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Oppo Find 7a Hands On

Oppo Find 7a -1

While Oppo’s flagship device ie the Find 7 clearly stole the show, they also announced a ‘lower’ spec variant of the phone that will be making its way to India shortly. Despite being the lower spec variant, to call it a mid range device would be unfair as it’s specs rival current flagship devices. Alongside the Find 7, we spent an extensive amount of time with the Find 7a as well and here we make an effort to bring you our first impressions of the device. Continue reading “Oppo Find 7a Hands On”

Flipkart teases Moto X launch day offers, to reveal details in a couple of days

Motorola had revealed its plans to introduce the Moto X in India, during the Mobile World Congress event, and it also had said that, much like the Moto G, the X too will be launched through Flipkart. As a confirmation, Flipkart has now started to tease the Moto X launch on Twitter, adding that there will be exclusive launch day offers and that the launch details will be revealed in a couple of days. With the success of Moto G, Flipkart goes ahead with yet another exclusive launch, but this time, the reception might not be as overwhelming. This is mainly because the phone is already late to the market, and its initial pricing in the US was off the mark, making a really capable device flop in the market. But now that the prices have come down drastically, it will be interesting to see how well it is priced for the Indian market.

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Nokia X Unboxing in India

Nokia X is the first smartphone from the Espoo company running Android, and more importantly, Android apps. It was launched in India just a day back for a price of Rs. 8,599/-. “X” is symbolic in many ways. the company is now at the cross roads of a transition from being an independent company to being owned by Microsoft, the maker of software running on Nokia’s current smartphones. X is also the bridge between Nokia’s struggling smartphone business and its traditional feature phone business. Nokia knew, that without apps, its revived Asha platform phones are getting nowhere, and they also knew that it will never create this familiarity factor with Windows Phone, a crucial factor for any company that has a wide array of devices. Hence the Nokia X happened, and just a day after it officially launched in India, we now have it with us, in retail form, for a quick unboxing and overview of the device on video, watch –

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Moto X to launch in India in “Next Few Weeks”

At a Motorola event here at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the company just announced that the Moto X is expected to make its way to India and Australia within the next few weeks. This device would follow up on the heels of the Moto G that was launched earlier this month. Continue reading “Moto X to launch in India in “Next Few Weeks””

Lenovo Vibe Z Unboxing

The Lenovo K900 was the Chinese company’s first flagship launch in India. It had really good specifications for a high end phone and launched at a competitive price, only to then get lesser and suddenly turn into a really good value for money device. We had been waiting for its successor for quite a while now, and now it has come in the form of the Lenovo Vibe Z, which aims to fill the gap the K900 has left in the Indian market. The Vibe Z was announced in India just a couple of days back, at an event which we attended. It has been priced at Rs. 35,999, which is very close to what the K900 was launched for. We had taken a good look at the Vibe Z aka K910 at the Consumer electronics show in Vegas, but the phone was announced in China way back in October. So, what is the phone’s Indian retail version going to be like? Here’s out unboxing video –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfrSp6WB4GY

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Flipkart and Motorola reportedly trying to ensure Moto G supply under heavy demand

The Motorola Moto G had landed in India after a lot of anticipation. Moto made a splash with a brilliant pricing strategy, but for a company that is re-entering a long forgotten market, distribution has so far been a nightmare. With an exclusive arrangement with Flipkart, one of the leading e-retailers in India, Motorola set out to serve the Indian market by providing 8 GB and 16 GB versions of the Moto G through a single channel. The device would not be available in stores or any other e-retailer, so it created a mad rush which Motorola or Flipkart could and should have expected. With orders opening at 12:00 on the 6th of February, both the models sold out in less than an hour, leaving many prospective buyers frustrated.

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List of Motorola Service Centers in India leaks ahead of Moto G launch

Motorola Moto G, the most highly awaited launch for the company here in India, just got more credibility with the leak of the list of Motorola Service Centers in India. This leak comes at a crucial time, just ahead of the February 5th launch Motorola has planned for releasing this device in India. The service center list is straight from the Motorola Mobility website, which lends a lot of credibility to the list, apart from it being Moto branded and all. A huge amount of doubt prevailed on how Moto was planning to bring back the distribution and service channels it abandoned, when it left the country years back, but now we are starting to see the details. The image above shows you just a glimpse of the list, which you can download as a PDF here –

Download the list of Motorola Mobility service centers in India (FoneArena can independently confirm that the list is real)

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Uber launching in Chennai soon, limited cars are available for trips already!

uber-chennai

Uber which is one of my favorite services in USA for commuting is launching in the South Indian city of Chennai soon. The service is already available in Delhi & Bangalore and the company has announced that it is rolling out the service in Chennai with a limited number of cars. I just opened the app and found that a black car would pick me up in around 10 mins in the city which is very good news for Chennai residents.

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Oppo N1 officially arrives in India for a price of Rs. 39,999

Oppo had earlier revealed that they are entering the Indian market today, and right now, they have done just that, at an event in New Delhi. This event also sees the launch of company flagship, the Oppo N1, for a price of Rs. 39,999, for the 16 GB version. The N1, initially rumoured to be a camera centric device, turned out to be a lot more, which we had documented in our review earlier. It has a 5.9 inch 1080p display, a 13 megapixel camera sitting on a rotating swivel, a rear touch sensor for one handed usage, a really cool bluetooth accessory and so on. The hardware alone does not tell the entire story because the N1 is perhaps the most open device on the market, with an unlocked bootloader and a custom recovery that can install ROMs like Cyanogen Mod without any modification. Now that it has landed in India, can the “13 MP selfie” phone make its mark in a highly competitive market?

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Samsung Galaxy Gear gets another price cut to Rs. 14,999 in India

Galaxy Gear is the first Smartwatch from Samsung, the world leader in consumer electronics. One would have expected it to sell like how the Note sold, even after reviews lambasted it for being too big and otherworldly, but that isn’t the same case for the Galaxy Gear. It has received price cuts after price cuts and we are now at a stage in which it sells at a price of Rs. 14,999 in retail, a huge 8,000 discount from the original launch price of Rs. 22,990. The price has fallen by almost 40%, which indicates the kind of demand that the product is getting in the market. Sure, the market is not really a “Smartwatch” market per se, but bundling it with the Note 3 was a clever strategy from Samsung, which unfortunately did not work in its favour.

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Dell Venue 8 Pro launched in India for Rs. 26,499, availability starting February 2014

The Dell Venue 8 Pro, a 8 inch Windows 8.1 tablet that we reviewed earlier, has been officially launched in India by Dell for a price of Rs. 26,499 for the base 32 GB WiFi model. Powered by the Intel Atom Z3740D Bay Trail Quad Core processor running at 1.8 GHz, the Venue 8 Pro offers the full Windows experience, with surprisingly decent gaming performance to boot. One of the thinnest Windows tablets around, the Venue 8 Pro joins the Acer Iconia W4 in its foray into the increasingly crowded small tablet market, with the added advantage of a full fledged desktop operating system, made easier for touch.

Check out our in-depth Dell Venue 8 Pro Review

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

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Moto G India launch rumored for last week of January

The Moto G has been expected to launch in India sometime in the first quarter of 2014 but now thanks to a report published by the Times of India, we can get a more specific time frame. The report states that the Moto G launch in India has been scheduled for the last week of January. India is slated to get the dual SIM variant of budget Android device alongside Brazil. Expected to be priced very competitively, the phone brings modest specifications in the form of a 1.2Ghz Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB RAM and a 720p 4.5 inch display. Continue reading “Moto G India launch rumored for last week of January”

Nokia Lumia 1320 India launch scheduled for mid January 2014

While Nokia announced the Lumia 1520 in India earlier this week, all eyes are set on its lower priced sibling ie the Lumia 1320. The handset couples a 6 inch display with more mid range specifications and aims to compete at a price point dominated by Android phablets.

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Truecaller 4.0 lets you tweet directly to contacts, begins Twitter partnership in India

Truecaller, a really popular phone book/caller ID application, is hugely popular in India. Taking advantage of the user base here, the company has announced a partnership with Twitter for an unique integration into its app. Users can now tweet or follow their contacts, or any number associated with a Twitter account, right from inside the Truecaller app. This unique integration is even more special, as it starts its roll out for Android users, first in India. In a bid to increase engagement, Twitter seems to have handed over its private APIs for accessing stored mobile numbers to Truecaller, as a part of this partnership, so that they can use it for this integration, again, starting with India. This is a genius move for courting the vast number of Truecaller users to Twitter, which is already gaining huge popularity in the country with sports, politics and Bollywood topics being the rage. The update also brings a clean new design and is immediately available for Android, with the iOS version slated for a 2014 release, with no solid dates for other platforms.

Download Truecaller 4.0 for Android

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iPad Mini with Retina display, iPad Air launched in India

At last the wait for the next generation iPads to launch in India is over. Apple has today introduced the iPad Air as well as the iPad Mini with Retina display here in the country. The tablets will be officially unveiled at an event later today however the prices are already available. In contrast to the previous generation, the iPad Mini and full size iPad are almost at par in terms of specifications with the key difference being the screen size difference. Both iPads are powered by the new 64 bit A7 chip though the clock speeds differ slightly. Continue reading “iPad Mini with Retina display, iPad Air launched in India”