Tag: Android KitKat

Hands On : Micromax Canvas 4 Plus

Micromax has dropped a few handsets in the past months, that have made big news. The Canvas Nitro, Canvas Gold and the A1 Android One Phone, are a few examples of products that made headlines. The Canvas 4 Plus will make headlines of its own, however, it may be the iPhone 6 plus’ bendgate that influences this one.

The Canvas 4 plus, is a new entrant and features a 5-inch 1280 x 720 p display along with an octa core Mediatek chipset, 1 GB of Ram and micro SD card expansion. The phone is might slim at just 7 mm thick and boy, does it bend easily.

In our unboxing of the phone, just because the phone looks so similar to an iPhone, we lightly attempted a bend test and it bent out of shape. We didn’t go all the way, as it would totally ruin the review of the phone. However, once the whole mumbo jumbo is over we might give it another go.

The phone also shows signs of warming up during basic usage and especially so during browsing the internet. The phone comes preloaded with a bunch of applications and the Quick Look blinkfeed-esque interface that takes away from the user experience and you will find yourself trying to remove them sooner than expected.

The phone other than the bending issues feels good in the hand and has metallic buttons, however the bending really makes you worry about the build and the plastic top and bottom parts come off easily at the back.

Specs	Micromax Canvas 4 plus	Gionee Elife S5.1	Gionee Elife S5.5	Huawei Ascend P6
Display	720×1280 pixels, 5.0 inches	720×1280 pixels, 4.9 inches	1080×1920 pixels, 5.0 inches	720×1280 pixels, 4.7 inches
Processor	MediaTek 1.7GHz octa-core	Qualcomm Snapdragon 400	Mediatek MT6592, Octa-core 1.7 GHz Cortex-A7	Huawei K3V2 Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A9
RAM	1 GB	1 GB	2 GB	2 GB
Storage	16 GB (expandable upto 32GB)	16 GB (non-expandable)	16 GB (non-expandable)	8 GB/16 GB
Camera	13 MP rear, 5 MP front	8 MP rear, 5 MP front	13 MP rear, 5 MP front	8 MP rear, 5 MP front
Battery	2000 mAh	2100 mAh	2300 mAh	2000 mAh
Operating system	Android 4.4.2	Android 4.3	Android OS, v4.2 (Jelly Bean), upgradable to v4.4.2 (KitKat)	Android OS, v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean), upgradable to v4.4.2 (KitKat)

October 28, 2014

Canvas 5 Might be Micromax’s First CyanogenMod-Based Smartphone

We had reported a few weeks back of a possibility of a CyanogenMod powered device coming from Micromax’s stable. Now DroidGoblin is reporting that the device can be Micromax Canvas 5. The phone is expected to be launched at a price of about Rs. 22000.

The phone is expected to sport a 5-inch full HD display. It will get its processing might from the Octa-Core processor from MediaTek, which it has been using in its top-end phones. It will come with 2GB of RAM and might have 16GB internal storage with an option to expand it through a MicroSD card. All of this is expected to come in an aluminum outer shell.

According to the report the phone isn’t light in the camera department either. It is expected to offer an 18-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera.

The CyanogenMod on the device will be based on Android Kitkat 4.4.4 which will probably make it the most updated Micromax device out there. CyanogenMod is definitely the most popular custom Android ROM and the news of the device from Micromax has met with wide appreciation. As of now, there are over 12 million active installs of CyanogenMod till June 2014.

On the spec-sheet, the device sounds great and will easily find a lot of takers here in India. This will be a great news for people looking for a device that offers regular updates. There are also tons of customizability features on the ROM, which will let you own a unique device designed by you. This seems like a great new step for the Indian company, and we can’t wait to check out the device.

October 21, 2014
LG G3 Unboxing and Hands On

The LG G3 is finally here and we think it’s priced perfect for market that we are in. We haven’t been this excited for a product in a while and the G3 just makes the cut. The phone is a beautiful amalgamation of specs and design, hardware and looks, brains and brawn, basically however you put it, LG may have the perfect smartphone here.

Let us put everything in perspective, the G3 is packed with a beautiful 5.5 inch 2560 x 1440 px display, giving this bad boy a whopping 534 pixels per inch density on the IPS panel. You also get Gorilla Glass 3 and a highly optimised and fast Snapdragon 801 Qualcomm MSM8975AC chipset with Quad Cores and 2.5 Ghz on the clock.

The beauty of it all is that for a price difference of just a few thousand rupees/ less than 50$ , you can get a higher speced version with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage vs the usual 16GB storage and 2 GB RAM version.

The box is golden in colour and is representative of the LG G series of phones. Like many smartphones before this you will see the usual set of things in the box, a cable a charger, handsfree and documentation. LG has ignored the need of things like NFC tags and such, because frankly there is no need.

Camera and Laser Autofocus

Price wise the lower spec’d variant will be available for Rs. 46999 vs the 3GB + 32 GB variant which has been launched for Rs. 49999. Did we mention that the device is LTE enabled. Watch the Unboxing below.

July 21, 2014
New Launch : The LG G3 Comes to India For Rs. 47,990

LG has officially launched the baddest smartphone till date in India, the LG G3, officially for a smart price of Rs. 47,990 for the 16 GB variant and Rs. 52,990 for the 32 GB variant. The LG G3 is also the first commercially available phone from a big manufacturer to feature a 2K display and what a display it is!

The LG G3 is the third iteration in their flagship line and we have to say, unlike their Korean counter brand, they seem to be innovating on the right side of the brain which is usually the left. The G3 has a 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor and comes in 16 and 32GB internal storage variants with 2GB and 3GB RAM, respectively. Both models support up to 128GB microSD cards.

LG has also made the battery removable along with the back panel which comes of easy to house one micro sim card and one micro SD card. The phone is LTE enabled from the get go so you should be mostly happy with the bands supported.

LG has positioned Amitabh Bachchan as the promotion celeb for this particular product and you will see a lot more of him in the coming days is what LG tells us.

LG has also mastered the focus capabilities of this phone says the company thanks to the new Laser autofocus : which also uses phase detection to get quick and precise focus on your subject so that the 13 MP OIS equipped camera can take a picture for you.

Watch the full Unboxing here, and stay tuned for the Review galore coming right up.

July 21, 2014
Exclusive : Hands On with Gionee’s S5.5 KitKat Update

Gionee will be pushing out Android KitKat Update version 4.4.2 with the new Amigo UI to some devices in the coming days (as told to us by Arvind Vohra in our LetsTalkShop ).

The first two devices to get the said update are the CTRL V5 and Gionee Elife S5.5, while most owners of the V5 should already be getting update notifications, owners of the Elife S5.5 will soon get a notification for the proposed update.

We went hands on with the Elife S5.5’s Android 4.4 KitKat Update, and we can tell you, it is one major improvement. Apart from being a major overhaul in frameworks the new upgrade is at least twice as responsive and 50% lighter on the resources.

Here is a ChangeLog for the devices:

For the Gionee Elife Slim S5.5 and Gionee Ctrl V5

1. Android KitKat Update

2. New Desktop layout

3. Removed the World Cricket Champion and Real Football game

4. Added Du Speed Booster

5. Updated Amigo Paper with a brand New UI

6. Updated Game Zone with a New UI

7. Updated GioneeXender

8. Updated UC Browser

9.Updated NQ Mobile Security

10. Updated Kingsoft WPS

11. Removed Settings Shortcut from Notification Panel

12.Theme and Wallpaper will be reset to Default after System Update, but Data will not be Lost.

While you wait for the final KitKat update which should be a big download 800-900 MB in size, other devices including the Elife E7 and possible previous versions are also set to get Android KitKat in the coming weeks. As mentioned above, we did an update and the data remains safe, while some of the settings get reset, including the wallpaper, which you can reselect.

Stay Tuned for more updates.

July 2, 2014
Micromax Canvas Gold A300 Review
Micromax has recently transitioned into a newer dimension of phones, from bulky and dated phones running older versions of Android, the trend is now to get shapely, sleek devices with Android KitKat out of the box. The current flagship, aka the Micromax Canvas Gold A300, is a testament of that, and while the Canvas Knight was burning our desires (quite literally), the Golden boy here may have turned our mood around. Let’s see how it holds up.

Overview

[pullquote_left]The oddly questionable gold colour is far from that of the iPhone 5s[/pullquote_left]

The Canvas Gold A300 is yet another flagship Canvas phone from the company that promises a roundup of interesting elements. A good set of specifications, great build quality, design and good optics, giving it a big thumbs up on the premium look and feel. Even though most have called it a replica of the iPhone 5s in a bigger version, the oddly questionable gold colour is far from that of the iPhone 5s.

Hardware and Build

Running the Canvas Gold A300 is an Octa-Core Mediatek 6592T chipset clocked at 2.0 GHz tied up with 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of Storage. 25GB of the 32 GB is available to dump your media, games and files. The rear camera is a 16MP shooter with a 5MP front camera which does an impressive job with selfies (see camera section)

The front has an impressive and vivid 5.5 inch 1920 x 1080p display this is surprisingly visible outdoors and has good viewing angles. The phone has dual SIM capabilities and can run data on 3g on both cards. The Sim slots comprise of a full size SIM slot and a micro SIM slot on either side of the device.

The phone is manufactured out of a “single billet” of aluminium alloy with slots for antennas in plastic on the rear of the device. The phone is readily available in two variants, a Gold+White and the Gold+Black, the only difference being the plastic inserts and the colour of the bezel.

Apart from the exceptionally golden – gold colour the phone has a pretty good design, and the metal is nicely finished to give a great feel in the hand. The beveled edges of the phone quite replicate the iPhone look, seen specifically iPhone 4 and up. The flat lay-on-the table design will be appreciated by owners quite a lot, although a fatter lip for the front would have given a strong protection to the screen albeit taking away a bit of the slim profile of the smartphone.

Phone and Networks

The phone is unique in many ways, instead of selection your data network, you can have data on either SIM, which is great. The weird combination of Sim card sizes may work for some people, especially if they don’t want to cut/get micro SIM cards vs. regular sized ones.

The networks are strong and audio in and out of the phone is impressive. The network remains positively active even during tower switches, and we didn’t see a huge problem with dropped calls.

The WiFi seemed a bit low to us, and in our initial tests seemed weak.

Multimedia, Display and Camera

For most media is playable on the Canvas Gold A300, and we found nothing to complain about, the audio could be a little bit louder in our opinion. The music output from the headphones is a lot more impressive when compared to any previous handset, the “flaming knight” included.

As far as the video playback goes, the display does a fantastic job, jitter-free vibrant video playback. The phone is capable enough and will deliver a good experience to most users.

The camera system is a good hardware and software upgrade, and the 16 MP sensor is big enough to give a noise free low light performance. The day shots are noteworthy and brilliantly saturated to give a larger than life photography experience. The camera app is simplistic and new features like 99 shot continuous burst along with tap-hold to track subjects actively will come in handy for video.

Video capture frame rates are slow to display on the screen, in fact when you are capturing video there seems to be a lag in the screen aka the viewfinder. But, we were testing a pre-production software and apparently this has been fixed in the final build. Video is captured at a resolution of 1920 x 1080p at 30fps just like many other handsets in this bracket.

Performance and Gaming

The Canvas Gold A300 is a star performer scoring great results on benchmarks and showing excellent performance in daily use overall. You will be happy multitasking on this handset as it can handle app switching very well and thanks to inbuilt RAM management the phone automatically drives resources to the active application. The apps in the background use the adaptive suspend from Android KitKat.

Thanks to all this software and management goodness, the gaming experience is excellent, with heat at a minimum. The device does heat up from around the camera with extended periods of use, however the minute you are done you will be happy to put the phone in your pocket and move out. Games have a superfluid experience along with excellent touch screen feedback and responsiveness.

Battery Life and Conclusion

The battery on the Canvas Gold A300 lasts a good full day of use, and thanks to KitKat and power management you will not be searching for the charger in a hurry. The bloatware on the Canvas Gold A300 has been brought down to a minimum, and most of the preloaded apps useful, those which are not required can be gotten rid of.

With a software update thanks to FOTA, the device may get Android L (hopefully) and with the company working to fix their service issues the Micromax Canvas Gold seems like a good overall product. With little or no complaints from the hardware and excellent UI including a new keyboard (Swiftkey) pre loaded for use, most will be happy with the device out of the box.

With more options in this price bracket including Gionee Elife S5.5, the Moto X and the Desire 816 it will mostly come down to user requirements.

Review Video

[tw-column width=”one-half”]

GOOD THINGS
- Build Quality is Impressive
- Powerful Hardware
- Great Battery
- KitKat and FOTA Updates
- Cameras are sharp
[/tw-column]

[tw-column width=”one-half” position=”last”]

BAD THINGS
- Strange Gold Colour
- No Lip around Display
- No Included Case
[/tw-column]
June 30, 2014
Report: Nexus 5 And Android KitKat Will Launch On October 14th

With the Nexus 4 being sold out at Google Play and it receiving its carrier ‘end of life’ status, rumours are that the leaked ‘Nexus 5 will be officially unveiled in October. The first sign of a potential release date comes with Android-focussed site AusDriod stating that Google and LG will unveil the Nexus 5 on Monday, October 14th – which is 1-month away.

Documents on the FCC reveal that the phone will have a 4.96-inch diagonal display and will be just 131.9 mm x 68.2 mm.

In addition to this date, it’s also expected that the Nexus 5 will bring the availability of Android OS 4.4 KitKat to the masses. Little is known about the specific features Google will rollout, but the upgrade is rumoured to bring the following:

– New notification widgets
– Firmware availability to older phones
– Fragmentation changes (screen resizing)
– Miracast updates
– New Gallery Visualisation
– New APIs regarding animations
– Change android default blue to other preset palette colours

Of course as we do with all rumours, we suggest you take this one with a healthy grain of salt. At any rate, an October release is sounding more than likely.

[Via]

September 16, 2013