News | Fone Arena - Part 2544

HTC Desire XC Dual SIM Android Smartphone now available in India for Rs. 16249

HTC Desire XC

HTC Desire XC, dual SIM smartphone is now available in India from online retailer Snapdeal. The Desire XC was announced in China last year as T329D. The HTC Desire XDS, dual SIM variant of the Desire X went on sale in India recently. This has exactly same specs as the XDS including a 4.0-inch (800 x 480 pixels) capacitive touch screen display, 1 GHz Dual-core processor and Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). It has a 5MP auto focus rear camera with LED Flash. In packs a 1800 mAh battery and has built-in Beats Audio support. It is Dual SIM (CDMA EV-DO and GSM) phone similar to the Desire VC that was launched last year. Continue reading “HTC Desire XC Dual SIM Android Smartphone now available in India for Rs. 16249”

Sony SmartWatch successor to be announced at Mobile Asia Expo next week?

Sony SmartWatch 2 MEA 2013

Tweets from the official Sony Xperia hints at the successor of the Sony SmartWatch that is expected to be unveiled at the Mobile Asia Expo 2013 in Shanghai next week. Sony unveiled the first SmartWatch back in January 2012 with a 1.3” (128×128 pixels) OLED touch display that can wirelessly and discreetly access calls, messages and applications. It uses Bluetooth to communicate with the phone, and its dust and splash proof. Continue reading “Sony SmartWatch successor to be announced at Mobile Asia Expo next week?”

Nokia Asha 501 Dual SIM phone now available for pre-order in India at Rs. 5199

Nokia Asha 501 that was unveiled last month in India is now available for pre-order from the official Nokia Shop in India. The Asha 501 has a 3.0-inch QVGA 320 x 240 pixels display with hardened glass and is based on the latest Nokia Asha software platform with Swipe UI. It has a 3.2 MP rear camera, Nokia Fast lane multi-tasking screen that brings all the recent activities together. It has Dual SIM (with one slot capable of hot swap), 2G, WiFi, Bluetooth and FM Radio.

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Intel joins Alliance for Wireless Power

Alliance for Wireless Power

Intel is the new company to join the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP). The A4WP technology uses near-field magnetic resonance technology to wirelessly charge devices. Intel joins several giants including Samsung, Qualcomm, LG and HTC as a board member of the group. The group has a total of 40 global, technology industry leaders. The aim of A4Wp is to create a wireless power transfer (WPT) ecosystem that delivers spatial freedom in the user experience and industrial design of wireless battery charging of portable consumer electronics device.

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Indian Government allocates new spectrum to Vodafone in 14 circles

Indian Government has allocated 2G spectrum to Vodafone in all 14 service areas, according a recent report from PTI. Vodafone had won spectrum in 14 circles including Assam, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, North East, Orissa, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh East and West and West Bengal back in November, 2012. Last year Supreme Court of India cancelled 122 2G licenses and the spectrum was freed up later. Last year’s 2G spectrum auction saw poor response which got bids worth just Rs. 9,407.64 crore, much lower than their target revenue of Rs. 40,000 crore. Continue reading “Indian Government allocates new spectrum to Vodafone in 14 circles”

Apple now uses Google-like distribution chart to show iOS fragmentation

Apple and Android Distribution chart

Google started publishing Android version distribution charts for various platforms in 2010 on their Android developer page. Now Apple has followed them and published their iOS distribution Pie chart similar to Google. Apple announced at the WWDC 2013 earlier this month that 93% of App Store customers are using the latest iOS 6. Now the distribution numbers are up on the Apple Developer website. The chart shows that 6% of customers using iOS 5 and just 1% are still stuck with versions older than iOS 5. Continue reading “Apple now uses Google-like distribution chart to show iOS fragmentation”

Samsung unveils Pink, Blue, Red, Purple and Brown Galaxy S4

Samsung Galaxy S4 color variants

Samsung announced last month that the Galaxy S4 would be available in new colors including Blue Arctic and Red Aurora, followed by Purple Mirage and Brown Autumn this summer. Now the company has announced at the Samsung Premier 2013 event in London that the phone would also come in Pink Twilight color variant. The Samsung Galaxy S4 was launched in Black Mist and White Frost color variants and the Blue Artic variant went on sale from NTT Docomo in Japan last month. Continue reading “Samsung unveils Pink, Blue, Red, Purple and Brown Galaxy S4”

HTC reportedly hiring Iron Man superstar Robert Downey Jr. for a $12 Million Ad Campaign

Robert Downey Jr

According to a report from Bloomberg, HTC is supposedly in talks with Iron Man superstar for a $12 million ad deal to promote its Smartphones. The “billionaire, industrialist, playboy” Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. has been at the fore front of the massive success of the Disney-Marvel franchise, and apparently plays a key role in selecting the creative elements for this campaign too. Bloomberg also reports that Robert Dwoney Jr. will be featured in the campaign as himself and not as one of his characters, like Sherlock Holmes or the Iron Man.

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Samsung is now no.1 in India, leaps ahead of Nokia in overall mobile shipments

samsung-galaxy-family-screen-size-comparison-2

Amidst tough competition from various home brands like Karbonn, Micromax and Lava, Samsung has finally snatched the no.1 spot from Nokia as the leader in overall mobile shipments. The market in India is currently highly saturated with numerous models from various homegrown manufacturers but the two stalwarts of the mobile industry have so far been the leaders when it comes to overall share. Nokia had been the no. 1 in overall shipments for a long time in India, mainly because the country was a feature phone market. But as the market has now matured, Nokia is finding it tough to adapt with its new Windows Phone strategy. Samsung has finally achieved what it always secretly wanted, to trump Nokia in India, and it has done it now.

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Disney’s Monsters University game now available on Android and iOS

monster-university-game-ios-android

Monsters University, the fun animated prequel to the Monsters Inc. movie that released a long time back, has just landed in theatres worldwide today and co-inciding with the release is a brand new game from Disney – Monsters University(yes, the same name as the movie) for iOS and Android. The game features two mini games inside it, and promises to bring more mini games in future updates. It is available for download on the iTunes app store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android.

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Whatsapp crosses 250 million active users, bigger than Twitter

Whatsapp, one of the most popular online messaging services, has revealed a very important statistic to the Wall Street Journal that it has crossed 250 million active monthly users, which is incidentally bigger than Twitter which recently announced 200 million monthly active users. This makes Whatsapp one of the largest messaging platforms. In comparison, Skype has 280 million monthly active users, and for a 4 year old company such as Whatsapp, a number close to that is actually a great achievement.

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Spice Coolpad Mi-515 with 5-inch display, quad-core processor officially launched for Rs. 9990

Spice Coolpad Mi-515

Spice Coolpad Mi-515 that went on sale online earlier this week has been officially launched in India. It comes under the new Spice Coolpad series and has a 5-inch qHD (960 × 540 pixels) capacitive touch screen display, powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor and runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). It has a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 0.3-megapixel (VGA) front-facing camera. It comes with dual SIM support with dual standby and DTS audio. Continue reading “Spice Coolpad Mi-515 with 5-inch display, quad-core processor officially launched for Rs. 9990”

Sony Xperia ZL Android 4.2.2 Jellybean update starts rolling out

sony-xperia-zl-android-4.2.2-Changelog

After making its presence felt at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas this year, the Sony Xperia ZL, a full HD smartphone from Sony landed in various countries alongside its thinner brother, the Xperia Z. Running on Android 4.1.2 at launch, the device had a custom Xperia UI on top like usual, and now news comes our way that the Android 4.2.2 update for the Xperia ZL has started to roll out, starting today.

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Youku Tudou and Qualcomm partner on HEVC tech for Snapdragon-powered devices

Youku Qualcomm

Youku Tudou, China’s leading online video giant and Qualcomm Incorporated has partnered to announce a collaboration on H.265 technology that would offer Youku viewers high quality video content on Qualcomm Snapdragon processor powered devices. The H.265, also known as High Efficiency Video Coding was approved by ITU-VCEG (Video coding experts group) earlier this year. This offers compression efficiency of up to 40% compared to current video compression technology H.264. This also provides high quality video at the same time. Continue reading “Youku Tudou and Qualcomm partner on HEVC tech for Snapdragon-powered devices”