Along with the Red Magic 5S and Nubia Watch with a flexible screen, it also brings three new GaN chargers to us. Among those three, the one with the highest power is of 120W and it has three charging ports.
The GaN chargers are made up of gallium nitride which is a semiconductor with super thermal conductivity, high-temperature resistance, and acid and alkali resistant. Due to this material, designing a smaller in size charger is also possible.
Though previously in the market, GaN chargers were available of 90W or 65W, this time Nubia brings the 120W GaN charger and it’s an admirable job. It has three charging ports – one USB-A port and two USB-C port. You can use it to charger to almost all devices, even laptops. Because of the material, its size is 25% less than MacBook pro’s 96W USB-C power adapters.
Along with this 120W charger, Nubia also unveils a 65W GaN charger with three charging ports and a 45W charger having two charging ports. A dual-head USB-C two-in-one data cable also comes in the market at the same time.
The 120W GaN charger from Nubia costs 299 Yuan (nearly $43), the 65W and 45W chargers will be available at 169 Yuan ($24) and 99 Yuan ($14) respectively. On the other hand, the USB-C cable costs 79 Yuan, that’s $11.
All the football clubs have been busy releasing new football kits for the upcoming 2020-21 season. Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur has also revealed their new home and away kits for next season.
The new home kit features a lot more blue around the shoulder along with that it has some yellow piping around the collar. The jersey looks good with some imprints on the main off-white part of the jersey.
The away kit is slightly below par. It seems the moss green colour won’t look great on the players. We will have to wait till the start of next season to see how bad it looks!
Recently, AMD announced its Q2 2020 earnings, which by far seems to be their best earning quarter and there is no effect due to lockdowns and pandemic. Thanks to its strong notebook and server processor sales, AMD has earned a whopping $1.93B in revenue, about a 26% increase over the same quarter a year ago.
AMD Q2 2020 Financial Results (GAAP)
Q2’2020
Q2’2019
Q1’2020
Revenue
$1.93B
$1.53B
$1.79B
Gross Margin
44%
41%
46%
Operating Income
$173M
$59M
$177M
Net Income
$157M
$35M
$162M
Earnings Per Share
$0.13
$0.03
$0.14
There’s no doubt that the key success to this lies to AMD’s Computing and Graphics segment which totaled the revenue to $1.37B, which is almost a 45% increase over the same period last year. AMD also had a greater year-over-year revenue was driven by strong Ryzen processor sales and their EPYC server CPUs also made the quarter booming for AMD. Next quarter revenue will have an impact by the new Ryzen 4000 Renoir desktop APUs as well.
Also, this year’s Ryzen 4000 mobile APUs have totally changed the notebook market, with large OEMs going for AMD APUs and gaming processors along with Radeon mobile graphics as well. This has significantly impacted the record revenue that AMD reported their client processor average selling price (ASP) was up year-over-year driven by Ryzen processor sales. Their Operating income was $200 million compared to $22 million a year ago and $262 million in the prior quarter.
AMD Q2 2020 Computing and Graphics
Q2’2020
Q2’2019
Q1’2020
Revenue
$1367M
$940M
$1438M
Operating Income
$200M
$22M
$262M
AMD’s Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment revenue record for a total of $565 million which is up to 62% quarter-over-quarter. AMD also represented how their 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors continued to accelerate with unique cloud, enterprise and high-performance computing (HPC) wins.
AMD also had a good commercial momentum because of its Ryzen PRO performance and is likely to increase over the next quarter as the new Ryzen 4000 PRO processors have launched this month itself. Also, the new Ryzen Threadripper 3000 PRO will likely increase their commercial businesses as well.
AMD Q2 2020 Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom
Q2’2020
Q2’2019
Q1’2020
Revenue
$565M
$591M
$348M
Operating Income
$33M
$89M
-$26M
However, AMD has to ramp up its GPU productions as its GPU ASP was lower year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter due to lower channel sales. In September, AMD is supposed to launch its RDNA 2 based graphics cards and has to do it right this time to catch up with NVIDIA’s large portfolio of graphics cards.
Also, do note that AMD has started the production of the Sony PS5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X consoles, so next quarters for AMD is supposed to improve significantly.
“We delivered strong second-quarter results, led by record notebook and server processor sales as Ryzen and EPYC revenue more than doubled from a year ago,” said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president, and CEO. “Despite some macroeconomic uncertainty, we are raising our full-year revenue outlook as we enter our next phase of growth driven by the acceleration of our business in multiple markets.”
For the third quarter of 2020, AMD expects revenue to be approximately $2.55 billion, plus or minus $100 million, an increase of approximately 42% year-over-year and 32 percent sequentially. AMD expects non-GAAP gross margin to be approximately 44% in the third quarter of 2020.
AMD also expects the 2020 revenue to grow by approximately 32% compared to 2019 driven by strength in PC, gaming, and data center products while non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be approximately 45%.
Samsung Galaxy M31s is the upgraded version of the Galaxy M31 which was previously launched in India and now we can have this device from August 6 on Amazon Prime Day sale. The phone is priced at Rs.19,499 for the base variant and there is another variant which is a couple of thousand rupees more than this. Amazon has already created the “Notify Me” page for the device revealing the key features of the smartphone. You can click on the “Notify Me” button for the reminder before the sale starts on 6th August.
Specification of Samsung Galaxy M31s
Samsung Galaxy M31s features a 6.5-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED Infinity-O Display with Corning Gorilla Glass Protection. The phone has a quad-camera setup at back including 64MP primary Sony IMX682 sensor with an f/1.8 lens, a 12MP secondary sensor that has a 123-degree ultra-wide-angle lens, 5MP depth sensor, and a 5MP macro shooter. The 32MP selfie camera sensor at the front is housed in the punch-hole cut on the display.
The phone runs on One UI based on Android 10 and it features a 10nm architectured Exynos 9611 SoC paired with up to 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. The phone is powered by a 6,000mAh battery and can be charged with a 25W fast charger provided in the box. The phone will be available in Mirage Black and Mirage Blue colours.
Price and Availability
The Galaxy M31s is priced at Rs.19,499 for the 6GB + 128GB base variant and the 8GB + 128GB variant is priced at Rs.21,499. The sale will start on Amazon from 6th August.
Manchester City failed to defend their Premier League title this season and were way behind winners Liverpool. One of the main reasons for Manchester City’s failure has been their defending. Laporte was injured for the first part of the season which caused City several problems.
City wanted to sign a defender since last season. They went for Harry Maguire but he signed for Manchester United instead. Now, City has turned their heads towards Bournemouth defender Nathan Ake.
Nathan Ake looks set to become a £41million Manchester City player…
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) July 30, 2020
According to several reports, including the Athletic, Sky Sports and BBC, the Dutch centre-back is on the verge of joining Manchester City. Bournemouth has received an offer of €45m from City.
Bournemouth has been relegated to the Championship this season. So it became more easy for Manchester City to lure away the 25-year-old defender.
Nubia, this Tuesday, launched its new smartwatch named Nubia Watch along with the new gaming phone Red Magic 5S. It’s an upgrade version of Nubia Alpha from that came to the market last year. Here are the details.
The new Nubia Watch has a 4.01 inch super flexible AMOLED screen which is curved around the wrist. The dial of the watch is made build from a lightweight aluminum alloy manufactured using the nano-injection process and it also uses biomedical-grade ceramics on the side.
The extension part of the screen is made of a 316L stainless steel and as per the company it crosses over 30 processes. There are two straps coming with the watch body, one is a soft silicone strap and the other one is Napa leather strap which is made of Italian calfskin and coated with a silky surface.
The overall visualization part is almost done, now come to the feature part. It is equipped with all the required sensors, and other hardware to track and monitor your health, notify you about the weather, help you to find your phone, set reminder, and more. There are so many sports modes too. Users can also take advantage of the eSIM support and multiple watch faces.
The new Nubia Watch with the ultra-flexible screen is priced 1799 Yuan i.e. around $257 and will be available from 5th August on Nubia’s official website as well as offline stores in three color variants named Knight Black, Armour Green, and Flame Red.
The Consumer Electronics Show or CES is one of the biggest technology events across the globe held each year in January and the show is huge enough to start its preparation 6 months early. So, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) who governs this show has, in fact, announced this flagship tech event will not be canceled due to the current pandemic but like other virtual launches, this one too will held 100% virtually.
The CES 2021 was to be held on January 6-9, 2021 in Las Vegas and is a perfect place to conduct business in-person and make announcements to the global consumers. However, this current situation will become risky to accommodate thousands of people so its better if the total event is held virtually which will help draw countless real-life attendees per day.
CES 2021 will be an all-digital experience connecting exhibitors, customers, thought leaders, and media from around the world. The new format will allow participants to hear from technology innovators, see cutting-edge technologies and the latest product launches, and engage with global brands and startups from around the world.
The CTA association’s CEO, Gary Shapiro said, “Amid the pandemic and growing global health concerns about the spread of COVID-19, it’s just not possible to safely convene tens of thousands of people in Las Vegas in early January 2021 to meet and do business in person”.
“Technology helps us all work, learn, and connect during the pandemic – and that innovation will also help us reimagine CES 2021 and bring together the tech community in a meaningful way. By shifting to an all-digital platform for 2021, we can deliver a unique experience that helps our exhibitors connect with existing and new audiences.” All of the keynotes and conferences, product showcases, and show floors, in general, will be completely digital.
This is will help attendees have live access to meetings, discussions, and interactions with exhibitors as well and CTA says that there include various advantages to these new changes in format. This includes having a “front-row” seat to many events and exhibitions of CES 2021 right from their homes and/or offices.
The CTA says this digital transformation will give a new and immersive experience for the tech industry as a whole. The CTA has however promised that CES 2022 will be held in Las Vegas, combining the best elements of a physical and digital show.
Juventus becomes the latest club to release their new home kit for the next season. The last season’s stripe-less home kit created a lot of controversy among the fans.
So this time, Adidas has gone back to Juventus’ traditional black and white stripes along with golden logos and sponsor names.
The Taiwan OEM has just launched its premium ZenBook lineup in India via online event hosted an hour ago, it launched two of its new laptops: ZenBook 13 (model UX325) and ZenBook 14 (model UX425). These new laptops are slimmer than before and promise great improvements over last-gen, featuring the Intel’s latest 10nm based Ice Lake CPUs.
These new productivity centric laptops promise up to an insane 22 hours of battery life and 18 hours of video playback, which makes them even more special if you are someone who likes to work for long hours. Also, even if you forget your charger, being an Intel laptop you charge it via the two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports that support fast charging as well.
There’s not much difference between the ZenBook 13 and ZenBook 14, it’s just that one comes with 13.3 inch display and the other with 14 inch display. The quality of the display is also same with Full HD (1920×1080) resolution, 16:9 aspect ration, anti-glare IPS level 4-way NanoEdge bezel display. The screen comes with 400 nits of peak brightness and covers 72% of NTSC color gamut.
The ZenBook 14 has a 90% screen-to-body ratio for more immersive viewing while the ZenBook 13 has an 88% screen-to-body ratio with slim bezels on both the laptops. The laptops are very thin and light with an all-metal design and the ZenBook 14 is the world’s thinnest 14-inch laptop with 13.9mm thin and 2.49lb or 1.13 Kg, while the ZenBook 13 is also the world’s thinnest 13-inch laptop with 13.9mm thin and 2.62lb or 1.07 Kg.
Being just 13.9mm thin, Asus says both of the laptops are the world’s thinnest 13-inch and 14-inch laptops with full I/O ports. But still, the laptops are strong enough coming in with MIL-STD-810G military standard for reliability and durability, undergoing a punishing test regime.
Both of the ZenBook 13 and 14 feature a precision-engineered ErgoLift hinge that lifts the rear of the laptop slightly, tilting the keyboard to the optimum typing angle. As pointed out by Asus, both of the ZenBooks features a new edge-to-edge ergonomic backlit keyboard that increases the size of the keyboard, ASUS NumberPad 2.0, an LED numeric keypad hidden inside the trackpad.
Coming to the performance, the new ZenBook laptops feature 10th generation Ice Lake Intel Core i5-1035G1 processor (6M Cache, up to 3.6 GHz) with Intel UHD graphics and Core i7-1065G7 processor (8M Cache, up to 3.9GHz) with Intel Iris Plus Graphics. You get up to 16GB LPDDR4X RAM and 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD storage options.
Also, the laptops feature a built-in IR camera on the front for facial recognition sign-in with Windows Hello and comes in with pre-installed Windows 10 Pro out-of-the-box. Both of the ZenBook 13 and 14 features an amazing 22-hour battery life and has a fast-charge feature that can restore the battery up to a 60% charge level in just 40 minutes.
The Taiwan based OEM has kept it simple when it comes to I/O and ports, featuring a full-size HDMI and USB-A ports along with two USB-C Thunderbolt ports with fast charging support and a microSD card slot. On the connectivity front, you get the latest Intel WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 as well.
The Asus ZenBook 13 (UX325) & ZenBook 14 (UX425) with the latest Intel CPUs raises the bar when it comes to thin and light portable notebooks and the company has kept a starting price of ₹ 79,990. These laptops should be available via online retailers and via Asus in the coming days. However, the AMD variants of the laptops will surely come in the coming days and provide better value at lower costs, surely.
In the US, the same ZenBook 13 with Core i5, 8GB RAM & 256 GB SSD is priced at $799.99 while the ZenBook 13 with Core i5, 8GB RAM & 512 GB SSD also has the same price tag and the Core i7 variants costing $100 more only for both of them. You get the laptops in the US via Amazon here.
These days we tend to go for a proper soundbar for our homes, maybe for everyday music sessions or to boost your TV volume. As soundbars are now more affordable and better, we have a lot of options in the market as well but which should you be going for? So, I was looking for one and got to Amazon to check out some of the best sellers and this soundbar from iBall came to my attention.
For a quite long time, the soundbar was the best seller on Amazon and so I thought of going for it as its an Indian along, and the specs it offers at the pricing is just amazing. I ordered the Grey variant for just Rs. 1,520 and at that price it is a steal because the value it offers at that price is just crazy, so here’s my complete review of the iBall Musi Bar Soundbar:
Specifications
Total Output: 10 W RMS (5 W x 2)
Speaker Driver: 5.2 cm x 2
Frequency Response: 100 Hz ~ 20 KHz
Impedance: 4 Ohms
S.P.L: 82 ± 3 dB
Playback Time: Upto 15 hours
Dimensions: 6.5 cm (H) x 38.3 cm (W) x 5.8 cm (D)
Weight: 625 g
Cords won’t bother you anymore as Musi Bar has multiple playback options like BT | USB | MicroSD |AUX | FM
Acoustically optimized design that reduces vibrations and increases audio fidelity
Colors: Black, Grey, and White
In the box: Speaker – 1 N, Remote Control – 1 N, Charging Cable – 1 N, User Manual – 1 N
Design & Build quality
Generally, at its pricing, people expect any soundbar to look cheap and sub-par but however, here’s not the case, the soundbar looks great and the design on the front mesh just enhances its beauty. The 4-star ratings on Amazon are genuine because the soundbar has a good build quality and feels sturdy & heavy as well. On the front, you have the iBall branding which doesn’t look bad and the overall color scheme looks charming.
One thing to notice that, even though it is made up of plastic, the finishing on it makes it look good although there are compromises made on the back of the soundbar, as there’s nothing special in terms of design. But if you would notice that it has an optimized design that reduces vibrations and increases audio fidelity, and it actually works.
There are four buttons on the top and those are of low quality, however, I get this is a budget soundbar but what impresses me is how compact the soundbar is, has a width of just 38 cm, it is easier to fit in and easier to carry weighing just 625 g. The remote is almost a gimmick only works if you use a USB drive or an SD card to listen to songs which these days are rare, still good for a lot of people who like that approach and if you love using FM.
Connectivity
The soundbar has 3 main modes including Bluetooth, Line-in, and FM mode, personally I used the first two modes mainly because the FM mode isn’t that great as it doesn’t catch the stations that accurate enough. For Bluetooth, I couldn’t figure out what actual version it is, not even on the iBall site but as it shows battery percentage, it is most probably Bluetooth 4.2 and also you cannot connect two devices to the soundbar at the same time.
In reality the Bluetooth mode works like a charm and connects very fast, and you can easily plug-in an AUX cable to use it with your TV or PC, anything you want. However, one thing I noticed is that the soundbar has better audio quality when used with Bluetooth mode rather than the Line-in mode.
Audio Performance
Obviously, the main thing you notice is the audio quality of the soundbar, well to be honest I had doubts in my mind that coming in that cheap will the 10W (5 W x 2) speaker actually work? To my surprise, yes the speaker is on par with the expectation, in fact, the sound quality is almost alike to the costlier soundbars.
I like the fact that how much loud the soundbar can go, do note that there are different audio interception quality in Bluetooth and Line-in modes, personally the Bluetooth mode can go very loud. If you are an ardent music listener, you’ll love this iBall Musi Bar, how much loud you might go, the soundbar doesn’t feel distorted, do use high quality music players like Spotify or Gaana or JioSaavn.
However, the speaker doesn’t blow up your mind when it comes to base, as you miss the thump which any high priced soundbar from boAt or JBL gives you. For music listners, I would very much recommend this as the quality of the music is just crystal clear but however, do not plan to use it as a movie companion because its high tones are not tuned well to handle any gun fires or explosions, those kind of scenes.
But if you plan to use it for watching matches, daily soaps and that kind of stuff where high tones don’t matter much, then the iBall Musi Bar is a great option. Also, I like the fact that even though being such compact it delivers wide sound which is enough to fill a small or medium-sized room, do not expect any surround sound effect you get from costlier soundbars.
As I told previously, the sound quality in Bluetooth mode is great and if you use at 60% volume, you can get satisfactory results, however, when used in Line-in mode you have to go full 100% volume to get best results, quite strange honestly. Also, the USB and SD card reader mode works well and can easily be controlled via remote, comes in handy if you want no setup just endless songs one after another almost like a home theater with some limitations.
I don’t about heavy songs, but the soundbar can handle any Bollywood song or even bhajans quite well, overall the music listening experience is great. If you are accustomed to listening such songs do go for this soundbar, don’t expect punchier base with any English song and you cannot tune it with any equalizer so, just to have a soundbar at a low budget, the iBall Musi Bar should be a great choice for most people out there.
Battery Life
I was not expecting anything better in this segment because most soundbars do not give as much battery life as they promise, with this I have mixed feelings. The iBall Musi Bar says to deliver up to 15 hours, which is huge but doesn’t actually give so but with Bluetooth mode, I got 10 hours battery life while with Line-in mode I got over 10 hours, practically enough for a budget soundbar. It doesn’t support fast charge, so you need a lot of time to actually charge it.
Verdict
The iBall Musi Bar is a great budget soundbar that does the job for the most average user who needs a Bluetooth speaker maybe but having a compact soundbar like this actually helps a lot. The connectivity options are great as well, with lots of modes at around Rs. 1,500- Rs. 2.000 (depending on the color you chose), I have no complaints with this soundbar.
The value it offers is amazing and yes, it deserves to be the Amazon’s bestseller as well, if you do not have huge expectations with it and need a daily driver, this is perfect! Buy from here: https://amzn.to/3gcKWen
