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HTC One X9 goes head to head with affordable Chinese phones
Even though it's Christmas Eve, we're getting used to seeing the odd product announcements coming from the Far East around this time of the year (ugh). Today, the culprit is none other than HTC, who has announced yet another metallic "hero" Android device, the One X9. Judging by its looks, you may as well say the Butterfly S (front) and Lenovo's Phab Plus (back) made a baby here, especially with how the X9 even re-introduced HTC's long-gone back-lit capacitive Android buttons. More interestingly, this device is going for just 2,399 yuan or about $370 off-contract in China, making it HTC's most affordable hero device ever.
Xiaomi's $125 phone has the same heart as HTC's flagship
For those who don't know, Xiaomi has a budget line of smartphones called Redmi, but they've kind of fallen off our radar for some time. That's not the case with the latest model announced today. Following its predecessor, this Redmi Note 2 is sticking with the same 5.5-inch screen size but with a higher resolution of 1080p. What really caught our attention, though, is that despite the phone's $125 base price, it's powered by MediaTek's high-end Helio X10 chipset. That's the same octa-core silicon inside HTC's flagship M9+, which costs almost four times as much as the Redmi.
Yes, 10-core smartphones will be a thing in 2016
When MediaTek first launched an octa-core mobile processor back in late 2013, many folks -- including Qualcomm -- called it a gimmick, but said feature has since become quite popular amongst device manufacturers, to the point where Qualcomm eventually had to come up with its very own octa-core offerings. Just to stay one step ahead of others, MediaTek is now prepping the launch of a deca-core aka 10-core chip dubbed the Helio X20, which will succeed the octa-core Helio X10 (MT6795) that's already powering HTC's Asia-only One M9+ plus several upcoming Chinese flagship phones. MediaTek is sampling its new chip in Q3, and the first commercial devices to use it will arrive as early as end of this year.
