Blackberry unveiled Classic and Passport : Coming back in the Game

Blackberry's quarterly earnings report saw the unveiling of the Blackberry Passport, which was previously rumored to be a phone codenamed "Windermere". 

Blackberry CEO John Chen with Blackberry Passport

Also Blackberry unveiled Blackberry Classic. This phone is expected to be running the latest Blackberry OS 10.3.1 which will also be available to all the current Blackberry 10 phones.These were expected to be launched with the Blackberry Z3 expected to be launched in India soon.

Blackberry's plan for FY15

Passport is expected to be the company's flagship this year and looking at the design it actually looks like one. An important thing to note on Passport is the lack of punctuation and numeric keys on the keyboard.

Classic on the other hand will come with a traditional QWERTY keyboard that Blackberry users are quite familiar with.

A closer look at Passport

Passport has a 4.5-inch display with a resolution of 1440x1440 which makes it a square unlike other smartphone of rectangular shape which we are accustomed of seeing. Its square display makes it quite wide at 3.18-inches making it wider than Samsung's Galaxy Note 3.

Even though specifications are not released officially but its rumored to be powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 800 with Adreno 330 GPU and 3GB of RAM. It will be launched at a London event in September. It's now available on Amazon for a price of INR 49,990.

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Asus Ready to Enter the Indian Smartphone Market

Taiwanese manufacturer Asus is all set to launch in India with its range of Zenfone smartphones next month probably on 9th July. Company unveiled these smartphones at Consumer Electronics Show(CES) and Computex this year.

Displaying Zenfone series at CES 2014

Zenfone series comprises of 4-inch, 5-inch and 6-inch smartphones named Zenfone 4, Zenfone 5 and Zenfone 6 respectively. All phones have IPS display and comes in a wide range of colours.

Zenfone 6

Zenfone 6, the flagship phone is powered by 2GHz dual-core Intel Atom Z2580 chipset with 1GB of RAM and runs Android KitKat 4.4 out-of-the-box. It comes in 8, 16 and 32 GB storage options expandable to 64GB via microSD card. It has a 13MP rear camera with LED flash and a 2MP front camera.

Zenfone 5

Zenfone 5 comes in 2 processor variants 2GHz dual-core Intel Atom Z2580 or 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Atom Z2560 chipset with 1GB of RAM and runs Android KitKat 4.4 out-of-the-box. It's available in 8 or 16GB variants with expandable to 64GB via microSD card. It has a 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a 2MP front camera.

Zenfone 4 has a resolution of 800x480 pixels. Running Android KitKat it's powered by a 1.2GHZ dual-core processor coupled with 1GB of RAM. It has 8GB internal storage with options to expand to 64GB via microSD card. It has a 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a VGA front camera.

The devices are expected to be price in budget to mid-range buyers putting it in competition with Micromax, XOLO and Intex to name a few.

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Amazon's Entry into Smartphone Market : Amazon Fire Phone Launched

 After a lot of leaks and speculations Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos finally launched the Amazon's first smartphone Amazon Fire Phone on Wednesday. As was seen by all the leaks this phone has faced its really the same. Like all the flagship smartphones by other companies this also has a 4.7-inch HD display. It’s powered by a 2.2 GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM for fast, fluid performance, dual stereo speakers, and Dolby Digital audio. 

Pull-down Menu

A Look at the OS

Naturally, it’s running the highly forked version of Android i.e., Fire OS that has already been used in the company’s Kindle series of E-Book Readers and Tablets.

That's pretty standard for a flagship phone but the 2 things that make it different are Firefly and Dynamic Perspective that allows you to see and interact with your world through a whole new lens.

Dynamic Perspective

Dynamic Perspective basically means that some apps will have a 3D depth meaning that you can see around edges when you tilt your phone like it happens with real-life objects. You’re looking around objects, but there's no attempt to make stuff pop off the screen. It's refined, but we'll have to really use the phone for a long time to know if it's something we'd actually want to use.

Firefly is a new technology that quickly recognizes printed web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, artwork, movies, music, and millions of products, making it easy to discover information, share items with friends, and more. It works in seconds—simply press and hold the Firefly button.

Tilting on the phone goes to a whole new level. Just by moving the phone, you can pull up menus in Fire OS or scroll through text in an app. Auto-scrolling is also achieved because of this tilting. You can read a whole book without having to touch the screen.

There is also Mayday integration that connects you to an Amazon expert via a live video. The will co-pilot you through any feature by drawing on the screen. Also Amazon say that you will be able to see the expert but they won't see you.

X-Ray also works the same way as on all the Kindle Fire tablets.Watching a movie, reading a book, wants to know about any character just point the rear camera while in X-Ray and get all the details instantly.

The Fire Phone is available to pre-order today but won't start shipping until July 25th. It costs $199 on a two-year contract, and is an exclusive to AT&T for now. Also, Amazon is providing a full-year subscription of Prime free. If you are already an Amazon Prime subscriber it will add 12 months to your account.

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Blackberry's Z3 to Launch in India Next Week......

For the past 2 years the Canadian smartphone company Blackberry has faced quite a number of of glitches in the Global Mobile market. But now its ready to regain its lost status with its latest smartphone Blackberry Z3 which is set to launch in India next week, on 25th June.

Blackberry has already started sending out press invites to media houses for the launch event on 25th June. This will be the first smartphone to come out of partnership between Blackberry and Foxconn which is commonly known for its relationship with Apple Inc.

The same device was launched in Indonesia earlier this year at a price of IDR 2,199,000 ($190 or INR 11,500). Expectations are that this device will be launched at around the same price making it the cheapest Blackberry smartphone running on Blackberry 10 OS putting at par with Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Microsoft(Nokia) and Micromax.

Blackberry now aims to regain its top position in the Indian smartphone market in which its been a laggard for the past few years as it failed to keep up with competition and the requirements of the consumers.

Blackberry’s new Z3 fashions 5.0-inch qHD display, running OS (v10.2.2) powered by a 1.2GHz snapdragon dual-core processor with 1.5GB of RAM and 8GB inbuilt storage (expandable up to 32GB). The budget Smartphone is also equipped with 5.0-megapixel camera with flash, 5x digital zoom, image stabilization, and full HD video recording ability and a 1.1-megapixel front camera.

KEY FEATURES

• OS: BlackBerry 10.2.1 OS
• Dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400
• Dimensions: 140×72.8×9.26mm
• Weighs 164 grams
• 5-inch qHD (960×540 pixels) 220ppi
• 1.5GB RAM
•  8GB expandable up to 32GB using a microSD card
•  5MP rear/ 1.1MP front Camera
•  2,500mAh Battery

Do you think Blackberry will be able to rule the markets again?

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Micromax's new flagship Canvas Gold goes on sale!!!!

After quite a time Micromax's new octa-core smartphone Micromax Canvas Gold A300 goes on sale at infibeam for Rs.24,000. Although it's not officially announced by Micromax but the phone is running the latest version of Android i.e KitKat 4.4.2 with a MediaTek processor along with 2GB of RAM.

Micromax Canvas Gold A300

Micromax Canvas Gold A300 has 5.5-inch full HD display. It has a 16MP shooter with auto focus and flash on the back and a 5MP camera in the front. Camera has a Sony Image Sensor and the smartphone comes with 32GB of built-in storage.

16MP Auto focus Camera

Connectivity parameters include 2G, 3G. WiFi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. For more details check out the listing on infibeam.

Ultra Slim Design

Its the second octa-core phone from Micromax after the Canvas Knight and will be up against Intex Aqua Octa, Gionee Elife E7 Mini and Titanium Octane Plus in the mid-range segment.

Android KitKat 4.4.2

Share your views in the comment section below.

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Micromax launches Windows Phones

After the announcement at the Microsoft's Build Conference 2014 held at San Francisco about new OEM's including Micromax, they finally launched 2 new phones in the Canvas series Canvas Win W091 and W121 based on Windows 8.1. These smartphones are priced surprisingly below the Nokia Lumia series and so will be giving a stiff competition in this process segment. The smartphones are priced at Rs. 6,500 and Rs. 9,500 respectively and will be available in the markets from July.
First take a look at the Micromax Canvas Win W121. It has an impressive 5-inch IPS HD display and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 1.2GHzquad-core processor. It also has 1GB of RAM. The W121 has an 8MP rear camera with flash and a 2MP front camera. It comes with 8GB of capacity expandable to 32GB. It also has dual-sim capability.

Micromax Canvas Win W121

The only difference in Micromax Canvas Win W091 is its 4-inch IPS WVGA display. Also it has a 5MP rear camera with LED flash and 0.3MP front-facing camera.

Micromax Canvas Win W091

“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 in its official blog.

Recently the smartphone companies including local brands are looking for alternatives to Google's Android OS. Samsung has already displayed smartphone Samsung Z based on Tizen OS, XOLO and Micromax are working on Windows platform and Intex and Spice are looking to bring Firefox OS in the country.

Do you think windows smartphones will come close to giving a tough fight to Android? Give your views in the comments section below.

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