Tech Serve

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Acer Aspire M5 Touch

Thursday, January 10, 2013 in Laptop/PC

Summary

In case of the Acer Aspire M5 Touch ultrabook, we recommend that unless touch is an absolute necessity for you, you should choose one of the more conventional ultrabooks around the Rs. 60,000 mark, which will offer better overall performance. The HP Spectre XT makes the most sense around this budget.

Processor: Intel Core i3 � 3217U @ 1.8GHz RAM: 4GB Display: 14-inch (1366 x 768 pixel) touchscreen Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GT640M (2GB) and Intel HD 4000 Storage: 500GB HDD + 24GB mSATA SSD Connectivity: 1 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0, HDMI out, Ethernet, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi OS: Windows 8

The year 2013 will be big – laptops and ultrabooks will begin to come with touchscreens, and the hybrids will rise up as well, just to annoy the tablet and the ultrabook! The Acer Aspire M5 Touch is one of the first touchscreen ultrabooks to hit the Indian market, and put it through its paces at our test centre.

Build & Design
Acer Aspire M5 Touch has fairly basic looks, but will work with a wide demographic of potential users. This is an ultrabook, but doesn’t shout about its slimness. Packs in an optical drive as well, and that is a huge bonus. The black colour has a matte finish throughout, and that does look understated and sophisticated. A bit bland too, some may counter, but then again, the Aspire M5 Touch will appeal to a wider demographic of users than an ultrabook with a crimson red lid!

The matte black finish on the Acer Aspire M5 Touch is the same on the lid and the keyboard deck. The machine is a tad thicker than most ultrabooks, but has an optical drive on the left side. The right side seems to be absolutely clean, which perplexes us a bit, wondering why Acer wants you to have to reach behind the display to get to the USB, Ethernet and HDMI. It is certainly not the ideal port placement, and could have been implemented a lot better.

The Acer Aspire M5 Touch’s build quality is fairly acceptable, and despite the use of materials that don’t feel very premium when touched, there is still no flex on the chassis. The fan tends to be slightly noisy when the machine is stressed, but with the vents at the back, you will not feel the draft of uncomfortable warm air.

Features & Specifications
The Aspire M5 Touch has a fairly basic spec sheet – Intel Core i3 – 3217U processor clocking at 1.8GHz, and supported with 4GB of RAM. We are a tad surprised to see a Core i3 processor in a machine that sports a price tag slightly upward of Rs. 60,000.

But what is interesting is that the Acer Aspire M5 Touch packs in an Nvidia GeForce GT640M (2GB) graphics chip. This is a fairly powerful graphics package, and the benchmark tests will prove that. We will give you the details in the Performance section.

The Acer Aspire M5 Touch’s 14-inch display has a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. In terms of quality, the display is just very good. It has fairly punchy brightness levels and colour vividness is slightly better than the elder sibling, the Acer Aspire S3. Crispness is fairly good, but interestingly, text doesn’t seem that sharp at times. The touchscreen feature is why you are paying a premium for the M5, and for that bit, the response is rather assured. The only issue is the display hinge is not the strongest around, and every time you tap the display, it rocks back. And it isn’t ideal to hold the display with one hand every time and use the touchscreen with the other!

The Acer Aspire M5 Touch’s keyboard is comfortable to use, with good key placement and adequate travel. Pressing hard in the middle does bring out some dip, but that will not be visible when typing normally. The number pad on the right side means that the alphabet keys are left aligned, and that takes a bit of time to get used to. Apart from that, the touchpad has generous amounts of real estate space available.

The Acer Aspire M5 Touch that we got as a review unit has a 500GB hard drive, and Windows 8 (64-bit) preloaded. However, there is just a tad too much preloaded content – apps, trials and utilities, something that could be cut down on, or better streamlined within one app.

Performance
In terms of what the Aspire M5 offers, it is a bit of a mixed bag. The Core i3 processor does have its limitations. The benchmark scores prove that, and even in real life, this machine will not be the fastest one around. While this would have been acceptable for an ultrabook under Rs. 50,000, it surely would seem like a huge compromise at this price. With Windows 8 on board, you will surely get slightly better performance than you would on the same machine with Windows 7, but that does not say a lot. We are not discriminating against Core i3 machines, but at this price, this package is rather unbelievable.

Gaming performance does impress quite a bit. We wouldn’t gloss over the fact that the Core i3 does limit this machine significantly, but for pure gaming, this one is in the league of the HP Envy 4, Samsung Series 5 and the Dell XPS 14. The 3D Mark 06 score of 8336 is beaten only by the 8577 on the Dell XPS 14. The 3D Mark 11 Entry Mode score of 2727 is by far the highest among all ultrabooks, with the Dell XPS 14’s 1938 a distant second highest.

Battery life is the proverbial cherry on the cake (and perhaps the biggest reason for the inclusion of power-sipping Core i3 processor). The tested battery life of 266 minutes is pretty much beating the best out there – 246 minutes scored by the Samsung Series 9 and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. This one pretty much is the ultrabook that you need if battery life is critical for you.

Bottom Line
The clear issue with the Aspire M5 Touch is the price. The performance is fairly in line with an ultrabook costing less than Rs. 50,000. The graphics performance is excellent, but with the processor being the bottleneck, overall performance will get reined in quite often. The touchscreen capabilities are rather unique, and work quite well for the most part. The display hinge does make touch somewhat annoying, but that is the feature you are actually paying a premium for. But we are not very sure if you should. Unless touch is an absolute necessity for you, for some reason, we would urge you towards one of the conventional ultrabooks around the Rs. 60,000 mark. The HP Spectre XT makes the most sense around this budget.

HTC One X+

Thursday, January 10, 2013 in Android

Summary
Processor: Nvidia Tegra 3 1.7GHz quad core RAM: 1GB Graphics: ULP GeForce 2 Display: 4.7-inches (1280 x 720 pixels) Storage: 64GB Camera: 8MP Platform: Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Battery: 2100mAh

The HTC One X+ is clearly what the One X should have been in the first place. On a rather interesting note, the One X+ pips the Samsung Galaxy S III in most of the system performance benchmarks. But the pricing of the device is a bit of a downer. The price of Rs. 40,190 that HTC has shared with us makes the Galaxy S III a bit more attractive, since it is currently retailing for considerably less money, at around Rs. 36,000.
In a season full of refreshes, the One X+ follows up to the One X, much like how the Sony Xperia SL came as a fresher version of the Xperia S. And truly, this is what the One X should have been in the first place.

If you remember, we had recently done a first impressions story of the One X+ at an event recently, and at time, we got the black version to play with. The test unit we have received is the same white one as the One X.

Build & Design
The HTC One X was a looker, and the One X+ looks exactly the same from the outside. Except for the slight difference – the red color on the touch sensitive keys and a red ring around the camera. The One X+ is a very much a premium phone to feel, hold and use. The polycarbonate finish on the unibody design is pretty much worth the time and effort.

By carrying forward the exact same looks as the One X, what HTC have managed to do is line this up as a refresh. There are some positives to this, without doubt. The slight curve on the rear panel is immensely helpful when you are typing out an SMS with the fingers of the same hand that is holding the phone. While the battery cover isn’t exactly matte or rubberized, the One X+ is perfectly designed for single-hand operation.

The excellent display carried forward from One X is definitely one of our favourites across smartphones.

On the front is the 4.7-inch display, accompanied by three touch sensitive keys below it – return, home and task manager. The tinge of red marking these keys looks very cool – the slight sporty touch to a phone that otherwise looks very classy and understated, for the most part. The bezel is very thin, and the display sits slightly higher than the unibody for quite some while, thanks to the outward curve towards the middle at the back. The display glass kind of flows over on the two sides like water down a cliff, and feels brilliant when you are swiping your finger across the screen.

Above the display is the nicely chiseled out earpiece grille, on the white portion. Next to it is the front facing camera. Switch over to the sides, and the left spine first. This has the microUSB port. The right spine has the volume rocker that blends brilliantly with the rest of the design. Two observations regarding the rocker – it has the perfect height for use without looking at it and the same colour as the rest of the phone makes this go almost unnoticed the rest of the time. The top has the power key, while the 3.5mm headphone jack utilizes the dual curve on the top and the rear panel to fit in seamlessly.

The biggest distinguishing factor between the One X+ and the One X - the red treatment on the touch keys.

On the back is the camera and the flash towards the top, with the silver HTC logo in the middle and the Beats Audio logo below it. Towards the bottom is the hands-free speaker, which has been carved out rather classily, akin to the earpiece at the front.

To understand most elements of the design influence, you need to look at the phone placed vertically on a flat surface, from side on. The slimness literally shouts, silently. The Motorola Razr has received a lot of praise for its slimness, but the numbers to bring out some interesting facts - at 8.9mm, the One X+ isn't far behind the Razr’s 7.1mm (at its thinnest). For a phone that packs in insane amounts of power, that is not a bad deal.

The camera and the LED flash.

We have mentioned the slight curve on the top and bottom of the HTC One X+ multiple times when describing what the phone looks like. When looked at side-on, the slight banana-like shape does add an extra visual element, along with the comfort and functionality of easier grip. The only issue with this slimness is that the 8MP camera protrudes out at the back, and when placed flat, the phone rests on a part of the clicker. This could lead to scratches on the lens.

The One X+ is rather well sculpted, and has a nice mixture of understated and sporty/youthful elements. The unibody looks brilliant, and we have seen the phone in both white and black colours, and both look equally stunning. If you are in the demographic that finds the Galaxy S III to be plasticky, the One X and the One X+ will surely warm your heart with a bit of polycarbonate trickery!

The HTC logo has a slightly shiny silver finish - might get scratches_ The Beats Audio punch remains.

The HTC logo has a slightly shiny silver finish, and might get scratches. The Beats Audio punch remains.

Features & Specifications
The upgrade on the One X+ over the One X is the upgraded processor. The newer Tegra 3 quad-core processor clocks at 1.7GHz, while the One X got a 1.5GHz processor. Almost everything else (except for the battery) remains exactly the same on the two phones, specs wise. That we are rather thankful for!

The primary reason for that is the 4.7-inch S-LCD2 display on One X and X+ is among the better smartphone displays out there. The resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels is adequate to provide a great experience. Primary among them is the depth of the black levels, and fairly good brightness levels. The sharpness of the text is impressive. What it loses out on is the vivid colours that an AMOLED display would offer, but by no means is this inadequate in any way. However, compared to the Galaxy S III, we prefer this display because the colours remain a lot more natural. By comparison, the S III has fairly vivid colours, some of which look doctored and unnatural for the most part. The display isn’t very reflective, and that helps a lot with viewing when outdoors.

The less reflective nature of the display makes it very comfortable to use in brightly lit environments.

The One X+ version launched in India has a 64GB internal storage, but no memory card slot. Additionally, Dropbox users will get an additional 25GB free storage as a part of a promotion offer.

On the software side, the One X+ comes preloaded with Jelly Bean (Android 4.1). But the bigger change is the HTC Sense version has now been updated. If you remember, we had pointed out that the Sense version on the One X crashed quite often and was generally fairly buggy. This one, it seems, is the version where the bugs and issues have been ironed out. It felt quicker to use as well, and we did not face any issues of crashes, reloads or stutters in the time we used the phone.

The phone has a very classy footprint, and yet remains very comfortable for same-hand operation.

Nokia Universal Portable Charger DC-16

Thursday, January 10, 2013 in Gadgets, Utility

Summary

Battery capacity: 2200mAh Output current: 950 mA Charging interface: micro-USB (in/out) and standard USB (out) Battery cycle life: 500+ cycles Dimensions: 120mm x 23.3mm x 23.3mm Weight: 75g

Anyone who travels a lot must surely have cribbed about their phone's inadequate battery life. However, a solution is now available, with the Nokia DC-16 universal charger allowing you to quickly charge the phone on the move, till you can find a wall charger again! The charge speed offered by the DC-16 is the same as a conventional wall charger, and that is brilliant. At this price, we recommend that everyone should be packing this in his or her backpack.
Smartphones are big on power these days, but unfortunately, battery technology has refused to keep up. For people who use the phone heavily during the day, or are on the move most of the time, this has been a real issue. However, there seems to be a relatively inexpensive solution at hand.

Build & Design
The design of the DC-16 is essentially that of a stick. It is as wide and thick as two fingers from your hand joined side by side. It is small enough to be carried around in a pocket.

On one side is the micro USB port that allows you to connect the DC-16 to a wall charger to top up the internal battery. This side also has four LED indicators showing up the charging status and the current amount of charge when charging a connected phone. You need to press the tiny button with a depressed placement to light up the indicators. The other side has a full-fledged USB port that lets you connect any micro USB or mini USB cable, depending on what your phone needs.

The materials used are plastic throughout, but fairly good quality. The entire battery pack has been put together very well. For those who might want one, there are multiple colour options available as well – black, white, cyan and fuchsia.

Features & Specifications
The most important thing first - the battery capacity! This charger packs in a 2200mAh battery pack to top up your phone on the move. With most phones these days coming with under 2000mAh battery capacity, this one will be able to fully charge a completely discharged phone at least once.

Since this a Nokia accessory, you would half expect this to only work with Nokia phones. However, this claims to be a universally compatible accessory, and we tested this on multiple phones, including Blackberry and Android devices. And it charged up the devices without fail. The wide compatibility is a huge positive.

The DC-16 comes with a self-charging cable as well as a data cable for charging phones.

Performance
The 2200mAh battery pack in the DC-16 is more than capable of fully charging my Blackberry from complete discharge to full charge in just more than 2 hours and 30 minutes. This is the same time taken by a full-fledged wall charger. Full marks to the Nokia DC-16 for offering rapid charge as claimed, something that most other chargers are unable to do, despite tall claims.

Self-charging is somehow slower than we expected. Completely discharge the DC-16 and it will take around 5 hours for it to fully charge via a traditional wall charger. Not that this is a huge drawback, but this is surely a time consuming process you need to factor into the schedule if you plan to grab the DC-16 on the way out to the airport!

Bottom Line
For anyone who finds their phone’s battery life inadequate, the Nokia DC-16 will help keep it topped up on the move, at least till you get home. The 2200mAh battery pack will offer at least one complete charge of the phone’s battery. At this price, we recommend everyone should buy one and keep in the backpack. You never know when you might need it.

Asus PadFone

Thursday, January 10, 2013 in Laptop/PC

Summary

As a concept the PadFone works well. It tries to bring the best of three worlds in one device, but at what cost? Rs. 65,000 is a little expensive. We like the idea of using the pen as the phonem but there is no place in the tablet or the keyboard dock to house it, giving it a lifespan of two days. If you are in the market to pick up a smartphone, you can get the iPhone 5 in this budget, or an iPad and a decent Android smartphone. It is not exactly a value-for-money product. But if you are the kind of person who wants one gadget to fulfil your smartphone, tablet and netbook needs, you can consider picking this device up however. If that is the case, we would recommend waiting for the PadFone 2.

Is it a phone? Is it a tablet? Is it a laptop? Well, it's a three-in-one. Yes, today we live in a world where one smart device doesn't suffice our needs. We need a smartphone for certain tasks, we need a tablet for other things and nothing beats the utility of a physical keyboard for typing.

But what if we had one device that could work as all three? We have seen tablets that come with keyboard docks that give them the utility of a netbook, but nothing that incorporates a smartphone into the mix.
Today we have with us the Asus PadFone. It is smartphone that comes with a docking station making it a tablet that also comes with a keyboard dock that should give it the utility of a netbook. Is this truly a three-in-one device, or are you better off getting three different products?

Design and Build
First, the phone part of the Asus PadFone itself – the build is very nice, and has a very premium feel to it. The rear has a textured, rippled plastic finish to it, similar to what we have seen on the Asus Zenbook ultrabook and the Transformer Prime tablet. The smartphone has a teardrop design which makes it nice to hold in one hand. The side of the phone has this aluminium bezel making it feel premium.

The front of the device has the 4.3-inch super AMOLED display. The rear houses the 8MP camera with the LED flash. The top has the on/off/sleep/wake switch along with the headphones jack and the right has the volume rocker. There is no dedicated camera button and this is missed on the smartphone. The left has the microUSB port for charging and another port that connects the smartphone to the tablet dock.

As mentioned earlier, the Asus PadFone has a teardrop design but this design element isn’t as evident as it is on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. It makes the smartphone very comfortable to hold and its size is great for use with both as well as single hand use.

Moving to the design of the Asus PadFone’s tablet dock, we see it has a 10.1-inch display, clear black borders and the VGA camera for video chatting. The left and right side of the screen have what appears to be speaker grills but that isn’t the case. A single speaker rests at the rear of the device and these grills are more of a design element and have as little utility as adding to the grip.

The left of the Asus PadFone’s tablet dock has the headphones jack and the volume rocker, while the bottom has the charging port as well as ports that fix it in the keyboard dock. The top has the on/off/sleep/wake switch along with a slider that releases the panel where the phone can be inserted. This pocket, where the phone can be inserted, sticks out a bit from the rear of the tablet. It isn’t a bad design choice; it’s just that it's a prominent bulge. This pocket too has the same textured finish found at the back of the phone. The hinge of this pocket seems sturdy and well constructed. Inserting the phone is simple, as all you have to do is align the ports, insert the phone and you’re done.

Coming to the final accessory, the Asus PadFone’s keyboard dock – put simply, it is the same one that is found on the Asus Transformer Prime. The right of the dock has the SD card slot and a full sized USB port. The left has one more full sized USB port, charger connector and a battery indicator. The keys on the keyboard are well laid out and even though the keys do feels a bit small, there is enough spacing between them to feel comfortable during typing.

Features and Specifications
The PadFone (smartphone) has a dual-core 1.5GHz Krait CPU with the Adreno 225 GPU, coupled with 1GB of RAM. The 4.3-inch AMOLED display has a 540 x 960 pixel (qHD) resolution. Not a Retina Display, but quite impressive nonetheless.

It comes with 16/32/64GB built-in storage options, expandable up to 32GB via a microSD card. It is powered by a 1520mAh battery. That's the specifications of the phone. The tablet dock has no processing power driving it. It is just a 10.1-inch representation of the content and the power that drives the phone. The 10.1-inch display has a resolution of 1280x800, which is nice, and the whole dock is powered by a 6600mAh battery. It is on the heavier side weighing 724 grams and may be a little difficult to handle with one hand use.

The Asus PadFone runs on Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich straight out of the box, an OS optimised for use on both a smartphone and tablet. The OS is skinned so it isn’t a stock Android experience but the customization isn’t as deep as let us say, the Sense UI from HTC, or the TouchWiz UI from Samsung. It’s much lighter in comparison. You do have some nifty widgets like the power widget, task manager widget and the weather widget that add a bit of variety to the device and you also have the slew of other standard Android widgets to customize the home screen.

The swipe down notifications menu on the Asus PadFone gives you access to the standard slew of settings with one nifty addition – adjusting the brightness. Sure, we have seen this implemented in TouchWiz, but there is something called as outdoor mode, which makes the display a lot more vibrant and more comfortable to use under direct sunlight. The same is available on the tablet as well and it is one feature we truly appreciate.

Since the Asus PadFone functions as a smartphone and a tablet, there is a separate section on the device called Pad Only. This is the place where the tablet specific apps are housed. Another nifty feature is the addition of full USB support from the keyboard dock, making data access on the tablet easy.

You also get a stylus with the tablet. Even though it doesn't have the same diverse functionality as the S-Pen that comes with the Samsung Galaxy Note, Note II or the Note 800, but it does have one very unique functionality – it doubles up as an earpiece and mic for your tablet. Say you have docked the tablet, and are typing a document sitting in a café. You aren’t going to receive a call on the tablet via the loud speaker. It is plain embarrassing. The pen however gives you the ability to have a private conversation, just as you would on a phone. Although using a pen like device in public will make you look like a fool, it may make you feel like James Bond at the same time.

Performance
The performance of the Asus PadFone as a smartphone is really good with one drawback – the onscreen keyboard. The keyboard on the smartphone doesn't have the best layout and even though the touchscreen responds to a feather touch, the keyboard doesn't. Sometimes you have to make an effort to type and that isn’t a good thing.

In its raw performance, the Asus PadFone performed quite well. Its performance was a bit less when compared to the quad-core behemoths flooding the market but it wasn't too far away. In the dual-core race however, the device performed quite well. To put things into perspective, below is a benchmark comparison between the Asus PadFone, LG Optimus 4X HD, Sony Xperia Ion and the Samsung Galaxy S III.

In real world usage the Asus PadFone perfomed quite well. The call quality from the phone is excellent. It is crisp at both ends and sounded quite good even in crowded scenarios. The loud speaker on the tablet is good as well, producing clear and audible sound. What surprised us was the call quality from the pen. It was crisper than some of the phones we have tested, and that is a very good thing.

The video playback on both the Asus PadFone smartphone and the tablet was really good. The representation of colour was crisp and nice although the black levels were a bit lower than we’d like. Even in fast action sequences, there was less blur and loss of pixels making this device quite good for watching videos.

Android’s app market (the Google Play store) doesn't have too many tablet specific apps but the ones that are there run nicely on the Asus PadFone tablet dock’s 10.1-inch display. It’s particularly fun to play games on the screen of the tablet.

The battery life on the Asus PadFone is its best feature. Asus claims that combining all three – the phone, tablet and keyboard dock the device will last for 105 hours. The phone itself will last for one and a half days of average use, and that is very impressive.

Bottom Line
As a concept the PadFone works well. It tries to bring the best of three worlds in one device, but at what cost? Rs. 65,000 is a little expensive. We like the idea of using the pen as the phonem but there is no place in the tablet or the keyboard dock to house it, giving it a lifespan of two days. If you are in the market to pick up a smartphone, you can get the iPhone 5 in this budget, or an iPad and a decent Android smartphone. It is not exactly a value-for-money product. But if you are the kind of person who wants one gadget to fulfil your smartphone, tablet and netbook needs, you can consider picking this device up however. If that is the case, we would recommend waiting for the PadFone 2.

Lenovo IdeaPhone K860

Thursday, January 10, 2013 in Laptop/PC

Summary

Processor: Exynos 4412 quad core @ 1.4GHz RAM: 1GB Graphics: Mali 400-MP Display: 5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) Storage: 8GB + micro SD slot Camera: 8MP OS: Android 4.0.4 Battery: 2250mAh

The K860 is a rather impressive phablet, and is quite affordable as well. More importantly, it costs less than the Optimus Vu, with significantly better performance and comfort of use. The only issue with Lenovo smartphones is that their availability is rather limited. And that is the real drawback, but if you can get your hands on this phone, you are one of the lucky people! On that note, Lenovo does need to sort this out quickly, if they are serious about the smartphone market in India.

When you think Lenovo, the first visual element that pops into your head is surely not a smartphone. Laptops, surely… Ultrabooks, most likely… ThinkPad in general, for sure. Which is why, we were admittedly rather apprehensive towards the Lenovo smartphones that arrived in the test centre. However, it didn’t take long for our opinion to change, for the better.

Build & Design
For a device that is essentially a phablet, the Lenovo IdeaPhone K860 remains fairly comfortable for single-hand use. What helps is that it doesn’t have the immediate imposing footprint that comes with the LG Optimus Vu and even the Samsung Galaxy Note II for a certain extent.

Straight out-of-the-box, and you don’t realize that the Lenovo IdeaPhone K860 actually has a 5-inch display. The thin bezel on the right and left sides does have some bearing on this. The earpiece sits above the display, and is on a slightly lower height than the display and the glass. Interestingly, there are no touch sensitive or hardware keys below the display. That is because the Lenovo skin wrapped around the OS takes care of those tasks, on-screen.

The right spine of the Lenovo IdeaPhone K860 has the volume rocker, with the circular design for the + and the – keys keeping them rather individual and separate. The left spine has a micro USB port. The top has the 3.5mm headphone jack and the rounded power key, much in same design as the individual volume rocker keys. There is a strip of chrome framing the phone, and looks very classy. It brings a bit of contrast to the other similar colour tone throughout.

Flip the Lenovo IdeaPhone K860 over and the matte black finish is a welcome element after the slightly shiny front side. The imprint design and the slightly coarse finish does help immensely while gripping the phone during the single hand operation. Towards the top is the 8MP camera with flash, with a chrome border. The Lenovo logo sits to the right of that.

All in all, we are truly impressed by the solidity of the IdeaPhone K860. However, while it is fairly slim at 9.6mm, it does weigh in at an immodest 193.5 grams. It does feel well put together though. Fairly basic looks, but very sophisticated nonetheless. This device is meant to be a phablet, but is by far the most comfortable one to hold and use.

Features & Specifications
There is no shortage of power on the Lenovo Smartphone IdeaPhone K860. The processor providing all the power is the Exynos 4412 quad core chip clocking at 1.4GHz. Incidentally, the same processor as the Samsung Galaxy Note II, but clocked slightly higher at 1.6GHz. The IdeaPhone K860 gets 1GB of RAM.

For the storage needs, there is 8GB internal storage and a micro SD card slot for expansion on the Lenovo IdeaPhone K860.

The 5-inch IPS display is rather impressive. The resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels is not something we can fault. The result is pretty positive. Straight up, the text readability is very comfortable on this device. Without actually zooming in on a web page, you can very easily read most of the text. Colour depth is fantastic, and helps with multimedia viewing. The unfortunate part is that the Lenovo IdeaPhone K860’s display is rather reflective, which kind of hurts viewing in sunlight.

It is rather surprising that the IdeaPhone K860 comes with Android Ice Cream Sandwich on board, and we have not heard anything about an upgrade to Android Jelly Bean, if at all. While the performance, which we will talk about in the next section, is impressive, the fact that it still has an older OS points to some untapped potential.

Performance
This part really surprised us. In the benchmark tests, the Lenovo IdeaPhone K860 trounces the LG Optimus Vu rather consistently, and is in solid second place behind the Galaxy Note II. The Lenovo IdeaPhone K860 scores 5067 in Quadrant test, while the Optimus Vu scores 4781 and the Note II scores 5981. In the AnTuTu test, the IdeaPhone K860 takes the lead with the score of 15823, while the Optimus Vu scores 12131 and the Note II a surprising 13649. These are the benchmark scores putting things in perspective, but our real concern was the real life usage performance. Straightaway, the minimalistic theme wrapped around Android is helpful – does not hinder performance, does not get in the way, and yet has enough useful widgets to remain somewhat relevant. Apps open smoothly, and with 4-5 apps open in the background, there seems to be no lag while opening another app. But, anymore and the phone will visibly encounter slight slowdowns. Not bad for a phone that is aiming to offer very good performance without being vain about it.

Gaming is where the IdeaPhone K860 is definitely better than the Optimus Vu, but strictly behind the Note II. Both the Note II and the IdeaPhone K860 have the Mali 400-MP graphics chip, but are clocked differently. The IdeaPhone K860 scores 52.3FPs in NenaMark 2, while the Optimus Vu is considerably behind with 48.7, while the Note II has the undisputed lead with 58FPs. Gaming experience, however, on the Note II and the IdeaPhone K860 is relatively similar, with only the display quality having a bearing on the overall gaming quality.

The call quality on the IdeaPhone K860 is pretty satisfactory for the most part, but the clarity does tend to get affected in areas where the signal quality is less than 50%. Earpiece quality of sound and loudness is good, but the speakerphone needs to be a bit louder. The good thing is that the IdeaPhone K860 takes a proper SIM card, and not a micro or Nano SIM.

The 2250mAh battery on the Lenovo IdeaPhone K860 will last a day and a bit more on a complete charge, and is fairly impressive. The Note II has a much bigger 3100mAh battery that lasts 2 days under the exact same usage.

The 8MP camera is a bit of an “okay, it is here” kind of a feature. It takes decent enough shots in good bright daylight, but in the evenings and beyond, the images are noisy, colour is completely off and the camera takes very long to focus. Good enough for that spur of the moment pic when meeting friends, but nothing more.

Bottom Line
What we have seen is a rather impressive phablet, and is quite affordable as well. More importantly, it costs less than the Optimus Vu, with significantly better performance and comfort of use. The only issue with Lenovo smartphones is that their availability is rather limited. And that is the real drawback, but if you can get your hands on this phone, you are one of the lucky people! On that note, Lenovo does need to sort this out quickly, if they are serious about the smartphone market in India.

Samsung reveals Galaxy S II Plus with Jelly Bean and dual-core processor

Thursday, January 10, 2013 in Mobiles

Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy S II Plus. The smartphone has slightly bumped up specifications when compared to the original S II but the highlight of this smartphone is that it runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean straight out of the box.
Samsung has announced the Galaxy S II Plus. The smartphone runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean straight out of the box. The Galaxy S II plus will be available in two variants – one with NFC and one without. No details of the pricing or availability of the device are available yet.

In terms of other specifications, the Galaxy S II Plus shows off a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus WVGA display with 800x400 pixel resolution. A 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM power the device. It boasts of 8GB built-in storage expandable up to 64GB via a microSD card. Under the hood, a 1,650mAh battery powers it. The rear of the camera houses an 8MP camera and the front has a 2MP camera for video chatting.

In mid-December, we reported that that images and specs of the Galaxy S II Plus had leaked online. You can read about the leaked images
The Samsung Galaxy S II was one of the best smartphones available in 2011. It went up against HTC’s flagship smartphone of the time, the HTC Sensation and it won the competition hands down becoming the best Android phone money could buy that year. You can read our review of the Galaxy S II here.

Samsung has seen quite a bit of success with its Galaxy lineup of smartphones. We have recently seen the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S III and the device is 2012’s best Android smartphone money can buy. You can read our detailed review of the device here.

Samsung also conquered the hybrid market with the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Note in 2011. It has a 5.3-inch display, dual-core processor and a stylus with a difference – the S-Pen. You can read our review of the Note here.

Samsung launched the Note II in 2012, which improved upon the specifications and the performance of the first generation Note. It sports a 5.5-inch display, quad-core processor, runs on Jelly Bean and improved upon the functionality of the S-Pen. Catch the Note II review

First Impressions: Nokia Lumia 920

Thursday, January 10, 2013 in Application, Mobiles

The Nokia Lumia 920 has been officially launched in India, and we had a chance to play with the device for a while at the event. Here are some of our observations regarding the latest flagship phone from Nokia.
After a considerable delay, Nokia has launched the Lumia 920 in India. This is the phone that was touted as the big PureView smartphone, after the technology was first showcased in the Nokia 808 PureView in the summer of last year. Globally, this phone was launched before the year-end festive season. Better late than never, buyers in India can pick up the Lumia 920 if a good camera phone is what they want.

From the little time we spent with the Lumia 920 at the event, here are our observations.

The polycarbonate unibody design is very well done on the Lumia 920. There is a really premium feel on the phone, something that you would expect from a device this expensive.

What is a bit of a downer is that it looks very similar to the previous generation phone flagship, the Lumia 900. However, we would not hold that against the Lumia 920, because, quite frankly, “if it isn’t broke, then don’t fix it”!

The colour has an enamel finish to it, but if firmly a matte one. You do get some smudges and fingerprints on the body, but nothing that cannot be wiped off.

We have heard a lot of criticism that the Lumia 920 is uncomfortably heavy as a phone. Yes, there is no denying that the Lumia 920 is heavier than the Galaxy Note II, at least on paper. But, we did not find the weight to be a problem. The phone has a very even weight distribution. And doesn’t feel like it’ll topple over; head first, during one-handed operation.

The 4.5-inch display has what Nokia calls the “HD+” resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels. But the real impressive bit is the Pure Motion feature that makes text look crisp and distinct even when you are scrolling within the UI. We will put the display through a detailed test after comparing it with the rivals to see how good it actually is.

While the weight isn’t an issue, the size is a bit bigger than what we expected. And that seems to restrict the ability to use the phone with one hand to a minimum.

The 8.7MP clicker is the PureView camera, which on paper seems lesser than the 12 MP of Sony Xperia S and the 13.1MP of the Sony Xperia Z. In fact, this is nowhere close to the huge 41MP number that the 808 PureView boasted of. However, there are a lot of little add-ons that make this a unique package in its class. First is the “floating lens” optical image stabilization feature that makes videos looks a lot less bouncy at the end of it all. Nokia was talking up the low light performance of the Lumia 920 quite a bit, but we will only comment on how good it is when we are done with our tests.

Nokia has pegged the price of the Lumia 920 at Rs. 38,199 and would be available in certain cities from tomorrow. The phone will be available throughout the country in the next few weeks.

We will get the phone soon for a detailed review. Do stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can check out some pictures of the phone.