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New in town

When it comes to mobile phone customers in Nepal, they are always inclined towards feature-rich, budget-friendly smartphones. New in town

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Anuj Bhandari & Yankee Maharjan

Published at : May 2, 2017

Updated at : June 12, 2017 17:02

When it comes to mobile phone customers in Nepal, they are always inclined towards feature-rich, budget-friendly smartphones. Three new phones in the category, available at prices ranging from Rs 15,000 to 30,000, have just arrived in town and here’s what you should know before you get your hands on them.

Redmi 4X: 48 hours

worth battery

Mi Nepal has officially launched the Xiaomi Redmi 4X smartphone for just Rs 18,499.

The Xiaomi Redmi 4X, a sleek metal-body phone, comes with a 5 inch IPS LCD display of HD resolution. While the display size might be perfect for one-hand usability, the resolution will not impress many. The phone comes with 450 nits of brightness, which will support an average outdoor visibility.

The best feature about the phone is its battery. The phone houses a huge 4100 mAh battery that can be expected to promise a battery life worth two full days in normal usage. The phone runs on well-polished software:the MIUI 8, which is based on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.

Under the hood, it is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 435. It is an Octa-Core chipset clocked at 1.4 GHz that comes with Adreno 505 GPU and LTE CAT 7 modem. The device comes with 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage capacity. This storage size is expandable up to 128 GB via microSD card but comes at the cost of your second SIM, as the SD card will use up your SIM2 slot.

As far as the cameras are concerned, it comes with 13MP unit on the back and the 5MP unit on the front. Though the megapixel count isn’t much different, its primary camera unit with greater aperture (f/2.0) is better than that of Redmi 4A (f/2.2). The phone is apt for shooting Full HD videos from both the front and the back.

The Redmi 4X sports rear-mounted fingerprint scanner and other essential sensors. But, that’s about it, like other Redmi phones this one too fails to pack the NFC (Near Field Commun-ications).

Lenovo Vibe P1 Turbo:

Quick Charging

The recently launched Lenovo Vibe P1 Turbo has finally arrived in Nepal after a whole year of its initial release. P1 Turbo boasts Quick Charge feature as its main highlight, which even the most recent mid-range phones in the market lack. Priced at Rs 28,000 the phone comes with Quick Charge 2.0 that enables the phone to charge from zero to 50 percent within 30 minutes, hence the name Turbo!

Backing up the device is a massive 4,900mAh battery which has added some heft to the device making it weigh 189 grams. The phone is most apt for users who spend hours on their phones, exhausting their battery first and then running around for charging stations later.

The phone houses a 5.5 inch full HD display with the pixel density of 401ppi that provides a sharp display with no sign of pixilation. The display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for scratch and drop resistance. Powering the phone is the last-gen Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 Octa-Core Chipset whose four energy efficient cores are clocked at 1.2 GHz and other four high-performance cores at 1.6 GHz. For graphical performance, it comes with Adreno 405 GPU and for multitasking; it comes with 3 GB of RAM. It also offers expandable 32 GB Internal Storage.

Vibe P1 Turbo comes with 13 MP Rear Camera with f/2.2 aperture and Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF). It can shoot 1080p videos at 30fps. On the front, it comes with 5MP Camera with f/2.8 aperture.

For those who need quick charging, long lasting battery, this year-old phone offers a good value for money. However if you are big on updates, you need to know that the this phone still runs on Android 5.1 Lollilop.

Lenovo K5 Note: Virtual reality

A successor to the Lenovo K5 Note, the Lenovo K6 Note is currently available for pre-booking. Priced at Rs 29,999, the sellers promise perks to early birds. As far as the specifications are concerned, the K6 Note sports a 5.5 inch full HD IPS LCD display covered by a seamless 2.5 D glass. The back of the device is cloaked by a full metal unibody backing.

Lenovo claims that the device offers an excellent virtual reality experience to its users through the Theater Max 3.0 technology. The Lenovo K6 note also features Dolby Atmos audio enhancement and a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner.

Under the hood, the Lenovo K6 Note rocks an Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor clocked at 1.4 GHz. The processor is coupled with 4 GB of RAM, depending on customers’ choice, and Adreno 505 GPU. It has 32 GB of onboard storage that can be expanded up to 128 GB via a microSD card, which uses the second SIM slot. The device currently ships with Android v6.0.1 Marshmallow and some rumours suggest that it could get a Nougat update in May. It has Lenovo Pure on top as an Android skin.

The device is equipped with a 16 MP rear-facing camera which is accompanied by dual tone flash. Likewise, the front-facing camera measures 8 MP which will definitely click some social media ready pictures.

The huge 4,000 mAh battery housed by the device is undoubtedly its standout feature. But, nothing can be promised as of yet, the Lenovo K6 Note will have a lot to prove since its predecessor, the Lenovo K5 Note failed to make any mark in the technology world.