Top 10 Android Smartphones 2015

Top 10 Android Smartphones (UPDATED)

The world is always looking for something smarter, more intuitive and more advanced than what was available yesterday. So far, in the ever-changing world of mobile phones, the demand for something new is extremely high and the larger variety of devices is so far ruled supreme by handsets running on Google’s Android Platform. For those looking to switch from other operating systems to Android, here’s our list of the top 10 best Android phones in India today.

 The prices listed are best prices we have gathered from our market and official sources and will vary depending on your location, taxes etc. The list below is not sorted according to any specific rank.

Samsung Galaxy I9100 S II - Rs. 28,500
The Galaxy SII shot to stardom almost immediately after its launch. It’s still quite a sought after handset with features to rival some of today’s new handset models. At the time of its launch, the S  II was one of the scant few to feature a Dual Core processor (1.2GHz). Packed to the hilt with features, and toting Android’s Gingerbread OS, the SII is still one of the slimmest handsets to make it out of the Samsung camp. The S II is also capable of playing full HD video content and comes with multiple codec supports for almost all popular video files. For the Indian user, Android 4.0 aka ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich), is on its way and should be here real soon.

The once reigning champion

The SII also features -

• 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus Gorilla Glass display sporting a 480 x 800 pixel resolution
• 4G (HSPA+ 21MBPs), EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi with DLNA compliance (AllShare), Wi-Fi hotspot support and Wi-Fi Direct
• GPS with a-GPS
• Bluetooth 3.0+, USB 2.0 with MHL for media out and USB-on-the-go
• 8MP AF camera with LED flash supporting 1080p video capture @30fps
• Secondary 2MP camera
• FM radio
• 16GB and 32GB capacities with 32GB microSD card support

Samsung Galaxy Note - Rs. 32,500
The Galaxy Note is the second effort by a mobile manufacturer to try and bridge the gap between tablets and mobile handsets, the first being the Dell Streak that didn’t quite catch on. The Note however was quite a hit with the business class users as it came off as a device that managed to offer substantial speed with its 1.4GHz Dual Core and a large enough display to get work done on the fly. Like its younger brother, the Note also features plenty of video codecs built in to handle all format runs on Android Gingerbread with an ICS update on the horizon. The Samsung S-Pen or Smart Pen stylus can also be quite handy for both work and play or just jotting down notes

.

Big brother looms over the little SII

The Note also comes with -

• 5.3-inch Super AMOLED display with an 800 x 1280 pixel resolution (Corning Gorilla glass)
• 4G (HSPA+ 21MBPs), EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi with DLNA compliance (AllShare), Wi-Fi hotspot support and Wi-Fi Direct
• GPS with a-GPS
• Bluetooth 3.0+, USB 2.0 with MHL for media out and USB-on-the-go
• 8MP AF camera with LED flash supporting 1080p video capture @30fps
• Secondary 2MP camera
• FM radio
• 16GB and 32GB capacities with 32GB microSD card support
• Active noise cancellation

Samsung Galaxy Nexus - Rs. 24,500
Although this, the third edition to Google’s Nexus family, was never formally introduced to the Indian shelves, the handset is nevertheless still available via other vendors. The Galaxy Nexus is the second in this series to be made by Samsung and come preloaded with ICS. One of the main benefits of the Nexus devices is that you’re almost guaranteed to get Android updates earlier than other phones. With its 1.2GHZ Dual Core processor, this device is as fast as you need it to be to handle all kinds of functions seamlessly.

Google's got dibs on the updates

Features also include -

• 4.6-inch Super AMOLED display with an 720 x 1280 pixel resolution (Corning Gorilla glass with an Oleophobic coating)
• 3G (HSPA+ 21MBPs), EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi with DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot support
• GPS with a-GPS
• Bluetooth 3.0+, USB 2.0 with MHL for media out
• 8MP AF camera with LED flash supporting 1080p video capture @30fps
• Secondary 1.3MP camera
• 16GB capacity

Sony Xperia S - Rs. 30,500
Sony’s latest high-end Smartphone in their Xperia range was only recently launched for India and is the first device launched under the Sony branding (minus the Ericsson). It’s equipped with a 1.5GHz Dual Core processor and comes loaded with Sony’s Bravia Mobile Engine to enhance your visual experience. For some strange reason Sony is shipping the handset with Gingerbread but rest assured, an ICS update will make it to the Xperia S in time. This is also the very first Android powered device to come with a 12 megapixel camera. The camera settings include 3D panorama Sweep and geotagging amongst others. The unique transparent strip at the bottom of the handset also adds a bit of class and sex appeal to the overall look and feel of the handset that’s quite robust in design as it is.

Quite a sharp looker

Features also include -

• 4.3-inch LED Backlit LCD with an 720 x 1280 pixel resolution (Scratch resistant)
• 3G, EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi with DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot support
• GPS with a-GPS
• Bluetooth 3.0+, USB 2.0
• 12MP AF camera with LED flash supporting 1080p video capture @30fps
• Secondary 1.3MP camera
• FM Radio
• 32GB capacity
• HDMI out
• Active noise cancellation

Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo V - Rs. 17,200
The Neo V, with its chic oval shaped design proved to be quite a popular handset in its price range. It offers users a well balanced feature set that includes a 1GHz processor, 5MP camera, HDMI out and again Sony’s Mobile Bravia Engine to boost colors and textures on the display. Like the Xperia S the, Neo V also features Sony’s 3D camera option for a 3D Panorama Sweep and also has face and smile detection with touch focus. Sony’s Track ID is also on board along with their Timescape UI.

Well equipped and neat looking as well

The Neo V also comes with -

• 3.7-inch LED Backlit LCD with a 480 x 854 pixel resolution (Scratch resistant)
• 3G, EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi with DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot support
• GPS with a-GPS
• Bluetooth 2.1, USB 2.0 with USB-on-the-go
• 5MP AF camera with LED flash supporting 720p video capture @30fps
• Secondary VGA camera
• FM Radio
• 1GB on board memory with up to 32GB via memory card support
• HDMI out

Read more

Monday, 16 February 2015

Asus zenfone 5 vs Moto g 2nd gen vs Xiomi Redmi 1s

Writing this review after using all the three phone 
I had bought the zenfone 5 just after the launch but after one month of continuous use I realized that it had some fault in the hearing speaker. I checked with my friends zenfone and it was perfectly OK. Flipkart was courteous enough to refund the same.
After that I bought moto g new edition.

I am not writing the specs comparison which you can get easily at Flipkart and its deceiving sometimes as on paper they may claim heaven but what matters is real performance. I am writing this one for helping the confused buyers considering the user experience and the things which are not compared/ highlighted in online reviews but matters a lot.

Design and build: 

Both have the good build quality but I liked the moto g as it feels comfortable to hold. moto g is very soft on hand and for the same screen size its dimensions are less and thus easy to operate. Zenfone has a bigger form factor and the design is edgy so while holding in one hand or while talking its edges hurt.
Xiomi Redmi 1s is old school basic design with solid feel but @160g weight its too heavy to carry around.

Display:

Though on paper both have the same specs but the colors are more stunning and vivid on zenfone 5 it feels like an amoled screen. Moto g looks a bit washed out.
Xiomi Redmi 1s on paper has the same HD screen but it has a yellowish tinge in the screen and black is not true black as in Moto G so colour contrast is not that impressive.

Processor:

All the three have equally powerful processor not much difference.

Multitasking: 

Though moto g has the less ram but as it runs vanilla android its requirement is also less so again it's equal in both and I did not find any lag in both.

User experience:

zenui wins here as it gives many enhancements over the stock android but after android l upgrade on moto g the situation will completely change. Xiomi Redmi 1s MIUI is like a copy of iOS with lots of improvements but I didnt like personally as it doesnt look modern.

Gaming:

I played heavy games like Injustice: Gods among us, Asphalt:8 & Real Racing on both the phones.
In this aspect the Zenfone 5 is clear winner as you can play almost all the games in best graphics setting without lag but again be ready keep a charger beside phone as it will eat your battery at approx 10% per 15 min. 

If someone is expecting a great gaming experience in Moto g is not for you the above 
games runs flawlessly on Moto G at medium graphics setting. At high graphics setting the games may close in between due to low RAM but again Battery performance is much better here its 10% per 30 min.
Pls dont expect Xiomi Redmi 1s for heavy games it will get so hot that you may not be able to hold it.

Camera: 

Camera in both the devices are equally good but the default camera app on moto g is pathetic. I installed Google camera app and its great.

Battery:

This is the biggest con for zenfone 5. I had to carry my charger all the time. The battery management of Intel processors is still novice. I was traveling on train with GPS on as I was traveling for the first time to this place and the battery ran down from 99% to 30% in just 4.5 hours and still 2 hours journey left. What's the use of such phone which doesn't help in such situations. moto g is satisfactory in this aspect if not great as Qualcomm professors are frugal.

Xiomi Redmi 1s is OK in its price range but not great think that it consumes more battery due to heating of the device even on smallest of applications.

Sound:

The sound in the Zenfone 5 is really very low and in this aspect the Moto G is way ahead. Moto G is a great media device. Xiomi Redmi 1s s OK in its price range.

The discission completely depends on buyer but for me the battery life is more important compared to any other features so I prefer moto g although a bit pricey.

Note: Xiomi Redmi 1s has improved in the heating department after the latest update from company but it still gets heated up. it took 3 updates from the company with each apprx 30 mb, 300 mb & 512 mb respectively. So make sure you have a broad band to be able to install these updates.

Read more

Thursday, 1 January 2015

MOTO G (2nd Gen) Review

When you think of budget smartphones, you might think of small, chunky devices with sub-par screens and low-powered specs. This all changed when the original Moto G launched last year, as it revolutionised what we came to expect from budget smartphone performance. It was still, by current standards, a compact phone, though, with a small 4.5in display. Now, the latest version of Motorola's best-ever-selling smartphone, also called the Moto G, has a large 5in display, giving you great value performance on a big screen.

Exceptional Phone. Exceptional Price. The Moto G 2nd Generation is the successor to the highly successful Moto G. With a 5-inch HD screen and an incredibly fast Quad-Core processor, you can expect a smooth smartphone experience wherever you go.

Key Features of Moto G (2nd Gen)   

• 1 GB RAM
• Dual Sim (GSM + GSM)
• 1.2 Ghz Qualcomm Quad Core Processor
• 5-inch HD Screen
• Expandable Upto 32GB
• Android v4.4.4 (KitKat) OS
• 8 MP Primary Camera and 2 MP Secondary Camera

Now we know the key feature lets go in depth to see how these feature are actually.

5 Inch HD Display

The Moto G 2nd Generation is the first smartphone in its class to offer a 5-inch HD display. Enjoy music and videos on this brilliant display that gives you sharp quality all the time. The phone is also protected with Corning Gorilla Glass which gives you extra protection from everyday scratches and scrapes.

Measured contrast was also excellent, at 960:1. This high contrast level helped the screen produce plenty of detail in our high-contrast test images, and the screen's viewing angles were equally superb. When we placed the new Moto G to our side, we could still see the screen clearly with hardly any discolouration present onscreen.

Full stereo sound

We were able to experience the clarity of a full stereo sound as the Moto G features two speakers on the front of the phone. Whether it is your music or videos, the phone will play your media in full stereo sound.

1.2 Ghz Qualcomm Processor

The Moto G 2nd Generation phone comes with a powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor with 1.2GHz quad-core CPU and advanced graphics that let you switch back and forth between applications with ease.

MOTO G BATTERY LIFE

Battery life is excellent. In our continuous video playback test, the new Moto G's 2,070mAh battery lasted 9 hours and 39 minutes with the screen set the half brightness. This beats the original Moto G by about 30 minutes, so we were pleased to see the larger screen didn't take its toll on the phone's battery life. It doesn't quite match the 4G Moto G, which lasted another hour under the same conditions, but this is still an excellent result for a phone of this price and the new Moto G should be able to keep you going all day before you need to recharge it. 

MOTO G CAMERA

Motorola has also improved the Moto G's camera, which is great news as the camera was one of the old Moto G's weakest areas. The phone now comes with an 8-megapixel rear sensor with an f2.0 aperture, and you also have the option to change the aspect ratio from 16:9 to 4:3. The old Moto G, by comparison, was locked to 16:9. The new Moto G has all the same photo modes available, too, including HDR and Panorama modes.

Outdoors, our photos looked rich and much more natural than the old Moto G's images, and there was much more detail on show. The brickwork in our test scene was crystal-clear and the sky didn't suffer from any signs of overexposure. Objects further away were a little fuzzy compared to those in the foreground, but it's still a huge step up from most other budget cameras from similarly priced phones.

We were pleased with the Moto G's HDR mode, too. The effect was sometimes a little strong, but it helped bring a lot more definition to our shots and helped brighten what was otherwise a very gloomy afternoon. The accuracy of the colours wasn't affected by HDR either, so images still looked great regardless of whether HDR was turned on or off.

MOTO G CONCLUSION

The new Moto G isn't just an amazing bargain. It's a Rs.12999 phone that gives a surprising number of Rs.25000-plus mid-range handsets a real run for their money, and in most cases actually beats them hands down in terms of overall value. We didn't think it was possible to create a better phone than the original Moto G, but the latest version of Motorola's unstoppable handset rightly claims its crown as the new king of budget smartphones. It wins a Best Buy award.

If you want to buy this beauty. Just go here and get the best discounts.
Buy Now

And please let us know if there was something missing in this post below in comment box.

Read more

Monday, 29 December 2014

5 Time Management Techniques Worth Using

In his book  No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs, business coach and consultant Dan Kennedy reveals the steps behind making the most of your frantic, time-pressured days so you can turn time into money. In this edited excerpt, the author reveals five ways you can make the most of your time so you stop wasting it.

If you read every time management book ever written or go to every time management seminar offered, you'll be able to boil all the technique “stuff” down to just a few things worth doing. Let me save you some time and talk about a few key time management techniques:

Technique #1: Make and use lists. There is not a single time management discipline or system on earth that doesn’t revolve around making and using lists. You cannot carry it all in your head. For years, I’ve operated with four basic lists:

1. My Schedule. This is for the entire year, day by day.
2. Things-to-Do List. This is a basic “Things-to-Do” list organized by month, week, and day, prioritized as As, Bs and Cs.
3. People-to-Call List. My third list is a “People-to-Call” list, also prioritized alphabetically.
4. Conference Planner. This is just a page for each person I interact with a lot, where I jot down things I need to talk to them about as they occur to me in between meetings or conversations.

You have to get some sort of regimented, regularly used list-making system working for you. If you aren’t making lists, you probably aren’t making a lot of money either.

Technique #2: Tickle the memory with tickler files. The idea is simple: You have 90 file folders: red ones numbered 1 through 30, blue ones numbered 1 through 30, and white numbered ones 1 through 30 that represent the current month, next month and the month after that. Let’s assume you agree to follow up with a client on a particular matter on the 10th of next month. Take either that client’s whole file or that piece of correspondence or a handwritten note, and plop it into the blue file folder numbered 10. And forget it. On the 10th of next month, it’ll pop up all by itself and remind you to do it. Used right, tickler files reduce clutter, serve as automatic memory, and help organize daily activities.

Yes, I'm well aware that there are all sorts of “contact management programs” for computers, pads and phones that can substitute for the file folders in a drawer. If you prefer that, by all means, be my guest. But manual, automated, physical, virtual, or hybrid, a tickler file system can be a very good friend.

Technique #3: Minimize meetings. Nothing ever got done in a meeting. I hate 'em. For a lot of people, meetings are a place to hide out. Or preen and be important. But they're not a place to actually do work or get anything done. You need a strategy to avoid them. If you lead meetings, you need a strategy to abbreviate and focus them. If you must attend meetings, you need a strategy to escape from them at will.

Technique #4: Block your time. Most people’s schedules only have their locked-in-stone appointments with others. Mine also has my pre-allocated, locked-in-stone appointments with myself and my work. For each year, a lot of time gets locked down months ahead. For example, I clump most of my necessary phone appointments during a month into one day and book my Phone Day in each month a year ahead.

Month to month, I book in various work appointments: speaking engagements, coaching meetings, the time blocks for writing my monthly newsletters or for work on a book. My goal is to have as little unassigned time as possible. If you lay your calendar out before you and pre-assign or block as much of your time as possible, as much in advance as possible, you will then leave yourself only a small amount of loose, unassigned time. By blocking time for important, high-value functions, you prevent the demands of others from moving your best-value activities from number one to number ten on your list, over and over again.

Technique #5: Profit from “odd lot” time. Everything is now portable. A seminar by a great speaker, just about any book ever published, how-to information of every variety--it's all on audio CDs and DVDs, accessible through online media, inside your Kindle or Nook or iPad. You can use YouTube for something other than watching kittens water ski. Or you can make sure you have an actual book with you at all times. There is no excuse to simply waste time while waiting in an airport, stuck in traffic, parked in a reception room.

Some people give their odd-lot time to returning calls, texts or emails, or to talking on the phone. This is a mistake for three reasons. One, you’ll be doing it hurriedly and without proper preparation, and if any of it is important, it’s too important to do poorly. Two, it’s a bad precedent to set with those who have access to you and with whom you communicate. If you inject randomness, you lose the ability to impose organization. Three, it steals time you need to think, to read, to listen, to get and process input. Constant connectivity makes Jack a dull boy, dull meant as synonym for stupid.

Disciplined use of the time everybody else wastes can give you an edge. The now rich and famous writer of legal thrillers, Scott Turow, wrote his first novel using only his morning commutes into New York City on the train. All around him, others just killed the same time. For most people, these minutes don’t matter. But they can. So when you say to yourself “it’s only 10 minutes,” you miss the entire point of time.

View Original POST HERE

Read more

Wednesday, 24 December 2014

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker Review

Advertisement

Nintendo’s hit holiday season continues with an unlikely hero: Captain Toad, the toadstool-esque stock supporting character from Super Mario games, who takes the helm for a full-fledged puzzler based on mini games from Super Mario 3D World. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker takes unique advantage of the Wii U’s capabilities, in addition to being just generally super fun, and while it won’t have the console-selling mojo of a Super Smash Bros. or Mario Kart, it’s definitely another good reason to consider Wii U ownership.

Video ReviewFacebookLinkedInCaptain Toad: Treasure Tracker ReviewA Well-Deserved Spotlight For A Long-Suffering Friend

We can all sympathize with the Toads of the world; never seeking the spotlight, they’re content to populate Mario’s worlds and stand stolidly by as sympathetic helpers along his path to adventure. Sometimes they’re booby prizes when all you need is a princess, and sometimes they’re running guesthouses along the path to greatness, offering up comforting powerups to keep plumbers on their feet. Rarely, though, are they heroes.

View the Original article

Read more

Sunday, 7 December 2014

SwiftGate And The Future Of Music

View the Original article

Read more

Recruitment Platform Intern Avenue To Roll Out Across Europe With Vodafone

Intern Avenue is a startup which matches college undergraduates/graduates searching for paid internships with employers by using a data-based scoring system. To date, around 2,000 employers and 40,000 intern applicants have registered with the service in the UK. But it’s now secured a major distribution deal with Vodafone Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the telecoms giant, to expand the service across Europe.

Founder Dupsy Abiola, a former lawyer and Oxford graduate, has created a data-driven way for young people to get a foot on the jobs ladder and solved the headache of corporates having to scour through though thousands of applications.

Abiola told me that with Vodafone as a distribution platform, they are

View the Original article

Read more

Microsoft Rolls Out Support For Video Calling Between Skype And Lync Users

Last year, Microsoft announced that its consumer-facing Skype communications service and its enterprise-focused counterpart would begin to interoperate, first with IM and audio, and later expanding to support video.

Today, the company says, the video integration is complete.

Skype users can now video call contacts on Lync, and vice versa, Microsoft announced this morning. The change follows a series of deeper integrations between the two products, the latter of which will be rebranded

View the Original article

Read more

This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: CarPlay, Google Glass + Intel, And Star Wars

Friday is a beautiful thing, and this morning’s podcast celebrates that.

Pioneer released a new version of its in-car AppRadio system that integrates CarPlay, and the WSJ reported that Intel would replace TI under the hood of the next version of Google Glass. Meanwhile, the tech world is salivating over the new Star Wars trailer.

We discuss all this and more on this week’s episode of the TC Gadgets Podcast featuring Matt Burns, Darrell Etherington, and Jordan Crook.

Have a good Friday, everybody!

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific. And feel free to check out the TechCrunch Gadgets Flipboard magazine right here.

Click here to download an MP3 of this show.
You can subscribe to the show via RSS.
Subscribe in iTunes

Intro Music by Mendhoan.

0
SHARES0Share0Tweet0Share000AdvertisementAdvertisement

View the Original article

Read more

Microsoft Releases Cortana In 4 New Countries

If you live in Germany, Italy, France or Spain, you can now get your Cortana on. Microsoft today announced that it has rolled out its virtual, digital assistant to those four new European countries for users that are part of its Windows Phone Developer Preview Program.

In short, if you’re an early adopter sort in one of those locales, you can finally bust out Cortana like the Windows Phone kids in the States have been doing for some time. Cortana initially shipped with Windows Phone 8.1, an update to the Windows Phone platform that is now understood as a bridge between versions 8 and 10 of the Windows ecosystem.

Microsoft previously rolled Cortana out to the UK and Chinese markets, with the latter seeing a host of localized additions. It will be interesting to see if the addition of Cortana to new markets on the continent assists the mobile platform in its quest for new market share.

Microsoft has big plans for Cortana. The tool is expected to roll out in Windows 10, making the service not merely a mobile play, but something that embodies the company’s larger push to expand what it thinks of as

View the Original article

Read more

Hands On With Sony’s PlayStation 4 20th Anniversary Edition Console

drizzled)0
SHARES…
moreNext StoryMicrosoft Releases Cortana In 4 New Countries

FacebookLinkedInPlayStation 4 20th Anniversary Edition Hands-On

Sony has a new version of its PlayStation 4 console going on sale soon, which is limited to only 12,300 units globally, and which comes in the original gray color of the first PlayStation hardware. The anniversary edition will retail for $500, which seems steep, but it also includes a stand for vertical mounting and a PlayStation 4 Camera in the box, neither of which are included in any of the console’s standard packages. The stand is $36 and the camera is $60 when purchased separately, so you’re actually not paying much more for the unique color scheme and case design.

View the Original article

Read more

Bitsbox Debuts Monthly Coding Projects That Teach Kids To Build Simple Apps

When Bitsbox co-founder Scott Lininger learned to code, it was on a TRS-80 color computer his mom and dad bought him when he was a kid. He says he taught himself coding by copying from the book that came with the computer. Now a dad himself, Lininger wanted to offer his daughter the opportunity to experience learning to code much in the same way he did, but couldn’t find a service that he felt focused on the part of learning that’s really necessary: the part where you practice actually typing code.

View the Original article

Read more