WMC 2014 – Tech Raman

Samsung Galaxy S5 announced – 5.1" display, Fingerprint scanner, Heart rate monitor, Water/Dust resistant

Lakshmi Rajan — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 19:44:28 +0000

Galaxy S5 specs:

5.1-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display
Android 4.4.2
2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 with Ardeno 330 GPU
2GB of RAM
16/32GB internal storage plus microSD
802.11ac MIMO
LTE Cat. 4
USB 3.0
2800mAh battery
16MP rear camera, 2.1MP front camera
Fingerprint scanner
Heart rate sensor
IP67 Dust and water Resistant
142.0 x 72.5 x 8.1mm, 145g

Does that excite you? To be frank, it just ranks shoulder to shoulder with the latest flagship devices and purely on hardware specs rivals like Sony Xperia Z2 betters it even. The notable introduction is a heart rate sensor. All you have to do is place your finger on the inlay where the LED flash sits and bingo! the smartphone would show your heart rate. And then as expected, Galaxy S5 also has the finger sensor. After all, Samsung can’t allow Apple to do all the finger shows right?! Galaxy S5 is water and dust resistant with an IP67 accredition which is actually less than what Sony Xperia Z series boasts of. Still, it can withstand a water drop of up to 1 meter for 30 minutes. In spite of being water resistant, the back panel is still removable and it as a flap to seal the USB port. Samsung says its new perforated design in the back panel is to give a modern glam look but I am not sure how many would buy into this notion of modern glam look. It is still plastic at the end of the day and the dimpled design at the best could keep the smartphone from sliding from the greasy palms. Upgrading the 13-megapixel camera in the Galaxy S4 by 3 more pixels to a 16-megapixel count, Samsung has added quiet a few more tricks to the imaging capabilities. The company claims the new device offers the world’s fastest autofocus speed up to 0.3 seconds. It is able to make real-time HDR videos now. And there is new Selective Focus feature which allow for a bokeh effect by allowing to selectively focus on one area and blurring the background. Galaxy S5 would be available in four choice of colors – charcoal Black, shimmery White, electric Blue and copper Gold. The device would be available globally from April. Story developing… ]]>

WMC 2014: Sony Xperia Z2 with 4K recording, rich display announced

Lakshmi Rajan — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 16:15:16 +0000

Z2 looks very much similar to the predecessors but the internals talk of a healthy enrichment. So what are we talking here? The newness begins right from the display. Sony says its 5.2-inch full HD Triluminos IPS display now comes enhanced with, what it calls as Live Color LEDs. It says the new technology gives wide array of colors resulting in a lively, brighter and enriched display. Xperia Z2 also boasts of being the first device to come with Qualcomm’s new 2.3 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor. It is supported by a 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage which could further be propped up by a microSD card. There is also a liberal 3,200mAh battery. As expected of a latest flagship, it runs on Android 4.4 KitKat OS. Like many of the top-end Xperia models, Xperia Z2 also boasts of IP58-certified waterproofing The camera optics includes the same 20.7-megapixel camera with Exmor RS CMOS and Sony’s “G” lens found in the Z1. Though in the new avatar, the Z2 is capable of 4K video recording at 30 frames per second with SteadyShot image stabilisation. On the front there is a 2.2-megapixel shooter. There are also new enhancements to the camera software features including Timeshift video feature that lets you shoot 720p video at 120fps and edit it to Slo-mo video. The Xperia Z2 will be available globally from March and comes in black, white, or purple colors. ]]>

[WMC 2014] Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet Specs, Features and other details

Lakshmi Rajan — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 15:11:07 +0000

Nokia Android Phones are official; releases Nokia X, X+ and XL

Lakshmi Rajan — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 10:17:43 +0000

The X family is only based on Android and uses a forked version of Android rather than the truest sense of Android most users know. It takes a backdoor Android entry similar to Amazon’s Kindle. To begin with, it doesn’t have Google Play certification and notable absence would be Google Play Store and would bypass Google services for Android experience. In stead, the apps would be curated on Nokia’s own App store which will have an exclusive section for X family. The UI looks very similar to the Windows Phone OS. May be the idea here is to make the entry-level segment get used to the Lumia language whenever they switch to it. Nokia says it is very easy for developers to port their existing Android apps and only three APIs have been changed, so if a developer isn’t making use of these, no changes are needed at all. It is also possible to download apps from third-party app-stores as well as side load an APK directly from the computer to the device. As expected, the devices would be baked with many Microsoft services as well as Nokia’s exclusive apps like Mix Radio and Here Maps.

Nokia X devices specifications and pricing

The first of the device and the one in rumor-mill for long time is Nokia x which is very similar to the Lumia 520 device. It features a 4-inch WVGA (800×480 pisxels) display and is powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core processor paired with 512MB of RAM. Other specs include 4GB of storage with microSD support, 5-megapixel camera and a 1,500mAh battery. Nokia X would be the first device to hit the market immediately. Nokia says it would be available for 89 Euros. Nokia X+ and XL would rollout in the second quarter and would be priced at 99 Euros and 109 Euros respectively. Nokia X+ shares the same specs as of Nokia X but with only a beefed up internal storage. Nokia XL is the biggest device of the trio, sporting a bigger display – 5-inch WVGA (800×480 pixels) display — and gets better cameras– 5-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front-facing camera. All the three devices are dual-SIM smartphones .As an introductory offer, Microsoft is offering buyers one month free calls Skype, and 1GB of OneDrive storage.

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