Author: Mrinmoy Choudhury

Escobar Fold 2 | The Folding Scam?

Folding phones are the current trend now. The moment screen manufacturers realised the fact that screens could be folded to attain a different form factor altogether, all efforts were concentrated towards making the folding screen incorporate with a smart device.
Folding smartphones have made serial waves in the smartphone industry. This is more because of people who are intrigued by the idea of a folding smartphone and want to have the latest trending device in their hands. Some of the first folding devices to hit the markets were the Royole FlexPai folding phone and the Huawei Mate X. Samsung, who was trailing the folding smartphone wars came up with the Samsung Galaxy Fold to take advantage of of the time and become one of the first movers in the folding smartphone game.

Samsung’s Galaxy Fold was a big failure in its first iteration. Galaxy Folds from all around the world started to crack and the external layer of the screen started to peel off. Tech reviewers from all around the globe started to share their experiences as to how the external layer on the screen which seemed to be like a protective layer for the screen started to peel off leaving the flexible OLED screen destroyed.
Meanwhile, Samsung did take its failure seriously and worked on to bring the second generation of the Galaxy Fold which did manage to impress the crowd because it is very well made and manage to keep the screen intact even after numerous flipping and folding of the screen. While a lot was happening in the foldable smartphone market, Motorola dropped their Moto Razr which came with a blast from the design resembling its very popular folding Motorola Razr phone. The Motorola Razr is the first phone to have the smartphone form factor fold in half, making it one of the first phones to do so. It does not come with top of the line hardware specifications but is aimed towards being a lifestyle device.
While Motorola was making all the noise about their Razr, Samsung dropped the Galaxy Z Flip along with the launch of the Galaxy S20 series. The Galaxy Z Flip comes with more like a smartphone looking form factor which can be folded in between. Specifications on the Z Flip are quite up to the mark with very capable hardware, however, it is still a lifestyle device which is more of a style statement rather than being a full-blown flagship phone.
Huawei’s follow up to the Mate X was soon to follow bearing the Mate Xs name tag. The Huawei Mate Xs is touted to be one of the best folding devices out there with a solid hinge and a great screen which has surely impressed the tech world. Last but not least, TCL, a brand we associate more with making TVs have dropped in their latest concept folding phones. Not one but two different smartphones which have a unique screen. One of them can be folded twice while the other is an interesting concept where the screen extends itself from inside the smartphone resulting in a bigger screen when needed. When not in use, the screen can be rolled back which brings it to the smartphone form factor. Folding smartphones might seem very cool, the ones available come at a steep price.
Now comes the interesting part of the whole folding situation. Escobar Inc – the tech company which is owned by Pablo Escobar’s brother Roberto De Jesus Escobar Gaviria came up with the Escobar Fold 2. If you wondering the Escobar name, well you are right. The Escobar name is associated with Pablo Escobar, the Columbian Drug Lord who was the head of the Medellin Cartel and one of the most powerful drug traffickers, of the 1980s as well as the early 90s.

The Escobar Fold 2

The Escobar Fold 2 was the follow up of the Escobar Fold which was essentially a rebranded Royole FlexPai, one of the first folding smartphones to come into existence. Touted as the ‘Real Samsing Killer Phone’ it features a striking similarity in design of both the devices including the number of cameras and the exact folding schematics. However, the Escobar Fold 2 gets gold-coloured skin on the back and the sides of the phone with Excobar Inc. which helps it to identify from the regular Galaxy Fold.
What makes the Escobar Fold special? In a press statement, Gaviria has specified that some parts of the Escobar Fold have been sourced from China. According to the brand, they aim at giving the clients direct discounts under the Escobar brand name. In attempts of crazy marketing, a promotional video shows scantily clad women smashing Samsung Galaxy Fold smartphones. Such attempts taking a dig at smartphone makers is not the 2020 way of marketing.
A domain names ‘ripsamsung.com’ has been created by the company which redirects to the order page of the Fold 2. Here comes the most interesting part – the fold 2 is priced at $399 which is roughly Rs. 29,000 here in India. This is much much lower to the Galaxy Fold which retails at $1,980 or Rs.1,74,999 in India. This raises serious concerns over the ingenuity of the Escobar Fold 2 when the phone shows Samsung logos hidden under its gold stickering. It could be a classic case of exact Chinese clones of the Galaxy Fold which are much cheaper but nowhere close to the actual Fold from Samsung.
The first Escobar folding phone Escobar Fold 1 was none other than the Royole FlexPai which was rebranded into the Escobar version. A large number of reports and personal experiences on the web depict people’s frustrations after they pre-ordered the phone but never received one. However, a lot of known YouTubers in the technology space have claimed that the company got in touch with them asking them to make video reviews for the phone in exchange for the device. Sadly, the marketing was shabby and this left many people with bad impressions. Tech experts have also asked people to refrain from ordering the phone which does not get delivered. A perfect way to run a scam; The folding scam.

 

Zoom, Now Has a Rival and It Is Called ‘Messenger Rooms’

The current pandemic situation has kept most of the people inside. Apart from the people working in healthcare and essential services, people have been asked or rather say forced to contain themselves inside the four-walls if their homes. 

As naturally, it would come to every one of us, being confined in the house is not exciting and this everyone is looking to connect to their friends, family and the whole world for that matter with their phones and laptops. Things like online deliver and OTT platform engagements have shot up and similarly, chat and video conferencing applications are enjoying this sudden blast of unprecedented traffic. Hence developers are taking this opportunity to develop new avenues to help more and more people connect in this current situation. 

As it would be, video calling applications have seen a massive spike in their traffic. WhatsApp, Messenger, Zoom and Houseparty are the ones which are enjoying the major share of the fame now. However, each one of them come with their flaws. WhatsApp can only connect four users per call, Zoom can handle multiple user connections (100) but recently it has been subject to data hacks and private user data was leaked due to security issues. Houseparty is another solution but the sheer number of notifications it keeps pushing can irritate anyone off from using it. 

Facebook, on the other hand, is learning from the situation and recently has announced the ‘Messenger Rooms’ which will allow a group of 50 people to connect on a single video call. Not only this, on Facebook Messenger Rooms, one can post links in their news feed, groups or even create event pages. 

How does it work? One can simply create a room and users can join the room via their browser. The moderator or room creator can also lock the rooms to prevent unwanted people from entering which seems like a form of moderation. 

Messenger Rooms is said to have Zoom-like features including the background changing effects which is done to avoid people seeing the cluttered background at times. Moreover, Facebook has added multiple filters and lighting effects to compensate for any lighting defects on video. The Facebook Messenger Rooms will be launched in a few weeks; pointing that it is currently under rapid development.

It is said that approximately 700 million people are using various applications to make calls daily. Zoom has been plagued by privacy and security issues. It has breached the 300 million user limit already. This is a massive spike in user demand and Facebook is surely taking notes while doing its homework. The video-meeting platforms have seen a massive surge in users since the COVID-19 pandemic which has forced millions of people to work from their homes.

AI in the Fight Against COVID-19

2020 has been a disaster. The first quarter of the year is almost over and people have no other option but to sit inside their homes, while a China originated human-killing virus wipes a considerable amount of the world population. While ‘Thanos’ was an imaginary being in the Marvel Universe, his aim was no different. He wanted to relieve the world of half its population and restore balance. The COVID-19 is no different situation apart from the fact that killing innocent humans is not going to restore the balance on earth, not after it has been subjected to all the malicious atrocities that it has been subjected since the arrival of mankind.

The virus which is also known as coronavirus is said to be originated in the city of Wuhan, China and suspected to be contracted from animals to humans. As people kept mingling and travelling all over the world, the virus too was spread. The current situation is so bad that most advanced countries like the USA and healthcare dominant countries like Italy are on the verge of giving up. All the global leaders, dignitaries and citizens of most of the infected countries are just asking the same question. When will this end?

In the fight against coronavirus, artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine learning (ML) have all of a sudden great role to play. While doctors, physicians, pharma companies and scientists are directly engaged in this duel of humanity against the virus, AI and ML are now being used as human allies for the answer to we all looking to hear. 

How will AI and ML fight the disease?

For most of us, AI and ML are just boxed in computers. Apart from seeing AI and ML suggest products from our last google search, none of us has actually seen AI work in real-time. What most people would know AI as just a bunch of codes which work behind the scenes to make things easier in front of the screen. However, if you think so, you are wrong. You can not physically see AI and ML do its job, but AI and ML are contributing to this fight, a whole lot more than you can imagine. 

AI and ML can effectively track the disease spread and the trends which points out where the medical help is most needed and where the virus is most likely to spread. This helps medical professionals to quickly act and helps to curb the spread of the disease. AI or as we know artificial intelligence is beyond normal human learning and use its past learning patterns to quickly identify where the things could go wrong. Based on its learning and combining its previous knowledge with insights, it can predict where the disease could go next based on the population flow and density. 

Artificial Intelligence can also match the symptoms of COVID-19 and the required treatment or any other therapy that is required. AI is also streamlining the best treatments for the disease which we still await an effective vaccine. Not only this, but AI and ML are also being used to analyse millions of drugs, elements and formulas with high speed to develop a vaccine. AI might seem to be working at its full speed, but a vaccine is still a year or more away from being developed. 

Now coming to the other side, AI and ML must also contribute to risk management. AI is as good as 95% correct most of the times. With more and more learning, AI continuously improves and thus corrects itself. However, it is quite dicey at this point to depend on AI alone, especially when the data samples (available data on COVID-19) is very less. Will AI still be that effective when it comes to less available data and also predict the failures? This is still to be understood at large unless there is a huge amount of data available for artificial intelligence to learn from. 

For any organisation or company using AI and ML as a tool in the current crisis, it is clear that AI and ML are no more proprietary or experimental technology anymore. The current situation has help demonstrate AI and ML have far more usage and applications, especially when human knowledge and efforts seem to have seen a dead end.

Vu 4K Android Smart TV (50CA) – Review | Quality Entertainment

Vu is spreading its wings in the television industry with its affordable range of smart TV’s. Vu’s Smart TV is another such attempt in this direction. The smart TV is made available in three screen sizes – 139cm (55-inch),126cm (50-inch) and 108 cm (43-inch). It comes with a DLED panel with a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels. The smart TV is HDR10 compatible with a maximum brightness of 500 nits. 

Before talking about the display, we will talk about setting up the TV, which is fairly easy. It comes with legs which can be screwed to the bottom of the TV (if you are using it as a stand-up on a platform). The legs are well built and compatible screws are supplied along with the packaging. Additionally, you can mount the TV on the wall using the supplied mount in the packaging. The TV has screw holes in the back of the chassis and so fixing it to your existing adjustable wall-mount is not going to be a challenge either. Plug it into the power and you will be taken through the setup process. It is better to have a speedy internet connection and you can connect via wi-fi or a wired LAN connection would do as well. You will need to log into the TV with your preferred Gmail account and the TV will sync to it noting your preferences. 

The HDR10 supported display is very bright and crisp. I tried playing some travel 4K content from YouTube and the experience was amazing. Being a 4K enabled device, the picture quality is top-notch and the viewing experience is exhilarating.

I took to watching the Transformers movie franchise and soon ended up watching all the movies of the series because of the sheer pleasure of watching. The 500 nits of brightness is adequate and 50-inch screen size is good enough for a mid-sized room or even the hall for that matter. Moreover, the TV comes with Dolby Vision HDR support which rather amplifies the watching experience to a whole new level.

For audio, as I think of myself to be a purist, and have been using a dedicated audio receiver and a surround 5.1 setup. However, this TV comes with its own 40W speaker setup in the bottom with Dolby Audio support. This features had to be tested and I must say, it does not disappoint; not at all. With preset profiles for audio, you can select the audio according to your preference and use; music, cinema and standard which changes the way audio is delivered. Watching the movies with the sound from the TV was a delight and there was no moment where dialogue would disappear or the sound effect would seem muddy. For most users, the audio quality will be on par.

 On the software front, it supports Android 9 Pie out of the box and comes preloaded with apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Hotstar and Google Play. The TV also has support for Google assistant. It comes with a host of connectivity options which include Bluetooth 5.0, Wifi, 3 HDMI, 2 USB, HDMI ARC, earphone jack, etc. Talking of hardware, the Smart TV is powered by a Quad-core A55 processor clocked at 1.2GHz and a Dual-core Mali470MP GPU. Besides this, the TV gets 1.5GB of RAM and 8GB of onboard storage. 

Not once did the TV had a hiccup or any lag. Operation with the remote was smooth. If you leave the TV on for some time, you will see screensavers being displayed and later the TV will go into sleep mode (without switching off) shutting off the screen to save power. You can hit the power button on the remote to bring it back to life. 

The software experience on this thing is smooth and lag-free. Moreover, the supplied remote has separate hotkeys for Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, and Google Play Movies. Which allows one to swiftly switch between multiple apps.  

Verdict

The Vu Smart Cinema TV brings great picture and audio quality to the table. It has support for Dolby Vision and Dolby Audio which is rare at this price bracket and is an excellent option for those looking for high definition entertainment on a budget. Those who are a fan of gaming on the consoles will find this TV to be a perfect choice for those high-end games, especially with the crisp 4K screen. Moreover, the TV comes with Android 9 providing a smooth and clutter-free experience. Vu Cinema TV is available in three variants in 43-inches, 50-inches and 55-inches which are priced at Rs 26,999/-, Rs 29,999/- and Rs 33,999/- respectively.

Apple To Ditch Intel : Use It’s Own Chips Starting 2021

As per many reports which have been on the surface of the web, it is being speculated that Apple will ditch the Intel chipsets which it uses to power its Macs. As far as the chips are concerned, it is being said that Apple is working on three different system-on-chip (SoC) for the Macs. All of the chips will be based on the A14 chip which the company has been developing for its next generation of iPhones. Here we look into more than just the architecture of the chips for the upcoming devices.

The upcoming Mac chips are expected to have an 8-core architecture with very high performance. Apart from the octa-core high-efficiency ones, there will also be four energy-efficient cores. As far as names are concerned, reports suggest that the upcoming chips will be named Firestorm and Icestorm respectively. Apple is expected to introduce these chips with its upcoming range of products, probably in the year 2021.

As far as these chips are concerned, it is clear that the iPhone maker is not concentrating on just one Mac laptop but a complete lineup with the in-house developed chipset. Currently, Apple has been using Intel chips to power its Macbook and iMac lineup. Moreover, Apple is also aiming at building faster chips, much more than the ones powering the iPhones and iPad.

The said chips will be manufactured using the 5-nanometer production technology. Reportedly, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing will be building these upcoming chips for Apple. The new chips will not only be used on the Mac computers but Apple could also efficiently develop new silicon for the upcoming iPhones and iPad.

While Apple’s performance workstations would still be a bit far off from using the new chips, we will most likely see the new chips appear on the MacBooks in the year 2021. Apple has been using Intel chips on its Macs since the year 2006. The idea of using Intel chips was to allow developers to quickly switch the apps from Windows to Mac platform and vice versa with ease, especially when the Windows ecosystem is more dominant in the computing space.

Apple’s move to making its chips is completely in line with its philosophy of end-to-end integration of hardware and software and applications. This will prove to be a great experience for Apple users and also provide Apple with greater control over their hardware and software experiences. However, it is yet to be seen how Apple takes this approach and when does it come up with new products with its complete hardware and software package.

Apple Appears on TikTok | Lockdown Boredom or Competition?

This could be a classic case of boredom considering the current lockdown situation in the whole world, but Apple has officially opened a TikTok account. 

It seems like the premium smartphone manufacturer could not keep itself from being far away from all social media platforms and hence joined one of the most popular social media platforms. TikTok has not only been doing well in China (it’s home country) but also in other countries like India where it has amassed millions of users and is enjoying unparalleled popularity. 

While Apple is yet to post any content on its official TikTok id, we speculate it is most likely to be for advertising, just like it uses Instagram for. TikTok is slowly but steadily claiming the social space and has already put the likes of apps like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp on a question. The iPhone/iPad maker is another joined to its user database. 

The official Apple id in question is quite blank as of now and the number of followers is currently at 5562 at the time of writing. Not only this, but Apple has also received the verified badge which can be identified by the blue tick mark on the side of its username and hence confirming of its official involvement. Apple will most likely use this TikTok id to connect with its users and also share its updates with the community, just like it does with Instagram where it is very active and Apple also shares a lot of images, competition updates and it’s Shot on iPhone’ series.

It would not be very wrong to say that Apple could not post any content on the TikTok profile at all, just like its Twitter account which has a total of 4.2 million but the company has never tweeted. So what comes at the end of the spectrum is yet to be seen.

TikTok has been under a lot of heat recently, both for good and bad reasons. While TikTok’s global user database is growing like a balloon which won’t burst, the social media platform has also been under the radar for various misleading content, rabble-rousing that has been specifically targetted at communities and certain situations; especially here in India. YouTube is already out with it’s ‘Shorts’ platform, which is expected to compete with TikTok. 

Either way, it is interesting to see the American smartphone maker join TikTok and how they would go about with it. If you are interested in following Apple, you might as well click on this link.

 

Upcoming Smartwatches | Launching Prior Lockdown

While the entire world is at a standstill after being taken over by a deadly virus; claiming more and more lives every day, human beings have been forced to confine themselves in their homes and wait for the global level pandemic to get over. Except for healthcare, sanitation and essential only services, everything else has been shut down. There is no movement of any kind and everything else is just waiting and piling up.

Most industries which manufacture and sell non-essential items are facing the wrath of this global pandemic, and here technology is no different as it is still a non-essential item. Smartphones, laptops, gadgets and a lot more are seeing massive sale declines as this is the worst situation ever to hit the tech industry. Major shipments are stuck and there is no movement of tech at all. The entire industry is at dire straits. As it would be, manufacturers of tech of all kinds have halted production and also postponed launches of highly anticipated products which were expected to see the light of the day in the following months. However, all this will have to wait until the storm passes and the dust settles completely.

Early this year a lot of brands had announced their most awaited smartwatches line up in India for 2020. The smart wearables are getting quite popular in the country seeking the increase in demand and inclination towards having a fit and healthier life. However, due to the current on-going crisis, many brands have postponed their launches. Here is a list of highly anticipated smartwatches which are expected to hit the Indian shores once the lockdown is lifted.

Oppo Smartwatch

The Opp0 smartwatch is expected to arrive with two display and colour options, 1.6-inch and 1.9-inch; black and gold colours and will have a heart rate monitor.

The watch will also come with eSIM support to allow users making and receiving calls and SMS. It is expected to be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 2500 processor and an Apollo 3 co-processor.

Amazfit Bip S

The Amazefit Bip S features a colour-rich transflective display and up to 5 ATM of water resistance. Add a great battery life of up to 40 days with built-in GPS, Amazfit Bip S is waiting to be announced in India. 

The Bip S integrates Huami-PAI, a revolutionary indicator of personal activity that gives you details about your heart health and overall fitness, helping you reach or maintain your personal best.

Xiaomi Mi Watch

The watch has been already launched in China and soon going to be launched in India. It features a 1.78 inches AMOLED display along with waterproof and fitness tracking features.

Xiaomi Mi watch comes with a flat rectangular design and with 570 mAh battery capacity. The watch is packed with heart rate tracker, sleep quality measurement, sleep tracking and activity- inactivity calculation.

Amazfit TREX

The Amazefit TREX is packed with 14 sports modes, tracking user performance in everything from indoor and outdoor running to cycling to skiing and more. The smartwatch features a 1.3-inch AMOLED screen with (360×360 pixels) capable of displaying 16.7 million colours with superb clarity.

It features 20hrs GPS, GLONASS, a BioTracker™ PPG optical heart rate sensor, an advanced activity tracker and a sleep monitoring sensor, all providing detailed data to enable you to best reach your fitness goals. Amazfit T-Rex delivers an impressive 20-day battery life.

Why a Smart Bulb?

We all like technology and tech has some serious influence around our lives. From the morning coffee to the last message of the might, technology is just about everywhere we go. It is not just smartphones and smart TVs that have bombarded our lives, out homes, living spaces and even bedrooms are now adapting technology to facilitate easier and peaceful living for the residents. 

What is a Smart Bulb? Smart bulbs are like normal LED bulbs which can be controlled wirelessly. For a normal LED bulb, you have to control it manually to switch it on or off. However, with smart bulbs, you can control the bulb wirelessly with any of your smart devices like a smartphone, home assistant or tablets. Not only this, but you can also control the brightness of the bulb without even having to lift a finger. 

Smart bulbs are now becoming an important part of smart homes. Home automation systems make use of connected devices to make living a lot easier. You can use smart bulbs with home automation and create schedules for on and off times, brightness profiles according to the time of the day as well as select colours for the smart bulb. 

For most cases, smart bulbs will work seamlessly with home automation systems which can be controlled wirelessly via Bluetooth or wifi networks. It essentially means you can switch the light on and off without having to get up from your bed or having to leave an important work that you have been doing. Smart bulbs also support motion detection via home automation systems so that the lights can turn on when someone walks into the dark house. To sum it up, smart bulbs are an efficient way to integrate smart lighting and also connect it with other smart devices in the house for easy living.

Upgrading to smart bulbs is as easy as replacing your fused light bulb. You buy a smart bulb and replace it with the regular bulb. Connect the bulb with your smartphone/tablet or via a home assistant like Alexa and start using it. Control various parameters such as brightness, user profiles, light colour and on-off schedules by just tapping your smartphone. To sum it all, we have listed some of the most popular smart bulbs in the market right now

1. Syska LED Smart Bulb – The Syska LED smart bulb comes in two different wattage ratings – 7W and 9W. It can be controlled by using your smartphone and Alexa as well. It has various colour modes, brightness adjustment settings and timer which can be controlled remotely from your phone or a smart assistant. Price Rs. 1799/-

2. Philips Smart Wi-Fi LED bulb B22 9-Watt WiZ – The Philips Smart LED bulb is not only easy to set up, but its brightness in colour mode is much better. It is very comfortable for the eyes as well. You can control the bulb through WiZ mobile app which can be installed on both Android and iOS as well as use Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa. Price – Rs. 1999/-

3. Mi LED Wi-Fi 10W Smart Bulb – The Mi LED Wi-Fi 10W Smart Bulb is no different from the ones we are talking about. It boasts of 10W power consumption and 800 lumens of brightness. It comes in E27 fitment which can be converted to a B22 type with an adapter. It works well with Alexa and Google Assistant in the same wi-fi network as you are in.  Price – Rs. 1499/-

4. Jaquar VIVID Smart LED Bulb 7W – The Jaquar VIVID Smart Bulb is a premium choice for those who like quality. It comes with a 7W power rating and can be operated via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi from the Jaquar app. It offers 16 million colours and also has lighting profiles for the day and night. The white light is very soothing to the eyes and the colour modes are sufficiently bright as well. With the Bluetooth mesh technology, you can connect up to 200 devices with adjustable light intensity. Price – Rs. 1800/-

Jio Sells 9.99% of Its Stakes To Facebook | A Deal Amounting to $5.7 Billion

Facebook’s is known for its unparallel reach all across the globe. This is not just recent but Facebook has been enjoying high levels of popularity close to a decade now, since its inception in 2006. However, with recent competitors like TikTok from ByteDance, facebook’s unparallel territory was being threatened with the massive growth surge for other services, TikTok being one of the biggest. For a matter of fact, ByteDance’s is the second-largest competitor after Facebook. 

With new challenges and hurdles cropping up on FB’s way, the American giant has now has found its way to incorporate in a better way in India. In a very recent announcement by the social media company, it said to have invested a net capital of $5.7 billion for 9/99% stake in India’s Reliance Jio Platform. Reliance Jio is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries and is three-and-half-years old at present. Not only this, but it is also the biggest telecom operator here in India. The nation’s most valued firm deals with more than 370 million subscribers currently. 

This deal puts Jio at a valuation of $65.95 billion on a pre-money basis. Facebook is now the largest minority stakeholder in this Indian telecom market. This is by far the largest investment for a minority stake by a tech company globally; also being the largest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the technology sector in India. 

The venture could see a lot of collaborations spring up in the coming days, especially the one on the cards would be Jio Mart (an e-commerce JV between Reliance Digital and Jio) which is the nations largest retail chain along with WhatsApp. India is counted as one of the biggest markets of WhatsApp as well as one of the most popular smartphone app. This essentially means that with Jio Mart and Whatsapp, they can connect with several businesses, big and small and provide product purchase experience in a seamless mobile-only experience. 

Reliance Jio started its commercial rollout of 4G data around the second half of 2016 and took the local market by storm with its on-paper free services like calling, data and SMS. This also kickstarted a price war with the local telecom companies which eventually forced out a lot of competition with its sheer presence and unmatchable prices. Reliance Jio stayed true to their words and have been providing a great experience to its users with minimum costs and lots of free services in India where the market is nothing but price-sensitive, leading Jio to become the top telecom providers in India. 

Reliance Jio also offers services like Saavn (music streaming platform), JioTV and payment services like JioPay. 

With the recent turn of events, Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a post “ We’re making a financial investment and more than that, we’re committing to working together on some major projects that will open up commercial opportunities for people across India”.

Facebook’s investment is not only restricted to Reliance Jio but also a social commerce platform Meesho and Unacademy where it wrote a cheque of $15 million each to these startups earlier this year. 

In a video message, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and MD of Reliance Industries said that “ At the core of our partnership is the commitment that Mark Zuckerberg and I share for the all-around digital transformation of India and for serving all Indians. Together, our two companies will accelerate India’s digital economy to empower you, enable you and enrich you.”

Mr Ambani also added that fact that JioMart and Whatsapp will enable 30 million neighbourhood stores (also known as Kirana stores in India) to be able to transact digitally. WhatsApp has been working with the Indian government to enable digital payments services in India which is still at large due to certain regulatory issues.

With TikTok’s blindsiding of Facebook, this move comes as a huge upper hand both in terms of reach and business for both the companies and together we can assume to witness some very interesting services being rolled out in the years to come.  

Vivo V17 – Review | A Capable Allrounder

The perfect way to test a smartphone is to use it. Use it like you would use it on a daily basis. Phone calls, text messages, applications, games along with photo and video. Once these parameters are put to their paces, it is quite evidently determinable of how much a smartphone is capable of.

A few weeks back I got a call from Vivo asking me if I would be interested to attend a Photowalk along with a few others and try out their latest upcoming smartphone and the next thing I remember is Sipping coffee in Starbucks while checking out the new Vivo V17 that was yet to be launched. The idea was simple. We would take a common walk route and take pictures on the way exploring the southern tip of Mumbai. Soon, I was rattling off shots on the V17. 

How does look Vivo V17?

An instant feel-good factor when you pick it up on your hand. Draped in Midnight Ocean colour, the 6.44-inch Super AMOLED HD+ display is devoid of any notches or thick bezels. An in-display fingerprint scanner takes care of the security. However, you notice a hole punched on the right corner of the display which underneath houses the front-facing camera.

On the right you get the power and volume rocker buttons, the left has the dual nano-sim and micro SD card slot. A USB-C type charging port, 3.5mm headphone jack and the speaker grille can be seen on the bottom. Turn the device around and you can see the quad-camera setup on the top left corner. A 48-megapixel primary sensor, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. An LED flash takes care of the lighting in dark situations. All of this hardware is powered by a 4500mAh battery. All of this comes in an impressive package and there is nothing much to ponder on. 

How does it perform?

Performance is what mid-range smartphones are now delivering. Gone are those days where budget and mid-range smartphones used to laggy and slow. Hardware improvement has changed the way mid-range devices are made. Nothing different here with the Vivo V17. It gets a Snapdragon 675 processor along with 8GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. It runs the Funtouch OS 9.2 on top of Android 9.

The software works well and the phone does not hang, lag or even stutter when being exploited by running multiple applications. Overall, the interface does not have much to complain about. The camera is where the V17 shines. The quad setup does a good job of capturing images. The ultra-wide-angle camera being my top favourite. Images look crisp and detailed when shot in HDR. The night mode does a good job of capturing low-light situations giving the images shot the required pop. Overall, the camera is good enough for most of us who do not want to compromise on quality. What else, the 4500mAh battery is good for heavy usage and the 18W supplied fast charger means you are up from 0-70% in about an hour. In a nutshell, the V17 is pretty impressive and clears the tests with good results. 

Should you buy it?

Well, it depends. While the processor could have been from the Snapdragon 700 series, the hardware specs are adequate along with the battery life. An impressive display and camera make it a good package. Priced at Rs. 22,999/-, you could also look at some of the phones which carry similar specs for substantially lesser prices. Nonetheless, the Vivo V17 did not fail to impress with its overall performance.



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