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Vivo X60 5G vs OnePlus 9R 5G: Are they pretty much the same?

Yesterday we compared the Vivo X60 Pro+ and OnePlus 9 Pro which were the premium smartphones of their latest launch series respectively. Today, we bring you the comparison of the base variants of these two series. Will the battle will be won by the same player? Let’s checkout!

Display 

The OnePlus 9R flaunts a 6.55-inch FHD+ flexible AMOLED display panel and comes with a screen resolution of 2400×1080 pixels. It has a strong 120Hz refresh rate. On the other hand, Vivo X60 sports a 6.56-inch FHD+ AMOLED display and come with a similar 120 Hz refresh rate. In terms of display, not much to separate between the two smartphones.

Processor

Snapdragon 870 SoC announced; will power phones from Motorola, OnePlus,  OPPO, and more | 91mobiles.com

Vivo X60 and OnePlus 9R are powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 mobile processor. The latter is coupled with 8GB or 12GB RAM and 128GB or 256GB UFS 3.1 internal storage. Vivo X60 comes with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage and 12GB RAM, and 256GB storage.

Camera

Vivo X60 features a triple camera system at the back with a 48MP Sony IMX598 primary sensor and two 13MP lenses. OnePlus 9R showcases a quad-camera system that features a 48 MP Sony IMX586 main lens, 16MP Sony IMX481, 2 MP monochrome, and a 5MP macro sensor. For selfies and video chats, the latter brings you a 16MP Sony IMX471 selfie shooter as compared to the former’s 32 MP front lens. 

The OnePlus series has launched camera features with the aid of Swedish camera manufacturer, Hasselblad, which is rated highly in the world. They are famous for their iconic colour science which will be passed on to OnePlus as well. But on the other hand, Vivo X60 lacks Gimbal stabilization which is offered with Vivo X60 Pro and Vivo X60 Pro+. The absence of the amazing Gimbal stabilization gives this domain to the OnePlus 9R. 

Battery and Fast Charging

Vivo X60 houses a 4,300mAh battery cell and is paired with 33W fast-charging support. On the other hand, the OnePlus 9R draws energy from a bigger 4,500mAh battery cell and is paired with Warp Charge 65T support.

Price

The OnePlus 9R comes in two colours which are Carbon Black and Lake Blue. The two variants of the device are:

  • 8GB + 128GB – Rs 39,999
  • 12GB + 256GB – Rs 43,999

Vivo X60 also comes in two storage variants and is available in two colours: Midnight Black and Shimmer Blue. 

  • 8 GB + 128 GB : Rs 37,990
  • 12 GB + 256 GB : Rs 41,990

Our Thoughts

The display and the processor of the two smartphones are very similar. You cannot debate which is better on these two domains. But when it comes to camera and battery specs, the OnePlus 9R is a winner. When it comes to pricing, the OnePlus smartphone is Rs 2,000 more expensive but that is expected from a device that offers higher specs. Our choice will be the OnePlus 9R.

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A look at the Global Semiconductor Crisis

As we already know, the world is dealing with a global semiconductor shortage and it has affected the supply of everyday devices from smartphones to gaming consoles to tech-dependent cars.

OEMs have addressed the issue stating that the shortage will even continue in the second half of the year and will affect the share prices of the devices in the coming months.

The major cause for the shortage of chips is that there is an increasing demand for tech gear, in large part because of the pandemic, and winter weather in Texas and a fire in Japan have added to the problem.

As the world is gripped with COVID and chip shortage, there are many company’s that have been affected, and here’s how those companies are affected.

Automakers

Auto-industry is one of the worst-hit industries in the market and it was recovering its business post-covid. However, now, both the chip shortage and concern over a resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic have pulled a Bloomberg index of global manufacturers down 14% from its Jan. 25 record high.

According to the latest reports, Volvo Group has slumped 7% Tuesday and has suspended its productions due to the lack of semiconductors.

“The automotive sector has arguably experienced the greatest level of disruption, with more and more OEMs either slowing production or closing manufacturing plants temporarily.”

In China, it’s Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. slid 19% over three days last week and even the country’s Daiwa Securities cited the chip shortage in downgrading the stock and cutting estimates for this year and next.

Smartphones, Consumer Electronics

According to sources, smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. slumped 4.4% Thursday after warning that parts shortages could slow its growth for the next few quarters. But, in the case of consumer electronics, it gives the manufacturers the power to raise prices and pass on higher costs.

“The share prices haven’t reacted particularly negatively to the news, and I think that’s because the important part is that you’re seeing a snapback in demand for these goods.”

Lenovo Group Ltd. reported earlier that it couldn’t fill all customer orders due to the lack of components. Yet, the demand for the company’s laptops is soaring because of purchases by people working at home, and the stock has doubled since August.

Sony had also earlier reported that it might be unable to fulfill the demand for its new gaming console in 2021 because of production bottlenecks. However, the company’s stock touched a 21-year high in February, though it’s dipped 8.2% since then.

Chipmakers

Finally coming to the industry at the center of everything, the global shortage of semiconductors has seen an increase in the value of the chip manufacturers. Most semiconductor companies are expected to report strong results for the first quarter and even in the second quarter of the year.

“This is all great news for the semiconductor vendor. This kind of tightness — of capacity utilization, rising prices, very, very strong demand — invariably means that their results are very, very strong.”

According to the share market, the European auto chip supplier Infineon Technologies AG is up 12% for the year while STMicroelectronics NV has gained just 5.6%. In the U.S., Texas Instruments Inc. is up 15%, while NXP Semiconductors NV and ON Semiconductor Corp. has done better, up 25% and 24% respectively, versus the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index’s 11% rise.

However, the winner of this crisis is the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. which is running at almost its full capacity to try to keep up with the surge in demand. TSMC shares are down 12% from their record set on Jan. 21 but are still up 11% on the year. It seems that global industries are relying on the Taiwanese chip manufacturer to ease their crisis.

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HarmonyOS will start to roll out from April 2021 on Huawei platforms

After months of development, Huawei is now ready to launch its HarmonyOS for its smartphones. According to the OEM, HarmonyOS is intended to run on its own manufactured smartphones and tablets. It’s even been hinted that it will run on its wearables and even possibly on the company’s laptops.

Since, Huawei has been prohibited from using Google Mobile Services (GMS), a system in Android, thanks to its placement on the US Entity List. The company had to look for an alternative to make sure its users enjoy their mobile services, so Huawei has brought forth its HarmonyOS.

According to the OEM, Harmony is a “brand-new” OS it has built from the ground up out of necessity. However, reports indicate that the new OS is indeed based on AOSP and will not be much similar to its older EMUI skin which is developed for Android.

Huawei’s phablet, the Mate X2, the first device from the OEM to use an inward-folding design, will be the first to receive the major update that replaces its current build of EMUI 11 without GMS with HarmonyOS.

Also, reports suggest that the company’s upcoming smartphones, the P50 series will be the first few devices to ship with the new software out of the box. Huawei has reportedly produced several betas of HarmonyOS for the future flagships, which are also now expected to launch. The company will also be launched its updated lozenge-shaped rear camera hump that might feature the new, ground-breaking Sony IMX 800 besides.

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Contenders for the European Golden Boot this season

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The European Golden Boot is the award given to the highest goalscorer in all of Europe’s leagues, and in this list we discuss the top 5 candidates to win the prestigious award this year. Surprisingly, the list does not include any Premier League players since the rest of the continent has been on a completely different level altogether. 

5. Kylian Mbappe: 20 Goals, 25 Games

Mbappe enjoys a place at the top of the Ligue 1 scoring charts, with 6 more goals than the next highest scorer. At 22, he has no intentions and is showing no signs of slowing down, and the goals will only keep on coming till the end of the ongoing season. 

4. Lionel Messi: 23 Goals, 26 Games

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The Barcelona star has been at it again this season and is at the top of the La Liga scoring charts despite enduring the shakiest start to a season in his last fifteen years as a footballer. Messi truly is from another planet given the turnaround that he has had, but the other names on this list are a lot more likely to get bigger numbers on the scoreboard than him this year. 

3. Cristiano Ronaldo: 23 Goals, 24 Games

CR7 is still one of the best finishers to have ever played the sport, and his goalscoring record this season is a testament to that very fact. He recently scored a hat-trick in 33 minutes, and despite being 36 years old, is on another level in Serie A altogether. However, the same cannot be said for his fortunes in Europe. 

2. Erling Haaland: 21 Goals, 21 Games

Manchester City lead race for Erling Haaland from England

The Norwegian wonderkid has the unbelievable record of statistically scoring a goal a game this campaign, and at 20, is turning out to be something else altogether. While his abilities are beyond that of normal people, he will be missing out on the European Golden Boot to… 

1. Robert Lewandowski: 35 Goals, 25 Games

Losing out to Ciro Immobile last season, there is no way the Polish forward is missing out on the European Golden Boot this season, and he is en route to breaking Gerd Muller’s record of scoring 40 Bundesliga goals in a season too. Moreover, should Bayern win some silverware at the end of the season, he will also be a sure-shot candidate for the Ballon d’Or. 

Bayern keen to extend Goretzka contract; Douglas Costa on borrowed time

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Bayern Munich star Leon Goretzka is reportedly being monitored by Chelsea as a potential transfer target for this summer. However, the Bavarians are keen to have the German international stay at the Allianz Arena by having him sign a new contract with them. 

This news comes from the ever-reliable Fabrizio Romano through his social media accounts and has been the case for quite a while. The midfielder is one of the most important players in the Bayern squad and is one of the best all-round box-to-box midfielders in Europe. He can not only add a clinical touch to the attack but also rush back and defend when falling back. 

His presence not only adds to the attack but also strengthens the defense. The player joined Bayern on a free transfer in 2018 from Schalke, and underwent a complete physical transformation in 2020 which saw him gain an eye-catching amount of muscle. He now has a year left on his contract and will start talks to extend it soon. 

On the other hand, Bayern and Douglas Costa’s reunion will only last till the end of the season since they have decided that they do not want to make the Brazilian’s loan move permanent. He will hence, return to Juventus at the end of the campaign. 

There were rumours that the Bundesliga Champions were considering making the loan move permanent, but those are not true since no talks between the two parties regarding the issue have taken place. 

Intel’s Core i9-11900K ultimately pushed to 6 GHz frequency

Intel’s Rocket Lake has been made available to the public through various unofficial channels and also we have seen various benchmarks of the same. According to the latest information, an Indian YouTube channel called, PC Wale, has managed to push the Intel Core i9-11900K Rocket Lake CPU past 6 GHz which is the highest frequency we have seen the CPU run.

However, the most interesting thing about this news is that the Core i9-11900K CPU tested in this milestone was supplied by Intel as a part of its reviewer kit. As a result, even though we get to see the frequency being achieved on the test but no actual benchmarks were provided.

Since it was Intel who officially supplied the chip, PC Wale states that they cannot provide any benchmarks but since LN2 results are not restricted by the NDA, they went ahead to post the maximum frequency they achieved.

Intel announced that the official benchmarks of the chip will be posted on the 30th of this month, posting the benchmark scores of the CPU provided by Intel itself could lead to some serious consequences.

The video below shows the milestone:

According to the channel developers, the XOC BIOS used was provided by SafeDisk who is a well-known overclocker from South Korea. The BIOS allows for voltages to be pushed up to 2V. As can be seen in the video, the board used was the ASUS ROG Maximus XIII HERO which is also part of the reviewers kit from Intel.

However, when the testers decided to push the CPU past 6.5 GHz but it resulted in a hard crash. The testers also mention that they could’ve gone past 7 GHz but the BIOS in its current state is flimsy at best. So, we can expect higher clock rates when intel releases official BIOS.

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India wins the last ODI to clinch the ODI series against England

India beat England in the last ODI by 7 runs and won the series by 2-1.

England won the toss and elected to bowl first. India put up a huge total of 329 runs on the board in the first innings. Half-centuries from Rishabh Pant [78 of 62], Shikhar Dhawan [67 of 56], and Hardik Pandya [64 of 44] helped India to reach a high total.

However, while chasing England did not start well. Both the openers were gone with a low score. Dawid Malan [50 of 50] and tail-ender Sam Curran [95 of 83] tried their best to clinch the victory but failed. Indian bowlers did a great job to restrict them in 322 runs.

After the win, Indian skipper Virat Kohli said, “When the top-two battle each other, we’ll get exciting games. No one will throw in the towel, and Sam played a really good inning to keep them in the hunt. However, our bowlers picked up wickets, and it moved from us finishing it off to them getting over the line before Hardik and Nattu pulled it back.

“I’m surprised Shardul wasn’t the man of the match, and Bhuvi wasn’t the man of the series. A lot of credit to them for bowling so well in adverse conditions. Prasidh and Krunal were impressive but death overs batting was extremely good, despite the early wickets, and if the top three can get a hundred, then we can get 370s and 380s later.”

“This win has been sweet because it’s against the top team in the world, and we’re looking forward to the IPL. It’s been an amazing season, series, and this was a great way to finish it off. Scheduling needs to be looked at in the future, since playing in bubbles will be difficult, and everyone can’t have the same mental capacity all the time, but I’m looking forward to the IPL for now.”-he added.

Barcelona and Real Madrid to battle it out for Fabio Blanco of Valencia U19

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Valencia starlet Fabio Blanco is on the radar of Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid, according to AS. The young winger has been hailed as the next Ferran Torres, with his style of play matching that of the former Valencia player, and them both being Spanish youngsters coming out of the Mestalla. 

Madrid will be keen on trying to lure the player to the Bernabeu after missing out on Pedri to Barcelona last year and will battle it out with arch-rivals Barcelona to try and sign the youngster. However, the Blaugrana could have an advantage since their Sporting Director, Mateu Alemany has known Blanco for a few years. 

Alemany himself was with Valencia, previously and hence knows Blanco well. This could convince the Valencia youngster to pledge his future to Camp Nou over the Spanish capital but it won’t be easy rejecting the biggest club in the world. 

Valencia themselves are also keen on trying to renew the player’s contract before the big clubs try and pounce on him at the end of his contract, which is set to expire in June, and also before other European giants come sniffing. However, they will have to wait till the player turns 18 which won’t be until February of next year. .

The right-footed winger features for Valencia’s Under 19 team, and has also been called up for Spain’s under 16 side on three occasions. 

Final Fantasy VII Remastered is finally here for iPhones and iPads

For the fans of the Final Fantasy series, including me, Apple has brought in some good news for us all. The company’s developers have officially and for the first time has brought their Final Fantasy VIII Remastered to the iPhone and the iPad.

Originally launched in the classic year of 1999, the game sold more than 9.6 million copies worldwide, and now it’s possible to enjoy Final Fantasy VIII on the iPhone and the iPad with a renewed character CG.

“It is a time of war. The Republic of Galbadia, under the influence of the sorceress Edea, mobilizes its great armies against the other nations of the world. Squall and other members of SeeD, an elite mercenary force, join hands with Rinoa, a resistance fighter, to fight against Galbadia’s tyrannical rule and to prevent Edea from fulfilling her ultimate goal.”

The game of course is a re-mastered version of the original one and we have Guardian Force that is summoned creatures that are used to protect the protagonists. You just have to call them in the battle to unleash their might and to increase their power alongside player characters.

The remastered version also makes it possible to obtain magic by extracting it in battle. MP doesn’t exist and players are limited to the number they have in possession.

The game, Final Fantasy VIII Remastered comes as a one-time purchase app in the App Store. From March 25 to April 4 it will cost $16.99, after that, the price will rise to $20.99.

The game approximately requires around 2.55GB of storage, Square Enix says this amount of downloadable data will be required just once while progressing through the game.

The company also plans to add cloud save and controller support options. However, to run the Final Fantasy VII Remastered users will need to be running iOS 13 or iPadOS 13.

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Intel’s latest listings prove the existence of several of its upcoming products

In the latest update, Intel has posted several of its upcoming next-generation CPU and GPU products on its official webpage. According to the official webpage, the listed products include Raptor Lake, Meteor Lake, Xe-HPG DG2 graphics cards, and several HPC class designs such as Emerald Lake & Ponte Vecchio.

We have already seen several leaks and rumors about these cards, but the latest intel listings offer some additional and official information about the cards. 

Intel 13th Generation Raptor Lake Desktop (Consumer) CPUs

In the listing, there isn’t any new specification information that we already don’t know, but it does confirm that the Raptor Lake CPUs do exist and will now be part of the 13th Gen Intel Core CPU family. The Intel Raptor Lake CPUs will be replacing Alder Lake but it won’t be a huge change.

As we already know, the Alder Lake 12th Gen’ CPUs will be the first Intel CPUs to utilize a hybrid core design approach and will be based on the 10nm Enhanced SuperFin process. It will bring support for DDR5 and PCIe 5.0. Raptor Lake, on the other hand, will essentially carry most of these features and will only offer slight upgrades to the platform and core changes.

Intel 14th Generation Meteor Lake Desktop (Consumer) CPUs

Meteor Lake, the 14th Generation CPU has also been listed, and it will be based on a new line of Cove core architecture. This is rumored to be known as the ‘Redwood Cove’ and will be based on a 7nm EUV process node. It is stated that the Redwood Cove is designed from the ground up to be an agnostic node and it is stated that TSMC will be a backup or even a partial supplier for the Redwood Cove-based chips.

It will also most likely be the first CPU generation from Intel to say farewell to the ring bus interconnect architecture. We have also heard reports that the Meteor Lake could be a fully 3D-Stacked design and could utilize an I/O die sourced from an external fab.

The platform will support both DDR5 & DDR4 memory with the mainstream and budget tier options. Intel has also listed down both Meteor Lake P and Meteor Lake M CPUs that will be aimed at mobility platforms.

Intel Granite Rapids, Emerald Rapids, Diamond Rapids Future Xeon / HEDT CPU Families

Intel has also listed its server CPUs on its official page and the listing has confirmed the existence of the Intel Emerald Rapids and Diamond Rapid processors. According to the listings, the Sapphire Rapids family of 4th Gen Xeon Scalable Processors will be replaced by Emerald Rapids on the same Eagle Stream platform.

We already expected Intel to update its Xeon platform with Mountain Stream and Birch Stream. However, both Granite and Diamond Rapids are also listed for Mountain Stream but only Diamond Rapids is listed for the Birch Stream platform. For the unknown, it is reported that the Diamond Stream platform will replace Granite Rapids as its successor.

The Granite Rapids will launch in 2023 on the 7nm process node while Diamond Rapids will launch around 2024 and will feature either an advanced version of the 7nm process node or a 5nm process from Intel.

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