Amazfit Pop 2 ⌚

Amazfit Pop 2 : 

Amazfit has launched Amazfit Pop 2, expanding its portfolio of smartwatches in India to take on the likes of Noise, Fire-Boltt and boAt. The watch features a large 1.78-inch HD AMOLED display, with 150+ watch faces, up to 10 days of battery life, bluetooth calling and IP68 water resistance.

Amazfit Pop 2 Features and Specs

Constructed using a metallic middle frame, the watch features a 1.78-inch HD AMOLED display with more than 150 watch faces. It also enables blood-oxygen (spO2) measurement, heart rate sensing and 100+ sport mode tracking.

Additionally, users can receive calls directly on the smartwatch thanks to the presence of an in-built mic and speaker, and you are alerted to specific apps and SMS notifications.Amazfit claims that users can expect up to 10 days of battery life from the 270 mAh unit that the Amazfit Pop 2 offers.

Amazfit Pop 2 India Price and Availability

Amazfit Pop 2 has been launched at a sticker price of Rs 3,999, however, with an introductory offer, customers can buy the watch for Rs 3,299.

It will be offered for sale on Flipkart and Amazfit’s website. You can choose between Black and Pink colorways.

Snapdragon 8 gen2: 

Qualcomm is the biggest chipset manufacturer in the Android world, and following on from last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the company launched the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1. This was one of the best mobile chipsets that we have ever tested, though came with fierce competition from the likes of MediaTek. Now, though, the company's Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 builds on the success of last year's Plus model, manufactured on TSMC's fabrication process and packing beefed-up cores.

However, the CPU isn't the only part that's been improved. Nearly every part of this SoC has seen a change for the better, with the new Adreno GPU sporting Vulkan 1.3, AV1 decode support, and both 25% better performance and 25% more efficiency. Hexagon Direct Link is also an interesting addition, as it serves as a direct link between all parts of the SoC and the Hexagon DSP for AI calculations, improving latency between core components that may need AI, like graphics and memory.Qualcomm has done something particularly interesting with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that we don't typically see, and that's a shake-up of the core layout. Instead of a typical 1+3+4 that we see in a lot of chipsets, Qualcomm has instead opted for 1+4+3. This means one prime core, four performance cores, and three efficiency cores.

What's even stranger about this configuration is that it's not just four performance cores that are the same; there are two A715 cores and two A710 cores. The A710 allows for AArch32, or 32-bit code execution, whereas the A715 drops 32-bit support. It's unclear if this will have any impact on efficiency, as the A715 boasts a 20% efficiency improvement over the A710 and 5% better performance.The prime core is an Arm Cortex-X3, and it's clocked at 3.19GHz. At 3.3GHz, according to Arm, the Cortex-X3 will perform 25% faster in single-threaded operations than the Cortex-X2 at 2.9GHz. That's an architectural improvement and one that should still translate to higher performance even at a slightly lower clock speed than Arm's own testing.

Finally, the company has also included three A510R1 cores as efficiency cores. These efficiency cores are otherwise known as A510 Refresh and support AArch32 as well.

Overall, the design of this chipset is quite strange. MediaTek has opted to only use A510R1 cores for 32-bit execution, whereas the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 uses two A715 cores and two A710 cores, presumably as well for 32-bit execution. Given that 32-bit-only applications are likely to be applications designed for older Android smartphones, it doesn't make a lot of sense to require two dedicated performance cores that basically exist only to allow for 32-bit support, especially when they come with downgrades.

LogiTech Dock: 

Swiss tech company , Logitech has unveiled all-in-one docking station “Logi Dock” with one-touch meeting controls and a built-in speakerphone.

Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Google Voice, and Zoom are all certified for Logi Dock. By offering a solitary connecting point for numerous desktop gadgets, it is intended to reduce desktop clutter.

The Logi Dock charges the laptop up to 100W while simultaneously connecting up to five USB accessories and two monitors.

For a cleaner, more organised workstation, just one cable connects the Logi Dock to the laptop, eliminating extra cables, dongles, and chargers that aren’t essential.

According to the company, the device works fine with Logi Tune, which enhances and controls the use of Logitech personal collaboration devices.

The Logi Dock offers two colour scheme; Graphite and White, and is priced at INR 55,000. It will go on sale from December.