Weekly Roundup: Google Pixel, Pixel XL, Apple iPhone 7, 7 Plus India launch, new Moto Z price and more


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This week Google finally unveiled its flagship Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones at its Keynote event in San Francisco. Also, the company alongside announced next upgrade of the Chromecast, Google-branded WiFi router, Daydream VR headset and the Google Home speaker.

First the two Pixel smartphones. These come in different screen sizes – a 5-inch and a 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED display, rest everything else is the same. These are powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 821 processor and runs on Android 7.1 (Nougat), have a 12-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera.

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The Google Pixel and Pixel XL comes in Quite Black, Very Silver and limited edition  U.S. only Really Blue colors. These will be available for pre-order in India starting from October 13th starting at Rs. 57,000 compared to $649 in the US, which converts to about Rs. 43,190. Check the India Pricing here.

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These will be available for pre-order in India on Flipkart and will also be available from Reliance Digital, Croma and other stores offline.
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Google’s new Chromecast Ultra is their first Chromecast device with support for 4K Ultra HD and High Dynamic Range (HDR) support. It is also faster than the earlier Chromecasts and has better dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac support. The company claimes it to be the fastest Chromecast yet.

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The Chromecast Ultra will be available in November for $69 (Rs. 4595 approx.) from the Best Buy, Google Store, Target, and Walmart in the U.S., as well as from international retailers in 15 more countries.

The Google WiFi home router is an expandable system that lets you add Google WiFi points in a large room thanks to the mesh WiFi technology. It works with a companion app that is available on Android or iOS. The app lets you pause WiFi on kids’ devices and shows you which devices are connected and how much bandwidth they are using and lets you prioritize devices within your network. Check full details here.

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Google Wifi will be available for pre-order in the U.S. in November. It will retail for $129 for a single pack, and $299 for a three-pack at the Google Store, Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart.

The Daydream View VR headset is powered by Android 7.0 Nougat. It is made out of soft micro fiber and Google says it had worked with clothing designers for the design.

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It comes with the Daydream controller and can be slide right inside the headset when not in use. It supports apps like YouTube, Street View, Play Movies and Google Photos. The Daydream View VR headset along with the controller is priced at $69 and will be available starting November.

The Google Home WiFi smart speaker was first introduced at Google I/O conference earlier in May. The speaker lets you enjoy music, manage everyday tasks and ask Google questions via voice commands. You can use “Ok Google” command to play or stream music using Google Play Music, Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn and YouTube Music directly. Check more details.

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Google Home will be available in stores starting in November or you can pre-order yours today for $129 from the Google Store, Best Buy, Target and Walmart.

Apple at last launched the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus smartphones in India, after it went on pre-order last week through offline Apple authorized online resellers, online authorized online reseller Flipkart and also from Amazon.in

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To remind you, both the new iPhones are powered by an Apple A10 Fusion chip and have water and dust resistant body with IP67 ratings. These also have a new home button that is now press sensitive with the new generation Taptic Engine and houses the Touch ID fingerprint sensor. The iPhone 7 Plus also has dual 12MP rear cameras.

The Apple iPhone 7 starts at Rs. 60,000 for the 32GB version and goes up to Rs. 80,000 for the 256GB variant, while the iPhone 7 Plus starts at Rs. 72,000 for the 32GB version and goes up to Rs. 92,000 for the 256GB variant.

Lenovo-owned Motorola finally launched the Moto Z, Z Play and modular accessories range Moto Mods in India this week.
The Moto Z was introduced back in June. It packs a 5.5-inch Quad HD AMOLED display, is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 820 SoC with 4GB of RAM and runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow).

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Check out our hands-on impressions and photo gallery of Moto Z from the IFA last month.

The Moto Z is priced at Rs. 39,999. The Moto Z Play comes in Black and White colors and is priced at Rs. 24,999. These will be available exclusively available from Amazon.in and Flipkart starting from midnight of 17th October 2016. Moto Mods will also be available for sale separately and as a bundle starting at Rs. 899.

Xiaomi announced Mi Box, its 4K box powered by Android TV back in May at the Google I/O. This week the company officially launched it in the US, after it showed up on Walmart recently.

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Mi Box runs Android TV 6.0 and lets you access movies, shows and games from Google Play, YouTube and other apps. It has 4K UHD video content playback at 60 frames per second, latest HDR10 standard (to be enabled from Android N on-wards) and the updated HDMI 2.0a.

The Xiaomi Mi Box comes in black color, is priced at $69 (Rs. 4600 approx.) and looks like it is already sold out online but it will be available at Wallmart stores later this week.

Vivo launched Y55L, the company’s latest smartphone in the ‘Y Series’ in India. It has a 5.2-inch HD 2.5D curved glass display, is powered by an Octa-Core Snapdragon 430 SoC, runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with Funtouch OS 2.6 on top, has a 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for screen flash.

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The Vivo Y55L comes in Gold and Space Grey colors and is priced at Rs. 11,980. It will be available across India from October 15th. Check our Hands On Impression and Photo Gallery.

Intex launched Aqua Strong 5.2, the company’s latest budget 4G smartphone with Voice over LTE (VoLTE) support. It has a 5-inch FWVGA display, quad-core MediaTek MT6735 64-bit processor, Android 6.0 (Marshmallow), 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera with LED flash, but it has 2GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage.

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The Intex Aqua Strong 5.2 comes in Blue, White and Champagne colors and is priced at Rs. 6,390.

After launching range of TVs in India back in July and L55P1US 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV last month. Today is has launched two new full HD LED TVs. The TCL L49P10FS is a Android-powered smart TV with both WiFi and Bluetooth. Both these have smart volume, which eliminates unwanted spikes in audio.

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The TCL L49D2900 Full HD LED TV is available at an offer price of Rs. 27,990 on Amazon.in during Diwali sale. The TCL L49P10FS Full HD LED Smart TV will be available from Amazon.in at an offer price of Rs. 31,990 during this sale.

Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) launched two new compact gaming notebooks in India that are equipped with the latest Nvidia Pascal GeForce GTX10 series. Both the laptops come with VR-Ready NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10-series graphics cards for improved VR-gaming experiences.

The Asus ROG G752VS sports NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 GPU, Windows 10 Pro, 6th generation Intel Skylake unlocked Core i7 processor and up to 64GB DDR4 RAM.

g752vsThe Asus ROG Strix GL502VS comes with a VR Ready NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 GPU that offers a virtual reality experience which is smooth, low-latency, stutter-free and visual tearing free.

ASUS ROG GL502VS & G752VS will be available across all online & offline leading retailers and Asus Exclusive Stores at a starting price of Rs 1,81,990 and Rs. 2,47,990 respectively.

The firm also announced ZenPad Z10 (ZT500KL), a new tablet for U.S. operator Verizon. It has a 9.7-inch QXGA display, is powered an hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 SoC and runs on Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow) with ZenUI on top. It has an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera.

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The Asus ZenPad Z10 comes in Slate Gray color, is priced at $329.99 (Rs. 22,040 approx.) and will be available through Verizon retail stores starting October 13th.


Author: Hitesh Arora

From making Gadget and Auto videos for TV and online media, this guy landed up in Tech Writing. He has his heart at the right place when it comes to finding deals online. You will always find him suggesting people which device to buy. Hitesh calls himself a TV buff, who loves cooking, eating, dancing, and sleeping. You can follow him on Twitter @hitesharoraa