March 16th, 2010
Videocon IMO would need to brand itself harder to be a cellphone player. Nothing wrong with manufacturing phones, but the only problem is that no on expects you to pull out a Videocon from your pocket. That aside, the V1675 is a well priced blackberry clone (at least in design). Videocon has somehow managed to deliver a QWERTY, Dual SIM smartphone with an optical trackpad for Rs 5500. While you will find many local china pieces at better price, mind you this one comes with a brand name like Vodafone with it. So is the V1675 really cool?
Well not really. Had Videocon thought a little about innovating and creating a real product instead of just copying Blackberry design, UI (icons etc) and attach to that a Nokia charging slot; I would have appreciated this product lot more. Yes the phone works with a Nokia charger and while you would say that its good for compatibility, its actually no better than a silly Chinese counterfeits who bundle in a Nokia charging pin (why not a MicroUSB that’s the industry standard?). Seems like the innovation and real product creation in mobile field is left to new entrants like Notion Ink only.
Coming back to the V1675
(more…)
Categories: First look, Reviews |
Tags: india, indian cellphone maker, indian smartphone, v1675, videocon, videocon mobile phones review, videocon V1675, videocon v1675 price india, videocon v1675 review | 3 Comments
March 11th, 2010
LG is out with a refresh to its successful touchscreen series Cookie. Its amazing to see how companies like Samsung and LG have seen a great market in the low end touchscreen market after the iPhone came and swept the smartphone industry. The LG Cookie Pop would give competition to the Corby range and hopefully keep up the momentum that Cookie KP500 had set (yes the Cookie range has got new blood after a little delay IMO).
Design:
In this segment, what sells more than the features is the looks. LG has gone with a very simple bar shaped design, but managed to keep the phone housing a 3.0” screen very handy and compact. This thing weights just 87 gms and you will actually feel that when handling the phone. The buttons on the side have some chrome and all of them are pretty clickable and neatly placed. Press the camera button the the right once to open up favorite apps and long press to go to the camera mode. The button on the front enables a lot of single key operations like return to home screen, answer or disconnect a call etc. On the top you have the power button which also performs the wake / sleep function.
Features: (more…)
Categories: First look, LG, Launch Pad, Reviews, smartphones |
Tags: 2010 cookie, cokie pep, cokie pop, cookie, india, LG, lg cookie, lg cookie india, lg cookie pop, lg cookie pop india, lg cookie pop review | 4 Comments
February 16th, 2010
Microsoft has finally announced and showed off their next mobile operating system with a bit different brand name – Windows Phone 7 Series. Apart from sleek and staid interface, there are several features integrated to the core level. But surprisingly two significant features at the core level – Flash, multi-tasking are missing. To be honest, these were the two features that every mobile enthusiast was looking forward to in Windows Phone 7 Series OS. Nevertheless, this mobile operating system would be made available to consumers only by this year end – Holiday Season.
If you haven’t followed till now, read again – Windows Phone 7 series doesn’t support Flash as of now i.e. in first version of the operating system. Again, in the Question & Answer session, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft said, “No objection to Flash”. That leaves us wondering if Microsoft is doing a Apple gig here by not supporting Flash on it.
Charlie Kindel, Windows Home Server General Manager, wrote about the stuff that was expected to be detailed but wasn’t at the Windows Phone 7 Series launch. There’s a whole bunch of stuff we did not announce today. Specifically we did not announce anything about building applications & games for the new Windows Phone 7 Series operating system. We did this because (more…)
Categories: Announcements, Launch Pad, Reviews, Tech Industry News, microsoft |
Tags: Charlie Kindel, microsoft windows, No Flash, No Multitasking, Silverlight, Steve Ballmer, Windows Phone 7 Series | 2 Comments
February 10th, 2010
I just came across this really sexy and sleek Qisda mobile that would launch sometime soon. On the specs front this promises 1280×768 resolution on a 4″ touchscreen. Thats even higher than the 854×480 we saw on the Motorola Droid. And I am just wondering if we are ready for this?
Over the past 2 years the smartphone market has grown beyond belief. From a point where we used to talk about camera in a phone as a giant leap, we have moved on to OLED displays (AMOLED aswell), operating systems smart enough to be ported on netbooks, cameras that are killing the basic digicams and now the 1.5GHz processor (heck my first P4 PC was less powerful than that). Going hands on with the Acer Liquid last week was one of those moments when I couldn’t stop appreciating the progress mobile technology has made – full HD video in your palm! While its true that we would see ourselves do some real high performance computing on the mobile and a major chunk of our work would be doable on the mobile (in many ways, it already is!) – I am pushed back by the idea of mobile technology growing so fast or rather in the manner we are thinking of these mobiles.
Some basic fundamental queries in my mind remains unanswered even after reading a whole lot of thoughts from across the globe on this subject. Do we need mobiles that can replace our desktops / notebooks? Would you ever keep a smartphone on your desk and work all day at your office?
You may call me old fashioned but (more…)
Categories: Reviews, Softwares, Tech Industry News |
Tags: 1280 x 768 mobile display, future, mobile, Qisda mobile, Qisda mobile 1280 pixels, Qisda vodafone, smartphone future, superphone, touchscreen | No Comments
February 5th, 2010
If the internal IITB exhibitions rocked this year the international exhibitions were no less and pretty much upto the mark compared to the previous versions. There were many innovative and advanced technologies at display (read James Bond style technology if that helps your imagination). Ranging from nanobots to underwater robots (fishes and lobsters), from 3-D simulations of earthquakes to amazing solar powered racing cars, this year had it all.
Gwawr – The solar car
This beautiful welsh named car Gwawr meaning dawn was one of the attractions of the international exhibitions at the Techfest @IITB this year. Also a winner of the Panasonic World Solar Challenge Environmental Awareness Award 2007 not only because it runs on green fuel but also due to the fact that most of it is made from recycled materials resulting in almost zero carbon emissions when when the car is scrapped.
The car at display wasn’t the original one, but a scaled down model which was powered by electricity for now. Prof. Graham and Tom built it in 9 days for the exhibition. The actual car is a dual powered one which can be charged via both, Yeah! you guessed it, electricity and solar power. The scaled down model at the exhibition could do 25mph (because it had got Prof. Graham’s bicycle motor attached to it). The braking system was also adopted from the bicycle itself. While onlygizmos was lucky enough to get an exclusive video of Tom (future Schumacher for his sheer driving skills) driving the car. I was even more luckier to get a chance to get into the car.
Natures Raincoat
Although the name had us guessing and all we could think of was something associated with rains. But this one was something very different that we have seen for a while. On display were super hydrophobic material that repelled water as the opposites of a magnet repel each other.
We had the magic sand at display which came out as dry as it can be in a super hot desert even after immersing in water. Then there was this special coated business card which left no traces o water even after you drop water on it. They also used a ducks wing to display the same. This phenomenon was explained by pressing a blown ballon on the surface of a bed of nails which even if you pressed hard would not be pierced by the nails and not burst. It so happens that the surfce is such that pressure of the drop gets equally distributed on the surface as a result of which water does not break in to the surface and is bounced off the surface leaving it untouched by water. I know its difficult to understand but Ubercool stuff isnt it?
Quantum of solace
As the name suggests this was indeed an amazingly sophisticated display of state of the art technology straight out of the Bond flick (more…)
Categories: Reviews, TechFest, Videos, Wow Gadgets, picture |
Tags: fish robot, Gwawr, IIT exhibition, international exhibition, nano solar car, Naro fish robot, natures raincoat, robot lamprey, robot lobster, robotis, solar car, Techfest exhibition, waterproof card, waterproof sand | No Comments
February 1st, 2010
Samsung is leaving no stone unturned in the battle of the smartphones, leaving Nokia and others a real uphill task in the touchscreen race. Having sold 40 million touch phones in 2009 alone, Samsung has enough wisdom to know what really sells. Someone hunting for a Rs 8000 – Rs 12000 touchscreen smartphone isn’t a power user and the Samsung Corby / Star range suits them just perfectly. The iPhone wannabes if you can call them (and there isn’t any shame in being one); love the freedom of memory cards, ringtones, bluetooth file transfer, better camera with flash, cheaper price etc. The latest addition to the low end touchscreen from Samsung is the Star Superb (S5560). Bundling WiFi, 5MP camera, full touchscreen and a compact design at a price point of mere Rs 11,000 (<$250) is pretty much a success formula. IMO this one certainly kills the Nokia 5530 and even gives the 5800 a run for its money.
The Star Superb is basically a Corby design with the finishing of a Samsung Star. Confused? (more…)
Categories: Reviews, samsung, smartphones |
Tags: buy, buy samsung star, review, samsng india, samsung, samsung star, samsung star review, samsung superb india, star, star superb, superb | 36 Comments
January 31st, 2010
After failing to capture the touchscreen market in 2009. Nokia is back with a bang in 2010 with a slew of touchscreen handsets (or smartphones I must say) being released one after the other. With the 5800 doing well initially but failing to maintain the steady sales with time because of various shortcomings in terms of pricing and other issues like an unimpressive touchscreen and slow UI when used with various apps. Nokia seems to have got hold of the situation and their developers have come up with newer software versions for their S60 5th edition phones. Now with these problems taken care of, Nokia has started afresh and launched new phones like the Nokia 5230, 5233, 5530 and 5235 (this will be launched soon). Not to forget that the 5800 got a good price cut a few months back.
Unable to ignore the fact that the Nokia 5233 is the most basic;
lacking advanced features like 3G and Wi-Fi (also its the cheapest of the lot), we decided to do a quick review of their basic touchscreen phone and compare it with Nokia 5800. Now the 5233 costs only about Rs. 7500 approx. compared to the Rs 13000 for a 5800 (India). So what has Nokia really done with this phone that justifies this steep drop in price. Hmmm. Lets take a look.
On first look you can easily notice that this one does not have a secondary camera (for 3G) in the front, a scaled down 2.0 MP camera with no LED flash and only a single speaker (it has a very low output I must say). They have done away with the free 8GB micro-SD card. You get a WH-102 headset instead of the way better HS-45, AD-54 music headsets. A VGA camera for video recording. Most importantly, its got 3G & Wi-Fi missing. Being heavier by 4gms (weighing 113g), lack of mini qwerty input method are the other minor differences.
Side pose 5800 vs 5233 (Speakers)
(more…)
Categories: Reviews, Videos, nokia, smartphones |
Tags: nokia 5000 series touchscreen, nokia 5233, nokia 5233 vs samsung corby, nokia review, review, symbian touchscreen, touchscreen | 8 Comments
January 28th, 2010
Steve Jobs started his keynote yesterday with the question if there is a space between the smartphone and notebooks. He then went on to saw that Apple’s answer to the netbook which is low powered and inefficient is the iPad. And IMO to an extent it really is. So after all the iPad bashing thats going around, here is a little ray of hope.
Categories: Apple, Launch Pad, Reviews, eReaders & Tablets |
1 Comment
January 14th, 2010
We have already heard about solar chargers and kinetic chargers (theses are the ones with the dynamos attached to it). The latest one doing the rounds is the WI-FI charger. Yes, you heard it right and its no typo error…
Now the one we are talking about was interestingly launched at CES this year. Its called the ‘RCA Airnergy‘. This small cell phone sized device taps the energy from the WI-Fi signals and converts them into DC which is then stored on an on board battery and this can be used to charge cell phones, music players and other such smaller gadgets.
This devices comes attached with a Micro USB connector which can be connected to the device that you would want to charge. (more…)
Categories: Concept / Educative, First look, Reviews, Tech Industry News, Wireless Gadgets, Wow Gadgets |
Tags: Airnergy, DC converter, RCA, RCA AIRNERGY, WI-FI charger, WIFI charger, wifi energy converter, wifi energy harvesting | 1 Comment
January 13th, 2010
ioSafe have developed the toughest SSD in the world. The Solo SSD can resist extreme fire, water and some seriously extreme shocks. ioSafe guarantees that the Solo SSD can survive fire upto 1550° Farenheit for 30 minutes, can be submerged under water upto 30 ft for upto 30 days and can even survive a two storey building collapse over it.
- Burned, battered and bruised but still working
The developers of this SSD (more…)
Categories: Reviews, Videos, Wow Gadgets |
Tags: durable hdd, gadget, hdd, iosafe solo, solo ssd, ssd, tractor test, wow gadget | No Comments
January 13th, 2010
Do you often forget to water your plants? Well, no worries. Thanks to a concept design by Industrial designer Jacky Wu called Dew Drops. It uses a simple artificial funnel-shaped leaf that extracts water-vapor in the air and condenses it to water your plants using thermoelectric cooling.
All you need to do is, place the artificial leaf in your plant pot, power the leaf and within no time it should start watering your plant.
The concept and the design sure looks exciting, but I fail to get the benefit behind using the product : (more…)
Categories: Concept / Educative, Reviews, Weird or not?, Wow Gadgets |
Tags: artifical pant watering, artificial leaf, dew drop, eco gadget, environment, green gadgets, thermoelectric cooling | 1 Comment
January 11th, 2010
It has been more than a year since Google’s mobile operating system, Android, was released. And the last few months have finally seen it making its presence felt in the market with a number of terrific handsets, most notably the Motorola Droid and the HTC Hero. Ironically, it is this very profusion of handsets that is providing the OS with its biggest challenge. For, just about every major handset out there is running a different version of Android – the Hero is on 1.5, the Droid on 2.0, the Nexus One on 2.1 and there a few handsets on 1.6 too. And they are all different in more than nomenclature – those using versions 2.0 and 2.1 get the joys of voice navigation and better apps, among a host of other features.
Android fan boys, and many others, will point out that this is in fact is a good thing as it just shows how rapidly the OS is developing and that even the much-hyped Symbian and iPhone operating systems have different versions running on devices. While I can see their point, there is one crucial difference between what happens to Symbian and the iPhone OS and Android – in the case of the former two, the user has the power to upgrade, while in the case of Android, he or she is almost always at the mercy of the manufacturer.
For instance, I have the HTC Hero since September and have been waiting for an upgrade to 2.1, or heck, even 1.6. I do have the option to root my device and upgrade it but that would render its warranty void. (more…)
Categories: Android, Google, Reviews, smartphones |
Tags: Android, droid, Google, Hero, htc hero, motorola droid, Samsung Galaxy, smartphones | 1 Comment
January 11th, 2010
Its 3 years since we saw the first glimpse of the Apple smartphone and over the past 2.5 yrs it has changed the face of the mobile industry. The iPhone in no time has managed to top the charts and become one of the biggest money churners for Apple. This is to such an extent that iPhone now makes more money for Apple than what Nokia the biggest manufacturer of cellphones in the world earns.
So its natural for us to compare any new smatphone with the iPhone and its a fact that many of them came up after the iPhone with a similar design. Is that a right approach? While I still believe that comparing phones of different form factors is not exactly the right thing to do, the fact remains that the innovation on the iPhone is not just about the form but lot more. The UI, multi touch support since inception, amazing web integration and the App Store to name a few. These things are independent of the form factor and I won’t be surprised if we shall see something which is not a full touchscreen (i.e. sans keyboard) like the iPhone succeed beyond the heights that Apple has touched in this market.
One thing that makes me love the Palm Pre is the amazing integration of a (more…)
Categories: Market Watch, Reviews, iphone |
Tags: apple vs palm, iphone reveiw, market review, palm pre, smartphoen market | No Comments
January 3rd, 2010
If you are planning to skiing or snowboarding this winter in North America or Europe, then BerrySki is on application that you would love to carry with yourself in your blackberry. The application allows its users to download maps to their blackberry phones and access them offline to plan their adventure trip.
The application allows its users (more…)
Categories: Reviews, Sports, mobile app |
Tags: app, berriski, berryski, berryski for blackberry, berryski review, beryski, blackberry, blackberry app | 1 Comment
December 31st, 2009
Its no news that Samsung has gone crazy with the Corby. After the initial Corby we have already seen the Mate and the TXT. This time we got our hands on the Corby Pro and the Corby Plus that adds a physical keyboard to the Corby. The Corby Pro features a 3.2MP camera, 3G and WiFi where as the Plus only adds a physical QWERTY to the original Corby S3650 / S3653.
Quick Specs:
- GSM Quad-band
- Weighs 135g
- Li – Ion, 960 mAh battery
- 2.8″ capacitive resistive touchscreen 240 x 320 pixels resolution
- 3.5G capable (7.2 Mbps) and A-GPS enabled
- 3.2 megapixel camera
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- Interchangeable rear covers
(more…)
Categories: Reviews, samsung |
Tags: buy corby pro, corbi pro, corby, corby pro india, corby pro rate, price, samsung corbi, samsung corby pro | 41 Comments
December 10th, 2009
With Christmas / New Year around the corner its time for many of us to head out shopping for their dream gadgets. Here is a quick list of 5 mobiles that you may consider picking up this Holiday Season.
- Nokia E72: The E72 is feature packed and the smartest offering by Nokia yet. This is certainly recommended over the N97 / 97 mini or the N900, as I feel Nokia is yet to deliver a competitive touchscreen product. But the E72 as we reviewed before gives even the Blackberry a run for its money. (The reason I start this list with a Nokia is the global reach that it has, we are tired of waiting for the 3GS to launch in India and eagerly await the Palm Pre / Motorola Droid – Milestone). If you are looking for a cheaper option the E63 is also cool, but the E72 is well priced.
Categories: Reviews, smartphones |
Tags: buy, buy mobiles, christmas buying guide, price, shopping, shopping guide, top smartphones | 7 Comments
December 6th, 2009
Samsung is on a roll with the ‘need-only-tech’ working fabulously for the Korean consumer electronics giant. The Star and original Corby did well and Samsung has officially announced that it has sold over 50 million touchscreen mobiles till date, and 40 million of those were in 2009 alone.
Corby TXT and Corby S3653
The recently launched Corby TXT is another low cost trendy phone that looks to cash in on the non-business youth market. The Corby TXT has curves very similar to the original Corby but it replaces the touchscreen with a physical QWERTY keypad. The attempt here is to cash in on the business looks of a Blackberry, mix it with some fashion and target the youth. Here is a quick look at the Corby TXT features: (more…)
Categories: Reviews, smartphones |
Tags: corbi txt, corby, corby txt, corby txt india buy price, corby txt review india, samsung, samsung corbi txt, samsung corby, samsung corby txt review | 17 Comments
December 3rd, 2009
We got our mitts on the latest addition to Nokia’s enterprise-oriented E series. And what we saw convinced us that for the first time in years, Nokia might – might, mind you – finally have got the key to unlocking BlackBerry’s dominance of the enterprise phone segment. We can hear the cynics’ eyebrows rise up (yes, they go THAT high) at this claim. After all, the E series has had its share of winners – most notably the Communicator and last year’s E71 – and neither really dented the RIM stronghold. Why should the E72 be any different? Ah, read on: (more…)
Categories: Reviews, nokia, smartphones |
Tags: blackberry, blackberry vs nokia, e72, e72 review india, nokia, nokia e72, nokia vs rim | 15 Comments
November 27th, 2009
While Sony Ericsson has trimmed its Bluetooth offerings to have just 1 button control, the regular headset loses all buttons with the sensME technology that comes in the MH907. The centre of attraction for this device is the smart motion sensing controls that automatically pauses the music if you remove a earbud, and answers an incoming call automatically if you insert the earbud back in your ear. In case you are listening to music already or have the earbuds inserted, you just need to remove and reinsert any of the earbuds to answer the call (you can read all combinations here). The headset works by sensing (more…)
Categories: Accessories, Reviews, Wow Gadgets, sony ericsson |
Tags: mh 907, mh907, MH907 review, Reviews, senseme, sony ericsson, sony ericsson mh907, sony ericsson motion sense | 2 Comments
November 20th, 2009
Sony Ericsson is rolling out some extremely cool accessories (wish the cellphones were equally good) and after the fantastic IS800 Bluetooth headset, we now have our hands on the MS500.
SE MS500 is a 2 watt, Bluetooth 2.1 wireless speaker that promises easy listening to music on the go. We tested this with a range of devices and it connected with all of them flawlessly, but the sad part is that the iPhone or any Nokia won’t be the right companion to this. You need a Sony Ericsson device to get the most out of this. Using a N72 or Nokia 6700 gives lesser audio output than the integrated speakers on the Nokia. The MS500 lacks volume controls just like (more…)
Categories: Accessories, Reviews, sony ericsson |
Tags: bluetooth speakers, MS500, se ms500, sony ericsson MS500, speakers, wireless speakers | 1 Comment
