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Sheldon PintoJan 01, 2021 09:35:39 IST

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series about tech gadgets and devices that helped Team tech2 and some of our friends through the pandemic, lockdown, and the year 2020, in general.

If there’s one thing that the lockdown has taught us, it is that we need technology more than we ever thought we would. In 2020, every spare gadget in my house served a purpose, whether it was my raggedy old Motorola Moto G (2012) with a broken camera (that served as a media player for my nephew), or something like a simple Bluetooth speaker that was great for family video calls and Zoom birthday celebrations.

Can sniff pork vindaloo from a mile away

However, technology not only helped with entertainment and work, but also served as a tool to help us overcome the bad stuff that took place during the lockdown. My grandmother passed away (in Karnataka) and my entire family (Mumbai and elsewhere) had no choice but to attend her funeral and burial via a private Facebook Live stream.

While I was stuck at home with my family of 9, I also had to figure out ways of isolating myself from them, because work goes on and you can feel a bit claustrophobic within the 4 walls of your apartment. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

My 4-year old nephew now knows the keyboard shortcuts to a Zoom call, because school. And my father and mother now know to use GPay, something they would have never ventured into had it not been for the pandemic.

And while I was stuck at home with my family of 9, I also had to figure out ways of isolating myself from them, because work goes on and you can feel a bit claustrophobic within the 4 walls of your apartment, especially when you’re stuck there for months.

To get work done, I needed to concentrate and focus. And no, I’m not the type of a person who can get work done with music playing in the background. I need my silence!

Sony WH1000 XM3. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

Living besides a main road in an apartment in Mumbai City means a lot of traffic noise (lockdown or not). That, alongwith the chaos of 3 other family members who are constantly chatting away on their respective work calls and 2 kids, translates to utter chaos in a 2 BHK apartment. In this chaotic household filled with noise, I was glad I had already purchased the Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones. While they did a fine job of letting me sleep peacefully on domestic and international flights (in non-COVID times), they also pumped out some really good audio. I am no audiophile, but I have used better audio gear over the years. Still, nothing quite beats the XM3s when it comes to noise cancellation, and I’m glad I had them with me during the lockdown.

SoundMAGIC E10C. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

Another audio product that became oddly useful for another purpose were the SoundMAGIC E10C wired earphones. I originally purchased them to plug them into my Xbox controller for basic audio while playing games. But thanks to the lockdown, I found them extremely useful on work-related Zoom calls, as a wired mic beats a Bluetooth headset in terms of clarity and pickup. Apart from the Xbox controller and plugging them into my laptop, they also delivered pretty good audio for something that costs just Rs 1749.

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

One device I was lucky to have with me during the lockdown was the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. Sent across for review, it was left behind for quite a while, long enough for me to drop it and crack the glass back (it still worked fine after the drop). While it came in for review, I ended up using it to shoot my product photos. I prefer using smartphones because I hate fidgeting with cameras for an image that’s going to be compressed for the web. It’s got a nice 108 MP sensor that really helps bring out the details no matter what you are shooting. The OIS-stabilised 5X optical zoom also came in really handy for the same. While it’s one of the more capable ultra-premium Android smartphones on the market, I’m still waiting for Samsung to introduce a Snapdragon variant of their flagships for the Indian market.

Microsoft Xbox One X. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

Moving to the lighter side of things, is my Xbox One X. I purchased the Xbox One X around December 2019 solely because I wanted to try it out after sticking to PlayStation and PC gaming during my college days. I decided to get an Xbox after selling off my brand-new Nintendo Switch that was an impromptu purchase, after giving into the hype and watching a lot of colleagues game on it for years. Long story short, I just did not like the fidgety digital sticks on the Switch.

I’m glad I had the Xbox console with me during the lockdown. The games transported me from the four walls of my bedroom to exploring the UK (in Forza Horizon 4), to the marshlands in Russia (with Mudrunner), to the US (The Crew 2) and to any race track I wanted with Assetto Corsa. Yes, I love racing and open-world games. They kept me distracted from the chaotic world around me not just in my home, but also the depressing Corona-related news. In short, it was a good outlet and I am glad I had it with me during those days.

Those who know me, will also know that I’m not a fitness person. But given my deteriorating posture during the lockdown, I had to take up some form of exercise. Once the norms relaxed a bit, I started going for brisk walks (you did not expect me to jog did you?). And given that it was the first time I started an exercise activity, I needed to track it. Since I’m not a normal human being who sticks around with 1 smartphone for a year (I switch between 4 in a month), I needed a tool that could track and save my data across device ecosystems.

So, I chose Google Fit as a way to track my daily activity. Without a WearOS-powered smartwatch, it’s a basic fitness tracking tool that keeps a tab of your activity using location tracking and the phone’s built in sensors. It won’t give you too many details about your activities without a supported fitness band or a watch, but it got me the basic stats I needed (to keep myself motivated) along with a bit of accuracy to keep track of my progress.

In short, tech kept me busy, isolated, motivated and sane during the lockdown. Digital detox can take a walk!

If you’ve been hesitant to dive into the world of photo editing beyond applying simple filters in Instagram, you might want to check out Pixlr. It’s a truly powerful online photo editing software program with loads of options that never overwhelm you with their complexity. The result is that even those new to the world of photo editing can get started fast, greatly improve or change their photos, and have fun doing so. Oh, and the best part? The program is completely free.

Getting started with Pixlr begins with choosing either Pixler X, which is a more basic and easy-to-use version of the software, or Pixler E, which provides more tools, but might be a bit much for those new to photo editing. Both versions are free.

Next, simply open a photo, which you can do by either navigating to one stored on your device, or by entering a URL for a web-based image. Alternatively, you can start from scratch by selecting from one of Pixlr’s many blank templates which include handy specs for items including Icon, Instagram, Facebook Cover, and more. As if that wasn’t enough, Pixlr also integrates with free photo site Unsplash, so you can import any of those images to work on with a simple search and click. 

Once you’ve got a project to work on, navigating your options is as easy as selecting one of the icons on the left. Hovering over each button pulls up a handy box with an illustration to tell you exactly which tools the icon will open. You have all of the usual photo editing tools here including resizing the canvas and photo, creating and working with layers, cropping, adding effects, and applying an impressive number of filters, which are combinable and controlled with slide bars. This all adds up to lots of creative freedom to get exactly the look you want. 

Of particular note is Pixlr’s “Liquify” tool that allows you to swirl, enlarge, or shrink small portions of a photo for an impressive degree of fine tuning. Other options include a cutout tool, that lets you extract elements from the photo into other layers or delete them altogether; a “Retouch” suite that lets you dodge/burn, clone and heal any area of a photo; text insertion; and doodle tools including a variety of brushes, pens, shapes and an eraser. 

Down the right side of the screen you’ll find your layers arranged in an easy-to-navigate strip.

When you’re done working with an image, you have the option to save or download your file in a variety of formats including JPG, PNG, and WEBP. A particularly appealing component of Pixlr is that the images you download are completely watermark free – so you don’t get roped into having to shell out cash after you get your creation just the way you want it.

That being said, Pixlr does offer two upgraded versions of the software – both of which eliminate the banner ads you’ll have to put up with if you use the free version. The Premium level costs $3.99 per month when paid on an annual basis and adds additional editing tools, including what the company calls “AI CutOut,” the ability to use the software’s “eye” to instantly remove backgrounds. On top of that, you get 3,000 additional overlays, 7,000 more stickers and icons, 5,000 decorative fonts and video tutorials. Stepping up to the Professional version, which costs $14.99/year based on an annual membership, increases the number of overlays to 28,000, and provides access to Pixlr’s own “Stock Content” which is a repository of over 10 million images, graphics, fonts, video clips and 3D files. 

Whether or not you’ll need to upgrade really depends on how deep you want to go with photo editing. But signing up for the free version is certainly a smart step, and you just might find that it has all you need to add professional flare to your images. 

The greenlight came a day after the state-owned company announced that preliminary data from last-stage trials had shown it to be 79.3 percent effective.

The greenlight came a day after the state-owned company announced that preliminary data from last-stage trials had shown it to be 79.3% effective.

The novel Coronavirus hit us hard and we struck back with lockdown, social distancing, wearing masks and making a lot of memes.

Updated Date: December 31, 2020 20:39:13 IST

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FP TrendingDec 31, 2020 14:08:13 IST

Garmin India is set out to dazzle its Patrons with the new Vivoactive 3 Element, this festive season. At a special price of Rs 15,990 the Vivoactive 3 is available on Amazon.in, Tata CLiQ and Garmin website. Garmin India, a unit of Garmin Ltd, is launching the Vivoactive 3 Element this festive season to make it a much more unique and captivating one, with this new wrist workout companion. The Vivoactive 3 Element is preloaded with more than 15 sports apps and various other features that will support its users to monitor fitness level with VO2max, keep an eye on stress levels, heart rate monitoring, GPS navigation and so much more.

Garmin Vivoactive 3 Element

Speaking about its launch, Mr. Ali Rizvi, Director of Garmin India said that keeping in mind the festive season, when people exchange gifts with their near and dear ones ,the smartwatch was launched as, “Garmin Vivoactive 3 Element which can definitely be a healthier festive purchase for the customers.”

Making it more convenient for the users, the Garmin Vivoactive 3 Element supports battery life up to 7 days in smartwatch mode and up to 11 hours in GPS mode.

As per the Garmin website, the Vivoactive 3 is the company’s first wearable to feature Garmin Pay, which allows the wearer to pay for purchases with the watch. Users need to just tap on their card to pay.

Garmin Ltd. Is incorporated in Switzerland, and its principal subsidiaries are located in United States, Taiwan and United Kingdom.

FP TrendingDec 30, 2020 17:25:15 IST

WhatsApp is getting a new update that will prevent the messaging app from working on millions of phones from 1 January 2021. According to a report by Independent, older Android and iPhone devices will not support the latest version of the app. This will force owners to update the mobile operating system or buy a new device. The report adds that any iPhone that is not running iOS 9 or newer, and any other smartphone, not running at least Android 4.0.3, will not be able to operate the Facebook-owned app.

A man poses with a smartphone in front of displayed Whatsapp logo in this illustration September 14, 2017. Image: Reuters.

iPhone models up to iPhone 4 will not be able to run WhatsApp anymore. However, even though iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S were all released before iOS 9, they can still update their operating system. Android phones that will lose WhatsApp support include Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC Desire and LG Optimus Black.

Phones that will lose WhatsApp support from 1 January 2021 include:

• Samsung Galaxy S2
• Apple iPhone 1-4
• HTC Desire
• LG Optimus Black
• Motorola Droid Razr
• Android devices released before 2010

Devices that will need to update to iOS 9 or higher or Android OS 4.0.3 include:

• Apple iPhone 4S
• iPhone 5
• iPhone 5S
• iPhone 6
• iPhone 6S
• Samsung Galaxy S3 and newer
• Samsung Galaxy Note
• HTC Sensation
• HTC Thunderbolt
• LG Lucid
• Motorola Droid 4
• Sony Xperia Pro and newer

FP TrendingDec 30, 2020 17:54:16 IST

Lava Mobiles is surging ahead to make most of the Atma Nirbhar Bharat scheme with the launch of Made in India smartphones soon. The homegrown company has started to market the launch with social media posts and a video from their top executives. According to a Twitter update, Lava is going to unveil their new smartphones in a virtual event on 7 January, 2021. With the tagline ‘Ab Duniya Dekhegi’ (Now the world will see), a teaser video of the upcoming video said: “The day when Smartphone industry will never be the same again”.

The launch event will kick off at 12 pm.

The day when Smartphone industry will never be the same again#AbDuniyaDekhegi #ProudlyIndian pic.twitter.com/3bhzsKOmV3

— Lava Mobiles (@LavaMobile) December 28, 2020

In another follow-up video clip, Sunil Rana, the President and Business Head of the company, can be seen inviting everyone to the live event which will be telecast on the YouTube and Facebook handles of Lava Mobiles. It is scheduled to begin at 12 pm. The caption to the tweet read: “Come join us on 7th January, 2021 on Lava YouTube and Facebook handles to witness the game changing moment in Smartphone Industry.” With the use of the hashtag ‘Proudly Indian’, it can be expected that the firm is aiming to attract the ‘Vocal for Local’ sentiment of the country, at a time the Indian smartphone industry is ruled by several Chinese companies.

Come join us on 7th January, 2021 on Lava YouTube and Facebook handles to witness the game changing moment in Smartphone Industry.#AbDuniyaDekhegi#ProudlyIndian pic.twitter.com/ERX8Sy9ani — Lava Mobiles (@LavaMobile) December 28, 2020

Though nothing much was revealed about the upcoming smartphones, 91Mobiles has reported that Lava is going to launch four new phones. These are going to belong to a wide range with the cheapest model starting at Rs 5,000 and the costliest at Rs 20,000. If these quotations are to be believed then it seems like Lava is trying to capture every price point and solidifying their position in the industry.

Lava is following in the steps of Micromax, another Indian smartphone firm, which has recently made a comeback with their In series. The Micromax In Note 1 and In 1b were released in India in early November and were priced in the range of Rs 7,000 and Rs 13,000.

Ameya DalviDec 30, 2020 17:02:50 IST

Smart TVs have been great companions this year during the lockdown. For most people, this meant binge-watching stuff on Netflix, Prime Video etc. For yours truly, in addition to that, it was also about testing and reviewing them, as my home was transformed into a TV showroom for months, courtesy of innumerable test units that took refuge there during that period. And then some more arrived once the lockdown was relaxed. However, there were a select few that impressed me more than others with their performance and feature set, and as a result made their way to our list of top 5 budget 4K Smart TVs of 2020 priced under Rs 60,000.

Best budget 4K Smart TVs of 2020

Vu Cinema TV 50CA

The Cinema TV 4K range released by Vu at the start of this year was easily one of the best of 2020. The fact that very few got close to even matching its performance in the subsequent quarters speaks volumes about the quality of the product. We reviewed the 50-inch model from the series and were thoroughly impressed with its picture quality, and even more so with the sound. It was perhaps the first to bring Dolby Vision to budget TVs, and to the sub-30K price range in India then. Its UI tweaks remain refreshingly versatile for Android TV OS.

We reviewed the 50-inch model from the series and were thoroughly impressed with its picture quality.

The panel with Vu’s Pixelium Glass technology is quite bright, resulting in good contrast in HDR content. Full HD and 4K videos look great on this TV, and even 720p content is upscaled reasonably well. What sets it apart from the majority of the competition is its 40W speaker system. There is noticeable warmth in the sound and ample clarity in vocals. The speakers are tuned well out of the box, and sound good for different content types ranging from movies to music to news. With such a fine blend of features and performance, the Vu Cinema TV was bound to be a box office hit in the year theatres were shut for most part.

Price: Rs 29,999 onwards

Hisense 55A71F

Hisense debuted in India in the last quarter of this year and made waves straight away with their impressive A71F series. Just like the Vu Cinema TV, the Hisense 55A71F (Review) model that we reviewed was high on picture and sound quality. The stakes were raised even higher with the inclusion of Dolby Atmos audio in addition to Dolby Vision support. I generally don’t take the former seriously on TV speakers, but it does make a difference on this certified Android TV, and you can experience more than a hint of positional audio. Speaking of audio, this is another smart TV with very impressive sound quality.

Hisense 55A71F

A pair of bottom-firing speakers rated at 30 Watts RMS deliver some seriously good audio output. The output is loud and clear, with a surprisingly good amount of bass for TV speakers. The picture quality is equally impressive with vibrant colours and contrast across the board. The Hisense 55A71F allows you to adjust sound and picture settings on the fly while viewing content from any source or app at the press of a button, something very few Android TVs let you do. The importance of this, when fine-tuning the video or audio, cannot be stressed enough. For such versatility and performance, this Hisense TV finds itself in our list of best budget TVs this year, soon after launch.

Price: Rs 38,990

Kodak 50CA7077/ Thomson OATH Pro series

Another couple of budget brands improved drastically this year, and released a stellar series each. The Kodak CA series and Thomson OATH Pro series of certified Android TVs are very impressive for the price. Both series are pretty much the same, and manufactured by the same brand licensee – SPPL in India. We got our hands on the Kodak 50CA7077 model (Review) and were mighty impressed with the picture quality of its 10-bit IPS 4K panel. There was a marked improvement in the sound too, compared to its predecessors. There were some UI and minor performance issues in the initial models, but that seems to have been fixed now in the subsequent updates.

Kodak 50CA7077

UI issues aside, the picture quality of this TV was always excellent, with good contrast, lively colours and wide viewing angles. The Kodak CA and Thomson OATH Pro series support Dolby Vision too, and content encoded in that format looks brilliant for their price class. Lastly, their pricing is extremely affordable, adding to the value quotient of the smart TVs. For a solid all-round performance and for that impressive panel, we offer these TVs a place on this list.

Price: Rs 30,999 to 33,999

Xiaomi Mi TV Q1 (55) QLED TV

Here’s the first and more recent of the two budget QLED TVs in this list. The Xiaomi Mi TV Q1 (55) is more future-ready courtesy of its powerful hardware, latest version of Android TV OS, extra storage and most importantly, connectivity options. It has a lot going for it, starting with a sharp and vibrant picture, support for premium HDR formats like Dolby Vision and HDR10+, much better sound as compared to its predecessors and a pleasant design with a metallic frame.

This is the first Android 10 TV we have got our hands on this year. As I touched upon, it has faster Mediatek processing hardware at its core with a Mali G52 MP2 GPU and 32 GB of internal storage. But the clincher is support for HDMI 2.1 with eARC, ALLM and a claimed 5 ms input lag that makes this TV great to pair with the latest consoles from Microsoft and Sony. This TV creates history by being the first from Xiaomi to provide an option to mute the TV (Oh yes, you read that right!), which helped its case further as a pick on our 2020 budget Smart TV list.

Price: Rs 54,999

iFFALCON (TCL) 55H71 QLED TV

The iFFALCON (TCL) 55H71 (Review) is a well-priced budget QLED TV with good picture and sound and some smart design elements. It was also the first to breach the Rs 50,000 barrier in India at launch for a 55-inch QLED TVs running certified Android, and that’s an achievement. Since it was released much earlier this year, it misses out on a few newer features like HDMI 2.1 and Android 10 out of the box, but its overall performance is on par with that of the Mi QLED TV. This smart TV supports popular HDR formats like Dolby Vision and HDR10+, as well as Dolby Atmos for audio.

The 55H71 also has a handful of cool features up its sleeve like far-field mics for true hands-free voice commands without the need for a remote. The design is quite smart and well thought out with an option to connect the desktop stands near the edges of the TV or at the centre to save space, and place it on a much smaller table. You also get access to sound and picture settings on the fly that the Xiaomi TV lacks, and is a few thousands cheaper too. All things considered, it makes a strong case for itself to book a spot on this list.

Honourable mention:

Realme Smart TV SLED 55

SLED technology looks quite promising, and this Realme TV proved to be an impressive retail prototype for the display technology with a vibrant, yet soothing picture that puts noticeably less strain on the eyes. The clean Android UI is fast and lag-free, but could have done with a few more audio/video adjustment tweaks to make the TV smarter. Nonetheless, a solid first attempt.

Realme SLED tv

tech2 News StaffDec 30, 2020 09:01:53 IST

Digital company Jio and Taiwan-based electronic chipmaker Mediatek are starting a 70-day esports tournament ”Gaming Masters” from Tuesday, the companies said. The game will be hosted by the Jio Games platform and the entire tournament will be broadcasted live on JioTV HD Esports Channel and YouTube, a joint note by Jio and MediaTek said. “Jio and MediaTek have come together to launch ”Gaming Masters”, an esports event targeted at new and existing online gaming enthusiasts in India.

Gaming Masters tournament will kick off on 13 January.

Gaming enthusiasts, are you ready to be a part of the most awaited #eSports tournament of the year? Gear up for the #MediaTek Free Fire Gaming Masters in association with @jiogames & unveil your extraordinary #gaming prowess. Register now: https://t.co/CwyGKlTmlc #FreeFire pic.twitter.com/jgfczR9qAC

— MediaTek India (@MediaTekIndia) December 29, 2020

This 70-day esports tournament comes just days after the successful completion of JioGames’ first online gaming event – ”India ka Gaming Champion”,” the note said.

The tournament is set to test gamers’ skill, teamwork and endurance in a virtual gaming arena while vying for a prize pool of Rs 12.5 lakh.

Gaming Masters will feature Garena’s self-developed  Free Fire, which will be available to both Jio and non-Jio users through the JioGames platform.

There will be no registration or participation fee for the gamers, according to the note. The registrations for all Jio and non-Jio users have already begun and will be open till 9 January. You can register yourself for Gaming Masters on this website. The tournament will begin on 13 January and will end on 7 March.

(With inputs from PTI)

Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd which publishes Firstpost

FP TrendingDec 29, 2020 16:39:24 IST

OnePlus 9 series is going to be one of the most highly anticipated flagships in 2021. There is a lot of buzz and speculation around the three models that are likely to be launched as part of the series. A recent leak suggests that none of the models of OnePlus 9 series is going to feature a periscope camera. Renowned tipster Digital Chat Station posted a tip on Weibo recently, saying that the OnePlus 9 series will come with only a simple telephoto lens and not a periscope lens.

OnePlus 9. Image: 91Mobiles

The tipster wrote that they do not know whether the supply chain had not recovered from the losses faced due to the pandemic yet. Although many phones had a periscopic lens till the third quarter of 2020, a lot of companies are going to manufacture their devices without the facility in the coming year.

This tipster suggests that other developers expected to market phones with Snapdragon 888 (like the OnePlus 9 series) in 2021 are going to let go of the periscopes. It is important to note here that OnePlus products have not used a periscope lens before, as pointed out by a tech portal.

Earlier tipsters had suggested that the OnePlus 9 series will come with Leica lenses. As per a tweet reply by leakster Teme OnePlus will have a collaboration with Leica for their upcoming flagship. In another tweet, the same tipster also revealed a collaboration between LEica and Huawei. Early on this month, a tech publication also leaked the live images of the 5G variant of the base model.

The series of pictures showed that the OnePlus 9 5G consists of two larger sensors at the back along with a much smaller third camera. The 6.55-inch device seemed to closely resemble its predecessor OnePlus 8T in terms of design.

FP TrendingDec 29, 2020 17:04:46 IST

Xiaomi has launched the MIUI 12.5 alongside the release of the Mi 11 flagship. The firm will be rolling out the stable version of the update for its Mi and Redmi phones from April 2021. The system update comes as an improvement over the MIUI 12 but there are several notable enhancements coming with MIUI 12.5. The latest version brings super wallpapers, new animations, along with enhanced privacy protection controls. Initially, the stable update will only reach the home market of China on Mi 11, Mi 10 Extreme Commemorative Edition, Mi 10 Pro, and Mi 10 models. Other countries and models are going to have the update later on.

MIUI 12

The MIUI 12.5 promises less power and memory consumption. The Super-Earth, Super Mars, and Super Saturn Live Wallpapers added via the MIUI 12 received additions in the form of Snow Mountain and Geometry wallpapers. As per Xiaomi, these will consume 40 percent less power than MIUI 12. Overall, the 12.5 updates will consume up to 32 percent less memory and offer a decrease of 17 percent in power consumption.

Whenever an app will try to access your clipboard data, the device will show you a prompt in the form of a pop-up. MIUI 12.5 also gives users the ability to select to share their approximate location and not the exact one. Both of these features are similar to the ones shared via Apple’s iOS 14.

Other enhancements include new sound effects, architecture animation, and sleek effects on the interface.

After launching the update on 28 December, Xiaomi has also begun the registration process for testing the beta of MIUI 12.5. This is a closed beta although the firm plans to roll out public betas in batches from January onwards. According to the Telegram channel of XiaomiUI, only certain Redmi and Mi devices are eligible for the closed beta version. These are Redmi Note 7, Redmi Note 7 Pro, Redmi Note 9, Redmi 10X 5G, Redmi 10X Pro, Redmi K20, Redmi K20 Pro, Redmi K30, Redmi K30 5G, Redmi K30i 5G, Redmi K30 Pro, Redmi K30S Ultra, Redmi K30 Ultra, Mi 9, Mi 9 SE, Mi CC9e, Mi CC9 Pro, Mi 10, Mi 10 Pro, Mi 10 Ultra, and Mi 10 Youth Edition.

The Associated PressDec 29, 2020 12:51:10 IST

They resemble small fragments of charcoal, but the soil samples collected from an asteroid and returned to Earth by a Japanese spacecraft were hardly disappointing. The samples Japanese space officials described Thursday are as big as one centimetre (0.4 inches) and rock hard, not breaking when picked up or poured into another container. Smaller black, sandy granules the spacecraft collected and returned separately were described last week. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft got the two sets of samples last year from two locations on the asteroid Ryugu, more than 300 million kilometres (190 million miles) from Earth. It dropped them from space onto a target in the Australian Outback, and the samples were brought to Japan in early December.

This image shows soil samples, seen inside C compartment of the capsule brought back by Hayabusa2, in Sagamihara, near Tokyo. Japanese space officials said Thursday they found more asteroid soil samples collected and brought back from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft, in addition to black sandy granules they found last week, raising their hopes of finding clues to the origins of the solar system. Image credit: Twitter/JAXA

The sandy granules the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency described last week were from the spacecraft’s first touchdown in April 2019.

The larger fragments were from the compartment allocated for the second touchdown on Ryugu, said Tomohiro Usui, space materials scientist.

To get the second set of samples in July last year, Hayabusa2 dropped an impactor to blast below the asteroid’s surface, collecting material from the crafter so it would be unaffected by space radiation and other environmental factors.

We have not yet confirmed the origin of the artificial object (人工物). A projectile was used during the sample collection and it is possible that this is aluminium separated from the sampler horn at that time.

— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) December 24, 2020

Usui said the size differences suggest different hardness of the bedrock on the asteroid. “One possibility is that the place of the second touchdown was a hard bedrock and larger particles broke and entered the compartment.”

This photograph is the color-adjusted version of the photo released on December 15 (it looked brown due to the orange ambient light in the curation facility). https://t.co/3SPZKOtOGN pic.twitter.com/GvJUjAKS08

— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) December 18, 2020

JAXA is continuing the initial examination of the asteroid samples ahead of fuller studies next year. Scientists hope the samples will provide insight into the origins of the solar system and life on Earth. Following studies in Japan, some of the samples will be shared with NASA and other international space agencies for additional research.

Hayabusa2, meanwhile, is on an 11-year expedition to another small and distant asteroid, 1998KY26, to try to study possible defences against meteorites that could fly toward Earth.

TechSamvadDec 28, 2020 17:43:47 IST

Taiwanese tech company Asus will be adding about 1,000 retail points over the next year, it said in a press release. The company, which had 7.5 percent share in the Indian PC segment in the September quarter (as per IDC), currently has its products available at over 6,000 retail points which include over 1,100 such points of sale as well as 5,000 traditional dealer shops. along with online channels. “Post lifting of lockdown, the demand continues to be strong. From about 2.5 lakh units a month, the sales for the industry have doubled and the trend is expected to continue for some time as people continue to work and study from home,” Asus India Business Head of Consumer and Gaming PC (System Business Group) Arnold Su told PTI.

Asus logo on the Asus Z6 smartphone.

He added that the company saw 39 percent growth in October 2020 over the same month last year.

“We want to continue this strong momentum. One of the reasons for our strong performance is the outreach we made in the past few months – both online and offline. We have 120 exclusive stores (Asus Exclusive Stores or AES) in India, and are present in premium shop in shops (100 at the end of September) and smaller points of sale at various dealer points,” he said.

“All these efforts are bearing fruits for us and we have been able to grow our share in the Indian market. While we continue to focus on bringing an expansive feature-packed portfolio of products across price points, we also want to ensure customers can easily procure these devices,” Su said.

“This will include taking the number of AES to 200 (from 120), premium shop-in-shops to 2,000 (from 1,100) along with expansion of dealer shops as well,” he added.

In 2019, domestic startups had raised a total of $14.2 billion from January 1 to December 23. The decline is primarily attributed to the outbreak of COVID-19.

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OverdriveDec 28, 2020 14:45:35 IST

Tesla, EV pioneer and the world’s most valuable automaker, is expected to make its debut in India by next month, i.e. January 2021, going by a report carried on ET Auto. The Elon Musk-led brand is expected to open bookings then, with deliveries supposedly following through in June-July 2021. Previous reports have suggested that Tesla may even set up a manufacturing or R and D base in India, but this debut will precede those plans. We expect Tesla to continue to follow its unique direct sales model in India, just like it does in the USA. The company controls its own sales channels, selling its cars via showrooms and centres it owns itself. These centres are even manned by Tesla’s own employees, the idea being the traditional pressures of a dealer-buyer relationship are dealt away with.

It’s most likely that Tesla will set up a sales company for India in the first stage, quite similar to how niche manufacturers operate in our country.

The EV maker has even changed how you might service a car, most glitches and updates are fixed over-the-air while 80 per cent of its customer’s service requests are handled by a team of model service technicians, again employed full-time by the company. For issues that can’t be solved at home, the company has a relatively slim network of self-owned service centres where owners can bring their car in for repairs. Most of the scheduling and payments for these happen online with limited paperwork involved. It is still not known how Tesla will replicate this model in India, with the very limited numbers it is expected to do initially and the wide distances its target markets are most likely to be separated by.

It’s most likely that Tesla will set up a sales company for India in the first stage, quite similar to how niche manufacturers operate in our country. We expect key markets within India could initially be Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai followed by other cities like Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and others going by the trend where EVs are predominantly sold. The India operations may well be controlled out of its regional offices in Amsterdam, Sydney or Taiwan. However, there is still no clarity on whether we will see the brand’s much-touted Supercharger network of fast chargers in India. This facility has been imperative to the brand’s success in the US and Europe, making charging points for its customers much more accessible and anxiety-free. Replicating this will be an expensive task in India, with no guarantee of sizeable returns. Tesla may well follow the current model for our country, where manufacturer-installed home/office box chargers are the norm.

It is known that the first Tesla offering for India will be the entry-level Tesla Model 3. The Model 3 Long Range has a 560 km claimed range according to the WLTP cycle. It gets from 0 to 100 kmph in 4.8s. This time drops to 3.5s in the Performance version, which also gets 20-inch wheels, in place of the standard 18-inch or optional 19-inchers in the Long Range. The Performance version’s range is 530km, both weigh 1,847kg. The Model 3 is about the same size as a Mercedes C-Class or a BMW 3-Series and competes with these cars globally. But even though Tesla will be eligible for the 2,500-unit non-homologation clause, the Model 3 will still be a CBU, driving prices up to around Rs 55-60 lakh, ex-showroom. Even with the various state and centre-level incentives, the Model 3 will be significantly more expensive than its traditionally powered rivals.

This raises the question of what this debut really means for the EV market in India. While a small segment of HNI individuals and enthusiasts will be looking forward to this debut, Tesla’s India debut may not be as impactful as it has been elsewhere. The EV market in India is nascent at best, with numbers hovering below the 1000-unit mark monthly, largely accounted for by the Tata Nexon EV, MG ZS EV and the Hyundai Kona, all mainstream offerings. The only luxury EV currently sold in the country is the Mercedes-Benz EQC, with the Jaguar I-Pace following in January 2021.

All this is still speculation. Elon Musk has previously stated that a market that does not support the EV infrastructure makes little sense to invest in and offer the Tesla range of cars. So all this talk about Tesla coming in could still be a bubble that Elon Musk could pop anytime he sees fit. While Musk has clearly indicated on his Twitter timeline about Teslas India plans beginning early 2021, he is also known to change plans at the drop of a hat if the conditions aren’t right. So we would approach this news with a bit of caution, because while announcements could be made in January, whether or not deliveries begin midway through 2021 is anybody’s guess.

tech2 News StaffDec 25, 2020 09:13:29 IST

Amazon is currently hosting the Fab Phones Fest sale in India that will end today on 25 December. The e-commerce platform is giving a 10 percent instant discount of 10 percent up to Rs 1,500 on HDFC Bank credit and debit cards. Here are a few best deals on smartphones that you can consider during the ongoing Amazon Fab Phones Fest sale. According to the preview, Amazon is offering a discount of up to 40 percent on phones.

Redmi 9 Prime

Samsung Galaxy M51 (Review) was launched in India at a starting price of Rs 24,999. It is now selling at a price of Rs 22,999. OnePlus 8T (Review) is currently selling at Rs 40,999, down from Rs 42,999. Redmi 9 Prime (Review) is also available at Rs 10,999, down by Rs 11,999. Similarly, Galaxy M31s (Review) is also selling at a discount of Rs 1,000, down to Rs 18,499.

Redmi Note 9 (Review) is available at Rs 10,999, down from Rs 11,999. Galaxy M31 (Review) will now cost you Rs 15,999, down by Rs 1,000. Honor 9A was launched at a price of Rs 9,999, and presently, it is selling at Rs 7,999. Launched at Rs 49,999, Xiaomi Mi 10 (Review) is now available at a price of Rs 44,999. Galaxy S20 FE (Review) is now selling at a starting price of Rs 40,998, down from Rs 49,999.

It was found that antibodies themselves may not be giving the protection, they might just be a sign that other parts of the immune system, such as T cells, are able to fight off any new exposures to the virus.

A visualisation of the COVID-19 virus. Image courtesy Fusion Medical Animation

On the distribution of vaccines in India, he said, India is well prepared for that and Indian immunisation system is very robust.

An illustration of COVAXIN, the vaccine candidate for COVID-19 developed by Bharath Biotech. Image: Bharath Biotech

Ameya DalviDec 25, 2020 11:23:59 IST

Overall Rating: 3.8/5

Price: Rs 48,990

These days you get very few non-Android TVs in India outside of Samsung or LG. Interestingly, we got two of them for review back-to-back. Last month, we reviewed a Toshiba Smart TV based on Vidaa OS, and now we have one from Philips that runs their proprietary Saphi OS. We did review their 50PUT6103S/94 model at the start of the year based on that platform. While it did have good picture and sound quality, the OS seemed undercooked. Let’s see if anything has changed now, and how their more premium 58PUT6604/94 model performs.

Philips 58PUT6604/94 4K Smart TV

Philips 58PUT6604/94 4K Smart TV – Design and Connectivity: 8/10

The Philips 58PUT6604/94 has an elegant design with the narrowest of bezels on three sides and a more distinct bottom bezel. Though the design can now be considered standard, there’s something nice about it. The IR receiver is placed at the right end of the bottom bezel while the company logo is on the left. The TV isn’t the slimmest, but is not too bulky either. It can be wall-mounted or placed on a desk using the bundled mounts and metal stands respectively.

One USB port, two HDMI ports and a LAN port are placed along the bottom edge of the back panel. Image: Tech2/Ameya Dalvi

One USB port, two HDMI ports – one of which supports ARC, optical audio out and a LAN port are placed along the bottom edge of the back panel. One HDMI, one USB, coaxial A/V inputs and a 3.5mm headphone out are present on the left side. The side ports are placed a lot closer to the left edge of the TV and are fairly easy to access even if you wall-mount it. That’s a sensible design decision.

The side ports are placed a lot closer to the left edge of the TV and are fairly easy to access even if you wall-mount it. Image: Tech2/Ameya Dalvi

Philips 58PUT6604/94 4K Smart TV – Features and specifications: 8/10

This TV has a large 58-inch (146 cm) Ultra HD panel with a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels and 60 Hz refresh rate. The company doesn’t specify the panel type, but it seems like a good quality VA panel. It is powered by a quad-core processor, the make and speed of which aren’t specified, nor is the amount of RAM or internal storage. The TV claims to support micro-dimming, but more importantly, it is compliant with all popular HDR standards like HLG, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.

Built-in WiFi is limited to b/g/n standards at 2.4 GHz. There is no support for 5 GHz wireless networks, nor is Bluetooth present. Audio output is rated at 20 Watts RMS and supports Dolby Atmos. Unlike official Android TVs, it does not have Chromecast built-in, but lets you mirror content from your phone or tablet using Miracast. The company bundles an IR remote control with hotkeys for Netflix and YouTube. Since this isn’t a Bluetooth remote, it doesn’t accept voice commands. The remote’s build quality is good, and two AAA batteries needed to power it are bundled in the package.

Philips 58PUT6604/94 4K Smart TV – OS and User Interface: 6/10

Saphi OS UI. Image: Tech2/Ameya Dalvi

This TV runs Philips’ homegrown Saphi OS. It is fairly easy to operate with a simple icon-based user interface. You can browse through apps and menus using the D-pad and select the desired option using the ‘OK’ button. The UI is smooth and mostly lag-free. There are quite a few audio and video settings to tinker with. The picture and sound adjustments are buried a bit too deep for my liking. Some of them can be accessed while watching content in any app or input mode, but not all. Also, there is no key that grants quick access to picture and sound settings, and you have to scroll through the menu to get there – not very intuitive, that.

App support remains thin on Saphi OS. Among the popular OTT services in India, you only get apps for Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube. Apps for Disney+ Hotstar, Sony LIV, Zee5 and many more are still not available for this platform. The only way to access those is either by loading the app on your phone or tablet and mirroring it on the TV screen, or by plugging a streaming device like an Amazon Fire TV Stick or Mi TV Stick/Box. Even beyond streaming platforms, app support is very limited on Saphi OS, and nothing seems to have changed in the past year.

On the brighter side of things, the Prime Video app on this platform can now stream HDR content, which wasn’t the case on the Philips 50PUT6103S/94 model that we reviewed earlier this year. Similarly, there is support for Dolby Vision in the preinstalled Netflix app. The TV takes less than 10 seconds to boot when you switch it on from the mains. That is super quick, given that even the fastest of Android TVs take at least half a minute to boot. This is among the fastest-booting Smart TVs I have come across till date, and credit must go to Saphi OS for that.

Philips 58PUT6604/94 4K Smart TV – Picture quality: 8.5/10

If we can set aside the limitations of the OS momentarily and focus purely on the picture quality, there is a lot to like here. In fact, the picture quality of this Philips TV is one of the best I have seen in the sub-50K budget. The panel is sufficiently bright, has good contrast, and the picture is tuned quite well right out of the box. The only thing you need to do is find the setting for “Dynamic Contrast” and switch it off. It isn’t as smart as the company expected it to be, and messes up the overall contrast when on. Details in dark areas in high contrast scenes in our test videos were amply clear once I switched off “Dynamic Contrast”.

The colour reproduction of this TV is excellent; colours pop, yet feel perfectly natural. The black levels are impressive too for a LED TV. The default motion smoothening works well, without visible artifacts. As I mentioned earlier, the Philips 58PUT6604/94 TV supports all popular HDR standards including HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. 4K Videos encoded in those formats on Prime Video and Netflix look wonderfully sharp, with excellent colours and contrast in most cases. A logo for the specific HDR standard being used is displayed on the screen for a few seconds when you start the video, which is handy.

4K SDR videos look as good too, and the difference in quality is barely noticeable. 1080p videos scale well and look quite sharp, but the contrast is understandably a notch lower. 720p videos don’t scale as well, but let’s not forget that this is a larger-than-usual 58-inch screen, and shortcomings in lower resolution videos are bound to be more visible than, say, on a 50-inch display. Anything lower than that resolution looks washed out, which is the case in most 4K TVs with screen sizes larger than 43 inches.

Philips 58PUT6604/94 4K Smart TV – Audio quality: 7/10

The TV has a pair of stereo speakers that deliver a total rated output of 20 Watts RMS. The speakers produce crisp audio, and there is great clarity in vocals. However, they are noticeably deficient in bass. The audio is acceptable when watching soaps, news or sports, but music playback lacks warmth more often than not. Similarly, action sequences in movies and web series sound a tad flat on this TV. Though the sound clarity is not bad at all, it could have certainly done with a bit more bass, even for TV speakers.

Dolby Atmos certification here is just a gimmick and doesn’t add anything substantial to the aural experience. The speakers are amply loud though, and 50 to 60% volume level suffices for pretty much everything in a mid-sized room. The TV provides you with a bunch of audio settings to tweak it further to suit your taste. Again, the options are buried deeper than ideal, and you have to exit any OTT app you might be using to tweak the sound, unless you just want to change the audio presets. If you crave better sound, the TV has various audio ports to plug in a soundbar or other speakers to enhance the audio.

Philips 58PUT6604/94 4K Smart TV – Overall performance: 7.5/10

Video file format support through USB is excellent on the default player. It managed to play pretty much everything I threw at it with various codecs, including our 4K test videos. There was no noticeable lag either. Though Philips hasn’t specified details about the processing hardware on this TV, it does its job well. And the boot times are very impressive too.

The only major drawback here is the lack of a decent app ecosystem and support for several popular OTT platforms. If you just watch Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube, you are covered, and you can watch the respective content in full HDR glory. For the rest of the OTT platforms, it would be advisable to invest in a video streaming device like Mi TV Box 4K or an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K that will set you back by anything between Rs 3,500 to Rs 6,000. The latter can enhance the 4K viewing experience on this TV further.

The company bundles an IR remote control with hotkeys for Netflix and YouTube. Image: Tech2/Ameya Dalvi

Another small issue is an IR-only remote in 2020. Pointing the remote towards the TV while executing a function is passé. Also, if there’s an obstruction in front of the IR receiver, the remote doesn’t work. Even lesser brands have been bundling Bluetooth remotes for the past two years. About time Philips catches up too.

Philips 58PUT6604/94 4K Smart TV – Price and verdict

The Philips 58PUT6604/94 4K smart TV is priced at Rs 48,990, and occasionally sells under 45K in online sales. Philips offers a 2-year warranty, which is an added benefit given that most competing brands offer half of that. So should one buy it? Yes and no. Yes, if you are looking for an excellent large display in this budget with support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, and if you primarily watch Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube. It would also help if you already own a video streamer like Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and a good sound system. That would offset the limitations with Saphi OS and the TV speakers.

If you are looking for a total package, then this is not the best smart TV in this budget. Or rather, Saphi OS isn’t the greatest of smart TV platforms currently, given the extremely limited app ecosystem that hasn’t changed much over the past 12 months. You will be better served by a certified Android TV like the Hisense 55A71F, that has comparable picture quality and much better sound. Yes, you will lose out on a few inches of screen real estate, but the vast app library will more than make up for it, along with a saving of close to Rs 9000.

FP TrendingDec 25, 2020 12:22:01 IST

Amazon India is hosting the ‘Health and fitness Fest’ where you can get deals on fitness equipment, accessories, smartwatches, fitness trackers, health and wellness supplements among others. The Fitness Fest Storefront will be live till 2 January 2021. Here are the best offers on fitness trackers, smartwatches, TWS headphones available in during ‘Health and fitness Fest’.

Fitness Trackers and Smartwatches

GOQii Vital 3.0 Body Temperature tracker

GOQii Vital 3.0 Body Temperature tracker comes with an OLED colour display fitness tracker. Users can keep a track of temperature, blood pressure, continuous 24×7 heart rate monitoring, calories burned, distance covered, active hours and sleep patterns with the device. The GOQii Vital 3.0 Body Temperature is available at Rs 3,960.

Garmin Vivoactive 3 GPS Smartwatch

Vivoactive 3 GPS Smartwatch allows users to make payments with ease, right from the watch. It has 15 preloaded sports app and also allows one to record the distance, pace, location and more for outdoor activities. The Garmin Vivoactive 3 GPS Smartwatch is available for Rs 22,990.

Mi Smart Band 5

The Mi Smart Band 5 comes with 1.1-inch full touch AMOLED colour display and 5 ATM water resistance. It supports magnetic charging and sports Personal Activity Intelligence (PAI) and 11 sports mode to power your fitness needs. The device has 14 days of battery life and is available at Rs 2,499.

Mi Smart Band 5. Image: Tech2/ Priya Singh

Amazfit Bip U Smart Watch

The Amazfit Bip U Smart Watch has features like SpO2 and Stress Monitor, Heart rate sensor and over sixty sports modes for any type of workout. It has 5 ATM water resistance with swim-tracking and battery life with up to 9 days backup and is available at Rs 3,999.

Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch

The touchscreen smartwatch, available at Rs 22,995 comes with a speaker for audible alerts and also sports increased storage capacity along with three smart battery modes for extended battery life.

Titan Connected X Smartwatch

The smartwatch is equipped with various fitness features like heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, resting and active calorie counter. It is available for Rs 11,995. The device also has a number of other features, including customisable watch faces, music and camera control, weather update among others.

TWS Headphones

boAt Airdopes 281 Bluetooth TWS Earbuds

The boAt Airdopes 281 TWS earbuds come equipped with 6mm Titanium alloy drivers for immersive, HD sound. It supports the latest Bluetooth v5.0 and has a battery capacity of 40mAh for each earbud. The device is priced at Rs 1,999.

Amazfit PowerBuds TWS Earbuds

The device is equipped with in-ear PPG heart rate sensor. It can deliver 8 hours of playtime on a single charge and when coupled with a portable magnetic charging case, one can enjoy a total of 24 hours of music on the go. The Amazfit PowerBuds TWS Earbuds is available for Rs 4,499.

Anirudh RegidiDec 25, 2020 12:44:23 IST

With modern operating systems (OS), and now even games, evolving to take advantage of the inherent performance advantages of solid state drives, they’ve become an essential component in any kind of PC.

It’s not just performance, though. SSDs consume less power than hard drives, making them useful in laptops, and they also have no moving parts, which makes them inherently safer for data storage in portable devices.

The one aspect holding back SSDs from more mainstream adoption is price. Many people, especially those who are don’t fully appreciate the benefits of an SSD, tend to look at data capacity rather than response time. If you can have a 2 TB HDD for the price for a 500 GB SSD, why wouldn’t you opt for the former?

The Samsung 870 QVO is a QLC NAND SSD that’s designed to offer cheap, high-capacity SSD storage. There are problems with this approach of course, but Samsung’s done a great job of mitigating the bulk of the issues. Image: Anirudh Regidi

Various technologies have popped up to remedy this price vs capacity shortcoming, and one such tech is QLC NAND.

What is QLC NAND?

The inner workings of an SSD are a bit too technical to get into in this article, but I’ll need to go over some basics to help you understand what the 870 QVO is and what the recommendations at the end of the review mean.

In an SSD, data is stored as an electric charge in a ‘cell’. When data is read from or written to a cell, the SSD’s memory controller simply reads the voltage levels.

The most basic type of SSD is an SLC (single-level cell) SSD. In an SLC drive, data is stored in only one layer. This is the most expensive type of SSD since the data density is very low.

However, since data is stored in a single layer, only two voltage states need to be read — there either is or isn’t a charge stored in the cell — which makes SLC drives the fastest SSD tech available. SLC drives are also more robust and can endure the greatest number of read/write cycles, making them very well suited to heavy duty applications where a lot of data has to be moved around very quickly. Because of the high cost, you’ll primarily find such drives in a server or enterprise environments. The technology is also used to create high-speed cache in slower drives, more on that in a bit.

One step down is MLC or multi-level cell tech. MLC SSDs store data in two layers (four voltage levels per cell). These are slower than SLC drives and have a lower endurance, but they’re still faster than what most consumers need and endurance is not an issue for consumer workloads.

Next you get TLC or triple-level cell drives. As you’d expect, these store data in 3 layers (8 voltage states), and are much slower than SLC and MLC drives. Endurance is also relatively low, but for consumer workloads, that’s still 5–8 years, which is about as long as a regular hard drive will last.

Speeds are also good for consumer use-cases (500–600 MB/s).

As far as price goes, these hit that price:performance sweet spot and I’d recommend having one in any PC.

Lastly, the latest innovation is, you guessed it, QLC or quad-level cell technology. This involves 4 layers of data storage (16 voltage states). Read/write speeds are exponentially slower (as low as 50–80 MBps), and endurance also tanks to about half that of TLC drives.

The advantages of these drives is that you can have a higher capacity in the same volume, making the technology a lot cheaper than TLC.

Given how slow these drives are, SSD manufacturers tend to add an SLC/DRAM buffer. These caches are present to handle sudden bursts of data. Once cached, the SSD controller will, in the background, take its own sweet time emptying the cache and writing the data to slower QLC cells.

Conversely, the most frequently accessed data is also sometimes dumped into this cache to ensure that it’s quickly and easily accessible.

I say this because it’s important to note that as long as you have space in the cache, a QLC drive will perform like a regular SLC/MLC/TLC drive. It’s when you run out of cache that performance drops off (a cliff).

The key here is price. You’re sacrificing a significant amount of endurance, and sustained performance, for the sake of getting more storage.

This is where Samsung’s 870 QVO, the drive I’m reviewing today, falters.

Samsung 870 QVO performance: Terms and conditions apply

The Samsung 870 QVO is a QLC NAND SSD with a SATA interface. The unit I received is the 1 TB variant. It has a 1 GB of DRAM cache and about 42 GB of SLC cache. Samsung rates the read/write speeds of the drive at around 550 MB/s, but neglects to mention that you’ll only get these speeds within that 42 GB cache. Once the cache is saturated, speeds drop to about 50 MBps for mixed data, and 110 MB/s for large files. The higher capacity drives — you can purchase up to 8 TB variants of the QVO — should give you double the read/write speeds once the cache is full, and also a much larger cache.

The warranty for the 1 TB variant is 360 TBW (terabytes written) or three years. To put that in perspective, an 860 Evo, a TLC drive from Samsung, is rated at 600 TBW or 5 years of use.

The test rig for these tests was specced out as follows:

• CPU: Intel Core i9–10900K
• Moto: ASUS Z490 Maximus XII Extreme
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090
• RAM: 2x 8 GB Corsair Vengeance RGB RAM @ 3,200 MHz
• PSU: Corsair AX850
• Cabinet: CoolerMaster MasterBox MB511 A-RGB
• Storage: Corsair MP600, Samsung 870 QVO, Samsung 840 Evo, Crucial MX500

I installed the QVO as a boot drive also installed my usual test suite comprising Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Chrome, and a tonne of games.

To test the drive, I first decided to just experience the drive as is, before benchmark figures coloured my experience.

As you can see, once the cache is saturated, speeds fall to pitiful levels. At this point, the QVO is slower than a cheap hard drive. Image: Anirudh Regidi

In real-world usage – and I use a lot of apps and spend a tonne of time gaming – I could discern no difference between the performance of the QVO and my trusty 840 Evo (an older TLC drive).

There was no discernible difference in load times on Windows 10 or within games and apps. While editing images, browsing via Chrome, and even transferring data, I really didn’t feel like the QVO was holding me back any.

Part of this performance, I think, can be attributed to the fact that Samsung has gone with a good quality SSD controller that did a fantastic job of juggling between the SLC cache and slower QLC cells. Other manufacturers tend to go with the cheapest parts they have when offering QLC NAND drives.

If I didn’t already know that I was using a QLC drive, I would probably never have realised that I was getting TLC performance from a QLC drive.

Looking at response times and the burst response of the drive, it’s easy to see why the 870 QVO feels fast. HDTune Pro reported an access time of just 0.057 ms, which is on par with what you’ll get from blisteringly quick, and very expensive, PCIe x4 drives running SLC storage (like the MP600). Response time, which is an indicator of how quickly the drive can access data, is what makes an SSD-based system feel smooth and fast. A hard disk will have a response time of around 16 ms, which is 300 times slower.

Things only start to unravel when you start transferring a tonne of data. For my tests, I transferred 170 GB of assorted images and video (a mix of files ranging from 12 MB to 16 GB in size), and about 150 GB of tiny, 1 KB files mixed in with a few larger ones.

The data was transferred to and from a Corsair MP600 PCIe Gen 4 M.2 SSD with a read/write speed of over 3,000 MB/s to ensure that there was no bottleneck on that front.

In both tests, read speeds were quite decent at about a 430 MB/s average. As expected, speeds hit SATA caps (around 550 MB/s) till about 42 GB (the size of the SLC cache), and then dropped to about 300–400 MB/s.

When writing to the disk, however, once the cache was full, speeds dropped to an abysmal 50 MB/s. This is about a third of what you’d get from an internal HDD, and still about 20–60 MB/s slower than what you’d get from an external, 5,400 rpm HDD over USB 3.0.

To sum up, in real-world use-cases, the drive doesn’t feel slow and performance won’t be a problem unless you transfer large quantities of data on a regular basis.

The 870 QVO can make sense in higher capacities

QLC drives are supposed to be terrible, but Samsung’s 870 QVO is proof that they don’t have to be. A premium controller paired with a generous amount of cache means that the performance issues of QLC aren’t apparent except in outlier cases.

What controllers and intelligent caching can’t fix, however, is endurance.

And this is the problem. At Rs 13,000, the 1 TB 870 QVO costs the same as the 1 TB 860 Evo. On e-commerce sites, you’ll get either drive for around 10k. The Evo is a drive that will give you a 550 MB/s read/write speed across its entire capacity and offers nearly twice the write endurance and two additional years of warranty. Why would you willingly purchase the 870 QVO then?

It’s only at higher capacities that you start seeing a significant cost benefit. For example, the 2 TB QVO drive can be had for about Rs 21,000 or less, while the 2 TB 860 Evo can be had for about 28k. The price difference should increase when you hit 4 TB and 8 TB capacities, but I could not find those units in stock anywhere. The higher capacity QVO drives also have a higher endurance and a longer warranty period, but do remember that TLC drives will also offer much higher endurance as their capacity goes up.

If you’re looking for a 1 TB SSD, just buy a decent TLC drive like Samsung’s 860 Evo or Crucial’s MX500. At that capacity, there’s no  cost benefit to going QLC.

For archival or bulk storage, unless you really need an SSD, don’t bother with the QVO. You can have a 4 TB HDD for the price of a 1 TB QVO SSD. A hard drive will also perform better for large data transfers, and hold its data longer.

Where does the QVO fit? For the average user, I’m honestly not sure.

If you’re looking at the 870 QVO, you…

1. … require an SSD data drive.
2. … require at least 2 TB of SSD storage.
3. … don’t intend to write a lot of data.
4. … don’t intend to move large chunks of data back and forth.
5. … can’t afford TLC.
6. … are willing to live with a 3-year warranty.

These are too many criteria for you or I to factor in before a purchase. Sure, a large company with a team of engineers and accountants doing a cost:benefit analysis will take the trouble to do this, but the average consumer? I hardly think so.

The Samsung 870 QVO isn’t a bad drive, but it isn’t for everyone.