Author: Duncan Pike

When some people say something is too good to be true, they aren’t talking about the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro. A still relatively unknown brand in South Africa, Xiaomi has been on a rapid and steady incline in the global smartphone market over the last couple of years. Recently, it overtook Samsung as the top smartphone manufacturer in Europe thanks to the 67.1% year-on-year growth in Q2 2021. Xiaomi has found itself in a very similar position to pre-2019 Huawei before trade bans from the US all but killed its stake in the global smartphone market. That position — providing high-quality,…

The global smartwatch market has seen significant year on year growth from Q2 2020 to Q2 of 2021, according to a new report by Counterpoint. While Apple maintained its lead, Samsung has snuck up behind and overtaken Chinese smartwatch maker Imoo to claim the third spot with a 7.6% market share. Apple still sits ahead of the pack with 28%, down from 30.1% in Q2 2020. Huawei is currently in second place, but not by much. Its current 9.3% market share is down 3.8% from the 13.1% it held last year.  Counterpoint cites the popularity of the Galaxy Watch 3 and Watch Active…

That semiconductor shorage you keep hearing about, yeah it’s about to get worse. TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor foundry, plans to raise the prices of its products. Up until now, you’ve probably felt the shortage by struggling to buy anything that uses semiconductors — which is pretty much most tech products these days. The price increase from TSMC means that the few things you can find will now be more expensive. According to The Verge, which cites a new report from The Wall Street Journal, TSMC plans to increase the price of its advanced chips by around 10% and its less advanced…

These days, every smartphone manufacturer is trying its very best to get its smartphone in your hands. Or at least that’s what they want you to believe. We recently got our grubby paws on the new Huawei Nova 8. We’ll take you through how Huawei is trying to differentiate this new glass sandwich. Right off the bat, we were fairly impressed with the slightly curved 6.57in OLED display. Boasting a 90Hz refresh rate isn’t something too many budget-focused phones can lay claim to, yet. While most flagships these days are running at 120Hz and some can even get up to…

Huawei has just launched two new handsets locally, the Nova Y60 and Nova 8. Aimed at two different markets, the Nova Y60 and Nova 8 plan to bring some value to the budget smartphone range. Here’s what you can expect from each of them. Huawei Nova Y60 With the Nova Y60, you’ll spend your time looking at a 6.6in 720×1600 LCD display, which is a little low on the resolution side of things but still fine. Underneath the screen, you’ll find a MediaTek Helio P35 chipset with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, which isn’t all that much but…

When we reported that the literal greatest and almost world-leading smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi, was dropping its ‘Mi’ branding from its products, we were talking specifically about its smartphones. It seems it doesn’t apply to its TVs. After its annual Smarter Living 2022 event aired in India today, Xiaomi revealed a host of new products, including the new Mi TV 5X. Xiaomi Mi TV 5X specs The Mi TV 5X will come in three sizes, a 43in, a 50in and a 55in variant. All three of these sizes will feature a 4K HDR and 10-bit colour-capable panel. The panels are also…

Xbox had its own stream on Tuesday night which was technically part of Gamescom, but the event started in earnest last night with Opening Night Live hosted by Geoff Keighley. This one was a lengthy affair, wrapping up in just about two hours — but it had to be, considering all the news and trailers on show. If you didn’t get to watch it, here’s what you missed. Marvel’s Midnight Suns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz8Vw5tOf5M Firaxis, the developer behind the XCOM franchise, revealed its newest project. Midnight Suns is a tactical RPG — what else from Firaxis — with some familiar faces and…

Fitbit has just announced its newest health tracker, the Charge 5, and we’re a little excited about it. Fitbit will be looking to build on the success of the Charge 4, and by the looks of things, it’s done just that. See your fit(bit)ness in colour on the Charge 5 One of the immediately noticeable upgrades is the AMOLED colour display. Until now, Fitbit’s Charge series has come with a monochromatic display. Fitbit (presumably) thought the decision to skip the colour display on previous Charge devices was justifiable for the relatively ‘low’ price. We would disagree. So it’s a welcome addition,…

Microsoft kicked off the first day of Gamescom with a trailer and announcement-filled event. Among the announcements and trailers were some of the expected showings like Forza Horizon 5 and Flight Simulator. Surprisingly, more info or another trailer for Halo Infinite was absent. If you missed the hour and a half event, we’ve rounded up the best trailers and announcements for you all in one place. The Forza Horizon 5 cover cars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fytkGUU7jk Earlier this year at E3, Microsoft showed us it’s putting more emphasis on landscapes and biomes of Horizon 5. Nowt Gamescom, we’ve seen what the featured cars will be. The Forza series likes to…

Following today’s announcement, Telkom Mobile becomes the latest operator to support eSIM enabled smartphones on their network. If you hadn’t heard of it before, using a digital eSIM (Embedded Subscriber Identification Module) means users can connect to a mobile network without a physical SIM card. eSIM Pros and Cons As the ‘e’ in eSIM suggests, users will download a network profile onto an embedded module in their phones that cannot be removed. You’ll need to activate that profile to gain access to the network. You’ll need either a prepaid or post-paid plan with the mobile operator of your choice. Currently,…