14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this month, we told you that popular Chinese video content provider LeTV was looking to enter the smartphone business.
The decision is proof of the growing overlap trend between the entertainment industry in the country and technology platforms. In China, 60% of people access content via their mobile devices, including tablets and phones.
And LeTV is not planning to make its debut in the competitive smartphone market with a boring, mid-range phone - it wants to make it in big style.
Apparently, the company will release two Android smartphones in the upcoming months. One of them will supposedly arrive with a 5.5-inch 2K display, a Snapdragon 810 processor working with 4GB of RAM, Hi-Fi-grade audio chips and an advanced 21MP camera on the back.
The device was spotted in AnTuTu a while ago, where it scored an impressive 63,450 points, a result comparable to the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge’s 69,019 score.
LeTV's MediaTek phone will come with a USB Type-C port, maybe
Anyway, it seems LeTV also has another version of the phone in the works. This model should take advantage of a 5.5-inch 1080p display and a MediaTek MT6795 SoC clocked at 2.2GHz under the hood. Other specs include 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage and a 13MP/5MP camera combo.
Moreover, according to the latest information coming out of Asia, this particular model will take advantage of a USB Type-C port. The new standard will be coming to more Android phones, as Google promised a few days ago, so could LeTV be paving the way?
For the time being, the new port is only available on Apple’s new MacBook with Retina display and Google’s 2015 Pixel Chromebook.
Most smartphone and tablet devices today use USB Type-A, but the fast and simple-to-use USB Type-C will be slowly taking its place.
The USB Type-C looks quite similar to the microUSB port when it comes to size, but it works quite differently. For starters, it is reversible. That’s why charging a smartphone through a USB Type-C port will take less time because the plug can provide bi-directional power.
It can also handle transfer at rates of up to 10Gbps, which is twice the speed of the current USB 3.0 standard. Furthermore, it’s backwards compatible with previous versions of USB standards, but it requires an adapter to function properly.
LeTV probably wants to be, like Apple and Google, one of the first companies to implement the new standard before it goes mainstream.
As for the phone, it appears the device will be offered in grey, white and gold and users will have the option to pick it up with a plastic polycarbonate shell (price starts at $160 / €150) or in a metal version (priced at around $319 / €300).
