Toshiba challenges Lytro with its new refocusing smartphone sensor

Lytro, the kaleidoscope-like camera that hit the markets last year had a special advantage to it. It could refocus the image, AFTER it was taken. It was a market disruption and there was no competition, till now. Yes, Toshiba has now announced that they are manufacturing a similar sensor that can be used for Smartphones and Tablets with commercial availability slated for sometime around 2013.

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Huawei Ascend G330 now available in India for Rs. 10990

Huawei Ascend G330 is now available for purchase from online retailer Snapdeal in India. Most of the features in the G330 are similar to the Huawei Ascend G300 that was launched in India back in July, including a 4-inch ( 800×480 pixels) IPS capactive touch screen display and a 5MP auto focus camera with LED Flash, but the Ascend G330 comes with a 1GHz dual-core processor, Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) out of the box and comes with a front-facing camera. Continue reading “Huawei Ascend G330 now available in India for Rs. 10990”

FoneArena Apple iPad mini Giveaway !

It is the holiday season and at FoneArena, we have decided that we should spread joy and the holiday spirit! So, we are going to giveaway a brand new “limited edition” Apple iPad mini, the white 16 GB WiFi version! Read on to find out more about the contest.

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Airtel launches WiFi hangout – a prepaid hotspot service in select cities

India’s leading mobile and broadband provider Airtel has now sought after a new way to provide its broadband internet as a service. While the notion of a paid WiFi hotspot is nothing new in India, there has not been a wide commercial push that has widened its reach, and Airtel may fix just that, with its new “WiFi Hangout” service, a prepaid WiFi hotspot, initially launched in three cities/regions namely Mumbai, NCR and Bangalore.

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Videocon A20 and A30 Dual SIM Android Smartphones launched for Rs. 4999 and Rs. 7299

Videocon has entered into the Smartphone segment with the launched of A20 and A30, affordable Android Smartphones in India. These are powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon Processors and has Dual SIM support with Dual Standby. The A20 comes with a 3.5-inch HVGA display, 1GHz processor 3MP rear Camera and a VGA front-facing camera, while the A30 comes with a 4.0-inch WVGA display, 1GHz dual-core processor, 5MP auto focus rear camera with LED flash and a VGA front-facing camera. These phones also come with pre-loaded apps including Facebook, TOI, ET, History Eraser and more. Continue reading “Videocon A20 and A30 Dual SIM Android Smartphones launched for Rs. 4999 and Rs. 7299”

Holiday Sale: 12 Gameloft Android Games at $0.99

Gameloft has started their Holiday Sale for Android games that would let you grab select games at a discounted price of $0.99 each. These Android games include, The Dark Knight Rises, N.O.V.A. 3, The Amazing Spider-Man, Wild Blood and more. Gameloft started their holiday sales for iPhone and iPad games at $0.99 last week. Continue reading “Holiday Sale: 12 Gameloft Android Games at $0.99”

Vodafone India launches Customer Support through Live Chat

Vodafone India has launched customer support through live chat. This service lets Vodafone customers chat to the customer care executive to solve their queries about their connection. This saves a lot of time since it connects quickly, unlike a call to customer support that would have several procedures before it connects to a customer care executive. Tata Docomo introduced live chat support for their customers few years back. Continue reading “Vodafone India launches Customer Support through Live Chat”

HTC One S JellyBean update roll out starts

HTC has started the roll out of the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update in some markets including UK. We had access to a UK unit and a massive 600 MB update showed up via OTA today. The update bears the version number 3.16.401.8 and measures 612.27 MB.We decided to give it a go and it was the much awaited jelly bean update. HTC had promised that it will release Android 4.1 JellyBean for the One S and One X this year and looks like the Taiwanese phone maker is keeping its word ! Continue reading “HTC One S JellyBean update roll out starts”

Mobile subscriber base in China crosses 1.104 billion with revenues over $116.26 billion in 2012

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has published statistics which reveal that the country’s mobile subscriber base has crossed 1.104 billion users as of November 2012. This is an increment of close to 118 million subscribers over the course of 11 months. The national telecom business volume has gone up 11.4% over the same period last year with a total of 1.18601 trillion yuan.

Approximately 82% of China’s population uses a mobile phone with about 20% of that (approximately 220 million) using 3G equipped devices. The Chinese smartphone market remains one of the most rapidly increasing territories and will top the combined US iOS & Android install base in 2013. There are about 167 million iOS and Android devices in use. Gartner had previously reported that Lenovo is set to steal the spot for number one manufacturer from Samsung in 2013. With the amount of innovation being seen in China by the likes of Huawei, ZTE amongst others, we expect Android based smartphones to help increase the smartphone userbase multifold over the next year.
[Source – MIIT]

Acer to launch low cost Android and Windows tablets next year

Acer has been a prime contender in the Android tablet sector. Now they are planning to release Android devices starting from $99 next year.

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Reliance offers Unlimited Facebook and Facebook Messenger access at Rs. 16 per month

Reliance Communications (Rcom) launched My College plan for pre-paid GSM customers earlier this September that offered unlimited access to Facebook and WhatsApp. Now they have launched Facebook Messenger Pack that would let their pre-paid customers enjoy unlimited access to Facebook and Facebook Messenger at just Rs. 16 per month. Continue reading “Reliance offers Unlimited Facebook and Facebook Messenger access at Rs. 16 per month”

Aircel partners with Yebhi.com, offers free talk time on every purchase

Aircel and Yebhi.com has announced an alliance to launch KSKT – Keep Shopping Keep Talking promotion that would let Yebhi.com customers enjoy free Aircel talk time on every purchase made on Yebhi from a collection of over 100,000 products. Yebhi.com already offers mobile recharge and offers shopping cash back offers with it. Continue reading “Aircel partners with Yebhi.com, offers free talk time on every purchase”

Zync launches 6 Dual SIM feature phones, priced between Rs. 1399 and Rs. 2499

Zync has launched range of Dual SIM feature phones, Zync C18, Zync C21, Zync C22, Zync C24, Zync C27 and the Zync C30 in India. The company entered into the Smartphone market in October with the Zync Cloud Z5, a 5-inch phablet. These new phones support  Dual SIM (GSM+GSM) support with Dual Standby and comes with a loudspeaker, 4GB micro SD card, USB connectivity, Bluetooth, dual LED torch light, 1.3 MP with video recording, music player, FM radio and more. Continue reading “Zync launches 6 Dual SIM feature phones, priced between Rs. 1399 and Rs. 2499”

Intex iBuddy Connect 7-inch tablet with Voice calling, Android 4.0 launched for Rs 7,990

Intex has launched the iBuddy Connect, a new 7-inch tablet in the iBuddy range. Most of the features are similar to the 7-inch i-Buddy tablet that was launched earlier this year, but this comes with a SIM card slot and supports voice calling features. It has a 7-inch (800 x 480 pixels) capacitive touch screen display and is powered by a 1 GHz processor. It runs on Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and comes with a 2MP rear camera other than the VGA front-facing camera. It also comes with pre-loaded apps such as Nimbuzz, Skype, Facebook, India Today and Aaj Tak. Continue reading “Intex iBuddy Connect 7-inch tablet with Voice calling, Android 4.0 launched for Rs 7,990”

Samsung GT-N5100 appears on GLBenchmark

Looks like Samsung is launching a new Samsung Galaxy Note. The GT-N5100 just recently got benchmarked and its results turned up on GLBenchmark website. Looking at the model number, N usually is used for the Note.

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