The Leica M Camera Gets A Minimalist Makeover

We’re officially in an age of remakes and reboots. Whether it’s movie franchises, music genres, vinyl discs, or even cars like the Lamborghini Countach getting a modern revival, the words ‘Old Is Gold’ seem to hold true for nostalgic classics… Now, Shanghai-based designer Wencheng Zhang is reviving yet another classic from the mid-50s. Perhaps one of the most iconic cameras of its time, the Leica M gets a minimal redesign thanks to Zhang. Crafted from a single block of aluminum, the redesigned camera combines old-world analog charm with a modern aesthetic and cutting-edge features that bring the 1954 classic shooter well into the year 2024.

Designer: Wencheng Zhang

Zhang’s concept reimagines the Leica M for the modern era, stripping away unnecessary elements to create a truly minimalist design. Imagine a camera precisely carved from a single block of aluminum, echoing the unibody confidence of classic Leicas while hinting at the sleek lines of the Leica TL2. Zhang mentions that the inspiration for this form came from none other than Leica’s very first camera, the Ur-Leica Replica.

While the classic Leica M layout is instantly recognizable, Zhang incorporates subtle tweaks to enhance ergonomics. A gently angled top plate improves in-hand feel, while the familiar viewfinder and large touchscreen display (borrowed from the M11) remain. However, in the spirit of minimalism, Zhang removes the M11’s three customizable function buttons.

Essential physical controls are consolidated on the top plate, just like a classic Leica. Raised numbers provide a nice textural contrast on the shutter speed dial, which sits perfectly flush with the camera body alongside the shutter button. The overall design prioritizes clean lines and seamless interaction.

Zhang even extends the minimalist concept to the charger, featuring a compact dual-slot design for convenient battery management on the go.

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Leica EDC Multitool was designed for camera tinkerers as well as seasoned outdoor enthusiasts

Multitools have a special place in an adventurer’s life, who must always be prepared for an emergency when venturing outdoors. The best preparation against the unforeseen is having a multitool in the everyday carry gear. Offering a number of simple and effective ways to tackle a range of problems when outside the house, or in the everyday routine at home, for that matter, a multitool in its portable format is a constructive option.

If you’re an enthusiast, or for the knowledge of the not-so-familiar, Victorinox and Leatherman are arguably the two most prominent names in the multitool industry. With the use of new materials and formats, many competitors and young designers are reinventing the wheel. A case in point is the Leica Multi, which is an EDC designed for the famed optics giant with impressions of its cameras reflected in the form factor.

Designer: Marco Barbosa

Over the years with its unrelenting simplicity and compactness, the Leica cameras have paved the way for all types of modern photography. Now the Leica M forms the basis for the design of a multitool that draws more than its looks from the SL2 camera. The Leica Multi has a similar machined aluminum body and is manually assembled for precision and quality.

The smallest of design features of the Marco Barbosa’s multitool reflect the Leica brand image and closely represent its analog camera details, which would allow the familiar customers to use the multitool easily due to the acquired knowledge from using Leica cameras. To keep it in line, and more productive for Leica users, the Multi is made to stick (through a housing) to the bottom of a Leica camera where the tripod does. To ensure the everyday carry gear is even more versatile to use its housing includes a spatial reading photometer that harks back to the analog days.

Talking of versatility, the Leica Multi is designed in two parts. The screwdriver, Philips screwdriver, saw, knife, scissors, corkscrew, and cap opener are located on one side, while the precision instruments like the flashlight and goldsmith’s keys are placed on the other. Opening these individual tools is easy: select the tool and rotate the handle.

When the particular tool is fully open, it locks into place so it is hassle-free to use, and pressing the shoot button unlocks the tool to retrieve it back to its residing space. All the tools have a magnetic tip and the flashlight on the Multi goes on and off with the press of the Leica logo onboard. The Leica Multi, bare bone is directed toward Leica customers, but its design and effectiveness, I presume, will leave many outdoorsy yearning!

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The Leica Sofort 2 hybrid camera lets you print before you post

Hybrid digital cameras are a great alternative to smart phone cameras for two reasons: you can theoretically store more digital photos on an SD or micro SD card, and you can print your digital photos out like a polaroid camera. The newly announced Leica Sofort 2 competes against some of the best hybrid digital cameras around, like the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo, thanks to its versatile set of features – including built-in connectivity with Leica’s FOTOS smartphone app for seamless photo transfer between devices.

Bells and whistles aside, Leica is notorious for developing durable cameras that are easy to operate, yet produce images which immediately look great without any extra color balancing, contrast boosting, or general tweaking. At an MSRP of $389, the Sofort 2 may seem pricy compared to other hybrid digital cameras, but its secret weapon – aside from the aforementioned FOTOS app, which lets you instantly print your smartphone photos out of the Sofort 2’s built-in 86×54 mm printer – is Leica’s signature lenses that are known to produce an incredible mix of contrast, sharpness, and bokeh out of the box.

Designer: Leica

The Sofort 2 is designed for a balance of convenience and quality, thanks to its lightweight and compact design rated to weigh no more than 320 grams – or 0.7 lbs. It also features a decent array of manual controls and buttons for an intuitive, even nostalgic, analog user experience.  There are dials for digital flash and optical zoom, but there’s also a manual print lever that should make the instant photo printing experience more authentic.

Its Leica Summar 2.4 f/2 lens is rated to include a solid aperture range of f2 to f16, its shutter speeds can range between 1/4s to a blazing fast 1/8000s, and its 5 megapixel 1.5″ CMOS sensor is designed to produce 2560×1920 sRGB photos – taking up about 1.2 megabytes per shot. Its internal memory can contain about 45 photos taken by the Sofort 2 (though larger photos transferred via the FOTOS app may take more space), but that can be expanded with a micro SD or micro SDHC card, letting you store up to 850 photos internally per 1GB of external SD storage.

Despite its balance of high-quality features and ease of use, regular users of hybrid digital cameras have been openly skeptical of the Leica Sofort 2’s design on forums like Reddit – mainly because of its similarities to comparable hybrid digital cameras from competing brands like Fujifilm and Polaroid. It doesn’t help that Leica’s instant film pack costs $15 per 10 exposures on its official store, whereas it can be much cheaper to buy film for other instant cameras.

Skeptics do still seem to love the FOTOS app, which is known for being well-designed from a UX standpoint, conveniently allowing transfer between Leica cameras and any modern smartphone. This means you can post your Leica Sofort 2 photos to social media instead, or you can even download photos off of other devices or directly from social media and print them via the Sofort 2’s built-in printer.

The Leica Sofort 2 comes in three color variations: black, red, and white. All look compact and stylish, so you can’t go wrong. It also seems like important peripherals like a USB-C charging cable and carry strap are bundled with the camera itself. However, it looks like you’ll need to shell out extra for any carrying bags – an accessory you may want (for peace of mind) if you’re afraid of damaging your new camera by storing it with other items in the same bag.

You can currently pre-order the Sofort 2 and any accessories you’d like, including the aforementioned carry bags and any extra carrying straps, from the Leica web store. Pre-orders end on November 9 when the new camera begins shipping out to customers across the globe.

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The Adidas M is a Leica-inspired film camera concept to tantalize shutterbugs and sports aficionados

I’ll be waiting for my Nike 360° camera and my Under Armour FPV drone too, thanks…

Although I’m fairly certain Adidas isn’t trying to enter the photography world after abandoning its $1.3 billion deal with Kanye, this Adidas M film camera concept absolutely made me do a spit-take. Not for one second did I think that the company’s retro branding would carry forward so well onto high-end camera brands, but this concept by Thiago Botelho has me absolutely hooked. The camera styles itself on the Leica M6, but with a cheeky rebranding featuring the same camera body (albeit a little cleaner) along with a new lens, and a red Adidas logo on the top… As the company says, Impossible Is Nothing.

Designer: Thiago Botelho

The camera is unapologetically a Leica, although that Adidas branding on it really feels like a winning collab to me. There’s a macro Elmar 50mm lens mounted on the front, and the rest of the camera’s details and trimmings are on point too, from the textured body to the controls on the top that give you the flavor of full analog photography.

Right beside the Adidas branding is the camera’s built-in flash (although there’s a mount for an external flash too), and a viewfinder on the top right corner.

A textured knob on the top helps you control the camera’s shutter speed, offering the only real control on the camera apart from the focus ring on the lens itself. Beside it lies the camera’s “accessory shoe” that’s used to mount external flash modules for a more powerful light source while shooting in low light or at high shutter speeds. On the other side, lies the shutter button with a threaded socket for ‘cable release’, and a reel counter that lets you know how many more photos you can click.

Designed as a CGI exercise by Botelho, a Brazil-based designer, photographer, and CG artist, the Adidas M shows that there’s really no limit to how versatile some logos can be. The three-leaf logo really feels like it belongs on the camera, although the best way to really make this a Leica x Adidas collab would be to also include a highly powerful sports photography mode within the shutter speed knob. Also, is it just me or would an entirely red camera look even more appealing?

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Leica Monochrom Edition watches honor fundamentals of black and white photography

Renowned German camera manufacturer, Leica is foraying into the horology world with the impressive Monochrom Edition watches that are testament to the timeless elegance and precision of German engineering. Drawing inspiration from the Leica M11 Monochrom camera, the timepieces pay tribute to the principles of black and white photography: light and contrast.

The Leica Monochrom Edition comprises two models: the ZM 1 and the ZM 2 that play with shades of black and grey. Both are handcrafted and developed in collaboration with Lehmann Präzision GmbH, from the initial vision through to the final implementation.

Designer: Leica

From the onset, Leica ZM Monochrom Edition’s minimalist design is devoid of any bright color, with the exception of a red dot from the Leica camera’s shutter button, which finds a place on the crown.

The watches tout satin-finished stainless steel case and PVD coated bezel that absorbs light to reveal depth. This breathtaking design ingenuity is complemented by the domed sapphire crystal beneath which lie the sandblasted aluminum dial topped with black rhodium-plated, diamond-cut, and sandblasted indices.

The Leica ZM1 and ZM 2 Monochrom watches have a lot in common, including hours, minutes and small second display, the transparent caseback, 60 hours of power reserve, and their water resistance of up to 50 meters. The watches are a symbol of Haute Horologie, which besides the casing, shows in the in-house, self-wound mechanical movement and the signature push-crown.

The crown stops the movement when it’s pushed down, resetting the seconds and making the time setting atypical to what the other watchmakers rely on. This places the Leica ZM monochrom edition in a league of its own. The Leica ZM 2 distinguishes itself from the ZM 1 a tad bit with the GMT hand for indicating a second-time zone. It is paired along with a day/night indicator that makes reading two time zones easier with a single set of hands.

The watches come with a handstitched strap made of black calf leather, matching the leather cover of the Leica M11 Monochrom camera in style and durability. The Leica ZM 1 and the ZM 2 are expected to ship in May, starting at €11,550 and €15,450 respectively.

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This Leitz Phone 2 is a smartphone dressed as a Leica camera

Cameras have been a critical part of smartphones for many years, and manufacturers have come up with ways to highlight that fact. In addition to the increasingly larger sizes of camera sensors themselves, many smartphones have adopted a design that figuratively and literally elevated those cameras, sometimes to the point of being obnoxious. It’s not unusual to see phones with humongous camera bumps that take more space than they should, some with more tasteful designs than others. This new Leica-rebranded phone, for example, has a large circle on its back, and it actually only has one camera there. That, of course, is all intentional and by design because this Leitz Phone 2 is meant to recreate the feeling of a digital camera, even including having a lens cover.

Designer: Leica

Named after the company’s founder, the Leitz Phone 2 is both a rebranded Sharp Aquos R7, which was co-developed with Leica, as well as definitely something more. It shares many things in common, including its exclusivity to the Japanese market. These boil down to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, 6.6-inch screen, and a single camera on its back. The last bit is pretty much a bold move as far as modern smartphones go, and Leica went even further to differentiate itself from the general market trend.

That single camera has a 1-inch 47-megapixel sensor, one of the biggest in the industry today and a bragging right for certain companies. Unlike other smartphones, though, it stands alone in the Leitz Phone 2 but is still enclosed in a humongous circle that nearly spans the width of the phone. There is nothing else on that plate other than a depth sensor and an LED flash, making it almost like a tremendous waste of space. That, however, was meant to make it look like the lenses of digital cameras, perhaps like the ones that Leica makes.

In fact, everything about this Leica-branded smartphone is about making you think and feel like you’re using a digital camera. The flat side edges have knurled surfaces that give you a better grip when taking photos. On the software side, Leica has added effects that mimic the results of its three iconic lenses, namely the Summilux 28, the Summilux 35, and the Noctilux 50. It even has a shutter sound that should be familiar to fans of the brand’s cameras.

While the idea of trying to recreate an authentic camera feel is laudable, it almost feels as if Leica also went overboard to some extent. There’s a magnetic lens cap for that large camera, something that is necessary for digital cameras but almost useless for smartphones. It does let the owner flaunt their brand loyalty, but at the expense of speed when you have to remove the cover to take a picture with your phone. Plus, you also run the risk of losing that cover along the way.

Some regard smartphones as having gone overboard in terms not only of camera design but also of the number of cameras themselves. In that regard, the Sharp Aquos R7 and this Leitz Phone 2 are rather bold deviations that truly put the focus, forgive the pun, on the important aspects of photography using a single lens. Unfortunately, their limited availability makes sure they’ll be nothing more than collectors’ items and a passing fad.

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Xiaomi’s absolutely crazy 12S Ultra concept comes with the ability to mount Leica camera lenses

The camera bump to end all camera bumps…

A weird combination of outrageous and scarily beautiful, this Xiaomi 12S Ultra Concept absolutely pushes the limits of what’s capable when it comes to smartphone photography. Designed as a purely conceptual successor to the flagship 12S Ultra, this monster of a phone comes with not one, but TWO 1-inch sensors in its camera layout. The phone looks almost identical to its predecessor, with the exception of a redesigned camera bump that now allows you to mount a massive Leica lens onto it like you would a professional camera. Why? Well, why not, Xiaomi would rather have us ask. The phone is purely conceptual for now, although reports indicate it took a staggering $41,000 to build out this concept.

Designer: Xiaomi

A stunning example of top-notch engineering, the 12S Ultra Concept really blurs the line between smartphones and professional shooters. To do this, Xiaomi had to ditch one of its cameras, namely the periscope lens located at the center of the circular bump. The centrally located periscope zoom lens gets replaced with a 1-inch CMOS sensor, giving the phone 2 individual 1-inch sensors located in that camera bump. That second sensor is devoid of any camera lens ahead of it. Instead, it supports mounting an external lens, namely this purpose-built one from Leica.

This new format took a bit of work. With most cameras, the sensor remains exposed to the elements once you pop the lens off – a pretty major factor that influenced the 12S Ultra Concept’s design. Xiaomi circumvented this by covering the entire camera bump with a sapphire crystal, preventing the exposed sensor from any damage while also keeping the housing IP68 waterproof. The camera bump also now houses a metallic ring around it, which lets you snap and lock the Leica lens to it.

More than being a product that Xiaomi will sell to consumers, this concept is really a testament of what’s practically possible with smartphone designs. If you told me 10 years back that you could easily fit TWO 1-inch sensors into a smartphone camera, I’d ask you to book an appointment with a psychiatrist. Now, Xiaomi just casually demonstrates how ridiculously effortless it is to pull off. The conceptual phone didn’t need to make ANY compromises to pull off this feat. It looks exactly like its predecessor, albeit with a few tweaks and adjustments to just the camera bump. The rest of the phone remains exactly the same, with the exception of the textured back panel that feels like a great hat-tip to cameras in general!

There’s no way this phone was built to be sold, but here’s the catch. Just like the myth of the 4-minute mile, Xiaomi’s proven that building a smartphone with such a staggeringly good camera is possible… which means it’s just a matter of time before other companies try giving it a shot. I could totally see Sony jumping into this, given how they already have a dog in the mirrorless camera race. Would I actually consider buying an Xperia with the ability to snap on Sony Alpha E-mount lenses??? Probably?!

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The Best of IFA 2022: Technology for Better Living

It’s that time of year again when big brands try to make a big splash in upgrading your home with the latest and greatest in consumer electronics and home appliances. The past two years were filled with devices that tried to fill the needs of the times, offering different ways to sanitize and protect your home against harmful microorganisms. Things have fortunately settled down, and industries have started to recover, putting their attention and resources into products that help make life less stressful and more enjoyable. There are plenty of such products up for show at IFA 2022 in Berlin, and so we distilled the lineup into our top picks for products to keep an eye on this year.

Zendure Superbase V Portable Home Battery

Thanks to natural calamities and resource shortages, power blackouts have become more common these past few years than ever before. Power banks might be enough for phones and even some laptops, but they are useless to power anything else, especially for extended periods of time. Gasoline-chugging generators do exist, of course, but the dangers they pose both to people and the environment make them inefficient and costly in the long run. Clean Energy Tech startup Zendure is putting its best foot forward this year with a new energy system that can power your house or even your car in a sustainable way.

Designer: Zendure

With a capacity that can reach up to 64kWh thanks to its expandable design, the Zendure Superbase V Portable Energy System has enough juice to give power to a house in an emergency. It even has a power outlet for charging EVs. Despite its large capacity and size, it can still be moved around like a cart on wheels. More importantly, the semi-solid state battery inside can be charged using solar power, offering a more sustainable solution to electricity problems. It’s a win-win solution for both humans and the planet.

Leica Cine 1 Projector

Along with cutting cables, some homeowners have also started getting rid of TVs that take up space even when not in use. While still waiting for the perfect rollable TV, home projectors have become more attractive and more practical solutions, especially when you want a bigger screen without losing wall space. Famed camera maker Leica is jumping into this market, and its first attempt is as classy as anything that bears its signature “Coke” logo.

Designer: Leica

The Leica Cine 1 short-throw projector utilizes triple RGB lasers to deliver picture-quality 4K images and videos on an area equivalent to a 100-inch TV. Despite all that power, the projector manages to keep a compact size that will fit in any room arrangement. Even better, it also bears Leica’s design language, with a sleek aluminum body with an automatic dust cover to protect the lens. Stylish and functional, this home projector promises to add life to a space, both through its design and through the videos it will play.

LG OLED Flex Bendable TV

TV innovation hasn’t been standing still, especially if you’ve been keeping track of recent buzzwords. While curved TVs haven’t exactly become the norm, they’ve become a force to reckon with in the market. Not everyone is convinced that they need a curved TV, though, or at least not all the time. LG’s latest trick is to give people the ability to choose between the two whenever they want.

Designer: LG

Utilizing its expertise in flexible OLED panels, the brand’s new 42-inch TV can lay flat or bend to a curve with a push of a button. Designed primarily with gaming in mind, the LG OLED Flex LX3 has plenty of features that benefit even non-interactive content like movies and TV shows. Now you no longer have to make an upfront decision to go flat or curved, freeing you to enjoy content in the best way possible.

LG MoodUp Color-Changing Fridge

Once upon a time, appliances were simply functional pieces of equipment and nothing more. These days, they have not only become smarter but have also become an expression of the owner’s personality and interests. Bespoke home appliances are becoming a little bit more common, but they can also be a little bit too specific to a certain style or theme. LG’s new fridge, however, tries to shake things up a bit by letting people choose the doors’ colors on a whim.

Designer: LG

The LG MoodUp refrigerator’s doors are covered with LED panels that can change their color depending on your, well, mood. You can select different colors for each door or you can set it to follow a motif based on seasons, locations, and moods. These panels can also serve as visual notifications, like when you left a door open. The refrigerator also has a built-in speaker that you can use to play music from your smartphone via Bluetooth. Of course, the colors of the doors can sync to that music as well, truly pushing the mood up on any occasion.

JBL Tour Pro 2 Earbuds

Truly Wireless Stereo or TWS earbuds have come a long way over the past years. Spurred by the retirement of the headphone jack on smartphones, these tiny audio devices have seen plenty of innovation in terms of features and designs. In contrast, the cases that hold these earbuds have remained practically the same, mostly changing only in shape. The JBL Tour Pro 2 tries to change that and make the earbuds case as smart as what it holds inside.

Designer: JBL

Portrait Of Young Caucasian Stylish Man On Sunny Day In The City.

The earbuds themselves are what you would expect from the brand, featuring features like adaptive noise canceling and spatial sound. What truly sets it apart is its smart charging case, which has its own 1.45-inch touch screen that lets you control the earbuds without having to take out your phone. It’s not an earth-shattering new feature, but it does level up the experience for the first time.

Philips Hue Lightguide Bulbs

Lighting can make or break the mood in a room, not to mention affect people’s productivity in that space. Since the smart home explosion a few years back, lighting was the first to be connected to the Internet, giving people better control over the hues in their homes or offices. As one of the pioneers of that smart lighting market, Philips Hue has to constantly innovate and mix things up to fend off the competition, and its new statement lighting collection tries to step up to that challenge.

Designer: Philips Hue

The new Philips Hue Lightguide Bulbs mix the old and the new with large glass bulbs in modern shapes like ellipses and triangles. Diffused light comes from an inner tube that you can, of course, control with your smartphone. Whether hanging from pendants or sticking up on stands, these bulbs give some character to a space, even when they’re turned off.

Electrolux AEG Kitchen Innovations

Electrolux is one of the most trusted names in the home appliance market, and it continues to push the envelope to meet the changing needs and trends of the times. Sometimes that means jumping on the smart home appliance bandwagon. Other times, it means making a commitment to sustainability and resource efficiency.

Designer: Electrolux

The AEG 7000 GreenZone refrigerator, for example, boasts using 70% recycled plastic for its inner liner walls, while the AEG 8000 series has new cooling technology that tries to preserve food longer so that they don’t go to waste. For those who love cooking at home, the AEG 800 Bridge/FlexiBridge with eXTractor sucks up vapor and recycles the air back into the kitchen, removing the stress of lingering odors while preparing your favorite meals.

Tineco Toasty One smart toaster

Everything’s becoming smarter these days, from the lights to washing machines to even toothbrushes. There’s always room to add a little intelligence to consumer electronics, especially when it means relieving our brains from having to fret over mundane stuff. It might sound excessive at first, but a smart bread toaster with a touch screen can be pretty convenient.

Designer: Tineco

The Tineco Toasty One can toast two slices of bread like other toasters, but it can have different settings for each of them. It can even detect the condition of the bread to automatically set the right heat for the desired crispiness. Of course, you can input your own preference, and it can remember different settings for up to eight people. OK, it might be overboard for some, but the toaster’s somewhat cute design definitely fits the kitchen of the future.

Bluetti Green Power Generators

Portable power generators that replace fuel generators are becoming more popular these days. Having emergency power that is clean, green, and safe is almost critical in this day and age, whether it’s for spending the weekend outdoors or living through a power outage. Bluetti is one of the most trusted brands in that growing market, and it’s showing off its latest solution to keep the lights on in the darkness.

Designer: Bluetti

The new Bluetti AC500 modular portable power generator steps up the game with a larger inverter that can dish out 5000W. When paired with B300 or B300S battery modules, it can provide an astounding 18,432Wh of power for the whole house. What makes it different from most battery-powred generators is that you can decide just how many modules you want to bring along, simplifying its portability. Plus, you can also charge it using solar power, creating a more sustainable solution to your electricity problems.

ASUS ZenBook 17 Fold OLED

Smartphones aren’t the only ones that are getting a foldable treatment. Although it’s happening more slowly, even tablets and laptops are getting foldable screens as well. There might still be some hesitation and doubt on whether it’s a fad or the next wave in computing, but devices that can change their forms will definitely become more common in the near future.

Designer: ASUS

The ASUS ZenBook 17 Fold OLED is one of the pioneers of this still nascent market. A 17.3-inch 2.5K screen that can fold into two 12.5-inch Full HD screens gives a whole new meaning to multitasking. Whether it will survive the test of time and hard work remains to be seen, but its launch marks the start of something new.

Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Fold (16-inch)

Credit where credit is due, Lenovo is actually one of the first to demonstrate that it really believed in the foldable laptop hype. The first Thinkpad X1 Fold, while functional, didn’t exactly meet the hype and imagination of the PC market. Its next-gen iteration, however, inches closer to that ideal.

Designer: Lenovo

The new 16-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold refines the design of its predecessor, making the body thinner while also increasing the screen size. It also comes with a new cover stand and an improved Bluetooth keyboard that should make the device more usable. No longer will you feel like you’re carrying around a prototype device and are instead using the computer of the future.

Bang & Olufsen Beosound Theater Soundbar

As TVs become thinner, the need to relocate speakers has also become greater. You can, of course, cram smaller speakers inside those thin frames, but that often comes at the expense of sound quality. Soundbars have become one of the solutions to this problem, offering a way to have an elegant speaker near an equally elegant TV. And when it comes to elegance, there are few names you can trust more than Bang & Olufsen.

Designer: Bang & Olufsen

The marque’s new Beosound Theater is unsurprisingly another proof of its expertise in blending audio quality and aesthetics. Whether standing alone or paired with a TV, the soundbar looks stylish and attractive, unlike common boxy soundbars. Inspired by sailboats, the Beosund Theather’s curved body looks like it’s floating on air, giving it a sense of grandeur and adventure that matches the heart-racing sounds that come from it.

Yaber Pico T1 portable projector

While short-throw home projectors are gaining popularity as alternatives to traditional TVs, another kind of projector is making its way into people’s travel bags or even pockets. Pico projectors offer the opportunity to enjoy videos or make presentations anywhere, as long as you have the right light conditions. Given how projectors work, it’s hard to find the right balance between portability and performance, something that Yaber gets mostly correct.

Designer: Yaber

The Yaber Pico T1 itself is like a shorter but thicker smartphone, and it can easily fit into your jeans’ pocket. It does output at a resolution of 960×540, but it can do so at a screen size of up to 100 inches. The downside is that it doesn’t have an internal battery, so you’ll have to connect it to a compatible power bank. That said, all its accessories still fit nicely in a pouch that you can conveniently carry around if you want a cinema on the go.

Huawei

In spite of and despite all odds, Huawei continues to bring quality products to meet the needs and demands of today’s consumers. From powerful smartphones to professional laptops, Huawei brings a plethora of choices across different markets and tiers. The Huawei nova 10 and nova 10 Pro, for example, bring a 60MP front-facing camera that’s sure to excite selfie lovers with limited budgets.

For those more focused on productivity, the Huawei MatePad Pro brings a tablet to rival the iPad Pro with a 120Hz OLED screen and a Huawei M Pencil stylus. The new MateBook X Pro, on the other hand, packs a 3.1K 14.2-inch screen into a Windows-powered laptop powered by the latest 12th-gen Intel Core processors. Whether it’s for lifestyle, entertainment, or productivity, Huawei has a product that has one of the best bang-for-buck offers in designs that make you feel you’re really getting more for less.

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Xiaomi 12 Ultra will put Leica on a divisive camera design

Phone designs have become increasingly common these days, so it’s not surprising to see some try to set themselves apart, one way or another. Some are met with much success, like the OPPO Find X5 Pro’s futuristic minimalism and the Realme GT2 Pro’s fashionable Paper Tech design. Others seem to still be trying to come to terms with their design language, while still others are apparently stumbling in their efforts to stand out from the crowd. Xiaomi’s next flagship will attempt to flaunt Leica’s massive brand to appeal to mobile shutterbugs, but it might be doing the camera maker a slight disservice considering how controversial the Xiaomi 12 Ultra’s camera design is so far turning out to be.

Designer: HoiINDI

Smartphone designs have mostly gravitated towards emphasizing the most important part of a smartphone next to its display. Trends come and go, but the importance of cameras in our smartphone-centric culture has never wavered. But as those camera sensors become more powerful and bigger, the space they occupy has also become larger, forcing designers to think of ways to balance looks and function. In the Xiaomi 12 Ultra’s case, it seems that only one side won, at least based on renders made from leaked information.

This isn’t the first phone that uses a circular enclosure to house the camera in a group, with the Huawei Mate 30 coming out with that design back in 2019. It might, however, be the biggest by a wide margin, occupying nearly a third of the phone’s height and leaving little room on its sides. If Xiaomi intended to call attention to the Xiaomi 12 Ultra’s cameras, this definitely does it, but not in a flattering way. Despite marketing materials, Leica’s iconic circle logo might not even be immediately visible, which is probably the best for the brand.

The Xiaomi 12 Ultra is in the running for the most divisive camera design this year, going head-to-head with the Honor Magic4 Ultimate from March. Xiaomi’s camera bump doesn’t feel like it’s about to jump out at you, sitting on the phone’s back in a static manner. In contrast, Honor’s design has the entire phone’s rear elevated from four directions to meet the height of the larger circular camera bump, potentially creating some unevenness that would affect the phone’s stability on a flat surface or even in your hand.

Designer: Parvez Khan (Technizo Concept) for LetsGoDigital

That said, Honor arranged its camera lenses in such a way that they look a bit more symmetrical and balanced. Most likely due to technical considerations, Xiaomi’s lenses are all over the place, creating an almost disorganized appearance. It could even trigger certain psychological conditions in people because of the clearly visible and uneven holes. It’s definitely going to be a head-turner, but not everything that calls attention does so in a good way.

Admittedly, smartphone design is a delicate balancing act between opposing forces and directions. At the same time, it’s a problem created by manufacturers themselves. As they cram more and larger hardware inside phones, they will be forced to figure out a smart design for them. More doesn’t always mean better, especially from a design perspective, and the Xiaomi 12 Ultra proves it.

The post Xiaomi 12 Ultra will put Leica on a divisive camera design first appeared on Yanko Design.