Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch hands-on #MobilekeedaLive

Wrist watches, smart or otherwise, are simply not for everyone — there are more smartphone users in the world, many times over, than there will ever be smartwatch owners. Despite the limited market for such a device, however, Samsung’s decided it’s time to join in on the fun. The Galaxy Gear, as we’ve known it to be called for a few weeks now, was hardly guarded with a level of secrecy that’s become standard for a flagship smartphone, but as the device is finally official — and expected to launch in more than 100 countries within weeks — just how does it perform?

The centerpiece of the Galaxy Gear, as you may have read by now, is a 320 x 320-pixel, 1.63-inch AMOLED touchscreen. There’s a speaker and a pair of mics for recording and playing back video content and communicating with a caller via the built-in dialer, which works with the native phone app in your connected Galaxy device. The Gear includes an 800MHz processor, a 315mAh battery, and — in a somewhat surprising twist — a BSI sensor and autofocus lens mounted in the wrist strap that’s tasked with capturing 1.9-megapixel stills and 10-second video clips at 720p, 640 x 640 or VGA resolution with sound. That camera, designed for on-the-go captures where convenience, not image quality, is a priority, is paired with a pre-installed app called Memographer. That application, and dozens of others that will be available at launch, are key to boosting the Gear’s appeal, and setting it apart from the competition.

Like other smartwatches we’ve seen and reviewed, such as the monochromePebble, the Gear organizes apps, watch faces and other pages in swappable cards. With such a limited display resolution, it’s only possible to display one at a time, and that’s where touch comes in. To navigate through the wearable’s many cards, you can swipe with a finger. There’s a single button, located on the right side. Press it once to go to the home screen. A double press launches S Voice, and a triple tap activates the “safety assistance” feature, which sends your location info to a saved contact, along with a message notifying them that there’s an emergency.

We haven’t been blown away by any smartwatch’s performance, and that’s much the case here. The Gear feels awfully sluggish, whether you’re launching an app such as Evernote or Path, or swiping down from the home screen to activate the camera. Watch faces, which you can upload from the Gear’s Android companion app, performed well, as did the Music card, which simply serves as a remote for any music app (native or third-party) currently active on a connected device.

The Gear is very much a first-generation device when it comes to usability, too; you can only load a total of 10 third-party apps, for example, due in no small part to the limited 4GB of built-in storage. The interface also feels a bit clunky and unpolished at times, and the S Voice feature, which responds to commands just like its smartphone and tablet counterparts, can only be activated by tapping the home button twice — hardly convenient when you’re running or riding a bike.

As for the device’s physical appearance, it’s a bit svelter than leaked reports would suggest, but it’s still a substantial product. Some colors, such as Rose Gold and Mocha Gray, were designed with female users in mind, but with a design that’s significantly larger than many traditional watches, it may be a bit too cumbersome for petite wrists. That said, we didn’t find it too large for male users, who might prefer the JetBlack or Oatmeal color schemes. According to Samsung reps, sporty types might opt for Wild Orange or Lime Green, and considering third-party apps like RunKeeper and MyFitnessPal, along with the bundled pedometer, athletes are clearly a target demographic here.

Samsung opted for an industrial design instead of a more elegant finish. There are four visible screws above and below the face, for example, and the metal buckle, which houses the speaker, doesn’t feel terribly well made. Many of the colors are a bit too “sporty” to be an appropriate fit for formal occasions or business attire, so unless you opt for an all-black Gear, you may end up leaving the watch at home more often than not. That wouldn’t be a terrible call, however — the embedded battery is rated for a day of “regular” use, which means more active users will be spending a lot of time attaching the watch to the bundled micro-USB-equipped plastic charging dock, which connects to the device through five metal leads on the rear.

As we’ve come to expect with many first-generation devices, the Gear has quite a few shortcomings, some of which likely have yet to come to light. The prototype devices we used were noticeably sluggish and occasionally unresponsive, S Voice is not entirely hands-free, and battery life has been pegged at a full day, at best. Perhaps the biggest setback, however, is that the Galaxy Gear is only compatiblewith the Note 3 and the new Note 10.1, and while it will likely work with the GS4 once that device gets an Android 4.3 update, we don’t expect that it’ll ever function with non-Samsung smartphones and tablets. Pricing is another unknown, but we imagine more info will come forward there before the Gear begins shipping on September 25th. Update: The gear will cost $299 when it starts shipping, though, customers in the US and Japan will have to wait ’til October to get their hands on one.

Android 4.3 arriving for Galaxy SIII and Galaxy S4 in October #MobilekeedaLive

Today’s Unpacked event was all about Samsung’s new Notes and its Galaxy Gear, but there’s good news for folks with older hardware. Turns out, Android 4.3 is coming to the Galaxy S III and Galaxy S 4 in October along with the update that’ll add Galaxy Gear functionality to the GS 4. Let’s hope none of the Nexus gremlins made their way into Samsung’s Galaxy.

Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 and Mega 6.3 specifications surface

Samsung Galaxy Mega line of Android smartphones, the Galaxy Mega 5.8 (GT-I9152) and the Galaxy Mega 6.3 were rumored earlier this month. Now, Sammobile is said to have confirmed specifications of these two devices. The Mega 5.8 is expected to have a  5.8-inch qHD TFT display, and the Mega 6.3 is expected to come with a 6.3-inch HD PLS display. Both these phones would run on Android 4.1.2 or 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) with Samsung’s own Nature UX on top. The Galaxy Mega 5.8 would have dual SIM support, and looks like a souped up version of the Galaxy Grand Duos.

Rumored Specs for the Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 (GT-I9152)

• 5.8-inch qHD (960 x 540 pixels) TFT display
• 1.4 GHz dual-core processor
• Android 4.1.2 / 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
• Dual SIM
• 8MP rear camera and a 2MP front-facing camera
• Dimensions: 164×83.8×9.7mm
• 1.5 GB RAM
• 3G, Wi-Fi 80211 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and A-GPS
• 2600 mAh battery

Rumored Specs for the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 (GT-I9200)

• 6.3-inch HD ( 1280 x 720 pixels) PLS display
• 1.7 GHz dual-core processor
• Android 4.1.2 / 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
• 8MP rear camera and a 2MP front-facing camera
• Dimensions:  167.6× 88 x 7.9mm
• 1.5 GB RAM
• 3G, Wi-Fi 80211 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and A-GPS
• 3200 mAh battery

Samsung is also expected to launch the LTE version of the Galaxy Mega 6.3 codenamed GT-I9205. It would come in Black and White versions. Both these devices are expected to be announced in May. The Galaxy Mega 6.3 is expected to go on sale in June or July, according to ETNews.

Facebook Home beta leaks out ahead of official release (LINK FOR INSTALLATION)

Facebook announced the Facebook Home last week that comes pre-installed with the HTC First. It is expected to launch on Google Play for select Android devices on April 12th, but the pre-release version has been leaked ahead online. The Facebook Home is an Android Launcher with Cover feed that offers photos and updates from your newsfeed, Notifications, Chat Heads, App Launcher to launch Facebook apps and more.

Since the apk is from the pre-release HTC First ROM, Chat Heads feature is not working at the moment, and it only supports devices with a maximum resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels. It is not necessary to root your device to install this app. You can get the APKs and installation instructions from the source link below.

Facebook Home will be initially available for the HTC One X, One X+, One and also on the Samsung Galaxy S3, S4, Note II. It would hit Google Play on April 12th.

Source: Modaco

Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos Review

Samsung announced the Galaxy Grand and the Galaxy Grand Duos (GT-I9082) back in December 2012. It was launched in India in January. We brought you the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos photo gallery and the benchmarks recently. Here we have the complete review of the device. The Galaxy Grand has a similar design as the with curved corners and chrome finish all around, but it lacks the wedge shape and curved glass like the Galaxy S3. It runs on the Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean that recently rolled out for the Galaxy S3 and the Galaxy Note in India. Let’s dive into the complete review.

Box Contents

The box contents include the Galaxy Grand Duos smartphone, 2100 mAh battery, charger, stereo headset, USB data cable and a flip cover.

Hardware

The Galaxy Grand Duos has a 5-inch capacitive touch screen display at a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and 186 ppi pixel density, which is pretty low. The display is bright but the colors are not vibrant.

In the picture above, you can see the tiny RGB stripes on the display. There is a large ear piece above the display and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. There are proximity and ambient light sensors on the right side. There is a Samsung branding blow the ear piece and a Duos branding next to the camera.

There is a large home button below the display, which is usually common for Samsung’s Android smartphones. There are menu and back buttons on either sides.

It runs on Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) out of the box.

There is a micro USB slot on the bottom.

The 3.5 mm audio jack is at the top. It doesn’t have a secondary microphone which was present in the Galaxy S3.

The Volume rocker is on the left.

Power / Lock button is on the right. The device is 9.6 mm thick.

There is a 8-megapixel camera with a LED flash on the back. It is capable of recording 1080p full HD videos. The BSI sensor in the camera promises better images in low lighting conditions. Samsung promises zero shutter-lag, but there is a slight delay. There is a loud-speaker next to it. You can see tiny patterns on the plastic back, which is unique to the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos smartphone. Both the Galaxy S3 and the Galaxy Note 2 have a shiny plastic back cover without any patterns.

At 162 grams, it is a bit heavier than the Galaxy S3.

The plastic back cover could be removed easily, which reveals the 2100 mAh battery, SIM card slot and the memory card slot.

The primary SIM card slot is at the top, below the LED flash.

The SIM 2 slot is present below the battery. The phone uses a normal SIM card slots, unlike the Galaxy S3, which has a micro SIM slot. There is a micro SD card slot next to it, which supports cards up to 64GB.

Camera

The 8-megapixel auto focus camera takes nice shots. There are quick shortcuts on the left pane that lets you switch to either front or rear camera. There are on-screen options to change the flash settings, shooting mode, add effects and more. There are different shooting modes (Single Shot, Face detection, Panorama, Share Shot that lets you share photos to others via Wi-Fi Direct, Buddy photo share that lets you share photos with friends via face detection, Beauty and Smile Shot). You can shoot images with different effects including Posterise, Solarise, Green point, Washed out, Cartoonify, Sepia and lots more. There are different Scene modes including Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Party/Indoor, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dawn, Autumn Colour, Text, Candlelight, Firework, Backlight and Night.

Other camera features include, enable GPS tag, option to adjust the white balance, exposure value, Metering mode and ISO. You can also change the image resolution (8MP, 6MP, 3.2MP, 2.4MP, 0.9MP or 0.3MP). You can also edit the shortcuts from the settings easily.

The phone can record videos at full HD 1080p resolution. You can switch to the video mode from the toggle button on the right pane in the camera UI. The phone doesn’t have a dedicated camera button, so you have to use the on-screen button to capture shots and videos. The video mode has auto focus, but you also manually focus an object using touch to focus. The video quality is good, but the audio is not crisp due to the lack of a secondary microphone.

Smart Dual SIM

Samsung has started releasing Android smartphones with Smart Dual SIM feature starting from the Galaxy Ace Duos (GT-S6802). This doesn’t keep both the SIM cards active, but it can automatically forward calls from the phone number on SIM 2, even if a user is on the phone with SIM 1’s number. You can enable this from the SIM card manager under the settings. It doesn’t work on all the service providers since some service provider don’t allow call forwarding when busy. Service providers usually don’t charge you for call waiting, but call forwarding would be charged. This is definitely a much useful feature for dual SIM phones.

Software

The phone runs on Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) with Touchwiz user interface and has nature UX. The home screen shows the weather widget, a search bar with voice search and shortcuts. You can add up to 7 home screens.

The lock screen shows time and lets you swipe on the shortcuts to launch the apps quickly. Other than Swipe unlock, you can use several screen lock options including, motion, face unlock, face and voice, pattern, PIN and password.

The drop down notification shade has quick shortcut toggles for WiFi, GPS, Sound, Screen rotation, Bluetooth and more, but you cannot customize the shortcuts. There is a brightness control bar below that also lets you enable auto brightness. Since the phone ambient light sensor it adjusts the brightness automatically based on your surroundings. Jelly Bean has rich notifications that lets you perform several actions right from the notification bar. For example: When you take a screenshot, you can delete it immediately from the notification screen or share it quickly with the share option.

You can press and hold the home button to view the multitasking screen. It has options to quickly launch the device manager, open Google Now and clear all the background apps.

You can double press the home button to launch the S Voice, which is Samsung’s own personal assistant.

The phone has multi window option that lets you run 2 apps simultaneously on a single screen. You can press and hold the back button to launch the multi-window, and you enable the feature from the display settings. The Page buddy feature creates context related pages when you plug ear phones, dock the device or when you are roaming outside your home network. The Smart stay feature keeps the screen awake when you are looking at it. This doesn’t work in a room with low lighting conditions since it uses the front-facing camera to detect your eyes. The motion features include Direct call that lets you call a displayed contact or the user in the SMS, just by holding the phone to your ear, Smart alert and more.

In the settings there is Blocking mode that would let you disable notifications, alarm and timer for a period of time. There is power saving mode let you optimize the power by limiting the maximum CPU performance, and the screen power saving reduces the screen frame rate and lowers the brightness. This is much useful, and lets you save battery life. You can use this when you are not playing games, since it reduces the CPU performance.

You get 3.94 GB of user memory and 800 MB of usable RAM.

Apps

The phone comes with several pre-installed apps. The utility apps include, Calculator, Clock, Gallery, My Files (File Manager), S Memo (Note taking app), S Planner (Calendar), S Suggest (Automatically suggests apps), S Voice (Personal Assistant) and Voice Recorder. The Google apps include, Chrome, Google Search, Google+, Google Maps, Google Talk, Voice Search and YouTube. Other than these you also get pre-installed apps such as Dropbox, Flipboard and ChatON, Samsung’s own cross-platform messaging app. You can also use the Android webkit browser other than Chrome.

There is Samsung Apps apps store, and of course you have Google Play to download more apps. You can’t move apps to the micro SD card slot, which is a drawback since the phone has just 4GB of user memory.

Music Player and FM Radio

The music player has a simple UI. It can play MP3, AAC, and WMA formats. There are different tabs at the top that shows songs based on different categories such as All, Playlists, Albums, Artists and Folders. You can use the scroll bar on the right to browser through the library in the alphabetical order. The Music square scans your library and lists the songs based on different emotions such as Passionate, Exciting, Joyful and Calm. The SoundAlive equalizer settings has different equalizer presets. You can also adjust the speed of the song (0.5x to 2x) from the settings. You can stream the audio to a Bluetooth speaker or a headset since the phone supports A2DP.

The phone has FM Radio with RDS and recording. You can also pause the recording in the middle, and continue it later. The auto scan feature scans the stations automatically. You can also use the auto off feature in both the music player and FM radio to turn them off automatically after a particular time.

The loudspeaker output is good. Music from the bundled in-ear earphones are decent. It plays 1080p full HD videos smoothly, and the video player has pop-up play feature that lets you play the video in a smaller pop up window on top while doing other tasks.

Calls and Messaging

Since this is a dual SIM phone, you get options to call or send a message using either SIMs in the dial pad and the SMS compose screen. Calls went through well without any dropped calls. The new Samsung Keyboard has continuous input. It is just like the Swype, that lets you just glide to input text. Other keyboard features include, predective text input, character preview and more. It doesn’t have haptic feedback for input that is present in the Galaxy S3.

Performance and Benchmarks

The real life performance of the device was good for a mid-range phone . It has a 1.2 GHz dual-core Broadcom BCM28155 processor based on ARM Cortex-A9 and VideoCore 4 GPU. It beats the other phones powered by dual-core processors in several benchmarks.

Connectivity

The connectivity features include, 3G (HSDPA: 21 Mbps, HSUPA: 5.76Mbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth v 4.0 with A2DP and GPS/GLONASS. It has DLNA support to stream content to near by DLNA supported devices. The AllShare Play feature lets you share the content with other smart devices easily. You can enable the Kies via Wi-Fi enables in the connectivity settings to connect to the Kies app on your PC if you are connected to same WiFi network. The Indian version doesn’t come with NFC support.

Conclusion

There are just a few dual SIM smartphones in the Indian market with a 5-inch display and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. We reviewed the Micromax A116 Canvas HD and the Xolo A1000 dual SIM Android smartphones with a 5-inch HD display recently, but the 5-inch WVGA display at just 189 ppi pixel density in the Galaxy Grand Duos is disappointing. The Galaxy Grand Duos scores in other features like camera with full HD video recording, unique features such as multi-window, Smart Stay, Smart Dual SIM, Direct call and more. The phone packs a 2100 mAh battery, but the battery life is average. It last less than a day with both the SIM cards on use with few calls, 3G data, few hours of music and radio playback and some image captures. You can enable the power saving mode to extend the battery life. At a price tag of about ₹21,500, if you want a large dual SIM Android smartphone from Samsung, and can compromise on the low-resolution display for the unique software features it offers, go for it.

Pros

• Runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box
• Good performance
• Dual SIM support with Smart dual SIM feature
• Decent camera
• Removable battery

Cons

• Low resolution display
• Average battery life
• Slightly on the expensive side.
• Full size SIM card slot

 

 

Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus now available in India for ₹22,900

Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus is now on sale exclusively from online retailer Infibeam in India. It was announced earlier this year and packs a  4.3-inch (800 x 480 Pixels) Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touch screen display similar to the Galaxy S2, but it is powered by a  1.2 GHz dual-core Broadcom BCM28155 processor instead of dual-core Exynos chip in the Galaxy S2. It runs on Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) out of the box and has a 8MP auto focus camera with LED flash, zero shutter lag and a 2MP HD front-facing camera.

It has Samsung’s unique features such as S Voice,  Popup Video, Smart Stay, Direct Call, Smart Alert and AllShare Play. It has optional NFC support, but the Indian version doesn’t have NFC support.

Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus specifications

• 4.3-inch (800 x 480 Pixels) Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touch screen display
• 1.2 GHz dual-core Broadcom BCM28155 processor
• Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) OS
• 8.5mm thick and weighs 122 g grams
• 8MP Auto Focus Camera with LED Flash, 1080p video recording and 2MP front-facing camera
• 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio with RDS
• 1GB RAM, 8 GB internal memory, expandable up to 64GB with microSD
• 3G (HSDPA: 21 Mbps, HSUPA: 5.76Mbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, WiFi Direct, Bluetooth v 3.0, GPS/GLONASS
• 1650 mAh battery

The Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus is priced at Rs. 22,900 and is available from Infibeam.

Sony Xperia Z Review

A few weeks back, Sony announced its 2013 flagship device i.e. the Xperia Z. Quite possibly the best designed Sony handset ever, it combines impeccable craftsmanship with performance worthy of a class leading device. Sony has also attempted to build on its heritage of mobile, gaming and imaging by building components of each of those pillars into its device. It is a new design language which makes erstwhile gorgeous Sony handsets appear rather pedestrian. However in the weeks that have followed, both HTC and Samsung have revealed their plans for the year ahead which has allowed us to add a bit of perspective to our review. Keep reading on to find out if the Z has what it takes to take on these titans head on.

Hardware

The Xperia Z is one of those devices that you need to see in real life to really appreciate. The handset feels solid with vary a creak while the mirrored sides of the phone give it an appearance that could well be described akin to polished marble. The front of the smartphone proudly features a 5inch 1080p display panel which makes use of Sony’s Bravia Mobile Engine 2. We’ll talk in depth about the display further down the line.

The right side of the handset features a circular power button with a volume rocker below it. Above it is the recessed SIM card slot. Similarly on the top left you will find the microSD card slot and a micro USB port hidden behind flaps that can be rather hard to open but this is not surprising given the IPX5/7 rating of the smartphone.

The headphone jack is hidden behind a similar flap at the top of the phone while the left side has a covered slot for the microSD card. Contact points for using with docks are located on the left as well. A rather curious addition which is not too common in today’s unibody devices is the lanyard pinhole at the bottom of the phone.

Over all we were quite impressed by the design of the handset though the materials used end up being a major fingerprint magnet. Over the course of a few days of usage we also noticed scratched appearing on the shell. The handset seems to attract a lot of lint as well but we believe Sony’s claims of the handset being dust resistant as we did not spot any dust getting through inside the display. This will of course require extended testing and we’ll be sure to update this space with any further information.

Software

The Xperia Z runs a very clean UI layer on top of Android 4.2.1 with a focus on minimalism that frankly speaking, we prefer to the cartoony mess that is TouchWiz.

It would be quite fair to say that Sony has one of the best preloaded application suites out there. A Walkman app that ties into the Music Unlimited service merges aesthetics with above average capabilities. The application supports DLNA streaming and the usual graphic equalizers.

The “Movies” app in particular is very impressive as not only does it tie in with Sony’s service and also DLNA sharing but also has a very nifty recognition feature. The application tries to recognize a movie and offers cover art,  basic movie info. In case automatic recognition fails, users can search and select the correct details.

The gallery is also a stunner and offers an iterative update over the previous version. A very attractive globe view populates a map with your photographs on the basis of GPS data in the EXIF info. The application integrates with Facebook, Picasa and Sony’s own PlayMemories service.

Additional software features include a social aggregator that not many will use and a link for Playstation Mobile. The latter is just another way to get most of the same games that are available on the Play Store. That said, you might want to check back from time to time as Sony offers free games once in a while via the Playstation Mobile channel.

Performance

The Xperia Z is powered by a Snapdragon S4 processor which has four 1.5Ghz Krait cores, Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB of RAM. What this means is that it has more than enough power to get you through pretty much any task you throw at the phone. The specifications are also identical to the HTC Butterfly that we reviewed earlier. Any performance difference between the two devices here will essentially be down to optimization and the UI layer on top.

In AnTuTu, the Xperia Z has a minor lead over the Butterfly. The benchmark is an all rounder and tests CPU, GPU performance as well as memory speed. In Linpack too the Xperia Z leads but by a very small margin. Linpack can be used to test single threaded and multi threaded processor performance. Over all the Xperia Z is one of the fastest devices out there at the moment but only till the time the HTC One based on the Snapdragon 600 processor, the octa core Exynos chip running Galaxy S4 are widely available.

Display

The Xperia is part of the new breed of handsets to have a Full HD screen. The amazing pixel density makes everything look just that much better and the fairly small bezel makes the 5″ panel feel just about the perfect size.

The display itself is significantly better than the previous generation displays seen on Sony devices. That said, it is not even close to the Super LCD 3 panel on the HTC One or for that matter the one seen on even the One X. Viewing angles are limited and contrast levels are quite unimpressive. Sony’s Mobile Bravia Engine 2 technology boosts the contrast and brightness levels in photos and movie mode but outside that you’ll still end up being disappointed by the screen.

Camera

Sony has increased the resolution on the Xperia Z to 13MP and is using its Exmor RS stacked image sensor technology on the phone. The tech allows for a larger light sensitive layer which should theoretically result in better photos both in bright and low light. On the other hand, the phone does not have the relatively esoteric OIS system or super sized pixels as seen on the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC One. How much of an effect does this have in real life ? Read on to find out.

The phone shoots stills at 13MP resolution in 4:3 mode but switches to 9MP 16:9 photos. Sony has an interesting new Superior Auto mode baked into the camera app that switches scene modes based on the type of conditions. In our experience it worked quite well. Images are generally good though you notice a fair amount of noise at 1:1 levels.

Macro capabilities are also a bit of a hit or miss. The phone struggle to get a focus lock on macro objects however once it does, images tend to look quite good. The shot above was the only one in a series of five shots that ended up being in focus. This is more of a software issue than a hardware problem and one that we hope Sony will fix in a subsequent software update.

The usual range of modes like panorama and burst mode are also included in the camera software package. We found the stitching in panorama mode to be pretty much perfect and always ended up with a usable shot.

Low light shots are predictably not so good with a significant amount of noise. The camera lacks optical stabilization as seen on the HTC One and Lumia 920, which makes it not very competitive in low light situations and especially for videos.

Battery Life

The Xperia Z is equipped with a 2330 mAh non removable battery. The fairly frugal sensor and good optimization by Sony means that it is very much possible to get a full day of use on a single charge.

Sony has bundled in a few battery management options as well that promise to increase longevity on a single charge. Standby performance is particularly impressive on the phone with it barely sipping power while syncing data in the background.

Miscellaneous

Possibly the first global flagship device to be certified as water resistant and dust proof, the Xperia Z can be used in all weather conditions.

We tested out Sony’s claim regarding the phone’s water resistance and found it to be accurate. Amongst other features, the phone also supports Miracast based mirroring but we couldn’t test this one out because of a lack of a miracast adaptor.

Conclusion

The Xperia Z is a very good device but is let down by its disappointing display and a not so great camera. The build quality while attractive is susceptible to scratches and is most definitely a fingerprint magnet.

While it does have speedy performance, the upcoming competition will have processors a generation ahead and should theoretically perform even better. Priced at ₹38,000 the phone is a good choice for anyone looking for a high end, attractive, weather proof Android phone. If the best camera, display for multimedia creation and consumption are what you crave then you’ll be better served by the upcoming HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S4.

 

Pros

• Good build quality
• Waterproof / Dustproof
• Decent battery life

Cons

• Display
• Not so good camera

Exclusive : Samsung Galaxy S4 Launch in India set at May 10, Price ₹44,999

Just like last year, our Samsung insider has told us that Samsung will launch the Samsung Galaxy S4 on May 10 for India available either the same day or soon after via the online Samsung Store. The company has decided to keep the price of their newest flagship at ₹44999/- for the 16GB variant.

Here is the best part of the news, the Samsung Galaxy S4 set for India is the Exynos based Octa-core variant and not the quad-core as most were expecting. Although Samsung might change over to a quad core variant if the sales are slow as they were for the S2 in India and the company then launched a cheaper alternate chipset variant adding a G at the end of the model number. 

Samsung has taken a similar strategy with the Samsung Galaxy S4 ( or plans to) with the company expecting good sales numbers based on the hype created by the launch. Post that they plan to shift to a quad core variant similar to the one in the US.

Apart from the chipset the Samsung Galaxy S4 also has a 5 inch 1920x1080p Super-Amoled display, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage for the Indian variant, along with a 13 MP camera at the rear capable of full hd 1080p video at 30fps.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 also has Android 4.2.2 along with the latest TouchWiz UI.

Introducing Samsung GALAXY S 4

Samsung Galaxy S4 with 5-inch 1080p display, 8 core CPU, Android 4.2 announced

All the rumors being true,Samsung has finally announced their next flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4 at an event in New York. It packs a 5-inch Full HD (1920×1080 pixels) Super AMOLED display at 441ppi, powered by a 1.9 GHz Quad-Core Processor / 1.6 GHz Octa-Core Processor (depending on the markets) and runs on Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean). It has a 13MP rear camera with LED Flash, Full HD video recording and a 2MP front-facing camera. It has unique features including Smart Pause , Smart Scroll, S Translator, S Travel (Trip Advisor), S Voice Drive, S Health and lots more. It also has dual camera (Dual Shot / Dual Recording/ Dual Video Call).

Samsung Galaxy S4 Specifications

• 5-inch Full HD (1920×1080 pixels) Super AMOLED display at 441ppi
• 1.9 GHz Quad-Core Processor / 1.6 GHz Octa-Core Processor
• Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
• 13MP rear camera with LED Flash, Zero Shutter Lag, BSI and Full HD video recording
• 2MP front-facing camera
• 7.9 mm thick and weighs 130 grams
• 2GB RAM, 16GB / 32GB / 64GB internal memory,  expandable up to 64GB with microSD
• Infrared LED for smart TV remote
• 4G LTE LTE Cat 3 100/50Mbps) / 3G (HSPA+ 42 Mbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n and a/c, Bluetooth v 4.0, MHL 2.0, GPS/GLONASS and NFC
• 2600 mAh Battery

The Samsung Galaxy S4 comes in Black Mist and White Frost colors. It would be available from 327 mobile operators in 55 countries starting from the end of April. No word on pricing yet.