Bharadwaj Chandramouli | Fone Arena

Fonearena – Battle of the Flagships 2012 #BOTF12

Note: The above chart is regularly updated with each result, check below for the complete chart as it was in the beginning.

2012 has been a great year for the smartphone industry. It has grown leaps and bounds and has been nothing short of a revolution. The major innovations in the mobile industry this year have been larger beautiful high resolution screens, better cameras that can see in the dark, and more larger beautiful, even higher resolution screens and on the software side of things, we have innovation in the form of new entrants like Jolla. But when it comes to company flagships, the bar has always been set high. So, we thought, why not take a look at all the major flagship phones that have been released this year and make them battle it out for the ultimate top spot. And that’s precisely what we are going to do now!

Continue reading “Fonearena – Battle of the Flagships 2012 #BOTF12”

Toshiba challenges Lytro with its new refocusing smartphone sensor

Lytro, the kaleidoscope-like camera that hit the markets last year had a special advantage to it. It could refocus the image, AFTER it was taken. It was a market disruption and there was no competition, till now. Yes, Toshiba has now announced that they are manufacturing a similar sensor that can be used for Smartphones and Tablets with commercial availability slated for sometime around 2013.

Continue reading “Toshiba challenges Lytro with its new refocusing smartphone sensor”

Airtel launches WiFi hangout – a prepaid hotspot service in select cities

India’s leading mobile and broadband provider Airtel has now sought after a new way to provide its broadband internet as a service. While the notion of a paid WiFi hotspot is nothing new in India, there has not been a wide commercial push that has widened its reach, and Airtel may fix just that, with its new “WiFi Hangout” service, a prepaid WiFi hotspot, initially launched in three cities/regions namely Mumbai, NCR and Bangalore.

Continue reading “Airtel launches WiFi hangout – a prepaid hotspot service in select cities”

Reliance to test voice services on 4G networks

Coming from an Economic Times article, it looks like Reliance Industries limited (RIL) is all set to get approval from the telecom department (DoT) for testing voice services on its yet-to-be-launched 4G networks. This comes as a surprise as Airtel has been the only 4G player as of now, with limited network distribution.

Continue reading “Reliance to test voice services on 4G networks”

Nokia Lumia 920 vs 808 Pureview vs Samsung Galaxy S3 Video Quality Comparison

We had just unboxed the Nokia Lumia 920 a few days back and are pleasantly surprised by its camera performance, especially in the video recording department. So, we gathered up two other phones(with point and shoot rivaling cameras) namely the Nokia 808 PureView and the Samsung Galaxy S3 from our labs and put the three to test in terms of full HD 1080p video recording. And this is how it turned out –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjIbtFL9Idk

Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 920 vs 808 Pureview vs Samsung Galaxy S3 Video Quality Comparison”

Nvidia Tegra 4 slide leaks – Wayne GPU brings 72 cores

What you see above is a leaked slide from a Nvidia Tegra 4 aka Wayne presentation that appeared on the Chinese social networking site Sina Weibo. The slide reveals some interesting details about the new system on a chip from Nvidia, the apparent successor to the Tegra 3 mobile platform.

Continue reading “Nvidia Tegra 4 slide leaks – Wayne GPU brings 72 cores”

Bluetooth file transfer on the Nokia Lumia 800 running Windows Phone 7.8

Earlier, we had reported that the latest update of Windows Phone for the current 7.5 devices, the Windows Phone 7.8 has started rolling out to the Nokia Lumia 800 worldwide. We had went ahead with a shortcut for getting the Windows Phone 7.8 onto the Nokia Lumia 800, by flashing an official copy from the Navifirm servers onto our devices. Our first attempt went in vain as we were not able to get the complete set of features that is supposed to have come with the Nokia specific Windows Phone update. So, we gave it another try, and then we had two new apps sitting on our device, Bluetooth share and Ringtone maker.

Continue reading “Bluetooth file transfer on the Nokia Lumia 800 running Windows Phone 7.8”

HTC M7, 4.7 inch 1080p successor to the One X leaked, runs sense 5

According to a new leak from the industry’s leading leakster – Evleaks, HTC is preparing to launch its much awaited successor to the HTC One X and it is supposedly featuring a 4.7 inch full HD 1080p screen like the HTC J Butterfly phone that it launched a while back. And not only that, the HTC M7 will reportedly feature the updated Sense 5 UX.

Continue reading “HTC M7, 4.7 inch 1080p successor to the One X leaked, runs sense 5”

Samsung Exynos 4 exploit grants dangerous R/W access to RAM

A keen XDA member named alephzain has exploited a rather big security hole in devices that are powered by the Samsung Exynos 4 chipset. These Exynos 4 powered devices apparently have their physical memory access open for all kinds of applications, if exploited. Sounds serious.

Continue reading “Samsung Exynos 4 exploit grants dangerous R/W access to RAM”

Facebook to launch snapchat-like app with timed self destructible messaging

Facebook, after aggressively targeting Whatsapp with new capabilities in its messenger app, is now reportedly ready to launch another standalone app, that takes advantage of your Facebook account. This app is supposedly a snapchat-like app with self-destructible timed messages. Read on to find out what it is about.

Continue reading “Facebook to launch snapchat-like app with timed self destructible messaging”

Windows Phone 7.8 reportedly starts rolling out for the Nokia Lumia 800

Windows Phone 7.8 has been relatively an unknown quantity even after the release of Windows Phone 8 because Microsoft has been absolutely mum on any plans of the roll out, but fear not, the schedule for the roll out to Nokia’s Lumia Windows Phones are apparently on target and has started to pop up on the Zune client in the form of a new update!

Continue reading “Windows Phone 7.8 reportedly starts rolling out for the Nokia Lumia 800”

Firefox OS ported to the Huawei Ascend G300

The Firefox OS is Mozilla’s attempt at the intensely competitive and crowded smartphone game. The OS was announced as an initiative to bring more openness into the mobile ecosystem. Mozilla launched nightly builds of the OS, which in its early stages can be currently made to work on the desktop, but that didn’t stop Modaco user Dazzozo(Daz Jones) from porting it to his phone, the Huawei Ascend G300.

Continue reading “Firefox OS ported to the Huawei Ascend G300”

Google Nexus 10 Unboxing

The Nexus program from Google has been transforming from a developer focused one to a completely consumer focused one. The message is very clear, Google wants to use its services(Google Play) and the best possible way to use them is by buying their Nexus devices. Starting from the Nexus One, the program has seen many phones, till the Nexus 4(See our unboxing here) a 7 inch tablet made by ASUS, the Nexus 7, but we never got to see a 10 inch one. But then, amidst “Sandy”, Google launched the first 10 inch Nexus device – The Google Nexus 10, made by Samsung. And yes, we have got it in our hands already, after a terrible launch delay. Check out the unboxing video below –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgONLgS_OA8

Continue reading “Google Nexus 10 Unboxing”

Exploring QSlide, LG’s answer to Samsung’s Popup Play

The LG Optimus G is currently the company’s quad-core flagship device. With the Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), LG enabled a quirky new multitasking feature called “Q slide”. We are taking a quick look at that feature in a video below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI0RMh6nEe4

Continue reading “Exploring QSlide, LG’s answer to Samsung’s Popup Play”

Lenovo A60+ Hands-on

After unveiling the new Lenovo smartphones in Mumbai, the same were launched in Chennai at a press event. We showed you the hands on of the K860, the S880, the S560 and the P700i. They are all mid – high-end devices with specs that suit their respective price ranges. However what Lenovo launched was a portfolio and no portfolio is complete without a low-end device. The Lenovo A60+ is the company’s entry-level Android smartphone and it is aimed at the first smartphone buyer.

Continue reading “Lenovo A60+ Hands-on”