Latest news with #BenSin
Forbes
17-07-2025
- Forbes
Infinix's GT Verse Is An Affordable Gaming Ecosystem With A New Gaming Phone
Infinix's GT 30 Pro, XPad GT, MagCharge and MagCase. Ben Sin After spending most of the 2010s conquering the African mobile market, Chinese tech brand Infinix began an ambitious expansion plan in 2023, one that included not just selling in more markets worldwide, but also a larger variety of devices. The newest from the Shenzhen-headquartered company is a gaming phone named GT 30 Pro and a gaming tablet dubbed the XPad GT. Each device is priced roughly between $300-$400 (prices vary by region), and they offer more specs, features and accessories than other devices at the same price range. More importantly for Infinix, these two products are part of the so-called 'GT Verse,' a collection of products Infinix is marketing as a single ecosystem, catering to value-conscious mobile gamers. The GT Verse already includes a gaming laptop, a battery pack, and a set of wireless buds. The new phone and tablet complete the ecosystem. The GT 30 Pro has shoulder trigger buttons. Ben Sin Let's take a look at the phone first: the GT 30 Pro is a sleek metallic phone with a 6.78-inch OLED display with refresh rate up to 144Hz. It's powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 8350 Ultimate, an upper mid-tier 4nm silicon with fast memory suitable for gaming devices. The phone also packs a relatively large 5,500 mAh battery. But what helps it stand out as a gaming phone are capacitive shoulder trigger buttons located on the right side of the phone (or top of the device when held sideways). To get shoulder triggers in a phone under $400 is a very welcome development, as they're usually reserved for pricier gaming phones that cost twice as much. The GT 30 Pro in its MagCharge case Ben Sin The phone also has an optional accessory named the MagCase and MagCharge. I reported on the MagCharge before—it's essentially Infinix's take on Apple's MagSafe, a magnetic wireless charger that snaps onto the back of the phone. The new feature this time is the MagCharge includes a cooling fan that, along with the case, provides additional thermal cooling to a device meant for heavy usage. The MagCharge case and charger with cooling fan Ben Sin The XPad GT ben Sin The tablet, meanwhile, is Infinix's idea for bridging the gap between large (laptop) and small (phone) gaming devices. This is a rather standard looking tablet from all angles, with a 13-inch LCD display and a 10,000 mAh battery. But the silicon — a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 — and eight speakers with 3D stereo audio are better than what we usually get from devices at its price point. One more thing I want to highlight, and this doesn't really have to do with gaming, is Infinix's very useful AI assistant, named Folax. This assistant leverages from both ChatGPT and DeepSeek to provide information for users. It's very useful to have one assistant that uses the two major AI chatbots right now, and it's very capable: I can ask the assistant to launch apps via verbal commands, or identify what's on the screen. It certainly is more capable than Apple's much hyped Apple Intelligence right now. The XPad GT and GT 30 Pro Ben Sin Overall, these are two capable devices that comes at a great value. Even for those who don't play mobile games much, the GT 30 Pro and XPad GT are more than capable smartphones and tablets for everyday use.
Forbes
12-07-2025
- Forbes
Huawei's Pura 80 Ultra Has A Pioneering Zoom System
The Huawei Pura 80 Ultra Ben Sin Huawei's P series of smartphones are known among phone enthusiasts for setting several smartphone camera trends, including pixel-binning (debuted in the P20 series); night mode (also P20 series); and Periscope zoom lens (P30 Pro). Well, the Chinese tech giant's latest, Pura 80 Ultra, has another breakthrough, one that I think other Chinese brands will follow suit in coming years: a dual-lens Periscope camera. This is a single Periscope camera module and single image sensor, but with two physical lenses, and a shifting prism inside the module moves back and forth between the two lenses as needed to reproduce two optical zoom length. The Pura 80 Ultra's Periscope camera has two lenses Ben Sin The two optical lengths consist of a roughly 80mm, 3.7X zoom that is ideal for portraits and quick closeups, and a 220mm, or about 10X magnification zoom that is ideal for capturing subjects from far away. A real 10X zoom doesn't just produce sharper details, but it also exhibits true background compression -- meaning the background appears closer to the subject -- which is a trait of telephoto lenses. As a test, I took two shots of my friend, at 3.7X and 10X, while keeping the framing relatively the same, we can see the 10X shot has stronger background compression. The difference in background compression is noticeable in the 3.7X shot (left) and 10X shot (right) ben Sin In the below collage, I snapped both shots while standing in the exact same spot, with the ultrawide lens, and then the 10X zoom. A 14mm (ultrawide) shot (left) and a 10X 240mm shot (right). Ben Sin The Periscope camera's sensor size is also the largest in the industry, at 1/1.3-inches. Huawei has not disclosed the brand of the sensor, but reports from China indicate it is a China-made sensor, not a Samsung or Sony sensor (which most smartphones use). Such a large sensor, along with an equally capable 1-inch main camera, results in a gigantic camera bump, and Huawei does not shy away from the bump, making it an integral part of the phone's design. I must say, the design has grown on me a bit. I found it quite unsightly at first, but now, it has its charms. The Pura 80 Ultra Ben Sin The phone also has a beautiful 6.8-inch OLED screen and a solid chip self-developed by Huawei. Software zips along fluidly with no lag. But ultimately, this phone is all about the camera system. In the video below I have done a more in-depth testing with more photo and video samples. I need to do more testing, but right now, I'd say the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra is easily one of the top two smartphone cameras in the industry right now along with the Vivo X200 Ultra. Whether the Pura Ultra is number one or number two requires more testing which I will do next week. The Pura 80 Ultra is on sale now in China and will soon go on sale throughout Southeast Asia and Europe.
Forbes
03-07-2025
- Forbes
Huawei's MatePad Pro 12.2 Still Has The Best Keyboard Among All Tablets
Last year I wrote about the Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2, which has one of the most ingenious keyboard case designs I've seen for a tablet yet: it has a hidden slot to house the stylus -- a slot that stays out of sight when the tablet is opened, and also locks the stylus securely in place when the keyboard is folded up. Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2 keyboard has a slot for the stylus Ben Sin This is such a better design that, say the iPad, which simply asks you to stick the Apple Pencil on top of the stylus. I can't count how many times in the past decade the stylus has accidentally detached from the iPad as I take it in and out of my backpack laptop sleeve. One time it happened while going through a hectic airport security line, leading to a lot of stress as I scrambled to find the missing stylus. The stylus slot is hidden behind the tablet when opened in laptop mode. Ben Sin Well the MatePad Pro 12.2 has gotten a 2025 update, though the changes are minor. It has a new light green paint job and superior 50-megapixel main camera along with an 8-megapixel ultrawide. That's about it as far as changes, but last year's tablets packed some very impressive hardware, so you still get all that here, including a visually stunning 12.2-inch tandem OLED display with 144Hz refresh rate. This display is also part of Huawei's "PaperMatte" series, meaning it has anti-glare, texture embedded at a nanotexture level, giving the screen a satisfying anti-reflective look and feel. Yes, the iPad and Samsung's highest-tier phone also offer this type of display, but Huawei did it first back in 2022. The MatePad Pro 12.2 Huawei The screen looks beautiful, with thinner bezels than the iPad, and it gets just as bright at 2,000 nits. Powering the tablet is the Kirin T92A a 7nm, octa-core silicon self-developed by Huawei. The tablet is also extremely thin at 5.5mm thick, but despite the slimness, it houses a 10,100 mAh battery. The MatePad Pro Ben Sin
Forbes
27-06-2025
- Forbes
Honor Magic V5 Is The Thinnest Foldable Phone Again
The Honor Magic V5 measures 8.8mm when folded. Ben Sin If you follow Samsung Electronics on any social media platform, or if you follow smartphone news in general, you have probably seen the teasers Samsung has been throwing out over the past couple of weeks, hinting at its foldable phone being very thin. Indeed, according to very reputable leaks and rumors, the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 7 (set to launch in New York City on July 9), is going to measure around 9mm when folded, a big improvement over last generation's 12.1mm. But it still won't be the thinnest foldable phone around, because Honor has been running its own teaser campaign showing off its upcoming Magic V5 (this one is set to launch in China on July 2), which measures 8.8mm when folded. The Magic V5 in folded form. Ben Sin In fact, I have been testing an Honor Magic V5 for the past week already, and I can vouch for the unbelievable thinness—this is a foldable phone that feels thinner than all my normal flagship phones in the hand. It's so thin, the USB-C port's edges virtually touches the edges of the frame, meaning any thinner, and the USB-C port wouldn't even fit. The phone is barely thicker than the USB-C port. Ben Sin That's all I can reveal about the Magic V5 for now, as the phone has not yet had its official launch. But this is clearly a game of teases played between Samsung and Honor, as both brands are eager to tell the world how thin their foldables are without actually revealing the rest of the phone. The Magic V5 Ben Sin But, using common sense, you can guess that the Magic V5 will ship with flagship components like the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon chip and feature a sizable battery, given the company is a pioneer of the silicon carbon battery tech. Whatever the case, the days of foldable phones being chunky bricks are over.
Forbes
25-06-2025
- Forbes
Xiaomi's In-House Chip Gives The Pad 7 Ultra Flagship Power
Xiaomi Pad 7 Ultra Ben Sin A few months after launching two excellent tablets powered by Qualcomm silicon, Xiaomi has launched an even higher tier Pad 7 Ultra that is running on its in-house chipset, the XRing O1. Fabricated on 3nm TSMC processing, Xiaomi's chip features a 10-core CPU and 16-core GPU, with architecture that differs slightly from the way Qualcomm and MediaTek build silicon. For example, a 10-core CPU is more than what any mobile silicon has used, and Xiaomi says the chip switches between the two ARM Cortex cores to get maximum power while staying as efficient as possible. A render of the XRing O1 silicon released by Xiaomi Xiaomi I've been testing the Pad 7 Ultra for the past few days, putting it through its paces as a machine for work (I am writing this article on the tablet) and play (I watched Game 7 of the NBA Finals while juggling through various social media apps on the tablet), and I am very impressed. Whether it's real-world performance or benchmark numbers, the XRing O1 chip performs at a high level similar to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite. In fact, in a 20 minute stress test in the app 3DMark, the Xiaomi Pad 7 Ultra with Xiaomi silicon scored almost as high as the OnePlus Pad 3 running on Qualcomm's best chip, while being more efficient and more stable (see screenshot below). Scores on the 20 minute Wild Life Extreme Stress Test conducted by the app 3DMark. Xiaomi's XRing O1 on the left, and OnePlus Pad 3 on the right Ben Sin I even edited and published an entire YouTube video with the tablet, using the app LumaFusion. While performance wasn't as fast or zippy as doing the same task on a new iPad Pro running Final Cut Pro, I still managed to finish editing the 10-minute video and rendering it in five and a half minutes. I highlighted the process in the video below. So after a series of tests, it appears Xiaomi's XRing O1 is indeed powerful enough to be considered a flagship silicon in 2025, and able to go toe to toe with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite. As for the rest of the tablet, there's a lot to like too. The tablet features a gorgeous 14-inch OLED display with an antireflective coating that prevents glare and reflections. Getting up to 1600 nits in brightness, it is a beautiful panel to look at whether indoor or out. The 14-inch OLED screen Ben Sin Pad 7 Ultra Ben Sin The tablet weighs about 609g or about 1.3lbs, and measure just 5.1mm thick. The body is crafted out of aluminum, and houses a 12,000 mAh battery inside that can be charged at 120W speed with the included charger. With a tablet this big, you will want to pair it with a keyboard, and Xiaomi has a very premium one that unfortunately, looks and feels like a direct knockoff of Apple's Magic Keyboard. Xiaomi's keyboard Ben Sin The Xiaomi Pad 7 Ultra keyboard looks an awful lot like the Magic Keyboard Ben Sin From the way the keyboard props up the tablet, to the hinge design, to the aluminum base that wraps around the keys, it is nearly identical to Apple's Magic Keyboard. I wish Xiaomi had changed up something, even a different paint job. But, once you get over the lack of originality, the keyboard is tremendous. Keys have excellent travel of nearly 1.5mm and are evenly spaced. The trackpad is also the best trackpad I've tested among Android tablets -- precise and with satisfying haptics. The Pad 7 Ultra Ben Sin Xiaomi's multitasking system is also excellent -- you can run apps in split screen or resizable floating windows, making it an excellent work machine. This tablet is only sold in China for now, retailing at 5,700 yuan ($793) to 6,700 yuan ($933). This is for 12GB+256GB storage and 16GB+1TB storage, respectively. The Xiaomi Pad 7 Ultra is a tremendous feat of engineering showing Xiaomi is able to produce high level hardware, including the silicon.
