Dhruv Bhutani | Fone Arena

Nokia DC-50 portable wireless charging plate announced for $99

Alongside the Lumia 1520 and 1320 announced in Abu Dhabi at Nokia World, the Finnish company also showcased a few accessories. Amongst them is the Nokia DC-50 portable wireless charger that couples Qi charging with a portable battery giving you the best of both worlds. LED indicators present on the plate will display the amount of charge left in the plate. A travel mode is also built in that will push battery life further. Continue reading “Nokia DC-50 portable wireless charging plate announced for $99”

Vine for Windows Phone launched

Two long awaited apps were finally confirmed for Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system at Nokia World in Abu Dhabi. Alongside Instagram, the popular short video sharing service, Vine, will also be making its way to the platform in the coming weeks. The announcement followed the launch of the Lumia 1520 which is Nokia’s 6inch device and packs a Full HD display. Continue reading “Vine for Windows Phone launched”

Instagram for Windows Phone is official, coming in next few weeks

Instagram for Windows Phone

At Nokia World, the Finnish smartphone manufacturer just announced in partnership with Instagram’s Kevin Systrom that the application will be available to Windows Phone users over the next few weeks. Continue reading “Instagram for Windows Phone is official, coming in next few weeks”

Nokia Lumia 1320 render leaks ahead of Nokia World

While there’s just a few hours left for Nokia World to kick off, we’ve got our first glimpse of the Nokia Lumia 1320. This device will be a lower end companion to the Lumia 1520. The device will still have a large display but is expected to drop the resolution to 720p. The handset runs the latest release of Windows Phone 8 ie GDR3 and supports the three column layout from GDR3 which reaffirms that this is a restriction based on screen size and not resolution. Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 1320 render leaks ahead of Nokia World”

Nokia Lumia 1020: Reinventing Zoom

Much has been written and said about Nokia’s PureView technology but at the core, it all comes down to the amalgam of optics and software algorithms to create a compelling solution. We saw this first on the Nokia 808 PureView and this has been further tuned and improved on the newly launched Nokia Lumia 1020. In its quest for perfection, there have been a few questionable and some very welcome tweaks to the winning formula of the Nokia 808. Over the past few days we got to test out the photography capabilities of the device and get our queries answered by Marc Olsson, Product Manager at Nokia. Here’s our attempt to demystify the camera technology on the Nokia Lumia 1020 for you. Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 1020: Reinventing Zoom”

Uber comes to Delhi

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Uber, a technology company in the Silicon Valley of US, is expanding its cab rides service globally and the latest addition to their list of cities is India’s capital – New Delhi. Delhi will be Uber’s second city in India after Bangalore and they are expecting that it will be their biggest market in the country.Uber is available as an Android and iOS app. By using Uber, users can request a ride and they will be picked up within minutes. At launch, Uber will be concentrating on Central and South Delhi along with some parts of Gurgaon. They are expecting to cover all of Delhi as soon as possible.You could be picked up in one these awesome cars – Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Mercedes E & S class, BMW 3 & 5 series and Audi Q3, A4 and A6. Continue reading “Uber comes to Delhi”

HTC One Max Photo Gallery

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The HTC One Max is the newest device off the block from the Taiwanese company. Building off a design that high resembles the One Mini, phone packs a gigantic 5.9 inch screen. This surrounded by the aluminum and plastic shell makes it a rather humongous device. Here is a photo gallery of the device to whet your appetite, do check back for the hands on report shortly.

Continue reading “HTC One Max Photo Gallery”

Apple sends out invites for October 22nd Launch event, new iPads coming

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We’d previously reported on expected dates for Apple’s upcoming event and invites have now been sent out for the same. Apple will be holding its October 22nd media event at the Yerba Buena Center for Arts in San Francisco. The Cupertino based company will be showcasing its new iPad models at the event. The iPad Mini is expected to get the long awaited Retina display treatment as well. Continue reading “Apple sends out invites for October 22nd Launch event, new iPads coming”

Qualcomm introduces Zeroth, Brain-inspired Neural Processing Units

The leader in smartphone chipsets, Qualcomm, is once again thinking ahead of the curve with its new project termed Zeroth. The new processor architecture is inspired by brains and is modeled on real life neurons. Zeroth is capable of learning and adapting based on feedback. This is very similar to how an actual human interprets and reacts.

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In its demo video, Qualcomm shows how a robot built around the Zeroth processor adapts to its environment. It displays adaptive behavior in response to real life feedback instead of falling back on pre-coded decision parameters. According to Qualcomm, the technology has already advanced to allow for other companies to develop applications making use of its capabilities. Devices based on Zeroth will be able to see and process data like humans do. This has been achieved by creating mathematical models that accurately characterize biological neuron behavior when transmitting or receiving information. Spiking neural networks encode and transmit data efficiently for gathering environmental information and then processing, fusing them together. Continue reading “Qualcomm introduces Zeroth, Brain-inspired Neural Processing Units”

ZTE Blade G2 Review

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The entry level Android handset market is one of the hottest and the primary driver of smartphone sales in the country. As brands capitalize on this segment, we’ve seen a proliferation of new players entering the market. ZTE too is aiming to capture a share of the market with the Blade G2. Let’s take a look at how capable this Android 4.2 running handset is. Continue reading “ZTE Blade G2 Review”

ZTE Blade G2 Benchmarks

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The ZTE Blade G2 was launched earlier this year and we finally got a chance to check out the device for ourselves. The handset aimed at the price sensitive market strikes a decent balance between power and performance. We spent some time with it and put it through our benchmark set up to pitch it against the competition. Day to day usage of the phone is more than acceptable and the phone generally blazes through casual use case scenarios. Continue reading “ZTE Blade G2 Benchmarks”

Never miss an update with the Nokia Collection app

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The Windows Phone App Store can be a bit finicky with polling for updates and you often end up being stuck on a version or two behind the current release. Nokia’s Lumia series of Windows Phone devices ship with a huge amount of Nokia specific apps that add a lot of value. Nokia also regularly pushes updates to these apps to add new functionality which you really don’t want to miss out on. Though the name would suggest otherwise, the Nokia Collection app is a third party application that allows you to manually check and update Nokia specific apps. Simple in function but it does the trick and we were successfully able to use it to update some apps like Nokia Music which were not getting picked up by inbuilt update polling system. Microsoft has just started rolling out the GDR3 update and we hope this issue is fixed in it. However, in the meanwhile the app is available for a mere $0.99 and you should definitely check it out if you are using a Nokia Lumia phone.

[Source – Windows Phone Store]

Windows Phone GDR3 update is official, brings 1080p display and Snapdragon 800 chipset support

The long awaited Windows Phone GDR3 update has now been officially unveiled and confirms most of the rumors around the update. The biggest and most promising feature is that Windows Phone now supports 1080p displays and the Snapdragon 800 SoC. This means that Windows Phone flagships will no longer be crippled by hardware limits when compared to Android phones. It can be said that WP phones are usually fast enough to not require top of the line hardware but chipsets like the Snapdragon 800 also bring a lot more to the table. Support for 1080p displays means that you can now have up to 6 small tiles or an additional medium sized tile. Alongside 1080p screens, Windows Phone can now also be used on 5-6 inch display devices allowing Windows Phone phablets, something we’ll be seeing very soon in the form of the Lumia 1520.

Windows-Phone-8-GDR3 Continue reading “Windows Phone GDR3 update is official, brings 1080p display and Snapdragon 800 chipset support”

Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet render shows cyan variant ahead of launch at Nokia World

By now it is pretty much assured that Nokia will be showing off a tablet device at the upcoming Nokia World event. Prolific leaker of upcoming devices, Evleaks, has let loose a render of the device that is expected to be called the Nokia Lumia 2520. While the press render shows the tablet in cyan, it is expected to be available in red, black and white variants as well. The screen is believed to be 10.1 inches and the tablet will have a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. Nokia-Lumia-2520-Evleaks Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet render shows cyan variant ahead of launch at Nokia World”

Nokia Lumia 1020 Camera Samples

Nokia Lumia 1020 is currently being hailed as the king of smartphone photography and not many people can deny that fact. With the upcoming transition over to Microsoft, Nokia won’t exist as an independent company anymore, but they signed off in style with Lumia 1020 and its amazing 41MP PureView camera. All this PureView craze started off when they announced the Nokia 808 PureView Symbian smartphone with a 41MP camera and this was PureView Phase 1 according to Nokia. Then later that year, Nokia announced a Windows Phone PureView device ie The Nokia Lumia 920. Although this one did not have a huge 41MP sensor, it came with impressive low light photography and OIS(Optical Image Stabilization). This was dubbed as PureView Phase 2 by Nokia.

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With the Nokia Lumia 1020, Nokia nailed it by combining the PureView Phase 1 and Phase 2 into a single camera module. The camera sensor on the Lumia 1020 is a 41MP sensor that comes with OIS and captures impressive low-light photos. While we work on a more in-depth piece on the photography capabilities of the Nokia Lumia 1020, here are some camera samples for your perusal. You can click through to see the full resolution version of each image. Do let us know your thoughts in the comments section! Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 1020 Camera Samples”