Entertainment
The future is here
If you follow the tech-world closely, you have probably heard of IFA Berlin. IFA is one of the biggest trade shows in the world, which exhibits and introduces an array of new, useful, and occasionally weird electronic devices.Anuj Bhandari
If you follow the tech-world closely, you have probably heard of IFA Berlin. IFA is one of the biggest trade shows in the world, which exhibits and introduces an array of new, useful, and occasionally weird electronic devices. With products ranging from pet feeders to smartphones and wearables, IFA 2017 lived up to its expectation and hype.
So, what are the best gadgets and technologies that this year’s IFA offered? Here are five eye-catching devices announced at the trade show this year.
400 GB SanDisk microSD card
SanDisk made headlines at IFA by launching the world’s highest capacity microSD card. At a time when storage is becoming a necessity for smartphones or any other gadgets, this 400 GB microSD card is a welcome addition to the digital world.
The SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I offers a whopping 144 GB more storage than its closest competitor. The card is fast and comes with around 100 MB of read and write speed. Smartphones these days can only support expandable storage of around 256 GB, most even less. So, until mobile phones come with a memory card slot that supports 400 GB of storage, one can only imagine what they can do with a huge 400 GB of memory. The microSD card is priced at $250 and is already available in the international market.
Fitbit Ionic
Fitbit Ionic is a smartwatch—the first of its kind from the American company. The Ionic comes at a time when Fitbit’s antecedent watches only had several functionalities with no third-party apps support. But now with their new smartwatch, the company has added Fitbit App Gallery for third-party apps, onboard music, and NFC for contactless payments, just to name a few. Fitbit Ionic will also run on Fitbit’s very own Fitbit OS.
Fitbit Ionic is built from aerospace-grade aluminum and is lightweight, all the while providing a bit of resistance against abuse. One of the best features of the smartwatch is probably the SpO2 monitor which helps to track oxygen levels. Neat, isn’t it?
The device has 2.5 GB of onboard storage. On a single charge, with music playing in the background and GPS enabled. The Fitbit Ionic, according to its manufacturer, will last for around ten hours straight. This roughly translates to around four days of battery life.
However, all these features come at a price. The Fitbit Ionic will carry a price tag of £300, which makes it the most expensive Fitbit watch till date.
Asus Windows Mixed Reality Headset
Asus showcased quite a lot of gadgets at IFA 2017. My pick of the bunch is Asus’ Windows Mixed Reality VR headset. It weighs 400 grams and comes with a ‘balanced-crown’ design which minimises the pressure exerted on a user’s face.
Windows 10 powers the Asus Windows Mixed Reality Headset for an optimal and immersive virtual reality experience. The headset has a beautiful 3D polygonal patterned design. It has dual cameras on the front which helps with inside-out tracking. These cameras will help users’ setup the headset in a matter of minutes.
Asus, however, hasn’t disclosed the headset’s price tag and availability. But it did mention that the device will come with controllers.
Samsung’s new and enhanced wearables
At IFA 2017, Samsung added two new smart watches to its already popular smartwatch lineup. The Gear Sport and Gear Fit2 Pro are more fitness oriented smart watches, unlike Samsung’s all-rounder—the Gear S3.
The new members of the Gear-series come with a broad range of functionalities. These devices can track a user’s nutrition intake and monitor their sleep cycle.
The Gear Sport is a more traditional looking watch that packs in water resistance, GPS and heart rate monitoring sensor. Without its strap, the device weighs in at just 50 grams. It is powered by a dual-core processor with 1.0 GHz clock speed. For better performance, it has 768 MB of RAM. Storage wise, it comes with 4 GB of internal memory.
The Gear Fit2 Pro has a sporty design and follows the original Fit2. The smart watch sports a 1.5-inch curved Super AMOLED display which is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Like the Gear Sport, the Fit2 Pro runs on a 1.0 GHz dual-core processor. This processor is aided by 512 MB RAM and 4 GB of onboard storage.
The Gear Fit2 Pro is equipped with 5ATM water resistance technology and has MIL-STD-810G certification for shock, sea water, and UV-rays.
LG V30
Android world has been witnessing back-to-back launches of high-end smartphones recently. This time, the South Korean giant LG unveiled its flagship—the LG V30—at IFA. Equipped with unbeatable specifications, LG V30 has now emerged as Samsung Galaxy Note 8’s major competition.
The most noteworthy upgrade the LG V30 has against its predecessor is the change in design. The smartphone now comes with a unibody glass back which looks sleek. It sports a bezel-less OLED display measuring 6.0-inch with 2880 x 1440 pixels resolution. Like most of LG’s flagships, the LG V30 also comes equipped with a Hi-Fi Dac and dual camera lenses on the back. It has all the features a high-end flagship smartphone of 2017 is supposed to have. While LG didn’t opt for 6 or 8 GB of RAM like the Galaxy Note 8 and the OnePlus 5, it does come with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor on the inside. This device runs on Android v7.1.2 Nougat and
will receive the Oreo upgrade in the near future. It is a bummer that like the V20, it doesn’t run on the latest software from Google out of the box.
The ‘V’ in V30 stands for video, and the LG V30 packs the best video camera on a smartphone. While the Korean giant is yet to disclose its price, this smartphone is surely LG’s best till date.