Handsets | Fone Arena

Nokia Lumia 1020 and Lumia 520 emerge as the favourites in #SmartFone13

2013 came to an end a few days back and so did our quest to see which two phones would emerge as the favourites in our #Smartfone13 championship for flagships as well as budget devices. Two major polls were run in parallel for about a week with several phones knocked out in the weeks before, to bring the tally to the final four. It was Sony Xperia Z1 vs the Nokia Lumia 1020 for the flagship battle and the Nokia Lumia 520 vs the Gionee Elife E6 for the budget devices battle, with the Lumias ending up as the winners. How? Go past the break to find out!

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Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 Review

Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 Review

The Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 is the much awaited successor to the S Duos which was the Samsung phone to get in the mid range not long ago. It had offered pretty much similar specifications as the Galaxy S but at a far lesser price making it a good deal, although only for a short time. Mainly because a lot of local players got aggressive with the pricing and offered a lot of better deals for a similar price, not to mention Nokia’s Lumia 520, which has been a popular device at a lesser price offering more value. With such renewed competition, Samsung hopes to offer a better deal with the Galaxy S Duos 2. How better of a deal is it? We find out in our review.

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Final – Nokia Lumia 1020 vs Sony Xperia Z1 #SmartFone13

After two rounds of really close battles between 8 smartphones, we have come to the finals of the SmartFone 13 championship for the best smartphone of 2013. Two devices have made it to the finals and they are – Nokia Lumia 1020 and the Sony Xperia Z1. Both the phones are awesome on their own and have beaten two other capable smartphones to reach this stage, which removes even an iota of doubt on how great these two devices are. Both being the companies’ respective flagships are packed with innovations as well as top class features. But which one do you think is the best of the two? Do you think one of them is good enough to earn the title of “Best Smartphone of 2013”?

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Nokia Lumia 525 Hands On

Nokia announced the Lumia 525 sometime back last month and basically, it was a Lumia 520 with a very slightly different design and 1 GB of RAM. The Lumia 525 is primarily for addressing the low RAM issue on Windows Phones. Phones with 512 MB of RAM, like the Lumia 520, were not allowed to download some apps and games from the Windows Phone Store because of them demanding more resources. This was partly solved with more optimizations from the developers’ side, but we still see a lot of new apps and games releasing with the limitation, so Nokia simply went the other way and updated the 520 with 1 GB of RAM, and that’s exactly the reason why 525 exists. It was revealed at an event in Goa today that the Lumia 525 will be arriving to India during the first week of January 2014. The Lumia 520 is already the best selling Windows Phone in India and we hope the 525 directly replaces it. That said, we went hands on with the Lumia 525 at the Annual Strategy Sharing Summit in Goa, you can find our impressions below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-oY6Hp5Zs

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Google Glass Unboxing in India

google-glass-explorer-edition-unboxing-16

We are lucky to have Google Glass at the FoneArena for an unboxing. We have managed to get hold of a Google Glass Explorer Edition 2013 version and we are bringing you the first ever unboxing of this innovative product in India. Watch the full unboxing below.Google Glass is probably one of most innovative products from Google and it was publicly announced at the Google IO developer conference in 2012. It is currently available only in the US on a invite only basis for a 1500 USD. Thanks to some of our friends who made this possible! Watch the unboxing below and make sure to subscribe to our channel and newsletter , we have some exciting stuff planned around Glass!

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Sony Z Ultra Google Play Edition goes on sale for $649

Sony Z Ultra Google Play Edition

Care for a super sized phone running the cleanest build of Android around? Then the Sony Z Ultra Google Play Edition will be right up your alley. The phone was just spotted on the Google Play Store in the US and is available now at a price point of $649 before taxes . Interesting this is one of the first Sony devices running stock Android.

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Unknown SM-G900F is not the Samsung Galaxy S5, Here’s Why

Not even 8 months have passed since the Samsung Galaxy S4‘s launch but we are already seeing rumours and leaks of Samsung Galaxy S5 aplenty. Sure, Samsung’s flagship usually gets this attention every year, but we feel it is too soon this time. Amongst the various “leaks” floating around in the internet is one peculiar benchmark result from Browsermark. We may be wrong, but we have solid reasons why this is not the Samsung Galaxy S5. Firstly, lets see what this is all about. Apparently, an unknown device codenamed SM-G900F has appeared at the no. 3 position in Browsermark results page for Top 5 Web Phones, which some think, is the upcoming Galaxy S5. Is it?

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Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 Unboxing

Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 Unboxing

Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2, successor to the original S Duos, was officially launched in India just a day back, for a price of Rs. 10,990. This is out and out a mid range device from Samsung, building upon the success of the original, which was quite popular for its price tag and the value it offered. It just got better with the S Duos 2, but not as much as one would expect. Today, we bring you the unboxing of this device, just a day after launch, so that you can probably decide whether to go for this or not. Here’s the quick unboxing and overview of the Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoMHb8Z-tEc

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Xolo A600 Unboxing

Xolo A600 Unboxing

Xolo launched the A600, its mid range entry in the A-series sometime back in November. It’s a neat little device, powered by a MediaTek 6572W dual core processor and has modest specifications for its cheap price – Rs. 8,199. We have got it for unboxing today, and we kinda like how this device looks and feels. Yes, this is a cheap device, but that hasn’t stopped other similarly priced devices like the Nokia Lumia 520 to stop short on build quality, and we think there is something very similar happening here, with the Xolo A600. Watch our unboxing video to get a look at it –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF5QoTZtSvg

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YotaPhone with LCD and e-Ink screen launched for 499 Euros

Yota Devices has finally launched the YotaPhone at an event in Russia as we reported recently. The YotaPhone is priced at 499 Euros in Europe and costs 19,980 Rubles in Russia. The company showed off the phone with dual screens at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year. It has 4.3-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) LCD capacitive multi touch main screen and a 4.3-inch (360×640 pixels) E-Ink rear screen. It is powered by a 1.7 GHz Dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM 8960 processor and runs on Android 4.2.2 ( Jelly Bean). The phone also has special YotaPhone gestures and Put2Back applications for the back screen. Continue reading “YotaPhone with LCD and e-Ink screen launched for 499 Euros”

Beetel launches Retro Phone, a stylish landline phone for Rs. 1690

Beetel Retro Phone

Beetel Teletech Limited (Beetel), popular for its fixed line devices has launched Retro Phone – a stylish new fixed line phone with a colourful, sleek & retro look that combines new technological features including an LCD display, digital dial, 3.5mm audio jack and more. The 3.5mm audio jack lets customers to connect the device to a headphone for a mobile-like hands free experience. It also has anti-steal alarm which intimates against any parallel use of the number. Continue reading “Beetel launches Retro Phone, a stylish landline phone for Rs. 1690”

How Broadcom is quietly “Connecting Everything”

broadcom-connecting-verything

The mobile handset market today is pretty much dominated with phones powered by either a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset or a MediaTek chipset. But there are certainly few other players as well.You might be aware of Samsung’s Exynos chips and also Apple’s own custom chips found on the iPhone and iPad. Then there are Nvidia & Intel too. Another player who is not very popular in the market at least in India is Broadcom. The company is finally talking and had invited us to a Mobility Roundtable in New Delhi few days back where I got to speak to several executives from the Irvine , California-based company. You might have heard about the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos, which is one the most popular phones to be powered by a Broadcom BCM28155 chipset. Another device which was powered by the same chip was the Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus.

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Google Nexus 5 Review

Google Nexus 5 Review

The Google Nexus One was strictly a developer device, with promises of instant updates and stock Android experience. It did not retail at prices that undercut the competition($530) but managed to become the only device that had the latest Android version. The Nexus S was similar, but with Galaxy Nexus, Google managed to price it surprisingly lower than the competition with similar hardware, thanks to introduction of the Google Play ecosystem. Somehow, from being a costly developer device, the Nexus became a highly desirable and affordable device, that brought users the best Google experience.

Video Review

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1qKZAXVVbw

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LG G Flex Unboxing

lg-gflex-unboxing_11

We have the World’s First Flexible Display phone with us at FoneArena. Here is an exciting unboxing of the LG G Flex. It is not only the first truly flexible display phone but also the back cover has self healing capabilities! Doesn’t it sound like something out of a Sci-Fi movie ? Brace yourself and check out the unboxing video where we show you a quick demo of the Flexible part.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQBy0MgZ5fo

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Motorola Moto G Unboxing

motog-box-front

We got you an exclusive first look at the Moto G from London and now we have the Motorola Moto G Unboxing on FoneArena. The handset is a very affordable handset with some interesting specs and is actually a stripped down version of the MotoX smartphone. The Moto G features a 4.5 inch 720p display and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor. The phone would be sold in 8GB and 16GB capacities and the actual user accessible space might be a little lesser.It ships with Android 4.3 at launch but the company is promising an update to Android 4.4 KitKat soon. The most attractive feature of the MotoG is the $179 price for the 8GB model in the US (135 GBP in the UK). It is currently on sale in the UK and coming soon to US and India in 2014.

Watch the rather short video of the MotoG retail package getting the unboxing treatment, to be honest it is a pretty small package.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_Ha4RD3cG0
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