Review: Samsung Galaxy S3

SPAKLING BLUE: THE NEW SAMSUNG GALAXY S3 (SIII)

NEW DELHI: It is not wrong to say that Samsung Galaxy S III (SGS III) is the most awaited Android phone of the year. Its predecessors redefined the smartphone market. There are expectations that it is going to do the same.

The phone is finally here. We have been using it for the last 10 days. Does it live up to the expectations? Is it the best Android phone — nay make it the best smartphone — ever made? Is it worth the hefty price tag? Many questions, we know. Let's find the answers.

XOLO X900: Review

THE NEW LAVA XOLO X900

The first Intel smartphone is here. After years of work, California based Intel announced the first smartphones with its own Atom chips at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year. Not able to secure the support of popular smartphone manufacturers like HTC and Samsung, company went ahead with Chinese tech giant Lenovo and relatively unknown Indian manufacturer Lava to launch the initial smartphones.

The name Lava doesn't inspire much confidence in Indian consumers. While the company launched its first smartphone in India last year, it hasn't been able to generate much buzz. Intel needed hardware partners, and Lava needed a product that would help shed its image of a feature-phone manufacturer. In many ways, XOLO is a partnership of convience for both sides..

X900 is technically the first Intel powered smartphone to ship worldwide; it is based on Intel's Medfield reference design and has been priced at Rs. 21,999. In this review, we will be find out if the first Intel smartphone is capable making a place for Intel in the smartphone chip market.

Hardware
We have seen quite a few beautiful devices in the last few weeks. Coming from Sony's Xperia S, Lava XOLO X900 is a tad less aesthetically pleasing but that shouldn't be taken as a negative for the smartphone.

For a device that mirrors the reference design, XOLO X900 looks polished and feels nice in hand. The overall design isn't revolutionary but it is some fine work and consumers won't be disappointed.

Featuring a rectangular shape, XOLO X900 reminds of iPhone 4/4S , it is similar in looks with the chrome ring, button placement and even the micro-SIM card slot, which isn't really bad.
The front of the X900 houses a 4.03-inch display with 1024x600p resolution, along with capacitive Android buttons, 1.3MP front camera, earpiece, MIC and a bunch of sensors. The micro-SIM card slot is present on the right side with two-stage dedicated camera button, volume rocker and speaker.
The matching second speaker for stereo sound is present on the left with HDMI-out port. The company hasn't clubbed any HDMI cable in the box, which would certainly have been a nice addition.
Bottom is pretty much clean apart from the Micro-USB cum charging port, while top includes power button and the 3.5mm headphone jack. On the rubberised back, consumers will find the 8MP camera, LED Flash, regulatory symbols, Intel and XOLO branding.
It might not be the thinnest or lightest phone around, but when it comes with real life usage, XOLO X900 works out pretty well.

Display
In the world of HTC One X and Apple iPhone 4S, manufacturers truly need some great work to compete with some really awesome display panels. WVGA no longer cuts and HD is the standard - anything less is simply a dissapointment for a top of the line smartpone.
Intel and Lava have opted something that falls in the middle - 1024x600p resolution; it is not very common for smartphones, but we have seen it in quite a few tablets including Kindle Fire and Samsung Galaxy Tab 620. It might not be 720p HD, but it is not a disappointment either. At its price, X900 will be competing with Motorola Atrix 2, Samsung Galaxy S Plus, which come with qHD and WVGA resolutions - thus X900 surely wins that race.
XOLO X900 features a 4.03-inch display, which is pretty decent and offers nice colour output and viewing angles. Although in comparison with the recent smartphones like HTC One X and Galaxy Nexus, we found it a tad underwhelming. But then that's a battle no one was expecting the X900 to win.
As the display has 295 pixels-per-inch, consumers would hardly notice any individual pixels on the device. Even the touch experience is great and we never had any problems with touch accuracy.
XOLO X900's display is also sufficiently bright and consumers will not have issues while operating the phone directly under the sun.

Camera
Cameras have become an integral part of smartphone experience these days, manufacturers are spending considerable amount of time and effort in bringing something unique and useful to the table. - The ImageSense enhancements in HTC One series of smartphones or Pureview technology in Nokia 808 are testament to the fact.
Intel and Lava have also tried to include their own set of improvements to the camera in X900 - let's see how they worked out.

BACK QUEEN: THE NEW LAVA XOLO X900

X900 houses an 8-megapixel camera sensor in the smartphone, which has been clubbed with one of the most comprehensive camera apps we have seen in recent times. It also comes with something called Burst Shot, last seen in HTC One X, that allows consumers to click upto ten pictures in less than a second.
Lava and Intel even had a dancer at the X900 launch to clearly show how effective burst shots can be while taking shots of something that is in motion. It was the first feature that we tried on X900 and it work flawlessly. Overall, even in non-burst mode, the quality of still captures was a tad disappointing. We found it sub-par and looking at the cameras in other modern smartphones, it certainly lacked a bit.
Shots taken from the 5MP camera of Galaxy Nexus were better in colour output, vibrancy and details than shots the 8MP camera of XOLO X900.
The camera app on the smartphone also offers various colour filters like Sepia, BW, Negative, which can be applied directly in the app itself.
The video recording interface on the phone is similar to the still imaging UI and it allows you to shoot up to 1080p video, which is pretty much a standard in high-end smartphones. You can even apply the colour effects while recording a video or set white balance or zoom. The recording output is decent and looks good. Camera maintains auto-focus continuously, which helps in capturing long videos with a lot of movement.
The 1.3MP front camera is decent and you can even record 720p videos with it.

Software/ Interface
Give us some Ice Cream Sandwich - consumers with old Android phones have been shouting the same since November 2011, when ICS source code was publically released. Even if we forgive manufacturers for being super-late in providing updates for old smartphones, how can they launch a new smartphone with old operating system version on-board?
Intel and Lava have done the same with XOLO X900. When manufacturers like HTC could launch their One series of devices with ICS and a comprehensive UI on-board, there is no excuse for Intel or Lava to release X900 with Gingerbread.
Having said that, as a Gingerbread smartphone, XOLO X900 is quite decent as company has kept the interface as well the whole Android experience pretty much stock. There are no extra applications loaded on the smartphone apart from the XOLO Care app and the inclusion of Swype.
Talking about the app compatibility, being the new architecture for Android, there is a lot of confusion on which apps will be compatible with the phone's Intel x86 platforms. While apps like Facebook, Twitter, Barcode Scanner, Astro, Dropbox, and Instagram work flawlessly, several games ,Shadowgun, Deer Hunter, Backstab, Temple Run, and Asphalt 6 amongst them, aren't supported as of date.
We hope Intel is working proactively with developers to get such apps ready for the platform.


Performance /Battery Life
XOLO X900 recently became the first smartphone worldwide to ship with Intel's Atom Z2460 32nm SoC with processor clocked at up to 1.6 GHz. It also comes with a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU at 400 MHz, and a dual channel LPDDR2 memory.
Despite being powered a single-core processor, XOLO X900 performs at par with other smartphones in the same price-bracket and are powered by dual-core processor. There is
no-sluggishness or lag while going through menus or working with the applications.
Even before Intel entered the smartphone arena, a lot of questions were raised around the battery life of any future phones based on Intel processors. x86 has traditionally been seen as a power hungry platform, not suitable for use in smartphones and other devices where battery juice is at a premium.
The x86 power myth also seems busted as X900's battery backup is inline with any other competing high-end Android smartphone. Medium to heavy users will be able to pass the day with the smartphone's 1460 mAh battery.
The gaming performance in pretty good and most casual games worked flawlessly; although, we did miss many popular gaming titles because of incompatibility with the architecture.
Intel has clearly taken a big step with the first smartphone and it is certainly a worthy competitor, but there are few things that it needs work on - like app compatibility.

Verdict
While the Lava XOLO X900 performs pretty well for its price, the positioning as well as the branding might well end up hurting the phone. Although Lava has pitched it under the name XOLO, Indian consumers are very brand conscious and a 'Lava-made Rs. 22,000 phone' factor will surely play a lot of role in their buying decision. But, if you can look beyond the brand, XOLO X900 is worthy of consideration.


Pros

• Quality display
• Overall performance

Cons

• Camera
• Dated Gingerbread on board
• Lack of compatibility with select apps

Ratings
Design: 3
Display: 3.5
Camera: 3
Performance: 3.5
Software: 3
Battery Life: 3.5
Value for Money: 3
Ecosystem: 3
Overall: 3.5

Courtesy: NDTV

Review: HTC One V

SIZZLING BRIGHT: THE NEW HTC ONE V

A few weeks ago MobileRide reviewed One X, the flagship Android phone from HTC. We found it to be one of the finest Android phones ever made. The experience was polished, the design was gorgeous and the user interface was butter smooth. But it carries a price tag that puts it out of the reach of most phone buyers. At a market price of around Rs 36,500, One X is an expensive preposition. 

A better value for phone buyers could be One V. It belongs to the One Series and in terms of hierarchy sits below One X and One S. But HTC says that all One series phones provide a premium experience to users and despite its comparatively low price One V is no exception. One V also happens to be the cheapest phone in India that runs Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), the latest version of Android, out of the box. 
The device does look pretty good on paper. But can it serve a user well? Can it be the smartphone of choice for masses? We find out. 

Legendary design
People who are following Android scene for the last two years still remember HTC Legend fondly. In a market full of plasticky smartphones -- at that time even iPhone had a rather run-of-the-mill design -- Legend had striking looks. It was made of a unibody aluminum shell and had a chin that gave it a distinctive look. One V borrows heavily from Legend. Its aluminum unibody looks and feels great. The only piece of plastic is a small cover on the bottom, which can be removed to access slots for SIM and micro SD card. The chin is not as prominent as it was on the Legend. This is not a bad thing. The shorter chin makes the device look more compact. 

Though ICS has virtual buttons, HTC believes that users are better served by physical buttons. On all One series phones, three buttons -- back, home and multitasking -- sit below the screen. On One V, if a user long presses the multitasking button it also shows options or menu within the apps that are yet to adopt the user interface used by ICS. 

One V may not have the uber hardware but it seems to pack in enough to match its competitors. The phone has a 3.7-inch Super LCD screen with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. It is adequately bright, shows pleasant colours and has good touch sensitivity. There are reports that some One V screens have yellow spots. It's true. On our review sample we found two small yellow spots on the bottom of the screen. Though, these spots are only visible when the screen displays white background and most users may not even notice them unless they are specifically looking for them. 

One V is powered by a single core 1Ghz processor. There is 512MB RAM and 4GB internal storage. However, user accessible internal storage is less than 1GB but there is an option for a micro SD card of up to 32GB. The phone has a rear camera that can shoot pictures in up to 5 mega pixels and videos in a resolution of up to 720P. There is no front camera, so if you plan to do lots of video calls with your phone, stay clear of One V. 

Smooth experience
As detailed above, One V lacks the kind of hardware that will tickle the fancy of a phone enthusiast. But instead of headline grabbing features or specifications, what One V offers is solid user experience. The device runs HTC's custom user interface called Sense on top of ICS. We are not a fan of custom user interface that companies put up in their smartphones but the current version of Sense goes well with One series phones. 

Given its mid-range aspirations and underlying hardware, One V is not a particular fast phone. There is some lag during multitasking, opening apps and navigating between different screens. It's just a matter of a few milliseconds but if you have used a high-end Android phone you will notice. That said, the lag is never a deal-breaker as the performance is better than most mid-range Android devices. The phone doesn't freeze or hang the way some other Android phones do. And everything works well. Web browsing experience is good. Most popular video formats in a resolution of up to 720P play alright. GPS locks within seconds. 

Just like its older siblings, One V too has a separate chip for photo processing. It makes a difference in real life. We found the camera on One V to be better than what other mid-range phones sport. The photographs it produced had oversaturated colours. But it is not something that will bother too many users. The level of detail was good and low-light pictures were better than what other mid-range phones can manage. The videos recorded in good light were usable. 

Given the relatively smaller screen on One V, we were hoping for good battery life on it. It turned out we were right. Paired with a 3G connection, One V lasts around 13 hours when used for web browsing, emails, calls, Twitter, some photography and around 20 to 30 minutes of gaming. For an Android phone, it is a very good screen 

Sum of it all
Despite of its flaws, which are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, One V is a fantastic mid-range phone. There is a lot going for it. Compared to other mid-range phones, performance is good. Design and build quality belies its comparatively modest price. Screen - in terms of brightness and colours -- is very good. Camera is better than what other mid-range phones offer. It runs the latest version of Android. Put it all together and One V offers a solid Android experience at a comparatively affordable market price of around Rs 16,500. If you are out in the market looking for a mid-range smartphone that you will not be using to make video calls, it is a device worthy of your attention and your hard-earned money.


Courtesy: The Times Of India

Review: Nikon 1 J1 camera

SUPER LIGHT: THE NIKON 1 J1 CAMERA

There is a new breed of cameras in the market nowadays. These are called mirrorless cameras. While they are around for a few years now and have brought success to firms like Panasonic and Sony, the camera heavyweights Nikon and Canon have become serious about them only this year. 

Before we review one of the Nikon's offerings, let's quickly introduce mirrorless cameras. Unlike the DSLR cameras, they don't have a mirror-based optical viewfinder. This means they can accommodate a big image sensor in a smaller and compact body. In many ways, a mirrorless camera is an attempt to combine the best of a point & shoot camera, which is the compact size, and best of a DSLR camera, which is the image quality and interchangeable lens, into one device. The idea is definitely sound and has helped mirrorless cameras gain lot of traction in the market. 

Nikon launched two mirrorless cameras in India several weeks ago - 1 J1 and 1 V1. Of these the J1, the cheaper one, is with us today. Can it fulfill the promise and match picture quality of a DSLR camera without its additional bulk? Let's find out. 

Clean looks, fantastic build quality
J1 has a modern and minimalist design. There are few protruded parts and if the lens is not attached, the camera looks like a single unified block built with aluminum allow. At the same time, the build quality is top notch, something that a user will realize as soon he picks up the camera. It feels heavy for its size and dimensions. Is it a good thing? This will depend on whether you like your cameras to be light or feel reassuring in the hand with their weight. We like the solid feel J1 has. 

J1 can capture pictures in up to 10.1 mega pixels. It has a sensor size of 13.2 mm x 8.8 mm, which is considerably smaller compared to the APC C (23.4mm x 15.6mm) used in competing cameras like Sony Nex-5K. However, Nikon says that it uses a technology called high-speed AF CMOS, which helps J1 capture impressive amount of detail even in the low light conditions. The company calls its image sensor CX format. It has a crop factor of 2.7X. This means that if you use a 10mm lens on the camera, the actual focal length will be 27mm. 

The camera can shoot videos in up to 1080P - full HD - resolution. 

Just like other mirrorless cameras, J1 uses a proprietary lens mount called Nikon 1 mount. As part of the default kit the company bundles a 10-30 mm lens (27-81mm effective) with the J1. 

Some hits, some misses
We spent a considerable time with J1, shooting thousands of photographs in different conditions with two lenses - the 10-30mm and 30-110 telephoto. We shot in the daylight and in the pitch dark. We shot macros and landscapes. While the picture quality was mostly good, the overall experience turned out to be average. Let us explain. 

The pictures and videos taken with J1 have very good quality if the light is adequate. This means if you are shooting outdoors or in a well-lit room, the performance of J1 is stellar. The images have right amount of detail, pleasant colours and good sharpness. It especially handles dynamic range - the contrast between bright areas and dark areas in a scene - very well. The same is true for videos. Also, focus is very fast and camera performance is snappy. 

Unfortunately for J1, good performance in adequate conditions is no longer a big deal. A decent point & shoot camera performs somewhat similar if the conditions are ideal. The difference between good cameras and great cameras lies in the way they handle low-light conditions. Here, J1 performs marginally better than point & shoot cameras but falls short of image quality that similarly-priced mirrorless or DSLR cameras can produce. Given the size of the sensor used in J1, we are not surprised. While technologies like high-speed AF CMOS can be useful, at the end of the day it's all about how much light a camera can capture and process, something that depends largely on the size of image sensor. 

Another major issue with J1 is manual control, or the lack of it. For some reason, Nikon has made it difficult to use manual mode on J1. Yes, the options are all there. But they are hidden in menu and using them is cumbersome. We understand that Nikon has tried to simplify the process of taking photo. The company believes J1 will be used by mainstream users and not prosumers, who tend to buy DSLRs. But it would have been better to see more accessible manual control on J1. Nowadays, even cheap point & shoot cameras try to get the manual controls right.

Sum of it all
J1 is a nice camera. It is built well, has a good-looking design, and takes nice pictures when the conditions are optimum. But there are some crucial aspects where it falls short. This makes it a tough sell. It has an MRP of Rs 29,950 with kit lens of 10mm-30mm but it doesn't offer much advantage over a point & shoot camera for mainstream users due to its average performance in low-light conditions. At the same time, the gap between the image quality of J1 and a similarly priced DSLR cameras like Nikon's 3100 is big enough to make it a poor option for prosumers or photography enthusiasts. 

It gets even more difficult for J1 when you compare it with mirrorless cameras like Sony's NEX-5K. The only advantage J1 holds over Sony's device is the design. If you want a more compact and stylish camera, J1 is worth the premium. But for everything else, it is a tad overpriced for what it does. 

Pros: Fantastic build quality, fast auto focus, slim and sleek profile compared to other mirrorless cameras, good image quality in ideal conditions 

Cons: Poor low-light performance, lack of easily accessible manual controls 

The joy of drawing on glass

Much of the iPad's magic - and its success - comes from the directness of the touch screen. For decades, you dragged a mouse on one surface to make the cursor move on another. And now, suddenly, you can tap or draw right on the screen. 

But at places like Pixar and Marvel , they've been happily drawing on their screens since 1992. That's when Wacom released its first pen display - its first draw-on-the-screen tablet - for artists. 

The goal is to create the electronic equivalent of pen, pencil or brush on paper, so that artists, animators and architects can sketch or paint digitally. You use a cordless stylus; unlike the iPad or most touch-screen computers, these screens ignore skin contact, so that you can rest your hand on the glass as you draw. Also unlike the iPad, these pen displays are pressure-sensitive. You get a fatter or darker line when you press harder. 

Wacom dominates this market. Its Cintiq touch screens are precise, fluid, sturdy, professionally adored - and eye-poppingly expensive. 

They range from $1,000 for a 12-inch model to $2,500 for the 24-incher. That's right: if you're a digital artist, you might spend four times as much for the screen as you did for your computer. 

But change is coming. Cheap pen displays from no-name Chinese companies like Yiynova, P-Active and Bosto have begun appearing for sale on, for example, Amazon - and they cost as little as $300. 

"These probably aren't quite as good as the Wacom," a reader, Evan Schultz, told me by e-mail , "but did you see that difference in price? For that sort of price break, this may shape up like the battle between the wonderful $600 iPad and the goodenough $200 Kindle." Indeed it might. 

Mr. Schultz went on to note that if these cut-rate tablets were any good, they might be useful to more people than just digital artists. "Lawyers and journalists who need to edit documents, doctors who want to take notes in medical journals, anyone who wants to use a pen to write instead of a keyboard. It's been a small market up until now, but the competition might open up the technology to all sorts of people." 

Well, Mr. Schultz, this column's for you - and for all those interested lawyers, journalists, doctors and handwriting aficionados. To see just how little you get for your $300, I pitted two of the cheapies - the 10- and 19-inch tablets from Yiynova - against Wacom's 21-inch model, the $2,000 Cintiq 21UX. 

The Cintiq is a beast. At 22.4 pounds, it takes two hands, and preferably two people, to unbox it and seat it into its stand. Once installed there, the screen tips to whatever angle is comfortable for your drawing - nearly flat like a desk, if you like - and rotates 180 degrees in either direction, which is fantastic when you're shading or crosshatching. 

A fat black cable snakes out of the screen and splits into a Medusa's haircut of connectors: video, USB and power. The USB and video jacks connect to your Mac or PC, just as a regular external monitor might. In fact, you could use the Cintiq as your main monitor, although it's dimmer than dedicated monitors. 

Then you install the driver software . You calibrate the screen by tapping it in four prescribed spots with the stylus, which teaches the thing how you like to hold the pen. Finally , you open up a painting or 3D program like Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel Painter, Manga Studio or Maya 3D, and put pen to screen. 

There's brief lag, especially with high-resolution artwork, between a pen stroke and the appearance of its "ink," and there's a tiny glass gap between the tip of your pen and the image itself. 

But after a few minutes, you'll be just as delighted and productive as the artists who proudly demo their Cintiqs on YouTube. It feels as if you're drawing on paper; the tip doesn't skate on the glass. The whole thing feels incredibly precise and smooth. 

As you work, you can slide your finger up or down the back edge to zoom in or out, which is very handy. With the tap of a button, you can change the function of this touch strip so that it enlarges or shrinks your painting brush, or moves through your Photoshop layers, or rotates the entire canvas. There are 16 other programmable buttons on the front. 

You can easily switch the pen's function from painting to mousing: to move the cursor without leaving a line, you lift the tip slightly off the glass. There are right-click and double-click buttons on the pen's shaft. The top of the pen acts like an eraser in most programs. The verdict: sweet - and costly. After driving the Mercedes of pen displays for a while, I test-drove the Toyota Yaris equivalent: the Yiynova DP10 ($300), sold in the United States by ThePandaCity.com. 

This screen is a thin, 1.5-pound white-plastic slab that you can easily hold with one hand as you draw, although it has a kickstand on the back too. Unlike the Cintiq, the DP10 requires no wall power and no connection to your computer's video jack. Instead, amazingly, you connect it to your PC with a single black USB cable. (Well, one cable with a forked tongue. It requires two USB jacks to get the power it needs.) 

I had a difficult time getting it running, and the Amazon user reviews indicate that I'm not alone. The manual's English will not, ahem, remind you of Hemingway. (The tablet's description on Amazon gives you a taste: "Provider an intuitive way to use the pen directly on screen to make holograph, handwritten signatures , and schetch.") 

The company cheerfully helped me over the phone and by e-mail , but here, too, language was occasionally a barrier. And the DP10 works best on a Windows PC. It can run on a Mac, but flakily. 

If you make it through the setup , though, you'll realize that the low price, light weight and surprising portability give the DP10 some fascinating possibilities. The screen is bright and clear. The stylus works in the usual graphics programs , complete with pressure sensitivity.


©2011 The New York Times News Service

Apple may launch cheaper version of MacBook Air

In Spotlight: MacBook Air

WASHINGTON: US-based tech giant Apple is reportedly planning to launch a $799 MacBook Air by the end of 2012.

According to a DigiTimes report, sources have revealed that Apple would release a cheaper MacBook Air to compete with the new ultrabook trend that gained momentum during the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Apple currently offers an 11-inch MacBook for $999, and a 13-inch model for $1,299.

According to CBS News, reports of iPad minis and iPhone nanos have been making rounds.

Rumors of a cheaper, iPad mini with 7.85-inch display have been circulating for some time.

DigiTimes had reported that 'makers' in Apple's supply chain has started 'delivering samples of a 7.85-inch iPads for verification.'

Also, a recent report by the China Times claimed that Apple is planning to release low-cost iPhone nano this year.

According to the report, the move aims to make gains on the low-end smartphone market.

Courtesy: The Times Of India

Nokia Pureview 808 coming to India in may

The 41 Megapixel King: The Nokia Pureview 808

Nokia's 41-megapixel smartphone PureView 808 is expected to see its India launch in May. Russia will also be one of the first countries to receive the device. 

The Symbian S60-powered Nokia PureView 808 was one of the major highlights of this year's Mobile World Congress held at Barcelona. 

Nokia 808 PureView features a high-resolution 41 megapixel sensor with high-performanceCarl Zeiss optics and new pixel oversampling technology. At standard resolutions (2/3, 5 and 8 megapixels) this means the ability to zoom without loss of clarity and capture seven pixels of information, condensing into one pixel for the sharpest images imaginable. 

Nokia 808 PureView also includes full HD 1080p video recording and playback with 4X lossless zoom and the world's first use of Nokia Rich Recording. Rich Recording claims audio recording at CD-like levels of quality. PureView also features Dolby Headphone technology. 

According to reports, Nokia so far has no plans of launching the device in the US. The company has also not yet revealed the official pricing.

NationalMobileReview is now MobileRide.in

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               We are glad to announce that NationalMobileReview is now MobileRide.in. We promise to continue to bring you the best and reliable updates about gadgets from round the world. Trust us, for we are inspired by our senior, The Times Of India, the Indian National Daily. Them being the best, we too are the best!
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Sony launches first ultrabooks, VAIO T series

SONY VAIO T SERIES

Sony is finally joining the ultrabooks fray. The company has launched its first ultrabook series dubbed VAIO T. 

VAIO T series will come in two sizes -- 11" and 13.3" -- and is powered by Intel's ultra-low voltage i3 Sandy Bridge processors. The ultrabooks have a 17.8mm thick brushed aluminum body and up to 9 hours of battery life. 

Other features include 4GB of DDR3 memory as standard, and 320GB hard drive with a second 32GB SSD. VAIO T Series sports comes HDMI, VGA and RJ45 network ports, plus an SD/MMC media slot and an 1.3 megapixel "Exmor for PC" HD web camera. xLOUDTM and Clear Phase technologies are for sound. 

The company hasn't revealed the pricing. 

Key specs: 

* Intel Core-i3 2367M processor * Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit * 4GB DDR3 RAM * 320GB HDD * Intel HD Graphics 3000 * Bundles Adobe Acrobat X Standard


Courtesy: Gadgets Special, Times Of India

Review: Huawei Honor

NEW DELHI: The name Huawei may not ring a bell for most phone buyers in India, but it is a huge multinational firm. The company is among the leading manufacturers of telecom equipment in the world and in the recent years has become a big player in phone and tablet market. 

Gartner, a market research firm, said in February that Huawei had 2.3% share in 2011 in smartphone market worldwide. This put it marginally ahead of Motorola and Sony Ericsson. 

After some success in its home country - China - the firm has started expanding operations abroad. Due to similarities in Indian and Chinese phone market - both are developing countries and price sensitive - consumers here are obvious targets for Huawei. Last year, it had tested the waters here with Ideos range of phones. This year it is more assertive. It has already launched Honor, a mid-range Android phone, and plans to bring Ascend D, the flagship device, soon. 

We have Honor with us today. With this phone, Huawei promises consumers best-in-class features at most competitive price. Not an easy promise to fulfill, we know. Let's find out if Honor can take on the competition in mid-range smartphone market. 

Looks good on paper Honor may not have superstar looks but it's not shabby either. The design is classic candy bar. It has a plastic body with two buttons - power and volume rocker - given chrome finish. Under the 4-inches screen, which has a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels, there are four touch buttons for Options, Home, Back and Search. The back cover, which has a textured finish, can be removed to access SIM slot and battery. 

With a thickness of 11mm and a weight of 140grams, there is nothing striking about Honor. But at the same time, it is functional design, which makes using the device very easy. 

Honor is powered by a single-core 1.4Ghz processor. It has 512MB RAM and 4GB storage, with option to add a micro SD card. The highlight of the device is 8MP primary camera with a LED flash. The phone can record videos in up to 720P resolution. A 2MP camera is provided for video chats. 

User experience
In terms of hardware, Honor is better many mid-range phone. But after using it for weeks, we feel that the hardware advantage has not translated into the user experience that can put Honor ahead of the pack. Let us elaborate. 

For most parts, Honor acts like a nice mid-range Android phones. This means it may not dazzle you with speed and superfast user interface but for all practical purposes the performance is adequate. Apps open without any lag, casual games like Angry Birds work very well, GPS locks in a snap, browsing experience is pleasant, and call quality is good. Media playback is average with the phone failing to play several file formats, like the ones encoded with DivX, but that is acceptable from a mid-range phone. Honor's speaker, though, is very loud considering its size. 

But there are two aspects that stand out. One for good reasons and another for, well, not being up to the mark. 

Good news first. The 8MP pixels camera in Honor punches above its weight. The photograph taken with it have decent amount of details and balanced colours. It doesn't perform very well in low-light but it is all same with most midrange smartphones. Videos shot in 720P resolution are acceptable. 

Now, the bad news. Honor's 4-inch screen is disappointing. It shows good colours and is sufficiently bright until you are not standing in sunlight. Viewing angles could have been better but they will not be any issue for most buyers. The problem is with the screen's touch sensitivity, which is a tad slow. It is not as slow or bad as what found on sub-10K phones but then Honor is not competing with these phones. While in many tasks - for example web browsing - it doesn't affect the user experience, playing games like Temple Run, which require flawless touch sensitivity, is difficult on Honor. 

Another problem with screen is 'ghosting'. It is especially apparent if you are using a Twitter app. While scrolling through timeline, display pictures of contacts leave traces. Ghosting may not be a problem in most cases but if it occurs - in our case it was during Twitter use - it will bug users. 

Battery life is good. When used for emails, Twitter, some photography, some gaming, some calls and lots of browsing the phone lasted over 10 hours on 3G connection. 

Worth its price
Huawei Honor is a decent phone for its price. Screen could have been better but given its good performance and a decent camera for still pictures, our experience with Honor wasn't bad. At the same time, it is not the kind of experience that can make us give Honor a clear recommendation. The phone has an MRP of Rs 19,999. At this price, its primary competitors are HTC One V,Samsung Galaxy S Plus, Sony Ericsson Neo V and Nokia Lumia 710. 

If you are out in the market, looking for a mid-range smartphone, you should definitely consider Honor. Just that before buying it, make sure you demo it at the store to see if you are comfortable with the touch response or not. 

Pros: Good camera for still photographs, lag-free performance 

Cons: Screen touch sensitivity is not optimum, out-of-box runs on Gingerbread and not Ice cream sandwich, the latest version of Android.


Courtesy: The Times Of India

Datawind launches cheapest tablet at Rs 2,999

NEW DELHI: Amidst controveries, tech company Datawind launched Ubislate tablets in India priced at Rs 2,999 and Rs 3,999, respectively for resistive and capacitive screen versions.

Government's Aakash II tablets, expected to be launched this year will carry the same configuration as Ubislate tablets, i.e, a 800 MHz Cortex A8 processors on Android 2.3 platform.

"We have tied up with distributors across India. The tablets will be available by May-end only after we have fulfilled the existing orders," said Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of Datawind.

For internet access, Datawind has tied up with Aircel, which will offer an unlimited internet plan at Rs 98 per month on 2G/GPRS for the Ubislate tablets.

The Ubislate7c (capacitive touch) tablets priced at Rs 4000 will carry an internal flash memory of 4GB. The resistive versions will carry internal memory of 2GB and will be priced at Rs 2,999.

The tablets will carry one standard USB port. "Our customers who made pre-payments for earlier version of the tablet will get the upgraded version," Tuli added. He said that a break up with Quad has jeopardised the delivery schedule for the tablets, and he is looking for more suppliers.

For manufacturing the tablets in India, Datawind has tied up with Hyderabad-based VMC Systems after a break-up with Quad.

Aisha is Micromax answer to Apple's Siri

NEW DELHI: Micromax Informatics Limited has expanded its Superfone smartphones portfolio in the country with the addition of another budget phone A50 Ninja. 

A50 runs on Android version 2.3.6(Gingerbread) with a processor speed of 650 MHz .The phone features a 7.9 cms multi-touch capacitive screen. The dual-SIM Micromax A50 sports a 2.0 MP camera. 

Priced at Rs 4,999, Micromax A50 Ninja comes with an Artificial Intelligence Speech Handset Assistant (AISHA). AISHA is a voice recognition tool through which users can search on Google, view stock market details, know phone status, movie reviews, make calls, read news of desired locations, know horoscopes etc. 

Key specifications
*7.9 cm capacitive touch screen 

*Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread 

*Artificial Intelligence Speech Handset Assistant, AISHA 

*Dual SIM, 3G 

*Wi-Fi, GPRS connectivity, Bluetooth 

*2.0 MP rear camera 

*Gravity Sensor 

*Memory storage expandable Up to 32GB by SD card


Woohoo! Finally!


Courtesy: The Times Of India