Bharadwaj Chandramouli | Fone Arena

Apple iPhone 5s Gold edition Hands On and Photo Gallery

The Apple iPhone 5s and 5c have been the fastest selling iPhones combined for Apple, with them seeing more than 9 million getting sold over just 3 days, but one thing that has been evading everyone’s hands and eyes has been the gold edition of the iPhone 5S. It has been sold out in nearly ever market the 5S has launched. Fortunately though, we have got our hands on the elusive Gold edition in the Hong Kong Apple Store. It was a demo unit, but we were allowed to play with it anyway. Want to know how good it looks in front of the camera? Take a look at the hands on video we shot here –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf13udwhjJA

Take a look at our Apple iPhone 5S Space Gray Edition Hands on here

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HTC One Android 4.3 OTA Update starts rolling out in Taiwan

The HTC One might have launched way back in February but it still remains the flagship phone for the company, and with it being a flagship comes the responsibility of fast updates. We have seen the Android 4.2.2 update roll out first in Taiwan, in the month of July, and now we are seeing the latest Android 4.3 update roll out for the HTC One again, in Taiwan, starting today. Android 4.3 is still the latest version of the vastly popular operating system and considering that even the Nexus devices run on this version, HTC and other OEMs have made good time on the updates.

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Micromax ties up with Aircel for bundled offers on Smartphones and 3G Dongles

Micormax and Aircel event

In a surprising move, Micromax, the second leading Smartphone vendor in India has tied up with Aircel, one of the leading network providers in India for bundled offers on its Smartphones and 3G dongles. What you see above is the image that details all the benefits of the bundling. The event has just started and we will try to bring all the details about the Micromax-Aircel bundling offers. Till then, you can watch the webcast here, of the event –

Click to watch the Webcast

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Microsoft unveils Surface 2 – Tegra 4, Full HD screen and Silver option, starting $449

Microsoft has announced its refresh of the Surface devices today, with the new Surface 2, the Surface Pro 2 and a whole lot of updated accessories. The Surface 2 is the updated version of Surface RT, running on the much criticized Windows RT platform. Last year, it was meant as one of the first entries into the ARM territory for Microsoft, and this year, without much change in the strategy, Microsoft has done a Spec bump to the older version. The new Surface 2 runs on a Tegra 4 Quad Core processor, a full HD Clear Type 1080p screen, a two-step kickstand for better usage on the lap and even a second colour option in Silver. They also claim that it is thinner and lighter than the original Surface.

Read about the Surface Pro 2 here

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Oppo N1 announced, comes with a 5.9 inch full HD screen, 13 MP rotating swivel camera and rear touch panel

Oppo have finally revealed all the details of their latest camera centric flagship device – the Oppo N1. The N1 was announced at an event in Beijing amidst much expectations, as we had detailed ours a while back. It has a 5.9 inch full HD resolution IPS display, a O-Touch rear sensor for single handed touch interaction on the back and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 Quad Core processor. At 5.9 inches, the device is huge and as a result, sports a massive 3610 mAH battery too. But the main USP is a 13 Megapixel Sony EXMOR RS Stacked CMOS Sensor camera, with a f2.0 aperture six element lens that sits on a rotating swivel and turns 206 degrees!

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Nokia Lumia 929 heading to Verizon, leak shows off 20MP camera and Windows Phone GDR3

What you see above is a leaked press image of the Nokia Lumia 929, a device heading to the Verizon network in USA, exclusively. The image comes via @evleaks who has a good track record of getting it right. So, assuming the name is right, the Lumia 929 sports a 20 Megapixel PureView Camera on its back, which is purportedly the same one that is coming up on the Lumia 1520 too. The device also looks to have a polycarbonate matte body, which looks similar to the one on the Lumia 720.

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Oppo N1 launches today – what to expect

Ever since we heard of the confirmation that Oppo is launching a new camera-centric flagship device called the Oppo N1, we have been genuinely excited to see what kind of camera innovation the company is going to bring forward. After the confirmation of the product, the company had released an array of teasers, which have revealed quite a lot about the device that is going to launch today. Incidentally, today, or perhaps five years back, was the same day the first ever Android phone(HTC Dream G1) released, and Oppo’s event today is a gentle nod, how cool is that!

Anyway, after looking at all the teasers, we couldn’t help but raise our expectations, especially since the company is already known to produce great handsets like the Find 5. So, we’ve compiled a list of things you need to know about the N1 and what to expect from the launch, read on.

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Whatsapp for the Nokia Asha 500 shows up alongside leaked press image

While we have already seen renders of the purported Nokia Asha 500 and its dual shot style shells, the bigger news to report here is that Whatsapp is finally coming to the Asha software platform, which includes the highly popular Asha 501 too. If the above leaked press image is to be believed(usually very trustworthy because of @evleaks), Whatsapp will finally arrive for the new Nokia Asha series. This has been THE highly requested app on Nokia Asha 501, and we are glad to see that it is indeed coming, but when is the question.

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Samsung leads the Indian tablet market as shipments surpass 1 million again in Q2 2013

Samsung is leading yet another consumer electronics segment in India, and this is after conquering the mobile category. Yes, the company is now leading the rapidly growing tablet segment too, with 21% of marketshare according to CyberMedia Research’s analysts. The overall tablet market too has massively improved in India, with about 1.15 million shipments in the last quarter – Q2 of 2013. This is a 27& QoQ increase and a huge 107% increase year-on-year. But the Indian market is predominantly 7 inch and other similarly sized small tablets, with about 70 vendors actively part of the whole market making it highly fragmented.

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Apple iPhone 5S iFixit tear down details the internals

It has been a tradition of iFixit, the immensely popular website known for its disassembling and assembling guides, to provide tear down images of Apple products as soon as they are launched. The Apple iPhone 5S is no exception and has received the tear down treatment from the website.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 211 Unboxing

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 211 was launched in India a couple of months ago and we finally have it in our labs for testing. The updated version of the Galaxy Tab 2 311 has a new S3-inspired design and almost the same internals as before. The bezels have become shorter though, making it easier for one handed usage. Anyways, we put it in front of the camera to see what the box contents are and gave a quick hardware walkthrough on video, watch –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naiqZJmm6yk

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ZTE becomes India’s leading Data Card vendor with 30.2% marketshare in Q2, 2013

ZTE, the Chinese company known for its communication infrastructure solutions and even smartphone products, is now the leading Data Card vendor in India, with a user base of 63.04% of the total Data Card users. The CyberMedia Research team had released these statistics for the Indian market in their website sometime back, where they actually noted a decline in the Data Card market from the previous year but compared to the last quarter, Q2 has seen a 66.7% growth and about 30.2% of all the new shipments are ZTE cards, according to the data.

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Micromax to preload BBM on all its Canvas Smartphones

BlackBerry messenger, one of the most popular instant messaging services, had announced its arrival on iOS and Android platforms earlier, but it looks like manufacturers are already warming up to the concept of pre-loading it on their devices. Micromax is the one of the first manufacturers to announce that it will pre-load BBM on all of its Canvas Smartphones starting from the first week of October. But of course existing users too, can download the BBM app through the play store, irrespective of the device they own.

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Nokia wants to reinvent innovation, teases an event on October 22nd

Nokia has released the above picture on its social media channels, signaling an event in the middle east(likely Dubai or Abu Dhabi) on October 22nd, presumably for the Lumia 1520 Phablet and the Nokia Sirius Windows RT tablet launch. This news comes after rumours that Nokia might delay or cancel some of its products after the Microsoft deal, which makes some sense as some products may overlap within the same company, but if the teaser is to be believed, we will definitely see the Lumia 1520 at least, with the Sirius launch now a big question mark.

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Windows Phone retains the position as India’s second largest smartphone OS with 5.4% marketshare

It’s been almost an year since Windows Phone 8 launched, but the growth has seen a spike only recently, with the Nokia Lumia 520 becoming the most popular Windows Phone, not just in India, but the world. India has definitely been a tough market to crack for anything other than Android. Even with the huge marketing and retail push by Nokia, the most trusted brand in India for quite a number of years, Windows Phone is just at 5.4% of the whole Smartphone market. With iOS and BlackBerry contributed even lesser, Android rules the market with more than 84% marketshare at least.

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