so in case of any battery drought on your friend’s phone, just place any other Qi-enabled on the back of the phone and the S10 will charge that device without the necessity of using a Cable.  All total the phone is optimized for full day use in its battery life cycle. In addition to that, the Galaxy S10 is also IP68 rated waterproof so users may not face any problem in case you drop it in a pool or use it in rain.

Overall, Samsung S10 is a gorgeous looking device with a beautiful display, powerful internals, great cameras and plenty of extra features like wireless charging, IP rating, Dolby sound. If you have a budget of around Rs. 70000 then Samsung S10 is the phone you should buy. If you want to spend less, check out options like LG V40 ThinQ and Honor View 20 which are priced under 50000 in India.

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The 2018 Google and Apple phones are here and they seriously mesmerize you with the quality they offer with the subtle spec sheet. The Apple iPhone XS and the Google Pixel 3 certainly have played a quality game in their yearly smartphone and especially with the camera. They are the true flagship and though they do cost a lot but if you are looking for a perfect experience, the money might not matter to you. Here we review the Google Pixel 3 which still does not have the notch and discuss the design, camera, and every feature Google has introduced with the 2018 Pixel smartphones. On the other hand, Google Pixel 3 XL looks like a similar smartphone with a big notch, better battery, better resolution and a bigger display.  Here we would try comparing it with the Pixel 3XL as well if it helps you choose the one that would fit for you.

Google Pixel 3, is the 2018 flagship smartphone from Google. It comes with a 5.5-inch bezel-less display having a Full HD plus resolution and a Samsung branded POLED display. Certainly, the display is the first and foremost part of a phone and Google has not even missed a pinch on the same. The screen is perfectly bright with punchier and vibrant colours that totally flattens and amazes you. Since the Pixel 3 does not have a notch, the screen size is smaller and the phone in this size has a perfect ergonomics to be used and hold with a single hand. The Pixel 3 XL, on the other hand, has a Quad HD resolution with a big 6.3-inch display.

On the design side, Google adds its masterclass which others have failed or not yet tried. Pixel 3 has a dual front and back glass design with an aluminium frame in between. The device looks sturdy while using and with the glass back also enables the wireless charging feature. With the Pixel 3,  Introducing a dual tone back that is glass but does not attract fingerprint smudges. The lower portion which gets most of the fingerprint smudges is sort of textures(matte) while the top is glossy. The Pixel 3 comes in 3 colour variants, the Clearly White, Just Black and Not Pink which are all amazing, especially the Not Pink, which adds a new shade to the colours and a new look. We are totally in love with how Pixel 3 looks and the overall design and feel.

After the overview of the design and looks of the Pixel 3, it is time to discuss the performance and the camera. First, the performance of the Pixel 3, though we have not much to talk here given the Pixel 3 holds a Snapdragon 845 which is a tried and tested processor for the best performance seen on a smartphone. The OnePlus 6, the Asus Zenfone 5Z and the Poco F1 have all used it and the upcoming OnePlus 6T which also come with the Snapdragon 845. But on the RAM, Pixel 3 has only a meagre 4GB when comparing with the phones shipping with 6GB to 8GB. Not going with the number the RAM holds, the smartphone performs perfectly with no lag, no heating, no issues with any heavy game or high level of multitasking. So with the Google optimization of its software and the RAM management, the Pixel 3 scores really high. The AnTutu benchmark reports a score of 256805 which as expected in the league of other Snapdragon 845 smartphones. For the storage, Pixel 3 comes in 64 GB and 128 GB variants with no capability to extend the storage, i.e. no MicroSD card slot. Overall, the performance is super fast and fluid as one would have expected.

Before we start the Camera review, hold your breath as Pixel 3 comes with a lot for us to talk about as this is the feature, which Google specifically focusses on all the time and has shattered everyone's expectation and left us with an awe moment. 

The rear camera has a single 12.2MP f/1.8 sensor. Yes, that is just a single sensor which literally performs better than any other smartphone you have seen and that is what separates Google from everyone. The images captures are amazing, with perfect colour reproduction, sharpness and each and every minute details are well covered up on the camera. The photos are just insane and the camera works perfectly in all lighting conditions, bright daylight, normal light, artificial light, low light or even the super low light. For the portrait shots, the pictures will surely drive you nuts given the sharpness and quality of the edge detection and the bright perfect colours that are reflected in the Pixel 3 images.

The front camera comes with a dual 8 MP(f/1.8) sensor which is a wide angle lens + 8 MP(f/2.2) sensor which is an ultrawide angle lens. The camera app comes with a beauty (Face Retouching) mode which can be turned on or off based on what you are looking for.  The front camera also supports the portrait shots which are again awesome, the colours are bright, the edges are sharp and the level of details will keep you astound. It also supports the wide-angle selfie shots which are useful to capture multiple people in the frame or to capture the scene behind you.

The front camera also has a Top Shot feature, which takes a motion image and suggests and recommends the best frame from the clicks. There is also a Photo Booth feature which uses your smile as a gesture to click the photo. These are some features every selfie fanatic person would love to use. The camera settings have the HDR+ toggle on/off mode, the on/off mode to alert if the camera sensor has dirt on it. It also has the option to store the RAW(DNG) + JPEG files if you like to play with the photos later by yourself and a setting to store the videos efficiently that will need less storage. The video quality is also amazing. Pixel 3 supports both OIS and EIS to give you the best shot videos The rear camera supports the 4K videos at 30 fps but not at the 60 fps.

Overall, the camera is something out of the box and surely the best you will get in this Universe at least for the next year when Google introduces its next phone.

Pixel 3 also introduces a Digital Well Being feature with an aim to help you optimize the usage of the apps on your phone. You can literally see how you have spent each and every minute on the smartphone and maybe block the app usage if you exceed the set limit (for say 15 minutes) for the day. This can help you control being on social media or playing games for a long long time.

Now is the perfect time to introduce the Google Pixel 3 newest feature that you have not seen anywhere. The screen calling. This feature allows you to read the text version of what someone is speaking on the call on the other side. Suppose you are in a meeting or at a very noisy place and your phone rings, you can simply ask the AI to reply based on the option you select from the screen and see the text version of what the person of the other side speaks. The AI presents you with the possible options to choose from and converts into a reply to converse despite being not able to take the call by yourself. Isn't this really cool?

Google Pixel 3, its 2018 flagship has one disappointment apart from the tons of good things it offers. The Battery. It has a battery rated at 2915 mAh which is not the best and with normal usage you can go for a full day but with multiple YouTube videos, gaming for some time, then the battery dies out for less than a day. If you are someone who is ok with carrying a charger or a power bank, then it might not count as a con for you. Although, Google has intelligently bundled the 18 W fast charger in the box which can give you a talk time of 6-7 hours in just 15 minutes. As we had already discussed above, the Pixel 3 with its glass design also supports the Wireless charging and more and more people are getting used to it no wire charge. 

Google Pixel 3 runs on the latest Android 9.0 (Pie) and is amazingly smooth fast and clean.  For unlocking, there is a fingerprint sensor at the back which is super quick and accurate. Additional Pixel 3 has also dumped the 3.5 mm headphone jack and only has the USB Type C. Also again for your ease of usage, Google has bundled the USB Type C headphones which does not require a converter dongle to the 3.5 mm. Though the box also bundles the Type C to 3.5 mm converter if you like to put on your own old headphones or earphones to use. Pixel 3 also has an IP68 water and dust proof certification that protects your phone if you accidentally happen to drop it in water or if it comes across a lot of dust.

Overall, we believe Google Pixel 3 is a perfect smartphone looking to spend around 70k in India. With the best camera, fast charging, wireless charging, IP68 certification, this phone is a complete practical phone one would look for in the next 2 to 3 years (only if you are not looking for a notch design) before the industry bursts with something new and extremely special. Hope you loved our review. If yes, don't forget to give a thumbs up on our facebook page.

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LG has been a slow player in the smartphone market but has maintained the quality it is known for. This time LG has launched the LG G7 ThinQ which is a budget flagship smartphone and seems to have perfectly delivered in each aspect on the smartphone. As with the latest trend, it has a notch display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 and a very superior camera. Let us find out the complete list of features, specifications in this review of LG G7 ThinQ.

LG G7 Plus ThinQ comes with a 6.1-inch display which has a Quad HD Plus resolution(1440 x 3120 pixels). Talking about the display quality, it is an HDR screen and has a Dolby Vision Certification. It is amazingly bright which looks gorgeous and provides you with the best picture and visual quality and very punchier colors. On the design side, the front has a notch design which translates to an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 and 564PPI. You get a corning gorilla glass 5 on the back which is sort of a fingerprint magnet but looks a premium smartphone.LG has also added a cloth in the box for cleaning the fingerprint smudges when you get them. There is a rigid aluminum frame in between the front and back giving a solid hold to the smartphone. The phone is narrower compared to the standard design in other smartphone and is easy to hold in hand. The notch has an option to be removed if you are not a fan of it. 

On the performance side, LG has left no stone unturned and has made no compromise. LG G7+ ThinQ is powered by the beast Snapdragon 845 smartphone which is seen on the likes of OnePlus 6, Zenfone 5Z etc. The processing is supported with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. G7+ like the other smartphones 845 powered smartphones scored a massive 260000 on the AnTuTu Benchmark. You will never feel short on performance whatsoever you ask this smartphone to do. It has an Adreno 630 GPU that very well enhances your gaming experience and no lag or heating issues could be observed in our usage. So not much to talk on the performance as it can handle everything you throw at it. To expand the storage over the inbuilt 64GB, there is a hybrid sim slot that can expand the storage up to 512 MB.

Coming to the camera of the LG G7 Plus ThinQ, it has a dual 16MP(f/1.6) + 16MP(f/1.9) on the back. The f/1.9 sensor also has a 16mm lens for wide-angle shots and can easily capture about twice the normal frame. Here the camera captures perfect shots having the best in class color reproduction and crispness in the image and works well in both well lit and low light shots. The portrait shots are also brilliant with proper edge detection. The front camera is an 8MP sensor which also supports bokeh shots, HDR mode etc and though the selfie clicks are really good and cover a lot of details but is a tad below when compared with the likes of the flagship phones like Samsung S9 or S9 Plus. Also, there is an option to vary the amount of blurriness(bokeh) you want to put in the image when it has been clicked.  Overall, the camera impresses us with its quality and features and certainly, LG has done a tremendous task for under 40k smartphone.

LG in this G7 Plus has put a special focus on the audio quality both via the speakers and the audio quality via the headphone jack. Here the speaker is a boombox speaker that is perfectly loud and amplifies the sound. The only disappointment here is the phone does not have a stereo speaker and the earpiece is not being used as a secondary speaker. The audio via the headphone jack is one of the best one compared to any smartphone and if you listen to a lot of music or watch videos, it will totally immerse you in the highest quality audio output. It uses the DTS X technology to deliver the excellent sound experience. LG has also bundled an LG branded in-ear styled earphone which is pretty good and has a top-notch quality.

The battery on this smartphone is rated at 3000 mAh and the box bundles an 18 W fast charger. There is a USB type C on the phone and the battery lasts for a complete day. This is because of the optimization LG has added optimization in the display and has low power mode to save the battery. Though, for a high-end user, the battery life may not last a complete day and charging may be required in between.

The phone runs on Android 8.0 and has an LG custom skin over it. The UI has very little bloatware but the interface looks clunky and cluttery compared to the standard UI seen in the other phones. You would take some time to adjust to the aesthetics of it. Also, LG has been very slow with the Android updates as the phone still runs on the Android 8.0 and not the 8.1 version. There is a separate button in the middle of the right side that by default launches the Google Assistant. The good thing is that they have added the feature to customize the functionality of the button.

Talking about the other features, we feel that it will be wrong calling this smartphone as a budget flagship, given it has all the flagship features seen in the likes of Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, Note 9 etc. Here the LG G7 Plus ThinQ has an IP68 certification which means it is completely water and dust resistant and will not harm the device. Also, the device supports wireless charging. These are some features which have not been seen in the 30000 price segment. 

LG G7 offers a great flagship experience and is a true flagship killer because of its great price.

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Apple iPhone XS and XS Max are 2018's flagships from Apple. The XS is a small upgrade over last year's iPhone X. The build quality of the phone is excellent as always and the phone looks and feels very premium. The XS and XS Max are very similar, the main difference is the display size and battery capacity. 

The Apple iPhone XS Max comes with a large 6.5-inch display. It is a Super AMOLED display and it is one of the best available as of Q4 2018. It is sharp and bright with rich colors and great viewing angles. The display is covered by glass. The back is also covered by glass. Apple claims this is the most durable smartphone glass in the world. But we have seen people reporting scratches in just a few days so if you want to protect it, a tempered glass would be a good choice. The XS version comes with a 5.8-inch display. The overall size of the XS Max is similar to last year's iPhone 8 Plus, it just has thin bezels so don't worry about the phone size.

The iPhone XS Max comes with a dual rear camera on the back. The setup is 12MP+12MP where one sensor has a f/1.8 aperture and the secondary sensor is a telephoto lens with a f/2.4 aperture. The telephoto lens helps to zoom into the subject without losing image quality. On the front, we get a 7MP camera for your selfies. The camera numbers aren't that great but the performance is. The latest iPhone XS and XS Max can take beautiful shots in both daylight and low light conditions. Pictures look great with the good amount of details and saturation. The dynamic range is great as well. The camera performance is certainly better than last year's iPhone X but it is still behind phones like Pixel 3/3XL. 

The latest iPhones are powered by the A12 Bionic chipset which is made by Apple. A12 Bionic is a powerhouse. It is way ahead of Snapdragon 845 which is the best in the Android space. The iPhone XS scores over 3,00,000 in Antutu Benchmarks which is an exceptional score. Geekbench and 3D Mark show a similar trend. There is 4GB of RAM which means iPhones are finally getting a similar amount of RAM as Android flagships. The 4GB RAM and A12 Bionic chipset makes a powerful combination and takes care of any task you throw at them. There's no game or app that the latest iPhones can't handle. Performance wise, this is the best you can get. 

The latest iPhones come in 3 variants: 64GB, 256GB and 512GB. It is good to see the base variant at 64GB. Most people would be fine with 64GB but if you are someone who likes to keep a ton of stuff on their phones then go with the 512GB variant. 

The iPhone XS Max comes with a 3174 mAh battery which is a weird number like always. Considering the large 6.5" display size and powerful A12 chipset, the battery size isn't great but Apple likes to keep the phones slim so compromise with battery is unavoidable. Apple has optimized the OS well so the battery backup is decent. You can get through a day easily with normal usage. Heavy users might need to plug in around evening. The latest iPhones support fast charging but the fast charger is not provided in the box which is disappointing. Paying 1 lakh for a phone and not getting a fast charger with it? How is it even possible? The charger that comes in the box is really slow and will take more than 3 hours to fully charge the device from 0 to 100% so it is best to plug it in at night and go to sleep. Wireless charging is also supported. You can check out our list of best wireless chargers.

There's no headphone jack and no fingerprint sensor. The dongle to connect the 3.5mm headphones is also not provided in the box this time. FaceID is there and it still works great. The latest iPhones have IP68 waterproofing rating so if you drop the phone in the pool or toilet, no need to worry about it. The glass might break through which is a different story. 

The latest iPhone XS and XS Max are dual sim devices which is a nice upgrade as a lot of people want to use 2 numbers on the same device. Apple is using one esim and one nano sim. The esim can be enabled by the network operators and the nano sim works as usual.

The iPhone XS Max runs on the latest iOS 12 which is well optimized and has no major bugs. Everyday usage is nice and smooth with no issues at all. Plus, you will get software updates for maybe next 5 years or so which is something other manufacturers need to learn from Apple. 

The 64GB variant of the iPhone XS Max is priced at 109900, the 256GB variant will cost you 124900 and 512GB goes at 144900. They are super expensive prices and are not for everyone. If you have a budget of 1 lac to 1.5 lac and you are ready to stay in a closed ecosystem then iPhone XS is the best you can get. If you don't want to spend this much and still need a great experience then go for something like OnePlus 6T or Google Pixel 3.

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Pocophone is a sub-brand of Xiaomi like Realme is of Oppo and Pocophone or known as Poco has launched its first smartphone in India on 22nd August 2018. Pocophone has left everyone amazed with a very aggressive pricing despite being powered by the top shot Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 which we saw in the OnePlus 6 and the Zenfone 5Z. Poco F1 comes with a notch display, a powerful battery, a good to go camera and everything that a user looking to spend 25k would look for. It smashes all the record of the value for money score and here in this review, we discuss the specifications, features and every detail on the Poco F1, which you as a prospective buyer would look for.

Poco F1 comes with a 6.18 inch Full HD plus display having a resolution of 1080 x 2246 pixels. The display has a notch design which is slightly big and holds the front camera and the IR sensor. The software gives you the option to disable the notch if you do not like it and use the phone like a bezel-less display phone. The screen is of IPS LCD type and is of good quality with perfect brightness and no issues could be observed even using it in the direct sunlight with auto brightness. The one thing which we found a little weird are the thin bezels even above the notch which does affect its looks and design. 

On the build quality side, the Poco Phone comes with a polycarbonate body which is a small compromise comparing the beautiful and gorgeous glass design pattern which we see in the phones today. That does not mean the phone ranks poor on the build quality, overall it is good with metal in between back and front and is decent at the price point considering what all it offers as discussed below. The 8GB 256 GB variant comes in a Kevlar back material which is textured and looks better with a better build quality and is priced at 29k. You can take a look at the Kevlar variant here. The Pocophone is not a fingerprint magnet and there are no smudges as we see on the smartphones with glass designs. Also, there is a translucent case bundled in the box.

Coming to the highlight of this Poco F1, The Performance, and here everyone has their jaw dropped as we witness the all-powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 which till date was only seen in the budget flagship and the flagship smartphone. The Snapdragon 845 in a budget smartphone at 21k is totally insane and has put a big question in front of other manufacturers to think of what should they introduce next. Snapdragon 845 needs no introduction as it was seen in the OnePlus 6 and the Zenfone 5Z. It is an octa-core processor comprising of 4x2.8 GHz Kryo 385 Gold & 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 385 Silver along with Adreno 630 GPU. The Poco F1 also witnesses the LiquidCool Technology, which keeps the CPU temperature maintained that allows the Snapdragon 845 to perform to its full capacity when you are gaming in the super heavy mode.

The phone comes with a 6GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage which can be expanded up to 256 GB with the hybrid micro SD card slot. Without any iota of doubt, the performance is mind-blowing and the RAM management is amazing, the multitasking is super smooth, the gaming performance is brilliant and we did not find even a small hiccup in our usage. The Poco F1 scores a massive 285302 on the Antutu Benchmark shattering any record that existed for a smartphone priced around 20000. On the GeekBench, the Poco F1 scores, 2467 on the Single Core and 9081 on the multi-core, and we would ask you, what else would you get for only Rs 20000. Full marks on the performance to the master of speed, Poco F1.

On the next important aspect of the Poco F1, the camera. Here we get a dual read camera placed vertically in the middle of the phone with 12MP Sony IMX363 + 5MP Samsung, f/1.75 sensors and dual LED flash. The colours in the photo look rich and the shots are pretty much detailed. The images are sharp and you are going to love it for 21000 bucks. Frankly speaking, the camera is not as great as the OnePlus 6 priced at 35000 but gives a tough competition to it.  There is support for 4K videos but the Poco F1 only supports Electronic Image stabilization (EIS) and does not support Optical Image stabilization (OIS). In the portrait mode, the edge detection in bang on and we could see even the hairline edges are very well aligned. There are some AI optimizations in the colours using the object detection. The low light shots are also very bright and contain very less noise, OnePlus 6 is better but only by a tad margin as it captures more light and has slightly better low light images. Also, OnePlus 6 has better image stabilization because of the presence of OIS and the difference could be seen in the videos recorded at 4K resolution of Poco F1 and OnePlus 6.

The front camera comes with a 20 MP sensor and it also supports the portrait mode. The shots are full of details and you might even look better than what you look in the real life. At the pricing of 21k, we are in love with what the camera has to offer. A budget flagship capability in a budget pricing in what Poco offers. The camera configuration, is similar to the Redmi Note 5 Pro and people had questions that if the camera performance in any better? So here, we do not think we should compare, because the camera image quality on the Poco F1 is far better and class apart than the Note 5 Pro which is also directed by a far better image signal processor in the Snapdragon 845.  Poco F1 has the best ever camera seen in any phone in India for a pricing of 21000.

The PocoPhone F1, runs on MIUI 9.6 with POCO specific optimization and is build over the Android Oreo. Poco has promised an update to the MIUI 10 and also the Android P (Pie). The MIUI has some bloatware but the POCO has enabled the gesture recognition which if enabled on your device removes the three button from the bottom and reads your gesture for all the tasks, something similar to what we saw in the iPhone X.

Poco F1 not just comes with a massive processor but a huge battery life. it features a non-removable 4000 mAh battery and gives a screen on time of around 6.5 to 7 hours and with medium usage, you can easily run with the phone for at least 1.5 days. Fro the heaviest of usage, you may still see a battery backup for a full day, this speaks volume of the optimization that comes with the phone and the efficiency of the Snapdragon 845 processor. The Poco F1 has a USB type C port and supports Quick Charge 3.0(quickly charges up the first 20%) with a fast charger bundled in the box. The total time it takes for the charging is about 100-110 minutes.  Poco F1 is not water or dust resistant and there is no IP rating so keep it protected from any damage.

For the unlocking, Poco F1 comes with a fingerprint sensor just below the rear camera and is super quick. It takes less time than the blink of the eye. For the face unlocking, which is also very accurate and fast comes with an additional feature of IR sensor, which enables you to unlock the phone even in darkness. It has a stereo speaker where the main speaker is located at the bottom and the earpiece is used as the second speaker but you do not get a true stereo speaker like seen in the Zenfone 5z but it is decent enough for the pricing. 

After all this, we can just say that Poco has entered the market with a band and is a total game changer for the industry. Without any doubt, the Poco F1 is the best smartphone under 25000 and we can hear the trumpets of the thumping victory this Poco F1 from Xiaomi is going to blow.

The Poco F1 sale starts from 29th August 2018 and is exclusively available on Flipkart via the flash sale. For the 21k variant, you are going to see huge demand as was for the Note 5 Pro. There is a launch offer with Poco F1 where you can get additional Rs 1000 discount if you pay via HDFC credit and debit card.

See review, specs, pros cons and covers of Xiaomi Poco F1

User Reviews of Xiaomi Poco F1:

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