Bucket Tech: HONOR 70 Coming Soon

HONOR South Africa announced today their upcoming HONOR 70 smartphone device which is due to be launched locally very soon, the latest addition to its high-end N Series smartphone line-up. Featuring an impressive triple-camera system and a sleek and stylish symmetrical curved design, the new line-up brings innovations across camera, design, performance, and functionality, delivering a powerful and premium user experience. The industry-first Solo Cut Vlog Mode feature produces portrait vlogs that tracks a specific person in group video and two high-definition videos simultaneously, perfect for content creators who want to choose the hero of their story. 

Industry’s First Solo Cut Vlog Mode and SONY IMX800 Camera Sensor

Featuring a 54MP SONY IMX800 Main Video Camera, the HONOR 70 debuts the Sony flagship 1/1.49-inch SONY IMX800 camera sensor, which captures more light for brighter and more detailed pictures, especially in backlit and night scenarios. The HONOR 70 is also equipped with a 50MP 122o Ultra-Wide camera which also doubles as a Macro Camera. 

Bringing remarkable videography innovations to empower the younger generation to fulfil their vlogging aspirations, the HONOR 70 delivers 4K video recording in 30fps in standard video recording and debuts the first-ever Solo Cut Vlog Mode, enabling budding creators to produce portrait vlogs using Person Autofocus Tracking Technology. With Seamless Focus Switch, users can change the focus of the video to spotlight a different subject at the tap of a finger.

Supported by the intelligent Person Re-Identification and Person Temporal Tracking Technology, this pioneering feature enables users to put the spotlight on a specific person in a group video. Even when the subject is out of the frame, it can automatically return when it is back, taking creative vlogging to a whole new level.

Superb Performance with a Robust 66W HONOR SuperCharge

Packed with self-developed single-cell dual-loop battery design, the HONOR 70 brings users a thin body size and low power loss. The HONOR 70 delivers a fast-charging experience with the 66W HONOR Wired SuperCharge technology, users can juice up HONOR 70 to 60% from 3% in just 20 minutes using the included charger, ensuring users can rapidly power up their device.  

Aesthetic Design Inspired by Symmetrical Geometry and the Craftsmanship of Jewelry

Continuing the curved Dual-Ring design of the N Series, the HONOR 70 features an axisymmetric camera setup, drawing inspiration from the craftsmanship of jewelry design.  Exceptionally thin, sleek, and stylish, the HONOR 70 boasts a thickness of just 7.91mm with a weight of just 178g, so it effortlessly fits into small handbags and pockets. 

Designed to meet the different taste of the fashion-conscious crowd, the HONOR 70 is available in splendid colors including Midnight Black, Crystal Silver, and a stunning Emerald Green, and Icelandic Frost. 

Bucket Tech: Samsung Galaxy S20FE

Not to long ago we saw the launch of Samsung Galaxy S20 range in the country but with the ever volatile exchange rate and the increase in prices over tech, Samsung have decided to launch mid-range S20 variant which offers some of the great features of the S20 but at a more affordable price for the consumer. Samsung say its the phone for people who want it all, a phone which they've heard the comments from the fans and in such created a device that leaves compromise behind, one that is tailor-made for fans of all kinds. The Galaxy S20FE is an all-rounder that is perfect for fans of photography, gaming or anything creative as it is the phone that gives you want you want, to do more of what you love. 

The S20FE comes in a stylish metal unibody and is available in 4 colours, namely Cloud Navy, Cloud Lavender, Cloud Mint and Cloud Red, all of which look equally good but I've got my eye on that Cloud Mint. The phone has a 6.5" Full HD screen with Infinity-O Display at 120Hz refresh rate and has bezels surrounding the flat edges, the 32MP front facing camera is hardly evident with a super small punch hole which translates for a more immersive screen that makes your gaming, streaming and video calling way more fun. 

The Galaxy S20FE has a triple camera lens that will let you get that professional no filter worthy shot with ease. It has a 12MP wide angel camera, 12MP ultra wide camera and an 8MP zoom camera with 3x optical courtesy of a telephoto lens. The lenses are perfect for low light photography as well, capable of taking crisp, clear and bright pictures with little to no light in the dark with night mode. AI also assist the user in taking their pictures to the next level with smart processing to adjust shutter and light.  

The Galaxy S20FE comes with a 4500mAh battery which is perfect for those who are constantly on their phone and ensures more than a days use. It also has intelligent power saving for when you need it most. The device is powered by the latest S20 chipset innovation from Samsung and has 6GB of RAM plus and enhanced NPU that takes performance to a new level, which assists in seamless switching from apps to app and with LTE and WiFi 6, live streams will come through clear with more than enough battery power to keep it going. The device has a built in hard drive of 128GB with the ability to store up to 1TB on microSD card. 

Samsung have a RRP for the S20 FE at R17,999

Bucket Tech: Huawei P9 - Review

After attending the launch of the Huawei P9 in June, I was itching to get my hands on the phone to test. For obvious reasons the phones major talking point is it's dual lens technology developed with Leica but there's so much more to this device that meets the eye and with Huawei have invested so much into it being their flagship model to take on the iPhone 6S and Samsung S7, it would be great to see what the Chinese giant had up it's sleeve. They've been making big inroads into the market and gained a large share of it over the past 2 years and they're continuing to grow by releasing great products which cost less than the competition. 

After getting the device delivered and ripping open the courier plastic, I was surprised to see a rather large package but when I opened it I realised that it was more than one thing inside, the phone yes but Huawei also sent through a pair of Hugo Boss shades! How cool? They ran a competition when the phone launched, the first 1,000 consumers to get the phone could register and receive their own pair of shades as well! That's pretty rad on their part, giving the consumer some freebies for supporting them. 

Quality

Now with most of their previous devices, I've noticed a similarity, the phones are pretty solid and have some weight to them but with the P9 it was remarkably lighter than what I was used to, it weighs just 144g! The phone itself is also slimmer at just 7mm thickness and more sleeker than the out going P8 so it seems Huawei have made use of different metals or materiel's of the P9. Even though the device is lighter it doesn't make the build quality feel inferior to previous devices. It's still robust and a solid device, I wouldn't readily go around throwing it about but it should survive small falls and bumps.

Display & Dimensions

 I like the size of this phone, it's just the right size of you ask me. The dimensions are 145 x 70.9 x 7mm. It's not too big, not too small and has a pretty decent screen size. The P9 comes with a 5.2inch display which is a IPS-NEO LCD capacitive touchscreen with 16M colours. Resolution wise, it is 1080 x 1920 pizels, thats 423 ppi pixel density. It supports multitouch which is pretty handy as well as knock touch. It a great display to view pretty much anything on. 

Camera

The part you've all been waiting for, the camera, primary camera as mentioned before is the Dual 12 megapixel f/2.1, 27mm Leica optics lens. Now from what I understand, the reason there is two lenses to this camera, no it doesn't take two pictures, well it does kinda. You see Huawei and Leica believe that the best way to capture the perfect picture with the correct colouring is with the method of taking one picture in black and white and the other captured in colour, this way the colours stand out more and if you go through some of my sample pics you can see what they mean. It really takes some stunning pictures. Like the new camera features, it has a full manual mode to fiddle with as well takes RAW imagery. Video wise, 1080p@60fps, so pretty great quality HD recording there. The front facing secondary camera is an 8 megapixel with 1080p video capability. 

Performance

There really isn't a specific target market for the P9, it's just meant to be their primary phone, something that accommodates everyone, every trend and does so in style. For that it needed a good chipset to make sure performance is running at optimal level. It's got a HiSilicon Kirin 955 chipset with an Octa-core (4x2.5 GHz Cortex- A72 & 4x1.8 GHz Cotex-A53) CPU, yes you read that right, 8 core CPU. Memory wise, it comes with 32gigs storage space and has a micro SD slot that can take up to 256GB card. Depending on area you're in the memory card slot doubles as a second SIM slot. It has 5GB of RAM and runs Android v6.0 Marshmallow. 

Battery

The phone has a 3000mAh lithium Ion non removable battery, I could tell you what the given standby hours and talk time hours are but that really isn't usefull to us but from experience it lasted me almost 2 days of full usage without having to charge it. 

Verdict

A lot about this phone is going to be about the dual lens tech on the camera and with good reason but like I said at the start, there is so much more to this phone than just that! The build quality, the processing power, the battery life! Even the features are incredible with the finger print sensor being sharper and faster, like the one that comes on the Mate 8. The fast battery charging is a plus with almost 50% of the charge in just 30 minutes. It really is a great device and if the P10 isn't out by the time my contract comes up for renewal, I will most certainly be getting this. The phone is available in six colours, not sure exactly which are available in SA but go check your local service provider.