Nokia 6 Registrations, Reliance Jio Broadband, Lenovo P2 Launch, and More News This Week

Welcome back to our weekly news roundup - this week saw a number of interesting launches, from smartphones, to gaming hardware, and new developments in digital payments. The week got off to a start with the launch of the Lenovo P2 smartphone, which packs a whopping 5100mAh battery. The smartphone was first unveiled at IFA last year and is coming to India within four months of its global debut.

Apart from the huge battery, the phone runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, has a full-HD 5.5-inch display, a 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625, with either 3GB or 4GB of RAM depending on the variant. According to Lenovo, the phone has a 3-day battery, and in our video-loop battery test, it ran continuously for 21 hours, 40 minutes.

Lenovo P2 Review

In case you're more interested in gaming, this week also saw the full unveiling of the Nintendo Switch - which is going to launch of March 3, 2017, for $299 (roughly Rs. 20,500) in the US. In the box, you get the console, the two "Joy Con" controllers that attach to it, a charging grip, and a dock, along with an HDMI cable and AC adapter, which can be used internationally. In short, everything you need to get gaming, whether at home or on the go.

Nintendo has confirmed that the Switch is region-free, and also announced an online service that turns NES and SNES games into monthly rentals. However, some feel that the $299 price tag is too high, as it was expected to be around $250. Nintendo's stock value also dropped dramatically after the Nintendo Switch price was revealed.

Nintendo Switch Is Region-Free Nintendo Confirms

There was one more very significant launch this week - that of the Airtel Payments Bank. The bank, which has gotten a Rs. 3,000 crores investment from Bharti Airtel, had launched a pilot payments bank program in Rajasthan in November. This week, the bank officially launched, and according to the company, there are over 250,000 Airtel retail stores that will function as bank branches for customers.

There was another interesting development during the week - Amazon Canada was found to be selling doormats featuring the Indian flag, and Minster of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj demanded an apology from Amazon, stating that Indian visas given to Amazon officials will be rescinded. Amazon Canada removed the 'offensive' doormats from its catalog, with the product pages showing up a 'page not found' error. The Indian flag doormats on Amazon Canada were missing from search results on the website as well. Soon after, in a letter to Sushma Swaraj, Vice President and Country Manager of Amazon India, Amit Agarwal also offered an apology.

Apart from this, there were a number of other interesting launches as well. HTC launched two new devices, called the HTC U Ultra and HTC U Play. The two phones from HTC are powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) - as HTC also brings its AI assistant, called the Sense Companion.

HTC U Ultra, HTC U Play First Impressions

Asus also launched a 5000mAh battery phone phone, the Asus ZenFone Pegasus 3S, a dual-SIM smartphone that runs Android 7.0 Nougat. It sports a 5.2-inch HD display, and is powered by an octa-core MediaTek MT6750 SoC and has 3GB of RAM. Aside from this, there was one more interesting launch in India - the Swipe Konnect Grand. Priced at Rs. 2,799, this new launch from Swipe Telecom has a 4-inch display, with a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, and 1GB RAM. It comes with 8GB of inbuilt storage.

Huawei has announced a new version of its P8 Lite smartphone that launched two years ago. The Huawei P8 Lite (2017), on paper, is a slightly better version of the P9 Lite smartphone that launched last year. The Huawei P8 Lite (2017) is priced at EUR 239 (roughly Rs. 17,300) and will be available in the German market in Black colour by the end of January. Meanwhile in China, the Gionee Steel 2 smartphone has been launched at CNY 1,299 (approximately Rs. 13,000). The new Gionee Steel 2 smartphone has a 5-inch HD display, a quad-core MediaTek (MT6737) SoC, and 3GB of RAM.

In another new launch, IRCTC launched a brand new app to make the process of booking train tickets faster than ever before.

Other than these launches, there were a couple of other interesting developments this week. For one, iPhone users have got the go-ahead to sue Apple - for not allowing users to buy apps outside the App Store. That's right - Apple's policy of only allowing apps to be distributed through the App Store is going to be tested in court, in a lawsuit which was originally filed in 2012. The courts have yet to address the substance of the iPhone users' allegations; up this point, the wrangling has been over whether they have the right to sue Apple in the first place.

And in China, the new Nokia Android smartphone has already crossed one milestone - 250,000 registrations for its first flash sale, which it crossed in 24 hours, followed 500,000 registrations hours later. HMD Global, the company that now owns the rights to the Nokia brand, unveiled the Nokia 6 last week. The new Nokia 6 smartphone will be sold via a flash sale on January 19 exclusively on JD.com in China.

HMD Global is also expected to launch more Nokia Android phones on February 26, with invites for MWC event sent out this week. Specifications of a flagship-level Nokia 8 were leaked as well. 

 Qualcomm reportedly showcased the Nokia 8 smartphone in private at CES earlier this month, and two videos from a YouTube channel, which were supposedly shot at CES 2017, have given an up-close look at the Nokia smartphone and revealed some of the specifications of the Nokia 8.

The alleged Nokia 8 has been tipped to come in two variants.The higher-end variant of the Nokia 8 will reportedly feature a Snapdragon 835 SoC coupled with 6GB of RAM. The lower-priced variant of the Nokia 8 has been tipped to pack a Snapdragon 821 SoC coupled with 4GB of RAM.

In India, there were a number of interesting developments in telecom this week. For one, Idea has also joined the bandwagon of offering free data with new 4G plans - something Vodafone and Airtel are also doing, while Reliance Jio is of course, free to use until March 31 under the Happy New Year Offer. Under Idea's new offer, you will get an additional 3GB of mobile data when switching to a new 4G handset.

Under the new Idea bundled 4G data offer, existing prepaid 4G handset customers will get 1GB of data on Rs. 348 recharge pack, in addition to unlimited voice calling and SMS. Those who recharge with this pack on a new 4G handset will get additional 3GB data. The benefit is valid for 28 days and can be availed for a maximum of 13 recharges in 365 days.

Reliance Jio is also now testing a broadband service. Not much has been detailed about it yet, though there has been talk of tests in Pune and Mumbai. While Reliance Jio broadband service had claimed to offer speeds of 1Gbps, test users in that have reportedly been getting speeds between 70Mbps to 100Mbps, which is still a big improvement over most people's broadband connections.

In other Reliance Jio related news, there were reports that the company could launch VoLTE-enabled feature phones that will lower the entry barrier to use the Reliance Jio network to as low as Rs. 999.

There were some interesting developments about public Wi-Fi too, this week. India's biggest public Wi-Fi network, and among the world's largest, went live at 500 dedicated hotspots across the city Mumbai on Monday, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said.

The Wi-Fi - free with unlimited usage till January 31 - is now available at the offices of Mumbai Police Commissioner, Vidhan Bhavan, KalaNagar in Bandra, Bombay High Court and other prominent public places in the city and suburbs.

And if you're planning to travel, this might be interesting news - BSNL has partnered with Tata Communications to provide access to 44 million Wi-Fi hotspots around the world. This will allow travellers to access cheap Wi-Fi anywhere in the world, without having to buy expensive roaming packs or international SIM cards. The plans include Rs. 999 for 3 days, Rs. 1,599 for 15 days. For 30 days, you'll need to pay Rs 1,999 to access Wi-Fi.