Time passed unnoticed, and now the 100th edition of “Saturday Coffee”! Thank you, dear readers, for staying with us. On the occasion of the anniversary release of the column, we, together with Xiaomi, decided to give away several prizes. The first prize is one of the best smartphones of the end of last year, the Redmi Note 8 Pro, the second is the Mi True Wireless Earphones, the third is the Mi Wireless Charger 20W, and the fourth is the Mi Wireless Charging Pad.

Details of the drawing are at the end of the article, but for now let’s move on to the news of the past week.

Police smartphones

In connection with the need to control the access control in Moscow, the Moscow authorities are planning to purchase 10 smartphones for the police officers in control. The Department of Information Technology of the Moscow government is going to purchase five thousand smartphones at the first stage, we are talking about models with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal memory, in the price range of 5-7 thousand rubles. An important point for the mayor’s office is the availability of the entire number of smartphones in the supplier’s warehouse. Experts believe that in this case we can talk about inexpensive models of Huawei or Samsung. The digital pass system has been operational in Moscow and the Moscow region since April 15, and in the first days of the digital passes, users encountered problems at the entrance to the metro and the city entrance, which, among other things, was caused by insufficient equipment of the police officers who were monitoring the adherence to the access regime. …

Interestingly, some publications leaked information about the purchase price of one unit of equipment of 12 rubles, which looks very expensive. If you take smartphones for checking passes, it is quite possible to get by with models in the price range up to 000 rubles, the same Alcatel 5S can fully cope with the tasks set. But to be honest, I very much doubt that the authorities will buy Alcatel, Huawei, Samsung or any other major manufacturer’s devices, most likely they will be smartphones from some local brand like Inoi, Irbis, Vertex, etc., of course, at product prices from large companies.

And for 12 rubles, you can buy the same Oppo A000, but why such a bright police smartphone?

Yandex presented its messenger

The company “Yandex” this week released its messenger with the simple name “Yandex.Messenger” and a logo that resembles absolutely nothing. The advantages of the new messenger are its full integration into almost all of the company’s products. So, it can be installed as a separate application, it is present in Yandex, Yandex.Browser and is available even on the yandex.ru page through third-party browsers. Any user with Yandex mail gets access to the new messenger.

Roman Belykh and I tested a little new Yandex.Messenger, so we managed to get the first impression of the product. The advantage of the solution is the automatic decryption of voice messages, you just dictate the message as usual, but when you send it, its text version is immediately available. For those who “get mad” when they receive voice messages, this is a real salvation. Also in Yandex.Messenger you can respond to a message that we have already met on Facebook. As for the rest, there are no particular differences from messengers already on the market, there are channels, groups, etc., in general, everything is like the others.

I do not know how successful Yandex.Messenger will become if the same Telegram, which the State Duma deputies proposed to legalize in Russia, WhatsApp and Viber this week, is available on the market. Its integration into all the company’s products can help the distribution of the Yandex messenger, but despite this, now it will be difficult to transfer people to a new product, since many have already developed their own habits, circle of contacts and subscriptions to channels in other messengers.

Apple iPhone SE starts selling

On Friday, sales of the new Apple iPhone SE smartphone, based on the iPhone 8, but with a new processor, camera and eSIM support, started in Russia. The model is presented in three colors (I liked the white version, which received a black front panel) and with three options for the amount of permanent memory (64, 128 and 256 GB). Prices for the new product start at 40 rubles, but, for example, the MTS operator is already offering a 000% discount.

Today Apple iPhone SE becomes the cheapest iPhone. The model will obviously not become popular at the start, but when the price for the initial version drops to at least 35 rubles in Russia, then the demand for the device will increase.

This week we released the article “Ten reasons not to buy Apple iPhone SE 2020”:

“Ten Reasons to Buy the 2020 Apple iPhone SE” came out last week:

And also in the topic I offer you one more of our material:

Mail.ru started selling a smart column “Capsule”

Mail.ru last week began selling its smart speaker “Capsule” with voice assistant Marusya inside. The cost of the device is 7 rubles, all customers will receive a six-month subscription to Vkontakte music as a gift. According to the developers, “Capsule” is the first smart speaker on the Russian market that will allow the owner to make online calls. A user with a Vkontakte account will be able to call everyone who is on his list of friends on the social network.

The column has an interesting design, and according to the reviews of the first owners of the device, and good sound, but the voice assistant Marusya in many respects is inferior to her competitor Alice from Yandex. Of course, over time, Marusya will grow wiser, more intonations will appear, but at the moment Alice is still better. In addition, while the column from Mail.ru is poorly integrated into the smart home system, today only Rostelecom and Redmond have become partners of the company, so the list of devices that can be controlled through the column is significantly less than that of a similar solution from Yandex “.

LG revealed the design of its new smartphone

The presentation of the new LG Velvet smartphone should take place only on May 7, but at the beginning of this week the company released a video that revealed the design of the device and some other points. So, the device will receive a 3.5 mm audio jack, a teardrop-shaped cutout for the front camera, although taking into account the location of the main camera modules, just a cutout in the screen would look more harmonious. You can also find out from the video that the new LG smartphone will be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 5G, it is strange, of course, that the device will not receive a flagship processor.

In general, LG Velvet turns out to be a very nice smartphone with an interesting arrangement of the main camera modules. The only pity is that LG has curtailed sales of its smartphones in Russia.

Yes, and I suggest you read our material about the smartphone of another company that left our market. This week, the Chinese Meizu almost held a presentation of its new smartphone, and how it was, you can find out from the article:

Motorola edge + introduced

The Chinese company Lenovo has introduced a flagship smartphone under the Motorola brand, the edge + model. The device received the most modern filling, it is built on the basis of Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 with support for 5G networks, it also has support for Wi-Fi 6, it has 12 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and a 256 GB drive of UFC 3.0 standard. The screen of the new AMOLED 6.7 “90 Hz with curved edges and support for HDR10 +. The battery in the device is 5000 mAh, there is fast wired and wireless charging, as well as reversible wireless charging for recharging other devices. The camera of the motorola edge + with three modules, the main one is 108 MP from Samsung.

According to the specifications, it turns out to be a very interesting smartphone, but it all depends on the cost of motorola edge +, which has not yet been announced.

We have published a detailed material on the new flagship Motorola on the website following the presentation, read:

As for 5G, we have an interesting article on this topic, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with:

CASIO G-SHOCK MUDMASTER x The British Army

The CASIO G-SHOCK MUDMASTER x The British Army watch, presented in February, reached Russia. Designed with input from the British military, this watch is built to withstand the harshest conditions thanks to its updated protective carbon structure and a three-layered carbon fiber bezel to ensure the durability of the lightweight case. The watch is offered in camouflage colors, which is logical for a device created in conjunction with the military.

The CASIO G-SHOCK MUDMASTER x The British Army has a digital compass, barometer, altimeter (relative measurement of altitude), thermometer, pedometer, sunrise and sunset times. And thanks to Bluetooth synchronization with the G-SHOCK Connected phone app, you can track your location and movement history.

The price of CASIO G-SHOCK MUDMASTER x The British Army on the Russian market will be 44 490 rubles.

Week with “Sound”

There are a lot of music services today. The most famous of them in Russia, of course, from the largest companies are Apple Music, Google Play Music and Yandex.Music. But there are other resources like Sound, which I tested this week.

The Sound application is available for Android and iOS, it works flawlessly. The only thing is that the program installed from AppGallery on Huawei P40 Pro did not start right away, it turned out that it had to be given permission to use the microphone, after which it worked without problems. The interface is light and clear, there is a light and dark theme, however, without the possibility of automatic switching, and in the settings you can choose one of three color options. The playback quality can be selected manually, as well as enable / disable downloading tracks over the mobile network.

Sound’s library is quite extensive, at least all the music I tried to find was available. There is a TOP-100 chart, which is constantly updated, as well as good selections by genre and mood; lyrics are available for some of the tracks. This week, the service has a “Stories” function, posts about music that live from 24 hours to 3 weeks, so you can learn something interesting without leaving the application.

In general, I liked the “Sound” music service, everything is more pleasant than “Google Play Music”, from which I once left for “Yandex.Music”. It is necessary, of course, to drive him a little longer, but at the end of the week I can say that he is, at least, not worse than decisions from major players, and in some ways even better. The service can be used free of charge, but then you will have to listen to the tracks interspersed, and there will be commercials between them. A paid subscription is comparable in price to competitors and costs 169 rubles per month.

… and dessert

HBO’s new series Betty kicks off on May 2 on Amediateka, which tells the story of young New York girls trying to break into the world of skateboarding. The series is based on the feature film “Skate Kitchen” by Crystal Mosell, she also became the director of the new project. “Betty” reminded me of the series “Girls”, and it turned out for a reason, since Leslie Arfin became the showrunner and screenwriter of the new project, she also worked on the TV series “Brooklyn 9-9” and “Love”.

Presents!

On the occasion of the anniversary edition of “Saturday Coffee”, together with Xiaomi, we are giving away four prizes: the Redmi Note 8 Pro smartphone, Mi True Wireless Earphones, Mi Wireless Charger 20W and Mi Wireless Charging Pad.

Since many of us are now forced to sit at home, the conditions of the competition will be as simple as possible, you need to take a photo of your workplace, which you have equipped yourself at home, and in order to avoid borrowing other people’s images, a cup of coffee or tea must be present in the photo. whichever you prefer. The originality of the workplace will be assessed, as well as the general appearance of the image, creativity is encouraged.

Send your photos to dr.fokin@gmail.com with the subject line # coffee100, one participant can send only one image, and works will be accepted until April 30 inclusive. I will publish the contest works in Stories on my Instagram account, so you can see all the photos, and the winners’ works and their names will be published in Saturday Coffee # 101, which will be released on May 2, 2020. We can send the prizes across Russia, or you can personally pick them up in Moscow.

PS In the last issue of Saturday Coffee, I talked about the MyBook service, which offers access to a library of books by subscription. Representatives of the company contacted me and offered a special promotional code for our readers:

Until May 10, activate the MOBILEBOOK promo code – and read and listen to any books in MyBook, the largest book subscription service for 2 weeks, and also get a 25% discount on MyBook premium subscription for 1 or 3 months.

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