The Amazon 2019 launch event is today, and if last year is anything to go by we could be in for a busy time, with multiple products potentially in line for launch.
You can keep up with all the news from the Seattle, Washington event with our Amazon 2019 launch liveblog right here – just bookmark this page and make sure you’re hitting refresh every now and then.
So what can you expect from today’s Amazon launch event? Well the firm’s line of smart speakers and smart displays – that’s the Amazon Echo range – are in-line for a refresh with potentially new looks and enhanced audio.
There’s rumors that Amazon will also dip its toes into the wireless earbuds market and launch a rival to Apple AirPods and we could see refreshes of last year’s Echo Wall Clock and Echo Microwave – two of the more left-field product announcements from 2018’s event.
Amazon may opt to update its Fire TV products too. It’s only launched the new Fire TV Cube at the start of September, but there could be new versions of its Fire TV Stick and perhaps new additions to the software side of its TV proposition.
The Amazon 2019 launch event starts at 10am PDT (1pm EDT, 6pm BST), and we’ll bring you all the news as it’s announced right there with our Amazon launch liveblog.
All times are in Pacific Daylight Time (PDT)
Please refresh this page for the latest Amazon 2019 launch liveblog entries
07:30 – Talking of zany product launches, what should Amazon embed Alexa into next? Take our Twitter poll and have your say!
07:00 – We’ve just woken up in Seattle, Washington ahead of this year’s major Amazon launch event. The 2018 edition saw a mammoth 12 new products launched, taking pretty much everyone by surprise – who knew we needed an Alexa-powered microwave?
While we’re expecting the main focus to be around Amazon’s Echo smart speakers, displays and adapters, plus its Fire TV streaming services, we’re not ruling out a couple of zany announcements to keep things interesting.
We’ve been waiting four long years, but Apple Music has finally added Google Chromecast support to its Android app, which means you can now cast your favorite songs to your Google Home speaker, Android TV, or any other Chromecast-enabled device you might have.
While Apple launched its music service for Android back in 2015, the Google-made operating system hasn’t been high on its priority list, and has seen precious few updates.
That’s not hugely surprising – after all, Google has its own competing streaming platform Google Play, and compatibility between big tech rivals like these can be difficult to secure.
How to use Chromecast with Apple Music
According to Engadget, using Chromecast to stream Apple Music is designed to be “as effortless as possible”.
You also need to make sure that your Android phone is connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your Chromecast device.
Then, you simply need to select the Cast icon within the Apple Music app on your Android phone or tablet.
Once you’ve done this, you’ll be able to control your music playback from your phone – if you don’t see the Cast icon in the app, make sure you have the latest Android software version and update the Apple Music app.
If you were to ask people what they want in a new smartphone, they would probably say they want it to be fast, have a long-lasting battery, be nice and durable, and have a really awesome camera.
It just so happens that’s what you get with the iPhone 11 Pro. It’s also what you get with the iPhone 11, which costs $300 to $400 less than the Pro. The Pro is certainly an upgrade, but it doesn’t do a lot to justify its “Pro” moniker or very “Pro” price.
Still, the iPhone 11 Pro is a tremendous iPhone, with some noticeable (and not-so-noticeable) improvements over last year’s iPhone XS. As good as it is at what it does, it’s hard not to think Apple could have done more to justify the big price gap over the iPhone 11 and the “Pro” name that comes with it.
Note: This review refers to the iPhone 11 Pro as a single entity, though we tested both the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max. The only difference between the two phones is that the Max is larger and has a little bit longer battery life. It’s best to just think of the iPhone 11 Pro as a single product that comes in two sizes.
It’s all about that camera
With each new iPhone, the camera gets better. It’s often the thing people notice and care about more than anything else. That’s true this year more than most—while the iPhone 11 Pro has other improvements over previous iPhones, that camera grabs people’s attention.
Apple’s high-end iPhones have had a wide and telephoto camera duo on the rear of the phone for a couple years now. The iPhone 11 Pro adds a third, ultra wide, camera. It is, in a word, fun.
Landscape photographers will enjoy it and you can get taller panorama photos, but I think even average everyday users will find themselves using ultra wide quite often. You can get more people in a shot without backing up, or capture that big statue or sculpture without having to stand so far away that people walk in front of you. The distorted perspective effect of a wide lens makes subjects look larger, which can create a real sense of scale. If a telephoto lens makes things intimate, a really wide angle lens makes them expansive.
But the iPhone 11, the “non-Pro” model, has this same camera. It’s the telephoto camera that distinguishes Pro from non-Pro, and honestly, it’s just not that big a deal. I found it far more useful to zoom out than to zoom in. The telephoto camera is better now, with a wider f/2.0 aperture that lets in a lot more light than the f/2.4 telephoto camera in the iPhone X and XS. You’ll get better shots in poor light and a nicer natural bokeh.
The existence of the telephoto lens permitted the iPhone XS to do something the iPhone XR could not: shoot portrait mode photos of any subject. Now that both models have an ultrawide lens, they both gain that capability. It’s nice to take portrait mode photos with the standard wide-angle lens (which you could not on the iPhone X or XS), but it’s just one more way the Pro fails to distinguish itself from the standard model.
Jason Cross/IDG
Even in bright sunlight, the iPhone 11 Pro is a better camera than the XS. Notice the crushed reds in the flowers causing lack of definition on the XS, while the 11 Pro maintains contrast and detail.
Better sensors and a much more powerful A13 Bionic processor combine to produce much better photos than the iPhone XS, which was already one of the best cameras on a smartphone. Detail and dynamic range is improved, and color accuracy is really on point—this phone produces some of the most true-to-life colors of any smartphone I’ve seen, while even the best Android phones sometimes get a little aggressive with making the colors “pop” and sharpen things up with a post-processing filter.
The selfie camera is now 12 megapixels instead of 7, with a field of view 15 degrees wider (85 instead of the 70-degree field of view on previous iPhones). Both make a significant difference. You’ll get clearer and sharper shots in more conditions, and group selfies are easier than ever. I appreciate that it’s not so wide as to be unnaturally distorting. It’s not the front-facing equivalent of the ultra wide camera on the back.
Jason Cross/IDG
The wider selfie camera doesn’t look unnatural, but makes it easier to fit you and your good girl in the shot.
This wider front camera is supposed to enable a wider field of view for Face ID, too. While Face ID is lightning fast on the iPhone 11 Pro, the expanded field of view is hardly noticeable. You still have to do that awkward lean if it’s flat on your desk.
When you hold the phone upright, it automatically crops down to the old 70-degree view. You can make it wider again with just a tap, and rotating to landscape mode automatically switches to the wider angle (you can narrow it with just a tap). The front camera can record 4K 60fps video now, and even slow-motion video (which Apple insists on calling “slofies” and will probably have its 15 minutes of fame and rarely be used again).
Jason Cross/IDG
Held in vertical orientation, the selfie camera crops by default, but you can opt to shoot a wider shot. Portrait mode does a little better job around hair on the new phone, too.
Finally, there’s Night mode. When this was introduced on the Google Pixel and followed on other Android phones, iPhone users were understandably upset that they didn’t have the same feature. Now, Apple has their own version of Night mode, and it’s done in a very Apple way.
When it’s dark enough to warrant its use, Night mode automatically engages, and will ask you to hold your phone still from one to three seconds while the screen brightens, as if developing a photo. The resulting photos are often full of grain and noise, but the same shots without Night mode are even worse, in addition to being so dark that you can’t see anything at all. Night mode shots are much brighter and more colorful, but not unnaturally so, as we’ve seen in many Android phones—it doesn’t turn night into day, it just captures a shot that looks like what your eye might see at night.
Jason Cross/IDG
Night mode is finally here on the iPhone, and it might just be the best implementation of any smartphone.
Get ready for social media to be bombarded by night mode shots, because it really is a fantastic feature that makes impossible shots possible.
It’s also entirely automatic, instead of a separate mode. And while you can disable it, you unfortunately can’t force it on. That feels like an oversight; I’ve already run into several situations where I think Night mode would have helped but it was just bright enough not to engage. Night mode doesn’t work on the ultra wide camera for some unknown reason, and it doesn’t work on any previous iPhone—I think Apple could certainly solve both shortcomings, if it wanted to.
As good as the iPhone 11’s camera is, it’s about to get better. An upcoming “Deep Fusion” technology will take the computational photography capabilities of the camera to a whole new level. Apple promises some of the sharpest, most accurate shots we’ve ever seen, a dramatic improvement over the current photo processing, which is already quite impressive. We don’t know exactly when this camera upgrade is coming, only that it is scheduled for this fall.
The best smartphone for video gets even better
The iPhone XS had plenty of competition for still photo quality, but its overall video quality was top of the heap. Since then, the best Android phones have perhaps taken the crown, but the improvements in the iPhone 11 should be enough to steal it back.
You can shoot up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second on the rear cameras while still benefitting from extended dynamic range and image stabilization—features that were only available up to 4K30 on last year’s models. Add in the ability to smoothly zoom in from ultrawide to telephoto and you’ve got a powerfully capable video device.
You can see small transitions when making the transition between the ultra wide, wide, and telephoto lenses, and each one has slightly different quality characteristics—they are different sensors with different lenses, after all. But Apple has done a very impressive job matching color and exposure as much as possible to create the smoothest transitions when switching cameras that I’ve ever seen.
Stealing a page from some of the latest Android phones, Apple has a new Audio Zoom feature. When you zoom in past 1x while recording video, background noise will be diminished and the audio will focus on your subject. It’s a really noticeable effect, especially when standing in a noisy environment like next to a street or a fountain, but it’s not so aggressive as to sound completely unnatural.
A better camera interface, too
The camera interface has been given some really thoughtful improvements.
Tap-and-hold on the shutter button and you’ll start recording a video rather than taking a series of photos in a burst. A swipe to one direction to lock video recording on, swipe the other to take that burst shot. I’ve needed to take a spontaneous video far more often than burst photos, and I think most users would appreciate this change.
The “dial” interface for smoothly zooming in and out is a much easier way to get precisely the right shot than pinch-to-zoom, too.
Jason Cross/IDG
The camera interface is familiar, yet improved in several meaningful ways. Why hasn’t this come to all iPhones?
Now, features like changing the aspect ratio, choosing filters, and setting a timer are accessed in a features bar that appears when you swipe up on the camera modes and disappears when you swipe down. It’s a good place for this stuff, and leaves plenty of room for future expansion without cluttering the interface.
It would be really nice to change video resolution and frame rate in the camera interface instead of the Settings app, but Apple still hasn’t gotten the memo on that.
When you’re shooting with the telephoto or wide angle lens, the black bars on the side of the main viewfinder show what would be captured by the next widest lens. It’s a nice way to quickly assess whether you should take a wider shot.
Frustratingly, all of these improvements, save the wider-angle preview, could easily be brought to prior generation iPhones. They should have been part of iOS 13, not exclusive to the iPhone 11.
The fastest phone money can buy
Apple’s A-series processors are second to none. The A12 Bionic in last year’s iPhone XR and XS was the overall fastest mobile CPU on any smartphone, and had nearly the fastest GPU. This year, Apple says it has made significant improvements in the A13.
According to Apple, the new A13 Bionic uses TSMC’s new second-generation 7nm process, which improves energy efficiency and allows for higher clock speeds. The results are impressive. According to Apple, pretty much every part of the A13 is 20 percent faster than before: the CPU (high power and high efficiency cores), the GPU, and the Neural Engine. In addition, there are new machine learning accelerators in the CPU—separate from the Neural Engine—that perform matrix multiplication operations six times faster.
Power efficiency is improved, too. Apple says the Neural engine uses 15 percent less power, the big CPU cores use 30 percent less power, the little high-efficiency CPU cores use 40 percent less power, and so does the GPU. There’s a catch, though. Apple says these power improvements are, “for those applications and tasks that don’t need more performance than the A12.” In other words, the GPU uses 40 percent less power when running at the same speed as the GPU in the A12—when it clocks up to run 20 percent faster, that power savings is reduced or lost.
No matter how you slice it, this is a crazy-fast and very efficient mobile processor. Benchmarks aren’t the be-all and end-all of performance measurement, but they’re a good way to run the same exact tasks in the same exact way on different hardware. So let’s take a look at a few.
IDG
Apple continues to deliver stunning CPU performance, even in the strenuous new Geekbench 5 tests.
In the new Geekbench 5 test, the single-core performance of the A13 is about 20 percent higher than the A12, which was 20 percent faster than the A11. Where multi-core performance took a 16 percent leap from the A11 to the A12, this year it takes a 30 percent improvement in the A13. Compute performance keeps climbing by 40 percent year-on-year.
No other phone is even close to these numbers.
IDG
Graphics performance has improved dramatically this year. Some tests run 50% faster!
3D graphics performance takes a big leap in the iPhone 11 (perfect for those Apple Arcade games). In the 3DMark Sling Shot tests, the A12 didn’t improve performance over the A11—we theorized that it might be hitting a memory bandwidth bottleneck. Whatever the reason, the A13 is now much faster in this strenuous test—we’re talking 50 to 60 percent!
IDG
Even in less advanced 3D graphics scenes, the A13 surges forward with impressive gains.
In the older Ice Storm Unlimited test, which is a better representation of simpler 3D games, the A12 was 17 percent faster than the A11, and the A13 is almost 30 percent faster than the A12.
Anthony Kesterton is a Principal Solution Architect at Red Hat.
The world’s leading CIOs, enterprise architects and DevOps teams know that container platforms have become a necessity for dynamic companies seeking portability across multiple environments. If they haven’t already started implementing containers, then they are certainly planning to do so. And if they have started then the usage will increase. In a recent Enterprise Open Source Survey, 67% of respondents plan to increase their use of containers over the next year.
Containers are handy units of software that carry application code across computing environments – from dev to prod; on bare metal machines or on virtual machines; on premises or in the cloud. Containers help make application delivery faster, because they make it easier for the development and operations teams to work together.
Two keys ways containers help – the ops team can provide container base images with the right content and settings (including security settings), and developers can ensure their carefully crafted and tested application code is exactly what gets deployed into production. By building effective testing and security into the container pipeline, containers are reliable, scalable and trusted.
From an IT infrastructure perspective, one of the more impressive aspects of container technology is the improvement in machine utilisation you can achieve. As a rule of thumb, if one physical machine can support the deployment of 10 virtual machines (VMs), a containerised workload could support 100 containers on the same platform. Practically, this improvement in machine utilisation can fund a business containerisation effort simply on hardware savings alone.
The popularity of containers means there are a number of ways to deploy and manage containers. Vendors such as Amazon, Google, Azure, Docker, and Red Hat all provide containers platforms. Many of these vendors use the Kubernetes container management software, originally developed by Google, open sourced with help from Red Hat and others, and donated to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
Not everyone uses Kubernetes – for example, Docker (Swarm) and Pivotal (Cloud Foundry) originally developed their own container management systems, but even these vendors have now adopted the Kubernetes project as their core container management platform.
With all these vendors providing Kubernetes-based container platforms, and with various degrees of engineering maturity and operational experience, what do you need to consider when developing your evaluation criteria for the right container platform for your business?
Ticking off essential features
Container platforms can cause large amounts of disruption to the typical IT departments’ “business-as-usual”. Not all infrastructure, operations, security or development staff will have relevant experience with container technology and the task of migrating existing or legacy applications is not insignificant. Some businesses work around any lack of skills in their teams by using container platforms run and managed in the cloud. This is a viable option, but the use of cloud-based container platforms still require the following from their staff:
Infrastructure teams which understand the underlying container platform and its nuances,
Operations staff able to understand how to monitor and operate the container platform,
Architects and developers who can create or refactor applications that have the right architecture,
Security staff who can recognise and help mitigate vulnerabilities in an environment that changes some of the fundamental principles they know and understand on bare metal and virtual machines.
IT leaders are still accountable to the business for the performance, stability, security and reliability of the applications that run the business.
Firstly, it is important to understand that while Kubernetes is in widespread use as the core of a container platform, Kubernetes is not the only component needed to create a container platform. Each vendor, or you, has to make component choices and decisions for the rest of the container platform. The container platform as a whole needs to be examined to avoid vendor lock-in. Plan your escape route from the vendor before you make the decision.
Considering the rate of today’s rapidly evolving technology, it is also necessary to ensure that your platform does not stagnate and become a source of technical debt. While your developer might be clamouring for new capabilities in the container platform, operations prefer stability and longevity of the container platform.
You can satisfy the developers and the operations team by choosing a container platform that offers the ability to automatically update the entire stack: operating system, container runtime, and the container platform. Look for a container platform that allows you to update at your pace – offering long-term support if you do need to stay on a particular release for a little longer than planned.
With so many horror stories in the press around poor default security options, look for a container platform that has the appropriate security settings as defaults. As an example, running containers as root on a poorly secured container platform grants root access to the underlying infrastructure, and the other applications running on the platform.
Look at how the container platform can offer role-based access control (RBAC), with an appropriate selection of options that give users the freedom to do their job, so the platform does not get in the away. Don’t underestimate the power of the existing security features in the operating system and infrastructure. Make sure the integration of these underlying security features are properly integrated into the container platform.
Balancing developmental and operational needs
The saying goes that a business needs order to survive and disorder to evolve – and in the world of DevOps, this cannot be emphasised enough.
Business cloud apps and operations need to be smooth, efficient and orderly. A platform container should be heavily secure for operational functions to be carried out at optimum performance levels. On the other hand, for a business to continually push the boundaries of excellence and innovation, software settings must not be so limited or restrictive that developers cannot experiment with latest ideas and integrations.
With this need for balance in mind, IT leaders will be looking for scope for innovation. While many options are offered as out-of-the-box, some vendors intentionally do not ship products as production-ready, and place the burden of responsibility on you.
The open source community: many hands make quality work
One of the most significant choices is whether to go for a fully open source or significantly closed source container platform. Even if a vendor claims to be using the upstream Kubernetes component, if you don’t have access to the source, it is harder to validate and resolve issues when they arise. A pseudo open source platform is one of the more insidious forms of vendor lock-in. Fortunately, today, IT professionals are becoming increasingly aware of the open source revolution and its benefits.
Open source projects (of which Kubernetes is a significant open source project) are a source of innovation as well as reliability and security. A good community that builds up around an open source project means that the level of security, the level of testing, the rate of enhancement and defect fixes goes beyond that of a closed source product. The active involvement of individuals, end-user, organisations, and vendors, ensures that problems are found more quickly, and resolved more quickly – giving you a better quality application.
Container platforms based on Kubernetes already have some of these open source advantages. Start by looking at the rest of the platform and see how much of it is open source.
Your next step is to consider the experience of the vendor. If your vendor works with a large range of clients, from small-medium sized businesses through to major corporates and public services, if they have experience in different regulatory environments or other constraints, they are much more likely to understand and solve the problems you might face when deploying a container platform. They will have the experience to configure your container platform to meet your needs, and offer you the guidance and training required to run it efficiently.
Security and ensuring it works throughout your stack
There is no use in having a stable, productive platform for your containers if you cannot be confident that all capabilities are secure. A platform should provide automated deployment of container images, proper lifecycle management of applications running as a set of images, and secure network segregation.
These are just a few examples of the features that enable the smooth running of your container platform. However, in addition to a stable platform foundation, effective security comes from an integrated, secure full stack.
Choosing a platform that will be secure throughout your stack is essential, but taking simple precautions across the enterprise IT ecosystem should not be overlooked. This means layers. Every layer must be secure, starting with the underlying hardware and the operating system.
Operating systems optimised to run your container platform, with immutable file systems and the bare minimum of features offer a much smaller attack surface. First, look at the built-in security features of the operating system. Secondly, check the security of your container runtime – check it’s simple and secure, and with default settings and behaviours that start with a high level of security, with the option to tweak settings as your teams gain experience.
At the container platform level, look for user interfaces that guide the user to the right path, and make it hard to do the wrong thing. Look for comprehensive and secure APIs that allow you to plug into your existing and future automation tooling. Finally, consider the security of the containers themselves.
Check the platform can track when container images get updated via a secure pipeline, and that updates to those images can be deployed automatically in a controlled fashion. This will help ensure the right application builds are always running on your container platform.
Add to basket
Choosing a container platform is like looking for furniture in IKEA. Each of the many options and alternatives provide slightly different form and function, and one might be more suitable for a business than another.
What is important for every enterprise, however, is that a platform is integrated, secure, updated regularly, and has room for configuration, appropriate to the business, without compromising operational functionality or security. Looking at the characteristics we have described here will help you make the right choice.
Anthony Kesterton is a Principal Solution Architect at Red Hat.
Facebook says it will treat all posts by politicians as “newsworthy content” that should “be seen and heard”.
The company said politicians would be exempt from its fact-checking scheme which is designed to reduce the spread of fake news and misinformation.
It said it did not want to be the “referee” in political debates or prevent politicians’ posts from reaching their intended audience.
However, it did not define who it counted as a politician.
On Tuesday, Facebook’s vice president of communications – the former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Nick Clegg – gave a speech in Washington DC.
He said the company had “made mistakes in 2016” and said Russia had tried to use Facebook to interfere with the US presidential election.
He insisted the company had taken steps to prevent it happening again.
Facebook uses independent third-party fact-checking organisations to help identity fake news, misleading claims and misinformation.
However, it said posts made by politicians would not be fact-checked.
Sir Nick also said Facebook would let politicians post content that breaks its rules on topics such as hate speech, as long as they did not pose a significant “risk of harm”.
But advertisements on Facebook must still abide by the rules.
Sir Nick said Facebook’s role was to “make sure there is a level playing field, not to be a political participant ourselves”.
The BBC asked the company who it would consider to be a “politician”.
The social network said it did not put “strict parameters” on its definition of a politician because of global differences.
However, it told the BBC that the anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson would remain banned, even though he stood as a candidate in the European elections in May.
It said he had been banned under the site’s “dangerous organisations and individuals” policy, and that the ban would remain in place.
In the same speech given by Sir Nick on Tuesday, he urged politicians not to break up Facebook into smaller companies.
It’s no secret that Xiaomi has a lot of phones in India. And, more often than not, they are remarkably well-priced, tempting us to label them as the “best-valued smartphone” in the respective segment. But if there’s one Xiaomi phone that genuinely deserves this crown, it’s the company’s new entry-level Redmi 8A. Let us explain how.
Just a day back, Xiaomi showcased its concept-cum-futuristic looking Mi Mix Alpha with a wrap-around screen. It costs around $2,800. And while it can be looked upon as ‘innovation,’ this hardly affects our lives to the level technology can.
The recently-launched Mi MIX Alpha is arguably one of the most futuristic smartphone form factors around, but a second thought would question the usefulness and practicality of such a design.
(Image credit: Xiaomi)
However, the thing that matters is when a piece of exquisite technology trickles down the price ladder to improve the experience of the more budget-friendly offerings, which are very likely to be purchased by masses.
For the context of smartphones in India, the budget segment constitutes over 90% of the entire sales volume, which is where brands try to focus on a hope to establish their stronghold over the market.
Adapt or perish.
Xiaomi has been leading this movement, bringing multiple budget smartphones to India at various price points. It not only made Xiaomi the top-selling smartphone brand in India but also forced the competition to come down to its level of pricing.
Oppo severed its ties with Realme which is now among major players in the Indian smartphone market. Similarly, Samsung introduced the M-series, and Nokia brought different variants of its smartphone range, bringing much-needed competition to the mix.
All these combined efforts have made India one of the best smartphone markets for consumers, with more options, significantly lower than what one would see in the western countries. And as an extended result of more innovation and R&D, we are finally starting to see the budget and mid-range segments rub shoulders with much more expensive counterparts in a lot of aspects.
India is an extremely price-sensitive market when it comes to smartphones. With high demand around Rs 10,000, a segment that Xiaomi is very familiar, it has played a massive role in making India the world’s fastest-growing smartphone market.
Xiaomi Redmi 8A is the green light to a new generation of budget phones
(Image credit: Xiaomi India)
Xiaomi brought the extremely affordable Redmi 8A to India. Starting at Rs 6,499, it brings a lot of mid-range exclusive features and specs. And unlike before, the changes are significant and meaningful in ways that are going to push the competition, and thus, the industry.
One of the key talking points of the Redmi 8A is the inclusion of a 5,000 mAh battery. It is one of the biggest in the segment and a boon for entry-level users in India where electricity may not always be reliable. Interestingly, Xiaomi did not stop there and also included 18W fast charging capabilities to the phone that too with a USB Type-C!
Not only are all three pretty rare features in this space, but are little habit-changing upgrades that many consumers will go through for the first time.
Moreover, the USB Type-C penetration had been rather low in the budget space, and the Redmi 8A is very likely to provide a much-needed boost to that. It brings a horde of hardware implications such as additional durability, faster charging and data speeds, and most importantly, a single cable that is expected to be adopted by most devices in coming years.
Xiaomi Redmi 8A specifications
(Image credit: Xiaomi India)
On the topic of meaningful additions, Xiaomi has also equipped the Redmi 8A with Gorilla Glass 5 on the front, added a grippy polycarbonate shell on the back and made the entire phone P2i splash resistant. These might not be changes that consumers will perceive from the get-go, but will bring peace of mind in case of accidents.
The phone’s hardware includes an efficient Snapdragon 439 chipset with 2GB/3GB of RAM along with 32GB of storage, a bigger 6.22-inch display with a dot-notch, a 12MP primary camera powered by the Sony IMX363 image sensor (also featured on the Poco F1 and the Pixel 3) with a sizeable 1.4μm pixel size, an 8MP front camera and FM radio.
For a starting price of Rs 6,499, you will be hard-pressed to find a better value offering currently. The Redmi 8A is bound to force the competition to bring well-specced and well-priced offerings similar to the Indian market soon.
We would recommend our readers to wait as long as you can before going ahead with a purchase decision, as you are very likely to get alternatives in the coming months… that’s just how fast and furious the Indian smartphone market is.
The GE Signal Finder HD Amplified Antenna is an indoor TV antenna with a built-in signal meter that will help you find the best place to install it. You’ll need it. In TechHive’s tests the antenna exhibited mediocre reception and didn’t displace the Winegard FlatWave Amped as our favorite indoor antenna.
The antenna is about the same length and width as a magazine and looks good with a smart black plastic front. A couple of rows of LEDs in the lower right-hand corner are the antenna’s main selling point.
The top row of three LEDs indicates the general signal strength and help you find the best location in your room. A second row of five LEDs indicates the “orientation” of the antenna. This is never really explained in the user manual, but it appears to be akin to a fine-tuning indicator. There’s also a switch to turn off the LEDs.
Martyn Williams / IDG
The top row of LEDs indicates general signal strength, while the bottom row indicates “orientation,” a factor that the manual never explains.
The meter provides a very general indication of signal level across the entire UHF band and cannot be targeted to any particular channel. If you live in an area with strong or very strong signals—and that is where this antenna is designed to be used—it will provide a broad indication of where to locate it in a room.
If signals are weak, the meter won’t work as well, but you should check out an attic-mount or external antenna anyway.
Towards the end of the antenna’s 10-foot cable is an inline amplifier that requires power from a small wall-wart adapter. It uses a barrel-connector, and so it cannot be powered via a USB port on your television. This is unfortunate as it means you’ll need a spare outlet and installation probably won’t be as neat.
Martyn Williams / IDG
The signal amplifier requires AC power (Jasco Products manufactures the antenna under license from GE).
Performance
TechHive tests antennas by performing several scans to see how many channels are received. A pattern emerges over the course of the scans and we get to see how well an antenna pulls in the various strong and weak channels on air in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento regions.
In our tests, the antenna didn’t perform well. It managed to receive a maximum of four broadcast channels successfully (each digital broadcast channel carries several TV stations), with an additional two coming in just at the limit with broken signals. In contrast, the Winegard FlatWave Amped pulled in eight broadcast channels, with an additional single channel with broken signal.
On the channels it did manage to pull in, the signal levels measured were a little lower on the GE Signal Finder than the Winegard antenna. For this reason, we don’t recommend the GE Signal Finder HD Amplified Antenna.
This antenna is designed for UHF reception, which includes the majority of major TV stations in most cities, but you should check your city before buying. TechHive has a guide that explains how to determine which broadcast channels are used where you live and where the transmitter towers are located.
Our top-ranked indoor antenna, the Winegard Flatwave, is similarly designed for UHF-reception only, but it managed to pull in a strong local VHF station, too. The GE Ultra Pro did not.
The marketing copy on the box advertises 60-mile reception, although this is perhaps only under perfect conditions. Numerous factors influence TV reception and these range claims shouldn’t be taken as a guarantee on this or any antenna.
Martyn Williams / IDG
Shoppers should take the 60-mile range claim with a very large grain of salt, as it’s probably possible only under perfect conditions (e.g., no physical obstacles between the antenna and all of the broadast towers you wish to tune in).
Parts and Installation
The box contains three pieces: The antenna with attached cable and in-line amplifier, a power adapter for the amplifier and a plastic stand that can be connected to the rear of the antenna so it stands up on a shelf or desk.
If you don’t use the stand you’ll want to mount it to a wall. Mounting holes are on the rear with a convenient “7-inches” label printed on the case so you get the distance between your mounting screws correct. The antenna has grooves cut in the rear that the cable can be hidden inside for neat flush mounting on a wall.
Martyn Williams / IDG
The 10-foot cable is hardwired to the antenna, so you might need to coil up the excess and hide it behind your TV.
The cable is 10 feet long and because it’s fixed, you might end up with a bit of surplus, but it shouldn’t be difficult to hide behind your TV.
There’s an included note that reminds customers to perform a rescan of their TV once the antenna is installed. It’s a perhaps obvious step, but enough people must forget to do it that the note is included. Presumably this is largely when people switch from cable TV to over-the-air and don’t realize a rescan is needed.
Conclusion
The GE Signal Finder HD looks good and the signal meter will help customers find a good position for their antenna despite its crudeness. The single most important thing with an antenna isn’t looks, however; it’s how well it performs.
The GE antenna didn’t do well in TechHive’s tests.
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