I think that the new Yu Yureka is the best smartphone that any company can give in such an awesome price of Rs.8999 !! I've used it and It has got quite a decent build Quality along with light weighted good looking design !!
If you want to buy a 2GB RAM smartphone, then don't even think of buying anything else, this smartphone is just perfect for you !! plus, it supports 4G and has 16GB internal memory. It has got nice feel on its moonstone back, and has a decent front & back camera. In short, it is the best smartphone in least price.
Although some people might wonder, is 2GB RAM enough ? I can personally assure that 2GB RAM is more than enough for all the multi-tasking you can possibly think of doing. I've Played Asphalt 8 on Yureka while listening a song on Musixmatch with floating lyrics on, and dowloading a movie on Bittorrent Pro ant there was not even a single lag. I forgot to mention, the backround apps like whatsapp, gmail, etc were also on during this time.
Widely criticized for the use of less than premium materials unworthy of upmarket devices, Samsung has made the move recently to metal frames, and the upcoming Galaxy S6 will allegedly join the trend. Solving one problem typically creates others in the process, though, and antenna interference is one result of the metal used on the Galaxy S6′s body.
A report in Korean media states that Samsung is resorting to FPCB antenna technology for the future flagship, aiming to battle the negative effects of the metal frame on signal reception.
FPCB stands for Flexible Printed Circuit Board where thin strips of conductor (say, copper) are laminated in between two layers of PET polymer. They find wide application in the electronics industry when space constraints limit the use of rigid circuit boards.
The predominantly used type of antennas in recent years are manufactured using the LDS technology, or Laser Direct Structuring. It allows for a precise 3D shape to be modeled, thus fitting in whatever space the engineers find unoccupied in the device. This actually makes it superior to FPCB, the flexibility of which is limited.
Additionally, LDS units deliver better reception performance, provided they are not hindered by other design choices. However, the Galaxy S6 has proven incompatible with LDS antennas in terms of interference and an FPCB solution has been chosen as a workaround.
Following the success of its Canvas 2 and Canvas HD smartphones, Micromax has been able to establish itself in the Indian smartphone space as a player that offers the best value for its customers' money. While the company's two best selling smartphones brought a large screen and a 720p screen, respectively, at a crowd pleasing price, it now wants to leverage its Canvas sub-brand further by offering niche products while continuing to expand its portfolio of flagship devices.
For its new flagship, the Micromax Canvas 4 (A210), the company created a lot of buzz, right from the promo teasers on TV during the high profile India vs. Pakistan clash in the ICC Champions Trophy to taking pre-orders for the phone without announcing its specifications. The Canvas 4 promises better build quality and new smart features but essentially builds on the Canvas HD, and includes almost the same hardware, under the hood.
Build/ Design The Canvas 4 follows the same design cues that we've seen in the Canvas HD and Canvas 2, and from a distance, the phone doesn't look very different.
On closer inspection you'll find that the phone looks a bit more polished than its predecessors, though it's still a little bit plasticky for my taste. The phone is available in White and Grey colour variants and I had a White Canvas 4 as our review unit.
The front of the phone is dominated by the 5-inch display, below which you'll find the three capacitive touch keys for Menu, Home and Back. A chrome grill that serves as the earpiece, the sensor array and the 5-megapixel front camera are placed above the display. The bezel is wide but it's not flat as it meets and the edges and there's some embossing, similar to the Galaxy SIII.
The phone is surrounded by an aluminium frame in the middle, which gives it a premium look and makes it feel sturdy. The company says that it also acts as the cellular antenna. You will also notice that the frame has small white bands at the left side, at the bottom and at the top. The Power/ Screen-lock key is located at the right side of the phone, while the Volume rocker key is place at the left side. Both these keys are also made of metal but are a bit rickety as they are not firmly fixed. When you shake the phone, you'll also hear some sound coming from the same area due to their movement. The Micro-USB port is located at the bottom. The 3.5mm headset jack sits at the top of the phone.
The back features a removable plastic cover that sports a glossy finish but there's a mild texture effect as well, which you'll only see when you look closely. There's some Micromax branding at the lower part, and a silver sticker like m! logo as you go up. The 13-megapixel rear camera is located right at the top in a round chrome ring enclosure, along with an LED flash and a secondary microphone.
Opening the cover reveals the battery compartment. The microSD card slot and two SIM card slots are placed just above the battery compartment.
Display While everyone was hoping that the Canvas 4 would come with a full-HD display, Micromax has decided to skip the upgrade and has included a 720p display, similar to that of the Canvas HD. The phone's 5-inch HD IPS screen sports a resolution of 720x1280 pixels and a colour depth of 16.7 million. Thanks to the higher resolution, text, icons and images look much sharper compared to qHD phones. There was no pixelation. However, I felt that the screen's colour temperature was skewed towards the colder side, with whites carrying a blue tinge.
Under sun visibility was good, though the screen is very reflective. Thanks to the IPS panel, I found that the viewing angles were very good, which essentially means that more than one person can view content playing on the screen properly, even from different angles. I also found the touch response of the screen to be better than most budget phones. Micromax has also included Corning Gorilla glass protection to guard the screen from scratches.
Software/ Interface The Micromax Canvas 4 runs Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean, the latest iteration of the OS. Micromax has skinned some elements of the user interface, such as the app icons and the Settings menu.
The phone also offers four themes, namely Mint, Mocha, Raspberry and the default theme that bring minor changes in the phone's colour scheme.
The notification tray features a settings shortcut and a clear all notifications button, along with expandable notifications (expanded with the two-finger pull gesture). It features the same setting toggles shortcut that's found in stock Android and adds some of its own as well, for quick access to Airplane Mode, Battery status, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, Data connection, Data usage, User (audio) Profiles, Brightness, Screen backlight timeout and Auto rotation.
Similar to most other Android devices, there are five customisable home screens that can be filled with app shortcuts and widgets. The three capacitive buttons, Home, Menu and Back help in navigating through the phone, with the Home button also doubling up as an app switcher on long press.
You also get lock-screen widgets, an Android 4.2 feature. You can choose from the Clock, Camera, Gmail, Google Now and Messaging widgets in addition to widgets offered by third-party apps installed on your phone. These widgets offer glanceable information from the apps and allow users to perform certain app actions even when the phone is locked.
The phone also offers another Android 4.2 feature, Daydream, that displays photo albums or the clock while the phone's charging. The option to wirelessly mirror the phone's display with an HDMI enabled device through a wireless display adapter is also present.
Micromax has also added some software tricks to the phone, one of which is a new lock screen mechanism that allows the phone to be unlocked with a blow of air or if the phone is shaken. This can be activated through the M! Unlock app that has been developed in partnership with FoneClay. It works as promised but disables the lock screen widgets, so I just feel it's too gimmicky.
Micromax has also bundled a new Video Player app with the phone that offers features like 'Pause on look away' using the front camera to detect if you're looking at the screen of the phone, and automatically pausing and resuming videos. We've seen this feature in high-end phones like theSamsung Galaxy S4 and the LG Optimus G Pro. You can increase and decrease the volume or brightness while playing a video by just swiping up and down the screen at the left and right hand sides. It also allows you to preview one video while playing another one, and view videos on a floating player window while doing other tasks through its pop-out feature.
The Music player has also been revamped and now features fancier controls in the Now Playing screen and integrates the Micromax Online music store. The Music Store is still a website wrapped into the app and allows you to download music tracks and videos. It only lets you download tracks when you access the site through 3G/ Edge as billing is integrated with the telecom operator. The Music Player app also features Equalizer settings.
Micromax has also included some of its own apps including content stores, M! Live and Game Hub, and services store, M! Zone, in addition to a few 'try and buy' games (Fruit Devil, NFS Shift, The DarkMan). There's also security software powered by NQ Mobile that allows you to backup contacts, and track your mobile in case you lose it. However, even this utility is not free and you need to pay additional charges to get all the functionality.
The handset also offers FM Radio and FM radio recording.
Micromax has also modified the Messages app, adding a Smileys input option next to the text entry prompt, and a button for attaching multimedia, contacts and audio clips, among others, with it. Micromax has also added a file manager app, a NoteBook app, a ToDo app, in addition to a universal search app and a Popup Browser that can be used for browsing the web in a floating window while working on another app. It has also replaced the stock camera app with a different one.
For the first time Micromax has replaced its own instant messaging app, HookUp with a Micromax branded version of Hike, the mobile messaging app from Bharti Softbank. It has also pre-installed the movie streaming app Spuul, that allows users to watch movies for free.
It's also worth pointing out that the Canvas 4 is the first Micromax smartphone that supports over the air software updates via a System Software app. Previously one had to take the phone to the service centre to get the latest Android update installed.
The phone also offers gestures like flip to silent, ability to answer the phone by bringing it near to the ear, and dial the number on the screen when the user brings the phone near the face.
Camera The Micromax Canvas 4 has a 13-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front facing camera. Both the camera lenses are an upgrade from the Canvas HD's 8-megapixel rear shooter and VGA front facing camera.
As I mentioned earlier, Micromax has put its own camera app. The app includes Normal, HDR, Face Beauty, Smile detection, Exposure compensation, Panorama, Photosphere(multi angle view) modes. It also offers a burst mode, letting users click up to 99 shots at once. The photo mode allows users to modify settings like Exposure, colour effect, ISO and white balance, among others. There's a self timer of up to 10 seconds as well.
I experienced a minor lag when I tried to focus on an object and press the shutter. I also noticed that there is minor delay between two consecutive camera shots in the continuous shot mode. This makes it hard to capture images quickly. The quality of the pictures taken during daylight was decent. However, photos taken indoors under artificial light were a bit grainy and at times looked different than the actual setting. The camera tends to soften the tone to a cooler shade.
The Canvas 4's camera also struggled when trying to capture images in low-light.
The camera is capable of recording full-HD video and takes good quality videos depending on the ambient light. However, it saves video clips in .3GP file format, which is an older file format.
The 5-megapixel front camera takes above average pictures, and can be used for video conferencing. I wish the phone had a dedicated camera button to help click a quick picture.
Performance The Micromax A210 Canvas 4 is powered by a 1.2GHz MediaTek MT6589 quad-core processor with 1GB RAM onboard, and PowerVR SGX544MP GPU. There is 16GB of internal storage, 10GB of which is available to the user.
With Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, the overall experience of navigation through the interface was impressive, thanks to Project Butter and the phone's quad-core processor. I did not experience any lag while launching apps, playing games, scrolling web pages or switching between apps. It is safe to say that performance wise, the Canvas 4 scores well. I was able to play games like Jetpack Joyride, Chimpact, Asphalt 7 and Shadow Gun without encountering any lag.
I was also able to play full-HD clips, with the phone supporting formats like .AVI, natively, though I experienced some issues with audio while playing an MKV format video. This was easily fixed by downloading a third-party video player. The speaker on the phone delivers average quality sound at high volume levels, but there's some muffle when the phone lies on its back, as the speaker grill is located on that side. The headphones that come with the phone offer average quality sound output. Call quality was good, during my testing process.
The phone comes with a 2,000mAh battery, and based on my experience, it will just about last you a full day. I charged the phone in the morning (at around 10am), and with medium to heavy usage, including 1-1.5 hours of phone calls, two e-mail accounts with push notifications, screen at maximum brightness, playing some music and video clips (about an hour), casual web browsing, Twitter notifications and WhatsApp chats, the phone lasted 8-9 hours. I had put the phone on Wi-Fi for about an hour or two while the rest of the day it was connected to data via 3G. I had turned off auto-brightness, and the phone was on the highest level of brightness. Altering these settings might help in running the phone for a longer duration, depending on your usage pattern.
Verdict The Canvas 4 is at best an incremental upgrade to the Canvas HD. Apart from the 'better camera' which I didn't find any better and slightly improved build quality, it doesn't bring anything extra ordinary to the table. The software features that it offers are gimmicky and can be added with the help of some third party apps available on the Google Play Store. You are unlikely to use them on a regular basis. The only thing we're happy about is the increased internal storage capacity, which will allow users to install more apps.
The asking price of around Rs. 18,000 is on the higher side when you compare it to the Canvas HD or to phones like the Zen Ultrafone 701HD and Gionee Elife E3. I'd recommend waiting for a price cut or buying the Canvas HD if you're in the market for a good value for money Android smartphone.
Google Glass is an attempt to free data from desktop computers and portable devices like phones and tablets, and place it right in front of your eyes.
Essentially, Google Glass is a camera, display, touchpad, battery and microphone built into spectacle frames so that you can perch a display in your field of vision, film, take pictures, search and translate on the go.
The principle is one that has been around for years in science fiction, and more recently it's become a slightly clunky reality. In fact, the "heads-up display" putting data in your field of vision became a reality as early as 1900 when the reflector sight was invented.
Google Glass uses display technology instead to put data in front (or at least, to the upper right) of your vision courtesy of a prism screen. This is designed to be easily seen without obstructing your view. According to Google the display is "the equivalent of a 25-inch high definition screen from eight feet away". There's no official word on native resolution, but 640 x 360 has been widely mooted.
Overlaying data into your vision has obvious benefits; many of which are already functional in Google Glass. Directions become more intuitive (although it sounds like there is no GPS on board so you will have to pair it with your phone), you can view real-time translations or transcriptions of what is being said, and you can scroll through and reply to messages - all on the fly.
What can Google Glass do?
As well as Google's own list of features, the early apps for Google Glass provide a neat glimpse into the potential of the headset.
As well as photos and film - which require no explanation - you can use the Google hangout software to video conference with your friends and show them what you're looking at.
You'll also be able to use Google Maps to get directions, although with GPS absent from the spec list, you'll need to tether Glass to your phone.
Google has given its Glass project a big boost by snapping up voice specialists DNN research. To do that, Google offers the MyGlass app. This pairs your headset with an Android phone. As well as sharing GPS data, this means messages can be received, viewed on the display, and answered using the microphone and Google's voice-to-text functionality.
That functionality will also bring the ability to translate the words being spoken to you into your own language on the display. Obviously you'll need a WiFi connection or a hefty data plan if you're in another country, but it's certainly a neat trick if it works.
Third parties are also already developing some rather cool/scary apps for Google Glass - including one that allows you to identify your friends in a crowd, and another that allows you to dictate an email.
The New York Times app gives an idea how news will be displayed when it's asked for: a headline, byline, appropriate image and number of hours since the article was published are displayed.
What are the Google Glass specifications?
As well as a mooted 640 x 360 display, the built-in camera is a 5MP snapper that can film at 720p.
Battery life is apparently a day, although that's with the usual "typical use" caveat, which probably excludes a lot of videoing.
There's 16GB of flash memory built into the device, although only 12GB will be available for user storage. The device will sync to your Google Drive in the cloud
Bluetooth and WiFi will be built in, but no GPS chip - so the Glass will probably work best alongside an Android phone, although you can pair with any Bluetooth enabled phone.
The frame will come with replacement and adjustable nosepads, and is expected to be both lightweight and extremely robust. It will also have a touchpad along one arm.
The sound will be produced through bone conduction transfer - vibrating your skull to transmit to your ears.
There is a Micro USB cable and charger for the dev versions, and all of the above specs are expected to be replicated in the consumer versions when they arrive.
Lastly, Google Glass will come in five colours: Charcoal, Tangerine, Shale, Cotton and Sky. Using Glass's translation ability to turn that list from marketing speak to plain English, that's black, orange, grey, white and blue.
What's the Google Glass price?
The Google Glass Explorer (the developer version being sent out now) costs $1,500 - around £985 or AU$1,449 or INR 90000.
The consumer versions, which are expected to arrive by the end of 2013, are expected to be a little cheaper, although any actual prices remain speculative. They are unlikely to be super-cheap - but Google's success with the Nexus 7 tablet may prompt the company to subsidise some of the cost.
When is the Google Glass release date?
A final release date has not been announced, but sources tell us that the original suggestion of 2014 was actually overly pessimistic and we could see Google Glass arrive in time for the end of 2013. So start readying your letter to Santa.
I already wear glasses. Will Google Glasses work for me?
Yes - Google is already working on designer versions which will include prescription lenses.
Who is providing the competition?
Of course, with something as high profile as Google Glass, every major company has been linked with building a competitor.
Apple and Microsoft are Google's most obvious rivals - and both are rumoured to be working on their own equivalents. Sony has gone so far as to patent a Glass-alike offering. Vuzix, Oakley and Baidu are other numbered among the potential Glass rivals, and they won't be the last. Indeed, one Taiwanese manufacturer Oculon are readying a cheaper, higher spec'ed (ahem) version.
So, Be Prepared for the FUTURE of Technology !! Google Glasses...
