October is the time when most MNCs launch their flagships in India and this time also a bunch of high end smartphones are set to make their debut in the country. So if you are planning to buy a high end smartphone either for yourself or to gift someone, we would suggest you to check out this list.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7
First up in the list is the smartphone that was almost launched in India, but sadly a manufacturing defect forced the company to postpone the launch. However, don’t worry. Samsung’s latest Note 7 is all likely to launch in India next month. Note series of Samsung were quite popular and had in the past set examples for others to follow. The Note 7 too has been hailed by all for its features.
To start with the specifications, Note 7 comes with a metal body and a 5.7-inch Quad HD (2560 x 1440 pixels) Super AMOLED Display with curved edges on both right and left hand side. Inside, we get an octa-core Exynos 8890 (quad 2.3GHz + quad 1.6GHz) chipset that runs Android Marshmallow seamlessly with the help of 4GB RAM. On top of Android 6.0 we get Samsung’s TouchWiz UI on top and a 3500 mAh battery with Fast charging technology mode. It has a USB Type C port for data transfer and a quick fingerprint scanner in the home button.
Samsung Note 7 has a 12-megapixel Autofocus rear camera that comes with dual pixel technology, LED flash, PDAF, optical image stabilisation, and f/1.7 aperture. For selfies, it has a 5-megapixel front facing camera with f/1.7 aperture. The Note 7 comes with 64 GB of internal storage which is expandable via a micro SD card to up to 256 GB. However, the micro SD card will take the place of secondary SIM slot. But what makes the Note series different from other flagship devices is the S Pen. This year both the Note 7 and S Pen will be water and dust proof which is a welcome addition. Samsung has also added an intuitive Iris scanner up front to unlock the device. Hopefully, it won’t be long until we see Samsung re-launching the Galaxy Note 7.
Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus
When we talk about flagship smartphones, iPhones just cannot be skipped. The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus which were announced last week, are set to launch in India on October 7. However, expect a huge price tag and are confirmed to be priced Rs 60,000 onwards.
The iPhone 7 has a 4.7 inch touchscreen while the iPhone 7 Plus comes with a 5.5 inch display with 1334×750 pixels and 1920×1080 pixel Resolution respectively. To power the devices, Apple has given its new A10 fusion chip which is built on 64 bit architecture and has two conservative cores and two high performance cores. On top we will get the new iOS 10. In the camera department, the primary 12 megapixel camera of both iPhone 7 and 7 Plus have f/1.8 aperture, Optical Image Stabilisation, six element lens, Live Photo feature with stabilization, Sapphire crystal lens cover, Backside illumination sensor, Hybrid IR filter, Auto HDR, Burst mode, timer mode, panorama and geo tagging features. But additionally, the iPhone 7 Plus has dual camera set up with the secondary camera being of 12 megapixel resolution and is called as telephoto camera. With the dual camera set up enables depth effect in images and helps users to get 2x zoom without any assistance from software.
For connectivity, the phones offer WiFi (ac), WiFi with MIMO, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS with GLONASS and NFC. Apple has also done away with the traditional physical home button and introduced touch sensitive button. Also, there is no Headphone jack on both the phones which some think is a wise decision but it’s quite a bummer for others. Fortunately, this year’s iPhones are water and dust resistant.
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LG V20
Earlier this week there was another smartphone apart from the new iPhones which was announced. LG V20 is the first smartphone to run on Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. Starting with the display, LG V20 sports a 5.7 inch 1440 x 2560 display which offers much higher pixel per density of 513 ppi with an additional display strip on top for notifications and other controls. Further, the device comes with this year’s standard flagship Processor which is Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset clocked at 2.15 GHz with Adreno 530 GPU and 4GB RAM. For storage, LG V20 comes with 32GB/64GB options both of them can be expanded up to 256GB via a dedicated micro SD card slot. 
Not surprising enough, the LG V20 comes with dual camera setup, one being a 16 MP, f/1.8 shooter and other one being an 8 MP, f/2.4 coupled with features like laser & phase detection autofocus, 2x optical zoom, OIS and dual-LED flash. The front facing shooter comes with 5 megapixel. For power, the device comes with a 3200 mAh which, LG claims, can last whole day without any issues. You get all the standard connectivity capabilities such as built in WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and NFC. LG has also invested quite a lot in Audio input as well as output.
Google Pixel and Pixel XL
Google this year reportedly won’t be launching Nexus series phones, instead it will announce a new series called Pixel. As per reports, Google will release two devices called Pixel and Pixel XL. As per reports, Google will announce the smartphones on October 4 (next month) and preorders might start that day itself.
So at this point of time, we don’t have confirmed specs. However, there have been several leaks in the past about the so called Pixel and Pixel XL.
Both the phones are expected to come with a Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and 4 GB of RAM and 12 megapixel rear facing camera. There are also rumours that the Pixel XL will come with Snapdragon 821 which is more improved version of the 820. The only difference other than that will be the screen size and battery. The Pixel XL will be the larger variant with 5.5 inch display and will even sport a bigger battery compared to the Pixel which will come with 5.0 inch display.
As per reports, the new devices will come with some features that would be limited to Pixel and Pixel XL only. Rumours claim that it could be the new launcher and smart Google assistant. Also these phones are likely to come with updated version of Android Nougat i.e. Android 7.1. As of now, there has been no leaks about the pricing but some reports suggests that pricing of this year’s Google’s flagships will be on the higher side.