Tech – Page 4

iPhone 5 Review: Big Steps Forward, One Backward

Apple unveiled the iPhone 5 on September 12th along with the line of new iPods. iPhone started shipping to customers on September 21st. While iPhone 5 was no big surprise to us, thanks to the leaked photos that were circulating on the web. However, Apple managed to yet “Wow” us with the performance improvements they brought to the phone. iPhones are now just more than being a smartphone. Its a fashion statement for some while a luxury item for others. Over the years, iPhone has managed to create of class of its on and people are crazy about it. That’s right, because numbers don’t lie. The iPhone 5 has made huge improvements over the last iteration and they never fail to do that. Its looking a lot more gorgeous now. But, while taking a leap forward, they did compromise on some features. And I’m not happy about it. Well, most customers aren’t. Lets take a quick run down on all iPhone features and see where they lost the magic. Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you read pages and pages of same old boring stuff. Let’s focus on what’s new and changed.

Box Package:

iPhones always come in a simple no nonsense package. Its pretty handy and very helping when you pack it up for a trip. That exactly is what Apple thought too. The small packaging helps Apple ship more units in bulk from the factories to their stores and other distributors. An iPhone box package basically includes the phone, the USB data cable which in this case is the new lightning connector, a power plug and earphones which now is dubbed as Earpods. You’ll also find Apple stickers, a manual in which you can find a sim ejector pin. Oh and the iPhone 5 uses a Nano sim. Get ready to have more fun cutting your existing sim if your existing operator doesn’t issue nano sim card. And before you get started you may want to check out this guide as well. That’s basically the box. Same, simple and compact.

Display: It Just Got Better:

iPhone 5 now has a 4″ screen from the previous 3.5″ screen. The screen is only taller than before but not wider. The same resulted in the resolution shifting from 640×960 to 640×1136. The iPhone 5 display is also much superior to that of 4S’. It now has 44% more colour saturation than 4S. And I’ve got to tell you, its a phenomenal screen now. Everything looks much better now. The icons, the text, videos and everything. I really didn’t expect a big change in the display but it blew me away. Its more like the HD Super AMOLED screens that the Android phones have these days. But not as much as deeper colours on the screen which I think is nice. It really shows a difference when you watch photos and videos or browse the internet. Everything feels more live and vivid. I’m really sold by the display. In short, the screen is now absolutely stunning !!!

Apple has maintained the same amount of pixels per inch on the iPhone 5 as well. i.e. at 326ppi. They’ve previously claimed that anything beyond this would hurt the eye. I’m not sure of that, but the point where we are at is perfect. The advancements in the display really improves your app experience. I love using the Facebook app more and more these days. And luckily it’s one of the few popular apps that were updated for the iPhone 5 screen at the earliest. That’s right, apps now have to be specifically designed for the iPhone 5 to give you the best experience. Or else they would look letter boxed on the screen. Thanks to the increased screen resolution. The advantage is that, in one view you can now see more information which avoids the need of scrolling on and on repeatedly. Plus, now you can watch HD videos(16:9) in full screen without any black bars on top and bottom. If you watch a lot of videos, you’re gonna love it. The sad part is that photos now have the black bars on both the sides as they are 4:3. On some phones, you can take photos in 16:9 ratio, but definitely not on iPhone.

I’ve used the Galaxy SII and the Galaxy Note. And I tell you they are not handy. Its just too big that you can’t easily access all the corners of the phone. Plus, if you have a small palm, it would be very difficult to fit it in the hand. iPhone 5 however is just perfect. Its still the same old handy phone, but with a taller screen. Although, some of you may have a little problem handling it. I have a big hand and it wasn’t a problem for me. Chances are that most of you won’t find a problem with it.

It’s A6, It’s 1Gigs and It’s Faster:

Apple has developed a custom A6 chip which they’ve used in the iPhone 5. It’s definitely faster. And before you ask it, let me tell you, its not quad core. Its a dual core processor clocked at 1.3Ghz. Apple always under clocks their processors on all devices. So this could actually be even more faster. The reason why Apple under clocks processor is for battery life. When processors work at higher clock speeds it produces more heat and uses a good amount of battery. Apple definitely don’t want that. Either way, its very fast. As you know, I was an iPhone 4S user and I’ve always felt it to be really fast. And iPhone 5 is even more faster. But its not something to drool on. It may be milliseconds faster when you run native apps and reasonably higher when you run big games. Apple has finally doubled the RAM on iPhone from 512MB to 1GB. I really expected this upgrade when Apple announced 4S, but Apple didn’t think so. The addition of 1GB RAM module is just perfect. iOS 6 is big in terms of memory consumption. And having a 1GB RAM to offer for the apps is a good thing.

Apps are lightning fast now. Loading is a history among native apps(Not that there was much earlier). Launching apps, switching apps are all lightning fast. It’s like they are always waiting in the background waiting for your tap. Games are better too. Graphics performance are noticeably better. At the time of writing, there are not many graphics intensive apps on the app store that are optimised for the iPhone 5. However, I tried a few of them including Metal Storm, Solar Walk and and Jetpack Joyride. And I tell you, if you love playing games, you’re gonna love the iPhone 5. Everything is pretty smooth. Not to mention, the improved screen does make the experience much better. Playing games via Airplay using Apple TV are all super smooth now. Just make sure you have strong WiFi signal. When it comes to speed there is nothing more you can ask from the iPhone. Its top notch. And its not just about playing games or running graphics intensive apps. There are many other simple little things which benefit from having a faster processor and RAM. For example, having more RAM helps you open a lot of tabs on Safari and then switch to some other apps. These tabs tend to reload the pages again when you switch back to Safari as it may have ran shot of memory while you were using other apps. So this whole procedure consumes more data and most of all your valuable time. But with higher RAM, there will be enough memory for these tabs to use up even while you fiddle with other apps. This is just one example. There are more. But this is most common scenario you may encounter.

One other notable improvement about the processor is its battery management. iPhone 5 has the same or nearly the same battery used in iPhone 4S. However, iPhone 5 can keep you going more than iPhone 4S with A5 processor. The processor intelligently manages it quite well that you get 10 hours of WiFi browsing, 8 hours of LTE and 3G browsing. Impressive, right ? Real life performance is nearly the same provided you don’t play or watch movies in between.

Lightning Port: It’s Reversible, But Not Sensible:

Apple has made some bold moves like introducing the micro sims instead of the normal sim cards. Or the nano sims for that matter. But, switching to lightning port on the iPhone 5 was one of the worst moves. Its not that I hoped to have the 30 pin dock forever, but Apple may have switched to the lightning port a little too early for the following reasons:

1. Lightning dock isn’t anyway a huge improvement over the 30 pin connector.

2. Lightning port is not supported by any 3rd party accessories manufacturers.

3. Apple itself did not release any accessories for the connector including a dock. Seriously ?!! (Minus the lightning to 30 pin and microUSB).

4. A lightning to 30pin dock connector is $29(WTH !!) and if you choose the same with a cable, its $39.

5. Apple has included a chip that prevents 3rd party access unless they are onboard with Apple for the same. Means lesser accessories in future.

Lightning port looks a lot a thinner than the 30 pin dock connector. That’s a welcomed change. But that’s about it. I didn’t find any difference in speed while loading apps, music or videos. And charging time is almost the same as well. So Apple may have took advantage of the extra space they got when they replaced the port, but for end user, there isn’t anything much to talk about. Or there is just one thing which I like. It’s reversible. But definitely not worth the sacrifice we’re doing here though. I remember going in to friends and family’s house. Suddenly my iPhone battery dies and then I can use any of their iPhone charger and have my phone back up again regardless which generation of iPhone/iPod they use. Now its a dilemma. I have to make sure I carry the charger unless there is one user who has upgraded to an iPhone 5. Also, most accessories connect to your phone through the 30 pin dock connector. None of them would now work with your phone unless you have a connector which itself may not solve the problem in some case. These are silly things. But they happen too often in your life that its a matter of serious thought. There were two ways for Apple to go with the change. One, offer a free lightning to 30 pin dock or two, offer them at an incredibly cheap price.

At the bottom of the phone you’ll notice the 3.5mm headphone jack near the lightning port. Apple has had it on top of the phone since the original iPhone. Most people liked this decision. Mostly because when you place the phone in your pocket and when you pull it out, the display is always facing you which previously was upside down. But some of you may find it annoying depending on your use case scenario.

Camera:

Since the introduction of the iPhone 4S, Apple has made huge improvements in the camera segment. We all have to agree that its got one of the best cameras on a smartphone yet. What makes it even better is that in most other phones you may have to fiddle around the plethora of camera settings to take a great shot. Eg: Nokia Pureview 808. And this requires you to have a great background knowledge what each setting means. But on the iPhone, all you have to do is just Touch-To-Focus and snap. Its as simple as that. It helps anyone to be a great photographer.

iPhone 5 uses the same camera lens and technology as in iPhone 4S. However, Apple has updated the camera lens. It now uses a sapphire crystal lens. Hence, its now less susceptible to scratches from daily uses. This ensures that you are able to take great pictures all the time as scratches may deflect the light entering the lenses causing uneven lighting in the image. Image quality is almost the same and slightly noticeable. Images look much better on the new display as it has a better resolution and colour saturation. Apple has also revamped the camera UI on the iPhone 5, but its nothing to get excited about. I would still prefer the look of iPhone 4S camera soft buttons on my iPhone. And finally, we now have a panorama mode on the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 built right into the camera app. Panorama photos were limited 3rd party apps all this time. Its a nice feature. But if you’re one of those with a shaky hands, then don’t count much on the quality. Whenever I’m at an open place say beach or hill top, I start taking pictures in panorama mode. Its fun. iPhone still has the dual LED flash on it. And you will find a small microphone resting between the rear camera and LED flash on the back. It helps in noise reduction during calls and improved audio while taking videos as it can collect audio from the subject you’re shooting. Now that’s a brilliant idea. The front facing camera is new. Its now a 1.3MP camera that can do 720p videos. This means you can do FaceTime calls with much better clarity. And did I mention that FaceTime calls are now possible over 3G/4G ? Now that’s what I would like to call as real video calling facility, although limited to certain Apple devices.

I’m sure you’re definitely craving to see some camera samples from the iPhone 5. I’m no expert in photography, but I did shoot some pictures. You can take a look at them below. I’ve also uploaded a 1080p video sample on to Youtube which is also embedded below.

PS: I don’t take pictures of the sun usually, so I’ve never faced purple tint issue.

iPhone Camera has always impressed me. Especially since the iPhone 4. The pictures are always very good. But if I were to ask some improvement on the camera, then I would love some enhancements to low light photography. Apple may have to work a bit more there. Phones like the Nokia Lumia 920 has made huge advancements in the camera segment, especially in the low light photography. Apple may want to concentrate a bit more there.

Build Quality:

Faster isn’t stronger. Apple iPhone 5 has received a lot of bad press due to its poor build quality. Especially, the black model which has been losing paint and receiving scuffs while being shipped. That’s right, even before user lays his hands on it. I’m not sure how many of you can receive a scuffed phone with a happy face. Anyway, I ordered for a white phone seeing the issues with Black device. A lot of users had issues while many received without any fault. A few friends of mine who are still using the black claimed that its perfectly fine even after a month of using it. White iPhone 5 looks really gorgeous. The back aluminium casing and the white glass casing on the back is an absolute beauty combination. I never get tired of looking at it. I loved it on my iPad and love it on iPhone 5. But, that isn’t all. From my experience, I found the iPhone 5 to be much much weaker. Its not as strong as iPhone 4S or iPhone 4 were. The aluminium metal enclosure on the phone is much weaker now.

If you slightly(accidentally) hit it against the desk, wall or a small gadget thats on the desk, it gets scuffs very quickly. You know, thats not something you would like to see when you pay up to $1000 for a phone. I don’t mean to say that my phone should survive being run over by a bus, but its gotta be same or better than previous generations. Especially for an Apple product who always preaches about how much a product they are announcing is better than the same device from previous generation. I really take care of my phone very well, but I think I’ve spotted a minor scuff on it already. And I’m not happy about it. So if you’re one of those guys with a lose hand, then you may want to rethink your decision about getting the iPhone 5 unless you’re ready to put one of those monster case on it for protection.

Battery:

Battery life is pretty strong on the iPhone 5. I wouldn’t recommend you to upgrade to iPhone 5 from a 4S citing battery life as its strongest selling point, but its got better. I used to get around 7-8 hours of battery life on iPhone 4S when using 3G network. I use twitter all the time and I often check emails. I also play a lot of games on the iPhone. Mostly turn based low graphics intensive games. Yet iPhone 4S gave me 7-8 hours. With same activity going on iPhone 5, I can squeeze up to 9-10 hours or even higher on some days. And if you rely on WiFi for internet, then you may get even better battery life. Its surprising considering that Apple hasn’t improved the battery physically. But all thanks to the A6 processor and new iOS 6 which I hope also has its fair share in the enhanced battery life.

iOS & Apps:

iOS 6 has packed a lot of Siri improvements and other software enhancements including Facebook integration. What I like the most in iOS 6 are the ability to make FaceTime calls over 3G, integration of phone number and Apple IDs in to one account for iMessage, Facebook integration, Ability to insert photos and videos right from mail app, iCloud tabs on Safari, Reading list etc. Some of these features may not sound new or revolutionary to you if you’re on Android and Symbian, but its the first time they’re being introduced on iOS 6. And its good to have them. iOS 6 is smooth just like any previous iterations of iOS. It works flawlessly on the iPhone 5. And of course the A6 processor and the 1GB RAM is doing its job perfectly under the hood.

Apple maps needs no introduction. You’ve pretty much heard everything about it. So I’ll just talk about it in three words. It Still Sucks !!

PS: Download this app to get Google Maps on to your phone.

Third party apps continue to do their best on iOS. They’re still amazing. They never cease to amaze me. Even after having over 5,00,000 apps on AppStore, developers are still introducing innovative and interesting apps daily. And may I say how gorgeous they look on the iPhone 5 display !! Its always pleasure to use these apps. With the updated hardware, apps are way faster on the iPhone 5. And a good amount of apps have been updated to support the new screen resolution on the iPhone 5. Other apps run letter boxed at the moment. Even though the screen size is increased by a small amount, you totally get a different experience with the apps. A few days of using iPhone 5 made me feel like previous iPhones have way smaller screens. Not to forget, the improved resolution does make things feel better. Sometime you do wish if the screen was a little wider.

Final Word:

iPhone continues to be the amazing phone it used to be since the original iPhone. It may not be a compulsory upgrade for existing iPhone 4S users(unless you need the big screen and the new look), but I recommend iPhone 4 and lower users to confidently upgrade to the iPhone 5. Keep in mind it isn’t stronger as you may expect it. So be more careful and have a good case in hand if necessary. It will not discourage you as long as speed and performance are considered. Battery life will also please you well. There many other alternatives in the market. But you can consider iPhone 5 as one of the best ones available in the market right now. After all, an iPhone is an iPhone !!!

Nokia Pureview 808 Review

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Nokia is not going through the best time of theirs. But Nokia isn’t taking that as an excuse to not bring great devices to the market. Nokia was once a game changer. They did have some great devices in the market that were first of its kind. I remember the time when I was so thrilled to try out the twist and turn 3250 or the Nokia N93. Those were the good times. Looks like Nokia is bringing back the best again. And they’ve started off with the Nokia Pureview 808.

We all know that Nokia Pureview 808 is not just another Symbian device. Infact, its the kind of Symbian phone we all have been waiting for a while now. So what makes this gorgeous phone so special ?? Let’s find out. First, lets take a quick run down through the specification. The Nokia Pureview 808 comes with 4 inch ClearBlack Display, a 1.3Ghz ARM 11 processor, 512MB RAM, a 41MP Carl Zeiss Camera, 16GB internal memory, MicroSD card, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and 1400mAh battery.

The Box Package:

The Nokia Pureview box package contains the following items:

Nokia 808 PureView
Nokia AC-50 MicroUSB Charger
Nokia Charging and Data Cable CA-190CD
Nokia stereo Headset WH-209
NFC info card
Nokia Wrist Strap Black
Quick Guide, User Guide and Product information leaflet

The Nokia Pureview 808 comes in a very slim package. The included earphones is the in-ear type. I’m not a big fan of it but, most people prefer it over conventional type of earphones. And of course you’ll find plenty of manuals about phone, many Nokia services like Nokia Music, Nokia Maps, tips and tricks etc. The wrist strap is also a handy included accessory in the box especially for girls.

I’ve left Symbian years back for iOS. And I never cared to look back again. Not that I had everything I wanted on iOS, but it gave me good software/hardware performance with little or no performance hiccups. Lets face it, every one of us who’ve used Symbian has confronted irresponsive touchscreen while quickly switching through multiple tasks or services. And remember when you had to tap and tap on and on to get something working on the phone ?? Annoying, right ?? That was the case then. But now its changed. A lot. When I first got the 808, I was only excited for the camera as it was the main highlight of the device. But it looks like its just more than that. The phone has not only improved in terms of the camera but in terms of the overall performance as well. Back in 2011, if I’m not wrong, I got the Nokia N8. No, I didn’t buy it as I was using my iPhone 4 then. But I won it through the Nokia Pocket Dance competition. And oh boy !! The camera was amazing. I had this feeling that I had the best camera touch phone then(iPhone 4). But Nokia N8 blew my mind. Long story shot, later after a few days of use I realised that even if the device had a great camera, the hardware wasn’t powerful enough to give the best performance. And the software wasn’t well optimised either. Remember, it was immediately after the N8 launched. So it was running one of the early versions of the N8 firmware. I found the gallery very laggy and annoying. It was a shame to have to wait for the photos to load on the same device with which it was taken. While the images were really crisp and sharp, the device gave me a bad experience that really affected my overall experience with the device. And in 2-3 months, that phone found a new owner. End of story.

Since then I promised not to go back again to Symbian again. And we all would agree that someone at Nokia was really against the idea of more RAM in a phone at that time. But then I saw the Pureview 808 being announced and I decided to give a shot when I saw that the hardware has been improved very well to perform quite well the amazing features that the phone is packed with.

To start, the Nokia Pureview 808 comes with 4 inch ClearBlack display with 360×640 resolution. Although screen size is just perfect, we’re not a big fan of that tiny resolution considering the standard resolution that comes in other smartphones of the same budget. Nokia has also added Corning Gorilla Glass which will help you keep your phone scratch free to some extent. There’s also a 1.3Ghz processor and 512MB RAM combo that really makes a difference in performance from its predecessors. On the Pureview browsing was a pure bliss. The gallery was almost instant and browsing through photos was a breeze. Pureview’s overall performance and the camera of course really impressed me well. Besides, Nokia has been continuously updating the software to give the best performance. I’m not much of a camera expert but I was still excited about the camera on the phone.

The camera on Pureview has 41MP sensor and it uses Pureview technology to create stunning images with far less the usual size of the photos with same clarity. In simple words, the camera captures a large amount of image data using this high quality lens and it keeps the resolution down to 5MP or 8MP depending on what you’ve set. This results in creation of photos with stunning clarity and weight. So, that helps you share these photos via email or social networks to your friends and family without taking a big hit to your data usage. This is some impressive work from Nokia. I think this is pure innovation with Camera. Although it sounds a lot technical, there’s nothing users have to worry about. All you need to do is snap photos and rest the phone takes care of. I’m sure you’ll be dying to see some pictures taken with this camera. Like I said, I’m no camera expert, but here are a few shots I took with the phone. You can also head over to Flickr to see more photos from experts.[nggallery id=18]

The photos looked really good. And the details are just amazing. There were pictures into which I zoomed up to 8x and still could read the name boards that were in it. That shows the level of accuracy in details of the pictures it takes. Oh and if you’re camera enthusiast, then there are probably a lot of things you may wanna know about the camera. The camera menu has a lot of settings from simple tweaking exposures and focus levels to complex options. I may not be an expert to talk about them all, so I recorded a video from MWC 2012 where a Nokia expert itself walks you through the entire camera details. Here, take a look at the video embedded below.

Apart from camera, Pureview also has great other features like the Nokia Music and Nokia Maps. These are some of the stand out Nokia services that you get to enjoy when you either buy this phone or any other eligible Nokia device. Nokia Music boasts over 5 million tracks on their music online store that covers a wide variety of genres in different languages. When you buy a qualifying device, your phone gets registered to the service for a year and you can download unlimited music for the same period. The unit we trialled unfortunately had issues in getting the service activated. However, we’ve tried this service on many other models and they’ve worked well. So wherever you go, no matter what you can download latest music anytime. Another stunning service from Nokia that really caught our attention is the Nokia Maps. Nokia Maps lets you move to any place with their amazing data powered by Navteq. Nokia Maps also provides turn by turn voice navigation making it easier to use while driving. You can also download maps to certain locations using WiFi at your house and save on data costs while using it outside. Nokia Maps also provides walking directions and public transit lines in certain countries along with live traffic details. The service is just amazing. We couldn’t possibly think of a better maps app than this. Nokia continuously develops the app adding more and more features periodically.

When you have a lot of music and pictures, its natural that you will have an urge to share them with your friends. Although, we’re familiar with social sharing like posting to Facebook or Twitter or even email for that matter. Nokia Pureview also has something else. Its DLNA support. This isn’t a new technology and it has been here for a while. But with our big screen TVs and home theatre systems getting WiFi functionality, people are starting to look for this feature in their phones. So what’s DLNA ?? Well, if you’ve heard of Apple’s Airplay feature, then this is going to be easy for you. Airplay is DLNA in disguise. Meaning, DLNA does exactly what Airplay does. So, Yes, you can share your music, videos and photos to your big screen wirelessly from your device. This feature is so great that I recorded a video demo for you. Check it out below.

With a great camera, amazing music service and mind blowing maps app the Nokia Pureview 808 is a stunning device. The only downside here is that it runs Symbian. However, its good to see Symbian still being developed and the latest update Belle does bring Nokia Pureview 808 to the forefront with its new enhanced UI and other features. Its also good to see the improved processor and RAM that really adds up to the performance. Some developers still continue to develop for Symbian actively which is an indication that this platform is still up and strong. If you’re planning on buying this device then you may don’t wanna miss the Swiss Army knife of social apps- Gravity app. Some of you may be so tied up to the Symbian UI that you may don’t wanna consider a switch to other platforms. If so, then this is one of the best choices you have on this platform. And for Camera enthusiasts, think no more. The Nokia Pureview 808 retails for Rs 33,899/- on their online store. Offline retails store prices may vary.

Simple Features I want In The iPhone 5 That Are Not Going To Get Announced Today

It’s almost here. If you’re reading this article, then you know that iPhone 5 or iPhone(whatever) is getting announced tonight. And the whole year we’ve seen plenty of leaks, rumours and predictions for the next iPhone. But here’s something thats nothing from what we saw/heard/read. Here’s something that I wish my iPhone had regardless of what we are going to see or not see tonight or later. I really didn’t want to publish this article at first as we are so close to the announcement. But then I realised that we’re not going to see any of these features being announced tonight. So, lets jump right in to it:-

Notification Light:

An iPhone that’s in sleep is pretty much dead. You can’t know what happened or what is waiting until you light up the display. This is very difficult while you’ve been away from the phone for a while. Most phones have had these for years. Especially the Galaxy S3 which has come with a new feature. The phone gives a noticeable vibration to alert you of pending notifications when you pick it up after leaving the phone for a while unattended. We’ve seen 5 iPhone iterations till date, but Cupertino boys haven’t felt the need to include this feature yet.

Bluetooth File Share:

Apple should really stand out of the fantasy that everybody uses an iPhone and should understand that there are other people too. Again, we’ve seen five iterations of iPhone till date, yet Bluetooth file share is still a mystery. Its true that we’re living in a world of fast internet and all. But thats not wisest way to share files when there’s a person standing right next to you. Besides, I’m tired of being the jerk with the most expensive phone that can’t share a file via BT. If not Bluetooth, Apple should implement some other possible and commonly used modes to send files to other devices.

SMS Delivery Reports:

Whatsapp and iMessage may be the trending forms of instant messages. But lets face it, they can’t really replace SMS at all. We’ve seen how beautifully iMessage handles iM delivery and read status reports. Yet its a shame to see that the SMS you sent don’t have the same. One has to assume that it might get delivered when in some cases it may not. As long as normal phone calls are going to exist, SMS will also exist.

Contact Share:

Another simple yet one of the most important feature missing from the iPhone is ability to share contacts via sms in vcf format. At the moment, one has to manually copy the number and name to send information to the person on the other end.

Ability To Add Music Outside iTunes:

I recently subscribed to iTunes Match. For those of who are new to this service, iTunes Match scans your music library and finds a match on iTunes server for music files that was added to iTunes via some other sources. You can then replace them by downloading the iTunes version and all these songs gets pushed to your other iOS devices through cloud. Now that we have an option like this, Apple should start letting users add music via other sources on phone as well. At least to those who subscribed to iTunes Match.

Talking about adding music, I also wish if Safari could directly download files to the browser and open it in a 3rd party app. Some touches to notifications to include a music widget and connectivities wouldn’t hurt either. I could really go on, but these are something I really miss the most from my usage. If you’re an iPhone user, tell us what you miss the most.

PS: I know most of these can be fixed through a jailbreak, but that’s not a path I’m willing to take 🙂

Apple announces the iPhone 5

Here’s a quick run down of the iPhone features announced.

New iPhone 5 is probably what you’ve seen if you visit our website often. Anyway, the iPhone 5 is the thinnest iPhone yet. At 112 grams, its 20% lighter than the iPhone 4S. It has 4 inch Retina screen with 1136×640 resolution. All the first party apps have been optimised to use the widescreen that it is now. Rest of them will letter boxed for now and wide stretched when developers update it to support the new resolution. The iPhone now supports LTE as well. WiFi is dual channel and supports upto 150mbps. iPhone 5 uses the A6 processor which has twice graphics and CPU speed than the current one. Most apps launch twice as fast according to Apple. iPhone 5 has a better battery now. It gives you 8 hours of 3G talk time or browsing and 10 hours on WiFi.

The camera is still 8MP. It has a dynamic low light mode, f/2.4 aperture and a sapphire crystal cover. The new processor makes the photo capture 40% faster than iPhone 4S. The rear facing camera shoots videos at 1080p while front facing camera shoots videos at 720p. You can now also take photos while recording video and Panorama feature is finally available. How many of these features will make to previous iPhones ?

iPhone 5 also features the new 8 pin dock connector as opposed to the 30 pin connector now. Still comes in black and white. Price is the same as iPhone 4S on contract. Stay Tuned !!

Update:

iPhone has been up for pre-order now in countries like US, UK, Canada, Germany, Australia and Singapore. The phone has been selling very well with first batch of devices getting sold out 20 times faster than the 4S. Shipping dates have slipped to 2-3 weeks in most countries already. I personally tried to order one from the Canadian store which showed me the estimated shipping date would be around October second week.

iPhone are currently unlocked in countries like UK, Canada, Australia and Singapore. iPhones are available on contract in the US. Unlocked phones are expected to be out by the end of this month or early next month. It looks like Apple is stocking them for countries where they are allowed to sell only unlocked units. At the moment, Indian launch is not known. We are expecting a launch around October mid week with the fourth batch of countries to receive the iPhone 5. As far as pricing is concerned, it would stay at the current price point which is Rs 44,500 for 16GB, Rs49,500 for 32GB and Rs54,500 for the 64GB.

Sony launches The Xperia ION In India For Rs 36,999

Sony Marketing Head Prasun Kumar announced the launch of Xperia ion in India. Xperia ion is Sony’s latest flagship device featuring a huge 4.6″ HD Reality display with Mobile Bravia which is Sony’s exclusive display technology. The phone also has 16GB of internal storage with support for MicroSD card up to 32GB. Sony has also added a 12MP autofocus rear camera that does 1080p videos at 30fps. The phone runs Android 4.0 i.e. Ice Cream Sandwich. All of these is powered by a 1.5GHz Dual Core processor and 1GB of RAM.

Sony calls this phone an HD powerhouse due to its outstanding screen and the internal hardware Sony has managed to ship with it. In order to ensure that people gets the best out of this device, Sony and Airtel have tied up to give you 500MB of 3G data for the first 3 months and 200 minutes of Mobile TV for 2 months. This offer will let you enjoy the best of the web and television right on your smartphone. Here, take a look at the video below to see what people behind this amazing phone has to say about it.

The phone will be available in the market for Rs 36,999/- after taxes. The phone is currently available in black and red. We will soon have this device reviewed. So, stay tuned !!

Sony Xperia U Review

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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:

Xperia

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.

Glasscut

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

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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.

NewImage 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.

Guide: How To Get iOS 6 For Free

iOS 6 was released on the opening day of WWDC this year. However, its currently available to developers as its in beta. Users can only get it working on their phone if they have their device’s UDID registered in the Apple server through an Apple developer account. Most of you may have paid some developer to get a slot while some of you may have waited for a trick to get it free. If so, then the wait is over.

If you want iOS 6 on your phone, all you have to do is the following steps. PS: This is a beta software, so all apps may not work as intended. We do not take responsibility to any damages that this process may cause to your phone. Please do it at your own risk. If at all things go wrong, you can restore at anytime.

Step 1: Download iTunes 10.6.3, Its available on the Apple website.

Step 2: Download the iOS 6 software. You may download it from this website

Step 3: Connect your phone to your computer and launch iTunes.

Step 4: Press Shift (if you use Windows) or Option (if you use Mac) and click on Check For Update on iTunes in the iPhone screen. Make sure you press the buttons and Check For Update together.

Step 5: Navigate to the downloaded iOS 6 file you downloaded and wait until its done.

Don’ts:

1. Do not disconnect while the process is going on.

2. If on Laptop, make sure it has enough battery back up.

3. Make sure you click on Check For Update and not Restore.

While you download the iOS 6 file, you can take a look at our tour of the iOS 6. We’ve also compared it against iOS 5.

You can thank us in the comment section 🙂

This Could Be The Next iPhone !!!

Now that Macs and iOS is announced, its the time of the iPhone. We don’t usually post every little iPhone rumor we see. But this one looks very convincing. Apple Insider has posted the images of what it appears to be the next iPhone thats expected to release this fall. The images look very real and imaging experts say, there are no traces of Adobe Photoshop elements in the picture. And surprisingly, the back casing seen on this iPhone perfectly matches the previously leaked cases last week.

The phone seems to have two types of material on the back now. The top which covers the camera and flash, and the bottom now to boasts a glossy material while the space between them is mainly matte looking material. The form factor looks the same but slightly taller.

The bottom has received some changes. We can now see bigger speakers and smaller dock. The 3.5mm headphone jack seem to have been moved to the bottom of the phone from the usual top spot. The guys who usually bring these kind of photos are usually very smart. They may have tampered the images. So let’s not fully fall for it. If this was the real deal, then what’s your opinion about the design ? Did you like it ?? Got your credit card in your hand already ??

Huawei Ideos X3 Review: Cheapest Android With A Great Cloud Service

Huawei has been creating a lot of buzz lately. The company used to have it’s focus on network devices previously. But now they seem to have set their eyes on the growing smartphone industry as well. At this year’s Mobile World Congress, we witnessed the Huawei Ascend D QUAD which came with a quad core processor and LTE. It looks like Huawei is really serious about what they’re doing. Anyway, this review isn’t about any monster spec’ed phone. This is about a low end yet a highly irresistible phone for its price, the Huawei Ideos X3. If you follow us on Twitter or Facebook, you know that we’ve been reviewing this phone for a while now. Here, check out our special unboxing video.

The Huawei Ideos X3 has a 3.2 inch TFT screen with 320X480 resolution which has approximately 180ppi. On the inside we have a 600MHz Qualcomm processor with 256MB RAM and 512MB ROM. And of course, the memory is expandable up to 32GB. The phone is also capable of connecting to HSDPA networks, WiFi b/g/n, GPS and Bluetooth devices. It can also take average pictures with its 3.15MP camera and 480p videos. For those radio addicts, it does FM radio connectivity.

Like you would expect, the Ideos X3 like any other Android phone gives you a seamless Google experience. With Gingerbread on board, it is the same experience what other Google OS powered phones has to offer. However, Huawei has really taken care of some of the biggest set backs of the Android OS. We know that by default, Google does not offer a pure back up solution other than the Google Plus service which just backs up your photos and videos alone. While your Google account keeps track of all the app you have on your phone which can be restored to your phone anytime you enter your Google credentials. But it does not backup any app data and hence it can’t restore the same either. Hence, Huawei has introduced the Huawei Cloud+ service which is a free(with huawei devices) online storage solution with some really good features. One can enjoy this service when he/she purchases a Huawei phone as the service is bundled with Huawei Android devices. Every data thats backed up to the cloud can be accessed via the web as well at hicloud.com

So what exactly is cloud+ ??

Cloud+:

Cloud+ is an exclusive Huawei Cloud service to Huawei device users. Cloud+ is seamlessly integrated into the Huawei phone platform. Cloud+ offers a range of next generation features like Cloud+ Drive, Message+, Streams, Phone Finder, SNS Contacts integration, and anywhere any device access for content saved on Drive. These features help the phone user to experience the future of smartphones.

Cloud+ Drive:

You get a 16GB free cloud storage with every smartphone that you purchase from Huawei. Since your contacts, mails, messages, settings and account information don’t use as much space, you will find that 16 GB goes a long way. Therefore, we provide hard disk for your life. You can store up to 3500 songs on Cloud+ Drive or 7000 photos on Cloud+ Album. Cloud+ is simple to start and simple to use. Access your smartphone menu and click on Cloud+ Settings. Give your account a user name and password. You are all set use Cloud+.

Message+:

Message+ is an advanced messaging solution to share text, photos music and voice notes between friends and groups. Send and receive messages in seconds and see when your contacts are typing. Don’t hold back; share your thoughts, stories with unlimited characters and emoticons. Get confirmation when your messages are delivered and read. Swap pictures, videos, voice notes and more; Never worry about the size of the files that you want to share with your friends. Huawei smart phone automatically detects your Message+ friends. If you have Message+ users on your phone contact list, then your phone automatically detects those friends. Otherwise, just enter your friends account name and get connected with your friend. And you can also do group chats using this app.

Huawei Social Streams:

Huawei Streams provides an integrated social networking experience with facebook, twitter and LinkedIn. Experience a new way of social networking on your smartphone with automatic updates of your friends, photo sharing, status updates, messaging with few key taps.

SNS Contact Integration:

Your facebook, twitter and LinkedIn contacts are imported and integrated with your phonebook. You contact’s updates, albums and your interaction with the contact are closely integrated with your contact’s information.

Cloud+ Synchronisation and Back up:

Cloud+ Contacts allows you to synchronize contacts from your phone to the Cloud+ server in real time. Contact information changes on your phone will be automatically synchronized to the Cloud+ server or your other Huawei phones and tablets. Go to your Contacts settings. Enable “Synchronize” option.

All Backup:

A smart way to backup all your important information. Backup the information so that even if you lose your phone, you just lose your phone not the information. Also, retrieve back the data on to your new Huawei smart phone and get back the same experience. Don’t just limit there, retrieve the backed up data on to your mediapad and get back the same experience.

Phone Finder:

Find My Phone

Don’t panic. As soon as you realize that your Huawei phone is missing, Hicloud can help you figure out where your phone is. Log on to www.hicloud.com, use the Phone finder feature to locate your phone on the google maps. Not just locate, perform other useful functions to safe guard your data.

Lock Your Phone

You keep lot of important information on your phone, so you want to protect this information until your phone is safely back in your hands. From the internet account, set a password to lock the phone and keep your information private.

Back Up Your Data

If you have lost your phone and you are worried that you would lose all the phone contacts, the message communications, system settings and account settings, you can backup your data on the cloud using this feature.

HiSpace

HiSpace is Huawei App store available exclusively to Huawei smartphone owners. Over 1500 top apps for work, play and everything in between. The apps that come in the Huawei smartphone is just the beginning. You can download more apps from HiSpace and experience more on your phone. Hispace provides categories to choose the apps from. Don’t get lost in the plethora of apps on the android market.

Hispace provides the best in the industry apps categorized to ease your search and experience on the app market.

So that’s the biggest highlight of this phone. This is something what no other Android phones can’t offer. Of course they can replicate the same experience if you download plenty of apps that almost do the same tasks. But remember its not unified, you have to find apps by yourself, sacrifice storage space, manually configure and handle them and of course remember all the credentials for each service which is a lot of hectic work. While the cloud service works out of the box. All you need is just one account and rest the phone takes care of.

So the biggest question is the battery life. The battery life wasn’t impressive from our tests. And lets face it, its 1200mAh battery. While it tried to offer approximately 5 hours on 2G with internet turned on all the time and Huawei Cloud services running in the background, we managed to squeeze in a little more when we tried turning off internet when we weren’t really using the internet apps. On 3G we got similar battery life as 2G when 3G was turned off, rest of the time it was fairly 4 hours. For improved battery life, we recommend turning off the automatic daily backups to weekly or manual. Unfortunately we couldn’t find an option to back up only when connected to a wifi network. Well, thats a bummer and we hope Huawei to address that immediately as 3G back up can cost you a lot of money.

At price around Rs 10,200/-, Huawei Ideos X3 offers a pure Android experience on a decent hardware and a great cloud service which one can only dream with other phones of the same price range.