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Wish for a budget phone that meets the latest mid-range smartphones head-on in battle, with amazing specs?

Xiaomi Redmi devices are popular for their top-notch features at affordable prices. Replete with ultra-wide displays and mainly bezel-less designs, Redmi never fails to entice its loyal clientele by introducing new phones in each category.

With the launch of Redmi 10C, a literal powerhouse on a budget, we couldn’t help ourselves and decided to get an analysis of our own. Let’s dive into an in-depth review of our first impression of this latest device.

Design

With a familiar polycarbonate body that renders it light and durable, the design has matte diagonal lines. The light weight of the phone makes it easy to carry and hold for longer periods.

The front offers a 6.71-inch HD+ screen with an IPS panel, which is not uncommon in mid-range phones these days. There is a dew drop design housing the front camera and the call speaker resting on top of the camera.

The USB-C port and the mono loudspeaker can be found at the bottom with a 3.5mm audio jack on top. The right-side houses power and lock buttons along with the volume keys, while the left side contains the triple-SIM card slot.

The camera protrusion at the back is equipped with dual camera lenses, LED flash, imaging sensors, and a fingerprint reader along with the Redmi logo.

Display

Having a 6.71-inch LCD screen with HD + display at a resolution of 720×1650, with a pixel density of 268 PPI, and a brightness of up to 400 nits, Redmi 10C exhibits vivid hues, bright contrasts, and better viewing angles.

Protected by Coming Gorilla Glass 3, the screen supports modes like reading mode, sunlight mode, dark mode, etc. While also protecting the eyes from harmful rays.

Overall, for daily usage, the screen is satisfactory as it supports Widevine L1 HD, meaning that it can decrypt and stream HD videos from streaming giants like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, at the highest resolution, easily. For a budget phone, it offers the best value.

Cameras

Offering a 50MP primary lens with an F/1.8 lens slot, that can capture 1080 video at 30FPS, supports HDR, night mode, and panorama technology, along with a secondary 2MP OmniVision sensor with an F/2.4 lens slot and a 5MP selfie camera is with an F/2.2 lens slot, Redmi 10C wins the camera game.

Redmi 10C captures mesmerizing views with both indoor and outdoor photos and videos having decent brightness, color adjustment, contrast sharpness, and vibrance. Videos do display noise on 10x zoom and lack OIS but it is the best that is offered in this budget category.  The selfie camera is exceptional with its face recognition technology, which helps unlock the phone with ease, and captures gorgeous portraits.

Performance

If watching videos, playing games, and browsing the web are your favorite activities, you have found the best comrade for your Call of Duty. Performance of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 680 octa-core chipset with a 6nm manufacturing process with 4-Kryo 265 Gold clocked at 2.4Ghz, and 4-Kryo 265 Silver at 1.9Ghz, has been terrific for multitasking, even while playing games like Temple Run at Ultra settings, where minimal frame skips or lags were observed, and the device didn’t warm up.

Combined with an Adreno 610 GPU, 4GB RAM, 1GB virtual RAM, and  64/128GB UFS 2.2 onboard storage with the ability to expand via MicroSD card up to 1TB, with MIUI 13, this phone delivers uninterrupted performance without any lags, which means apps install and load faster.

We must mention that on the first boot you may encounter a bug while using the apps, so, to avoid this issue, make sure to update your device to the latest version.

Connectivity

Housing a port accommodating dual 4G nano sims along with a MicroSD card for extendable storage, Redmi 10C supports all 3G and 4G network bandwidths in Pakistan. So the phone catches signals from every carrier easily. As for the WiFi networks, it supports 2.4GHz and 5GHz bandwidths and it also has Bluetooth 5.0.

Battery And Charging

Redmi 10C comes with a 10W charger but an 18W USB-C fast charger is also available for purchase to rapidly charge a 5000mAH battery in less than 2 hours.

The battery lasts easily for a day even with heavy usage and while running high-performing draining apps.

We would suggest that the Xiaomi Redmi 10C smartphone is worth buying, as it is one of the best budget phones currently in the market that offer powerful performance, and has a great battery life with a really good camera and display.

Zong and Growtech connect for the most-advanced business solution and agriculture technology.

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir) Pakistan’s leading Telecommunication Company, Zong 4G has entered into a strategic partnership with GROWTECH Services (www.growtechsol.com) – a leading agriculture-technology company operating in Pakistan. Through this agreement, GROWTECH Services will provide technological solutions to Zong subscribers, to overcome the agricultural challenges and meet the evolving needs of the farmers. GROWTECH is an agriculture technology company working on a data-driven, scientific basis, led by its team of experts and agronomists to remotely guide the farmer communities, through their analytical advice and recommendations. It has also enabled Agri-commerce by empowering the farmers to buy inputs and sell outputs.

The agreement was signed between Mr. Faisal Bilal (founder) represented GROWTECH Services and the management of Zong 4G in the presence of officials from both entities. The collaboration with Growtech highlights and strengthens Zong 4G’s position as the trusted communication and connectivity partner for corporations across Pakistan. The company’s wide-range corporate portfolio offers flexible and cutting-edge services and solutions that are designed to meet the ever-evolving needs of the corporate sector.

Through this partnership, farmers who are subscribers of Zong will gain access to state-of-the-art technologies provided by GROWTECH. The digital platform also provides valuable services based on remote-sensing, to help resolve critical issues like agricultural land fertility, determination of areas infested by pests, crop health and nutritional needs. It also recommends a more balanced use of fertilizers, pesticides and supplements to enrich the soil and reduce the input cost.

Commenting on the partnership, the spokesperson of Zong 4G said, “With the evolution of technology, our customers’ need for data is growing rapidly and for us, they are the first and foremost priority. Partnering with Growtech is a testament to our unprecedented digital and connectivity services and reiterates our longstanding commitment to elevate the quality of life for the deprived masses, especially the agricultural sector which is a major contributor towards food security in Pakistan. This synergy will utilize the latest technologies for agriculture sector.

Senior Executive of GROWTECH – Mr. Shahnawaz Mahmood said, “Our focus is to enhance productivity and decrease input costs for farmers, to improve per acre yield across the country. This digital-inclusion initiative ensures close interactions for comprehensive tech-advisory, as our farmer-support program accelerates growth throughout the crop cycle.

We have also developed a virtual marketplace (www.growpak.store). Mr. Abdul Rehman Mahmood commenting on the partnership mentioned that the value-chain of e-Shops is connecting all the stakeholders on a single platform, creating an option of group-purchasing to get lower-prices and bargain-deals, to accelerate socio-economic progress.”

Karachi (Muhammad Yasir) China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the future of Pakistan, which will bring immense strategic benefits to Pakistan but a national consensus and political will is needed to move forward on the account to the next level.

This was stated by Zubair Mahmood Hayat, Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee while speaking at the 5^th Leaders in Islamabad Business Summit 2022 “Imagineering the future”. The summit was jointly hosted by Nutshell Conferences Group and Martin Dow Group, in strategic partnership with OICCI – Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce & Industry

 He said Pakistan stands among the 20 nations of high significance in the emerging new world with capabilities and vulnerabilities alike however we need to optimize our strength and move ahead in the right direction.

Pakistan needs fundamental correction to stabilize the economy as its strengths and vulnerabilities are known by everyone including the issues of taxes and the role of cartelization in the industries which is hijacking the economic benefits.

Pakistan is a country of 240 million people which is the 5^th most populous country, the 4^th most intelligent, and the 5^th largest English-speaking diaspora having the largest digital connectivity in the land, he said and added. The country has still all fundamentals in place but these have never been put together which is a problem.

Pakistan is among the nine nuclear states in the world which cannot be boxed it has all right to secure its interest in the world mainly on the economic front, he added.

Senator Musadik Malik, Minister of State on Petroleum the development in Pakistan can be seen as a result of imaginations from the future including the building of dams in Pakistan, generation of 11,000 megawatts in Pakistan, the Lady Health Care Program etc.

Pakistan will be a changed country in 2047 with imaginations of the future and its implementation in the country is vital through consistent policies for various sectors to be rolled out without interventions.

The implementation of imagination will commence once we ensure fundamentals to our nation, he remarked. At present, Pakistan’s nation is struggling for getting basic human rights for access to education and health even in 2022, which is being taken for granted in the world.

Air Chief Marshal (Retd) Sohail Aman, Chief Executive Strategic Engagements, Nutshell Group said a few national issues should never be compromised such as the defense system of the country whereas the Charter of Economy is important in Pakistan for stabilizing the economy in the country.

Pakistan has achieved sustainability on various unimaginable fronts including building nuclear missiles and jet fighters which could reflect our potential for the development of critical and sophisticated equipment.

We can produce locally various types of machinery including automobiles and appliances through the transfer of technology, promoting research, and building bridges between industries with academia. 

Pakistan (Muhammad Yasir) Huawei Cloud Pakistan signed an MOU with ORA Global Development Advisors Pvt. Ltd.at the formers Islamabad Headquarters. Present at the occasion was CEO ORA Global, Ms. Fiza Farhan, Managing Director Huawei,Mr. Gao Weijie, CEO Huawei Cloud, Mr. Shahzad Rasheed, along with other representatives from both sides. Both companies were eager to pen looking this strategic partnership as a means of growing and further developing the ICT industry in the country.

Ms. Fiza Farhan shared her thoughts, “This partnership promises to establish a long-term strategic cooperation for digital transformation in public cloud services with Huawei to jointly promote transformation to Cloud and digital solutions for the private sector especially the local enterprise. We hope to create innovative digital offerings ensuring efficiency, affordability & reliability for mutually beneficial partnerships.”

In today’s age of digital transformation, companies need to collaborate in order to survive and grow — “as part of the main.” Huawei continues to adhere to such an ecosystem strategy — one built on open cooperation and the full sharing of capabilities and benefits. Partners and Huawei share common interests throughout the enterprise project lifecycle, ranging from consulting, planning, design, sales, delivery, operations, and maintenance. Working together to build a diversified and thriving ICT ecosystem.

Mr. Shahzad Rasheed stated at the occasion, “We need to increase the ecosystem of the Cloud & Digital Landscape in Pakistan. We have high hopes for this partnership and we expect it will help the SME market to completely transform their IT systems.”

Karachi (Muhammad Yasir) Pakistan’s premier conglomerate, Engro Corporation (PSX: ENGRO) announced its financial results for the first half of the year ending June 30, 2022.

 Overview of Financial Performance

Engro Corporation’s standalone revenue increased from PKR 8.6 bn in 1H 2021 to PKR 16.6 bn in 1H 2022, exhibiting a substantial growth of 92%. Higher revenue was primarily due to higher dividends received from Engro Polymer & Chemicals Limited (EPCL) and Engro Fertilizers Limited (EFERT) which, in turn, were driven by strong underlying business performance. Resultantly, the Company achieved a 29% higher PAT of PKR 12.5 bn in 1H 2022 against PKR 9.7 bn in 1H 2021, translating into an EPS of PKR 21.66 per share (2021: PKR 16.81 per share).

On a consolidated basis, Engro Corporation’s revenue grew by 27% to PKR 177.5 bn in 1H 2022 from PKR 139.3 bn in 1H 2021. The Company posted a PAT of PKR 16.8 bn in 1H 2022, which is 42% lower than PKR 29.1 bn in 1H 2021. The PAT attributable to the shareholders is PKR 7.4 bn, translating into an EPS of PKR 12.87 per share (1H 2021: PKR 29.60 per share). Despite organic revenue growth, imposition of super tax on current and prior year earnings weighed on the conglomerate’s consolidated profitability.

Engro Corporation announced an interim cash dividend of PKR 11/- per share for the year. This is in addition to the PKR 12/- per share dividend that has already been announced during the year, bringing the cumulative payout to PKR 23/- per share.

Portfolio Performance Review

Fertilizers: The domestic urea market exhibited growth of ~12% in 1H 2022. EFERT sales remained steady during the year touching 1,098 KT versus 1,167 KT during same period last year. By enabling indigenous production of urea, EFERT contributed ~USD 0.8 bn in import substitution for Pakistan, and sold urea at a discount of ~78% over international prices.

Profitability of the business was impacted by super tax imposition to the tune of PKR 5.2 bn. EFERT posted a PAT of PKR 5.4 bn in 1H 2022 vs PKR 10.5 bn in 1H 2021.

Petrochemicals: The petrochemical business continued its upward momentum and EPCL sales increased to 120 KT in 1H 2022 against 96 KT in 1H 2021. Timely expansion and operational reliability supported Pakistan in avoiding USD 72 mn incremental outflow in the form of import substitution.

EPCL recorded sales of PKR 45.4 bn in 1H 2022 compared to PKR 30.5 bn in 1H 2021. The 49% increase is attributable to higher international pricing and capacity enhancement on the PVC front. EPCL reported a PAT of Rs. 7.1 bn in 1H 2022 against PKR 7.3 bn in 1H 2021, despite the super tax impact of PKR 2 bn.

Telecommunication Infrastructure: Expansion continued for the telecommunication infrastructure vertical at Engro, with Engro Enfrashare growing its national tower-print to 2,937 sites by the end of 1H, servicing all of Pakistan’s mobile network providers. This drove revenue growth of Engro Enfrashare by 86% in 1H 2022 in comparison to the same period last year.

Engro Enfrashare is well-positioned to enable the colocation model while enhancing services to all its customers, as reflected in the 179% hike in colocation tenants versus last year. Engro Enfrashare is on track to capture future sectoral growth with its high value-add proposition complemented by economies of scale.

Foods & Rice: Engro Eximp Agriproducts continued its excellence in the rice export business, recording 62% growth in volumes versus the same period last year (33.4 KT versus 20.7 KT). During the half year, the rice business generated a revenue of USD 21 mn through exports versus USD 12 mn in 1H 2021, represented by the export of 25.6 KT in 1H 2022 versus 14.1 KT in the comparative period. The business continued expanding its footprint in the local market and increased domestic volumes by 20% to 7.8 KT against 6.5 KT in the same period last year.

The results of FrieslandCampina Engro Pakistan Ltd are yet to be announced.

Energy & Power: Mining operations continued smoothly and the Mine supplied 1.4 mn tons of coal to Engro Powergen Thar during the period. Phase II expansion of the Mine to 7.6 mn tons per annum is on track and expected to be completed during Q4 of 2022.

Engro Powergen Thar Limited achieved a collection of 88% from inception to date, bringing it at par with other coal IPPs. During the first half, the Plant achieved 58% availability, dispatching 1,503 GwH to the national grid. Plant availability remained low due to outage following an incident on the coal conveyor belt. After detailed inspection and necessary rehabilitation work, both units of the plant successfully came online and have been demonstrating ~100% operational rate.

Due to a shutdown for scheduled major inspection, the EPQL Plant dispatched a Net Electrical Output of 331 GwH to the national grid against 394 GwH in the same period last year. The business posted a PAT of PKR 406 mn for the current period as compared to PKR 905 mn for 1H 2022, primarily on account of lower Period Weighting Factor (PWF) applicable during the period and lower finance income; the impact of PWF will be offset in the next six months.

Terminals: Engro Elengy Terminal enabled ~13% of the total gas supply to Pakistan. It handled 37 cargoes, delivering 110 bcf re-gasified LNG into the SSGC network. Engro Vopak Terminal had an actual throughput of 720 KT against 638 KT during the same period last year. The increase was primarily observed in chemical volumes offset by lower LPG handling/.

Pakistan (Muhammad Yasir) Power Cement Limited is pleased to announce inclusion in ACCA’s 7,800 plus global Approved Employer Network under the Trainee Development – Gold Category. The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) is one of the world’s leading professional accountancy body, and Power Cement’s approved employer accreditation reflects its commitment to uphold the highest level of support on technical, professional, and ethical skills to the students, affiliates, and members of ACCA. The ACCA Approved Employer Program recognizes and rewards employers’ quality staff training & development and ensures the highest professional standards for both the employers and the students/employees.

Power Cement hosted a ceremony at its Head Office in Karachi to commemorate the milestone, which was attended by the leadership of Power Cement and ACCA. Speaking at the occasion, Nasim Beg, Chairman – Power Cement Limited, said, “Power Cement emphasizes on nurturing its employees by providing them with the right opportunities to excel in their careers and to add value to its business. We look forward to creating a positive impact through this partnership with ACCA”

Muhammad Kashif Habib, CEO – Power Cement, said “We are excited about this partnership with ACCA as the Approved Employer accreditation will surely lead to hiring and retaining of top finance talent at Power Cement.”

Assad Hameed Khan, Head of ACCA Pakistan, shared his thoughts, “It is heartening to see Power Cement investing in talent and developing them into future business leaders. I am particularly impressed by how Power Cement is working on promoting the use of sustainable energy in Pakistan and contributing towards a cleaner and greener Pakistan”.

Pakistan (Nut Desk) With so many real estate projects in Pakistan on the rise, it’s close to impossible to find the most futuristic & tech-enabled, sustainable, and state-of-the-art project that’s worth investing without breaking the bank while also being trust-worthy.

Having said that, we’ve recently spotted a project that’s taking Islamabad by storm. Their streamers and outdoor billboard are literally everywhere we go.

We did a little digging and found out about this real estate giant, namely AVALON City. The masterplan is in development as Pakistan’s first technological city. This is a state-of-the-art infrastructure designed and idealised as the Future of Real State in Pakistan. Embracing their tagline, they truly want you to ‘Envision Your Lifestyle’.

We found out this project sits at an ideal location of Chakri Road, adjacent to M2 Motorway, ensuring a convenient residence and commercial success for its residents and investors. Have you ever thought about having Smart Homes, Wi-Fi trees, 3D and Virtual Theatres, Electric Bikes, Automated Traffic Control? Well, AVALON City has got it all.

We know what you’re thinking. With all these offerings, they must be expensive as anything but after doing a thorough price comparison, we found out that their prices are very affordable compared to other projects in the vicinity.