Oppo Find X price, Nokia X6 India launch date, and Redmi Pro 6 specifications, Jio, Airtel, BSNL, Vodafone new recharge packs, and more news this week
The week just past had some big launches, such as the Oppo Find X, and as usual, the telecom sector had its share of updates, with numerous new plans and offers being announced for subscribers. The week also introduced some anticipation for the imminent India launch of the Nokia X6 – HMD Global’s latest smartphone that has so far been exclusive to China. Google also finally made good on its promise to introduce a Web interface for Android Messages. Apple finally acknowledged a MacBook keyboard issue affecting some users, and offered free fixes and refunds. Also of note was the rollout of WhatsApp’s group video and voice calling functionality for Android beta users.
Let’s start with the Oppo Find X. The Chinese company’s latest flagship was unveiled on Tuesday, and it has a new « innovation » in an attempt to provide as little bezel on its display. Instead of hiding front facing sensors in a notch on top of the display, or at the bottom lip, Oppo has gone the Vivo way with a pop-up camera. The company may have gone a step further, placing both the front facing camera and the rear camera on what is being called a camera slider. The slider also contains the 3D facial scanning sensors. The Oppo Find X has no fingerprint sensor, thus the 3D face unlock feature that uses structured light tech and 15,000 dots to recognise the user is its only biometric authentication mechanism. It features an all-glass design.
The Find X also has Oppo’s answer to Apple’s Animoji and Samsung’s AR Emoji, what it calls 3D Omoji. The AI-assisted front sensor helps create custom avatars that can mimic the user’s expression. As you’d expect from a flagship, the Oppo Find X otherwise has top-end specifications. It runs on ColorOS 5.1 that’s based on Android 8.1 Oreo, and features a massive 6.42-inch (1080×2340 pixels) full-HD+ AMOLED display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The company is also claiming a 93.8 percent screen-to-body ratio.
Other Oppo Find X specifications include a Snapdragon 845 SoC, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of inbuilt storage, a dual rear camera setup comprising a 16-megapixel primary sensor and a 20-megapixel secondary sensor, a 25-megapixel front camera, 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth 5 LE, GPS, USB-Type C connectivity options. The Oppo Find X dimensions are 156.7×74.3×9.4mm, it weighs 186 grams, and it comes with a 3730mAh battery with VOOC fast charging.
The Chinese company alongside the Find X also launched a special edition of the smartphone made in collaboration with the Automobili Lamborghini design house. Called the Oppo Find X Automobili Lamborghini Edition, the biggest difference between the smartphones is that the special edition comes with Super VOOC Flash Charge, said to completely charge the smartphone’s 3400mAh battery in 35 minutes. It comes with twice the inbuilt storage, at 512GB.
Other differences include the use of a matte carbon fibre look on the rear panel, instead of the Find X’s glossy metallic finish, complete with a Lamborghini logo. While the Oppo Find X Automobili Lamborghini Edition price was set at a whopping EUR 1,699 (roughly Rs. 1,34,400), the regular Oppo Find X price is set at EUR 999 (roughly Rs. 79,000). Both smartphones will only go on sale in August.
Let’s get to the various announcements made by the country’s telecom operators in the past week, attempts to stay relevant in the now intensely competitive market thanks to the presence of 4G-only operator Reliance Jio rattling incumbents. Starting with Airtel, the nation’s largest telco in terms of subscribers launched its Rs. 597 recharge plan that offers unlimited voice calls without an FUP, 100 SMS messages a day, and 10GB data for 168 days. While the offer is available only for select Airtel subscribers in a few regions, it is expected to become more broadly available in the near future. some time for a wider rollout.
The country’s second largest telco in terms of subscribers, Vodafone India, also had a major announcement this week – a complete revamp of its Red postpaid plans. All the Vodafone Red postpaid plans, which range from Rs. 399 to Rs. 2,999 a month, now offer unlimited calls, free national roaming, more data than before, and in some cases bundled Amazon Prime or Netflix subscriptions for users. Other benefits include a free Bill Guarantee feature, access to Vodafone Play, as well as Mobile Shield, and Red Hot Deals.
Next up, we come to state-owned telecom operator BSNL, which in fact had a couple of announcements this week. The first involved the revamp of its prepaid packs under the Monsoon Offer, which will last for 60 days. BSNL has given subscribers 2GB data daily amongst other benefits, such as 100 SMS messages a day, as well as unlimited calls including on roaming. BSNL’s Rs. 186, Rs. 429, Rs. 485, Rs. 666, and Rs. 999 combo prepaid packs now offer 2GB data per day for their entire validity period, while the Rs. 187, Rs. 333, Rs. 349, Rs. 444, and Rs. 448 special tariff vouchers (STVs) also get the same offer.
BSNL this week also announced an offer for new laptop and desktop buyers, promising them a free 2-month 20Mbps broadband trial. To avail the offer, buyers will have to submit the bill of purchase for their new laptop or desktop to the telco. The startingBSNL plans have a monthly FUP of 45GB (1.5GB a day), going up to 20GB daily. Once the daily FUP limit is crossed, users will get speeds of 1Mbps for the rest of the day.
Finally, Idea announced that it had completed the rollout 4G VoLTE services in all its 4G circles. The announcement made this week was after the telco had rolled out VoLTE services to five more telecom circles since the last announcement, taking the total to 20 circles. The five new circles that received VoLTE services were Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, North East Service Area (NESA), and Odisha. Idea, as an introductory offer to VoLTE users on its network, is providing 30GB of free data.
Moving on from the telecom announcements of the week, we come to the other hot piece of news – the recently launched Nokia X6 looks set to make its way to India and other global markets soon. To recall, HMD Global’s latest smartphone was launched exclusively in China last month, but thanks to interest from the global stage, the Finnish company decided to consider the feasibility of bring the Nokia X6 to other markets. In the past week, the Nokia X6’s global version was spotted on the company’s site, before being pulled. Soon after, its support page in India was also seen, tipping the imminent arrival of the Nokia X6 in the country – we can expect a launch as soon as next week.
The Nokia X6 global variant was also said to have been spotted on the Bluetooth certification site, alongside a Nokia 5.1 Plus smartphone. The latter smartphone was also spotted on TENAA, and its listed specifications included Android 8.1 Oreo, a 5.86-inch HD+ (720×1520 pixels) TFT panel with an 19:9 aspect ratio, an octa-core SoC clocked at 2.0GHz, 3GB/ 4GB/ 6GB of RAM and 32GB/ 64GB of internal storage, a vertical rear camera setup with a 13-megapixel primary sensor, an 8-megapixel front camera, and a 3000mAh battery. As with other leaks however, we’d urge readers to take the piece with a pinch of salt, and await official confirmation of the Nokia X6 launch from the company.
Next up, are leaks surrounding the hotly anticipated Xiaomi Mi A2 smartphone, the successor to last years Mi A1 Android One smartphone. The model has been much rumoured since the launch of the Mi 6X back in April this year – to recall, the Mi 5X was the model that the Mi A1 was based on, and it was expected the company would follow tradition and launch the Mi A2 as its next Android One smartphone. The Mi A2 was listed on a third-party retailer in Switzerland, and featured specifications that were identical to the Mi 6X. The 32GB storage variant price was listed at CHF 289 (roughly Rs. 19,800), while the 64GB storage variant price was listed at CHF 329 (about Rs. 22,500), and the 128GB internal storage was priced at CHF 369 (roughly Rs. 25,200).
Other mobile leaks this week include the Moto C2, which was allegedly spotted on the US FCC and was tipped to be the company’s first Android Go smartphone. New Xiaomi smartphones, thought to be the Redmi 6 Pro or Mi Max 3, were also spotted on the US FCC, though many details didn’t accompany this piece of news.
The Xiaomi Mi Max 3 was separately spotted on TENAA, the Chinese telecommunications certification authority. It is seen to have a design similar to the Redmi Note 5 Pro, run on Android 8.1 Oreo, sport a 6.9-inch full-HD (1080×2160 pixels) display with 18:9 aspect ratio, and be powered by a Snapdragon 636 SoC. RAM and storage variants include 3GB RAM/32GB storage, 4GB RAM/ 64GB storage,, 4GB RAM/ 64GB storage, and a 6GB RAM/ 128GB storage bundles. This week also saw the leak of the LG Q8+ and an Android One variant of the LG G7. The latter smartphone is expected to be exclusive to T-Mobile in the US. The hotly anticipated Moto One Power was also leaked in alleged live images, with the tipster who shared them also claiming the smartphone may be called the Moto One instead.
