BlackBerry PlayBook will not get the BlackBerry 10 update

BlackBerry announced last year that the BlackBerry PlayBook would get the latest BlackBerry 10 update. The company’s CEO Thorsten Heins even confirmed earlier this year at the BlackBerry 10 launch that they plan to upgrade all existing PlayBooks to BlackBerry 10. Now BlackBerry has announced that  it will not be upgrading the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to BlackBerry 10. The CEO confirmed it in the company’s investor call earlier today. BlackBerry reported a loss in its first quarter results for the 3 months ended June 1, 2013. Continue reading “BlackBerry PlayBook will not get the BlackBerry 10 update”

Reliance to offer iPhone 5 in India, announces bundled 3G data plans

Reliance Communications (RCom) has announced that they would sell the Apple iPhone 5 from today through their stores. Reliance has also announced bundled plans starting at a Rs. 304 that would offer both free minutes and 3G data. The Rs. 304 plan offers 100 minutes of voice calls and 2GB of free 3G data per month. Both Airtel and Aircel started selling the iPhone 5 in India last November with data plans. Reliance doesn’t offer free SMS in the plan. The iPhone 5 is priced at Rs.45,500 for the 16GB, Rs.52,500 for the 32GB and Rs. 59,500 for the 64GB versions which is the same as the launch price. Continue reading “Reliance to offer iPhone 5 in India, announces bundled 3G data plans”

Nokia Asha 501 (Red) Photo Gallery

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The Nokia Asha 501 forms the next generation of feature phones. Bright colorful designs, a touch centric interface and the legendary Nokia build quality are poised to offer a very compelling smartphone-like experience to a first time user. Here’s a gallery of Nokia’s latest while we work on the review. Continue reading “Nokia Asha 501 (Red) Photo Gallery”

Samsung Galaxy S4 Active Hands On

Samsung Galaxy S4 Active Hands On-15

This year has seen the rise of durable smartphones as a credible trend in the market – first we had the Xperia Z followed by the Huawei Ascend D2 and now Samsung has joined in with the new Galaxy S4 Active. The S4 Active is the durable cousin of the Galaxy S4, sharing an impressive specs list whilst also adding IP67 dustproofing and water resistance up to 1 metre for 30 minutes. Up front is the large 5 inch touchscreen which is bright and vibrant but uses TFT technology as opposed to Super AMOLED in the Galaxy S4. Continue reading “Samsung Galaxy S4 Active Hands On”

Vine for Android v1.2 update brings option to use front-facing camera

Vine for Android v1.2

Twitter has update the Vine app for Android that finally brings option to use the front-facing camera to record videos. You can now click the camera switch button in the recording mode to switch the camera. The Vine for iPhone got this feature the version 1.1 update last month. This update also brings new upload manager for unsubmitted posts, improvements in settings and faster camera loading time. Continue reading “Vine for Android v1.2 update brings option to use front-facing camera”

Micromax A92 Canvas Lite with 5-inch display, Android 4.1 spotted online for Rs. 8499

Micromax A92 Canvas Lite

Micromax A92 Canvas Lite, the company’s new budget phone has surfaced on online retail site Flipkart. It has a 5-inch (480 x 854 pixels) TFT capacitive touch screen display and is powered by a 1 GHz dual-core processor similar to the A110 that was launched last year. It runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and packs a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash. It comes with dual SIM support with dual standby similar to other Micromax phones. Continue reading “Micromax A92 Canvas Lite with 5-inch display, Android 4.1 spotted online for Rs. 8499”

Facebook begins Android Beta Program, v3.4 Beta brings new features

Facebook Beta Program

Facebook has started their first Android Beta Program that would let the beta testers to test the app before it is released for everyone. The version 3.4 beta for Android brings new features for Both the Facebook app and the Facebook Home including option to share News Feed stories in a private message, Option to organize your apps with folders in Facebook Home and lots more. Facebook released a beta app for Windows Phone 8 users last month. Continue reading “Facebook begins Android Beta Program, v3.4 Beta brings new features”

Google developing Android gaming console, new Nexus Q and more for the big refresh – WSJ

The Wall Street Journal is always a bit of a hit or miss when it comes to rumours and its sources, so take this with a pinch of slat. Google is reportedly developing its own Android based gaming console, inspired by the Ouya, says the publication according to “people familiar with the matter”. This doesn’t come as a surprise because a start up funded by Kickstarter has already pioneered this idea in the form of the Ouya, and just like what Google did after the Kindle Fire, we guess it will take the opportunity to follow through with the disruption.

Continue reading “Google developing Android gaming console, new Nexus Q and more for the big refresh – WSJ”

Firefox Beta for Android updated with new Awesome Bar, updated RSS feed reader and more

Firefox Beta logo

Firefox has updated the beta version of the Android app to version 23 that brings lot of new features. The Awesome Bar now automatically hides while not in use, to make your entire small screen available for browsing. It also includes domain autocomplete, which will complete your URL destination as you type. The update also lets you add default search provider directly from the add-ons manager and adds updated RSS feed reader to create a simple way to subscribe to an RSS feed. The update also brings support for Turkish and Hungarian locales.

Continue reading “Firefox Beta for Android updated with new Awesome Bar, updated RSS feed reader and more”

Micromax Canvas 4 to launch on 8th July, Prebooking starts for Rs. 5000

micromax-canvas-4

The successor to the very popular Micromax Canvas HD is almost here and the company is all set to launch the handset on 8th July. Micromax has also started prebookings for the Canvas 4 A210. Not much has been revealed in terms of specifications but the handset is expected to be powered by a MediaTek quad core processor. Previous leaks suggest that the phone will be equipped with a 13MP rear camera which is unprecedented in the indigenous smartphone segment. Additionally and perhaps most importantly, the phone is believed to sport a 5 inch Full HD display. As suggested by the image above, there will be no capacitive buttons on the phone.  Continue reading “Micromax Canvas 4 to launch on 8th July, Prebooking starts for Rs. 5000”

Nokia Asha 210 Dual SIM phone up for pre-order in India for Rs. 4499

Nokia Asha 210 Dual SIM

Nokia Asha 210 that was announced back in April is now available for pre-order in India from the online retailer Flipkart. The Single SIM version has a dedicated WhatsApp button and the Dual SIM version that is releasing in India comes with a dedicated Facebook button similar to the Asha 205 that was launched last year. It has a 2.4-inch (240 x 320 pixels) 65k color display, a QWERTY keyboard and comes with Slam feature to share multimedia content like photos, music and videos with nearby friends instantly over Bluetooth. Continue reading “Nokia Asha 210 Dual SIM phone up for pre-order in India for Rs. 4499”

Spice Smart Flo Pace 2 Mi-502 Review

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Budget Android phones are a dime and dozen these days. With rapid improvement in specs and performance, these devices are finally becoming a viable option for everyone who is satisfied by a well performing, reasonably priced smartphone. We’ve been fairly impressed with Spice’s offerings in the segment but will they be able to continue the streak ? Read on to find out. Continue reading “Spice Smart Flo Pace 2 Mi-502 Review”

Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 powers the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A with 150 Mbps data speeds

Qualcomm Snapdragon 800

While the rest of the world is just warming up to the idea of LTE, Samsung has gone ahead and announced the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A for Korea with high data speeds upto 150 Mbps. And anything with LTE in it, is usually powered by one of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips and the Galaxy S4 LTE-A is no exception. Powering the high speed phone is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC which blazed through benchmark tests that we ran recently. The flagship top tier chip is powering the Galaxy S4 and its LTE-A chip by providing the promised speeds of up to 150 Mbps.

Continue reading “Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 powers the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A with 150 Mbps data speeds”

Spice Smart Flo Pace 2 Mi-502 benchmarks

 

Spice-Smart-Flo-Pace-2-2

Spice introduced the Smart Flo Pace 2 a few weeks back at a price point of Rs. 6,999. The handset is powered by a 1Ghz processor and is paired with 512MB of RAM. The low amount of RAM does get in the way of multitasking on the handset. The processor too isn’t particularly powerful but the bloat free stock Android build keeps things running smooth. We’ve embedded a range of benchmarks from the handset below for your viewing pleasure.  Continue reading “Spice Smart Flo Pace 2 Mi-502 benchmarks”

CUBE Universal Car Holder Review

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Car holders are a dime and a dozen so when the guys at Mobile Fun sent us over the CUBE holder, we were quite curious to see what was special about it. As you can see, the CUBE holder is surprisingly petite yet manages to do a very decent job at holding up a smartphone on your desk or car. Continue reading “CUBE Universal Car Holder Review”