OnePlus 3 vs Xiaomi Mi 5: When beasts come out to play
The OnePlus 3 and the Xiaomi Mi 5 are powerhouse phones, and they both look pretty awesome too. The mid-level smartphone segment keeps getting better and better, each day. But, right now it doesn't get any better than either of the two phones.
If you're out to buy a new phone, and happen to have the two in your list, it could be pretty difficult to make a choice. Well, that's what we are here for. To help you make a choice, an informed choice.
Here's a point-by-point breakdown of the OnePlus 3 and the Xiaomi Mi 5, so you can make that all-important choice.
Design and build quality
The Mi 5 has an all-3D glass body made of Corning Gorilla Glass 4, which has been joined together by a metal frame with chamfered edges. The design is very thoughtful. It is a gradual evolution of Xiaomi's Mi Note. What is remarkable is the fact that Xiaomi has been able to make an all-glass phone that isn't as slippery as a fish. And it's compact to hold. In fact it's just the right size to hold: not too small, not too big either.
The OnePlus 3 ditches the OnePlus One and OnePlus 2's iconic sandstone finish. At the end of the day though, it's a small trade-off you pay for a more premium, lighter and thinner experience. The OnePlus 3 is an all-metal smartphone, a first for OnePlus. Unlike its previous phones that were chunky, the OnePlus 3 feels nicer, and more refined. But, it is slippery to hold. And quite big, in comparison to the Mi 5. You will have to use both hands to make full use of all its corners. Also, it isn't the most original of designs around. The phone looks like a mashup between the HTC One and the OnePlus 2, which could irk some buyers.
Winner: Xiaomi Mi 5
Display
The OnePlus 3 comes with a 5.5-inch fullHD AMOLED display with a 1920x1080 pixels resolution. The OnePlus 3 may have retained the screen resolution of its predecessors, but it's a different display panel altogether. OnePlus calls it Optic AMOLED. The screen of the OnePlus 3 is significantly richer and brighter than the screens of the OnePlus One and the OnePlus 2. While the OnePlus X's AMOLED screen produced notoriously over-saturated colours, the screen of the OnePlus 3 is more neutral in this regard.
The Mi 5 has a 5.15-inch FullHD displaywith a 1080x1920 pixels resolution, which roughly translates to 428 ppi pixel density. The Mi 5 display gives the Galaxies or even the iPhones a run for their money, at half the cost. The screen of the Mi 5 can get really bright and it can go really dim as and when required. It displays well saturated colours, and adaptive brightness works as it should. Viewing angles are also excellent. The Mi 5 particularly excels in outdoor sunny environment where its inbuilt Sunlight Display feature kicks in and offers good screen legibility.
Xiaomi's Mi 5 is brighter than the OnePlus 3 in comparison, but the OnePlus 3 is also not far behind. In fact, the difference will be hard to notice for most buyers.
Winner: Tie
Winner: Tie
Software
The OnePlus 3 runs Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow-based OxygenOS version 3.1.2. OxygenOS sticks dangerously close to stock Android and offers an almost bloat-free experience out-of-the-box. The only extra apps it chips in is a file manager, gallery and a music player. Think of it as a third-party Nexus. And that's awesome, in a world where Xiaomi's MIUI 7 on-board the Mi 5 basically strips the phone off key Google highlights like Now on Tap.
The MIUI 7 may be super smooth and entail in more customsaition options, but not offering consumers key Android 6 interface elements is a buzzkill.
If you are not a "stock Android fanatic", MIUI 7 offers all the bells and whistles that you'd want from a fully-functional operating system. But, there's something about the simplicity of OxygenOS that makes it stand out.
Winner: OnePlus 3
Winner: OnePlus 3
Performance and battery life
The OnePlus 3 is powered by a 2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor coupled with Adreno 530 GPU and whopping 6 gigs of RAM. You get 64GB of internal memory straight off the bat, but expandable storage is not supported.
The Xiaomi Mi 5 that is available in India is powered by a 1.8GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor with Adreno 530 GPU and 3GB RAM. It comes with 32GB of internal memory, which is non-expandable.
Paper-specs are enough to suggest that the OnePlus 3 is a powerhouse phone, hands down. The Xiaomi Mi 5 may not be a slugger, but clearly, the OnePlus 3 holds the edge here when it comes to raw performance.
The Xiaomi Mi 5 also tends to get hot when pushed. The OnePlus 3, not so much.
The mono speaker setup on-board the OnePlus 3 is average at best. If you're looking for good speakers in a smartphone, the OnePlus 3 is definitely not the one for you. Audio output through headphones is fine though. The mono speaker in the Mi 5 is louder in comparison. It gets pleasantly loud with little or no distortion at peak volume.
Both the phones support dualSIM and 4G LTE, alongside NFC connectivity option.
The OnePlus 3 is backed by a 3,000mAh battery, which is smaller than the one inside the OnePlus One and OnePlus 2. The OnePlus 3 has decent battery life (above-average), if not the best. Moderate to extreme usage saw us charging the phone twice on a working day. There are phones with bigger and better battery life in and around this price point and the Xiaomi Mi 5 is one of them, even though it has the same capacity. But, OnePlus has a surprise packed inside the OnePlus 3. This is the company's first phone that supports its in-house fast charging technology - or fast charge in general -- called Dash Charging. The accompanying Dash Charger is capable of charging the phone to up to 60 per cent in just 30 minutes. And it does. 45 minutes or so is all it takes to fully charge the phone.
Moreover, the Dash charger has been built in a way that shifts most of the power management processes from the phone to itself so the phone doesn't get hot while charging. And it doesn't. The OnePlus 3 stays surprisingly cool even when charging. This means you can continue to use the phone even while it's charging.
The Xiaomi Mi 5 supports Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0, but Dash charging employed by OnePlus and its heat-management process gives it the added edge.
Winner: OnePlus 3
Camera
The OnePlus 3 comes with a 16-megapixel camera -- Sony IMX 298 sensor -- on the rear with PDAF, f/2.0 aperture and Optical Image Stabilisation. The rear snapper is capable of recording time-lapse, 4K video and RAW file format. The Mi 5 also sports a 16-megapixel camera on the rear with f/2.0 aperture, 4-axis optical image stabilisation, phase detection autofocus and dualLED flash. It's rocking the same Sony IMX298 sensor but has a Sapphire glass lens. Its camera also supports DTI (deep trench isolation) technology, much like the iPhone 6S.
The Xiaomi Mi 5 may seem like it is having the upper hand, on paper, but actual use scenarios tell a different story. The rear camera of the OnePlus 3 clicks better photos - with good dynamic range and little or no metering issues - especially in good light and indoor lighting. It can be a hit and miss in low light but overall we feel that it clicks images with considerably lesser noise than the Xiaomi phone in such situations.
The 8-magapixel front camera of the OnePlus 3 also clicks selfies with more detail as compared to the Mi 5's 4-megapixel front-facing camera.
The OnePlus 3 holds an edge at video recording though. Videos shot with it are optically better stabilised - and still - as opposed to one shot with the OnePlus 3. At the same time, the Mi 5 rear camera is a little faster to focus and has slightly better shutter speed. But if we were to decided solely on the basis of the image quality, the OnePlus 3 certainly offers better results.
Winner: OnePlus 3
So which on should you buy?
th the OnePlus 3 (at Rs 27,999) and the Xiaomi Mi 5 (at Rs 24,999) are excellent smartphones in their own right. Both of them offer top-tier performance like phones that cost almost a double. But, between the two, the OnePlus 3 boasts considerably better performance (there's always at least 2GB or close RAM left no matter how many apps you have opened), more storage, better cameras, and fast and heat-efficient charging.
The OnePlus 3's OxygenOS meanwhile keeps things simple, and if that wasn't enough, OnePlus gives you the option to root it, ROM it, or whatever without voiding the warranty. The Xiaomi Mi 5 may have been the best phone that money could buy at under Rs 30,000 at the time when it was launched, but the title now rests safely with the OnePlus 3. Also, you no longer need invites to buy the OnePlus 3. So the choice becomes quite obvious. The OnePlus 3 is now the ultimate mid-range flagship smartphone to beat. And it's going to take something very special to do that.
Light pollution hinders Milky Way view from one-third of humanity: Study
A new global atlas of light pollution reveals an ugly truth. Our Milky Way, the most favorite hotspot of skygazers and vibrant river of stars will no longer be visible to one-third of the humanity.
According a new survey that quantifies nighttime sky quality for every region in the world, National Geographic reported that due to worsening state of light pollution 80% of the Earth's total population and 99% of the population of United States and Europe will lose the direct contact with night sky very soon.
Light pollution is one form of environment alteration that hides the stars and constellation of night sky and forms luminous fog in the presence of artificial lights.
In developed nations, the 24* 7 use of artificial lights creates a permanent skyglow at night, restricting our view of the stars.
Fabio Falchi author and researcher of a new study from the Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute in Italy said that the situation is a 'cultural loss of unprecedented magnitude'.
NASA's Juno spacecraft to enter orbit around Jupiter on July 4
NASA's Juno mission is scheduled to orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016.
NASA said in a statement on Thursday that the mission is now 26 days and 17.8 million kilometres away from Jupiter.
Juno will turn its main engine on for 35 minutes before placing it into a polar orbit around the gas giant on the the evening of July 4, as reported.
Giant Jupiter lies in the harshest radiation environment known, and Juno has been specially designed to safely navigate the brand new territory.
"We're currently closing the distance between us and Jupiter at about four miles per second," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator for Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
"But Jupiter's gravity is tugging at us harder every day and by the time we arrive we'll be accelerated to 10 times that speed -- more than 40 miles per second (nearly 70 kilometres per second) -- by the time our rocket engine puts on the brakes to get us into orbit," Bolton added.
The Juno mission team is using these last weeks to evaluate and re-evaluate every portion of the Jupiter orbit insertion (JOI) process, finding very low probability events and running them to ground -- determining which, if any, need to be addressed.
Two scenarios have been identified for further work. The first is a variation in how Juno would come out of safe mode ,a protective mode if the spacecraft were to encounter an anomaly or unexpected condition. A second item involves a minor software update.
"We are in the last test and review phases of the JOI sequence as part of our final preparations for Jupiter orbit insertion," Rick Nybakken, project manager of Juno for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, pointed out.
"Throughout the project, including operations, our review process has looked for the likely, the unlikely and then the very unlikely. Now we are looking at extremely unlikely events that orbit insertion could throw at us," Nybakken said.
The Juno mission was launched on August 5, 2011 with the primary aim of improving our understanding of the solar system's beginnings by revealing the origin and evolution of Jupiter.
With its suite of science instruments, Juno will investigate the existence of a solid planetary core, map Jupiter's intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere, and observe the planet's auroras, according to NASA'S mission profile.
International Space Station now open for the world to see
The European Space Agency has recently uploaded on its YouTube channel, a video of the International Space Station (ISS). The best part about the video? It is also avilable in 3D. A narrative about the modules of ISS, the video is available in English, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish and French languages.
For all you space fans dreaming about orbiting the earth in a floating artificial satellite, this is a chance to take a look at the ISS, which was launched into orbit in 1998. The 3D tour starts from the outside of the Station, and moves on to show its various research labs, workstations and other platforms.
Europe's Columbus laboratory, Harmony - a connecting module where a visiting spacecraft can dock, Kibo - Japan's laboratory, the Canadian Robotic Arm are shown from outside.
Research lab Destiny - the primary operating facility for U.S. research payloads, is shown with Leonardo - a multi purpose module and Cupola - a dome from which astronauts guide operations outside the station and take pictures of Earth. The video explains how weightlessness affects orientation. If you're either an aspiring astronaut or a casual observer, this video serves to shed some light on the International Space Station and its habitat.
Six Indian students bag awards at prestigious Intel Science Fair in US
Six Indian students have brought laurels to the nation by winning the prestigious awards at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in the US.
Students from across the world participated in the Intel fair 2016 held at Arizona on May 24. Student winners are 9th through 12th graders who earned the right to compete at the Intel ISEF 2016 by winning a top prize at a local, regional, state or national science fair.
The Indian team comprising 16 students won a total of $9,500 in three grand awards and three special awards in the fields of biotechnology, medicine, biomedical engineering and mathematics.
17-year old Shreyas Kapur from New Delhi was declared the winner of “Google Thinking Big Award”. Kapur, who is studying in Modern School at the Barakhamba Road, New Delhi, was awarded USD 1,000 for his work on 'cellphone-based optometry using hybrid images'. The project also won him third spot in both the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Biomedical Engineering award.
Suhani Sachin Jain and Divya Kranthi of Centre Point School in Nagpur won the third award in plant sciences for developing an “Innovative Strategy using Endophytes for Effective Biocontrol of Insect Pests in Cotton”.
Vasudev Malyan of Maharaja Agarsain Public School in Delhi won fourth spot in translational medical science for the development of a “Novel Paper Sensor as a Diagnostic Test for Multiple Sclerosis”.
The 16 Indian students were selected to attend ISEF as finalists of the Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science (IRIS) 2016 that featured more than 1,700 young scientists selected from 419 affiliate fairs in 77 countries.
Apart from these students from India, several Indian-origin students from the US and Australia also won in Intel ISEF.
The Intel Foundation also awarded $1,000 grant to each winner’s school and to the affiliated fair they represented.
The Intel fair is considered as the largest international pre-college science competition in the world.
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