This year was really challenging for all brands due to the coronavirus pandemic. To overcome the crisis, smartphone manufacturers formulated forward-looking strategies from the beginning of the pandemic.

Surprisingly, demand for smartphones increased this year but at the same time living standards and purchasing capabilities of the buyers decreased. So, smartphone manufacturers were keeping eyes on purchasing capabilities of customers and also paid attention to ensure the quality of the products.

In this context, some flagship smartphones - those that have the best specifications and features of a series under a particular brand - were launched this year in Bangladesh. Their price range also matches that billing. 

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra: Samsung launched Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra with 12GB RAM and 128GB ROM in the market in July of this year. The phone is equipped with 108MP primary camera. Moreover, the phone is backed with 5000mAh powerful battery. It is priced at BDT 29,999

Vivo V20: Vivo brought out their latest and unique flagship smartphone in October this year. The model of this flagship is Vivo V20. It is the most affordable in price among the flagship smartphones of all brands. Vivo V20 is a very stylish device in design with sleekness and lightweight. It is priced at BDT 32,990. The camera centric smartphone has already become extremely popular in the country's market. Vivo V20 has a 44MP eye autofocus selfie camera. Moreover, the dual video camera of the phone already has grabbed the attention of users. This smartphone is designed with 8GB RAM and 128 GB ROM.

Apple iPhone 11 Pro MAX:  The Apple iPhone 11 Pro MAX with 4GB RAM and 64GB ROM is priced at BDT 139999. The phone has 12MP triple cameras which is water and dust proofed.  

Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro: Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro is operated with 8GB RAM and 256GB ROM and it is available at BDT 94500. The phone has an outstanding 108MP primary camera. Mi 10 Pro is powered with 4500mAh battery. 

OnePlus 8 Pro: OnePlus released their flagship smartphone which is traded as OnePlus 8 Pro. OnePlus 8 Pro is designed with four rear cameras with a 16MP selfie camera. The device has the capacity of being 50 percent charged within 23 minutes. The phone is equipped with 8GB RAM and 128GB ROM which is backed by a 4300mAh battery. The price of the phone is BDT 94,990.

Oppo Find X2: Oppo Find X2 is available in the country's market from March of this year. The phone is designed with 12GB RAM and 256GB ROM. The phone is powered with a battery of 4200mAh with 65-watt fast charging technology. The phone is priced at BDT 115000.

Read Also: Top Upcoming Phones in December 2020

On the 95th birth anniversary of eminent Bengali playwright, linguist, educationist, political activists and literary critic Munier Chowdhury, search engine giant Google is honouring him with a Doodle on its homepage.
 
Doodles are changes made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists, pioneers, and scientists.
 
The day is being observed in a befitting manner by different organisations. Theatre, a leading theatre troupe in Bangladesh, is conferring the annual Munier Chowdhury Memorial Award and Mohammad Zakaria Memorial Award marking the birth anniversary of Munier Chowdhury.
 
Legendary thespian Sara Zaker has been nominated for this year's Munier Chowdhury Memorial Award, while Dinajpur-based playwright-director Sambit Saha is receiving the Mohammad Zakaria Memorial Award.
 
Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the awards ceremony will take place at a later date, Theatre informed the media.
 
Since 1989, the Munier Chowdhury Memorial Award has honoured many prominent cultural personalities including Dr Selim Al Deen, Abdullah Al Mamun, Syed Shamsul Haq, Mamunur Rashid, Aly Zaker, Asaduzzaman Noor, Nasiruddin Yousuff and more.
 

Munier Chowdhury was born on November 27, 1925 in Manikganj. He spent his childhood in Manikganj, Pirojpur, and different parts of East Bengal, due to his father's job.
 
After his family moved to Dhaka permanently in 1936, he completed his SSC from Dhaka Collegiate School in 1941 and went to Aligarh Muslim University. He came back and studied English literature for his bachelor’s degree (with distinction) in 1946 and Master’s in 1947 at Dhaka University.
 
At that time of political unrest due to the Bengali Language Movement, he got arrested for protesting against police brutality and the killing of students.
 
He was jailed for two years for his support in the Language Movement, and while in prison, he showed up at the Master’s examination in Bengali literature in 1954 and stood first in the first class. In 1958, he acquired his third Master’s degree in linguistics from Harvard University.
 
In 1947, Choudhury began his career in teaching at Brajalal College in Khulna. He moved to Jagannath College in Dhaka in 1950. He then joined Dhaka University in 1950 and taught both in the departments of English and Bengali. He was later promoted as a professor in 1970 and the dean of the faculty of arts in 1971.
 
During his imprisonment in 1952-54, Munier Chowdhury wrote his symbolic drama on the historic Language Movement, Kobor (The Grave). He then went on writing some of his iconic works including Roktakto Prantor (1959), Chithi (1966) and Polashi Barrack O Onyanno (1969).
 
In 1965, Choudhury redesigned the keyboard of the Bangla typewriter, named Munier Optima Keyboard as a team with Remington typewriters of the then East Germany.
 
In 1967, Munier Chowdhury protested against the Pakistan government’s prohibition on Tagore songs on radio and TV. He effectively took an interest in the non-cooperation movement during the early part of 1971 and rejected his award Sitara-e-Imtiaz, awarded by the Government of Pakistan in 1966.
 
Munier Chowdhury died on December 14, 1971 at the age of 46 in Dhaka as one of the victims of the brutal assassination of the intellectual martyrs, just two days before the country achieved.
 
He was posthumously given the Independence Day Award, the country’s highest state honour in 1980.
 
Central Road, the road in Dhaka where he lived, was renamed Shaheed Munier Chowdhury Road.
 
In 1991, on the 20th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence, the government provided a commemorative stamp honouring Munier Chowdhury.
 

Read Also: Google doodle celebrates Dr Zohra Kazi’s I08th birthday

The gaming industry has grown hand in hand with the technological advancements of the world and has become a more accepted pastime than ever before. With a plethora of consoles and games to choose from, gamers have enough choices to find their own way to satisfy their desire for active immersion. Handheld gaming devices specifically have been around since the 90s and First Person Shooters (FPS) are equally as old. But when putting the two together, we have ourselves a unique blend that hasn’t been explored much until recently. More so when your mobile phone can hold its own as a viable gaming platform these days. But how well does FPS fair against other platforms and is it really worth it?

We’ve seen MOBAs, RPGs and even fighting games make it to the mobile platform by customising their interface to suit the phone’s specs and each genre has had a mainstay or two that became instant hits - FPS however, is another beast altogether. First of all, monumental classics like Call Of Duty, Halo and Doom have set the standard of quality FPS games and they began with barebones mechanics from the 90s and early 2000s. It was revolutionary at a time, but the genre has evolved so much since. The aforementioned titles are still pumping out games till today and have had no choice to improve and introduce new mechanics to stay relevant with the market. 

With games being stripped down considerably to complement mobile spec, some could argue that it’s too much of a compromise for the slightly more hardcore audience. Frame rate, ping and hit registration are integral components that make FPS one of the top genres today, and many mobile games miss the mark on this. Even with perfect internet, lag is inevitable on any platform, but mobile devices have possibly faced this the worst without many solutions. Server sizes depend on the specific title, but usually face issues of overcrowding and bug clutter. 

A strong case to support this is that both consoles and certain PCs were designed for gaming: with the average consumer spoilt for choices, compared to mobile devices that strive to share the same purpose. With this, comes hardware issues that fans this flame. Even though all platforms have the potential to overheat, the mobile phone does not have a reliable cooling system to help it cope with ceaseless hours of activity. This overheating problem becomes even more taxing when living off battery support too. Given, gaming laptops suffer the same fate but the gaming models were built for the purpose of handling intensive applications that games naturally are.

On a more technical standpoint, PCs dominate in this genre; having a far larger settings option that allows players to customize their sensitivity, have access to the largest keybind options and much much more. With the more flexible “WASD” movement and the most flexible methods of precise crosshair placement; it is clear that this platform is the most competitive for players out there. Console players have a competitive scene too, but usually houses more casual players in their servers. This is where we start finding common ground between consoles and mobile. Eight-directional movement is a common similarity between both platforms and tends to use the thumb for aiming too. This means that the likes of tracking and technique for lining up your shots are more similar than not. The mobile phone may not match the feel of an actual controller, but there are undoubtedly some transitional traits. 

The mobile platform’s distinctive strength lies in its portability. When gathering with friends, travelling or even arriving at your next destination too early - this will give you an immediate gaming experience that requires minimal updates and swift start up. The platform also leans more towards free to pay interactions with a loot system, but PC games like Valorant and Counterstrike still pose a threat. 

Even if the mobile platform is beaten in pretty much every way from a technical standpoint, its ability to be played anywhere while having a similar control scheme to consoles makes it an actual contender. Verdict: If you are a casual gamer who doesn’t live by the meta, this is going to be a fine pick. But if you want to genuinely level up and play on the most competitive level, mobile should be the last platform on your list. 

China launched an ambitious mission on Tuesday to bring back rocks and debris from the moon’s surface for the first time in more than 40 years — an undertaking that could boost human understanding of the moon and of the solar system more generally.

Chang’e 5 — named for the Chinese moon goddess — is the country’s boldest lunar mission yet. If successful, it would be a major advance for China’s space program, and some experts say it could pave the way for bringing samples back from Mars or even a crewed lunar mission.

The four modules of the Chang’e 5 spacecraft blasted off at just after 4:30 a.m. Tuesday (2030 GMT Monday, 3:30 p.m. EST Monday) atop a massive Long March-5Y rocket from the Wenchang launch center along the coast of the southern island province of Hainan.

Minutes after liftoff, the spacecraft separated from the rocket’s first and second stages and slipped into Earth-moon transfer orbit. About an hour later, Chang’e 5 opened its solar panels to provide its independent power source.

Spacecraft typically take three days to reach the moon.

The launch was carried live by national broadcaster CCTV which then switched to computer animation to show its progress into outer space.

The mission’s key task is to drill 2 meters (almost 7 feet) beneath the moon’s surface and scoop up about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of rocks and other debris to be brought back to Earth, according to NASA. That would offer the first opportunity for scientists to study newly obtained lunar material since the American and Russian missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

The Chang’e 5 lander’s time on the moon is scheduled to be short and sweet. It can only stay one lunar daytime, or about 14 Earth days, because it lacks the radioisotope heating units to withstand the moon’s freezing nights.

The lander will dig for materials with its drill and robotic arm and transfer them to what’s called an ascender, which will lift off from the moon and dock with the service capsule. The materials will then be moved to the return capsule to be hauled back to Earth.

The technical complexity of Chang’e 5, with its four components, makes it “remarkable in many ways,” said Joan Johnson-Freese, a space expert at the U.S. Naval War College.

“China is showing itself capable of developing and successfully carrying out sustained high-tech programs, important for regional influence and potentially global partnerships,” she said.

In particular, the ability to collect samples from space is growing in value, said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Other countries planning to retrieve material from asteroids or even Mars may look to China’s experience, he said.

While the mission is “indeed challenging,” McDowell said China has already landed twice on the moon with its Chang’e 3 and Chang’e 4 missions, and showed with a 2014 Chang’e 5 test mission that it can navigate back to Earth, re-enter and land a capsule. All that’s left is to show it can collect samples and take off again from the moon.

“As a result of this, I’m pretty optimistic that China can pull this off,” he said.

The mission is among China’s boldest since it first put a man in space in 2003, becoming only the third nation to do so after the U.S. and Russia.

Chang’e 5 and future lunar missions aim to “provide better technical support for future scientific and exploration activities,” Pei Zhaoyu, mission spokesperson and deputy director of the Chinese National Space Administration’s Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center told reporters at a Monday briefing.

“Scientific needs and technical and economic conditions” would determine whether China decides to send a crewed mission to the moon, said Pei, whose comments were embargoed until after the launch. “I think future exploration activities on the moon are most likely to be carried out in a human-machine combination.”

While many of China’s crewed spaceflight achievements, including building an experimental space station and conducting a spacewalk, reproduce those of other countries from years past, the CNSA is now moving into new territory.

Chang’e 4 — which made the first soft landing on the moon’s relatively unexplored far side almost two years ago — is currently collecting full measurements of radiation exposure from the lunar surface, information vital for any country that plans to send astronauts to the moon.

China in July became one of three countries to have launched a mission to Mars, in China’s case an orbiter and a rover that will search for signs of water on the red planet. The CNSA says the spacecraft Tianwen 1 is on course to arrive at Mars around February.

China has increasingly engaged with foreign countries on missions, and the European Space Agency will be providing important ground station information for Chang’e 5.

U.S. law, however, still prevents most collaborations with NASA, excluding China from partnering with the International Space Station. That has prompted China to start work on its own space station and launch its own programs that have put it in a steady competition with Japan and India, among Asian nations seeking to notch new achievements in space.

China’s space program has progressed cautiously, with relatively few setbacks in recent years. The rocket being used for the current launch failed on a previous launch attempt, but has since performed without a glitch, including launching Chang’e 4.

“China works very incrementally, developing building blocks for long-term use for a variety of missions,” Freese-Johnson said. China’s one-party authoritarian system also allows for “prolonged political will that is often difficult in democracies,” she said.

While the U.S. has followed China’s successes closely, it’s unlikely to expand cooperation with China in space amid political suspicions, a sharpening military rivalry and accusations of Chinese theft of technology, experts say.

“A change in U.S. policy regarding space cooperation is unlikely to get much government attention in the near future,” Johnson-Freese said.

Read Also: SpaceX capsule with 4 astronauts reaches space station

Throughout the year 2020, reputed Smartphone manufacturing brands have produced a bunch of mind-blowing phones under affordable, midrange, and flagship categories. And, the last month of this year won’t be an exception. In the approaching December month, a number of exciting phones are going to be released under diverse price ranges. Are you waiting to buy a Smartphone soon? Check out this article, to know the top upcoming phones in December 2020.

Best Upcoming Phones December

Samsung Galaxy A52

After the ground-breaking success of the Samsung Galaxy A51 in 2019, the company is releasing its successor A52. This new hotshot phone is coming with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G platform. The rumor says that A52 would bear a 6.67-inch super AMOLED panel with Full HD Plus resolution. The RAM capacity may range from 4GB to 8GB depending upon variants. The internal storage would be 128GB.

On the front-screen of A52, there would be an Infinity-O cutout designed selfie camera. In its quad-rear camera series, you would find a 64MP prime camera that is a significant up-gradation from the ancestor A51’s 48MP shooter. This phone will run through One UI 3.0 on top of Android 11 OS. And, the more amazing news is that A52 would get the next 3 major Android OS upgrades.

The estimated price range of A52 would be around $400 or BDT BDT 33,887 (@ $1=BDT 84.72). Let’s see whether Galaxy A52 can break the record of its ancestor best-seller A51.

Read Xiaomi POCO X3 NFC Review with Official Price in Bangladesh

Oppo Reno 5

Are you waiting for a camera-centric Smartphone? Don’t miss the Oppo Reno 5! This phone is coming with a 6.43-inch AMOLED display with Full HD plus resolution. Like the ancestor Oppo phones, Reno 5 will inherit a trendy outlook. The leaks indicate that Reno 5 is appearing with a glass back and aluminum frame built structure.

This phone is going to be launched in 3 types of processor variants. Those are Snapdragon 865, MediaTek Dimensity 1000+, and Snapdragon 765G chipsets. Starting from 8GB, the RAM capacity of Reno 5 can range up to 12GB. Depending upon variants, here you may get 128 GB to 256 GB of internal storage with UFS 2.1 data transfer technology.

On the rear camera series, Reno 5 would bear a 64MP primary camera. On the front side, this Oppo phone rocks with a 32MP selfie sensor. This gadget would be powered with a 4300mAh battery with a 65W fast charging unit. The probable price of Oppo Reno 5 is $460 or BDT 38,970 (@ $1=BDT 84.72).

Vivo V20 Pro

Like the predecessor Smartphone Vivo V20, the upcoming V20 ‘Pro’ version is going to win the heart of Vivo fans with fascinating features. The successor ‘Pro’ version is coming with some upgrades. In the processor section of V20 Pro, the company is offering Qualcomm Snapdragon’s 765G chipset that is a noticeable advancement from the ancestor V20’s 720G processor. If you are looking for a gaming Smartphone, wait for the Vivo V20 pro.

In the ‘Pro’ version, you get 8GB RAM and 128 GB of internal storage, which we have also seen in the basic V20 model. According to the leaks, the camera specifications of the Pro version would be similar to its basic version. The expected price of the V20 Pro is about BDT 42000.

Read Tecno Spark 6: Efficient Budget Gaming Smartphone for PUBG Fans.

Realme 7 5G

The prominent Smartphone brand realme has released several popular phones this year. It is rumored that realme is launching another phone realme 7 5G in the upcoming December month. In this phone, realme will provide 6.5-inch IPS LCD display with a Full HD resolution. This phone would surprise the fans with an amazing refresh rate of 120Hz. Unlike the ancestor realme phones, the latest realme 7 5G is coming with a MediaTek Dimensity 800U chipset.   

The leaks say that realme 7G would bear a 48MP prime rear sensor with a 16MP selfie shooter. This phone would be blessed with an exclusive feature called ‘Cinema mode’ offering a UIS Max video stabilization option. There would be 6 to 8GB RAM with 128GB of internal storage capacity. This phone maintains the standard of realme with a 5000mAh battery and 30W Dart charging support.  This phone may cost around 24,400 Rs. or BDT 28,113 (@1Rs= BDT 1.14).

read realme Buds Q: The Superb True Wireless Stereos (TWS) on the Go.

Infinix Zero 8

The Infinix phones tend to outdo the pricier competitors with fascinating features keeping the price range under an affordable range. In this legacy, Infinix Zero 8 is going to compete with the other hotshot phones in December. If you are planning to buy a value-for-money phone with trendy features, wait for the Infinix Zero 8. This phone is coming with an IPS LCD display with Full HD resolution and a 90Hz refresh rate.

With MediaTek Helio G90T chipset, Zero 8 would offer reliable performance in moderate level gaming. Here you get a 64MP quad rear camera set up. What would make Infinix Zero 8 stand out from competitors is the dual selfie camera set up. Zero 8 is blessed with a 44MP primary selfie sensor with an 8MP wide-angle selfie shooter. This phone would be provided with a 4500 mAh battery with a 33W charger. This phone would cost around 14,999 Rs. or BDT 17,142 (@1 Rs.= BDT 1.14).

Read Walton Primo RM4 Review and Price: Budget Phone with Massive Battery