The Nokia Lumia 525, a newly launched device that we unboxed recently, has been known to be a slightly upgraded variant of the Lumia 520. It carries almost exactly the same spec sheet and hardware except for the RAM, which has been upped to 1 GB for obvious reasons. With an incredibly small change in hardware, one would expect everything else to remain the same. But that is not the case with the 525, because it comes with Lumia Black firmware update out of the box, which brings some algorithm-level changes to the already robust camera interface, the Nokia Camera. So, does this change the 520/5's camera performance in any way? Lets find out from some of our camera samples.
Armed with a 5 Megapixel sensor capable of taking 720p videos, we set out to test the camera in various conditions, and here are all the samples in full resolution below(click to open)
Daylight
[gallery ids="94141,94142,94143,94144,94145,94146" link="file"]
Macro
[gallery ids="94150,94151,94152,94153,94154,94155" link="file"]
Lowlight
[gallery ids="94156,94157,94158,94159,94160,94161" link="file"]
Video Sample
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAoRLd8bKdU
Thoughts on the camera performance -
Very similar to the Lumia 520 camera performance.
Washes out the colour sometimes, but enough detail on a day light photo, especially coming at this price segment.
Low light pictures are decidedly average.
Macro pictures some times have blown out ...
The Nokia Lumia 525, a newly launched device that we unboxed recently, has been known to be a slightly upgraded variant of the Lumia 520. It carries almost exactly the same spec sheet and hardware except for the RAM, which has been upped to 1 GB for obvious reasons. With an incredibly small change in hardware, one would expect everything else to remain the same. But that is not the case with the 525, because it comes with Lumia Black firmware update out of the box, which brings some algorithm-level changes to the already robust camera interface, the Nokia Camera. So, does this change the 520/5's camera performance in any way? Lets find out from some of our camera samples.
Armed with a 5 Megapixel sensor capable of taking 720p videos, we set out to test the camera in various conditions, and here are all the samples in full resolution below(click to open)
Daylight
[gallery ids="94141,94142,94143,94144,94145,94146" link="file"]
Macro
[gallery ids="94150,94151,94152,94153,94154,94155" link="file"]
Lowlight
[gallery ids="94156,94157,94158,94159,94160,94161" link="file"]
Video Sample
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAoRLd8bKdU
Thoughts on the camera performance -
Very similar to the Lumia 520 camera performance.
Washes out the colour sometimes, but enough detail on a day light photo, especially coming at this price segment.
Low light pictures are decidedly average.
Macro pictures some times have blown out ...
Candy Crush Saga is one of the most popular games in the recent times and its popularity is a clear proof from the fact that it was the most downloaded game in 2013. All around the globe, there are more than a million fans for the game that is available on the web, on Android and iOS platforms.
Developer King released the game on April 12, 2012 on Facebook and ever since, its popularity has been exploding through the roofs. The game was available on iOS platform on November 14, 2012 and on Android a month later(Dec 14, 2012). Because of its immense popularity, the developers decided to trademark the word 'Candy'. The European Union has handed the trademark to the company and the company plans to use it only against the illegitimate uses.
The trademark obtained from EU not only applies to computer games, but also applies to a wide variety of apparels like clothes and footwear. The company's spokesman Martin Bunge-Meyer has said "We don't enforce against all uses of "candy" - some are legitimate and of course, we would not ask app developers who use the term legitimately to stop doing so". Candy Crush Saga is free to download on ...
Intel has introduced its first Android-based Education Tablet reference design aimed at students and schools. The tablet has Education materials for students, and tools for teachers to manage e-learning classrooms. It is a part of Intel Education Solutions which has Intel Education Software that includes tools for 21st century learning, communication, collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking and literary skills. This tablet is rugged, which can withstand 70 cm drop, has IP52 rating for dust and water resistance.
It has also introduced classmate PC running on Windows 8.1 and Intel Celeron processor N2806 at the Bett 2014 in London, which is also aimed at education.
The tablet comes with a range of useful educational accessories including,
Active stylus
Snap-on magnification lens
Plug-in thermal (temperature sensor) probe for experiments that plugs into the tablet's audio jack
Intel Education Tablet (ECS-TR10CD1) specifications
10.1-inch (1280 x 800 pixels) IPS LCD 5-point multi-touch display
Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean)
1.2 GHz dual-core Intel Atom Z2520 processor
5MP rear camera
1.26MP front-facing camera
70cm drop-resistance, IPS2 for dust and water-resistance
1GB LPDDR2 RAM, 8/16/32GB internal storage, micro SD card slot
3G (Optional ), WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, NFC (Optional), Micro HDMI, GPS (Optional)
Up to 12 hours of battery life
The HP Classmate Notebook PC, commercial product based on the new ...
Samsung finally started rolling out Android 4.4.2 KitKat update for the Note 3 last week. According to a new report from Android Geeks, the Galaxy Note 2 and the Galaxy S3 devices would get the KitKat update by the end of March. Even though the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 got the Android 4.3 update in India back in November 2013, soon after it rolled out for the Galaxy S4, the Samsung Galaxy S3 got the Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) update just few weeks back, after a long delay.
Even though the Android 4.3 to 4.4 is just a minor upgrade, the update is just available for the Note 3 only in two countries so far. The new Android 4.4.2 update for these devices would bring new Status bar icons, new printing feature in settings,new full-screen immerse mode, performance improvements and more.
The update is expected to roll out for the Note 3 users gradually, while the Galaxy S4 users continue to wait, even though we had already seen some leaked KitKat firmwares for the device. It would be a great treat for Samsung users, if Samsung rolls out the KitKat update for these devices by March.
Apple is bringing tablet education to India through its iTunes Textbooks and iTunes U Course Manager. Apple has just expanded the availability of its iTunes Textbooks to 51 countries and the availability of iTunes Course U Manager to 70 countries. With the expansion of its iTunes Textbooks and iTunes U Course Manager, Apple hopes to sell more tablets in more countries in the education sector.
Apple iTunes Textbooks are modernized textbooks that offer a glorious full screen textbook experience that is complete with interactive animations, 3D diagrams, photo galleries, tap-to-play videos and more modern features that are not possible on the regular text books. In the iTunes Textbooks, there are nearly 25,000 educational titles created by either independent publishers, teachers or leading publications.
The iTunes U Course Manager application, which is free on the iOS App store, makes way for educators to quickly and easily share their knowledge and resources directly with their class or to a global audience on iTunes U. From the student's perspective, with this free application, one can access the world’s largest online catalogue of free educational content from top schools, leading universities and prominent institutions. Using the iTunes U Course manager, teachers can integrate their own documents as ...
Samsung recently announced the successor of Galaxy Grand and just launched the device a couple of days back. We brought you the unboxing and photo gallery of the device. Today, we will be checking out how the 8MP camera on the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 performs.
One of the features that wasn't upgraded in the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 over its predecessor was its 8MP camera. The Galaxy Grand 2 comes with same set of camera specifications and features. Since it runs on a more recent version of Android, it borrows the updated Samsung camera app from the likes of Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3.
Usually, 8MP cameras from Samsung are quite good and more than enough for smartphone photography(unless you are pro). Samsung has used the similar 8MP rear camera and 2MP front camera combination on a number of devices starting from Samsung Galaxy S2, Galaxy Note, Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy Mega 5.8, Galaxy Mega 6.3, Galaxy Grand and now it is seen in Samsung Galaxy Grand 2. All the camera modules are similar and come with the same familiar algorithm since they are all Samsung devices.
We took a lot of shots in outdoor conditions as well as indoor ...
Square Enix has launched Deus Ex: The Fall, the company's latest game in Deus Ex series, for Android devices. The story driven action-RPG is similar to other games in the franchise, which would also include new characters from the 2011 novel, Deus Ex: The Icarus Effect. Deus Ex game series is set in 2027– the golden era for science, technology and human augmentation.
This tells the story of Ben Saxon, a former British SAS Mercenary who underwent physical augmentation and is now seeking the truth behind the drug conspiracy. Betrayed by his private military employers, the Tyrants, not only is his own life at risk, but time is running out for all augmented humans.
Deus Ex: The Fall was developed by Square Enix’s Mobile division in Europe, in collaboration with the original Deus Ex: Human Revolution team at Eidos-Montréal and N-Fusion.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQWdGxoWcLo
Features of Deus Ex: The Fall for Android
Fight for survival in a global conspiracy
Every action has a consequence
Intuitive touch screen controls
High impact action and combat
Immersive storyline, fully explorable, stunning environments
Full on action or stealth modes
Social and hacking skills
Original story set in the Deus Ex universe
Unique visual design
Download Deus Ex: The Fall ($6.99 / Rs. 390) - Android
RealVNC, creators and provider of VNC remote access software has made VNC Viewer app for Android and iOS completely free. These apps originally cost $9.99. You can use the PC, Mac and Linux software for free for remote access, and the company also sells, Personal and Enterprise licenses for more features.
RealVNC recently launched deskhop, a free desktop screen sharing Facebook application on Windows, Mac and Linux that lets you securely share your computer screen with a Facebook friend. The company plans to launch mobile versions of the app soon.
Regarding to new move, Adam Greenwood Byrne, Vice President Hosted at RealVNC said,
RealVNC is as committed to the freemium model for our leading remote access application as ever, with a Free license for our core VNC product available from our website, and free mobile viewers in the app stores. During 2014 we will be putting that same cloud functionality and firewall traversal into all of our Viewers and Servers, providing an optional service for businesses and consumers.
Features of VNC Viewer for Android and iOS
Interact with your computer as though sitting in front of it.
Easy navigation, scrolling, dragging, and selection using standard touch, tap, and drag gestures.
Mouse button mode for precise control over mouse button and scrolling operations.
Easy text ...
Specifications of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo appeared online earlier this month, now SamMobile has got hold of official press renders of the phone. The phone exactly looks like the Galaxy Note 3 with S Pen stylus with similar S Pen features and also has faux leather back cover. According to earlier rumors, the Galaxy Note 3 Neo would come with a 5.5-inch HD Super AMOLED screen, 1.7 GHz Dual Core + 1.3 GHz Quad Core Exynos processor and Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean).
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo rumored specifications
5.5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD Super AMOLED display
1.7 GHz Dual Core + 1.3 GHz Quad Core Exynos processor
Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean)
8MP camera with LED flash
1.9MP front-facing camera
3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio with RDS
2GB RAM, 16 GB internal memory, Upto 64GB expandable memory via microSD card
4G LTE / 3G HSPA+, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS/ GLONASS, USB 3.0
3100 mAh Battery
According to the leak, the Galaxy Note 3 Neo would go on pre-order for 599 Euros (~Rs. 50,000). According to the date on the phone, it is expected to be announced on 27th January 2014, which is next Monday. It is expected to be showcased at the MWC 2014 in Barcelona next month.
Aircel has launched Aircel ISD 54444, new pre-activated ISD tariff plan that would offer international calls to USA, Canada, Singapore, China, UK at 1p/sec with no additional charges. This is available for both existing as well as new Aircel customers, but it will not be applicable while on roaming.
Aircel ISD 54444 prefixed based calling pack
Offers international calls to select top called destinations like USA, Canada, Singapore, China, UK at 1p/sec without paying any additional charges.
Prefix a 5 digit toll-free short code “54444” followed by 00 - Country Code to avail the benefits of discounted international calls at 1p/sec to these 5 destinations.
The prefix dialing code 54444 is common across all Aircel circles.
Aircel has also launched ISD Super, a rate cutter pack specially priced at Rs. 18 that offers international calls through pay per second rate to destinations in America, Europe, Asia and Gulf countries. This pack comes with a valid of 28 days. This limited period ISD Super pack would be available till 31st March, 2014. All new Aircel subscribers can enjoy ISD Super tariff, pre-activated in their new plan for 90 days.
Commenting on the new plan, Anupam Vasudev, Chief Marketing Officer, Aircel, said,
At Aircel, we constantly innovate plans ...
Sharp has unveiled Aquos mini SHL24, the company's latest smartphone in the Aquos series for Japanese operator KDDI. The smartphone has a 4.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) full HD IGZO screen at a pixel density of 487 ppi. It is powered by a 2.2 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor and runs on Android 4.2. It has a 13.1-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, BSI sensor and a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera with BSI sensor. It also has IPX5/IPX7 ratings for water resistance.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQgc3GPAdFI
Sharp Aquos mini SHL24 specifications
4.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) full HD IGZO display at 487 ppi
2.2 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor with Adreno 330 GPU
Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean)
13.1MP rear camera with BSI sensor, f/1.9 aperture and LED flash
1.2MP front-facing camera with BSI sensor
IPX5/IPX7 for water resistance
Dimensions - 63 × 124 × 9.9mm (10.3mm thickest part); Weight: 155g
2GB RAM, 16GB internal memory, Upto 64GB expandable memory via microSD card
4G LTE, WiFi 820.11 a/b/g/n /ac, Bluetooth 4.0 with APT-X, GPS/ GLONASS, MHL, NFC
2120 mAh battery
Sharp Aquos mini SHL24 comes in pink, blue, yellow green, and white colors. As a part of KDDI's spring line-up, which is expected to go on sale some time in March. No word on pricing or global roll out plans yet.
Via
Micromax has announced that they have started their operations in Russia by launching new Canvas and Bolt smartphones in the country. The company would be operating through a partnership with VVP Group, one of the leading distributors in Russia. It would launch 14 products in the Russian market in the initial phase. It had launched two new Canvas smartphones, the Micromax Canvas Beat A114R and the Canvas Social A94 in Russia.
The Canvas Beat A114R is a variant of the Canvas 2.2 A114 that was launched last month, but this has a 1.2 GHz quad-core Broadcom BCM23550 processor with Vidcore IV GPU similar to the Canvas Mad A94 and packs a 1900 mAh battery. The Canvas Social A94 is exactly similar to the Micromax Canvas Mad A94 that was launched in India last week, but this doesn't have the Mad app. These phones would come pre-loaded with Viber, instant messaging app, Facebook, Twitter and M!Live.
Commenting on the launch, Rahul Sharma, Co-Founder, Micromax said,
At Micromax, our emphasis has always been to democratize technology for masses around the world through an innovative product portfolio. Our initial focus in the Russian market is to replicate the success witnessed in our other markets in the ...
One thing Nokia has found it tough, is to keep the Nokia Normandy under covers. There have been numerous leaks about the device and there were also rumors that the device was shelved, but it turns out that the latest development suggests that Nokia will indeed be launching the Normandy. Nokia Normandy had been identified as Nokia A110 running on Android 4.4 KitKat by GSMArena, now it has leaked at Indonesian FCC.
Nokia Normandy is internally codenamed - RM-980 and that is what is seen in the FCC documents. A couple of weeks back, supposed screenshots from Nokia Normandy were leaked and you can check them out right below.
As you can see from the screenshots, the Nokia Normandy aka Nokia A11o runs on the latest version of Android - 4.4 KitKat. Based on the rumors about its entry-range specifications, speculations are that it will sport a Snapdragon 200 processor.
So far, the Nokia Normandy has leaked enough times making us wonder when will it hit the market.
Skullcandy has launched Football Club Series Headphones in India for all the football fans, though Brandeyes Distributors . These headphones and earphones series are available for a range of following football clubs such as, AC Milan (Italy), Chelsea FC (England) and Olympique de Marseille (France).
Skullcandy Uprock FC
Twin 40mm drivers
Tangle-proof flat cables
Ergonomic design, soft-touch finish, and plush ear pillows
Price: Rs. 2,999 (MRP)
Skullcandy Hesh 2 FC
Sleek and simplified design with conical over-ear housing drives
Built-in microphone for calls
Controls to switch tracks
Detachable cable for mobility
Soft leather touch ear pillows for precision fit and acoustics
Price: Rs. 5,699 (MRP)
Skullcandy Ink’d 2 FC
In-ear headphones
Different sized ear buds
Built-in microphone for calls
Flattened Cable
Price: Rs. 1,699 (MRP)
These new Skullcandy football series headphones are available through intersection retail stores across India.
The transition of Nokia's Device and Services division over to Microsoft is about to be completed and the Finnish company has revealed its financial results for Q4 2013. While there has been an operating profit of Eur 408 million, this was mainly because of its NSN equipment business. Interestingly, the company declined to share numbers for sales of Windows Phone running devices however it did mention that there has been a decline over the previous quarter.
Nokia has blamed intense competition at the lower end of the spectrum for the drop in sales of both smart devices and mobile phones. Increasingly, it looks like the decision to hand over device operations to Microsoft was a good one from a financial perspective.
“The sequential decline in discontinued operations net sales in the fourth quarter 2013 was primarily due to lower Smart Devices net sales. Our Smart Devices net sales were affected by competitive industry dynamics including the strong momentum of competing smartphone platforms. On a sequential basis, Mobile Phones net sales were approximately flat,” said Nokia .
IFRS adjusted profit breakdown:
Advanced Technologies- Eur 65 million
HERE maps- Eur 18 million
NSN- Eur 243 million
After a few quarters of gradually increasing sales, the reversed trend in Q4 ...
One of the best things about Android is the ability to replace whatever you don't like - keyboards and launchers for example. iOS has always been, is and will be a closed environment without allowing users to replace their on-screen keyboards among many other things. SwiftKey, one of the very popular Keyboard applications on the Android platform, has been repeatedly asked by its fan-base to develop something for the iOS despite the restriction being on Apple's side.
Finally it looks like SwiftKey has something for iOS platform. @evleaks has posted an image of SwiftKey Note application for iOS on iPhone giving a clue that SwiftKey may announce a full-blown faster note taking application for the iOS platform. Though there isn't much you can tell from the phone, you can guess that the iOS keyboard has not been touched as Apple does not allow it. What SwiftKey has done is that it has integrated its famous predictions to a line above the keyboard. This will hopefully allow for a faster typing experience on the iOS platform(the current experience is good indeed). But wait, there seems to be a catch. Since this is a full blown app, all the SwiftKey goodies will be ...
Samsung Galaxy S III Neo+ (GT-I9300I) that got certified in Tenna and FCC last month has gone official in China through Samsung website listing. It has dual SIM support with dual standby and runs on Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) out of the box. Other features are similar to the Galaxy S3 including a 4.8-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD Super AMOLED display, 1.4 GHz quad-core processor, 8-megapixel rear camera and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera. It is 8.6mm thick and weighs 132 grams.
It has expandable memory with microSD and the connectivity features include, 3G (HSPA＋ 21Mbps), Bluetooth, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DNLA and GPS. It packs a 2,100 mAh battery.
The Samsung Galaxy S III Neo+ comes in Blue and White colors. No word on pricing or available for the Chinese markets yet. It is not clear if the phone would launch globally.
Via
Nokia Lumia 525 Review
When the Nokia Lumia 520 was launched at the Mobile World Congress event last year, not many knew that the company just introduced its first best seller in the Lumia series. It went on to become the most popular Windows Phone ever made, for the fantastic value it offered for the money. But there was one longstanding issue that Nokia had to fix, the small amount of RAM that denied a lot of people new games and apps that were trickling down to Windows Phone.
So, in the series of upgrades that Nokia delivered to existing hardware with small changes, aka adding a 5 to the model number and re-releasing it, we now have the Lumia 525 that fixes the one issue that most wanted fixed. Hence the Lumia 525 comes with 1 GB of RAM and a minor look and feel refresh but overall retains everything else about the Lumia 520 because may be Nokia thought “why fix something that isn’t broke?”. So, how does the Lumia 525 match up to the newly re-invigorated competition, and what does the 1 GB of RAM bring? Let’s find out in our in depth review.
Design, build and hardware walkthrough
Being only ...
Rightware launchedthe Basemark OS II cross-platform benchmarking tool for Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows Phone 8 earlier this week, here we have the benchmark comparison . Even though it uses OpenGL ES2 for Android and iOS devices and DirectX 11 for Windows Phone 8, it runs all tests with the same code in the same language and engine centralizes all user-interface elements in its internal rendering module, to make the benchmark reliable among operating systems. Check out the Basemark OS II Performance Test results on Android, iPhone and Windows Phone 8 below.
We tested the Basemark OS II performance on some of the current high-end smartphones from all the three operating systems, the Apple iPhone 5s that uses custom 64bit A7 processor chip based on ARMv8 instruction set, the LG-made Google Nexus 5 with a Snapdragon 800 processor and the latest Nokia Lumia 1520 that also uses the same Snapdragon 800 processor from Qualcomm.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuY1vI-Pg3w
We also ran the Basemark OS II benchmark on the HTC One, the Samsung Galaxy S4, the LG G Flex and the Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pubYSnUQ70
Basemark OS II Benchmarks
As you can from the benchmark charts, the Nexus 5 tops the chart by scoring 1088. In one of our ...
In a recent move by Qualcomm to gain advantage in the smartphone market, it acquired patents of Palm Inc and iPaq smartphone among the other patents from HP. The total number of patents involved in the acquisition include 1,400 granted patents and pending patent applications from the United States and about 1,000 granted patents and pending patent applications from other countries that include China, England, Germany, Japan and South Korea. However, there was no word on the price that Qualcomm gave for the patents.
Qualcomm is currently the market leader in smartphone chipset technology. The chipset company from San Diego also earns by licensing its patents and with the new acquisition from HP that comprises Palm OS patents, it hopes to extend its income. Prior to being acquired by Qualcomm, Palm Inc was acquired by HP in 2010 along with its WebOS and PalmOS technologies. However, since both of them failed to catch up with Android, HP had to sell off WebOS to LG which is currently using WebOS for its range of smart TVs.
According to Qualcomm's spokesperson the acquisition of new patents will not result in increased royalty rates for existing Qualcomm licensees.
