Welcome to the end of the second week of 2024. The Poco X6 and X6 Pro arrived with 6.67-inch AMOLED displays with 1,220 x 2,712px resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, and up to 1,800 nits of peak brightness. They also share the same 16MP front-facing camera housed inside a punch-hole cutout and in-display fingerprint scanners – a first for Poco smartphones.
Poco X6 Pro boots Xiaomi HyperOS based on Android 14 while X6 will launch with MIIUI 14, but is promised to get updated to HyperOS soon. Poco promises 3 Android updates a 4 years of security patches for both X6 models. Poco X6 Pro features a 5,000 mAh battery with 67W charging while X6 gets a slightly larger 5,100 mAh battery with the same 67W charging speeds.
Open sales in India start on January 16.
The Galaxy S24 series will have 10% more touch-responsive displays, which will make them feel smoother and faster. Next week will see the official debut of the S24 family, and the excitement is tanglible.
This would improve perceived smoothness.
The Oppo Find X7 Ultra debuted as the first Ultra in Oppo’s lineup and the first dual-periscope phone ever. The main camera is notable as the first Sony LYT-900 1-inch sensor. But it’s the dual-periscope solution that’s unique. Oppo X7 Ultra retains the 65mm 3x periscope camera with 1/1.56” Sony IMX890 from the Oppo Find X6 Pro. It offers a bright f/2.6 aperture, OIS, and a minimum focus distance of just 25cm. Alongside that the X7 Ultra has a 135mm 6x telephoto camera with a 1/2.51” Sony IMX858 sensor. It also has OIS and can focus from 35cm. Oppo claims the quad-cam setup offers smooth zoom between 14 mm and 270 mm without a noticeable degradation in image quality. The Find X7 Ultra is available in China and it may stay there indefinitely, just like the X6 Pro before it. That would be a shame.
Realme announced a partnership with Rolex for the upcoming Realme 12 Pro series. There will be a custom variant of the 12 Pro+ smartphone with Blue leather and gold accents on the back.
The phone brings up to 16 GB LPDDR5X RAM and 512 GB UFS 4.0 storage.
The series might arrive on January 28.
The Note 13 series is scheduled to make its global debut a week from now.
The ROG Phone 8 is official with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and a big vapor chamber. That’s the expected part. Unexpectedly, the ROG Phone 8 is the first in the series to be IP68 waterproof, to have wireless charging, and to offer a 3x zoom camera. The ROG Phone 8 starts from $1,099 in the US, and €1,099 in Europe.
The display still supports 165Hz refresh rate, but it is now an LTPO panel that can also do 1-120Hz variable refresh rate. Asus also added wireless charging.
Being arguably the biggest foldables fan at the office I don’t share the sentiment expressed by some of my colleagues that the year was boring.
Asus has gone for a more mainstream approach and we like it!
Finally, the Honor Magic6 series arrived. The Pro has a unique 180MP periscope with a 2.5x zoom (around 60mm), an f/2.6 aperture, and a big 1/1.49-inch sensor. The main camera of the Magic6 Pro is a 50MP 1/1.3-inch imager with a variable aperture lens – f/1.4-2.0. The Magic6 series is on sale in China.
Magic6 Pro debuts a new 50MP main cam with f/1.4-f/2.0 variable aperture.
