Category: Google

iGyaan Holiday Guide : Best Phones for 15,000

So many questions, so little time. Its the time for holiday cheer and we are literally getting bombarded with hundreds of emails asking us what phones to buy. So here is our guide for the best options in the Rs. 15000 price.

(In order of preference)

Android Phones

1. Micromax A85 SuperFone : (Rs. 15290) The price drop has already been announced, and at this price it is the best spec’d phone. A dual core Nvidia Tegra 2, 3.8 inch touchscreen, 5 MP camera and gesture control make this the best bet at the price. But sadly it ships with Android 2.2.

2. Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro Sk17i: (Rs 15,000) One of the most recommended devices by iGyaan in 2011 our extensive review will tell you why this device is an excellent purchase.

3. Motorola Defy (Rs 14,000) : The original defy is still an awesome phone, with Android a brilliant rugged construction that resists water and dust. The design is also shock proof. Check out our Review.

4. HTC ChaCha (Rs. 14500): A brilliant form factor with excellent build, the only touch and type phone with this design from HTC. Also the first phone with a dedicated FB button on the Android platform, a Social king. Our Review Covers it.

5. Samsung Galaxy Ace (Rs 13000): One of the most loved phones of 2011 the ace has a nice display along with impressive looks, a good processor and Touchwiz on top of Android 2.3. The device is well supported in the developer community and will get ICS courtesy Root and Custom CM9 rom. Check out our Review

6. HTC Wildfire S (Rs 12,500): Not our last option but an alternative to the Galaxy Ace, the build is far superior also is the quality of materials used. The device features HTC Sense on top of Android 2.3 and is arguably the best built phone of this bracket. The camera in some aspects is better than the Ace and pulls out great images. The processor is only a 600MHz compared to the 800MHz on the Ace. We reviewed it Here

Blackberry

Blackberry Curve 3G 9300 (Rs. 14,450): The only berry in this range, you also get the CDMA version of the curve 8520 (called: 8530) which is not worth mentioning. What is to say this is an old outdated berry running on the older OS6 but features a great and responsive OS. It is a great upgrade for some one on a Blackberry high . We however say, spend more and get the Curve 9380 : we covered here.

Nokia Symbian

Nokia 700 (Rs 15299) : Younger version of the 701, this device is available in the market in select locations, features new Symbian Belle and a 3.2 inch Capacitive Amoled Clear Black display. A 5 Mp camera and 720p video capabilities make it a good competitor. Another add-on is the tough gorilla glass front. The price seems a bit high for this old-school Operating System. The phone also has a 2Gb internal storage and is a grab option for those who refuse to abandon the legendary OS in its dying days.

Nokia 500 (Rs 11,000): Then there is the 500, its the only other Nokia phone in this bracket apart from the discontinued C6-01. This features a 1GHz processor along with a 3.2-inch TFT nHD Capacitive Touchscreen. The phone features Symbian Anna and has great 5MP camera, which is fixed focus. Again price is a bit of a pinch especially because the device is unable to offer the freedom that say an Android device would offer, But on the upside it does have a 1GHz processor.

Windows Phone

Samsung Focus (Rs 14000) : The device was never announced in India, but New and unlocked US versions can be bought on Ebay. The device features a nice 4.0 Inch Super Amoled Display with a native 480 x 800 px resolution. Already updated to Mango this device offers all the new features of Windows Phone 7.5 at a bargain, everything of course except a front facing camera. The Focus also has 8GB of memory and 512MB Ram and 512MB Rom

December 27, 2011
Chrome 15 now the worlds most popular browser, IE 8 bites the dust (Report)

According to a new report from StatCounter,Chrome 15 recently reached a total global market share of 23.6% compared to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 market share of 23.5%. IE is still the most popular browser if all versions of the Browser are added. Chrome 14 and 15 are said to be most popular of chrome version and possibly the reason of this overtake. Microsoft and their IE team is banking hard on the push they want to receive from IE9 and IE10, possibly to remain strong. If that does not hold true, chrome may not be far away from global victory. check out the full report below

[box type=”note” style=”rounded” border=”full”]

Chrome 15 Becomes World’s Most Popular Browser

Boston, USA; Dublin, Ireland; Thursday, 15th December, 2011: Google’s Chrome 15 has become the most popular web browser version worldwide for the first time on a weekly basis, according to StatCounter, the free website analytics company. The firm’s research arm StatCounter Global Stats reports that in the last full week in November, Chrome 15 took 23.6% of the worldwide market compared to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 at 23.5%. If one aggregates all versions then IE still leads the global market with Chrome in second position, having overtaken Firefox in November.

“Google announced Chrome for business exactly a year ago and IT administrators appear to have embraced it in a remarkably short time,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “Looking at the daily stats, Chrome 14 and 15 have been overtaking IE8 at weekends since the beginning of October. However, Chrome 15 overtook IE8 for the first time during the five day working week, in week commencing 5th December. It looks as if people favour Chrome on weekends at home but office commercial use has now caught up.”

In the US Internet Explorer 8 continues to be the most popular browser version with 27.0% for week commencing 5th December compared to 18.1% for Chrome 15. However, in the UK Chrome 15 overtook IE8 in the week commencing November 7th. Last week (commencing 5th December) Chrome 15 had 24.7% in the UK compared to IE8 on 21.1%.

StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month (4 billion from the US) from the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.

As well as free web research, StatCounter (http://statcounter.com/) provides free web analytics. This allows website owners, developers and bloggers to capture valuable intelligence on their site in real time including number of visitors, visitors by country/region, search terms, popular pages, download stats, exit links and other data.

In September StatCounter announced its new website with added features.

[/box]

December 23, 2011
Apple awarded patent for in-call App switching, readies the biggest lawsuit yet

Apple has been awarded a patent for a “portable electronic device with graphical user interface supporting application switching.”, this is going to be the company’s biggest win. What this basically means is that Apple has been awarded a patent for a SmartPhone. All brands and all manufacturers will fall under the knife of Apple’s lawyers. This will put and end to all legal battles that the company has with HTC and Samsung.

Of course the patent is worded very vaguely and covers almost all devices that allow you to switch between applications when on a call. This most definitely covers Android and WinPho devices if not Blackberry and Symbian. Apple should be already sharpening its knives to slaughter the entire opposition.

[USPTO]

December 21, 2011
ETC : Google’s total investment in Solar energy nears 1 Billion US $

Not only do you find Google everywhere when it comes to computing, mobility and softwares. Google also invests in the future, including several ECO investments from the multi Billion dollar company. Google has pumped US $ 94 Million into their California Solar Energy project, totaling their investment to over $915 million. Google along with Equity from Sacramento based Power company KKR will build a 88MW photovoltaic power plant that will power 1300 US homes via clean Solar energy. Google has already laid out further investment plans, ensuring that they cross the US$ 1 Billion mark sometime early next year.

[Google]

December 21, 2011
Google Begins Updating the Nexus S to Ice Cream Sandwich

Got yourself a curvalicious Nexus S? Then you might fancy yourself a Ice Cream Sandwich. According to a tweet from the GoogleNexus team early last night, Google will now begin pushing ICS updates to lucky Nexus S owners. The information was also available on Goole+

[threecol_one]“We’re rolling out Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, to GSM/UMTS Nexus S devices over the coming month, starting today”[/threecol_one]

[threecol_two_last]The Nexus S is among the first phones to officially get the ICS update. Google has also made note that the Nexus One may also get ICS down the line.[/threecol_two_last]

[Read]

December 17, 2011
Google removes 22 apps from Android Market due to fraudulent charging

Google has reportedly removed 22 malicious applications from the Android Market after security vendors tipped off the company about apps attempting to trick users into accepting fraudulent charges via SMS. The devices get infected by a trojan that charges your phone bill with premium rate SMS charges.

[quote]Trojan horse for Android devices that sends SMS messages to premium-rate phone numbers,[/quote] Said Symantec

[quote]The initial application activity presents the user with a single option to continue, which is presumed to be an agreement to premium charges that are buried within layers of less than clear links. The Premium Short Codes used could affect users in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Czech Republic, Poland, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Estonia as well as Great Britain, Italy, India, Israel, France, and Germany.[/quote]

The applications were dressed as copies of the popular apps like Angry birds and Cut the rope, but were actually malicious. Google has not named the apps and has not remotely deleted the apps from users phones. So if your phone bill has been racing high and you think your SMS bills are higher than usual, factory reset your phone and carefully select your apps.

December 14, 2011
Google introduces Currents, its Flipboard for Android

Flipboard yesterday launched its new iOS app for iPhone and iPod, after its great success on the iPad. Google has today finally announced its Android rival, called currents, funnily enough the app is available on both Android and iOS with cross platform support from the get go. The app gives a magazine like reading experience for online feeds. The app is free and offers you a swipeable, graphics-heavy way to read material from partners like AllThingsD, PBS, Huffington Post and Fast Company, as well public Google+ feeds and RSS. You can also import our own content and add feeds like the iGyaan Rss.

For publishers, Google is providing self-service tools for customizing how their content is displayed in the app. Currents is US only for the time being. You can always head over to XDA-Dev for the hacked link for using it in India for Android only.

[Android Market]

[App Store]

December 9, 2011
Google+ and Goggles apps for Android get new update with new features

With the new update on the app you will now be able to search posts and people from within the Google+ app. The new update will also allow you to add +1 to photos and comments, see the ‘online’ and ‘typing’ status of your Messenger buddies, and upload videos and full-res photos.

With the new Goggles you have a brilliant continuous mode that will allow you to log multiple items without the need to press the shutter button again and again. The update will also allow better crowd sourcing which means that you will now be able to add things unknown to Goggles like our unboxing knife!

So make sure you are updated.

[Android Market]

December 9, 2011
Eric Schmidt says ‘Android will be bigger than iOS’

Speaking at Le Web in Paris Google CEO, spoke about why Apps were first written for iOS and then ported over to Android. The response was one that would not surprise any Android user, Schmidt claims ” In about 6 months its going to be the other way round.” He predicts that the new OS Ice Cream Sandwich will remove the device fragmentation and lead people closer to the OS, making it a preferred choice of developers.

[Engadget]

[Le Web (YouTube)]

December 8, 2011
Google Testing Ice Cream Sandwich on Nexus S – Works Great

Google employees are testing Ice Cream Goodness on the Nexus S and apparently it works great. This means that if you are rocking a Nexus S you are only weeks away from receiving an official update to the next delicious version. The company is also hoping to remove any and all kinks during this test process so that they can deliver a very stable bug free version for an update.

Tasty treats anyone?

[Android Police]

December 5, 2011
Poll: Are you waiting for the Galaxy Nexus ?
Since the smartphone market is really flooded with options ranging in all types of OS’s from iOS laden iPhone 4s to Windows Phone supremes, the Galaxy Note , Sensation XL and Android powerhouses alike, and dare we say the Blackberry OS 7 phones. Are you holding back on your smartphone purchase till the Galaxy Nexus Arrives?

The Galaxy Nexus is the first smartphone to officially house Google’s next Android OS dubbed “Ice Cream Sandwich” or Android 4.0. The device will also feature a bump of specs including
- HD Super AMOLED display (1,280 x 720)
- 1.2GHz dual-core processor
- 5 megapixel rear camera (with LED flash)
- 1.3 megapixel front-facing cam
- 1080p video recording
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- Bluetooth 3.0
- USB 2.0
- 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi
- Embedded NFC module
- Accelerometer
- Compass
- Gyroscope
- Proximity sensor
- Barometer ?-
- 1GB of RAM
- 16 or 32GB internal storage
- 1,750mAh battery
- HSPA+ , LTE versions
SO :

[polldaddy poll=5729611]
December 5, 2011
Youtube Homepage gets a makeover, part of the overall design change

Youtube has today launched a new redesigned version of their homepage. At first the page may not look as interesting as it is, but a closer look will reveal that a large amount of brain power has gone into redesigning one of the most viewed pages on the internet. The revamp splits the homepage into three sections which, in many ways, feels familiar and mirrors the way Facebook operates. On the left, a navigation bar features links to videos shared by your Google+ and Facebook friends, while it also lists each of the channels you subscribe to along with trending and popular uploads.

Youtube has also unleashed new Channels, which make it easier for creators ( like iGyaan) to interact with the viewers. Our new redesigned channel should be up shortly. YouTube says it has also added “a coat of paint” to the whole site, along with the ability to easily customise your own channel.

[ official YouTube blog]

December 3, 2011
Google Maps on Android now with indoor locations

If you have updated to the latest version of Google Maps on Android, you will now notice that Maps is now updating indoor locations on its maps app. Google Maps 6.0, which is a free update for phones loaded with Android 2.1 and up, will bring you intimate details of many shopping centres and airports in the US and Japan. The app is also sensitive to which floor you’re on, so if you go up an escalator in the shopping centre, the list of stores will update.

Now this is seriously useful utilization of your portable handheld device.

[Google Blog]

November 30, 2011
Google’s Most Interactive Doodle Yet : 60th Anniversary of Stanistaw Lem’s First Publication

The new Google Doodle to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Stainistaw Lem’s first ever book publication, is by far the most interactive Google Doodle yet. It involves a game comprising of Robots and 3 levels to complete parts for the Google Logo. Every stage has different challenges, in the first stage you have to answer basic math questions using the randomizer, in the second level you have to match wave patterns to get the part and in the third and final stage, you need to launch robots onto a satellite. Check it out and play for yourself by visiting Google.co.uk

[Google]

November 23, 2011
Google’s iOS search app renewed , especially for iPad users

Google just released a new revision to mobile search app for the iOS, focusing on improvements to iPad users. Prima-focus on seeing results side-by-side, adding instant previews and Google instant, along with full screen browsing and access to Google Apps.

[Google Mobile Blog, Google Search (App Store)]

November 22, 2011