smartphones

Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016) and Galaxy A5 (2016) First Impressions

Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016) and Galaxy A5 (2016) First Impressions

February 8, 2016 Richard Gomez 4

Samsung, at its Southwest Asia Forum 2016 in Kuala Lumpur, announced details of its new Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A7 2016 edition smartphones for the Indian market. The handsets were first unveiled last year in China, though the company had not disclosed anything about the availability of the two refreshed models outside China at that time.
The Galaxy A series was first launched in late 2014, and now the South Korean giant claims that it has contributed to increase in its worldwide 4G market share, along with the J-series. According to Samsung, its share in 4G devices increased from 25.9 percent in December 2014 to 60.6 percent in December 2015. The company however declined to share exact numbers.
We spent some time with both the new Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A7 2016 edition smartphones at the launch event and here are our first impressions.
At the press briefing in Kuala Lumpur, Samsung stressed that the new generation Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A7 are designed using glass and metal. This was evident..

Nikon Coolpix AW120 [year] Review: Travelling Tough

Nikon Coolpix AW120 2025 Review: Travelling Tough

November 15, 2018 Richard Gomez 0

If recent industry reports are to be believed, the market for point-and-shoot digital cameras is dwindling year-on-year. This isn't surprising giving the increasing popularity of smartphones, especially ones with more-than-capable cameras. The need of the hour for digital camera manufacturers is to come up with products that can do things smartphones can't, in terms of both, features and image quality.
Some manufacturers have tried to stand apart with rugged or a waterproof cameras which cater to people who enjoy travelling or are into extreme sports. Nikon, an industry veteran, has the Coolpix AW series of point-and-shoot cameras servicing this demographic. Apart from being waterproof, these cameras are also shockproof and could very well be great travel companions.
Nikon unveiled 16 new cameras in its 2014 Spring Series, one of which was the Coolpix AW120 – an upgrade to the AW110. The new model is almost identical to its predecessor except for a slight increase in heft, hi..

Micromax Canvas 5 [year]

Micromax Canvas 5 2025

February 16, 2016 Richard Gomez 0

As expected, Micromax on Wednesday took the wraps off its much-awaited “Canvas flagship” smartphone, the Canvas 5. The company has this time priced its premium new smartphone at Rs. 11,999, which is interestingly Rs. 6,000 less than the price its predecessor, the Canvas 4, was launched at. Buyers will also receive free double data on 4G for six months from Airtel on the purchase of the handset.
Arriving more than two years after the launch of its predecessor in 2013, the Canvas 5 is a definite upgrade. However, the specifications are not that ground-breaking by today's standards. The device is likely to appeal to media users more than power users, or those who wish for a superior smartphone camera at this budget level.
The Canvas 5 has its own pros and cons in each department, most of which we will discuss here. The 4G LTE-enabled Micromax Canvas 5 sports a 5.2-inch display. Above the screen, you have a speaker grille along with the front-facing camera on one side and the front-..

Lenovo Phab Plus [year] Review

Lenovo Phab Plus 2025 Review

February 8, 2016 Richard Gomez 7

Yes, the new Lenovo Phab Plus is enormous and unweildy. No, it's not worth buying if you do not explicitly want a huge phone – or a tablet that can also make voice calls. Now that that's out of the way, we can look at it for what it really is rather than dismissing it as ridiculous: a hybrid device designed for people who spend a lot more time playing games and watching videos than talking on the phone.
Lenovo stresses the screen and audio quality of the Phab Plus, which is a way of saying it's an entertainment-focused device. There really isn't anything else like it on the market. With a metal body and a price tag close to Rs. 20,000, Lenovo is trying to create a premium niche in the voice-calling tablet market. Let's see if the company has tapped a whole new product category, or whether the Phab Plus is just a novelty that will soon be forgotten.
Look and feel
The very first thing to deal with when it comes to this phone is its size. With a 6.8-inch screen an..

Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 - [year] review

Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 – 2025 review

August 23, 2018 Richard Gomez 0

Point-and-shoot cameras are at an interesting place. Many believe that point-and-shoot cameras will soon be replaced by smartphones that have very capable cameras, and the likes of iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920 and others are proof of this trend. However, one advantage that point-and-shoots continue to have over smartphones is optical zoom, and having a huge optical zoom can indeed be of great use.
Sony likes to call the Cybershot DSC-WX300 the smallest point-and-shoot camera with a 20x optical zoom, and on it's own the camera indeed looks tiny. Let's take it for a test and see what it holds.
In the Box
Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 cameraManualWarranty cardPower cableUSB chargerUSB cable for chargingHand strapBatteryHDMI cable4GB memory cardBuild/ Design
The Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 is a small little camera when you hold it in your hand, but the moment you put it next to another point-and-shoot you realise it is not as small as it initially seems. Having said that, you have to admire..

10 Big Technology Trends Likely to Emerge in 2016

10 Big Technology Trends Likely to Emerge in 2016

February 21, 2016 Richard Gomez 0

Predicting the future is a dangerous game. It's easy to speculate and easier still to hope, but what we have to do is carefully look at all the promising developments we've seen in the recent past and then evaluate how we think they'll keep going, and what else they'll lead to. Some companies are kind enough to provide roadmaps and projections, but surprises can pop up out of anywhere, anytime.
We've looked at the state of tech and of the world at large to bring you our list of ten things we think will be significant in the world of personal technology in 2016. From global-scale trends that will shape politics and policy to the individual features of our next smartphones, there's a lot to think about.
1) The death of the traditional desktop OS
With Microsoft taking full control of Windows 10 updates and doing whatever it can to push users to its latest OS, the traditional notion of the OS is dead in 2016. From forced updates to a dependency on being comp..

Lytro Camera [year] Review

Lytro Camera 2025 Review

February 13, 2016 Richard Gomez 0

When cameras went from analog to digital, it was one of those once-in-a-generation shifts, like going from black-and-white film to Kodachrome. But whether you're using a 35-millimeter or a point-and-shoot, the steps you take to shoot a picture have remained the same: you focus on something, then push a button to record the image.
But what if you could take a picture and refocus it after you had taken it? What if, just by clicking around a photo on your computer screen, you could choose which part of the image should be clear and which part should be blurry?
You can with a new camera called Lytro, and it's astonishing. With a Lytro, you take a picture as you would with any camera, but the digital file it creates can be refocused after the fact.
Inside the Lytro: An example of how the Lytro works can be found here.Inside the Lytro: An example of how the Lytro works can be found here.
This is fairly mind-blowing. Imagine a wedding photo with the bride in the foreground and the w..

Gionee S6 Review [year]

Gionee S6 Review 2025

February 21, 2016 Richard Gomez 0

Gionee has been rapidly expanding its 'Elife S' series off late. It launched the Gionee S Plus in November and has now launched its fourth offering, the Gionee S6. While the two smartphones come with almost identical specifications, the S6 emphasises on a more premium build, as well as support for VoLTE.
The phone is priced at Rs. 19,999 and in terms of product positioning, the Gionee S6 will go up against the Oppo R7 Lite (Review). Let's see how the S6 fares against the competition.
Look and feel
The Gionee S6 doesn't exactly have an identity it can call its own. Unlike a current-gen Motorola phone – which is instantly recognisable due to its iconic design – one could easily mistake the S6 for a smartphone by Huawei or LeEco. To be fair, this is probably true of most offerings launched by Chinese companies these days. Having said that, Gionee has done a good job with the unibody aluminium build and the phone looks pretty good in rose gold. It's comfortable ..

Le 1s and Le Max First Impressions

Le 1s and Le Max First Impressions

November 6, 2018 Richard Gomez 0

LeEco, the Chinese Internet conglomerate better known by its former name Letv, has finally launched its first products for the Indian market. The Le Max and Le 1s have been unveiled and will be available in India using the infamous flash sale model, in which interested buyers need to sign up in advance for a chance to buy one of a limited number of units that will be available.
The company recently garnered a lot of interest with its CES announcement of the Le Max Pro, first smartphone to sport the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor. Letv recently rebranded itself to LeEco (short for Le Ecosystem) ahead of the Indian launch, and offers live-streaming, e-commerce and cloud services and sells smartphones, TV set-top boxes and smart TVs, among many other things, in its home market China. At the launch event in New Delhi, LeEco had members of its SuperFans community in attendance. We have seen many other brands including Asus, Meizu, and Xiaomi following the same strategy at their respe..

Nokia CEO Says 'Not in a Hurry' to Get Back Into Smartphone Business

Nokia CEO Says ‘Not in a Hurry’ to Get Back Into Smartphone Business

March 18, 2016 Richard Gomez 0

Nokia, which sold its mobile and devices divisions to Microsoft in 2014, has on several occasions confirmed it intends to get back into the smartphone business. Now, the company says it will not be hasty with its re-entry. Finland's biggest company on the sidelines of its talk about the adoption of 5G network ahead of Mobile World Congress also addressed its intentions of getting back into selling smartphones.
Nokia cannot create smartphones products until the fourth quarter to 2016, as part of the buyout agreement with Microsoft. But for its comeback, the company doesn't want to rebuild its vast manufacturing and selling infrastructure. Instead, it is seeking out a partner that could handle those aspects.
But it's not that easy, and Nokia doesn't want to settle for less. CEO Rajeev Suri told Re/Code in an interview that his company “doesn't want to just put logos on somebody's devices.” The smartphone, Suri says, “needs to feel like [a] Nokia, what Noki..