Google Home now leads Amazon Echo In race of smart speakers

Smart speaker is the new ruler of the consumer technology segment, says a new report from Canalys. As per the report, Smart speakers are the fastest growing technology segment with shipments hitting 9 million units in Q1 2018, up 210 per cent over Q1 2017.

Google and Amazon are seen as the two leading names in this segment with Google taking the top spot from Amazon for the first time. The company shipped 3.2 million of its Google Home and Home Mini speakers over Amazon's 2.5 million shipments of its Amazon Echo speakers in the Q1.

Google has hit a shipment of 36.2 per cent over Amazon's 27.7 per cent in the first quarter. This is in stark contrast with the last year's figures where Amazon held 79.6 per cent of shipments over Google's 19.3 per cent.

The reason why Google managed to have higher shipments than Amazon is that of the company entering into new markets like India where it has joined hands with domestic service providers like Jio and ACT to reach its users.

Canalys Analyst Ben Stanton says that Googles biggest advantage is in the channel. Operators and retailers tend to prioritize Googles speakers over those from Amazon, as Amazon is in the tricky position of being a direct competitor. But Amazon is fighting back hard, and the sheer quantity of Alexa Skills and smart home integrations will be tough for any competitor to match.

The third and fourth posts on the global list are taken by Chinese companies- Alibaba and Xiaomi.

Alibaba takes the third spot with 11.8 per cent Tmall Genie shipment and Xiaomi on fourth with 600,000 shipments of Xiao AI speaker. Hattie He, Canalys Research Analyst, credited Alibaba's superior channel reach and powerful marketing capabilities for its higher shipments than Xiaomi.

Awareness of smart speakers and their uses is growing steadily among Chinese consumers. But competition is building quickly for Alibaba, as IPO-hopeful Xiaomi takes to the smart speaker segment with much vigor in 2018.(Source)

Nubia’s Red Magic smartphone is designed for gaming, down to the glowing LEDs on the back

The Red Magic is the new phone from Nubia (a ZTE sub-brand in China), and it’s built for gaming. But you probably didn’t need me to tell you that. The Red Magic is practically screaming “extreme gamer,” with its sharp, hexagonal cutouts for the camera and fingerprint sensor, aggressively red vents and details, and the glowing LED strip on the back, via Liliputing.

Oddly, the specs on the Red Magic aren’t actually quite in line with what you’d expect from a mobile gaming powerhouse. The 6-inch, 2160 x 1080 pixel display is up there, but it’s not a 120Hz panel like Razer offers, and it uses last year’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor instead of the newer Snapdragon 845.

The rest of the phone is pretty standard for a mid- to high-end Android phone, too: up to 8GB of RAM and up to 128GB storage on the high-end model (along with a cheaper 6GB RAM and 64GB of storage model). Camera-wise, there’s a 24-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel front-facing lens. And rounding things out on the hardware side of things is an impressively large 3,800mAh battery, which should help with power-hungry games. Nubia also claims that it’ll be using its “GameBoost” software to offer better performance. (This is probably where the gaming focus comes in.)

Between last year’s Razer Phone, the Xiaomi-backed Black Shark, and now the Nubia Red Magic, it’s safe to say that gaming phones are having a moment. And while a smartphone dedicated to gaming might not make a ton of sense to American users — after all, how much processing power do you need to play Candy Crush or Clash of Clans? — the Nubia Red Magic is meant more for markets like China. The Chinese market is where mobile MOBAs are extremely popular, and having a phone that focuses on gaming makes a lot of sense in that context. And even outside of China, the successful mobile ports of games like PUBG and Fortnite is starting to change the conversation about what phone games can accomplish.

Preorders open in China on April 25th, starting at 2,499 yuan (roughly $397) for the base mode, and 2,999 yuan (around $477) for the high-end version. Nubia is also planning an Indiegogo campaign for the 26th, which will offer the phone starting at an early bird price of $399.