Motorola Moto X Price in India is Rs 23,999

Motorola has officially launched the Moto X in India and this time again the company has gone for the launch model used in the Moto G launch. The device will be available exclusively from Flipkart, there are no details on availability with other retailers right now. The Moto X carries a price tag of Rs 23,999 and comes with some amazing Flipkart offers and discounts.

When the the duo launched the Moto G in India we all went hay-way as the stocks were limited and every second day the Moto G was seen out of stock. Moto X is one good device and we can expect a similar sort of response for this device too. 

Flipkart has also introduced amazing offers and discounts to lure the buyers, the company is offering 70% off on Moto X cases and pouches along with a Rs 1,000 cash on EMI purchase of the device. Further 10 lucky people will get 100% cash back for purchasing the device on the launch date. These offers and discounts sound too good to be ignored but for some Moto X will remain an outdated smartphone, we can expect a mixed reaction from the buyers. 

If you are looking to buy the Moto X smartphone head on to this link: Motorola Moto X 

Xolo A500S IPS: Review of a budget smartphone

Xolo, the brand got some quick popularity by launching the first Intel based smartphone a couple of years ago. This Indian company is popular for making premium budget smartphones; the company does offer some great value to money with its series of smartphones. Today we are going to review the Xolo A500S IPS smartphone, it is the successor model of the Xolo A500S launched last year. Both the devices fall in the same budget category and have no major difference in terms of design and hardware. The only thing that differentiates these 2 smartphones is the display.

Xolo A500S IPS comes with IPS display which is better than the regular display on the older A500S smartphone. It offers good viewing angles and better brightness. Let take a peep into the device and see how it works.

Design

The Xolo A500S IPS has the same design as the older A500S, the device looks very beautiful and is very slim. The one thing that we appreciate about this smartphone too much is that single hand operation is very easy on this smartphone. These days’ people prefer bigger smartphones, and we find quite a few compact and powerful smartphones in the market. The Xolo A500S IPS is not a very powerful smartphone, but its certainly a decent smartphone with compact size.




The physical layout of the phone is designed for comfort; the right side of the panel hosts the power and lock key while the volume keys are placed on the left hand side of the panel. The front side is dominated by the 4-inch IPS display with three capacitive touch buttons at the bottom. The back panel of the smartphone comes in multiple colors and has a rubberized matt finish on it. There is a 5MP camera on the rear side accompanied with an LED flash, there is also a front-facing VGA resolution camera for video calling.
The Overall design of the phone is attractive and delivers very good one hand navigation, one need not stretch out his fingers or wrist to reach out to farther side of the display.

Software and User Interface

The Xolo A500S IPS smartphone comes with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean Operating System, the user gets Google’s Play Store on board which has millions of apps and games to download from. One can improve the productivity and entertainment features of the phone by downloading various applications. The Jelly Bean OS brings the latest Android features on board along with security updates. The OS on this device is not tweaked much and offer stock Android experience. The User Interface is not changed and is standard when compared to other stock Android phones.



Hardware

This smartphone has mid-range specs on board, it comes with a Dual-Core MediaTek processor clocked at a speed of 1.3GHz per core, and the device also hosts a Mali-400MP GPU for better graphics on board. The device measures 125 x 63.2 x 8.98mm and is amazingly light, it has a 4-inch touch display and is equipped with Accelerometer, Ambient light sensor and Proximity sensor. It uses a 1,400mAH battery as its power source which lasts fairly for one full day. This smartphone has a 512MB of RAM and 4GB ROM, there is also a micro SD slot on this phone to help user expand memory up to 32GB.



Display

Display is the only component on this device that has got on upgrade, the older device (Xolo A500S) did not have IPS display, and this one has. The display on this device offer bright visuals and the color reproduction is very natural. The display has wide viewing angles and the touch response is excellent. The phone’s hardware allows playback of 1080p videos while it supports 720p recording on board. This is one of the best smartphones in the budget category, for Rs 6,500 it a great choice.



Camera & Performance

Like we said earlier it’s a mid-range smartphone, so don’t expect higher resolution cameras on board. It comes with mid-range camera on the both the sides of the phone. The rear side of the phone holds a 5MP camera with LED flash and autofocus feature. The camera UI on the phone is standard and the company has not gone crazy tweaking it too much. It offers standard Android camera interface with the similar set of features like touch focus, Geo-tagging and panorama.



The camera UI on the top holds the twitch camera button, there is also the shutter button and the video recording toggle button. This smartphone captures good day light images, the low light images on this phone is poor. Considering a low budget offering one would not get disappointed with poor low light images. The rear camera on this device is also capable of shooting 720p videos while the front facing VGA resolution camera helps in video calling.

The performance of the phone is average, in fact better than other Android smartphones in the same price range. During our encounter with this compact budget offering we did not see any lags or issues with the phone. The Camera worked perfect, we were able to record HD videos and there were no issues with the software too. Everything on this smartphone is well optimized to offer good user experience.

My Verdict: Deal or No deal?

A lot of people get confused between Xolo A500S and Xolo A500S IPS as to which is better? And when people ask which is better, they mean which one performs better. Both the phones have same performance, there is not going to be any difference at all. Both these smartphones have same hardware, so if you are in a myth that the Latest A500S IPS is better and faster than the Xolo A500S, then please come out of it. Latest does not always mean faster than older, in this case the A500S IPS comes with a better display.So it’s a great deal to buy either Xolo A500S or A500S IPS, I would recommend my readers to go for Xolo A500S IPS because for a few extra bucks you get a real good display. For six thousand and odd rupees this is the best you can get in the market. Go for it.

Micromax Canvas Turbo: Review

Micromax officially launched the Canvas Turbo in October last year. This smartphone has some great features and is the first full HD smartphone from the company. The Canvas Turbo has a 5-inch display based on Continuous Grain Silicon technology, we got the device from Micromax and here is the full review of this Indian smartphone.

Design

This is one of the best smartphones in the market and is the best smartphone by any Indian company. The Canvas Turbo is a very slim device, it has an aluminum body with matt finish on the rear side. The power/lock key is placed on the right hand side along volume keys, the placement of buttons on the sides make easy navigation. The left hand side of the phone holds 2 micro SIM slots, the phone’s back panel is non-removable and is made of aluminum.



The front of the phone is dominated by the 5-inch display and has a 5MP camera on top of it along with three touch sensitive buttons in the bottom for Home, Menu and Back navigation. The rear of the phone is divided into 3 parts, the central part is the back door which is made of aluminum.



The upper and lower parts are made of plastic, a normal user may not differentiate between the central aluminum and the plastics on top and bottom. Overall the design of the phone is very attractive and is easy to hold in one hand. With matt finish on the rear the phone is little slippery.
Software



The Canvas Turbo comes with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean Operating System with a little modification in the UI. Micromax has not used the stock launcher and changed it with some other launcher, rest of the phone’s interface gives the stock Android feel, it comes with the same notification bar and settings menu. Micromax has included some ringtones and wallpapers to match with the profile of the company.



Additionally this Indian manufacturer has included the iFloat application. A lot of people compare it with Samsung’s multi window feature but we wont do that. This is totally a different thing altogether. The iFloat app in Canvas Turbo allows user to add multiple windows on one screen, the UI of iFloat is very simple and user friendly. One can add multiple windows on the display for better multi-tasking, there is also option to decrease and increase size of the windows present on the screen.

Another good thing about the Canvas Turbo is its Camera, the Canvas Turbo just like Canvas 4 comes with Sony camera and offers some of the best shots in the low lighting conditions. Micromax offers a different UI in the camera application. Micromax calls its camera the Camerazzi and offers some good features like GIF animation, 3D panorama, Burst mode, Object Removal among others. The camera on this device is capable of shooting full HD videos and comes with HDR mode.

Hardware

Micromax has really used some tough materials on the phone, it does not feel cheap or look cheap. The phone is premium in looks and feel, the build quality is amazing and feels tough. This is the first Indian smartphone that surprised us with the performance, features and build quality. On the hardware front the Canvas Turbo has a 5-inch multi touch display with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels with 440PPI density. It comes powered by a 1.5GHz Quad-Core MediaTek processor coupled with PowerVR SGX544 GPU and 2GB RAM.



There are Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Proximity and Ambient light sensors on board along with 16GB of internal storage capacity. The device has a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front facing camera for video calling purpose. And all of these use a 2,000mAH battery to function effortlessly on this device.

We generally don’t get quality earphones with smartphones made in India. The Canvas Turbo is bundled with a nice quality earphone with mic, it features a soft rubberized wire and call answer button on it. The sound quality of the earphone is great with good bass effects.

Display



Micromax Canvas Turbo, the company says it can Juggle Many Lives, well it truly can Juggle many lives. The phone’s USP is its 5-inch full HD display, it is the first smartphone from Micromax to have a full HD resolution. The display offers bright visuals, the text is very clear, pictures and videos looks brilliant. There are no lags or frame drops while playing HD games or FHD videos, Quad-Core processor supports the display perfectly.

Camera

This smartphone has a 13MP rear camera with LED flash from Sony. There is a 5MP front-facing camera for video calling. The rear camera on this device is amazing and takes great pictures in day light. Color reproduction is good and images look natural and real. Budget smartphones comes with poor cameras, and make no mistake this is a high end Indian smartphone offering best value for money. The Camera app did sometime report issues and was closed automatically but that we expect to get fixed with the kitkat update coming in a couple of months.



Images taken in low light conditions came out to be brilliant, although there is little noise and that is clearly visible when zooming in the images but its good for a smartphone camera. The rear camera on this smartphone is also capable of shooting full HD videos, the camer UI on this smartphone comes with a lof features and funtions. Features like Cinemagraph, 360 degree Panorama, Burst mode and Object eraser are included in the camera UI of this phone. Here are some samples of the images taken at night using the Canvas Turbo







Performance

We have reviewed quite a few phones in the past and this one turned out to be the best of all. In our review session we bombarded the phone with a lot of HD games and HD videos, we tried maximum to make this device report error or force close applications but that dint happen. Full HD games like Shadow Guns, Modern Combat 2, Air Attack HD and Nova 3 played perfectly on this device. We did not experience any issue while playing any of these games on this smartphone. Some of other smartphones we reviewed previously also came with FHD resolution but had problems playing these games. Thanks to the Quad-Core processor and 2GB RAM on board as it really helps the phone to perform better and faster than its rivals, multi tasking is also amazing and works just the way it is designed.



This smartphone comes with Dual SIM feature, it supports micro SIM on both the slots. The phone is 3G enabled and thus we used 3G internet on the phone to test the speed. Web pages loaded in average time and apps downloaded faster, there were some issues on the WiFi and at times web pages took little longer than normal load time to load the pages and content on this smartphone. Calling experience is again average on this phone while texting is really amazing. The keyboard is perfectly tweaked to offer accurate touches while typing.
We did not run any benchmarking apps on this device because we strongly did not wanted to compare this device with other devices in the market. Another reason for not running benchmarks was that the phone was extremely fast, there were no issues playing any games, running apps and watching movies.

The 2,000mAH battery might look tiny on paper; we too felt that mere 2,000mAH battery will not do justice to the giant display and Quad-Core processor. During our review session, which lasted for 1 full day, the phone’s battery did not disappoint us. It gave us a backup for 13hours, we used the phone mostly for playing HD games and watching movies. We used 3G and WiFi at regular intervals for internet needs, we played music on loudspeaker and attended about 15 calls with average texting. Micromax has done something with the software to increase the battery life of the device, otherwise a 2,000mAH battery cannot last that long.

My Verdict

This is by far the best smartphone we have reviewed in the past. Moreover with a price tag of Rs 18,000 it’s a great deal. Canvas Turbo does not report any issues except the one software bug with the Camera App. Also this device is likely to get a software update in the coming months which will bring Android kitkat to this device.




The only drawback this smartphone has is the lack of external memory storage. The device does not have a micro SD card slot, although this smartphone supports USB O-T-G and one can connect pen drive or any mass storage using OTG cable but a lot of people prefer micro SD cards for secondary storage and not OTG. So if you don’t mind setting up OTG for storage or if you are happy with the 16GB memory then you can go ahead and buy this device. Also I recommend this smartphone to people who are looking to buy a smartphone in the 20k to 25k budget category, this one comes for just 18k but offers something more than what other 18k smartphones can.

Sony Xperia M- Full Review

Sony Xperia M is budget smartphone aimed at mid-high end consumers. The device comes with a price tag of Rs 13,490 for single SIM and Rs 14,490 for Dual SIM version. It does not have a Xperia Z like camera and the giant display, but it offers something worth buying in the budget category. Check out our full review of this smartphone below.

Design and Build

Sony has actually made a lot of advancement in terms of designing its smartphones. The Omnibalance concept is actually turning out to be one of the best design concepts in the market. The Xperia M is also a product of the Omnibalance design and looks very much like the Xperia Z and Z1. This smartphone is very slim and sleek, single hand usage comes as a byproduct with the design it adopts. With this design and elegance we can say that it is one of the gorgeous looking smartphone in the mid range price segment.



Previously we reviewed the Xperia Z1 which was a waterproof and dust proof device, although the Xperia M looks very similar to Z1 in terms of design it does not feature water and dust resistance coating. This smartphone measures 9.3mm thick, which is not the slimmest but certainly not very thick too. It weighs mere 115grams and gives a balanced feel in the hand. The build quality of the phone is decent; the rear panel of the phone is made of polycarbonate and has rubberized finish on it. This smartphone is available in black, white, purple and yellow colors.

Display

The Sony Xperia M comes with a 4-inch Multi-touch capacitive display with a resolution of 480x854 pixels, it does not have Sony Bravia engine or the trilluminos to give you a TV like quality. The display on this device has a pixel density of 245 pixels per inch, the display overall is average. In terms of visibility indoor we were completely satisfied with it, what disappointed us was the outdoor visibility.



Reading texts, watching movies and videos was satisfactory on this device, we did not notice pixels on texts and images, and everything appeared sharp and clear. The display on this device lacks good viewing angles, color don’t look true and natural when viewing from sides. The brightness levels on the display are pretty good and support auto brightness.
There are no complaints and issues in the responsiveness of the display, touches were accurate and typing was very easy on this device. Swiping through apps and home screens are very smooth, thanks to the Dual-Core processor on board.

Software and User Interface

The Xperia M runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean out of the box and it is skinned with Xperia UI. The user interface adds pinch to edit home screens and widgets menu. Unlike other 4-inch smartphones this one comes with a better keyboard and enhanced typing features. Sony has included 8 pre-installed themes which the user can change as per his needs.
The device has the power button on the right side, making it easy to reach out at it when needed. The volume keys are placed on the left hand side and the camera shutter key is on the right bottom. The device has three capacitive touch buttons at the bottom of the display accompanied by a beautiful LED indicator. What Sony offer more with this device is NFC and Android Beam, which a lot of budget smartphones don’t offer.



On a broader scale the Xperia M has good software on board and Sony has not gone crazy tweaking it too much. The Xperia UI does take away the stock android feel but that’s for a good reason, the Xperia UI is really fast on this device and it never lagged or stopped in our encounter with the smartphone.

Hardware

As said earlier, the build quality of the phone is excellent and it is very well complimented with quality hardware on board. The device has a 1GHz Dual-Core Snapdragon processor coupled with 1GB RAM. it has a set of Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Proximity sensor and Compass on board. The combination of this hardware makes this device an exceptional device in the budget category.



The main processor on this smartphone is coupled with an Adreno 305 GPU for graphic rendering. This improves the battery life of the smartphone. It comes with a 1,750mAH battery and offers good backup. Sony claims that it offers up to 7hours and 30 minutes of talk time on 3G and gives standby time up to 450hours. We dint get to test it for that long but in our review session we played intense games, used 3G, WiFi and played music. During the 3 hours review session the battery percentage dropped down to 50% from 100%, this is pretty decent for a budget offering.

Camera and Memory

Sony is popular worldwide for making good camera phones, there are companies that buys camera from Sony to put on their smartphones. Having that said, Sony has not included a very high end camera on this device, the camera on this smartphone comes with a resolution of 5MegaPixels along with a 0.3MP front facing camera for video calling.



The rear camera has LED flash and comes with standard features like Geo-tagging, touch focus, smile and face detection. Memory is again something that one cannot talk much about this smartphone. It has a mere 4GB of ROM on board, leaving the user with 1.7GB memory available for media storage. It although supports 32GB micro SD card memory expansion but a lot of other smartphone makers in India offer something better in the same price segment.

Performance

The device’s overall performance is satisfactory and the dual core processor manages to do better gaming than its competitors. The display on this device is not very impressive and disappoints in outdoor visibility.
Call quality on this smartphone is amazing, there were no call drops and Sony’s HD voice does great job in eliminating noise. The loudspeaker could have been better, also the placement of the loudspeaker at the rear bottom affects the sound output when the device is placed on flat surface.

My Verdict

For Rs 13,000 you can certainly get better devices than this one. But this device performs better than those cheap high end smartphones in the market. In spite of having a Dual Core processor it managed to play some HD games without lags and frame drops. Smartphone like Nokia Lumia 520 and 525 are good alternative to this smartphone. The display quality is almost similar but Lumia 520 and 525 comes for a much lesser price yet offering the same performance. And if you are an Android Fan boy and want to buy an Android Device then this one is just right for you.

Wickedleak Wammy Titan 3- Full Review

WickedLeak Wammy Titan 3 is a Quad-Core Phablet from the Indian company. It is the successor model of the Wammy Titan 2 and looks very similar to Samsung Galaxy Note 3. It has a 5.7-inch display with Full HD resolution. The performance of the device is surprisingly amazing considering the fact that it’s a budget offering from the company.

Design

In terms of design the device is very much identical to Samsung Galaxy Note 3. In spite of boasting a larger display the Wammy Titan 3 is very slim and light weight. This smartphone has a back cover similar to Galaxy Note 3 with the same faux leather finish. The back panel is not going to attract scratches and will keep the device looking new for longer time. The placement of physical keys is perfect with power button on the right side and volume keys on the left hand side for easy one hand navigation through the device. It comes with physical home button in the bottom along with two touch sensitive keys for back and menu respectively.



The front side of the phone is dominated by the huge 5.7-inch Full HD display which incorporates the sensors and front camera on the top. The rear panel of the phone has 13MP camera with LED flash and the loud speaker is placed at the rear bottom with Wickedleak branding on the side.



Wickedleak has bundled a flip case with this device and has a transparent window on the top. The window allows the user to see notifications and call alerts without having to unlock or open the case. Further the OS is tweaked to adjust with the behavior of the case, the transparent window shows clock, date and time along with battery percentage when its closed, and the phone automatically unlocks when the flip case is opened without having to press the power/unlock button. Overall the design of the device is pretty good and gives a premium feel in the hand.

Software and User Interface

The Wammy Titan 3 adopts the design cues from Galaxy Note 3, thankfully the company has maintained the stock Android UI and not gone ahead with tweaks to make it look like the Samsung’s TouchWiz. The Wammy Titan 3 runs on Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean with no major tweaks. The stock Android experience is what I am a personal fan of, its very simple and fast. We had the review unit for a week and we did not find any lag or flaws in the OS.



Android 4.2 Jelly Bean brings an extremely powerful search and a revamped notification experience to this device. It uses stock Android launcher to launch applications and the app drawer is very smooth navigation on the App drawer.



The larger display of the device allows for larger keys on the keyboard which enhances the typing experience on this device. The keyboard on this smartphone comes with a list of emoticons and allows insertion of images, videos, sounds and contacts.

Hardware

The Wickeleak Wammy Titan 3 comes with a MediaTek 6589T Quad-Core processor throttled at a speed of 1.5GHz per core, the processor on this device is coupled with a PowerVR SGX544MP GPU. The combination of these two makes this device very fast and allows HD game play. It has a 16GB of on-board storage coupled with 1GB of RAM and allows memory expansion via micro SD card 64GB. This seems pretty sufficient for any kind of user, gamers can download HD games and store on location he prefers, he can store media files, HD movies and all of his data on this smartphone and it won’t run out of memory.



Given a long list of features battery is one major issue that a majority of smartphones today face, but the Wammy Titan 3 will not disappoint you in this segment as well. It boasts a 3,200mAH battery and in our encounter we used the device heavily (played games, watched HD movies, music and internet along with average amount of phone calls and texts) and it managed to stay powered on for one full day.

Camera and Memory

Camera has become an integral part of smartphones, without a good camera the device does not sell. On paper this device shows a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP fixed focus front-facing camera.



The camera is capable of shooting good images, the day light images come out extremely well while low light imaging of this camera is average. The camera on this device has a lot of functions and come with pretty good pre-loaded settings and image modes. It has a BSI sensor coupled together and allows shooting images in multiple resolutions. Here are some sample 
images that we shot using this smartphone.



This phone is also capable of shooting 1080p videos, the video quality is not very good but it wont disappoint you much as this is the best that we have seen in a budget smartphone. The front camera comes out to be one of the best in the market. It has a wider viewing angle and does take some good self portraits. Video calling is amazing with the front camera and it also allows users to shoot HD videos.

Media and Gaming

The large 5.7-inch full HD display is the USP of this phablet. The display on this device has a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels and offers very bright output. The outdoor visibility of the display does not impress much however the quality of output the display produces is extremely good.



The large display with FHD resolution adds up to the value of the device, the video playback experience on this device is very nice. It offers extreme viewing angles. The broader design of the display allows user to play games with ease, the large screen spread in the landscape mode brings easy access to onscreen virtual buttons. During our review session we played Temple Run 2, Asphalt, Candy Crush, Brothers in Arms, Real Football 13 and Stick tennis. The gaming experience was good and we were extremely satisfied with the performance.
We did not find any lag or crash during our continuous game play. This smartphone is not a high end gaming phone, games like Shadowgun, Wild Blood and Nova 3 had minor frame drops. If you leave aside these high end games the performance of this device with other HD 
games is great.



1080p HD videos were the real treat on this smartphone, with this big display it gives a mini theater in hands. The sound quality on the speaker is clear and the loudness of the speaker was average. However on extreme high volumes the speakers output is distorted a bit, that one can overcome by installing music players like Power Amp from the Playstore.
An added advantage that this smartphone has over other smartphones is that it comes pre-rooted and one can use apps like Titanium back up and Pimp my Rom to optimize the performance of the phone. The company is also giving some preinstalled applications along with Pro version of MX Player.

Internet and Connectivity

Like any other Android smartphone this one too has WiFi, Bluetooth and Calling features. The WiFi on this device allows connecting to Wireless Local Area Network and also allows tethering internet from this device using Hotspot feature. The device comes with 2 SIM slots, SIM 1 is mini SIM while SIM 2 is regular sized. Both the SIM cards work on 3G and 2G connections. It comes with a micro SD slot and supports memory expansion up to 64GB and has support for USB O-T-G storage. This smartphone also pairs with Bluetooth enabled input devices.

On the calling front, the voice quality and reception on this device is awesome and the audio quality on the earpiece was also good. The device comes with micro USB port and has a list of options to choose from while connecting this device to a computer.

My Verdict

This phablet brings win-win situation for buyers. So if you have been waiting to buy a good smartphone with large full HD display in a budget category then the wait is over for you. This device has a very good display, the text appears very clear and crisp and the videos appear life like on this phablet. Summing up the whole performance of the device I would say it performs average on most of the parts and does exceptional at offering high quality video and gaming experience with a long lasting battery on board.




There are multiple smartphones that one can buy in this price category but a majority of those devices have 5-inch display, lesser power battery and do not come with memory expansion port. So why not buy a device that offers you full freedom to rule over it.

Motorola Moto G- is it worth the money?

Motorola officially unveiled the Moto G smartphone a month ago, this smartphone is selling like a hot cake in the US and UK. Motorola Moto G is aimed for global audience and will release in all parts of the world. This smartphone, which the company says is an exceptional device with exceptional price, is very much talked about. It is yet to get an official launch in India but it’s available on an online shopping website starting at Rs 15,137. While everyone is searching about this smartphone and looking for its features and specifications let us take a deeper view of the device to see what it really has and is it worth the money?

Motorola launched the Moto X in August this year, the device was a great hit in the western countries but budget conscious buyers kept away for its high price structure. The Moto X is a gorgeous looking smartphone with tough hardware inside. To address the issue of the budget conscious buyers and to keep up in the smartphone race Motorola planned for Moto G, a cheaper variant to the Moto X with the same design cues.

The Moto G looks very much like the Moto X and comes with upgrades on some parts while a few are downgraded to meet the low price structure. It has a 4.5-inch HD display with a resolution of 720p and is powered by a Snapdragon 400 processor with 4-cores on board clocked at a speed of 1.2GHz per core. This smartphone comes in two memory variants with 8GB and 16GB storage combined with 2GB of RAM on both. The Moto X came with 4G LTE connectivity which the Moto G does not have, also the camera on Moto G (5-MP) is of lesser resolution than the one seen on Moto X (10MP).

Moto G has quality stuff on board to differentiate itself from other budget smartphones’ herd, and most importantly it has the Motorola branding. This smartphone is currently available online for about Rs 15,000. Let us compile some of the smartphones that Rs 15,000 can buy in India.
Nokia Lumia 625- Rs 14,000

This device comes with Dual-Core Snapdragon Processor and Windows Phone 8 OS. To know more about Lumia 625 click here.
Sony Xperia L- Rs 15,000



This smartphone is from the house of Sony and comes with Android OS and a 1GHz Dual-Core processor; it is nowhere close to Moto G. To know more click here.
Micromax Canvas HD A116i- Rs 13,000


This smartphone is little larger than Moto G and offers the same resolution as Moto G does. It has a Quad-Core MediaTek processor with same clock speed as Moto G. Click here to know more about Canvas HD A116i.
Samsung Galaxy S3 mini- Rs 15,000



Galaxy S3 is one powerful device but with the Mini version the company has also Mini hardware. It is not a very fast and powerful device, but it offers some good features with budget price structure. Read more about this device here.

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Nokia Lumia 1520 with 6-inch FHD Display launched in India for Rs 46,999

Nokia has launched the recently unveiled Lumia 1520 phablet in India today. The device comes with a price tag of Rs 46,999 and offers 4G LTE connectivity feature. It is going to rival against Galaxy Note 3, HTC One max and LG G2.

Nokia Lumia 1520 is a massive 6-inch phablet with full HD display (1920x1080 pixel resolution) and is powered by a 2.3GHz Quad-Core snapdragon 800 processor. The device has a 2GB of RAM and 32GB media storage capacity and is further expandable by using micro SD cards.

Lumia 1520 comes with a 20MP rear camera for photography; it comes with the Nokia PureView technology to offer the best quality imaging. It has the latest Nokia Story teller app and updated HERE maps. The device runs on the latest Windows Phone 8.1 OS and offers stunning features for business, entertainment and productivity. This smartphone has one of the best camera phones in the market and takes some of the best low light images.

LG Gx with 5.5 inch Full HD display announced

Life’s really good for LG as it has become a popular smartphone brand in the market and is giving tough competition to Samsung and HTC with its series of smartphones. When LG launched the G2 in the market it became an instant hit with the kind of display output it offered. The display of the LG G2 became its USP; it has so much potential to catch every eyeball that rolls over it. Moreover the company brought out new design concept and implemented the rear placement of the physical buttons which makes single hand navigation easy.



After the success of G2, the company brought out the G2 mini for those customers who want a compact yet powerful device with best display quality. LG also launched LG G pro lite and G pro lite dual for budget conscious customers. There were also multiple releases in the VU series, although the VU series is not very much popular but the company has brought the 4:3 ratio of display size back in the market with these devices. One of the most popular devices from LG is the G Flex, it comes with a curved display and minor flexibility with it.



Now the company has officially unveiled the LG Gx in Korea, this device has hardware similar to the G Pro and comes with Android Jelly Bean Operating System on board. The device has a 5.5-inch Full HD display with 1920x1080 pixel resolution. It comes with a Quad-Core snapdragon processor on board and is powered by a 3,140mAH battery. The device has a 13MP rear camera along with a 2.1MP front-facing camera for photography and video calling respectively. This device comes with 32GB of onboard storage coupled with 2GB of RAM and has 4G LTE along with NFC feature on board.


LG has officially not commented on the price and availability of the device in other markets but we can expect a global roll out in the coming months. Since there is no official statement all we can do for now is wait for the announcement and see if this product reaches Indian market.
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Moto G is up for sale online even before its official launch in India

Motorola recently announced the Moto G, a cheaper variant to the Moto X. The device comes with great hardware and software features at a reasonable price. The device is currently selling successfully in the US and UK. Moto G became popular with its budget price tag and mid-high range sepcs.

Motorola is officially expected to launch the device in January in India but today we have spotted the device on an online store shopyourworld.com, the website has already started selling the device even before its official launch in the country. The 8GB version of the device comes for Rs 15,137 while the 16GB is priced at Rs 17,089.


The Motorola Moto G comes with a 4.5-inch HD display with a resolution of 1280x720 pixels. It is powered by a Quad-Core Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at a speed of 1.5GHz per core. Moto G comes in two storage variants, 8GB and 16GB, with 1GB RAM on board. The camera department of the phone boasts a 5MP rear snapper with LED flash and a 1.3MP front-facing camera for video calling. The cameras on this device are capable of shooting HD videos and have supported features like Geo-tagging, touch focus, stereo sound and HDR. The device is very compact and offers mid-to-high range specs at a competitive price.
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Sony Xperia Z1 full review

Sony Xperia Z1 is the latest flagship model from Sony. This device is the successor model of the Xperia Z and comes with some advancement over hardware and design. With this smartphone Sony is offering some top of the shelf features in a beautiful and sleek design. We headed to a Sony Store to know if this smartphone can really deliver what it promises to. And here is the in depth review of the masterpiece from Sony.

Design



Sony has made this smartphone based on their Omnibalance design philosophy, which is focused on creating stability and regularity in all the directions. This design concept from Sony makes this device look like a small glass slab, and is indeed pretty attractive. This smartphone from Sony is water and dust resistance, the internal of the device is coated with fiber glass flaps, protecting the device from water damage.



The Xperia Z1 has a metal chassis which is sandwiched between 2 glasses. The front side of the phone is dominated by its 5-inch FHD display and is covered with shatterproof film coating to make the device dust resistant. The rear panel of the device is made up of glass and has shatterproof coating too. Sony’s Omnibalance design idea has made this device very thin and light weight, making it easier to hold with one hand. Even though there is no customization for improved single hand use the design concept of the phone brings in single hand usability with it.



This smartphone has a perfectly balanced distribution of the physical buttons. The right side of the phone holds the power button which is made of Aluminum and is placed in the right position for easier access. The user gets full control of the phone with just one hand unlike other manufacturers who put the power button on top of the device making it difficult to reach out at it with one hand. The bottom right of the device holds the shutter button to capture images and the volume keys are placed on the left side of the phone. There are also 3 touch sensitive keys on the device which are placed at the bottom of the display.

In our encounter with the device the operations on the phone were smooth and very rapid. The design of the phone along with combination of proper layout of buttons makes this device a perfect choice over its competitors.

Operating System and User Interface



The Sony Xperia Z1 comes with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean Operating System, it is not the latest version of the OS but Sony has recently announced that it will roll out Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update to some of its devices which include Xperia Z1 too. This smartphone from Sony is heavily customized with Xperia UI and that the user can experience the same while using the phone. The User Interface of the phone is very fast and responsive. We did not experience any lag or flaws while using the phone.

The User Interface of the phone looks pleasing to the eyes and goes well with the design of the phone. Apart from Xperia UI Sony has also added a slide out menu which appears when sliding on the right in the first menu screen in the App drawer. This slide out menu comes with some handy function like Search, Uninstall Apps, Arrange Apps and access Google Play Store.

Sony has brought out features like Screen Mirroring and Support for Dual Shock 3 wireless gaming controller. With Screen Mirroring the user can share the device’s display with a WiFi enabled TV without using any cables.

Hardware



The Sony Xperia Z1 comes with top quality hardware on board. Before we tell you what the hardware specs are let us take through the performance of the device. We had a long affair with the review unit given to us, we played games, watched FHD movies, played music, clicked pictures and surfed internet on this massive smartphone. The performance of the device is actually very impressive and it does not disappoint at all. It offers what it promises to. There were no frame drops or lag while playing FHD movies and High Definition games. We played Asphalt on this smartphone and it ran very nicely, the Adreno 330 GPU does well at rendering HD graphics. The device comes with a 3,000mAH battery and offers Stamina Mode and Low battery mode to enhance the battery life on the device. Sony claims that the battery gives a talk time up to 13 hours on this device; we did not run any battery test. We had the device for good amount of time where we managed to run so many tests and the battery percentage dropped by mere 40%. With this we assume the user with average usage is expected to get the talk time promised by Sony.

This smartphone is powered by a 2.2GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 800 processor coupled with 2GB of RAM. With specs this high you would expect the device to deliver such high performance and this smartphone actually offers the performance mentioned above.



The display of the device is full HD with resolution of 1920x1080 pixels giving a pixel density of 441PPI. The display offers good output; the text appears clear and crisp while the color reproduction was natural. What disappointed us were its viewing angles, the device does not offer wide viewing angles. The visuals do not appear good when viewing from sides. Further the outdoor visibility of the screen was average; if you spend Rs 43,000 and buy a device like this you would surely look forward to have better visibility of the content outdoors too. Apart from these two flaws there is nothing much to complain about.

Camera and Memory


This is one area which in our opinion no one would complain about with regards to Sony Xperia Z1. The device comes with a 20.7 MegaPixel camera on board, the device has a camera sensor of 1/2.3” and comes with LED flash. It is accompanied with features like Geo-tagging, touch focus, HDR, Panorama and 1080p video recording. The phone shoots 1080p videos at 30 frames per second, the videos taken on this phone are very clear and life like.

This smartphone takes marvelous pictures at day light, images taken at night also came out good but had little noise in them. However the image quality of Xperia Z1 in both day and night conditions came out better than its competitors. The auto-mode in the phone’s camera sometimes had difficulty autofocussing, we are not sure if it was a fault with the review unit we got or was it a software bug that was causing this problem.

The Xperia Z1 comes with 16GB of ROM, out of which 11.97GB is user available memory, and is coupled with 2GB of RAM. The combination of memory with such huge RAM makes this device one of the fastest in the market. Further this smartphone allows memory expansion by up to 64GB via Micro SD cards. Multi-tasking was at its great with Xperia Z1, launching and closing apps was as fast as light. So overall we are extremely impressed with the performance of this smartphone from Sony.

Media



This smartphone is great when it comes with playing media on it. We played 1080p Videos and it worked perfectly without any lag or frame drops. Seeking between time was smoother and supported instant playback. The Xperia Z1 has speakers in the bottom, which is very good for smartphones as phones with speakers in the rear side usually reduce the sound output when placed on flat surfaces. The sound quality on the loud speaker was average and comes with preloaded sound settings to offer clearer and better sound without distortion. As mentioned earlier the phone has no issues playing Full HD games and Videos.

Extras



Sony makes some of the coolest gadgets in the market, and this smartphone is compatible with all of the accessories that Sony makes. One may want to try out the Sony Smartwatch with this one; there is also an add-on lens available for this device which enhances the camera experience of this smartphone. More-over Sony is giving away Free Premium Flip Case worth Rs 2,990 and a portable Power Bank (5,000mAH) worth Rs 2,790 along with Free Accidental Damage for 6-months. The device is priced at Rs 42,990 in the Sony Store.

Benchmark tests

We ran some benchmark tests on this smartphone and the results are below.
The device scored 33814 in the AnTuTu benchamark and stood below Galaxy Note 3



It scored 10350 in the Quadrant Standard benchmark and was on the top in the list



Xperia Z1 got a 1185 in the Vellamo benchmark



Xperia Z1 ranked No. 1 with 2924 score in the HTM5 followed by Xperia Z Ultra and Galaxy Note 3



With these test it makes it clear that this smartphone certainly packs in a lot of power than its competitors.

Verdict




Given the long list of smartphones in the market people tend to confuse which smartphone to buy, given the price category of Rs 40,000 buyers are certainly going to fall in a dilemma as to which is best for them. This smartphone is certainly impressive with the speed and performance it offers. If you can compromise a little with the viewing angles of the display then it is the best choice for you. This device is a straight rival to Samsung’s Popular Galaxy Note 3, iPhone 5c and HTC One Max, do consider these devices too while making a purchase decision.