Tag: phone

Essential Phone PH-1 is Official

Andy Rubin may have been teasing a smartphone for a while, but now the device known as the Essential Phone PH-1 is official. The Essential phone costs $699 and has flagship specifications like a Qualcomm 835 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage.

The phone will be launched in the US to start and will be unlocked to all carriers. Essential is making the design of the phone simple, but with two prong connection, and working on a host of accessories that click into place, starting with the worlds smallest 360 degree camera.

The essential phone has a full front 5.71 inch display with radiused corners with a 19:10 aspect ratio and a 2560 x 1312 QHD resolution and a brightness of 500 nits. The back has 13 MP dual cameras with one RGB sensor and one Monochrome sensor and f/1.85 aperture lens. The front has an 8 MP camera and both cameras are capable of shooting 4k video at 30fps.

The Essential phone also has a 3040mAh battery and supports fast charging using USB, but it does have a cordless dock that allows you to lay flat the phone.

The design and specifics of the brand mention the basics and essentials as the focus of the company, the design is built around a solid titanium frame, which is completely scratch and ding resistant, with a ceramic back and gorilla glass front.The company drop tested the titanium frame phone, and found it to do better than the “Aluminum competitor” the Essential Phone Ph-1 is only 7.8 mm thick.

The phone has been launched in black and white and will launch in two additional colors at a later date. Those in the US can book the Essential phone on the company’s website.

May 30, 2017
Land Rover Smartphone to Launch in 2017

Tata owned Jaguar Land Rover is working on a luxury smartphone and accessories to launch by 2017. The task of which has been given to Bullitt Group. Who will be developing a custom engineered smartphone and a whole range of accessories to be branded with the Lard Rover moniker.

Incorporating iconic Land Rover design and innovative technology into the mobile phone sector with Bullitt Group presents an exciting challenge and fantastic opportunity to take the brand into a new dimension,” said Lindsay Weaver, director of licensing and branded goods at Jaguar Land Rover

With the maximum interest in the Smartphone category, Land Rover seems to be excited to profit from the same. However many companies have tried and failed miserably in the past. While some products simply rode on the success of the base brands (Porsche Designed Blackberry Smartphone), the base brands eventually seem to end up with little strengths.

The portfolio is now under development by Bullitt Group, working directly with Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations Group. The Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations team are responsible for designing and engineering high specification vehicles, bespoke commissions and heritage products.

Either way we are excited to get our mitts on these smartphones, as they are expected to launch with a whole host of accessories early next year.

May 10, 2016
OnePlus Launches a Sandstone Cover for iPhone 6 and 6s

OnePlus launched a cover for iPhone 6 and 6s yesterday. No, we didn’t make a mistake -it has happened. The cover is called OnePlus Sandstone Case and is available on the OnePlus website for $19.99 (about Rs. 1400).

The Sandstone Case is made of polycarbonate and is expected to provide the same tactic feeling as OnePlus devices. The measurements of the accessory are 138.7 x 70.2 x 10.5 mm, and it weighs 20 grams.

Just when you thought you’ve seen it all -there’s more. For a limited period, that is the holiday season, buyers will also find themselves a OnePlus X invite in the box of the cover. You may have paid a hefty sum to get to lay your hands on an iPhone 6 or 6s, but would you be now willing to cover it with the OnePlus logo?

Makers of the Sandstone Case clearly seem to think you would. That’s one confident -and bizarre- move, OnePlus. Many see this as the company’s attempt to move away from the image of being solely an Android vendor. Let’s see how the market responds to this.

December 2, 2015
Watch: BlackBerry’s First Android Phone Caught on Video

Baka Mobile has done a hands-on video on the new Blackberry Venice. With its release dates still unknown, speculations are being made about how it couldn’t be far now that someone has had the opportunity to review it up close.

Baka confirms the presence of a physical camera button, volume rockers and a smart action key, along with a front facing speaker grille and a microSD slot. Blackberry once again brings best of both worlds in its keyboards, which like the Passport, boasts of a biometric sense touch. Scrolling through documents and long web pages just became so much easier. Unlike older Blackberry handsets, the Venice has an equally distributed weight across the screen and the keyboard.

Tap-to-wake, Blackberry Hub, Blackberry Device search, and Google Search are some of the cool new additions the gadget possesses. For a closer look at the Venice, check out the video put up by Baka Mobile below.

September 19, 2015
Top 5 Smartphones Which Have Style, But No Substance

In this over-crowded smartphone market, there are many low and high-end phones that complement their price. Spending money on such phones is never an issue as they perform the tasks well. But some manufacturers believe in style, no matter if the phones have the required features or not.

Here’s a list of some handsets that do not stand up to the true definition of a smartphone and bear style with no or little features.

Vertu Signature Cobra

This extravagant device is a limited edition phone designed by French jeweller Boucheron. The Vertu Signature Cobra is adorned with two diamonds, two emeralds and 439 rubies and is priced at $310,000. The phone, unlike today’s smartphones, doesn’t pack top-notch features and provides only basic functionality of calling, texting, etc. Released in October 2011, only eight of these phones were produced.

Heart 401AB

Next in the list is the stylish heart-shaped mobile that was announced recently. This weird piece is made for women who want something really extraordinary. But we are a little dubious about its market value in India as it is more of a toy with no camera, a monochrome screen of 0.9-inch, 128x36p resolution and no messaging feature.

Ancord Diamond Crypto

Ancord Diamond Crypto is a massive bling accessory for tech lovers. Designed by Peter Aloisson, this luxury smartphone is one of the most expensive phones out there and is studded with 50 diamonds. The navigation key is made of 18k rose gold, and this piece of jewellery/phone comes at a whopping price of $1.3 million. The phone has a TFT display and features SMS, MMS, E-mail, Internet capability, WAP, JAVA support and a media player, which you can find on any phone of sub-Rs. 5000 range. However, we agree that it was released in 2006 when Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Hotspot and 4G capability were not common, but still, it is not worthy of spending $1.3 million on a phone/accessory.

Sony Ericsson Black Diamond

Sony Ericsson has earned a name for good but slightly expensive phones, but this smartphone has broken all price records by the company till date. Costing $300,000, the phone cannot stand next to the devices in sub-Rs. 8000 category. It has an unimpressive 2-inch OLED display, 4 MP camera, 128 MB internal memory and regular connectivity features. The phone was released in 2006 so nothing much to expect in terms of feature.

Buddha Phone 268

Another device that may be impressive through its concept, but will fail to dazzle tech geeks, is the Buddha Phone 268. It’s a gold luxury round mobile and is inspired by the Buddhist design. With a 2-inch LCD display, 1.3 MP camera, and other standard capacities, the phone is below basic.

January 29, 2015
HTC One Makes an Appearance in Gold

We recently witnessed Apple unveil the new iPhone 5s in a new Gold color variant, earlier this week. It now appears that another flagship smartphone is all set to join the Gold league that was kicked off by Apple.

HTC’s flagship, the Full HD screen phone has been spotted in a Gold colour. The leaked images have been posted by the Chinese forum Weibo. The leaked images show the front and rear chassis of the HTC One Gold model. However, the parts from the rear panel are missing in the images. The site does not reveal any additional details related to the alleged HTC One Gold variant.

Originally the HTC One was launched in two colour variants, Black and Silver. Soon, the company showcased a ‘Glamour Red’ version of the device. The Glamour Red variant of HTC One was offered initially in the UK.

Recently, HTC announced a new colour option for the HTC One, dubbed as Vivid Blue which joined the three existing colour options – Black, Silver and Red. Recently, it was announced that the HTC One will get Android 4.3 by the end of September.

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September 13, 2013
Huawei Ascend P2 Press shots leak to confirm 13 MP camera, Slim Design

Wondering why Smartphones are still so fat? Well Huawei might be there with an answer to all the bulk with the new Huawei Ascend P2, a smartphone thats only 6.45mm thick.

The leaked images confirm that the Huawei Ascend P2 is indeed in the pipeline, and that too with a mammoth 13 MP camera and a slick metal body. Apart from the details mentioned little is known about the P2 , although rumors are pegging a full 1080p HD display at only 4.5 inches, 2GB of RAM, and a big 3000mAh battery for power.

The Huawei Ascend P2 is said to be Shipping with Jelly Bean 4.x, and the only think keeping the media vary is the 1.8 GHz Quad Core SOC which is of an unknown / self developed / Chinese nature. Keeping performance estimates on this device low. However, with the recent trend of phablets, Huawei might just do well in a market like India with a Quad Core Full HD Phone, with 2 Gb of RAM at the price of say a Galaxy Grand.

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January 25, 2013
HTC J Butterfly Launched, First phone with a 5 inch full 1080p Display – Only for Japan

HTC has made it to the worlds first record when it comes to the display matrix with the new HTC J Butterfly. The phone is a Android 4.1 Jelly Bean device and features a 5-inch, 440ppi full-HD “Super LCD 3” panel. The HTC j Butterfly also has a 1.5GHz quad-core APQ8064 underneath which is actually a Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC.

The HTC J Butterfly also has 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, microSDHC expansion, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 (LE), NFC, LTE and CDMA/GSM/UMTS/GPRS radios which means its perfect for the rest of the world. The phone weighs 140g , and it’s waterproof as well, rated at IPX5. The Battery is marked at 2,020mAh although the specs arn’t final the phone has been launched with thte carrier KDDI in Japan. Users of KDDI network can get this mammoth and powerful phone in early December, in color options of red, white or black.

HTC is a Taiwanese manufacturer of smartphones and tablets. The company initially made smartphones based mostly on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system software, but in 2009 it began to shift its core focus away from Windows Mobile devices to devices based on Android OS, and in 2010 to Windows Phone OS as well.

HTC is also a member of the Open Handset Alliance, a group of handset manufacturers and mobile network operators dedicated to the advancement of the Android mobile device platform. The HTC Dream, marketed by T-Mobile in many countries as the T-Mobile G1 or Era G1 in Poland, was the first phone on the market to use the Android mobile device platform.

October 17, 2012
Live Coverage : Samsung will Launch the Galaxy Note 2 in India Today (Video)

Samsung will Launch the new Galaxy Note 2 in India at 2:00 PM IST at an even that will be held in Hyderabad. Make sure you bookmark this page to get the latest updates and watch the Live Video stream.

September 27, 2012
Cleartrip launches mobile app for iPhone

Cleartrip launched its mobile app for iPhone with its special split-screen search facility.

The split screen design was invented by Cleartrip when it launched six years ago.

The new search form hosts some handy features like geo-location for selecting departure airport for current location, recently searched airports and the ability to easily swap the “from” and “to” cities with a tap. Additionally, there are filters that help narrow down the search by sorting results by specific airlines, flight timings or non-stop flights.

Payments can be made using credit cards, debit cards or net banking account. Alternately, by signing into the Cleartrip Account, payments can also be made using Expressway. The cards selected on Cleartrip’s desktop site are also available on this app.

August 7, 2012
LG Optimus L3 Dual available online at INR 8,299

LG has made available the dual-SIM (GSM+GSM) version of its budget phone Optimus L3 priced at Rs 8,299. The company launched phone’s single-SIM variant earlier in May this year.

The device runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system and is powered by a Cortex A5 800MHz processor. It has a 3.2-inch TFT display with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. The Optimus L3 features a 3.2MP camera, 384MB of RAM, 1GB of internal storage and microSD card slot that supports storage up to 32GB.

For connectivity, the Optimus L3 Dual supports Wi-Fi, 3G, Blutooth and USB 2.0. The device comes with a 1,500 mAh battery, which is rated to deliver 17 hours on 2G and 10 hours on 3G.

The Optimus L3 Dual comes preloaded with a number of applications such as YouTube, Android Market, Google+, Gmail, Latitude, News and Weather Update, Software Update, Google Talk, Google, Gmail Sync, AOL, Yahoo, Hot Mail and LGE Mail.

August 3, 2012
Samsung Launches GALAXY Beam Projector Phone For Rs 30,000

Samsung Electronics today announced the launch of Samsung Galaxy Beam projector smartphone in India, priced at INR 30,000. The smartphone will enable the users to display and share multimedia content anywhere on a large luminous projector screen or on a clear wall or surface.

The Beam is said to house a 15 lumen bright lamp that is capable of projecting a high definition 50″ wide image at a distance of 2 meters. It comes with a 4″ WVGA multi-touch capacitive LCD screen, and is powered by a 1 GHz dual-core CPU. Weighing in at 145 grammes, this phone is just 12.5 mm (0.5″) thick, with the rest of the dimensions being 123.9 mm (l) x 64.2 mm (w).

Other specs include a 5 MP snapper capable of 720p video capture, a front 1.3 mp camera for video chat, and 8 GB of internal storage that’s expandable up to 32 GB via microSD. According to the spec sheet, a pair of 2000 mAh battery packs offer up to 20 hours of talktime. However, it’s wise to take this claim with a pinch of salt, as the figure seems a little too far-fetched to be true. In addition to a wide range of apps available through Google Play, the smartphone comes bundled with a drawing tool for presentations, which is touted to aid in drawing viewers’ attention without the need for a laser pointer.

However, we feel that the phone might not be able to outshine its competitors based on its Projector feature alone.

July 19, 2012
Nokia launches Asha 305 dual-SIM phone for Rs. 4,688

Nokia has launched its first full touch Series 40 feature phone, the Asha 305, in India. The phone, which was announced globally in June, is now available from Nokia’s online store for Rs 4,688. The handset is powered by Series 40 platform, which is world’s most widely used mobile platform

The Asha 305 sports a 3-inch resistive touchscreen with a resolution of 240×320 pixels and offers a new Swipe UI elements, which were supposed to be part of its abandoned Meltemi platform. Other features include a 2-megapixel camera, Dual-SIM capabilities and a microSD card support for up to 32GB.

Nokia sweetens the deal even more by offering 40 EA games for free including classics like Tetris, Need for Speed and Fifa 2012, which can be downloaded from the Nokia Store.

July 18, 2012
Micromax launches X259, powered by Solar Energy

Micromax has announced the launch of X259 handset, which comes with a built-in solar panel. Priced at Rs. 2,499, it is the first solar phone from the company.

The built-in solar panel allows the phone to get automatically charged when exposed to sunlight. It is targeted to rural consumers, who constantly grapple with power cuts over long durations. According to the company, three hours of solar charge provides 1.5 hours of talk time on the phone.

It features a 2.4-inch QVGA screen with a resolution of 240x320p, a VGA camera, a 1000mAh Li-ion battery and dual-SIM dual-standby feature. The handset also supports Bluetooth and GPRS connectivity.

[quote]”We have been at the forefront of innovation. We have introduced many categories into this competitive Industry be it long battery life phones or dual SIM phones. With the introduction of this our intent is to get rid of the mobile phone charger by including a solar panel on the device itself,” stated Rahul Sharma, co-founder, Micromax.[/quote]

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Go Green with the Micromax X259 SOLAR PHONE

? Micromax X259 comes with solar cells which can be charged through solar energy

? 3 hours of solar charge provides 1.5 hours of talk time

New Delhi, July 12^th, 2012: Micromax Informatics Limited (“Micromax”), the 12th largest handset manufacturer in the World (According to Global Handset Vendor Market share report from Strategy Analytics) today announced the launch of X259, with a built-in solar panel.

Micromax has always been recognized for its innovation in its device portfolio and has created categories such as marathon battery life phones, dual SIM Phones, Life Style phone and many more. Micromax adds yet another category to its offering of unique devices. The Micromax X259 Solar Phone priced at Rs. 2499/-, it is the company’s first solar phone which enables the users to charge their phone using solar energy.

Micromax X259 comes with a solar panel technology through which the phone automatically gets charged through solar power on exposure to sunlight. With unpredictable power cuts specifically in the rural areas this handset will be the perfect solution to address the issue of recharging the phone through electricity.

Commenting on the device launch, Mr. Rahul Sharma, Co – Founder, Micromax said, “We have been at the forefront of innovation. We have introduced many categories into this competitive Industry be it long battery life phones or dual SIM phones. With the introduction of this our intent is to get rid of the mobile phone charger by including a solar panel on the device itself”.

Micromax X259 features a 2.4” QVGA screen with a resolution of 240X320. The phone is powered with a 1000mAh Li-ion battery and facilitates dual SIM dual standby feature. The users can share images, videos, music with friends through the phone’s Bluetooth connectivity.

Micromax X259 is available at Rs. 2499/- This model will be available across all leading retail outlets across India.

For more information, please visit www.micromaxinfo.com

About Micromax:

Micromax is the 12th largest handset manufacturer in the World (According to Global Handset Vendor Market share report from Strategy Analytics). The Indian brand is reaching out to the global frontier with innovative products that challenge the status quo that Innovation comes with a price. Micromax has sales presence across India and global presence in Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri-Lanka, Maldives, UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Afghanistan and Brazil.

* Micromax holds the 3^rd position amongst the handset manufacturers in India as pre revenue with a market share of 6.9% for the FY 2011. (Source: V&D report)

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July 13, 2012
Samsung Galaxy S3 / SIII Pebble Blue Unboxing

As requested by our viewers, Bharat Nagpal unboxes the Pebble Blue version of the Samsung Galaxy S3. The box contains a 2100 mAH battery, Stereo headphones with changeable earbuds and a microphone, a mains plug with USB sync charge cable, a Quick start guide and a Warranty card. The MRP of the device is INR 42,000 but is available in the market for around INR 36,000.

We will be coming out with a full in-depth review soon, so stay tuned!

Check out our unboxing, hand-on, video and image samples and launch videos here :

July 12, 2012