Apple iPhone 6 is probably one of the worst kept secrets in the tech industry with the device appearing on numerous occasions. Finally, today, Apple has officially unveiled its latest flagship smartphone – the iPhone 6. Continue reading “Apple officially unveils iPhone 6 with 4.7-inch display, coming September 19”
Micromax has launched the Canvas Nitro A310, the company’s latest smartphone in the Canvas series. It has a 5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) IPS display, powered by a 1.7 GHz octa-core MediaTek processor and runs on Android 4.4 (KitKat). It features a 13-megapixel auto focus rear camera with LED Flash and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. It has new camera features such as option to capture images, including selfies by pressing the volume rocker, a Camera Widget to access several camera features easily from the homescreen, Stable Shot, Refocus and more. Continue reading “Micromax Canvas Nitro A310 with 5-inch HD display, Octa-Core SoC launched for Rs. 12990”
We had a chance to sit down with Carl Pei – Director, OnePlus Global and talk to him about the company’s vision ahead of their launch in India. Continue reading “Exclusive: an interview with Carl Pei – Director, OnePlus Global”
Samsung has officially taken wraps of its latest Galaxy Note flagship phablet – the Note 4 at its dedicated UNPACKED event in Berlin. The fourth generation Galaxy Note comes with a new metallic finish and brings the much need premium looks. Continue reading “Samsung Galaxy Note 4 with 5.7-inch QHD display goes official”
We are sure most of you guys know that the OnePlus One is coming soon to India.But guess what? the OnePlus Team is already in India! We decided to team up with them and host the first ever OnePlus Fan Meetup in India, and in Bangalore to be more precise, later this week. We know a lot of you folks already use a OnePlus One in India and many are eager to get hold of one. So, this might be your golden chance.
Carl Pei – Director, OnePlus Global challenged me to do the #IceBucketChallenge video last week and along with it, we decided to do something that’s really cool and here we have the Fan Meetup!
A few members of the OnePlus Team will be present at the event along with some of the members from the FoneArena team. You can interact with all of us and also get a chance to play with the device if you still haven’t seen it yet. Also, this event gives you an opportunity to get all your queries answered.
To make our meetup even more interesting and fun, the OnePlus team will be giving away some of the coolest and elusive OnePlus branded merchandise like T-shits and bags.We might also give away a OnePlus One unit to one of the lucky fans at the venue. Doesn’t that excite you? We can’t just wait to meet all of you! If you are interested to be a part of our meet up, then go ahead and register yourself for our grand event in the link below and we will get back to you.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP – for the OnePlus India Fan Meetup in Bangalore on on September 4th, Thursday between 4PM to 7PM.
Note: Space is limited and we can’t promise to accommodate every one, but we will make sure that the folks who RSVP first get a a chance to be our meetup.
Motorola is expected to launch new smartphones at the September 5th event in India later this week. According to a listing on Zauba, Indian import/export website, the (Moto G2) XT-1068 has been imported from China to Bangalore few days back. It is being imported for Rs. 10,640 per unit for the 16GB variant, so the launch price of the smartphone could be close to it. Continue reading “Motorola Moto G2 shows up in India import export listing”
We had a chance to sit down with Hugo Barra, Vice President of Xiaomi Global and clarify some of the burning questions surrounding the brand in the Indian market.
It’s still early days for Xiaomi in the Indian market, but they have already managed to make a name for themselves with their first product. Thanks to their flash sale model, the Mi 3 made headlines each time it went on sale. Continue reading “Exclusive: an interview with Hugo Barra – Vice President, Xiaomi Global”
Update: Winners of the Asus Zenfone giveaway have been announced. Check out if you got lucky.
Hello readers! We are back with another giveaway. To celebrate the smashing success of the Asus Zenfone in India, FoneArena and Asus India have teamed up to bring you one of a kind giveaway. Asus launched the Zenfone series in India last month at competitive price points. All these smartphones have dual SIM support, powered by dual-core Clover Trail+ Intel Atom processors and runs on Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean), upgradable to Android 4.4 (KitKat). Asus recently said that the sales of Zenfone series is nearly one lakh in India. Continue reading “Asus Zenfone Giveaway”
The Project Shield was Nvidia’s first portable gaming project, which turned out to be really interesting in terms of idea and concept, never took off as the company had imagined. The GPU manufacturer is back with a sequel, but with a different approach this time. The Shield 2, or rather, the Nvidia Shield Tablet, is the company’s latest unbundled approach to portable gaming. Acknowledging the reality of limited controller support in Android games and the need to cater to a wider audience, the company has gone for a powerful tablet + gamepad combo. The gamepad ships separately, but even standalone, the tablet is plenty powerful and can interface with your current controller setup if needed. Touting a 192 core desktop class Kepler GPU inside, the Shield tablet surely has the potential to change mobile gaming, but before we find out if that’s true, here’s an unboxing of the retail package, with a quick rundown of the hardware and the software –
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUupCHVGKC0
Update: Winner of the OnePlus One giveaway has been announced. Check out if you got lucky.
The OnePlus One is a great flagship device that comes at an affordable price, but it has made a name for itself in the industry for being almost impossible to attain. The folks at OnePlus decided to go through with an invite system that ensured limited availability since launch and the fact that it ships to only a few countries doesn’t really help. We, after a long struggle, had got hold of, not one, but two OnePlus One devices. You might have seen us unbox one and show off another unopened box at the end of this unboxing video – Continue reading “OnePlus One Giveaway”
Ever since the Nexus 4, LG has been consistently upping its flagship game. The company’s first decent flagship device, Optimus G, was the start of a wonderful intra-company relationship in which LG started pulling resources from within its own divisions, like the one for display, the one focused on Chemistry for battery technology, etc. It then culminated into the G2, which was, in fact, as popular as the Nexus 4 at some point, known for its edge to edge design, good camera, screen and great battery life. The G3 is the LG’s ambitious successor, which fixes the few complaints the G2 had related to storage expansion and a removable battery, and adds interesting new technologies to differentiate itself. LG boasts itself as one of the firsts in the industry to have a quad HD display on a smartphone and also touts the new laser autofocus system that can be reliable, even in low light. Armed with all these features, can the LG G3 take on the Galaxies and the iPhones of this world? More importantly, is a Quad HD display really necessary? Lets find out in our full in-depth review.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plLo-HdsWKk
LG G3 prices announced for India – 16 GB – Rs 47,990 – 32 GB – Rs. 50,990
Xiaomi the Chinese phone maker is all set to enter India tomorrow where the company will officially unveil its products for the Indian market. While most of you including myself are impressed with the design and build quality of the Xiaomi phones, what if something goes wrong, how do I get it fixed? Most of you have been asking us if the company will have service centers in India and we just have some interesting news to share. We just heard from a reader who has supplied us with the service center list and looks like Xiaomi is going to take its India operations quite seriously with service centers in major cities across the country. You can find Xiaomi India Service Center List after the break.
Continue reading “Exclusive : Xiaomi will have service centers in India”
Xiaomi is known to be a success story in its native country ie China and we expected to see competitive pricing for its products here in India too. Color us surprised to see how low a price point Xiaomi has been able to hit with its Mi3. To launch at Rs. 14,999 the phone brings top of the line specifications.
Read the full review of the Xiaomi Mi3 here
Continue reading “Xiaomi Mi3 to launch at just Rs. 14,999 in India, goes on sale July 15th”
Motorola Moto E, Micromax Unite 2, Xolo Q600s and Lava Iris X1 are part of the affordable value for money series of smartphones under the Rs.8,000 price tag and today, we put all of them against each other to help you make a better choice when you are about to purchase a budget smartphone. In this small comparison, we consider the display, performance, the camera, gaming and battery life of the smartphones to help you get a better perspective about these smartphones.
All these smartphones have dual-SIM capability and come with Android 4.4.2 KitKat out of the box.
Display
The specification of the displays is as follows –
Motorola Moto E – 4.3inch qHD (540×960 pixels) display 256ppi
Micromax Unite 2 – 4.7inch WVGA (480×800 pixels) display 199ppi
Lava Iris X1 – 4.5inch FWVGA (480×854 pixels) display 218ppi
Xolo Q600s – 4.5inch qHD (540×960 pixels) display 245ppi
Moto E is the sharpest display in terms of pixel density, but it is also the smallest and is the only in the lot to have on-screen buttons. So it has a comparatively very small display. Unite 2 has the biggest display amongst the lot, but also has the least dense display with just a WVGA display and a pixel density less than 200ppi. Lava Iris X1 has a reasonable 218ppi 4.5inch display while the Xolo Q600s has the second sharpest display.
In terms of brightness, the Xolo Q600s is the brightest with the Unite 2 coming in second, followed by Iris X1 and Moto E is the least bright. Xolo Q600s emerges as the strongest in terms of viewing angles with the Unite 2 again coming in second. The Moto E ’s display does better in terms of viewing angles than the one on the Lava Iris X1. Color accuracy is maintained well in the Xolo Q600s and to some extent in the Unite 2. The displays of Moto E and Iris X1 appear relatively cooler than usual.
Overall, in terms of display quality, the Xolo Q600s is the clear winner and Unite 2 comes in next. The displays of Moto E and Iris X1 come in next. If you are a fan of bigger displays, then you would be picking the X1 over Moto E as Moto E’s screen estate is shrunk down by on screen buttons.
Performance
In terms of general performance, the Snapdragon powered Moto E is better than the other three. The Unite 2 comes in next thanks to its quad-core MediaTek chip and the Broadcom quad-core chip powered X1 and Q600s take the last place. Both these phones are laggy and that shows in their general user interface. Opening the apps is much quicker on Moto E and Unite 2, while the Broadcom powered X1 and Q600s severely fall behind in this aspect. Web browsing on Chrome is pretty much the same on all these phones with pinch to zoom taking a few seconds to load and that is expected in a budget offering.
Camera
Coming to the camera, here is a quick look at the specifications of the various camera units.
Moto E – 5MP fixed focus – NO LED Flash – No front camera – 854x480pixels video
Unite 2 – 5MP Auto focus – LED Flash – 2MP front camera – 720p video
Q600s – 5MP Auto focus – LED Flash – VGA front camera – 720p video
Iris X1 – 8MP Auto focus – LED Flash – 2MP front camera – 1080p video
In terms of quality, the 8MP Iris X1 does very well while the Unite 2 and Q600s come in next with good details and colors. The fixed focus 5MP unit on Moto E is probably the worst performer in this range and if camera on a phone is very important to you, then you should reconsider Moto E. You can check out the samples of the four phones right below.
Motorola Moto E
Micromax Unite 2
Xolo Q600s
Lava Iris X1
Gaming
Among the four phones, Moto E takes the crown mainly because of its Adreno GPU while the others are stuck with VideoCore GPU or Mali GPU which aren’t quite capable. Most of the games we tried included – Subway Surfer, Riptide GP2, Temple Run 2, Dead Trigger 2 and Shadow gun. Moto E was able to run the casual games well, but just started lagging on the big ones like Shadow gun. The next best is the Unite 2 and that is because of the Mali400 GPU. The VideoCore GPU powered Iris X1 and Q600s performed less than the Moto E and Unite 2. Both these phones could run the game, but that isn’t their strongest suit.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHYnTjNOvAQ
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQju_ToG9lw
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cweKJuuFH-Q
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmNw9CwhzkM
Battery Life
Moto E is the winner here again. Moto E has striped down specifications of the Moto G, but Motorola have kept almost all of its battery juice intact. Moto G had a great battery life and the Moto E does even better. The other phones aren’t that good when compared to the Moto E, but all the three will last at least one day of normal usage. Moto E will definitely last a day and half of normal usage.
Conclusion
As you can see from the comparison above, no phone is perfect and at this price range, almost all of them are far from perfect. But the choice of the perfect phone for you rests with you. If you want an excellent display, but can do with average performance, then you can get the Xolo Q600s. If the phone needs to be fast, compact and have a long battery life, then the Motorola Moto E should be your choice. If you are a fan of big displays, the Micromax Unite 2 should be the one for you. If you want a premium looking device at a bargain price, then the Lava Iris X1 should be your choice with its iPhone like looks. All the phones have their pros and cons and we try to summarize it below.
Motorola Moto E
Pros
Cons
Micromax Unite 2
Pros
Cons
Xolo Q600s
Pros
Cons
Lava Iris X1
Pros
Cons
One of the many significant announcements at the recent Google I/O developers conference was Android One. The program was formally unveiled with one central goal in mind, reaching the next 5 billion people in the world. These are the ones without a smartphone, mostly in emerging markets like India, China and so on. Google will be partnering with companies in the supply chain to provide a turnkey solution for many OEMs that are currently driving the budget smartphone segment in emerging markets. Android One involves a combination of affordable reference hardware, handpicked by Google, and stock Android software, with updates directly from Mountain View. The first three OEMs to sign up for this program are from India, which has familiar, but rather important, implications for the budget smartphone market.
Continue reading “Here’s why Android One is great for the budget smartphone market”
