Asus Zenfone 5z vs OnePlus 6 : The Battle of the 845 dragons!!!

Talking about the two flagship devices- the OnePlus 6 and the Asus Zenfone 5z both of them are well affordable flagship mobiles. The OnePlus 6 being launched a month and a half back and the Asus Zenfone 5z being launched this week and going to be on sale from 9th of July at 00:00 on Flipkart, and Asus Zenfone 5z is the cheapest Snapdragon 845 chipset mobile being launched for Rs.29,999 and its has good pros and cons compared to the OnePlus 6 and its a very good competitor to the Oneplus. These two flagship devices have very similar features.

 Firstly coming to the newly launched Asus Zenfone 5z :

1. The Zenfone 5z has a 6.2-inch display with full HD+ resolution.
2. It runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 chipset processor.
3. It comes in 2 variants of RAM ; 6GB & 8GB.
4. Its available in 3 variants of storage- 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB.
5. The Asus Zenfone 5z comes with a 2.5D glass at front and back.
6. It has a 19:9 ratio display with a typical notch like the iPhone X.
7. The fingerprint scanner is well positioned on the phone.
8. It has the dual camera setup which is placed vertically just like the OnePlus 6.
9. It has a USB type-C port at the bottom of the phone and it has the 3.5mm headphone jack.
10. This device has an octa-core processor.
11. It has a hybrid sim slot which can be expanded up to 2TB.
12. The Zenfone 5z supports 4G and VoLTE on both slots.
13. This device has the corning gorilla glass 3 for protection.
14. This flagship runs on the Android 8.1 Oreo and ZenUI.
15. The Zenfone 5 has a 3300mAh battery.

   This device has a lot of AI relating features. It has a feature called AI charging which uses machine learning to adjust the charging speed to avoid overcharging. This device also has the scheduled charging option which works pretty well to avoid overcharging. It also has a feature called AI charging which uses the microphones to determine the noise level around you and set the ringtone volume accordingly. These are some of the good AI features which we find helpful these days. This mobile has a Game toolbar in the navigation bar and when its turned on it boosts the RAM and disables alerts from other apps. This device also has Zenimoji just like the animoji on the Apple. This Zenimoji is better than the one on Samsung but not as on the Apple.

Performance, battery life, and camera review :

The Asus flagship also has the face recognition feature and its not as fast as the one on Oneplus. But the face unlock feature is not as secure compared to the fingerprint. And the Zenfone 5z can be easily fooled by showing an HD pic of yours. So it's not secure. The performance is the same as the Oneplus which has the similar processor they are extremely fast and there no lagging issues. Well now coming to the battery, both the devices have the same 3300mAh battery and the battery life is slightly longer than the Oneplus 6. Coming to some AR features, the one plus 6 got its support the previous week and Asus Zenfone 5z is still not found in the list. When both the devices are compared regarding the speed, both stand equally as the RAM and the processor are same. Coming to the camera section,  the OnePlus 6 has dual rear camera setup placed vertically with 16MP of the primary camera and a 20MP telephoto lens which is used only in the portrait mode. And the Oneplus 6 has a 16MP front camera with the portrait mode option. The Zenfone has a 12MP primary camera with dual pixel image sensor and it has an aperture of f1.8. And the front camera is 8MP and it can take pictures only with 4:3 aspect ratio. The portrait mode on the Zenfone is very bad and need to be fixed by some OTA updates. The front camera is not as good as the Oneplus. The Zenfone has the pro mode similar to the Oneplus which has the least ISO of 25 whereas in the Oneplus it has 100. The normal shots clicked on the Asus Zenfone are slightly better than the one plus and it can take better low light shots than the OnePlus. The zenfone runs on the ZENUI and you cannot get the stock Android experience like the one plus. Coming to the display section the Zenfone has an HD display which doesn't support the ambient display. Whereas the Oneplus 6 has an AMOLED display which has better clarity and has the ambient display. The Oneplus 6 is water resistant whereas the zenfone 5z doesn't have any water resistant feature. The Oneplus 6 takes 60mins to charge from 0-100 where has the zenfone 5z takes more than 1 and a half hour.

OnePlus 6 Specs & Cons :

The Oneplus 6 was launched for 34,999 and it has some good specs :

1. It has a fast and smooth user experience.
2. The special dash charge technology with a days charge in half an hour.
3. Water resistant with no IP rating.
4. It comes with a 19:9 full optic AMOLED display.
5. 20MP+16MP primary dual camera with OIS, super slow motion, Portrait mode and 16MP front-facing camera.
6. 6.28-inch FHD display with corning gorilla glass 5. 
7. RAM - 6GB, 8GB
8. ROM - 64GB, 128GB and 256GB.
9. Face unlock, fingerprint scanner, water resistant, glass back and NFC enabled.
10. Supports dual VoLTE 4G SIMs.
11. no expandable storage.
12. Weighs 177 grams.
13. Runs on the Oxygen OS which has the stock Android experience.

Reasons to buy OnePlus 6 Over the Asus Zenfone 5z

1. Stock Android experience with Android P Beta support.
2. Faster software updates.
3. Fast charging than the zenfone.
4. Can click amazing portrait shots.
5. Better stabilized videos with OIS and EIS. 
6. AMOLED display.
7. Water Resistant.
8. Better selfie camera.

Reasons to buy Asus Zenfone 5z  over the OnePlus 6 

1. Costs significantly lesser than the Oneplus 6.
2. Has expandable storage.
3. Has good audio quality and earphones in the box.
4. Better Rear cameras.
5. Some good AI features like AI charging.
6. ZENUI with a different experience.
7. Good rear design.

Links to buy :

OnePlus 6

Asus Zenfone 5z

Some of the pics taken on the zenfone :

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Google I\O 2018

Top Announcements form Google

Google's annual I\O events started yesterday(8th May) and it's a three day event organized by the silicon valley giant. Here are some of the great new announcements from the keynote. there are more to come over the next few days of the annual event, so do follow my social media platforms to get instant updates about this event.

This year google has focused a lot on the AI platforms and has come with some great new features. It was a great event in the Shoreline Amphitheatre. First Google came up with some AI based features on the GBoard and announced that it would soon support Morse code. Then they came up with some cool AI based features on Gmail, which allows a new feature called 'smart compose' which helps in suggesting the next couple of words or sentence as you go on typing the mail. This is feature is pretty cool and amazing which makes the mail more smarter. This helps people to be more official. this feature will be rolling out soon this week. The next cool feature comes from the Google photos with some major changes. Google announced that there are now 5Billion photos viewed per day. Google is adding some cool new features to the app which will be rolling to devices in the next couple of weeks. There are suggested actions in the App, like- it can add effects and increase the brightness in low light photos. It can identify the person in the photo which you are viewing and gives the suggestion to share with that person. And the next update is insane! The App can convert a photo into a PDF.

Google this year has focused a lot on the voice assistance this year and has rolled out some good changes. Google said that in India there is 3 times the growth from last year, and with that success in Google Assistant and advance different language, they would be launching the google home and mini to 80 different countries with 30 different languages. Google introduced 'Natural Conversation' which will let users talk with the assistant back instead of saying "Okay Google" every single time. The google assistant will be able to perform multiple functions at a single time.

Android p Beta

Android has turned 10 years now, and it has come with cool new features every year. Google announced few new features of the Android P to come with a beta version to some devices like Oneplus, Oppo, Essential Phone, Xiaomi, Nokia.

Hope you liked this short and sweet blog on the Google I/O 2018. If so comment below which feature liked you the most?

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The Voice Assistant Battle!!

VOICE ASSISTANT

A voice assistant is a digital assistant that uses voice recognition, natural language processing and speech synthesis to provide aid to users through phones and voice recognition applications.

Voice assistants are used in help and service phone lines, smartphones and other places to assist users with tasks, including:

• Listening to an audiobook.
• Requesting information, similarly to inputting a search query.
• Making reservations.
• Adding items to a shopping list.
• Performing mathematical calculations.
• Playing music.

There are assistants like the google home and google home mini which uses google assistant to get the work done, the Apple home pod uses Siri, the Amazon Echo Dot uses Alexa, and finally Bixby uses its own software designed by Samsung. And there are some other assistants like Cortana which is developed by Microsoft. All of these assistants perform almost similar tasks by using there simple Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

1. Google Home :

The google home is a smart speaker designed by the smartphone giant Google. This smartspeaker uses the google assistant as its voice assistance sosftware. It can answer almost all simple and complicated questions, it can save reminders, its can control light appliances in home with the help of Philips Hue lighting, its can change the color of light appliances, it can play songs with the help of music apps like Spotify, gaana or saavan. It can play videos on TV with cgromecast plugged in with the help of apps like YouTube, NetFlix, AmazonPrime Video. It can tell the latest news by just recognizing your voice. We can also stream movies with chromecast plugged in. This Google home is everything with handsfree. It makes our work more easier. The sound quality is the best compared to other smartspeakers. It also comes with its smaller version called- Google home mini. The Google home is priced $129 and Google home mini is priced $49. Both the Google home and Google home mini have the same audio quality. 

2. Apple HomePod :

The Apple HomePod is a simple smart speaker designed by Americas multinational technology company- Apple. the size of the homepod is almost same to the Google home. The audio quality is also good. This Apple Homepod requires the "Apple Eco-System" which means it doesn't  work with third party apps like Spotify, Google PlayMusic and so on. It cannot cast videos to other TV's except the apple TV. 

It can play music only from iTunes. It can save reminders which all other assistants also do. It pairs easily with apple devices compared to other android devices. The Homepod uses Siri as its voice assistant which is also pretty good comparatively to the Google assistant. The apple home pod is priced very high for the given features. Its priced $349. But it doesnt perform any special functions other than the google assistant. You can see the above video by MKBHD, the best tech reviewer, explained about the "Apple Ec0-System" and its features.Like the Google Home mini it doesnt has any smaller version of it and its not available for India whereas the Google Home And the Google Home mini are available in India.

3. Amazon Alexa : 

Amazon Alexa is a smartspeaker designed by Amazon. Its very simple to use and paies all devices easily. Just like the Google home it has three different versions, the big one called-Amazon Tap, midium sized one called Amazon Echo, and a smaller one called Amazon Echo Dot. there is difference in the audio quality between all these three models. All these three models can perform similar functions just like other smartspeakers. Even Alexa can save reminders, answer questions but cannot answer complicated ones. The one function that Alexa can do but Google home and Apple homePod cannot do is it can place orders on Amazon shopping app. The Amazon Alexa Tap is priced $129, Amazon Echo is priced $99 and the Amazon Alexa Echo dot is priced$49. This smartspeaker can play music from Amazon Prime Music which requires annual subscription. It cannot perform most of the functions which the Google home and Apple HomePod do. But the Alexa is developing.

Conclusion 

All the smartspeakers are designed good, they have a good built-quality. Almost all these smartspeakers perform same functions and are priced economically. I prefer the Google home as the best voice assistant as it can answer all complicated questions very faster. The Google home is very user friendly and very easy to use and connect. Where as the Apple homepod requires everything made by Apple like iPhone, iTunes and Apple TV. The Amazon Alexa cannot answer most of the questions and complicated mathematical questions.So by this we can draw the conclusion that Google Home is the best smartspeaker. You can also see why google home is the best voice assistant and smartspeaker by seeing the video below by MKBHD : 

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OnePlus 6 launch dates, specifications, price confirmed!

OnePlus is all set to launch its new flagsphip killer phone, that is the OnePlus 6. From a strong source its known that OnePlus would launch its new device on May 5th. Its been the fifth year for the Oneplus in the smartphone industry. We have seen many flagship killers by oneplus like the OnePlus 1, OnePlus 2, OnePlus 3, OnePlus 3T, OnePlus 5, and OnePlus 5T. These have been the amazing devices from OnePlus. In the past couple of weeks the OnePlus 5T has gone out of stock in the united states and many other countries. So this smartphone giant is all ready to launch its next device. Its rumored to have notches that we will talk later in this blog.

Key specifications :

1. Its rumored to have a 19:9 ratio display.
2. Its almost confirmed to run with snapdragons latest processor-Snapdragon 845.
3. OnePlus may remain with the same rear cameras but may also have a 20MP fornt camera.
4. This device may coe with two variants- the one with six-gigs of ram and eight-gigs of ram.
5. The oneplus 6 may also have a hidable notch like the huawei p20 pro which is not yet confirmed.
6. Its also rumored to be launched with a new colour.
7. This device may also come with water resistant feature for which many OnePlus fans have been waiting for.
8. Oneplus may also introduce this phone with a 256GB variant of ROM.
9. And finally this device would be launched with the latest android version, that is Oreo 8.1.

Its also rumored that Oneplus 6 would have vertical cameras and may also change the shape of its fingerprint reader like the one in samsung. Oneplus being the parental company of Oppo Electronics may launch the Oneplus 6 similar to Oppo R15, as Oneplus previously had launched the Oneplus 5 similar to Oppo R11, and Oneplus 5T similar to Oppo R11s. And Oneplus has also said that this flagship would be its costliest flagship ever. So, this new flagship from Oneplus would be priced around 38,000 to 42,000 with its base version.Given below are some latest leaks of the Oneplus 6 tweeted from its CEO CarlPei and Pete Lau :

                                                     The notch feature in the Oneplus 6.

                                   The vertical cameras and notch with 19:9 ratio of display.

Oneplus 6 with Snapdragon 845 processor.

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Google home, Google Home Mini launched in India : price, specifications!

The Google home, Google home mini, were launched in India on April 10th 2018, the tuesday in New delhi. But google had revealed this product in the Googles hardware event, in october 2016 in the united states. the google home was priced around $127. But google reaveled its smaller version as google home mini in the next hardware event in 2017 during the launch of pixel 2. the google home is a pre-installed device with google assistant which was launched with the google pixel in 2016. but these devices were not available in india as there were no support to apps like spotify, Philips hue and so on. Recently google rolled on with an update of hinidi language support on the google assistant app and this gave a clue of the launch of the smart speakers. In India the speaker supports Google play music, YouTube, Gaana, Saavan, Netflix. the google home and the home mini also works with the Philips Hue lighting systems which works on the basis of voice recognition and can also change colors. But google didn't launch its larger version the Google home max.

Google home, Google home mini price, specification.

• The google home price is said to be Rs : 9,999.
• The google home mini is priced Rs : 4,990.
• The working of google home and google home mini are pretty same, the audio quality is the same.
• These smart speakers are available through Flipkart and will also be available in offline store later.

Links to buy ggoogle home and Google home mini :

1. Google home
2. Google home mini

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