Bharadwaj Chandramouli | Fone Arena

Bing gets a facelift on Windows Phone, adds new design and features

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Bing, Microsoft’s answer to Google, is the default search app on Windows Phone with a dedicated key. The service received a substantial upgrade with the Windows Phone 8 update that brought panoramic quick access to relevant stories at that point in time. Otherwise the results have been similar since the inception of the OS and that has finally changed, with the new rollout that has started for the Bing Search app in Windows Phone. The new update brings a new layout and new features based on the Bing Neural network that works similar to the Knowledge graph from Google.

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Obama administration vetoes Apple iPhones/iPads import ban, South Korea concerned

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In a turn of events for the Samsung-Apple patent controversy, US president Barack Obama’s administration has vetoed an import and sales ban on some Apple iPhones and iPads, upending a legal upper hand for Samsung. This is reportedly the first time since 1987 that a presidential administration has vetoed a ban by the country’s own International Trade Commission. This has raised a few eyebrows in the far east, in South Korea, where the media criticized the USA for protecting Apple.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom Review

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Samsung has been recently having an obsession to provide solutions of convergence in weird form factors. We saw that with the Mega 6.3 and the Galaxy Note 510, both being devices with a certain feature, unknown to that specific form factor, hacked in, and the S4 Zoom falls in that same category. It is basically a Smartphone with a camera slapped on its back, or a point and shoot with a smartphone slapped on its back, you get the idea. Samsung started this trend with the Galaxy Camera, a high end point and shoot running Android, which is basically a connected camera, with 3G. Expectedly, Samsung has taken it further with the S4 Zoom adding phone functionality. Priced at Rs. 29,990, is the S4 Zoom a hack job or is it actually a good enough cameraphone? Lets find out.

Video Review

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfz1vMhBbIk

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ZTE ships 11.5 million smartphones in Q2 2013, at 5% of the total smartphone marketshare

ZTE Grand S-4

Amongst a number of highly competitive Chinese smartphone makers is ZTE. This company was recently revealed as one of the Top 5 Smartphone makers in the world, by IDC, pegging it at the fifth position. However, contrary to IDC’s claims, ZTE has posted its Q2 results with a total of 11.5 million(up from 10.1 in the report) shipments, pegging the company at an even more impressive fourth position. With this number, the company now owns a healthy 5% of the total smartphone marketshare. Several Android OEMs are finally starting to make substantial inroads into the market, is the Apple-Samsung duopoly fading fast?

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Samsung boasts the world’s first TDD-FDD LTE seamless handover technology with new Galaxy S4 and S4 mini devices

Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A

Samsung has just announced that it has the world’s first commercially available devices(new Galaxy S4s and S4 minis) that can seamlessly do handover between two different LTE networks(based on TDD and FDD). This news comes at a time when most companies and their multimode LTE chipsets are gearing up for LTE Advanced support. Qualcomm had announced last year that they will bringing a truly global LTE chipset with support for both TDD and FDD LTE variants, with the MDM9x25 series of modems, but Samsung seems to have one-upped them, not for a dual mode TDD-FDD LTE chipset, but for this “seamless handover” technology.

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Five interesting Moto X features you need to know

Moto X

The Moto X just went official in the USA, with a ton of information(aka press coverage) doing the usual internet rounds. With modest hardware specifications, Motorola has taken a completely different approach with its latest flagship device. So different, it makes you wonder what really is special with this device. Unless you want to read through various long form articles, you won’t really know what the stand-out features are. We have taken that effort instead, so here is a compiled list of really interesting Moto X features you definitely need to know.

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Meizu MX2 Unboxing and first impressions

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Meizu, a well known Chinese smartphone manufacturer, rose to popularity with its M9 and MX devices. The company was always known for making devices that look remarkably similar to Apple’s iPhone, and that tradition continues with its latest flagship, the MX2. With a really impressive build quality and a gorgeous display, we set out to unbox this beauty of a device with some high expectations. Does it deliver? Watch the unboxing video and skip past the break for our initial impressions of the device.

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

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Sony’s Q1 FY13 results out, mobile sales increase by 36% YoY

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Looks like Sony is back in the game, especially in mobile! The Japanese company has just reported its first quarter FY 2013 results and has beaten expectations set by analysts. The increased performance is due to, you guessed right, its mobile division. While it posted huge operating losses last year, the division has gained 36% YoY, posting an operating income of 60 million USD. The company’s overall net profits stand at a small 35 million USD, which is not huge by any means, but posting profits after struggling for the past year should be encouraging for the consumer electronics giant.

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Samsung tops Apple in a new customer satisfaction survey

Samsung has finally topped Apple in a customer satisfaction survey. The new customer survey conducted by American Customer Satisfaction Index is first of its kind with the survey containing individual smartphones.

ACSI Smart Study

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Is Nokia launching a tablet at the September 26-27 NYC event?

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It’s been long rumoured that Nokia is launching a Windows tablet, and that might actually come true if the recent leaks are to be believed. Windows Phone Central reports that Nokia is having a launch event in New York on September 26th and 27th spanning two days, for a rumoured tablet announcement. The above image is a screenshot of a purported event invite that is doing the rounds internally. Is this actually the Nokia World event this year? Quite possibly.

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Samsung to supply Retina displays for the next iPad mini

Samsung and Apple might be involved in a lot of patent cases, but their partnership continues to flourish. Samsung is tipped to be the provider of the retina display for next generation iPad mini that is rumored to arrive by the end of this year.

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Google extends Windows Phone calendar and contact syncing deadline to December 31st

There was huge uproar after Google announced its plans to drop EAS support for all non-corporate GMail accounts, mainly because that affected Windows Phone, which has no in-built support for the new CardDAV and CalDAV technologies. Hence Microsoft and Google decided to extend the support for Windows Phone devices until July 31st, yesterday, a date from which devices without the GDR2 update would have stopped supporting syncing to Google servers. Thankfully, the companies have extended the date yet again, to December 31st, since most devices haven’t got the update yet.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook meets China Mobile head to talk cooperation: Reuters

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China Mobile, the world’s largest operator by volume of subscribers is also the only operator in China that doesn’t offer iPhones or iPads for sale. The primary reason why China Mobile doesn’t offer Apple products is due to the company’s homegrown TD-SCDMA technology for 3G, which is an exclusive standard for the operator, for which most companies produce custom radios in their phones. But this might change soon, with Reuters reporting that Apple’s CEO Tim Cook is in talks with China Mobile’s Chairman Xi Guohua, for a possible cooperation between the two giants.

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Samsung denies benchmark boosting allegations, says it’s normal for most fullscreen apps

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Just hours ago, we had seen how Samsung had boosted its benchmark scores for a favourable result in comparison to the competition. After all the brouhaha surrounding this issue, Samsung has spoken up, denying the allegations by saying that most full screen apps have the access to full GPU clock speed. That said, the vague response on the company’s Korean website doesn’t seem to explain what “Benchmark booster” actually means.

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Oppo Find 5 receives an OTA update, new features and bug fixes aplenty

The Oppo Find 5 is one of the very few phones in the world to receive updates driven by the community. If you had read our review, you might have have noticed us mentioning the overwhelming community support the device gets. Yes, there is a robust feedback system that the company employs thanks to the limited availability and a responsive fan base. Considering the feedback, they released an OTA update earlier, with bug fixes mostly dominating the changelog, and similarly there is another update available now, but this time they have added quite a lot of feature, read past the break to find the changelog.

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