We’re finally at the last month of 2025, and what a year it’s been—in terms of weekly tech news and headlines, these past days have been dominated by the likes of Xiaomi and its POCO brand, which unveiled the new high-end POCO F8 series phones. We also got word from Nothing about its planned December launch for the 3a Lite in India, and Samsung surprises us with a blast from the not-so-distant past. Let’s get started!
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Xiaomi Unveils the POCO F8 Pro and F8 Ultra with Powerful Chipsets
We recently headed to Bali, Indonesia for the launch of Xiaomi’s POCO F8 series, which include the new POCO F8 Pro and POCO F8 Ultra. The more powerful F8 Ultra (which we’ve reviewed above) features Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which is used in several other flagship Android phones as well. Meanwhile, the POCO F8 Pro runs on the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which is a slightly older processor that was launched last year.
Nothing Announces a New Colour Variant for the 3a Lite, along with Expanded Availability
Remember the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite? Launched a while back, the 3a Lite was an even more affordable version of the Nothing Phone 3a series, which themselves are already wallet-friendly. That being said, Nothing recently announced that it’s rolling out the 3a Lite to more markets worldwide, which will now be available for buyers in India starting in December this year. Nothing’s added a new colour version of the device, which will now be available in a blue colour option in addition to the current black and white options on the market.
Xiaomi’s New POCO Tablets Also Make their Debut
Alongside the launch of its POCO F8 series phones, we also saw the debut of Xiaomi’s new tablets under the POCO line, the POCO Pad X1 and Pad M1. The two devices share the same design and a number of hardware specs with the Xiaomi Pad 7 and Redmi Pad 2 Pro, which also made their debut this year. The Pad X1 pretty much comes with the same specs as the Xiaomi Pad 7, including the 11.2-inch LCD display and Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 chip. Meanwhile, the POCO Pad X1 comes with a larger 12-inch display and is powered by a Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chip, which ranks just a bit below the Pad X1’s 7+ Gen 3 chipset.
Samsung’s T7 Drive Gets a More Eco-friendly Version
And last but not the least, Samsung recently announced that it was re-launching its older T7 storage drive as the T7 “Resurrected” Portable Solid State Drive. While it pretty much retains the features and performance of the original T7 model, this new edition sets itself apart by focusing on recycled materials and more sustainable manufacturing. Samsung promises that the drive remains a powerhouse with read speeds of up to 1,050 MB/s and write speeds of up to 1,000 MB/s, which in theory should make it ideal for managing large files like 4K video.
Qualcomm and OnePlus Collaborate for a New Snapdragon Chip
Qualcomm recently announced that it was working with OnePlus for the development of its new Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, a premium chip which sits just below the 8 Elite Gen 5 in terms of benchmarks. The new chip features a custom-built Qualcomm Oryon CPU with speeds of 3.8 GHz, an updated Adreno GPU and up to 46% better AI performance for “agentic” assistants. Both companies spent 24 months designing the processor, which will also power the upcoming OnePlus 15R.
