Enpass password manager adds native two-factor authentication support

Enpass is a popular offline, cross-platform password manager app that you can use to store your login credentials, credit card information, and other sensitive data. The Android app had fingerprint support for a while, and the latest update brings support for Time-based One-time Password (TOTP) authentication as well.

TOTP is an algorithm that computes a one-time password from a shared secret key and the current time, and is used in a number of two-factor authentication systems. With TOTP support, you don’t need to switch to other authenticator apps, and login directly from within the Enpass app.

The latest update bumps the version number to 5.1, and also introduces selective field sharing, allowing you to manually select the fields of your choice of any item and share them easily instead of sharing the whole item.

There are also some minor changes. The quick PIN code length has been increased to a maximum of 10 digits, and this version adds support for a custom User Agent, ability to set DuckDuckGo as the search engine in the Enpass browser, as well as storing more URL formats like third-party app URLs.

Enpass for Android is a free app with a 20-item limit. For unlimited items and for the ability to sync your data across devices, you’d need to buy the app for $9.99. Check it out at the Play Store, and let us know how you like it.

Honor V8 flagship leaks with Huawei P9 duo cameras and QHD display

Honor, the Huawei sub-brand, looks set to unleash a new flagship smartphone after plenty of specs have leaked including the Huawei P9’s dual-camera system.

The Honor V8, in two forms, has appeared on a Tenaa listing where plenty of specs were given away. Honor is a brand that offers affordable handsets with decent specs, or mid-range in the case of the 5X. In the case of the Honor V8 variants it looks like we can expect some impressive hardware.

The top-end Honor V8 is listed with a 5.7-inch QHD display covered in 2.5D glass and measuring 7.7mm thin. This should come with a 2.5GHz octa-core Kirin 955 backed by 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage plus microSD expansion. It is also listed with a 12-megapixel dual camera, laser autofocus and dual tone flash like that found on the Huawei P9. It should also feature an 8-megapixel selfie snapper, run Android 6.0 Marshmallow and be powered by a 3400mAh battery.

The more affordable variant of the Honor V8 has the same sized 5.7-inch display and looks physically identical but runs at 1080p resolution. Also it’s powered by the lower-end Kirin 950 CPU and features 32GB of RAM. All the other specs, including 4GB of RAM and dual camera, are identical.

The Honor V8 smartphones are expected to be unveiled on 10 May. The Honor 7 was priced at £250 so perhaps we can hope for a similar price for the latest V8 smartphone.

READ: Huawei P9 review: The flagship and the folly

Mini Clubman review: A club worth being in

The new Mini Clubman is the biggest Mini ever. But can such a classically small car be turned into a family runabout that could conceivably be purchased instead of a VW Golf?

In this review we aim to find out, by putting the Clubman through the ultimate test of a family car: a holiday. We collected our review Mini from San Sebastian in Spain, threw all our clobber on board, then made our way back to the UK via France over three days. When we got home, just for good measure, we moved house, the Mini being our supplementary helper.

Once relocated we did all the day-to-day duties that a family car needs to perform for yet another a week, just to really put the car through its paces. And it’s a car we’re familiar with: our earlier 2008 Clubman Cooper S is regularly pressed into service as the nursery-run or tip wagon, but as a family car it’s actually not ideal.

The new-generation Clubman changes that. It’s more of an estate car inside than its hatch profile suggests, which pays dividends. It has a total of six doors now too, so while the rear barn doors stay — for access to that all-important Ford-Focus-sized boot — on the side of the car you get two normal opening doors, rather than one per side.

We’ve already driven the Mini Clubman Cooper D in the UK. But Minis have always been about fizzing, petrol powered engines — so for this review we went for a Cooper S petrol, complete with the automatic 8-speed gearbox. Here’s how it shaped up and why it’s a notable improvement on the last generation model.

Pocket-lint

Mini Clubman review: Design challenge

In the hip environs of San Sebastian the Clubman cuts an unusual dash. The Spanish locals out in the early hours are definitely giving the Clubman a second glance, although this could be because we’ve illegally parked it in the pedestrianised zone to take pictures. Are they impressed? It’s hard to tell, and our Spanish isn’t up to asking.

We think the Clubman is a curious mix of the good and the odd, design-wise. Its platform suffers from an overly long front and bulbous nose, but that balances out compared to the Mini hatchback thanks to a longer wheelbase.

But it’s a colour- and wheel-sensitive design. If you’ve an eye on looks when speccing it out, be aware it looks under-wheeled on anything below an 18-inch design. Roof colour, mirrors and stripes options need to be chosen carefully too. Personally, we think that the black roof and deep silver grey of our test car suits the design — but the bonnet stripes are overkill, and jar with the Clubman’s more mature vibe.

Delivering on its mini-tractor name, the Clubman is a full 9cm wider than the ordinary hatch model, which makes it roomier on the inside but porkier on the outside to quite a surprising degree — something we learned to our cost having kerbed an alloy when getting out of a tight underground car park in France (sorry Mini).

Pocket-lint

Mini Clubman review: Elbow room

Inside, that extra space is welcome. Indeed it’s in here that the new Clubman’s design really comes into its own. Not only is the cabin light, bright and airy — particularly with the (optional) panoramic roof fitted — but two things really stand out: how much more elbow and shoulder room you’ve got over a regular Mini; and how high quality this car feels.

That second point is heightened if you spec-up the Clubman with the Chili Pack and leather seats. Then almost everything you touch is soft-feel, covered in leather. The Clubman is up to the top-of-the-class with the Audi A3 in this regard.

But it’s the attention to detail that impresses. There are backlit panels in the doors, Union Flag leather patterns on the back of the headrests, and little checkered rubber mats in the door pockets. They’re little things but add up to make the Clubman feel genuinely special.

And while the design theme is familiar to other Minis, the dash is wider and less cliff-like. The focal point centre-aligned screen pushes through the dash surface, offering best-in-class ergonomics and graphics when specced in its Media XL format — as you’d expect from a system lifted wholesale from £70K BMWs. You control it not via a touchscreen but a control wheel and buttons on the centre tunnel. Again, this is easier to do in the Clubman than in the regular Minis because BMW has raised the controller up off the floor onto the centre tunnel.

And when you’re trogging across France with all of a family’s kit in tow, the extra space, numerous storage pockets and bins all help make the Clubman an easy car to live with.

Pocket-lint

Mini Clubman review: The special one

It’s always been that combination of personalisable, special design and go-kart like driving feel that’s made the Mini appealing. Translating that brand DNA into the bigger Clubman has thankfully maintained plenty of Mini’s fun factor.

If you’re a keen driver then the Clubman in its Cooper S form won’t disappoint. Flick it into Sport mode and there’s a distinct shift in character, with the engine note changing and a much more distinct exhaust burble that’s augmented by a series of pop-pop-pops if you change down through the gearbox in quick succession when braking.

This Cooper S Clubman feels nicely quick, if not outright fast. Let’s just say it’s got enough poke to make getaways from French Autoroute Peage tollbooths put a smile on your face. The steering is a little lighter than the last model, but the ride is still taught without being too harsh, while the handling for a front-wheel drive car is impressive.

Mini has managed to keep enough fun factor, then, but has refined too, making long motorway slogs and town traffic easier to deal with. You get an occasional odd resonance in the back of the cabin at speed, but it’s still possible to hold very clear phone calls at high speed. The seats also prove to be incredibly comfortable — even on days when you happen to cover 500-miles.

We weren’t sold on was the automatic gearbox though. The 8-speed unit sees service in many BMWs, Jaguars, Audis, and so on, and is generally smooth, slick and does what you want. But in the Clubman its first gear is set too low and short (just as the manual is in the Mini Cooper Convertible, as tested here), so no sooner have you set off than the thing’s jumping up into second. A brief experience with another manual Clubman suggests that despite the car’s more grown-up character, the manual box suits better — it saves you over a grand on the list price too.

Pocket-lint

Mini Clubman review: Little car, big price

Having crossed France, almost back in the UK, we noted that the Mini had averaged just under 40mpg on our run from Northern Spain. Not bad.

Better still, after a quick pit-stop at Calais, we found room for three boxes of wine to go with our luggage. And enough space to squeeze some Borsain in-between. The under-boot floor proved useful here, and later when moving house, where we made use of the Clubman’s cargo net — which is included if you tick the Storage Pack option.

If you’ve always fancied a Mini but need the space of a small family car, we reckon the Clubman is a truly feasible option; even our massive rear-facing baby seat fitted into the back seat with ease.

After 1,100 miles in the car we’d reached a clear view on what we would and wouldn’t specify, were it our actual car. It’s worth saying that things can quickly get out of hand in the options stakes — as witnessed by this review car’s final price of £32,990 given all its options.

So while you pick your jaw up off the floor, we’ll say that the first (and potentially only) option you should tick with any Clubman is the Chili Pack. Granted, it’s a whopping £2,785, but nets you the leather interior, parking sensors, LED lights, heated seats, 18-inch alloys, Storage Pack, a centre armrest, keyless entry, climate control and more. It also vastly improves the residual value of the car, so you’ll claw some of that price back later, which makes the big price tag easier to swallow.

Given that we’re techies, we’d also be tempted to push the boat out for the Media pack (£1,010), bringing XL navigation (widescreen display, real-time traffic info and a touch-sensitive/handwriting recognition pad on the controller), enhanced Bluetooth (music streaming and multiple phone connections) and connected services. You can bump up from this to the Tech Pack for another £1,000 to get a rear-view camera, Haman-Kardon sound system and a head-up display (HUD).

But despite the above being in our test car, we weren’t convinced we needed them. The HUD, for example, isn’t a true “reflect in the windscreen” job, but projects on a small secondary screen which doesn’t work as well in your eyeline.

Pocket-lint

Other things we’d do without? The panoramic roof, variable-rate dampers, Driver Assistance Pack, bonnet stripes, metallic paint and the sport automatic gearbox — all big culprits in pushing up the list price. One cheapish option we think makes the Clubman more useable is the Storage Pack, which gets you extra cubbies, nets and hooks in the boot and cabin.

Oh, and the lack of Apple CarPlay or Android Auto functionality is a serious black mark against a brand with a definite youthful, modern vibe too.

Ultimately, stick with a manual box, spec Chili Pack and Media Pack and, for £26,670, you’ve got a car that’s a Golf GTi rival, with a whole load more kit than its rival.

Verdict

Over long road trips you tend to either bond with cars or grow to hate them as their small irks wear you down, mentally and physically. We were worried that the Clubman might fall into the latter camp, because for all the last-generation model’s fun factor, that Clubman was a compromised package (we’ve owned it for time, so know all too well).

But this new-generation Clubman wormed its way into our affections quickly. Mini has tiptoed a very clever line by keeping lots of the stuff that makes a Mini a Mini, some unusual bits like the Clubman’s rear barn doors, but then giving the rest of the car a level of polish and space which mean it’s a capable family car.

As specced here, it is pricey though. But even without thousands of pounds worth of extras the Clubman is a fine cabin to sit in and comes with kit that is non-standard in rivals, like a basic navigation system.

Some will take issue with the way it looks, of course, but if you buy into the quirkiness of a Mini and are looking for something different from the norm, the Clubman is well worth a look.

Mini has produced a car that can stands toe-to-toe with the best that the family hatchback market has to offer. It’s even a worthy rival to the VW Golf, Audi A3, Ford Focus, et al.

Google will soon bring the Android Play Store to Chromebooks

Android apps in Chrome OS may already be a thing, but there really aren’t that many available on the Chrome Web Store. That could soon change, however, as the search giant appears to be on the verge of launching the Play Store on Chrome OS, as evidenced in a new screenshot recently shared on Reddit.

User TheWiseYoda first spotted a new option in Chrome OS titled “Enable Android Apps to run on your Chromebook.” It appeared in a developer build of the operating system (version 51) and allowed other Reddit users to follow a tutorial (shown above) on how to set things up before closing on them. On closer inspection, the Chromium code includes a couple of references to the feature, most notably:

<message name=”IDS_ARC_OPT_IN_DIALOG_DESCRIPTION” desc=”Description of the opt-in dialog for Android apps.”>
Choose from over a million apps and games on Google Play to install and use on your <ph name=”DEVICE_TYPE”>$1<ex>Chromebook</ex></ph>.
</message>

The appearance of the setting doesn’t come as much of a surprise given that Google has spent the past couple of years bringing Android and Chrome OS closer together. At the end of 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company would combine the two operating systems as early as this year. If today’s news is anything to go by, Google may simply integrate the useful features from each OS instead.

With Google I/O less than a month away, it’s highly likely that Google will hold off confirming its plans for Android and Chrome OS. We’ve contacted the company for comment and will update the article should we hear back.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: Reddit (ChromeOS)

Report: Bank network flaw helped hackers steal $80 million

Thieves who stole $81 million from the Bangladesh Bank may have been aided by a security flaw in the SWIFT international banking network, according to Reuters. Security researchers from BAE found malware designed to help thieves delete transfer information to hide their tracks. “I can’t think of a case where we have seen a criminal go to the level of effort to customize it for the environment they were operating in,” says BAE’s Adrian Nish. SWIFT, a coop with 3,000 member banks, confirmed that it knew about malware targeting its client software, though Bangladesh police say they haven’t found it on the bank’s servers yet.

The bank had serious security problems like a bad firewall and aging equipment, which let hackers steal credentials and penetrate the servers. Once inside, they created a sophisticated attack that may have included a customized version of a tool called “evtdiag.exe” to delete SWIFT transactions. Researchers spotted the file in a malware repository, and while they couldn’t confirm that it was used, say it contained specific information about the bank and was uploaded from Bangladesh.

The malware could not only delete outgoing transfers, but also erase inbound confirmation messages, change account balance logs and even disable a printer that made hard copies of requests. It’s not clear if any of those capabilities were used during the hack, as the investigation is still ongoing, but it could have been much worse. The thieves were trying to steal nearly $1 billion, but got a “mere” $81 million because a German bank flagged a transfer order due to spelling errors. SWIFT told Reuters that it will release software today to shore up security and will also warn banks to double-check their systems.

Source: Reuters

Raspberry Pi gets an 8-megapixel Sony camera upgrade

Although the Raspberry Pi has undergone numerous refreshes since it launched three years ago, its first official accessory — a 5-megapixel Omnivision camera module — has remained the same. That’s mostly due to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and its partners buying a huge amount of sensors, which not only kept the price low, but also enabled it to have plenty of stock for years to come. According to CEO Eben Upton, those reserves are now running very low, so it’s time to show off the new merchandise: two new $25 (£19) cameras powered a Sony IMX219 8-megapixel sensor.

Like many of the big smartphone and tablet makers, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is utilizing Sony’s mobile imaging smarts for its new visible-light and infrared cameras. The IMX219 has a fixed-focus sensor and is capable of outputting 3280 x 2464 photos and 1080p HD video at 30fps. Upton says it was chosen for its impressive image quality, colour fidelity and low-light performance, which plays nicely with the Raspberry Pi’s Videocore IV GPU after some specialist tuning by former Broadcom imaging engineer Naush Patuck.

As is normally the case with any new Raspberry Pi launch, the hardware retains the same price (before taxes) as its predecessor. The visible-light and infrared cameras are available now from RS Components and Element 14, with more resellers set to follow “soon.”

Via: Raspberry Pi Blog

Source: RS Components, Element 14

Huawei P9 review: New phone, familiar tricks

Huawei still isn’t a household name in every corner of the world, despite having ousted Microsoft last summer to become the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer. The company might not have the pedigree of LG, Sony and others, but there are few greater endorsements than being recruited by Google to deliver a Nexus device. That was more than six months ago, but it’s with that kind of exposure in mind that we welcome Huawei’s latest flagship, the P9, and see what it has to offer.

Hardware

You can usually tell at a glance when a smartphone is of flagship lineage. By that I mean: iPhones look like iPhones, the Galaxy S series hasn’t changed all that much in recent years, and so on. Huawei, too, has settled on a common design language for its top-end P line. Put the P9, P8 and Ascend P7 side by side and you’ll notice more iterative changes than considerable transformations.

As the years have passed, Huawei has veered further toward an angular, clean-cut design for its P series. There’s no doubt the P9 is the best-looking of the bunch so far, and yet I can’t help but feel that it’s rather … indistinctive.

That said, the P9 has all the characteristics you’d expect of a £450 (or roughly $650) smartphone. It’s thin, light and wrapped in aluminum, and the build quality is impeccable. The unibody has a strange tacky texture to it, feeling more like plastic than “aerospace-class” metal, though this does help with grip. Then there are the soft corners, the thin chamfered edges and the slight curvature of the glass borders: all the little details that mellow an otherwise sharp form.

The only edge that perhaps hasn’t been buffed enough is the elevated rim around the fingerprint sensor. It can feel a bit scratchy under your fingertip, and, speaking of the sensor, it’s the first time Huawei has included one on a P series device. It registers contact as quickly as any fingerprint sensor I’ve used, and sits in a convenient position high on the back of the device (where your forefinger naturally rests).

Everything else is pretty much where it should be, and I’m thankful for the tiny, multicolor notification LED hiding behind the earpiece. The volume rocker and power key (which has a nice bumpy texture to it) lie on the right-hand edge, with the micro-SIM/microSD tray on the left and a loudspeaker grille, headphone socket and USB Type-C port on the bottom.

Personally, I wish Huawei hadn’t bothered with Type-C. It doesn’t charge the device any quicker than regular micro-USB would — the company never promised any kind of fast charging, to be fair — and it means the absurd number of live cables I have scattered around my house for tablets, Kindles, phones, Bluetooth speakers and console controllers are useless. Instead, I have just one lonely wire I basically need to carry around with me.

The P9’s pièce de résistance is undoubtedly its Leica-endorsed, dual rear camera system. Just like the entire front of the device, the panel of glass that protects the two cameras is made of Gorilla Glass 4, and sits atop a black background with a subtle gray pinstripe effect. As you’d expect, Leica’s name is visible, alongside a mix of numbers and letters I assume to be specs of some kind. Using a slab of glass seems a bit lazy to me; I feel that machining out individual holes for the lenses and flash might’ve made for more elegant and striking unibody design.

I have my hands on the titanium gray model, which pairs almost purplish aluminum with a black underlay wherever there’s glass. Plenty of other color configurations are out there if you can find them: two with similar gold finishes, ceramic white, mystic silver and, of course, rose gold. Their availability varies based on the market and model, however, including whether the P9 in question is a single- or dual-SIM variant, and whether it’s kitted out with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, or 4GB/64GB. In the UK, for example, I can find only the titanium gray and mystic silver options (3GB/32GB) for sale.

In all, the P9 is by no means an ugly device, but it’s not particularly exciting either. And that sentiment doesn’t just apply to its looks.

Dimensions	145 x 70.9 x 6.95mm (5.7 x 2.8 x 0.27 inches)
Weight	144g (5.1 ounces)
Display	5.2-inch IPS LCD (1,920 x 1,080)
Pixel Density	424 ppi
Glass	Gorilla Glass 4
Processor	Octa-core Kirin 955 (4 x 2.5GHz, 4 x 1.8GHz)
RAM	3GB
Storage	32GB (expandable)
Primary camera	2 x 12-megapixel BSI (one monochrome, one color)
Secondary camera	8-megapixel
Battery	3,000mAh
OS	Emotion UI 4.1 (Android 6.0 Marshmallow)
Cellular	Cat 6 LTE
WiFi	Dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth	4.2
NFC	Yes

Display and sound

On paper, there’s nothing about the P9’s display that’s going to make your mouth water. Huawei has opted for a 5.2-inch, full HD (1,920 x 1,080) IPS LCD panel — the same one you’ll find on the year-old P8. While I think 1080p is a perfectly acceptable resolution for a 5.2-inch device, I can’t ignore the trend toward denser displays, particularly on Android flagships. Quad HD screens are almost the norm now, and top-tier devices from LG and Samsung haven’t dipped below this spec for some time. Even the Nexus 6P has one of these 2,560 x 1,440 panels, leaving the P9 feeling a bit behind the times.

Nevertheless, you do get a great 1080p panel. Colors are vivid, blacks are as deep as I’ve ever seen on an LCD display, and whites are the perfect temperature (you can tinker with this in the settings if your eyes don’t agree). There’s also plenty of power behind those pixels, making the display easy to read on the brightest of days. Glare isn’t entirely eliminated under direct sunlight, so you may not want to head to the park to stream a movie on your phone, but the screen is bright enough for every other outdoor-use scenario. The auto-brightness setting is usually pretty accurate, but it can falter in strong sunlight, meaning I’ve found myself turning it off in certain situations to get the most out of the display.

Considering how small the P9’s speaker grille is, I’m surprised by the volume and quality of the audio that comes out of it. Not exactly built for lighting up a party, given it’s lacking in the bass range, but perfect for some crisp and clear hands-free calls. At a push, you can get away with watching an episode of Family Guy or a succession of YouTube clips if you’ve forgotten to bring your headphones to bed with you, but it’s not really cut out for enjoying a feature film. I have discovered that, for whatever reason, the P9 doesn’t support AC3 audio, which is a common enough format for videos. Pick the right files, though, and this shouldn’t cause too many problems.

Headphone audio quality is something of a mixed bag: The P9 isn’t the best phone I’ve rocked out with, but it’s not the worst either. You get a decent amount of clarity and bass coming through, especially when the DTS audio setting is switched on, but things can start to get raspy and abrasive at the high end. Volume is something of an issue too. I can still hear myself think at maximum power, and if you tend to use leaky in-ears like I do, then the P9 won’t do a great job of cutting through the ambience of a noisy train.

Software

The P9 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box, not that you’d really know without checking the phone’s settings menu. That’s because of Huawei’s Emotion UI (EMUI) overlay, now at version 4.1. While it’s a major re-skinning of stock Android, it’s at least free of unnecessary animations that slow the device down to any degree. Compared with vanilla Android, EMUI is a bit cartoony, with flat, basic icons that make the skin look a bit antiquated.

EMUI does serve as a platform for third-party skins, though, giving you a high level of customization. Jump into the Themes app and you’ll find plenty of different veneers to download to your device — some more comprehensive than others — from clean to wacky and everything in between.

Actually poking around EMUI isn’t all that different from stock Android, but there are a couple of obvious differences. Everything happens on the home-screen carousel, for example; there’s no separate app drawer. Also, the notification pull-down splits quick settings into its own little tab, and you can access music player controls, the calculator, the flashlight and a few more bits and pieces from the lock screen (like the Control Center on iOS).

There are a bunch of quirks to like about Huawei’s version of Android. I particularly dig that you can swipe downward on the fingerprint sensor to bring up the notification drawer, that you can double-tap the volume-down key to instantly take a picture when the handset is locked, and even some of the cringe-worthy pre-installed ringtones. But there are some things that might annoy.

Maybe a minor point for some, but I can’t find a way to hide contacts that don’t have a phone number in my Google-imported list, which is insanely frustrating. A couple of apps that duplicate the functionality of Google’s also needn’t exist, like an email client and calendar.

Pre-installed bloatware is relatively minimal: some random games, a PDF reader, the Booking.com app and a couple more. Thankfully, all of these can be purged at your whim, and I can salute the P9 for introducing me to Todoist, which I’m really getting on with. A few of Huawei’s apps are neat enough. “HiCare” is a handy kind of on-device manual and serves as a conduit for customer service and support; “Phone Manager” lets you optimize performance and save a few minutes of battery life by identifying and closing down power-hungry background apps; and “Health” is a basic pedometer app that tells you how far you’ve walked as well as estimating the number of calories you’ve burned on your travels.

Would I prefer stock Android? Yes, I would. Am I unduly offended by EMUI? Not by a long shot, and as I’ve said, there are several enjoyable little features that Google doesn’t offer as standard.

Camera

On to the main event: the P9’s dual rear cameras. Before that, though, a quick note on the 8-megapixel front-facer. The number alone should tell you that it takes some really sharp, and fairly wide-angle, shots. Selfies and video calls certainly aren’t an afterthought on the P9, and Huawei’s beauty slider will smooth away those blemishes (or make you look like a stubbly child) if you’re having a bad-skin day. Taking a page out of Apple’s book — and when does Huawei not look at what others are throwing at the wall — the P9’s display will serve as a makeshift flash if you need dat club ‘gram.

The P9 is the first device Huawei’s created with input from high-end optics outfit Leica. At this stage in their relationship, Leica “approved” the lenses for the P9 and helped redesign the camera software. Sticking two cameras on the thing was definitely Huawei’s idea, though, and one the company first explored with the Honor 6 Plus.

But the arrangement is altogether different on the P9, as it uses two 12-megapixel sensors: one color and one monochrome. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, the monochrome camera allows you to take native black-and-white images, and damn, do they look good. I really, really like this feature, but a fellow tech journalist did put it into perspective for me somewhat. We were discussing its merits, and I was gushing about how much better these black-and-white pictures looked in comparison with filtered color images. He agreed — kind of: “But is it a feature anybody asked for?”

Perhaps not, but then I’m the kind of tool who has an ancient Pentax permanently loaded with 35mm Ilford film, so I’m exactly the type of person it would appeal to. That said, I could never ditch my manual cameras for a smartphone replacement, monochrome sensor or not.

The real reason for having a monochrome sensor doesn’t have much to do with native black-and-white snaps. Primarily, it’s there to play assistant to the color sensor. Huawei’s image-processing alchemy uses the lighting and contrast of the monochrome picture as a sort of data to enhance the quality of the final color image. And having two cameras instead of one means the P9 can simulate a whole range of aperture settings, just like HTC’s Duo Camera feature that debuted on the One M8.

While the color sensor actually takes the picture, the monochrome sensor is capturing depth information. This means that you can simulate the aperture of a bona fide camera lens, from f/16 all the way to f/0.95 (a nod to one of Leica’s most premium lenses). The aperture shooting mode therefore lets you take close-ups with the kind of bokeh (background blur) you get from proper cameras. And after the fact, you can edit the same snap to change the aperture size and the focal point of the image.

Because this is all done with software, though, there’s an obvious cutoff point at which images go from having a nice, believable amount of bokeh to looking a bit ridiculous (think: that Neo-versus-Smith army fight scene in The Matrix Reloaded where real Keanu so obviously becomes CGI Keanu). The f/0.95 setting looks more like someone’s gotten way too smudge-tool-happy in Photoshop, for instance, rather than the image looking like it’s been shot with a real f/0.95 lens.

Cramming two cameras into a smartphone is nothing new, and it might not be the killer feature Huawei wants it to be. After all, why would HTC ditch its Duo Camera unless it discovered users weren’t all that fussed about it? Still, even if Aperture mode is tantamount to a gimmick — and one that’s been pinched from another manufacturer — the P9’s camera is still pretty great, and versatile at that.

You can leave everything on auto and quite easily get some really crisp and detailed 12-megapixel shots out the P9. Exposure, white balance and color saturation are on point pretty much all of the time; rarely have I taken a shot with the handset and not felt it to be a faithful representation of what I can see behind the viewfinder. It adjusts to artificial light well, and focusing is rapid to the point of being practically instant, which Huawei puts down to its hybrid laser-, depth- and contrast-informed method.

Like autofocus, shutter response is just as instantaneous, almost regardless of lighting conditions; burst capture is so rapid you might as well be shooting a 30fps video. On that note, the P9 is pretty handy in low-light situations. It seems to capture most of the natural light available to it without too much artificial enhancement by way of jacking up the exposure. It can’t work miracles, but moonlight alone is sometimes enough for at least a distinguishable image. And when it’s not, you can rely on the powerful two-tone flash for a synthetic burst of illumination.

If you want to delve beyond the simple point-and-shoot interface, there are a bunch of shooting modes to play with. Serious smartphone photographers might want to head straight for the “Pro” mode, which lets you tweak every setting manually, even the focus, and outputs RAW images. There are three different “Film” modes of Leica’s design that subtly change the texture of colors — standard, smooth and vivid — the latter being a kind of lighter HDR mode, which is also available to add that familiar high-contrast pop to images. The panorama mode is also worth mentioning because it does a fabulous job of stitching images together.

The exploration continues with various video toys, including time-lapse and slow-motion modes. Video quality does leave something to be desired, it has to be said. Full HD clips are a little too noisy for my liking, even in favorable lighting conditions. Colors are flat, and audio has a muffled, distant tone to it. But you can’t have it all, I guess, and who needs good video when you’ve got so many photo modes to dip in and out of? To conclude: At some point during my time with the P9, I stopped “testing” the camera and just started having fun with it, which is probably the best endorsement I can make.

Performance and battery life

You won’t find any Snapdragons round these parts. Huawei makes its own processors, and the P9 is kitted out with the best of ’em: the octa-core Kirin 955. That’s four 2.5GHz cores and four 1.8GHz cores, if you were wondering. Pair that with 3GB of RAM and you have one potent combination. And that’s all I really need to say. From simpler 3D games like Sonic Dash and NBA Jam to more resource-intensive titles like Asphalt 8, Real Racing 3 and Ravensword 2, the P9 handles them all effortlessly. No dawdling on the loading screens, no dropped frames, no problem.

Browsing performance is governed by the speed of your connection above all else, and in general day-to-day use, I haven’t seen any strange behavior that would constitute a chink in the processor’s armor. One variant of the P9, which I can’t see is available in the UK anywhere, has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The 3GB of RAM and 32GB of space on the unit I’m using doesn’t leave me wanting in either department, however, especially since microSD cards are supported for upping memory up to 128GB.

Elsewhere in the performance stakes, there are a few missteps. GPS is inaccurate, for one. Google Maps jumps from my current position to where I was five minutes ago regularly, and there’s often a large margin of error even when it is roughly on point, leading to the occasional wrong turn. Also, WiFi takes a while to connect to saved networks for some reason, which is annoying on the London Tube when you have only 30 seconds at stations to get online and do whatever you need to. In terms of connections, you do have everything you could want available to you: Cat 6 LTE, dual-band WiFi (a/b/g/n/ac), Bluetooth 4.2 and NFC.

Compared with other smartphones that’ve run our review gauntlet in recent times, the P9 doesn’t exactly top the battery-life leaderboard. In fact, in our standard looping video rundown test (720p clip at 50 percent brightness), I managed to squeeze nine hours and 20 minutes out of the 3,000mAh cache. That’s more than an hour less than the HTC 10 and LG G5, and way behind the 13-plus hours that the iPhone SE and Galaxy S7 line are capable of.

Outside of lab conditions, the P9 is good for about a full working day of frequent use, but not much more. On one particularly busy Wednesday, I tethered my laptop to the handset for over an hour, and took a bunch of pictures and made several calls, in addition to reading and responding to a constant stream of emails, WhatsApps, etc. Unplugging at roughly 7 AM, the phone was dead by about 10 PM. With less frequent use, you’re looking at more like a day and a half away from a charger.

​The competition

It’s probably best to kick this section off with a few editor’s notes. Footnote one: The P9 is not officially available in the US, and Huawei’s said it doesn’t have any plans to launch it there. Second: I’m not an expert on the Asian market, where Huawei is competing with the likes of Xiaomi and Nubia, potentially making the P9 a completely different proposition in that region. All I can reliably comment on is how it fits into the UK landscape, and even then, I’m struggling to see its niche.

Regardless of my opinion, Huawei seems to have wooed UK carriers, with every major network announcing its intention to range the handset the day it was announced. This is the biggest splash a new Huawei handset has ever made by an absolute mile, though it’s yet to reach any of these providers. Contract reseller Carphone Warehouse is offering the phone for free from £26 per month. That’s more than the Nexus 5X, the same price as the iPhone SE and only slightly cheaper than the LG G5.

An unlocked, SIM-free model will set you back £449 at Huawei’s official online store, and therein lies a problem. That’s a lot of money. It’s more than the most expensive iPhone SE, £50 cheaper than the LG G5, and roughly £100 shy of the iPhone 6S, HTC 10 and Galaxy S7, not to mention that it’s identical in price to the Huawei-made Nexus 6P. I could probably dedicate a thousand more words to listing all the potential alternatives and relative pricing, but what I’m basically trying to say is: I don’t think the P9 hits that sweet spot between feature set and price.

The P9 is meant to be a flagship device, remember, but for a near-flagship price you’re not getting any of the comforts I might expect, like waterproofing, wireless charging, a Quad HD display, a striking design, high-res audio, a long battery life and so on. Apart from the dual camera — which HTC did years ago — there’s little to elevate the P9 user experience above great little devices like the Moto G or Wileyfox Swift, which you can pick up for a fraction of the price. The P9 is drowning in a sea of competition, and there’s no one feature to serve as its life jacket.

Wrap-up

The P9 is a perfectly good smartphone, particularly when it comes to performance and camera tricks. I had a ton of fun playing around with all the shooting modes, ogling the gorgeous native black-and-white images, and fiddling with bokeh. But the dual camera is something HTC pioneered yonks ago, and has since sent it to feature heaven. And what else are we really getting?

A nice 1080p display (albeit no improvement over last year’s P8), a rather uneventful metal unibody design, a somewhat charming but unfamiliar Android build and a day’s worth of battery life. Huawei isn’t the only company taking baby steps, mind. Aside from LG’s ambitious G5, the biggest smartphone launches of 2016 thus far have largely been iterative.

If I had to take issue with one thing specifically, it would be the P9’s price, which is almost impossible to justify. The handset’s camera is its only standout — but not innovative — feature, and you want me to pay four hundred and fifty quid for that? No deal.

First Look Inside Pegatron’s Secretive Shanghai iPhone Assembly Plant

Bloomberg has been granted an exclusive look inside a Chinese iPhone manufacturing plant where Apple claimed it has addressed cases of excessive overtime.

Pegatron Corp.’s sprawling facility on the outskirts of Shanghai covers an area equal to 90 football fields and employs some 50,000 people in the iPhone assembly process.

After accusations that employees were forced to work long, grueling hours there, Pegatron and Apple adopted new procedures to keep iPhone assemblers from amassing excessive overtime. By granting a western journalist access to the facility for the first time, both companies appear eager to show how the system works.

Image: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
In the center of the Pegatron campus is a plaza with a firehouse, police station, and post office. Dotted about are shuttle buses, mega-cafeterias, landscaped lawns, and koi ponds. The grey and brown-hued concrete buildings are meant to evoke traditional Chinese architecture, but the scenes inside them are anything but traditional.

The men and women stare into face scanners and swipe badges at security turnstiles to clock in. The strict ID checks are there to make sure they don’t work excessive overtime. The process takes less than two seconds.

After passing through metal detectors to sniff out camera-equipped devices that could be used to leak pictures of unreleased new products, the workers follow arrows on the floor and inspirational posters on the wall. They climb up a stairwell with safety netting draped across the middle, to prevent accidents—or suicide attempts. At a bank of lockers, they don blue hairnets and swap their shoes for clean plastic slip-on slippers. At 9:20 a.m., the 320-worker production unit lines up with military precision in four rows for their roll call.

“Good morning!” they shout in unison under the watchful gaze of the Mayor, who is joined by shift supervisors holding iPads jerry-rigged with black tape. They scan in the workers. Six minutes later, they’re on the production floor, assembling smartphones moving past on conveyor belts.

To address accusations of excessive overtime Pegatron adopted the ID system, with badges linked to a database that tracks time, wages and even expenditures on dorm fees and lunch. The Taiwanese company claims the arrangement has helped to push compliance with overtime regulations to almost 100 percent, with only a handful of exceptions stemming from engineers working on emergency repairs.

Image: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
However, Li Qiang, executive director at labor rights group China Labor Watch (CLW), claims that the ID checks are just for show, “otherwise there wouldn’t be so many cases with hundreds of workers putting in excessive overtime hours.” CLW claims that base pay remains so low that workers need overtime simply to make ends meet. It said 1,261 pay stubs from Pegatron’s Shanghai facility from September and October 2015 show evidence of excessive overtime.

Pegatron said the group miscounted because that period straddled state holidays, when pay was triple the normal rate. Apple and Pegatron said they were never contacted by CLW, which said it approached Apple but didn’t get a response. Since March, the group claims to have collected an additional 441 pay stubs that point to continued excessive overtime. Pegatron said it adheres to the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition’s guidelines that cap overtime at roughly 80 hours a month.

In 2013, Pegatron came under fire from CLW after the death of five young workers at its Shanghai facilities, including the passing of a 15-year-old factory worker due to pneumonia-related causes. The boy was able to secure a job at a Pegatron factory by presenting a fake ID stating that he was 20. Apple sent a medical team to the Pegatron facility and determined that the worker’s death was not related to working conditions.

The same year, CLW alleged numerous safety and workplace violations at Pegatron, including the unethical holding of worker pay and identification cards, as well as poor living conditions within the factory including tight living quarters and packed cafeterias. Apple replied to the allegations, confirming various labor violations and vowing to investigate the incident.

“The fact they let a reporter in shows that they are responding to external pressure and trying to be more transparent – at least on the surface they’re trying to fix something,” said Jenny Chan, a lecturer at Oxford’s Kellogg College. “But they’re still not telling us more about how they run the business, the whole labor system.”

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: supplier responsibility, pegatron
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Electric Car Challenger LeEco Calls Apple Product Design ‘Obsolete’

The CEO of Chinese conglomerate LeEco has called Apple’s product design “outdated” and “obsolete” in an international TV interview, following the company’s unveiling of its first self-driving supercar in Beijing last week (via CNBC).

Jia Yueting is both CEO and chairman of LeEco (formerly LeTV), often referred to as the “Netflix of China”, but which has a product range that spans smartphones, TVs, mountain bikes, and now electric vehicles. The 43-year-old entrepreneur began his career as a tech support worker before building his own IT and mobile company, estimated to be worth around $4.8 billion. The Chinese media company is also a strategic partner with US-based electric vehicle company Faraday Future (FF).

LeEco CEO Jia Yueting (Image: Imaginechina)
The company’s smart LeSEE supercar was unveiled with much fanfare at a Beijing event last week. The self-driving car has a steering wheel that folds away and screens that offer up in-car entertainment for passengers. LeEco aims to outdo Tesla’s Model S with its supercar, and also aims to bring LeSEE owners into its ecosystem by supplying them with in-car movies, TV shows, and music.

Jia spoke at a meeting of the China Entrepreneur Club, an exclusive summit of business leaders, where he explained why competition in the Chinese market from the likes of Apple did not worry him.

“We think the difference between us and Apple is very large. Apple is a mobile phone company focused on hardware and software,” Jia said. “LeShi [another name for LeEco] is focused on the internet first, and only then on software, and finally on hardware.”

The LeEco LeSEE concept electric sedan. (Image: LeEco)

Apple only has individual apps. This was the right choice during the first generation of mobile net, when CPUs and the mobile network speeds were not fast enough. However now we’re moving into the next era of mobile internet, these problems no longer exist. Moreover, having separate apps just means great obstacles in the user experience. We hope to break down these obstacles.

One of the most important reasons [for slowing sales] is that Apple’s innovation has become extremely slow. For example, a month ago Apple launched the iPhone SE. From an industry insider’s perspective, this is a product with a very low level of technology. We think this is something they just shouldn’t have done.

As an industry leader, Apple should be developing more cutting-edge products. The iPhone was still a leader five years ago after being launched in 2008 but now the concept has fallen behind.

We believe the next generation of mobile internet will be more open, more ecosystem oriented instead of being a closed loop. Ironically, Apple’s over-dominance, lack of internet-thinking and the closed off nature of its systems, all hindered innovation in the internet mobile industry.

Interior of the LeEco LeSEE concept electric sedan. (Image: LeEco)
Apple is expected to report a fall in smartphone sales when it announces second fiscal quarter (first calendar quarter) earnings tomorrow. During its Q4 results announcement in January, CEO Tim Cook noted “some signs of economic softness”, but said Apple remained “very bullish on China” given the low penetration of high-speed mobile data usage and the growing middle class.

Apple Car rumors have gained momentum since early last year, when The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple has hundreds of employees working to develop an electric vehicle under the codename “Project Titan.” The bulk of research and development may be taking place in secretive buildings in Sunnyvale, California, where late night “motor noises” have been heard in recent months, while one report claimed that Apple may have a facility in Berlin, too.

Related Roundup: Apple Car
Tag: LeEco
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Harman Kardon Go + Play shows there’s still interest in quality Bluetooth speakers

Harman Kardon has refreshed its high-end portable speaker with a more elegant look, quad drivers and the ability to wirelessly connect up to three devices at a time. That includes iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

The latest in the Harman Kardon Go + Play range comes with Bluetooth connectivity and a USB charge port if you want to pour some power into your smartphone or tablet – even when the speaker system is not plugged in.

It comes with a built-in Li-ion battery that can be used to keep your smart devices topped up. What’s more, one full charge of the portable speaker can last up to eight hours of music playback.

The Go + Play also has two microphones for conference calls, which feature echo and noise cancelling technology to ensure that voice transmission is crystal clear.

You can also connect two external Harman Kardon Wireless Dual Sound-enabled speakers to give an even wider soundfield.

The speaker has a stainless steel carrying handle built into the design so you can take it from room to room easily.

“It is a natural and beautiful addition to any room in the home, office or on the go,” said Harman’s head of portables, Andy Tsui.

The Harman Kardon Go + Play speaker will be available in black or white from the company’s own website and select retailers May for £249.99.