Top Tech News of the Week Part-2

4.Lenovo Launches Laptop that supports upto UPTO 64GB

If you are in the market for a high-end laptop, you will want to check out Lenovo's new offering. The largest PC vendor has unveiled the P50 and the P70 laptops in its marquee ThinkPad lineup. The new laptops boast Intel's first mobile Xeon processors based on its Skylake microarchitecture, and allow a user to add up to a whopping 64GB of RAM into them.

The company unveiled the new laptops, called mobile workstations due to their specifications and size, at the SIGGRAPH 2015 Conference and Exhibition in Los Angeles earlier this week. The LenovoThinkPad P70 sports a 17-inch display which is available in FHD and 4K display resolutions. It is powered by Intel's quad-core Xeon E3-1500M v5 processors, and supports up to 64GB of DDR4 ECC RAM. Also onboard are professional Nvidia Quadro graphics cards, but the model numbers have not been detailed.

The laptop also supports up to four external storage devices at once. Furthermore, it supports up to a 1TB SSD or 2TB HDD, and comes with two USB Type-C Thunderbolt 3 ports for super-fast data transfer. The Lenovo ThinkPad P50, on the other hand, sports a 15.6-inch 4K display, with rest of the specifications remaining similar to P70's. A DVD-RW drive comes as an optional choice with the P70 (not available in P50). The ThinkPad P50 weighs 2.5 kgs and features a 4-cell 66Whr battery, and the ThinkPad P70 weighs 3.4 kgs with an 8-cell 96WHr battery.

Incidentally, this is the first batch of laptops to sport Intel's new mobile Xeon processors. The new sixth-generation Xeon processor is part of company's "tock" update which means that it is built on the same 14nm process as the chipmaker's Broadwell lineup from last year, but has been refined for better performance, power, and stability.

As for the software, the new laptops come with Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, or even Linux-based Ubuntu operating system options. The pricing for the P50 starts at $1,599 (roughly Rs. 104,000), whereas the P70 will slightly break your bank at $1,999 (roughly Rs. 1,30,000). The laptops will go on sale later this year.

5.Lenovo Zuk Z1 with 4100Mah and Fingerprint Sensor launched.

Lenovo's online-only smartphone brand, Zuk, has launched in China alongside its first handset - the Z1. Priced at CNY 1,799 (approximately Rs. 18,250), the smartphone will go on sale starting August 18.

Lenovo's new online-only brand is aimed at countering the rise of Xiaomi in China, which too has followed a low-cost online-only model. The company was expected to start operations in China in April; though it has only launched its first product in August.

The Zuk Z1 features metal frames around the handset and includes no branding from Lenovo. There is only a Zuk logo branding at the back of the handset.

While Lenovo so far has not detailed any plans to launch its online-only smartphone brand outside China, it is expected the company may bring the brand to other markets.

The Zuk Z1 features a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) display and sports a physical home button on the front panel. Notably, the home button on the Z1 smartphone also embeds the fingerprint scanner. Much like recently launched flagship smartphones, Lenovo's Zuk Z1 features the USB Type-C 3.0 port.

Under the hood, the new smartphone packs a dated Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor clocked at 2.5GHZ coupled with 3GB of RAM and Adreno 330 GPU. The handset supports dual Nano-SIM cards and runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. It packs 64GB of inbuilt storage.

The smartphone sports a 13-megapixel rear camera with Sony sensor (IMX214) and optical image stabilization (OIS), another feature that's found in high-end smartphones. There is an 8-megapixel front-facing camera also on board. It packs a large 4100mAh battery and will be available in White and Grey colours. The Zuk Z1 smartphone measures 155.7x77.3x8.9mm and weighs 175 grams.

The model launched in China supports both 4G LTE bands in India (FDD-LTE Band 3 1800MHz and TDD-LTE Band 40 2300MHz). Other connectivity options on the Zuk Z1 include Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, GPS, and Glonass. It features an accelerometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope, digital compass (magnetometer), and proximity sensor.

6.Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime "Made in India" Launched

Xiaomi, , has launched its first 'Made in India' smartphone, the Redmi 2 Prime, priced at Rs. 6,999. The smartphone has been manufactured at Foxconn facility in Sri City.

The new Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime is now available to buy via the company's online store, Mi.com alongside other company's online retail partners including Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal.

In terms of specifications, the Redmi 2 Prime is an upgraded variant of the Redmi 2, currently available in India at Rs. 5,999. The major difference between the Redmi 2 Prime and Redmi 2 is that the former features 2GB of RAM and 16GB of inbuilt storage while the latter packs 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage.

Rest of the specifications of the Redmi 2 Prime are identical to the Redmi 2. The dual-SIM dual-standby Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime features a 4.7-inch IPS Sharp display with HD (720x1280 pixels) resolution and 312ppi pixel density. The Android 4.4 KitKat-based smartphone comes layered with company's own MIUI 6. The handset supports 4G dual-SIM functionality, where both SIM card slots support 4G networks. The smartphone supports LTE bands in India.

The Redmi 2 Prime runs on a 64-bit 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor (MSM8916) coupled with Adreno 306 GPU. It sports an 8-megapixel rear camera along with a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. It supports expandable storage via microSD card (up to 32GB). The Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime is backed by a 2200mAh battery.