Huawei Sonic : World's First Cloud SmartPhone

What do you expect from a low price smart phone? Huawei Sonic is that low price smart phone which is much smarter than a smart phone could be. It is world’s first phone based on cloud services and Android 2.3v Gingerbread and is offering a 20GB storage (4GB bundled micro SD card and 16GB cloud net drive).

All thanks to Huawei, they allowed us to have a review device. I was not expecting much out of a low price phone, but when I started using it, I just feel in love with it and made it my primary phone. Let's dig deep to know whats so special about this phone. 

Design

It has contemporary looks as a high class smart phone has, with an entirely plastic body a chrome stripe is adding little touch of elegance to it and the round corners are making the phone enough comfortable to hold.

  

Click on the Images to Enlarge

Display

Even at such a reasonable price Huawei hasn’t compromised with its screen. It is 3.5-inch capacitive screen, large enough for one to type comfortably. The resolution is quite acceptable 320X480 display where one can enjoy videos, movies, games etc. Considering the price of the phone one cannot argue with the resolution it is providing us.

Performance 

Sonic has a decent performance for users which do not prefer many apps running on the background. It has a 600 MHz ARM11 processor (the Qualcomm MSM7227), and 256Mb of RAM. The RAM might not look handsome but it is ample for normal phone users further the built-in memory management in Android very neatly keeps the RAM free for use. It smoothly supports the multi touch zoom, comes with a GPS receiver, 3.2 megapixel camera which also works as a VGA recorder, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The phone in all is true worth of money.Let us explore some of the Cloud Services it is providing us.

Features 

1. Cloud+

Huawei is presenting Cloud + services to its users. This service is integrated into Sonic’s platform. It is offering features like Message+, Phone Finder, Cloud+ Drive, Phone Finder, SNS contacts Integration and you can access them anywhere.

Cloud+ Drive

Huawei is presenting Cloud + services to its users. This service is integrated into Sonic’s platform. It is offering features like Message+, Phone Finder, Cloud+ Drive, Phone Finder, SNS contacts Integration and you can access them anywhere. 

2. Message+ 

Message+ is your own way to social networking where you can share texts, photos, music, videos, and documents with your friends. You can see who all are typing and who are not, get read and received receipts, plus you never have to worry about the size of file you are sending. Huawei automatically detects your message+ friends and adds them to your contact list; you can also add your friend easily by just entering his account name.

Group Chat

You have a feature of group chat where groups can easily be created and friends can be connected to it with message +

3. Huawei Social Streams

Huawei Streams provide your favorite social networks in one package. Experience Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn with photo sharing, automatic updates etc. with minimal clicks

4. SNS Contacts integration 

With SNS contact integration you can easily synchronize your Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn contacts with your phonebook. Your contact’s updates, albums and your interaction history with the contact are closely integrated with your contact’s information. 

5. Cloud+ Synchronization and Backup

Cloud+ Contacts

You have to leave all your worries behind of losing your contacts, all you have to do is turn on the synchronize option in phone settings and you can synchronize contacts from your phone to the Cloud+ server in real time. Contact information updates or additions on your phone will be automatically synchronized to the Cloud+ server which you can use in your other Huawei phones or tablets.

All Backup

All Backup is an intelligent way to backup all your phone data if in case you lost your phone then also your data could be easily retrieved 

6. Phone Finder 

Find my Phone.

If you have lost your phone you don’t have to sweat on the benches of a police station waiting for your turn to lodge a report, you just have to log on to www.hicloud.com, use the Phone finder feature to locate your phone on the Google maps as well as perform other useful functions to protect your data.

Play a sound. Send an alert message.

Phone finder is an awesome feature using which you can easily locate your phone even if it is in silent mode. If you have left your phone in cafeteria, or in office or it is slid under the blanket, with phone finder you can play a sound to get someone’s attention.

Lock your phone

You can keep your private information on phone, passwords or anything and it can be easily protected as you can lock and unlock your phone from an internet account until your phone is back in your hands.

Erase all your data from the phone

This feature can easily erase all your data from your phone message or emails or contacts in case you lose it or you give it to someone else to use and thus your data is not misused by another person.

Verdict 

Huawei with its rich look, Android platform, Cloud services and performance is surely the best phone you can get at such a price. In short Huawei Sonic is surely a must buy!

The Best of CES 2012

World’s largest conference, CES, connecting the Global market with Consumer Electronics is back this January in Las Vegas Representing 2000 industry members. Consumer Electronics Show or famously known as CES is a legendary show that has started 40 years ago in June 1960 in New York. It is run by Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), a trade association promoting growth in $ 186 billion US Consumer Electronics Industry.

The most awaiting tech show was conducted on Monday January 9 which, though it was a week later than usual but it has left its impressions behind.

Covering more than 1.8 million square feet and, it has made Las Vegas the city of techies with more than 140,000 attendees fall across the globe until Thursday, where the biggest and renowned names are there to talk about their technology plans for 2012

Lytro Cameras 
(https://www.lytro.com/camera)

Lytro cameras have already made big news in 2011 as the biggest innovation in cameras seen in decades. It is a focus free camera which means that you can shoot the scene and focus later. Unlike the conventional cameras which captures single plane of light Lytro captures the entire light field which enables to focus or refocus anywhere in the picture after the photo is taken.

This is available on pre order and cost you from $399 (8GB) to $499/- (16GB). Lytro camera is selected as the best Gadget by visitors of CES 2012.

Swivl
(http://www.swivl.com/)

Swivl is a mobile accessory which helps you to video shoot yourself using a smart phone like iPhone. This may look really trivial to most of you but needs a second look since this won as the best gadget showed in CES2012 in online polls. The reason is simple. This is an elegant solution to satisfy the need to shoot yourself in a video using your smart phone which you come across very often.

It has a sensor enabled and motorized base for your iPhone (or any other mobile video) with a paired marker. You can hold the marker like a remote control or wear it and forget it. The sensor connection allows the base to “follow you” and keeps you in the camera field of view. The photo reproduced above shows the marker which is clipped into his shirt pocket. This technology combination is ideal for capturing video of yourself for vlogging, making education videos etc. Currently it works with all iOS devices and support for Android is promised.

Samsung 15” Notebook

After Apple introduced MacBook Air in 2008 and most of the laptop manufacturers tried to copy the design for their own Wintel machines. And Intel came out with Ultrabooks specification where they closely match ultra-light and high performance MacBook Air but running Windows. Samsung deviated from the specified 11”/13” screen to bring out larger 15” screen but still resembles an Ultrabook in every other aspect. It is interesting to know that Samsung wants to be ahead of Apple since it was rumored for longtime that Apple is going to introduce an Ultrathin MacBook Pro (with 15” screen of course) in 2012.

Lenovo Idea Pad Yoga

Lenovo Idea Pad Yoga is Ultrabook with a touch screen which can be converted to a Tablet using a hinge which allows the keyboard to be folded back. This is different from the Asus Transformer solution which we have discussed earlier where it uses a dock to transform the tablet to an Ultrabook.


This uses an IPS panel like iPad and the display looks great. This will be running Widows 8 unlike Asus transformer which runs Android. So this is going to be a hit from Lenovo. Read the link http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/lenovos-ideapad-yoga-can-do-downward-dog.ars for more details

Nokia Lumia 900

Lumia 800 is one of the popular Windows Mobile phone introduced by Nokia recently which was figured in this column earlier. Last week Nokia introduced a successor to it is 800 series, Lumia 900. It is little bigger phone compared to 800 with LTE support and a bigger 4.3 display and a Quad Core processor CPU. Mostly the rest of the specification is almost same as Lumia 800.

Sony Crystal Line LED TV

You must be knowing that the current set of LED TVs are not exactly use LED display but comes with LCD display with LED backlight. But in CES 2012 Sony showed industry's first 55-inch Full HD self-emitting display using LEDs as the light source. This is different from OLED TVs too and is called the Crystal LED Display; it uses Sony’s "unique methods" to mount ultrafine LEDs in each of the Red-Green-Blue (RGB) colors, equivalent to the number of pixels -- meaning the company uses approximately six-million LEDs to create a Full HD display

"The RGB LED light source is mounted directly on the front of the display, dramatically improving the light use efficiency," Sony said. "This results in images with strikingly higher contrast (in both light and dark environments), wider color gamut, superb video image response time, and wider viewing angles when compared to existing LCD and plasma displays, with low power consumption. Furthermore, due to the display’s structure, the “Crystal LED Display” is also ideal for large screens."

This LED TV has best contrast ratio ever (3.5 times) found in a TV with dark scenes are perfect dark. It has a viewing angle of 180 and 10 times faster video response. Hope it will hit the market by next year.

Samsung Super OLED 55” TV

Samsung showed a 55” OLED TV which is 7mm thick (!!) with very high contrast ratio and supports voice control as well as motion control for navigation similar to a Kinect controlled TV expecting from Microsoft. OLED TVs are known for very high contrast ratio, vivid colors, fast response, ultra-thin profile and eye popping picture quality. Those who have seen this TV are all very impressed to add that our conventional LED TVs do not look same again.


Favi Pico Pocket Projector 
(http://www.favientertainment.com/Pico-Pocket-Projector-p/a3-wifi.htm)

Favi Pico Pocket projector is a Wi-Fi enabled projector running Android OS and an integrated touch pad mouse. It has a Chrome browser coupled with integrated Wi-Fi enables to you connect to internet and bring up any video or ppt to project on your wall up to 100” size with a resolution of 800X 600 and a contrast ratio of 1:100. It has a built in media player too to play your videos.

Facebook Invades Your Bedroom!

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  Concept bed lets you be on FB even when you're not on FB.

Can't have enough of Facebook? This should be right up your galli. Dubbed the FBed, this bed-cum-computer-table will literally allow you to be on FB day and night. It has been fashioned in the shape of the lowercase "f" from the social networking website's logo. The lower half of the letter constitutes the bed, whereas the upper half accommodates a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

Designed by Tomislav Zvonaric, the concept exists only in the form of a render. This is evident from the fact that the bed is a tad too small for an average person - that is, unless you have had your legs amputated. There's no space for a PC cabinet either. Therefore, one can only assume that Zvoranic prefers VESA-mounted nettops over desktop PCs.

Design oversights aside, the bed takes a subtle dig at FB addicts. If you haven't noticed it yet, the FBed is only meant for a single person. You see, this design insinuates the link between FB obsession and the Forever Alone syndrome. I can't really decide if the designer wants to cash in on the FB fever, or intends this to be a critique on the FB culture.

Samsung Galaxy Y (GT-S5360) Review

6,850

Budget Android devices are gaining popularity as the ‘high-end’ specifications are finally starting to trickle down to phones under Rs.10,000. Samsung’s latest Galaxy Y is one such example of an affordable, yet very much user friendly Android phone. It’s designed for the young teenager on a budget, something his/her parents don’t want to spend a lot on, but at the same time save the kid from being ridiculed by his peers.  Design and Build  The Galaxy Y is small and compact and with just a 3.0-inch screen, it’s clearly designed for those with small hands. It’s quite light at just 97.5g and rounded edges lend it a very sober look. Although it has been built mostly out of plastic, it does not feel very plasticky and the matt finish on the cover attracts fewer fingerprints. On the front, we just have a proximity sensor, but no front facing camera or an ambient light sensor. A smart looking phone The buttons, include a volume rocker and a power/sleep button and... that’s it. The 3.5mm headphone jack and microUSB port is placed at the top. It’s a good setup with the buttons being easy to press and within reach of your fingers. None of the shortcut buttons are backlit, there’s just a physical home button and two capacitive ones. The sensitivity is good, but at times some of the inputs failed to register. Overall, the design is pleasing; it’s simple, yet functional. The build quality feels like it can handle accidental drops without shattering.       Features  Interface  Samsung has bundled the latest Android 2.3.6 along with a stripped down version of Touchwiz UI. Thanks to the 830MHz ARM v6 chipset, the Galaxy Y is a peppy little phone. Swiping through homescreens and apps is quick and relatively fluid with very little to no lag. A familiar looking interface This being TouchWiz, you get the handy toggle switches in the notification bar and the colourful icons that go with it. My only issue with the screen is the low resolution and 240 x 320 is just too less. The edges of practically everything look a bit blurry and pixellated and there’s quite bad colour banding noticeable on the homescreen as well as videos.     Media  Samsung once again brings its A-game in the audio department. The music player is borrowed from their other phones like the Galaxy S and S II and features 5.1 channel audio enhancements. There are also equalizer presets to play around with, but honestly you won’t need any, as the audio processor does a very good job. It sounds best when used with a good pair of in-earphones like the EP630s. Unlike their higher-end handsets though, the Galaxy Y doesn’t play FLAC. Excellent sound quality The video player isn’t as impressive as the music player, since Samsung have gone with the stock Android player depriving you of sound enhancements. The player supports the standard MP4 file format, but the video quality leaves a lot to be desired, mainly due to the poor screen.

Samsung Galaxy Note Gt N7000 Review – iG Video and Pics

Editor’s Rating
Overall Rating
Build Quality
Hardware Specs
Camera
Multimedia
Phone
Price

The Time for a change, in the way we look at smartphones, has come to India, funnily enough technology has started to come  to our shores than faster the time it takes to penetrate the Western Hemisphere.

The Samsung Galaxy Note is a device that is being targeted as a Hybrid device and trust us, its doing wonders for Samsung aswell. So why does the Samsung Galaxy Note spin a different note? We’ll tell you why!

Build Quality

The Galaxy Note is simply well built, with an awesome bezel  that looks like metal – feels like metal – is strong like metal, but is actually a plastic composite. The back cover is a larger version of the flimsy plastic we saw on the S2 Review, somehow it seems a bit more durable on the Note. The front of the Note features a gorilla glass display, which is a very tough, scratch and impact resistant glass. But, its not invincible and the glass is raised above the bezel, which makes it a point of worry for us considering the large size of the Note (5.3 Inch Display).

Hardware

In terms of specs, the Note is really top notch. check out the full list below.

Manufacturer	Samsung
Phone Style	Touchscreen + Hybrid Pen Input
OS	Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread + Touchwiz
Thickness	9.7 mm
Length	146.9mm
Width	83mm
Weight	178g
Built-in Memory	16/32GB, 1 GB RAM
Additional Memory	Up to 32GB, 2 GB included
High-speed Data	GPRS, HSDPA,Wi-Fi,
Connectivity	Bluetooth, USB
Screen Size	5.3-inch screen Super-Amoled Display
Processor	Dual-core 1.4GHz ARM Cortex-A9 proccessor
Screen Colours	16M colors
Camera	8 megapixels + LED flash + HD Video 1080p
Radio	Yes
Speaker	Yes
Internet	Yes
Browser	HTML
Games	Yes
Battery	Li-Ion 2500 mAh

 

Display, Camera and Multimedia

One of the most beautiful displays to cross our paths the Note has a gorgeous 5.3 inch Super AMOLED display which has a resolution of 1200x 960 px. The display replicates black on the screen and the depth of color actually shows on the screen. Pioneers in the AMOLED display industry, Samsung has really proved their point. Watch movies or play games, the end resultant is stunning Visuals. The MultiTouch capacitive display has 10 point input system, which makes for a brilliant touch experience. Fruit Ninja anyone?

The camera has an 8MP sensor that does wide angle imaging and a stunning video at full hd 1080p. The endless list of settings in the Note allow for users to really tweak their cameras before they go about snapping the world or themselves using the 2MP front camera.

Sound quality from the device is good, the speaker is loud enough and media is simply amazing considering the large AMOLED monster of a display. The movies playback really smooth and its actually an experience to watch on this device. Brilliance in all multimedia aspects, including the most unused feature of an FM radio.

Tablet-Phone and S PEN.

The device is not quite a tablet and is definitely much more than a simple phone, hence a hybrid title. The device has the most impressive form factor to deal with both aspects. Although it runs Android 2.3 GB, it going to be one of the first devices to get ICS by Samsung. The TouchWIz user interface cleans up the Note to a much deeper level than ever possible on Android. The custom editing and look of the device when you power it on is very clean and therefore is preferred by users.

From Editing documents , to making presentations, the Note has the screen real estate and the juice to do what the work demands. Combined with the realistic and lifelike S Pen the Note actually hands you a Magic Wand to play around with. We detailed the S Pen in a  video you will find in the links below, but to sum it up, you can crop, edit, scribble, write and draw, convert writing to text and even sign documents with the SPen, great job Samsung!

Phone Calling and Messaging

The Samsung Galaxy Note is a brilliant phone, considering it comes with a  loud earpiece and a very good quality mic. The network reception on the Note is also very solid. With no dropped calls and excellent network connections including HSPA and 3G , we were impressed with the network handling of the chipset within the Note. 

The screen is large enough to accommodate the largest of fingers, and with a 10 point input, its practically impossible to miss the keys while typing. The standard keyboard includes swype for the drag and type – types. The Samsung keyboard can also be replaced with a host of others available in the Android Marketplace for free as well as a minor premium.

Internet and Battery Life

We found the performance of the Galaxy Note great in all aspects especially the internet and data transfer access. The Note handles all apps in a wonderful fashion so allows the full use of the World wide web and its applications. The device is a great bit of joy to read your books on , or even get the latest news, get updates on your stock purchases all with the flick of your wrist.

Battery life was bit of a shocker initially, especially when we got really low run times with a massive 2500 mAh battery pack. The culprit was data usage, and the OS is not optimized in the best possible fashion to handle media. A few tweaks of the background data usage setting and we got the following usage life :

	2G Usage	3G Usage	Wifi Usage
Calling	7 Hours	4.8 hours	- NA-
Standby Time	3 Days	2 Days	7 Days
Internet	7 Hours	4 Hours	11 Hours
Gameplay Multiplayer	4 Hours	3.75 Hours	5 Hours

Conclusion

The Galaxy Note is an amazing device, the best possible device, but only if you plan to use it intensively the way its meant to handle the usage. The S-Pen adds functionality we only dreamt of on devices during the time of i-mate and O2 XDA phones. Its definitely a great device for a business user, also for a person looking to make a consolidated investment b/w phone and Tablet. The screen is beautiful the performance great and the experience difficult to replicate with any other device available today. The device is slim enough to fit a pocket, yet large enough to feel awkward when you hold it to your face.

We Rate the Note 4.75 /5.0

Price : Rs. 32500/-

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