Bharadwaj Chandramouli | Fone Arena

Windows Phone 8.1 is official, brings Cortana and a ton of new features

Microsoft has finally revealed Windows Phone 8.1, the long awaited update to its mobile platform. Packing lots and lots of new features, the operating system finally gets up to speed in several departments. Starting from the action center, the parallax wallpapers to Cortana, the intelligent digital assistant, it would be safe to say that the OS has finally come of age. It may be a little late, but it is definitely not a little minor update, as it brings with it the potential to change the ecosystem of devices it runs on. The update, announced today, will be available for all Windows Phone 8 devices in the coming months, while enthusiasts can get a hold of this update in the first half of April. Besides that, the OS will come pre-installed on all the new Windows Phone devices, including the just announced Nokia Lumia 930 and the Lumia 635 and the Lumia 630 Dual SIM phone.

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Xbox One Smartglass beta previews support for OneGuide and Universal Remote

Xbox One, the latest gaming console from Microsoft, surprised a few by being the first console to have HDMI input for TV, and support for a unified TV channel guide, with voice activated navigation. The voice commands, using the next generation Kinect, might have performed well enough for most, but there is a better way to control the console now. Smartglass, the app that acts as the second screen input for Xbox One, is now in a separate beta channel which lets users preview the new and upcoming features. Amongst the latest features that are going to be added to this app later are support for One Guide, the channel guide that was initially usable only on the console, and a universal remote that can give out commands through the Kinect’s IR blaster.

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Cortana shows up on Bing’s personalization settings ahead of reveal

Cortana, Microsoft’s own take on a virtual personal assistant, is all set to be revealed at the //build/ developer event today in San Francisco. While we still haven’t heard anything straight from Microsoft regarding Cortana yet, it’s own property, Bing, which will power Cortana, now has references to the long awaited assistant. Cortana has been rumoured to be like Apple’s Siri and Google Now combined, with it offering personalized results, recommendations and more, apart from setting your alarms, reminders etc like Siri.

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Phil Spencer will head Xbox, promises increased gaming focus on all Microsoft platforms

The Xbox division at Microsoft was caught in a flux after Don Mattrick, the previous head, left the company for Zynga. Julie-Larson Greene then took over along with other hardware divisions like Surface until she was reassigned to user experience recently. And then Marc Whitten, who was all set to become the head of Xbox, left the company for Sonos, so now, the baton has been passed on to the head of Microsoft Studios, Phil Spencer. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, announced this and other changes over a company-wide email, welcoming all the new heads into the senior leadership team. Phil Spencer will be leading the Xbox team responsible for Xbox – the console, Xbox Music & Video and Microsoft Studios.

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Gionee Elife S5.5 Photo Gallery

Gionee had introduced the world’s slimmest Smartphone, the Elife S5.5, to India, at a huge event in Goa today. Powered by a MediaTek Octa Core processor, the Elife S5.5 will sell for a price of Rs. 22,999, but that tiny detail aside, the device is all about design and engineering. The svelte frame, machined at a stunningly thin 5.55 mm of thickness makes the device look really appealing to see as well as touch. Sporting a 5 inch 1080p screen, the device looks like a sleek slab from the front as well as the sides. It’s styled well, with a minimalistic approach to design, and evidences of it being too thin show up, especially with the camera module. The frame itself is an engineering marvel, as we had seen when we went hands on with the phone at the Mobile World Congress event, where it was introduced to the world. Today, we had our chance to have a look at it again, but this time, without the intrusive cables. Skip past the break for some photos of this gorgeous device.

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Gionee Elife E7 Review: Best in class

The Elife E7 is Gionee’s first flagship smartphone that is aimed at the premium high end segment of the market. The device is powered by the powerful Snapdragon 800 processor and sports a seemingly good 16 MP camera, which brings it closer to the likes of other flagships like Nexus 5 and the even the S5 to an extent, but offers a price advantage making it one of the best VFM products out there. But can a newer brand like Gionee instill confidence in the high end consumer, with its hardware and software package? Lets find out in our Gionee Elife E7 Review.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9QnwfoiMKo

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Dell Venue 8 Unboxing

We might have reviewed the Dell Venue 8 Pro way ahead of its Indian reveal, but the tablet trio, that includes two other Android tablets, launched only a while back. Dell’s Venue 7 and 8 were Android tablets with two different screen sizes with largely the same specifications inside. Powered by an Intel processor, these tablets are placed at the mid range segment of the marketplace, which is the most popular segment for Android tablets these days. The Venue 8 is priced at Rs. 17,499, which might be a bit high when compared to the competition like the new Nexus 7, but is it good enough? While we’ll tell you that in our review, here is a preliminary look through our unboxing and overview video –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjFLcwol0jA

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Dell to pay Microsoft tax for its Android and Chrome OS devices

Dell is not just one of the biggest PC makers out there, but also a close ally to Microsoft, with the latter recently helping out when the company went private. But being an independent company, Dell did make its foray into other platforms, with Android, and eventually even Chrome OS, both Google products. So, naturally, much like any other OEM, Dell is now in a patent licensing agreement with Microsoft where it will pay royalties for its products based on Android and Chrome OS. But surprisingly, even Microsoft is licensing some patents from Dell for its Xbox gaming consoles, making this deal more balanced than usual.

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HTC One (M8) Duo Camera: Explained

HTC has finally revealed its most awaited flagship phone, the One (M8), at an event in New York today. The flagship phone takes on a countless number of other Android flagship devices with an upgraded design and internals, bringing it up to speed, literally. The new One improves upon the older one in a lot of ways, and one of them is by innovating(again) on the camera side. The original One had the industry’s first Ultrapixel sensor, a 4.1 MP camera with pixels sized at 2 microns, which is back on the new HTC One (M8) but it is also accompanied by a secondary camera. While the Ultrapixel is all about gathering more light, this curious little camera that sits above the main unit enables a whole lot of enhancements that HTC proudly portrayed at their event. So what is this “Duo Camera” all about, and how does it really work? Let’s find out.

ICYMI earlier – HTC One (M8) Hands on and our live blog.

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Xiaomi will soon be directly selling phones in India

Ever since Xiaomi, the popular smartphone manufacturer from China, laid out plans for expansion to Singapore, we knew that India was coming. As a confirmation to this, we have a Cnet interview of Hugo Barra talking about the company’s impending entry into the burgeoning Indian smartphone market and a tweet from the head of Google India, who had a meeting with Xiaomi’s Lin Bin and Hugo Barra as a part of the ongoing initiative. Xiaomi recently launched in Singapore, its first market outside China, and looks to expand rapidly to become a true global player.

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Nokia’s devices and services sale to Microsoft delayed to April

The Microsoft takeover of Nokia’s devices and services division is easily one of the most high profile acquisitions from the recent past. After the announcement of this deal, it was said that the regulatory bodies all around the world would have to give their go ahead and only then can the deal be closed. Initially, it was meant to be completed within the first quarter of 2014, but it has now been revealed that some of the regulatory approvals are still pending and the deal is now expected to close in April 2014.

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The new HTC One gets a 14 minute video preview

The all new HTC One hasn’t even launched yet, but the Internet is still abuzz with leaks and videos of this device. It is all set to launch tomorrow at an event in New York but that hasn’t stopped a German blogger from posting an in-depth video preview of the highly anticipated flagship device from the Taiwanese manufacturer. The video, in German, shows off the entire hardware and bits and pieces of the new Sense 6 UI, which gets up to speed with other OEM skins with features like Double tap to wake, gets on screen buttons and a slightly differently styled UI with Android 4.4 KitKat on board. Here’s the full video –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEB10wqk1X4

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Sony Xperia E1 Dual Unboxing

Sony has been doing a lot of things right recently. They launched their latest flagship, the Xperia Z2 at the Mobile World Congress, which really impressed us, and then there was the Xperia Z1 Compact earlier, which is easily the best “mini” device out there. But Sony is not about flagships alone, as they have a whole portfolio to care about, that cover a wide range prices. On that note, we have here, the Sony Xperia E1 Dual, which is the company’s entry level model that competes with the various Micromax and Karbonn devices of our market, let alone Samsung or Nokia. Sony has been making devices in this segment for a long time, and the last popular one in this range was the Xperia Tipo Dual. Consider the E1 Dual as a spiritual successor of the Tipo. To see what the device is all about, we unboxed it on video and did a quick hardware overview of it, watch –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG-CQsJAJkM

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Gionee Elife E7 Camera Samples

The Elife E7 is Gionee’s first real attempt at cracking the top end segment of the market, a really good one at that. We had unboxed this flagship device earlier, after it launched in the Indian market with an attractive price tag of Rs. 29,999. Being a flagship, it comes with specifications that resemble one, and that includes the massive camera module at the back, which houses a large sensor from Omnivision and an equally large lens unit from Largan, a precision manufacturer from China. So, with all that, how does the camera really perform? What is the UI like? Here is our Camera Review of the Gionee Elife E7 to answer that. Skip past the video for the full resolution samples.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTJpbx7zqMI

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Nokia rebuts Tamil Nadu Government’s tax claim, as acquisition nears

Nokia has been involved in a long term tax battle with the Indian government for more than a year now, and things don’t seem to be getting any better for the Espoo company. Adding fuel to this fire is the Tamil Nadu government, which has recently moved to assess sales tax for devices that are exported from the Chennai Sri Perumbudur manufacturing facility. Nokia claims that these allegations from the government are baseless, as, by law, exports are exempt from taxes. With yet another tax evasion claim, it will be even harder for Nokia to complete its transition in time for the Microsoft acquisition.

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