OPPO F3 Plus now official with two selfie cameras

OPPO has announced a new “Selfie Expert” with the new F3 Plus. OPPO is doubling up its selfie game by fitting a pair of front facing cameras on their latest smartphone.


Unlike other dual-selfie cameras like the vivo V5 Plus or the Lenovo Vibe S1, the secondary camera isn’t used for taking bokehlicious selfies. Instead, it has a 16MP front camera with 80-degree angle for normal selfies and a secondary 8MP camera with 120-degree wide angle lens for group shots.
The OPPO F3 Plus camera app will automatically switch to the wide-angle front camera if it detects more than 3 faces in the frame. As you would expect, it will also come with Beautify 4.0 to enhance your selfie pictures.

Over at the back, the camera is similar to its current R9s series. It has a 16MP f/1.7 shooter with dual PDAF technology which utilises Sony’s IMX398 sensor. The overall exterior of the F3 Plus is quite identical with the R9s Plus as it gets a metal unibody design with its “6-string” antenna band.

In front, it has a 6.0″ IPS Full HD display that’s protected with Gorilla Glass 5. Under the hood, it runs on a Snapdragon 653 Octa-Core processor that’s mated with 4GB RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. It has a 4,000mAh battery that charges quickly using OPPO’s VOOC Flash Charge technology and it runs on Android 6.0 with its custom ColorOS 3.0 skin on top.
The OPPO F3 Plus is going for INR 30,990 in India which is about RM2,095. A smaller OPPO F3 with a 5.5″ screen will be announced later in May. So far there’s no word on its availability for Malaysia

OnePlus 3T is now available for pre-order in Malaysia

As expected, the OnePlus 3T is finally available officially Malaysia. These are official Malaysian units (International A3003 model) that are distributed by Brightstar Malaysia and it comes with a full 1-year local warranty.


The OnePlus 3T is officially priced at RM2,229 which is higher than the original OnePlus 3 that carried a RM1,888 price tag. To secure your unit, DirectD is letting you pre-order starting today with stocks expected to arrive on 21 March, which is next Tuesday.
While it looks similar to the former OnePlus 3, the new 3T gets a couple of new upgrades plus a new Gunmetal colour option. To refresh your memory, the OnePlus 3T has a 5.5″ Full HD optical OLED display and under the hood it runs on a more powerful Snapdragon 821 quad-core processor with 6GB of RAM. It also gets 64GB of storage like before with a larger 3,400mAh battery.
For imaging, it gets 16MP f/2.0 camera for the rear while the front camera is now upgraded with a larger 16MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture. The main camera still gets OIS but it gets an upgraded EIS for steadier videos. Charging for the OnePlus 3T is done via USB Type-C and it supports DASH fast charging (5V4A) that’s rated to push a full day of usage with a quick 30 minute charge.
This is a dual-SIM 4G LTE device and it supports FDD-LTE bands 1,3,5,7 as well as TDD-LTE bands 38 and 40. It also supports 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC and VoLTE.
If you’re interested, you can place your pre-order here.

Redmi Note 4 is now official in Malaysia

The Redmi Note 4 has finally arrived in Malaysia with the retail price tag of RM799. For our market, we are getting the international model which runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor instead of MediaTek’s Helio X20 unit.


To recap, the Redmi Note 4 gets a 5.5″ Full HD display like its predecessor and it comes with a metal unibody design. For Malaysia, we are only getting a single 3GB RAM + 32GB storage option which is expandable via microSD on a hybrid dual-SIM slot. In terms of camera, the rear gets a 13MP f/2.0 shooter with PDAF along with a front facing 5MP f/2.0 unit. It also gets a fingerprint sensor, an infrared blaster and a large 4,100mAh battery which charges via microUSB.
The Redmi Note 4 will be available for pre-order starting on 10 March at 12AM. After that, it will be on open sale at Xiaomi’s Mi Store on Lazada as well as participating retail outlets nationwide starting 16 March 2017. Xiaomi will be sharing more details of the pre-order sale shortly. For RM799, the Redmi Note 4 does offer a lot of phone for your money.

Xiaomi’s Android TV powered Mi Box goes on sale in Malaysia this Friday

Xiaomi is finally bringing its Mi Box to Malaysia and you can place your orders starting this Friday. This is the international version that is powered by Android TV 6.0.


The Mi Box is an affordable set-top box capable of pushing 4K UHD content at 60fps. There will be support for HDR10 once it receives Android 7.0 update. It uses a HDMI2.0a port that connects up to 18Gbps, which is ideal for high definition content. The box also supports both Dolby Digital Plus and DTS multichannel HD audio encoding.
Under the shell, it gets a 2.0GHz quad-core processor (Cortex-A53) and a Mali 450 750MHz GPU, along with 2GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. If you need more space, you can always expand further with its USB 2.0 port. There’s also SPDIF Out / 3.5mm audio output at the back.

Connectivity wise, it supports dual-band WiFi up to 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0. A simple designed bluetooth remote is included and it comes with a mic for voice control. Since it runs on Android TV, you can tell the Mi Box what to play simply with your voice.

The Mi Box also supports Google Cast, allowing you to throw your content to be big screen directly from your smartphone. The Mi Box will retail for RM349 in Malaysia and you can place your orders this Friday, 3 March. Xiaomi will drop more details about the sale soon and it is likely to be happening on their Lazada online store.

Xiaomi announces the Mi 5c with their in-house developed processor

Despite not having any presence at MWC 2017, Xiaomi has made a new breakthrough by announcing a new smartphone that’s powered by their very own. Instead of relying on Qualcomm and Mediatek, the Chinese company has introduced its very own mobile SoC that’s called the Surge S1.


The new processor is an octa-core 64-bit unit that consists of 4x A53 cores running at 2.2GHz and 4x A53 cores running at 1.4GHz. While it’s still based on a 28nm process, the new chip claims to outperform other mid-range processors like the Snapdragon 625 and Helio P10 in GeekBench 4.0 and Antutu benchmarks.
The Surge S1 also gets a Mali-T860 quad-core GPU and a 14-bit dual ISP for better light sensitivity and noise reduction in photos. There’s also a 32-bit high performance DSP for better noise cancellation with two mics and it also supports HD calls with VoLTE.

To put the new processor to the test, Xiaomi has launched the Mi 5c. This looks like a budget-friendly alternative to its Mi 5s smartphone.
The Mi 5c gets a compact 5.15″ Full HD display that boasts 550-nits brightness with 2,048 levels of adjustments. The Surge S1 processor is mated to 3GB of LP-DDR3 RAM and there’s 64GB of eMMC 5.0 non-expandable storage.

For imaging, it gets a 12MP f/2.2 camera with PDAF while the front gets an 8MP f/2.0 camera. Keeping the lights on is a 2,860mAh battery which is rated to last a full day and it supports fast charging via a 9V/2A power adapter. Since the processor is developed in-house, Xiaomi promises faster software updates. Because of this, Xiaomi says the Mi 5c will get Android 7.1 as early as next month.

Connectivity wise, it supports 802.11a/b/g/b/ac dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1. However, it appears to be a very China-centric device as it supports 3G in TD-SCDMA bands and 4G in TDD-LTE bands. Available in Rose Gold, Gold and Black colours, the new smartphone is priced at 1,499CNY which is about RM968.

Redmi 4X

Xiaomi has also updated its entry-level line-up by introducing the Redmi 4X. Like the original Redmi 4, it gets a full metal body and a 5″ HD 720p display. It comes in two variants – a standard version with 2GB RAM + 16GB storage and a higher spec model wth 3GB RAM + 32GB storage. Both are rocking Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 435 processor that comes with Adreno 505 GPU.

The Redmi 4X gets a 13MP f/2.0 main camera with PDAF while the front gets a 5MP f/2.2 shooter with their 2nd gen beautification mode features. It’s also a dual-SIM device with microSD expansion using a hybrid SIM slot design. It also gets a 4,100mAh high-density battery which claims to last up to 2 days with average use.
Unlike the Mi 5c, the Redmi 4X supports a wider range of 3G/4G bands including FDD LTE Band 3, 5, 7 and TD-LTE on Band 38 and 40. The base model is priced at 699CNY (about RM452) while the high-spec variant is going for 899CNY (about RM582).