TCL and Sony cancel their MWC 2020 press conferences, joining ZTE, LG and others

The spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (nCoV) has caused a humanitarian emergency. More than 40,000 people have been infected, with the death count climbing every day (currently, it’s 900+). The city of Wuhan and Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, have been in lockdown for the past three weeks. The WHO has classified the outbreak as a global health emergency. The cause and effect of the situation has led to the global supply chain being badly affected. Smartphone vendors such as ASUS and OPPO have warned of production problems with their phones. MWC 2020, scheduled to take place from February 24-26, has also been shaken by the outbreak, as companies such as ZTE, LG, Ericsson, Amazon, and NVIDIA have withdrawn from the event. Now, TCL and Sony have also announced they are canceling their scheduled MWC press conferences, throwing more doubt on the show’s schedule.

In a press release, TCL stated that due to the recent global concerns about the spread of the 2019-nCoV virus, and out of abundance of caution and care for its staff, customers, press, and other guests, it is canceling its global press event for MWC 2020, which was planned for February 22. This does not have an impact on any other planned MWC 2020 activities and TCL specifically notes that it will still announce its latest mobile devices and showcase them at its booth (Hall 3, Stand D311) from February 24-27 as scheduled. The company noted that it will continue to monitor the situation and share further updates as necessary. This means TCL, unlike LG, isn’t completely pulling out of MWC. ZTE is also following the same approach.

On a notice posted on its website, Sony said that it is taken the “difficult decision to withdraw from exhibiting and participating at MWC 2020 in Barcelona, Spain” as it places importance on the safety and well-being of its consumers, partners, media, and employees. The Sony press conference will instead take place at the scheduled time of 8:30AM CET on February 24, 2020 as a video via our official Xperia YouTube channel to share the company’s product announcements. In effect, it will be an online announcement instead of having a booth at MWC.

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TCL and Sony cancel their MWC 2020 press conferences, joining ZTE, LG and others

The spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (nCoV) has caused a humanitarian emergency. More than 40,000 people have been infected, with the death count climbing every day (currently, it’s 900+). The city of Wuhan and Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, have been in lockdown for the past three weeks. The WHO has classified the outbreak as a global health emergency. The cause and effect of the situation has led to the global supply chain being badly affected. Smartphone vendors such as ASUS and OPPO have warned of production problems with their phones. MWC 2020, scheduled to take place from February 24-26, has also been shaken by the outbreak, as companies such as ZTE, LG, Ericsson, Amazon, and NVIDIA have withdrawn from the event. Now, TCL and Sony have also announced they are canceling their scheduled MWC press conferences, throwing more doubt on the show’s schedule.

In a press release, TCL stated that due to the recent global concerns about the spread of the 2019-nCoV virus, and out of abundance of caution and care for its staff, customers, press, and other guests, it is canceling its global press event for MWC 2020, which was planned for February 22. This does not have an impact on any other planned MWC 2020 activities and TCL specifically notes that it will still announce its latest mobile devices and showcase them at its booth (Hall 3, Stand D311) from February 24-27 as scheduled. The company noted that it will continue to monitor the situation and share further updates as necessary. This means TCL, unlike LG, isn’t completely pulling out of MWC. ZTE is also following the same approach.

On a notice posted on its website, Sony said that it is taken the “difficult decision to withdraw from exhibiting and participating at MWC 2020 in Barcelona, Spain” as it places importance on the safety and well-being of its consumers, partners, media, and employees. The Sony press conference will instead take place at the scheduled time of 8:30AM CET on February 24, 2020 as a video via our official Xperia YouTube channel to share the company’s product announcements. In effect, it will be an online announcement instead of having a booth at MWC.

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WhatsApp Pay receives regulatory approval for operating in India

Back in 2017, we first found signs of a new payments feature in Facebook’s popular messaging app WhatsApp. In India, the UPI-based payments feature was briefly rolled out to a small number of users back in 2018. However, due to data localization issues with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a wider rollout was pushed back indefinitely. The company has been in constant talks with the government of India and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg also assured that the payments service would be launched in India soon. But late last year the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) directed the Supreme Court that WhatsApp Pay was still not compliant with India’s data localization norms and asked the NPCI to stop its deployment in the country. Now, it seems like WhatsApp has finally managed to iron out all the issues.

As per a recent report from Business Standard, WhatsApp has secured regulatory approval to launch its payments platform in the country in a phased manner. The NPCI has given the messaging platform the permission to operate WhatsApp Pay in the country, with a pilot run that will initially be extended to 10 million users. In a bid to get official approval, WhatsApp has assured the RBI and the NPCI that it will comply with the country’s data localization norms, which was the key reason behind the impending rollout. Sources familiar with that matter have revealed that, “If WhatsApp is able to fulfill the compliance requirements, the messaging platform will be able to do a full roll-out.”

As soon as WhatsApp is able to roll out its payments feature nation-wide, we believe that it will capture a huge chunk of the online-payments space. This is because WhatsApp already has a strong presence in India, with over 400 million users as of July 2019. Competitors like Google Pay and PayTM, who have invested heavily in marketing campaigns to dominate the space, might be left behind solely because of WhatsApp’s extremely large user base.

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Source: Business Standard

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WhatsApp Pay receives regulatory approval for operating in India

Back in 2017, we first found signs of a new payments feature in Facebook’s popular messaging app WhatsApp. In India, the UPI-based payments feature was briefly rolled out to a small number of users back in 2018. However, due to data localization issues with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a wider rollout was pushed back indefinitely. The company has been in constant talks with the government of India and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg also assured that the payments service would be launched in India soon. But late last year the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) directed the Supreme Court that WhatsApp Pay was still not compliant with India’s data localization norms and asked the NPCI to stop its deployment in the country. Now, it seems like WhatsApp has finally managed to iron out all the issues.

As per a recent report from Business Standard, WhatsApp has secured regulatory approval to launch its payments platform in the country in a phased manner. The NPCI has given the messaging platform the permission to operate WhatsApp Pay in the country, with a pilot run that will initially be extended to 10 million users. In a bid to get official approval, WhatsApp has assured the RBI and the NPCI that it will comply with the country’s data localization norms, which was the key reason behind the impending rollout. Sources familiar with that matter have revealed that, “If WhatsApp is able to fulfill the compliance requirements, the messaging platform will be able to do a full roll-out.”

As soon as WhatsApp is able to roll out its payments feature nation-wide, we believe that it will capture a huge chunk of the online-payments space. This is because WhatsApp already has a strong presence in India, with over 400 million users as of July 2019. Competitors like Google Pay and PayTM, who have invested heavily in marketing campaigns to dominate the space, might be left behind solely because of WhatsApp’s extremely large user base.

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Source: Business Standard

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OPPO Reno3 Pro 4G variant with 44MP dual-front cameras will launch in India soon

OPPO is the fourth largest smartphone vendor in India, ranking below Xiaomi, Vivo, and Samsung, and above Realme. The company’s Reno range of smartphones proved to be popular in the Indian smartphone market. The the OPPO Reno 10x Zoom competed with the OnePlus 7 Pro and other flagships in the online smartphone market, while the regular OPPO Reno and its successor, the OPPO Reno2, were more heavily marketed in the offline market. According to IDC, the Reno2 was a great seller in India in Q4 2019. It was succeeded in China by the OPPO Reno3 and the OPPO Reno3 Pro 5G. Both of these phones haven’t been made available in other international markets yet. Now, Tasleem Arif, Vice President at OPPO India, has officially confirmed that a 4G variant of the Reno3 Pro will be arriving in India soon. He also states that there is a pipeline of OPPO products which will be released with 5G versions in India this year. The Reno3 Pro in India, therefore, won’t be a 5G phone, which is just as well when considering the fact there are no 5G networks in India yet, and they probably won’t arrive until 2022.

Excited to share the most awaited news of 2020 – #OPPOReno3Pro with Expert Camera credentials is launching soon with 4G specifications in India. Moreover, there are a pipeline of products by OPPO which will come with 5G version in India this year!

— Tasleem Arif (@tasleemarifk) February 10, 2020

Separately, 91mobiles reports that the Reno3 Pro in India will come with a different set of specifications. The publication exclusively leaked a promotional banner for the phone. The major change will be that it will have a 44MP front camera in dual punch setup, joined by a depth sensor. This will be the first phone to have a 44MP front camera, but this isn’t the highest megapixel resolution for a front camera as the ASUS 6Z (ZenFone 6) uses a 48MP flip camera. The OPPO Reno3 Pro 5G in China, on the other hand, comes with a single 32MP front camera.

Source: 91mobiles

The banner confirms the presence of a 44MP dual punch-hole camera. The phone will be available in a Blue gradient color. Its rear cameras are expected to consist of a 48MP Sony IMX586 primary sensor, 8MP ultra-wide angle camera, 13MP telephoto camera, and a 2MP monochrome sensor. This is the same configuration as the China 5G variant.

The other major change will be the SoC. The 4G Indian variant of the Reno3 Pro won’t feature the 5G Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chip. 91mobiles doesn’t report the exact SoC, but our guesses include the 4G Qualcomm Snapdragon 730. The rest of the specifications are expected to be the same as the China variant. This means it’s expected to have a 6.5-inch curved Full HD+ OLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate, up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, a 4,025mAh battery with VOOC 4.0 30W fast charging, and Android 10-based ColorOS 7 out of the box.

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Source 1: Tasleem Arif | Source 2: 91mobiles

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OPPO Reno3 Pro 4G variant with 44MP dual-front cameras will launch in India soon

OPPO is the fourth largest smartphone vendor in India, ranking below Xiaomi, Vivo, and Samsung, and above Realme. The company’s Reno range of smartphones proved to be popular in the Indian smartphone market. The the OPPO Reno 10x Zoom competed with the OnePlus 7 Pro and other flagships in the online smartphone market, while the regular OPPO Reno and its successor, the OPPO Reno2, were more heavily marketed in the offline market. According to IDC, the Reno2 was a great seller in India in Q4 2019. It was succeeded in China by the OPPO Reno3 and the OPPO Reno3 Pro 5G. Both of these phones haven’t been made available in other international markets yet. Now, Tasleem Arif, Vice President at OPPO India, has officially confirmed that a 4G variant of the Reno3 Pro will be arriving in India soon. He also states that there is a pipeline of OPPO products which will be released with 5G versions in India this year. The Reno3 Pro in India, therefore, won’t be a 5G phone, which is just as well when considering the fact there are no 5G networks in India yet, and they probably won’t arrive until 2022.

Excited to share the most awaited news of 2020 – #OPPOReno3Pro with Expert Camera credentials is launching soon with 4G specifications in India. Moreover, there are a pipeline of products by OPPO which will come with 5G version in India this year!

— Tasleem Arif (@tasleemarifk) February 10, 2020

Separately, 91mobiles reports that the Reno3 Pro in India will come with a different set of specifications. The publication exclusively leaked a promotional banner for the phone. The major change will be that it will have a 44MP front camera in dual punch setup, joined by a depth sensor. This will be the first phone to have a 44MP front camera, but this isn’t the highest megapixel resolution for a front camera as the ASUS 6Z (ZenFone 6) uses a 48MP flip camera. The OPPO Reno3 Pro 5G in China, on the other hand, comes with a single 32MP front camera.

Source: 91mobiles

The banner confirms the presence of a 44MP dual punch-hole camera. The phone will be available in a Blue gradient color. Its rear cameras are expected to consist of a 48MP Sony IMX586 primary sensor, 8MP ultra-wide angle camera, 13MP telephoto camera, and a 2MP monochrome sensor. This is the same configuration as the China 5G variant.

The other major change will be the SoC. The 4G Indian variant of the Reno3 Pro won’t feature the 5G Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chip. 91mobiles doesn’t report the exact SoC, but our guesses include the 4G Qualcomm Snapdragon 730. The rest of the specifications are expected to be the same as the China variant. This means it’s expected to have a 6.5-inch curved Full HD+ OLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate, up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, a 4,025mAh battery with VOOC 4.0 30W fast charging, and Android 10-based ColorOS 7 out of the box.

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Source 1: Tasleem Arif | Source 2: 91mobiles

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Wi-Fi 6 support will pick up this year with Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Android smartphones

Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 802.11ax is the latest Wi-Fi standard from the Wi-Fi Alliance. The new standard supports transfer speeds of up to 9.6 Gbps, which is more than double the maximum speed supported by Wi-Fi 5 (3.5 Gbps). However, only a handful of Android smartphones in the market today support the latest Wi-Fi standard, including the Samsung Galaxy S10 lineup, Galaxy Note 10 lineup, and the Galaxy Fold. This year though, we expect a number of devices to feature Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 865 SoC. The flagship chip from Qualcomm features an integrated QCA6391 chip that includes support for Wi-Fi 802.11ax and this is expected to promote widespread adoption of Wi-Fi 6.

A number of smartphone manufacturers have already started teasing Wi-Fi 6 support in upcoming smartphones. For instance, in a recent post on Weibo Nubia’s Ni Fei confirmed that the Red Magic 5G will include support for Wi-Fi 6. This announcement came shortly after Xiaomi executives confirmed that the Mi 10 series will also include support for the new Wi-Fi standard. Similarly, Chinese OEM ZTE has also revealed that the Axon 10s Pro also supports the standard. If you head over to the Wi-Fi Alliance’s website and filter the list of certified devices with those that are “Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6”, you’ll find that the same is true for Vivo’s upcoming flagship as well. Therefore, it’s safe to say that Wi-Fi 6 support should be a standard feature in Android flagships this year. However, Wi-Fi 6 support in smartphones wouldn’t amount to much if there are no supported routers in the market. To that end, Xiaomi will also be releasing a Wi-Fi 6 enabled router soon. Although it’s unlikely that the company will sell it outside of China.

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