Micromax launches 2 Windows Phones in India for under Rs. 10K

Micromax has launched two Windows Phone 8.1-based smartphones - 'Canvas Win W121' and 'Canvas Win W092' in India. The smartphones are priced at Rs. 9,500 and Rs. 6,500 respectively, and will be available from July.

First up is the Micromax Canvas Win W121. The smartphone features a 5-inch IPS HD display. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 1.2GHz quad-core processor along with 1GB of RAM. The W121 has an 8MP rear camera with flash and a 2 megapixel front camera with 8 GB memory expandable to 32 GB. It also has dual-SIM capability. 

Canvas Win W121

The Canvas Win W092 features a 4-inch device with a IPS WVGA display. It sports a 5MP rear camera with LED flash and 0.3MP front-facing camera. The smartphone comes with an 8GB of built-in storage, with up to 32GB expandable memory. 

Just like the Canvas Win W121, the Canvas Win W092 is also powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM. It also has Dual-SIM capability as well. The W092 is powered by a 1500 mAh battery. 

Canvas Win W092

“Expanding our partner ecosystem and making it easier to bring Windows Phones to new markets at, more price points remains a top priority. Several of our new partners such as BLU, InFocus, Prestigio and Yezz unveiled Windows Phones 8.1 devices at Computex a few weeks ago. These new devices are a result of the announcement we made back in February at Mobile World Congress with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and $0 Windows for devices smaller than 9-inches in size which has enabled partners to more quickly and efficiently bring Windows Phones in to their mobile devices portfolio,” says Microsoft on its official Windows Blog. 

Of late, smartphone companies including Indian brands are looking for alternatives to Google's Android OS. While Samsung is already working on Tizen, Indian brands such as Xolo and Micromax are exploring the Windows platform. Recently, Xolo launched its first Windows 8.1 -based tablet – Xolo Win. 

At the MWC 2014 event held earlier this year, Microsoft updated its device partners list for Windows Phone 8, adding device makers such as Foxconn, Gionee, JSR, Longcheer, Xolo (Lava) and Karbonn along with previous manufacturers Samsung, HTC, Huawei and ZTE. 

Moreover, local brands Intex and Spice in coordination with Mozilla are going to soon launch low-cost Firefox-based smartphones in India.  That said, Micromax is one of the largest smartphone brands in India. Launch of budget Windows Phone devices from Micromax will certainly help boost adoption of Windows Phone platform in India. 

Do you think Windows Phone-based smartphones will close in on Android smartphones in near future? Let us know your views in the comments section below:

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BlackBerry Z3 is all set to enter the Indian market soon.

BlackBerry will reportedly soon launch its Z3 smartphone in India for Rs. 11,000 approximately. The Z3, first budget full touch smartphone from BlackBerry, was recently launched in Indonesia where it is said to have received good response.

The BlackBerry Z3 has a 5-inch display with 540 x 960 pixels resolution. It runs BlackBerry 10.2.1 OS and is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8230 Snapdragon 400 along with 1.5GB of RAM.

The Z3 comes with 8GB of built-in storage, expandable up to 32GB via microSD. The smartphone sports a 5MP rear camera and 1.1MP secondary camera. For connectivity, the BlackBerry Z3 GPRS, EDGE, 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, NFC and microUSB 2.0. A 2,500 mAh battery powers the device.

The BlackBerry Z3 will compete against a range of budget smartphones including the popularMoto G, Xolo Q1200 and Nokia's Lumia 630

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Angry Birds Star Wars gets cool new updates and new power ups

Angry Birds Star Wars has got a new update this week. It has incorporated Lando Calrissian in bird form. This unique character can blast three bolts as his closest associate Han Solo bird. The bolts are let loose at once instead of one by one. The bolts are sent in different directions: two diagonals and one straight-on shot. This new Angry Birds update also has special power-ups that are activated in the same way as the Millenium Falcon attack.

Angry Birds Star Wars game updates are sent out free for regular game players. The new updates will be visible to the user when he starts the game. A Spin Wheel will appear that will give the user a choice of new set of weapons. The new weapons included are a thermal detonator which is like a time bomb, a hologram projector that allows you to use a hologram of the same bird, a power-blast weapon and a Force-charged slingshot that enables the user to shoot the birds at twice the speed.

These new weapons are available are available across levels and can be attached with any character in the game. These weapons run out and are not free. The users will need to keep track of their power up belt to check the status of the weapons to ensure that they don't run out. The new weapons takes away the character’s normal power and can also be stacked.

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Xolo Q600s with Android KitKat, quad-core processor, Rs 7499 special price, takes on the Moto E Really

New Delhi: The Moto E is fast losing its USP. Motorola's entry-level Android smartphone was flaunting Android KitKat at its price tag, but Indian brands have been fast to follow suit. After Micromax came up with its Unite 2 that boasted of better spects than the Moto E at the same price, the Xolo Q600s is here, even though it is a little more expensive it could very well be a Moto E contender.

The Xolo Q600s, though priced at Rs 8499, the phone is available exclusively on Snapdeal.com at a special introductory price of Rs 7499 till June 5.

The Xolo Q600s runs on Android Kitkat 4.4.2 and the phone sports a 4.5-inch (960 x 540 pixels) qHD IPS display with OGS. It is powered by a 1.2GHz Broadcom quad-core processor paired with 1GB of RAM.

The smartphone also features a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, VGA front-facing camera, 4GB internal storage that can be expanded using a microSD card, and a 2,000mAh battery that, according to Xolo, provides a total standby time up to 400 hours, talk time up to 11 hours and music playback time up to 47.6 hours. The Xolo Q600s' thickness is 7.9mm. Connectivity options include dual-SIM card slots, 3G support Bluetooth and GPS.

The phone is available in both black and white colour options.

Xolo Q600s specifications
Network	Frequency Bands	GSM: 850/900/1800/1900; WCDMA:2100
	HSPA+	up to 21 Mbps
		up to 5.76 Mbps
Processor	Chipset	BCM 23550
	CPU	1.2 GHz Quad Core
Graphics core	Make	Videocore IV
	Clock speed	312 MHz
Design	Dimensions	136.5*68*7.9mm
	Hard Keys	Power key
		Volume key
	Slots	SIM card slot(2)
		Micro USB 5pin
		3.5 mm audio jack
		micro SD card slot(1)
Display	Display Size	11.43 cm (4.5”)
	Resolution	960 x 540
		244 PPI
	Colors	16M
	Display Technology	IPS OGS
		5 fingers touch supported
Operating System	Android v4.4 KitKat
GPS	Assisted GPS
Camera	Rear camera	5MP
	Front camera	VGAOperator video calling
	Flash support	Yes
	Auto focus	Auto Focus
	FHD recording rear	HD recording
	Camera Features	Scene detection & tuning, Face recognition( For focussing as well as in Gallery), Geo tagging, Panaroma
Sensors	Accelerometer
	Ambient light sensor
	Proximity sensor
Audio	Audio codecs supported	MP3, AMR-NB, Wav, AAC, AAC+, MIDI
Video	Video playback	1080p
	Video Recording	720p (Main Camera)
	Video codecs supported	H263,H.264, MP4
	Video Player	Android Video Player
Connectivity	USB	v2.0 High Speed
	Bluetooth	BT 4.0
	Wi-Fi	802.11 b/g/n
	WLAN support	Yes
Memory	Internal Memory	4 GB
	RAM	1 GB
	Expandable Memory	up to 64 GB
Battery	Battery capacity	2000 mAh
	Total Charging Time	up to 3.3 hours
	Total Standby Time (2G)	up to 449 hours
	Total Standby Time (3G)	up to 400 hours
	Total Talk Time (2G)	up to 24 hours
	Total Talk Time (3G)	up to 11 hours
	Total Web browsing time (on 3G network)	up to 4.6 hours
	Total Web browsing time (on WiFi network)	up to 5 hours
	Total Music Playback Time (via internal Speakers)	up to 35.5 hours
	Total Music Playback Time (using wired Headset)	up to 47.6 hours
	Total Video Playback Time(via internal Speakers)	up to 5.2 hours
	Total Video Playback Time(using wired Headset)	up to 5.2 hours

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Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM review: A better bet than the Lumia 525

The Lumia 630 is Nokia’s launch platform for Windows Phone 8.1. Rather than showcasing their new OS on a flagship phone, they’ve chosen to roll it out on a budget offering. It’s a bold move but it also shows the flexibility of Windows Phone and it’s ability to offer the same user experience despite the hardware. While this has been the case right from day one, it’s only gotten better with 8.1.

After having a sneak peek at Windows Phone 8.1 and the Lumia 630when Microsoft officially unveiled it, we now look at the final build of both hardware and software.

Design and Build

Nokia has launched the dual SIM version of the Lumia 630 first, with the single SIM version yet to arrive. The phone looks like a mash-up between the Nokia X and the Lumia 620. From the front, we have the similar rounded corner look and from the the back, it’s more industrial like the X. The 630 feels rugged and durable just like all the Lumias in this segment.

Sturdy build

The display gets a generous bump in size to 4.5 inches from the 4 inches of the Lumia 525. However, the resolution stays the same at 480 x 854. It is an IPS display however, like the Lumia 525, and you even get Nokia’s ClearBlack technology and Gorilla Glass 3. The latter two features makes a vast difference in image quality and usability as compared to the Lumia 525 and the Lumia 620.

The SIM slots

The 630 also ditches capacitive buttons for on-screen buttons, which takes some getting used to. The phone also lacks a front-facing camera, which is quite disappointing. Underneath, we have a two micro SIM slots, along with a microSD card slot. The 630 supports cards up to 128GB. Only SIM 2 is hot-swappable while the others aren’t. The speaker is placed below it and is really loud for alerts and media playback.

The display is a notch above the 620 and the 525

Nokia has omitted two crucial sensors in the 630 – the proximity and ambient light sensor. The former helps turn the display off when you’re on a call while the latter helps automatically adjust the brightness of the display. We’re not sure what warranted this decision but it certainly couldn’t be cost cutting, since some lower-priced phones have this feature.

Features

The IPS panel offers very good viewing angles and colour reproduction for a phone in this segment. Sunlight legibility is also very good. The Lumia 630 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset – a quad-core SoC with four ARM Cortex-A7 cores and Adreno 305 graphics. This is the same chipset powering the Moto G as well. Despite the minimal 512MB of RAM, the interface is pretty snappy. Slight lag does creep in during some of the animations but nothing that’s a deal breaker.

WP 8.1 is a lot more functional than before

I also seems as if most of the apps that previously needed 1GB of RAM, are now compatible with 512MB of RAM. You get Temple Run 2 and Asphalt 8: Airborne, which are free to download. The thing about games on the Windows Phone platform is that they look and feel pretty much the same no matter what phone you have. Asphalt obviously runs a lot smoother on the 630 Dual than it did on the 525, thanks to the faster chipset.

SensorCore lets the 630 collect all important motion data

Apart from the other enhancements that comes with Windows Phone 8.1, the 630 also gets a new feature called SensorCore. This is available for the Lumia 1520, Lumia 930 and the Lumia 630 and 635. Its essentially a software layer which uses very little power and is constantly collecting data from sensors like GPS, compass, etc. This data is then used by the Bing Health & Fitness app, allowing you to monitor your calories burnt, steps taken, etc. There’s also a SensorCore SDK for developers to implement the APIs in their apps. You need to enable motion data in settings to use SensorCore.

There isn’t much in terms of UI improvements though. The new toggle switches in the notification bar are a nice addition but the app drawer and settings menu are still chaotic as ever. You can activate Cortana as well by simply changing the region and voice search language to US English. If you don’t have a 630, here’s how you can get this feature on any Windows Phone device.

Media

Media playback is handled by the Xbox Music and Video. You also get Nokia’s MixRadio app bundled for streaming music and standard FM Radio as well. Audio quality is good via headphones and the speaker has plenty of oomph even at high volume. We do miss the Dolby enhancement however, which was present on the Lumia 620.

Media playback is pretty good

There’s 8GB of onboard storage out of which, about 3.5GB is available for files. You can however, move most of the bundled apps over to the SD card to free up more room.

Connectivity

The Nokia Lumia 630 is a quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G phone. There’s no LTE as that feature is reserved for the Lumia 635, which doesn’t support TDD-LTE anyway, so no love for India. Other features include Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth v4.0, GPS with GLONASS and USB 2.0. NFC is not present either. You get an individual dialler and messaging app for the two SIM cards, marked 1 and 2. These tiles have different colours by default so you can easily distinguish them.

The new Word Flow keyboard works very well

The new keyboard supports multiple languages at once and it also sports Word Flow, which is a gesture typing system much like the new Google keyboard or Swype. This works very well and keyboard even learns your usage pattern over time.

There are a ton of apps that come bundled along as well like Box TV, Evernote, Facebook, GameHub, Health and Fitness, Line, Office, OneDrive, Paytm, PicsArt and whole bunch of Nokia apps.

Camera

The stock camera app is Nokia Camera, which combines Pro Cam with Cinemagraph. The 5MP auto-focus shooter does a decent job outdoors but under ambient lighting indoors, the quality is pretty average. You also get 720p video recording support. The 630 also ditches the dedicated camera shutter key of the 525, which is a bit disappointing.

The 5MP snapper is strictly average at best

Battery life

The boosted 1830mAh battery is pretty stellar in delivering more than a day’s worth of juice. Our 8-hour loop test ended with about 27 percent of battery to spare. One can easily go up to two days without charging it again, under light to moderate usage.

Verdict and Price in India

If you go by the naming convention, the Lumia 630 supersedes the Lumia 620 and is a notch above the Lumia 525. This is exactly how it’s positioned in the market as well. The Lumia 525 is moot at its current price point. Nokia needs to drop the price by a couple of thousand for it to be relevant. The Lumia 630 Dual SIM can be found for online and in shops for roughly Rs 11,000. This is very good pricing by Nokia as the 630 delivers a much better package compared to the Lumia 525. We were a bit apprehensive about the 512MB RAM at first but honestly, it really doesn’t make any difference. Sure, you might miss a game or two in the Store but it’s nothing that would ruin your life.

The Lumia 630 Dual is far from perfect. We would have liked a front-facing camera and probably a better sensor for the rear one. The camera shutter key has also gone away. The lack of an ambient light and proximity sensor is also a bit baffling. Thankfully, the latter two missing features aren’t really a deal breaker but it would have been nice to have. In the end, the aggressive pricing from Nokia kind of makes up for some of the 630′s shortcomings

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49% of you don't trust Indian smartphone brands for after-sales service: Poll

With a special emphasis on budget and mid-range devices, the Indian smartphone makers have captured a large market share in India. Brands such as Micromax, Karbonn and Lava have evolved from selling affordable phones to delivering quality smartphones at affordable prices.

In our recent poll, we asked you to rate the Indian smartphone brands – Micromax, Karbonn and Xolo – in terms of after-sales support. We received a total of 3915 votes. Not much to our surprise, majority – 1908 respondents -- voted for the “None. All of them are disappointing” option.

Despite having seen a meteoric rise in the smartphone market, the Indian companies face several challenges to sustain their growth in the country. Providing quality 'after sales support' is one of the key factors to ensure their growth. However, the Indian smartphone companies haven't been able to meet expectations of customers in this regard.

Micromax, however, received more votes as compared to the other brands. It bagged 1,422 votes, indicating Micromax has managed to satisfy customers for after sales support as compared to its other Indian counterparts. Xolo and Karbonn received 485 and 100 votes respectively. Check out the poll results in the chart below:

Micromax -34.60%

Karbonn-2.6%

Xolo-12.4%

None of them-50.4%

According to a recent IDC report, Micromax held about 16% of market share in Q4 of 2013 in India, while some of its top selling models were the entry-level smartphones like A35 Bolt and A67. The Canvas range of devices also did well in terms of volume contribution.

Karbonn had about 10% of market share in the fourth quarter of 2013, while Lava gained a market share of 4.7% in the fourth quarter of 2013, thanks to its Xolo and Iris series of smartphones. Here's a look at smartphone vendor market share as on Q4 of 2013:

Poll results clearly show that users aren't satisfied with the after sales support provided by the Indian brands. International brands such as Samsung, Microsoft and Sony, on the other hand may well exploit this gap, and improve their market share and users base in India with their quality after-sale service.

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