Qualcomm’s powerful new Snapdragon 820 processor is expected to power most flagship Android smartphones this year, but it appears a little-known Chinese smartphone company has stolen a march on the bigger players. Letv’s new Le Max Pro holds the distinction of being the first smartphone powered by the Snapdragon 820 chipset.
Who exactly is Letv? Formed as part of a larger “ecosystem” play that Xiaomi is known for in China, the Letv Group has a hand in various businesses, from video production and distribution, smart TVs, and of course, smartphones. The mobile division may be fairly young, but it gained plenty of attention earlier in 2015 for selling its Le 1S smartphone at a loss.
Several weeks back, a mysterious Letv smartphone grabbed headlines again, for posting the highest-ever benchmark score on the popular Android benchmarking tool, Antutu. This mystery device has now been unveiled as the Le Max Pro, a 6-inch smartphone that’s powered by Qualcomm’s latest SoC, the Snapdragon 820.
The Le Max Pro sports – as you’d expect – flagship-level hardware. Besides the Snapdragon 820 chip, it features 4GB of RAM, and a choice of 32, 64 or 128GB of internal storage. It also sports a 21MP rear camera with optical image stabilisation, a 6.33-inch QHD (2,560 x 1,440, 464ppi) display, and a 3,400mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0. Besides running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, this smartphone also packs a USB Type-C port.
Oh, one more thing: the Le Max Pro is also the first smartphone to be equipped with Qualcomm’s new Sense ID fingerprint scanner. Sense ID is a technology that scans a 3D map of a user’s finger using ultrasonic waves, giving it greater accuracy and reliability than current fingerprint scanning technologies which are based on capacitive touch.
Just like Xiaomi, the Letv smartphone is likely to be exceptionally difficult to obtain internationally, as its smartphones are only available exclusively in China for now; the company is expected to make inroads into both the US and India this year. Pricing details for the Le Max Pro were not revealed.
(Source: CNET, Phone Arena)
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