Weekly Roundup: Xiaomi Redmi 5, Redmi 5 Plus, Honor 7X, Huawei Nova 2s and more


Xiaomi Redmi 5 and Redmi 5 Plus

This week Xiaomi introduced the Redmi 5 and Redmi 5 Plus smartphones, Huawei’s Honor brand launched the Honor 7X smartphone and also introduced the Honor View 10, OPPO launched the F5 Youth smartphone and more in our weekly roundup.

This week Xiaomi announced the Redmi 5 and Redmi 5 Plus smartphones. The Redmi 5 has a 5.7-inch HD+ 18:9 full-screen display, is powered by Snapdragon 450 and packs a 3300mAh battery, while the Redmi 5 Plus comes with a 5.99-inch FHD+ 18:9 full-screen display, is powered by Snapdragon 625 and packs a 4000mAh battery. Both these run Android 7.1.2 (Nougat) with MIUI 9.

Xiaomi Redmi 5

These have a 12-megapixel rear camera with 1.25μm pixel size sensor and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with selfie flash. There is a fingerprint sensor on the back.  The Redmi 5 starts at  799 yuan (US$ 120 / Rs. 7,795 approx.) for the base version and the high-end Redmi 5 Plus costs  1299 yuan (US$ 195 / Rs. 12,675 approx.). Both these will be available in China starting from December 12th.

Honor 7X_fonearena-20

Huawei’s Honor brand launched the most Honor 7X smartphone at a global event in London. It packs a 5.93-inch Full HD+ 18:9 2.5D curved glass display with minimal bezels, is powered by an Octa-Core Kirin 659 processor and has a 16-megapixel rear camera with a 2-megapixel secondary camera along with an 8-megapixel front camera.

The Honor 7X comes in Black, Blue and Gold colors and is priced at Rs. 12,999 for the 32GB storage version and the 64GB storage version costs Rs. 15,999. It will be available exclusively on Amazon.in. We recently unboxed the phone, check it out here.

Honor View 10_fonearena-4

It also introduced the Honor View 10 smartphone, which is the global version of the Honor V10. It has similar specifications including a 5.99-inch 18:9 FullView display with ultra narrow bezels, Octa-Core HiSilicon Kirin 970 10nm SoC with i7 co-processor, dedicated neural network processing unit and Android 8.0 (Oreo) with Emotion UI 8.0 on top.

Honor View 10_fonearena-6

It  comes in Black and Blue colors, is priced at 499 Euros (US$ 589 / Rs. 37,955 approx.) in Europe and £449 in UK (US$ 604 / Rs. 38,880 approx.) and will roll out in United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Italy, Russia, Spain and United States starting from January 8, 2018. Check out the hands-on impressions here.

Huawei Nova 2s

Huawei this week announced the Nova 2s smartphone. It has a 6-inch Full HD+ 18:9 display, is powered by an Octa-Core HiSilicon Kirin 960 SoC with IntelliSense i6 sensor hub and runs on Android 8.0 (Oreo) with EMUI 8.0. It has a 16-megapixel RGB camera sensor along with a 20-megapixel monochrome sensor with f/1.8 aperture for capturing depth information and also has portrait mode.

It also has a 20-megapixel front-facing camera along with a secondary 2-megapixel camera for depth of field bokeh effect along with a selfie flash and also has support for face recognition. It has a shiny glass back, fingerprint sensor on the front and packs a 3340mAh battery with support for 9V/2A fast charging.

It comes in Black, Gray, Red, Rose Gold and Blue colors, is priced at 2699 yuan (US$ 408 / Rs. 26,350 approx.) for the 4GB RAM with 64GB storage version and 2999 yuan (US$ 454 / Rs. 29,265 approx.) for the 6GB RAM with 64GB storage version.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845

Qualcomm at its second annual Snapdragon Technology Summit announced Snapdragon 845, its next-generation Mobile Platform for mobile devices that is manufactured on second generation 10LPP process from Samsung. It promises immersive multimedia experiences including eXtended reality (XR), on-device artificial intelligence (AI), lightning-fast connectivity, and also has new secure processing unit (SPU) to offer the best security for premium, flagship mobile devices.

It has new Kryo 385 architecture, built on ARM’s DynamiQ CPU cluster organization to offer 25% better performance across gaming, application launch times, and performance intensive applications compared to the previous generation.  It will be available in early 2018 powering devices such as smartphones, XR headsets and always connected PCs. Xiaomi has confirmed that its next flagship will be powered by Snapdragon 845.

ASUS NovaGo_fonearena-6

Asus introduced NovaGo , the world’s first Gigabit LTE capable Windows convertible laptop powered by the Snapdragon 835 at Qualcomm’s second annual tech summit. It has a 13.3-inches Full HD (1920×1080) IPS display with 78% screen to body ratio, 10-point multi-touch, ASUS Pen support with 1024 pressure levels. It is powered by the 2.45GHz Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile PC Platform with 710 MHz Adreno 540 GPU. The NovaGo runs on the latest Windows 10s operating system. It comes with 360º hinge design and weighs in at 1.39 kgs.

It is priced at $599 (Rs. 38611.84 approx.) for the 4GB RAM with 64GB storage model and the high-end 8GB RAM with 128GB storage costs $799 (Rs. 51,507.54 approx).  It will be available in US, UK, Italy, France, Germany, China, Taiwan in the first wave. In the US, it will be available through T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon. Check out the hands-on impressions here.

HP Envy x2_fonearena-1

HP introduced Envy x2 PC  2-in-1 powered the Snapdragon 835 at Qualcomm’s second annual tech summit. It has a 12.3-inches WUXGA+ display with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection, is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile PC Platform Octa-Core processor with up to 8 GB LPDDR4X memory and up to 256 GB storage.  It runs on the Windows 10s operating system with the one-time option to switch to Windows 10 Pro and weighs just 699 grams

It Qualcomm Integrated X16 LTE with Cat 16 download speed of up to 1 Gbps. . It will be available in Spring 2018, and the pricing and mobile carriers will be revealed when it goes on sale. Check out the hands-on impressions here.

LG Signature Edition

LG announced Signature Edition, a premium smartphone in the new ‘LG SIGNATURE’ series in Korea. It is made of premium materials such as  zirconium ceramic back cover that prevents scratches. Customers can also engrave their name on the back of the phone.

Other specifications are similar to the V30 including a 6-inch QHD+ OLED FullVision display, Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform and, 16-megapixel primary rear camera with f/1.6 aperture, Crystal Clear lens along with a 13-megapixel secondary camera with 120-degree wide-angle lens. It comes with 6GB RAM and 256GB storage along with an expansion slot, has IP68 ratings for water and dust resistance and packs a 3,300mAh battery. It comes in Black and White colors.

OPPO F5 Youth

OPPO launched F5 Youth smartphone, a cheaper version of the phone. It has a similar display and comes with A.I. beauty recognition technology that scan 200 facial recognition spots to beautify a selfie shot perfectly and also offers bokeh effect along with Face unlock, but this has a 16-megapixel front camera and a 13-megapixel rear camera.

It comes in Black and Gold colors and is priced at Rs. 16,990 and is available through online and offline stores across the country.

Micromax Canvas Infinity Pro

Micromax launched Canvas Infinity Pro, successor of Canvas Infinity . It has a 5.7-inch HD+ 2.5D curved glass screen with 18:9 aspect ratio and minimal bezels and runs on Android Nougat, is powered by an Octa-Core Snapdragon 430 Mobile Platform and comes with a 20-megapixel front-facing camera along with a secondary 8-megapixel camera offering Portrait Mode that blur the background in selfie images.

It comes in Black color, is priced at Rs. 13,999 and is available exclusively from Flipkart.

Kult Ambition

Kult has launched Ambition, another budget smartphone in the country. It has a 5-inch HD on-cell display, is powered by a quad-core MediaTek MT6737 SoC, runs on Android 7.0 (Nougat), has a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and an 5-megapixel front-facing camera that also has an LED flash for capturing better selfies even in low lighting conditions.

It has Dual SIM support with dedicated dual SIM and SD card slots, 4G VoLTE support and has a fingerprint sensor on the back. It comes in Black color, is priced at Rs. 5999 and will be available exclusively from Amazon.in starting from December 11th.


Author: Srivatsan Sridhar

Srivatsan Sridhar is a Mobile Technology Enthusiast who is passionate about Mobile phones and Mobile apps. He uses the phones he reviews as his main phone. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram