Smartphone News and Reviews, Latest Cellphones, Accessories, New Launches, Specifications, Details with Image and Video from Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, Moto, HTC, Xiaomi, Oneplus, Meizu, Sony, Lava, Micromax Yu Mobile and More.
Xolo has finally launched its much awaited tab in the Indian market, the Xolo Play Tab 7.0, the device is priced at 12,999 INR. The availability of the device is still not confirmed.
The Xolo Play Tab 7.0 sports a 7 inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels(216ppi). The device is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor along with 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of inbuilt storage. The Xolo Play Tab runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and features a 2 MP front-facing camera, surprisingly there is not rear camera on the tablet.
The Xolo Play Tab 7.0 includes a 4000 mAh battery and Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Micro-USB as connectivity options. The Xolo Play Tab 7.0 measures 194.6 x 122.6 x 10.6 mm and weighs 338 grams. The tablet does not offers calling facility. Xolo is also expected to launch the Xolo Play Tegra Note later this month.
The Instagram 4.1 version for iOS users has the ability to straighten photos from a long time now, with today’s update for Android, users can now enjoy the same feature on the smartphones running on Android OS.
The latest Android application update, which will supposedly hit Google Play store today, brings the photo straightening feature and some more add on benefits as the new update enables sound and data usage controls for the video.
While you enjoy these additions, one feature of Instagram still remains out of the reach for Android users. Cinema Stabilization is a feature that iOS users have been enjoying from a long time now, but this update does not seem to give Android users a chance to get benefit of it. However, the update is still not active but is expected to hit your devices some time today.
Did your phone updated to the latest change from Skype this morning ? If not, you might want to update it manually as the latest version of Skype on Android has got two new major updates, better video quality and a new tablet user interface. The company claims that you can now enjoy video chats with up to four times the resolution of older Skype versions, while using a phone or a tablet.
The user interface, tablets have got a completely new UI with the new 4.4 version of Skype, the new UI displays latest chats and calls which we have seen on the smartphones but is new for tablets.
Apart from changes, the new update also has some bug fixes like:
Accessibility improvements with full support for TalkBack screen reader
Updates that address incoming call issues, including one that was causing phones to reboot
Additional changes to audio routing
Display and UX enhancements when switching orientation
Samsung has been into news earlier this year for inflating the benchmark scores of the Exynos devices and this time the company might have also done the same with other versions of hardware as well.
As reported by Ars Technica, the galaxy note 3 Snapdragon 800 version includes a code that allows the central processing unit cores to run at full speed during some benchmark tests. This allows the device to give a 20 percent higher score in any benchmark app, or the source says this is enough to claim an artificial large advantage over competitive devices like the G2.
The website further says, there might also be graphics boost, we’ve asked Samsung for its take on the findings. Whether or not the company responds, we don’t envy its position. What do you think of this ?
Intex has expanded its Aqua range by launching the Aqua HD in the Indian market, the device is available in the market for 15,900 INR, this price is the MRP so you can expect it to be cheaper in the markets.
The Intex Aqua HD has a 4.7 inch HD TFT display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. The device is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core MediaTek processor along with a 1 GB of RAM and 4 GB of in built storage, which can be expandable up to 32 GB via micro SD card. Aqua HD runds on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and comes with dual SIM support which is GSM + GSM.
Aqua HD sports a 13 MP main camera with a LED flash, the camera is capable of 1080p videos and the device also sports a 5 MP front facing camera. The phone is powered by a 1800 mAh battery, and comes up with a couple of sensors like an accelerometer, a proximity sensor, light sensor and gyroscope. The device also has some standard features like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and 3G.
MTS (telecom operator) has launched a new feature phone in association with Lava, the Lava L661. The device comes bundled with MTS unlimited talk plans, the company has not detailed the talk plans for the handset. Lava L661 has been priced at Rs. 1,199.
The device has a 1.8-inch TFT screen, a micro SD card slot with expandable memory of upto 4 GB. The device supports speaker phone and has some utility features like Alarm, Calculator, Calendar, Predictive text T9, Vcard, Group SMS, Scheduler and can also be used for call conferencing. The device is powered by a 1000 mAh battery.
The company claims that the Lava L661 CDMA phone is one of the most affordable phones in the Indian market. It will be available in three colors Black, Blue and White.
Micromax has recently taken the budget smart phone market with their Canvas Series in India. The Micromax A115 Canvas 3D is another addition to the lineup. Cheaper than the Canvas 2 at launch, the Canvas 3D adds a 3D Stereoscopic Display into the mix. Lets see how it fares out in our full review.
Display in 2D mode
Build Quality and Design
The Canvas series of phones including the Canvas 2 and Canvas HD are nicely built phones from Micromax. The Micromax A115 Canvas 3D takes it one step ahead. The back of the device is now coated with a soft touch material that makes the phone seem more robust and easy to handle. While the whole chassis is made of plastic it is able to withstand a couple of drops and high intensity jerks.
In terms of design the Micromax A115 Canvas 3D will be easily spotted from a distance, the unique build and design will also set it apart for those who want slightly premium looking phones. The ID of the phone resembles more HTC devices vs their previous obsession with Samsung Design. The phone does not appear to be the strongest phone at this time or even price, however it is well-built , looks and feels good in the hand.
The insides are laden with the previous-gen Mediatek 6577 chipset, which in terms of performance lacks behind, in comparison to many of the other devices available at a slightly higher price. Inbuilt storage remains at 4 GB, but the minute you insert a micro SD card the internal storage combines with the card enabling up to 34GB of capacity (32GB card + 2GB onboard). The RAM on the Canvas 3D is lower than required at 512 MB and you will see the grunt of it during gaming and application usage.
The Micromax A115 Canvas 3D’s name comes from the 5 inch 480 x 800 px Glasses-Free Stereoscopic 3D display, which turns on in certain applications including the 3D YouTube videos, certain apps from the 3D HUB and Picture preview. The camera is a 5 MP camera that combines two individually clicked images to make a 3D image, unlike other 3D phones which have dual sensors.
The power source is a 2000 mAh battery pack and is capable enough, read the battery section below.
3D Mode
Micromax A115 Canvas 3D and its Use
[pullquote_left]Economies of Scale vs Economies of Fail[/pullquote_left] So, a 3D display in a budget phone, what does that mean? Essentially, there are only two ways a technology becomes cheaper. One; if a tech has reached its saturation point, and enough development and numbers produced to make the process work for it, to make it cheaper (Economies of Scale). Two; if the technology was not successful to begin with and the stocks and design frameworks liquidate (Economies of Fail?). Well, Glasses Free 3D on mobile phone may as well be a part of the latter, while many companies including LG and HTC tried to make Glasses Free 3D phones. They were just not appreciated by the world, and eventually that technology thrown out. Nintendo used the Glasses Free 3D on their portable gaming console and that just did wonderfully well. The fact remains that the 3D technology is still at far from becoming mainstream, simply because it just does not look that good.
So thanks to the effect of expensive phones with this technology not being successful, the technology became cheaper, cheap enough to get fitted inside an under Rs. 10,000 phone for users to enjoy 3D content. Unfortunately there is no ALL time 3D switch , or any form of 2D to 3D conversion engine.
The content on 3D is also decent enough and enjoyed once in a while, and not all the time. So at the end it only plays to the fact that you have 3D in your phone, but you will not use it a lot.
Camera and Multimedia
The camera on the Micromax A115 Canvas 3D is a Fixed Focus 5 MP camera, that has a software ability to capture 3D images. Unlike standard 3D cameras which have two lenses, the Lens on the Micromax Canvas 3D utilizes time shift and user movement to capture a 3D image. The images are half decent and truly may not pass off as 3D images, unless the user is professionally focusing on the angle and the distance of the shot from the first click. Video shot is also poor quality, and is not shot in 3D mode. You do not have auto focus or tap to focus what so ever, the phone does recalibrate white balance and ISO for every picture taken.
Multimedia performance is good, you can enjoy 3D content on the Micromax Canvas 3D without the need of glasses. The viewing angles improve once in 2D mode, but are not great in 3D mode. The Micromax A115 Canvas 3D also has good sounding audio from the main speaker as well as through headphones.
Basic UI navigation within the interface was fast and fluid, we did face a bit of lag and it seemed that the phone held back when it came to performance. While the Canvas 2 did really well for Micromax, the Canvas 3D has the same performance only reduced by the 3D display’s punch of the graphics card.
In the case of the Micromax A115 Canvas 3D, almost all games are downloadable and installable thanks to the storage on memory card option. But, even though the phone can download, install and run almost all games, only basic games will work perfectly on this phone. The Canvas 3D does not have the capability of performing in games like NOVA 3 and Modern Combat 4, simply because of the lack of power under the hood. See out Gaming Video below.
The UI remains mostly vanilla, with only the addition of basic things like quick toggles in the notification panel, and custom apps and icons. Every other UI element looks and performs vanilla with the Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean OS, which comes as stock on the Micromax A115 Canvas 3D.
Phone call quality remained good throughout, with little or no dropped calls keeping the network strength in the high range. While the microphone and earpiece are great to use the Speakerphone is not as loud as some would expect.
Switching b/w Sim cards maybe still a problem, since both SIM slots don’t support 3G outright, only one fixed slot will run 3G at a time, creating issues in low or no network areas for that sim. You will get stuck on 2G or no data network on both sim cards.
Battery life
The Micromax A115 Canvas 3D has varied battery life as we demonstrate below, in normal usage the phone lasted a good 5-6 hours on talk time, add any online access etc., the battery life for talk time drops to just 3 hours.
[tabgroup]
[tab title=”Battery Life with 3G ON” icon=”icon-headphones”]Talk time : 5 Hours Standby : 48 Hours Gaming : 2-3 Online : 5 hours Music 7 hours[/tab]
[tab title=”Battery Life with 3G OFF” icon=”icon-headphones”]Talk time : 6 Hours Standby : 54 Hours Gaming : 3 Online : 5 hours Music 7 hours[/tab]
[/tabgroup]
Conclusion
While The Micromax Canvas 3D brings to the market which no other company is offering in the price bracket, one truly needs to understand the give and take for it. Does one really need the 3D feature? why not. If you are getting the same performance like other products in the price bracket and yet you get additional features, why would you refuse. For the sake of the argument, the A115 is as good as the A110 but with 3D powers.
If you want performance and gaming capabilities, you should seriously reconsider your price bracket, No, you cannot get a Samsung Galaxy S4 replacement in Rs. 10,000 not yet anyway.
More than anything the Micromax A115 Canvas 3D gives you yet another option in this wide array of phones in the market. If you were considering the A110 the A115 is another option to consider. In Our opinion Micromax has held back on their hardware capabilities and should have used the newer Mediatek Chipset instead of the outdated underpowered MTK 6577.
So at least one patent dispute is coming to an end, HTC and Apple have entered a 10 year patent licensing deal to end all issues with their disputes.
[quote]HTC is pleased to have resolved its dispute with Apple, so HTC can focus on innovation instead of litigation,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC. [/quote]
[quote]We are glad to have reached a settlement with HTC,” said Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. “We will continue to stay laser focused on product innovation.[/quote]
The license extends to current and future patents held by both parties. The terms of the settlement are confidential.
[toggle_box title=”Press Release” width=”Width of toggle box”]
Posted Nov 11, 2012 HTC AND APPLE SETTLE PATENT DISPUTE. All Patent Litigation Between The Companies Dismissed
1.Date of occurrence of the event:2012/11/11
2.Company name:HTC Corporation
3.Relationship to the Company (please enter “head office” or “affiliate company”):Head Office
4.Reciprocal shareholding ratios:N/A
5.Cause of occurrence:HTC and Apple have reached a global settlement that includes the dismissal of all current lawsuits and a ten-year license agreement. The license extends to current and future patents held by both parties. The terms of the settlement are confidential.
6.Countermeasures:None
7.Any other matters that need to be specified:There is no material adverse impact on the financials of the Company.
HTC AND APPLE SETTLE PATENT DISPUTE
All Patent Litigation Between The Companies Dismissed
TAIPEI and CUPERTINO, California – November 11, 2012 – HTC and Apple have reached a global settlement that includes the dismissal of all current lawsuits and a ten-year license agreement. The license extends to current and future patents held by both parties. The terms of the settlement are confidential.
“HTC is pleased to have resolved its dispute with Apple, so HTC can focus on innovation instead of litigation,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC.
“We are glad to have reached a settlement with HTC,” said Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. “We will continue to stay laser focused on product innovation.”
Mobile phones shipment to India during the first-half of 2012 crossed 10 crore units, registering a growth of 16.6 per cent over the same period over the previous year, according CyberMedia Research (CMR).
“During January-June 2012, the total India shipment of mobile handsets was recorded at 102.43 million units (10.24 crore),” CMR said in its report.
The total number of smartphones shipped during the period was 55 lakh units.
Nokia has 22.2 per cent share in the overall shipments, followed by Samsung at 13 per cent.
In smartphone category, Samaung’s share is 41.6 per cent, followed by Nokia and Blackberry handsets maker Research-In-Motion with 19.2 per cent and 12.1 per cent, respectively.
CMR’s Lead Analyst for Telecoms Practice Faisal Kawoosa said the first-half of calendar year 2012 witnessed high -decibel launch of phones like Samsung Galaxy S III, HTC One X and second half of 2012 continues to see launch of a number of high value smartphone models such as the Nokia Lumia 910, Samsung Galaxy Note II and the Apple iPhone 5.
“This push from vendors and the increasing maturity of the India mobile subscriber community is expected to further push up smartphones as a proportion of total mobile handset shipments in the country in the next few quarters,” Kawoosa said.
As per this report, Google’s Android platform dominated among mobile operating system, with 56.4 per cent share, followed by Nokia’s Symbian at 17.4 per cent share, Blackberry 12.1 per cent, Bada 8.5 per cent, Apple’s iOS 3 per cent and Windows mobile phone with 2.6 per cent.
According to CMR, the total mobile phone shipments for sales in India market was 18.3 crore units by end of 2011.
Microsoft announced that developers will be able to sign-up for inclusion in the Windows Phone 8 SDK (Software Development Kit) programme from September 12th. Microsoft also revealed that the program will be initially limited to a select few at first until the full Windows Phone 8 SDK is publicly available later this year, after Windows Phone 8 has been released.
Microsoft won’t be giving access to just anyone, it will give priority to any developers that have already published apps to Windows Phone. In essence, they’ll be favoring the developers that chose to develop for Windows Phone before there was any major buzz for it. How exactly this will help the company garner better app development remains to be seen.
[quote]”The full Windows Phone 8 SDK will be made publically available later this year when we unveil Windows Phone 8. Until then, we believe this program offers more published developers a way to explore the SDK and get started on the next wave of amazing Windows Phone apps,” said Microsoft in a statement.[/quote]
One should keep in mind, WP 8 apps are on a whole new development platform. While WP 8 devices will continue to support WP 7.5 apps, these apps will not take advantage of the new hardware capabilities of WP 8 devices. Microsoft officials said they wouldn’t be disclosing the full set of Windows Phone 8 OS features until a later, unspecified date.
According to a report by The Verge, Nokia, which is all set to launch its Lumia 920 smartphone powered by Windows 8 OS tomorrow in New York, will includewireless charging with the phone. The smartphone will have a PureView Camera although the megapixel capacity will be much less than the original PureView smartphone. An image of the charging pad of Nokia was leaked on Twitter via @evleaks, the same account that leaked the original image of the Lumia 920.
It is also believed that the Nokia Lumia 920 will have a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 32GB of storage along with a 4.5-inch HD display.
If the report is true, then Nokia has finally dished out a phone capable of challenging the big guns of this segment.
Micromax has announced its third phone in the Ninja lineup. The A57 Ninja 3 smartphone has been priced at Rs. 4,999 and will be available starting this Saturday.
The Micromax Ninja 3 comes with a 3 megapixel rear camera, 1400 mAh battery, 32 GB expandable memory, 256 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM, and a 1 Ghz Qualcomm processor. It runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, has dual-SIM, and 3.5-inch HVGA display. Besides, this 3G phone has normal Android features like Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS etc. It has FM radio as well.
Micromax is providing back-panels in two colours with each A57 Ninja 3
The company has launched several phones in the past few months, which include the A90 and the A100 Superfones.
The restrictions imposed on sending bulk SMSes and MMSes, imposed in the wake of nationwide rumours of attacks on persons of northeastern states, was has been lifted by the government.
“The restrictions on SMSes and MMSes has been removed,” home ministry spokesperson K.S. Dhatwalia said here. The government issued a notification in this regard.
The telecom ministry had, on direction of home ministry, imposed the ban for 15 days on August 17. Later, the restriction was reviewed on August 24 when the telecom ministry increased the limit from five SMSes to 20 SMSes.
The Note II “Phablet” comes with a 5.5″ Super AMOLED Screen, 1,280 x 720 pixels (267ppi), a 1.6GHz quad-core Exynos processor with 2GB RAM, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, an 8MP Camera with 1080p Video Recording and a 1.9MP Front Facing Camera. Internal storage will be 16/32/64GB. It is powered by a 3,100mAh battery.
Sony launched a waterproof tablet under its Xperia brand at the IFA electonics trade show in Berlin today.
The tablet features a 9.4-inch IPS screen with a 1,280×800-pixel resolution and uses Sony’s TruBlack panel, which the company says provides more vibrant colors, deeper blacks, and minimal screen reflections.
Measuring 241×8.8x174mm, the Sony Xperia Tablet S is thinner and lighter than the original Sony Tablet S, has a 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor and runs the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system (OS).
The tablet houses 1GB of RAM, comes in either 16GB/32GB/64GB storage sizes; and has 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi support, Bluetooth 3.0, a gyroscope, and an accelerometer.
Sony said the splash-proof Xperia Tablet S is “designed for real-life use around the home and outdoors”, so it can withstand the ineviatable drink spillages, and its screen is purported to respond to touch gestures even with wet hands.
Buyers of the Xperia Tablet S can also command their entire entertainment set-up from one location via Sony’s built-in infrared universal remote control with enhanced macro function that stores a time-saving sequence of commands for instant recall.
