Power in numbers applies to robots learning grasping skills

  National Public Radio said it well: How can robots learn new tasks? Practice, practice practice.

  Stefanie Tellex, Brown University assistant professor in computer science department, talked to NPR recently about getting robots to do better at real-world tasks—specifically, grasping, why grasping is hard for a robot, and what her team would like to do about it.

  Tellex works with a "Baxter," the industrial robot made by Rethink Robotics with its box-like torso and arms.

  Joe Palca, NPR science correspondent, watched the Baxter try to pick up a battery; he said watching it was a little like watching paint dry. He told her this looked pathetic. She laughed, knowingly.

  Stuff that is really hard for a robot to do is almost effortless for a person to do. A human spends little conscious awareness of exercising perception, planning and control in picking up an object. But the robot from scratch doesn't know from kazoos, batteries and pens.

  It gets information from its cameras. And that information, he said, is just a bunch of numbers.

  Palca said Tellex thinks the way robots will get better and faster in picking up unfamiliar objects is to give them programs which let them learn from experience just as a child would.

  Unsurprisingly, Tellex has had her Baxter working around the clock. It picks up objects. It puts them down. Repeat. Repeat. And so on. But Tellex also has an idea for speeding up the learning curve.

  She hopes to recruit some more Baxter robots elsewhere which are left idle off-hours during robotics research projects to do the same tasks as her Baxter to speed up the process. Pace said it evokes the saying, many hands do light work.

  Simply put, said Will Knight of MIT Technology Review, "hundreds of robots could accelerate the process by sharing knowledge."

Just how fast would this learning curve speed up learning?

  According to Knight, Tellex counted around 300 Baxter robots in research labs around the world and if each of those robots were to use both arms to examine new objects, it would be possible for them to learn to grasp a million objects in 11 days.

  The concept of a robot teaching itself how to do tasks is of interest among researchers beyond Brown. Last month, MIT Technology Review looked at the work of Lerrel Pinto and Abhinav Gupta at Carnegie Mellon University. They worked with a Baxter, giving it deep learning capabilities, placing it in front of a table with different sized objects and left it to learn how to grasp them.

  The robot was left for up to 10 hours a day. If the robot dropped an object on the floor, there were others it could continue with.

  Lab work dedicated to robots gaining better grasping skills may result in robots that will be part of daily life.

  Tellex said, "In twenty years, every home will have a personal robot which can perform tasks such as clearing the dinner table, doing laundry, and preparing dinner. As these machines become more powerful and more autonomous, it is critical to develop methods for enabling people to tell them what to do."

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Researchers develope software for finding tipping points and critical network structures

  If you wanted to know whether shifts in the African climate during Paleolithic times correlated with the appearance and disappearance of hominin species, how would you find the answer? It's a tricky question because of the massive amounts of noisy, complicated data you would need to analyze.

  Now researchers in Germany have developed a new tool to help grapple with enormous data sets and reveal big picture trends, such as climatic tipping points and their effects on species. The researchers created a software package based on the Python programming language that unifies complex network theory and nonlinear time series analysis - two important data analysis concepts.

A complex network is just that - a social, biological or technological network with patterns of connections that are neither regular nor purely random. Nonlinear time series analyses are often used to look at complex systems, including those that unfold in a chaotic manner. Many natural phenomena, like changing weather patterns, are nonlinear in nature—as are man-made systems, like financial markets.

  

  The researchers named the software that unifies the two concepts pyunicorn. They discuss their findings in this week's CHAOS.

  "Pyunicorn works like a macroscope, [which], if used the right way, allows to distill the essence of information from a network or time series data," said Jonathan Donges, a former Ph.D. student in the group of Jürgen Kurths and co-speaker of a flagship project, called COPAN, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany, which aims to develop conceptual models of global socio-environmental dynamics.

The software could be used to identify critical network structures, such as bottlenecks and backbones, for transport processes, as well as revealing tipping points in climatological or physiological time series.

  Accordingly, the package's main application is the analysis of data from observations, experiments and model systems by way of graphs and time series of several quantities in parallel, such as temperature, precipitation and wind for climate, or blood pressure and breathing for physiology. By applying recurrence network analysis, which studies when a system returns to a former state, pyunicorn was able to detect tipping points in time series. This includes the aforementioned paleoclimate records, as well as the early emergence of a severe condition in pregnant women known as preeclampsia.

  Donges's previous work has involved complex networks and nonlinear time series analysis and their applications to real world data analysis. Developing the pyunicorn package involved collaborators at PIK, Humboldt University Berlin, the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, University of Aberdeen and Nishny Novgorod State University, located respectively in Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Russia.

  "Many of these methods were newly developed by our team and, moreover, there was a lack of coherent software implementations for existing methods," said Donges. "Pyunicorn was developed to close this gap and to provide an integrative software framework for applying and further developing methods for complex networks and nonlinear time series analysis and their combinations."

  As its name might imply, pyunicorn is written in Python, a popular open-source programming language. The package is designed in a modular fashion that makes it easy to use in different settings, ranging from interactive analysis sessions on laptops to large-scale parallel data analysis on supercomputer clusters. As with all Python software, pyunicorn runs on a variety of operating systems, including Linux, Mac OSX, Windows and Android.

The software's versatility fulfills a key aim of the project, which was to make the software publicly available and easy to use for researchers and practitioners in a variety of fields, ranging from complex systems science to climatology, medicine, neuroscience, economics and engineering.

  "Many of the provided methods were not freely available before to the scientific community, and weren't available in the flexible and popular Python programming language," said Jürgen Kurths, who supervised the work.

  Future work for Donges and his colleagues involves speeding up the package's code and ensuring compatibility with the Python 3.x platform. Donges remains optimistic but cautious about the uses of the package.

  "Combining well-known approaches in a new way can yield exciting insights and perspectives in complex systems science," he said. "Software packages such as pyunicorn can be highly useful in catalyzing this process, but need to be applied in a thoughtful and theory-based way. Otherwise, the result might be junk science."

  The pyunicorn package can be freely downloaded at: https://github.com/pik-copan/pyunicorn.

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Next 4-inch iPhone to be based on the 5s, new rumor claims

  Ever since Apple decided to join its competitors in selling devices larger than 4 inches, we've heard countless rumors saying that the Cupertino company hasn't totally given up on the smaller form-factor. New 4-inch iPhones have been "imminent" quite a few times already, but none of those things actually managed to pan out.

  Today we're already at the second rumor about the next small Apple smartphone. A few hours ago we heard that an iPhone 6c was on track for release in 2016, but now a new report seems to contradict that.

  First off, it says that there will be a new 4" iPhone, yes, but it will be based on the iPhone 5s (pictured above) and not the 5c. The design of this new device should thus be extremely close to that of the iPhone 5s, while featuring some updated internals.

  We can allegedly expect to see the A8 chipset in there, along with an improved FaceTime HD camera with f/2.2 aperture, and support for both 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1. Those are all the hardware details we have for now, but one thing that will be missing will be 3D Touch, which will remain exclusive to the bigger iPhones.

  It is claimed that this smaller product is ready for production and can be launched very soon if Apple doesn't change its mind about it in the meantime. If certain past rumors are true, then this upgraded iPhone 5s should see the light of day in the first half of 2016.

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LG Nexus 5X review

Introduction

  Some think that it's time for Google to start making its own hardware, the closest we have today is the Nexus series. The Nexus 5X, co-designed by Google and LG, is the mid-range offering and a respite from the 6" Nexus last year, leaving its sibling to fill the premium, large-screen role.

  As the Android One program fizzled out, it became clear that it can't carry the load of a mid-range Nexus. So the Nexus 5 was reborn as the 5X to give users first-party software experience and Google design ideology at a reasonable price, while the 6P carries on the premium legacy of Moto's Nexus 6.

  This is LG's third Nexus (4, 5 and now 5X). The design has shifted from the LG Nexus 4 and 5 exterior to something that could have come out of Motorola's sketchbooks. Or rather this is a case of Google's design persisting between makers. That the 5X doesn't feel like it belongs in the LG lineup is a clear sign that the 5X is more Google than LG.

  The focus has been placed on enhanced security (fingerprint sensor on the back, the Nexus Imprint) that enables mobile payments (Android Pay) and a push towards a universal connector (USB Type-C). The camera was primed for low-light shooting and the more you shoot, the more you can upload to Google Photos (well, you're not going to store them on a microSD card).

Key features

·5.2" screen with 1080p resolution (424ppi)

·Android 6.0 Marshmallow and you're first in line for updates

·Dual-core Cortex-A57 at 1.82Ghz + quad-core Cortex-A53 at 1.44GHz, 2GB of RAM, Adreno 418 GPU; Snapdragon 808 chipset

·16GB or 32GB of storage

·12.3MP camera with laser autofocus and dual-LED flash; 1.55µm pixels; 5MP selfie camera

·2160p video capture

·Fingerprint reader; Android Pay

·USB Type-C

·2,700mAh Li-Po battery with fast charging (4 hours of use in 10 minutes of charging)

Main disadvantages

·Expensive outside the US

·Chipset and especially RAM not on 2015 flagship level

·No card slot and the storage options are limited

·No OIS for the camera or wireless charging like the 2013 model had

  It's strange to see lack of progress in some areas and even regressions compared to the 2013 Nexus 5. While 2GB of RAM is workable on a modern Android, we kind of expected more. No movement on the storage front either (no 64GB option, really?) Why OIS and wireless charging were dropped we're not sure.

  On the positive side, the improvements are definitely worth it. The fingerprint reader and the camera are the biggest updates. The still resolution was bumped up 50%, though we expect noticeably better quality with the big pixels and there's laser autofocus too. Also, 4K video recording is becoming more prevalent and you get much better selfies with the 5MP shooter.

    

LG Nexus 5X • Carbon color • Quartz color • Ice color

  The LG Nexus 5X boasts a slightly bigger screen, plus 64-bit processing and USB Type-C for future-proofing. The battery is bigger too, which will give the new Doze feature more to work with. Connectivity has been sped up and there's various other upgrades too.

  The Nexus 4 assassinated the idea that only flagships get great specs and the Nexus 5 cemented it. That's great legacy that the Nexus 5X has to live up to, though its goal is slightly different. It wants to revitalize the mid-range market where some of the established makers have been languishing while young companies produce great offerings, but with a heavily-skinned, Google-light software.

Screen

  Back in 2013 when the Nexus 5 came out, LG had the G2 - a phone with a 5.2" 1080p screen. Not that we'd push for QHD resolution at this diagonal, especially at this price and with this GPU. Still, a comparison is inevitable.

  So we're pleased to report that two years of progress in display tech has brought better contrast and colors than the previous model. There are no controls for adjusting the screen colors though.

  The LG Nexus 5X is impressive even at a quick glance, and our test more than proved what our eyes saw. The maximum brightness level (455nits) may not be class leading, but the achieved contrast ratio of 1542:1 is excellent due to the nicely deep blacks.

  Another nice finding is the fact that the screen is calibrated for almost perfect color rendering right out of the box. It’s a rare sight to see a phone with an Avg. DeltaE of only 2.3 (based on the primary colors plus black&white) as anything below a deviation of 4 is considered calibration-grade color output.

  Additionally, the minimum brightness level is only 1.8nits for white content, which means that you should probably be quite comfortable using the Nexus 5X display in dark environment without any eye strain.

  The low reflectivity of Gorilla Glass 3 and high contrast of the screen allow it to remain legible even in bright sunlight. The 5.2" screen of Nexus 5X is well above average in this respect.

Connectivity

  The LG Nexus 5X comes equipped with an LTE Cat. 6 modem for speeds up to 300Mbps down and 50Mbps up. Aside from GSM, the US version of the phone will also have CDMA for compatibility with Verizon and Sprint.

  Besides that you have the usual Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac at 2.4GHz and 5GHz and Bluetooth 4.2 with A2DP. NFC is on board, naturally, to be used with the new Android Pay.

  The USB Type-C cable will transfer speeds at USB 3.1 speeds, but the provided cable is Type-C on both ends which you probably don't have on your computer. You'll either need an adapter or a whole new cable. Also, by default the phone connects to charge-only, so you have to manually enable data transfer. Google really does not want you using wired transfer.

  The USB port can be used to hook up storage and USB periphery (but again, stuff with the C plug is quite rare). As mentioned earlier, there's no TV-out - no SlimPort, MHL or anything. You're stuck with the wireless Cast method.

Battery life

  The LG Nexus 5X comes with a 2,700mAh battery, not big for its size, but a definite improvement over the 2,300mAh battery that the 2013 model got. And it has a new OS feature to make sure the battery is used efficiently.

  Doze detects when you are not using the phone and the longer that goes on, the less and less it allows apps to do work in the background - it's wasted effort that the user won't notice (other than the used up battery charge).

 The standby power draw of the Nexus 5X is pretty good, especially for this capacity. Even so the total standby rating isn't that high, the poor video playback in particular drags down the result.

  Talk time is okay at 17 hours, but the aging LG G2 did 25 hours (it also had a bigger battery though). It's a massive improvement for owners of the 2013 Nexus 5 though. Things get better - the 5 was one of the worst performers in web browsing, the 5X now lasts nearly twice as long in the same test. Still, we've seen better performing mid-rangers.

  Finally, the poor video support (more on that in the video player section) left the Nexus 5X with an unimpressive score of 6 and a half hours. Better than before, but not good for 2015.

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Shape-changing LineFORM may belong to interface future

  LineFORM from the Tangible Media Group at MIT Media Lab is the result of its creators asking questions. What if we have a shape-changing material that consists of a Line? Using such material, how will interactions with computers or tools change?

  They designed a shape-changing interface and described it in their research paper, "LineFORM: Actuated curve interfaces for display, interaction and constraints." Ken Nakagaki, Sean Follmer and Hiroshi Ishii make up the team.

  "Lines have several interesting characteristics from the perspective of interaction design: abstractness of data representation; a variety of inherent interactions / affordances; and constraints as boundaries or borderlines," they said.

  "By utilizing such aspects of lines together with the added capability of shape-shifting, we present various applications in different scenarios."

The video of their work demonstrates a variety of shape changes. These include body constraints and data manipulation, to investigate the design space of line-based, shape-changing interfaces. In their concept, the material can also reshape itself into telephone mode. A smart wristband gives the user haptic feedback.

Engadget referred to LineFORM as a "serpentine robot." It involves a linear series of actuators, wrote Aaron Souppouris, which can move independently or together to arrange itself in new shapes.

  

  They said in their paper that "The overall design of the system involves three parts. There is a series of connected servo motors. It has an Arduino Mega microcontroller for motor control and sensing. It has a Mac OS computer running custom applications written in processing that control LineFORM."

  Their paper is an accepted TOCHI (ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction) paper for the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) from November 8 to 11 in Charlotte, NC.

  The authors are exploring this concept because they see a future where devices in the nature of their LineFORM would be paired with flexible displays. They see the concept as "next generation mobile devices." As for the range of functions: Their concept could be used to display complex information, provide affordances on demand for different tasks and constrain user interaction.

  "We have shown that a relatively small number of actuators can be used to achieve an expressive display, and these systems may be easier to prototype than other form factors of high resolution shape display."

  Where do they go from here? They hope their work will be of interest to researchers. "Our hope is that this work will motivate others to further explore the space of actuated curve interfaces, from novel actuators to new interaction techniques."

  On that note and practically speaking, Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan in Gizmodo said, "they imagine Lineform could replace a lot of the hardware we need for interacting with the world today–the keyboards, the phones, the cables, and so on–acting like a plug-and-play interface that could transform based on how you need to interact at a given moment."

  In the bigger picture, the Tangible Media Group has a clear focus on which technology path they will follow as they continue their innovative research: "From the three approaches in design research: technology-driven, needs-driven, and vision-driven, we focus on the vision-driven approach due to its lifespan."

  They said they know technologies become obsolete in ~1 year, users' needs change quickly and dramatically in ~10 years. "However, we believe that a clear vision can last beyond our lifespan. While we might need to wait decades before atom hackers (like material scientists or self-organizing nano-robot engineers) can invent the necessary enabling technologies for Radical Atoms, we strongly believe the exploration of interaction design should begin from today."
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Chrome for Android vulnerability discovered by researcher

  Making news this week at the MobilePwn2Own event at the PacSec conference in Tokyo: an exploit of Google's Chrome for Android—in one shot, said PacSec organizer Dragos Ruiu. Researcher Guang Gong showcased the exploit. (PacSec is a computer security event. James O'Malley in TechRadar described it as "a meeting of security experts who show off what they've discovered for the kudos.")

  Ruiu talked to Vulture South, the Asia-Pacific bureau based in Sydney of The Register. He told Vulture South the exploit was demonstrated on a Google Project Fi Nexus 6. The exploit targets the JavaScript v8 engine and was notable, said the report, as "a single clean exploit that does not require multiple chained vulnerabilities to work."

While the exploit was not disclosed in full detail, Ruiu described the results in The Register. As soon as the phone accessed the website, the JavaScript v8 vulnerability in Chrome was used to install an arbitrary application, without user interaction, to demonstrate control of the phone. In theory, it would translate into unauthorized code running on a person's phone.

V8 is Google's open source JavaScript engine. V8 is written in C++ and is used in Google Chrome, the open source browser from Google.

  A Google security engineer on site received the bug. Softpedia stated that "A Google engineer immediately got in contact with Gong after his presentation, and rumors have it that the Chrome team is already getting a fix ready."

(Not responding specifically to this event but relevant, the HackerOne blog recently observed how "data show that programs that respond quickly to new reports, and keep open communication channels during the triage and resolution process, tend to get more reports and more repeat researchers, leading to a virtuous, security-enhancing cycle. In addition, the timely resolution of vulnerabilities reduces the risk of potential exploitation, leading to greater security.")

  Gong is a security researcher at Qihoo 360. "Thankfully," commented 9to5Google, "the exploit was developed by someone whose job it is to find vulnerabilities, and not a hacker with malicious intent."

  Ruiu will fly Gong to the CanSecWest security conference next year, said The Register.

The Android security team recognizes those who help to improve Android security by responsibly reporting vulnerabilities or by committing code with positive impact on Android security.

  In the bigger picture, Fortune senior writer Barb Darrow observed that "Given the high interest level in hacking and growing intensity of security breaches, there is definitely a need for legitimate hackers to test the limits of software."

Gong said it took him three months of work prior to the competition to find the hole, according to Business Insider Australia.

  "Good news here is that since it's through Chrome, we don't need to wait for an OTA to be approved by the manufacturers, and then the carriers," said Android Headlines on Friday.

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A printable, flexible, lightweight temperature sensor

  A University of Tokyo research group has developed a flexible, lightweight sensor that responds rapidly to tiny thermal changes in the range of human body temperature. This sensor is expected to find healthcare and welfare applications in devices for monitoring body temperature, for example of newborn infants or of patients in intensive care settings.

  Flexible and wearable devices are increasingly being developed for healthcare and other applications where temperature and other sensors are integrated to provide feedback on patient health and wellbeing. Body temperature is a fundamental measurement and many low-cost flexible temperature sensors have been demonstrated, but devices developed to date require external circuitry to amplify the signal to allow accurate temperature measurement.

  

  In their latest research, Professor Takao Someya and Dr. Tomoyuki Yokota's research group at the Graduate School of Engineering have developed a new printable, flexible, lightweight temperature sensor that shows a very high change in electrical resistance of up to 100,000 times over a range of just five degrees centigrade, allowing accurate temperature measurement without additional complicated display circuitry.

  The key to the new sensor is the ability to precisely control the target temperature of the sensors. The sensor is composed of graphite and a semicrystalline acrylate polymer formed of two monomers, molecules that bond together to form a polymer chain. The target temperature range at which the sensor is most precise can be selected simply by altering the proportions of the two monomers. The research group achieved target temperatures between 25 and 50 degrees centigrade, a range which includes average human body temperature, and simultaneously realizing response times of less than 100 milliseconds and a temperature sensitivity of 0.02 degrees centigrade. The device was also stable even under physiological conditions, providing repeated readings up to 1,800 times.

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OnePlus X review

Introduction

  The OnePlus X is not another flagship killer, we have the OnePlus 2 for that. Instead OnePlus decided to take a break from the high profile smartphone gane and brings us a stunning mid-ranger capable of delivering on both looks and performance.

  The OnePlus X exterior is as premium as it can get - there is a metal frame with 17 etched grooves, flanked by a dual panels of glass, which they call Onyx Black.

  In case you are into exclusive editions, then OnePlus will be offering only 10,000 units of the OnePlus X with a back made out of ceramic. Each supposedly takes up to 25 days to make so that should count for something.

  The OnePlus X is built around a 5" 1080p AMOLED display and has a Snapdragon 801 as its heart coupled with 3GB RAM. The S801 chip might be aging, but it's still quite relevant and would give some eight-core setups a run for their money. The camera department includes a 13MP main snapper with hybrid phase-detection AF and a front 8MP selfie shooter. Check out the complete feature list.

Key features

·Metal frame + glass/ceramic back

·5" AMOLED display with 1080p resolution; 441ppi; Corning Gorilla Glass 3

·Snapdragon 801 chipset; CPU: quad-core 2.3GHz Krait 400; Adreno 330 GPU; 3GB of RAM

·13MP main camera with a LED flash, phase-detection auto-focus; 1080p video capture at 30fps

·8MP front-facing camera, 1080p at 30fps video recording

·Oxygen 2.1 OS based on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop

·16GB of built-in storage; microSD expansion slot

·Dual SIM, LTE Cat.4, Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, FM radio, microUSB

·Dual-microphone active noise canceling

·Attractive price tag

·2,525mAh non-removable battery

Main disadvantages

·Non-removable battery and no quick charging support

·Connectivity lacks dual-band Wi-Fi and NFC

·No 64-bit processor

  The lack of 64-bit support is the only possible complaint we may have towards the Snapdragon 801 chip today, but we wouldn't say this feature is indispensable, at least not for a few more years. The connectivity package took the biggest hit - it lacks support for 5 GHz Wi-Fi networks, there is no NFC, and no support for quick charging. None of those are deal breakers but you should consider those.

 

OnePlus press shots in Onyx Black back

  

OnePlus press shots with Ceramic back

  So, is the OnePlus X ready to perform great in the vast market out there? Only one way to find out and it starts with the thing getting unboxed.

Display

  The OnePlus X packs a 5-inch AMOLED display, which is a great treat for such an affordable mid-ranger. It's a high-quality panel of 1080p resolution, which delivers 441ppi of pixel density. While not record-breaking numbers, individual pixels are nonetheless indistinguishable to the naked eye and so is the Diamond PenTile matrix.

  You're not going to see pixels on this screen and thanks to the AMOLED tech that's built-in, the panel enjoys inky-deep blacks and unmatched vividness to colors.

  When it comes to maximum brightness, the OnePlus X wouldn't go as high as some other AMOLED phones but it's quite alright and only flagship segment phones do better. It's actually around the same level as the HTC One A9 and this one while not very bright to begin with, has twice the price tag.

  The minimum brightness on the OnePlus X is only 3.3nits, which is to say that using it in dimly lit environments will be easy on your eyes.

  AMOLED has inherently superb viewing angles and those of the OnePlus X don't disappoint. The panel retains its contrast and colors even in extreme angles and is one of the least reflective screens we've ever tested.

  However the AMOLED on the HTC One A9 and Samsung's own Super AMOLED found in the Galaxy Note 4, Note5 and Galaxy S6 line easily top the OnePlus X's display in outdoor performance (though these are a lot more expensive phones to begin with).

  Usually makers skimp on some of the essentials when building a lower-cost smartphone and many times the display is the first compromise. Luckily OnePlus didn't compromise with the X's display, which delivers on all points except its brightness, which is still acceptable.

  More importantly the 5" display is sharp and a joy to consume media on.

OnePlus X battery life

  The OnePlus X packs a non-removable 2,525mAh battery, which is about average capacity for a 5-inch 1080p smartphone. The Oppo R7 has a 2,320mAh cell, the recently reviewed HTC One A9 with its 2,150mAh is noticeably underpowered compared to OnePlus' model, while the Xiaomi Mi 4c has a generous 3,080mAh battery. The slightly larger 5.2-inch Nexus 5X has a, well, slightly larger 2,700mAh powerpack.

  The OnePlus X didn't prove as a miracle worker and pairing an average capacity with an older chipset yields unimpressive results. While 16 hours of call times is a good performance, short of 7 hours in the video playback test and even less in web browsing are not numbers anyone would be happy with.

  It's the frugal standby power consumption (which we measure, but don't include in the scorecard) that saves the OnePlus X and helps it achieve its 54-hour endurance rating in our proprietary test.

  The Xiaomi Mi 4c outlasts the OnePlus X in all three disciplines, which measure actual usage. And it's not a marginal difference - more than 3 hours in each test, though it's let down by less than optimal standby performance. The Oppo R7 is ahead in all three tests as well, but also in overall rating, despite its lower capacity. That said, the One A9 is trailing miserably, but not quite unexpectedly.

  The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.

Connectivity

  Thanks to the on-board modem of the Snapdragon 801 chipset, the OnePlus X supports lots of LTE bands and covers the specs for LTE Cat. 4 (up to 150Mbps downlink, up to 50Mbps uplink). It also offers quad-band GSM connectivity and quad or penta-band (market dependent) 3G connectivity with HSPA support.

  The rest of the wireless connectivity features include dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n support and Wi-Fi Direct. There is no dual-band Wi-Fi support, unfortunately.

  There is also support for Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and GLONASS, plus an FM radio. Wireless screen mirroring is available via the Miracast protocol. NFC is not available though.

  An MHL-enabled micro-USB 2.0 port sits on the bottom of the phone and lets you stream video to compatible TVs via an appropriate MHL HDMI dongle. USB host is enabled, for connecting external storage. A standard 3.5mm headphone jack lets you plug in your headphones of choice.

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