CMYK
Product Feature
Nokia X Series – The Untrue Android Design and interface
the smaller screen, as it would be doing Android widgets, but while The Nokia X is the Finnish brand’s hard to hold something that small other launchers can make things look too complex, Nokia is doing things big effort to make greater waves into and thin. the low, low end of the smartphone The screen doesn’t seem to suffer its own way and making it all seem market – and it’s enlisted the help of either – the contrast is strong, helped a lot cooler.
You can also see more notifications on the lock screen than you might on other Nokia phones - it’s a little boring in terms of design, but works well enough.
Android to make that happen.
The other big change is Nokia’s Fast Lane – it’s an odd change from the notifications bar, as it’s essentially the same thing but one long scrolling page that can be accessed by swiping right or left.
by the smorgasbord of colour on offer For instance, there’s no ‘Apps’ key from the live tiles. that shows all the little bits of software The Nokia X is a phone that you’ve downloaded – now it’s all in comes with a fairly decent spec list for There’s not a lot else on offer one long list that just endlessly scrolls. a phone that’s coming in at €89 before here in terms of ports or anything – To that end, it can get a bit messy, so tax (around £75, $120, AU$135) the mandatory headphone jack and Nokia’s method of creating folders – we’re talking a dual-core 1GHz camera (which is only a 3MP option is needed and something that wasn’t processor from Qualcomm, 512MB with no flash) are the only other items possible on Windows Phone. of RAM, a 4-inch WVGA screen and in a sea of matte plastic. a 1500mAh battery. It’s nothing special, and you can’t But this isn’t meant to be a phone However, it’s important not to that’s all about design – the Nokia X just drag and drop to create a folder, compare to this to the likes of the is supposed to offer a differentiated instead needing to tap an icon. But Moto G, as it’s not meant for the user experience from the rest of the at least dragging the live tile icons more developed regions in terms identikit Android phones on the for each app will allow you to move the order around automatically, and of smartphone use. This is for areas market. some, such as the gallery, will expand where Android devices are sold at a To that end, I actually rather much lower average price, but still can liked what Finland’s top Microsoft to show pictures in your album. do the basic things that others can. There’s even the chance to change subsidiary is doing – there’s a nice the colour of some apps to match your With that in mind, the Nokia X is fusion of Android familiarity and theme – although the fact you can’t do probably a little better than OK. The Windows Phone functionality. this to all of them means this feature polycarbonate body is fairly chunky, The live tiles idea is really cool is slightly negated. but in the hand it dovetails well with – it’s essentially just a clever way of
30
It’s cool in some respects, as it allows you to dynamically control things like the music player, and always keeps your most-used apps close at hand. However, there is still the same pull-down bar as on other Android handsets here, but it’s only for changing settings. Fast Lane isn’t the same as the multitasking menu you’ll get on the likes of most other Android phones - while long pressing the icon will shut it down, the app apparently still runs.
� Sleek UI
� Low storage
� Low cost
� Chunky design
Mobility April 2014
www.mobilityindia.com
CMYK
CMYK
Product Feature
Karbonn Titanium X – Remarkable Smartness
O
ne of the most remarkable trends in the Indian mobile industry over the past few months has been the rise of smartphones sporting full-HD screens. Although such devices used to cost a lot of money in the past, a number of companies are now releasing more wallet-friendly models. The trend in the country might have been set by global brands, but Indian domestic handset makers are not far behind. Micromax was the first Indian brand to join the full-HD bandwagon with its Canvas Turbo launched last year. Now, after a period of relative quiet, Karbonn has marked its return to the Indian market with its first smartphone with full-HD display, the Karbonn Titanium X. Karbonn is clearly in the mood to win significant market share, and it’s back with a vengeance in terms of both specifications and price. But does company’s first full-HD smartphone, the Titanium X, pack enough punch to overcome more established players such as Samsung, Micromax, HTC, LG and Xolo? We take a closer look at this smartphone.
top. We assume that it’s meant to be waiting for Android 4.4.2 KitKat to helpful for taking selfies. Beneath the arrive on its handsets, Karbonn has used Android 4.2 Jelly Bean for the display one can find the Home, Titanium X, which is disappointing. Display The screen of a smartphone is a critical aspect to consider when making a purchase decision, and of late, smartphones such as the Spice Pinnacle FHD, Wicked Leak Wammy Passion Z Plus and Micromax Canvas Turbo have hit the market, all with full-HD displays and all priced under Rs. 20,000. The Karbonn Titanium X now joins the same club. An HD screen might not make a difference to many people, but when you hold one of these phones up next to a device with a low-resolution screen, you can see the difference. The Titanium X features a 5.0inch IPS full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) screen with pixel density of 441ppi. The panel attracts a lot of smudges, but nothing that cannot be wiped away quickly. The screen has decent viewing angles and though colour reproduction is not the best, it gets the job done.
lagged when launching some apps. Admittedly, the lag is not consistent but considering that this is a quad-core processor, it is quite disappointing.
It came as no surprise that the benchmark scores were not impressive at all. As expected, the Karbonn Titanium X barely made it through our synthetic benchmarks. The CPU performance scores were not impressive: the phone scored 14,930 in AnTuTu and 5,701 in Quadrant. On the graphics front, it only managed to push 3.4 frames per second in the Performance/ Battery Life GFXbench test, while it scored 1735 The Karbonn Titanium X is in the 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme powered by a quad-core MediaTek runthrough. chipset (MT6589T) clocked at 1.5GHz along with 1GB of RAM and PowerVR SGX544 GPU. MediaTek’s updated Verdict The Karbonn Titanium X is a MT6589T processor was launched last year, so it should perform quite mix of good and greateness in it. decently. Unfortunately, this didn’t The 5.0-inch full-HD display is no translate to real-world performance. doubt the USP of the device and is We found that the Titanium X great for watching videos on, but colour reproduction can be a bit of a damper. The Karbonn Titanium X is not a perfect phone by any means, but when you consider its price tag, it is not a bad performer at all. The Karbonn Titanium X ships with Android 4.2.2 out of the box. It might not be the most up-to-date, but it’s the most popular version of Android on mid-range smartphones in India at the moment. We are yet to hear any details about Karbonn’s plans to update the Titanium X.
Camera Look and feel
In terms of photographic ability, Karbonn has equipped the mid-range Titanium X with a 13-megapixel autofocus rear camera accompanied by a dual-LED flash. The rear camera offers 4x digital zoom, HD (1080p) video recording, touch to focus and a panorama mode. The Titanium X also includes HDR mode for video recording, which has been seen on some high-end Android smartphones. Other features seen in the camera app include portrait retouch, self-timer, self-portrait voice guide, smile shutter, focus mode, and ISO and exposure value adjustment. The rear camera can click images at a maximum resolution of 4128x3096 pixels.
The Titanium X is a departure from the company’s usual Android smartphone design, and it looks like a lot of time was spent on the design stage. The Karbonn Titanium X is definitely light at 143 grams, and sports rounded edges. It is sturdy, but it might be a little too wide for singlehanded operation, and those blessed with smaller palms will find it tiring to carry the device around. The 5.0inch full-HD display takes up most of the space in the front with a silver lining around the edges. Like most other smartphones, the ambient light and proximity sensors are lined up on top alongside the earpiece and frontfacing camera. We were amazed to see the 5-megapixel front-facing camera Software/ Interface accompanied by an LED flash at the At a time when the world is � Good Design
� Low battery backup
� Low cost
� Camera handling
www.mobilityindia.com
Mobility April 2014
31
CMYK
CMYK
Product Feature
Lava Xtron+ (Plus) Tablet – Affordably Yours
L
ava Xtron Plus Tab is one of the best affordable tablet which comes at Box Contents decent price price and specifications for multimedia and good gaming Tablet, Screen guard pre installed, Circular thin pin charger, Edukart experience. Gift, Bigflix coupon etc, warranty card and user manual, OTG Cable, but no Lava Xtron+ (Plus) Tablet is a 7 Inch capacitive touch screen and runs MicroUSB Cable in the package, you will have to buy it on your own.
on 1.5 GHz Dual Core Cortex-A9 Processor and 1 Gb DDR3 RAM and Mali 400 Quad Core GPU which makes it a decent performer on the gaming and Build Quality, Design and Form Factor performance front, however the camera you get on rear is 2 MP Fixed Focus The build quality of this tablet is good, it has a aluminum metal back and 1.3 Fixed Focus on the front as well but you cant expect everything thing cover and the weight of the tablet is around 360 grams, design is good feels to be good at the price at which tablet comes, one major hardware change is solid and looks premium in hands. The form factor is good, tablet is around that it has mini HDMI port to connect the tablet to TV or external monitor. 11.9 mm in thickness which makes it easy to go into a bag but you may not be able to fit this tablet in a normal size jeans pocket and carry case would be Lava Xtron Plus Tab Quick Specs a better choice. • Display Size: 7 inch capacitive touch screen with 1024 x 600 pixels resolution Display, Memory and Battery Backup • Processor: 1.5 GHz Dual Core Cortex A9 It has 7 inch capacitive touch screen with 1024 x 600 pixels resolution is • RAM: 1 Gb DDR3 • Software Version: Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) OS • Camera: 2 MP FF camera. • Secondary Camera: 1.3 MP front-facing camera FF [Fixed Focus] • Internal Storage: 8 GB with 5 GB approx user available • External Storage: Expandable up to 32GB
a quite good in terms of pixels density but the viewing angles on the display are not too good. The in built memory is another good thing about this tablet as you get 5 Gb approx free storage so that you can install more games and apps on without SD card required. But when the free storage is exhausted you wont be able to install apps on SD card but you can move apps from device internal memory to SD Card. The battery backup is around 3-4 hours with moderate usage.
• Battery: 3700 mAh battery Lithium Ion • Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, aGPS, 3.5mm audio jack, HDMI
Software, Benchmarks and Gaming The software UI is mostly stock android with no customizations, the benchmarks scores are mentioned below and device is capable of playing most of the graphic intensive and casual games. Camera Performance Both 2 MP rear camera and 1.3 MP Front camera is average in terms of performance, you can check out the camera samples below. Sound, Video and Navigation The sound quality from the loudspeaker is good and loud enough but slightly has more noise than bass. It can also play HD videos at both 720p and 1080p but the videos will not get played in full screen because of the touch capacitive navigation buttons which take away some part of the screen. It can also be used for Navigation with the help of assisted GPS. Conclusion and Price Lava Xtron Plus tablet is a great tablet offered at a basic price point at Rs. 6999 INR, it does come up with the right hardware which suits the gaming needs of the most of the casual gamers out there and on the top it can run some graphic intensive games as well.
32
� Sleek Interface
� Low on design
� Low cost
� Size
Mobility April 2014
www.mobilityindia.com
CMYK
CMYK
Product Feature
HP Slate 7 Voicetab - The Impressive Tab
H
Voicetab as this one has already been issues should be resolved before it and one full-size. These SIM slots let the HP Slate 7 Voicetab act like a big confirmed for the Indian market. hits shelves. HP Slate 7 Voicetab – Design and The HP Slate 7 Voicetab is light phone. You’ll look stupid holding it Features and reasonably compact for a 7-inch up to your face to take a call but HP thinks it’s a worthwhile feature, and From a glance the HP Slate 7 tablet. It doesn’t have as much blank suggests those put off by the size can Voicetab looks metallic. It is actually space above and below the screen as use a Bluetooth headset. I’m not keen plastic, but feels robust. There are the Nexus 7, even though it has stereo on the idea of using a 7-inch tablet some small areas where the joins front-facing speakers. to make calls, but the second SIM Aside from a 1-inch screen size aren’t quite as tight as they could be, The tablet has a removable provides a truly useful feature - free difference they are almost identical, but I’ve seen much worse from pre- backplate, which hides a microSD 3G data. but I’ll be focusing on the Slate 7 production models and these small slot and dual SIM slots – one micro Unlike the iPad mini Retina or Nexus 7 you don’t have to pay extra for 3G capability. The baseline model includes the SIM slots and you even get free mobile data allowance. P’s primary business is in desktop PCs and laptops. But it makes tablets too, and in a market that’s becoming ever more congested HP has launched the HP Slate 7 Voicetab and Slate 6 Voicetab. They are fairly low cost phone-tablet hybrids.
A 1.2GHz quadcore processor with 1GB RAM (of as yet unknown origin) powers the Slate 7 Voicetab and it seems fast enough to run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean smoothly. Apps open quickly and there was no obvious lag when scrolling through homepages or menus. H P ’s l a t e s t phone-tablet seems carefully considered and sensible. Its stand-out feature is a free data service rather than flashy hardware. This is a solid product at a competitive price, and a ver y costeffect ive way of getting an always connected Android tablet with some data allowance. � Super Design � Affordable Cost www.mobilityindia.com
� Processing power
Mobility April 2014
33
CMYK