Philips Launches 'SoftBlue' Display Smartphones That Reduce Eye-Strain

Philips has added two new smartphones in its growing mid-range offering. The company in China announced the Sapphire S616 and the Sapphire Life V787. Phillips says that it has utilised a new technology called 'SoftBlue' in both the smartphones that reduces the blue light coming from a screen by up to 86 percent, thus reducing eye fatigue that most electronic displays today are credited with.

Other features of Philips Sapphire S616 sports a 5.5-inch full-HD display with a 1080x1920 pixel screen resolution. It is powered by octa-core MediaTek MT6753 SoC clocked at 1.3GHz and a Mali-T720 GPU, paired with 2GB of RAM. As for storage, the phone offers 16GB of inbuilt storage and supports microSD card for up to 128GB of additional storage.

Other features of the Sapphire S616 include a 13-megapixel rear camera with an aperture of f/2.0, and a 5-megapixel wide-angle selfie shooter placed on the front. It also features a removable 3000mAh battery. The dual-SIM capable handset supports 4G LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi and other standard connectivity options. On the software front, the device runs Android 5.1 with company's homegrown user interface on top. It is priced at an equivalent of $222 (roughly Rs. 14,600), and is expected to go on sale in November.

The Philips Sapphire Life V787 sports a 5-inch full-HD display with a 1080x1920 pixel screen resolution and a 441ppi pixel density. The handset has the same processor and RAM as the Sapphire S616, but offers a larger battery at 5000mAh that uses the company's Xenium technology. It comes with a 13-megapixel rear-camera with phase detection autofocus. Its retail price is currently unknown, but it is expected to launch by the end of November. The China launch of the handsets was first reported by Phone Radar.