Different MIUI Global versions explained

A couple of years back, we did a post on different versions of MIUI but a lot has changed since then. Xiaomi has been focusing on localizing the MIUI experience for different countries for the last few years and last year, the company decided to discontinue MIUI Global Beta ROM. There has been a lot of confusion amongst users regarding the MIUI 11 update roll-out status for different devices in the last couple of months, so in this post, let's discuss different versions and stages of MIUI Global ROM. Xiaomi recruits MIUI Global Stable Beta ROM testers for various devices, these Beta testers are the first ones to receive the updates. These builds serve as a test build for the MIUI Global Stable ROM. If everything goes fine with the testing phase, Xiaomi starts rolling out same build to users in a phased manner. These builds are rolled out to random users before a complete rollout to minimize the impact of critical bugs. In case, any critical bug is found in this phase, Xiaomi suspends the particular update and starts working on fixing the bug otherwise company pushes the update to all the users. MIUI Global ROM offers a customized experience in few ...

Amazfit T-Rex with 1.3-inch AMOLED screen, military-grade durability and Amazfit Bip S with 40 days battery life, GPS announced

Amazfit has announced T-Rex, the company's first outdoor smartwatch at the CES 2020, as it had promised. It has passed 12 regulations of the military-standard (MIL-STD-810G) quality test and can withstand extreme heat and cold, is resistant against corrosion, moisture resistance and has a durable body. It has heat resistance of 70℃, resistance to severe cold of minus 40℃, has passed 240-hour damp heat test, and 96-hour acid-alkali test. The T-Rex features a 1.3-inch AMOLED screen with an "always on display" function, GPS + GLONASS with 20-hour continuous working time and up to 20 days of battery life. The smartwatch features 14 sports modes, has 5ATM water resistant design, is equipped with BioTracker PPG optical sensor for all-day heart rate monitoring and provides rapid heart rate alerts. Amazfit T-Rex specifications 1.3-inch (360 x 360 pixels) AMOLED display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection Compatible with Android 5.0 devices or later, iOS 10.0 or later Optical heart rate monitor (PPG) Sensors: 3-Axis Acceleration Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor Dust and Water Resistant up to 50 meters (5ATM), Bluetooth 5.0 LE, GPS+GLONASS MIL-STD 810G Compliance 19 Sports modes Dimensions: 47.7 X 47.7 X 13.5mm; Weight: 58g 390mAh battery with up to 20 days of ...

Realme announces realme UI beta testing for realme X2

realme CEO, Madhav Sheth confirmed the existence of realme UI back in October last year and said that it will offer a near-stock Android experience, since then there have been lots of speculation about realme UI. The company finally announced the realme UI rollout schedule back in November and shared a few images to give users an idea of what's coming their way. The company started recruiting realme UI Beta testers for realme XT and realme X2 Pro back in November, and as per some leaks, realme UI beta testing has already kicked off for realme X2 Pro. Now, the company is looking for testers who have experience in beta testing of software and reporting bugs. The post on realme community also mentions that the program is open for realme X2 users only and users are expected to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) with the company and are supposed to provide own AADHAR card or other identification proofs, the company will soon share a form. Though the recruitment is open to all users, active members on the Community usually have an advantage over others, so if you have an active profile on realme Community you should apply for it. The deadline for applying for ...

Reliance Jio starts rolling out VoWiFi service in Delhi and Chennai

Recently, Airtel started testing WiFi Calling (VoWiFi) in several cities in India and later officially launched the service. Following Airtel's launch, Reliance Jio has now started rolling out WiFi Calling facility in Chennai and Delhi-NCR. This comes after the testing began in Delhi recently. The company is yet to launch the VoWiFi services in the country officially. Several users in Chennai have reported that they are seeing 'Jio WiFi' icon or a similar WiFi Calling icon on their smartphones. We have tested the same on some smartphones and found the service to be working great. More specifically, we tried Jio WiFi Calling on a Redmi Note 7 Pro smartphone, K20 Pro and Samsung Galaxy M30 smartphones, and it worked as expected. Unlike Airtel, Reliance Jio's Wi-Fi Calling facility is not restricted to Jio Fiber and is working on any Wi-Fi network, as of now. Although Airtel WiFi Calling worked with all Wi-Fi networks during the testing phase, it is now restricted to Airtel Broadband users. Also, some users have reported that Jio VoWiFi is working with Airtel mobile hotspot too. In case you aren't aware, VoWi-Fi calls on compatible handsets offer improved indoor coverage, faster connectivity and will offer "crystal clear conversations" as ...

Redmi Note 8 Pro, Redmi Note 7 and more start receiving Android 10 update in China

Xiaomi announced Android 10 update roadmap for its devices back in June, but it was only limited to MIUI China ROM. The company rolled out Android 10 based MIUI 10 to Redmi K20 Pro users in India and China on 5th September, the day Google rolled out Android 10 to Pixel devices. Xiaomi is yet to roll out Android 10 update for its Android One series of devices, Mi A3, Mi A2, and Mi A2 Lite, but the company has started rolling out Android 10 based MIUI 11 update to Redmi K20 (Mi 9T) users. Xiaomi has already completed MIUI 11 roll-out for all 27 supported devices and now the company has started rolling out Android 10 update to a few devices. The devices receiving Android 10 based MIUI 11 update are, Redmi Note 8 Pro Redmi Note 7 Mi MIX 3 Mi 9 SE Mi 8 SE Note that the Android 10 update is in the testing phase and is being rolled out to MIUI China ROM users only as of now. The company did not share Android 10 update roadmap for MIUI Global ROM, but we can expect the devices launched in 2019 to receive Android 10 update since most ...

Qualcomm introduces aptX Voice audio codec for HD voice calls through Bluetooth

Smartphone manufacturers have been improving the voice quality on smartphones through better hardware every time to offer the best voice quality experience to users. In the past, brands like Xiaomi have also experimented with Cantilever piezoelectric ceramic acoustic system instead of an earpiece. Although the voice call quality also depends on the network, the quality of the voice calls made through Bluetooth accessories is not there yet. Now, Qualcomm's new aptX voice codec aims to solve this issue and this comes after the introduction of aptX and aptX HD technologies for music streaming previously. Qualcomm aptX Voice audio is an audio codec and is a new feature of Qualcomm aptX Adaptive audio technology that provides HD voice quality over a connection using Bluetooth wireless technology. aptX Voice delivers 32kHz voice quality with a flat 16kHz frequency response, providing HD voice quality for users using Bluetooth accessories to make calls. aptX Voice now makes voice recognition much easier and lets users easily distinguish confusing sounds. According to Qualcomm, "narrowband and wideband codecs used within the Bluetooth Handsfree Profile can sometimes result in indistinguishable voices, muddled words, the inability to distinguish from background noise and ultimately listener fatigue. ". aptX Voice solves this issue ...

MediaTek Dimensity 800 7nm Octa-Core SoC with built-in 5G for mid-range devices announced

MediaTek just announced Dimensity 800, the company's latest SoC in the Dimensity series with built-in 5G, as it had promised. This comes after Dimensity 1000 that was introduced back in November last year. The Dimensity uses 7nm process technology, same as the Dimensity 1000, but this features four Cortex-A76 cores operating up to 2GHz and four power-efficient ARM Cortex-A55 cores operating at up to 2.0GHz. The company just says Dimensity 1000-class GPU, combined with MediaTek gaming technology – HyperEngine without revealing the GPU model. The SoC supports 5G two carrier aggregation (2CC CA) for 30% wider high speed layer coverage, more seamless 5G handover, and higher average throughput performance compared to other solutions, with single carrier (1CC, no CA). The chipset is designed to support stand alone and non-stand alone (SA/NSA) sub-6GHz networks, and includes multi-mode support for every cellular connectivity generation from 2G to 5G. It comes with MediaTek AI Processing Unit — APU 3.0 — with more than double the performance of the previous generation APU, and brings devices a significant performance boost at 2.4TOPS, compared to 4.5 TOPS in Dimensity 1000. The Dimensity 800 series supports up to 64MP cameras sensors or large multi-camera options such as 32+16MP dual cameras. ...

Samsung NEON Artifical Human powered by Core R3 and Spectra technology announced at CES 2020

Recently, Samsung teased the launch of a new "Artificial Human" at CES 2020 event and didn't disclose many details then. Now, at the Consumer Electronics Show, Samsung has unveiled NEON Artificial Human which is powered by Core R3 and Spectra, and more details about the project have been revealed now. NEON is a virtual being that behaves as real humans and can depict similar intelligence and emotion. They are not like virtual assistants namely Google Assistant, Apple's Siri, Samsung's Bixby, etc. So, you cannot ask questions to NEON like "What's the weather"? "Navigate me to the nearest restaurant"?  or any similar questions. The company describes it as simply "a friend". NEON can speak multiple languages from Spanish to Hindi, from Japanese to English, and just like real humans, it can gain new skills, learn more about humans, and evolve. It can learn from experiences and show emotions and can help users with goal-oriented tasks or can be personalized to assist in tasks that require a human touch. Furthermore, according to the company, the word NEON is derived from two words, NEO which means new + humaN which collectively means a new human. This Artificial Human is powered by the company's Core R3 and ...

OnePlus Concept One Hands On and First Impressions

OnePlus just announced the Concept One, the company's first concept phone at its CES event today.  The main highlight of the phone is its invisible camera electrochromic glass technology. The company has partnered with McLaren once again for the phone. We checked out the phone at the event, here is our first impressions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzZzIwWExak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcxWYv6cYbw The back glass uses organic particles to create changes in transparency so that the glass covering the camera lenses can shift in an instant from opaque black to entirely clear. This is usually used in cars and planes. OnePlus said that it has managed to achieve something far thinner than the industry average. The glass panels on the phone are just 0.1mm each, for a combined total of only 0.35mm, which is as thin as a display glass protector film. Compared to the Glass back on the OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition, this uses a leather back in Papaya orange and PVD-treated aluminium alloy frame, first in the industry making the frame shining in a subtle way. The phone takes a mere 0.7s for the glass to transition from solid black to fully clear, faster even than the camera itself takes to fully activate, and it uses almost no power. OnePlus said that its ...

OnePlus Concept One with invisible camera inspired by McLaren design announced

After teasing the phone, OnePlus has officially announced OnePlus Concept One, the company's first concept phone at CES 2020. This is the first phone to use color-shifting glass technology (electrochromic glass technology), allowing it to change transparency and giving it an 'invisible camera.', says the company. It has partnered with McLaren for the third time, and the design of the phone draws inspiration from the McLaren’s design ethos and approach. Features of OnePlus Concept One The glass of the phone uses organic particles to create changes in transparency so that the glass covering the camera lenses can shift in an instant from opaque black to entirely clear. The glass also provides a practical benefit, doubling as a built-in polarizing filter for the camera that allows users to achieve sharper, more finely detailed shots under strong light. It draws inspiration from similar technology used in McLaren's 720S Spider luxury sports car, which features a retractable hard top glazed with an electrochromic glass panel that can rapidly switch between tinted and transparent states. The design integrates both glass and leather, using the same luxury trim specially tailored for McLaren’s supercars, in the iconic McLaren papaya orange - a tribute to McLaren Racing’s history ...