The new phones and tablets of the week
These last seven days were filled with high profile announcements - we had an Apple phone, two new OnePlus flagships, three devices from Honor, flip-phone from LG and a renamed Honor midranger. There were even Bluetooth earphones - here's a quick summary, in case you missed any of the launches.
First, we’re starting with the Apple iPhone SE (2020) - this name is so influential, we were hearing rumors about a second SE pretty much since the first one was announced in 2016 (how the time flies). But despite the name this is essentially an iPhone 8 with its TouchID home button and classic fat bezels. However, there's the latest A13 Bionic chipset inside and improved rear camera. With its price tag of $399/€480/£419 it might well become the best-selling smartphone of 2020 despite its somewhat dated looks.
OnePlus revealed two new phones on Tuesday - the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro. The Pro brings Snapdragon 865, a 48MP main camera with a huge sensor, a 120Hz display, IP rating and wireless charging, but also drops the elevating front camera for a punch hole and halves the base storage. We also are yet to see how its starting price of $899/€899 will go down with OnePlus faithfuls.
Honor held a massive two-hour event on Wednesday, where we saw three phones and a new chipset. The Honor 30 comes with Kirin 985 that is just like the Kirin 990, but with slightly downclocked CPU. The Honor 30 Pro, and especially the Honor 30 Pro+, were the stars of the show with an attractive design and state of the art cameras - a large sensor 40MP main unit for the Pro, a 50MP snapper with the huge IMX700 imager for the Pro+.
While the event was taking place in China, the global department of the Huawei subsidiary also had something to cheer for - the launch of the Honor 20E in Italy. The mid-ranger will hardly get the geeks' pulse racing, but might be a great deal to the right crowd.
Customers in Finland saw on Friday the arrival of the Honor 9X Lite, sportin a 48MP camera, Kirin 710 chipset and running Android Pie with Google services.
Samsung finally launched the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite - an oft leaked tablet with a 10.4” screen, S-Pen support and 7,040 mAh battery.
LG introduced an actual flip phone with a T9 keyboard - the LG Folder 2. It costs around $160 and comes with one camera on the back, which has an SOS Key right next to it.
Finally we come to the Oppo Ace2, which launched on Monday. Offering attractive design, unprecedented charging speeds and a powerful Snapdragon 865 chipset the phone is looking like a very solid package. Sadly, we are unlikely to see it outside of China for the time being.
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Reader comments
- Anonymous
- 21 Apr 2020
- JEu
It wouldn't suit them as they would be competing with their own lineup if it were. They already gave reason for some to NOT spend $1k+ and instead go for this cheaper model, assuming it's enough for their needs ofc.
- Anonymous
- 20 Apr 2020
- ntJ
Nope. It's newer camera. Not the same as iPhone 8. Apple claims that it's the best single camera ever, so it's atleast the same sensor as iPhone XR if not better.
- Lalit Das
- 20 Apr 2020
- gN%
Why is Apple Se2020 not bezel less