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Nokia 8 Launched in India, Jio Phone Cost Subsidised, Xiaomi's Diwali Sale, and More: Your 360 Daily

Nokia 8 Launched in India, Jio Phone Cost Subsidised, Xiaomi's Diwali Sale, and More: Your 360 Daily

By Gadgets 360 Staff | Updated: 26 September 2017 23:33 IST

Highlights

The Nokia 8 has dual rear cameras and competes with Android flagships
The Jio Phone's low price is reportedly due to a huge subsidy
Xiaomi will hold a Diwali sale with discounts on a huge range of products

HMD Global, the new licensees of the Nokia brand, on Tuesday launched the Nokia 8 in India. Positioned as the flagship of the new Android Nokia range, the Nokia 8 is priced at Rs. 36,999 and will be available exclusively from Amazon starting from October 14. The main features of the Nokia 8 include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC, dual 13-megapixel rear cameras, and an aluminium unibody. The phone also has 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a 5.3-inch QHD screen, a 13-megapixel front camera, a 3090mAh battery, Bluetooth 5, Wi-Fi ac and GPS/A-GPS. It supports 4G as well as VoLTE, and has a hybrid dual-SIM design.

The Nokia 8 will be available in Steel, Tempered Blue, and Polished Blue colours at launch, with another Polished Copper option coming a few weeks later. Reliance Jio subscribers will get 10GB of extra data for up to 10 months as a launch offer. There's also a Nokia Mobile Care Concierge service so that customers can receive service at home in 50 cities.

Reliance Jio Phone subsidised by as much as 40 percent
Reliance has started shipping its low-cost Jio Phone to Indian buyers, and it has now emerged that the company might have achieved its incredibly low Rs. 1,500 price tag by subsidising each unit by as much as 40 percent. According to Reuters' sources, it would cost at least Rs. 2,500 to build such a device. Reliance is charging customers Rs. 1,500 but is calling it a security deposit and will refund the entire amount if buyers return the device after three years. It is estimated that Jio will be shouldering a burden of $150 million for every 10 million Jio Phone units sold. The Jio Phone was designed to help hundreds of millions of low-income Indians access voice and data services, and Reliance is looking to boost its customer base ot 250-300 million over the next two years.

Xiaomi Diwali sale begins on Wednesday
Xiaomi's Diwali With Mi sale will begin at 10am on Wednesday, and the company has announced a number of offers on its popular smartphones and accessories. Xiaomi will be giving out coupons worth Rs. 100 or Rs. 500 to customers at 10am every day, and will hold Re. 1 flash sales twice a day. The Redmi Note 4 with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage will be sold for Rs. 10,999, while the variant with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage will cost Rs. 9,999. The Redmi 4 and Mi Max 2 will be discounted by Rs. 1,500 and Rs. 2,000 respectively. Xiaomi will also be discounting its headphones, fitness bands, air purifiers, routers, power banks and Bluetooth speakers, as well as backpacks, t-shirts, and phone covers.

OnePlus 3 and 3T start getting OxygenOS update
OnePlus has started rolling out version 4.50 of its OxygenOS operating system for the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T models. The phones benefit from a number of new features previously found on the new OnePlus 5, including the "lift up display", scheduled night mode, Gaming Do Not Disturb mode, and more. The update is being pushed out over the air (OTA) to users in phases. There's also a new font, new UI animations, new versions of stock apps, and security and stability improvements.

Arunachal Pradesh, J&K cities seemingly excluded from iOS Weather and Maps apps
The iOS Weather and Maps apps appear to be unable to display cities in Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir in search results, although they do appear marked on maps. Interestingly, questions to Apple's voice assistant Siri appear to be answered as expected. Weather.com, which provides data for the iOS Weather app, delivers search results for these cities. The issue is likely a bug. Both Indian states have borders that are disputed by neighbouring countries, and the matter of their territory is politically sensitive.

Apple has also just ditched Microsoft's Bing search engine for Google as the default search provider for Siri and Spotlight in iOS and macOS. This will bring them in line with the Safari browser, which already uses Google by default. However, image search in Siri will remain powered by Bing for now, according to both companies.

iPhone X RAM and battery capacity reportedly confirmed
Apple doesn’t publicise the amount of RAM and the battery capacities of its iPhone models, so it has only just come to light that the recently announced iPhone X will apparently have 3GB of RAM and a 2716mAh battery. For the sake of comparison, the iPhone 8 has 2GB of RAM and a 1821mAh battery, while the iPhone 8 Plus has 3GB of RAM and a 2691mAh battery. The information was discovered in a listing on a Chinese certification website. However, there might be some room for error as the same website has an apparently incorrect figure for the iPhone 8 Plus battery.

Foldable 'Samsung Galaxy X' might be close to ready
Rumors that Samsung is designing a new smartphone with a foldable screen are picking up steam. A new model called has seemingly been certified in South Korea, and this is supposed to be the foldable device, which could be called the Galaxy X. Samsung has previously stated that it intends to develop a foldable Galaxy Note device, but nothing is known for certain about branding or availability. There are no leaks or renders yet, but more details could be revealed soon if the device is submitted to the US FCC for certificaton.

Panasonic, Oppo, Lenovo launch new smartphones in India
Panasonic has launched its latest smartphone, the Eluga I4, in India. This model is priced at Rs. 8,290 and has a 5-inch HD screen, MediaTek MT6737 SoC, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a 3000mAh battery, an 8-megapixel camera, and Android 7.0. This is a dual-SIM device and it supports VoLTE. It will only be available offline starting from Tuesday, and will come in blue, black and gold. It will also support Panasonic's Arbo AI assistant.

Oppo has unveiled a special Diwali themed edition of its Oppo F3 model. It has the same specifications, but a new red body, and follows previous Deepika Padukone and Black limited editions. Priced at Rs. 18,990, this phone has dual front-facing cameras, a 5.5-inch full-HD screen, MediaTek MT6750 SoC, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a 3200mAh battery, and a 13-megapixel rear camera. Buyers get a chance to win a cricket bat signed by the Indian cricket team.

Following the launches of the Lenovo K8 Note and K8 Plus, Lenovo has announced another model in the series, simply called the Lenovo K8. This phone costs Rs. 10,499 and will only be available offline. Unlike its siblings, it has only a single rear camera. It also has a 5.2-inch HD screen, MediaTek Helio P20 SoC, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, an 8-megapixel front camera, and a 4000mAh battery.

Mobile data consumption in India has doubled, says Nokia
Nokia has released a report about data consumption in India, according to which monthly consumption more than doubled between December 2016 and June 2017, from 165 Petabytes to 359 Petabytes. The report doesn't include figures for Reliance Jio, and states that 4G will become dominant in 2018. 3G still accounts for 55 percent of data usage and 4G stands at 34 percent. Data was collected from approximately 350 million Indian cellular subscribers, only one-third of whom use mobile broadband connectivity.

Airtel begins rolling out off high-speed cellular data technology
Airtel has announced that its "pre-5G" Massive-MIMO technology will roll out first in Bengaluru and Kolkata, and will give users up to 2-3X faster data speeds. The Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output technology uses improved signal quality and multiple signal paths between a cellular tower and end-user device. Many current devices can benefit from the rollout without needing any upgrades.

macOS High Sierra update released
macOS High Sierra, the latest version of Apple's desktop and laptop operating system, has been released to the public in its final form after a long beta period. The new OS is a free update and it brings a number of performance-related features. There's a more efficient new file system called Apple File System which promises faster file operations and better security. Metal 2 graphics technology allows developers to tap into GPUs at a low level and enables machine learning APIs. VR content creation gets a boost with optimisations and hardware support. The new Photos app has better selection and editing tools, and works with animated Live Photos, and new photo and video file formats allow better compression. Safari 11 now detects and disables cookies that track users' behaviour across the Internet to prevent targeted advertising.

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Further reading: Nokia, Nokia 8, Nokia 8 launch, Nokia 8 price, Nokia 8 price in India, Reliance, Jio, JioPhone, Xiaomi, Xiaomi Diwali Sale, OnePlus, OxygenOS, iOS, macOS High Sierra, macOS High Sierra update, iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy X, foldable smartphone, Panasonic Eluga I4, Lenovo K8, Oppo F3, Airtel