Sony’s mid-range Xperia X gets a smaller spin-off
The new Xperia XZ might be the flagship phone Sony loyalists have been waiting for, but Sony’s still hasn’t given up on making small smartphones. That’s where the Xperia X Compact comes in — it’s more enticing a package than you might think given the company’s recent batch of love-em-or-hate-em devices, and it’s set to land the United States on September 25.
Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ll have forgotten what it was like to hold a phone this small. The X Compact packs a 4.6-inch 720p display, and the rounded body that surrounds it is, in a word, charming. Adorable, even. Holding one of these things is sort of like holding a thinner, longer iPod mini, which I’m certainly not complaining about. It even has a satisfying sort of density to it, thanks in part to the 2,700mAh battery tucked away inside. The rest of the hardware tour will sound familiar: this pint-sized device has 32GB of storage, a microSD card slot, a USB Type-C port and a water-resistant chassis, just like the XZ.
As it turns out, the display is a real pro in bright daylight too — it’s bright and vivid without seeming oversaturated, and I never really found myself missing the added resolution of a 1080p screen. Performance seemed just as respectable during our brief bit of playtime. The X Compact runs with one of Qualcomm’s hexa-core Snapdragon 650 chipsets, 3GB of RAM and an Adreno 510 GPU. That’s the same setup as — what else? — the original Xperia X, and for the most part, it seemed just as responsive. I was half-hoping to see even smoother performance because of Sony’s modified software and because the phone has doesn’t have to drive as many pixels on that smaller display, but we’ll see how things pan out when final hardware makes the rounds.
Around the back, you’ll find the same 23-megapixel, “triple-sensing” camera Sony built into the high-end XZ. Basically, in addition to the predictive autofocus that came as part of each Xperia X series smartphone, the XZ and Compact also have laser autofocus modules and an RGB/IR sensor for more accurate white balance. I was surprised for a moment to see that Sony didn’t skimp on the camera here, but that was silly of me. If nothing else, Sony gets credit for not dramatically watering down their more compact devices. That dedication to a very specific subset of smartphones is part of what I like about Sony’s mobile operation so much, and the Xperia X Compact leaves a great first impression.
We’re still not sure how much it’ll cost when it starts shipping later this month, but stick around — we’ll give this thing the full review treatment as soon as we can.
We’re live all week from Berlin, Germany, for IFA 2016. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.
Huawei returns to the mid-range with the Nova and Nova Plus
By its own admission, Huawei has been concentrating on releasing the best smartphones it possibly can so far this year. First with the big-screened Mate 8, and more recently the flagship P9 (and variants). That’s why, at this year’s IFA, Huawei is turning its attention to the slightly more affordable end of the smartphone spectrum, today announcing the new mid-range Nova and Nova Plus handsets.
While neither device has any killer, standout feature to boast about, there aren’t any ugly blemishes jumping off the spec sheets. The Nova features a 5-inch, 1080p display, beneath which hides an octa-core 2GHz Snapdragon 625 chip, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage (up to 128GB microSD cards supported). You’re looking at a 12-megapixel primary camera with f/2.2 aperture, and an 8MP, f/2.0 shooter up front for selfies and such. A decent-sized 3,020mAh battery powers all that, with Huawei claiming it’s good for two days of consistent use.
Other notable elements include the Cat 6 LTE radio, fingerprint sensor, USB Type-C charging/data transfer port and dual-SIM support — though you’ll have to sacrifice the microSD expansion for a second SIM. Emotion UI (EMUI) 4.1, based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, runs the show, bringing with it Huawei’s familiar gamut of camera tricks such as light painting, time-lapse and slow motion modes, as well as the recent edition of a night display feature that filters blue light from the screen.
The Nova Plus, as you’ve probably concluded already, is the bigger of the pair and is basically the global version of the G9 Plus. Its 5.5-inch 1080p display is joined by a 16MP camera with optical image stabilization, and the larger form factor has also allowed Huawei to increase the size of the battery to 3,340mAh (keeping you going for 2.2 days, apparently). Otherwise, it’s identical to the Nova, at least on the inside.
Despite being mid-tier handsets, the Nova and Nova Plus — both available in silver, gray or gold — are built from aluminum like Huawei’s pricier devices. The bigger of the two isn’t the sexiest of handsets. The protruding, square camera hump with beady lens looks a little dated and unrefined. Also, though there isn’t an excess of bezel on either size of the display, the larger phone feels a bit unwieldy in comparison to the neat, compact 5-inch Nova.
In fact, the Nova is a pretty good-looking device — better designed, even, than Huawei’s flagship P9. The two are strikingly similar, but the Nova’s Nexus 6P-like design has slightly softer rounded corners and a circular fingerprint sensor that’s a bit more aesthetically pleasing than the sharper, square version. It’s thin, light, easy on the hands and all things considered, feels more polished and ‘premium’ in spite of it sitting below the P9 in Huawei’s smartphone hierarchy.
The Nova and Nova Plus will be available from early October for €399 and €429, respectively.
We’re live all week from Berlin, Germany, for IFA 2016. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.
Huawei’s MediaPad M3 features an 8.4-inch high-res display
Huawei didn’t make the trip to IFA with just a couple of new smartphones in hand, but a new slate too. Following the company’s overly ambitious attempt at a Surface-like device in the MateBook, we’re back to more standard tablet fare with the MediaPad M3 announced today. As the name suggests, the hardware is particularly geared towards media consumption, boasting an 8.4-inch, 2,560 x 1,600 display, Harman Kardon-certified stereo speakers and hi-res audio support.
The MediaPad M3 is driven by one of Huawei’s own Kirin 950 octa-core processors (four 2.3GHz cores plus four 1.8GHz cores), paired with 4GB of RAM and either 32 or 64 gigs of expandable storage (up to 128GB microSD cards supported). A 5,100mAh battery keeps the Netflix binge going, and a pair of 8-megapixel cameras are on hand when you absolutely must take a picture with a tablet.
The OS of choice is Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Huawei’s Emotion UI (EMUI) 4.1 on top, and in addition to all the standard connectivity options, there are cellular options with a nano-SIM card slot and LTE radio for getting data on the move.
Launching first on September 26th in several European countries (including the UK), as well as in parts of Asia and the Middle East, the base 32GB WiFi model will cost €349. The 64GB WiFi and 32GB LTE versions are priced at a slightly more expensive €399, with the €449 64GB LTE model rounding out the options.
We’re live all week from Berlin, Germany, for IFA 2016. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.
O2 wants to help you spread the cost of building a smart home
Although there are plenty of smart home solutions, deciding which platform to back can be hard. Do you invest in a product from a major brand like Google’s Nest or choose a startup that cares more about its products and services than parting you from more of your money? It’s a problem that UK companies like British Gas’ Hive have tried to solve with its mix of smart appliances, but mobile carrier O2 thinks it might have the solution. The operator today launched O2 Home, a new smart home subscription service that lets customers spread the cost of devices but also the support they may require.
O2 Home consists of three customisable 24-month packages. There’s Comfort, a £30 per month package that offers a Tado smart thermostat, two smart plugs and one presence sensor. For the same price, you can ditch the smart heating option and choose Home View, a security-focused package that comes bundled with Samsung camera, a wide view camera, one open and close sensor and one presence sensor. The last of the three is Home Connect, a £20 bundle that offers two presence sensors, two open and close sensors and two smart plugs. All of the packages come with O2’s own app-controlled Smart Hub as standard.
O2 Home doesn’t stop there, though. Each of the products can be bolted on to existing packages to fill any gaps in your connected home. You can choose from products like flood sensors, Powerline adaptors, indoor sirens and even Yale’s keyfree smart lock. The operator has decided not to incorporate those additional devices into its plans, which ramps the price up considerably. However, if you do invest in a camera solution, the monthly price covers 250MB of cloud-based video storage (enough for ten 15-second clips and 250 snapshots), 24-month device warranty and ten profiles for you and your family.
Initially, O2 Home will be available in selected parts of London before rolling out across the UK. To incentivise customers, the company is offering O2 Home free for the first year, as long as you order between September 1st and September 14th. They aren’t ready just yet but you’ll also be able to check out its installations in one of four O2 Home demo spaces, located in Westfield White City, Tottenham Court Road, Kingston and Watford.
Source: O2 Home
DJI’s new OSMO Mobile captures pro-level selfies
Shaky cam shots are great for indie horror films and Jason Bourne-esque action sequences, but less than ideal for filming your family’s holiday. With DJI’s latest addition to its popular line of handheld gimbals, you’ll be able to perform pans and tilts like a pro.
DJI unveiled the new Osmo Mobile at IFA in Berlin today, and it works much like its predecessor, which we were very impressed with. Except that, instead of using your phone as a viewfinder for an onboard 4K camera, the Mobile uses your phone as the camera.
What’s really cool is that the Mobile employs the same Active Track technology that we saw on the Phantom 4. This allows the gimbal to automatically keep the camera trained on your face so that you can capture selfies but still be present in the moment, rather than experiencing it through a viewfinder. What’s more, you’ll be able to capture time lapse videos, panoramic and long-exposure shots on your phone without so much as a tripod or slider. These feature run through the DJI GO app, which is available for both iOS and Android. You can even livestream to YouTube Live directly through the app.
I recently had the opportunity to mess around with the Osmo Mobile and came away only marginally impressed. The device uses a basic, adjustable vice clamp to hold onto your phone while it’s being stabilized and can accommodate a variety of phone sizes. A quick survey around the office found that iPhone 5’s, 6’s and 6S’s all fit — even my gigantor Nexus 6P worked. That said, don’t expect to go cramming a tablet in there. Also, why are you trying to take photos and video with your tablet. Stop that.
Mounting the phone is a challenge. The problem is that you have to position the phone within the vice grip so that it naturally balances atop the gimbal. Apparently, on my 6P, that sweetspot is the exact point where the grip presses the phone’s volume. Suddenly I’m faced with a choice of getting wonky, lopsided shots or muting my phone and continually staring at the Doe Not Disturb dropdown menu. It’s not quite as bad on an iPhone or if your device is in a case but the fact that the Mobile fails to work with a marquee model like the 6P straight out of the box seems a pretty significant oversight.
Once you do manage to get the camera mounted, you’ll need to open the GO app and pair your phone to the gimbal via a Bluetooth connection. That’s pretty straightforward on the existing app, but DJI insisted that we use a beta version so things were a bit weird. Like half of the installation was in Chinese and a “required” firmware update failed to download which consistently caused the app to crash and reboot. I will update this post once the new version of the app goes live in case this stuff is still happening.
Pairing your phone to the Mobile allows you to control the zoom and recording functions on your phone without having to actually tap on the screen. You will, however have to touch the screen to use the app’s manual ISO, shutter and white balance controls. The Mobile also allows you to control the pan and tilt of the camera using an integrated thumbstick. Additionally, you can set the gimbal to automatically isolate movement, recenter the camera and enter “selfie mode” which, as I said, autonomously tracks your face.
While I didn’t manage to run entirely through a battery charge during my time with the Osmo Mobile, according to DJI, it lasts up to 4.5 hours. Batteries can be hot-swapped and there is an external battery extender if you need it. That’s handy given that it takes 2.5 hours to recharge a battery using the included 1 amp charging cable. I should also point out that the DJI GO app utterly ravages your phone’s battery life. It ate through 20 percent of my 6P’s charge in just 10 minutes of filming so the gimbal’s power reserves probably aren’t your biggest concern. For all this, you’re going to pay $300 MSRP when it begins shipping in two weeks.
HTC One A9s dons a familiar metallic design and cheaper tag
Last year we were left impressed with HTC’s premium mid-range One A9 smartphone: It was a good-looking phone with great build quality and great battery life, plus it was one of the first to ship with Android Marshmallow. It was apparently so “well received” that HTC decided to release a follow-up model. The new and supposedly more affordable One A9s features a near-identical metallic design plus the same fingerprint sensor on the front, with the main aesthetic changes being the earpiece is now shorter, the proximity sensor is in the middle and the front HTC logo is gone. Eagle-eyed folks will notice that the old 5-inch 1080p AMOLED display is now just a 720p Super LCD, so it better be a noticeable price drop.
The cost-cutting doesn’t stop there. The 13-megapixel main camera here has gone from f/2.0 to a slower f/2.2 (it’s likely no longer using the same nice Sony sensor) but still comes with RAW support, whereas the old UltraPixel front camera is now just an ordinary 5-megapixel imager. The old Snapdragon 617 has been replaced with MediaTek’s octa-core Helio P10 (8x Cortex-A53), but it’s hard to tell whether this is an upgrade or a downgrade just yet. At least we know that we’ll still be getting Cat 6 LTE and NFC here, just no 802.11ac WiFi.
Depending on where you’re buying the A9s, you may get either 16GB or 32GB of internal storage plus 2GB or 3GB of RAM, and you can expand storage space via microSD (up to 2TB). The built-in battery has been gently bumped up to 2,300mAh but there’s no fast charging feature this time, so here’s hoping the A9s has at least inherited the same impressive battery life optimization from its predecessor. What we do wish HTC had changed was the USB port: We’re already entering the last quarter of 2016 and HTC is still using micro-USB instead of USB-C; but then again, we’re not exactly short in micro-USB accessories, and it’s probably the least of HTC’s target audience’s worries in this price segment.
Speaking of, we’re still left in the dark in terms of actual price points: We’re only told that the A9s “will be very competitively priced at the mid-tier,” which doesn’t mean much given HTC’s track record. If priced right, the A9s’ fancy metallic design may still be compelling enough to help drive sales before the year ends.
We’re live all week from Berlin, Germany, for IFA 2016. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.
FreedomPop’s free unlimited WhatsApp SIM comes to the UK
FreedomPop is famed for its free, barebones mobile plan, and for its next trick, the operator is mixing up the formula a little bit. Following a similar launch in the US, the provider’s new WhatsApp SIM has come to the UK, offering 200MB of data, 100 minutes and unlimited WhatsApp messaging each month completely free.
To be clear, any data traffic through WhatsApp doesn’t eat into that 200MB allowance, and better yet, the perk isn’t restricted to the UK. You can also use WhatsApp to your heart’s content in 30 other countries at no extra cost. The roaming aspect covers the US, most of Europe and the Asian countries of Bangladesh, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
If you’re hunting for a catch, then the lack of a text allowance could be considered one, though the idea is WhatsApp has you covered there. But should you send an SMS or three, you’ll be on the hook for overage charges. As FreedomPop is a data-driven service — the provider’s mobile apps handle standard calls and texts — you only need to worry about how much of that, single resource you’re chewing through on out-of-plan calls, texts and internet usage. Each additional megabyte costs 2 pence, though you can shell out £15 per 1GB upfront if you see yourself having a particularly active month.
If you feel like sending more money FreedomPop’s way, then as always you can bolt additional features onto your plan for a couple of quid each month, such as usage alerts, visual voicemail and extra, international (virtual) numbers. Stick to WhatsApp and within your free allowances, though, and you’re laughing. The new WhatsApp SIM is available now for nothing more than a £5 postage fee — an acceptable trade, we’re sure you’ll agree.
Source: FreedomPop
Lenovo’s Yoga Book is part tablet, part sketch pad
Let’s face it: Tablets are on the brink of death, and it’s difficult to get excited about a new slate these days. And even though tablet-laptop hybrids are taking off, that market is cornered by Surfaces and iPad Pros. So I wasn’t prepared to be as thrilled as I was by Lenovo’s latest offering. The Yoga Book, based on my experience with a preview unit, is not merely a mimicry of Microsoft’s Surface Book; it has impressively innovative features and a well-thought-out interface that make it a solid hybrid in its own right.
The Yoga Book has the same shiny “Watchband hinge” as Lenovo’s Yoga 900 convertible laptops, which makes the book’s spine look like links on a wristwatch. That, together with a metal casing and slim silhouette, lend the book a clean, modern aesthetic. I particularly like the gold version, which is only available for the Android variant that costs $499. A $549 Windows 10 model is also available, but that (disappointingly) only comes in black.
This book’s cover may be pretty, but what really impressed me lies beneath. The Yoga Book’s standout feature is its keyboard, which is essentially a giant touchpad. There are no physical buttons — just a flat surface with the outline of keys.
The absence of physical buttons helps the Yoga Book look and feel more like a regular tablet with a flat back when you unfold it all the way around. Plus, without the uneven surface, you can use the bottom half of the device as a stand, with the keyboard facing down. The hybrid is also a lot lighter (1.52 pounds) than it would have been with a full keyboard, although it’s still heavier than the Surface 3 (1.37 pounds without a keyboard).
But those aren’t the main reasons for doing away with keys. The real pièce de résistance is housed within the flat surface, and Lenovo calls it the “Create Pad.” Tap a button to the top right of the keyboard and the outlines disappear, leaving you with a blank canvas. It’s like a Wacom digitizer tablet that you can draw on with the included stylus.
Lenovo adapted Android 6.0 Marshmallow to automatically start recording your doodles in the company’s default note-taking app (which is the only app in the tablet that stores your input in the background) once you put the stylus to the touchpad. When you start writing, a small window pops up on the bottom right of the screen and captures your scrawls. This happens whether the tablet is awake or asleep, which is super convenient. It’s basically like having a piece of paper ready for you to write on whenever you need, and it worked well in our demo. But because the screen stays off when you’re writing while the Yoga Book is asleep, it’s hard to know what you’re jotting down.
Those who can’t give up their paper addiction, however, will love this next feature. With a little finesse and jiggling of the stylus’ nib with the included pen cap, you can pull out the nib and replace it with an ink cartridge to make a real pen. Oh, and did I mention that “Real Pen” is what Lenovo named this stylus?
With the ink nib, you can write on real paper for a more old-school experience. And if you place the paper on the Create Pad, whatever you scrawl there will also show up in the Yoga Book. I tried placing an inch-thick notebook on top of the surface and wrote on it with the Real Pen, and I was impressed when the system still detected my scribbles.
This won’t work with a regular pen, though; you’ll have to use the one Lenovo provides. It’s designed with Wacom’s “feel IT” tech that responds to the electromagnetic resonance (EMR) film built into the keyboard, which enables the real-time digitization.
All of this adds up to an experience that will delight and win over notetakers, and I’m incredibly stoked by what I’ve seen so far.
But I don’t think the Yoga Book will appeal to road warriors. Sure, the Windows version will run desktop apps and multiple apps simultaneously, making it suitable for productivity. The Android version has Lenovo’s multiwindow support (until it gets updated to Android Nougat, which has that feature baked in), so it can handle multitasking as well. The Yoga Book is powered by an Intel Atom x5 processor and has a generous 8500mAh battery that Lenovo said should last for up to 15 hours of general use. Its 10.1-inch 1920 x 1200 IPS display should also be a decent canvas for multimedia.
But for a 2-in-1 to truly facilitate productivity, it needs a real keyboard. Even though Lenovo thoughtfully designed the layout with more generously sized keys and spaces and implemented haptic feedback, predictive text and autocorrect (the latter two are only on the Android model), I still struggled to bang out more than a few words at once without a typo. Lenovo said it would take about two hours to get used to the new keyboard, but I’m not sure I believe that.
The stark change may alienate those who depend heavily on physical keys. For those people, Lenovo still has slightly more traditional hybrids. The company also unveiled a super thin Yoga 910 convertible laptop, which has a full-sized physical keyboard and bends all the way around to become a 14-inch tablet.
Still, Lenovo deserves props for making a bold, innovative move. As a lover of notebooks and real-life writing, I can’t deny that I’m incredibly excited to try out the Yoga Book in the real world. And for those who prefer pen and paper (I imagine that includes artists, designers and students), the Yoga Book is a compelling candidate that could trump the iPad Pro and Surface.
We’re live all week from Berlin, Germany, for IFA 2016. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.
Motorola’s new Moto Z Play is cheaper, but not compromised
Well, that was fast. It’s been just over a month since the Moto Z and Moto Z Force landed in the US and Motorola has already cooked up another phone to go with them. The new Moto Z Play is the last and least expensive member of the Moto Z Family, and you’ll be able to nab one for yourself in the US starting on September 8. Sounds all well and good, but here’s the big question: How does Motorola’s modular vision scale down to more modest smartphones? Pretty well, actually.
But first, a quick note. The Z Play will set you back $408 when it launches or $17 a month if you’re cool with installment plans. Unfortunately, Z Play is still going to be a Verizon exclusive in the US for at least a month or so. After that, you’ll be able to buy a fully unlocked version of the original, svelte Moto Z and the Z Play in October. One word: finally.
Moving on, the Moto Z Play packs an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 and 3GB of RAM. It’s a decidedly mid-range chip compared to the high-powered 820 Moto Z fans are used to, but it was still more than enough to keep things moving briskly. Swiping through apps, playing a few games, snapping on MotoMods all willy-nilly — none of this threw the Z Play for a loop.
Meanwhile, the 16-megapixel camera around the back churned out better shots than expected. For those of you keeping count, that’s actually a higher resolution than the super-slim Moto Z can shoot at, but I prefer the latter’s detail a little more. Shots taken with the Z Play were bright and had nicely rendered colors, though there were a few occasions where I got some strangely soft edges even in broad daylight. On the plus side, the camera packs a dual-focus system that leans both on phase detection and a laser-focusing module to quickly acquire targets.
The software situation was what you’d expect. As usual, Motorola gave us a mostly stock version of Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow festooned with its intelligent gesture tricks — think twisting the phone to launch the camera and waving your hand over the screen to see the time and your notifications. I didn’t notice any major differences in performance between the Z Play and the either of the other Moto Zs I had lying around — a testament to the power you can squeeze out of an ostensibly mid-range chip. And since it’s a Verizon device, expect plenty of bloatware to greet you: I counted 14 pre-loaded apps I wanted nothing to do with. (The Amazon and Audible apps are here as well, but at least they’re useful.)
Anyway, toss all that into a glass-and-metal body and throw in a bright 5.2-inch screen running at 1080p and you’ve got the Moto Z Play in a nutshell. It’s familiar, it’s cheap and — believe it or not — it’s a little more special than you’d think.
Its battery life is pretty insane, for one. The combination of the power-sipping Snapdragon 625, Marshmallow’s Doze feature and a 3,510mAh battery means the Z Play often stuck around for more than two days of pretty consistent mixed usage. If you’re an especially light user, expect to see it last for closer to four full days before needing a charge. Not bad at all. The battery here is actually a little bigger than the one in the US-only Moto Z Force, making it one of the biggest batteries Motorola has ever produced in a phone (only the earlier Moto X Force tops it, at 3,760mAh). Oh, and there’s another thing.
It has a headphone jack.
Some facepalmed when Motorola removed that classic port from the Moto Z and Moto Z Force, but the company remained steadfast. It’s the way of the future, they claimed, and other players would follow suit. (Hint: Motorola was talking about Apple). Motorola might be right about this sea change in audio interfaces, and to be fair, the USB Type-C dongles they included with those earlier Moto Zs worked just fine. Still, I had to ask: Doesn’t this look like Motorola’s trying to bounce back from a controversy? To hear Motorola’s spokespeople tell it, there’s a headphone jack here simply because the design of the Z Play’s logic board had room for it. That’s it. Motorola wasn’t compromising on its vision or responding to a backlash — spokespeople say the company saw an opportunity and went for it. Sounds like spin to me, but whatever, we’ve got a headphone jack again!
For now, the Z Play seems to strike a commendable balance between price and performance — stay tuned as we see if that first impression holds up.
We’re live all week from Berlin, Germany, for IFA 2016. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.
Lenovo’s two new tablets include a lower-cost Surface Pro rival
Lenovo’s hoopla at IFA may be focusing on its creative-minded Yoga Book, but there are two new bread-and-butter tablets that are worth your attention, too. The 12.2-inch Miix 510 is a Surface Pro-alike for people who want a reasonably speedy 2-in-1 Windows tablet, but aren’t willing to pay a premium. It sports a lower-resolution display than the Miix 700 (1,920 x 1,200) and is both heavier (1.9 pounds without the keyboard attached) and thicker (0.39 inches), but it promises to be more powerful. You can have up to a 6th-generation Core i7 processor inside rather than a Core M, and up to a 1TB SSD — if it weren’t for the maximum 8GB of RAM and 7.5 hours of battery life, the new Miix could easily go toe-to-toe with Microsoft’s current flagship slate. There’s even optional LTE data, which has been sorely missing on the Surface Pro line.
As it is, the pricing may make you forget the shortcomings. Lenovo hasn’t outlined the entry-level specs, but the Miix 510 will start at $600 when it ships in October. That’s inexpensive enough that you might just get a higher-end model and still undercut its Microsoft equivalent.
Oh, and Android fans? Lenovo hasn’t forgotten about you. It’s also unveiling the Yoga Tab 3 Plus, a 10.1-inch Android Marshmallow slate that slots neatly between the no-frills Yoga Tab 3 and its higher-end Pro counterpart. You get the Pro’s 2,560 x 1,600 display, 13-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel front cam and 32GB of expandable storage, and there’s even more RAM (3GB versus 2GB). However, this is otherwise a decidedly mid-range tablet– you’ll find a quad-core Snapdragon 652 processor and a slightly less capable 9,300mAh battery. You should still net an estimated 18 hours of battery life, though, and the Yoga Tab 3 series’ signature rotating stand (complete with a hole for hanging from the wall) remains intact.
Appropriately, you’re getting a middling price. The Plus will arrive in October for $300, or $100 more than the basic Yoga Tab 3 but well below the $500 of the Pro. If you like Lenovo’s take on Android tablet design, this is probably the sweet spot.
Update: We added hands-on pictures of the Miix 510 hybrid. As expected, it is clearly inspired by the Surface Pro, though the device doesn’t feel as premium as Microsoft’s. That said, we’ll see how it holds up once we test it in a more private setting, not on a demo table where dozens of other journalists are trying to pry it away from you. Unfortunately, Lenovo didn’t have the Yoga Tab 3 on display, but we’re told we might get a chance to see it in person later this week.
Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.
We’re live all week from Berlin, Germany, for IFA 2016. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.
Source: Lenovo
AIVAnet 