Xiaomi Launches the Mi Max: $230-$310, 6.4-inch, 4850 mAh, 7.5mm, Dual SIM

After posting several teasers on the official twitter feed, Xiaomi has now announced a large battery, large screen ‘smartphone’ that blurs the line between 7-inch tablets and 6-inch smartphone. The Mi Max is a step above the previous Mi Note devices, trying to combine the pervasive ‘thin’ design in modern smartphones while also adding plenty of battery life. The only way to effectively do this is to add area, so the final result is a 6.4-inch device.

Gallery: Xiaomi Launches the Mi Max: $230-$310, 6.4-inch, 4850 mAh, 7.5mm, Dual SIM

The phablet will be offered in three models, similar to the Mi 5. The low-end model, coming it at an equivalent of $230, will feature a base Snapdragon 650 with 3GB of DRAM and 32GB of storage. Moving up the chain changes the SoC to the 652 and doubles the storage. The best version tops out at 4GB of DRAM and 128GB of storage, and all three allow installation of a 128GB microSD card in place of one of the SIM cards.

The Snapdragon 650 and 652 are renamed models of the 618 and 620 respectively, as we reported in December. The two SoCs differ in the number of A72 cores – the 650 is a ‘six-core’ part, featuring dual ARM Cortex A72 cores at 1.8 GHz and quad ARM Cortex A53 cores at 1.44 GHz in a big.LITTLE configuration, whereas the 652 has quad-A72 cores at the same frequency. These parts have an 3 or 4GB of DRAM (in an LPDDR3 memory interface we assume), along with Adreno 510 graphics. In the Mi Max, this powers the 6.44-inch display running at a Full HD (1920×1080) resolution, which comes to a 74.8% screen-to-body ratio.

The SoCs use Qualcomm’s integrated X8 LTE modem, rated at category 7, and supports dual 20 MHz carrier aggregation. The Mi Max will support dual 4G SIM cards (one slot also supports microSD), a rear based fingerprint sensor, a 16MP PDAF rear camera and a 5MP front camera with an 85º wide-angle lens. The device weighs in at 203g, which as a whole is not too dissimilar from the 6-inch HTC One Max.

Other features include Quick Charge 3.0 (rated at 83% in 30 minutes), active noise cancellation and 802.11ac, but USB is only at 2.0 speeds. Black, White and Gold colors are to be released, although release dates outside of China are unknown at this point.

Xiaomi Announces MIUI 8.0

With Xiaomi devices, the default OS uses their custom Mi User Interface (MIUI), and as part of the announcement today version 8.0 is soon to be available to Chinese users who sign up to the beta program. Mi 2/2S/3/4/4C/4S/5/Max and Redmi/Mi Note devices are supported, with beta testing starting on June 1^st. MIUI 8.0 will include a new power saving mode that freezes background activity, multi-window management, fingerprint security for notes, a bundled QR and barcode scanner, a mathematics solver included, an updated camera and gallery software, and a base Chinese font redesign.

Gallery: MIUI

Apple Announces Q2 Fiscal Year 2016 Results: iPhone Sales Slowed But Services Gain

This afternoon, Apple released their Q2 earnings for fiscal year 2016, which ended on March 26. The company saw revenues decline for the first time since Q1 2003, according to CNN. The results today did not meet expectations, but that was quite a run to go over 13 years without a year-over-year decline in revenue. Revenue for the quarter was $50.56 billion, which is 10% lower than the $58.01 billion announced a year ago. Gross margin was $19.9 billion, or 39.4%, which was down from the 40.8% gross margin in Q2 2015. Net income was down 22.5% as well, coming in at $10.5 billion for the quarter. This resulted in earnings per share of $1.90, down from $2.33 a year ago.

iPhone sales have certainly slowed, but Apple was almost destined to falter after reporting such strong quarters a year ago. The launch of the larger iPhone 6 and 6 Plus triggered year-over-year growth in iPhone sales of 40% a year ago, and 46% growth the quarter before that. Strong growth in China helped fuel a lot of that gain, since it was practically an untapped market for Apple, but revenue from China fell 26% from a year ago. With Apple being a company that has struggled to expand it’s market outside of iPhone, when the one segment falters it can make a big impact on the results, which is exactly what happened here.

Pretty much every earnings report, sales of the iPhone dominate the discussion, and today is not really any different. Apple sold 51.2 million iPhones this quarter, which is a drop of 16% year-over-year. That brought in revenue of $32.86 billion for the quarter, which is a drop of 18% year-over-year. A larger revenue drop than unit sales means that of the iPhones it is selling, the average selling price is also down. Apple still gets 65% of its revenue from the iPhone, even on a down quarter, but the other segments are not pulling up the slack.

iPad sales continue their downward trajectory, with sales of 10.251 million units this quarter, which is down 19% from a year ago. Revenue for the iPad was $4.4 billion, also down 19%. This has been a common trend with the iPad over the last year or two, and what originally looked to be another strong growth segment for Apple has quickly become a market where sales keep declining. Eventually they will bottom, but even with the solid new entries in the iPad Pro, the smaller iPad Pro 9.7, and even the new iPad Mini, the Apple tablet market has quickly reached a point where people are not upgrading as quickly as the iPhone market does, and you have to start to wonder when sales of the iPad are going to bottom out.

The PC market is certainly declining, but the Mac has soldiered on, generally outperforming the PC market even in the down times. That trend also stopped this quarter, with Mac sales down 12% year-over-year, to 4.0 million devices. Revenue for the Mac was $5.1 billion, which is down 9% compared to last year, so the average selling price has increased a bit while sales have fallen. We’ve not seen Apple refresh the Mac for some time though, with only the MacBook getting Skylake, so sales may be affected by this as well.

Services, which include internet services, AppleCare, Apple Pay, and others, are now the second largest revenue source for Apple, with revenues up this quarter 20% over last year, for a total of just a hair under $6 billion for the quarter. Even compared to the holiday quarter, which was Q1, sales were pretty much flat, and all of the other segments dropped significantly (and expectedly) compared to last quarter. You likely don’t think of Apple as a services company, but iTunes sales, Apple Music, and their other services are now the number two product at Apple, and that’s pretty surprising. It may not be number two next quarter, but with Apple having over a billion people using their services now, sales here should stay strong.

The final segment from Apple is “Other Products” which includes Apple Watch, Apple TV, iPod, Beats, and accessories. This segment also grew significantly year-over-year, to $2.2 billion, which is up 30%. Although Apple doesn’t break down the products inside here, the addition of Apple Watch likely makes up a good portion of this, since it wasn’t part of the category a year ago.

Apple announced they were going to be adding an additional $50 billion to their capital return program, bringing the program up to $250 billion in cash returned to shareholders by the end of March 2018. The dividend will be increased to $0.57 per share, and they will buy back $175 billion in shares, up from the original goal of $140 billion in shares.

They also announced guidance for the next quarter, where they expect revenue between $41 and $43 billion (Q3 2015 revenue was $49.6 billion) and gross margin is expected to drop again to between 37.5 and 38%. With this guidance, next quarter may be very similar to this one.

I don’t think we have to worry about Apple going bankrupt just yet, but today’s earnings are a big change in what we’ve gotten used to in the last 13 years or so. All things must come to an end, and today it was Apple’s amazing track record over the last decade or more. They are certainly not alone in having their struggles this quarter, but the drop is pretty significant nonetheless.

Source: Apple Investor Relations

LeEco Announces New Le 2, Le 2 Pro, and LeMax 2

Today in Beijing we had the opportunity to attend LeEco’s presentation event announcing their new flagship smartphone devices. LeEco has been a company we haven’t had the chance to cover to date, yet the company is making a lot of noise and positioning itself against its competition in the smartphone space and beyond. Today’s event was a 3 hour pandemonium where among other things we saw the launch of a new smart-TV as well as Le’s first public demonstration of their electric car.

But getting to the topic at hand, LeEco has been making a concerted push into the smartphone space. And today they are updating their smartphone lineup with a trio of devices all appropriately suffixed as 2. These are the Le 2, the Le 2 Pro, and the LeMax 2.

Starting at the flagship level, we have the LeMax 2. Based around Qualcomm’s popular Snapdragon 820, the 5.7” phablet’s spec sheet reads very similar to some of the other flagship phones we’ve seen launched this year. LeEco is pairing the 820 with 32 or 64GB of UFS 2.0 NAND, and as a first for any Android smartphone, up to 6GB of LPDDR4 RAM. To have the first 6GB phone show up here is admittedly unexpected, but given the prevalence of 3GB/4GB configurations elsewhere, it was only a matter of time until someone used higher capacity chips to get to 6GB.

Shifting gears, the display for the phone is a 1440p LCD, which will put it in competition with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Note5 and S7 series, and the LG G5. The display subjectively looked good with high brightness and good viewing angles. Otherwise for image capture purposes, LeEco has outfitted the phone with a 21MP OIS-capable rear camera, utilizing Sony’s IMX230 sensor. As has been the case for a number of phones this generation, there is a sizable camera hump here to house the camera while keeping the rest of the phone relatively thin. Meanwhile front facing camera duties are handled by a 8MP camera with 1.4µm pixel pitch on the sensor.

Rounding out the package, LeEco is equipping the phone with a 3100mAh battery, and while we’re still working to get the precise battery voltage, at typical voltages we’d be looking at around a total capacity of 11.9WHr. Of course you’ll also find a full suite of wireless connectivity options enabled through the Snapdragon 820, including Qualcomm’s integrated X12 LTE modem, and dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac support.

But perhaps the most notable aspect of this phone will be the I/O connectivity.  That LeEco is using the increasingly common USB Type-C port is, if anything, to be expected. However what’s unexpected is that this is the only port; a 3.5mm audio jack is not present. Instead the company is piping out audio over the USB port and including a USB Type-C to 3.5mm audio adapter to maintain compatibility with standard headsets. Underlying the USB audio connection in turn is a brand-new technology LeEco is calling CDLA (Continual Digital Lossless Audio).

At this point it’s not entirely clear why LeEco went this route; the phone seems to be thick enough to accommodate the 3.5mm jack, so whether this was done for the purposes of giving the space to another feature (e.g. larger speakers) remains to be seen. What the company does claim though is that the audio quality through the CDLA headphones is vastly superior to the 3.5mm analog counterpart, and admittedly at first glance this claim is hard to buy into. I wasn’t able to verify this and also unfortunately the devices come with no bundled stock headphones, making this a quite niche accessory.

LeEco will be offering two configurations of the LeMax 2. The 32GB NAND + 4GB RAM configuration will sell for ¥2099, or roughly $325. Otherwise the more spacious 64GB NAND + 6GB RAM configuration will sell for ¥2499 (~$385).

Le 2 (left) vs Le 2 Pro (right)

Below the LeMax 2 are the duo of Le 2 series phone, the Le 2 Pro and the simply named Le 2. Both of these phones share the same basic chassis and screen, incorporating a 1080p LCD in a 5.5” phablet form factor. The design is also the same as the LeMax 2 so except for the smaller camera bump on the basic Le 2 you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the Le 2 Pro and the LeMax 2. The difference, as you might expect from the name, comes from the feature set and price.

Starting with the Le 2 Pro, this phone is based around MediaTek’s Helio X25 SoC, which offers 3 clusters of ARM Cortex CPUs – 2 A53 quad core clusters at different performance/power levels, and a dual core A72 cluster. The X25 in turn is paired with 4GB of LPDDR3 and 32GB of eMMC 5.1 NAND. Also setting it apart from its more basic counterpart is the rear camera module, which like the LeMax 2 is a 21MP camera utilizing Sony’s IMX230 sensor. However OIS doesn’t seem to be available in this somewhat smaller phone.

As for the basic Le 2, this sees LeEco dropping down to the lower performance Helio X20 SoC, which cuts down on both the A72 cluster and GPU clockspeeds. The Le 2 gets a smaller 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM and the same 32GB of eMMC 5.1 NAND, however the camera module is a simpler 16MP camera utilizing a hereto-unknown sensor.

Otherwise both phones share identical specifications as far as all other features are concerned. The Helio SoC offers its own integrated Category 6 LTE modem, and both phones incorporate a 8MP front facing camera. And since both phones share the same chassis, both phones also come equipped with a 3000mAh battery. Finally, for I/O and connectivity both phones share the larger LeMax 2’s configuration: dual-band WiFi + Bluetooth 4.2 for wireless data, and the sole USB Type-C port for data and audio.

The Le 2 will be hitting the market at ¥1099 (~$170), while the more powerful Le 2 Pro adds another ¥400 to the price tag, bringing it to ¥1499 (~$230). Today’s launch is a China-only launch, however LeEco is pointing out that in the future we’ll be seeing focus on the US as its next target market outside of their established market in China and India with the possible introduction of derivative models with modifications to the specifications such as different SoC choices.

Gallery: Le 2 & LeMax 2 Smartphones