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With 4 rear cameras, HUAWEI P40 lite shoots wider, clearer, and closer than you ever could have imagined. Take cinematic portraits with the bokeh lens, then switch to the macro lens and snap super-detailed nature shots.
The HUAWEI P40 lite design emphasises the essential, with no unnecessary gimmicks. The body is crafted from four-sided curved design, so it feels as good as it looks. The front camera sits inside the 6.4” HUAWEI Punch FullView Display, so there’s no wasted space, just a whole lot of beautiful screen.
Huawei phones have one big advantage, and one big disadvantage. The upside is their camera units have been designed in collaboration with the German high-end camera and lens-maker Leica. So the cameras are among the best in the business, even at the
P40’s low price.
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The downside is they don’t offer Google services despite running a version of the Android operating system.
This is down to the US government’s ban on Huawei, and means there’s no access to the Google Play app store. So if you want that photo goodness, you’ll have to make sure the apps you’ll need are available from Huawei’s own app store… and several of the most popular apps out there are not.
SONY XPERIA 10 II
Boasting IP65/68 rating water resistance, durable Corning Gorilla Glass 6, and a long battery life, the Xperia 10 II is built for worry-free use.
A multi-window feature offers new ways to use your smartphone while a cinematic 21:9 Wide 6” OLED display1 makes viewing content a pleasure.
You’ll also enjoy more creative freedom for photos and videos, thanks to the new triple lens camera.
Sony has managed to find a little USP for its line of phones after years of wondering how it can mark itself out from Apple and Samsung.
Its Xperia line of phones sport the unusual 21:9 aspect ratio… which essentially means its screens are taller and thinner than other phones.
This offers the advantage of working better for watching films, and the extra vertical space also comes in handy in other list-based scenarios, too.
But this phone isn’t all about the screen. It’s a great phone in many other ways, too – you know you can trust Sony to churn out a decent camera, for a start. and its latest high-end model, the Galaxy S20 is magnificent.
But this phone packs in a lot of high-end features at a budget price. The battery is great, for a start, and the camera array and OLED screen both feel like they should be in a phone that costs more than this.
So while it might look a bit cheap and cheerful compared to others, it hits hard where it counts.
APPLE IPHONE SE THEY SAY:
The secondgeneration iPhone SE, is a powerful new iPhone featuring a 4.7-inch Retina HD display, paired with Touch ID for industry-leading security.
iPhone SE comes in a compact design, reinvented from the inside out, and is the most affordable iPhone.
The new iPhone SE is powered by the Apple-designed A13 Bionic, the fastest chip in a smartphone, to handle the most demanding tasks.
iPhone SE also features the best single-camera system ever in an iPhone, which unlocks the benefits of computational photography including Portrait mode, and is designed to withstand the elements with dust and water resistance.
The iPhone SE is built for a long life, with a latest-generation chip that will continue to run Apple’s software for years to come.
The compromises made (singlelens camera, and no face ID among them) are the right ones, and are often mitigated by great software.
If you’re on the iOS side of the fence, there is every chance that SE is all the iPhone you need and it costs £310 less than the base model iPhone 11.
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VIRGIN ORBIT FAILS FIRST TEST
VIRGIN is a company whose reach even extends into space, as Virgin Galactic aims to take tourists beyond the limits of earth’s atmosphere at some point.
An offshoot of that is Virgin Orbit – a company to definitely keep an eye on. Its role is to send small satellites into space, but in quite a novel way. The Orbit rocket is strapped to an ex-Virgin Atlantic 747, which takes it up to 30,000 feet, where the pilot points the plane upward at a 30-degree angle, drops the rocket and peels away before it fires up and (theoretically) hurtles into the nothing.
I say theoretically because the latest test this week failed as something went wrong after the rocket was dropped and it never made it into space.
Virgin Orbit says it learned a lot from the failed test and will be trying again soon.
There are some great videos on YouTube showing how the system works – search for Virgin Orbit.
NEW CODE OF CONDUCT FOR WIKIPEDIA
WIKIPEDIA is not immune to the scourge of online harassment, it would seem. This week the free online encyclopedia announced it was planning to create a new code of conduct for editors on the site to stop a continuing problem of what it calls “toxic behaviour”.
It seems some of Wikipedia’s volunteer editors can’t be civil with others and have created an environment that is putting new users off getting involved.
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees said in a statement: “Harassment, toxic behaviour, and incivility in the Wikimedia movement are contrary to our shared values and detrimental to our vision and mission.
“The board does not believe we have made enough progress toward creating welcoming, inclusive, harassment-free spaces in which people can contribute productively and debate constructively.”
The board says it will have a draft of the new regulations ready by the end of the year, but will start to crackdown harder immediately until those new rules are in place.