Category: Android

India Pricing of the Samsung Note 5 Revealed

The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 was released on the 13th of August in New York and caused quite a commotion with its S-Pen and other features. Touted as one of Samsung’s high-end phones which could give the iPhone some competition, the price of this phablet has been announced in India at Rs.53,900 .

Let’s have a look at the features of this phablet to help you decide whether you need this or not. Firstly, the display comes with a super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 16M colours, 5.7 inches screen with a 1440 x 2560 pixels resolution, and all this is protected by the Corning Gorilla Glass 4.

The Note 5 runs on the Android OS, v5.1.1 (Lollipop) with an Exynos 7420 chipset, a Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & Quad-core 2.1 GHz Cortex-A57 CPU and a Mali-T760MP8 GPU. As far as storage capacity is concerned, this handset comes in two variants – 32 and 64 GB along with 4GB of RAM. However, it does not have an expandable microSD card slot.

On the camera front the primary camera comes with a 16MP, 5312 X 2988 pixels resolution, optical image stabilization, autofocus and LED flash feature. Other features of the camera include – Dual Shot, Simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging, touch focus, face/smile detection, panorama, and HDR. The secondary camera comes with a 5MP lens.

The device weighs 171g and the dimensions measure 153.2 x 76.1 x 7.6 mm. It needs to be supported by a Nano-SIM for connectivity and comes with a fingerprint sensor and the famous S-Pen stylus.

The Galaxy Note 5 has some very interesting features that allows you to perform various tasks such as signing documents with the S-Pen on your PDF directly, instead of having to print it out. The phablet also comes with some eye-catching accessories and colours such as the silver titanium, gold platinum, black sapphire and white pearl. It is powered by a WPC and PMA battery that is non-removable Li-Po 3,000mAh, fast charging and wireless charging compatible.

Other connectivity options include – SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot, Bluetooth version 4.2, GPS, NFC and a microUSB v2.0.

Here are the specs:

Features	Samsung Galaxy Note 5
Display	5.7 inches
Resolution	1440 x 2560 pixels
Processor	Octa core (2.1GHz Quad + 1.5GHz Quad), 64 bit, 14 nm process
OS	Android OS, v5.1.1 (Lollipop)
RAM	4GB
Storage	32GB and 64 GB
Primary Camera	16 MP, 5312 x 2988 pixels, optical image stabilization, autofocus, LED flash
Front Camera	5MP
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot, the Bluetooth v4.2, with GPS and NFC
Battery	Non-removable Li-Po 3,000mAh, fast charging, wireless charging compatible with WPC and PMA
Price	Rs.53,900/Rs. 59,990

September 7, 2015

Samsung SleepSense Can Automatically Turn Off Your TV When You Fall Asleep

IFA Berlin is seeing a number of tech devices being released each day, with more and more enthusiasm. Today, as the anticipation build up for Samsung, they merely revealed a device called the SleepSense.

It is something they have come up with, from the concept of a sleep tracking device. So, instead of wearing or carrying the device, you can just slip it under your mattress. Moreover, it’s just a flat disk.

Once placed under your mattress, it will monitor your heart rate, breathing and movement during sleep with “97 percent” accuracy. This information will be transferred to a smartphone app, which gives you an “individual sleep score” based on several factors, such as – total sleep time, number of times you woke up and the percentage of REM sleep.

Apparently, if you’re a light sleeper, or you can’t sleep because you think you see ghosts in the dark etc. you can actually get advice from a Harvard sleep expert on how to sleep better by changing your nutrition, exercise and other things. Yes, this is what was left – for a device to tell us how to sleep. Welcome to the future, readers.

Now, here is the slightly more interesting thing about this device – it actually encourages laziness! Isn’t that why technology exists? To make our lives easier. Well, here’s how – SleepSense is also connected to Samsung’s SmartThings IoT home automation system. So, when you fall asleep while watching your favourite guilty reality TV show, the device will detect that you’re asleep and will automatically turn off lights or the TV and lower the air conditioning.

This way Samsung is helping us be eco-friendly and save energy. This device will launch in Korea later this year, however, there is no information about the price or whether it will launch in the US and Europe.

September 3, 2015
Huawei Brings Out Mate S; Introduces Force Touch Ahead of Apple

All this while, we have been talking about Apple’s upcoming iPhone 6s which is expected to feature the Force Touch technology. But guess who just beat Apple to it? The Chinese company – Huawei. It has released it’s new Mate S with the Force Touch technology.

Well, let’s give Huawei some credit of its own too, because apart from the force touch, this phone also has many other quirky features that are perhaps exclusive to this model. For example, it has a “hard pressing” base for the screen which helps to bring up app shortcuts and multi-tasked apps, it can also zoom on portions of photos, and very interestingly can also use the screen as a set of weighing scales.

Now as if that wasn’t enough, Huawei has a new technology whereby the Mate S’ touch screen is not only ‘finger-friendly’ but also ‘knuckle-friendly’. This phone features the first ever, Knuckle Sense 2.0, which allows you to use your knuckles on the display for different actions such as – cropping photos or launching apps. All this can be done with a knuckle-scribbled letter shortcut.

What’s more? This smartphone also has a new-generation digit decipherer. So, just a vertical slide across the fingerprint sensor and you will be able to see your notifications, and if you horizontally slide across the fingerprint sensor, you can scroll through images. And there’s still more! This feature can also act as a selfie trigger.

Tired? Too bad. We still have to talk about the display and design of the Mate S. The Mate S comes with a 5.5 inch display and 401ppi sharpness, it also comes with a full metal “dual diamond cut” unibody build. The screen has a 2.5D curve and the thickest point of this phone is just 2.65mm. Huawei has also reportedly compared the Mate S’s compact nature to the iPhone 6’s. By stating that, although the display size is the same, the Huawei model will have a smaller overall footprint.

On the camera front, it has a 13MP camera sensor with an optical image stabilization on the rear and also comes with an “anti-scratch” sapphire glass on the lens. The battery guarantees a days worth of power with 2 hours of talk time after just 10 minutes of charging, which is apparently five times faster than the iPhone 6.

The phone comes with a dual SIM support, and in four colour variants of pink, champagne, grey and gold. There are also two storage variations of the Huawei Mate S – the grey and champagne handsets with 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage will be priced at 649 Euros which is approximately Rs. 48,277, while the gold and pink versions are the premium editions, with 3GB RAM and 64GB storage and will be priced at 699 Euros which is approximately Rs. 51,998. The phone will go on sale in the United Kingdom in September while pre-orders will begin on the 15th of September onwards.

Will Apple win this race? Stay tuned to our website to find out more.

September 3, 2015
Google Expected to Unveil Two Nexus Phones on 29th September

If reports are to be believed, Google has a tentative event lined up for September 29th in San Francisco. The event would mark the launch of two new Nexus smartphones equipped with Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Nexus 6 in 2014

While one phone will be built by LG, the other is going to be a Huawei phone. The LG phone is going to be an upgraded version of the 5.2-inch Nexus 5 but smaller in size at around 4.7 inches. The Huawei phone, on the other hand, will be a tad bigger at 5.7 inches. Rear-mounted fingerprint sensors and USB Type-C ports are two other interesting features to look forward to.

Android loyalists all over the world have touted Nexus phones as Google “flagships” gadgets for the latest Android software, viewing it as a version free from the eventual tweaking and meddling by different companies in the tech world. The phones therefore can be expected to be free from any third-party interferences, inevitably making them more in demand by the developers and by people looking for the fastest Android updates directly from Google.

Faster processors, more RAM, Force Touch control, and better front and rear cameras are some of the other features to get you excited about these new smartphones. The only uncertain aspect so far is the price. It would be interesting to see how it positions itself in a market with competitively priced phones already by companies like Motorola, ZTE, Huawei and Alcatel.

September 3, 2015
Karbonn Gives India the Titanium S200 HD at Just Rs. 4999

Doing a big favour to tiny Indian pockets is Karbonn’s newest smartphone, the Titanium S200 HD priced at a heart-warming Rs. 4999. The gadget comes equipped with an 8-megapixel autofocus rear camera with dual-LED flash, and a 3.2-megapixel front-facing camera. In addition to this, the smartphone is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core Speadtrum SPC7731 processor combined with 1GB of RAM.

The dual-SIM Karbonn Titanium S200 HD has Android 4.4 KitKat out-of-the-box and features a 5-inch HD (720×1280 pixels) IPS display. The gadget also boasts of a handset of 8GB of built-in storage which is further expandable via a microSD card (up to 32GB).

Connectivity options include 3G, Wi-Fi, FM Radio, GPRS/ EDGE, Bluetooth, and Micro-USB. The smartphone is backed by a battery rated to deliver up to 9 hours of talk time on 3G and 650 hours of standby time. Launched in an exclusive partnership with Snapdeal, the smartphone is available at a price of Rs.4999 on the website along with a free protective case.

September 1, 2015
WhatsApp Introduces New Vulcan Salute and Middle Finger Emoji

WhatsApp has introduced a couple of new emojis for its users. The new emoji includes the middle finger and the Vulcan Salute from Star Wars. Both these emoji are available in different skin tones within the app. While the middle-finger emoji seems Android-only for now, the Vulcan emoji is also supported on iOS, though it is not part of the stock emoji keyboard.

WhatsApp has recently upgraded itself and comes with a bunch of new features. Among them, is a new custom notification setting that allows you to set different notifications for the different chats you’re in or mute specific conversations entirely.

You can also mark your chats as read or unread and WhatsApp has even included an “low data” usage feature to make voice calls. This reduces the amount of data that is used during phone calls made through the app.

Apart from all of this WhatsApp has also made sharing contact information easier, by allowing you to save the information or even start a new WhatsApp message from within the app itself.

Image Source : [tw-button size=”medium” background=”#07ABE2″ color=”” target=”_blank” link=”http://mashable.com/2015/08/26/whatsapp-android-emoji/”]Mashable [/tw-button]

August 27, 2015
Elephone Creates The Smallest Smartphone Run On Android KitKat

For those of us who are wary and uncomfortable with the new large smartphones, there’s a new small smartphone called, Elephone. This device is 2 inches small and runs on a custom version of Android 4.4.2 KitKat.

This smartphone can be used as an accessory to your larger smartphone, when you don’t feel like taking out your massive smartphone to listen to music etc. The camera however is said to be unsatisfactory because it is slow and displays pictures in a pixelated form.

This phone has not been officially named yet and is said to be available in markets later this year at $80, which is around Rs.5,303. Apart from this, Elephone is allegedly making a number of smartphones within China. So, maybe this is going to be the next Chinese brand to enter India.

However, the usefulness of this small smartphone is debatable. For example,One could lose this phone quite easily and it’s not that savvy looking either. So do you think smartphone companies are wasting their money trying to make older phones like the flip, slide and now a small phone? Or do you think it will work?

August 25, 2015
Leak: Samsung Might Use Snapdragon 820 For Its Upcoming Galaxy S7

Reports suggest that Samsung is already working on its next device – the Galaxy S7. A leak from Korea says that this new device might come with a Snapdragon 820 chipset.

Samsung has previously created its own processor due to the heating troubles of the Snapdragon 810. So, most of its devices, like the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 5, are powered by the Exynos processor and have been successful till now. Let’s see whether the change in the processor will improve the quality of their devices.

Source: [tw-button size=”medium” background=”#07ABE2″ color=”” target=”_self” link=”http://news.dreamx.com/view.asp?articleno=21111519&classno=05″]news.dreamx[/tw-button]

August 25, 2015
Microsoft’s New project To make 3D Scanning Possible On the iPhone Soon

Microsoft is now creating a camera for smartphones, that can also be a 3D scanner. The name of this project is – MobileFusion and the first research has been conducted on an iPhone 5S to scan objects by moving the phone around them. Kind of like the new pen scanner we just reported about.

The phone is said to be able to capture and track objects and then build up a model as the camera captures it from different angles. Microsoft has stated that no additional hardware would be required to turn the iPhone or any other smartphone into a 3D scanner. All the computation is done within the phone itself.

Microsoft’s project is quoted as being different from other projects such as, Google’s Tango project, which uses additional hardware. It has also been said, that Microsoft’s single camera should be enough to make models for printing or use in augmented reality gaming.

As of now, they are trying to get it running on the iOS, Android and Windows Phone.However, the date of release or any news of mass production is unavailable. Stay tuned and watch the video below:

August 25, 2015
The Kernel Source for the OnePlus 2 is Now Available

The Chinese manufacturer has officially made it possible for you to make custom ROMs for your OnePlus 2. Carl Pei, CEO, took to twitter to announce that kernel source for the OnePlus 2 is now open to the public, via GitHub.

This move means that developers will have full access to OxygenOS and can now make custom ROMs of the latest flagship smartphone in town.

The custom ROM that was based on Android 5.0 Lollipop was launched as a beta in April, this year. The company had already launched the OnePlus One with Cyanogen OS in April, last year. Later, Cyanogen partnered with Micromax, giving it full rights to sell Cyanogen-powered smartphones in India.

Because of this, OnePlus wasn’t allowed to sell Cyanogen OS based Android-powered smartphones in the country. However, they were allowed to finish selling their stock. Amidst the hue and cry, OnePlus then decided to launch its own Android- based OS. The company is well aware that their OS isn’t as popular as Cyanogen’s and hence opening its kernel source to users would make it imperative move to rope in customers.

The OnePlus’ custom ROM is now based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. It’s recent update was reportedly designed to patch the Stagefright vulnerability. Along with this, it also brought updates to the camera user interface that allows users to take slow motion videos at 120fps.

The update seems to have improved the battery life of the smartphone and also has several bug fixes. Download the kernel source from GitHub.

August 24, 2015
Upcoming Android Devices Will Come With Less Google Bloatware

We had earlier reported about how Samsung was planning to introduce apps to delete bloatware in China. It has now been reported that Android users all around the world will soon be getting less bloatware on their phones. Therefore apps like – Google+, Google Play Games, Google Play Books and Google Newsstand will not come pre-installed.

Some new devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 already doesn’t have Google+ pre-installed. The problem of bloatware did upset many customers and perhaps even companies that decided to use Android as their operating system. Hence, if a company wanted to make an Android handset with the Gmail app, it would also necessarily have to pre-install Google+ and Google Newsstand on it.

However, this new report does not mean that the pre-installed apps are soon to become redundant; they will be available on Google Play Store for those who want them and will be regularly updated too. This new move seems to give users a chance to choose what they do with their storage and companies a chance to provide more storage space and memory to the users.

Source

August 22, 2015
List of Samsung Devices First in Line to Receive Marshmallow
We had recently announced the introduction of Android’s new update called the Android 6.0 Marshmallow. New reports now suggest that there are plans for this new edition to be updated on a few Samsung smartphones, once it is released. The Marshmallow is said to bring with it features such as – app permissions, memory usage tracking, power saving, auto back up etc.

A rumour suggest that the initial batch of Samsung’s Android gear could be updated to the Android 6.0 Marshmallow. This list includes the:
- Samsung Galaxy Note5
- Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+
- Samsung Galaxy S6
- Samsung Galaxy S6 Duos
- Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge
- Samsung Galaxy Note 4
- Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Duos
- Samsung Galaxy Note Edge
- Samsung Galaxy ALPHA
- Samsung Galaxy Tab A
However, this information has not been confirmed by Samsung but according to the rumours, these devices should get updated by early 2016.

For more information on Android Marshmallow, click here.

Source
August 21, 2015
LG Speculated to be Working on the First Nexus Smartwatch, Codenamed ‘Nemo’

New reports suggest, that LG is working on a new Android Wear watch codenamed “Nemo”. And this could be the first Nexus smartwatch. What is known about the smartwatch is that it will have the highest resolution display any Android Wear watch has ever had at 480 x 480 resolution.

The connection that has been made is the due to the codename used. In the past, Nexus devices have used a similar nomenclature. Nexus 6 was codenamed ‘Shamu’, and Nexus 9 was ‘Hammerhead.’

Other rumours suggest that the watch will have a circular 1.3-inch display size with a pixel density of around 340 to 400 ppi. The importance of this pixel density is that it should ideally be able to eliminate readability issues.

With LG catching up in the smartwatch race with the anticipation of its new smartwatch, you can watch this space for more details about this new device.

August 18, 2015
It’s Official : Android 6.0 is Called Marshmallow

Last night, Google’s mobile operating division announced its latest update and calls it the Android 6.0 marshmallow (sorry, not mithai). This puts an end to our speculation of what the statue of a green droid holding the new dessert figurine meant.

This news was announced by Dave Burke, Android’s VP of Engineering via his Twitter account on Monday. Reports also suggest, that Google has released a “near-final” SDK version of the new operating system for developers.

“Whether you like them straight out of the bag, roasted to a golden brown exterior with a molten centre, or in fluff form, who doesn’t like marshmallows? We definitely like them,” wrote Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android in the blog post.

The Android 6.0 is said to largely be aimed at delivering stability and performance improvements, and will bring new features such as – the Android Pay, Tap on Now, new app permissions model, built-in support for fingerprint scanner, as well as support for the USB Type-C standard. Reports also say, that this new version also offers native support for the 64-bit ARMv8 architecture.

The Android v6.0 will be shipped later this year while the company is also rumoured to be releasing two Nexus smartphones along with it.

Source: [tw-button size=”medium” background=”#07ABE2″ color=”” target=”_blank” link=”http://android-developers.blogspot.in/2015/08/m-developer-preview-3-final-sdk.html”]Android Blogspot[/tw-button]

August 18, 2015
Name Game: Google Teases the Name of the New Android M

Remember the last time we asked you to guess what the next version of Android will be named? It’s entertaining to see which candy will get to hold the coveted title of being the latest Android OS’ name. Last year, it was Lolllipop and this October, we should hopefully see what Android M is going to stand for.

Googlers Nat and Lo were seen having some fun with the names as well as giving us a sneak peak of the new Android statue that will be displayed in the front lawn of the Google HQ, like every year. Take a look at the video below:

Apart from a new name, the Android OS will see a hoard of updates like support for Android’s version of Touch ID, better battery life management, improved permissions settings for apps and a smarter Google Now.

Th funfilled video leaves you thinking of all the delectable edibles that start with the letter M. So go ahead, tell us what you think it’s going to be as we wait for October to come.

Source: [tw-button size=”medium” background=”#07ABE2″ color=”” target=”_self” link=”http://www.in.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/Google-starts-the-guessing-for-the-official-name-of-Android-M/articleshow/48501688.cms”]Techradar.india[/tw-button]

August 17, 2015