Xiaomi wants Isro chief to ‘dump’ his Samsung phone for this Redmi phone

Published February 26, 2020

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By admin

SOURCE: GADGET NOW

Xiaomi India MD and global VP Manu Kumar Jain announced that Xiaomi will be the first brand in India to launch a phone with a chipset support made-in-India GPS alternative called NavIC. Jain took to Twitter to announce the news with a photograph of him presenting a Redmi K20 Pro to Isro chairman Dr K Sivan. Note that the Redmi K20 Pro doesn’t come with NavIC support. Interestingly, Twitterati was quick to spot a Samsung smartphone popping out of the shift pocket of Dr Sivan. On zooming into the photo, it was revealed that Dr Sivan actually uses the older flagship Samsung Galaxy Note 8 smartphone.

So, if you are wondering why Jain would pose with the Redmi K20 Pro that doesn’t support NavIC to announce the news, the peeping Galaxy Note 8 inside Dr Sivan’s shirt pocket may be the answer. Anyone can guess that it may be a subtle way of saying that it’s time for Dr Sivan to change his phone and it is a perfect photo-op to market the Redmi K20 Pro.

Meanwhile, for those unaware, in January, Qualcomm had launched three new chipsets — Snapdragon 720G, 662 and 460 — with support for Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC). NavIC has been developed by Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) as the Indian version of GPS. Apart from Xiaomi, Realme has also confirmed that it will be launching smartphones with NavIC support based on the new Snapdragon chipsets soon.

While GPS is very popular among smartphone users, what most people do not know is that GPS is not the only satellite navigation system. Russia uses its own GLONASS while the European Union and China have Galileo and BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016 launched NavIC satellite navigation system made by Isro and finally in 2020, we have NavIC making its way to smartphones. Isro has deployed eight satellites for NavIC out of which seven will provide positioning, location, navigation and timing (PNT) services while another one will offer messaging services (IRNSS-1A).

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