First Live Hands-On XiaoMi Mi 3

Gizchina.es is the first website making a live hands-on video on the very anticipated XiaoMi Mi 3. It is a pre production sameple of theTegra 4 version. Like we already said in our previous article, no Snapdragon S800 version until November.

The score in Antutu is not that impressive, it is around 29 000.

Source : Gizchina.es

Gold color is the new trend in China, Vivo X3 is getting a Champagne Version too

We just published an article about possible Gold version of the XiaoMi Mi 3 and Mi 2S.

The Vivo X3 is the world thinnest smartphone, it is only 5.75 thick and it is available in grey and white. We will offer it soon in our store.

We could see Gold XiaoMi Mi 3 and Mi 2S soon

Apple sure still plays as a role model for the whole market. Soon after the huge success of the Gold version iPhone 5S, others manufacturers stated that they will launch a gold version too and not only the Chinese manufacturer.
HTC or Samsung have already announced that they will launch a gold version of their 2013 flagship.

Recently, a persistent rumors began to run about Gold versions of the Xiaomi Mi 3 and Mi 2S.

The Tegra 4 version of the Mi 3 is scheduled to launch in a few few while the Snapdragon S800 version with international 3G network compatibily should launch in November.
For more informations, please visit our previous article : Precisions about XiaoMi Mi 3 pre-orders.

New Arrivals : 3 Bluetooth Speakers

This is our most compact Bluetooth Speaker, but it got great autonomy and can work on a quite spacious room. You can play songs from a bluetooth synchronized device or play it from a MicroSD Card :
- Airtime Up to 10 Hours
- Effective Range : 10 Meters
- Bluetooth version : V2.0+EDR
- Non-stop music time: 11 hours
- Micro SD card Slot

It is available in our store at $39.99. It comes in 5 different colors.

If you want more audio power but without paying too much, this is the ideal middle ground soundbar. 3W x 2 power produces very audible sound to entertain a big room. Same as above, the device got Bluetooth connectivity and support SD card :
- Output power : 3W * 2
- Weight : 275g
- SD Card Slot
- Dimensions : W160mm*H45mm*D60mm

It comes in Black or White and is available in our store at $59.99.

Now, we know some of you won't get enough power from our previous speakers, so welcome the monster bluetooth speaker producing a powerful sound of 10 W in stereo.
- Output power : 10W (2 x 5W)
- Weight : 728g
- Dimensions : 160mm x 103mm x 80mm
- Battery 2200mAh, 15 hours playtime
- NFC Compatibility
- SD Card Slot

Available in our store at $89.99.

It's Sunday : Photo of the Week 04, the Grand Canyon

This is a public photo of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA. 

I still haven't got the chance to to so, but I intend, someday, to do a road trip across the USA from the East to the West, from New York to Los Angeles. 

In most of the greatest road trips movies like Thelma and Louise, the Grand Canyon is the place for the final scene. The recent (not so good) comedy Guilt Trip starring Seth Rogen, the Grand Canyon is part of it at some point. 

There is definitively something special about road trips and maybe the USA is the best place for it. It is one of the rarest place where such trips are can be easily done : one big country but quite practical in a vehicle due to fair landscape and weather overall. 

Try to make road trips in Russia or in South America... Yes, thought so. 

Road trips represent one of the ultimate way of evasion while staying in contact with the rest of the civilization. Best of both worlds I guess. There is somewhat a certain romance, adventure and very intimate about it. You share it with your best friend or a close relative most of the times. 

And when you happen to travel with a stranger in movies (Forces of Nature, Due Date, Midnight Run) , you become way much closer because there is a sense of accomplishment and you can see multiple facets of the personality of the other person. Being very intimate on the road and how one interacts with others when you're making stops in towns or cities. 

Somewhat, the Grand Canyon represents a big part of that. I haven't even told the best part of it : what happens on the road stays on the road. 

Anyway, it's Sunday and I'm not really physically traveling, so I might as well doing it in my head. 

OPPO N1 Benchmark results are out

AS you already know, the OPPO N1 is running on a Qualcomm Snapdragon S600 chip clocked at 1.7 GHz alongside the Adredo 320 GPU with a FHD 5.9" display and 2 GB RAM. 

Now that the main specs are out, let's check out the results. 

Personally, I expected a score a bit below around 20 000 - 22 000 because the XiaoMi Mi 2S has a similar score around 25 000 but it sports a 720p HD screen and the Samsung Galaxy S4 got a beefy overclocked version of the S600. 

It is an honorable score and the result shows that OPPO did a great job optimizing their device. While performing correctly, it is still quite below the S800 scores (30 000 - 35 000). 

The next ZTE will equip a Snapdragon S800

ZTE has great ambitions for this year but after the convincing Nubia Z5 launched in early 2013. But ZTE failed to capture the momentum and the Nubia Z5 Mini didn't get the expected boost.

However, ZTE is still trying hard and is going to launch another high end device. According to the General Manager of ZTE, Ni Fei, the Chinese firm will launch a Smartphone powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S800 with others key features.
It should go toe to toe against the likes of Meizu, XiaoMi or OPPO. Hopefully, it will be enough to get ZTE at least in the game.

No date has been set yet.

XiaoMi Device Kernel soon to be Open Sourced

This was an all time request by the XiaoMi's community and finally the Chinese firm is eager to share the kernel codes to their devices to developers, especially ROMs makers.

The trend is changing, while every Chinese manufacturer benefit from GPL agreements to obtain and modify kernel to their own advantage. But those same companies almost never give back to the community code wise.
OPPO has been the first to come back to the community and share their kernel code. Now XiaoMi, which is arguably, the most media buzz brand, is going this way too. Hopefully, others will join the movement and put pressure on the rest of the industry like MediaTek.

The chip maker has a key role in the Chinese smartphones industry and is one the of the biggest responsible for the rise of Chinese phone manufacturers. But MediaTek is not somewhat inclined to facilitate open source work on phones based on their SoC.

First, XiaoMi will release kernel codes of the Mi 2 series : Mi 2, Mi 2S, Mi 2A followed by the Mi 1 series, finally the HongMi and the Mi 3.

What's next ?

3rd party ROMs developers will be able to adapt Mi 2 series' kernels to their own use and optimize the devices' performance.

For more informations, head to MiuiAndroid forums which broke the news first on the web.

Precisions about the Meizu MX3

As many of you know, the Meizu MX 3 is going to launch tomorrow in China Mainland and Russia for retail physical stores.

For online resellers such as ourselves, we will get our first batch around mid October (from 15th to 20th). So we will, most likely, begin our Meizu MX3 pre-orders campaign around October, 5th because we always want to respect our internal policy of 15 days time frame between pre-orders and the actual availability of the device.

Meizu MX3 recap specs :
- 5.1 inch 1800x1080px display
- SoC : Exynos 5410, Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.2 GHz with a PowerVR SGX 544MP3 GPU
- 2 GB RAM
- 2G Network : GSM 850/900/1800/1900
- 3G Network HSDPA 850/2100
- 139 x 71.9 x 9.1 mm (5.47 x 2.83 x 0.36 in) and weighs 143 g (5.04 oz)
- Running homemade Flyme OS 3 on top of Android 4.2
- 16/32/64/128 GB storage, no MicroSD card slot
- 8 MP rear Camera with LED Flash, 2 MP Front Camera
- Non-removable Li-Po 2400 mAh battery
- Color : Frond black, White back
- NFC

We will offer the MX3 in 16/32/64 GB flavor for sure, the 128 GB version might be hard to get during the first couple of weeks due to the very few units available.

Russian will be charged an extra $160 compared to Chinese in retail stores. Of course, we will be offering the Chinese price tag around $450 for the 16 GB.

Samsung has gone mad : Galaxy Note 3 is Region Locked

This is like ancient times and we only saw that kind of region locked in the consoles gaming and cinema industries.

Android Authority has this first while the Note 3 went on sale two days ago in 58 countries.

European and American versions are region locked for sure, those Note 3 will only accept Sim cards from Europe or America.
Samsung even put specific stickers confirming such locks on 100% unlocked devices (without contract).

In these days and modern age, this region locked restriction sounds really stupid. When you are going to travel outside of your given region, you must keep the same Sim card and you might want to deactivate roaming data since your monthly fee can significantly increase.

In all likeliness, Asian versions should get the same treatment as well.

Meanwhile, Samsung Germany issued a statement that if you bought a Note 3 not from your region, if it has never been activated, you can unlock the device at your local Samsung Store in your region. Which is, somewhat, still quite tricky.

It's Thursday : Welcome to our App Review 01, FIFA 14

PhonAsia blog is changing its usual Thursday formula. Instead of an app selection, we will offer an in-depth app review (often a game) instead.
Like Jerry Maguire would say : "Fewer clients, more attention" (he did get fired for saying that).

With this new format, we feel like we can provide much more quality and we notice more often that it should be, those in-depth review are lacking when it comes to Mobile Apps especially regarding Android. All we can find, it is lists of apps with 2 lines of description.
Maybe it is time for something different. Anyway, if there is an app that you would like me to review, please let me know by leaving a comment or contacting me through social media.


Our very first In Depth Game Review : FIFA 14 (Freenium)

Precisions about XiaoMi Mi 3 pre-orders

The last few weeks, we got a lot of questions about XiaoMi Mi 3 and if PhonAsia is going to offer pre-orders. 

We are talking to our partners to secure a minimum quantity of Mi 3 because there will be a shortage for sure but some things are still unclear. 

First things first :

- only the black model will be available until further notice from XiaoMi

- 16 and 64 GB will be offered for pre-orders

- PhonAsia wants to secure only Snapdragon S800 version because the Tegra 4 version WILL NOT be compatible with any 3G network outside of China

After securing a few Mi 3, we finally turn back our shipment because those XiaoMi Mi 3 were only Tegra 4 version. We asked some questions and an internal source told us that it will be most likely that the Snapdragon S800 version might be delayed 2 weeks at the very least.

China Mobile is the world largest carrier, so XiaoMi has to prioritize its supply chain and very few Snapdragon S800 will be produced. 

We were also able to cross our source with several others like ctechcn.com claiming that the S800 version might be on sale only in November instead of October. 

PhonAsia will only offer pre-orders if we can be sure to deliver the S800 on time. A 2 weeks time frame before the actual S800 availability seems to be the most reasonable move. 

We are still unsure but we are aiming at a price tag around $400-450. 

Stay tuned to PhonAsia.com for more informations on that matter. 

China shipped 360 million Smartphones in 2013. 450 million next year

According to IDC, China will most likely increase its Smartphones sales up to 450 million in 2014 staying on top of the rest of the world.
More than one third of the population will get access to smartphones which is huge in such a populated country. Chinese market has grown so much the last few years that it has become a force to be reckoned with among top technology countries.

While nothing has been confirmed as to when 4G roll-out is about to begin, IDC is projecting that one fourth of smartphones shipments in 2014 will be equipped with 4G capability.

The Chinese market is dominated by Samsung with almost 20% of market share, local companies Lenovo and Huawei are trailing far behind, none has reached 10% market share.

But for the first time, Apple is becoming a real threat after signing a deal with China Mobile, the world largest provider.

Source : Reuters

Mlais will launch 8 cores Smartphones this year

Mlais is a phablet phone manufacturer famous for its Samsung inspired models.

The Chinese firm has just posted a development PCB with the 8 cores chip, MT6592 and is announcing launching devices sporting such a chip by the end of this year.

So another company has just joined the dance among Jiayu, Xiaocai, Zopo or THL.

In Antutu, the MT6592 has scored around 20 000 - 25 000 which is high end 2013 devices scores. Budget SoC and excellent performances ? Sure looking that way.

Source : MTKSJ

XiaoMi first physical Store soon to be opened in Beijing

According to XiaoMi's VP, Liwan Jian has posted informations on his weibo account towards the Chinese enterprise which is about to open its very first physical store in Wangjing district of Beijing.

While XiaoMi has always tried to postpone opening such a shop, it seems that it has become inevitable and the company has chosen to establish itself in its home town. The Chinese firm based in Beijing has had such increased sales on its smartphones those last 2 years and nothing seems to indicate that the pace is about to slow down anytime soon.
All the contrary, latest reports tend towards a rising demand in XiaoMi's devices especially the brand new Mi 3.

No official date has been set yet but every customer should be able to try XiaoMi's devices such as the Smart TV and benefit from a 1 hour free repair.

Source : Weibo

XiaoMi : 10 million units sold for the Mi 2 Series

XiaoMi has reached the 10 million units milestone with its Mi 2 series (Mi 2, Mi 2S and Mi 2A) in 11 months. Last year, they sold "only" 7.19 million smartphones in total.

The Chinese company should exceed its 20 million prediction. There have been more than 7.5 million HongMi pre-orders and the Mi 3 is launching this fall before the end of the year.

Everything looking good for Lei Jun, CEO of XiaoMi.

Source : Lei Jun's weibo account

OPPO N1 rear touch panel

Here is what the N1 rear touch panel look like.
It a 12 cm² area where you can perform basic commands like scrolling or snapping photos.

Pretty neat, right ?

Photos Samples of the OPPO N1

Here are some photos of the N1 :

OPPO N1 finally unveiled

After at least a full month of teasing, OPPO has finally announced their new flagship, the N1. So was it worth the wait ? Let's check that out.

The N1 is a big phone, the 5.9 inch FHD display makes it a phablet. The bezel's dimensions are 170,7 x 82,6 x 9 mm which is quite enormous and it weighs 213 g. In comparison the 5.7 Galaxy Note 3 measures 151.2 x 79.2 x 8.3 mm for a 168 g weight.

A few photos of the N1's final design.

The overall design is roundish taking a turn from the angular one. OPPO called it "Restricted Art". The smartphone is made of plastic and it comes in two colors : black or white and two storage versions as well : 16 or 32 GB. There is, sadly, no MicroSD port. 

The N1 is powered by the Snapdragon S600 clocked at 1.7 GHz alongside the Adreno 320 GPU. So, no Snapdragon S800 this time. 

But it sports a very large 3610 mAh battery.

The N1 will be OPPO's first smartphone to come with their very own Color OS which is based on Android 4.2. According to the Chinese company, Color OS is a beautiful skin of Android and it has more than 400 features more than stock Android. On top of that, it has taken them more than 40 patents to conceive the Color OS. 

Still, some people prefer the vanilla Android experience, that is why, you will be able to flash within the native recovery the CyanogenMod rom.

Later on, OPPO might even offer a limited CyanogenMod Edition of their OPPO N1 which will comes with the AOSP rom preinstalled. No flashing rom needed. 

As far as specs goes, the N1 will not support 4G LTE but it comes with a large range of supported 2G/3G networks :

- WCDMA: 850/900/1700/1900/2100 MHz

- GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

Now, let's see the main event : the Camera, the N1 lens. Yes, you read it right, the OPPO N1 has only one Sony 13 MP camera, but it is rotative with 206° rotation, so it can easily be a front facing or a traditional rear camera and every positions in between. 

The Camera also features a Dual LED flash and F/2.0 aperture. 

It comes with the dedicated OPPO photo App which allows your to change scene modes and several others options such as panorama, high-speed, rewind or slow shutter. 

The second surprise of the day is the so called O-Touch panel. It is a 12 cm² rear panel which allows you to perform basic tasks with only one hand like scrolling of snapping photos. 

Another surprise will be there for people who would purchase the N1, the O-Click control device. It comes with the phone and you will be able to take photos away from the phone up to 50 meters and uses Bluetooth LE to maintain the connection. 

This is the official promo video of the N1

Here is a recap of the OPPO N1 specs : 

General 2G Network GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz 3G Network WCDMA: 850/900/1700/1900/2100 MHz 4G Network N/A SIM Yes (no dual sim) Status December 2013

Body Dimensions 170,7 x 82,6 x 9 mm (6.72 x 3.25 x 0.35 in) Weight 213 g (7.51 oz)

Display Type IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors Size 1080 x 1920 pixels, 5.9 inches (~374 ppi pixel density) Multitouch Yes

Sound Alert types Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones Loudspeaker Yes 3.5mm jack Yes

Memory Card slot No Internal 16/32 GB, 2 GB RAM

Data GPRS Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 - 48 kbps EDGE Class 12 Speed DC-HSDPA, 42 Mbps; HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi hotspot Bluetooth Yes, v4.0  Infrared port No USB Yes, microUSB v2.0

Camera Primary 13 MP (32 GB version), autofocus, DUAL LED flash Features Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, image stabilization, HDR Video Yes, 1080p@30fps, 720p@60fps, HDR Secondary No

Features OS Color OS based on Android OS, v4.2 (Jelly Bean) Chipset Qualcomm APQ8064T Snapdragon 600 CPU Quad-core 1.7 GHz Krait 300 GPU Adreno 320 Others USB OTG Bluetooth 4.0 5G Wi-Fi 802.11 ac Wi-Fi Direct Wi-Fi Display GPS Distance sensor Light sensor G-sensor 4D Gyroscope

Battery Li-Ion 3610 mAh battery Stand-by n/a Talk time       n/a

Price RMB 3500 USD $ 570

External Batteries on sale at PhonAsia.com

You can find several external batteries from very portable 2600 mAh to very big capacity 12 000 mAh at our store.

The photo represents the DBK 7200 mAh external battery which can be charged with solar energy as well. The size is about a 5 inch smartphone, so it is still a very pocketable device.
Here are the specs :
- MicroUsb Input : 5V-1.0A
- Solar Input : 5V-180mAh
- USB Output : 5V-1.0A
- Battery Capacity : 7200mAh
- Product Size : 145 x 84 x 15 mm
- weight : 228 g
- Led controller remind you the level of charge

The DBK solar battery can be bought for $ 39.99 at PhonAsia 

It's Sunday : Photo 03 of the Week

This is a public photo of the city Damascus by night in Syria. The photo has been taken before the current's civil war.

Damascus is arguably the oldest city of our world. It became a city around 9000 BC and nowadays it the second biggest city of Syria.
I have been there once a few years back and it really is a beautiful city so rich in history. And it remind be that while the world as we know it seems relatively stable, things tend to change and when they do, it is very fast.

Syria is trying to resolve its civil war in which at least 3 factions are fighting and it is rather an ugly one. At some point, the international community might have to intervene especially if abusive means are being used such as chemical gas attacks.

In the past, way back then, Damascus must have been the place to be, it offered jobs and dreams like New York or Hong Kong nowadays. The first time I heard about Damascus was part of Alexander The Great's history. The historic city was part of his vast territory.

Anyway, I'll see you next Sunday for another photo of the week.

OPPO : First CyanogenMod Inc Partner

The founder of CyanogenMod, Steve Kondik who is acting as Chief Technology Officer of his own company just posted a video saying that he will attend the OPPO N1 launching event in Beijing on September, 23rd which is next Monday.

Basically, it is as good as an official announcement of the very first hardware partner of CyanogenMod Inc.

Tegra 4 is growing in China

Dakele is preparing a launch à la XiaoMi on September, 26. Two devices should be announced this fall and the flagship would pack a Tegra 4 alongside 2 GB Ram, a 1080p display and a 13 MP rear Camera.

The entry price tag would be lower than XiaoMi Mi 3.

Mtksj leaked a photo of the new flagship but we are suspecting Dakele should launch a entry price device like the HongMi.

HTC could be the official CyanogenMod phone maker

CyanogenMod just transforms itself into a full fledge firm a few days ago taking the same path as MIUI.

It is a huge step forward for CyanogenMod and maybe, things around are changing. The phone industry has been largely hardware maker driven except those last years with the rise of iOS and Android.
The new era allowed company such as MIUI to be created where everything originated from a software standpoint first.

Android brought a smooth OS worldwide licensing it to the manufacturers but almost no one could keep up with the new regular software updates especially when the OS was young and really needed the updates to be pushed as fast as possible.

The success story of XiaoMi is not a surprise, after establishing itself as solid software company, the Chinese firm started to launch key devices.

Now it is CyanogenMod's turn, and once again, the industry might get another surprise changing how business is done bringing every enterprises to dedicate more themselves on the software end.
According to the Japanese Blog of Mobile, HTC could be the partner that CyanogenMod is looking for.

HTC has lot of experience in the hardware field and is used to manufacture phones for software companies. The Taiwanese firm released the Nexus One for Google and several Facebook phones.

Hopefully the price tag will be around something like $ 300.

English video promo of the XiaoMi Mi 3

XiaoMi Mi 3 announcement has been arguably the biggest news in China Tech this year.

This might be the first Hugo Barra's move, on the official XiaoMi's facebook page, the Chinese firm published photos with English explanations made by a fan.
You can also find, on the same facebook account, a photo of the XiaoMi TV with a price tag in dollars :

Anyway, here the promo video of Tom Cr0w

JiaYu S1 scores over 26 000 in Antutu

The latest leaks of the most anticipated JiaYu smartphone scores over 26 000 in Antutu which is better from  the score of 23 000 in June.

The score is about the same as what is found in the Mi 2S except that the JiaYu S1 will pack a 5 inch FHD display. So overall, while using the same Snapdragon S600 supposedly at 1.7 GHz, it is an improvement.

The rest of the specs are on par with the powerful SoC, 2 GB Ram, Sony rear and front cameras (2 and 13 MP), 2300 mAh and built in NFC.
From the leaked photos, we can also see that the 3 buttons (Home, Multitask and back) got backlight.