January 15, 2014, 2:34 am
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Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite may not be official yet, but it sure will be among the cheapest tablets from Samsung when it is made official. Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite's user manual has leaked online in the company's Polish website. Apart from the official leak, a Polish retailer has started taking orders for this cheap tablet - $165 for the WiFi model and $263 for the 3G Model.
According to the details listed by the retailer, the specifications of this entry range tablet are
7inch display of 1024x600 pixels
1.2GHz dual-core Marvell PXA986 processor
Vivante GC1000 GPU
1GB RAM
2MP rear camera
8GB internal storage and microSD card slot
3600mAh battery
Android 4.2 Jellybean with TouchWiz
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite aims to be the company's most affordable tablet offering as it is seen by the entry range specifications. Previously, there have been leaks about this budget tablet and the leaking of official manual on the company's website only confirms its existence. The device is expected to be available in the market at the end of January or during early February.
Via
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January 15, 2014, 3:36 am
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Micromax partnered with Aircel last year for bundled offers on smartphones and 3G Dongles. It partnered with MTS to launch Canvas Blaze MT500 smartphone. Now, the company has partnered with Tata Docomo to launch voice and data offers. This lets Tata Docomo customers enjoy voice and data at cheaper rates on Micromax handsets purchased after 1st October 2013 till 30th June 2014.
Tata Docomo users also get 3GB of 3G data with 30 days validity on Micromax 3G smartphones. Other offers include double data on select 3G and 2G packs and full talkime on select voice packs. These double data packs are applicable on Canvas Turbo and Canvas 4 along with Canvas Magnus, Bolt A61, Bolt A26, Bolt A35 and other Bolt models. Tata Docomo users can SMS MICROMAX to 141 to know more about the offer.
Regarding the new special offer, Sunil Tandon, Head Non Voice Services, Tata Docomo, said
At Tata Docomo, we follow a consumer-centric strategy where we believe in developing offerings keeping our customers’ preferences in mind. Through an Intelligent & Interactive Call to Action, wherein the MICROMAX Tata Docomo customer can now SMS “MICROMAX” to 141, to get relevant offerings cutting across 2G data, 3G data, Post-pay and ...
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January 15, 2014, 4:50 am
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Micromax Bolt A66, the company's latest Android smartphone in its Bolt series is now available in India from online retailers Flipkart, Snapdeal and official Micromax Store in India. It has a 4.5-inch (480 x 854 pixels) TFT capacitive touch screen IPS display, powered by a 1 GHz Spreadtrum SC7710G processor and runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). It has a 2-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 0.3-megapixel (VGA) front-facing camera. It comes Dual SIM support and has 3G support.
Micromax Bolt A66 specifications
4.5-inch (480 x 854 pixels) TFT capacitive touch screen display
1 GHz Spreadtrum SC7710G processor
Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) OS
Dual SIM (GSM + GSM) with Dual Standby
2MP rear camera with LED flash
0.3MP front-facing camera
512MB RAM, 512 internal memory (165 MB user memory), 32GB expandable memory with MicroSD
3G (HSDPA up to 7.2 Mbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR,GPS
3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio
1500 mAh battery
The Micromax Bolt A66 comes in Black and White colors and is priced at Rs. 5,999 online.
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January 15, 2014, 5:29 am
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Introduction
Ever since Samsung introduced the Samsung Galaxy Note, the phablet category has picked up like crazy. Smartphones kept getting bigger and bigger and as a result, we are living in a time where 5inch displays are considered a norm for smartphones and we are seeing manufacturers push devices into the 6inch category one after the other. All this battle for big smartphones happened only in the Android ecosystem until Nokia pushed the limits of a Windows Phone device by announcing the Nokia Lumia 1520 at the Abu Dhabi event in late 2013.
Nokia Lumia 1520 is the first for Nokia and Windows Phone in many aspects. It is the first Windows Phone device to be powered by a quad-core processor and it uses the best SoC in the market right now - Snapdragon 800. It is also the first Windows Phone phablet which has a huge 6inch display and is the first Windows Phone device to feature a 1080p Full HD display. Nokia left no stone unturned when they were designing the spec sheet for this beast of a device and they also made sure that it got a piece of the PureView cake. Nokia Lumia 1520 comes with a 20MP ...
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January 15, 2014, 4:09 pm
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The Moto G has been expected to launch in India sometime in the first quarter of 2014 but now thanks to a report published by the Times of India, we can get a more specific time frame. The report states that the Moto G launch in India has been scheduled for the last week of January. India is slated to get the dual SIM variant of budget Android device alongside Brazil. Expected to be priced very competitively, the phone brings modest specifications in the form of a 1.2Ghz Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB RAM and a 720p 4.5 inch display.
The device is expected to have a phased roll out starting from key markets. It'll be interesting to see how Motorola markets the product given that they have withdrawn from India. The report suggests that Motorola is partnering with an unknown distributor to launch the device in India. The after sales support will also be outsourced giving us potential cause for concern. That said, there's significant interest in the device considering that Motorola has been bought over by Google. The device retails in both 8GB and 16GB configurations at a price point that starts at $179. It remains to be seen how competitive ...
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January 15, 2014, 3:10 pm
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The Spice Smart Flo Mettle 5x is a budget device that brings a large screen experience at a very attractive price point. The phone is powered by a 1.3Ghz Dual Core MT6572 processor paired with 512MB of RAM. You get a 5 inch display with a resolution of 480 x 854. We weren't too impressed by the day to day performance of the device and noticed more than a few lags. For those who're interested in synthetic benchmarks, we put the Smart Flo Mettle 5x from our standard benchmark suite and here are the results.
The phone scored just 2497 points in the Quadrant benchmark which places it right in the middle of the competition.
In the GPU centric NenaMark 2 benchmark, the phone managed to achieve 38.9 frames per second. Real life gaming performance backed this up with the phone playing popular games fairly well with just a few frame skips.
The phone does fairly well in the single threaded Linpack benchmark and scores 51.85MFLOPS.
In the multi threaded Linpack benchmark, the phone fares very poorly with a score of just 56.952 MFLOPS.
The phone scores 5904 points in the AnTuTu benchmark and ranked towards the bottom of the benchmark chart.
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January 15, 2014, 8:00 pm
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Spice has been at the forefront of India's budget Android market almost since its inception. With some compelling releases over the past few years and months, it has been able to carve a niche for itself while facing stiff competition from Micromax, Karbonn and competition at large. Throwing its latest device into the budget Android device ring with the Spice Smart Flo Mettle 5x, the company aims to gain a foothold amongst the first time smartphone buyers. Will it succeed? We find out in our review.
Hardware
There's really nothing special about the looks of the Spice Smart Flo Mettle 5x other than the fact that it exudes quality. The front of the phone is the same as your typical entry level Android phone with a 5 inch screen taking up most of the real estate. Below it are three capacitive buttons that correspond to multitasking, menu and back. These are buttons are backlit and are fairly responsive. There's a notification light built into the lower half of the phone, right below the capacitive buttons that lights up when there's a missed call, email or a message. Depending on ambient lighting conditions, this light may or may not be visible.
Up above the ...
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January 15, 2014, 11:08 pm
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Oppo has announced Oppo Neo, the company's latest mid-range smartphone in Indonesia.The phone has a 4.5-inch (854 x 480 pixels) FWVGA IPS sensitive touch screen with glove mode, powered by a 1.3 GHz dual core processor and runs on Android 4.2-based Color ROM. It has a 5-megapixel rear camera without flash and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. It also has 3G connectivity and Smart Dual SIM feature.
It has high-end materials for the casing that feels more comfortable in your hands, says Oppo. It also has Quick Reach mode that lets you draw a pattern on the screen and double tap on the display to launch apps easily. The Gesture panel lets you customize your patterns.
Oppo Neo (R831) specifications
4.5-inch (854 ×480 pixels) FWVGA capacitive touch sceen display
Android 4.2 (ColorOS)
Dual SIM
1.3 GHz dual-core processor
5MP Auto Focus rear Camera
2MP front-facing camera
9.2mm thick and weighs 130g
3G HSPA+, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS
512MB RAM, 4GB of internal memory, Expandable memory up to 32GB with micro SD
1900 mAh battery
The Oppo Neo comes in Black and White colors and is priced at 2,599,000 Indonesian Rupiah (~Rs. 13,215). It would go on sale in Indonesia soon. No word on global roll out yet.
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January 16, 2014, 12:46 am
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Apple introduced the iPhone 5S in Gold last year. We have already seen gold variants of the Samsung Galaxy S4, Note 3, HTC One and BlackBerry Q10. LG introduced the LG G2 in Black and White colors back in August last year. Now the company has introduced Gold and Red colored variants of the LG G2 for Singapore market. The Gold variant would also be available in Taiwan. As you can see, these phones have Gold and Red colored back, but a small strip around camera module and hardware buttons on the back are in Black. LG has introduced these new color variants just in time for Lunar New Year that is celebrated in some Asian countries on January 31st.
The LG G2 packs a 5.2-inch (1920×1080 pixels) Full HD IPS display at 423 ppi, powered by a 2.26 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974) processor with Adreno 330 GPU and runs on Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean). It has a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED Flash, Optical ImageStabilisation (OIS), 1080p video recording and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera. It also comes with a lot of unique features such as rear-mounted power button and volume keys, double tap to wake up feature called Knock On and more.
The new LG G2 color variants are priced at ...
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January 16, 2014, 12:59 am
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Back in October we reported that Huawei would launch four new Android smartphones, G700, G610, Y511 and Y320 in India soon. These phones went on sale online at the end of October. Now, Huawei has launched these phones officially. The Ascend G700 packs a 5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD IPS display, has a 8-megapixel rear camera with LED Flash and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. The G610 has a 5-inch (960 x 540 pixels) IPS display, 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera. Both these phones are powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core processors, pack a 2150 mAh battery.
The Huawei Y511 has a 4.5-inch (854 x 480 pixels) display, 3-megapixel fixed focus rear camera and a 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera. The Y320 comes with a a 4.0-inch (800 x 480 pixels) display, 2-megapixel fixed focus rear camera. These smartphones are powered by a 1.3 GHz dual-core processors. All these smartphones run on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) with Huawei’s own Emotion UI on top. These phones also have dual SIM support with dual standby.
Commenting on the launch, Victor Shanxin, President, Huawei Devices India, said,
At Huawei, we are building a broad portfolio of products catering to the varied taste of consumers. We understand that India is a unique market ...
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January 16, 2014, 2:58 am
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Samsung has announced that they have sold (supply channel) 10 million units for Galaxy Note series smartphones in their home ground Korea. Since the launch of Galaxy Note back in 2011, it took 2 years and 1 month to achieve the 10 million mark in its domestic market.
Global sales of Galaxy Note crossed 10 million mark in nine months and the Galaxy Note 2 took just four months to cross 10 million sales mark globally. Last month Samsung announced that the Note 3 global sales crossed 10 million mark in just 2 months after the launch. Samsung Galaxy S4 that was introduced last year crossed the 10 million mark in less than one month.
Large screen, new features and the S Pen attracted more customers, says Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy Note series got new color variants after its initial launch to attract new set of customers. Samsung introduced new Note 3 color variants - Rose Gold White, Rose Gold Black and Merlot Red colors apart from Jet Black, Classic White and Blush Pink colors.
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January 16, 2014, 4:17 am
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Micromax has launched Canvas XL A119, the company's first phablet with a 6-inch display. It has a 6-inch (960 x 540 pixels), powered by a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor and runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean). It has a 8-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. It comes with dual SIM support with dual standby, similar to other Micromax smartphones.
The company had already launched the Canvas Doodle 2 A240 with a 5.7-inch HD screen and aluminium body. We felt it huge in our review, but the display was impressive. Since the Canvas XL has a 6-inch qHD screen with a pixel density of 183 ppi, it might not be as impressive as Doodle 2. Even though this has just 1GB RAM, it packs a memory card slot and a 2450 mAh battery.
Micromax Canvas XL A119 specifications
6-inch (960 ×540 pixels) touchscreen IPS display
1.3 GHz quad-core processor
Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) OS
Dual SIM with dual standby
Dimensions – 165 x 84.2 x 10.4mm; weight: 180 grams
8MP rear camera with LED Flash
5MP front-facing camera
3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio with recording
1GB RAM, 4GB of internal memory (1.7 GB user memory), expandable memory up to 32GB with microSD
3G, WiFi, Bluetooth with A2DP, GPS / aGPS
2450mAh battery with up to 9.5 hours talk ...
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January 16, 2014, 4:29 am
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The Xolo Q3000 is the first device from the company to incorporate a full HD 1080p screen. Yes, it took a while for Xolo to do that, as we saw the 5.5 inch Q2000 sporting a 720p screen even when it had the MT6589 Turbo inside. But with the Q3000, Xolo has its first 5.7" device as well as its first 1080p phone, so we felt it would be pretty interesting to check this phone out. So, here you go, the unboxing video of the Q3000 where we will show you the box contents and a quick overview of the phone itself -
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5c0iLnit1k
Here are the box contents of the Q3000, which surprised us with a few interesting additions -
Box Contents -
Xolo Q3000 in black
Flip Cover(Unconventional)
Extra scratch guard
USB Travel Charger plug
micro USB cable
micro USB OTG cable
Xolo branded headset with mic(not in-ear)
Information booklet and warranty/safety guide
Out of all these box contents, we found that the USB OTG is one of those rare additions that we usually don't see on other phones, let alone tablets. The other interesting addition was the kickstand-cum-flip cover, which uses sticky yet not icky adhesive to stick to the phone's back rather than completely replacing the back panel, ...
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January 16, 2014, 5:31 am
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Samsung has announced the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite, a cheaper version of last year's Tab 3. This has a 7-inch (1024×600) TFT LCD display, powered by a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) with Samsung's own TouchWiz UI on top. It has a 2-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front-facing camera. It would come in Wi-Fi only and 3G variants similar to the Tab 3.
It has Samsung Link, Samsung Voice and comes pre-loaded with Samsung ChatON, Dropbox, Polaris Office and Flipboard apps. It is not clear if the 3G version has voice calling since the images doesn't reveal an earpiece. According to the recently leaked manual the tablet packs a dual-core Marvell PXA986 processor with Vivante GC1000 GPU.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite specifications
7-inch (1024×600) TFT capacitive touch screen display
1.2 GHz dual-core processor
Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean)
2MP rear camera
2MP front-facing camera
9.7mm thick and weighs 310g (Wi-Fi)
1GB RAM, 8 GB internal memory and microSD card slot up to 32GB
3G HSPA+,WiFi b/g/n (2.4GHz), WiFi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS + GLONASS
3,600 mAh battery.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 comes in Black and White colors and would go on sale globally. No word on availability or pricing yet. Last month's leak revealed that this would be Samsung's cheapest Galaxy tablet. Hope ...
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January 16, 2014, 5:45 am
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Long rumoured voice assistant, codenamed "Cortana", is all set to make its beta appearance on Windows Phone, starting April 2014, according to a very credible source - @msftnerd. The Siri-like feature is reportedly voiced by Jen Taylor, who actually did the voice acting for Cortana, an AI character in the hit game-series "Halo". The voice assistant, which might carry the name "Bing Tell me", will launch for developers, in beta, in April, which coincides with the Build 2014 Developer event by Microsoft. "Build" is where Microsoft plans to unveil information about the next release of Windows, codenamed Threshold.
"Bing Tell Me .."
“.. will it rain today?”
“.. when’s my next meeting?”
“.. how do I get to the American Airlines Arena?”
..is supposedly the way one can talk to Cortana. This kind of conversational assistance has been in Apple's Siri since 2011, which was then usurped by the conversational and predictive situational assistance from Google Now. All the services are constantly improving and, as always, Microsoft is years late to the game with Cortana. According to sources quoted earlier, the service is being delayed mainly because apparently they want the experience to be much better than what others are currently offering. But the main ...
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January 16, 2014, 7:30 am
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Micromax started teasing about their upcoming smartphone related to Ads last month. Earlier rumors revealed that the phone would be called Micromax Canvas Mad A94. Now Manish Khatri from Mahesh Telecom reports that the phone would be priced at Rs. 8,100.
According to earlier reports, the phone would pay you in terms of mobile phone recharge coupons for watching video ads on your smartphone before customers make a call. MTS introduced a similar feature back in 2012, but didn't get popular with the customers.
We still don't have the complete specifications of the phone yet, but a eBay and Saholic listings reveal that the phone would come with a 4.5-inch screen, quad-core processor, Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean), 5MP rear camera, Dual SIM support, 512MB RAM, 4GB internal storage with expansion slot and a 1800 mAh battery.
The stocks are expected in a couple of days. So we can expect the launch later this week. We will bring you more details about the phone once it goes on sale.
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January 16, 2014, 8:52 pm
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Huawei CEO, Richard Yu, took to Chinese micro-blogging site, Weibo, to announce the company's new offerings in the mobile processor segment. The new chipsets includes two octa core chips and a quad core SoC.
The quad core chipset is manufactured using a 28nm process and will include ARM A9 cores. We expect this chipset to be aimed towards the upper mid range handsets.
Moving on to the octa core chipsets, we find that they will be using the big.LITTLE architecture and have a combination of Cortex A15, Cortex A7 cores. The A15 cores will predominantly be used for heavy lifting work with the handset switching over to the A7 cores in a low power state or when performing low level activities.
The chipset that really stands amongst Huawei's new offerings however is its 64bit octa core chipset. The SoC has a combination of A57 and A53 cores with the handset switching between the former and latter depending on the intensity of work load. The 64 bit architecture ensures that once there is low level 64 bit support, we should begin to see better performance and battery life gains. Both the octa core chipsets on offer include LTE support. The complete network related support ...
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January 16, 2014, 9:08 pm
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As sensor technology becomes ever more sophisticated, wearables and health related use cases are becoming ever more prevalent for smartphones. With Android 4.4 KitKat, Google introduced support for persistent pedometer data capture to the operating system thereby enabling application that can track the distance that you walk daily. However this isn't sufficient for avid fitness buffs and it seems that Google might be working on a more robust offering.
Spotted in a code leak, it seems that Google might be working on a full fledged Fitness API that would pull in activity data from built in sensors on Android devices. It is still ambiguous as to whether the new API is tied in with a new flavor of Android or if it will be bundled with a future Google Play Services update. The API will allow applications to view and edit fitness data, health and activities will be available to these apps in raw form allowing them to use it in any way they deem fit.
While some users will raise concerns around privacy and Google having even more data on our personal life, it could lead to some very interesting and useful applications. We remain cautiously optimistic about the new ...
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January 16, 2014, 9:46 pm
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Amidst a flurry of Android and Windows tablets and laptops, Asus unveiled a new series of Android smartphones at CES 2014. The new series of smartphones, Asus ZenFone series, comprises of three smartphones - ZenFone 4, ZenFone 5 and ZenFone 6. Each of the smartphones is named based on their screen size and all these offerings fall in the entry and mid-range category. Despite being different in terms of internals and sizing, the three smartphones share almost a similar design language and you can check out the comparison between the three devices in the video right below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyn2JLbQcpQ
The Asus ZenFone 4 is the smallest among the three smartphones and is the company's new entry range Android offering. It comes with a 4inch WVGA display, dual core Intel Atom Z2520 processor, 1GB RAM and 4GB internal storage along with microSD card slot. There is a 5MP snapper at the back along with a VGA secondary camera on the front.
The Asus ZenFone 5 is the middle member of the three smartphone series and is a mid-range offering. It has a 5inch HD display, comes with a dual-core Intel Atom Z2580 processor, 1GB RAM and 4GB internal storage along with a microSD card slot. ...
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January 16, 2014, 10:00 pm
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Micromax launched the Canvas Viva A72, the company's first budget phone in the Canvas series last April. Now the Micromax A71 has appeared on Flipkart with similar screen, but has more RAM and has 3G support. It has a 5-inch (480 x 800 Pixels) capacitive touch screen display, powered by a 1 GHz processor and runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). It has a 2-megapixel rear camera with LED Flash and a 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera. It also comes with dual SIM support as usual.
Micromax A71 specifications
5-inch (480 x 800 Pixels) capacitive touch screen display
1 GHz single-core ARM Cortex A5 processor
Dual SIM (GSM + GSM) with Dual Standby
Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean
10 mm thick
2MP rear camera with LED flash
0.3 MP front-facing camera
720p HD video playback
3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio
3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth
512MB RAM, 512 MB internal memory, expandable memory up to 32GB with microSD
2000 mAh battery with up to 5 hours talk time and up to 200 hours standby
The Micromax A71 comes in White color and is priced at Rs. 6,750, but it not available for sale yet. Micromax launched the Canvas XL A119 with 6-inch qHD display yesterday and plans to launch the Canvas Mad A94 later this week.
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Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite may not be official yet, but it sure will be among the cheapest tablets from Samsung when it is made official. Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite's user manual has leaked online in the company's Polish website. Apart from the official leak, a Polish retailer has started taking orders for this cheap tablet - $165 for the WiFi model and $263 for the 3G Model.
According to the details listed by the retailer, the specifications of this entry range tablet are
7inch display of 1024x600 pixels
1.2GHz dual-core Marvell PXA986 processor
Vivante GC1000 GPU
1GB RAM
2MP rear camera
8GB internal storage and microSD card slot
3600mAh battery
Android 4.2 Jellybean with TouchWiz
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite aims to be the company's most affordable tablet offering as it is seen by the entry range specifications. Previously, there have been leaks about this budget tablet and the leaking of official manual on the company's website only confirms its existence. The device is expected to be available in the market at the end of January or during early February.
Via
Micromax partnered with Aircel last year for bundled offers on smartphones and 3G Dongles. It partnered with MTS to launch Canvas Blaze MT500 smartphone. Now, the company has partnered with Tata Docomo to launch voice and data offers. This lets Tata Docomo customers enjoy voice and data at cheaper rates on Micromax handsets purchased after 1st October 2013 till 30th June 2014.
Tata Docomo users also get 3GB of 3G data with 30 days validity on Micromax 3G smartphones. Other offers include double data on select 3G and 2G packs and full talkime on select voice packs. These double data packs are applicable on Canvas Turbo and Canvas 4 along with Canvas Magnus, Bolt A61, Bolt A26, Bolt A35 and other Bolt models. Tata Docomo users can SMS MICROMAX to 141 to know more about the offer.
Regarding the new special offer, Sunil Tandon, Head Non Voice Services, Tata Docomo, said
At Tata Docomo, we follow a consumer-centric strategy where we believe in developing offerings keeping our customers’ preferences in mind. Through an Intelligent & Interactive Call to Action, wherein the MICROMAX Tata Docomo customer can now SMS “MICROMAX” to 141, to get relevant offerings cutting across 2G data, 3G data, Post-pay and ...
Micromax Bolt A66, the company's latest Android smartphone in its Bolt series is now available in India from online retailers Flipkart, Snapdeal and official Micromax Store in India. It has a 4.5-inch (480 x 854 pixels) TFT capacitive touch screen IPS display, powered by a 1 GHz Spreadtrum SC7710G processor and runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). It has a 2-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 0.3-megapixel (VGA) front-facing camera. It comes Dual SIM support and has 3G support.
Micromax Bolt A66 specifications
4.5-inch (480 x 854 pixels) TFT capacitive touch screen display
1 GHz Spreadtrum SC7710G processor
Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) OS
Dual SIM (GSM + GSM) with Dual Standby
2MP rear camera with LED flash
0.3MP front-facing camera
512MB RAM, 512 internal memory (165 MB user memory), 32GB expandable memory with MicroSD
3G (HSDPA up to 7.2 Mbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR,GPS
3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio
1500 mAh battery
The Micromax Bolt A66 comes in Black and White colors and is priced at Rs. 5,999 online.
Introduction
Ever since Samsung introduced the Samsung Galaxy Note, the phablet category has picked up like crazy. Smartphones kept getting bigger and bigger and as a result, we are living in a time where 5inch displays are considered a norm for smartphones and we are seeing manufacturers push devices into the 6inch category one after the other. All this battle for big smartphones happened only in the Android ecosystem until Nokia pushed the limits of a Windows Phone device by announcing the Nokia Lumia 1520 at the Abu Dhabi event in late 2013.
Nokia Lumia 1520 is the first for Nokia and Windows Phone in many aspects. It is the first Windows Phone device to be powered by a quad-core processor and it uses the best SoC in the market right now - Snapdragon 800. It is also the first Windows Phone phablet which has a huge 6inch display and is the first Windows Phone device to feature a 1080p Full HD display. Nokia left no stone unturned when they were designing the spec sheet for this beast of a device and they also made sure that it got a piece of the PureView cake. Nokia Lumia 1520 comes with a 20MP ...
The Moto G has been expected to launch in India sometime in the first quarter of 2014 but now thanks to a report published by the Times of India, we can get a more specific time frame. The report states that the Moto G launch in India has been scheduled for the last week of January. India is slated to get the dual SIM variant of budget Android device alongside Brazil. Expected to be priced very competitively, the phone brings modest specifications in the form of a 1.2Ghz Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB RAM and a 720p 4.5 inch display.
The device is expected to have a phased roll out starting from key markets. It'll be interesting to see how Motorola markets the product given that they have withdrawn from India. The report suggests that Motorola is partnering with an unknown distributor to launch the device in India. The after sales support will also be outsourced giving us potential cause for concern. That said, there's significant interest in the device considering that Motorola has been bought over by Google. The device retails in both 8GB and 16GB configurations at a price point that starts at $179. It remains to be seen how competitive ...
The Spice Smart Flo Mettle 5x is a budget device that brings a large screen experience at a very attractive price point. The phone is powered by a 1.3Ghz Dual Core MT6572 processor paired with 512MB of RAM. You get a 5 inch display with a resolution of 480 x 854. We weren't too impressed by the day to day performance of the device and noticed more than a few lags. For those who're interested in synthetic benchmarks, we put the Smart Flo Mettle 5x from our standard benchmark suite and here are the results.
The phone scored just 2497 points in the Quadrant benchmark which places it right in the middle of the competition.
In the GPU centric NenaMark 2 benchmark, the phone managed to achieve 38.9 frames per second. Real life gaming performance backed this up with the phone playing popular games fairly well with just a few frame skips.
The phone does fairly well in the single threaded Linpack benchmark and scores 51.85MFLOPS.
In the multi threaded Linpack benchmark, the phone fares very poorly with a score of just 56.952 MFLOPS.
The phone scores 5904 points in the AnTuTu benchmark and ranked towards the bottom of the benchmark chart.
Spice has been at the forefront of India's budget Android market almost since its inception. With some compelling releases over the past few years and months, it has been able to carve a niche for itself while facing stiff competition from Micromax, Karbonn and competition at large. Throwing its latest device into the budget Android device ring with the Spice Smart Flo Mettle 5x, the company aims to gain a foothold amongst the first time smartphone buyers. Will it succeed? We find out in our review.
Hardware
There's really nothing special about the looks of the Spice Smart Flo Mettle 5x other than the fact that it exudes quality. The front of the phone is the same as your typical entry level Android phone with a 5 inch screen taking up most of the real estate. Below it are three capacitive buttons that correspond to multitasking, menu and back. These are buttons are backlit and are fairly responsive. There's a notification light built into the lower half of the phone, right below the capacitive buttons that lights up when there's a missed call, email or a message. Depending on ambient lighting conditions, this light may or may not be visible.
Up above the ...
Oppo has announced Oppo Neo, the company's latest mid-range smartphone in Indonesia.The phone has a 4.5-inch (854 x 480 pixels) FWVGA IPS sensitive touch screen with glove mode, powered by a 1.3 GHz dual core processor and runs on Android 4.2-based Color ROM. It has a 5-megapixel rear camera without flash and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. It also has 3G connectivity and Smart Dual SIM feature.
It has high-end materials for the casing that feels more comfortable in your hands, says Oppo. It also has Quick Reach mode that lets you draw a pattern on the screen and double tap on the display to launch apps easily. The Gesture panel lets you customize your patterns.
Oppo Neo (R831) specifications
4.5-inch (854 ×480 pixels) FWVGA capacitive touch sceen display
Android 4.2 (ColorOS)
Dual SIM
1.3 GHz dual-core processor
5MP Auto Focus rear Camera
2MP front-facing camera
9.2mm thick and weighs 130g
3G HSPA+, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS
512MB RAM, 4GB of internal memory, Expandable memory up to 32GB with micro SD
1900 mAh battery
The Oppo Neo comes in Black and White colors and is priced at 2,599,000 Indonesian Rupiah (~Rs. 13,215). It would go on sale in Indonesia soon. No word on global roll out yet.
Apple introduced the iPhone 5S in Gold last year. We have already seen gold variants of the Samsung Galaxy S4, Note 3, HTC One and BlackBerry Q10. LG introduced the LG G2 in Black and White colors back in August last year. Now the company has introduced Gold and Red colored variants of the LG G2 for Singapore market. The Gold variant would also be available in Taiwan. As you can see, these phones have Gold and Red colored back, but a small strip around camera module and hardware buttons on the back are in Black. LG has introduced these new color variants just in time for Lunar New Year that is celebrated in some Asian countries on January 31st.
The LG G2 packs a 5.2-inch (1920×1080 pixels) Full HD IPS display at 423 ppi, powered by a 2.26 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974) processor with Adreno 330 GPU and runs on Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean). It has a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED Flash, Optical ImageStabilisation (OIS), 1080p video recording and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera. It also comes with a lot of unique features such as rear-mounted power button and volume keys, double tap to wake up feature called Knock On and more.
The new LG G2 color variants are priced at ...
Back in October we reported that Huawei would launch four new Android smartphones, G700, G610, Y511 and Y320 in India soon. These phones went on sale online at the end of October. Now, Huawei has launched these phones officially. The Ascend G700 packs a 5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD IPS display, has a 8-megapixel rear camera with LED Flash and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. The G610 has a 5-inch (960 x 540 pixels) IPS display, 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera. Both these phones are powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core processors, pack a 2150 mAh battery.
The Huawei Y511 has a 4.5-inch (854 x 480 pixels) display, 3-megapixel fixed focus rear camera and a 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera. The Y320 comes with a a 4.0-inch (800 x 480 pixels) display, 2-megapixel fixed focus rear camera. These smartphones are powered by a 1.3 GHz dual-core processors. All these smartphones run on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) with Huawei’s own Emotion UI on top. These phones also have dual SIM support with dual standby.
Commenting on the launch, Victor Shanxin, President, Huawei Devices India, said,
At Huawei, we are building a broad portfolio of products catering to the varied taste of consumers. We understand that India is a unique market ...
Samsung has announced that they have sold (supply channel) 10 million units for Galaxy Note series smartphones in their home ground Korea. Since the launch of Galaxy Note back in 2011, it took 2 years and 1 month to achieve the 10 million mark in its domestic market.
Global sales of Galaxy Note crossed 10 million mark in nine months and the Galaxy Note 2 took just four months to cross 10 million sales mark globally. Last month Samsung announced that the Note 3 global sales crossed 10 million mark in just 2 months after the launch. Samsung Galaxy S4 that was introduced last year crossed the 10 million mark in less than one month.
Large screen, new features and the S Pen attracted more customers, says Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy Note series got new color variants after its initial launch to attract new set of customers. Samsung introduced new Note 3 color variants - Rose Gold White, Rose Gold Black and Merlot Red colors apart from Jet Black, Classic White and Blush Pink colors.
Micromax has launched Canvas XL A119, the company's first phablet with a 6-inch display. It has a 6-inch (960 x 540 pixels), powered by a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor and runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean). It has a 8-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. It comes with dual SIM support with dual standby, similar to other Micromax smartphones.
The company had already launched the Canvas Doodle 2 A240 with a 5.7-inch HD screen and aluminium body. We felt it huge in our review, but the display was impressive. Since the Canvas XL has a 6-inch qHD screen with a pixel density of 183 ppi, it might not be as impressive as Doodle 2. Even though this has just 1GB RAM, it packs a memory card slot and a 2450 mAh battery.
Micromax Canvas XL A119 specifications
6-inch (960 ×540 pixels) touchscreen IPS display
1.3 GHz quad-core processor
Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) OS
Dual SIM with dual standby
Dimensions – 165 x 84.2 x 10.4mm; weight: 180 grams
8MP rear camera with LED Flash
5MP front-facing camera
3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio with recording
1GB RAM, 4GB of internal memory (1.7 GB user memory), expandable memory up to 32GB with microSD
3G, WiFi, Bluetooth with A2DP, GPS / aGPS
2450mAh battery with up to 9.5 hours talk ...
The Xolo Q3000 is the first device from the company to incorporate a full HD 1080p screen. Yes, it took a while for Xolo to do that, as we saw the 5.5 inch Q2000 sporting a 720p screen even when it had the MT6589 Turbo inside. But with the Q3000, Xolo has its first 5.7" device as well as its first 1080p phone, so we felt it would be pretty interesting to check this phone out. So, here you go, the unboxing video of the Q3000 where we will show you the box contents and a quick overview of the phone itself -
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5c0iLnit1k
Here are the box contents of the Q3000, which surprised us with a few interesting additions -
Box Contents -
Xolo Q3000 in black
Flip Cover(Unconventional)
Extra scratch guard
USB Travel Charger plug
micro USB cable
micro USB OTG cable
Xolo branded headset with mic(not in-ear)
Information booklet and warranty/safety guide
Out of all these box contents, we found that the USB OTG is one of those rare additions that we usually don't see on other phones, let alone tablets. The other interesting addition was the kickstand-cum-flip cover, which uses sticky yet not icky adhesive to stick to the phone's back rather than completely replacing the back panel, ...
Samsung has announced the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite, a cheaper version of last year's Tab 3. This has a 7-inch (1024×600) TFT LCD display, powered by a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) with Samsung's own TouchWiz UI on top. It has a 2-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front-facing camera. It would come in Wi-Fi only and 3G variants similar to the Tab 3.
It has Samsung Link, Samsung Voice and comes pre-loaded with Samsung ChatON, Dropbox, Polaris Office and Flipboard apps. It is not clear if the 3G version has voice calling since the images doesn't reveal an earpiece. According to the recently leaked manual the tablet packs a dual-core Marvell PXA986 processor with Vivante GC1000 GPU.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite specifications
7-inch (1024×600) TFT capacitive touch screen display
1.2 GHz dual-core processor
Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean)
2MP rear camera
2MP front-facing camera
9.7mm thick and weighs 310g (Wi-Fi)
1GB RAM, 8 GB internal memory and microSD card slot up to 32GB
3G HSPA+,WiFi b/g/n (2.4GHz), WiFi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS + GLONASS
3,600 mAh battery.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 comes in Black and White colors and would go on sale globally. No word on availability or pricing yet. Last month's leak revealed that this would be Samsung's cheapest Galaxy tablet. Hope ...
Long rumoured voice assistant, codenamed "Cortana", is all set to make its beta appearance on Windows Phone, starting April 2014, according to a very credible source - @msftnerd. The Siri-like feature is reportedly voiced by Jen Taylor, who actually did the voice acting for Cortana, an AI character in the hit game-series "Halo". The voice assistant, which might carry the name "Bing Tell me", will launch for developers, in beta, in April, which coincides with the Build 2014 Developer event by Microsoft. "Build" is where Microsoft plans to unveil information about the next release of Windows, codenamed Threshold.
"Bing Tell Me .."
“.. will it rain today?”
“.. when’s my next meeting?”
“.. how do I get to the American Airlines Arena?”
..is supposedly the way one can talk to Cortana. This kind of conversational assistance has been in Apple's Siri since 2011, which was then usurped by the conversational and predictive situational assistance from Google Now. All the services are constantly improving and, as always, Microsoft is years late to the game with Cortana. According to sources quoted earlier, the service is being delayed mainly because apparently they want the experience to be much better than what others are currently offering. But the main ...
Micromax started teasing about their upcoming smartphone related to Ads last month. Earlier rumors revealed that the phone would be called Micromax Canvas Mad A94. Now Manish Khatri from Mahesh Telecom reports that the phone would be priced at Rs. 8,100.
According to earlier reports, the phone would pay you in terms of mobile phone recharge coupons for watching video ads on your smartphone before customers make a call. MTS introduced a similar feature back in 2012, but didn't get popular with the customers.
We still don't have the complete specifications of the phone yet, but a eBay and Saholic listings reveal that the phone would come with a 4.5-inch screen, quad-core processor, Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean), 5MP rear camera, Dual SIM support, 512MB RAM, 4GB internal storage with expansion slot and a 1800 mAh battery.
The stocks are expected in a couple of days. So we can expect the launch later this week. We will bring you more details about the phone once it goes on sale.
Huawei CEO, Richard Yu, took to Chinese micro-blogging site, Weibo, to announce the company's new offerings in the mobile processor segment. The new chipsets includes two octa core chips and a quad core SoC.
The quad core chipset is manufactured using a 28nm process and will include ARM A9 cores. We expect this chipset to be aimed towards the upper mid range handsets.
Moving on to the octa core chipsets, we find that they will be using the big.LITTLE architecture and have a combination of Cortex A15, Cortex A7 cores. The A15 cores will predominantly be used for heavy lifting work with the handset switching over to the A7 cores in a low power state or when performing low level activities.
The chipset that really stands amongst Huawei's new offerings however is its 64bit octa core chipset. The SoC has a combination of A57 and A53 cores with the handset switching between the former and latter depending on the intensity of work load. The 64 bit architecture ensures that once there is low level 64 bit support, we should begin to see better performance and battery life gains. Both the octa core chipsets on offer include LTE support. The complete network related support ...
As sensor technology becomes ever more sophisticated, wearables and health related use cases are becoming ever more prevalent for smartphones. With Android 4.4 KitKat, Google introduced support for persistent pedometer data capture to the operating system thereby enabling application that can track the distance that you walk daily. However this isn't sufficient for avid fitness buffs and it seems that Google might be working on a more robust offering.
Spotted in a code leak, it seems that Google might be working on a full fledged Fitness API that would pull in activity data from built in sensors on Android devices. It is still ambiguous as to whether the new API is tied in with a new flavor of Android or if it will be bundled with a future Google Play Services update. The API will allow applications to view and edit fitness data, health and activities will be available to these apps in raw form allowing them to use it in any way they deem fit.
While some users will raise concerns around privacy and Google having even more data on our personal life, it could lead to some very interesting and useful applications. We remain cautiously optimistic about the new ...
Amidst a flurry of Android and Windows tablets and laptops, Asus unveiled a new series of Android smartphones at CES 2014. The new series of smartphones, Asus ZenFone series, comprises of three smartphones - ZenFone 4, ZenFone 5 and ZenFone 6. Each of the smartphones is named based on their screen size and all these offerings fall in the entry and mid-range category. Despite being different in terms of internals and sizing, the three smartphones share almost a similar design language and you can check out the comparison between the three devices in the video right below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyn2JLbQcpQ
The Asus ZenFone 4 is the smallest among the three smartphones and is the company's new entry range Android offering. It comes with a 4inch WVGA display, dual core Intel Atom Z2520 processor, 1GB RAM and 4GB internal storage along with microSD card slot. There is a 5MP snapper at the back along with a VGA secondary camera on the front.
The Asus ZenFone 5 is the middle member of the three smartphone series and is a mid-range offering. It has a 5inch HD display, comes with a dual-core Intel Atom Z2580 processor, 1GB RAM and 4GB internal storage along with a microSD card slot. ...
Micromax launched the Canvas Viva A72, the company's first budget phone in the Canvas series last April. Now the Micromax A71 has appeared on Flipkart with similar screen, but has more RAM and has 3G support. It has a 5-inch (480 x 800 Pixels) capacitive touch screen display, powered by a 1 GHz processor and runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). It has a 2-megapixel rear camera with LED Flash and a 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera. It also comes with dual SIM support as usual.
Micromax A71 specifications
5-inch (480 x 800 Pixels) capacitive touch screen display
1 GHz single-core ARM Cortex A5 processor
Dual SIM (GSM + GSM) with Dual Standby
Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean
10 mm thick
2MP rear camera with LED flash
0.3 MP front-facing camera
720p HD video playback
3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio
3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth
512MB RAM, 512 MB internal memory, expandable memory up to 32GB with microSD
2000 mAh battery with up to 5 hours talk time and up to 200 hours standby
The Micromax A71 comes in White color and is priced at Rs. 6,750, but it not available for sale yet. Micromax launched the Canvas XL A119 with 6-inch qHD display yesterday and plans to launch the Canvas Mad A94 later this week.
