Apple has been promoting the iPhone 4S with plenty of ads featuring Siri. Recently Apple aired ads with movie stars like Zoey Deschanel and Samuel L Jackson. A few days back Apple released yet another ad featuring a movie star and its Martin Scorsese. The ad takes us through a busy New york street where Martin asks Siri a couple of questions about his day’s schedule. Check out the ad embedded above.
Author: Sajin Seethi
iPhone 4 Available For $49.99 From Bestbuy
IPhone 4 maybe getting old. But its still one of the classy devices available in the market. Not to mention there’s still the iPhone 3GS still on sale in the market just in case if the iPhone 4 looked too old.
Best Buy has reduced the iPhone 4 price to $49.99 on contract. The phone will be available from AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Its obvious that the next iPhone is almost here and Bestbuy definitely wants to clear its inventory. However, for anyone who’s looking to cheapest way to iPhone with decent hardware, then this is the best deal one can get. However, its important to note that last year when iPhone 4S was announced, the iPhone 3GS was available for free on contract. if Apple keeps up with that trend, then the iPhone 4 will be available for free on contract. So if you’re not in a hurry, we recommend you to wait until the next iPhone is announced.
Ten Million Galaxy SIII Sold To Date, To Get Jelly Bean Next Month
Samsung’s has smoked all predictions and has successfully sold ten million Galaxy SIII units till date. That is in just less than three months after release. Its predecessor, Galaxy SII took nearly 5 months to reach this mark. Its interesting to see the growing demand for the Galaxy SIII which, as it says is the third iteration of the high end Galaxy series. Samsung has really improved the quality and features of the device with each iteration which has kept the device on top of the Android smartphones portfolio. Its rival smartphones HTC One X and Xperia S seemed to have lesser sales compared to the Galaxy SIII.
And to make the device more interesting, rumors are suggesting that we may see the Jelly Bean update for the Galaxy SIII and Galaxy SII to be rolled out as early as next month. Yes, you heard that right. So if that Galaxy Nexus doesn’t interest you, then this could be the next attractive Jelly Bean smartphone you may wanna consider.
Samsung’s Projector Phone Galaxy Beam Launched In India
Samsung has released the Samsung Galaxy Beam in India this week. The phone which was announced during Mobile World Congress 2012 gained a lot of attention for having an inbuilt projector that can beam pretty much anything that’s on the screen to a wall or flat surface. The display could go as high as 50 inches. The phone has a 4″ display with a dual core processor clocked at 1Ghz, 768MB RAM, 8GB internal storage which is expandable up to 32GB. However, the camera may not be very pleasing to all as its just 5MP(whose clarity is yet to be tested). It records videos at 720p at 30fps. There’s also a secondary camera with 1.3MP for self portraits and video chats.
We’ve had a hands-on with this phone during MWC and we were quite impressed with the clarity of the projector built right in to this phone. The phone could beam anything on to a flat surface including the home screen. The projector really helps in doing presentations, displaying gallery, watching videos and even while playing online games. The only downside of the phone is that it still runs Gingerbread and not Ice Cream Sandwich. We were informed that the phone will receive the Ice Cream Sandwich update during the second quarter of 2012. That doesn’t seem to have happened. So lets keep our finger crossed for the third quarter. At this point of time, Jelly Bean update is out of the question for this phone unless Samsung decides to skip the ICS update and brings the Jelly bean update directly.
Samsung Galaxy Beam is currently available from the Samsung eStore for Rs 29,990/-. The package also includes an extra battery pack for the phone for those who find the inbuilt 2000mAh battery insufficient. Customers can also opt for the Cash On Delivery option while making the purchase.
Buy iPhone 3GS From Aircel For Just Rs 9,999/-
In a bold attempt, Aircel has decided to bring down the price of iPhone 3GS to Rs 9,999/- if you are willing to pay Rs 3000/- more in addition to Rs 9,999/- price tag. The extra amount you pay qualifies you to enjoy their 2GB 3G unlimited(Speed will be stripped down to 128kbps after 2GB) internet for 12 months if you’re in their 3G circle or 1000 minutes of local and STD calls, 2500 local and national SMS and unlimited 2G internet connectivity for 6 months if you’re in their 2G circle. The offer is limited to postpaid customers. But this is an offer worth signing up for.
Apple released iPhone 3GS in 2009 and it still continues to be in the market. iOS 5 brought features like iMessage to the 3GS keeping it in the game and now iOS 6 is about to add a host of new features to it when it will be released this fall. iPhone 3GS currently runs iOS 5, it has 3.5″ screen like any other iPhone, a 3.2MP camera with no flash, 3G connectivity, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Compass etc.
iPhone 3GS have been retailing in the market for Rs 19,990/- so far and it didn’t sound like a good buy considering the Android alternatives at the same price range. But now, in its new price segment, it is definitely the best option you have. Click Here to know more.
Apple Releases iOS 6 Beta 3
Apple has released the new iOS 6 beta to developers just a few hours ago. This beta, the third release of its kind brings a lot of stability and speed improvements. The Maps app has also seen considerable changes with the update. However, Apple hasn’t posted any official change log and hence we are trying to find the additions by ourselves. If you’re running iOS beta on your phone, you may want to go to Settings>General>Software Update. The update is available over the air and via iTunes. The update for iPhone 4S weighs around 374MB OTA.
Do not worry about the screenshot. For some reason, the update showed up as Beta 2 even though it is the third release. If you haven’t tried the iOS 6 beta yet, then you may want to take a look at our guide for getting iOS beta on your phone without a developer account. In other words for free !!
Google Announces The Nexus 7 Tablet
Two years after Apple announced the iPad, Google joins the tablet war with their own branded tablet. Even though Google has a tablet version for the Android OS for a quite a while now, this is the first time that Google is sending it to the market with their own branded tablet. As usual, its not exactly who is building the tablet. And this time its ASUS who will be making it.
To talk about the tablet, it features a 7″ 1080×800 HD display, Android 4.1(Jellybean) onboard, Tegra 3 Quadcore processor with 12 core GPU, a 4325mAh battery, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, Compass, Gyroscope, Accelerometer etc. There’s no built in 3G/4G functionality surprisingly. It also has 1.2 MP camera on the front and no rear camera. Bummer to those who were wanting to share video through rear camera while on a video call. Google claims 9 hours of continuous HD playback. Considering the size of the battery and the processor used, its surprising to know that this tablet can give that much battery life.
We wouldn’t really call it as an iPad competitor. But its surely a competition for the Amazon Kindle Fire. It is priced at $199 for the 8GB model and $249 for the 16GB model. Orders can be placed as early as today, however it will ship only around mid July. USA and Canada will be first markets to see the Nexus 7 tablet. Interested ?? Order one using the link below.
Nexus 7 8GB and Nexus 7 16GB.
Sony Xperia U Review
Sony hasn’t been quite active with their Android smartphone portfolio lately until they announced the Sony NXT series. This new series comes with a handful of Android phones that is targeted at all budgets. So there’s one device for every segment. The Sony Xperia U is the cheapest of the all. Other models include Xperia Sola, Xperia P and the Xperia S. We’ll be covering all the reviews here starting with Xperia U today.
Hardware:
The Sony Xperia U comes with a 3.5inch LED backlit display with a resolution of 480×854 pixels. The screen has approximately 280 ppi which is a lot more than many Android phones out there in the same segment. The display is also powered by the Sony Bravia Engine which will make your pictures look really good in the display. We really enjoyed the quality of images on the display. The color depth in the image was very impressive. The 3.5 inch display may turn some buyers off from this phone. Today, everybody is running behind large screens which are even difficult to carry when you consider certain models. If you are not crazy about phones with large displays, you’ll find this phone as one of the best. The phones size perfectly fits in hands. When you hold it, you know you have a good grip and control over it that can avoid accidental slippery leading to disasters.
On the right side of the phone, you’ll see the power button, single piece volume rokr button and the dedicated camera key. The three buttons are equally placed away from each other. Some you may find the volume rokr a bit to hard to control as its at the centre of the phone. But once you get the hang of it, its no longer a problem. The inclusion of a dedicated camera button is well appreciated. Let’s face it, having to fire up the display and then launch the camera app is tiresome and may also be the reason why you miss some great shots. However, the designers at Sony seems to have addressed the issue. And they’ve also included a special feature called the Quick Launch Mode where in which you can quickly target the camera to the object even when the display is off and perform a long press on the camera dedicated camera button and the camera app launches instantly and auto snaps whatever is in the frame. So, there’s no more excuse to missing that special moment again. I found this feature pretty useful.
On the left side close to the top, you’ll notice the the micro USB port for charging and data transfer. That aside there’s nothing else on the left side. At the bottom you can see the strap hole if you intend to use a hand strap and then there’s the main microphone as well. Sony does not provide any hand straps in the box, so you may have to buy them separately. On top we have the 3.5mm headphone jack to connect the headphones that comes in the box or any other standard headphones available in the market. You will also find a second microphone on top along with the headphone jack.
The new Xperia phones have an eye catching design. The inclusion of a transparent glass between the body close to the bottom not only make it look gorgeous but also increases the antenna performance. And if you really look closely, you can see the default Android action keys like the Home, Back and the Menu icons there. Right above them the three white dots can be see which is where you should tap so that the intended function is performed. And the most amazing thing is this glass cut piece gloss in different colors. It glows with a certain colour when you get a call. It glows when you press the action keys and it adjusts the color of the light to whatever colour is dominating the display. So if you are watching the picture of a green forest, it turns green, red for strawberries or whatever colour is being displayed on the screen. Its interesting to see how much Sony has concentrated on bringing a great design. While most manufacturers try to pack high specifications over great design, Sony has taken a different step this time. They’ve given equal importance to everything.
Sony has included an 5MP camera with LED flash on to the phone. The phone takes very good pictures once you try a hand with the exposure levels. Photos looked a bit washed out without adjusting the exposure levels. However, the video wasn’t very impressive at all. It takes 720p video and the quality of it is quite underwhelming. There’s also a front facing camera which is VGA for self portraits and video calling. Watch the samples from the back camera we’ve posted below.
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On the Inside, Xperia U sports a dual core 1Ghz A9 cortex processor with 512MB RAM. And we’ve gotta say it, the processor and RAM does their job quite well. We never really experienced any lag on the phone. Everything was quite smooth from launching apps to playing games. The phone currently runs Android 2.3(Gingerbread), however a planned upgrade in third quarter this year will bring Ice Cream Sandwich to the device. Currently, only Xperia S has got the Android 4.0 update. The only downside of the phone that we couldn’t put up was the storage. Sony, for some reason has only added a 4GB ROM into it with no external card support. Thats right, if you listen to lot of music or if you watch a lot of movies, then you’re gonna find this storage very insufficient. Not to forget, all the photos you take, videos you shoot and the apps install also go to the same space. If its any compliment, the phone supports USB OTG i.e. USB On The Go. So you can have your contents loaded from a pendrive which can’t stored on the hard drive. Coming to connectivities, the phone is equipped with WiFi b/g/n with DLNA support. You’ll also find Bluetooth support, GPS, FM Radio etc. The phones bottom cap is interchangeable. You can put white, Pink, Blue or Yellow caps. Xperia U has a 1320mAh battery to support all your activities on the phone. While this may not sound very pleasing to many heavy users out there, taking into account the size of the display, I think this is pretty neat. The phone didn’t last for an entire day(which phone does ?!!), but it got us going till the evening on 3G which is not bad. Not to mention, we were on 3G network, switched to WiFi for a few hours, push was enabled for email and twitter. The best part is, these device charges very quickly. If you use the supplied power plug and the data cable, it charges pretty quickly. Most phones usually takes hours to charge via the microUSB connecter. But Sony has addressed that issue with the new line of Xperias including the Xperia U.
Software:
Sony has also worked a lot on the software side. Besides just loading the Gingerbread on to the phone, they’ve also added an overlying software called the Timescape UI. If you’ve used Sony Ericsson Android phones before, then you might be familiar with this UI. To be honest, I found this software to be way better and intuitive than any other overlying softwares from the competing manufacturers. The Touchwhiz UI from Samsung packs a lot of features, however the overall look and feel of the software is really underwhelming. And when such a poor looking software is powered by a hardware as good as an AMOLED screen, you really get an awful experience. But Sony has done a great job here. They’ve beautifully designed the Timescape UI. The software has a grey theme everywhere. The icons look good. The transitions are neat and the level of access for menus are well placed that it doesn’t take a lot of steps to get things done. Sony has also integrated all the social networks in to this software to give you a unified experience. So every contact of yours will not only fetch you their phone numbers or email, but their social networking statuses from various sites which you’ve linked.
There’s also a dedicated app called the Timescape which is one stop place for accessing all our social content like Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare etc. It pulls all the updates from all these networks and shows them in one place in a stacked UI. In landscape orientation, they beautifully re-orients to form a cover flow like UI. Other apps inlcude Back Up and Restore app that creates back up of the phone contents to restore later at any case of data loss and wipe off. Sony also has a software, something I would like to describe as an intelligent software that can act according to certain situations if preset. For example, you can assign it to run the music player when you connect the earphones. Or you can set it to run the Back Up and Restore app when you connect it to a charger etc. The app is called LiveWare manager and works flawlessly. Sony also has included the Track ID app that works pretty similar to Shazam or Soundhound. The app can listen to music and then fetch you the song details in seconds. It also provides link to the purchase the song online which is cool. Talking about music, if you fall in to any supported countries of Sony’s Music and Video unlimited service, then you can enjoy great collection of song and videos right on your phone.
So to sum it up, Sony has provided a gorgeous looking new design powered with a good hardware, the amazing Android OS Gingerbread with a planned upgrade to ICS in the next quarter and of course with a lot of Sony exclusive apps and services. The phone feels great in hands, its not too big not too small and it lasts decently long enough. The exchangeable bottom caps are a plus for those fashion minded youths and the glowing glass piece is an eye turner. The Xperia U stands out as a classy device at its segment. If the limited storage doesn’t bother you much, then this is the perfect device at this price range. Its trendy, its handy and value for money. That said Sony Xperia U now retails in the market for around Rs 16,000/-. Online dealers like Flipkart and eBay have various offers going on at the moment which will let you buy the device even at lower price point. If you cant wait any longer, you can always walk up to Sony dealers close to your place.
Huawei Honor Review: Big Things In A Small Package
Android is flooding with manufacturers. There’s HTC, Motorola, Samsung and lot many others who makes devices that runs Android. There’s this one brand who have been doing a great work recently that it caught my attention very much. Huawei has been making Android powered devices for a while now. And distinguishes them from others is that they have some softwares of their own that can finally address some of the glitches and missing features that we’ve been waiting for Google to Address. So is the case with hardware. Before we jump into details lets first take quick look at the device with this video below.
Design And Hardware:
The Huawei U8860 or simply the Huawei Honor is a new phone from Huawei that falls to the mid-high end range segment. The phone features a 4 inch touchscreen with a resolution of 480×854 resolution. The screen has approximately 245ppi which is on par with most phones of the same segment. We found the display pretty decent. However, at some occasions the screen demanded harder taps to launch apps or do any operation. Just below the display you’ll notice the touch sensitive buttons. One each for Menu, Home, Back and Search. Its a little unusual to see four touch buttons on an Android phone as these days we only see three on most phones. The search button is no longer seen anywhere. However, some users may find this very helpful as search is just a tap away.
The phone’s body is fully plastic. However, the phone does not give you any cheap plastic feeling while holding it in your hands. Huawei has wisely designed a rugged back to the phone that not only gives a good grip in hands but decreases the chances of getting scratches.
Talking about the back side of the phone, you will find the 8MP camera with autofocus and LED flash on top. Right next to it, you can see the speaker which is decently loud without any distortions at high volumes. Just below the camera and the speakers you’ll see the Huawei logo and towards the bottom another Google logo.
On the left side we have the volume rockr buttons, the right side is pretty much empty with no ports or buttons, at the bottom we have the micro USB port for connecting the cable to computer and for charging via the AC outlet. The top side has the headphone jack and the Sleep/Wake button.
On the inside, there’s a 1.4Ghz processor with Adreno GPU 205 which gives a significant boost to the graphics in games and apps, the 512MB may not standard for phone in this range. But you’ll never feel any lag.The inclusion of a 4GB ROM besides 1GB internet storage and the support for MicroSD cards upto 32GB is unbelievable. You’ll never run out of space from now on for a long time. Then of course it also has all sorts of connection support like WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS, FM Radio etc. The phone also has an 8MP camera on the front and VGA camera at the back.
But, what makes this phone stand out from others is the battery. Android is well known for its high battery consumption. Most manufacturers are trying to include large batteries to the phone so that one can use the phone for an entire day before charging it again. Phones like Motorola RAZR MAXX and Samsung Galaxy SIII has been powered with a 3300mAh and 2100mAh battery respectively to give you a longer battery life. However, one has to pay hefty price to enjoy this. While none of the companies have bothered to bring the same benefit customers in the mid range segment, Huawei has come forward with the Honor by powering it with 1930mAh. That’s right, its huge. We found the battery to last quite long.
Software:
As far as software is concerned, we have Gingerbread onboard with Ice Cream Sandwich update that’s about to release soon. But the question is, what more ? And Huawei seems to have a big answer there. While Android has several solutions for a back up solution, the best one demands you to root or hack the phone which may not be everyone’s cup of coffee. It’s surprising that Google being the king of web haven’t found a simple online solution yet to back up phone data to web which can be tied to one’s registered email address. Huawei has a cloud service of their own called the Cloud+ service that does an amazing job at data back up. It is obviously a service exclusive to Huawei devices. The Cloud+ service is a collation of many services like Cloud+ Drive, Message+, Streams, Phone Finder, SNS, Contacts Integration etc.
Cloud+ Drive:
The Cloud+ drive offers extra space on the cloud to store your movies, songs and photos or even documents. The gallery is intelligently integrated with the Cloud+ service. So when you get a single view of what’s in the cloud and phone in one place which is simply brilliant.
Cloud+ Synchronization And Back Up:
Cloud+ automatically syncs your contacts in your phone to cloud instantly and pushes the update to your other Huawei smartphone or tablet. The Cloud+ Drive gives you 16Gb on free online storage that can back up your data like photos, videos, music or any documents that are on your phones. The backup can be set to happen instantly via 3G or WiFi or you can schedule them to happen at any time you wish. All you need to enjoy this service is a Huawei smartphone/tablet and a Cloud+ account which you’ll be guided through to make during your initial boot up on your Huawei device.
Find My Phone:
You must be familiar with the famous Find My iPhone service from Apple. Well, now you can also find and recover your Huawei phone if lost as long as the phone is not wiped or turned off. You can login to hicloud.com and use your cloud account to track your phone. You can also wipe the data remotely or display emergency messages on the phone directly from the web.
Apart from the Huawei exclusive apps, you will Android pretty much the same and similar to the default UI. The software runs pretty smooth on the phone be it the menu navigation or individual app performance.
Camera:
Coming to camera, Huawei Honor does a decent job with its 8MP camera. We took the camera for a spin at the beach and we came up with the following samples. We also a shot a 720p video. Unfortunately, the Huawei Honor does not do videos in 1080p yet. However, we’re told that the feature will be soon added. Still photographers will be glad to know that the camera has a built in HDR feature. The HDR did a great job from our tests. We’ve uploaded a couple of pictures here. The first slideshow embedded below has all the pictures taken normal clarity while the second show that’s below it has all the pictures taken with HDR on. We’ll let you be the judge here. Check them out.
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To ensure you watch it the full quality, do switch to the 720p version. As you can see we’ve shot the video during a significantly low light time of the day and yet the phone has captured the scene pretty well. There isn’t a lot of editing functionality within the settings, but you can surely reply on the Play store for that.
Conclusion:
Huawei Honor has been a great device to use. With its simple design, exclusive apps and services from Huawei, the whopping 1930mAh and the fact that whole package is available for just Rs 19,990/-, this is something incredible. The phone may have some pit falls in some areas, but if you consider the whole package you are getting way more that what competitors has to offer. Huawei was one of the companies I never considered previously, but the progress they’ve made and the efforts they are putting in to bringing great Android phones is attracting my attention. It may be easy to make a high end device and give it a hefty price tag, but the actual talent is in bringing great packages for small price. Honor is the perfect example of that. The phone is available in most offline and online stores across the country.
Sony Keeps Their Word: ICS Update For Xperia S Rolls Out Today
Sony has just announced that the Ice Cream Sandwich update for their flagship smartphone Xperia S will be rolling out today. In a recent blog post, Sony details the update and has also included a video showing the latest new features in the update. The Xperia S was released with Android Gingerbread on board and has received a few updates till date. However, this is the major release from Sony since the launch of the product. Sony has been updating their previous generation Xperia devices to Ice Cream Sandwich since last month and promised the Ice Cream Sandwich update for Xperia S to be released in June. Well, they’ve kept their word and we’re impressed. Here, take a look at the video Sony released about the update.
Not all may be looking forward to updates like these, however there are many geeks and enthusiasts out there who hates to live with old softwares on their phone. Hence, their purchase decision always include update release frequencies by brands. This roll out is a good sign from Sony and we hope the other Xperia devices like the Xperia P, U and Sola will get the update soon.