LG G8 ThinQ Review

This is the new LG G8 ThinQ. It looks like your typical phone on the outside – with a familiar glass-and-metal construction and a screen stretching from edge to edge – but on the inside, it packs some sci-fi-level stuff. It lets you unleash your inner Jedi with its Air Motion gesture controls, while Hand ID, as its name implies, allows the G8 to recognize its owner by scanning the palm of their hand. 

Okay, I know these all sound like party tricks, but the LG G8 has a lot more going for it. On its inside ticks the Snapdragon 855, which is currently the most powerful chip you can get in an Android phone. It also packs a dual-camera setup and one of the largest batteries we've seen in a high-end LG phone. Priced at around $600 after discounts, the LG G8 could be the perfect pick if you're hunting for a bargain. To find out if that's really the case, I spent a week with it in my pocket.



In the box:

• LG G8 ThinQ phone
• Microfiber cleaning cloth
• Wall charger
• USB-C cable
• SIM ejector tool
• Quick start guide and warranty information

Design

As I mentioned above, the LG G8 doesn't look all that special at a glance. There's no denying that its glossy red color is striking, but overall, because of its familiar design, this can easily be mistaken for a phone from last year. LG's flagship is also available in black or grey, for those who'd rather blend in with the crowd.

When I picked it up, however, I instantly noticed that the LG G8 is easier to handle than most other phones I've tested recently. It is still extremely slippery, just like every other phone made of glass and metal, but its thick, flat sides allow for a nice, comfortable grip. 

Curiously, the LG G8 is one of the very few handsets lacking a camera bump. On one hand, this results in a cleaner look with fewer distractions, but on the other, the entire back comes in full contact with any flat surface you lay the phone on. This could be the reason why there's already a tiny scratch over the camera lens on my review unit, even though its back is protected by the latest Gorilla Glass 6. 

LG introduced us to the dedicated Google Assistant button with the G7. The G8 has one as well, placed on its left side, and it behaves in a similar fashion: pressing it once brings up the Assistant; pressing and holding lets you interact with Google's AI in "Walkie Talkie" mode. The button can be disabled fully or partially but can't be remapped to do something else, such as to open a predefined app. Accidental presses do happen, but they were rare in my experience. 

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Nokia 9 PureView Review

The Nokia 9 is probably the most anticipated smartphone in the brand’s Android era. The reason for that is only one: the unique rear camera setup that includes not three, not even four, but five cameras! But a phone is more than just a camera, so let’s start our exploration of the Nokia 9 PureView the way we always do.

What’s in the box:

• Nokia 9 PureView
• Headphones with a 3.5mm jack
• 3.5mm to USB Type-C adapter
• 18W Power adapter
• USB Type-A to USB Type-C cable
• SIM tool
• Manual

Design

The Nokia 9 PureView dresses the part. With Nokia’s signature metal trim around the edge and imposing stature, it’s ready to take the spot as the brand’s flagship phone. The wait for the arrival of the Nokia 9 was long, however, and it shows. The front looks generic and won’t really impress you. With its big (for 2019) top and bottom bezels, it looks a bit dated and reminds us of the LG G6 (which came out in 2017). Still, for some people, that kind of look is better than a notch. But compared to the Galaxy S10+, for example, this looks like a phone from another time period.

Left to right - LG G6, Nokia 9 and Galaxy S10+

The dull impression the front gives is nowhere to be found on the back, however. The full camera assembly consists of the five main cameras, the flash, and the ToF camera, all identically shaped and positioned in a hexagon formation. Best of all, the components are flush with the back of the phone, so there's no camera bump, making the back panel as sleek as it can be.

The cameras are a verified conversation starter. The arrangement sparks curiosity even in people that aren’t that much interested in phones, just because it looks so unusual (we’d even call it weird). If you decide to get this phone, be prepared to answer the question “What do all these cameras do?” over and over again. When you get bored of that, just keep your phone face up. No one will look twice at it. And while the slick back is not too slippery when you’re holding the phone, when you put it on even a slightly slanted surface, it starts to slowly drift like a tiny glacier. If you’re not careful, you might hear a clank a couple of minutes after you’ve put it down.

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Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Review

There is one main reason why Chinese brand Xiaomi has skyrocketed to success and millions of people are buying its phones: the price. Xiaomi phones are dirt cheap devices for what they offer and today we have the new Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 that costs less than $200 yet features a premium design, a powerful Snapdragon 660 processor, a 48-megapixel main camera and plentiful storage.

On the surface, this seems like the perfect phone for those who don’t want to spend a fortune. I have lived with the Redmi Note 7 in the past week and it is mostly the great phone that you think it is, but there is one big drawback that we need to talk about that prevents me from recommending this, and any other Xiaomi phone right now.

Design

Premium feel at an affordable price

The Redmi Note 7 has no less an appeal than much more expensive devices: it’s made of glass with a metal frame. It is very solidly put together and it comes in three beautiful colors, a gorgeous red one, the blue one that we have up for review and a classic black version.

You have a power button and a volume rocker on the right side and they feel very nice, with a good amount of travel, while on the bottom you have a USB-C port and a speaker. You also have the good old headphone jack at the top, and right next to it, an infra-red blaster so that you can use your phone as a remote control for your TV set or air conditioner.

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Apple iPad Air (2019) Review

After a long time spread in between, Apple’s iPad Air 2 finally received a proper successor! Technically, the iPad Air (2019) arrives nearly 4.5 years after the iPad Air 2, which is a staggering amount of time in the world of tech. Until the arrival of the iPad Pro, the Air was largely considered the top of the line tablet in Apple’s stable, but if pricing dictates structure, the iPad Air (2019) is now classified as the mid-range offering – sitting in between the iPad (2018)at $350 and the 11-inch version of the iPad Pro (2018) priced at $800. The $500 sticker price of the iPad Air (2019) seems appropriate for any mainstream tablet, but where does it rank in the greater scheme of things?

In the box:

• iPad Air (2019)
• USB Lightning Cable
• USB Power Adapter
• Quick Start, Safety Guide, and Stickers

Design

Borrowing the same aesthetics and design language of its predecessor in the 2014 released iPad Air 2, the new iPad Air (2019) doesn’t barely break from tradition. It can easily be mistaken for the iPad Air 2 unless you inspect them closely, seeing that the iPad Air (2019) is a smidgen longer and wider, but it’s still incredibly well-built, features a sleek aluminum body, rounded edges with a subtle beveled edge. Yes, it’s a recycled design that doesn’t bear anything terribly new or different, but it’s a signature design that stays true to Apple’s philosophy of being clean and simple.

Apple has chosen to keep the Touch ID fingerprint sensor. It would have been great if it had put Face ID here, but Touch ID is also very good and simple to use. The 3.5mm headphone jack is still intact here, which is surely a sight for sore eyes given that the newer iPad Pros don’t have them.

Looking elsewhere around the tablet, all of the same ports and buttons from before are located in their typical locations. On the bottom edge, we have its Lighting port and two speaker grills that flank it. To the right, we have dedicated volume up and down buttons – while the top houses the power button, headphone jack, and microphone.

VIEW MORE+ 9 IMAGES

But interestingly enough, the only new addition here are the three pin connectors on its left edge, which allows for the support of the Smart Keyboard for those who simply prefer a physical response when typing. Moreover, it’s also worth noting the iPad Air (2019) also supports the Apple Pencil, which still incurs an additional $100 cost. There’s a catch though! It’s the first-generation Apple Pencil, and not the newer one.

Indeed, it’s been 4.5 years in between the two iPad Air models – so you’d think that this new model would be deserving of a new facelift. Apple doesn’t believe it needs one. And there’s very good reason for that because all you need to do is look at the competition. No one else sells more tablets than Apple, so this “old” design works because it has shown to all of us that it has aged nicely. It’s thin, lightweight, and solidly built. What more can we ask for in a design like that?

Display

Even though it may not seem dramatically different if the iPad Air (2019) were placed alongside the iPad Air 2, there are differences in the two displays. For starters, the new iPad Air (2019) features a larger, 10.5-inch 1668 x 2224 Retina Display that’s also fully laminated just like its predecessor for better outdoor visibility. Furthermore, it leverages Apple’s True Tone display technology to adapt colors to the ambient conditions around – while also throwing in support for the wider DCI-P3 color gamut. 

All of this sounds fancy and enticing for this newer iPad Air, but we wouldn’t go beyond saying it’s leaps and bounds superior than the iPad Air 2’s display. Yes, it’s brighter by nearly 100 nits over the iPad Air 2 with its peak brightness output of 525 nits, but it still delivers the same crisp and accurate colors – in addition to the same accurate color tones. With True Tone on, the Retina Display of the iPad Air (2019) appears richer, skewing towards a slightly more saturated tone, but with the feature turned off, it achieves complete accuracy in the sRGB color gamut spectrum. 

Display measurements and quality

Just like the design, there’s not a whole lot new or drastically different with the Retina Display here. At the end of the day, it’s effective in allowing us to handle the tablet for reading, watching videos, and getting work done.

Interface and Functionality

We’ll cut to the chase here. If you’ve held onto the iPad Air 2 and have continually updated its software to the most up-to-date version of iOS, version 12.2 to be specific, then you won’t notice anything different with the iPad Air (2019). In fact, it’s the same experience that you’ll find with other iPads! Don’t be too shocked by this, seeing that continuity with the experience has always been a characteristic among Apple’s tablets. 

You’ll find a gesture-based interface here, which won’t be a total surprise for any iPad users. Naturally, they’re practical and effective in making iOS 12.2 a versatile tablet platform. The same swipes and multi-finger gestures are in play here, allowing us to access the control center by swiping down from the top-right corner of the UI, switching from app-to-app by using four finger swipes, and even getting back to the home screen at any time with a five-finger pinch gesture. These gestures aren’t new, seeing that we’ve seen them previously before.

Image: 1 of 9

While veteran users of the iPad will feel at home right from the onset, anyone new to the iPad may feel a slight learning curve getting to know the ins-and-outs of the navigational experience. After some time, however, these gestures become second nature. And the beauty of iOS is that it favors simplicity in both how the interface is presented, as well as in the feature set of the experience. We’re big fans of being able to have two apps running simultaneously side-by-side to one another. Technically, though, on limited basis because we’re able to run one of four native apps – iMessage, Safari Browser, iTunes, Mail, and Files – which can then be combined with another app. There are different combinations available here, but not all of them will work. Despite that, it’s nice to know that there’s a level of productivity that’s available now with the experience, as opposed to having to constantly switch between apps.

In terms of tablet experiences, Apple has evolved its iOS experience through the various iterations over the years – with this one being obviously more complete. Whether you’re looking to casually doing some work, or just killing time by enjoying a flick or game, iOS 12.2 here on the iPad Air (2019) has everything we need for a tablet.

Processor, Memory, and Performance

Apple’s iPads have always been notoriously responsive, so don’t expect that to change anytime soon either. Powered by Apple’s latest A12 Bionic chipset coupled with 3GB of RAM, the new iPad Air is what you’d expect it to be with its performance – exceptionally responsive! We honestly can’t complain about its performance, as it blows its predecessor out of the water with the synthetic benchmarks. Then again, we should expect it to mop the floor with its performance given the significantly updated chipset it’s packing!

On the surface, your typical operations such navigating around the interface and running apps seem buttery responsive. But the aging iPad Air 2 still delivers buttery results as well with the same tasks. Even though it may be tough to discern the improvements brought along with the new iPad Air, the area where you’ll see the most improvement will be gaming and other processor-heavy functions. In our time using the new iPad Air, it never once showed any indication of stuttering or slowing down with its performance.

When it comes to storage options, there are only two options to choose from – 64GB or 256GB. The price for the 64GB version amounts to $499, while the 256GB one comes in at $649. Considering that there’s no storage expansion whatsoever with Apple’s iPads, the additional $150 you’ll be forking over for the 256GB seems like the wiser choice.

Camera

People still use tablets for taking photos and videos, so even though we would typically refrain from this practice, we’ll spend some time going over the camera here. If we’re to look at the specs of the rear camera, it pretty much matches what was offered by the iPad Air 2. What we have here is an 8MP backside illuminated sensor with an aperture of f/2.4. That’s nothing to gloat about in the world of cameras, but then again, we’re dealing with a tablet here. Interestingly enough, it’s the front-facing camera that receives a makeover – featuring an upgraded 7MP camera, up from the iPad Air 2’s pitiful 1.2MP camera.

Camera interface

Looking beyond the hardware, not much has changed either with the camera interface. It’s pretty straightforward for the most part, providing us with access to the on-screen shutter keys, the various shooting modes, and some other options that include the timer and HDR. What continues to be a frustration is the lack of being able to quickly access some of the settings! We’re still required to navigate outside of the interface and into the iPad’s general settings to change things like the video recording resolution.

Image Quality

Okay, we’ll admit that it takes some pleasant looking shots when the lighting conditions are ideal. Under sunny outdoor settings, the iPad Air’s 8MP rear camera performs the best with average looking details accompanied by accurate looking colors. It’s good, but not excellent. When there’s a strong contrast in lighting, it’s useful to have auto-HDR enabled because it tones down the scene so that the highlights aren’t overblown – resulting in a better exposed composition. However, we do notice that HDR shots tend to come out softer in tone.

Not surprisingly, though, its low-light performance is pretty bad. When there’s extreme darkness in the scene, the whole shot just appears dark and severely under-exposed. Details are lost due to this, but there’s barely any to find even when there’s some lighting around. While we do like how noise is kept to a minimum, the sacrifice is seen in the muddy details and under-exposed results. It’s a total wash in our opinion.

Sample images - Apple iPad Air (2019)

VI

Thankfully, the front-facing 7MP selfie camera boosts its performance over its predecessor. There’s a fair amount of details that we can make out from taking selfies with plenty of lighting around, but the post processing tends to be more liberal with the saturation. 

Aside from the obnoxious looks you may get from taking snapshots using the iPad Air, we really would still refrain from using it for capturing photos. If it’s the absolute last resort when nothing else is within reach, then by all means use it – especially when the lighting conditions are good. Outside of that, you can pretty much forget about it.

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Realme 3 Pro Ultra HD Mode Will Be Able to Produce 64-Megapixel Images, CEO Madhav Sheth Teases

Realme 3 Pro is all set to launch in India on April 22. Ahead of the launch event, CEO Madhav Sheth has now teased that the phone will be able to produce 64-megapixel images, using a new mode called Ultra HD. He hasn't detailed how these images will be created, but we presume that four 16-megapixel images will be stitched together to produce a 64-megapixel photo. This could mean incredible detail, and camera samples shared in the past do hint at impressive low-light photography as well.

Sheth's tweet reveals little detail about the Ultra HD mode apart from the fact that it will be integrated into the Realme 3 Pro. The tweet has the hashtag #64MP, indicating that this mode may be able to produce 64-megapixel images. There is no clarity on how the phone will manage to do that, but we presume the pixel binning technique to be at play here. Sheth says that he will explain the feature and show camera samples at the event.

The Realme 3 Pro launch event is set to begin at 12.30pm IST, and the company confirms it will be live streamed on the company website, and its official social handles. Ahead of the launch, the phone went on ‘Blind Order' for a day, and Realme says that it received more than 1 lakh orders from customers without knowing the product and price.

The Realme 3 Pro is teased to come with features like super slo-mo, fast charging, and HyperBoost. Realme's CEO had also recently tweeted that the Realme 3 Pro will provide 5 hours of talk time with just 10 minutes of charging.

Realme 3 Pro is said to come with a 6.3-inch full-HD display, ColorOS 6.0, a 3,960mAh battery, and the Snapdragon 710 SoC paired with 6GB of RAM. The company had also recently teased the Realme 3 Pro's imaging capabilities, especially low-light photography, but the resolution of the cameras and related features are not known as of now. If it is to compete with the Redmi Note 7 Pro, as teased at Realme 3 launch, the phone will mostly be equipped with a 48-megapixel sensor. Apart from the company website, the phone will also go on sale on Flipkart.

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Huawei P30 Pro Survives Bend Test, Fingerprint Sensor Seen to Work Even After Scratches

Huawei P30 Pro has been put through a series of tests by JerryRigEverything, and the phone seems to have done well particularly in the bend test. The phone is made of tempered glass, and scratches on level 6 and level 7 of the Moh scale in the video. The phone is also put through the flame test, its sides and its back is also scratched to see the durability of the phone after prolonged use. The display above the fingerprint sensor is also scratched heavily to ascertain to see if it works over scratches. Let's see how the phone fares.

JerryRigEverything starts off with the scratch test, and the Huawei P30 Pro₹ 71,990 tempered glass is seen getting scratches at Moh level 6 or 7, which is the norm in flagship grade phones. The Huawei P30 Pro is made of tempered glass and stands tall in the bend test as well. The phone is seen to pass the bend test successfully without any cracks on the screen. To recall, the Huawei P20 Pro didn't do so well in the bend test last year, and suffered cracks on the screen.

The sides of the Huawei P30 Pro are made of metal and they suffer cracks easily. The phone is seen to sport an Infrared LED indicator that will help in controlling TVs. The back is seen to be heavily resistant to scratches, and even the protection over the camera lenses at the back is unaffected to scratches.

The phone's display is also put to fire with a lighter, and the pixels start to turn white and never recover only after 22 seconds of continuous flame. The Huawei P30 Pro's display briefly stops working, but one reboot gets it to start working properly again. The display over the in-display fingerprint scanner is also heavily scratched to see if it works after the damage. The sensor is seen to work well even after the scratches, lending more weight to the phone's durability. You can watch JerryRigEverything's full video below.

As mentioned, the Huawei P30 Pro price in India has been set at Rs. 71,990. The phone is being offered in only one variant with 8GB RAM and 256GB of inbuilt storage. It is available in Aurora and Breathing Crystal colours via Amazon India. The P30 Pro's biggest highlight is its quad rear camera setup co-engineered by Leica, apart from features like reverse wireless charging, in-display fingerprint sensor, IP68-certified dust and water resistance, as well as its 7nm HiSilicon Kirin 980 SoC.

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