Entry-level Honor Holly 4 debuts

Entry-level Honor Holly 4 debuts

Huawei's Honor brand will start selling a new phone in India, starting today. The is available for purchase from Honor's partner stores across India for 11,999 INR or around 155. The Honor Holly 4 is a local version of the Honor 6A, which was for the slightly lower price of around 105. The Honor Holly 4 has a 5-inch screen of 720p resolution and a Snapdragon 430 chipset with 3GB of RAM. There are two snappers on board a 13MP main camera and 5MP selfie cam. You get a 3,020mAh battery, expandable storage (or dual-SIM) and Android 7.0 with Huawei's EMUI 5.1 on top.

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WhatsApp finally gets its own emoji set... sort of

WhatsApp finally gets its own emoji set... sort of

After years of using Apple's emoji set across all of its versions, WhatsApp has now finally designed its own emoji set, which is available to those running the latest Android beta. One look at it though and things don't look quite different. Indeed, the set looks awfully similar to the outgoing Apple emoji set, with some elements of the new Android Oreo emoji set with a dash of Twitter emoji set thrown in. While all of these are based on a common instruction from Unicode and it makes sense for them to look similar to reduce lost in translation between devices, they are a bit too similar. WhatsApp started using Apple's emoji set back in the day because Android back then had no support for emoji. To make sure the emoji sent by iPhone users would be seen on Android devices, WhatsApp integrated the entire Apple emoji set within its application. Even later on when Android did get emoji support, it still made sense for WhatsApp to have the Apple set to ensure compatibility as not all Android devices had emoji support and some looked different than others. Right now I am not entirely sure if this set will be only available on non-Apple devices or across all platforms that WhatsApp is available on. I guess it makes sense to still use the native Apple emoji set on Apple devices as these emoji do look quite similar. Maybe that was the purpose in making them look so similar and WhatsApp probably just wanted to stop using Apple's set, possibly for legal reason (although it is still a mystery how they got around to using it all these years). This set will eventually make its way to the final build and likely to the desktop versions as well.

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Android Pay passes 1,000 supported financial institutions

Android Pay passes 1,000 supported financial institutions

Android Pay has added another 16 financial institutions, surpassing the 1,000 mark, now stranding 1,012. The service is adding banks, retailers and institutions in the US, UK, Canada, Russia, Belgium, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Poland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Ireland. The list of supported businesses (and countries) is ever growing but there are more than a few that are still holding off, namely Barclays Bank in the UK. So far Apple has been more instrumental in adding support for its Apple Pay than Google has been with Android Pay. Here's the latest additions to the Android Pay eligibility list. You can check out the source link for the complete list. |

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ZTE teams up with Indian carriers for early 5G testing

ZTE teams up with Indian carriers for early 5G testing

This morning, the reports that ZTE has begun trial testing in India for 5G technology. The report cites that Indias top telecom companies like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, and Reliance Jio have been working with Chinese telecom equipment and smartphone manufacturer ZTE. India is one of the largest global wireless markets and one that has plenty of room for expansion. Fan Xiaobing, president of global marketing and solutions for ZTE told : Fan also mentioned that ZTE will bring telecom equipment and products to local carriers that are designed and customized for local needs. ZTE is getting an early start in India to get ahead of its telecom equipment competitors like Huawei, Nokia, and Ericsson (all of which manufacture telecom equipment for Indian carriers). India sees the importance of 5G in the country and is planning to begin rolling 5G out to customers starting in 2020. The Indian government will also auction off spectrum to carriers for the first time, spectrum that will support a future 5G network. ZTE is currently in discussions with Indian carriers for 5G backhaul: the infrastructure foundation necessary for wireless 5G communications to be able to take place. We expect to have new partnerships around 5G backhaul soon in India. Check out the source link for the full report.

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Deal: iPhone 7 prices drop in the US

Deal: iPhone 7 prices drop in the US

Not impressed with the iPhone 8? Then how about a good deal on an a 256GB model for $600. Apple no longer offers those, but it would charge you $650 for the 128GB model. This deal comes courtesy of T-Mobile USA. If you prefer to get the phone on a 24-month credit, then you can pay $25 a month (assuming a good credit rating). Note that only Jet Black units are available. Still too expensive? Virgin Mobile drops the 7 to $450 and the to $350. It goes without saying that the phones are locked to their respective carriers, so thats something to consider. Check the links below for the deals. |

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OnePlus 5T allegedly cancelled, OnePlus 6 to launch in early 2018

OnePlus 5T allegedly cancelled, OnePlus 6 to launch in early 2018

If you were holding out for a OnePlus 5T, perhaps you shouldnt the rumor mill thinks that its not happening. Instead, the launch of the OnePlus 6 has been pulled up to early 2018. Last year, the company launched the 3T as a way to switch to the +1 version of the chipset (Snapdragon 820 to 821) and to raise the price a bit. Well, they did upgrade the selfie cam too. This year, there will be no +1 for the Snapdragon 835 and OnePlus already played the dual camera card. Plus, it offers generous storage and RAM, so theres not much for a T version to upgrade. What will the OnePlus 6 be like? Tough to tell for now, but a move to a 6 screen the first bump in screen size of the series is not unlikely, especially if combined with an 18:9 screen and a bezel-less design. If thats true, well hear from Carl Pei and co. about it early on in the hype cycle.

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Weekly poll results: rounded corners are a hot new trend

Weekly poll results: rounded corners are a hot new trend

Theres a growing trend in smartphone design that slices and dices the screen in shapes that stray further and further from the traditional rectangle. Rounded corners are a relatively tiny change and an old one at that (the Palm Pre had rounded corners). But then companies like LG, Essential and then Apple started cutting off larger portions. LG did it to fit a secondary screen on the same line as the selfie camera, Essential just jammed the selfie camera in the top row of the screen and Apple was even more aggressive. And our readers only a quarter of voters are okay with any sort of screen cutout. Its a roughly even split between those who only accept small cutouts and those that will agree to a big chunk of their screen being taken away in the name of a great feature. Still, the overwhelming portion of the vote 60% went to the Rounded corners option. It is curious that the traditional rectangular screen got relatively weak support. We think this means that rounded corners are in as a design element.

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