Xiaomi has recently launched their newest product here in the Philippines and it’s their latest flagship series smartphone Mi 4i. The Xiaomi Mi 4i features a tone-down specifications of the Xiaomi Mi 4 but this one is still powerful and the Xiaomi Mi 4i got some cool hardware inside.
Some of the notable features of this smartphone are the 5-inch Full HD sunlight display that works pretty well even at direct sunlight, its powerful Snapdragon 615 Octa-Core processor and the large 3120mAh battery. The Mi 4i might have a big battery but the smartphone is actually slim. The Mi 4i sports a plastic build compared to most flagships but this one is sexy, slim, and elegant.
The Xiaomi Mi 4i will be on sale at Lazada first at Lazada on July 29 and it will be rolled out offline subsequently. However, if you want to experience the fast LTE network of Smart, the Xiaomi Mi 4i will also be available through its Surf Plus plans postpaid lineup. And for those users who are purchasing a Mi 4i in non-telco retailers, they’ll also receive a free Smart prepaid SIM along with their device. The price? It’s actually attractive at P9,799. It’s probably one of the best smartphones at its price range.
Mi 4i will be available for pre-registration for Smart customers starting 24 July. It will go on sale off-contract on Lazada starting 29 July, while Smart stores and offline retailers will start selling it on 1 August.Subscribers can register their interest to get the Mi 4i from Smart by visiting http://smart.com.ph/postpaid/phones/xiaomimi4i.
Are you looking for a tough protection for your device? Then be thankful that Rhino Shield has just arrive in the Philippines and yes, this is the world’s strongest Bumper Case and Screen Protector. The company boasts that their screen protector and bumper case sets a new benchmark in protective cases.
Their cases is available in different colors and not only that, compared to other protection for your devices, the Rhino Shield isn’t bulky. Actually, the protective cases are beautiful and they’re not bulky, not too “military” and rugged. That’s why the Rhino Shield is not only tough but they’re also minimalistic and clean.
The Impact Protection Screen Protector is probably the thing that you need from them. Despite having a 0.029cm thickness, this screen protector can protect your smartphone’s display from cracks and damage (They’re really serious on this one). It also has an oleophobic coating to keep your display from smudges and water droplets.
To fully protect your device from damage, there’s the Crash Guard Bumper Case. This one is made up of premium grade poly-carbonate hard shell with egg drop technology. It also comes with a proprietary shock absorbing polymer that absorbs almost 90% of the impact received by the phone. The Crash Guard Bumper case just weighs 12 grams and it is only 2.5cm thick.
Rhino Sheild’s Screen Protector and Bumper Case are pegged at P1360 and P1650 respectively and they are now available at Lazada, Applewerkz, Power Mac Center and other leading gadget stores nationwide.
Braven has recently announced the availability of their new speakers here in the Philippines and they’ve some awesome speakers that has different features that can fit your needs and your lifestyle. Whether you love working out, going out, or having home parties, the Braven has a speaker just right for you! Braven BRV-PRO
This is one tough speaker. The BRV-PRO not only tough with its ultra-rugged body but it is also the world’s first modular bluetooth speaker! Yes, you could put different accessories on this speakers like the BRV battery pack for more juice, BRV Solar Panel for unlimited charge for your device, BRV Stacking Plate for multiple power from more BRV-PRO speakers, BRV Glow Deck which is great for camping, and BRV Action Mount if you want to mount your GoPro on the speaker.
This speaker is comparable to a tank. It’s tough and it really looks like an item from the Avengers facility. This speaker can withstand most of the extreme adventures. It’s waterproof and it’s ultra-rugged that’s why it’s perfect to bring this on your adventures or camping. The BRV-PRO sports a robust HD sound with an aircraft grade aluminium. This speaker is capable of up to 15 hours of music and it comes with a built-in 2,200mAh rechargeable battery that you can also use as a powerbank. The Braven BRV-PRO will cost you P6,750.
Braven LUX
This is a limited edition speaker from Braven. The Braven LUX features a fashionable design with an intricately detailed grill that adds beauty to the speaker. This speaker is also offered in metallic colors which are pearl, gold, and iridiscent purple with a unique pattern. It’s also ompact and lightweight so you don’t worry too much about bring the Braven Lux everywhere.
The LUX can connect to your device via bluetooth or you could pair it with another LUX or Braven 7-Series speaker to give you a more exciting and more awesome audio experience. Oh and yes, this speaker is water-resistant too. The Braven Lux is pegged at P4,950.
Braven Balance
If you are all about that bass, no treble then you probably might want the Braven balance. This bluetooth speaker is also waterproof and it fits well on fitness studios, gyms, and or at the deck. It also comes in six lively and vivid colors which are black, lime, gray, red/gray, purple/gray and orange/gray.
Since this is a waterproof speaker, it features an anti-slip exterior and the best thing about this speaker? It comes with Braven balance technology which gives you a proprietary bass optimization system that gives you a deeper and more richer bass. The Braven Balance is priced at P5,850.
Other speakers that were announced are Braven 805 and Braven 770 that are priced at P9,950 and P6,750 respectively.
The new BRAVEN speakers are available at Ambassador, Astroplus, Astrovision, Automatic Center, Base Kamp, BCG Computers, Beyond the Box, BZB Gadget Hive, Digital Arena, Digital Hub, Digital Walker, District 32, Golden Sound, iBook, iCenter, iCon, iGig, Islands and More, iStore, iStudio, Lazada, Listen Up, Listening Room, Microstation, Mobile 1, Odyssey, Quicksound, ROX, Rustans, Sencolink, SM Music & Video, Stoked Inc. Sweet Tree Inc, Switch, Technoholics, Technopop, Techshop, The A Shop, and The Inbox Store.
Do you belong to the PC Master Race? If yes, then get ready for ASUS’ newest graphics card, the ASUS Strix GTX 980 Ti. Yes, it’s coming this August and it is glorious. This is ASUS’ most powerful graphics card and you won’t probably have any problems playing CD Projekt Red’s latest game, Witcher 3 when you have this graphics card.
So what can we expect from this graphics card? Aside from the super powerful performance, the ASUS Strix GTX 980 Ti also features a cool and silent gameplay with its DirectCU III with triple wing-blade 0db fan design, premium quality and technology, and a tweakable and intuitive GPU with XSplit Gamecaster.
The design of the ASUS Strix GTX 980 Ti features two 10mm direct-GPU-contact heat pipes to give yo u a cooler but still powerful GPU performance and with its new wing-blade design, it’ll give you a 105% improvement over fans without wing-blades. The cool thing about this? The Strix GTX 980 Ti also features a 0db fan because it completely stops rotating during lighter gaming sessions. If you love to livestream and record your gameplay, there’s an included 1-year XSplit Gamecaster premium license (worth $99) with the Strix GTX 980.
The ASUS Strix GTX 980 Ti will be available in the Philippines on August 2015 with an SRP of P40,230. Holy S***.
Asus has announced the availability of their newest laptops, the ASUS K401 and K501. Both laptops are powered by the latest Intel Core i5 processors along with an Nvidia GeForce graphics. The ASUS K401 sports a 14-inch display while the K501 has a 15-inch display but both of these laptops are thin and light with a brushed-aluminum finish.
The ASUS K Series features a powerful hardware but it still sports a thin and light body with a solid build construction. The ASUS K401 comes with a Intel Core-i5 processor with GTX 940M while the K501 comes with an Intel-Core i5 and Nvidia GTX 940m or an Intel Core-i7 processor with Nvidia GTX 950M.
The ASUS K series also comes with a Full HD 1920×1080 displays on both models and it provides 94% sRGB color gamut. There’s also an optional 128GB or 256GB SSD too if you want your laptop to be fast.
ASUS K401/K501 Specs
Intel® Core™ i5-5200U/i7-5500U
14in LED-backlit Full HD 1920 x 1080 (K401) / 15in LED-backlit Full HD 1920 x 1080 (K501)
4GB DDR3 RAM 1600MHz expandable up to 12GB, 1xSO-DIMM
A new Cherry Mobile smartphone has leaked out and it is the Cherry Mobile Omega 3. No, this one isn’t good for your heart. This smartphone packs a decent specs for its affordable price. This smartphone got a 5.5-inch display, an octa-core processor, 2GB RAM, and 16MP Rear Camera for only P5,499. The specifications of this smartphone is powerful for the price of P5,499. Not bad, right? Check out the full specs below:
Cherry Mobile Omega 3 Specs
1.4GHz Octa-Core processor
5.5-Inch IPS Display
16GB Internal storage
2GB RAM
13-Megapixel rear camera
5-Megapixel front camera
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 2.1
Dual-Sim
USB OTG
Android Kitkat 4.4.2
This smartphone is expected to be release soon for P5,499.
Samsung recently kicked off their newest camera, Samsung NX500 and their new brand ambassador Xander Angeles with the Relentless. Forward. Progress photo exhibit in where different athletes, celebrities and personalities showed their passions for their sport and moving forward in doing what they love.
Notable personalities and celebrities that are part of the Relentless. Forward. Progress. are Drew Arellano, Ryan Agoncillo, Erwan Heussaff, Mateo Guidicelli, Benjamin Alves, Solenn Heussaff, and Bianca King and all of their pictures in the exhibit are shot by Xander Angeles using the Samsung NX500. Xander Angeles is a professional fashion photographer for the past 15 years and he has done photography for different brands across Southeast Asia.
Samsung NX500 is Samsung’s latest camera that packs an amazing features. There’s a 28 Megapixel APS-CMOS sensor, astounding autofocus that can easily track fast-moving objects, 4K Video recording, and Samsung’s DRIME 5 image processor.
Do you love the Free Facebook offering of Smart and Sun cellular? Well, this time it gets even better because Smart has just announced that browsing, uploading photos and videos will be free on Smart! Yes, you read that right guys! You can now enjoy Instragram without data charge!
I love browsing my Instagram because I got to see a lot of places and things that are super cool. However in my Instagram, you’ll mostly see me, places, the things I love, and of course my gadgets.
With this new offering, Smart prepaid subscribers will now enjoy Instagram for free for up to 30MB per day with their prepaid promos that include Unli Call & Text 30, All In 99, All text 20, and Mega 250. However, users who are subscribe to any Smart Surf Plus Plans will enjoy the Free Instagram offer as part of their free app bundle with 200MB of free data
The free Instagram offer is also part of the company’s campaign efforts to live a Smart Life and with this offer from Smart, Filipinos can now enjoy entertainment everywhere along with their other apps such as iFlix, Spinnr, Fox, Youtube and many more.
One of the most successful tablets of ASUS is the ASUS Fonepad series. This family compose of tablets with phone functionality and today, we’ll review the latest ASUS Fonepad 7 in the country, the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG. This tablet packs a 7-inch display, a Z2520 Intel Atom processor, and a phone functionality. Do you want to know more about this tablet? Check out my review below.
Design & Construction
The first thing I noticed is the ASUS Fonepad 7 is a very handy tablet. Unlike other tablets, the ASUS Fonepad 7 is comfortable to hold in one hand. The rubbery-like texture of the back of the ASUS Fonepad 7 also helped add more grip to the tablet.
The tablet is very light and very comfortable to use. Actually, it feels more like a phablet than a phone because the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG fits in all of my pockets. The tablet is very pleasant to use whether I’m using it on landscape or on portrait. The tablet feels handier and comfortable too because the design and construction is taller than I expected. A taller design isn’t really a bad thing.
Despite having an affordable price, the tablet doesn’t feel cheap. It actually looked good and the bezels were very thin which makes the tablet prettier and elegant. What I like about the Fonepad 7 is that the combination of the design of the Fonepad and its UI feels very clean and premium.
Unlike other tablets, the Fonepad 7 FE171CG is kinda a little bit different because this tablet packs a dual-sim card slot. Yep, you can use both sim cards for receiving and making calls and of course, sending text messages and using it for mobile data. However, there’s no LTE on the Fonepad 7 FE171CG. In case you’re worried about the storage of the tablet, the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG also supports MicroSD and OTG too.
I’ve use the tablet for text and calls for a while and I didn’t had any problems with it. Actually, It felt more comfortable to use this one for texting because the screen is larger and I can type on the keyboard with two hands especially on landscape mode.
Display
The ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG got a 7-inch display with a resolution of 1024×600. The resolution isn’t that high but I’m still satisfied with how it looks. The viewing angles of the tablet are pretty good and I’m satisfied with its outside visiblity and the colors were vivid too. Compared to other tablets the ASUS Fonepad FE171CG lacks a little bit more brightness but for its price, I wouldn’t complain.
Software and Performance
The ASUS Fonepad FE171CG runs on a very familiar skin, the ZenUI which is also present on the Zenfone 2. Just like the one on the Zenfone 2, the interface of the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG is clean and pleasing to the eye. However, it isn’t as fast as the one on the Zenfone 2 because this one only runs on an Intel Atom Z2520 Processor with 1 GB of RAM but don’t worry, it isn’t that laggy and I’m still satisfied with its performance.
Multi-tasking on the tablet might give you some hiccups but the tablet can handle well. The 16GB Internal storage is already enough but if you want, you can expand the storage of the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG. When it comes to Antutu, I got a score of 18519 which is as expected on a tablet with a hardware like this.
The ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG comes with company’s own apps like the ZenLink apps. PC Link lets you mirror the display of the Fonepad to your PC, Remote Link lets you control your PC using your tablet, ShareLink lets you transfer files to another device using WiFi and Party Link which allows you to connect to nearby devices and share your pictures.
There are also some apps that aren’t really useful but you can’t uninstall like Zinio, Kindle, and Mirror. But don’t worry, there are only a few of them and they don’t take too much space from your internal storage.
When it comes to games, some heavy games might not be smooth but it is very playable. Some of the games that I tried on the Fonepad 7 FE171CG are Asphalt 8 which lags at first but gets playable after some time and Chaos Rings III that works pretty great.
As of this posting, the ASUS Fonepad FE171CG is still running on Android 4.4 Kitkat and I expect that the Android 5.0 Lollipop would arrive soon.
In case you didn’t know, Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are now available on Android devices and most of the time, I use Microsoft Office suite on the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG and it works great.
Camera
I’ve always said that tablets aren’t really made for taking photos and most of the time, their cameras can’t fare with most smartphones. But in the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG, they’ve packed in a good camera for a tablet. There’s a 5-Megapixel Pixelmaster Rear camera which shoots that can shoot brighter than most tablets in lowlight.
Most of the photos that I shoot using the tablet takes decent shots. It’s not the best that you can expect but it is decent for a tablet at its price. Some of the shots lack colors but sometimes, the tablet got it right. At low-light mode, the images are brighter but there are noticeable noises on the photos. Check out the photos that I took below
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Battery Life
The ASUS Fonepad FE171CG got a decent battery life. The tablet lasted for 2 days on my average use (A bit of games, social media and of course, browsing). At heavy use, surprisingly, the ASUS Fonepad FE171CG lasted for more than a half a day. Actually, if you’re planning on using it watching your favorite TV series or using it for Clash of Clans, you would be able to use this tablet for more than 14 hours.
And in case you need more juice on this tablet, the ASUS Fonepad FE171CG features a Power Saver app which gives you mode in where you can save more battery.
Verdict
We know that the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG isn’t the best tablet out there when it comes to performance but the ASUS Fonepad FE171CG offers something that others don’t and it’s the phone functionality. Another interesting thing about this tablet is its affordable price and its elegant body. If you’re planning on buying one, you can get the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG nationwide for P6,995. However, if you don’t want to leave your home, you can get the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG at the ASUS Philippines online store at http://store.asus.com/ph.
Are you looking for a camera-centric smartphone below P20,000? If yes, then you might want to check out Lenovo’s newest smartphone that is now available at Widget City, the Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90. Widget City is currently selling two variants of Lenovo Vibe Shot which are the Vibe Shot Z90-3 and Vibe Shot Z90-7. Check out their specifications below.
