Bharadwaj Chandramouli | Fone Arena

Why the Microsoft – Nokia acquisition happened

Nokia and Microsoft just ended their joint press conference, in an effort to explain the acquisition the companies announced earlier today. As with any major announcement, especially with a brand like Nokia which invokes a lot of emotion, the reactions were predictably…. emotional. Risto Siilasma probably said it best, at the joint Nokia press conference in Finland – The acquisition is “Rationally perfect, emotionally complicated.” which we wholeheartedly agree with. But what drove the companies towards this deal? Why did Microsoft buy Nokia? What’s in it for both the companies? We try to explain with two points of views, read on.

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Nokia Lumia 625 Unboxing

It might be really hard to believe, but the Nokia Lumia 625, that launched recently, is the company’s largest phone till date, with respect to screen size. The UK Retail box of the 4.7 inch device just landed in our labs and naturally, we were bothered enough to unbox it and take a overview of the device on video, watch –

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

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Micromax and Karbonn take top positions as the Indian Smartphone market surges ahead with the Phablet revolution

You might have seen us reporting on various marketshare reports each month coming from a company called IDC. Usually, the company provides a wider perspective of the global market for mobile phones as well as smartphones, but this time, they have focused on the second fastest growing mobile phone market in the world, India. We saw in June that the overall shipments of Smartphones in India was at just 6.1 million devices, but in a quarter, it has risen to 9.3 million shipments, according to IDC. And over half of the shipments were from local players like Micromax, Karbonn and the others, with the former taking the no. 2 and 3 positions of the Top 5 Smartphone vendors in the Indian market respectively.

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Nokia Lumia 925 Blind Test – Flagship Shoot Out

The Nokia Lumia 925 launched just six days back in India with a price tag of Rs. 33,499. It was announced back in May, as a refreshed alternative to people who didn’t like the bulk and design of the good old Nokia Lumia 920. The camera was supposedly improved, along with the build and design, with a six element lens and all new algorithms, while retaining all the PureView OIS goodness that the 920 was known for. While the Lumia 920 was good, it had problems with defocused softer photos and overall unreliable performance, making it a tougher buy when compared to other flagships. But, does the Lumia 925 fix that? Can it produce better pictures than competing flagship devices? Exactly what we are going to see today.

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Netgear Push2TV PTV3000 Unboxing and Miracast Demo

Miracast is a wireless screencast standard that aims to be an open alternative to Apple’s AirPlay. With certified devices, the technology works over a peer-to-peer WiFi Direct connection and mirrors everything on your screen on to compatible devices, like for example, your TV. There are many devices that support the Miracast standard and one of them is the Netgear Push2TV that we bought recently. It supports not one but two wireless screencasting standards – Miracast for many Smartphones and Tablets, and Intel WiDi for the new range of ultrabooks. We unboxed it and took it for a spin on video, watch –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UT4YwkxxwE

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Google Nexus 7 2013 Travel Cover hands on

You might have seen us review the new Google Nexus 7 2013 a while back in which we concluded it is indeed an excellent small tablet, but as with any large screened device, especially ones that are imported from other countries, the risk of broken/shattered glass is high. So, we naturally went ahead and bought the Travel Cover for the new Nexus 7 2013 from ASUS and made a short hands on video for you –

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

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Nokia Pro Cam on the Lumia 925 – a Walkthrough

Much has been said about the Nokia Lumia 1020 and its amazing camera prowess, but what made it fun was using the camera interface. Yes, the interface, also known as the Nokia Pro Cam, provided the much needed control and versatility for the robust camera hardware that Nokia packed in the Lumia 1020. But the other PureView devices are no exception either and Nokia made sure that 920, 925 and 928 users get the Pro Cam, and eventually they did. We immediately installed it onto the Nokia Lumia 925 and found it to work really well, just like how we found it on the Lumia 1020 earlier. So, we made a video to show you how awesome it is, take a look at the video walk through below and go past the break for a detailed walk through in images and text with bonus samples –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCw1v1gnVrY

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Nokia Lumia 925 – Smart Camera and Cinemagraph Demo

The Nokia Lumia 925 just launched in India for a price of Rs. 33,499 and has started to arrive in retail stores. While it is slowly trickling down to the end user with a premise of it being good at all things camera, we sought to test out each and every feature of the camera in a series of posts, as announced in the launch post. To kickstart the series, we are testing out the most prominent feature out of the global Lumia 925 keynote, the Nokia Smart Camera app. What is it and what does it do? Dive in and find out.

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Nokia Lumia 925 officially launched in India for a price of Rs. 33,499

We just witnessed the Nokia Lumia 925 go on sale from the official Indian online store for Rs. 34, 169 but curiously, without much fanfare. Well, Nokia has compensated for that now, with their launch event in New Delhi today. Yes, the Nokia Lumia 925 is finally official, and comes with a price tag of a slightly lesser Rs. 33, 499. The latest all rounded flagship from Nokia is aimed at fixing the few hardware problems the Lumia 920 had, for instance, the design, build and weight. Sporting an all new aluminium build with some hardware improvements like the six element camera lens, the Lumia 925 is for people who didn’t want the Lumia 920 because of the bulk or the used up design.It is kind of interesting to see that Nokia has built a nice little portfolio of Windows Phone devices for India with over 12 devices being introduced in the market so far.

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Asphalt 7 for Android updated with new Cars and Play Games integration

Gameloft is on a roll these days. Last week, they announced that Asphalt 8 will be hitting the Google Play Store and Apple App Store on August 22nd and today they have announced their partnership with Microsoft to bring 15 Gameloft games to Windows platform. Asphalt 8 is easily one of the most anticipated mobile racing games. Asphalt 7, still one of the top paid games, has just got an update from Gameloft.

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TomTom Navigation with fully offline maps arrives for Android in India

TomTom is a well known navigation solutions provider and can be spotted in most automobiles fitted with a navigation system, be it cars or even public transport. It is also widely known that mobile phones have made specialized navigation devices a bit redundant by offering excellent capabilities for everyone that owns a smartphone. TomTom has previously released its navigation apps on all mobile platforms, but they have seen a staged roll out in terms of countries, and now it is finally available for India’s Android devices.

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Sony Wireless NFC Speaker SRS-BTV5 Unboxing

Sony has always been known for making audio accessories for its TVs and home entertainment systems, and to an extent, even for its yesteryear Walkman series of phones but it gradually reduced until recently when they released smartphone focused accessories. These devices were launched to complement the new Xperia smartphones that come with the built-in NFC functionality. One of those accessories launched is the Sony Wireless NFC speaker codenamed SRS-BTV5(priced at Rs. 3,990) that works with any smartphone with Bluetooth A2DP. We got the cyan version of this spherically shaped wireless speaker and unboxed it for a video demo, watch it –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTUEO-pDXkY

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MHL 3.0 brings support for 4K and doubles bandwidth

Mobile High Definition Link, a protocol used in mobile devices to deliver content to the large screen without actually using a separate HDMI port, has been made available on tons of devices. The last iteration, MHL 2.1 enabled full HD 1080p support for mirroring, and with the latest update – MHL 3.0, the consortium has upped the ante with support for 4K. With the new range of 4K TVs doing its rounds in the market, it’s the right time for the consortium that is comprised of Nokia, Sony, Samsung and Toshibha to put forward a new iteration of the technology so that the uptake is gradual, and in line with current trends.

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Oppo N1 to launch in September, rumoured specs leak out

Just hours after we posted our first impressions of the newly launched Oppo R819, another leak has graced us with some exciting information. We’d already seen Oppo acknowledge the existence of their new range of flagship camera-centric devices dubbed the N-lens and that the first device will be named N1(of which we saw some leaked renders). And now we’ve got a leaked image from a Weibo user which says that the device will be launching late September this year. Rumoured to have a 13 megapixel sensor with a professional-grade Fujitsu camera ISP, the N1 will be Oppo’s first real cameraphone flagship.

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Oppo R819 Hands on First Impressions

Only yesterday we saw Oppo reveal its latest smartphone, the curiously named R819. After a critical success of the Oppo Find 5, which we think is one of the best Android hardware available on the market, the company has sought to reach lower price points with a smaller and a more mid-range device. We see the R819 as Oppo’s effort to claim volume as encouraging market results have cropped up at home. And surprise! We’ve already got the R819 here in our labs and here are our first impressions of the device in detail, read on!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6FkjkL-ndM
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