tech2touch

Author: Aniruddh

  • Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Cons – Reasons not to buy

    Much anticipated flagship device of the year 2020 from Samsung is finally unveiled and it will start shipping to the consumers very soon. However, I was disappointed by looking at the specifications of the regular Galaxy Note 20. It looks like a downgrade from even Galaxy Note 10. So here are some of the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 cons which I felt it is not worth to buy.

    USD 999 or INR 77,999 is a hefty price for any smartphone. However, Galaxy Note 20 has lot of compromises which is not expected from a smartphone in that price segment. This is not the review. Based on the specifications available, here is my thoughts.

    Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Cons- Reasons not to buy

    Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Cons

    60Hz Refresh Rate

    Samsung Galaxy Note 20 comes with a 6.7 inch Full HD Plus Super AMOLED flat display with 1080×2400 pixel resolution and 60Hz refresh rate. There are many smartphones with price around INR 50,000 or less, comes with 90Hz Refresh rate display panel. For example, OnePlus Nord which is priced at 27,990, has a display panel with 90Hz. RealMe 6 and RealMe 6 Pro which are priced around INR 17,000 and INR19,000 also provides a display panel with 90Hz refresh rate. Asus ROG 3 comes with 144Hz refresh rate and priced at 49,990. This is not expected from a premium smartphone. Samsung Galaxy S20 has a optional 120Hz panel. It is clearly a downside for a smartphone with a price tag of INR 77,990.

    Design

    Design and build of Samsung Galaxy Note 20 is step back from last years Galaxy Note 10. Now it has polycarbonate plastic build instead of Glass design.

    Gorilla Glass 5 Protection

    Galaxy Note 20 comes with two year old Gorilla Glass 5 whereas Galaxy Note 10 came with Gorilla Glass 6. The latest flagship has the lesser screen protection compared last years flagship.

    Lack of 5G support

    When we buy a smartphone with premium price tag , we expect it to use it minimum 3 to 4 years. 5G is not yet launched in India. But it will be there soon. Though Galaxy Note 20 with 5G support is available in Global markets, the one available in India will not have support for 5G. So it is not future proof.

    No Expandable Storage

    Once again Samsung omitted the microSD card support on Galaxy Note 20. So you are restricted to the built in storage.

    Performance

    In the global market, Samsung Galaxy Note 20 comes with Snapdragon 865 Chipset. In India, it is powered by Exynos 990. Benchmark scores show that, Exynos 990 slower compared to Snapdragon 865 particularly for gaming and less energy efficient in CPU demanding scenarios.

    In summary, Samsung Galaxy Note 20 didn’t justify the price tag of INR 77,990. In some ways, it is inferior than last years Galaxy Note 10 or Note 10 Plus.

  • Asus Vivobook Ultra K413 Review

    VivoBook Ultra K413 is the latest laptop launched in India. It has unique aesthetics and impressive hardware specifications. This Ultra K series laptop price starts at 39,990. Here is my review on Asus VivoBook Ultra K413.

    Before getting into the review, here is the specifications of the review unit.

    • 10th Gen Intel Core i5.
    • 14 inch full HD anti glare display panel.
    • DDR 4 8GB onboard RAM and 512GB SSD.
    • 3 cell 42Wh battery.
    • Windows 10 Home.
    • Hearty Gold Color variant.
    • Price: 57,990.
    Asus VivoBook Ultra K413

    Asus VivoBook Ultra K413 Review

    Design

    It is a compact and lightweight laptop. It measures 324 mm x 215 mm x 19 mm and weighs around 1.4 Kg. Our review unit has hearty gold color variant. The other color options are Indie Black and Transparent Silver color. It is made up of combination of aluminium alloy and plastic. It sports clean yet elegant look.

    Display

    Asus VivoBook K413 sports 14 inch full HD anti glare display panel with Tru2Life Video enhancement feature. The bezel around the screen are minimal. It has screen to body ratio of around 84%. Display panel is of good quality. It is sharp and offers punchy colors. The horizontal viewing angles are good. But vertical viewing angles are average. The brightness is adequate. It is not great for those who work more on photo editing as the NTSC is 45%.

    Performance

    Our review unit is powered by 10th Intel Core i5 processor with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD. Browsing the web with multiple tabs open on browser is effortless. Video playback was smooth and stereo sound output is decent. I have hardly noticed the fan sound even when I worked on this laptop long hours. The apps opens quickly and boot time is minimal. It comes with preloaded Office Home & student 2019. Working on MS Office application is effortless. It has built-in dual-band Intel WiFi 6 with Gig+ (802.11ax) wireless network card in VivoBook Ultra K14 offers speeds of up to 2.4 Gbps and provides up to 3X-higher throughput and 4X network capacity of WiFi 5 (802.11ac). The network card incorporates Bluetooth 5.0 for connection to Bluetooth-enabled devices. It provides option to add upto 1TB of SSD.

    Keyboard & touchpad

    Asus VivoBook Ultra K413 comes with full sized backlit spill resistant keyboard. It provides option to adjust the brightness of backlite. The keys has 0.15mm dish shaped indentation and 1.4mm key travel. This provides comfortable typing experience. It has a nice touchpad with support for gestures. The fingerprint scanner is fast accurate.

    Battery

    The new Asus VivoBook K413 sports 3 cell 42Wh battery with option to choose different charging mode. The different charging modes is claimed to improve the longevity of the battery.

    Asus VivoBook Ultra K413F Pros

    • Good design and build quality.
    • Decent display panel.
    • Good performance for the price.
    • Keyboad and Touchpad.
    • Fast and accurate fingerprint scanner.

    Asus VivoBook Ultra K413F Cons

    • It has onboard RAM. There is no option add extra RAM.
    • Display vertical viewing angle could have been better.

    Asus VivoBook Ultra K413 Review Summary

    It is a lightweight compact notebook ideal for students, people who mainly work on office applications and browsing. It is stylish, compact and has power. Overall it is a good value for money laptop.

  • How to Check Apple Pencil battery Percentage Level

    Apple Pencil doesn’t have any sort of lights which shows the battery level. While 2nd Generation Apple pencil magnetically attaches on the side of the iPad and charges. 1st Generation Apple Pencil needs to be charged by connecting to iPad or charger. In this post, let us have a quick look into How to check Apple pencil battery percentage level using the iPad widget.

    If you are using the Apple pencil for long time, then knowing the battery level will help you to know when to keep it for charging. Apple Pencil is claimed to provide upto 12 hours of battery life in a single charge. Also even in case battery drains out, you can charge it for 15 seconds and use it for 30 minutes.

    How to check apple pencil battery percentage level

    To check battery percentage of Apple Pencil first generation,

    • Enable Bluetooth on your iPad.
    • On your iPad, go to Widget area. You can do that by swiping left to right from first home screen page.
    • Here tap on edit.
    • Scroll down. Here you will find all the available widgets.
    • Tap “+” sign adjacent to battery widget.
    • It will be added to favorite section.
    • You can move it to change the order.
    • Now battery percentage of your Apple pencil will be shown on the widget.

    The 2nd Generation Apple pencil battery percentage will be directly shown at the top of the screen when it is attached to the side of the iPad.

  • How to take screenshot on Samsung Galaxy A21s

    Grabbing a Screenshot is an easiest way to share the content on your phone screen with someone or save it for future reference. It may be payment receipt or highest score on a game. So in this post let us explore on how to take screenshot on Samsung Galaxy A21s.

    There are two popular ways to capture a screenshot on Galaxy A21. They are using Hardware Keys and Using the Assistive Touch menu. Scroll screenshot or Long screenshot is an additional advantage to capture screenshot of multiple pages.

    How to take screenshot on Samsung Galaxy A21s

    Samsung Galaxy A21s Screenshot using the Hardware keys method

    This is one of the most common way to take screenshot on any Samsung Galaxy smartphones running OneUI 2.0

    • Go to the page you want to take screenshot. Adjust the page exactly the way you want to save the screenshot.
    • Now quickly press and release Volume Down and Power button together.
    • Screen will blink which is a confirmation that screenshot is captured.
    • You will find a tool bar through which you can directly share the screenshot or edit it.

    Samsung Galaxy A21s Screenshot using the Assistive Touch

    To take screenshot using this method,

    • First enable the Assistive Touch menu. For that, go to Settings, Accessibility and then interaction and dexterity. On this page enable Assistant Menu.
    • You will find a floating Assistive Touch menu on your screen. You can move it anywhere on the screen as per your convenience.
    • To take a screenshot, navigate to the page you want to take screenshot.
    • Tap the Assistive Touch Menu. Now select Screenshot.
    • It will save the screenshot.

    How to take Long screenshot or Scroll Screenshot on Samsung Galaxy A21s

    To take long screenshot or scroll screenshot, first ensure the screenshot tool bar is enabled. For that, go to Settings > Advanced features,>screenshots. Enable screenshot toolbar if it is not enabled. Now to take scroll screenshot,

    • Go to the page you want to take screenshot.
    • Capture the screenshot using any of the previously mentioned methods.
    • You will see a tool bar. Tap down arrow icon. It will take a scroll screenshot.

    Note: if you take a screenshot on a page which does not have the second page, then you will not get scroll screenshot option.

    How to access taken screenshot

    To view the taken screenshots, Go to Gallery. Here Albums then Screenshot folder. You will find all the taken screenshots.

  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro Review – Pros and Cons

    Redmi Note 9 Pro is the latest budget Android smartphone with impressive hardware specification. The starting price of this smartphone is Rs.12,999. It will compete with the likes of Galaxy M21 and Realme 6. Here is the quick Redmi Note 9 Pro review with Pros and cons.

    Redmi Note 9 Pro is not a compact phone. It is 8.8mm thick and weighs 209 grams. It is bulky. But due to weight distribution is done evenly and symmetrical exterior design, it is comfortable to use. The device is available in three color variants namely Interstellar Black, Glacier White, and Aurora Blue. Front and rear glasses has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 Protection and frame is made up of polycarbonate.

    The 6.67 inch LCD IPS display panel has Full HD plus resolution and 20:9 aspect ratio. There is small punch hole cutout for the front facing camera. The refresh rate of the display is 60Hz. Though it lacks AMOLED screen and higher refresh rate, it is a good quality display panel. The viewing angles are good and colors are punchy. Outdoor visibility is adequate.

    Redmi Note 9 Pro is the first phone to feature Snapdragon 720G in India with price tag less than 15k. This latest SoC has two high-performance 2.3GHz cores and six power-efficient 1.8GHz cores, all manufactured on an 8nm process. The device is available in 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage or 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. It runs on MIUI on top of Android 10.

    The the features of the device are NavIC support along with standard GPS, dual-band Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5, and all the standard sensors. The 5020mAh battery is claimed to provide upto 29 hours of VoLTE calling and 14 hours of gaming in a single charge. There is a 18W charger bundled in the box. However, fast charging is not available.

    Redmi Note 9 Pro has packs a quad camera setup in the back. Primary lense has 48-megapixel resolution and f/1.79 aperture, and uses the new Samsung Isocell GM2 sensor. Next, there is a 8-megapixel wide-angle camera. The other two sensors are  2-megapixel depth sensor and 5MP depth sensor. In the front it has 16MP camera.

    Redmi Note 9 Pro Pros and Cons

    Redmi Note 9 Pro Pros

    • Powerful SoC. Great performance.
    • Good battery life.
    • Excellent value for money proposition.

    Redmi Note 9 Pro Cons

    • Heavy and Bulky design.
    • Night photography performance is below average.
    • 4K video recording is not satisfactory.
    • Irritating ads.
    • Display could have been better.