Reliance Jio introduced triple cashback offer earlier this month to counter incumbent telecom operators telecom tariff plans. The offer went live on November 10, and was supported to end November 25. However, Jio has extended the Triple Cashback offer until December 15, 2017. The benefits remain unchanged.
Same as before, Jio customers who purchase Rs. 399 plan and above from MyJio app or Jio's website will get cashback of Rs. 400 in the form of eight vouchers of Rs. 50. Cashback vouchers will be provided instantly in MyJio app and can be redeemed when making future Jio recharges.
Next up, Jio is offering instant cashback of up to Rs. 300 for new customers (up to Rs. 149 for existing customers) on every recharge made through Jio's partner wallet platform including AmazonPay, AxisPay, FreeCharge, Mobikwik, Paytm and PhonePe.
Lastly, Jio has teamed up with several e-commerce brands such as AJIO, Yatra and Reliance Trends to offer additional benefits in the form of special vouchers worth Rs. 1,899. AJIO voucher offers customers Rs 399 off on a minimum purchase of Rs. 1500 at ajio.com. Yatra.com voucher offer Jio customers Rs. 1000 discount on all round trip domestic flight tickets and a discount of Rs. 500 on one-way tickets. Reliancetrends.com vouchers offer customer instant discount of Rs. 500 for purchase worth Rs. 1,999.
Alcatel is releasing two new smartphone in India: the A5 LED, that was first introduced at MWC 2017, and A7, which debut at IFA. Both are mid-range smartphones, but the most interesting one is the A5 LED.
The Alcatel A5 LED has a semi-modular design and is said to be the world's first interactive LED-covered smartphone. It comes with LIGHTUP+ MOD, which is basically a snap-on rear cover embedded with an array of LEDs which light up dynamically and produce unique patterns for notifications like incoming calls, messages, social media alerts and alarms. The removable rear cover, snaps to the phone body and interfaces with the hardware via spring-loaded pins.
In terms of specifications there is nothing special, as it packs entry-level specs. The A5 LED has 5.2-inch HD display, 1.5GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6572 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, 8MP/5MP cameras and 2800mAh battery. The dual-SIM phone runs the now dated Android Marshmallow, and supports 4G VoLTE. It also has home button, but no fingerprint scanner.
As for the Alcatel A7, it offers beefier specs than A5 LED. It features 5.5-inch Full HD display and is powered by 1.5GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6750T processor backed by Mali T860 GPU and 4GB RAM. On-board storage is 32GB, which can be expanded via microSD card.
It has 16MP rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, and 8MP front facing camera assisted by LED flash. It runs Android Nougat, supports 4G VoLTE, NFC and packs a beefy 4000mAh battery. Fingerprint scanner is also part of the package.
Coming to the pricing, the Alcatel A5 LED is priced at Rs. 12,999 and is available exclusively from Amazon India in Metallic Silver color. There's also an optional 3100mAh Power+ PC01C MOD accessory that will set you back by Rs. 3,999. The Alcatel A7 on the other hand is also exclusively available from Amazon India for Rs. 13,999 in Metallic Gold and Metallic Black color. Alcatel is also offering free TCL moveband fitness tracker worth Rs. 2,499 with the purchase of the handset.
Additionally, both Alcatel A5 LED and A7 comes with one-time free screen replacement, exchange offers, no-cost EMIs and up to 20GB additional data (5GB data per month for four months) from Reliance Jio.
The rumors were true. Amazon India has finally launched its Echo smart speaker line up in India, including the all-new Echo, the Echo Dot and Echo Plus.
The Echo devices are integrated with Amazon's voice assistant Alexa, and you can give voice commands to perform various action. Alexa for India has been customized to better understand local pronunciations and intonation. It can also recognize non-English places, music titles, and names as well as local knowledge.
Amazon said that third party developers in the country are building new, localized skills for Alexa. At launch over 10,000 skills will be available for customers in India including streaming music from Savvan, getting news update from Times of India and NDTV, getting latest cricket score from ESPN Cricinfo, booking cab on Uber or Ola and ordering food from Freshmenu and Zomato. You'll also be able to book flights on Ibibo, control Philips Hue and Syska Rainbow LED lights and more.
The company also plans to bring Prime Music to the country soon, and it will be available as an exclusive preview on Echo, and promises to provide huge catalogue of songs and an ad-free experience.
Amazon Echo Dot
The Echo Dot is a tiny speaker with a puck-sized shape, and has built in speaker. It features 0.6-inch tweeter and can also connect to other devices wirelessly over Bluetooth or via a wired connection using 3.5mm auxiliary cable. It comes in Black and White color.
Amazon Echo
It sports a cylindrical shape and is equipped with 2.5-inch downward-firing woofer, Dolby Digital and uses Amazon's far-field microphone technology and noise cancellation to pick up voice commands accurately from across the room. It also include an auxiliary jack for connecting external speaker.
Amazon Echo Plus
It is a premium smart speaker that also functions as a smart home hub to make it easy to connect to compatible smart home appliances. It can automatically discover compatible smart devices without the need of additional hubs or apps, using a simple voice command "Alexa, discover my devices". At launch it will only work with Philips Hue’s Zigbee products
It is equipped with 2.5-inch downward-firing woofer and 360-degree omni-directional audio backed by Dolby processing, to deliver deeper bass and crisper high notes for enhanced audio experience. Similar to the Echo, the Echo Plus is equipped with far-field technology for noise cancellation, to detect the wake word from across the room even in the noisiest parts of your home. All Echo devices has music playback controls at the top.
The
Eco Dot is the most affordable device of the lot carrying a price tag
of Rs. 4,499. The second-generation speaker has been priced at Rs.
9,999, and the Echo Plus will set you back by Rs. 14,999. All three
products will be available on an invite-only basis with an introductory
discount of 30 percent (plus one year Prime membership), and will begin
shipping from October 30.
Motorola is gearing up to launch a new ultra-affordable smartphone series the Moto C, aimed at first time smartphone buyers. Earlier today, renders of the phone hit the interwebs along with rumored specs.
But now, Evan Blass has shared a new render that shows the Moto C in four colors - White, Black, Gold and Red and revealed the entire specs sheet of the phone. According to Blass the Moto C will arrive as two models ― Moto C and Moto C Plus in multiple variants (only Moto C), depending on the market.
Both phones will have capacitive touch buttons below the display, front facing LED flash and circular camera module at the back, which will house the LED flash. They will have dual-SIM slots & microSD card card slot, support VoLTE and run Android Nougat out of the box.
Coming to the specs, the Moto C will sport 5-inch FWVGA 854x480 pixels display and will be available in two variants ― 3G and 4G. The 3G variants be equipped with 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek 32-bit processor and 8GB storage, while the 4G variant will have 1.1GHz quad-core MediaTek 64-bit processor. Other specs include 1GB RAM, 5MP rear camera, 2MP front camera and 2350mAh battery.
The Moto C Plus will feature the same 5-inch screen, but come with higher HD or 720p resolution display, 1.3GHz quad-core 64-bit MediaTek processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, 8MP/2MP cameras and 4000mAh battery.
Unfortunately the pricing of the phones are not known, but considering the specs, they should be priced below $80 (Rs. 5,200). An official announcement can be expected soon.
Source
Gionee at MWC 2017, introduced the camera-cenrtic Gionee A1 and A1 Plus smartphones. Today the company has launched the Gionee A1 in India. Unfortunately the pricing of the phone was not revealed, however, it will be up for pre-orders starting March 31. The price will be announced closer to release date.
The main highlight of Gionee A1 is its selfie camera. It boasts 16MP f/2.0 front camera assisted by selfie flash, so that selfies taken in low-light conditions will be clear. The main camera unit is a 13MP Sony IMX258 sensor accompanied by PDAF and LED flash.
As for the other specs, the Gionee A1 features 5.5-inch Full HD display, 1.8GHz octa-core MediaTek P10 chip, 4GB RAM and 64GB storage which can be expanded via microSD card. Running Android Nougat, it has 4G LTE, dual-SIM support, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS. A 4010mAh battery keeps it running, which is supported by 18W rapid fast charging, promising a fully charged phone in less than two hours.
The Gionee A1 includes a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, and flaunts an all-metal unibody design that comes in Black, Grey or Gold colors.
The next generation of Asus ZenFone series may come with fingerprint sensors. A report for Digitimes citing Taiwan-based supply chain firms, suggests that the third generation of Asus ZenFone smartphones will be the company's first set of devices to feature fingerprint recognition technology and are slated for May-June 2016 release.
The report claims that Asus is likely to adopt fingerprint recognition solutions developed by Taiwan-based Elan Microelectronics and China-based Goodix for the ZenFone 3 series. Previous gen ZenFone smartphones did not include fingerprint scanner.
According to Taiwan based supply chain the share of smartphones with
fingerprint scanners will rise from the current 30 percent to 50
percent. This is because the prices of these sensors are expected to
drop and soon hit $5 a unit. While the fingerprint scanner technology is
found in high-end models only, a surge of production has led to the
aforementioned price decline, allowing, mid-range smartphone
manufacturers to include this feature. Asus is looking forward to use this technology on its devices.
The Taiwanese handset maker has received tremendous response for the ZenFone range especially in Southeast Asia, India, Brazil, Russia and Taiwan and is looking to expand its business to more markets including Myanmar, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Egypt and Nigeria next year.
Asus expects to ship 20 million smartphones in 2015 and aim to ship at least 30 million units in 2016. Sources also add that Asus may face stiff competition from Chinese handset makers including Xiaomi, Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo, Vivi, Meizu, Coolpad, ZTE and TCL in emerging markets including India.
Via
According to a new published report, Intel is said to be developing a system-on-chip (SoC) specifically for Apple iPhone 7. For this Intel has deployed over a thousand people working on the Intel 7360 LTE modem for the next generation of Apple iPhones.
The report states that the Intel 7360 LTE modem, which supports 4G LTE and 3G CDMA networks, could arrive on the new gen of iPhones. Intel's 7360 LTE modem chip features up to 450MB/s downlink and it supports 29 LTE bands. The Intel modem chip is said to be used on some of the iPhone 7 models, instead of Qualcomm, which the company has been using for years.
Apple may dual-source the LTE modems in its new iPhones from both Intel and Qualcomm, like its A9 chip (Samsung and TSMC) added the report.
Apple and Intel is yet to officially confirm the partnership. As of now
both companies have exchanged words and work is already underway. Apple
will be sending some of its engineers to work with Intel. Apple would design the SoC, which could carry an Apple branding, and would license the LTE modem intellectual property from Intel for SoC.
The latest Apple's smartphone, the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have A9 Chips inside, manufactured by TSMC and Samsung, while Qualcomm's 9X45 LTE chip has been the modem of Apple iPhones.
Few years ago Infineon, a German semiconductor company who supplied the iPhone with 3G modems before
it was acquired by Intel in 2011 and Apple made Qualcomm its modem
supplier.
Apple's end goal is to have a future system-on-chip (SoC) capable of holding both the processor and the LTE modem on a single small, fast, and power efficient component. If all goes well the fabrication of these chips can fall into Intel's hand.
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