Apple iPhone X sale, Xiaomi becomes 5th, Qualcomm

Apple iPhone X back on sale at Airtel Online Store in India

Leading telecom company Airtel, which hosted the iPhone X sale on November 3 on its proprietary Online Store, got an overwhelming response from the Indian public and emptying the stocks within minutes. Now, the Apple's latest and most innovative mobile till date is back on sale in India.

Airtel has commenced the iPhone X and is available in 64GB and 256GB storage variants. It has to be noted that it is exclusive to Airtel postpaid customers as an unlocked device and will be shipped on a first come first serve and full payment basis, till stocks last. The company will deliver the device free of charge to customers' doorstep.

The new iPhone X 64 GB variant is priced at Rs 89,000 and the 256 GB model at Rs 1,02,000. Prospective buyers can use digital payments mode and is available through all leading credit cards and debit cards, net banking, Airtel Payments Bank and other leading platforms.

As of now, the iPhone X is available only in limited stocks on Airtel Online Store, whereas the other e-commerce giants Flipkart and Amazon, even the rival Reliance Jio have exhausted their stocks and it might take several weeks to replenish them.

Apple's new iPhone X comes with new design language with FullView bezel-less display having 18:9 aspect ratio and on the back, it flaunts a metal-cover with glass on top to assist wireless charging and a vertically aligned dual-camera, which is said to be almost on par with Google Pixel 2 series.

Besides the design language, the iPhone X's most notable aspect is its front camera. Apple mobile boasts an advanced TrueDepth camera system that makes use of IR laser sensor, Flood Illuminator (helps identify face even when its dark out), Dot Projector (30,000 invisible dots are projected onto the users face to build your unique facial map) and 7MP FaceTime snapper to accurately identify the owners face in 3D.

It is much superior to any other face recognition technology seen in current flagship phones, as it has the ability to detect fake 2D photos and it is intuitive enough to learn subtle changes in the owners face over time and still be able to accurately identify. This really sets a new benchmark in biometric security technology.

Other stipulated features of Apple iPhone X are 5.8-inch (diagonally) OLED Super Retina display (2436x1125p) having 458 ppi (pixels per inch), new A11 Bionic processor with neural engine, M11 coprocessor, iOS 11, 64GB/256GB storage and a bigger battery (2 hours more compared to the iPhone 7).

Xiaomi becomes 5th largest smartphone brand in Russia

Chinese smartphone player Xiaomi has become the fifth largest smartphone brand in Russia during Q3 2017, according to the latest research from Counterpoint's Market Monitor service.

"Xiaomi grew by 325 per cent YoY and was the fastest growing smartphone brand in Russia in both online as well as offline sales," the Associate Director at Counterpoint Research (Counterpoint Technology Market Research), Tarun Pathak, said in a statement.

Smartphone shipments in Russia grew by 7 per cent annually and 38 per cent sequentially during Q3 2017.

"The Russian handset market grew during this quarter driven by aggressive marketing campaigns by new Chinese brands and subsequent price cuts from all the leading retail chains as consumer spending during third quarter of the year normally remains high due to the new academic year and a 'back-to-school' uptick," said Minakshi Sharma, Research Associate at Counterpoint Research (Counterpoint Technology Market Research).

The online channel smartphone contribution has increased from 12 per cent to 15 per cent YoY in Russia. During this quarter, Xiaomi and Apple were among the leading smartphone brands in online sales.

"Apple reached record sales during the third quarter, growing 56 per cent YoY due to a drop in the prices of its previous generation iPhone models, prior to the launch of the new iPhones," Pathak said.

Samsung led the overall and smartphone market with market shares of 20 per cent and 29 per cent respectively during Q3 2017.

Global brands captured almost 58 per cent of the smartphone market followed by Chinese brands with 32 per cent market share.

Xiaomi (325 per cent), Bright and Quick (177 per cent) and Huawei (140 per cent) were the fastest growing Chinese brands YoY.

However, local smartphone brands like Tele2 and Prestigio grew by 61 per cent and 54 per cent QoQ respectively.

Qualcomm set to get Japanese antitrust approval for $38 billion NXP deal

US smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm is set to win "imminent" Japanese antitrust clearance for its $38-billion bid for NXP Semiconductors and gain Europe's approval by the end of the year with slight tweaks to its concessions, a person familiar with the matter said. Winning the green light from both competition authorities would take Qualcomm a major step forward to closing the deal and reinforce its fight against an unsolicited $103-billion takeover bid from Broadcom.

The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) "is expected to clear Qualcomm's acquisition of NXP imminently," the source said.

"The European Commission is expected to follow soon." The JFTC did not respond to emailed requests for comments sent during out of office hours. The EU competition enforcer, which has set a March 15 deadline to rule on the deal, declined to comment while Qualcomm was not available for comment.

Qualcomm, which supplies chips to Android smartphone makers and Apple, wants to become the leading supplier to the fast-growing automotive chips market via the NXP purchase, the biggest-ever in the semiconductor industry. To address competition concerns, the company has agreed not to purchase NXP's standard essential patents and not to take legal action against third parties related to NXP's near field communication (NFC) patents except for defensive purposes. It also offered an interoperability pledge which will allow rival products to function with NXP's products.

NXP co-invented NFC chips which enable mobile phones to be used to pay for goods and store and exchange data. Qualcomm will make incremental changes to concessions offered to the EU authority last month, the person said. A similar proposal was also proposed to the JFTC. Broadcom made its move last week in an effort to become the dominant supplier of chips used in the 1.5 billion or so smartphones expected to be sold around the world this year. Qualcomm has dismissed the offer, saying it undervalues the company.

Broadcom, Qualcomm and NXP together would have control over modems, Wi-Fi, GPS and near-field communications chips, a strong position that could concern customers such as Apple and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd because of the bargaining power such a combined company could have to raise prices. However, a combined company would also likely have a lower cost base and the flexibility to cut prices.

Apple iPhone X review: Status symbol reinstated!

Apple took a big leap of faith with the iPhone X, the phone that celebrates 10th anniversary of the first iPhone. The first iPhone brought about a tectonic shift in the way we interacted with our personal communication devices. Almost a decade later, Apple introduced a phone that Tim Cook described as the "future of smartphones."

Let's forget about the hyperbole for a moment. Think just about the iPhone X. The smartphone completely reimagines the iPhones with an edge-to-edge panel, customised UI and just Face ID for biometric authentication. It will be unfair not to talk about the price of the iPhone X.

It's expensive, and in fact is the most expensive iPhone ever.

So, how's it like using the best and most expensive iPhone ever?

Turning eyes

"Oh, it's that phone!" "Hey, is it the iPhone X?" "Wah, iPhone X? Kaisa hain?" Curiosity among people around me was a good indication that this phone has regenerated interest in the iPhone.

The amount of attention it drew convinced me that at least one objective Apple set out to achieve with the X was met: the iPhone is back as a status symbol.

Changing habit

Being a loyal iPhone 6 user for the last two years, it took me a while to feel at home with the iPhone X, which brings a raft of new gestures. The biggest change you notice is the lack of the home button. At first, muscle memory had me reaching for the bottom to unlock the phone. But soon, I FaceID - which is as simple as just looking at the phone -grows on you. It's fast and works almost in all light conditions, though there have been instances when it did not. But the misses have been too low to factor in this review.

Apart from FaceID, the UI has been changed too. Swiping down from the right top corner shows the control center whereas the left corner shows the notifications. Small things like shutting down the iPhone has changed too. To switch off iPhone X, you either need to go to Settings> General > Shut Down or press slider button and volume button together for a few seconds.

As the days progressed, a lot of apps have been optimised for the iPhone X screen, specifically to adapt to the notch that cuts into the display from the top. As I mentioned in the first impressions, the notch is a bit distracting. But after weeks of usage, I hardly noticed it.

The only time an iPhone user will notice the notch is when an application is yet to optimise for it. These apps launch in a truncated size, leaving ugly black spaces on either side.

Apple customises iOS for the iPhone X. (HT Photo)

A powerhouse

At the end of the day what matters is that a phone with that kind of price tag has to deliver good performance. The iPhone X doesn't disappoint on that parameter. It can handle graphic intensive games like Freeblade with ease. Similarly, multitasking is effortless.

Battery life is somewhat near satisfactory, though if you are not a power user, you can easily get it to last a full day. But if you keep location services on and spend a good time browsing, gaming or multimedia streaming, carrying a power-bank is recommended.

The iPhone X's camera is impressive, especially in low light, though it is overall not significantly better than the iPhone 8 Plus's. Samsung Galaxy Note 8 outperforms the iPhone X in taking better photos in low light images. The portrait mode, which is also available for the front camera on the iPhone X, however takes much better selfies than other iPhones.

Verdict

The iPhone X is simply the best iPhone so far. This is THE Phone to have in 2017. But, will you buy it? People who have the budget and love Apple, would have already bought one. And those who are planning to buy, this review is unlikely to change their minds.