News & Reviews:   Weekly TechNave

Sorry TechNavers, last week due to weekend events and issues we could not foresee, I couldn't get the Weekly TechNave out. The good news is that now we have 2 weeks of tech news and events for this week's Weekly TechNave.

Internationally, the Xiaomi Mi 5S and Mi 5S Plus got launched along with the TCL 950 and Blackberry will not be designing smartphones anymore. Samsung also officially announced their Galaxy A8 (2016). The Malaysian prices for the Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus got "officially" leaked, so check out our compilation page to register your interest for the telco of your choice.

Not much went official this week except for Apple's iOS 10 update, while you can check out if your device supports it we also did a quick first impressions of it on the Apple iPhone 5. You can now officially pre-order your new Sony PS4 for Malaysia as well.

Samsung continues to ask that you send in your Samsung Galaxy Note 7, with only the Xiaomi Redmi 3S Malaysia release date announced. Most other notable news included closer looks at the Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus as they got torture tested and torn down alongside the Apple Watch Series 2.

Without a doubt, this week was the week where Apple rose to the occasion with their new jet black, waterproof, dual camera Apple iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 7 while the Samsung announced how to replace their recalled Galaxy Note 7 in full disclosure. You can now get the previous gen iPhone 6S Plus, 6S, SE and iPads cheaper than before and Apple also announced their waterproof 2nd-gen Apple Watch Series 2 along with their AirPods. 

Looks like the biggest news of the week came in at the last moment as Samsung officially recalled the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 over a faulty sometimes exploding battery. It wasn't the only one suspended as Google also stopped work on their Project Ara modular smartphone.

This week, tech news was rather scarce but Pokemon Go seems to be gripping the nation as XPAX by Celcom and Hotlink and Grab offered their users some Pokemon Go incentives. We chimed in with the top 5 features that Pokemon Go needs while we wait for the next version of Pokemon Go.

This week Malaysia's telcos announced their Samsung Galaxy Note7 pre-order deals and even newly announced Yes 4G LTE came out with pre-order bundles for the smartphone. Unfortunately, Samsung Malaysia had some bad news in that the Galaxy Note 7 will be delayed due to supply issues.

Last week was crazy busy as Honor started it with a bang and their officially announced Honor Note 8 and Honor 5 Play. Samsung subsequently skipped numbers and officially announced the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 with their new Gear VR. ASUS soon followed suit with their full range of ASUS ZenFone 3, ASUS ZenFone 3 Ultra, ASUS ZenFone 3 Deluxe, ASUS ZenFone 3 Max and ASUS ZenFone 3 Laser smartphones along with their ASUS ZenBook 3, ASUS Transformer 3 and ASUS Transformer 3 Pro, all for Malaysia.

Last week was filled with a lot of new and official announcements but the most notable one remained Xiaomi's first laptop, the Mi Notebook Air, which for some reason was quickly followed up by another thin notebook computer called the Lenovo Air 13 Pro. Following up on these were the Xiaomi Redmi Pro smartphone with its dual rear camera, while the Android-based Blackberry DTEK50 was also announced. Other notable international announcements include the Samsung Galaxy Tab J for those budget tablet users out there.

This week we didn't see any big announcements but ASUS Malaysia did announce that their ASUS ZenFone 3 will be coming to Malaysia soon at their Zenvolution event on 6 August 2016. If you want some previous generation ASUS ZenFones, check out their ASUS Concept Store at the DirectD center in Subang.

This week, quite a few official announcements happened with the Honor 8 arriving with its rumoured 2.5D glass front and back, the ASUS ZenFone 3 Laser and ZenFone 3 Max getting their official marching orders in Vietnam while Samsung came out with their Galaxy J Max, Galaxy J2, Galaxy J1 Ace Neo, Galaxy On5 Pro, Galaxy On7 Pro, Galaxy S7 edge Olympic Edition and UFS microSDs. LEAGOO announced their affordable shock-proof metal M5 smartphone for $59.99 (RM237) while Final Fantasy 7 was announced for Android 19 years after it was first released.