Samsung Galaxy S III coming in Feb 2012; Galaxy S 3D in the works

Rumours of Samsung's next flagship smartphone, Samsung Galaxy S III are back in the news. According to the latest reports, the Samsung Galaxy S III will be launched in February 2012, at MWC 2012. The new Galaxy SIII is expected to come with a quad-core processor. The last round of rumours had suggested that the S III would feature a new Exynos processor, the Exynos 4412. Also, the new Exynos processor is rumoured to be an ARM Cortex A9-based quad-core unit.

According to unwiredview.com, the Galaxy S III is likely to feature a large HD (1280 x 720) Super AMOLED Plus display, LTE connectivity, and the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich platform. Other things to expect from the S III are a 12MP camera and 2GB of RAM.

Galaxy S II is Samsung's most popular smartphone

Separately, reports suggest Samsung is also working on a 3D smartphone. Dubbed as the successor to the Samsung Galaxy S, the Galaxy S 3D is expected to be launched in the second half of 2012. The Samsung Galaxy S 3D is likely to feature an autostereoscopic Super Amoled HD Plus display with 1280x720 pixel resolution. The screen size of the 3D device is expected be between 4.2-inch to 4.65-inch.

Also read,

• Samsung buys out Sony's stake in S-LCD joint-venture
• Samsung announces dual-SIM versions of Galaxy Y and Galaxy Y Pro
• Samsung Galaxy devices to receive Android 4.0 ICS update by Q1 2012

Amazon Kindle Touch Review

Amazon Kindle Touch Review

The Kindle has shed the buttons, and seems to be handling this facet of its personality very comfortably. While it is still not officially available in India, you can order it from Amazon or any of the shopping websites that allow global shopping. Amazon accounts work seamlessly across devices - be it the Kindle app for the PC, iPad, Android or the Kindle Reader itself. Buying books will not be a problem either.

Look & Feel
The Kindle Touch is slightly heavier than the Kindle (the plain-Jane edition), but is considerably less bulky than the one with the keyboard. Since the Kindle Keyboard wasn’t considered heavy or uncomfortable to hold and read on for long durations, this one certainly isn't either! It is slightly thicker than the Kindle and the Kindle Touch, because of the touchscreen.

The bottom of the Kindle Touch has the standby/power button, and the micro USB slot for charging and data transfer. Press the power button for 7 seconds and that’ll put the Kindle in sleep more. Press it once and it goes into stand-by mode. For the version with the advertisements, it’ll show an advert, and pending any gesture, will turn off after 10 minutes.

Click to enlarge

Features
The Kindle Touch has a 6-inch display with multi-touch capabilities. The device has 4GB on-board storage - Amazon says that is good for about 3000 books. You can also email yourself ebooks (PDFs, MOBI and txt files) using the email address that gets created for you when you register the Kindle for the first time.

On-board is an experimental web browser, and “experimental” for a good reason. Some flash heavy websites do not render properly, but most sites have no such issues.

The Kindle Touch has a 3.5mm jack and built-in speakers to feed the audio books, text to speech and the built-in MP3 player functions. The speaker isn't great, quite expected. Amazon doesn’t ship any earphones with the Touch, but the audiobooks and MP3s do sound a lot better if you have a decent pair of headphones in play.

Performance
It looks extremely unassuming. On the front is the 6-inch e-ink display with multi-touch, and is accompanied by one hardware button. With all the Kindle devices till now, you had to press a hardware button to flip pages - something that turned off a lot of book lovers who missed the feel of actually turning a page. The Kindle Touch brings that back, to a huge extent. Amazon have divided the fields on the display very well - tapping anywhere in the wide margin on the right side to flip to the next page, or tap anywhere in the thin left margin will flip to the previous page. Alternatively, you can just swipe on the screen like you would swipe a page in a book. Tap on the very top of the display to open the menu bar.

You can access Kindle Store from within the reader, but you need to access the Amazon Account from via a PC and register the Kindle there. This is a one-time process, and any purchases you make will be automatically sent to your Kindle, and any other linked devices.

The screen refresh capability also has two settings here - every page or every sixth page. If you set it to every page, the text is perceptibly crisper and better to read, but there is a flash of black every time you flip a page. If you choose the latter setting, the text quality does degrade slightly, but page turn is quicker and smoother. The Kindle Touch is set to refresh the display with every page, by default.

While reading a book, you can press and hold on any work or phrase, and after a couple of seconds, a pop up menu will open. This is where you can get the meanings, as well as social network integration - post to Facebook and/or Twitter.

Tapping on the top of the display opens up the menu bar - store access, search, change font size etc. to change font sizes though, you can just use the pinch-zoom gesture and the text size can be increased or decreased with every gesture. When you are doing that, a small pop up indicates what size it is now on, from a list of pre-set font sizes.

Amazon claims a battery life of about 2 months, with an hour of reading daily. We still haven’t been able to drain the battery on our Kindle Touch! It has been with us for two weeks, and despite a couple of hours of reading daily, the battery is slightly less above 50%. It had come out of the box with about 60%, and we haven’t charged it even once. Nothing suggests we should not believe what Amazon claims about the battery life.

Our Take
The Kindle Touch brings back the fun of flipping pages to an e-book reader. It isn't officially available in India, but Amazon ships it here, and so do websites like ebay Global EasyBuy and Shop Your World. For someone who already has a Kindle, the Touch isn't an enticing enough upgrade. But for someone who is looking to buy their first e-book reader, or want to gift someone one, then the Touch is the smartest choice at the moment.

Price: US$ 99 (Wi-Fi only, with special offers)plus shipping etc.

Specs: E-book reader, 6-inch E-ink display, capacitive touchscreen with multi-touch, Wi-Fi (3G optional), experimental web browser, music player, access to Kindle Store

Ratings
Features: 7.5
Performance: 8
Build: 8.5
Value: 8.5
Overall: 8.5

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iPhone 4S tariff plans compared - Aircel vs. Airtel

With just one day left before the launch of the iPhone 4S, telecom operators, Airtel and Aircel have revealed their tariff plans for the long-awaited device. The telecom operators are presently taking pre-orders for the iPhone 4S, while the official launch is scheduled for November 25th. The tariff plans for the iPhone 4S are said to be pretty similar to what the operators have been offering for the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS.

The pricing of the iPhone 4S has already drawn flak from all corners, as it has been kept extremely high in India as compared to other countries including the U.S. and U.K. Both Airtel and Aircel are expected to provide respite to the Indian consumers already bearing the brunt of price rise. Let's have a look at what both the telecom operators are offering with the new iPhone 4S:

Aircel

Aircel has priced the 16GB variant of the iPhone 4S at Rs. 44,500, while the 32GB variant is available at Rs. 50,900. Aircel has not yet mentioned the price of the 64GB variant of the iPhone 4S. Previously, it was listed as “sold out” on the website. Aircel is offering two plans of Rs. 950 and Rs. 1,150 for the iPhone 4S enthusiasts. The telecom operator says the plans assure you recover the cost of your iPhone 4S over a period of 2 years with its fixed discount on the monthly rentals..

http://www.thinkdigit.com/Mobiles-PDAs/iPhone-4S-tariff-plans-compared--Aircel_8021.html

RIM launches 3 new Blackberry smartphones in India

Research In Motion (RIM) has announced the launch of three new BlackBerry smartphones in India. All three phones are based on the new BlackBerry 7 OS operating system.

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 combines a QWERTY keyboard with a touchscreen. The BlackBerry Curve 9350 is the first CDMA-based BlackBerry 7 smartphone to be launched in India. The BlackBerry Curve 9380 is the first smartphone with an all-touch display in the curved series.

"We are pleased with the response that the new BlackBerry 7 operating system is receiving from customers in India and we are very excited to introduce these three new BlackBerry 7 based models here,” said Krishnadeep Baruah, Director of Marketing for India at Research In Motion. “These new BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Curve smartphones offer compact designs with faster performance, enhanced browsing and richer multimedia, as well as NFC support.”

9380

9350

9790

BlackBerry Bold 9790 with Touch Display and Keyboard
Carrying forward the Bold 9700 series, the new BlackBerry Bold 9790 smartphone comes powered by a 1 GHz processor, and a touchscreen + QWERTY combo. There is 8GB onboard memory and an expandable memory card slot that supports up to 32 GB of additional storage. This phone is priced at Rs 27490.

BlackBerry Curve 9350 with Keyboard
The new BlackBerry Curve 9350 is a CDMA smartphone. It has features like optical trackpad, GPS and Wi-Fi, 5MP camera with flash and video recording and the microSD/SDHC slot supports up to 32 GB memory cards. This one is priced at Rs 20990.

All-Touch BlackBerry Curve 9380
This is the first all touchscreen phone for the Curve series, and not to be confused with the Torch 9860. It has a 3.2” touchscreen and an optical trackpad. This one will be priced at Rs 20990

Also read our reviews of other recent BlackBerry devices:

1. BlackBerry Curve 9360 Review
2. Blackberry Bold Touch 9900 Review
3. Blackberry Bold 9780 Review
4. BlackBerry Torch 9800 Review

More information on the new BlackBerry 7 OS
The new Blackberry 7 OS focuses on improved browsing, voice-activated searches, support for Augmented Reality and NFC (Near Field Communications).

BlackBerry 7 also comes with an updated browser is faster than the predecessor. The browser includes a new JIT (just in time) JavaScript compiler to improve the load time speed of web pages and it offers optimized HTML5 performance for incredible gaming and video experiences. The popular universal search capability has also been enhanced with support for voice-activated search, so users can simply speak to begin searching their device and the web for information.

The BlackBerry Bold 9790, BlackBerry Curve 9350 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 smartphones include built-in support for Augmented Reality and NFC, allowing users to connect with the world around them in fresh new ways. With Augmented Reality, users can use the Wikitude application to find nearby BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) contacts in real-time, read reviews on restaurants close to them, or get the story behind an interesting landmark or points of interest. NFC also enables many new and exciting capabilities, including the ability to pair accessories or read SmartPoster tags with a simple tap of the smartphone.

BlackBerry 7 OS comes with a host of pre-loaded applications. The Premium version of Documents To Go allows users powerful document editing features as well as a native PDF document viewer. BlackBerry Protect app is also pre-loaded, for personal data can be back up on the cloud. BlackBerry Balance app is integrated in BlackBerry 7, allowing users to enjoy the full BlackBerry smartphone experience for both work and personal purposes without compromising the IT department’s need for advanced security and IT controls.

The Social Feeds (2.0) app has been extended to capture updates from media and favourites all in one consolidated view. The Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones (2.0) app introduces features like Facebook chat and BBM integration that makes it easier for users to connect with their Facebook friends in real time.

Motorola Droid Razr XT910 available online in India for Rs. 33,990

Motorola's Droid Razr XT910 is now available in India via online retailer flipkart.com for Rs. 33,990. Dubbed as the world's slimmest smartphone, the Droid Razr XT910 runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system and features a 1.2GHz dual-core Cortex A9 processor.

The Droid Razr XT910 comes with a 4.3-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 540 x 960 pixels resolution. It has 8MP primary and 1.3MP secondary cameras. It has a 16GB of internal storage, which can be expanded up to 32GB via microSD card. For connectivity, the device supports Wi-Fi, GPRS, 3G and Bluetooth. The Droid Razr also comes with a 1,780 mAh Li-On battery. The device has various pre-loaded apps including MotoCast, YouTube, Google Talk and Google Search. Read more details about the specs of the new Droid Razr XT910 here.

Spice Transformer M-5500

In this era when mobile phone are fast becoming a necessity rather than a luxury, many companies have jumped in this fray and are trying to earn their bread and butter exploring the business opportunity in this market. While many companies have been targeting the high end customers and the professional working class, there are some mobile manufacturers who have been constantly focusing on lower and middle income group. One such company is Spice. Spice mobiles are generally affordable and fulfills much of the common people needs. But that should not be taken for the thing that they compromise on quality. They are keen on providing with good and stylish phones with trendy designs. Spice phones have been known for launching Dual-Sim phones in India.

Going by the commitment and the determination to built a name for themselves, Spice has launched Spice transformer series phones have been launched with an exclusive tie-up with Transformer 3 movie. And as it may suggest Spice transformer phones have Transformer 3 movie theme, videos and wallpaper.

One of the phone from this series is Spice Transformer M-5500. Its an touch and type Dual-Sim (both GSM) mobile phone. It is true to its name, Transformer. The keypad panel, equipped with feather keypad, can be removed thus making it also a full touchscreen phone making it a totally different phone. It carries itself two panels, one being the alpha-numeric keypad and the other being for the touchscreen. Spice Transformer M-5500 has been made as a easy to use device with simplified menus and shortcut keys in it. It is high on features and low on pricing. Loaded with some attractive features it has many things which can make it appealing to the masses. The new Spice Transformer M-5500 has 1.3 MP camera which works fine for the phone of this type. From connectivity point of view, it is well equipped with WAP, GPRS and Bluetooth. The younger lot can find mp3 player, video player, stereo speakers and FM radio inbuilt in it, appealing to them. Some people might get disappointed with the fact that it does not come with stylus. Though not a very high-end phone, it has managed not to look dull and boring either. Overall it is a phone priced just right for you and promises to be delivering a mix of style and innovation.

Spice Blueberry Express

Spice mobile has been trying very hard to make in roads in the mobile phone segment and has been performing in the direction which will help them create a name for them selves. Spice mobile is trying to make footprint in mobile phone market by launching some innovative and not so common phones. One field in which it is really coming out to be a leader is Dual-Sim technology. As it allow user to carry two numbers in one phone, this feature has brought smile on many of the faces by reducing their expenditure a bit. User can have CDMA and GSM or both GSM technology in the same set. To sustain and perform in this market Spice mobile have been armoured with great features, fresh designs and innovative technologies. Most importantly Spice mobiles are priced economically which gives them a fair advantage among the low spenders.

Offering in Dual-Sim category is Spice's new mobile, Spice Blueberry Express. For people who wants to have a taste of Blackberry without paying a hefty price, Spice Blueberry Express is sure shot alternative for them. With latest QWERTY keypad and instant messenger for quick chat, it is trying to make itself count in business phones. Spice Blueberry Express is handsomely packed with FM radio, 2MP cameras, music player, video recording, availability to social networking sites and other friendly interface. Spice has taken care of it looks and this bar shaped phone comes in a couple of colors which can suit to your taste and personality. It is exceptionally built and boast of a perfect dimension. You also have the option to change the back and front panel. It also comes with a track pad which helps in the navigations of the menus suitably. It also comes with Mobile tracker, so you can be sure of keeping a tab in case your mobile gets stolen.

Spice Blueberry Express price is very economical and has been fixed in such a way that it is well within the reach of price conscious people. For a phone having such great collection of applications, Spice Blueberry Express price is really cheap. Spice Mobile has again come up with a winner with Spice Blueberry Express. Its a great phone perfectly blending the combination of style, performance and price. Definitely you won't demand for something else in this price segment.