HMD Global launched its first set of smartphones under its branding last week, including the new HMD Pulse, HMD Pulse+, and HMD Pulse Pro. The new handsets have a trendy design thanks to vibrant colours, but it seems that not everything HMD advertised was true. The brand has now acknowledged a mistake made in the initial marketing material of the Pulse series, making it misleading.

Users with keen eyes observed a difference between promotional images and the real-world images of the devices, where the former featured uniform bezels on the Pulse and Pulse+ phones, whereas the actual devices have a thicker chin bezel. They were quick to post it on social media and HMD Chief Marketing Officer was quick to respond, too.

Lars Silberbauer, CMO at HMD Global, acknowledged the mistake and said it was unintentional. We can also back the claim that the issue has been rectified on the purchase page of the HMD Pulse and HMD Pulse+ smartphones. However, if you go to the ‘Environmental Profile’ section of both the phones via their specs page, HMD still has the older renders live that have the uniform bezels.

We hope that HMD will soon correct the same on these pages too as it did with other renders. It’s positive to note the acknowledgment by HMD of its mistake with the Pulse series smartphones marketing material along with its swift response.

As for the phones, the HMD Pulse Pro is the top-of-the-line device in the lineup. It features a 6.65-inch HD+ display with a screen resolution of 720 x 1612 pixels and a 90Hz refresh rate. It has 600 nits of peak brightness. The Unisoc T606 chipset powers the device. In addition, it features 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage with a microSD card slot for storage expansion of up to 256 GB.

For optics, the phone has a dual-camera setup on the back, featuring a 50-megapixel primary sensor and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. On the front side, there’s a 50-megapixel snapper for selfies and video calling.

Samsung’s Galaxy S-series smartphones are some of the best in the flagship game, and just like the iPhones, they will run well for years to come. If you are planning on purchasing one, Samsung will be offering the Galaxy S23 for Rs 44,999 during the upcoming Flipkart Big Savings Day sale which will be the lowest price since it launched for Rs 74,999 last year but is it a deal worth your attention and especially, money? Let’s answer that for you, but first, let’s go through the specs of the device to jog your memory.

Samsung Galaxy S23: Specifications

The Galaxy S23 has a 6.1-inch FHD+ (2,340 x 1,080) AMOLED screen with a 120 Hz refresh rate. It supports HDR10+, has a Pixel density of 422 PPI, and is covered in a layer of Gorilla Glass Victus 2. The refresh rate of the display can change dynamically between 48 Hz and 120 Hz.

Galaxy S23 camera setup comprises of a 50MP primary wide camera with f/1.8 aperture, multi-directional PDAF and OIS. Then there’s a 10MP telephoto sensor with 3x Optical Zoom support, an f/3.4 aperture, OIS, PDAF and a 12MP ultra-wide sensor with an f/2.2 Aperture and 120-degree FoV. Next, it has a 12MP f/2.2 front-facing camera.

It runs on a 3,900mAh battery and offers 25W wired and 15W wireless charging with reverse wireless charging support. As for the software, the S23 ran on OneUI 5.1 based on Android 13 out of the box and has already received the latest Android 14-based One UI 6.1 update.

Further, the S23 series will receive 4 major Android OS upgrades and 5 years of security updates. Additional features include dual speakers with Dolby Atmos and IP68 dust & water resistance. Connectivity options on the device includes Wi-Fi 6E, 5G, LTE, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi Direct.

Should You Consider Galaxy S23 At Rs 45,000?

Samsung’s last year’s flagship will be available for Rs 44,999 during Flipkart’s Big Saving Days sale. The offer includes a bank cashback of Rs 2,000, making it the best-ever offer for the Galaxy S23.

As we mentioned, the Galaxy S23 (Review) received the One UI 6.1 update recently, which brought Galaxy AI, the main USP of the Galaxy S24 series, along with it. This alone makes the Galaxy S23 much more worthy than even the Galaxy S24, considering the only major differences between the two are the Chipset and the brighter display that also has support for full-screen AOD.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is almost equivalent to Exynos 2400 on the S24 in terms of performance. Regarding updates, you’ll be good for another 3 years with the Galaxy S23, which isn’t bad by any means for a smartphone that costs Rs 45,000. Compared to the Galaxy S24, you save almost half your money and get a similar number of features and the same fluid experience, which makes it a win-win situation for the consumers.

Compared to other competition at its price, the Galaxy S23 is competing with the OnePlus 12R as well as the iQOO Neo 9 Pro also. Now, both these competitors will offer you a better charging experience and battery backup as well, considering both of them have superior hardware for it.

However, the Galaxy S23 offers you better cameras which we can claim from our experience as we have used it for over 6 months. Aside from this, the display is top-notch on the S23, and the overall compact form factor is ideal for many who prefer it over larger phones. The software experience also remains unmatched in terms of experience and also matches the competition in terms of how many OS updates it will receive from now, which stands at 3 years.

To sum up, the Galaxy S23 is worth its new price of Rs 45,000 in most senses, given that you can compromise in the battery department. The Galaxy S23 makes up for it in other areas and proves itself worthy despite being a year old than other devices in the same segment.

While its debut may be months away, the MediaTek Dimensity 9400 Processor for smartphones has been leaked extensively, suggesting that the chip might be one of the most powerful ones ever to exist. It could leave its competitors, such as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 and the Apple A18 Pro in the dust. Here’s what we know about it so far.

MediaTek Dimensity 9400: What Has Been Leaked?

The CPU cluster of the Dimensity 9400 has been leaked once before, showing that it will retain a similar architecture as the current flagship chip, the Dimensity 9300, where there’ll be no efficiency cores. This processor will be the first in the Dimensity series to be manufactured using TSMC’s 3nm process node, specifically the N3E. This will enable improved performance and energy efficiency.

The Dimensity 9400 will definitely need all the support it can get in terms of efficiency considering it won’t consist of dedicated cores to handle it. It’ll be an eight-core setup, including one Cortex-X5 Prime CPU core, three Cortex-X4 Prime CPU cores, and four Cortex-A720 performance CPU cores.

The new chipset’s LPDDR5T RAM support is essential for on-device AI capabilities, potentially exceeding the 33 billion parameter large language model of the MediaTek Dimensity 9300. This will further put MediaTek in line with the competition, especially when there’s news that Apple will be including the same in its upcoming A18 Pro chip for the iPhone 16 series.

Aside from this, Digital Chat Station revealed on Weibo that MediaTek and ARM are collaborating to develop a ‘BlackHawk’ architecture to integrate it into the Dimensity 9400. It could result in a performance boost for the Dimensity chip compared to its competitors. With the Cortex-X5 core using ARM’s new BlackHawk architecture, internal tests look promising, as per DCS.

Additionally, insiders suggest superior Instructions Per Clock (IPC) compared to Apple’s A17 Pro and Qualcomm Nuvia, with a possibility of surpassing the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip.

MediaTek Dimensity 9400 Vs Competition

Such performance gains have allegedly been showing up on Geekbench in terms of numbers as well. The Dimensity 9400 has been outperforming its competitors in leaks, where it allegedly scored 11739 points in the multi-core test. On the other hand, the A18 Pro scored around 8200, followed by 10628 points of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.

The results show that MediaTek Dimensity 9400 may be one of the most powerful chips of all time. While the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is also slated to get significant improvements over the 8 Gen 3, the A18 Pro is expected to get the least amount of upgrades. It is suggested that the Apple A18 Pro is the same as A17 Pro in most ways along with 10% overall improvement, which makes it more of an incremental upgrade.

MediaTek Dimensity 9400: Launch Timeframe

The announcement for such chips usually take place in Q4 of the year, like how the Dimensity 9300 launched in November 2023. We can expect the Dimensity 9400 to launch in a similar timeframe later this year.

OPPO recently launched the A60 smartphone in Vietnam as a mid-budget smartphone and according to a new leak, the handset may also make its India debut soon. It packs features like a 120Hz LCD display, dual stereo speakers, and a lot more. Here’s what we know about its India arrival.

OPPO A60: India Launch

According to tipster Paras Gulani on X, the OPPO A60 is coming to India “very soon”. While he didn’t share any specific launch date, we expect the handset to launch sometime in May 2024, joining the other list of devices set to debut next month.

OPPO A60: India Price (Expected)

There have been no leaks regarding the India price of the OPPO A60 but judging by the Vietnamese price, we can expect it to be along similar lines. The device costs VND 5,490,000 (approx Rs 18,060) for the 8GB + 128GB model, while the 8GB + 256GB variant is priced at VND 6,490,000 (approx Rs 21,360). The handset is available in Midnight Purple and Ripple Blue shades.

OPPO A60: Specs

The Oppo A60 sports a 6.67-inch HD+ LTPS LCD display with a 90Hz refresh rate, 8-bit colours, 264 ppi, 950 nits peak brightness, and 180Hz touch sampling rate. The handset is powered by the Snapdragon 680 Chipset coupled with up to 8GB LPDDR4x RAM and up to 256GB UFS 2.2 storage that is further expandable via a microSD card. It will boot Android 14 based ColorOS 14.1 custom skin.

The OPPO A60 packs a 5000mAh battery with 45W Fast charging support. For optics, the phone sports a 50MP f/1.8 primary camera and a 2MP f/2.4 secondary sensor with night features. It has an 8MP f/2.0 lens on the front.

The device has a side-facing fingerprint scanner and also gets dual stereo speakers. Connectivity options on the device include dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, NFC, USB-C, and a 3.5mm Headphone jack. The handset is also IP54 rated.