Top Smartphones Expected To Come Out In the Indian Market In January

This year has been quite a busy year when it comes to smartphone releases. The ubiquitous notch pretty much features in most of the phones in many different price ranges, while phone makers have also been trying to come up with a solution to remove the notch by either going for a small hole on the screen or sliding mechanism. We have also seen more and more smartphones sporting a triple or even quad camera setup.

Huawei Nova 4 (left) and Galaxy A8s (right) with the latest hole-punch display

But smartphone manufacturers are surely not stopping here as there are many innovative and advanced features being promised to debut in the upcoming year such as phones with 5G support or penta rear camera system. There are already quite a few interesting phones set to launch in India in the first month of 2019. We have made a list of the most notable additions to the mobile portfolio of the Indian market.

Honor View 20

The Honor View 20 or also known as Honor V20 in the Chinese market has already been launched, and Honor also confirmed that the company would release in the Indian market exclusively via Amazon.in. The Honor View 20 is another smartphone that features the hole-punch display just like on the Galaxy A8s and Huawei Nova 4.

The regular and Moschino Edition of the Honor V20 have similar specifications apart from the storage and RAM. Both of the devices sport a 6.4-inch Full-HD+ IPS display with a resolution of 2,310 x 1,080 pixels resolution and a screen-to-body ratio of 91.82% and also a display hole for housing the front camera. There is a Huawei’s Kirin 980 SoC under the hood coupled with 6GB or 8GB RAM and GPU Turbo 2.0 that can increase the gaming performance. While the internal storage on the regular Honor V20 is 128GB and it is expandable via a microSD slot, the Moschino Edition one comes packed with 8GB RAM/256GB storage.

The two Honor devices are packed with the Hi1103GPS chip which is claimed by Honor to make more precise mobile navigation positioning using AI dual-frequency GPS. In addition, Honor also opts for a feature similar to the Samsung DeX that allows users to use their smartphones for a PC-like experience by simply putting the phone on a compatible dock.

In the camera department, the Honor V20 features a 25MP front camera for taking selfie and video chat as well. On the back, there are a 48MP Sony IMX586 CMOS main sensor and a 3D Time of Flight (ToF) depth sensor. The Chinese company said that the 3D depth sensing tech on its phones enables motion capture for AR features. Besides that, both camera setups on the front and back of the phone are powered by AI which is claimed to help the phone take photos with better color reproduction and dynamic range.

The devices are both backed by a 4,000 mAh with support for 4.5/5V fast charging. In terms of software, both of the Honor V20 models run the Magic UI 2.0.1 which is based on the latest Android 9 Pie out of the box. There are also other features such as a fingerprint scanner mounted on the rear, Honor’s own AI assistant called YOYO, 4G LTE, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.

The base variant of the Honor V20 with 6GB RAM/128GB of storage is priced at 2,999 CNY (around Rs. 30,500) while the top-end option with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage is offered at a price of 3,499 CNY (around Rs. 35,500). If you want to purchase the Honor V20 Moschino Edition, you will have to pay an amount of 3,999 CNY (around Rs.40,500). While both of the regular and the Moschino Edition models come in two colour options which are Blue and Red, the regular Honor V20 will be offered in an additional Black color variant.

Huawei Nova 4

We all know that the notch is just a temporary solution and phone manufacturers have all been trying to find a way to get rid of it. And one of the latest ways that they have come up is the display hole to accommodate the selfie camera.

Besides the Galaxy A8s and Honor View 20 (or Honor V20), the Huawei Nova 4 is another phone which is announced to come with the hole-punch display design. The handset also comes packed with a 6.41-inch FHD+ bezel-less display with a 1080 x 2310 pixels resolution and 86 percent screen-to-body ratio.

The phone is powered by a Kirin 970 SoC, coupled with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The front display hole will house a 25MP camera with an aperture of f/2.0 and EIS. There two variants with a different triple rear camera setup as one will have a 20MP sensor and the other will come with a 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor with an aperture of f/1.8 and PDAF. The other two sensors are the same on both variants, including a 16MP with an aperture of f/2.2, a 2MP depth sensor with an aperture of f/2.4 and an LED flash. The rear camera setup also comes with some features such as EIS, 4K video recording, PDAF, 3D Qmoji, AI beauty, and contrast focus. The phone is backed a decent 3,750 mAh battery and has a USB Type-C port and a headphone jack.

The upcoming Huawei Nova 4 is expected to run Android 9 Pie-based EMUI 9.0.1 and come with a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor.

It will come in Aurora Blue, Red, White, Black color options. It is priced at 3,399 CNY (approx. Rs. 35,300) for the 48MP rear camera model, and 3,099 CNY (approx. Rs. 32,200) for the variant with a 20MP rear camera.

Samsung Galaxy M10 and M20

Samsung has been tipped to working on the new Galaxy series called Galaxy M which will replace the existing Galaxy J and Galaxy On series. Previous reports also suggested that Samsung has already started the mass production of the Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 in India.
The Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 are expected to come with the Samsung’s Exynos 7870 and Samsung Exynos 7885 SoC, respectively, coupled with 3GB of RAM.

Furthermore, these two upcoming Galaxy M phones are tipped to be the first Samsung phones to feature a notch. The two phones are also said to sport a Full-HD+ display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio.

Samsung Galaxy M30's benchmark

There is also another phone on the Galaxy M series called Galaxy M30, but there aren’t a lot of details about it besides the fact that it is powered by the Exynos 7885 SoC coupled with 4GB RAM and runs Android 8.1 Oreo.

Mobiistar X1 Notch

The Vietnamese phone maker Mobiistar will most likely start the upcoming year by releasing its first phone with a notched display, and it is called Mobiistar X1 Notch. The device is tipped to feature a glossy design, 13MP AI-powered front, and rear cameras, and fingerprint sensor on the rear. Mobiistar will likely to be priced at below Rs. 10,000. Moreover, according to previous leaks, the phone will come in Sapphire Blue, Midnight Black, and Gradient Shine color variants.

Xiaomi’s phone with a 48MP camera

In early this month, Xiaomi’s president Lin Bin revealed on his Weibo page that the company would launch a new smartphone with a 48MP camera in January. A few reports speculated that the 48MP camera smartphone is the upcoming Xiaomi Redmi Pro 2 and it will be powered by a Snapdragon 675 SoC which has the maximum imaging capability that can go up to processing 48MP images.

That’s is all we know so far, but there should be more details of this handset coming out soon as it is already confirmed to launch in January so there is not much time left.