Samsung on Thursday launched a new M-series smartphone — the Galaxy M12 with a 48MP quad-camera setup and a 90 Hz refresh rate display in the Indian market.

The Samsung Galaxy M12 comes in two variants — the 4 GB RAM + 64 GB storage variant is priced at Rs 10,999, and the 6 GB RAM + 128 GB storage model will set you back by Rs 13,499.

“Galaxy M series has turned two since its launch in 2019 and has been designed ground-up in India, keeping consumers’ needs at the core. The newest addition to this series, Galaxy M12, is #MonsterReloaded. It is designed to power the lives of our young consumers,” Aditya Babbar, Senior Director and Head, Mobile Marketing, Samsung India, said in a statement.

It features a 6.5-inch HD+ (720×1,600 pixels) TFT Infinity-V Display with an aspect ratio of 20:9 aspect ratio.

The smartphone is powered by the Exynos 850 SoC, paired with up to 6GB RAM. Internal storage is listed to be at up to 128GB.

The device runs on Android-based One UI Core OS and supports dual-SIM (Nano) slots.

It has a quad camera setup on the back that comprises a 48MP primary sensor with f/2.0 aperture, a 5MP secondary ultra-wide sensor, a 2MP macro sensor, and a 2MP depth sensor. The smartphone houses an 8MPselfie camera.

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Prices of LED TVs are set to rise further from April as the cost of open-cell panels has gone up in the global markets by up to 35 per cent in the past one month.

Brands including Panasonic, Haier and Thomson are considering to increase prices from April this year, while some like LG have already raised prices due to hike in prices of open-cell.

Panasonic India and South Asia President and CEO Manish Sharma said, “Panel prices are rising continuously and so are the prices of TVs. It is likely that TV prices may increase further by April.”

When being asked about the quantum on increase, he said, “Seeing current trends, it might go up 5-7 per cent more by April.”

Expressing similarly, Haier Appliances India President Eric Braganza said there is no other way than to increase the prices.

“The prices of open-cell have gone up tremendously and the trends are that it would keep on increasing,” said Braganza adding that “if that continues, we would have to continuously increase prices”.

The open-cell panel is an important part of TV manufacturing and covers around 60 per cent of the unit.

Companies import television panels in an open-cell state, which require further assembling with value addition before being shipped to market for sale.

Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd (SPPL), the brand licensee for French Electronics brand Thomson and US-based brand Kodak, said there is a scarcity of open cell in the market and the prices have almost gone up by three-folds in the past eight months.

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The HP Spectre x360 (13-inch) has always been appreciated for its ergonomic design, but not so much for its performance. The thin-and-light convertible laptop recently upgraded to the 11th-Gen Intel Core i7 processor (review unit). This upgrade has brought the performance gain this 2-in-1 laptop required to justify its premium stature. Besides, the laptop is Intel Evo platform-certified to deliver optimal user experience with a quick-boot time, instant resume function, extended on-battery time, and enhanced data transfer rate. So, how do the fresh upgrades work for the HP Spectre x360? Let’s find out:

Design and display

The HP Spectre x360 has been through several design refresh cycles, but the latest upgrade does not bring any significant changes to its looks. The convertible laptop boasts portable ergonomics with a thin and lightweight form factor. Crafted from a single piece of aluminium, the laptop has faceted corners and sides and chamfered edges. The top side of the laptop has minimal visual elements, except a glossy silver accented HP logo engraved on it. Like the top, the rest of the laptop carries a silver theme with no flashy design elements – even the keyboard, power button and fingerprint scanner are painted silver to maintain a design symmetry. Overall, the HP Spectre x360 looks premium and stunning.

The design is complemented by a 13.3-inch IPS LCD touchscreen of a fullHD resolution. It is bright, vivid and responsive. The screen is connected with the body through a 360-degree hinge, which makes it go all the way to the back to turn the laptop into a tablet. Thanks to the 360-degree hinge, you can also turn the laptop into a display stand to enjoy multimedia content. Speaking of multimedia content, the built-in audio set-up is not great, despite featuring the ‘Bang & Olufsen’ moniker. It is, however, s compromise that seems negligible in the larger scheme of things – some of the positives being the laptop’s solid build quality, thin and lightweight form factor, and comfortable ergonomics for both laptop and tablet usage.

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As OPPO continues to expand its audio category, fresh in its line-up is a premium pair of wireless earbuds. Named the Enco X, these true wireless earbuds boast a premium design complemented by flagship features like active noise cancellation, touch controls, and wireless charging. Priced at Rs 9,990, the OPPO Enco X seems to be a competitively priced pair of true wireless earbuds for those who seek a premium experience. But are they really good? Let’s find out:

Design

It is good to see OPPO continuing its efforts to add finesse to its true wireless earbuds’ design language. Though the OPPO Enco X sports a familiar in-ear design with a stem protruding from the earbuds, it has a smaller form factor than OPPO’s previous wireless earbuds. Made of plastic, these earbuds have a glossy finish with a silver mesh on the speaker grille and microphone and silver-coloured charging connectors at the bottom end of the stems. The glossy profile makes it a bit difficult to pick the earbuds out from their charging-cum-storage case. Moreover, they are prone to accidental drops because of small and unstable footprints. As for quality, the earbuds seem to have a durable and sturdy build. They might withstand everyday abuse, but they do easily become dirty and require regular cleaning to stay in good condition. The Enco X is IP54-rated for water and dust resistance.

As for the charging-cum-storage case, it is a pebble-shaped unit with a glossy plastic finish on the front and back, and a silver metallic strip sandwiched in between. There is a pairing button on the right, and USB-C charging port at the bottom. On the front, there is a tiny LED battery indicator that doubles up as the pairing light indicator. The back, surprisingly, is not boring and features a ‘Co-created with Dynaudio’ engraving on the case’s lid hinge. Important to note that the Enco X charging case supports wireless charging – something some in the segment lack. Speaking of the hinge, it is made of metallic with a strong feedback. It is easy to open and close, and does not require much effort to operate.

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Taiwanese electronics maker Asus on Wednesday refreshed its gaming-centric ROG Phone line-up with the launch of the ROG Phone 5 series. Named the ROG Phone 5, ROG Phone 5 Pro and ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, the smartphones in the series are built on the same blueprints but with different design theme on the back covers and RAM & storage configurations. Besides, the Pro and Ultimate variants get two additional touch sensors on the back cover over the vanilla ROG Phone 5. Let’s look at what is new in the ROG Phone 5 series:ROG Phone 5 series: Price in India

The ROG Phone 5 series goes on sale in India from April 15 at 12 pm, exclusively on Flipkart. The ROG Phone 5 is priced at Rs 49,999 and Rs 57,999 for the 8GB RAM + 128GB storage and 12GB RAM + 256GB storage variants, respectively. The ROG Phone 5 Pro is priced at Rs 69,999, and the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate is priced at Rs 79,999.ROG Phone 5 series: Design

The ROG Phone line-up has been through several design changes, and the latest iterations take the design quotient a notch above. Though the smartphones in ROG Phone 5 series are built on the same blueprints, each of them have different design language.

The ROG Phone 5 comes in storm white and phantom black colours with a glossy clean dot-matrix design on the back cover similar to the popular ROG products like the ROG Zephyrus G14 (review). The vanilla model has an illuminated ROG logo, which supports 8 different lighting schemes

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Over 4,400 URLs from Facebook and Twitter were blocked by the government in 2020 under Section 69A of the IT Act, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

Minister of State for Electronics and IT Sanjay Dhotre said Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000 empowers the government to block any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource in the interest of sovereignty and security of the country, friendly relations with foreign states, public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence related to these.

“Blocking is done as per the process specified in the IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information By Public) Rules, 2009 notified under this section,” he said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.

Dhotre said there are adequate safeguards and checks-and-balances prescribed in these rules in the form of an Inter-Ministerial Committee having members as a joint secretary or equivalent to examine blocking requests and to make its recommendation.

He stated that 1,717 URLs from Facebook and 2,731 URLs from Twitter were blocked in 2020.

While 2,049 Facebook URLs and 1,041 Twitter URLs were blocked in 2019, 155 Facebook URLs and 224 Twitter URLs were blocked in 2018.

In response to another question, the minister said a total of 305 cases of cybercrime against children were registered in the year 2019.

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Taiwanese tech giant, Asus India, on Tuesday announced the expansion of its TUF laptop portfolio in India with the launch of new TUF Dash F15, a 15-inch gaming laptop at a starting price of Rs 1,39,990.

The new Asus laptop comes with the latest 11th generation Intel Core i7-11370H processor and GeForce RTX 3070/3060 GPU, for an unbeatable performance. The laptop was unveiled globally during a virtual conference at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2021 and is finally set to make a mark in India.

“Powered with 11th generation Intel Core processors, TUF Dash F15 is all set to create new experiences and replicate the success of the series by creating new milestones in the Indian market. We are attuned with evolving consumer requirements and have them at the very core of our product development strategy, and with our latest offering we further aim at elevating their gaming experience,” said Arnold Su, Business Head, Consumer and Gaming PC, System Business Group, Asus India.

The device comes with a tournament-level gaming panel with up to a 240 Hz refresh rate, a versatile Thunderbolt 4 port, and Two-Way AI Noise Cancelation technology.

According to the company, the all-new Dash F15 is lighter and thinner than standard TUF gaming laptops, with only 19.9 mm thin and 2 kg weight while still meeting MIL-STD-810H military standards.

The laptop comes with up to 32 GB of DDR4-3200MHz memory and up to 1TB of space which aims to hold a massive collection of games, while an additional SSD slot makes it easy to add terabytes (TB) of extra capacity for massive multimedia files and more.

The Dash F15 features an easy-upgrade design that puts the Small outline Dual Input Memory Module (SO-DIMM) slot and both M.2 slots just behind the bottom panel held in place with standard Philips screws.

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The world’s top brands across sectors might lose between $93 billion and $223 billion because of a data breach, a first-of-its-kind study by Interbrand and Infosys, called ‘Invisible Tech, Real Impact’, has found.

This represents 4-9.6 per cent of their cumulative value.

The study gains significance in the backdrop of yet another massive hack, this time of Microsoft’s email software, which is estimated to have affected at least 60,000 known victims globally, according to Bloomberg.

The study found that there is a long-term impact of data breaches on brands across sectors. This is because companies are increasingly embracing digital platforms to improve customer experience, one of the reasons why customers are willing to pay a premium, it pointed out.

This has two implications: For consumers, it implies a quid pro quo –sharing personal information with brands for a personalised experience. For brands, it means the real and virtual have to coexist in creating this unique experience.

This is not just true for digital or tech brands like Google and Amazon, but also brands that were focused on offline. For instance, it is estimated that the amount of data shared online at the beginning of 2020 was a staggering 44 zetabytes.

Ameya Kapnadak, chief growth officer of Interbrand India, said the study evaluated parameters like financial value of the company, role and strength of the brand.

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Nokia is one of the last few brands that are still selling smartphones based on Android One platform in India. For the uninitiated, Android One is a family of Android smartphones powered by stock versions of Android with a focus on Google services. That said, the Nokia smartphones often come with an up-to-date Android operating system that has advertisement-free vanilla user interface and no pre-installed bloatware.

The Nokia 5.4, a new midrange smartphone from Finnish technology start-up HMD Global, which owns the Nokia brand, is banking on the Android One and select creator-centric imaging features. Priced Rs 13,999 onwards, the smartphone, however, seems to lag peers in price-to-specifications ratio. But how does it work out in real-life usage? Let’s find out:Design and Display

The Nokia 5.4 has a striking design, with Nordic colour-themed (polar night – review unit) curved back cover. Made of plastic, the back cover has a glossy gradient profile. It looks good but easily gets smudges and fingerprint marks, and is prone to scratches. Thankfully, the phone comes with a transparent TPU cover, which makes the phone look bulky but protects the back cover from unwanted smudges, fingerprint marks and scratches. Speaking of size, the phone is neither big nor small. It has comfortable ergonomics with lightweight build for ease of use. The phone has a camera bump on the back but it does not protrude much from the frame. Therefore, the camera bump mixes well with the phone’s design language and looks like a part of the overall package. Besides the camera module, the phone’s rear side houses a capacitive fingerprint sensor, which is quick to unlock the phone and works better compared to in-screen fingerprint sensors that are common in other midrange phones.

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After opening its 2021 account with budget and premium smartphones, Samsung is now looking at expanding its midrange line-up with the launch of the Samsung Galaxy F62. The smartphone is touted to be a performance-centric device powered by Exynos 9825 system-on-chip, Android 11 operating system-based OneUI 3.1 user interface, and a 7,000 mAh battery. Besides, the smartphone has a big 6.7-inch super AMOLED Plus Infinity-O (punch-hole) screen, 64-megapixel-based quad-camera set-up on the back, and fast-charging support.

On paper, the Samsung Galaxy F62 seems to be an all-round package. But how does it fare in real life? Let’s find out:Samsung Galaxy F62: Design

The Galaxy F62 seems boring when compared with other midrange smartphones. Made mostly of polycarbonate, the smartphone lacks novelty and looks regular despite its thin (9.5mm) and lightweight (218g) form factor. The phone’s back cover has a dual-tone gradient reflective finish with vertical silver lines running from top to bottom. Interestingly, even the frame is painted in dual-tone colour to maintain design symmetry. The frame features a power button (which doubles up as a fingerprint scanner) and volume rocker keys on the right, dual-SIM and microSD slot on the left side, secondary microphone opening on the top, and 3.5mm audio out port, USB-C charging and data transfer port, primary microphone, and mono speaker at the bottom. Though the gradient design looks good, the glossy finish makes it susceptible to fingerprints and smudges — not something you want if you are not in the habit of using a back cover. Speaking of the back cover, the Galaxy F62 does not come with one in the box.

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