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While the automotive world is still enamoured with the Jaguar F-Type roadster, the Indian-owned British manufacturer is busy preparing for the F-Type coupe’s expected launch next year. The F-Type coupe was spotted for the first time testing outside the firm’s HQ in Gaydon. Although dressed in heavy camouflage and a black roof, there was no mistaking it for anything other the hard-top version of Jaguar’s stunning convertible.
The coupe’s looks are almost identical to the C-X16 concept, which originally launched the idea for Jaguar’s new F-Type convertible. The on-road testing can only mean that the car should be launched within the next 12-18 months. The F-type coupe is expected to be powered by the same V6, V6 S and V8 S engines as the drop-top versions. Reports also claim that it will be the base for faster R and RS versions as well as a very extreme 600 bhp RS-GT street legal racing version.
Jaguar insiders say that the unusual decision to launch the roadster first was taken because it was perceived to have a large market and deliver a better image for the firm’s halo model. But in our honest opinion, the hard-top F-Type will look just as gorgeous as the convertible, if not more.
Chevrolet has launched its first MPV model in India. It’s called the Enjoy and it will set you back between Rs. 5.49 lakh to Rs. 7.99 lakh. The compact SUV and MPV segment has really picked up in India of late, with the Maruti Suzuki Ertiga and Toyota Innova enjoying runaway success and the Ford EcoSport hitting the Indian market in the summer this year. The Enjoy is Chevrolet’s hope to give the Ertiga competition, and at first glance it seems more than capable of doing just that.
The Enjoy is available with both petrol and diesel engines. The petrol engine is a 1.4-litre unit putting out 103 bhp and 13.25 kgm of torque while the 1.3-litre diesel unit produces 76 bhp and 19.17 kgm of torque. Both engines are mated to a five-speed manual transmission.
The Chevrolet Enjoy has very spacious interiors which can seat 7 or 8 people depending on whether the middle row has a bench seat or captain seats. It comes with simple but comfortable interiors offering power steering, power windows, stereo and air conditioning. Safety features include anti-lock brakes, electronic brake force distribution and dual front airbags. With a straightforward design, the Chevrolet Enjoy surely won’t blow anyone away, but it ticks all the right boxes considering what one would want from an affordable and spacious entry-level MPV, and should ‘Enjoy’ its fair bit of success.
Jaguar is planning on bringing its new convertible supercar, the F-Type, to India in July this year. Creating waves around the automotive world, the E-Type’s spiritual successor is trying to head Jaguar in a new and refreshing direction. Breaking from the tradition of building elegant, luxurious sedans, Jaguar is trying to carve out its place in the sports car segment with the svelte and feline F-Type, promising supercar performance with gorgeous looks.
The F-Type will reportedly be launched in India in two variants. The F-Type S has a 3.0-litre supercharged V6 under the hood producing 375 bhp and 460 Nm of torque. It can get the F-Type from 0-97 kmph in 4.8 seconds and on to a top speed of 275 kmph. The top of the line F-Type V8 S has a massive 5.0-litre supercharged V8 power plant under the hood producing 488 bhp and a tire-shredding 625 Nm of torque. This translates from nought to 100 kmph in 4.3 seconds and on to a 300 kmph top speed. Both models have the engines at the front sending all the power to the rear wheels, and are mated to 8-speed automatic transmissions with paddle-shifters offering manual override. The V6 employs a mechanical limited-slip differential and the V8 an electronic limited-slip differential to manage the F-Type’s raw power most efficiently. The F-Type has a double-wishbone front and rear suspension with adaptive dampers and adjustable suspension settings to allow the driver to tweak ride and handling.
Image Courtesy: Top Gear
The first thing that strikes you about the F-Type however, is surely the way it looks. The F-Type is almost identical to the C-X16 Concept and that’s a good thing because it looks stunning. Beautifully proportioned and quite compact, the F-Type has done away with the oval front grille. The shark gill openings on either flank of the new grille are very modern and give it an edge. The shape of the hood and the taillights resemble those of the iconic Jaguar E-Type. The rear diffuser and integrated tail pipes (dual on the V6, quad on the V8) add to the aggressive looks but with plenty of elegance. A hidden spoiler pops out at speeds over 90 kmph and goes into hiding when speed drops below 60 kmph. The F-Type is built with extreme care and quality, and the interior is very luxurious and tasteful, typical of Jaguar.
There’s no doubt that the F-Type looks the part, and goes like it too. However, it’s expected to lighten your wallet by Rs. 1.3-1.5 crore, and in a highly competitive sports car segment, it remains to be seen if the Jag can hold its own among traditional supercar giants such as the Porsche 911, the Audi R8 and the Aston Martin Vantage. We’ll surely find out in the months to come. Meanwhile, check out some pictures of the F-Type below, as seen by iGyaan at the 2013 New York Auto Show.
Samsung has just announced the Galaxy Grand Quattro also known as the Galaxy Win in other markets. This smart phone is a retake on the Galaxy Grand adding a few things and removing a few.
The packaging is minimal suggesting towards the lower end spectrum for Samsung but also infusing their new less paper (eco-friendly) model they suggested during the launch of the Galaxy S4. Listed below are the box contents:
Samsung Galaxy Grand Quattro / Win Handset
2000 mAh Battery
USB charging cable
USB wall adapter
Documentation
In-ear earphones with additional tips.
Hardware
There are a bunch of differences in the Galaxy Grand Quattro, starting with a smaller 4.7 inch 480 x 800 px display, which bumps up the ppi to 199 ppi. The chipset on the inside is now a Qualcomm MSM8625Q Snapdragon 200 quad-core 1.2 GHz chipset, along with an Adreno 203 GPU.
The rear camera and the front camera have also been downgraded to 5 MP and VGA from 8MP and 2.1 MP respectively. Inside however we still have 8GB of storage (5GB + is available to the user) and 1 GB of RAM.
Samsung Galaxy Grand Quattro I8552 Initial impressions
The build quality is along the lines of the Galaxy Grand, composed of 100% plastic build including the back panel and the bezel. The Galaxy Grand Quattro has a significantly smaller footprint thanks to the smaller screen size. The phone also weighs less and fits comfortably in the hand of the user.
The interface reminds us of many of the recent Samsung launches all showing of similar Touch-Wiz and Android 4.1.2 functionality. The Galaxy Grand Quattro / Win however, does not carry the smart features seen on the Galaxy Grand, No Multi Window toolbar, no S-Voice and No Pop-Up-Play. Which could nullify the proposition for a lot of buyers. The Smaller screen is definitely more crisp and is evident in the first impression. Video playback is smooth even though we felt a bit of lag in the Internet browser.
The keyboard is as fast as ever and retains the continuos input option, along with all of the Samsung customizations for its keyboard. The Samsung Galaxy Grand Quattro / Win is a promising upgrade to the Galaxy Grand, it removes a lot of software and hardware features, but, does two interesting things, Adds a quad-core Processor and drops the price by about Rs. 2500 or US $ 50.
Apple is constantly trying to end all relationships with Smartphone manufacturer Samsung, including the supply for most of the parts for iPhones. According to reports Apple is trying to move production of Apple chipsets to TSMC for the next generation of iPhones.
This will be a huge loss of revenue for the production division for Samsung, leaving out key investment into their chip making business, making innovation of next generation chipsets extremely expensive for the Korean company.
Another confirmation to this report is the fact that TSMC has significantly increased the production capacity of its plants hinting at an expected increase in orders.
Samsung will however continue to make chipsets for this years iPhone devices will be announced later this year.
With a flurry of additions to its lineup at the Shanghai Motor Show, Honda is planning on launching some of its new models in India soon. The successful launch of the Amaze shows the Japanese manufacturer’s new direction. Earlier, Honda would stick to a few specific segments and churn out model after model pertaining to the same. However now, Honda is venturing into many new segments and the new Crider is a case in point.
Honda Crider
The Crider is the production version of the Honda Concept C, and is the rare occasion when a production model ends up looking similar to its concept. Smaller than the Accord, and dimensionally similar to the Civic, it aims to spawn a new segment to take on upcoming markets. The sharp lines on the muscular shell house a 4 cylinder 1.8-litre iVTEC engine producing 140 bhp.
Honda M-01 Concept
Honda is mulling a seven-seater multi-purpose vehicle. And we are, at this moment, studying the market whether we have to launch it or not…
– Jnaneswar Sen, senior vice-president, sales and marketing, Honda Cars India
Along with the Crider, Honda unveiled two MPV concepts at the Shanghai Motor Show, namely the Jade and the M-01. The M-01 is a full-size MPV, dimensionally similar to a Toyota Innova. The concept’s styling is not groundbreaking but looks fairly nice with smooth flowing lines and a strong, poised profile. The M-01 should come with diesel engines and a variety of seating options and an expectedly subtler design.
Honda Jade Concept
The second of the MPVs, called the Jade, is much more compact and borrows its styling from the Civic. It does look rather interesting, and seeing its length and low profile, it could perfectly fit into the almost defunct station wagon segment in India. With compact SUVs and MPVs like the Quanto and Ertiga doing rather well, Honda seems to have made a rather good move here. Not much information has been released about the three new models from the Jap manufacturer, keep checking this space for updates.
Earlier leaked images of the 2014 Mercedes S class showed of the extensive use of LED lighting and the extremely plush interiors. We now know that the 2014 Mercedes S class will make its official debut on May 15th will have electronically reclining rear seats, and radical new exterior. The new entertainment system will also control the massaging seats for the rear passengers.
The steering wheel of the 2014 Mercedes S class will also have access to the full setup of controls, right from the drivers fingertips.
Reclining Rear Seats
New LED Light Cluster and Front Design LED Rear Cluster
Rumors that Audi is working on the A9 have been around for quite some time, but it looks like the German Auto giant is readying production to make available the car for 2016 launch. German auto-motor-und-sport reports that the car will be based on the next generation Q7 platform and will take its styling cues from A7 and form a complete new segment.
This will result in better handling, suspension and Stainless Steel undercarriage, making the vehicle excellent for countries like India, where Audi is selling extremely well. It is likely that the car will be offered with a selection of engines including a V8 powerplant pumping out at least 500hp. The 2016 Audi A9 could debut with a semi-autonomous driving system which can drive and park the car without any inputs needed from the driver.
The new Audi A9 will supposedly be 5 meter long and will come with a 4WD option from the beginning of Sale se in early 2016.
The Blackberry R10 is supposedly going to be a cheaper alternative to the Q10 with almost the exact same features, minus the multimedia benefits, ifDGtle is to be believed. The Blackberry R10 will have the same 3.1-inch screen size and 2GB of RAM as the Blackberry Q10. However, the R10 reportedly steps down to a 5-megapixel camera in addition to previously hinted cutbacks in storage (to 8GB) and battery (to 1,800mAh).
Blackberry (Previously RIM) pegged big hopes on their new range of Blackberry 10 devices, but as the sales reports for the company are lower than ever, a quick shift in policy and strategy may help the company come back from its current situation. Blackberry may need to retarget the lower end of the spectrum with budget Blackberry 10 devices, making the masses once again appreciate the company.
According to reports, the model range for the Indian version of the much anticipated Ford EcoSport has been leaked. Four trims namely Ambiente, Trend, Titanium and Titanium optional will be on offer. These trims will be available in a choice of 3 engines, a 1.5-litre petrol, 1.5-litre diesel and obviously the center of attraction will be Ford’s much awaited 1.0-litre turbo charged direct-injection EcoBoost petrol. The EcoBoost however will be available only with the top-end Titanium trim.
The Ambiente is expected to be the base trim and comes with a quite a bit of equipment despite it. Tilt and telescopic steering, a music player with Aux-in and Bluetooth, electric wing mirrors, remote locking, a multi-function display, front power windwos and 15-inch wheels make up most of the Ambiente trim. Next up the ladder is the Trend trim, which comes with anti lock brakes, rear power windows, steering-mounted audio controls and driver-seat height adjust over everything that the Ambiente has to offer. Both these trims will be available only with manual transmissions coupled to 1.5-litre petrol or diesel engines.
Further up is the aptly named Titanium trim. The famous 1.0-litre EcoBoost petrol engine is available only with the Titanium trim which also comes with a leather-wrapped steering wheel, 16-inch alloy wheels, climate control, cooled glovebox, roof rails, front fog lamps, reverse parking sensor, and dual airbags. An option pack for the Titanium will also be available, which offers push-button start, leather seats, keyless entry, and side and curtain airbags. The EcoBoost engine is mated to a manual gearbox but an automatic-gearbox-equipped Titanium version will be available with the normal 1.5-litre petrol. There is no diesel version available for the top-spec EcoSport.
The 1.5-litre petrol and diesel engines will produce 107 bhp and 88.8 bhp respectively and the new EcoBoost is expected to put out between 95 and 100 bhp. The Ford EcoSport is expected to have a base price around Rs. 7.5 lakh with the top of the line Titanium trim costing upwards of Rs. 12 lakh.
Bo Jiang, a Chinese research scientist who worked at a NASA facility and was suspected of stealing secrets, is expected to plead guilty today–not for espionage, but for downloading porn on his work computer.
Jiang was nailed down in suspicion of trying to spy on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration but was instead found guilty of downloading porn movies on his NASA laptop.
According to court documents, Jiang was previously characterized as a “low risk” hire at NASA, despite his status as a foreign national, because his team was “not working on classified material or any development that is critical to the success of a current mission.”
But even if Jiang didn’t have access to any such information, there are still directives barring NASA laptops “from being used for official business on international trips without prior written permission of the Chief Information Officer for NASA’s Langley Research Center.”
Jiang took his laptop and an external hard drive along on two trips to China without written permission, according to court documents, which also said that while Jiang was in China, he corresponded with colleagues about work-related matters.
His lawyers said he was doing “generic work” and did not have access to sensitive information. But he did have something else that could earn him a criminal record: Pirated movies and porn on his old NASA-issued laptop.
The charge for making a false statement “has been resolved,” a prosecutor said, without providing details. Nasa had previously said it took “any allegation of a security violation very seriously”.
The trio of Android smartphones NASA blasted into orbit recently have ended their journey by burning up in the atmosphere, but not before snapping shots of Earth — and the pictures don’t look too bad.
The “PhoneSats” were a NASA experiment to develop super-cheap satellites and to determine whether a consumer-grade smartphone can be used as the main flight avionics of a capable satellite, NASA said.
The agency launched a rocket containing three of its PhoneSats, cubical satellites four inches on a side with that old classic the Nexus One tucked within.They have GPS, motion sensors, and a camera built-in. So, the project cost less than $10,000 using off-the-shelf technology. A custom-built system might have cost upwards of a million dollars. The module was equipped with extra lithium-ion batteries. Data, along with photos from the smartphone camera, are still being analyzed.
The photos above come straight from the phones’ five-megapixel cameras themselves. That part was successful, though the pictures aren’t exactly detailed. Between the transmission artifacting and the smartphone grade cameras it gets a little messy.
A major concern was whether smartphones could withstand space temperatures. “On Earth here, there’s not many situations where your phone will reach to 40, 50 degrees Celsius, and so I think we were pushing the limit, but we were really interested in seeing if this would really work,” said Watson Attai with the PhoneSat engineering team.
The mission successfully ended Saturday, April 27, after predicted atmospheric drag caused the PhoneSats to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up, NASA said.
Samsung’s success in the Indian market is truly thanks to their ability to understand the need of the market. The company understood that by penetrating the lower end of the spectrum they could increase their popularity. So with devices like the Galaxy Ace and Galaxy Y, Samsung tapped the under 10,000 market space. With the Galaxy Y plus, Samsung has further tried to take away from the feature phone buyer and get him interested in smartphones. In our Samsung Galaxy Y Plus review we try to see if Samsung has yet another winner.
Solid Plastics
Build Quality & Design
Weather you buy a Rs. 5000 phone or a Rs. 50,000 phone from Samsung, you will find the excessive use of plastics. The Samsung Galaxy Y Plus is no different, with a Plastic chassis, plastic back and plastic bezels along with plastic buttons. The phone however is robust and looks or at least feels like it could survive a bunch of falls and crashes, in fact we wont be surprised if it survives a car running over it, only to be thrown away.
The design and shape is reminiscent of the Y Series of Galaxy phones. The shape adds a bit of the looks of the higher end of the spectrum devices from Samsung.
No Front Cam
2 MP Rear Cam
Left Side
Right Side
Hardware
Not a lot to boast about here for the Samsung Galaxy Y Plus. The front has a 2.8 inch LCD which has a resolution of 240 x 320px making it 143 ppi, it truly makes you wonder if Samsung will ever dump small size AMOLED displays in budget phones. The insides are a little sketchy with an unknown 850 MHz processor, no details for any sort of GPU and no info on the RAM. If we were to guess, we’d say the RAM should be around the 384MB mark.
The Galaxy Y plus has a 2 MP, 1600×1200 pixels, camera which has a fixed focus and Geo Tagging capability. The internal storage is shown as 4GB out of which under 2 GB is available to the user and expandability is kept at 32GB via microSD. The Galaxy Y Plus has a 1200 mAh battery which seems sufficient considering the specs in question even thought the phone has two sim card slots, one for 3G and one for 2G.
Android and Interface
The Samsung Galaxy Y Plus comes with Android 4.0, which is a slight disappointment especially because companies like Micromax are throwing out Jelly Bean equipped phones by the minute. The interface however is very responsive and seems like this variant of Android was a logical choice of the company to retain the fluidity of the experience.
TouchWiz is also loaded on the tiny display which makes for a fun trailer to what you can expect when you later on switch to a more expensive Samsung Device (the company is betting on this). In fact adaptability of OS along with the available hardware is surprisingly great and performance seems acceptable from a phone of said value.
2 MP Rear Cam
Multimedia and Camera
The phone is poor in these departments and for anyone who may be looking to buy this phone for the multimedia aspects, we suggest you look elsewhere. Although the Samsung Galaxy Y Plus is capable of playing games like temple run 2 smoothly, we feel the display is tattered and totally takes away from any such experience. Similar is the video playback experience, not only does the screen create a letterbox, but also reduces the size of the video to play it totally taking away from the end user enjoyment.
Pictures can be clicked from the phone’s 2 MP snapper never to be reconsidered, Samsung’s emphasizes on the geo tagging feature, as if we must remember exactly where we clicked the atrociously horrible pictures which were completely out of focus.
Conclusion
The Samsung Galaxy Y Plus Duos is a great dual sim phone, which fades the barrier between smartphone and feature phone. While it does have multitasking capabilities, and a whole array of multimedia features you may not end up using any of them except possibly the loud music from the speakerphone.
If you want to get a basic phone to make phone calls and send messages , this is your bet, dual sim with a good two day battery life and great network reception and a loud speaker. You may also be happy knowing that you have other Android capabilities which you may never use.
Samsung Galaxy S4 buyers are getting much less storage than they pay for because the device is sold full of ‘bloatware’.
Bloatware includes apps and files that are added to handsets by the manufacturers and networks before they are sold to customers. Some of the preinstalled Samsung files are needed for its new features, such as eye tracking, air gestures and voice commands.
The 16GB version of Samsung’s newest flagship handset has only just over half of its listed memory available for owner use, according to CNet UK. The rest is taken up by the smartphone’s operating system and built-in apps.
“For the Galaxy S4 16GB model,” Samsung said in a statement, “approximately 6.85GB occupies [the] system part of internal memory, which is 1GB bigger than that of the Galaxy S3, in order to provide [a] high resolution display and more powerful features to our consumers.”
For users who aren’t satisfied with the 8.49 GB or so of free space left to them on the 16GB model, Samsung’s simple solution was:
To offer the ultimate mobile experience to our users, Samsung provides [a] microSD slot on Galaxy S4 for the extension of memory.
As AppleInsider notes, Galaxy S4 owners are able to expand their devices’ storage capacity via microSD up to an additional 64GB, bringing the potential total capacity of the device to 80GB — of which 73.15 would be available to the user. That additional space, though, couldn’t be used to store apps, as Google removed that capability with Android 4.0. Users would, though, be able to store downloaded books, music, movies, and other files.
Until Android improves on the ability to use built-in apps and services on the Micro SD card, it cannot be a replacement for 32GB or 64GB Android smartphones.
We dig deep into the box of this new device the Micromax A115 Canvas 3D, and see what sets it apart from the rest of the crowd.
Box Contents
Micromax A115 Canvas 3D Box Contents
Plagued by similar box contents, the Micromax A115 Canvas 3D’s box also contains the usual set of things:
Wall Brick with USB Port
USB to Micro USB Cable
Documentation
Handsfree Kit
Micromax A115 Canvas 3D Unit
Front Facing 0.3 MP Cam
Initial Impressions of the Micromax A115 Canvas 3D
The new 3D capable Canvas is the same body Identity of the A110 or A116, with the exact same form factor and feel, except it’s a lot more comfortable in the hands.
The display is pretty good for the resolution, the 480 x 800 px laden Stereoscopic front of the Canvas 3D actually puts it in a good place. The Phone also has the ability to natively adjust the screen depending on the content you have on there.
3D Mode
The build of the Canvas 3d actually seems a little more robust if we compare it with the predecessor, the soft touch back does a lot to add to the overall feel of the phone, we honestly were hoping for a more wide array of colors. (bright blue perhaps). The phone is a cluncky and feel a bit heavier, but we are told that is due to the 3D hardware, which is significantly heavier.
The Micromax A115 Canvas 3D has a 5 Megapixel camera, which has the capability of converting images and video into 3D and then saving then natively on the device to be viewed later.
The Ui and interface elements seem really snappy, and with minimal customizations and very little bloatware the phone zipped through initial tests of usage.
While we devour the 3D elements of the new Micromax A115 Canvas 3D, Let us know below, what your impressions are of the device, and what you would like for us to check in this phone for the upcoming videos.
