Week 24 in review: PlayStation 5 hardware shown, Mi Band 5 is here

Welcome to your week’s recap. Amazingly the most popular device of the week wasn’t a phone but rather the Sony PlayStation 5. The PlayStation 5 will come in a sleek new white and black body meant to stand upright. It will be sold in a version with an optical 4K Blue-ray drive and a version without one, called PlayStation 5 Digital Edition.

We also saw a listing for the PS 5 on Amazon, citing a price tag of £599.99 ($760/€670). The next-gen console is due sometime in the second half of 2021.

Moving on to OnePlus and its first truly-affordable phone in years. The OnePlus Z’ specs and Indian price leaked – it will have a 6.55-inch SuperAMOLED with 90Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon 765G with 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, a 64MP camera plus a 16MP ultrawide, 4,300mAh battery and 30W charging. Pricing is a rumored INR 24,990 (~$330).

The Xiaomi Mi Band 5, the latest member of the best-selling fitness tracker family on the planet, was unveiled. It brings a bigger 1.1-inch OLED screen (the Mi Band 4 has a 0.95-inch screen), a new magnetic charger that finally doesn’t require you to take the tracker out of the band, 11 new tracking modes, a more accurate heart-rate sensor and the same great starting price – $26 for the non-NFC, $30 for the NFC model in China.

Motorola unveiled the One Fusion+. It’s a Snapradon 730-powered smartphone with a 6.5-inch IPS LCD of 1080p+ resolution. The 16MP selfie camera is tucked inside a motorized pop-up mechanism. On the rear there’s a fingerprint scanner and four cameras – a 64MP main, 8MP ultrawide, 5MP macro units and a 2MP depth sensor. The One Fusion+ has a 3.5mm headphone jack but no NFC and a 5,000mAh battery that charges at 15W. The Motorola One Fusion+ will launch in Europe later this month and it will cost €300.

The other major release this week was the Xiaomi Redmi 9 with a Helio G80 chipset, 6.53-inch IPS LCD, 13MP main camera with a 8MP ultrawide, 5MP macro and 2MP depth sensor. The entry-level 3/32GB version costs €149, there’s also a 4/64GB for €179.

Those were the highlights of last week, the full list of hottest stories is below. See you in a week!

Sony will unveil PlayStation 5 games later today through an online event.

90Hz display and 30W fast charging are on the menu.

Also showcased a ton of new games coming next year.

Great value fitness tracker as always.

It’s similar to the One Hyper, but with a faster chipset. The 6.5″ 1080p+ display now supports HDR10.

Both versions get Bluetooth certification, two separate remote controls get certified as well.

Only the Chinese units are receiving the firmware right now.

It remains to be seen how Samsung will handle ad placement in its upcoming One UI update.

The lineup reportedly includes four models.

The phone brings four cameras and a Helio G80 to the aggressively affordable market.

The Horizon Edition takes things up a notch.

It’s unclear what this phone will be named, but it should be even cheaper than the A01.

A new bundle with a cover case is available.

As expected it looks similar to the outgoing Mi Band 4 but will pack plenty of new features.

The router also features smart home integration. Pre-orders in China start tomorrow, the price is $35.

The technology fixes brightness, color gamut, and viewing angle differences, brings algorithm for pixel arrangement on a new screen material.

This means that HMD will have to look elsewhere for the camera on the perpetually-delayed Nokia 9.3 PureView. 

The pages bring no specs with them.