Huawei Mate 10

After months of teasing, The Huawei Mate 10 series is finally unveiled. This is Huawei’s flagship phablet lineup and this year, they are upping the ante with local-based AI capabilities. As usual, there will be two models, a standard Mate 10 and a more premium Mate 10 Pro version that is also available as a limited edition Porsche Design.

Huawei Mate 10

The Mate 10 is their standard variant of the two. Maintaining the same screen size as its predecessor, it gets a 5.9″ display that now pushes a higher resolution Quad HD display. However, it runs on FullHD+ by default for optimal power usage. It still has a traditional 16:9 display aspect ratio which provides enough space for a fingerprint sensor at the bottom of the screen. According to Huawei, the Mate 10’s display is brighter than its predecessor at 730 nits and it also supports HDR10.

In terms of appearance, Huawei has gone with a premium looking glass back with a multi-axis curved design. It looks like an HTC U11 but there’s an added signature stripe for a more unique appearance.

Under the hood, it runs on Huawei’s in-house developed 10nm Octa-Core Kirin 970 processor that comes with its dedicated NPU (Neural Processing Unit). Mated to the processor is 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage which is expandable via microSD using its hybrid 2nd SIM slot.

In terms of connectivity, supports 4.5G with Cat18 LTE. With a supported network, it could achieve 1.2Gbps downloads with 4X4 MIMO, 256QAM and 3CCA. It is also a dual SIM device with Dual 4G connectivity. This means you can have both SIMs on 4G with VoLTE (Voice over LTE) at the same time.

Huawei also continues its collaboration with Leica for its photography department. It still retains a Dual-Camera lens with Optical Image Stabilisation but they now come fitted with a f/1.6 Leica SUMMILUX-H lens for both cameras. As a comparison, the P10 Plus uses f/1.8 aperture while the Mate 9 came with f/2.2 SUMMARIT-H lens. It also features a 4-in-1 hybrid focus system which uses depth, laser, contrast and Phase Detection AutoFocus. Like its predecessor, it also promises near lossless zoom with its Hybrid Zoom feature that uses both 20MP + 12MP cameras.

For taking selfies, the Mate 10 comes with an 8MP f/2.0 front-facing camera with a fixed focus lens. As a comparison, the previous Mate 9 had an 8MP f/1.9 shooter with autofocus. With Huawei’s focused on AI, the Mate 10 promises to be a more intelligent camera. With AI integration, the camera app is now improved with real-time object recognition which will speed up scene detection. Depending on what you’re focusing, the camera app would apply the best settings instantly whether it is portrait, scenery, food or pets.

Powering the Huawei Mate 10 is a 4,000mAh battery which supports Huawei’s SuperCharge charging technology via USB Type-C. For greater safety assurance, Huawei’s charging technology is claimed to be the world’s first end-to-end fast charging feature with TUV Rheinland certification.

Huawei Mate 10 Pro

For something more premium, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro comes with a 6.0” 18:9 display using an AMOLED panel. As a result, it looks taller than the Mate 10.

However, unlike the standard Mate 10, the 10 Pro also pushes a more conservative FullHD+ resolution instead of QuadHD. Because of this FullView display, the fingerprint sensor is placed at the rear underneath its dual camera setup.

Under the hood, it shares the same internals as the Mate 10 but it gets 6GB RAM and 128GB of storage which isn’t expandable.

Despite the same internals, the Mate 10 Pro is slightly thinner at 7.9mm vs 8.2mm on the Mate 10. It still packs a 4,000mAh battery which supports Huawei’s SuperCharge fast Charging.

For the first time on a Huawei flagship, Huawei is ditching the 3.5mm headphone jack on the Mate 10 Pro but they will provide a High-res audio USB Type-C headphones in the box. On the plus side, the Mate 10 Pro comes with IP67 dust and water resistance.

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Microsoft’s Surface Laptop is gorgeous and very powerful

Microsoft just unveiled its latest laptop — aptly named the Surface Laptop — and it sits somewhere between the tablet-like Surface Pro and the 2-in-1 convertible Surface Book. And that’s a sweet spot most will be very happy with because that means it’s just a laptop without the complications of any detachable bits.
In fact, being “without complications” seems to be a recurring theme with this new Windows device.

First up, we have the specs. The Surface Laptop comes in two different processor configurations with up to four memory variants. The base model, which sports an Intel Core i5 Kaby Lake processor (in the demo video there’s a variant with an i5-7200U) mated to 4GB of RAM and 128GB of SSD storage, will be priced at USD999 (around RM4,323). If you want more power, you can also spec it up to a Kaby Lake Intel Core i7 processor with 16GB of RAM, 512GB of SSD storage and Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640.

Despite Microsoft marketing it towards students, this new Surface Laptop is a high-end device. It’s made from really sexy materials that include an alcantara keyboard (like the one on the premium Surface Pro 4 keyboard) that has been precisely cut to fit the full set of backlit keys which have 1.5mm of travel.

In front, there’s a 13.5-inch Full HD PixelSense display with a 3:2 aspect ratio pushing a total of 3.4 million pixels. Since its a Surface device, it will also support Surface accessories like the Surface Pen and Surface Dial.
Since the laptop runs on Intel’s latest Kaby Lake chips, Microsoft also boasts incredible battery life — up to 14.5 hours on a single charge, in fact. They also claim that the Surface Book is faster than the i7 MacBook Pro and can last longer.

What’s more, Microsoft has done some interesting things to the laptop which includes adding vapour chambers to the back of the aluminium finish of the device to help with cooling. Conventional speakers with speaker grilles have also been replaced with ones that have been integrated underneath the keyboard so the sound comes from under your fingers.
It’s also an incredibly sexy-looking device that comes in four tasteful colours (platinum, burgundy, cobalt blue, and graphite gold). However, the sexy design does look like it brings compromises as the Surface Laptop is really conservative on the ports. You get a Surface charging port, a USB Type-A port and a mini DisplayPort…and that’s it.

But, that doesn’t seem to be the biggest question mark surrounding this laptop. Instead, that question mark seems to stem from the new operating system that the Surface Laptop will be shipped with — Windows 10 S.
Right now, this super streamlined version of Windows 10 looks mighty tempting. Not only is Microsoft boasting more efficient performance, they’re also talking about the longevity of performance claiming that a Windows 10 S system will feel as smooth on Day 1 as it will on Day 1,000.

For me, I’m just curious about developer and app support. If Microsoft can get enough people on board to develop useful applications (Chrome, for example) for the Windows Store to be used on Windows 10 S, then I can really see this platform taking off.
Security, long-lasting performance, and a streamlined OS in a laptop as gorgeous and powerful as the Surface Book? What more do you want?
Well, a USB Type-C port wouldn’t hurt, Microsoft.

The Redmi 4X is now officially in Malaysia

The Xiaomi Redmi 4X was launched in February this year and is said to be big on battery. Well, it’s finally here in Malaysia to be put to the test.

The phone comes with a 4100mAh battery and is claimed by Xiaomi to be able to run up to 2 days with heavy duty usage. Retailing at just RM679, the phone will be available nationwide from the 22nd of April at all authorised Xiaomi retailers.

The large battery comes with a rather small 5″ touchscreen display with a 2.5D curved glass, and a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. The Xiaomi Redmi 4X is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 processor and comes with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage that can be expanded.

As far as the cameras are concerned, the Redmi 4X packs a 13-megapixel f/2.0 primary camera and a 5-megapixel f/2.2 front shooter for selfies. The phone runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, with a MIUI 8 skin.

The Xiaomi Redmi 4X is a dual SIM smartphone that accepts Nano-SIM and Micro-SIM. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, USB OTG, 3G and 4G. Sensors on the phone include a a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, proximity sensor, accelerometer, ambient light sensor and gyroscope.

As of now, only the black and gold variants have been made available. There is word that there will be a pink version, just not now. For more information, head on to Mi Malaysia’s website.