#The shortcut buttons on the side are the same colour as the rest of the shell and also are barely raised
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m4rked-for-life · 3 months ago
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Guys... guys... parents are getting me bump dot stickers for my tablet so that I can draw easier. Life is joyous.
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andatsea · 5 years ago
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XP-Pen Artist Pro 24 Review
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I drew this with an XP-Pen Artist Pro 24, which the team at XP-Pen kindly sent to me for review. I’ve had to opportunity to use this tablet on-and-off over the course of the past several weeks, and while there were a few issues my overall impression is positive.
Unboxing / Contents
Apart from the 24” display tablet itself, the package comes with the usual cabling peripherals, plus some bonus extras. If your machine supports a USB-C connection for display, you’ll only need the one cable (plus the power connection). Otherwise, there’s a HDMI and a USB-C to USB converter included as well.
The extras include: an additional stylus, a one-size-fits-all artist’s glove, and a microfiber cloth.
The container for the stylus twists open to reveal 8 extra stylus nibs. Its cap can also be removed to use as a stylus holder.
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Driver (Installation & General Use)
There were a few issues with installation, mostly tied to interactions between the driver, Windows 10 and Windows Ink.
Initially, brush strokes were offset from the stylus’ point of contact with the screen by about 3-4 centimetres when attempting to draw in Photoshop CS6. Random straight strokes also occurred frequently. This same problem did not occur in MS Paint or Photoshop CC 2019. This was fixed by changing the UI scaling setting for the monitor in Windows settings from 125% (which was apparently the default) to 100%.
Initially, brush strokes had no pen pressure in Photoshop CC 2019. Photoshop CS6, on the other hand, did (but suffered from the previous offset problem). This was fixed by turning on the Windows Ink setting in the XP-Pen driver menu. So in other words: CC 2019 needs Windows Ink on to recognise pen pressure, while CS6 didn’t, but was affected by UI scaling.
Interestingly, if Windows Task Manager was in focus and Windows Ink was not enabled in driver settings, stylus input was not recognised at all. There may be other programs that have this issue, but this was the only one I encountered so far.
I will say that I’ve had many problems with Wacom drivers interacting badly with Windows Ink and other things in the past before, so these types of issues are not exclusive to the XP-Pen drivers.
I’m currently using driver version 3.0.5, a beta build that has a lovely UI; it’s clear and laid out well. I did also try version 1.6.4 initially, which was fine — the UI for that version was similar to the layout you find with Wacom drivers.
Apart from the issues during installation that required troubleshooting, I haven’t had many major complaints with the driver in day-to-day use, I do think that there are a few areas for improvement, however.
The driver stops working correctly each time the computer is set to sleep and woken up again. To fix this the driver must be exited from the system tray and then relaunched.
There also doesn’t seem to be a way to bind WIN+SHIFT+ARROW to any of the express keys. WIN+SHIFT+ARROW (left or right arrow) is the Windows shortcut to quickly move a focused window to another monitor, so it’s something I use a lot if I’m on a multi-monitor setup. Unfortunately, attempting to set this shortcut in the express keys menu will simply move the actual driver window over to the other monitor while the custom input is not properly recognised in the text field.
The driver does offer a “switch monitor” option for the express keys that when clicked will transfer your stylus input to another monitor, which is extremely useful.
Screen
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At 24” with a 2560x1440p QHD resolution, images are sharp and crisp even when viewed from a close range while drawing. Genuinely, it feels great to paint on based off this aspect alone.
The colour temperature is set to 6500K by default in the the driver settings. I think initially it felt just a touch too saturated, but overall I’m fairly happy with the colour display.
The monitor has touch-sensitive inputs on the top right corner: a -/+ for quickly adjusting the brightness, a menu for further settings, and power. I found myself using these to adjust the brightness throughout the day frequently. The power input requires a few seconds of continued contact from your finger to react, which prevents you from accidentally brushing it and turning the monitor on/off.
The monitor comes with a built-in stand. I found it easy to adjust to different viewing angles and also incredibly sturdy. I had no problems leaning on the monitor while drawing.
The monitor also comes with a pre-applied anti-glare screen protector. I wasn’t bothered by it and it seems to be holding out well after several weeks of use. I think the screen itself definitely needs the additional anti-glare, as being a display tablet means that it’s significantly more reflective than my main display.
Stylus
My first impression of the stylus was that it’s lighter in comparison to the Wacom styluses that I’m used to — there is very little to no weighting on the back end of the stylus, which makes it feel noticeably different when gripped. To be honest, though, I forgot about it when I was actually painting. Still, I would prefer a bit more weighting because I do think it makes the stylus more comfortable to hold overall for long periods of time.
There’s also no eraser nib, but I’ve personally never used those on Wacom tablets (I always use shortcuts to switch between brush and eraser instead) so this was a non-issue for me.
The two shortcut buttons on the side of the stylus sit quite flat to the surface, so I think they would be less likely to bother people who don’t use them. I use them a lot, however, and found that they were still easy to click despite being quite flat.
Unfortunately however I ran into a curious issue with using one of the stylus buttons to activate the eyedropper tool. When the “alt” key is mapped to one of the triggers on the stylus, activation of the eyedropper function in Photoshop (tested in both CS6 and CC 2019) is somewhat unreliable. That is, when the “alt” key is held down, the expected result is that once you tap the stylus on the canvas, a “mouse-click” will be triggered and the eyedropper will activate. While this works perfectly fine if you hold down “alt” from the keyboard (or hold down an “alt” that’s bound to one of the 20 express keys), when you hold “alt” from a stylus trigger I found that tapping quickly with the stylus only seemed to activate the eyedropper about 50% of the time. In order to activate it more reliably, I had to press harder and longer with the stylus, which can become tiring and slowed down my painting process. I also found that frequently, pressing down longer would lock me into the eyedropping function until I clicked the trigger key again.
After submitting feedback about this XP-Pen’s R&D department, I was informed that this issue occurs because the stylus is only able to send one message to the tablet at a time. Pressing “alt” on the stylus and trying to “click” at the same time counts as two messages, which may interact with each other unexpectedly. This is why it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.
The buttons seem to otherwise work completely fine for any other functions that don’t require the stylus to send two simultaneous messages, so unless you’re like me and like to bind “alt” to a stylus trigger, this won’t affect you.
Pen Pressure & Activation Force
Most current-gen tablets flash a big number for the pen pressure levels as a selling point. Having used tablets with 512, 2k, 4k and 8k levels of pressure sensitivity, I’d say I noticed the biggest difference when switching from 512 to 2k, but in my opinion beyond 2k the change is minimal and has no real impact on the way I draw. The XP-Pen Artist Pro 24 comes with 8192 levels of sensitivty, which is a very big number, but in practical application all I can say is that it works the way I expect it to and I don’t have any complaints regarding the transition between pressure levels on the default linear pressure curve.
More importantly I did notice that the IAF (initial activation force) was not as low as I would have liked. Very light input is not recognised, or only partially recognised before dropping off and on again. In a practical sense this doesn’t actually impact me through most of (perhaps 97%) of the painting process, but it did give me pause once in a while when I wanted to make a really light stroke and had to adjust my method. The drivers for this tablet do come with a pressure curve you can adjust to your preferences, so this can help a little, although after some tests I preferred to leave mine on the default setting.
Summary of Drawing Experience (tl;dr)
I think the mark of a good tool or piece of hardware is that it does not draw attention to itself during the course of its use. An ideal drawing experience allows me to be fully immersed in the act of drawing without having my focus shifted to dealing with the tool. With this in mind the XP-Pen Artist Pro performed very well for the most part, but was held back by a couple of issues.
Pros:
The monitor resolution honestly feels great to look at; the pixel density means that I can basically forget about pixels even with my face positioned closer to the screen.
The parallax between the tip of the stylus and the actual position of input was very minimal and basically not noticeable for me, especially after the simple calibration process offered by the driver.
At normal room temperature (say up to about mid-20’s celsius) the monitor screen stays impressively cool to the touch and I was never bothered by resting my drawing hand on its surface even when painting for long sessions.
The 20 express keys and 2 roller rings are extremely helpful and I actually found myself using all of them, despite initially thinking that I’d only need half of them. The keys are also comfortable and responsive to click (which sounds like it should obviously be so, but having used some Intuos iterations in the past which had some very annoying-to-click express keys, I don’t take this feature for granted anymore).
Cons:
The driver needs to be restarted everytime the computer wakes from sleep in order to work.
Higher IAF was noticeable when very light strokes were desirable. Also, the input will on rare occasions glitch by performing a completely straight max opacity + max brush size stroke. This seemed to happen primarily when I was trying to get light strokes to register. (It didn’t happen often enough to bother me much since it’s just a quick undo, but it did happen enough times that I noticed it.)
The issue with eyedropping using “alt” mapped to a stylus trigger as detailed above. Quite unlucky for someone like me who has over a decade of muscle memory for this particular mapping.
Overall, as I said at the beginning, my impression of the tablet is positive. While I think it has room for improvement when it comes to driver performance and the initial activation force especially, it also has a lot to offer at a highly competitive price point ($900USD at retail), and it would’ve been amazing if something like this had been available to me back when I first started digital painting. As I do enjoy using it for the most part I’ll probably continue to use it on-and-off in future.
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writingsbychlo · 4 years ago
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smoke and fire (12)
word count; 8943
summary; you and newt are called to another unusual call.
notes; this is the first half (technically) of a mini sub-plot. the end comes in the next part.
warnings; violence, gun use, description of injury, slight gore, intentional harm, attempted murder, reference to drowning.
“I feel disgusting.” You mumbled, water still dripping from your arms as you stood, shaking yourself odd a little and groaning at the chill that was beginning to sweep in. The lights on the firetruck were flashing, equipment still being loaded back up, and Newt was standing on the other side of the ambulance, a water bottle Minho had given him sitting in his hand as he took another large sip, gargling the water loudly and frothing it around his mouth before spitting it out onto the concrete and grimacing.
“I think I swallowed, like, half the lake.”
You felt bad for him, you really did, and you tried to peel the wet material of the shirt away from yourself. Unbuttoning it slowly, you frowned, wet hair plastered to the back of your neck in the ponytail you wore, and Newt choked on his drink, laughing loudly and spitting up water again. He patted at his chest, turning away from you, his cheeks going red as he tries to hack up water that had gone down the wrong pipe, and you patted his back, startled at his sudden reaction.
His eyes were watering when he recovered, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “You know, if I was straight, I’d be very flattered.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your nipples.” He beamed, and your brows furrowed, before you glanced down, noting the hardened peaks from the cold, showing clearly through your tank that had gone clear enough in its pale grey colour to show off the plain design of your bra, and you scoffed. “Truly, it’s an honour, but it’s doing nothing for me.”
“Oh, no, whatever will I do now?” You mused, voice flat of any emotions, and he only laughed again, peeling off his shirt, and ringing it out, goosebumps rising along pale skin as the chill of the air washed over his skin. The lake was clear now, a group of kids who had stupidly enough decided it would be a good idea to jump off the edge of the dock before realising the wall was too tall and slippery with algae to get out, beginnings of hypothermia and ingestions of dirty water before anybody had wandered past close enough to hear them calling for help.
Sometimes, you really hated teenagers.
“Think if we’re fast enough, we can get back to the house before the firefighters? First dibs on the showers with the best water pressure, and guaranteed hot water.”
His eyes twinkled a little as he lifted a still damp but no longer sodden shirt back onto his shoulders, grimy and covered in green and brown stains from the water, no bothering to button it back up. “I take that as a challenge, and I accept.”
You climbed in through the back of the van, pulling open the bottom drawer and finding the plastic seat coverings, chucking one of the sheet packages to Newt for his own chair, before he slammed the doors with you in the back, and rounded to the driver’s side. Smoothing the plastic over your chair to make sure it was covered, your shoes squelched a little as you collapsed down into it. Newt did the same, and the second the keys were twisted into the lock once he was shuffling uncomfortably on the plastic, you were flicking the heating on to the highest temperature you could get it.
The downside of working in a van filled with drugs and medicine? The heat didn’t get very high in order to keep what needed to be refrigerated at the temperature is was required to be at. His eyes checked the mirrors as he reversed, noting the firetruck that was beginning to back out, the Squad truck leaving first, Gally and Fry still milling around to talk to the cops, and so you and Squad had a head start.
It would seem that they had the same idea, because Minho had a positively dangerous look in her eyes as she pulled up towards the entrance alongside you both, and Newt smirked, hand on the gearstick as he switched gears and pressed his foot down on the pedal. He surged forwards, the van moving faster than the trucks due to their added weight, a delay in its start-up, and the pair of you shot across the uneven gravelly path towards the main highway.
The red truck wasn’t far behind, and yet you were laughing a little at the determined look on your partners face, what had been a modest challenge was now becoming a battle between yourselves and the Squad team. You had the edge, being a lightweight vehicle, easy navigation and more speed, but they had the edge, the big red truck was more noticeable to other driver’s and they tended to move out of the way more for firetrucks than they did for ambulances.
As you met the junction for the highway, Newt flicked on the indicators and swerved onto the highway in a gap between cars that was too small to be considered safe. The move left you pressed into the side door of the ambo’, turning to look at him as his eyes stayed fixed on the road, a smirk on his face as the red truck was left in the dust, having to wait much longer to be able to pull out.
“Alright, Vin Diesel, settle down.”
“You want a hot shower to get clean? Or do you want lukewarm water with weak pressure that takes hours to get you clean?” You considered it, knowing that the more the showers were used, the weaker the water pressure got and the colder they ran as the hot water was distributed out, and you weighed out the pros and cons. You gave in with a reluctant sigh, watching Newt weave between cars, and he let out a triumphant noise. “Exactly. So, be a good co-driver, and play something exciting.”
“This is an ambulance, Newt. We have the classical jazz station, the news station, the emergency radio, or static and silence.”
“Sing something.” He offered, and you laughed loudly. “Maybe just yell exciting things at the top of your voice like it’s a James Bond movie. You can be my Bond woman.”
“Exciting things? You mean like ‘Quick, Newt, watch out for the rock slide’ or ���Oh my God, Newt, he’s shooting at us’?” He hummed, rolling his lips together a little, and looking into the mirror where the red van wasn’t all that far behind anymore. “Oh, okay, I got it. How about ‘Quick! Newt! The bomb that will destroy world peace and the alien trade federation is about to go off, hurry so you can disarm it and save the galaxy!”
“That’s the one!” He shouted back, laughter taking up the cabin between you both as he picked up a little more speed, growling under his breath as distant wailing took place. “Did they just turn the fucking sirens on?”
“That’s illegal! A crime! Disqualified!”
Only a moment later, the truck was passing you by, Thomas lounging in the front seat with a smirk on his face, not even bothering to look at the two of you as he held up his middle finger, feet popped up on the dashboard, before they were pulling ahead, and you gaped at it.
“He flipped us off!”
“He did what?” Newt sounded like he had been told that Thomas had run over his dog, before his face was growing stormy, and he peeled off towards one of the exits, and you sat up a little more in your seat.
“Newt, this isn’t our exit, why are we slowing down? This is war now!”
“We’re taking a shortcut! I think.”
You pouted, watching as he pulled off onto the quieter roads, already resigning yourself to the loss. The van moved slower, not by much and certainly still considered fast for these roads, and you didn’t recognise the area you were driving through until you were almost at the house, coming at it from a completely different angle. It was a side that the trucks would be unaware of, the roads on this side of the house too narrow for the trucks to navigate on, but an ambulance could definitely weave and dodge along them.
You were expecting the grey garage to already be stained with bright and shiny flashes of colour, but as you approached it, the bay was still empty, and you gasped.
Unclipping your seatbelt before the vehicle had even rolled to a halt, and as soon as it was in park, haphazardly and slightly wonky within the designated space but still inside the lines, and Newt was ripping the keys from the ignition. You didn’t even bother peeling away the plastic overs, both hopping down from the van, doors slamming, uncomfortable runs in wet shoes from the vehicle to the changing rooms, the door practically bounding from the wall with the urgency that you forced it open.
Your fingers were trembling with both the cold and the adrenaline as you opened your locker, grabbing for the towel and washbag that sat on the middle shelf, slamming the metal canister shut a second behind Newt, and on the other side of the room, you heard a shower curtain swipe open, before the water spray was coming on.
Kicking off your shoes onto the white tile, your socks were ridden with water, and you stopped into the basin, flimsy curtain closing behind you. Switching on the water, you didn’t care about clothes getting wet as they were all drenched regardless. The water was hot and strong, pouring down over you as you let out a breath in relief, sighing out at the feeling, and stripping the partially unbuttons shirt the rest of the way down.
Dropping it to the floor outside, your vest followed, bra dropping by your feet for modesty, not all too thrilled about the idea of the entire team seeing your underwear. One fireman was plenty enough. Your trousers came next, panties following your bra, and socks lastly, before you were freeing your hair from its bobble and scrubbing dirt from the tendrils. The water was murky as it pooled around your feet, and you grinned through the suds as you heard the locker room door open up.
“Nice of you guys to finally join us!”
Newt laughed at your words, and you scowled at the taste of shampoo that got in your mouth, eyes squeezed closed tightly, but you couldn't hold back your laughter at the several complaints that burst out.
The shower next to yours clicked into gear, a slight dip in the flow of water as it adjusted, and it was steadily growing weaker as the firemen all changed and climbed into a shower, but you had already shampooed, only some soap and conditioner to go.  
“How the fuck did you guys beat us here?”
“We played by the rules, Bren! Flicking on sirens, that was cheating.” You tutted, the girl scoffing from the cubicle beside you.
“Uh, playing it smart isn’t cheating!” She retaliated, and you scrubbed a bar of exfoliating soap over your skin, the extra shrub helping to rid you of the feeling of grunge from the lake away from your flesh. “But seriously, how the hell did you beat us here with so much time?”
“Newt knew a short cut, apparently.” She made a vague sound of agreement, the boys all chatting loudly from the other side of the room, and the build-up of steam was beginning to give you a headache. Running some conditioner through your hair and combing the knots out quickly, you finished up, switching off the water and finding your towel, hand fumbling outside of the stall for the material, before you were finding it, and wrapping it around your body. Wringing out your hair, you pushed back the shower curtain and stepped free.
Newt was at the lockers, pulling a shirt over his head, almost fully dressed, the plastic washing basket from the corner was sitting outside him, water pooling through the cracks to the floor as his clothes dripped, and you scooped up your own, dropping them in with his and flashing him a grateful smile as he all but nodded in a promise to load them into the washer.
His fluffy hair was almost dry already, messy and sticking up from his towel, and you envied how quickly he could get ready again. How quickly all men could get dressed, really.
Taking your kit over to the sink, you fastened your towel a little tighter around yourself again to make sure it would stay tight, before wiping a patch in the steamed-up glass to see your reflection. Running a collection of moisturisers and serums over your cheeks, keeping it at it’s best despite the smoky and dirty conundrums you found yourself in on a day to day basis, you rehydrated and cleansed your skin, before moving on to your hair.
Heading to your locker to get a new set of clothes, you lifted the catch open, the door swinging as you gathered belongings, checking you had everything for a new uniform in your back-up bag, before placing it down on the bench. As you closed it, you jumped, a body leaning on the metal on the other side, and a mumbled curse fell from your lips at the shock. Reaching up to clutch at the edge of your towel and ensure it didn’t fall, you glared at the laughing attacker.
“You fucking suck. Why are you scaring me when I’m in a towel? Dumbass.”
“Oh, ouch. Cranky today, huh?” Thomas teased, reaching out a finger to poke at your stomach through the towel, and you jumped, slapping his hand away as he chuckled more.
“I’m cranky when I’m in a towel, and risking flashing the entire team because you wanna’ startle me!” He smirked, eyes scanning over your body particularly slowly, as if to make a point, and you rolled your eyes, despite the heat forming on your face. Adjusting your towel again, he watched your fingers move, and you kicked at his shin, watching him hop around in his towel at the aggression.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“You know what that was for!” You held your fingers up, pointing them from your chest to your eyes, and he got a wicked grin once again as he clocked onto what you were saying. “Go away so I can get dressed in peace!”
“So now you don’t want me around? That’s not how you felt a couple of weeks ago.” You glared at him again, crossing your arms and stomping your foot a little, knowing what he was referring to, and he hadn't been any less affectionate since. At the action, though, he gave in, hands held up in a surrender and his laughter following him all the way around to his locker on the other side, leaving you alone.
Members of the team were still wandering around, and so you tried to be as quick but as discreet as you possibly could, tugging your panties and trousers up under your towel. Your spare shoes were uncomfortable and tight, barely worn in as opposed to your regular ones, and you were cold as you put on the clothes that had been chilling in the metal canister, bag ready to be taken home to refill.
Rubbing your towel across your hair to dry it out better, you left it as it was, towel folding in the bag to be taken home, and you placed it all back inside. Adjusting your fresh uniform to sit a little more comfortably on your body, your fingers smoothed along the collar and flattened it down, before sweeping still damp locks away from your clothes.
The men were all filtering from the room, a faster turn around as they dried, all carrying dirty and sodden uniforms to the laundry room to try and get them sorted, hoping to find themselves with one less task to do when they go home, and not wanting to stink up their cars with the foul smell that came with the water from the dock by trailing the wet garments home.
The dull buzzing of the only hairdryer the fire station had was already in use by Brenda, shorter hair looking a little crazy as she only had her fingers to come through instead of her usual styling brush, and she was scowling at her reflection in the mirror as her hair curved up in the wrong directions at the edges, bangs looking untamed. She glared at your snickering as you approached, finger flipping over the switch to turn it off, clearly deeming the effort good enough, and she stuck her tongue out at you and handed it over, letting you start it up to reduce some of the water trapped in your own hair as she tried desperately to do something to control it a little better.
“Why don’t you just comb it all back?”
“And look like a starring member from ‘Grease’? Want me to start singing ‘Go Grease Lightning’ on the top of one of the fire trucks, huh?” She was so over-dramatic, and yet you loved that about her, shaking your head and smirking a little as she continued to struggle. You weren’t all that bothered about getting it completely dry, just enough that you wouldn’t catch a chill from it. You didn’t really feel like facing the next few weeks with a sore throat and a blocked nose.
“Would it make you feel better if I told you that I’m pretty sure I have a curled brush in my bag?”
She paused her work, arms crossing over her chest, hip leaning on the porcelain of the sink, and you could feel her burning glare on you as you continued to keep your one hair tame just with the use of the machine and your fingers. “You’ve had a blow-dry brush this whole time and you let me suffer?”
“Uh, first off, it’s not a blow-dry brush. It’s just a round brush. Make do. Secondly, you make it sound like I had food and you’ve not eaten for three days.”
“Same thing.” She hissed, playfully through it all, and she didn’t wait for permission, before she was meandering to your locker over hers and letting herself in, beginning to dig through the items in there to find the brush. She let out a triumphant little noise, and as she all but skipped back across the room, you decided you were close enough to dry, shaking your head to tame fly-aways and handing her the dryer back. You turned, walking away from her, and she let out a sound of complaint. “You’re just gonna’ leave me in here, alone?”
“It’s the changing rooms, not a back-alley at a nightclub at 3am.”
“What if I get lonely?” She pouted, turning the heat up and power down, the whirring going quieter so neither of you had to shout quite as loudly to one another, and you shrugged, backing away from her a little more, and smirking.
“Talk to your reflection. I’m going to make a snack.”
She huffed, but smiled, turning back to her plans, and you were the only one to what your soft chuckle as you left, the chill out in the corridor being shocking as you stepped from the steam-filled room to the breeze-filled hall to the main bay, shuddering as goosebumps rose over your arms, and you crossed them across your chest to keep your heat in.
Thomas was standing at the entrance of the laundry room, a basket full of wet clothes, nose turned up a little as Newt and Jeff loaded the machines, and you didn’t envy them at all. The doors to the common room were sealed shut tightly, presumably to keep in the warmth, because Fry had turned on both of the space heaters, and the room was already warming up to being hot. The smell of garlic bread was filling the room, some kind of cheesy pasta following it, and Fry was already singing loudly to the song playing over the radio, almost drawing out the television as Gally watched a movie that was so old it was in black and white, but he wasn’t paying attention, rather, he was texting on his phone and enjoying the background noise.
Minho was sitting beside him much the same, fingers moving swiftly over the screen, and Clint was chewing on a pen at the table as he filled out the puzzles in one of the newspapers from last week's stack.
“What’cha making, Fry?”
“Chicken and mushroom pasta, you want some?” Your face screwed up, shaking your head, and he laughed. “Let me guess, you don’t like mushrooms?”
“They’re gross and slimy. No offence to your pasta.”
“They’re delicious, and healthy.” He corrected, and you grunted, opening the fridge, and pulling out a loaf of bread, shuffling through the contents of the fridge to find a topping you wanted. As you searched, a soft bumping at your ankle caught your attention, a sharp and chipper bark to follow it, and you glanced down, finding a wagging tail and a ball of golden fur staring up at you expectantly. “That dog is a bottomless pit of food!”
“He’s a growing boy!” You waved the cook off, taking a packet of ham out and peeling a slice off from the inside of the pack, holding it up at about waist height, and watching as the dog shuffled backwards, staring up at it and preparing himself. “C’mon, Scoot, jump!”
The dog did so, a happy yip sounding from him as he did, snatching half of the slice as it tore in your hands, and chewing down on it happily, pieces falling from its mouth and onto the floor, and he was quick to lick those up too. “He’s never going to learn any tricks if you pamper him like that.”
You looked up, Thomas having come through the doorway, Newt following behind him, your partner raising his shirt to his nose and sniffing at it, trying to determine whether the stench had transferred to his uniform just from doing the laundry, before collapsing down in the armchair. “He just did a trick! He jumped!” Scooter did it again, snatching the rest of the ham from your fingers, and you gasped as teeth brushed over your fingers, your hand snatching back, and Thomas chuckled, coming to a stop before you and taking the ham from your fingers.
“He did not jump on command, he just jumped for food.”
“Fine! You try!” You raised a brow, and Thomas took the challenge, a smirk forming.
“Scooter!” The dog’s head snapped to face him, from where he’d been occupying himself with pawing at one of your undone laces, now focused on Thomas. “Scooter, sit.” The dog remained still for a second, your lips pursing as he continued to pant and wag happily, stood on all four paws.
“What was it you were saying?”
Thomas’ eyes flicked up to you, narrowing for a second, before he was trying again. “Scooter, sit.” Your jaw was slack as the dog did exactly as told, sitting neatly and letting his tail brush over the flooring patterns, hearing the fridge behind you opening and closing, jars and tins rattling as Fry continued to cook. “Good boy, Scoot! No, lay down.” Thomas clicked his fingers, pointing at the floor, and the dog flattened out, staring up at Thomas expectantly, and you huffed. “Good boy. You want a treat?”
A bark signalled that, and Thomas rolled up a piece of the honey-glazed delicacy that Fry was snatching back a second later with mumbles about it being wasted, and Scooter stood up to snatch it, running away across the room in a pitter-patter of movements, scurrying away to his bed in the corner.
“See?”
“How the hell did you do that?” You demanded, washing your hands under the tap and drying them off, before going back to the sandwich you’d been preparing, and Thomas seated himself on one of the island stools with a shrug.
“I’ve been practising. Wanted to surprise you.”
“Well, consider me surprised.” You offered, grabbing a knife from one of the drawers, and Fry groaned beside you, shooting you both a dirty look as you began to spread the butter.
“Consider me revolted.” He gagged, and you rolled your eyes, swinging your foot out to kick at his shin, Thomas flipping him off despite the heat that was building on his cheek, and the chef wasn’t deterred from mimicking your conversation. “Seriously, get a room.”
“We have a room. It’s this kitchen. Two out of three, we win, majority rules.”
“Nice.” Thomas grinned, holding his hand out, and you slammed your palm against his in a satisfying high five, before pressing the knife down and cleaning it off, sealing the butter back up and putting it in the fridge, before grabbing your fillings. Layering them on carefully, you started slowly, constructing your sandwich carefully, and building it on your plate, before slicing it evenly down the middle, starting at your lunch proudly.
You only had a second to appreciate it, before a large hand was picking up a piece of it, taking it away and biting the corner off or it happily. “Hey! Who the hell said you could eat my sandwich?”
“Sharing is caring, sweetheart.” He winked, taking another large bite and speaking through his food, hopping down from the stool, and your face screwed up. You took your now half a sandwich, walking towards the empty couch and hearing Thomas trail after you, the couch the wrong way to the screen, but you weren’t all that bothered about what was happening in this movie anyway, and so you faced away from it, spreading out along the couch. “Move your legs.”
“Give me my sandwich back!”
“It’s half gone now!” He held it up, showing you the evidence of the half-eaten piece, and you shrugged. As if to prove a point, he pushed the rest of it all into his mouth at once, cheeks feeling with food and lips barely able to close, before he was brushing crumbs from his shirt, and picking your legs up at the ankles, lifting them up to be able to sit down.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Yep.” His words were muffled, your feet being laid back down across his lap, and you took a more polite bite of the remaining half. His fingers moved to your shoes, finding the undone laces and wrapping them around his fingers, before pulling them tightly and looping them into neat knots. He repeated the same on the other foot, before slumping back into the couch a little, still trying to chew the whole mouthful, and you wiggled a little as you got more comfortable, sliding further down until it was your calves in his lap instead of your feet, and your shoulders could rest on the armrest.
His hand rested on your knee, thumb smoothing over you lightly as his other hand produced his phone from his pocket, beginning to swipe at it absentmindedly.
“You two are honestly sickening. I have toothache.”
“Oh, cut the crap, Newt. You spent a half-hour on the phone to me two days ago talking about Derek.” Newt looked shocked for a second, pale cheeks flushing with warm colour, before he was shrugging it off.
“Yeah, well, at least me and Derek have never cuddled in a waiting room at his job.”
“We aren’t cuddling right now!” You scoffed, taking another bite of your sandwich, and chewing it as you process what to say next. “Besides, it would be unprofessional to cuddle in a waiting room where patients could see. This is totally different because we’re inside the house, an-”
Your words went flat as you heard the siren overhead go off, even Thomas’ thumb on your knee pausing its motions, everybody going silent, only the sounds of sizzling oil and the muted television static to go as the alarm went off. You deflated, only yourself and Newt being called for, and you heaved yourself to a sitting position, Newt already beginning to peel his body back up out of the comfy chair he’d seated himself in.
“At least it’s only a local call, we’ll be back before the shift even ends.”
Your partner’s words did little to comfort you, and he chuckled as you continued to glare, before forcing yourself into action.
Swinging your legs down to sit up, you looked mournfully at your only half-eaten meal, before handing the plate to Thomas, who beamed at the offering, your fingers tousling his hair before you were wandering away, and attempting to pull your hair back into something that resembled a pony-tail using on the bobble on your wrist and your fingers.
Newt grabbed the keys, ready to set off, and you followed after him as the doors remained yet to even start swinging shut in his haste. Reaching the van, you hesitated as you neared climbing in, stripping away the plastic over your seat and dropping it down into the footwell of the van, watching Newt do the same. Starting up the ambulance and fastening your seatbelt, Newt flicked on the SatNav, the machine taking a second to load up, before it was programming in your given destination and beginning to guide you.
“So, that’s something pretty new.”
“What is?” Your eyes flickered over yourself, the same uniform you always wore clad on your body, and a pair of sneakers, your brow raising as you turned to your friend, the silence saying everything, and he scoffed. Switching gears as he pulled out onto the faster roads, he spared you a look, dubious and unbelieving of your confusion.
“You know what.”
“I assure you, I don’t.” You shuffled a little, the radio crackling, but none of the chatter directed toward the two of you was coming through yet, and you waited.
He sighed, flicking on the indicators and pulling out onto the highway. “You and Tommy. That’s what I’m talking about. What’s up with you two?”
Heat flushed over your face, and you sank back a little further into your seat, but your lips wanted to form a smile, and you had to bite down on the inside of your cheek just to contain it. “I’m not totally sure.”
“You’re not sure?”
“Well, I kinda’ know. It’s all so new. It’s scary, but exhilarating.” Newt only smiled, eyes flicking to the mirror to check over everything he was looking at, before taking another turn following the SatNav, a side road to leave the highway, and you were still waiting on call details to come through on the radio. “I mean, I know it’s something. He knows that, too. We’ve talked about it, but we’re just, sort of, waiting.”
“Waiting for what, exactly?”
“The right time, I guess.” You sighed, realising how odd it all sounded out loud, to be talking like a teenager to your friend about a guy you liked, but it also felt natural and right. “Everything has just been crazy lately. I don’t think we would be like we were without the craziness, and it’s kinda’ weird to think that this job has changed my life so much, that this house has changed my life so much, when none of the others did before. I think we’re just waiting to see if it’s real, or just an in-the-moment emotional deal.”
“Seems pretty real to me.”
You smiled, knowing that Newt’s words were intended to be soothing, but instead, they made your heart race a little more.
Everything made your heart race nowadays, like you were in overdrive all the time, you were constantly on the edge, and not in an anxious way. You’d spent so much of your life feeling closed off and locked down that you weren’t used to how it felt to be on the opposite end of the scale. You had anxiety, and fear, and loneliness, that was your normal status, but since settling into Firehouse ‘21, everything had been turned upside down.
Your heart would race with thrill and excitement, and the heat flushing over you wasn’t so much from rage - after you’d sorted your problems with Thomas, anyway - but from flustered shyness. On the days when you felt lonely, when the urge to be around someone else was stronger, your phone was there, lighting up with notifications from a group chat and you knew you had friends you could call, someone who would spend time with you, when they weren’t on duty.
It was all still new, and a little scary, and still thrilling.
Then, there was Thomas. You weren’t sure what it was with Thomas, because you had nothing to compare it to. Your previous relationships had been quick and spinning. A fling that ended just as fast as it started, almost always ending after a first date with tumbling into bed and shutting down when the first signs of intimacy began to rear their heads. You moved around and you never stayed put long enough to invest in something, but you had no plans of leaving Firehouse ‘21 any time soon, and so you’d allowed yourself to let Thomas in before you’d even realised it was happening.
Intimate and emotional, a connection that wasn’t physical yet, you didn’t even know what it felt like to kiss him, and yet it still made you feel a little breathless and lightheaded to imagine it because there was a weight and meaning hanging to it now. There was something deeper than you’d ever had, a relationship that wasn’t pinned on sex and quick connections to chase away the cold sheets when you felt truly alone, but instead, left you feeling warm and loved even when no one was around.
“So, what about you and Derek?”
It was Newt’s turn to be embarrassed, the gravel and shale under the tires crunching loudly as the two of you began to trail up abandoned dirt roads, the rickety and deafening sounds of the trains of the metal bridges overhead shooting past were like the banging of metal against metal, hitting a spoon against a pan or steel-tipped work boots on metal platforms.
Pale skin turned dark pink, and he flashed a cheesy grin, eyes sparkling a little, and you already knew how excited he was. “That good, huh?”
“Things with Derek are awesome.”
“I take full responsibility for that awesomeness.” You teased, and he chuckled, the van coming to a halt, and your brows furrowed, amusement disappearing and confusion over as you stared out at the empty scene. The SatNav on the dashboard clicked green and shut down as you reached your destination, clearly telling you both that this was the correct location, and yet there was nothing, and nobody to be seen. “Put a pin in that conversation.”
He only mumbled his response, equally as confused, and the two of you stepped out of the car, a chill sweeping over you as it became eerily similar to the last case you’d received with nobody present, still so recent that the police investigation into it was still open, the court case over Chuck’s death was yet to be closed and the arson investigators hadn't even completed their analysis. “Check the radio. Is it turned on?”
You moved back in, knowing that it was because the static had been playing lowly in your ears all the way through, but there was nothing else. Normally, at a call on the edge of a town like this, the two of you would be greeted by someone, a frantic pedestrian, friend or family member, the person who had made the call would arrive to lead you to the person, and even as you listened, you couldn't hear anything.
No loud groaning or yells of pain, no mangled screams for help or even a blood trail to guide you. There was absolutely nothing to suggest why the two of you would be here, and it all became more and more suspicious as each second ticked by. Newt tucked his hands into his pockets, and you picked up the receiver, sitting sideways on your seat and turning the dial, before pressing the button down on the side.
“House ‘21 ambulance, calling in. We haven't had any more details, can we get an update?”
You waited for a second, eyes narrowing as the machine clicked you through to an operator, and there were muffled voices in the background of the call centre, before a clearer voice rang through. “‘21 ambulance, can you confirm your location, registration number and ID for me.”
Newt smirked at the frown on your face, knowing that every so often a caller came who actually required you to cite the information. While you couldn't deny that it was protocol, and they should be doing it every time, most of them took it simply at your word of being the paramedics, because they knew that most robbers wouldn't be bothering to call in on the radio of they were stealing from an ambulance, they’d just clear out all the medicines and run.
Listing off the information she requested, you listened and waited, the sound of long nails typing quickly at a keyboard sounded out, and you turned up the volume, holding the device out from you a little, so Newt could hear more clearly, even as he wandered a few feet away, looking around some more. “Still there, ‘21?”
“Yep.” You paused, hearing a few more clicks, before the woman was sighing.
“My files don’t have much. The caller didn’t leave a name or an identification, the only notes here are the address, and that you’re looking for a stab wound victim.” Newt's brows raised as he heard the words, and you only felt more confused. If someone had been stabbed, there should be a trail of blood or someone calling for help, you should be able to see them, they couldn't have gotten far without leaving a pathway of where they were, and yet, there was nothing here except the trains on the bridge overhead. “That all?”
“That's all.”
She hung up not long after, and you grabbed for your go-bag, chucking Newt his bag too, and he only just managed to catch it as the breath was knocked from his lungs, sticking his tongue out at you childishly as you grinned, before slamming your door back shut, and letting Newt lock it up, the van chirping and flashing as it sealed.
Swinging your bag onto your shoulder, your partner mimicked you. Wandering away together, you paced a few minutes from the van, staring out across the empty area, and crossing your arms. “I gave up my lunch for this shit.”
“You go left, I’ll go right, we’ll sweep around, and in ten minutes we meet at the van?” You only nodded, kicking at a particularly large pebble under your foot, and turning to face the direction you were told to go in. You heard Newt stepping away, pebbles shifting underfoot, and you followed suit, glancing back at the blond over your shoulder for a second. “Yell if you find something.”
“Will do.” You saluted, a grin thrown over his shoulder to you, before fixing your gaze ahead of you once again.
There were a few old houses, run-down and abandoned, nobody having lived in them for at least a decade. Broken windows were boarded up and front doors were hanging on their hinges, spray paint that was old and faded, drips and chips on the wood that was stained with years of abandonment, and wire fences with chains on that had been long since cut away. The grass was dead, yellowed and brown and overrun with weeds, and spoke spots ere charred blank with ash, where you suspected kids had come to light fires and get away from parents when they were bored; empty bottles of booze and cans of pop littered the ground, among wrappers and boxes for things too old to see the labels on.
You checked every garden, standing in the gate and calling out to offer help, but nothing except for silence came back. The rusty metal creaked as you stepped out from the last row, three random houses in an area of town that had clearly been skipped in the surrounding gentrification, left to fall into disrepair, and you didn’t blame it. The constant source of trains of the tracks overhead was already beginning to give you a headache, there were no real roads built to this area, and it was miles to the closest bus stop or shopping centre.
Turning back around, you didn’t walk straight back to him, but you walked a little to the side, taking an angle back towards the van just to be sure you were covering the maximum space that you could, checking over it all thoroughly, and just as you’d been giving up, your eyes caught the flicker of movement in your peripherals. When you focused on it, it took you a second to find it again, the trembling of metal stilts holding the bridge up forty feet above you disguising it, but then there was a twitch again.
In the shadows, easily missed, but then there they were. Sitting, leaned up against one of the bars from the other side, hand-pressed weakly over their stomach, head lolled to the side. You weren’t even sure if they had moved, or if they’d simply slumped forward because of the vibrations of the rickety bridge legs, and you felt a jolt of adrenaline race through you as you tried to jump into action.
“Shit!” You muttered, a slight rise on the hill before you as you tried to climb up it, the dust forming clouds behind you as the stones slipped at the sudden and uncoordinated movements, before you were stumbling closer to the person. “Newt!”
Another train shot overhead, drowning out the sounds of your shouts, and you hoped Newt had actually heard it, because you’d walked so far that he was more like a blur away from you, and you certainly couldn't hear his yells as he offered help anymore, they’d faded away a few minutes ago, but you couldn't be occupied with it now. The second the train had passed, you tried yelling again, out of breath and panting as you dropped to your knees before the person.
Their head was lying forward, chin pressed to their chest, fresh red blood seeping out between their fingers in weak bursts, and at least you knew they were still alive. Cupping their face, you pushed their head back, skin sickly pale and flushed with sweat, a very quiet groan leaving his lips, and hooded eyes cracked open barely at all to look at you. “Did you make that call?”
“Call?” He echoed, seemingly confused about what was even happening, but with the amount of blood that was staining the pebbles around you and clumping in the dust and dirt as it turned dark, you weren’t all that surprised.
“Alright, buddy, we’ll get you all sorted out, okay?” You circled a hand around behind his neck, the other on his side, and you needed to lay him down just to be able to get to the wound, because you couldn't see anything with him slumped over like this, daylight partially blocked out from the bridge overhead and shadows forming over the man. “I need to get you laying down, think you can handle that?”
He didn’t even nod, simply made a broken hum under his breath that you decided to take as an acknowledgement, before pulling him forwards. He let out a louder cry this time, the pain taking him over, and you heard the rapid-fire crunches of Newt running towards you, slightly uneven footsteps on his hurt leg, but you didn’t pay any attention to it, grateful that he’d heard you, but focusing on your patient.
His hands had fallen away from his wounds, and you fumbled for your torch, the light designed to check eyes did little to light up the wound but blood was staining the pale shirt he wore, leaving wet red patches as far up as his ribs. Newt skidded to a stop behind you, a hand running through the longer fringe in his face as he pushed it back, eyes wide.
“Well, shit, I’ll be damned.”
“Knife wound, pretty deep, can you hold the torch for me?” He nodded, stains of red smeared across it from where you’d already got blood on your fingers, and you pushed up the edge of his shirt, getting a look at the wound. He sank to his knees, holding the light over it more clearly, and you hoped he could sense your silent appreciation. It helped you to see, but didn’t clarify much, because blood was smeared over his skin and gave illusions about where his injuries started and ended, bubbling blood still leaving the gash. Dropping your bag down to your side, you opened it up, fumbling through for a pair of rubber gloves, and a tissue to be able to wipe away the blood with.
Snapping the latex onto your wrists and taking the folded clump of paper, dragging it delicately but firmly over the spot to try and get a better look. A second, maybe two, was all you got of clear skin before blood was beginning to fill the space once again, the man’s shallow pants and groans getting lighter and weaker, and you knew you had to hurry, lost time in having to search for him taking its toll now, but it was long enough to get a good look.
“We’re going to need some stuff from the van, probably the stretcher, but I don’t know how well we can wheel him across that gravel.”
“I can just pull up the van?” He offered, clicking off the torch to hand it back to you as you put the correct pressure down on the wound to stop the bleeding, pinching around the edges and holding tight to seal the wound, and you nodded.
“Yeah, yeah. That’s good. Pull up the van!”
He nodded, brushing dust from his knees as he stood, and you used your other hand to begin searching through your bag for the disinfectant spray you needed to start cleaning up his wound so you could put a provisionary seal on it.
You found the canister, shaking it carefully and trying to squeeze the lid with two fingers to get it off, a ‘pop’ sounding before the fading footsteps Newt was making came to a sudden halt.
“Woah, woah, woah..” You looked up, eyes widening and blood running cold at the sight. Newt had his hand held up, a man who’d ace you couldn't quite see behind the baseball cap and the hood he had pulled up to obscure his features, sleeves reaching gloved hands, and a gun in one hand, finger pressed over the trigger as Newt took a few steps back toward you both and stumbling slightly, his leg going weak as he stood unevenly on a rock, and you couldn't help the gasp in fear that left you. “Look, man, we don’t want any trouble. We just got a call, for that guy.”
He reached out one hand, pointing to where you were kneeling still, and you leaned forwards, moving very slowly as you tried to press down gently on the top of the canister, spraying gently on the wound, but as the man let out a sudden and pained noise, the gun moved to you, and you froze, jumping back from the actions and dropping the can.
“I know, because I made the call.”
“You made the call?” You repeated, the face of the shadowed man becoming a little clearer, a large tattoo taking up one side of his face, and you shifted, the uncomfortable stones digging into your knees making you wince as you tried to hold still, an ache in your muscles as your heart raced with fear once again. “If you made the call, why can’t we help him.”
“You’re not here to help him, his wound is just to get you here.”
“You stabbed a man to get ahold of a paramedic?” The gun clicked, the safety catch off, and you swallowed thickly, internally berating yourself for asking such a question when the moment was so tense. “Look, we’ll come with you, we’re more than happy to, but just let me help him and then we’ll go wherever y-”
“Lady, if you don’t stop talking, I will blow your fucking brains all over these stones.” Your jaw snapped shut, heart freezing in your chest entirely, and you nodded dumbly. “Great, now get the fuck up, grab your bag, and walk over here real slow.”
You hesitated, only for a second, before lifting your hand from the man’s wound, hearing him groan out a little, and you ducked your head, knocking your bag over and the contents falling out across the gravel. “I don’t know if you’re even sentient enough to hear me right now,”
Your words were as low as you could get them, hoping then standing a few metres away wouldn't pick them up as he focused back on Newt, and you packed away slowly,
“If you can, I’m leaving the antiseptic and some gauze here. You need to pinch the sides of your wound, lay still, take deep breaths, and hold as much pressure as you can. In about forty minutes, we’d be due to make a call in, we’re supposed to every hour we’re out; when we don’t report in, they’ll send another ambulance. Just hold on, alright?”
You nudged the items a little further into the shadows, hoping the man had caught your words and had the strength to hold on, before you were peeling off your gloves, tucking them into your bag, and zipping it up to sit on your shoulder. Holding your hands up to show they were empty, you stepped beside Newt, the look on his face silently questioning if you were alright, and you gave him a subtle nod, raising a brow in return, and he ducked his head once in reply.
He stood behind you both, pushing the edge of the gun against Newt’s head to urge you both forward, and you matched his steps, the three of you walking slowly as you allowed yourself to be guided. There was a sleek black car pulled up, one you’d missed when arriving, and you suspected he’d driven away and waited somewhere for the ambulance to go past before pulling up again, because it wasn’t exactly hidden.
“Look, we’re going willingly, alright? No fight here, I’ll help. Our ambulance is right there,” You pointed to it, hands still raised up, arms beginning to ache and tire, and Newt folded his, resting his hands behind his head, and turning to look at you as you spoke, “Just let me call in for someone else to come help the other guy, they won’t even get here until after we’ve gone anyway, it’ll t-”
Your ears were ringing, the sound of the bang going off, the rush of air, and the way it felt like an explosion had gone off inside of your own head. You stumbled, falling to your knees at the impact as your entire body went weak, and your vision went black for a second as you tried to process it. You couldn't focus, everything seeming a little blurry, and you could feel Newt’s hands on your shoulders, shaking you, a very muffled shout of your name, before it was all torn backwards once again, and you felt nauseous as the shock swept through your body.
The man crouched down, pulling his hood back and directing an angry gaze straight at you as you blinked to clear your vision, barely able to hear a thing. “That was a fucking warning shot, speak again, and the next bullet won’t miss.”
You had to read his lips for half of the words he said, barely processing them, the bullet that had flown past your ear was making everything fade around the edges, and you were hauled roughly to your feet by a hand under your arm, leaning you against Newt as you staggered the final few feet to the car that was your destination. You could barely clear your head, shaking it a little bit finding even that action was too painful.
Blood was rushing, your headache felt like it was about to split your skull in half, and your shoulder ached as you were tossed down roughly into the open boot, unable to catch yourself in time. Newt followed, the lid slamming shut, darkness surrounding instead. You could feel Newt’s hands on you, the flash of light from his keyring over your irises making you wince, his fingers pressing along your jaw and around your ears, checking for any signs of a ruptured eardrum or any bleeding, but as the car rumbled to life, peeling out of abandoned area everything felt like it was slipping.
Your fingers scratched at the flooring of the car, nails digging into the felt, grains and dirt stuck under your fingernails, and then the car jolted, dipping into a pothole on the road, your head hitting against the floor of the car, and everything you were still clinging to was lost as well as you blacked out.
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sincerlypadfoot · 5 years ago
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Seconds (2)
~During the time of the order of Umbridge and the dumbledore army, you have no problems summoning your Patronus, doing it on the daily, watching the dragon fly around your room, but once you see someone who catches your eye who has troubles, you're determined to find his happy moment
Word Count- 1267
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I stood in front of a large wooden door, tapping my leg and staring into the window, a old lady sat on her chair, using her wand to knit and clean her living room.
My head stopped spinning and I grabbed all the courage inside of me, not understanding why I was nervous. I placed my knocked on the door, firmly knocking then backing up.
“Liara,” Neville said with a smile. “I’m not really ready yet, would you like to come in?” He asked opening his door a little further.
“We have some time to spear, sure,” I replied looking behind me then walking into the house. I looked around his house, a couple stood in one photo with a baby in their hands.
“You must be Liara,” An old woman said walking towards me, the same old woman who I saw cleaning her living room. “Augusta Longbottom,” She said with a smile sticking out her hand.
“Liara Nolans,” I smiled shaking her hand. “I’ll have Neville back before it gets too late, we’re just going to a carnival a couple towns down,” I said looking at Neville who walked down the stairs, dressed in a checkered flannel and black pants.
“You two stay out for as long as you’d like, have fun,” Augusta said patting my shoulder, she opened the door for us, I walked out with Neville. “Keep her safe, she’s pretty,” I heard her whispered to Neville making me smile, he shut the door and it was just the two of us.
“Sorry about my grandma, I’ve never had anyone over before,” Neville chuckled pulling out his ticket from his pocket. “So where are we going first?” He asked looking around.
“Magic, follow me,” I chuckled grabbing Neville's hand, we both ran across the street and into a bus terminal. “Watch this,” I whispered, I pressed the wall, looking for the button. “Right here,” I mumbled, the wall opened and a purple slide appeared. 
“You want me to go down that?” Neville asked stepping out beside me. “Where does it lead?” He asked leaning over.
“Do you trust me?” I asked shifting my body to face him. “It leads to the carnival, your gonna love this,” I chuckled. “We go together, I’ll be right behind you,” I said grabbing onto Neville's hand again.
“I trust you, I’ll see you down there then,” Neville said sitting on his butt, I gave him a big of a nudge and he flew down, I took a look behind me then back at the slide.
“Geronimo!” I shouted jumping in, I landed on my back sliding down, the wall shifting and the slide was complete darkness. “Neville!” I shouted knowing we weren’t gonna be there for the next couple of minutes.
“It’s dark in here!” Neville shouted making me smile. “How are we still going, I’ve never done this before!” He shouted again making me laugh, it had shocked me that Neville had never gone through the slide travelling before.
“We’re almost there, you’ll see the bright light!” I yelled looking around the purple slide we had jumped down was now changing all different colours. 
I heard Neville slightly scream, I smiled closing my eyes, falling right onto a soft surface.
“That was awesome,” Neville said jumping off the bouncy house that laid under the slide. “Here let me help you,” I crawled to the end of the bouncy house and took Neville's hand, jumping off and smiling at him.
“Tickets please,” A tall woman said standing behind us, Nevile and I turned around, he pulled his ticket out and I pulled mine out. “Go on in, have the time of your life,” She said with no tone in her voice.
“Come on, we’re gonna have so much fun,” I giggled grabbing onto Nevilles hand and dragging him into the fence infront of us, bright lights were all around us, people screaming of joy on rides, magic was all around us.
“How have I never heard of this before?” Neville asked looking around, we were both holding hands not realizing still.
“It’s kinda the ministry thing, fudge had it planned for the underground, my parents gave me ticket and I thought you could use the fun,” I chuckled looking over at a boat. “Come on, we should go on this first,” I suggested pulling Neville towards the boat.
“This is awesome,” Neville said, he looked around as we waited in line. “We’re holding hands,” he chuckled making me look down, I let go of his hand and nervously smiled.
“Liara,” Ryker said coming up to me and Neville, with Milly on his side. “You must be the boy my sister talks about,” He said putting his hand out to Neville, I looked at Milly then at Ryker.
“Neville Longbottom,” Neville nervously said shaking Ryker hand. “I didn’t know that you had a brother Liara,” He said turning to me.
“We’re gonna go, I like your outfit,” Milly said winking at me and pulling Ryker away, my face turned a dark shade of pink.
“It’s okay,” Neville said grabbing my hand. “Come on the line is moving,” he said pulling me towards the ride, I smiled and watched Neville crawl onto the ride sitting at the boat, he let go of my hand.
“Yeah my brothers a special one,” I chuckled rubbing the back of my neck. “He used to go to hogwarts last year, just graduated,” 
“I had wished I got a sibling but,” Neville stopped not wanting to share so much. “But I guess my friends are kinda like that,” He chuckled then grabbing onto the bar infront of us. “Hang on,” he chuckled again as the ride started going, a group of young girls looking about to be in their second year started screaming and laughing, filling the whole ride with laughter.
“This is amazing,” I yelled looking down as the boat flew into the air, bringing our side of the ride to a complete straight line, I placed my hands on Nevilles out of fear, exhaling as we flew down.
“We have to do that again,” Neville said fixing his already messy hair  “What else would you like to do?” Neville asked making me smile.
For the rest of the night we tried all the rides, almost laughing until we cried on some of them, and swearing that we were never gonna go back on that one again on other ones.
“Thank you for winning me this,” I chuckled holding a little stuffed rabbit in my hand. “I had a great time tonight Neville, I hope you did too,” I said nervous.
“Tonight was the most fun night I had had in almost forever, usually I just play cards with my Grandma on friday nights” Neville chuckled, we stopped infront of his house. “Are you sure your gonna get home safe? With everything going on i’m more than happy to take you,” He said.
“I’m fine Neville, I only live a couple blocks down, i’ll just take my normal path, we should do this again thought, it was really funny,” I smiled grabbing his hand.
“We should,” Neville said holding my hands back. “I ugh hope you have a good christmas Liara,” He said smiling. I let go of his hands and took a silent breath.
“You two Neville, i’ll see you around,” I smirked kissing his cheek and walking down his steps, I didn’t look back but smiled to myself, cutting through the houses and making it back to my house with my shortcut in about five minutes.
“Cover up i’m home!” I called out walking into the house. “Milly? Ryker?” I shouted looking around, Millys dress she was wearing was laying on the ground. I smiled to myself. “Have a good night guys, don’t make me a auntie anytime soon,” I shouted trailing myself up to my room.
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How to make a simple chair in cinema 4D.
For my first 3D modelling project I was tasked with creating a simple chair using all of the basic functions and tools that cinema 4D provides. As this was my first project we started out simple with a basic four legged chair with some holes in the backrest.
I first started by creating a base from which I would create the rest of the chair. I started out with a basic square because I can create a chair using all the basic tools from this one square. To get the square shape I selected the cube shape in the model selector and then squished it down using the arrows on the actual cube. To squish this cube down you can either use the measurements in the model info when you click on the shape down in the bottom left or you can use the little orange square on the movement arrows to change the height or width of the shape.
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Now that this has been created I need to now create different segments on the actual shape so that I can pull the legs and back of the chair from this original shape that I have created. To get these lines there are a selection of tabs on the viewport (the place where the model is) which do different things to the model. The one I selected was the ‘Display’ tab which is the third from the left in the viewport. Once this was selected a whole load of different viewing styles were put forward but the one I wanted was the gouraud shading (lines) because this allowed me to cut the model (or the object as it is a physical model in the software) into segments without actually cutting the object. Initially you just get an outline around the shape so to be able to get a grid like form across the object you need to go back to the bottom left where the object information is and increase the amount of segments in the x and z section. This will form a grid of segments that can be interacted separately from one another which is incredibly important for creating something like a chair.
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This next step is crucial and without it you can’t select the different segments of the initial object or create the legs and back of the chair. This step is to make the object editable by either using the shortcut of ‘c’ to make the object editable or to go to the top right under the tools bar and clicking the button that looks like this:
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Now that this step has been completed you can move onto creating the legs and back of the chair. How you do this is by selecting the four corner segments on one of the sides of the shape and then right clicking to bring up another tools interface and then choosing the extrude option. The extrude option will allow you to elongate the segments you have chosen without deforming the initial abject from which you are extruding. I found that when I was creating legs or backs to objects that a small extrusion layer in between the initial object and the legs provides a little safety barrier so that any other extrusions don’t mess with any existing extrusions. To create the back of the chair is exactly the same process as creating the leg the only difference is that you need to select a whole line of segments rather than just selecting the four corner segments. (to select more than one segment at once hold down shift whilst left clicking to add and remove highlighted segments).
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After this it gets a tiny bit more complicated since we are adding in different functions so that we can remove certain objects to add some holes into the back of the chair just to add some detail. To start this process you need to create two objects (or as many as you want) that will effectively punch a hole into the chair wherever you would like a hole. To create these two objects just use the same process you used to create the original object for the chair. Once this has been done place them wherever you want there to be a hole and then make them editable either using the button in the top right or the key ‘c’.
Next comes the slightly confusing part since it includes something called a Boole. A Boole is a way of adding or subtracting objects to or from another object easily. Booles are really useful for this kind of chair project as they are easy to use and offer a quick and easy solution for small detailing. The only difficult bit around using a Boole is that it is a little difficult to get your head around initially. Once you understand it however, it is really quick and simple to use.
For this project you are going to want to create a Boole by going to the tab where you got the initial object from:
And then go along to the fourth tab from the left called arrays. You will want to click this and go along to the boole section and click the Boole option. Once you have clicked this you will see in the top right that a Boole tab has appeared in the objects list. The objects list is just a list of all the objects you have created so that you can easily apply textures and find where your models are if you are creating a big project that is made up of different objects.
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Now that you have created a boole you will want to left click the initial object which should just be labeled as ‘object and drag it into the Boole section in the objects list. Nothing should happen yet because you haven't removed the other objects that you have created. To remove these other objects you are going to want to select one of them and drag it into the Boole section. If this completely gets rid of the initial object (the chair) just make sure that in the Boole section that the initial object is placed above the object you want to to remove. Now one of your holes should be open. To get the other hole open you will want to click and drag the next object into the first object that you removed like shown in this screenshot here. You can keep doing this, switch as many objects as you want, to create as many holes as you want.
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Now the actual structure of the chair is complete, the only thing left is to add some colour or some texture. To do this you need to go to the bottom of the screen to where there should be an empty box. This empty box is what houses the textures and colours that you want to or have applied to an object in the viewport.
To create a texture or a material as it is called in cinema 4D, you will want to go to the empty box and click the create tab. Once you have clicked on the create tab a whole list of options should come up. Within those options you will want to click the ‘create new material’ option. This will add a sphere in the previously empty box. This sphere initially is just white and matte so to change it you want to right click on the sphere and choose the ‘edit..’ option. This will bring up a screen so that you can edit and change the colour of the sphere.
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To apply this colour that you have created simple just click and drag it onto the object you have created. This should colour your object the colour you have chosen. If it misses some of the inside bits from where you removed the other objects just click and drag once more and them go up to the objects list and drag the colour onto the first shape you removed like this:
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Now you have a complete and coloured chair made only using cinema 4D’s tools and systems.
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marionendaicperth · 5 years ago
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Mario Nenadic Perth | Top 9 iPhone Photography Hacks That Will Make You Feel like WOW!
Hello I am Mario Nenadic Perth people also called me Mario Nenadic Melbourne. Today i am going to cover some amazing and rarely used photography hack you can do with your iPhone. There is hundreds of photography hacks but i am covering top 9 hacks that is very useful and worthy. So let's start.
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1. USE A DIFFERENT BUTTON
In case you didn't know, you may really use your + volume button on the side of your phone to take a picture, a bit like pressing the camera on a camera. It's a TON easier than attempting to fashion your hands into a claw to press on the button on the display, particularly during selfies.NOTE: This includes the volume button in your earphones, in case you have these, which means you can be even further from the camera.
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2. HAVE A SHORTCUT
Again, ICYMI, do not faff about logging into your phone for to the camera. There's a tiny camera icon in the bottom right. Swipe up that and it is going to open your own camera. If you don't need the faff of attempting to maintain your phone for a selfie AND take the image (just how many people have dropped their phone this way?) , use the timer.
Click the clock icon in the top right and set the time. Then all you need to do would be to hold your telephone, perfect your pose and wait for it to take.
3. USE BURST MODE
If you would like to take a collection of photos in rapid succession (ideal if you are on a fairground ride, moving quickly in a vehicle, at a fast-paced event, etc), just hold down on the shutter and it'll rapidly take one photo after another before you go ahead.
4. USE THE FOCUS
To ensure that your pics are properly sharp and focusedtap whatever part of the screen is your primary subject. Useful if you would like to shoot some pics close to the lens, with a background.
5. FIDDLE WITH THE EXPOSURE
If you tap on the picture there appears a little sun alongside the square. You can slide down and this up to alter the brightness of the image.
6. TRY AUTO HDR
Do it, do it! HDR stands for high dynamic range and it essentially gives you a much better quality image by *JARGON* blending the best areas of three distinct exposures. Just click the small HDR at the peak of the camera screen.
Sometimes it can lead to over-saturated fake-looking colours though, so use with caution. It is ideal for shots with a lot of different light levels (sun and shade in the summer, a pond, etc).NOTE: HDR pics save in addition to a regular version AND they are bigger files. Thus, it might be worth turning 'Keep Regular Photo' on your settings.
7. Utilize A GRID
Seriously, I SO generous with his time for this featureGETTY IMAGESProceed to Settings and then scroll down to Photos & Camera and turn 'Grid'. This way, you can line up your shot . But there's also a snazzier motive... In photography, there is a theory that pictures seem better (read: artier) when your subject is a third of the way from the right or the left.
8. TRY A TIME-LAPSE
Try Time-Lapse style as it requires a picture, if Burst Mode is somewhat too fast-paced for your requirements. Only press the red'record' button and to begin to prevent it. It works best if the telephone is still though, so in the event that you attempt to rest it don't have a hand or create a tiny makeshift tripod.
9. GET FANCY WITH PANORAMA MODE
Where there's multiples of the same individual in 1 shot if you are clever, you can produce a picture. All you need is to operate from the opposite direction out of shot and back while one individual slowly pans around.
Thanks for reading .hope above iPhone photography hacks help you to get amazing photo of your choice. For more photography hacks keep following
Mario Nenadic Perth
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onenightandgone · 8 years ago
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Mind’s Eye - Chapter Five
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Chapter Five Mutant!AU SehunxReaderxKai Reader’s discretion for a few 18+ moments
The darkness of the movie theater had been the first place you thought of for you to be left with your thoughts as much as possible on a day that was meant to be spent entirely in Kai's company. You had let him pick the movie. He did so joyfully, selecting a comic book remake that had every possible superhero trope in it.
The trailers began to play, and you sank back in your seat, thankful for the armrest finally separating you from the hands that had been on you all morning.
Kai looked over at you and smiled. The light from the screen battled harshly with the shadow over the curves of his lips. The train of thought you had been trying so hard to conduct crashed abruptly. You didn't even notice, however; your focus had been lost when the hand you thought you wouldn't miss appeared on your thigh.
He chuckled and scrunched his face, squeezing your leg.
You turned your attention to the screen and hoped he didn't recognize your hard swallow or the tinge of blush that had set up camp on your face.
Kai stole in and kissed your cheek, converting the tinge into a deep burn.
You adjusted yourself in your seat, but it only served to move his hand up higher.  
Since when did they keep theaters so warm? The air conditioning must have been broken.
His hand pressed down, his thumb moving in a swift circle. The pattern became soothing, after a while. You found your resistance quickly slipping through your fingers.
The public service announcement telling patrons to turn off their cell phones and keep conversations to a minimum began to play as Kai leaned over, his forehead resting against your temple.
'Watch the movie,' you hissed.
A poor choice for rebellious, always-do-the-opposite-of-what-you-say Kai.
'Why?' he giggled. 'What's wrong? Am I bothering you?'
'How would you like it if I had my hands on you all day?' you snapped. Did you ever think before you spoke? You reminded yourself to try it sometime.
Kai smirked arrogantly and took your wrist. He guided your hand over to the top of his thigh. He shoved it down and brought the pressure upwards, inch by inch.
You gasped at the excessive heat you felt underneath the black denim. Had these pants always been so thin?
'Please,' he whispered. The word puffed out like steam against your neck. 'Touch me whenever you want. Wherever you want.'
Your breath hitched in your throat as he brought your fingers to the precipice of his groin before finally letting go, leaving you to your own devices. You had wanted to pull back, to just laugh it off, but the tension was palpable and the visceral response as you placed your other hand on his chest was mouthwatering.
Kai let out a low, velvety sigh, leaning back and observing your movements in rapt fascination.
Your hand on his lower half trembled and pulled back sharply, but he caught it almost reflexively. His eyes met yours with concern, and, turning towards you, he brought the escaping hand to join the other on the opposite side of his chest.  
With a deep inhale, Kai leaned forward against your slight pressure. He didn't smile, but his face still offered nothing but comfort and warmth as he approached, his parted lips moments from yours.
The hand that you had silently complained about moments before cradled your cheek gently. His eyes were round with tenderness, but the shake in his breath told a different sort of tale.
'Should I kiss you?' Kai said under his breath.  
You should have said no. You should have at least pretended that telling him no was always an option. But as if someone else had control, you watched yourself nod just enough for a soft smile to break out on his face.  
He didn't waste any more time.
His lips felt like nothing you had ever experienced. He was softness and fire at the same time. The tenderness of his kiss, the sweetness you tasted as the tip of his tongue prodded your top lip, the air he sucked from your mouth. Kai was the pounding in your chest, the blood in your veins, the current of electricity running through your body.  
Your eyes closed as the pressure of his lips parted yours, and you let yourself be consumed.  
He smelled like sunshine and warm honey, the taste of brown sugar and spice coating your tongue as Kai eased himself past your rapidly failing defenses. His tongue making itself at home in your mouth. He explored and danced around deftly, pushing every pleasurable button like an accelerator. All too soon, he pulled back to let you breathe.
Your exhale shook, and your eyes remained shut. Your hands steadied your whole being on his chest. His heart beat fervently under your palms.
Kai angled his head to the side to stay close, his nose poking your cheek. His lips still touched yours, to remind you of what still was available to you, if you chose to take it.
When you opened your eyes, it was to look directly into his wide almond ones, a steady need burning in them. You had seen it before but had chosen to ignore it. This time, you could think of nothing else you wanted.
Gingerly, slowly, as if another force had control of you, you undid his jacket, pushing it aside as your hands returned to his chest. You pressed and caressed firmly and began to slip lower, feeling the prod of his nipples against your palms, the contour of his abdomen under your fingertips; you watched his face carefully.
Kai gazed at you under hooded eyes, his breathing coming heatedly and heavily.  
You swallowed your nerves and flattened your lips against his urgently. You felt him smile against your attention and knew you had made a good choice. But when your hands slithered under his shirt, Kai lost his focus, retreating with a sharp inhale.
'Sh-should I stop?' You asked shyly, lifting your touch away briefly.
Kai bit his lip and gently shook his head. Your skin returned to his, and you made small swipes through the soft patch of hair over his waistband, eliciting a rewarding sigh.
You paused to test the waters.
'And now? Should I stop now?'
Kai shifted his hips, moving his body closer and pressing himself against your hands. His only impediment was the immovable armrest.
'Please,' he whined airily. 'Please don't.'
Your fingers hooked gently into his waistband, your palm pressing just below it.
In the dark, out-of-the-way corner of the cinema, no one else could hear as Kai whispered a secret groan in your ear. His head lolled to the side as he buried his face in your neck.
Curiously you undid the button of his pants, a simple lock that only you had the key to. You planted gentle kisses along the side of his throat and cupped between his legs softly. Who were you, and where had you gotten this boldness, this sudden audacity?
These were questions that you didn't long consider as you felt the growing response to your attentions.
The last zipper was undone and your hand slipped past the barrier of his pants.  
The heat of Kai's arms, the steam from his lungs, and the wildfire in his mouth were nothing compared to the furnace you felt coming from the last layer beneath you. You circled your fingers around as well as you could through the thin material of his underwear, your thumb caressing the underside of his shaft.  
Kai moaned softly into your shoulder. That was all it took, that drop of pleasure from his throat, for the addiction to take hold. You needed to hear more. It felt like your life depended on it.
A gentle squeeze around him drew a muffled 'mmph' from his lips, chasing away any remaining softness.
You moved your wrist gingerly, feeling his every detail as you made tiny strokes. You were lost in the sounds you drew from Kai, living for the next one, that you almost didn't notice the sharp cough coming from across the aisle.
The noise coming from a human outside of your bubble of lust quickly destroyed it, removing the illusion that you were alone. And everything came undone.
You coloured and abruptly drew back, blinking back unbidden tears.
Kai looked up in shock as the contact he craved was removed from him. His thumb brushed your cheek when he saw your expression.
'Shh, what's wrong?' he asked tenderly.  
'I can't,' you said. You folded your hands back into your lap and pulled away from him. 'Not like this.'
'No, please,' Kai said, reaching for your wrist.
There was another sharp cough, and you were convinced that you had been seen and heard. Before anyone could say anything else, you stood and ran out of the cinema.  
'No, wait-' was all you heard from Kai behind you before the doors clashed shut behind you. Only your shame had kept up with you as you blazed a trail through the exit.
The movie theater was in your neighbourhood, a short walk if you took the shortcut behind the grocery store, which you did now.  
Just past a dumpster, there was a familiar pop, and Kai appeared, flustered but in front of you.
You crossed your arms and tried to dodge him, but he stood in your way to block you. It was difficult as he tried to shove himself back in his pants and simultaneously catch you. He only managed to do both halfway, producing the tension that pulsed at your hip as Kai's arm entrapped you.
'Y/N, please, what happened?' Kai looked down at you sadly.
'Someone saw us!' You complained, blushing even more madly as the daylight proved that your deeds had not been an illusion. 'We can't - I don't do that shit in public!'
'In public?' Kai bit his lip and wrapped his other arm around you, squeezing you tightly against his frame. 'Do you trust me?'
'What are you doing? Let me go -'
'Do you trust me?' He repeated, insistently.
You sighed and finally nodded, trying to ignore the pounding in your chest and your own thirst that had lit between your thighs.
'Close your eyes,' Kai instructed, cradling your head against him and enclosing you completely in his grasp.
His whole frame tensed. Suddenly it felt like someone was jabbing tiny needles up and down your skin, everywhere. Your whole body buzzed. Your ears popped, and you couldn't breathe for a few moments.
When the buzzing stopped and the needles went away, you gasped for air and opened your eyes. You peeled your head off of Kai's chest to find that you were in your own room, his strong arms still securely cradling you.
'Did we just-'
'Yeah, we did. I just teleported you,' Kai smiled. 'And now we're not in public.'
His arms unwound to bring his hands to your sides, pulling you backwards towards the bed. Kai smirked and twirled, trading places with you and pushing you gently onto the covers.
There was a metallic jingle and soft thud from the silver decorations as his jacket hit the carpet.  
You sat up and drew back again, unsure.
Kai, with his undone pants uselessly hanging off his hips, folded himself neatly beside you on the bed. He covered your hand with his, leaning forward to kiss you. He prodded your lips apart once more, and the effect was like trying to smother red hot embers with gasoline. Kai sighed into your mouth.
He retreated just enough to gaze into your eyes. He waited, watching expectantly. His distinct pants of air gave you all the instruction you needed.  
Was it possible? Was this embodiment of boldness himself just as apprehensive as you?
Your powers of observation lowered, trailing down his torso to find that his state of desire was much the same as you had left it. You looked at him, tempted, before reaching a trembling hand to his thigh.
'I can't believe...' He exhaled heavily, fighting the desire to shift his hips. 'I can't believe that you call me the tease.'
You smirked at him knowingly and brushed the back of your thumb against the restriction.  
His hips did shift, pushing himself into your hand and sliding his pants out of the way. His desire for contact overrode everything else.  
'Fuck,' Kai muttered lowly as he fit into your palm perfectly. Tiny beads of perspiration began to dot the back of his neck.
It had only been a matter of time before the mutual inferno overcame all common sense. He crashed forward, settling himself over you, and then he was all you knew.
Every nerve came alive with every bump of his every vein inside you, every collision of his body against yours. Conscious thought gave way to the desperate hunt for friction. The two of you became consumed with each other, even as satisfaction was reached in a duet of each other's name.  
Even as you lay falling asleep, drenched in the scent of Kai, his arms entangled about you.
Midnight came all too soon.
You were first woken by Kai smiling gently against your cheek, an arm splayed possessively about your chest. His chest rose and fell against your shoulder, his body outlining yours.
You must have opened the window at some point to let some fresh air in. The breeze outside streamed easily and made the slats of the blind click together in an absurd pattern.
Something shifted in the apartment, and you sat up with a start.
Kai curled around your back and whined softly.
Blind in the darkness, you searched the floor and grabbed the first articles of clothing that you could find. You stood and slipped into the bottoms, which fit loosely, before pulling the shirt over your head.  
Your heartbeat began to race as you peered out into the hallway. Your pulse sounded like thunder in the stillness.
The shifting noise repeated, making you start.
You stepped out, following it down to the kitchen. You couldn't see anything, but something was different.
'Y/N?' Said a familiar voice. 'What are you doing?'
A lamp in the living room was switched on, illuminating a long figure who was spread across the couch and playing on your phone. Sehun.
'I – I heard a noise,' you said. One eye squinted shut from the sudden blaze of light.
'Oh, I'm sorry,' he apologized sweetly, getting to his feet. You thought that maybe he was coming over to hug you, but he paused halfway, looking at you apprehensively. 'What – what are you wearing?'
You looked down at yourself and were disturbed to see that the clothes you had picked up were Kai's. The black tank top hid nothing, and the boxers draped lazily across your hips, stretched and stained.  
'Oh,' you said uselessly. 'I-'
'Y/N, what is it?' Kai's voice drawled sleepily from the hallway. You glanced over your shoulder to see him make his appearance, wearing nothing as he came up behind you. He wrapped an arm around your middle and hooked his chin over your shoulder. 'You're back.'
He said it as a statement and nothing more. An observation.
Sehun sucked in a deep breath, his fist clenching at his side.
'What is this?' He searched your face for anything, something that would let him doubt this cruel reality.
'What does it look like?' Kai said daringly.
Sehun refused to look at him, refused to acknowledge him. He gazed at you steadily, imploring.
You couldn't take back what had happened, what you had done, had shared with Kai. It was the past nonetheless, unchangeable and beyond your reach. You could only deal with the present.
You turned to Kai and took his arms off of you, gently pushing him away.
'You should go,' you said.
The sadness you saw in his eyes was surprising and took you aback.
He took a step closer instead, leaning into you.
'But, after all this, after everything,' he whispered. 'Please.'
Painfully you felt your heart retreat from him, withdrawing inside your chest. You bit your lip and shook your head.
'Go, please just go.' Your lips formed the words that crushed the spirit from his expression, as if you had taken his heart and put it under heel.
'Just tell me I'm not losing you,' Kai pleaded. He blinked rapidly, swallowing hard.
'I'm not going anywhere,' you replied. It was all the comfort you could give when you were overwhelmed by guilt yourself. 'I just need to talk to Sehun.'
Sehun's eyes were burning holes in your back as he waited impatiently. He coughed quietly.
Kai reached slowly and placed a hand on your upper arm, squeezing gently.
'No-' He looked up at you in confusion. 'Y/N?
The warmth that you had grown accustomed to was gone, and once more it felt as if he were far off on a distant plane of existence. His physical presence had dissipated.  
Your stomach churned. Why couldn't everything just made sense? You wanted to scream and cry and sob, but you didn't deserve that.
'Just – just go, ok? We'll figure it out later,' you promised. Your eyes rounded and you pleaded with him with your entire being.
Kai took a step back. He glared resentfully at Sehun before disappearing with a soft pop.
The room was entirely silent, but the atmosphere was laden with spent emotion and exhaustion.
Sehun spoke first.
'I kind of expected this to happen, you know,' he said softly.
He laid a gentle hand on your shoulder, pulling you around to face him.  
There he was, warm and solid. Present.
Sehun smiled sadly.
'I know,' he said, stepping close to you. The pad of his thumb brushed your cheek gently. 'I could feel it as soon as you gave it to me, the solidity, presence – whatever we're going to call it.'
'But I don't understand. Kai wasn't – didn't anymore,' you said, confused.
'I think maybe only one of us can have it at a time,' Sehun said. 'At least for now.'
Your thoughts had speeded away in an opposite direction from their physical balance, and you found more words that tumbled past all your guards.
'Sehun, I'm so sorry,' you choked out.  
Sehun made a shushing sound and wrapped an arm around your back, pulling you into himself. He cradled you softly in the valley of his chest, laying his cheek on the top of your head.
'You don't have anything to be sorry for,' he said. 'I knew he was going to try something. He's been dreaming about you for years now.'
'I let him,' you confessed. 'I did more than that; I jumped right in.' You sniffled pitifully.
Sehun kissed your forehead tenderly.
'It's my own fault. I wasn't clear with you from the start like I should have been.'
'Clear about what?'
With a firm, but feather-soft guidance, Sehun tilted your chin up towards himself. His expression was both warm but sad at the same time. Time seemed to stop as he leaned downwards and pressed his lips against yours.  
Sehun felt chaste, but sweet, compared to the rampant lust that billowed off of Kai. Sehun was steadiness and consistency and, even as he pulled back, you knew that you hadn't lost him. Even if he was distant.
The actions you had chosen still had consequences. The resounding damage, the flickering disappointment settled in far-off corners behind Sehun's eyes. The monsters were just out of sight, but the evidence in his face made them obvious.  
You would give anything to slay them, to redeem yourself and to purify everything back to its original state. But there was no going back. Not now.
Sehun stepped backwards, pulling you with him towards the couch. He settled himself against the armrest and nodded as you looked at him uncertainly. He took your hand and insistently brought you closer. Once more, he patted his chest.
'Come on,' he said softly. 'You need to rest. We'll talk more in the morning.'
'But, I was just – with -' you stumbled over your words. You motioned behind you silently to where Kai had been standing.
Sehun shook his head and finally pulled you down into his reach. He settled you against his chest and brought his other leg to close you in between them safely.
'Sleep,' he commanded. He briefly twisted to flick off the light, bringing you back to the comfort of the dark.
You laid your head over his heart, listening to the steady rhythm. You waited for the sleep to overtake you, but it felt more like being dragged into a nightmare than rest. You could only picture both of theirs hurt expressions, the sting of sadness in their faces.
You had managed to inflict serious damage to both of them in a single day. Maybe that was your real skill. Maybe you weren't meant to be loved.
Sehun kissed your forehead again.
'You need to sleep,' he repeated.  
'Failures don't deserve rest,' you said. The tears were just around the corner.
Sehun huffed, tightening his arms around you.
'Is that what you think? That you're a failure?'
You nodded. He scoffed in offense.
'You think that because you gave into desire like a normal human, just once, that you've somehow let me down? I'm not petty like that,' Sehun said. 'I know when I've lost.'
This time it was your turn to sit up and take umbrage.
'You haven't,' you said.
Sehun looked at you, bewildered. His hand covered yours softly.
'You haven't lost. At least, you haven't lost me.' You could feel the shake in your voice, the slight twitch as your nerves waited for his response.
Sehun shot forward, his lips reconnecting with yours, pushing with great need.  
When he finally disconnected to breathe, he had squeezed his eyes shut. His chest rose and fell in great heaves, as if he were doubting reality.
He took several moments before opening his eyes and smiling down at you. Slowly, he lay back against the side of the couch, bringing you back down with him. Sehun lazily drew his fingers through your hair.  
You gave him an inquisitive look. He could have had more if he wanted, and he knew that.
'You've had enough for one night,' said Sehun soberly. ' You need to rest.'
Even as you returned to the sanctuary of his chest, you felt the deep rupture in the balance of your daily life. The line had been crossed, and there was no going back for any of you.
Somehow, impossibly, you slept.
'Hello?' Sehun's voice rumbled underneath your ear.
You pushed yourself off of his chest, blinking into the bright sunlight coming from the window.
'Yes, she's right here,' he said.  
Before you had come to your senses, Sehun handed you your phone, and what you could make of his expression imparted the seriousness of the call.
'H-hello?' You said groggily, bringing the device to your ear.
'Good morning, Y/N,' said an exceptionally chipper voice. 'I'm sorry to call so early, we were just hoping to be able to get you in today. We've got the results of the bloodwork from yesterday, and Dr. Bill would like to discuss them with you in person.'
'Wow, Rebecca, they really have you doing everything, don't they?' Your sleepy, melatonin-drunk brain was doing the talking. 'I mean, yeah, I guess I can come in today. When?'
'Dr. Bill has some time after lunch. How about one-thirty?' Rebecca was still gratingly cheerful, and it made you want to punch something.
'Sure, that's fine. See you then!' You did your best imitation of her, then hung up. You collapsed back into Sehun's arms.
'The hospital?' Sehun pried, stroking your back.
'Yeah, bloodwork results.' You yawned.
'That was fast. Do you want someone to go with you?'
You thought back to yesterday morning, to the unchecked tension in Kai. How aggressive he had almost become. .
'I should probably go by myself,' you said. 'It's just results.'
There was a loud pop from a foot away.  
You looked up to see Kai standing over you, glaring down at you with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
'If you think I'm letting you go to that place alone, you've got another thing coming,' he said adamantly. 'Now, what time is your appointment?'
A/N: WOAH another chapter on time?? Whaaat? That’s right, read it and weep, or don’t. I dunno.
Prologue | One | Two | Three | Four | Four (B) | Five | Six
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nylaaaaa · 5 years ago
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Little Secret
Chapter 3. Introducing Mathias
Cabbage for sale! Get your cabbage for sale here! Wouldn't want to spend the harvest eating a bland dinner now would we?" 
"Tomatoes for sale! Ripe and fresh! Perfect for all occasions!"
I ducked and weaved past all the stalls that scatter the outskirts of the castle. An abundance of people live just outside the castle walls but only a few of the "outside people" live inside the walls. Considering the majority of people live outside you would think the stalls would be set up there. I gave a forced smile to every merchant I ignored while moving around everyone as though I'd done it a thousand times. Truthfully this was my first time alone. But even with Isaieth I never had to deal with the stalls that blocked even the tiniest bit of gravel that blended into the path. He was a known friend of the king so he was allowed to go through the shortcuts, even though I'm known to be his adoptive daughter I don't get the same treatment as him. My mother and father ruined my reputation with their childish ways and so now people tend to ignore me or simply forget who I am.
Every rough step I took matched the beat of swords clanging against each other. This can only mean the knight's and soldier's were sparring again. They do this almost everyday. You can hear the swords hit against each other even from Isaieth's plot of land. The faint but strong cry of a horse froze me in place. I've always been more empathetic to animals than humans. Isaieth always told me it was weird and I should stop trying to befriend animals but for some reason I just understand them more. The cry continued, louder this time. I don't know where but somewhere a horse was scared. I hugged my basket of produce closer to me and without thinking headed to where the noise was located. 
The grunts and cries of maybe 50 men overpowered the sounds of icy wind. The horse was scared of the sparring and I'm not surprised. I would be too. I didn't notice I had just stood in the same place looking dumbfounded untill a huge man crashed into me forcing us both to land on the chalky and tough ground. I heard the sound of laughter before the rough and powerful voice of a man broke through the air.
"Alright that's enough!" Both the grounded soldier and I looked stunned towards to direction of the noise. A tall man with a prideful and powerful aura danced through to gaps of the men who stood in the way. He had to be royalty. The only men that tall in this land was either Isaieth or someone from the royal bloodline. He looked far too young to be the king so that left one of the two prince's.
"Rowan... You're meant to sleep with the whores after a fight, not before." Whore!  Excuse me! I am far from a whore. The sounds of 50 men laughing ticked me off even more. Who the hell does he think he is?
"I am not a whore." I said with venom in my voice. I'm not a scary person, far from it actually, and being female makes me even less scary. So I was expecting more laughter. Which I got. The burning sun hit his eyes giving them an intense green, one that would blind you from the glow it gave off. The eye colour fitted his skin perfectly and gave off an auburn blend. The sweat that dripped from skin to armour showed he'd either been out here longer or worked harder than all his men put together. It probably didn't help that his armour weighed 5 of me, probably more. His soaked deep brown curls stroked his smokey skin with even the tiniest bit of movement. If I wasn't so angry at his comment I probably would've spent this time admiring him. He could, for all I know, be a massive ass, but it doesn't change the fact that he looks like a God. He mockingly laughed away my response and rolled his eyes so they hit the sun even more making them pierce more than before. 
"A body like yours is only useful in a whore house. If it's not there it's no use and you are worthless." Ugh! UGHUGHUGH! God, what an ASS! Why does he have to insult me so much. Or compliment me in a twisted way? I don't even know. 
"That was a bit uncalled for don't you think, dear brother." Another tall, but only just smaller than green eyed asshole, man appeared out of the crowd. He wore a similar armour but his had more style than protection. This had to be the other prince. From looks alone I could tell green eyed asshole had to be the younger one, meaning he was the infamous Mathias. If that was true the stylish saviour had to be Kennedy. The man I presume to be Kennedy stepped forward a bit more blocking the sun and showing me the burnt skin that caressed his features. Kennedy is the oldest son of the prince, he turned 27 about 5 months ago. Mathias however has been 24 for merely a few weeks. Kennedy gave me a teethy grin that made me want to smile with him. His honey brown eyes melted into his tanned olive skin, the mixture gave you a warm autumn vibe that immediately calmed you. His hair stood tall, like him, and gave you a marble effect of blonde and brown. His hair colour looked like both colours were fighting for the spotlight. 
"Are you trying to deny the lady of her title, dear brother." He said 'dear' with a hint of venom and a lot of disgust. They obviously didn't get along very well and probably quarrel often.
"The lady's title is not a whore. Even if she graced us with her body in the brothel it doesn't make her a whore. It makes her a worker, just like everyone else." His attempt at saving me was sweet but still insulting. I'd rather not have 2 royals speak about my body as though I were a prostitute.
"Don't over play what a whore is brother. You'll make them think they are worth something more than the price you pay." Uuuuggghh! I hate him, I seriously hate him. I looked down realising my produce is all over the floor and my dress was torn showing the blood that trickled out of my grazed thigh. The man who had kept me on the ground had gotten up and, presumably, ran away. While the brothers argued about the importance of whores I gathered my belongings back into my basket and walked by them slowly so I didn't give away that I had moved. I hate royalty. 
Stopping outside a, what looked like, 10 story castle I released a hot breathe to calm my nerves. I was finally going to meet the king. The king joins the hall every month to oversee the rent. Today he was going to meet me properly for the first time. One step two step three step four... okay, I haven't actually moved yet. But I want to. With every inch I move I end up moving 2 inches back. Okay Natalie just go.
"State your name and business." I came face to face with a brunette woman holding a scroll of paper. Her emerald eyes shone a low and hollow silver. Her bright glow didn't give life to her eyes. She didn't have a dress on like every other female you would come across. Her clothes would be that of a whores but her attitude told you she wasn't. She had a soft looking fabric that covered her chest just enough to hide the shape. It clipped onto itself on the side under her left armpit and the rest of the material was wrapped around her left arm, it wrapped itself all the way down. On the bottom part she had underwear on that went up to her belly button and a sheer fabric that was wrapped randomly around her waist and thighs. It covered just enough to hide the colour of her underwear but not enough to hide the shape. Her lips were a deep pink colour that showed she had been eating a staining food. Her stance was professional but her clothes weren't, it made you wonder what her business was.
"Natalie Estelle, adopted daughter of Isaieth Scofield. Im here to sell the produce of our farm." She gave me a blank and slow nod. I felt nervous like she was asking something else.
"It's the usual right?" Uh. Maybe.
"Yes?" I didn't entirely give her a questioning yes, but it sounded unsure. I don't know if she ignored my slight confusion or just didn't catch it but she continued on anyway.
"Okay, leave the basket of produce in the 3rd door on the left and the king will be with you shortly." Before I could even blink she started leaving. 
When I opened the door she mentioned I was immediately blown away. This room was not only massive, it was so elegant and beautiful. Candles were hanging on the ceiling giving it a warm glow. Red blankets and animal pelts scattered every chair and table that stood proudly in the room. In the very middle stood a massive, strong looking table that was filled to the brim with paper work and books. On the very corner of the table a quil and ink balanced on top of each other fighting to stay on the table. A simple breath would knock it with how close to the edge it is. A loud creak of floor boards told me someone was entering the room. I quickly threw the basket onto the table that sat next to the door and backed away ready for whoever was going to enter. 
"Father, I didn't know you bought me a whore." Mathias. Of all people he just HAD to be here.
"Mathias, watch your language infront of me boy." This had to be the king. He stood a good few inches lower than Mathias but he was still tall and proud. His aura was so strong it made you want to bow just from him being in the same house. The king's white beard complimented his greying blonde locks. His hair bounced with volume and health but the tips liked to cling to his pale skin. The king apparently doesn't stay out in the sun as often as his sons so his skin was a lot lighter. His blonde hair made his yellow tinted pale skin even paler. Everything about him screamed light. Even his ocean blue eyes. The blues crashed waves together and made a watery dance that complimented the whole light vibe. His greying hair gave you a false impression of his age, you'd think he was in his 60's, but really he's younger than Isaieth. Isaieth is a wise age of 50 whereas the king was 48.
"It's not my fault. You told me you wanted me to meet someone, how was I to know it'd be a whore." He gave me a glare. What does he have to glare at me for? I didn't do anything.
"She isn't a.... whore. She's Isaieth's daughter. It's her 18th naming day. Now that she's an adult I thought she should meet the family." The king gave Mathias a stern look, a warning of sorts. 
"I do not care for the backstory of whores father. Kennedy is the one you should go to for that." He makes me want to scream. Like physically, all in your face, scream.
"MATHIAS! That is enough!" Mathias gave the king a bored glance. How disrespectful. I know when someone is your family you treat them differently, but no one should treat a king like this. I watched as Mathias rolled his shiny green eyes, the reflection of candle light hitting every spot trying to dance with the movement. Even with hatred towards this asshole, his features seem to always hypnotized me.
"Kennedy has important business right now, he will meet her later. As for you, Mathias. You will be nice to her or all you eat today will be the air that surrounds the barn outside." I breathed an accidental laugh and it caused Mathias to give me an unimpressed side glare. The king turned towards me once more and gave me a teethy smile. He smiled so big and bright it cause his eyes to slam shut and wrinkles formed all over his face. It was so genuine and a little beautiful that it made me return a smile to him. When he opened his eyes to see I was smiling back, his teethy smile turned into that of a proud father.
"Your smile is very cute dear, Isaieth is lucky to have you as his daughter." My smile grew bigger before falling completely. I've always thought of Isaieth as a father but whenever the conversation comes up it saddens me to the core. I have no idea who my actual dad is so when someone speaks about dads I always remember something that doesn't exist. It gives me an empty feeling of confusion. I could tell they both noticed the emotion change because theirs did too. The king let out cough as if to distract from the awkward tension that started to build.
"Well, Natalie. You've grown into your mother's looks. You look just like her." I know he was trying to be nice with that comment but it only made me more sad. My mother left me to get drunk everyday. Looking like her was not an accomplishment to me.
"Thank you." I forced a genuine looking smile to him. If I want to avoid more awkward tension I should play happy untill the conversation ends.
"My assistant, who I believe you met, has your pay for the produce. Rent pay isn't for another few hours so I was hoping you would come with me for a tour of our castle." A tour. Do I want to go on a tour? No, not really. But how bad can a tour be? I'll just be waiting around for a couple hours anyway.
"A tour would be wonderful, your highnesses." The look on Mathias's face said, 'what are you doing?' I don't know if he was questioning my wording to the king or the fact that I bowed after speaking. Maybe both. The king beamed with happiness and even let out a low and raw chuckle. It sounded like Christmas. 
"To start I would like you to meet Kennedy, he's busy, as I said before, outside with the new trainees. So that will be where we start." The king gave Mathias a hard pat on the shoulder before turning away from us. I guess I get to see the training grounds again.
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magzoso-tech · 5 years ago
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New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/vivo-s1-pro-review/
Vivo S1 Pro Review
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Vivo recently launched a new phone in its style-centric S series, called the S1Pro. This model is a follow-up to the Vivo S1 (Review), which launched last year. Just like the its sibling, the focus for the S1 Pro is on design, in particular the new minimalistic, diamond-shaped camera module on the rear. Also, unlike the Vivo S1, the S1 Pro gets a modern USB Type-C port.
Vivo has launched just a single version of this phone, priced at Rs. 19,990 in India. This puts it against phones such as the Realme X2 (Review), Redmi K20 (Review), and a more recent entry — the Oppo F15 (Review). So, is the new Vivo S1 Pro worth buying at this price? Let’s find out.
Vivo S1 Pro design
The Vivo S1 is a good-looking phone, and the S1 Pro follows that tradition. The diamond pattern on the back has gone and in its place, we have a choice of three different gradient finishes. The one we have is called ‘Jazzy Blue’ but this phone is also available in ‘Dreamy White’ and ‘Mystic Black’ trims. The S1 Pro feels a little chunky at 8.68mm thick, and after prolonged one-handed use, the 186g weight is noticeable. The rounded edges and tapering back make it easier to hold, and despite the glossy finish, we didn’t find it to be too slippery. The back isn’t glass though, as Vivo still uses laminated plastic.
In the front, we have a 6.38-inch Super AMOLED display with a full-HD+ resolution. There’s an in-display fingerprint sensor too, which works well. Vivo has also thrown in some nice unlock animations to choose from. Face unlock is present too, which is reliable but just not as quick as the implementations on other phones at this price level. The display has a screen protector pre-applied, which gets annoying quickly as the edges graze against your skin when using gestures.
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The Vivo S1 Pro has a vivid display, with good brightness and saturation
The button placement on the Vivo S1 Pro is good. On the left, there’s a tray for either two Nano-SIMs or a single Nano-SIM and a microSD card. We would have preferred a dedicated slot for memory expansion. At the bottom, we have a USB Type-C port and speaker, and there’s a headphone jack on the top.
The back of the phone is where the S1 Pro stands out in terms of design. Apart from the jazzy colour, we really liked the slim profile of the camera module, which barely protrudes at all. The LED flash is placed outside the camera module. Below that, we have Vivo’s logo and tagline.
In the box, the Vivo S1 Pro ships with the usual accessories such as a silicone case, a Type-C cable, an 18W charger, and a headset.
Vivo S1 Pro specifications and software
The Vivo S1 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 octa-core SoC, which we’re a little surprised to see, considering that it’s typically found in phones closer to the Rs. 10,000 mark, such as the Realme 5i (Review) and Redmi Note 8 (Review). This isn’t a bad processor by any means, but driving a full-HD+ display in heavy games could be challenging. Thankfully, Vivo has also kitted this phone with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and this is the only configuration on sale.
Other specifications include dual 4G VoLTE, dual-band Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5, FM radio, GPS, USB-OTG, and support for Google’s Widevine L1 DRM certification. There’s the usual suite of sensors too, including a gyroscope and compass.
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The Vivo S1 Pro has a hybrid dual-SIM tray
For software, we have Vivo’s Funtouch OS 9.2, which is based on Android 9 Pie. The phone also had the December 2019 security patch, is fairly recent too. The interface is still unnecessarily complicated, and we really wish Vivo would overhaul this soon. The swipe-up gesture to access system shortcuts can be confusing for novice users, since we’re used to seeing them in the notification shade. Also, when using the phone in landscape mode, the gesture still has to be made from the same side of the screen, which is annoying.  
There’s a lot of bloatware preinstalled on the Vivo S1 Pro, but all the third-party apps can be removed. There are some redundant ones form Vivo, such as its own browser and app store, which can’t be removed. We’ve already covered the various shortcuts and customisation options for Funtouch OS in our earlier reviews of the Vivo V17 (Review) and Vivo U20 (Review), so you can take a look at them for more details.
Vivo S1 Pro performance and battery life
The Vivo S1 Pro works well as a daily driver, and is something you’ll want to show off. The design of the camera module sets it apart from the rest of the phones in its segment, most of which have similar vertical camera strips. The display gets very bright, making it easily legible even under direct sunlight. The colours are also very vivid thanks to the AMOLED panel, and text and icons are adequately sharp. The Snapdragon 665 handles multitasking well but it’s not the strongest chip for handling heavy games.
PUBG Mobile struggled to run at a smooth framerate even at the Low graphics preset. The game was playable but a little jerky at times. We didn’t notice any overheating, thankfully, even after 30 minutes of gameplay. The single speaker doesn’t get too loud and the sound is a little tinny. Videos are enjoyable thanks to the vivid display, though.
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The Vivo S1 Pro looks stylish, thanks to a neat gradient finish
The Vivo S1 Pro packs in a 4,500mAh battery, which easily lasted us for a day and half, if not more, even with rigorous usage. In our HD video battery loop test, the phone ran for 17 hours and 7 minutes, which is a good amount of time. Vivo uses its Dual Engine Fast Charge feature, but the charger you get in the box isn’t very quick to top up such a large capacity quickly. In our testing, we managed to get the S1 Pro to 31 percent in 30 minutes and about 61 percent in an hour. Charging the phone completely took about two and a half hours.
Vivo S1 Pro cameras
Vivo has set up the S1 Pro with four rear cameras. These are a primary 48-megapixel camera with an f/1.8 aperture; an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera with an f/2.2 aperture; a 2-megapixel macro camera; and a 2-megapixel depth camera. In the front, we have a 32-megapixel selfie camera with an f/2.0 aperture. The camera app is easy to use, with most of the shooting modes placed above the shutter button. Some commonly used and important controls, for the ultra-wide camera, bokeh, and macro modes, are placed in a separate carousel menu, which needs additional taps to get to. We didn’t find this to be very convenient during our usage.
In daylight, the Vivo S1 Pro managed to capture average-looking landscape shots. Details were decent and colours were alright, but images lacked depth. Objects at the sides of the frame also had a bit of grain. HDR kicks in when needed, but the end result wasn’t always very good. Some images had a very cool, bluish hue to them, which looked unnatural. Close-ups fared better, with good bokeh and details in objects. The wide-angle camera offered a nice perspective, but colours weren’t very accurate.
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Landscape shot taken with the Vivo S1 Pro (tap for full-sized image)
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Wide-angle shot taken with the Vivo S1 Pro (tap for full-sized image)
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Close-up shot taken with the Vivo S1 Pro (tap for full-sized image)
With bokeh mode enabled, the Vivo S1 Pro’s depth camera did a decent job of detecting edges, and blurred out the right areas. Colours and details were also good. The macro camera was handy at times, but it’s not something we found super useful.
Low-light photos were just strictly average. Focusing was a lot slower in the dark, and it took a second or two longer to save each photo. There’s no dedicated night shooting mode either. In landscape shots, we noticed that details were generally mushy and there was visible grain in the shadow regions.
The S1 Pro redeemed itself somewhat with the selfie camera, which captured detailed photos when shooting under ideal light. Results were fairly good even when shooting against the light. However, the photos captured were at the full 32-megapixel resolution, instead of pixel-binned shots, which is what we’d have preferred. Low-light selfies were grainy, but the screen flash can help a bit. The ‘Portrait’ shooting mode lets you add beauty filters but there’s no option for a background bokeh effect with the front camera.
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Selfie taken with the Vivo S1 Pro (tap for full-sized image)
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Low-light shot taken with the Vivo S1 Pro (tap for full-sized image)
Videos can only be recorded at up to 1080p, which is not great, especially at this price. Unfortunately, there’s no stabilisation either, which is a big letdown. The selfie camera can shoot up to 1080p too, but again, without any stabilisation. Low-light video was not very good, and had lots of grain as well as weak details. The wide-angle camera shot even poorer footage in low-light, making it unusable.
Verdict
The Vivo S1 Pro is a good looking-phone with a crisp display and solid battery life. True to the theme of the S series, the design is eye-catching, and the new gradient finish as well as the diamond-shaped camera module helps this phone stand out among its peers. However, just like its sibling, the S1, and even the recently launched Oppo F15, Vivo seems to have prioritised style over everything else and gone with a pretty underpowered processor for this price bracket.
We’re not sure if there’s a method to this madness, but if you’re hoping to play heavy games and take great photos, the S1 Pro is not the phone for you. Other options at this price level,such as the Realme X2 (Review) and the Redmi K20 (Review), have much more powerful SoCs and will hold up much better over the next few years.
We quite liked the performance of the selfie camera though, and it will work well as long as you’re shooting under good light. The rear cameras are a bit underwhelming, and while you can get usable shots, consistency is definitely missing. The S1 Pro also lacks a dedicated microSD card slot, and Vivo’s custom software could really use an overhaul.
Overall, the Vivo S1 Pro is not a bad pick if all you want is a stylish design, good battery life, and a punchy display. If you’d prefer a more well-rounded phone though, we suggest looking at offerings from Realme and Xiaomi instead. 
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justwritingscibbles · 8 years ago
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The entity rule
Chapter 2 *side note: this chapter was more based on the damsel in distress fic on this account, this chapter is also slightly longer but should become more original, more plot related, and have more fluff ;-) by the next chapter+ * As you were walking, or rather stumbling, home from your friends party you couldn't help but regret how late you'd waited to leave and how you managed to get yourself tipsy. You weren't so drunk however that you couldn't notice the four men attempting stealth behind you, who were definitely more wasted than you. The hairs on the back of your neck started to rise when the streets you were walking down became considerably more isolated and the chances of a person hearing you became considerably more dulled. You breathed a sigh of relief when two of the men dispersed into the alleyway, 'phew' you thought to yourself 'at least that's less of them to deal with'. Your relief was short lived however when the two men you saw leave through the alleyway appeared through a shortcut they'd found and smirked at the two men behind you who seemed to be walking closer to you whilst you stood frozen in place trapped between them. With their rowdy drunken shouting to each other you hoped they wouldn't notice when you put your hand into your bag and whilst keeping an eye on the men in front of you, blindly and frantically started scrolling and tapping on your phone hoping that you had remembered where the button on your device was that would call your boyfriend and he'd be on his way to swoop you to safety imm- your thought process was cut off, as your hand was pulled away from your phone quickly as a consequence of the drunker smelling one got too close for you to risk texting next to. "Give 's your money" he said, knees weak under the influence but eyes dark and focused on his target, you didn't really feel like finding out the specifics of his target though. "Man oh man" the other, shorter one in front of you said "y'better listen to what he'ssayin y'know?" You felt a grip on the roots of your hair as your head was dragged back by one of the culprits behind you "aw, don't be nervous" he whispered sickeningly sweet into your ears, until his facade changed and you could feel his hot breath on your ear "we could do a lot worse" he growled. The fourth man who'd stayed quiet until now moved in front of you as the third still had you in a painful grip and he started doing something but you couldn't see exactly what because as soon as he moved the lamppost above you exploded, turning away from the distraction your heart felt like it had stopped beating altogether as your eyes adjusted to the newfound darkness and you saw the fourth man, hands shaking with drunkenness, holding a gun to you. "Give it now, or one of my friends 'ere will carry out with their threats" the first man gloated at you. "I-I don't have anything!" You almost squeaked which didn't help you seem any sort of a threat. "Well" the third man chuckled as his hand gripped round your waist and the man with the gun closed in on you "let's not waste our last moments together." You closed your eyes ready for some sort of impact when the hand was ripped from your head, but, to your surprise, not in a painful way. You saw all four men in front of you as the man previously holding you tight had ran to his friends, and they were all staring - some with fear, some with hate - behind you. You quickly span around to see an entity that wasn't who you expected to see, not just in a time like this but really ever, about 10 feet behind you... was Antisepticeye. You ran to him feeling the most bliss you could ever remember feeling and as soon as you got to him you bumped him as you stood behind him, hugging him arm where your face was also buried. Before anti was like stone, staring with rage no mortal there that day could have described, unmoving when you bumped him but when you nuzzled into him he couldn't help but look down at you in awe, his mouth started to hang open but his demeanour soon changed when his attention was spurred back to the problem at hand, and he let out a loud growl. "Hey! Who the HELL are you?" One of the imbeciles started slurring as his other friends started shouting, spurring the drunkest on. Anti smiled, the drunkest meant the easiest prey. He started towards them when he found he couldn't move. His manic smile turned to a look of concern when he saw you looking up at him. "Please...anti" you asked knowing full well what happens to people when entities get angry. "Don't kill them." You begged. Anti looked at you with an immense sadness and sighed at your plea "what was that?" One of the larger men shouted after you spoke "if you wanna say somethin' say it to our faces you pricks!" Anti's eyes flashed with green as his head slowly turned to meet the gaze of the group and as a rumble ripped through him he again started towards the men, he felt your grip move from him and ran towards them. As the largest brute ran towards anti as well they met halfway where anti ducked under his blow and landed an ape like one of his own to his face. As the man cried out in shock two of the others ran towards their friend, "now you're gonna get it!" One spat but as anti roared back at them they stopped dead in their tracks, terrified of the inhuman noises the man with glowing eyes produced. Anti hadn't stopped running towards them. He crashed both fists into their chests simultaneously, at least you presumed it was his fists until you heard the ripping sound of flesh as his knives tore up their torsos and they fell bleeding to the floor, coughing up blood. The last man standing scared you the most as you heard his gun go off. But there wasn't any need to fear as you saw anti's back, him standing as straight as ever. He was inches away from the gun how had he missed? That's when you realised the gunman hadn't missed as anti tore the bullet from his chest and held it between his fingers right against the mans head. Anti noticed himself pulsing with energy from his almost kills as he started to see three images at once and noticed his normal everyday colour changing from green to blue to red to grey, the man in front of him noticed too and held a stupid look on his face, no sound being produced, shame. "Aw" anti teased, relishing the last moments of that insects life "now who's nervous?" "Anti, please stop" he froze as he felt a warm hand wrap around his arm. "Please, don't kill them, I don't want to see that..." you told him, looking up at him hoping that like natemare he held compassion in his heart. "You just want me to let them go? To let them not atone for what they've done!" He said trying to keep from shouting the questions at you, for whatever reason he didn't want to do that. "No, these assholes may have hurt others and may do it again-" "so what do you suggest I do about them then?" Anti asked, the energy surging through him making him impatient, his face inches from yours, breathing heavily after the conflict. You but your lip knowing an entity wouldn't be happy without some sort of revenge on people they disliked, and by no means did you want to make yourself one of those people. That was when you noticed the building that was in front of you, a risky place for the assholes to carry out their plan, but the lights outside the only way you could see antis face staring down at you in waiting. "Make them go there" you pointed to anti, behind you. He turned and saw to his dismay a police station. "They'll get their comeuppance" you assured him. He was about to disagree really wanting to finish the men, more than he had wanted any kill recently but his priorities soon changed when he saw the men behind you getting up and the one in front of you two still conscious. There was no way in hell he was letting you get trapped between them again, even with him there to help, so he picked up he seeming leader of the group by his matted hair and dragged him to the foot of the station steps "the rest of you better follow you're little pal there, make my job easier and hand yourselves over, I'll be checking in" he finished off making his eyes black for the last threat. The men all ran towards the steps and inside, two stopping blood spilling out too much clutching their chests until they'd all gone. Anti was angrily staring at the door and was about to turn and face you until he was pushed back by the force of you throwing yourself at him with your arms around his waist and smiling up at his taken aback face. "Thank you" you told him, your voice barely above a whisper after all you'd gone through that night. "No problem" he answered with the same expression he wore to your touch earlier in the night, unsure where to place his hands but settling with on top of yours arms in the position yours held his body, but it wasn't long lasting as you let go, but you still held eye contact knowing what you had to ask next would require either a lifetime of favours or a boatload of sympathy, but funny thing was, you didn't have to ask, anti shuffled his feet awkwardly on the gravel looking down at nothing at all interesting, hands in his pockets, a completely different person that the fighting machine you'd just witnessed, you didn't know how to speak to him because he wasn't really someone you had been particularly friendly with before but you knew that would change whether he liked it or not when he stepped closer to you and asked "would you like me to take you home?"
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zeroviraluniverse-blog · 7 years ago
Text
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro Review
Visit Now - http://zeroviral.com/xiaomi-redmi-note-5-pro-review/
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro Review
Many Android flagships in 2017 boasted of taller screens with nearly no borders as their headlining feature. Naturally, we started seeing this trend trickle down to the mid-range and entry-level segments, with phones like the InFocus Vision 3 (Review) and Honor 9 Lite (Review) to name a few. Xiaomi has been a favourite in the budget space and now it’s joining the party.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Review) has been the ranked as the top selling smartphone in 2017, so expectations for the Chinese manufacturer’s brand new offerings for 2018 are incredibly high. The new Redmi Note 5 (Review) has big shoes to fill and from what we’ve seen, it manages to do so pretty well. Xiaomi has also launched a more powerful model with a better camera, and it’s called the Redmi Note 5 Pro. This is the first phone to debut Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 636 mobile platform, which supports full-HD+ displays and features Qualcomm’s own custom Kryo CPU cores. While all of this sounds great on paper, the big question is whether it’s worth the premium over the standard Redmi Note 5. Let’s find out.
youtube
  Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro design and build
From the front, the Redmi Note 5 Pro looks very similar to the Redmi Note 5, with the same prominent curved corners on the 18:9 display. The phone still has visible borders to the left and right of the display and comparatively thicker ones at the top and bottom. It does feel slightly heavy at 181g, which could be due to the metal back and large battery. The white and gold trim of our review unit looked good, but you can also get this phone in black, blue, or rose gold.
The 5.99-inch display has a full-HD+ resolution, which is wider than what standard full-HD displays offer. Xiaomi boasts of it having a maximum brightness of 450 nits, which means that in the real world, the display is easily legible even under direct sunlight. Gorilla Glass has been used for scratch protection. There aren’t any capacitive buttons here since Xiaomi has gone with on-screen navigation buttons. Above the screen, we have the front facing camera, a diffused selfie flash, the earpiece, and sensors.
  The volume and power buttons are on the right of the phone, and are slightly out of reach when you’re holding the phone normally, but feel solid. Up top, there’s an IR emitter just like on previous Redmi Note smartphones. At the bottom of the phone, we have a 3.5mm headphone socket, microphone, Micro-USB port, and a speaker grille. Once again, It’s a bit disappointing to not have a Type-C port. Considering that this is the ‘Pro’ model, we would have appreciated the newer connector. On the left, we have a hybrid dual-SIM slot which can accommodate two Nano-SIMs or a microSD card (up to 128GB) in the second slot.
The metal back reminds us a lot of the Redmi Note 4, with its matte finish and slightly tapering edges. The fingerprint sensor lines up comfortably against your finger when you hold the phone, and authentication is quick. The camera bump is very noticeable, and let’s face it, its design has been, shall we say, “heavily inspired” by the iPhone X (Review). Even the arrangement is the same, with the two camera sensors flanking the dual-LED flash. The bump also means that this phone rests at an awkward angle when you place it on a flat surface. The back is otherwise plain, save for a printed Mi logo towards the bottom.
  We received our test unit without any packaging but Xiaomi told us that buyers can expect a bundle similar to that of the Redmi Note 5, including the standard charger and silicone case.
The phone is pretty tall, which makes it a challenge to fit snugly into the pockets of some pants, but that isn’t much of an issue otherwise. On the other hand, the width is manageable, making this phone easy to grip with one hand. We also got used to the slightly heavier weight after a couple days of using it. Overall, the Redmi Note 5 Pro is built well and looks good.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro specifications and features
Xiaomi is hailing the Redmi Note 5 Pro as the spiritual successor to the Redmi Note 3 (Review), which is true from a performance standpoint. The Redmi Note 3 raised the bar for performance at the Rs. 15,000 price level, and the Redmi Note 5 raises it once again. This is the first phone to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 636 mobile platform, which was announced last October. This is only the second SoC outside the Qualcomm’s flagship 800 series to feature the company’s own custom Kryo CPU cores. We have a total of eight Kryo 260 cores which can run at a maximum clock speed of 1.8GHz and are split into two clusters of four ‘performance’ cores and four ‘efficiency’ cores. Just like the Snapdragon 630 SoC on the Moto X4 (Review), this one is fabricated using the smaller 14nm process, but with a slightly faster Adreno 509 GPU.
Qualcomm says this new GPU should offer better gaming performance compared to the Adreno 508 in the Snapdragon 630. Our review unit came running a beta build of Xiaomi’s MIUI software, on which most benchmarks didn’t run, in order to prevent leaks before launch. However, we did manage to run AnTuTu, which gave us a score of 85,838 points, and PCMark Work 2.0, which gave us a score of 5,619. This is a performance jump of around 10 precent on average compared to the Snapdragon 625 SoC used by the Redmi Note 5.
  The Redmi Note 5 Pro is available with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM, although the storage remains the same at 64GB in both variants. You can expand by up to 128GB this using a miroSD card. The phone also has Bluetooth 5, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, GPS, FM radio, USB-OTG, and an array of sensors including a gyroscope. 4G is supported with VoLTE.
This phone’s MIUI software is still based on Android 7.1.1 Nougat, which is a bit disappointing to see and we don’t have any official word on when we can expect an Oreo update as of now. The Android security level is also not up to date –  our unit was patched till December 2017, though this could also be due to it being a beta build so we’ll give Xiaomi the benefit of the doubt.
The custom skin is similar to what we’ve seen on other recent Xiaomi offerings such as the Redmi 5A (Review) and Redmi Y1 (Review). The custom icon set looks polished and we like the use of pastel shades. The interface looks slick and swiping through home screens is smooth. We didn’t encounter any noticeable lag or stutter in the animations either. The leftmost home screen is dedicated to giving you card-style updates, shortcuts for apps (you can add your own too), a space to take quick notes, cricket scores, and calendar events. There’s also integration with Ola which lets you tap shortcuts for your Home and Work locations, although you’re redirected to the Ola app (or a Web page if you don’t have it installed) to actually make bookings.
The Redmi Note 5 Pro also has a bunch of pre-installed apps from Xiaomi. Mi Drop lets you send files over an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network provided the receiver also has the app installed. There’s also Mi Store and Mi Community, which can be uninstalled if not wanted.
  The Settings app has a submenu for Wi-Fi calling, but there were no options to set, only a message that the feature depends on the cellular network provider. You can change the UI theme, use the fingerprint sensor to lock apps or take pictures, and set shortcuts for launching the flashlight, camera, etc. There are also familiar MIUI features such as Quick Ball, which is like Apple’s AssistiveTouch shortcut panel; one-handed mode; and Dual Apps, which lets you create two instances of some apps so that you can use them with multiple accounts.
The Fullscreen Mode menu lets you force apps to run full-screen (minus black bars on the sides), and you can set the navigation bar to auto-hide for a more immersive experience. You can also optionally sign up for a Mi Cloud account, which gives you 5GB of free cloud storage for backing up your contacts, messages, calendars, notes, etc.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro performance, camera and battery life
We tested the 4GB RAM variant of the Redmi Note 5 Pro, which performed very well with day-to-day usage. The screen does attract some fingerprints but we found the rest of the body to be quite resilient to smudges and dirt. Call reception is good and the speaker is loud enough for alerts and some media playback. The phone also runs pretty cool, and even with gaming, it only gets a bit warm. Heavy camera usage doesn’t make it overheat, which is very good.
For media playback, Xiaomi offers its own music and video app, which is frankly not needed when you have Google’s suite of media players preinstalled, and more feature-rich options such as MX Player available for free. High-bitrate videos played just fine, and this phone can even handle 4K playback. There’s a system-wide audio enhancement feature for headphones, which can be activated from the Settings app. Audio quality through headphones is good, and you can toggle between presets tuned to Xiaomi’s various headphones, or set your own.
Xiaomi says the cameras are one of the big highlights of the Redmi Note 5 Pro, and in our experience, they were pretty good. At the back of the phone, there’s a primary 12-megapixel camera with 1.25 micron pixels on its sensor and a f/2.2 aperture, while the second 5-megapixel camera is only used for sensing depth for the Portrait Mode effect. This works decently well for human subjects but the edge detection isn’t always accurate for other objects.
Tap to see full-sized Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro camera samples
  Landscapes shot in daylight have good detail, with very good colours. The phone struggles to get the white balance right at times under harsh sunlight, but otherwise, light metering is handled well. Edges in close-ups aren’t very sharp but this is only noticeable when zoomed in at 100 percent. Sadly, HDR doesn’t kick in automatically (it does so with the front camera) so you’ll have to remember to engage it manually. In low light, autofocus gets a bit slower and shutter lag does creep in, but image quality doesn’t degrade too badly. Landscapes have a decent level of detail and noise is kept within bounds, and in macros, colours are well represented. Portrait Mode also works well in low light.
Since we tested this phone with beta firmware, the option for 4K video recording wasn’t shown. We did check with Xiaomi about this and the company said that 4K video recording is meant to be supported, but an update might not be released by the time this phone goes on sale. Still, 1080p video recorded under good light is impressive. You can enable electronic stabilisation, which causes minor ‘shimmering’ anomalies in the output but this is something that might be fixed with future updates. The stabilisation itself works very well, even when you’re moving about.
However, continuous autofocus wasn’t very effective when recording video. When switched off, autofocus was more on point. There are also slow-motion and time-lapse video modes, which work well enough. The Short Video shooting mode records a 10-second video clip but the audio quality is quite poor. Panorama mode also works well and is quick in stitching frames together. Manual mode offers limited functionality as it only lets you change the white balance and ISO.
Selfie shot on Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro using Depth Mode (tap for full-sized sample) 
  The front 20-megapixel sensor captures detailed selfies in daylight, although HDR isn’t too effective under strong sunlight. There’s a Depth Mode which uses Xiaomi’s AI learning algorithms for edge detection. In practice, it works quite well. It managed to blur out most of the background of our test shots (with a few misses here and there). There’s a selfie light, which fires diffused white light on your face, helping in very low light. Beautification can be turned on if needed, and you can choose the level of the effect and also modify some of your facial features.
The 4000mAh battery in the Redmi Note 5 Pro easily lasted us through more than a day of medium to heavy usage. The bundled 10W charger doesn’t support quick charging but the phone itself does. We tried it with our own Qualcomm Quick Charge power adapter and a notification on the lock screen indicated that the phone was charging quickly. The charging icon in the status bar also changed to the Quick Charge logo.
Verdict The Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro offers plenty of reasons to spend that extra bit of money over the Redmi Note 5. The list of improvements includes a better set of cameras, slightly better battery life, and a more powerful processor – all of which make the usage experience just a bit nicer. The weight of the phone is something you will have to get used to, and even though it isn’t very striking to look at, the build quality is solid. We love the new taller display, which is sharp and has very good sunlight legibility.
Portrait mode works very well for the front and rear cameras, and this is backed by solid battery life and very good overall app and system performance. Given that this is a ‘Pro’ model, we would have liked to see more features, such as a bundled fast charger, USB Type-C port, and maybe a more distinctive design which would have set this phone apart from the non-Pro model. Having Android Oreo out-of-the-box would have also been a nice touch for enthusiasts, who Xiaomi is targeting here.
At a starting price of Rs. 13,999, this phone is pretty hard to beat. You have Xiaomi’s own Mi A1 (Review) at the same price, which is also a good pick especially if you’re looking for stock Android interface like on the Google Pixel series. The Moto G5S Plus (Review) has long been one of our top picks at this price point, but now, there’s really no matching the Redmi Note 5 Pro in terms of performance and features at this price.
We discuss the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5, Redmi Note 5 Pro, and the Mi TV 4 on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.
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gta-5-cheats · 7 years ago
Text
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro Review
New Post has been published on http://secondcovers.com/xiaomi-redmi-note-5-pro-review/
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro Review
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Many Android flagships in 2017 boasted of taller screens with nearly no borders as their headlining feature. Naturally, we started seeing this trend trickle down to the mid-range and entry-level segments, with phones like the InFocus Vision 3 (Review) and Honor 9 Lite (Review) to name a few. Xiaomi has been a favourite in the budget space and now it’s joining the party.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Review) has been the ranked as the top selling smartphone in 2017, so expectations for the Chinese manufacturer’s brand new offerings for 2018 are incredibly high. The new Redmi Note 5 (Review) has big shoes to fill and from what we’ve seen, it manages to do so pretty well. Xiaomi has also launched a more powerful model with a better camera, and it’s called the Redmi Note 5 Pro. This is the first phone to debut Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 636 mobile platform, which supports full-HD+ displays and features Qualcomm’s own custom Kryo CPU cores. While all of this sounds great on paper, the big question is whether it’s worth the premium over the standard Redmi Note 5. Let’s find out.
youtube
  Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro design and build
From the front, the Redmi Note 5 Pro looks very similar to the Redmi Note 5, with the same prominent curved corners on the 18:9 display. The phone still has visible borders to the left and right of the display and comparatively thicker ones at the top and bottom. It does feel slightly heavy at 181g, which could be due to the metal back and large battery. The white and gold trim of our review unit looked good, but you can also get this phone in black, blue, or rose gold.
The 5.99-inch display has a full-HD+ resolution, which is wider than what standard full-HD displays offer. Xiaomi boasts of it having a maximum brightness of 450 nits, which means that in the real world, the display is easily legible even under direct sunlight. Gorilla Glass has been used for scratch protection. There aren’t any capacitive buttons here since Xiaomi has gone with on-screen navigation buttons. Above the screen, we have the front facing camera, a diffused selfie flash, the earpiece, and sensors.
  The volume and power buttons are on the right of the phone, and are slightly out of reach when you’re holding the phone normally, but feel solid. Up top, there’s an IR emitter just like on previous Redmi Note smartphones. At the bottom of the phone, we have a 3.5mm headphone socket, microphone, Micro-USB port, and a speaker grille. Once again, It’s a bit disappointing to not have a Type-C port. Considering that this is the ‘Pro’ model, we would have appreciated the newer connector. On the left, we have a hybrid dual-SIM slot which can accommodate two Nano-SIMs or a microSD card (up to 128GB) in the second slot.
The metal back reminds us a lot of the Redmi Note 4, with its matte finish and slightly tapering edges. The fingerprint sensor lines up comfortably against your finger when you hold the phone, and authentication is quick. The camera bump is very noticeable, and let’s face it, its design has been, shall we say, “heavily inspired” by the iPhone X (Review). Even the arrangement is the same, with the two camera sensors flanking the dual-LED flash. The bump also means that this phone rests at an awkward angle when you place it on a flat surface. The back is otherwise plain, save for a printed Mi logo towards the bottom.
  We received our test unit without any packaging but Xiaomi told us that buyers can expect a bundle similar to that of the Redmi Note 5, including the standard charger and silicone case.
The phone is pretty tall, which makes it a challenge to fit snugly into the pockets of some pants, but that isn’t much of an issue otherwise. On the other hand, the width is manageable, making this phone easy to grip with one hand. We also got used to the slightly heavier weight after a couple days of using it. Overall, the Redmi Note 5 Pro is built well and looks good.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro specifications and features
Xiaomi is hailing the Redmi Note 5 Pro as the spiritual successor to the Redmi Note 3 (Review), which is true from a performance standpoint. The Redmi Note 3 raised the bar for performance at the Rs. 15,000 price level, and the Redmi Note 5 raises it once again. This is the first phone to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 636 mobile platform, which was announced last October. This is only the second SoC outside the Qualcomm’s flagship 800 series to feature the company’s own custom Kryo CPU cores. We have a total of eight Kryo 260 cores which can run at a maximum clock speed of 1.8GHz and are split into two clusters of four ‘performance’ cores and four ‘efficiency’ cores. Just like the Snapdragon 630 SoC on the Moto X4 (Review), this one is fabricated using the smaller 14nm process, but with a slightly faster Adreno 509 GPU.
Qualcomm says this new GPU should offer better gaming performance compared to the Adreno 508 in the Snapdragon 630. Our review unit came running a beta build of Xiaomi’s MIUI software, on which most benchmarks didn’t run, in order to prevent leaks before launch. However, we did manage to run AnTuTu, which gave us a score of 85,838 points, and PCMark Work 2.0, which gave us a score of 5,619. This is a performance jump of around 10 precent on average compared to the Snapdragon 625 SoC used by the Redmi Note 5.
  The Redmi Note 5 Pro is available with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM, although the storage remains the same at 64GB in both variants. You can expand by up to 128GB this using a miroSD card. The phone also has Bluetooth 5, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, GPS, FM radio, USB-OTG, and an array of sensors including a gyroscope. 4G is supported with VoLTE.
This phone’s MIUI software is still based on Android 7.1.1 Nougat, which is a bit disappointing to see and we don’t have any official word on when we can expect an Oreo update as of now. The Android security level is also not up to date –  our unit was patched till December 2017, though this could also be due to it being a beta build so we’ll give Xiaomi the benefit of the doubt.
The custom skin is similar to what we’ve seen on other recent Xiaomi offerings such as the Redmi 5A (Review) and Redmi Y1 (Review). The custom icon set looks polished and we like the use of pastel shades. The interface looks slick and swiping through home screens is smooth. We didn’t encounter any noticeable lag or stutter in the animations either. The leftmost home screen is dedicated to giving you card-style updates, shortcuts for apps (you can add your own too), a space to take quick notes, cricket scores, and calendar events. There’s also integration with Ola which lets you tap shortcuts for your Home and Work locations, although you’re redirected to the Ola app (or a Web page if you don’t have it installed) to actually make bookings.
Shop On SecondCovers
The Redmi Note 5 Pro also has a bunch of pre-installed apps from Xiaomi. Mi Drop lets you send files over an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network provided the receiver also has the app installed. There’s also Mi Store and Mi Community, which can be uninstalled if not wanted.
  The Settings app has a submenu for Wi-Fi calling, but there were no options to set, only a message that the feature depends on the cellular network provider. You can change the UI theme, use the fingerprint sensor to lock apps or take pictures, and set shortcuts for launching the flashlight, camera, etc. There are also familiar MIUI features such as Quick Ball, which is like Apple’s AssistiveTouch shortcut panel; one-handed mode; and Dual Apps, which lets you create two instances of some apps so that you can use them with multiple accounts.
The Fullscreen Mode menu lets you force apps to run full-screen (minus black bars on the sides), and you can set the navigation bar to auto-hide for a more immersive experience. You can also optionally sign up for a Mi Cloud account, which gives you 5GB of free cloud storage for backing up your contacts, messages, calendars, notes, etc.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro performance, camera and battery life
We tested the 4GB RAM variant of the Redmi Note 5 Pro, which performed very well with day-to-day usage. The screen does attract some fingerprints but we found the rest of the body to be quite resilient to smudges and dirt. Call reception is good and the speaker is loud enough for alerts and some media playback. The phone also runs pretty cool, and even with gaming, it only gets a bit warm. Heavy camera usage doesn’t make it overheat, which is very good.
For media playback, Xiaomi offers its own music and video app, which is frankly not needed when you have Google’s suite of media players preinstalled, and more feature-rich options such as MX Player available for free. High-bitrate videos played just fine, and this phone can even handle 4K playback. There’s a system-wide audio enhancement feature for headphones, which can be activated from the Settings app. Audio quality through headphones is good, and you can toggle between presets tuned to Xiaomi’s various headphones, or set your own.
Xiaomi says the cameras are one of the big highlights of the Redmi Note 5 Pro, and in our experience, they were pretty good. At the back of the phone, there’s a primary 12-megapixel camera with 1.25 micron pixels on its sensor and a f/2.2 aperture, while the second 5-megapixel camera is only used for sensing depth for the Portrait Mode effect. This works decently well for human subjects but the edge detection isn’t always accurate for other objects.
Tap to see full-sized Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro camera samples
  Landscapes shot in daylight have good detail, with very good colours. The phone struggles to get the white balance right at times under harsh sunlight, but otherwise, light metering is handled well. Edges in close-ups aren’t very sharp but this is only noticeable when zoomed in at 100 percent. Sadly, HDR doesn’t kick in automatically (it does so with the front camera) so you’ll have to remember to engage it manually. In low light, autofocus gets a bit slower and shutter lag does creep in, but image quality doesn’t degrade too badly. Landscapes have a decent level of detail and noise is kept within bounds, and in macros, colours are well represented. Portrait Mode also works well in low light.
Since we tested this phone with beta firmware, the option for 4K video recording wasn’t shown. We did check with Xiaomi about this and the company said that 4K video recording is meant to be supported, but an update might not be released by the time this phone goes on sale. Still, 1080p video recorded under good light is impressive. You can enable electronic stabilisation, which causes minor ‘shimmering’ anomalies in the output but this is something that might be fixed with future updates. The stabilisation itself works very well, even when you’re moving about.
However, continuous autofocus wasn’t very effective when recording video. When switched off, autofocus was more on point. There are also slow-motion and time-lapse video modes, which work well enough. The Short Video shooting mode records a 10-second video clip but the audio quality is quite poor. Panorama mode also works well and is quick in stitching frames together. Manual mode offers limited functionality as it only lets you change the white balance and ISO.
Selfie shot on Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro using Depth Mode (tap for full-sized sample) 
  The front 20-megapixel sensor captures detailed selfies in daylight, although HDR isn’t too effective under strong sunlight. There’s a Depth Mode which uses Xiaomi’s AI learning algorithms for edge detection. In practice, it works quite well. It managed to blur out most of the background of our test shots (with a few misses here and there). There’s a selfie light, which fires diffused white light on your face, helping in very low light. Beautification can be turned on if needed, and you can choose the level of the effect and also modify some of your facial features.
The 4000mAh battery in the Redmi Note 5 Pro easily lasted us through more than a day of medium to heavy usage. The bundled 10W charger doesn’t support quick charging but the phone itself does. We tried it with our own Qualcomm Quick Charge power adapter and a notification on the lock screen indicated that the phone was charging quickly. The charging icon in the status bar also changed to the Quick Charge logo.
Verdict The Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro offers plenty of reasons to spend that extra bit of money over the Redmi Note 5. The list of improvements includes a better set of cameras, slightly better battery life, and a more powerful processor – all of which make the usage experience just a bit nicer. The weight of the phone is something you will have to get used to, and even though it isn’t very striking to look at, the build quality is solid. We love the new taller display, which is sharp and has very good sunlight legibility.
Portrait mode works very well for the front and rear cameras, and this is backed by solid battery life and very good overall app and system performance. Given that this is a ‘Pro’ model, we would have liked to see more features, such as a bundled fast charger, USB Type-C port, and maybe a more distinctive design which would have set this phone apart from the non-Pro model. Having Android Oreo out-of-the-box would have also been a nice touch for enthusiasts, who Xiaomi is targeting here.
At a starting price of Rs. 13,999, this phone is pretty hard to beat. You have Xiaomi’s own Mi A1 (Review) at the same price, which is also a good pick especially if you’re looking for stock Android interface like on the Google Pixel series. The Moto G5S Plus (Review) has long been one of our top picks at this price point, but now, there’s really no matching the Redmi Note 5 Pro in terms of performance and features at this price.
We discuss the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5, Redmi Note 5 Pro, and the Mi TV 4 on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.
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markhardycreative · 7 years ago
Text
Loupedeck for Adobe Lightroom 6 & CC
Loupedeck is awesome, Loupedeck is great, Loupedeck makes me a better retoucher simply because its rekindled my love of RAW processing and as sad as it sounds I do actually love what I do which is mostly retouching photos.
Now that's a pretty open and shut statement to start an article with but it's important to not waste your time thinking you're about to read (or not) anything other than a positive look at what I think is a positive step forward in the photo manipulation world.
Why Lightroom? (warning: sob story coming up)
Here's something that's important to understand about why I use Lightroom. I use Lightroom for retouching at speed! I've been a dedicated user since it was in beta, what must have been 10 years ago, which is about the same time I started shooting property and weddings. Disciplines which both require retouching a high volume of images in a very short time. 
Over the years after sitting up all night after a busy day shooting retouching hundreds of images into the early hours knowing I had to get them finished and send off before doing the same thing all over again in just a few hours I looked for ANY way to get through pictures quicker. I used actions, presets, tried other software, tried outsourcing, tried enlisting help from other photographers. My own wife (who's a doctor and nothing to do with photography) even at one point after seeing me constantly working and not sleeping more than a few hours every night asked if I could teach her how to retouch so she could help. So I come from a place of  "Please for the love of all that is good someone design something to make my life easier!"
AND SO ALONG COMES LOUPEDECK......
Loupedeck was orginally a 'indiegogo' project (and how I wish I'd known about it back then just look at the backer perks! I would've loved that trip to try it out with the hotel) 
I'd read about several other editing console products for Lightroom in the past and they all looked... ok. I think it was a facebook post featuring an article about Loupedeck's first finished units being shipped that caught my attention. I was getting very bored with Lightroom, sounds odd yes, but truly I was. Day in, day out, I would use the same trusty presets, do the same things, with the same sliders on my Wacom Tablet. I even took to using Apps like 'be focused pro' to try to challenge myself by improving my productivity. I had overlays for my keyboard from amazon, shortcuts assigned to the wacom tablet, but I still wondered if I could work faster - yet maintain the same quality. 
Whilst on holiday I started watching youtube videos of people using Loupedeck. They were all very simple reviews that didn't really show me the actual unit properly. I wanted to see all the knobs and know if it was possible to use two or more at once. I started writing to loupedeck and Felix a very kind and helpful rep started writing back. A week into my holiday I thought 'Ah to hell with it! I spent the money and ordered 'my' Loupedeck.
5 - 7 days later....
It's here! It came in two boxes. The first is white with Loupedeck printed on it and inside that a black embossed box again with the words Loupedeck. I'm not going to go into anymore details here, whilst like it's design it's a box... many others on youtube will do far better justice to it in unboxing sessions.
Straight away I download the firmware for my mac and plug the unit into a usb port. A light came on, I opened Lightroom to be greeted with a message
'Loupedeck thinks you look great today'   Well thank you Loupedeck that's very kind. A window pops up presenting me with options to customise Loupedeck. 
I assign the top P buttons to presets, C1 dial to perspective correction, C2 button to gradient, and C3 to Radial gradient. That should do me for the moment. That's about it from there you can leap straight into things.
One pretty cool function I didn't know it did - If you press any of the dial it resets that value, for example if I spin a colour wheel and don't like what I've done rather than spin it back again I just press down on it it makes a satisfying 'click' and the value returns to 0. 
All dials and wheels spin and turn 360 degrees which is good. Whilst I'm on this subject the turning mechanism and indeed dials are really well made. It doesn't feel loose or that they are going to come off anytime soon. Some of the buttons are a little stiff on rare occasions, my right arrow key for example tends to get slightly stuck but I think this is isolated to my unit and is the type of thing that would happen to any product you buy it's really not a big deal but it's the only negative I can find to the mechanical function of the unit. 
  The main unit is made of plastic, it's light and means when I'm working with the unit and my hands are resting on it it is not cold like aluminium might be. A few things at this point I would have liked. The first is a detachable USB cable like my wacom tablet, just incase the usb wire fails I would normally just replace it but when it's attached to the device I'd have to send it back to repairs. Better yet bluetooth.  My only other criticism of the construction is the groove with holds the wire might be better if it let the wire sit a little deeper, mine tends to pop out ever so slightly.
So down to it , I started retouching some images. Within ten minutes I work out this isn't something you can just start twiddling the knobs and dials of and expect it to make you infinitely quicker than you were before. You have to learn where everything on the device is just like typing on a keyboard, at first you have to keep looking down looking at the letters you're typing then back up at the screen to check you've put them in the right order, but the more you practice the more you learn where those letters are and before you know it you're just staring at the screen typing and moving your fingers by instinct. It took me just over a month to get to that place with Loupedeck but when I did... 'wow'.. yes I was able to work much quicker than before.
  I found I was working dials in groups of two, I'd be pulling the blacks down and the whites up simultaneously The same with the shadows and highlights, contrast and clarity, in fact at one point I realised I started using the edge of my palm pulling down the blacks whilst my little finger pulled up the shadows and my other hand the highlights! 
Using the colour wheels is also incredibly quick! In my job at certain times of the year or after certain weather like rain the camera has a tendency to capture grass as a very bright yellow. When this happens I typically pull the luminance of the yellow down then the hue of the yellow up (to make it more green), then the saturation to the yellow down slightly to bring it back to the green colour that it should be, in the past that would involve a lot of clicking and sliding the panels with the graphics tablet, now i press the appropriate button to select 'lum', 'hue', or 'sat', and just to the right of them are all my colour wheels perfect! The led light to the side of lum, hue, and sat is incredibly useful. I do wish the colour wheels had some of these faint led's or something to illuminate them in the dark. I tend to dim all lights and cut out external light sources when retouching so that external light and colours don't influence the light and colours I'm seeing on the screen.
Now I know I said I can use the dials without looking, but that's also partly because they are well spread out. I love the set up of the colour wheels and I wouldn't want it changed but it is more difficult to know which wheel goes with which colour without looking. I have slight issues with the darker blue. I kept getting it mixed up with the colour to the right of it in dim lighting, I manipulate the colour blue a lot so in the end I put a tiny glow in the dark dot on my unit so a very quick glance down confirms where that colour is.
All the other buttons on the unit work really well. I particularly like the way you can swap between rating images by colour or numbers and by clicking between the two options you get an on screen message.
There are two Zoom buttons, I kind of wish one of these had been replaced with something else like 'select WB point' or even better another custom dial! The custom dial is a really strong point of the unit and by pressing the Fn key you can assign this custom dial another function which can be set up in the Loupedeck options menu.
Performance...
You can customise how fast Loupesdeck reacts based on how fast or slow you spin dials (I'm not sure what I've just typed makes sense??)  basically... you can change the settings so that a small turn makes a BIG change on the slider or the other way around - dial sensitivity.. I can't think of another way to describe it. I've not played around with it too much as I'm used to how the dials work by default. One thing I do find is the more confident I get the more I start trying to spin dials and wheels really fast. It backfires on me in that the particular dial or wheel will adjust the slider up and then it'll 'rubber band' back down again. That's my bad 'bull in a china shop' mentality. Whats better practice is to work quickly but to not go too nutts on the unit. 
Changes you make on Loupedeck adjust incredibly quickly on screen no real lag at all (unless its Lightroom lag which you'd get whether you were using the unit of not). One thing that does happen is as you make adjustments don't expect the visual sliders on the right to show up if they're not currently on your screen. So if my colour sliders menu is closed and I adjust the colour wheels on Loupedeck the panel doesn't open up on the screen, you'd have to actually click it open to see this (or press a key board short cut should one exist for that panel). If this happens and you're working quickly not wanting to click open panels you can't see then you can adjust be sight.
slightly off topic RANT WARNING!..
Any sort of performance issues I experienced are based more on Adobe's relationship with Apple which I think has plagued Lightroom for a good few years now. I remember back in 2014 when we bought new imacs with the new screens only to find Lightroom was';t compatible with the high resolution screens meaning we had to either reduce the resolution of the screen or make the windows substantially smaller to get a smooth Lightroom working environment. The same thing has happened again. I'm currently on a mid 2017 imac and as soon as Lightroom cc Classic dropped I noticed a huge increase in Lag I won't go into that now, only that the issue became so incredibly frustrating it actually made me revert back to Lightroom 6 as a stand alone copy and eventually move my RAW workflow mostly to Capture One Pro.
Rant over and back to Loupedeck.
There's a nifty little export button on the unit, all it does is open the export window, again I think it could've been used for something else, however as it's there I do use it, and I challenge anyone not to get the weirdest sense of joy pressing it when you're done, it's the strangest thing.
PRESETS
Loupedeck comes with some Lightroom presets, I've not used them. I tend to make my own presets rather than use other peoples, for no other reason than I just don't. So using them I've no idea if they're good or not since I've not any experience of using others in that regard it's wrong for me to judge them, but just to say they're there if you want to have a look once you buy the unit.  
BUYING AND PRICE
Several places sell Loupedeck now a google search would show you UK stockists. I got mine directly from the website and it arrived in a week, I'm sure I remember paying close to 329 euros but currently on their site it's 249 euros, so in my opinion that's really very good value.
Loupedeck with other RAW editing software.
So when I was completely fed up with Lightroom Classic cola CC or whatever they're calling it at the moment. I wrote to the guys and gals at Loupedeck to ask if they had any plans to expand to other software. I'll be honest my love of this unit is the only thing still keeping me hanging on to Adobe's raw processing software at this point. They wrote back to say they are currently in talks with some other companies.
Then last month a very clever person posted on a facebook group I'm a member of they had got Loupedeck working with Capture One. Incredibly excited I got all the info and gave it a go myself.
Now basically what this clever person did was to program Loupedeck as a midi device with some purchaseable software called 'Bome'. You then just reassign the dials and buttons to Capture one functions. And 'by golly gosh' it actually works!... Ok so the colour wheels don't actually do what they're meant to do but are just assignable as buttons, and YES I accept you could just get any midi device for far cheaper and do the same but I have Loupedeck so thought I'd try it, it's just a fun thing.
Something pretty cool I was able to do was to assign brush size adjusting to a dial, it's incredible smooth and easy to use. This made me think, if Loupedeck 2 should ever appear how about a brush size dial?!
Using Bome in no way gets rid of Loupedecks proper software you just need to remember to close bome before opening Lightroom. It's a bit of fun but no substitute for the real thing of using Loupedeck with it's proper dedicated software with Lightroom.
Loupedeck alternatives
Loupedeck is awesome why on earth would you want to use anything else?! :) Incase you do or like me you're slowly watching Adobe doing weird and wonderful things with Lightroom, and change your RAW editing software here are some others you can look at (sources and prices are correct as of December 2017) Please note: I've not used any of these I'm just putting them out there for anyone to research further should they desire, it's actually this research that lead to me end up buying Loupedeck.
 PALETTE
These look pretty nifty you kind of build you'r own kit, however quite pricey to me!
 TANGENT
I found out about these whilst researching control devices for Capture One, lots of variety. Prices range from £300 - a lot of money :)
 BEHRINGER MINI X-TOUCH (OR OTHER MIDI DEVICES)
The cheapest option but also the most manual set up needed, you basically plug these 'bad boys' in and assign controls from lightroom to the buttons and dials. I did order one in July from Amazon for £50 but after a month of waiting I gave up and bought Loupedeck instead. There are lots of guides about how to set these up on youtube, but obviously you run the risk of it stopping working after Lightroom updates. People seem to like the model to the left because like Loupedeck the dials are unobstructed.
 So there you have it
There are other options out there but despite this I'd still buy Loupedeck in a heartbeat. I think it's incredibly well priced, it just works (unlike apple and adobes relationship these days it seems) it is constantly being worked on with positive updates and it is most definitely becoming more and more popular, appearing in more shops and online outlets all the time. 
As I am quite passionate about this device I will keep my eyes peeled for any new developments in the Loupedeck camp with updates and new products so do check back here for any new news. Or lets be honest you could just check on their site.. Check here or there it makes no difference, they're worth your attention and keeping your photographic eyes on in the future.
NOTE: THIS IS A COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT REVIEW I HAVE NO CURRENT ASSOCIATION WITH LOUPEDECK (However if they would like to reach out and form one based on this review they can hit my contacts section... I'm just saying...) 
I'll be doing some live sessions using Loupedeck soon so another thing if you are interseted to stop by for.
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technomanish · 8 years ago
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If someone sets fire to your trousers once, are you ever really going to trust them with a box of matches again?
That’s just how big a deal the Galaxy Note 8 is for Samsung. Last year’s explosive Note 7 launch (and subsequent recall) was nothing short of calamitous, so its successor absolutely has to restore confidence in the battered sub-brand.
The good news? It’s every bit the kick-ass flagship phablet you’d expect it to be.
With design and display smarts borrowed from the Galaxy S8, software tweaks that give productivity a boost, and an upgraded S Pen that’s learned a few extra tricks, the Note 8 shouldn’t have any trouble shooting straight to the top of Samsung’s smartphone offerings.
And that’s before you start playing with the dual rear cameras – marking the first time the tech has appeared on a Samsung phone.
I got to try one out ahead of launch to bring you some early hands-on impressions. And I didn’t even need my oven gloves.
DESIGN & BUILD: TIME TO GET SERIOUS
With more angular edges and a screen that curves at a much steeper angle, you can instantly tell the Note 8 apart from Samsung’s other top-end phones.
The Galaxy S8 is smooth, soft, and almost pebble-like, but this feels like it means business – even in the jazzy new Maple Gold colour. We get the choice of gold or Midnight Black colours here in the UK, while the rest of the world gets Deep Sea Blue and Orchid Grey.
The metal frame still gives you something meaty to get your mitts around, and the skinny 18:9 aspect ratio screen means you don’t need the hands of a giant to grip it – even with a whopping 6.3in AMOLED panel squeezed in there.
A lot of features have been ported across from the Galaxy S8, including the digital home button – with the screen taking up so much space, there’s no room for a fingerprint sensor up front.
It gets moved to the back, right next to those dual cameras. There’s the smallest of bumps to let you know you’re fondling the fingerprint sensor and not the camera lenses, but it’s still awkward to reach – maybe even more so here because of the sheer size of the phone. Samsung is clearly hoping you’ll use iris or face recognition instead.
The whole thing is water-resistant, you still get a 3.5mm headphone jack, and there’s USB-C charging at the bottom – so the full package, basically.
There’s also the ever-present Bixby button on the left, just below the volume controls. Samsung’s live-in butler still hasn’t found his voice, at least here in the UK, but it is apparently due to arrive shortly after the Note 8 launches.
CAMERA: SEEING DOUBLE
Dual cameras have been doing the rounds for a while now, but this is the first time Samsung has joined the fray. The Note 8 has two 12MP snappers, and is the first phone to give ‘em both optical image stabilisation.
It’s an interesting approach, with the main sensor getting the same f/1.7 aperture and dual-pixel autofocus as the Galaxy S8, but the secondary telephoto lens sticking with f/2.4 and phase-detect AF only.
That means you can toggle between 1x and 2x ‘optical zoom’, to get closer to your subjects without actually moving, only without any nasty digital noise or compression.
Naturally there’s a bokeh-blurring portrait mode, too: Samsung calls it Live Focus, because you can tweak the amount of blur before you press the shutter button. It saves two shots, so you can go back and adjust the effect (or delete it altogether) whenever you like.
The 8MP selfie cam up front is probably using the same snapper as the Galaxy S8, seeing how both have f/1.7 apertures and autofocus.
Everything felt quick and responsive, but how the Note 8 compares to the rest of the dual camera-toting world will boil down to pure image quality. Samsung isn’t really doing anything different from what we’ve seen before, even if it is the first with dual OIS, so I’ll only be excited if it takes fantastic photos.
Of course, the Galaxy S8 is one of the best smartphone snappers around, so that feels like a pretty safe bet.
SCREEN & SOUND: BIGGER IS BETTER
If you’ve seen a Galaxy S8 or S8+ in the wild, you’ll know exactly what to expect here: the Note 8 has an absolute stunner of a screen.
The AMOLED panel has the same super-high 2960×1440 resolution, only here it’s stretched out over 6.3in. That means pixel density isn’t quite as high as the S8, but that’s still loads more pixels than you’ll be able to make out without the help of a microscope.
That extra screen space isn’t wasted with cutesy curves, either. The screen sides still bend around the edge of the phone, but at a much sharper angle, leaving more space to doodle onscreen with the S Pen.
It can crank the brightness up to ridiculous levels when you step outside, so you won’t ever have a problem seeing what’s onscreen, and the contrast we’ve come to expect from OLED screens gives movies and games a gorgeous, cinematic look with deep blacks and vibrant colours.
I didn’t get a chance to properly test out the built-in speakers, so can’t speak for quality just yet, but if the Galaxy S8 is any indication, the Note will be plenty loud enough to catch up on Podcasts and YouTube videos without reaching for a pair of headphones – even if Samsung does bundle a tasty pair of AKG ‘buds in the box.
OS & SOFTWARE: THE WRITE STUFF
Give the S Pen a poke and it pops out of its sheath with a satisfying, spring-loaded pop. This is when Samsung’s Android customisations spring into life, letting you pick from a whole host of different abilities and tools.
All the old favourites return, but new for 2017 are Live Message, a cute way to draw doodles or annotate images for livening up your Whatsapp chats; PENUP, a social hub for sharing your S Pen sketches; and live translation of whole sentences, instead of just single words. The Pen’s 4096 levels of pressure should come in pretty handy for digital artists looking to get their creativity flowing, too.
Beyond the S Pen, Samsung’s spin on Android is a lot more minimal than in previous years. Sure, the icons look a little different, but Touchwiz really is massively improved. You can even swap the Back and Recents keys, if you don’t like the Galaxy way of doing things.
The only real flourish is the Edge panel, which lets you swipe between app shortcuts, contacts and widgets from any screen. App Pairs can be pinned here too, opening two apps simultaneously with a single tap. Think maps and music whenever you get in the car, or YouTube and a web browser for a soundtrack while you browse.
Samsung has also tweaked the software that kicks in when you slam a Note 8 into the DEX docking station, too. A lot more of the keyboard shortcuts that come as second nature on a Mac or PC work here now, and you can finally run certain troublesome apps on the big screen at full-size, instead of in a window. It’ll even play nicely with games now, too.
DEX makes a lot more sense for the Note than it did for the Galaxy, because it’s so focused on productivity. That’s probably why Samsung is bundling the two together, at least for people that pre-order the phone.
PERFORMANCE & BATTERY LIFE: NO SURPRISES
As if there was ever any doubt: The Note 8 absolutely flies. With the same octa-core Exynos 8895 CPU as the Galaxy S8 (at least here in Blighty) there’s nothing that won’t run smoothly on that super-high resolution screen.
With an even bigger emphasis on multi-tasking this year, it makes sense that Samsung would stuff 6GB of RAM inside it, too. Using two apps in Multi Window won’t be a problem, and the S Pen integration pops in and out without any slowdown or stutter.
There’s an ample 64GB of on-board storage for all your apps, plus a microSD card slot should you need more room later down the line.
How long you’ll be able to go between charges is the biggest mystery right now. A 3300mAh battery feels like Samsung playing it safe, but that’s understandable. I’m expecting it to comfortably last a day, but need topping up overnight – at least if you’re using it as more than a glorified MP3 player, anyway.
SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 8 INITIAL VERDICT
So, does the Note 8 do anything drastic to shake up Samsung’s now-familiar Galaxy Note formula? No, not really – but then it doesn’t have to. It just has to avoid blowing up.
Sure, the iPhone might have won over a few ex-Galaxy owners when the Note 7 disappeared from shelves last year, but with nothing truly taking its place, it wasn’t going to be too tricky for Samsung to waltz back in and reclaim the throne it had just vacated. The S Pen really is that damn good.
The Note 8 feels like every bit the superphone, with plenty of power, a gorgeous design, and productivity boosts that should keep it the king of stylus-toting smartphones. I can’t wait to get one and give it a full review, to see if those dual cameras can deliver.
The largest display on any Note ever (6.3 inches) If someone sets fire to your trousers once, are you ever really going to trust them with a box of matches again?
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magzoso-tech · 6 years ago
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New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/realme-x2-pro-review/
Realme X2 Pro Review
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Realme is stepping up its game with its latest offering, the Realme X2 Pro. With a starting price of Rs. 29,999, the Realme X2 Pro offers many of the features found in higher-priced mid-range flagships, which automatically boosts its value proposition. This is also the company’s first ‘true’ flagship offering, and is the first time that Realme is venturing above the over-Rs. 20,000 price segment in India. So far, the company has earned a reputation for making budget-friendly phones, but with the X2 Pro, can it convince its fanbase and new potential buyers to spend this much money for its top-end offering? We’ve been testing the X2 Pro for about a week, and it’s now time to see if this premium smartphone has managed to pull it off.
Realme X2 Pro design
We’ve covered most of the design and usability aspects of the Realme X2 Pro in our first impressions of it, so we’ll be brief here. Realme has finally moved beyond the polycarbonate bodies we’ve seen so far on its phones, for an aluminium body with Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and back. This makes the X2 Pro feel very good to hold. Everything is put together nicely. The device can be a little slippery and the glass back attracts smudges easily, but the bundled case should help with both these minor issues.
The new Neptune Blue colour looks great in our opinion and helps this phone stand out. The X2 Pro is also available as a Master Edition, in ‘Red Brick’ and ‘Concrete’ finishes. The new prominent placement of the Realme logo, adjacent to the camera module, is a bold choice, but helps this phone stand out from the rest of Realme’s offerings, in a way. Button placement is good, and you’ll find the headphone socket, a USB Type-C port, and a speaker on the bottom. The earpiece also doubles as a second speaker for stereo sound, which is a welcome feature.
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The Realme X2 Pro has a quad camera setup at the back
Realme phones have traditionally had good displays, and it’s the same story with the Realme X2 Pro. This phone has a 6.5-inch full-HD+ AMOLED panel with a claimed 500nits of sustained brightness and 1000nits of peak brightness. The display is sharp, viewing angles are good, and colours have good saturation. What’s special though, is that this display can run at 90Hz instead of the usual 60Hz. This higher refresh rate offers a more fluid feel when scrolling through content, whether in Android’s UI or in apps. The X2 Pro has slim borders around the display (including the bottom chin) and a relatively shallow notch — all of which reminds us lot of the OnePlus 7T (Review).
The vertically arranged rear camera module creates a bit of bump on the back of this phone, but that can be evened out with the use of a case. The Realme X2 Pro is a bit on the thicker side at 8.7mm but the curved back tries to compensate for this. It’s also quite heavy at nearly 200g but the weight is distributed well so the phone doesn’t feel too unbalanced.
The retail box of the Realme X2 Pro contains a 50W SuperVOOC wall charger plus the usual accessories such as a data cable, a SIM eject tool, a case, a warranty leaflet, and a quick start guide. The phone ships with a screen guard pre-applied but you still don’t get any earphones or a headset in the box.
Realme X2 Pro specifications and software
As we stated before, the Realme X2 Pro is a proper flagship which means it uses Qualcomm’s top-end processor — the Snapdragon 855+ SoC. This is the same chip used in several recent mid-range flagships such as the Asus ROG Phone 2 (Review) and the OnePlus 7T. It’s a slightly souped-up revision of the original Snapdragon 855, with higher clock speeds for the single fast CPU core and the GPU.
The Realme X2 Pro is available in two variants in India; one with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage  priced at Rs. 29,999, and the second with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage priced at Rs. 33,999. We’re reviewing the lower-priced option today. Both variants use the newer UFS 3.0 storage standard. Realme also says it has used a new tactile linear vibration motor for more nuanced haptic feedback, and a vapour chamber cooling system for the CPU. Other specifications include dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5, support for three satellite navigation systems, and all the expected sensors.
The Realme X2 Pro lacks expandable storage, just like the Realme X (Review). The phone can accommodate two Nano-SIMs, and dual 4G VoLTE is supported. You also get an optical in-display fingerprint sensor and customisable unlock animations. Face unlock is supported, and works well even in low light. The X2 Pro offers NFC and contactless payment options, although the latter isn’t of much use here in India since services such as Google Pay don’t use it.
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ColorOS 6.1 on the Realme X2 Pro features dark mode, Digital Wellbeing, and plenty of customisation options
The Realme X2 Pro ships with ColorOS 6.1, based on Android 9. This version has some new features such as a dark mode and Google’s Digital Wellbeing app. Our unit had the November security patch preinstalled, which is good. The look and feel of the interface is the same as what we’ve seen on other recent Realme phones. You get the same customisation options, gestures, and shortcuts, and even the same preinstalled apps such as Game Space and ORoaming. Realme’s App Market has the tendency to spam your notifications with promotions, but this can be turned off in the app’s settings. There are also still plenty of preinstalled third-party apps, and you can uninstall all of them.
The X2 Pro has Widevine L1 DRM certification which means there are no restrictions on the streaming resolution in apps such as Netflix. Dark Mode is still a “labs” feature but it worked well in our experience. It’s enabled for all installed apps by default, but you can manually disable it if needed. There’s also support for Dolby Atmos, which works when playing audio through the speakers as well as wired or wireless headphones.
Realme X2 Pro performance and battery life
We didn’t have any major complaints with the Realme X2 Pro for daily usage. We got accustomed to its heft and weight after a while, so they weren’t big deals. We found the display to have very good sunlight legibility and the speakers get really loud, so alerts are easily audible even in noisy public spaces. We didn’t face any issues with call quality either. The fingerprint sensor and face recognition did their jobs reliably in our tests. The AMOLED panel lets you take advantage of an always-on-display mode, but its use is limited as it only shows notifications from certain default apps.
The phone ran cool in general but the sides and back got quite warm when gaming and even with heavy camera usage. This was noticeable especially on hot days, but we did also feel it when testing the phone indoors, in an air-conditioned office. A case should dampen this effect a little bit but it’s still something to be aware of.
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The Realme X2 Pro has two Nano-SIM slots and no microSD slot
The stereo speakers on the Realme X2 Pro sound great. The bottom one is little louder than the earpiece but you still get a decent stereo effect. In videos with Dolby Atmos-encoded audio, the surround effect is somewhat perceptible. Full-HD and higher-resolution videos look sharp, and colours have good saturation.
ColorOS has a video enhancer called ‘OSIE Vision’ which offers a slight boost in brightness and contrast, so video looks a bit more vivid. We’ve seen before as an option on the Realme XT, but it never really worked there. On the X2 Pro, it is functional and can be enabled for a handful of apps such as MXPlayer, TikTok, and Amazon Prime Video. You can toggle this effect on or off via a slide-out menu.
The powerful processor in the Realme X2 Pro allows it to handle heavy games and multitasking. We tried heavy titles such as PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile, both of which ran just fine with the visuals cranked up. Games such as Rayman: Adventures can also take advantage of the 90Hz display. The phone did get warm when we were playing games, but not to an uncomfortable extent. Benchmark numbers were pretty solid too. We got a score of 4,59,562 points in AnTuTu, while the T-Rex test in GFXbench returned 60fps. 
The X2 Pro has a 4000mAh battery, which was dependable. On average, we easily got about a day and a half of runtime on a single charge. This would dip when we were testing the camera heavily or playing a lot of games, and even then we got through a full day comfortably. In our battery loop test, the Realme X2 Pro ran for a total of 14 hours and 49 minutes, with the screen set to 90Hz. 
Charging is particularly impressive. With the bundled SuperVOOC charger, we managed to fully charge the battery from zero in only about 31 minutes. The good news is that you’re not just limited to Realme’s proprietary charging standard, as the X2 Pro also supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 and USB Power Delivery for relatively fast charging.
Realme X2 Pro cameras
The Realme X2 Pro uses the same 64-megapixel f/1.8 primary camera as the Realme XT, but with different companion sensors. The 2-megapixel macro camera has been ditched for a more useful 13-megapixel telephoto camera. This is capable of 2X optical zoom, 5X hybrid zoom, and a total of 20X digital zoom. There’s also an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera with an f/2.2 aperture and a 115-degree field of view, and finally a 2-megapixel depth sensor. There’s no optical stabilisation on any of the cameras, but your do get electronic stabilisation for video.
The camera app in ColorOS 6.1 has some new features. Nightscape now works for the selfie camera; you can finally adjust the level of background blur in Portrait mode; and the wide-angle camera can be used to shoot video. Realme has also added an ‘Ultra Steady’ shooting mode, much like what we saw on the Oppo Reno 2 (Review), for enhanced stabilisation.
The primary sensor captures 16-megapixel oversampled photos by default. Under good light, our samples looked detailed. Colours were vivid and HDR did a good job of balancing the exposures of light and dark areas. Objects to the sides of the frame exhibited noticeable grain but objects in the focus area didn’t have this issue. You can shoot at the full 64-megapixel resolution if you need a higher degree of zoom later on. Portrait mode worked well too, with good edge detection. 
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Shot using the primary camera of the Realme X2 Pro (tap to see full-sized image)
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Shot using the wide-angle camera on the Realme X2 Pro (tap to see full-sized image)
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Shot using the telephoto camera on the Realme X2 Pro (tap to see full-sized image)
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Shot using Ultra Macro mode on the Realme X2 Pro (tap to see full-sized image)
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Shot using Portrait mode on the Realme X2 Pro (tap to see full-sized image)
The telephoto camera captured good details and colours in daylight. The 5x hybrid zoom worked well and managed decent levels of detail under good light. Finer text and smaller objects appeared a little blurry when we really zoomed into an image shot at this (5x) magnification level, but it looked good as is. Using the full 20x zoom range, the level of detail dropped significantly, but largish text and bigger objects were still recognisable so it was somewhat useful. At the highest zoom level, the camera app helped us keep the image in the viewfinder steady, but you’ll need be very still to avoid motion blur.
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Samples at 1x, 2x, 5x and 20x zoom shot with the Realme X2 Pro (tap to see full-sized image)
The wide-angle camera kept barrel distortion around the sides of frames to a minimum, but details and colour accuracy were noticeably weaker compared to shots taken with the telephoto or the primary cameras. Colours looked a bit paler and objects weren’t as sharp. This sensor is used when shooting Ultra Macro photos. Once again, you’ll need steady hands, as shooting from very close to your subject is tricky. Image quality is good though, if you have sufficient light around.
In low light, photos captured by the primary camera looked good. There was good detail, colours were punchy, and noise was under control. Dark regions tended to look a little hazy but this was fixable using the Nightscape shooting mode. This also took care of minor light metering issues which we detected when shooting in Auto mode. Nightscape was the most effective when there were decent light sources around. However, it tended to make dark scenes artificially bright and details were often worse than when shooting in the Auto mode.
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Shot using primary camera with Nightscape from the Realme X2 Pro (tap to see full-sized image)
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Shot using the wide-angle camera with Nightscape from the Realme X2 Pro (tap to see full-sized image)
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Selfie sample with Nightscape from the Realme X2 Pro (tap to see full-sized image)
The wide-angle camera was understandably weaker in low-light shots due to its narrow f/2.2 aperture. You can use Nightscape for this sensor too, which helped us get more usable photos. In weak lighting conditions, the X2 Pro doesn’t switch to the telephoto camera when you try to zoom in, instead simply using 2x or 5x digital zoom. However, if try to zoom in all the way to 20x, it will actually switch to the telephoto camera irrespective of light conditions.
The 16-megapixel selfie camera wasn’t too impressive. Exposures were a bit of a hit-or-miss and when shooting against the light, and HDR wasn’t handled very effectively. Switching to Portrait mode, the camera saved 8-megapixel images, but bright areas were always blown out and edge detection was quite poor. In low light, details were a little mushy, but the new Nightscape mode helped fix the colour accuracy and light metering a bit. The screen flash is fairly powerful but image quality was once again quite average.
Thanks to the powerful SoC, the Realme X2 Pro can shoot up to 4K 60fps videos. Video quality was good in daylight, and image stabilisation worked decently well, even at 4K. With Ultra Steady enabled, the view from the primary camera is cropped heavily, and it shoots at 1080p 60fps by default. The stabilisation was once again decent but not great, as minor jerkiness was still noticeable. Videos shots using the wide-angle camera had decent detail and was also stabilised.
Slow-motion video is available at 480fps and 960fps, besides the standard 240fps. Higher frame-rate videos are recorded at 720p, so image quality was quite average. The phone can only shoot short bursts at 960fps.
The X2 Pro needs a lot of improvement when it comes to video recording in low light. Whether at 1080p or 4K, there was lots of noise and artefacting in dark areas. We also noticed some unnatural artefacting around light sources, and the stabilisation caused very evident shimmer when we walked. The wide-angle camera shot considerably darker footage, due to its narrower aperture. 
Verdict
The Realme X2 Pro is a great offering at Rs. 29,999. You essentially get most of the features of the OnePlus 7T, barring the leaner software, at a much more affordable price. The higher-end variant is still good value, as even at Rs. 33,999 for the 12GB RAM version, it’s still better priced than the cheapest OnePlus 7T. 
Of course, this phone isn’t without its shortcomings. It does heat up quite a bit when playing heavy games and with extensive camera use. We didn’t find the selfie camera to be particularly impressive, and low-light video performance in general could be better. Apart from these issues, there’s a lot to like about the X2 Pro. You get excellent build quality, a vivid 90Hz display, a top-of-the-line processor, and a versatile set of cameras with a useful zoom function, in favourable lighting of course. Let’s not forget the very good speakers, super-fast charging, and the fact that you still get a headphone jack. 
Overall, the Realme X2 Pro makes an excellent alternative to the OnePlus 7T, if you’re looking for that level of design and performance but didn’t want to spend so much.   
Is Realme X2 Pro the OnePlus 7T killer you’ve been waiting for? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.
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magzoso-tech · 6 years ago
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New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/redmi-8-review/
Redmi 8 Review
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Xiaomi has unleashed a whole pack of new Redmi and Redmi Note smartphones over the past month, as the market shows no signs of slowing down. There has so far been no lack of competition for the Chinese giant, but it has managed to keep up. Buyers don’t seem to mind too much, as they’re getting more for their money than ever before. The Redmi 8 is the latest iteration of one of Xiaomi’s most affordable models, and so it automatically has a huge potential target audience.
With the launch of the Redmi 8, the company has taken a few steps forward in terms of features, while also seeming to regress in one key area – the processor. Does this mark a major shift for Xiaomi and a repositioning of a key product, and does it make sense to allocate more of the budget to other things like cameras and battery capacity? It’s time to review the Redmi 8 and find out.
Redmi 8 design
Like we’ve already seen with the Redmi 8A (Review) and Redmi Note 8 Pro (Review), Xiaomi has given this generation of phones a pretty major design update. There’s a very specific new design language that stands out from the generic iPhone-inspired look of past models. The Redmi 8 also feels extremely high-quality, with loads of attention paid to small details, and no rough edges anywhere. No wonder the company has slapped a “Designed by Xiaomi” label prominently on the back.
The Redmi 8 is available in three colours – Onyx Black, Sapphire Blue, and Ruby Red. Our review unit was the latter, and we love the rich, deep jewel tone which clearly isn’t just a surface-level coating. There are no unnecessary gimmicks here with gradients, patterns, or textures. The back of this phone is glossy but not slippery. It’s surprisingly resilient against fingerprints but you’ll want to use a case to prevent small abrasions and scratches. It’s curved just right at the edges and corners to make usage comfortable.
The two cameras and fingerprint sensor are in a black vertical strip down the middle of the rear. This strip is flush with the rest of the phone, unlike the protruding equivalent on the Redmi Note 8 Pro. The fingerprint sensor is small, but reasonably within reach. The Redmi 8 doesn’t rock from side to side when used flat on a table.
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There’s a USB Type-C port, 3.5mm audio socket, and speaker on the bottom
The front of the Redmi 8 is fairly standard – there are thick borders around the 6.22-inch display, and a waterdrop-style notch at the top. The chin is thick enough for a Redmi logo to fit, which we would have preferred not to be there. It’s fairly obvious that Xiaomi has used several common elements across this phone and the lower-priced Redmi 8A, and the two are impossible to distinguish when seen from any angle other than the rear.
Xiaomi surprised us with a USB Type-C port on the entry-level Redmi 8A so of course there’s one here too. It’s joined on the bottom of the phone by a 3.5mm audio socket and single speaker. The power and volume buttons are comfortably positioned on the right, and the tray on the left accepts two Nano-SIMs as well as a microSD card. Unlike its less expensive sibling, the Redmi 8 does have an Infrared emitter on the top, for controlling appliances with.
Overall, the Redmi 8 looks and feels like it’s much more expensive than it really is. It would have been impossible to even imagine this level of finesse for less than Rs. 10,000 a few years ago.
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The Redmi 8 is available in three jewel-toned colour options
Redmi 8 specifications and software
While the exterior of this phone is impressive, Xiaomi’s choice of components on the inside raises a few questions. We have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 439 processor, which is a bit of a downgrade compared to the Snapdragon 632 used in the Redmi 7 (Review). Both these processors were launched at the same time last year, so Xiaomi hasn’t even gone with a newer chip that might have been substantially more efficient. Interestingly, this is the same chip that powers the entry-level Redmi 8A (Review) and even the Redmi 7A (Review). It has four ARM Cortex-A53 cores running at up to 1.45GHz and another four at 1.95GHz and integrated Adreno 505 graphics.
There are many more similarities between the Redmi 8 and the Redmi 8A. The two share the same screen specifications — 6.22-inch 720×1520-pixel IPS panels rated to handle 70.8 percent of the NTSC colour gamut. Both phones also have 5000mAh batteries and support 18W charging, and Xiaomi supplies 10W chargers in both models’ retail boxes. Another nice touch is that you can use FM radio without plugging a headset in to act as an antenna.
While the Redmi 8A tops out at 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, the Redmi 8 gets that much in its base variant with an option that steps up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. Interestingly, Xiaomi is selling only this variant at a discount as an introductory offer, and it’s what we’re reviewing today. MicroSD cards of up to 512GB are supported. Both phones have 12-megapixel f/1.8 primary rear cameras and 8-megapixel f/2 front cameras, though the Redmi 8 also has a depth sensor on the rear.
You might not be surprised to read that both phones weigh 188g and share identical dimensions. As far as hardware goes, the only differences between these phones seem to be the depth sensor, fingerprint reader, IR emitter, and amounts of RAM and storage you can get with the Redmi 8. Considering the minor price difference between them, this shouldn’t be unexpected, but it does make it hard to see the Redmi 8 as delivering great value.
We have MIUI 10.3.1 based on Android 9, and our review unit was running the August 2019 security patch. MIUI is generally well regarded, but has annoyed us in the past with lots of preinstalled bloatware, ads, and spammy notifications. That hasn’t changed here – we saw UC Browser, Paytm, Amazon Shopping, Facebook, Dailyhunt, Gaana, and Opera Mini in addition to a multitude of Xiaomi’s own apps and quite a few from Google as well. There’s really no point to the choices Xiaomi has made either – no one needs four preinstalled Web browsers.
Several of these apps started throwing up regular advertising notifications after their first use. The good news is that you can uninstall all the third-party ones. Sadly, there are also still ads in Xiaomi’s default apps, and you see pop-up ads when installing anything from the Google Play Store.
At least MIUI looks relatively slick and polished. There are several useful features such app locking, app cloning, a private “second space” profile, navigation gestures and shortcuts, and independent whitelists for restricting apps from using mobile data and Wi-Fi. Google’s Digital Wellbeing is also supported.
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The volume and power buttons are on the right
Redmi 8 performance and battery life
We might be a little spoiled after reviewing so many of Xiaomi’s previous phones that have exceeded our expectations that the Redmi 8 falls a little flat. There’s nothing wrong with its performance and it’s definitely good enough for all day-to-day tasks, but it isn’t exciting or new. There are other options available for less than Rs. 8,000 that have stronger processors, including the Realme 3i (Review).
The fingerprint sensor worked fine, but we were warned that face recognition isn’t very secure and can potentially be defeated with a photo of you or by people who look like you. MIUI is easy to use and you can manually disable notifications for many of the problematic apps, or get rid of them entirely, though no one should really have to go through this. As always, the Infrared emitter is a nice touch that many people can get at least some use out of.
The display is good enough for movies and casual social videos. It isn’t especially vivid, but is bright enough to be used just fine even under direct sunlight. Widevine DRM is restricted to L3 so you’ll be streaming videos at lower-than-HD quality, but you might not even notice. The speaker is surprisingly crisp and loud.
Our benchmark tests showed exactly how the Snapdragon 439 stacks up against its competition. We got scores of 95,930 in AnuTuTu and 4,698 in PCMark, as well as 178 and 822 respectively in Geekbench 5’s single-core and multi-core runs. Graphics performance was also on the low side with just 35fps and 14fps in GFXBench’s T-rex and Manhattan 3.1 tests.
As for gaming, you’re better off sticking with simple titles. We were able to run PUBG Mobile, but only at its low settings and that too with a lot of jerkiness. Asphalt 9: Legends also ran, but with some serious lag that made it much less enjoyable than usual. We also found that the back of this phone got quite warm after two or three races.
On the other hand, the battery lasted us comfortably through a full day of heavy usage which involved taking a lot of camera samples, playing these games, and about two hours of video streaming. Our HD video loop test ran for 11 hours, 44 minutes which isn’t great, but isn’t too bad either. We were able to charge up to 25 percent in 30 minutes and 51 percent in an hour using the included 10W power adapter.
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You get a 12-megapixel rear camera with a depth sensor
Redmi 8 cameras
Cameras are hugely important in a smartphone, and some manufacturers now offer multiple cameras to try to tempt buyers. Xiaomi has stuck with a dual-camera setup, which actually means you get one camera with a depth sensor for portrait effects. However, quality leaves a lot to be desired.
We found the Redmi 8 sometimes took a bit too long to lock onto a subject, and didn’t quite get exposures right when dealing with white subjects or bright backgrounds. At night as well as in portrait mode during the day, we often encountered a deep yellow tone in the viewfinder and in saved shots. We had to point away from our subject or restart the camera app to force it to recalibrate its colour balance.
As for photo quality, things were hit-or-miss during the day. We did capture some crisp shots with good detail, but many times we were also disappointed to see blurred or dull results. We wound up taking several shots of each subject to maximise our chances of getting a good one.
You can get some nice depth-of-field naturally using the camera in its default mode. Portrait mode shots looked botched in the viewfinder, like the phone was simply unable to detect edges, but the saved results were fine. The front camera didn’t capture great detail in selfies.
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Tap to see full-sized Redmi 8 photo samples
At night, other than the colour tone issue we described earlier, we found it hard to get usable shots. Details were blotchy and focus was not very sharp. We had to stand very still to avoid causing motion blur. However, there was a fair amount of detail and subjects were well defined with a bit of ambient lighting around. Selfies were unfortunately completely blurry and messy.
Video recording goes up to 1080p 30fps and detail as well as exposure were decent in the daytime as well as at night. Stabilisation is non-existent and you shouldn’t try to move around while shooting.
Verdict
Many Indian smartphone buyers are very conscious of specifications, down to the number and type of SoC CPU cores. This is especially true of young people who upgrade at least once a year and buy devices online – which is a huge swathe of the market. With the Redmi 8, Xiaomi is sidestepping raw performance and focusing on quality-of-life features as well as design. The intention seems to be to establish a firm distinction between the Redmi models and their Redmi Note siblings which are a step or two up the price ladder.
The Redmi 8 is certainly a good-looking phone, and on paper at least the battery, camera, and aesthetics are all highly appealing. You get generous amounts of RAM and storage for the price. Gorilla Glass, 18W fast charging (if you have or buy your own charger), wireless FM radio, USB Type-C, and the IR emitter are all value-adds.
In the real world, we were disappointed with the cameras though. This is something that we think Xiaomi could have done much better at, and unless the issues we faced can be fixed with software updates, some buyers are going to feel let down.
Buyers considering this phone should take a close look at the Redmi 8A (Review) to see if there’s anything they don’t mind losing, since that could save them some money. You might be tempted to act quickly in order to snag the 4GB RAM/ 64GB storage variant at a discount while the introductory offer lasts. However, we’d suggest that people who value performance wait a little while for our upcoming review of the freshly announced Redmi Note 8, which looks like it could deliver a lot more for a relatively small step up in price.
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