Intex Cloud Flash [year] Review

Intex Cloud Flash 2026 Review

January 3, 2018 Richard Gomez 0

The Cloud Flash is Intex's most recent entry in its 'Cloud' series of smartphones and it's just in time for the holiday rush. This Rs.10,000 smartphone boasts off having a protective glass back and of course 4G connectivity. However, the Intex has its work cut out for it as the Lenovo K3 Note (Review | Pictures) happens to reside in this segment too. The latter is one of our favourite phones of 2015 and was one of the most popular handsets on Flipkart this year. Let's see if the Cloud Flash has what it takes to pose as a better alternative.
Look and feel
Intex has certainly stepped up its game in the build and finish department. With smooth, rounded edges and Gorilla Glass for the front and back, the Cloud Flash doesn't feel cheap. The glass back does make the phone very slippery though and can easily slip through your fingers or slide of an uneven surface.
Dominating the front is a 5-inch HD AMOLED display, which produces saturated colours along with good..

Nexus 5X [year]

Nexus 5X 2026

February 22, 2016 Richard Gomez 0

Google's Nexus line has always been about showing off the best of Android. Frustrated with its partners' insistence on developing custom UIs and loading up their phones with bloat, Google decided to create a showcase collection of devices to hopefully serve as inspiration. After a string of mainstream successes, Google went high-end last year. The Nexus 6 was the largest (and most expensive) of all Nexus smartphones till then, and not everyone was thrilled.
This year, Google is putting out two models: the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P. This allows it to show off a flagship-class all-metal phone with a massive screen as well as serve the mainstream market which needs more of a workhorse. Google is of course pushing these out to demonstrate just how it thinks Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) devices should look and feel. They both come with Nexus Imprint; Google's native Android fingerprint recognition framework, which is a headlining Android 6.0 feature.

Today we're reviewing..

Yu Yutopia [year]

Yu Yutopia 2026

January 1, 2018 Richard Gomez 0

The Yu Yutopia, Yu's ticket to enter the high-spec smartphone category, has been teased for months. Now officially announced, the device is up for pre-order via Amazon, priced at Rs. 24,999 and will start shipping on December 25. Yu Televentures CEO Rahul Sharma unveiled the smartphone at a press event and also announced a new service dubbed Around Yu, which aims to reduce the time taken to download apps for different services such as shopping, booking hotels, flights, taxis, and more. Touted as the 'world's most powerful' smartphone, the Yutopia aims to take on OnePlus 2 and others that fall in the same price segment. The smartphone comes with top-of-the-line specifications but does it only look good on paper or does it really perform as promised? We got our hands on a sample device, and here are our first impressions.
The design of the Yutopia takes clues from other Yu siblings. It sports a metal unibody with antennas running around all four corners on the rear p..

OnePlus X [year] first impressions

OnePlus X 2026 first impressions

February 22, 2016 Richard Gomez 0

Soon after the launch of the OnePlus 2 back in July, OnePlus started creating buzz about another handset due this year which would cater to a different audience. The OnePlus X, the Chinese company's third smartphone, was finally unveiled on Thursday at simultaneous events in New Delhi and Beijing, among other cities.
OnePlus had also announced plans earlier this month to start manufacturing phones in India, further further affirming that the company considers India one of its most important overseas markets.
At the launch event, we asked OnePlus India General Manager Vikas Agarwal how the OnePlus X fits into the company's smartphone lineup, as the older OnePlus One still has better innards. Agarwal, without specifying an exact time frame, confirmed that the One will eventually be discontinued – though not this year. This made it clear that the OnePlus X is here for a reason, and the company wants to make sure that it caters to consumers looking for a powerful device but who c..

iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus

iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus

February 9, 2016 Richard Gomez 7

Don't let looks deceive you.
The new iPhones look the same as last year's models on the outside. But changes on the inside matter, from camera improvements to new sensors that enable quicker access to tasks.
I had only about 90 minutes to try out the new Apple products unveiled Wednesday – not enough time, given that Apple Inc. has a larger iPad, a new Apple TV device and new software for the Apple Watch, alongside the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. I wasn't able to test the new iPhone cameras in natural settings, for instance, to say whether pictures are really better with 12 megapixels, instead of 8 megapixels in the previous iPhones.
(Also see: iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus With 3D Touch Display Launched)
But I was able to try 3D Touch, a new way to interact with the iPhone. You save a few taps by pressing and holding on an app icon to go directly to a particular function. Microsoft's Windows phones let you create shortcuts as home screen icons, but few people ..

Wickedleak Wammy Titan 5 [year]

Wickedleak Wammy Titan 5 2026

December 25, 2017 Richard Gomez 0

Wickedleak is an Indian smartphone company that we'd like to imagine was inspired by Julian Assange's popular whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. Of course, the two have nothing to do with each other, but we still find the name amusing. Formed in 2009, the company has grown to becoming quite a talking point in the Indian smartphone arena.
The Wickedleak Wammy Titan 5 is our review product of the day. This behemoth of a smartphone is large, heavy and undeniably phablet-esque. Does it have what it takes to justify the Rs. 13,990 price tag? We find out in our review.
Look and feel
With its 5.5-inch screen, the Wammy Titan 5 can rightfully be classified as a phablet. It's also incredibly heavy and thick. Although the Wickedleak website specifies the thickness of the phone at 8mm, it feels thicker. The back has a removable textured plastic panel, while the frame and edges are metallic. After a closer look at the phone, we found the build quality and finishing a bit crude. From..

Coolpad Note 3 Review [year]

Coolpad Note 3 Review 2026

February 22, 2016 Richard Gomez 0

Coolpad entered India less than six months ago with two models, the Coolpad Dazen 1 (Review) and the Coolpad Dazen X7 (Review | Pictures). Both grabbed quite a bit of attention for their low prices, especially the Dazen 1 which seemed like it would put a lot of pressure on Indian as well as fellow Chinese companies in the critical sub-Rs. 10,000 market. Following those two launches, however, the company went pretty silent.
Now, following a corporate restructuring, the company is leaving the Dazen name and identity behind. Here in India, Coolpad is making up for lost time with a dramatic new launch. Even though we should be used to companies throwing more and more features into low-priced phones, the Coolpad Note 3 really made us sit up and pay attention. For just a shade under Rs. 9,000, Coolpad is promising a huge screen, large battery, good looks, fast processor, 4G LTE, lots of memory – and as the icing on top, a high-quality fingerprint sensor. There's a lot of hype to live up..

iBall Slide i701 Review: Don't Judge Books by Their Covers

iBall Slide i701 Review: Don’t Judge Books by Their Covers

February 10, 2016 Richard Gomez 0

How low can prices go? iBall's announcement of the launch of its latest tablet, the Windows-based Slide i701, made us sit up and take notice. Our first reaction was disbelief, and then we had to resist the urge to dismiss it as a joke. There have been plenty of products over the years promising advanced functionality at unbelievable prices, and most of them have been absolute junk.
Such products infuriate us not only because they are essentially e-waste before they're even out of their boxes, but also because the people who actually buy such things tend to be the ones who don't have any money to spare in the first place; ones who trust advertisements and hope that they're getting a killer bargain only to be devastated a short way down the line. Low-brow manufacturers know this and deliberately prey on those who are the weakest, which is something we cannot abide.
We couldn't help but be suspicious of the iBall Slide i701's shockingly low price tag. This th..

Lenovo Vibe Shot [year]

Lenovo Vibe Shot 2026

December 5, 2017 Richard Gomez 0

Lenovo isn't known to shy away from experimenting with its phones. We've had the 'layered' Vibe X2 (Review | Pictures) in the past and, more recently, the overgrown Phab Plus (Review | Pictures).
Today, we'll be reviewing its camera-centric Lenovo Vibe Shot. We first saw this phone at its announcement at MWC 2015, and it then launched in India in September. The Vibe Shot is an upper-mid-range offering that aims to capture the hearts of photography lovers with its compact-camera-like design and features. Let's see if it's worthy of its Rs. 25,000 price tag.
Look and feel
Lenovo has done an excellent job with the design and build of the phone. The monolithic look with an aluminium frame and glass on the rear oozes style. It's quite slim at 7.6mm and doesn't weigh your pockets down too much. The 5-inch form factor also makes it easy to grip and use with one hand most of the time.
The 5-inch, full-HD IPS display produces sharp images with pun..

Moto X Style Review: Falling a Bit Short

Moto X Style Review: Falling a Bit Short

February 22, 2016 Richard Gomez 0

Motorola struck a chord with Android purists with the original Moto X back in 2013, and it resonated loud and clear in India too. Since then, the company has been on a winning streak with very successful launches in the budget and upper mid-range phone segments. The company's outgoing flagship, the Moto X (Gen 2) (Review | Pictures), added some much-needed improvements to the camera and battery performance of the original. Today, we have the third generation of the device, but instead of calling it 'Gen 3', Motorola has gone with the name Moto X Style or Pure Edition, as its known in some countries.

The Moto X Style features incremental updates in most areas and fixes one major gripe we had with its predecessor, which was the lack of expandable storage. But is this enough to make it a must-have for those shopping in the Rs 30,000 segment? Motorola's own Google Nexus 6 (Review | Pictures) retails for around the same price point today, and offers very similar specif..

Xiaomi Mi Pad [year] Review

Xiaomi Mi Pad 2026 Review

April 9, 2019 Richard Gomez 0

After taking the smartphone world by storm, Xiaomi is trying to repeat its success where tablets are concerned. We've been almost universally impressed by what the Chinese company has managed to produce given the prices it charges, and the rest of the industry has had to scramble to match this new competitive force. As customers and compulsive bargain hunters ourselves, Xiaomi has brought nothing but good news this past year.
Recent launches haven't had as much of an impact as the first few did, but that's set to change again with the new Xiaomi Mi Pad. While there are plenty of Android tablets in this price range already, the company is promising high-end features and the kind of quality that competitors do not deliver. Apple, in particular, stands out as the prime target – not the horde Android manufacturers offering oversized phones.
Xiaomi's biggest constraint has been its strategy of hosting weekly online flash sales, which might be great for generating some in..

Gionee Marathon M5 [year] review

Gionee Marathon M5 2026 review

February 16, 2017 Richard Gomez 0

Battery life was never a problem back in the pre-smartphone era, but ever since we became slaves to touchscreens, it has been a major concern. Until new technology is developed, we are stuck with Lithium Ion batteries and there's only so much it can deliver. The most obvious way to get more battery life is increase size and capacity, which is exactly what Gionee has been doing with its Marathon series.
We reviewed the Marathon M4 (Review | Pictures) quite recently, which shattered our internal battery life record in a test of continuous video playback. We're expecting the Marathon M5 to do even better, as this time, Gionee has squeezed in two 3010mAh batteries for good measure. But is the Marathon M5 a phone you can actually live with or is it merely a power bank masquerading as a phone? Has Gionee fixed all the issues with its predecessor to make it more likable? Let's find out.
Look and feel
The Marathon M5 features a combination of metal and plastic which feels stu..