Xiaomi Mi Pad

Price Rs 27,600

 Xiaomi has been developing very pow­erful smartphones for decent prices since its inception and this holds true when it comes to their tablets as well. For a decently priced tablet, the device is impressive mainly because it houses technology that pow­ered Nvidia’s Shield Tablets. The Nvidia Shield Tablets are known for their prowess in gaming thanks to the mobile Kepler GPU, the same microarchitecture for graphics cards by the company in its 600, 700 and 800M series com­puter graphics cards.

If you’re looking for gaming performance on a budget, look no further because a device with Nvidia chipset is in itself difficult to find and outright impossible at this price range. The Mi Pad is an exciting anomaly in the tablet scene right now, but if you do decide to go for it, you will need to keep in mind that the device only supports Android KitKat and hasn’t received further updates. This could create problems with app support on the device.

 Amazon Fire HD 10

 Price Rs 25,950

 Amazon’s Fire line of tablets have been pretty popular because of its price. The company has been producing some decent, relatively cheap tablets since it started producing tablets back in 2011, mainly to sup­port its online library of e-books. But a good device is a good device. While the Fire HD is not as impressive as the Mi Pad, it does offer some decent specifications that would be more than enough for media consumption. The device is powered by a Quad-Core MediaTek processor which is paired with 2 GB of RAM, which is plenty enough for media consumption.

But internal hardware is not one of the tab­let’s strong points; the strongest point would be centered more on the tablet’s software, especially Alexa. Amazon has developed and implemented Alexa so well around its products that it works like a breeze on the Fire HD 10: it’s smart, provides excellent off-hand features and also comes with a sharp, large 10-inch screen as its face.

 Lenovo Ideapad Miix 310

 Price Rs 35,400

 If Android is just not power­ful enough for you, the Lenovo Ideapad Miix 310 offers a gen­uine Windows experi e n c e. The tablet is powered by Intel’s 1.44 Ghz Atom X5 processor, 2GB of RAM and 64 GB of eMMC storage; it’s more than capable of running a full-fledged copy of Windows 10 Home. More like a laptop than a tablet, the device also comes with a plethora of connectivity options such as a HDMI port, USB Ports and even an SD card reader.

To add to its functionality, it comes with a dedicated detachable keyboard, an addition that propels the device into the space of an effective work machine. For the price, the Lenovo Ideapad Miix 310 is a steal and while it may not be as powerful as your laptop, it is definitely a capable device if you want to do light work on it.

 We’re quite far into 2018 and this year, we’ve seen some really great phones. Veterans of the market worked on improving their flagships while newcomers worked on finding the delicate balance between power and price. It has been a great year for consumer tech with the release of genre defining technologies like the bezel-less displays, massive bat­teries and higher screen pixel counts. But as all eyes have been set on the top end of this market, there are some really interesting devices for people looking for some good, affordable smartphones this year. Let’s take a look.

Xiaomi Mi A2

Price: Rs 30,999

Xiaomi’s second crack at the use of Android One, the Xiaomi A2, is a device that performs way over its price range. It’s got all the new features: an 18:9 ratio display screen, chamfered edges and aluminum uni-body design. The phone looks gorgeous from the outside—though perhaps a touch too much iPhone-ish—and is easy to use. The Snapdragon 660 SOC is paired with 4 GB of RAM, ensuring everything runs blazingly fast. All of this performance comes to life inside a beautiful 5.99-inch LCD screen that pushes out Full HD+ (2160 x 1080) resolution of data. As for the camera, the device has a dual camera set up at the back, with one camera sporting a 12 MP sensor and the other a 21 MP sensor. Both have a wide f/1.8 aperture which helps the device produce high-quality images. For the price point, the Xiaomi Mi A2 is an excellent phone to have in your pocket.

Huawai Nova 3i

Price: Rs 38,999

Huawei has been marketing flagships in Nepal while leaving the lower and mid-ranged markets to its sub-brand, Honor, which is why a mid-ranged device from Huawei comes as a surprise to all of us. A boiled down version of Huawei’s Nova 3, the device flaunts its big brother’s excellent design aesthetics. It’s a sandwiched metal and glass design with glass on both sides. The front houses a fetching 5.84-inch edge-to-edge display, with a notch on top. The device is also very powerful with Huawei’s inhouse Silicon Kirin 710 SOC, amply supported by 4GB of RAM. It has a fingerprint reader at the back and comes with a 3340 mAh battery. The selling point of this phone is also the dual camera setups, both at the front and the back; the rear houses a 16 MP sensor and 2MP monochrome sensor while the front houses a 24 MP sensor with another 2 MP monochrome sensor. Considering all the features and hardware that Hua­wei has crammed into the Nova 3i, the phone is an excellent mid-ranged smartphone.  

 The word ‘gaming’ has been making the waves in the digital electronics market recently. Companies have been using the term to appeal to consumers who want to buy into the trend of peripherals specifically designed for gaming. But what does gaming actually mean and what features do a gaming peripheral need to have? To be perfectly honest, nothing. While there are high-quality gaming devices made by com­panies that focus on higher dpi ratings for mice and higher response time and ghosting features for keyboards, these features aren’t difficult to reproduce, and many cheap peripheral companies have started touting their devices as gaming. During a recent trip to New Road, I found a plethora of products that touted the ‘gaming’ brand and the sales people there banked on it too, trying to charge me more by saying the products were gam­ing-oriented. Today, gaming has turned into just another marketing term and it would be foolish to be charmed by the gaming label. If you are a gamer and are looking for products to augment your gaming perfor­mance, many cheap Chinese branded products will work as effectively as more expen­sive brands. The trick lies in making sure you know what specifications you want and trying to find the device with them, regardless of its brand or gaming status. Nonethe­less, here are some devices that would work well for your gaming needs.

Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller

Price

Rs 2,000

If you are look­ing for a good con­troller to pair with your gaming PC, look no further than the Xbox 360 controller. Since the controller is manufactured by Microsoft, your Windows com­puter will automatically recognize the gamepad and will work flawlessly. The vibrations, the pressure controls and the player count all work perfectly right out the box.

What’s more, since the games sup­port the Xbox controller natively, the prompts on many games also correlate with the buttons on your controller. The controller is cheap and works really well with your games; it’s a good device to add to your gaming arsenal.

Fantech WG7 Gaming Mouse

Price

Rs 1,499

When it comes to cheap gam­ing acces­sories, Fan­tech is a well-known name in the gaming circles of Nepal. The Chinese company has found a good foothold in Nepal with its low-cost gaming focused peripherals. They produce good accessories with a gaming aesthetic that appeal to many gamers in Nepal but their functional­ity is not only limited to aesthetics, as seen with the WG7 gaming mouse that performs as a blazing fast 2000 DPI tracking speed with an equally fast 2.6 GHz Wireless connection. With speeds as high as this, this mouse will help you dominate any game you might be playing.

Fantech HG15 Captain Headset

Price

Rs 3,450

Another Fantech item on the list, the HG15 Capt a i n Headset, is phenom­enal. It costs quite a bit more than the other items enlisted, but it makes up for the price by providing actual 7.1 Surround Sound within the confines of its two speakers.

Having the headset simulate sur­round sound helps spatial sound awareness, improving overall gaming performance by adding an extra layer of sensory informa­tion. This headset is really good for the price.

October ushers in the festive season of rekindling familial connections, loud card games and crisp rigid notes inside sharp red envelopes. Dashain and Tihar are once again upon us and that means bonuses, lots of shopping and most importantly, heavy discounts and sales galore. Many online stores and physical stores alike have started touting festive discounts and as consumers, there is no better time to splurge and take advantage of these heavy discounts. lll

Nokia 8

Price
Rs 40,923

Down from its original price of Rs 62,999, the Nokia 8 is a steal at this price. The trusted brand has had a difficult past but after regaining their foothold in 2017, Nokia has been releasing some good low- and mid-ranged phones. Their flagship, the Nokia 8, however, had a fatal flaw and that was its price. 60k was a little bit too much for a device that sported a Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage. There are plenty of other flagship and mid-ranged devices in the same price range, offering better value for money and better performance. Likewise, other smartphone makers were selling their devices to customers with attractive features like thin-bezel displays and powerful CPU cores, while Nokia was playing catch-up.

The device isn’t very big because of its decently sized 5.3-inch display and while the panel may be small, it looks crisp thanks to its QHD (1440 x 2560 pixels). The display is also obnoxiously bright at 700 nits, which can be a hinderance during low light usage but when using the device outdoors, the higher brightness really makes a dif­ference in visibility. With this deal, you’re literally getting a flagship for the price of a mid-ranged device, a definite pick-up this festive season if you’re looking to buy a smartphone.

Dell Latitude E5440

Price
Rs 44,000

Discounted 15 percent from its original price of Rs 51,990, for just a little more than what you pay for the phone, you are getting a pretty fleshed out laptop computer. The Dell is equipped with a fourth genera­tion Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM. It comes with a 500 GB mechanical hard drive and a 14-inch 1366 x 768 resolution monitor. The device is a little bit on the hefty side and is no way near as slick at a Mac­Book, but for the price the Dell is pretty good laptop. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a dedicated graphic card, which will make gaming on this device difficult. But for everyday activities like content consumption, work and light content creation, this device should be more than handy thanks to the i5 processor. And you can always gain more speed by adding an SSD to the mix.

JBL T110

Price
Rs 1,215

Coming down from Rs 1,400, this JBL earphone is not discounted to the level of the other devices on this list and there are also plenty of other earphones on heavier discounts. Regardless, I think the JBL T110 are inherently a very good pair of headphones and I rather enjoy the emphasis on the bass. You’re not getting any Beats level bass on these tiny pair of earphones, but they are heavy and warm. They also come with flat styled cables that make them easier of untangle.

 Huawei Y7

Price

Rs 15,000

On a tight budget, the Huawei Y7 is an excellent phone to get your hands on. The device has pretty robust specifications, like a dependable Snapdragon 435 chipset paired with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage. The 2 GB of RAM augments the phone’s ability to multitask well and the 4,000 mAh battery provides ample power to tide over a couple of days easily. The phone has a 12 MP camera on the back and an 8 MP camera on the front. Both perform well but selfies look a bit smoothed and washed out. The rear camera does a better job of capturing focus faster while producing more vivid pictures. For a budget smartphone, the Huawei Y7 is a steal.

Gionee S11 Lite

Price

Rs 15,641

Marked down from Rs 25,999, Daraz.com is offering the Gionee S11 Lite at a massive 40 percent discount. Considering the massive price drop, the smartphone is pretty powerful. The phone comes with a Snapdragon 430 processor, 4GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. There is a decent 3030 mAh battery and a 5.7 inch display running at 720p resolution. The phone has a 13 MP rear facing camera and a 2MP front facing camera that work to mediocre effects. The phone, with a shiny metallic finish that’s super reflective, looks a lot better on the outside than on the inside though. And although the look is metallic, it’s really made of plastic, which doesn’t add much to durability. With a 40 percent price drop, however, it’s a phone you should consider.

Colors P85+ Selfie Pro

Price

12, 995

Our homegrown smartphone manufacturer Colors deserves a shot in this list especially because they have been competing in budget smartphone market for so long. Col­ors, with time, has started produc­ing decent smartphones with mass appeal. With a focus on selfies, the smartphone manufacturer seems to be targeting a wider spectrum of consumers than powerhouse flag­ship users, which seems to be work­ing well for the company as it has home advantage.

The phone is decently spec’d with a quad-core MediaTek MT6735 processor with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage. Since the phone is selfie focused, it comes with a 13 MP rear cam­era and an 8MP front facing cam­era, and both perform pretty well. There are various photography modes and utilizing these modes will definitely augment your photos. If you’re someone who likes to take lot of selfies, the Colors P85+ is an excellent device.

When Xiaomi first entered the smartphone market back in 2011, it introduced revo­lutionary marketing strategies that helped the company sell flagship grade smartphones at a fraction of the cost of its competitors. This allowed Xiaomi to establish a foot­hold in an already saturated market. Its innovative strategy of cutting out the middle man and selling directly to consumers through digital means worked wonders for the small Chi­nese company. Following Xiaomi’s tail, many other Chinese companies replicated the online-heavy market­ing strategies with new brand names under the same larger company. Oppo established OnePlus while Huawei responded with the Honor brand of smartphones.

Both companies did well with their secondary brands, which meant heavy competition for Xiaomi in market it had created. But while OnePlus and Honor focused on hav­ing a strategy like Xiaomi’s, they had bigger offline smartphones sales of their larger companies as a fall back. Xiaomi, however, did not have this option, and was whole-heartedly an online sales company. Because of the shift in the market, they had to quickly find ways to support their offline sales as well in order to compete. This created a diffi­cult situation for Xiaomi. While the company has penetrated the offline market quite well today, it still hasn’t abandoned online sales strategy and Xiaomi has joined multi-brand companies like Oppo and Huawei in starting a new brand.

There has been great talk about Xiaomi’s new Poco F1 because of its exceptional value for money. The device comes equipped with a high-end Snapdragon 845 proces­sor, with the highest spec’d version of the smartphone projected to be available for less than Rs 50,000. Phones in similar markets cost twice as much and even OnePlus devices in this segment start at Rs 60,000. Complementing the powerful processor, the Poco phone comes with a hefty 6GB or 8GB of RAM and a sizable 6.18-inch thin bezel dis­play. The display runs at a resolution of 2248 x 1080, which means the phone features tall display of higher priced phones. The thin bezel on the sides also makes the phone look and feel more premium than it is, but which also means that it fea­tures an intrusive notch on the top.

The only place where the Poco kind of fails is in the con­struction department. All well-con­structed phones these days are built out of metal and flaunt a glass back. The Poco uses polycarbonate, which means that the phone is not made of premium materials like other flag­ships. But considering how fragile a glass back phone really is, polycar­bonate is not a bad idea, making the phone more durable and rugged.

The Chinese company seems to be trying to establish the Mi line as a more premium offline brand while introducing the Poco as a hip new product aimed at teens looking for a pow­erhouse at an afford­able price. We don’t know how well this multi-brand strategy will work but with the release of the F1, Xiaomi seems to have gotten off to a good start.

 Every year, Samsung attempts to make the best phone that consumers want. Its Note line of smartphones reflect this philoso­phy and considering just how amaz­ing the Note 9 is, it’ll probably be the biggest phone you’ll be talking about through 2018. In many ways, the Galaxy Note 9 is similar to the S9+. But then the phone’s specifications are more like a laptop than a smartphone. But with all the features it packs in, don’t expect it to be any less expen­sive; rather it will cost more than the iPhone X.

The phone is a beast on the inside. It comes in two variations, 128 GB of internal storage with 6GB of RAM, and 512 GB of internal storage and 8 GB of RAM. Pairing these with the latest Snapdragon 845, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is pretty much the most powerful smartphone out there. Should the massive 512 GB of internal storage not be enough, you can also add an additional 512 GB through a microSD card and flaunt the first 1TB phone in the industry.

Since Samsung is upscaling the Note 9, it has also added a slightly bigger screen, at 6.4-inches, which doesn’t make the phone feel any smaller thanks to its infinity edge display. Samsung didn’t stop at mak­ing the screen bigger though; the screen on the Note 9 is also proba­bly the best smartphone screen out there because of its excellent color reproduction, peak brightness, and wide color gamut and contrast ratio. All of this paired with a massive 4,000 mAh battery—the Note 9 defi­nitely takes the crown when it comes to performance.

On the design front, Sam­sung has opted to go for the dual glass panel design seri­ously compromising its durabil­ity. Well, not really. With the use of Gorilla Glass 6 on both the front and back glass panels, the Note 9 might not be as durable as all-metal phones but it is right up there. The phone rejects scratches up till 7 on the Mohs’ scale and even dropping the phone on concrete yield only hairline fractures on the screen. The body is also all metal, making it feel robust in the hand. The chins have been shaved off a bit and the screen tapers to the side just like the previ­ous S and Note models.

While I’ve applauded the Note 9 throughout this piece, it’s not to say that the Note 9 is flaw­less. Primarily, the Note 9 is extremely expensive, going for $999 for the base version and $1,250 for the fully decked out version. Nepali audiences can expect the prices to be even higher when they arrive in Nepal. The Note 9 supports Quick Charge 2.0 but with a huge battery, it’s not fast enough. The Bigsby button still suffers an existential crisis and the speakers aren’t as good as they look. But regardless, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is going to be the hottest phone to own this year

With the ubiquity of social media platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp and Viber, Smartphones have turned into an essential device for everyday use. We see smartphone adver­tisements all around us, and most flaunt a company’s flagship device that costs an arm and a leg. If you’re in the market for a decently priced smartphone that performs well, you might need to do a lot of research before you settle on one that you like. To make things easier, here we look at some devices that gives you the best value for money.  

Xiaomi RedmiNote 5 AI Dual Camera  

Price Rs 29,999  

Following the success of the Redmi Note 4, Xiaomi’s new iteration to the Redmi Note line improves on its predecessor and provides an even better value for money. The phone comes with the mid-ranged Snapdragon 636 SOC with an octa-core processor for better performance. With 4GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage, the main selling point of the device, however, is its spectacular dual camera system with AI augmentations. The phone takes sharp photos with plenty of added features like depth-of-field, beauty mode and others. It also has a great display in front with a 5.99-inch 18:6 aspect ratio which makes it vibrant and bright. For the price, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera is a great phone to invest in.  

Huawei Nova 3i

Price Rs 38,900

 The Huawei Nova 3i is a bit on the expensive side of mid-ranged smartphones but having been released in 2018, it has all the feature to add to the longevity of your phone. It is powered by the company’s octa-core HiSillicon Kirin 710 processor and comes with 4GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, with an additional microSD slot for expansion. In everyday use, the phone was smooth and worked without any hiccups. On the outside, the phone looks like a flagship too with a narrow bezel 6.1-inch screen under a unibody design. Even in the camera department, the phone performs well with dual cameras not only at the back but on the front as well, which will come handy for better selfies. Although a bit pricy, the Huawei Nova 3i offers great value for money.  

OPPO A71 2018

Price Rs 15,900  

If performance is not on the top of your list of concerns but price is, then the Oppo A71 2018 is the device for you. It is not as powerful as the other devices on this list, with a low-end Snapdragon 450 processor paired with 2GB of RAM and 16 GB of inter­nal storage. But the phone does perform well in light use. It will hold its ground with social media apps although more power intensive tasks like gaming might cause it to stutter. The phone also has a decent 5.2-inch screen in front that looks crisp and sharp although it’s running at a lower 720p resolution. Capable 13 megapixel and 5 megapixel cameras adorn the rear and the front of the device respectively, both shooters providing decent images. At this price-point, the Oppo A71 2018 is a steal and the device, although not capable of more intensive tasks, performs well on moderate use.