DJI’s new Matrice M200 drone can fly for more than 30 minutes in rain or snow

Why it matters to you

Some of the new features on DJI’s latest pro model could one day find their way to the company’s consumer offerings.

As consumer drones buzz about the sky in ever greater numbers, the fight among drone makers to rake in cold, hard cash via the enterprise market continues to gather pace, too. Take DJI – on Sunday the drone giant unveiled its latest addition to the space, the Matrice 200 (M200) series, the sequel to the M100 that impressed us mightily when it arrived two years ago.

Aimed primarily at professional users looking for a robust, expandable, and feature-rich flying machine, the new quadcopter goes some way beyond DJI’s prosumer Inspire 2 drone, for example.

Notably, the M200 sports DJI’s first-ever upward-facing gimbal mount, making it ideal for tasks such as inspecting the undersides of bridges, towers, and other structures with locations that are difficult to approach.

An array of cameras can be attached to the machine, including not only DJI’s powerful X4S and X5S devices, but also its high-powered Z30 camera with its impressive 30x optical zoom, and the XT thermal-imaging camera. Opt for the M200 and you can attach one downward-facing camera. Go for the M210, however, and you can attach two downward-facing cameras and/or an upward-facing camera, offering the user multiple options for completing an operation.

The new platform also features a forward-facing first-person view camera, enabling a pilot and a camera operator to monitor separate images on dual controllers.

While the M200 can clearly handle an array of cameras, DJI is pushing its heftier and more versatile M600 hexacopter as the go-to machine for serious cinematographers.

The M200’s intelligent flight features include spotlight (to lock the camera onto a subject during flight while the aircraft moves freely), point of interest (to circle around an object for a smooth orbit), tripod (to fine-tune position and angle for position framing and safe navigation in narrow environments), and active track (to follow a person or object while keeping it in frame).

As you’d expect with a drone of this calibre, the M200 series includes obstacle avoidance sensors facing forward, up and down, as well as an ADS-B receiver for advisory traffic information from any manned aircraft in the vicinity.

An additional bonus is the new drone’s water-resistant and self-heating body, enabling it to be flown in dire weather conditions such as rain and sub-zero temperatures — important if the job’s urgent.

More: 3DR flies its Solo drone to new heights in bid for commercial business

With a dual battery set-up, DJI’s new quadcopter can fly for up to 35 minutes. It features an operation range of a decent 4.4 miles (7 km), and can carry a payload of up to 2 kg.

Commenting on its latest offering, DJI’s Paul Guo said, “We’re revolutionizing professional workflows by making it possible to use advanced sensors in various combinations to make sophisticated tasks such as bridge inspections, land surveying and search-and-rescue missions, easier, safer and more reliable than ever before.”

There’s no word on pricing yet, but as for release, the M200 series is expected to fly onto market between April and June, 2017.

ZTE adds more options to its Blade series with the V8 Lite and V8 Mini

Why it matters to you

ZTE’s Blade series offer a wide range of options for under $300, helping bring high-level features like dual-camera systems to budget smartphones.

Following up on the Blade V8 and the V8 Pro, ZTE is offering even more options with two new devices in the same series — the Blade V8 Lite and the V8 Mini.

The Chinese company made the announcement Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Both the Blade V8 and V8 Pro were announced at CES 2017 in January, and are currently on the market, though only the Pro is available in the U.S. The Blade V8 is available in Russia, Japan, and Malaysia, but it will expand to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia in March.

Click here to learn more about the V8 Pro, and read on for everything you need to know about the rest of the Blade V8 series.

More: ZTE Blade V8 Pro: Our first take

Blade V8 Mini

The Blade V8 Mini is a 5-inch smartphone with a Full HD resolution. Like the regular Blade V8, it’s powered by the same Snapdragon 435 processor, but the Mini only comes with 2GB of RAM. The device offers 16GB of internal storage, but a MicroSD card slot allows owners to add more storage.

The Mini runs MiFlavor 4.2 UI, which is based off Android 7.0 Nougat. It sports a 2,800mAh battery, and it charges via a MicroUSB port. It doesn’t look like there’s an NFC sensor, but there is a fingerprint sensor on the rear.

The highlight of the V8 Mini, just like with the V8 and V8 Pro, is the horizontal dual-camera setup on the rear. One has 13 megapixels but the other only packs 2 megapixels — this is to help obtain depth and distance information to produce bokeh, or blur, for photographs. A refocus mode in the camera app lets you change the focus area of the picture, which is a feature also available on the V8 and V8 Pro. There’s also a 5-megapixel front-facing camera that comes with a flash for selfies.

The device makes no effort to minimize bezels — unsurprising for a budget smartphone — and the navigation buttons on the front are capacitive.

The Blade V8 Mini will come in white, rose gold, gold, black, and red. It will be available for select markets in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, but a concrete release date or price have yet to be announced.

Lenovo launches four models of Tab 4, none are weird

There’s nothing wrong with a basic tablet so you can do basic things. That’s the Lenovo Tab 4.

Lenovo’s Tab 4 is nearly indistinguishable from last year’s Tab 3 on first glance. That’s not a bad thing — the Tab 3 was a solid, if unremarkable design, and the Tab 4 series builds on that. With a refined exterior and updated interior, the new Tab 4s (Tabs 4?) present compelling options near the low end of the Android tablet market.

Lenovo Tab 4

Coming in 8-inch and 10-inch varieties, the Tab 4 is a well-built, but low-end, tablet. They’re both largely the same internals, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB or 32GB of internal storage (plus microSD card expansion) driving a 1280×800 display. You’ll find a 2MP camera on the front for selfies and video calls, and a 5MP autofocusing sensor on the back in case you’re inclined to take photos with your tablet.

Both are relatively lightweight, with the 8-incher weighing in at 0.64lbs (310g) and the 10-inch variant a slight 1.1 lbs (500g). At 8.3mm these are not the thinnest tablets on the market, but the rounded sides and tapered back made them quite easy to hold. The textured back — something of a cross between soft-touch and fine-grain sandpaper — helps in making it easier to hold.

The biggest hangup here is the charging port. Yes, it’s micro-USB, and in 2017 that’s unacceptable. Even on a cheap tablet like this. Lenovo’s ThinkPad laptops unveiled at CES 2017 all had USB-C, as do the Plus versions of these very tablets. There’s an argument to be made for keeping costs down, and it’s one that Lenovo tried to make with us, but it’s hard to recommend a brand-new product that’s sporting the now ancient and outdated port for no good reason other than to save a few bucks.

The Lenovo Tab 4 is coming in May 2017 for a starting price of $109 for the Tab 4 8, or $149 for the Tab 4 10. There will also be available in LTE-capable variants.

Lenovo Tab 4 Plus

The “Plus” variant of the Tab line has an odd history. First introduced with the Tab 3, the upgraded Tab 3 Plus also boasted an oddball design. It moved the battery into a grippable bulge along one side, and that bulge played double duty as a hinge for a pop-out kickstand slash hanger hook. And was the baby of actor and Lenovo product engineer Ashton Kutcher.

Yeah, 2016 was weird.

The 2017 version — the Lenovo Tab 4 Plus — drops all the weirdness. It’s now just a more premium version of the Tab 4, inside and out, and entirely free of silly gimmicks. Both screens have been upgraded to an IPS panel with a 1920×1080 resolution and the processor’s been bumped to the excellent Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 clocked at 2GHz. Both cameras see a bump as well, with a 5MP front camera and 8MP rear camera. For plugging in you’ll find a USB-C port instead of the unacceptable Micro-USB ports found on the non-Plus Tab 4.

If you opt for the 16GB storage version you’ll get 3GB of RAM, while 4GB of RAM is packed into the 64GB version (both also offer microSD expansion). The back on both has been upgraded to a slick glass panel. The white version isn’t anything special, but the dark gray (err, “aurora black”) one sports a slick internal etching that reflects light in beautiful arcs and loops.

The Tab 4 Plus also picks up fingerprint sensors. The Tab 4 10 Plus’s is located on the front along one of the long sides of the display (the “bottom”, since it’s opposite the front-facing camera). Though it’s not a clickable button, you can rest your finger on it to turn on the tablet. On the Tab 4 8 Plus the fingerprint sensor is embedded in the side-mounted power button, so it’s easy to unlock just as you would turn it on or off. Personally, I prefer the side-mounted placement of the Tab 4 8 Plus.

The Tab 4 Plus will launch alongside the standard Tab 4 in May 2017, with the Tab 4 8 Plus starting at $199 and the Tab 4 10 Plus starting at $249.

Lenovo Tab 4 Productivity Pack

Want a keyboard with your Tab 4 10? Lenovo offers that, too. It’s more than just a Bluetooth keyboard, though. the fabric-covered keyboard doubles as a carrying case, with a folding magnetic origami stand that forms itself out of the larger cover flap. There’s even a trackpad below the keyboard, though it’s admittedly a tiny little thing.

The stand has an embedded NFC chip that activates Productivity Mode on the Tab 4 when you set it on the stand. Productivity Mode was inspired by the Lenovo Yoga Book, shifting the standard Android navigation buttons to the bottom left corner of the screen and using the rest to display a handy one-touch task switcher that may as well have been ripped from Windows. Productivity Mode isn’t exclusive to the keyboard, though — you can activate it via an app on the tablet if you want it around when you’re not keyboarding.

The Productivity Pack will launch alongside the Tab 4 with a price of $49.99.

Lenovo Tab 4 Kids Pack

According to Lenovo’s numbers, a surprising (and yet not that surprising) number of young ones have their own tablets. Given how much easier and safer they are for parents, that’s not much of a surprise. So instead of making a tablet specifically for the kids, Lenovo opted to include kid-friendly software and a relatively cheap pack to make the Tab 4 physically kid-friendly.

The software is the free KIDOZ suite, which doubles as a curated kids app store and launcher. It sports big and colorful icons and can be password locked to keep the kid from getting into the tablet at large.

The Kids Pack itself consists of a thick bright-teal rubber bumper, a pair of colorful full-back stickers, and a blue-light filter screen protector. The bumper isn’t tight and is rather flexible; it’s the kind of thing I’d expect the typically curious child to promptly remove. The back stickers are at least use a 3M adhesive, so when the kid starts to peel them off or they get too nasty (or, I guess, the kid outgrows it the cutesy drawings), you’ll be able to easily pull it off without leaving behind residue.

The Kids Pack will launch with the Tab 4, priced at $19.99 for the Tab 4 8 and $24.99 for the Tab 4 10.

Alcatel could’ve made a decent mid-tier phone, instead we got an LED back

Moto has their Moto Mods. Alcatel has the A5 and LEDs.

Have you ever wished you could see what notification just came into your phone, but it was face down on the table? First off, shame on you for putting your phone face down. But also, maybe, just maybe, the LED back option for the Alcatel A5 is for you. But probably not.

Let’s start with the phone itself. The A5 is Alcatel’s new mid-range phone, replacing the previous-generation Pop series of smartphones. It’s running Android 6.0 Marshmallow, which isn’t much of a surprise, even if it’s still a disappointment. The 5.2-inch 1280×720 IPS screen is powered by an unnamed octa-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz backed up by 2GB of RAM and 16GB internal storage. All-in-all, it’s a typical low-to-mid-range phone. There’s also a neat little theming feature in the Color Catcher 2.0 — simply take a photo and it will pick out a highlight color to build a new theme off of it with complementary colors, including a wallpaper and icon pack coloring.

What’s special about the Alcatel A5 is actually something it shares in common with the much more expensive Moto Z phones: swappable backs. Though in this case it’s the whole back cover that comes off, not just a “mod” that snaps onto the back. So unlike the Motorola phones, you won’t be wanting to use the A5 with the back off, even though technically if you really wanted to, you could.

The default back is a standard plastic cover with cutouts for the ports and camera through its faux brushed-metal finish. There’s also a battery expansion back that adds a few hours of use, which will come in handy to augment the built-in non-removable 2800 mAh cell. And you’ll have the option for a speaker back, which is expectedly bulky and comes with a pop-out metal kickstand. Frankly, it’s too thick and unattractive to permit its poor audio quality — you’ll get better sound out of almost any flagship smartphone, including Alcatel’s own Idol 4.

LED fire. Because why not?

The most interesting one is the LED back. This adds a small amount of bulk to the A5, but in the process makes for a unique take on notifications and, uh, lights. The back can light up when a notification comes in, and the grid of LEDs can even display basic blocky pixel characters, like a blue “F” for Facebook or a yellow “S” for Snapchat. Or it can pulse to the music that’s playing or display a “light show” of super basic twinkling stars or fire or fireworks. It’s a superfluous solution in search of a problem. The only real nice use for it would be as a soft light for the camera instead of the harsh light of a single-LED flash, but it’s nowhere near bright enough to be useful for that.

While Alcatel didn’t announce any additional backs or partners for making such backs (the speaker back was solely Alcatel-branded), the connector itself is potentially capable enough to support a wide-range of accessories. It sports 16 pins in a 4×4 arrangement, the same number as the Moto Mods connector (which is in an 8×2 arrangement), and Moto’s backs include a pico projector.

Sony Xperia XZ Premium specs: 4K display, Snapdragon 835 and 19MP camera

Sony continues to hit so many specs in a single phone.

As is the case with each Sony release window, there’s one phone that stands high above the rest. In early 2017, that’s the Xperia XZ Premium, and as the name would suggest it comes with a few top-end specs inside. The XZ Premium differentiates itself internally with a 4K display, a new 19MP camera, a Snapdragon 835 processor and all of the other bells and whistles you expect from a flagship phone.

Here’s the complete spec sheet for the Sony Xperia XZ Premium.

Sony Xperia XZs specs: 5.2-inch 1080p display, 19MP camera, 2900 mAh battery

Internally, not a whole lot has changed here.

Taking one step down the ladder from the Xperia XZ Premium, we have the Xperia XZs — a mid-cycle refresh of last year’s Xperia XZ with the same type of body and a few key changes to the specs. You’ll see a new camera on board here, as well as an extra gigabyte of RAM … the rest is pretty much unchanged.

Here’s the complete spec sheet for the Sony Xperia XZs.

Top 10 things to know about the Sony Xperia XZ Premium

A big, beautiful new phone, but it may not be worth the price.

Sony’s latest flagship is the Xperia XZ Premium, and it’s really nice. It’s one of those phones you don’t want to touch because it’s so nice to look at. You may also not want to touch it because the damn thing is incredibly shiny, exposing fingerprints as well as any mirror. And it may not be worth buying because, well, there are just better devices out there at a lower price.

Interested in this phone? Here are a few things you need to know about Sony’s best phone ever.

This is the second 4K phone, and the first with HDR

Sony debuted the 4K smartphone in 2015 with the Xperia Z5 Premium, and this year’s follow-up has a better, brighter 5.5-inch 4K panel with a trick up its sleeve: HDR support.

Content that supports HDR — High Dynamic Range — will look more vivid and colorful on the XZ Premium’s 4K display. Let’s just hope that Netflix updates its app to support the Premium’s setup because we need some of that streaming goodness on here.

It may be only the second phone to launch with the Snapdragon 835

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 is one of the most anticipated updates to phone chips in a long time. Faster, more efficient, with better support for VR, high-speed LTE, and smarter cameras, the Sony Xperia XZ Premium may be only the second device to launch with the chip after the Samsung Galaxy S8.

A phone with a 4K needs a powerful SoC inside. The Xperia Z5 Premium was powered by the troubled Snapdragon 810, and while it didn’t have performance problems, it also didn’t upscale a lot of content. Sony says that this year’s follow-up will take it upon itself to do just that, and that’s mainly because the Snapdragon 835 can take the hit without affecting the battery too harshly.

The new camera isn’t all new

People don’t buy phones; they buy cameras that connect to the internet. Sony understands this, and has designed its devices around the camera experience for years. But as much as it’s tried to outdo the likes of Samsung, LG and Apple, it continues to come up short.

Sony thinks the XZ Premium has what it takes to beat the competition in 2017 with a new “Motion Eye” camera setup that lowers the resolution from 23 megapixels to 19 while increasing the size of the individual pixels, ensuring improved low-light results. At the same time, a new connection between the camera sensor and the phone’s memory allows for caching of photos — predictive capture, as it’s called — five times faster than any previous Sony phone, so no frames are lost during quick-shutter action shots.

That same new setup also allows for the new 960fps slow motion mode, which looks to deliver outstanding results. I can’t wait to use this.

The glass backs are reflective af

Seriously, this is the most reflective phone I’ve ever seen. The Luminous Chrome variant is the worst offender, offering an easily-tarnished mirror finish that shows off every fingerprint.

As long as you’re not too particular, and walk around with a microfiber cloth in your bag or pocket, the Xperia XZ Premium could stay pristine, but it’s likely to pick up hairline scratches pretty quickly — a problem with all phones, but exacerbated by the reflectiveness of the Gorilla Glass 5.

There’s still no fingerprint sensor in the U.S.

Seriously Sony, this is getting ridiculous. While the company won’t divulge the reason for the feature’s continued omission in its most underserved market, we’re getting a little tired. This is an essential feature, both for security and convenience, and the longer we go without it, the less likely we are to recommend phones. Especially one that’s likely approaching $900.

It’s water resistant and dustproof

Like most Sony phones of the last few years, the Xperia XZ Premium is IP68 water resistant and dustproof. The ratings mean you can submerge the phone in up to one meter for an extended period without incurring damage. And, of course, there are no port covers to worry about.

It runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat

We may be beyond it by the time the phone is released in late spring — late May, early June — the Xperia XZ is currently certified for Android 7.1.1 Nougat, which means that it will support all the latest goodies from Google, including rounded icons, image keyboards, and more.

Sony’s skin continues to be very light and very fast, and there’s no question that the company has learned its lesson in deviating too far from Google’s recommendations. This isn’t Samsung; Sony doesn’t have the customer loyalty, nor the resources, to develop great custom skins, so the more it keeps to Google’s Android the better.

Indeed, the new launcher has Google Now to the left of the main home screen, a result of the deprecation of the Google Now Launcher and opening that feature up to manufacturers. Great to see Sony implementing it so quickly.

There’s no price or U.S. carrier information

Right now, the Xperia XZ Premium is coming to the U.S. in “late spring,” according to Sony, and it has no explicit price or U.S. carrier partners. Indeed, we’ve been told the phone won’t be sold at U.S. carriers, but will instead be offered unlocked on Amazon. That’s all well and good, but based on the smaller Xperia XZs’s price of $699.99, it’s easy to see this phone approaching $900. Whether people will be willing to spend that much on a large, shiny 4K phone remains to be seen.

You can capture slo-mo video at 960fps

Yup. Insane.

It may only be 720p, but think about the constrast between a regular 30fps capture and something as smooth as 960fps, slowed down to look great on this big, beautiful screen. I’m drooling just thinking about it.

You probably shouldn’t buy this phone in the U.S.

And then I consider buying one. Just think about the phone market right now. It’s chock full of unbelievably powerful, well-made phones delivering on promises of innovation year after year. Sony may be unveiling the Xperia XZ Premium before Samsung’s Galaxy S8, but it’s almost certainly going to be available well afterwards — well after Samsung has sucked up all the air in the proverbial room and convinced millions of customers to upgrade, including many Sony Xperia users.

Sony is in a tough position. It knows it makes good phones, but it also understands that its strategy of consistent iterative updates leaves some people cold; it’s more akin to an annual car refresh than a big-time reveal. The Xperia XZ Premium is likely a great phone — it’s certainly striking, and quite attractive — but there’s no way the camera will be as good as the Galaxy S8’s, nor its battery as long-lasting as the Huawei Mate 9.

With a price almost certainly approaching $900, and no fingerprint sensor in the U.S., you may want to give this one a pass.

Sony’s four new phones are beautifully made, terribly named

Sony unveils four more phones — can you keep track of its lineup anymore?

Sony has a phone problem. It keeps announcing replacements for phones that no one bought, or couldn’t buy, or refused to buy because they lack a fingerprint sensor.

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, Sony has added four new phones to its ecosystem, all with names that are sure to confound its eventual owners and detractors alike. One only, the Xperia XZ Premium, is truly interesting — it has a 4K display that supports HDR — while the other three, the Xperia XZs, Xperia XA 1, and Xperia XA 1 Ultra, have a few notable features inside iterative spec sheets and limited availability, especially in the U.S.

We’ll start with the most interesting. The Xperia XZ Premium takes the shell of the XZ announced last September and increases the size. Its 5.5-inch display has a 4K resolution, and it’s one of the nicer displays we’ve ever seen on a phone. In fact, this one is compatible with the latest HDR specifications, meaning that it will output supported content in more vivid colors with better dynamic range. Built with a double-anodized metal frame, both the front and back are outfitted with Gorilla Glass 5, and each of the two colors — Deep Sea Black and Luminous Chrome — shimmer off the glass back in a parade of reflectiveness. This is possibly the most mirror-like phone ever created.

To reinforce its high-end target demographic, the phone comes with a brand new Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage standard. It’s IP68 water and dust resistant, and in all markets but the U.S. has a side fingerprint sensor. Basically, if you’ve used the Xperia Z5 Premium, this looks remarkably similar, but for the rounded top and bottom, and a nicer-looking camera array.

That camera, which Sony says is all new in the Xperia XZ Premium, is once again the art of iteration. This book could have been written two years ago. A Sony IMX300 sensor — the same one found inside that aforementioned Xperia X5 Premium — has been slightly altered for this device, lowering the megapixel count from 23 to 19, affecting the size of the pixels to offer better low-light performance.

This is possibly the most mirror-like phone ever created.

And while there’s no OIS in here, Sony claims that its new 5-axis stabilization system, known as SteadyShot, should do the trick.

The other trick is “Motion Eye”, a way of increasing bandwidth between the camera and the phone’s memory bus by five times, allowing for a surfeit of incoming data. That allows for predictive capture — the idea of caching frames while the viewfinder is open and only capturing the four frames around the shutter button — in addition to the absolutely insane 960fps slow-motion feature, though only at 720p.

These are great features, but nothing particularly noteworthy — and we’re always suspect of Sony’s camera claims until we have the phone in hand; we’re been burned too many times before — and Sony, because of the dearth of Snapdragon 835s in the market right now, isn’t shipping the Premium until late spring, likely late May or early June.

There’s no price right now, either, but based on the $699.99 price tag of the other flagship being launched this week, the Xperia XZs, we’re not holding out for anything below $850.

That Xperia XZs is still a great-looking phone, but it’s less interesting than then Premium model. That’s because it’s a minor refresh of the Xperia XZ announced just six months ago.

In his review of the Xperia XZ, Alex Dobie called it plainly:

The problem for Sony, like so many other Android manufacturers, is the fact that Samsung’s absolutely crushing it this year. Sony’s camera is great, but it’s not the best. Same deal with its screen, its build quality and its battery life. And U.S. buyers once again get the short end of the stick, as Sony cheaps out on fingerprint security.

Oh, that’s right, neither the Xperia XZ Premium nor the XZs have fingerprint sensors in then U.S. Phones sold in the rest of the world get the feature, but it’s still an inexplicably omission, one that Sony refuses to justify.

The Xperia XZs looks exactly the same as its predecessor — same design, 1080p display — but comes with a slightly more robust 4GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage to augment the Snapdragon 820 processor. The new 19MP “Motion Eye” camera is here, too. Both it and the Xperia XZ Premium will run Android 7.1.1 at launch, with Sony’s increasingly tolerable

The Xperia XZs will be available in the U.S. unlocked at Best Buy and Amazon for $699.99 starting on April 5.

Sony’s two other devices announced at Mobile World Congress are less interesting but could prove considerably more popular. The Xperia XA 1 is a follow-up to the popular 5-inch device released last year, and the borderless 720p display is now powered by a MediaTek Helio P20 processor, an improvement over the P10 of the original. There’s also 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, nice bumps from last year, too.

A new 23MP rear shooter has trickled down from more expensive Xperia X series devices as well, making the $299.99 Xperia XA 1 a nice upgrade when it goes on sale May 1 at Best Buy, Amazon, and B&H Photo.

Finally, a larger version of the XA 1, affixed with Ultra, will debut in late spring. The 6-inch 1080p display is the showpiece here, and there’s no question that the device is more compact for it, but this is still a big phone. The phone has the same specs as the XA 1 but for the optically stabilized 16MP front-facing camera, which also comes with an LED flash.

While it would be easy to dismiss these phones as simple evolutions on existing designs, Sony clearly understands where its strengths are these days and is heavily playing into them. The Xperia XZ Premium brings back the high-end flash of the Xperia Z5 Premium while pushing display technology forward to support HDR, while embracing the latest generation SoC from Qualcomm. The other three phones are nice upgrades, but will most likely get lost in the shuffle of a very competitive handset market.

See at Sony

ZTE’s Blade V8 Lite and V8 Mini are two new phones meant for the youths

Are you a young millennial? ZTE’s latest mid-range devices are equipped with the hardware you’ll need for living your very best life.

ZTE is launching two new Android-powered smartphone from its youth-oriented line at MWC 2017. The Blade V8 Mini and Blade V8 Lite boast plenty of “features for young people” in addition to stylish metallic chassis.

The Blade V8 Mini sports the same 13-megapixel and 2-megapixel dual-rear cameras featured on the original Blade V8 Pro. It’s equipped with a refocus mode that lets you select the focus area after you’ve shot the photo. The Blade V8 Mini also supports 3D shooting, a manual mode, auto HDR, and a multiple camera mode. You can view all the pictures you shot on its 5-inch HD display.

Inside, the Blade V8 Mini runs on a decidedly low-end Snapdragon 435 with 2GB of RAM. It also has a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, as well as an unremovable 2,800mAh battery. There’s also an expansion slot if its 16GB of storage seems too meager for you. The Blade V8 Mini will run Android 7.0 out of the box.

The Blade V8 Lite is an even lower end product from ZTE. The camera on this one has been bumped down to one 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, though there’s still a 5-megapixel front-facing one. The VR Lite’s display is also 5-inches long, though it’s only 720p. It’s also packed with a MediaTek processor, 2GB of RAM, a 2,500mAh battery and 16GB of onboard storage, with the option to get more via expansion slot.

There are few launch details for the Blade V8 Mini and Blade V8 Lite. The V8 Mini’s launch will be in various markets across Asia Pacific and Europe, while the V8 Lite will be marketed towards European markets, namely Italy, Spain, and Germany.

Lenovo Tab 4 Series tablets, simple, cheap and cheerful fun for all the family

Lenovo has announced a series of tablets that are designed for the whole family and won’t break the bank.

The Lenovo Tab 4 Series consists of the Lenovo Tab 4 8, Tab 4 8 Plus, Tab 4 10 and Tab 4 10 Plus.

The Tab 4 8 and 10 are 8-inch and 10-inch entry-level devices respectively. They offer HD displays and quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. Both come with 2GB of RAM, so should be swift in operation, while stereo speakers on each come with Dolby Atmos moving audio support.

Every member of the family can set up and customise their own profile in order to tweak their own settings, wallpaper and social media accounts – such as Facebook and Instagram.

• Mobile World Congress 2017: Nokia, Sony, Huawei, smartphones and more

The Lenovo Tab 4 8 Plus and 10 Plus tablets also have 8-inch and 10-inch screens respectively, except they utilise Full HD IPS displays on the more premium models. The Plus versions also come with improved 64-bit 2.0GHz octa-core processors and 4GB of RAM. Fingerprint sensors are added for additional security.

Lenovo

Lenovo also offers accessories to adapt the Tab 4 Series devices for different uses. There is a Kid’s Pack, with a shock resistant bumper, blue-light filter and stickers. A separate Kid’s Account offers curated kid-friendly content, while parental controls can restrict how long a child can use the tablet for.

A Productivity Pack comes with a Bluetooth keyboard to turn the Tab 4 10 and Tab 4 10 Plus models into a 2-in-1 device.

The Lenovo Tab 4 8 starts at €169 (around £142), while the Lenovo Tab 4 10 starts at €179.

The Lenovo Tab 4 8 Plus retails for €259 and the Lenovo Tab 4 10 Plus comes in at €299.

All models are available in black or white and will be available from May 2017.