Bharadwaj Chandramouli | Fone Arena

Oppo N1 Review

Oppo N1 Review

After a long period of leaks and teasers, Oppo finally announced its latest flagship device, the Oppo N1 in September. The N1, initially believed to be camera-centric, ended up as a well rounded flagship device for the company. Innovations like the O-Touch rear sensor and the unique rotating swivel unit for the camera made sure that the N1 is not just another Android phone, and has a number of firsts worth looking at. Yes, it is a potential trend setter, but is also a trend follower. With a huge 5.9 inch screen, the N1 brings Oppo to proper phablet territory, addressing the growing trend of massively sized phones that bridge the gap between phones and the most popular form factor in tablets. Makes Oppo one of the first companies to go with this approach for a flagship device. The N1 is a phablet, which is currently considered a niche, but one that represents everything Oppo stands for. But the big question is, at a starting price of 599$, does it have the potential to rival the best Android hardware in the market? Lets find out in our in-depth review.

Video

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKZYC2Vhhkw

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LG G Pad 8.3 Google Play Edition announced, comes with Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box

The LG G Pad 8.3, announced a couple of months back as the company’s first small Android tablet, has now gotten itself a Google Play Edition in the US. This tablet is the first OEM device to get the Play Edition treatment, which will let consumers get the latest versions of Android faster than the original, which might or might not get the updates as fast as this one. That’s the main purpose and selling point of the LG G Pad 8.3 Google Play Edition. It will be free from any sort of OEM customizations, and is going on sale starting today, at a price of 350 USD. The tablet sports a great looking 1920×1200 8.3 inch screen and a metallic body to complement its huge phone-like looks. We had taken a hands on look of the original tablet at IFA in Berlin this year, take a look at the video –

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

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CM developer’s Screencast app for rooted Android 4.4.1 devices lets you record your screen

Cyanogen Mod developer Koushik Dutta, widely known for his ClockwordMod utility, which is the go-to custom recovery for Android devices, is also known for developing other utilities like an Allcast app that can stream from Android to Chromecast as well as Apple TV. Now he has released an app called Screencast(beta) that can record any rooted Android 4.4.1 device’s screen, with audio. Initially made available as a developer-only feature, one had to type a command in ADB to enable screen recording on any KitKat device, but thanks to the Screencast app, now it is available right on your device, with some unique additions like a quick shortcut – Volume up + power to start screencasting. It is demonstrated in this video here –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC_5Ql7QrWE

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Unknown SM-G900F is not the Samsung Galaxy S5, Here’s Why

Not even 8 months have passed since the Samsung Galaxy S4‘s launch but we are already seeing rumours and leaks of Samsung Galaxy S5 aplenty. Sure, Samsung’s flagship usually gets this attention every year, but we feel it is too soon this time. Amongst the various “leaks” floating around in the internet is one peculiar benchmark result from Browsermark. We may be wrong, but we have solid reasons why this is not the Samsung Galaxy S5. Firstly, lets see what this is all about. Apparently, an unknown device codenamed SM-G900F has appeared at the no. 3 position in Browsermark results page for Top 5 Web Phones, which some think, is the upcoming Galaxy S5. Is it?

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Google’s Great Online Shopping Festival #GOSF is back, great deals from December 11th to 13th

Great Online Shopping Festival, aka GOSF, by Google was an initiative by the Mountain View company to bring a “Cyber Monday” like deals bonanza to India last year, and it is back again this year, with more partners and of course, more deals. Unlike Black Friday, Cyber Monday and GOSF are online-only, and Google aims to attract the eager buyers of the legion of Indian internet shoppers, with deals on a single platform. That single platform is the website – GOSF.in, which lists all the partners and even has a countdown for the first day of the shopping festival, which begins on December 11th and ends on the 13th. 3 days, over 200 partners including all major e-tailers, and hopefully insane deals. Will this year be defining for the Indian e-commerce industry?

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Xiaomi plans to expand beyond China – Singapore first, hopefully India next?

Xiaomi, the company that was recently in the news for insane flash sales and earlier, for the hire of Android VP Hugo Barra, has laid out plans to expand beyond China. Singapore is one of the first markets in which Xiaomi is targeting for its full fledged operations, as a part of its expansion to South East Asia. Hugo Barra was appointed as the company’s VP of global operations and it seems like his work is now in full swing. Xiaomi’s top executives were recently in Taiwan for a fan gathering, addressing their huge fan base with quizzes, oversized T-Shirts and even a performance from Hugo Barra, who sang and danced to a popular Taiwanese song!

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Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 Unboxing

Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 Unboxing

Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2, successor to the original S Duos, was officially launched in India just a day back, for a price of Rs. 10,990. This is out and out a mid range device from Samsung, building upon the success of the original, which was quite popular for its price tag and the value it offered. It just got better with the S Duos 2, but not as much as one would expect. Today, we bring you the unboxing of this device, just a day after launch, so that you can probably decide whether to go for this or not. Here’s the quick unboxing and overview of the Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoMHb8Z-tEc

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Xolo A600 Unboxing

Xolo A600 Unboxing

Xolo launched the A600, its mid range entry in the A-series sometime back in November. It’s a neat little device, powered by a MediaTek 6572W dual core processor and has modest specifications for its cheap price – Rs. 8,199. We have got it for unboxing today, and we kinda like how this device looks and feels. Yes, this is a cheap device, but that hasn’t stopped other similarly priced devices like the Nokia Lumia 520 to stop short on build quality, and we think there is something very similar happening here, with the Xolo A600. Watch our unboxing video to get a look at it –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF5QoTZtSvg

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Oppo N1 Camera Samples

The Oppo N1 is all set to be globally available starting December 10th, which is just 5 days away but as you might have known by now, we have been playing around with the device for some time now. One of the highlights of this phone is its camera, which is a 13 MP unit sitting on a swiveling unit. The Sony EXMOR RS 13 MP sensor is a 1/3.06″ unit, atop which sits the six-element lens, one of the firsts on any Android device. The six element lens has a wide aperture of f2.0, combine that and the new custom algorithms Oppo has developed for the N1, the results aim to be delectable for the user. Well, is it? Lets find out how it does, in our camera samples below.

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Bluetooth 4.1 brings better connection management and bulk data transfers, aimed at wearables

Bluetooth, a ubiquitous wireless technology that’s commonly found on most devices these days, is receiving a minor core specification update today, to 4.1. The earlier update that came out in June 2010, which was Bluetooth 4.0, brought several new forward looking specifications like Bluetooth Smart, that has now enabled the use of wearables like Smartwatches, but it’s getting better now. The 4.1 update brings better connection management for devices that constantly go in and out of range, like a Smartwatch and also brings bulk data transfers which can be sent as a batch once the data collection device(like a smartphone) comes inside range. This enables for a much better experience with wearables, which have been directly aimed at, in this update.

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The Wolf Among Us game now available for the iPhone and iPad

the-wolf-among-us

TellTale games, the developers of the “Game of the Year 2012 – The Walking Dead”, had released their next game based on the Fables short stories, “The Wolf Among Us”, for console and PC earlier. It is now also available for the iPhone and iPad on the app store. This is keeping up with the tradition of releasing their game on the most popular mobile platform(for games), as they had done the same with The Walking Dead. With cell shaded graphics and an amazingly immersive story line that changes based on the decisions you make, The Wolf Among Us seeks to continue the awesome story telling that TellTale is known for. It has received rave reviews from critics all around, and in the mobile form, the point and click game should be as good as how the Walking dead game was, or at least we hope.

Download The Wolf Among Us($4.99) from the app store

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USB Type-C connector to succeed 3.0 with thinner double-sided design

It’s been almost 5 years since the USB 3.0 standard made its way into devices and peripherals alike, and finally, with a change of design trends, the folks at the USB 3.0 Promoter group have detailed the new Type-C connector. Officially the development has begun and is initially built on USB 2.0 and 3.1 technologies with scope for further growth and scalability. The main aim of this development seems to addressing shrinking sizes in thickness of smartphones and tablets. It is said to be similar in size to the micro USB type-B connector but will enable double-sided use unlike now.

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Round 1 – Nokia Lumia 1020 vs HTC One #SmartFone13

The last battle in the first round of the #SmartFone13 championship has arrived. This time it’s a battle of the cameraphones Nokia Lumia 1020 and the HTC One. The Lumia 1020 slays the megapixel race with a 41 MP sensor while the HTC One goes against the race with a 4MP Ultrapixel sensor. But of course, these are proper high end smartphones too, both being respective flagships of Nokia and HTC. Poles apart in literally everything under the hood and even on the outside, which one would be your pick of the two? Cast your votes and make your favourites win.

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VSCO Cam to be available on Android tomorrow

Visual Supply Co, a firm known for making tools for creators is the maker of the VSCO Cam app for iOS. The app is popular for its minimalistic UI and ultra-real film filters that professional photographers want on a mobile device. After a long wait, it is finally coming to Android tomorrow. The folks at VSCO have announced this at their blog with a small teaser video featuring the Android app, watch it here –

[HTML1]

Update: Now available for download!

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Dungeon Hunter 4 for Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 now available as a free download

Dungeon Hunter, a Diablo inspired dungeon crawler role-playing game, is now available for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 as a free download. This game, and its previous iterations have been available for Android and iOS devices for a while now, and a part of a deal struck between Gameloft and Microsoft, a set of games that includes Asphalt 8 and now this one, has landed on the Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 Stores respectively. This game is basically a top down 3D dungeon crawler in which you go around killing and collecting stuff to march through the story and in the end improve your character with powers and things.

Download for Windows Phone 8

Download for Windows 8

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