Bharadwaj Chandramouli | Fone Arena

GTA San Andreas makes its way onto Windows Phone with a select few supported devices

Grand Theft Auto is possibly one of the most controversial yet celebrated game franchises in the history of gamerkind. The company behind the series, Rockstar games, started releasing, or letting others port its games over to mobile platforms like iOS and Android. GTA III and Vice City released on both the platforms while availability still evaded the third ecosystem – Windows Phone. But when the company announced San Andreas for mobile, Windows Phone was surprisingly in the mix of platforms supported. Keeping up that promise, the company, through Wardrum studios which developed the iOS and Android versions, has made the game available on the Windows Phone store. However, the game is listed to support only a select few devices at the moment and costs a cool 6.99 USD. Head past the break for more details, and here is a gameplay video of us playing GTA San Andreas on a mobile platform –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M8uVs0iCpo

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LG Mobile sells 13.2 million phones this quarter, posts increased revenues thanks to G2 and Nexus 5

LG, a company which was known to be struggling in the mobile industry just a few years back, has posted strong results for the fourth quarter of 2013 today. It has been a grand revival of sorts for the company which has seen great releases last year in the LG G2 and the Google Nexus 5. Incidentally, LG confirms that these exact two devices have contributed massively to the improvements in its mobile revenue over the quarter as well as over the year. The numbers for QoQ increase in revenues are 18% – 3.38 bn USD, while yoy numbers are more encouraging at 29% – 11.85 billion USD. LG has quickly become one of the more interesting Android OEMs in the recent times and the numbers clearly reflect that.

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Nokia Lumia 525 Review

Nokia Lumia 525 Review

When the Nokia Lumia 520 was launched at the Mobile World Congress event last year, not many knew that the company just introduced its first best seller in the Lumia series. It went on to become the most popular Windows Phone ever made, for the fantastic value it offered for the money. But there was one longstanding issue that Nokia had to fix, the small amount of RAM that denied a lot of people new games and apps that were trickling down to Windows Phone.

So, in the series of upgrades that Nokia delivered to existing hardware with small changes, aka adding a 5 to the model number and re-releasing it, we now have the Lumia 525 that fixes the one issue that most wanted fixed. Hence the Lumia 525 comes with 1 GB of RAM and a minor look and feel refresh but overall retains everything else about the Lumia 520 because may be Nokia thought “why fix something that isn’t broke?”. So, how does the Lumia 525 match up to the newly re-invigorated competition, and what does the 1 GB of RAM bring? Let’s find out in our in depth review.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_-bES6w6Tw

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Nokia Lumia 525 Camera Samples

The Nokia Lumia 525, a newly launched device that we unboxed recently, has been known to be a slightly upgraded variant of the Lumia 520. It carries almost exactly the same spec sheet and hardware except for the RAM, which has been upped to 1 GB for obvious reasons. With an incredibly small change in hardware, one would expect everything else to remain the same. But that is not the case with the 525, because it comes with Lumia Black firmware update out of the box, which brings some algorithm-level changes to the already robust camera interface, the Nokia Camera. So, does this change the 520/5’s camera performance in any way? Lets find out from some of our camera samples.

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Asphalt 8: Airborne goes free on Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8

Following the freemium model on other platforms, Gameloft has made its premier racing franchise Asphalt 8: Airborne free for Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 in their respective app stores. Featuring a lot of premium cars and race tracks, the Asphalt 8 game is something we have repeatedly featured in our gaming reviews, as it serves as a decent benchmark for graphics performance. With a lot of nicely modeled tracks out of the box and a solid career mode, the popular game series continues its victory lap with Asphalt 8. Here’s a gameplay video on the Nokia Lumia 1520 –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8telNGFfRkI

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Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 vs Galaxy Grand Duos – a hands on comparison

We just unboxed the newly launched Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 and showed you a photo tour of the same, but the single immediate question that arises in everyone’s minds when looking at a successor of a hit device is, how better is it than the original? The Grand 2 gets an updated spec sheet, with obvious improvements in the display and the processor department, but there is always more to it than the spec sheet, right? So, how much of an upgrade is the Grand 2 over the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos? We find out in a hands on comparison video, exploring all the possible differences –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxGamlYm2ak

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Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 Unboxing and First Impressions

The Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos was the first device from the Korean chaebol to land its foot it in the highly competitive mid range phablet market. It was a big success, at least in the Indian market, but now we have its successor, the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2. With an upgraded spec sheet that includes a better display, better processor and the Note 3-esque faux leather back cover, the Grand 2 has caught our fancy, especially at the price of Rs. 22,999. We got the retail unit today, so here is the unboxing of the brand new Galaxy Grand 2 from Samsung including a walkthrough of the hardware and software –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYcquiY7bFk

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Dell Venue 8 Pro launched in India for Rs. 26,499, availability starting February 2014

The Dell Venue 8 Pro, a 8 inch Windows 8.1 tablet that we reviewed earlier, has been officially launched in India by Dell for a price of Rs. 26,499 for the base 32 GB WiFi model. Powered by the Intel Atom Z3740D Bay Trail Quad Core processor running at 1.8 GHz, the Venue 8 Pro offers the full Windows experience, with surprisingly decent gaming performance to boot. One of the thinnest Windows tablets around, the Venue 8 Pro joins the Acer Iconia W4 in its foray into the increasingly crowded small tablet market, with the added advantage of a full fledged desktop operating system, made easier for touch.

Check out our in-depth Dell Venue 8 Pro Review

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

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Tell me voice assistant aka Cortana rumoured to launch on Windows Phone this April

Long rumoured voice assistant, codenamed “Cortana”, is all set to make its beta appearance on Windows Phone, starting April 2014, according to a very credible source – @msftnerd. The Siri-like feature is reportedly voiced by Jen Taylor, who actually did the voice acting for Cortana, an AI character in the hit game-series “Halo”. The voice assistant, which might carry the name “Bing Tell me”, will launch for developers, in beta, in April, which coincides with the Build 2014 Developer event by Microsoft. “Build” is where Microsoft plans to unveil information about the next release of Windows, codenamed Threshold.

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Xolo Q3000 Unboxing and First Impressions

The Xolo Q3000 is the first device from the company to incorporate a full HD 1080p screen. Yes, it took a while for Xolo to do that, as we saw the 5.5 inch Q2000 sporting a 720p screen even when it had the MT6589 Turbo inside. But with the Q3000, Xolo has its first 5.7″ device as well as its first 1080p phone, so we felt it would be pretty interesting to check this phone out. So, here you go, the unboxing video of the Q3000 where we will show you the box contents and a quick overview of the phone itself –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5c0iLnit1k

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Nokia Asha 502 vs Asha 503 Dual SIM comparison: What’s different?

If you had noticed, we have been taking a look at brand new Asha devices the past few days. We first unboxed the Asha 502 and the Asha 503 and showed you separate photos of both the devices, but we are sure that a single question arises when one takes a look at similarly designed models. The Asha 502 and the Asha 503 have a lot in common. They have similar design, they have the same operating system and almost the same hardware except for a few things. But those few things make the real difference and ultimately end up as a choice in offering from the company, with naturally differing price points. So, what are they? What are the differences between the Nokia Asha 502 and the Asha 503? Lets find out.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7ovkwXO9a4

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Motorola Moto G Google Play Edition announced

moto-g-google-play-edition

In somewhat of a bizarre announcement, Google just made the Moto G Google Play edition available in the US and several other countries’ Play Stores. Unfortunately, it says “not available in your country” for India, so we might have to wait a bit longer to get the Moto G here. But here’s the thing, Google has just announced a Play Edition of a device that already got fast updates and has a stock interface. From our understanding, the Moto G Google Play Edition will not carry any of Motorola’s additions(which are few already) and will get updates at the same time as other Play Edition devices. These are the only two things that are possibly different with the Google Play Edition of the super “value for money” Moto G. It is available for order on the Play Store for a price of $179, unlocked and the 16GB version costs $199.

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Nokia Asha 503 Dual SIM Photo Gallery

We had been showing you photos of the latest devices we unboxed, like the Nokia Asha 502 and the Nokia Lumia 525. Right next in line is the Nokia Asha 503, which is based on the same new design philosophy as the Asha 502 and comes with a really nice frosty iced look for its case. We have the Asha 503 in black, which might not be as photogenic as the Asha 502 but does not look conservative as well. The gloss for the translucent outer shell is something that takes the bland dark look away and introduces some much needed shine. Let us walk you through the hardware and show you how it actually looks in real pictures.

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Nokia Asha 502 Dual SIM Photo Gallery

The Nokia Asha 502, announced as a part of the new range of Asha devices at Nokia World, was recently unboxed in our studio. Sporting the all new frost iced look for the outer shell, the bright red Asha 502 immediately caught our fancy. The petite device was very photogenic at first glance, so here we are with a full fledged photo gallery, showing off the brilliant looking case and all of the hardware of the Nokia Asha 502. Skip past the break to find the rest of the pictures.

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Nokia Lumia 525 Photo Gallery

We just unboxed the brand new Nokia Lumia 525 in white and found it look very slightly different from the Lumia 520. While we are still reviewing the device, we thought it would be a fine idea to show you the phone in pictures, so that one can get to know how exactly the phone looks like, in real pictures, rather than renders or the usual promotional material. With white glossy plastic on the back, the Lumia 525 sports a slightly sleeker design and looks great, like most Lumia devices usually do. So here’s a quick run down of the hardware through our photos.

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