Android phones with best battery life

Android phones with best battery life.

Philips Xenium W6610-5,300mAh

The capacity of the lithium-ion batteries installed in the Philips Xenium W6610, is unprecedented for a smartphone and more appropriate to some plate 5300 mAh. Accordingly, in all modes of the test apparatus shown miracles of longevity, becoming the record holder for the duration of battery life along with other "long-playing" machine - Lenovo P780.

Uninterrupted reading program FBReader (standard, light theme) with a minimum comfortable level of brightness (brightness was set to 100 cd / m²) lasted until the complete discharge of the battery for more than 33 hours and at an uninterrupted viewing YouTube videos in high quality (HQ) with the same level of brightness over the home Wi-Fi network device lasted 18.5 hours - it's incredible performance for a normal smartphone. The developers promise up to 33 hours of talk time and 50 days of standby time. Of course, this idealized, hard to reach in real life figures, but in any case, Philips Xenium W6610 is definitely one of the best Android-smartphone on the market for the duration of battery life.

Gionee Marathon M3-5,000mAh

The company has expanded its range Gionee smartphone Marathon M3, which stands out the presence of a huge battery. Its capacity is 5000 mA • h.

The rest of the specifications are quite ordinary. Then set the display diagonal of 5 inch IPS 1280 x 720 pixels. The heart acts as a quad-core MediaTek platform with a frequency of 1.3 GHz.

Volume of RAM and Flash memory of 1 GB and 8, respectively. In addition, the smartphone is equipped with a camera resolution of 8 and 2 megapixel, adapters Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n and Bluetooth 4.0. The device runs on Android 4.4. Dimensions of the device are 144.5 x 10.4 x 71.45 mm. Sales in India, the novelty will appear in the near future for $ 210.

Gionee Marathon M2-4,200mAh

The handset comes with a massive battery, a power saving app is also included to get more juice out of it. I used the handset for quite some time and at different levels had monitored the battery performance.

22 Minutes usage the battery dripped by 6% (benchmark apps / games).

17 Minutes usage battery dripped by 8% – playing games.

31 Minutes usage battery dripped by 5% – playing games.

With this 4200 mAh battery you can expect over 5 hours (6 to 9 hours) game play. Max temperature was 44 degrees.

MicromaxCanvas Power-4,000mAh

The handset has dual SIM connectivity with Dual Standby and supports 3G networks. The Phone features 5-Inch IPS LCD Display with 720p Resolution at 294ppi Pixel Density. The device houses a 1.2GHz Quad Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 MSM8212 Processor, 1GB RAM and 8GB of Internal Storage.  There is also a Micro SD Card slot available for further expansion up to 32GB.

Xolo Q3000-4,000mAh

The Xolo Q3000 is powered by a quad core MediaTek processor clocked at 1.5 GHz. There is 2 GB of RAM, which ensures that the phone doesn’t lag despite multiple apps and processes running simultaneously. The internal storage capacity is 16 GB which can still be further extended using micro SD cards. The SIM card slots and the micro SD slots are paced just below the camera. Surprisingly, one SIM slot accepts micro SIM only, while the other also accepts regular SIM.

Xolo Q3000 have a big display, but also a big battery of 4000 mAh, which occupies almost 75 percent of the internal space. It is quite obvious that the battery last for a long time. On normal usage which includes data and calls, the battery lasts for nearly one and a half day. However on very minimum usage, the battery lasts for more than two days on a single charge. Prolonged gaming and internet browsing does affect the battery life.

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iPhone 6 vs Galaxy S5

iPhone 6 vs Galaxy S5

Whether it is enough to knock down the iPhone 6, that's for you to decide. But looking back at the qualities - and flaws - of these two devices, and seeing the very Apple-like direction Samsung has decided to with the design of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, I feel vindicated in naming the iPhone 6 as the better device.

Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro review

Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro review

The Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is naturally a bigger version of the Yoga Tablet 2. Things don’t just end with a bigger screen – 13.3-inch as opposed to 10.1-inch – but Lenovo has managed to it in a projector in the Tablet 2 Pro. Yes, you read that right – a Projector. This makes it a first of its kind tablet, to feature an in-built projector.

The metallic build makes the tablet look elegant. We did not find any flimsy portions on the tablet body. The metallic buttons on either side have a good feedback mechanism. The tablet weighs around 950 grams and has a slim form factor as you go from the hinge to the top. The cylindrical base and the textures on the rear side gives the tablet a good grip when held in the hand, but the 13.3-inch form factor makes it quite unwieldy to carry around for long duration. On the left hand side you have a power/standby button, a 3.5mm audio jack, microUSB port and a volume rocker button. On the right hand side, you have the pico-projector at the base and a button on top to switch it on or off. On the rear side you have a clean back with just the Lenovo branding.

The tablet houses an Intel Atom Z3745 quad-core processor clocked at 1.86GHz along with 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM. It comes with 32GB of onboard storage of which around 26GB is available to the user. You can also add in a microSD card on up to 64GB capacity. The microSD card slot is located on the rear side, on the left hand side of the hinge button. It runs Android 4.4 KitKat with Lenovo Vibe 2.0 UI atop it.

The Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro comes with a 2.1 speaker system from JBL which has two front-facing speakers and the JBL sub-woofer located on the rear side. The power button on the left hand side has a glowing LED light surrounding it. On the camera front, you get an 8MP rear camera with an f/2.2 aperture and a 1.6MP front-facing HD camera for Skype calling.

Lenovo Vibe 2.0 user interface is seen on the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro which is similar to the on seen on the Yoga Tablet 2 and most of its smartphones. The user interface is quite vibrant and can be too colourful at times. The swiping actions are different from regular Android devices. Swiping from top to bottom will only bring up the active notifications, whereas swiping from bottom upwards will bring up quick settings.

Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro comes with a 13.3-inch 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution. This gives it a 221 ppi pixel density. The display is bright and although the resolution is high, one does not get a feeling that this is indeed a QHD panel. This is because, the app icons are blown up. You can only reduce the text size from the settings. Also the widgets are huge in size and there are instances where you cannot have more than two widgets on one homescreen. Absence of an app drawer means, you will require multiple home screens in case you are planning to use a lot of apps.

The Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro has an 8MP rear camera with an f/2.2 aperture and a front-facing 

1.6MP HD camera. Thankfully the camera is placed in the centre on the rear side with this tablet, as opposed to the strange placement that was seen on the Yoga Tablet 2. Using the 13.3-inch tablet to click photographs is challenging to say the least. Clicking photographs in the portrait mode is comparatively easier. In the landscape mode it is quite unwieldy to compose the image, set the focus and click a photo with a single hand. Image quality is decent enough to share online. Indoor images are noisy and outdoor images aren’t very sharp either. The front camera works well for Skype calling.

Yoga Tablet 2 Pro supports a massive 9,600mAh battery as the Pro has a 2560×1440 pixel display over 13.3-inch display and an in-built projector. Now the battery life easily lasts over a day on regular usage with a little bit of projector use. We ran the PC Mark for Android test, which gave us a time of 8 hours 18 mins.

Moto X (1st Gen.) - Android™ 5.1 Lollipop - Release Notes

Moto X (1st Gen.) - Android™ 5.1  Lollipop - Release Notes

 A new software update for Moto X (1st Gen.) by Motorola. This update brings Android™ 5.1  Lollipop to your phone along with other improvements.For more information on Motorola updates and repairs, visit us at www.motorola.com/mymotox.NOTE: You cannot downgrade to a previous software version after installing this update.

Android™ 5.1  Lollipop is one of the most significant in recent Android history. It improves your experience in many areas including visual style and how you interact with your device.After installing the software update you may notice changes that include:

Notifications UI & Priorities

In order to alert you to the most timely and relevant information, the format and behavior of notifications have evolved:

Notifications will appear on the lockscreen and are intelligently ranked by type and who sent them.

You double-tap to open one, swipe left or right to clear one, or clear all notifications from the bottom of the list.

You can set the priority and privacy of notifications for each application.

Very high priority notifications will pop up briefly over other applications so that you can take action.

When you dismiss a notification on one device it will be dismissed on your other Android devices, if they are connected to the Internet.

You can further tailor how notifications behave with the new Downtime and Ambient Display settings (see below).

You can block interruptions until your next alarm. This choice will show only when you have an alarm set within the next 12 hours. It will prevent you from missing an alarm when you choose ‘No interruptions’.

You can choose to enter a scheduled downtime early. For example, if you are going to bed early and change your notification settings, you can choose “Until your downtime ends”. This option will be visible when within 4 hours of the scheduled start of your downtime.

Adds icons to the volume settings panel that match those that will show in the status bar (None, Priority).

You can now alter notification volume controls while media is playing. With the volume controls showing, a tap on the bell icon will bring up notification volume controls.

New Interruptions & Downtime Settings

You can tailor how interruptions behave, choosing to allow all, none, or only priority interruptions. You can personalize what counts as a priority interruption (reminders, events, calls, messages) and even tailor them to be from only contacts you specify. The Downtime setting will allow only priority interruptions during the times and days that you specify. e.g. allow only priority interruptions on the weekend.

Recent Apps (Multi-tasking)

The redesigned Overview space (formerly called Recents) will include both applications and separate activities within those applications. For instance, each open tab in Chrome will also appear here along with recent applications; both your Gmail Inbox and a draft email message will appear as separate cards. This provides a consistent way to switch amongst tasks.

Moto Display and Ambient Display

While your phone’s display is off, Moto Display will continue to surface relevant notifications to you using the low-power Contextual Computing Processor. It will also intelligently react when you use the Approach gesture under Moto Actions.

Android Lollipop now includes a similar feature, called Ambient Display, that displays notifications like those shown on the lockscreen. If you prefer to try the new Ambient Display feature, you can uncheck the Moto Display setting in the Moto app. Note: Ambient Display does not use Motorola’s low-power core and will turn on more of the display, so battery life may be impacted. The Moto Actions Approach gesture will not wake Ambient Display.

Moto Assist and Downtime

Moto Assist integrates the new Downtime feature within Android Lollipop to control when you don’t want to be disturbed. Moto Assist also now uses the new Interruptions settings so that you can customize exceptions, such as letting only people on your starred contacts list get through.

Share your Device

You can now set up multiple user accounts on your phone. Guest mode is enabled by default. You can give calling and text privileges to other users of your device, or restrict them as you like in the Users menu under Settings.

Note that the personalized Moto experiences (Moto Assist, Moto Voice, Moto Display, Moto Actions) and Motorola Connect are for the owner account only.

The Motorola Camera and Gallery applications support multiple user accounts.

Battery

The Battery settings panel now shows an estimated projection for how much time you have left while discharging or charging. You can also enable a new battery saver mode that will save power by reducing performance and most background data operations to extend your battery life.

Smarter Internet Connections

With Android Lollipop, your phone will not connect to a Wi-Fi access point unless there is a verified internet connection. This feature improves hand-offs between Wi-Fi and cellular connections, helping to maintain your video chat or voice-over-IP (VoIP) call as you switch.

Performance

Your phone now uses the new Android Runtime to help optimize application performance. After upgrading to Lollipop, your applications will undergo a one-time optimization process. Note that the optimization for ART requires more space.

Smart Lock

Android Lollipop adds native support for allowing trusted devices to keep your phone unlocked (such as your Moto 360, a Bluetooth car kit or headset, etc.). Smart Lock replaces the prior trusted device capability in your Motorola phone. Note that you will need to add your trusted devices back after the transition to Lollipop in the Security settings menu under Smart Lock.

Best Buy

Xiaomi Mi Note Pro With SD-810 Goes On Sale In China

Xiaomi Mi Note Pro With SD-810 Goes On Sale In China

The Xiaomi Mi Note Pro, announced on 15th Jan 2015, is Xiaomi’s attempt at moving beyond the entry-level segment and targeting the higher end of the market which is usually Apple territory. At its heart, the phone follows on the Xiaomi philosophy by providing great specs at a great price.

Talking about specs, the Xiaomi Mi Note Pro is a marked improvement over the Mi Note. While the dimensions and screen size remain the same, the resolution has received a decent bump from the Full HD 1080 x 1920 display in the Mi Note to QHD 1440 x 2560 display in the Pro version. This changes the pixel density from 386 ppi to a remarkable 515 ppi.

Under the hood, the Mi Note Pro is powered by the 64bit Octa-core Snapdragon 810 along with Adreno 430 in the GPU department, as compared to the quad-core Snapdragon 801 and Adreno 330 on the Mi Note. The RAM also received an upgrade to 4GB along with 64GB internal storage, thereby firmly placing the phone in competition with other flagships. The Mi Note Pro also features optimizations to the 13MP camera, and hardware-optimization for HiFi audio, specifically FLAC playback.

Xiaomi has also claimed that it has dealt with 810’s heating issues to an extent, and has included thermal images in their press release.Of course, there is still much to test to how much of this applies to unbiased and real life usage scenarios.

As far as differences go, the rest of the stuff is on the software end. The Mi Note Pro comes with MIUI 6 on top of Android 5.0.1 Lollipop out-of-the-box.

The Mi Note Pro also features Sony’s IMX214 CMOS sensor with OIS for the 13 MP rear camera. It also sports two tone flash, and a 4 MP front camera. The battery is a decent 3090 mAH capacity, and supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0. The phone however, does not have a micro sd card slot.

Wrapping up anything about a Xiaomi product would be wrong if the price was not mentioned. Continuing on the Xiaomi legacy, it certainly does not disappoint. The phone will be available for CNY 2,999 (~$480) on 6th May 2015, and will be available for CNY 3,299 (~$530) after that. For now, Xiaomi has not revealed any plans of making this phablet available beyond the Chinese market.

We sure do hope that this phone makes it beyond its limited market. After all, it does offer flagship level specs at a mid-range price, much like our beloved Nexus 5 (although there is no comparison between the two on the software end of things).

Xiaomi Mi 4i review

Xiaomi Mi 4i review

Xiaomi Mi 4i has the dimensions 138.1×69.6×7.8mm and is more durable as it comes with a unibody form factor. The back is somewhat bent and even though it is built of plastic, it appears strong and thick due to the matte finish.

As a result, the device is less vulnerable to stains. The smartphone is convenient for a single-handed use owing to the thin bezels and the power as well as volume rocker keys placed at the device’s right-hand corner.

The rear camera towards the top left-hand side does not project outwards and the speaker outlet is also at the back. The left corner of the device has a sim card tray with two slots for micro sim cards.

The front of the smartphone is controlled by the full-HD display lined by three navigation keys at the bottom and the lens of the front-camera at the top.

The smartphone sports a full-HD IPS display screen measuring 5 inch having a resolution of 1920x1080p protected against scratches by Corning’s Concore One Glass Solution.

Design

Xiaomi Mi 4i comes with a polycarbonate rear cover which is non removable and this cover wraps the phone from the rear side giving smooth rounded corners and edges. In terms of design there are more hints of the Redmi 2 rather than the Mi 4. The dual SIM tray is located on left hand side. On the top you have the 3.5mm audio jack and at the base there is the micro USB charging and data transfer port.

On the rear side, you have the 13MP camera placed on the top left hand corner beside which is the dual LED flash unit. The camera is flush with the surface of the rear side which is quite good. Towards the base you have the silver coloured embossed Mi branding and below it the grilles of the speaker along with a tiny lip to help raise the phone a bit when it is resting on a flat surface, so as to not muffle the sound.

Features

The Xiaomi Mi 4i houses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC (second generation) which has an octa core processor. You get a quad core Cortex A53 clocked at 1.7GHz also known as the performance cores and another quad core processor clocked at 1.1GHz known as power saving cores. It has an Adreno 405 GPU. This is paired with 2GB LPDDR3 RAM.

The Mi 4i runs Android 5.0 Lollipop with the MIUI 6 skin on top. It comes with 16GB of internal storage of which 12.9 GB is available to the user. Sadly, there isn’t a provision to add in a microSD card. Xiaomi has used a small form factor motherboard to accommodate a large capacity battery (3120mAh). The Xiaomi Mi 4i has a dual SIM, dual standy mode and can take in 4G SIM cards in both the slots. It features 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS/GLONASS and USB OTG.

Software

First Xiaomi phone to be launched with Android 5.0 Lollipop. But thanks to the MIUI 6 skin atop the phone, you can barely tell the difference between the look of the Mi 4i from the Mi 4 or even Redmi 2.

Xiaomi has added on some good touches. You now get floating notifications so that you are not interrupted (while making that decisive photograph or while playing your favourite game) when you get a message or a call, as it will show up as a floating notification at the top. The Mail app has also been redesigned.

 One of the key features includes the layout of threaded email conversations which actually appears like chat messages. Other proprietary apps include the Mi Account, Security, Themes, Music and so on.

Performance

second generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC paired with 2GB RAM is enough to handle most tasks. The phone works well in the performance mode and the Adreno 405 GPU is capable of handling heavy games such as Asphalt 8: Airborne and Dead Trigger 2. Browsing on Chrome with over 10 tabs open at a time, along with 10 apps running in the background didn’t slow down the device or make it freeze.

Display

The 5-inch full HD display is vibrant  and comes with IPS panel which gives it great viewing angles. Just like the higher end Mi 4, the Mi 4i also has a 441ppi pixel density. Colours are vibrant and text appears sharp. There isn’t any visible warm tinge to the display. Xiaomi has used a One Glass Solution instead of Gorilla Glass protection. The screen is resistant to smudges and when the phone display is off, you can see a continuous black top. Only when you observe closely will you notice the separation between the screen and bezel.

Xiaomi has employed a technology called ‘Sunlight Display’, which basically is a hardware based always on signal processor, which dynamically adjusts the contrast of pixels in real time so as to help you show a balanced display in situations where there is extreme glare.

Camera

Xiaomi Mi 4i has the same camera 13MP rear camera as its elder sibling – the Mi 4. But the only area where it differs is that the Mi 4 has a 6-element f/1.8 lens whereas the Mi 4i has a 5-element lens configuration with an f/2.0 aperture. On the front-face it has the 5MP camera.

Battery Life

The Mi 4i houses a 3120mAh battery which is quite a large capacity battery on a 5-inch device. Over 3000mAh batteries are generally seen on 5.5-inch devices. battery easily lasted over 12-14 hours of moderate usage involving surfing the web, calling for couple of hours, social media use, photography, video streaming and so on. In performance mode will last around 10-11 hours depending on your usage. But you can easily extract a day’s worth of battery life from the Mi 4i.

Motorola Moto E (2015) brings LTE

Motorola Moto E (2015) brings LTE

In May last year, Motorola has announced its first most affordable phone, the Moto E, with a price tag of only €100. The mid-range Moto G has got a tremendous acceptance in the smartphone community, and the Moto E join the crowd at the best possible moment. Now Motorola has introduced the updated 2nd generation Moto E with tons of welcomed updates.

Motorola continue the clean and sleek front design from the first generation Moto E onto this second generation. The first thing to be noticed when looking at the front of the device is the fact that the bezels were significantly reduced. This new Moto E is only 5mm taller than the old one but sporting a larger 4.5-inch IPS screen compared to 4.3-inch on the original model. However the screen resolution was still stuck at qHD (540x960px) making the ppi to decreased from 256 ppi on original to 245 ppi on this 2015 version. The speaker position has been moved to top and integrated with the earpiece, leaving the lower bezel thin, mirroring the one on the Moto X. On the back, this phone adopted the design of that the Moto X (2nd gen) and the Moto G 2014, with big camera ring on top along with the M logo slightly below. What interesting with this newest iteration is that Motorola introduced colorful swappable bands specifically for the Moto E. The phone looks sturdy and not cheap at all.

Motorola announced two main version of the new Moto E, one with the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 (3G version) and one with the 64-bit quad-core Snapdragon 400 for the LTE version (XT1527). The 2014 version is powered by dual-core Snapdragon 200. The 3G version will be available in two variants; XT1511 for the US GSM (850, 1700, 1900 MHz) and the XT1505 for global bands (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz). Moto E will only be available with single SIM option. Both versions will get an 8GB of ROM and 1GB of RAM, up from just 4GB of ROM in the original model. Removable storage is supported, up to 32GB via microSD card. The battery is hugely bumped up to 2,390 mAh from just 1,980 mAh.

Motorola also updated the camera module for this phone, with a 5-megapixel auto focus main camera with f/2.2 aperture, compared to a fixed focus one on the original model. A VGA front facing camera also has been included in this updated moto E, while it is absent on the 2014 version.

This phone is readily available in the US for $149.99  for the LTE variant in two color options: White and Black. In India, only the 3G version will be available starting from Rs. 6,999 via Flipkart with no availability date is mentioned. Moto E is launched with Android Lollipop 5.0.x out of the box.

Best Buy

Huawei Honor 4X

Huawei announced not one, but two phones at its Honor 6 Plus launch event. Apart from the flagship Huawei Honor 6 Plus, we also saw the release of the budget-oriented Huawei Honor 4X. Honor is Huawei’s online only brand and all phones with the Honor name tag will be sold online – a model that is seeing increasing traction in India. Motorola started the trend with the Moto G which was sold exclusively on Flipkart and this was followed by a lot many players with Xiaomi being the most prominent. Recently, Micromax’s online only subsidiary Yu Televentures launched the Yu Yureka, exculsively on Amazon. Looking at the relative success of these companies, it is safe to assume that this model is working wonders for brands as compared to purely offline sales. Let us see how the Honor 4X fares and if it will be a threat to the incumbents.

Build and Design

Considering this is a 5.5-inch phone, the immediate competitors include the Yu Yureka and Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G. When compared with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G, the Honor 4X comes across as comparitively thinner and lighter phone. The model we got came with a white textured back. The rear cover has the Honor logo etched into it and the cover is easily removable. The plastic used in the construction is not the sturdiest, but not as flimsy as the Lenovo A6000 either.

On opening the cover you get access to the dual SIM card slots along with the microSD card slot. The battery is non removable. On the rear side, you have the camera section along with the LED flash unit beside it, located on the top left hand corner.

On the front-face, you have a display which lacks any Corning protection. The screen is a fingerprint magnet and you will need to constantly clean it. At the top, you have the earpiece speaker along with the proximity sensor and the front-facing camera. At the base there are the

home, back and menu buttons which have the triangle, circle and square shapes as seen on Android 5.0 Lollipop handsets.

The phone measures 8.7mm thick and you have the volume rocker and power/standby button on the right hand side whereas the left hand edge is clean. Coming to the top, you have a 3.5mm audio jack and at the base you have a microUSB charging port and a speaker section beside it. Overall build quality is quite good.

Features

Huawei has decided to target the budget segment with the Honor 4X. It sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 SoC which houses a 1.2GHz quad-core Cortex A53 processor which is paired with Adreno 306 GPU and 2GB of RAM. The phone has 8GB of internal storage of which only 4.05GB is free for users. You can add on a microSD card of up to 32GB storage capacity.

It sports a 5.5-inch HD display which gives a pixel density of 267ppi. On the OS front, we get an Android 4.4.4 KitKat along with the Emotion UI 3.0 interface. The rear 13MP camera is complemented by a 2MP front-facing camera. The Honor 4X is powered by a non-removable 3,000 mAh battery.

Software

Huawei Honor 4X comes with the Emotion UI 3.0 on top of the Android 4.4.4 KitKat OS. As we have seen with a lot of Chinese phone makers in the past – Xiaomi, Oppo and Gionee,  the Emotion UI 3.0 also doesn’t have an app drawer. You have the apps arranged in a 4×5 grid. The default theme has icons with rounded edges, but of course you can change this theme if you so wish. Among the proprietary apps we have Themes and Phone Manager which has menus such as phone accelerator, harassment filter, power saving, traffic manager, notification manager, app lock and so on. The Tool folder has a lot of utility apps such as Mirror, Magnifier, Torch, Notepad, Recorder, FM radio, Backup and so on. With the Themes app, just like with the Cyanogen OS on the OnePlus One, you can customise the fonts, wallpaper, lock transition screen, home wallpaper from multiple themes and make your own custom theme.

The lock screen has a slider at the base which when pulled up gives you quick access to weather, voice recorder, calculator, torch and camera apps. Taking a screenshot, shows you a preview of the image and gives you options to edit or share the screenshot on the spot.

Just like Xiaomi MIUI, the notification drawer reveals two sections – Notifications and Shortcuts. As the name implies, the Shortcuts gives you access to quick menus such as bluetooth, brightness adjustment, auto-rotate, settings and so on, which can be rearranged according to your preference. The notification tab shows you the notifications in an interesting timeline sort of a user interface. Settings menu is straight-forward and there are motion gesture as well.

Long pressing on the square shaped menu button, brings up the recent apps which can be swiped off to shut the app or pulled down upon and released to lock them. To clear all the apps you just swipe from the base to the top.

 Performance

 The phone performance is at par with most of the sub Rs 10,000 phones that we have seen off late. The call quality is good with the earpiece speakers loud enough to let you hear the voice of the callers even in traffic situations. The user interface is quite smooth despite the Emotion UI 3.0 skin. I did not notice any slowdown of the phone while swiping through the home screen or switching between apps. The only noticeable niggle was that the triangular soft button fails to register a tap and you have to tap on it twice or thrice for an action to be taken.

 When it came to benchmark tests, the scores of the Huawei Honox 4X were at par with Lenovo A6000 and the Redmi 2 as both of them also sport the same processor and RAM combination.

Video quality was decent and the speakers were loud enough to watch movies or videos without earphones. Despite the speaker being on one side, the phone is loud enough. There wasn’t any distortion of volume at maximum levels either. While playing games such as Asphalt 8, one can notice a lot of jaggies and there is a definite stuttering.

Display

Huawei Honor 4X comes with a 5.5-inch 1280 x 720 pixel display. The display comes without any protective covering and the scratch guard that comes on the phone is a fingerprint and smudge magnet. The display does have a very slight warm tinge to it. Overall the display is sharp, although sunlight legibility is not the best on Auto-brightness mode. Movie viewing was a good experience, but the reflective display is annoying in dark scenes. There wasn’t a noticeable backlight bleeding.

Camera

Huawei Honor 4X has a 13MP rear camera and a 2MP front camera. This is the highest resolution camera in this budget, I have seen so far. The camera has a minimal interface and looks quite similar to the one seen with the Xiaomi Mi 4 as well as the iPhone 6/6 Plus. The animations when you hit on the settings menu is quite similar to the one seen on the MIUI 6.0

on the Xiaomi Mi 4. It has feature such as Panorama, HDR, audio note, Best photo, all focus and watermark. The All Focus feature lets you set the focus after the fact, a feature that is increasingly being seen in a lot of phone cameras. The Watermark feature requires a working internet connection and basically adds in the days temperature in a bottom corner. Theres an ultra-snapshot mode which basically lets you take a quick photograph by double clicking on the volume up button even if the phone is off. It can shoot full HD videos.

Image quality is mediocre, once again proving the fact that a higher megapixel count does not a great camera make. Daylight images lacked sharpness and on pixel peeping showed a lot of dithering. Photographs clicked indoors were noisy and there is a prominent barrel distortion around the edges. Also the HDR mode does not really help balance out the shadows and highlights. Quite an ordinary camera.

Battery life

The phone comes with a 3,000mAh battery. This is a battery capacity we have generally seen on phones sporting at least a full HD display. In terms of real life usage, it does not disappoint. With the PC Mark for Android battery life test, we got 10 hours 19 mins battery life, which is quite impressive. This means that the phone can easily last you a full day to a day and half of regular use cases. It also comes with an Ultra power saving mode which can be activated directed from the shortcuts menu.

Huawei Honor 6 Plus review.

Huawei Honor 6 Plus review.

Huawei launched its flagship phone – the Honor 6 Plus – last month. This is an upgrade to the Huawei Honor 6 which was launched last year. Also Huawei has decided to adopt the online only sales model with the Honor branding. Its Huawei Honor 4X has been selling well according to reports, so let us see if consumers looking at a high end phone will be enticed by the Honor 6 Plus.

Build and Design:

One of the striking features of the yesteryear Huawei Honor 6 was its light weight. The Honor 6 Plus repeats the story. It is just 165 grams thin and has 7.5mm thickness. The Honor 6 Plus is a 5.5-inch device and it felt like the front-face has too much bezel on the top and bottom edge. Even the bezel on the sides isn’t as thin as we have seen with flagship devices. It has flat topped edges and it uses rounded corners around the phone. This flat design element with rounded edges does seem inspired by the Apple iPhone 5 and the rounded corners and flat-topped edges does remind one of the Sony Xperia Z2. You will also notice antenna cuts on the top edges, but according to Huawei, they are meant more for aesthetic purpose.

The rear side of the phone is made up of 6-layer carbon fiber material, which Huawei claims is quite sturdy. The shiny surface does make one think it is glass, but thanks to the carbon fiber material, the weight is under check. But after using it for a couple of weeks, we could see scratch marks on the rear side, which will make you want to get a cover. Also the rear side tends to attract fine dust particles.

The volume rocker and power/standby buttons are on the right hand side below which you have the dual SIM card slot. On top edge, there is the headphone jack along with an IR blaster. Overall, the build quality is good despite the lightness of the device. The grip is good, but the back can seem slippery at times.

Features:

The Huawei Honor 6 Plus houses the HiSilicon Kirin 925 SoC which has an octa-core processor in the big.LITTLE configuration. There is a quad-core Cortex A7 and a quad-core Cortex A15 processor which are paired with 3GB of RAM. The phone comes with 32GB of internal storage which can be expanded using the microSD card slot.

It has  a 5.5-inch full HD display and comes in the dual SIM configuration. It can accept a microSIM card and a nanoSIM card. The nanoSIM card slot also takes in the microSD card on the other side of the SIM card.On first glance at the phone and the shape of the soft buttons for home, back and menu, one would mistake this phone to be sporting the Android 5.0 Lollipop OS. But that is not the case. It comes with Android 4.4.2 out of the box. Huawei has put on the Emotion UI 3.0 skin atop the Android OS. Just like Gionee’s Amigo and Oppo’s proprietary UI, Emotion UI too lets go of the app drawer.

On the connectivity front, there is support for Wi-fi a/b/g/n as well as Wi-fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS with A-GPS, NFC support and so on. There is also an IR blaster at the top of the phone.

Software:

Huawei Honor 6 Plus comes with the Emotion UI 3.0 on top of the Android 4.4.2 KitKat OS. As we have seen with a lot of Chinese phone makers in the past – Xiaomi, Oppo and Gionee,  the Emotion UI 3.0 also doesn’t have an app drawer. You have the apps arranged in a 4×5 grid. The default theme has icons with rounded edges, but of course you can change this theme if you so wish.

Among the proprietary apps we have Themes and Phone Manager which has menus such as phone accelerator, harassment filter, power saving, traffic manager, notification manager, app lock and so on. The Tool folder has a lot of utility apps such as Mirror, Magnifier, Torch, Notepad, Recorder, FM radio, Backup and so on. With the Themes app, just like with the Cyanogen OS on the OnePlus One, you can customise the fonts, wallpaper, lock transition screen, home wallpaper from multiple themes and make your own custom theme.

The lock screen has a slider at the base which when pulled up gives you quick access to weather, voice recorder, calculator, torch and camera apps. Taking a screenshot, shows you a preview of the image and gives you options to edit or share the screenshot on the spot.

Just like Xiaomi MIUI, the notification drawer reveals two sections – Notifications and Shortcuts.

As the name implies, the Shortcuts gives you access to quick menus such as bluetooth, brightness adjustment, auto-rotate, settings and so on, which can be rearranged according to your preference. The notification tab shows you the notifications in an interesting timeline sort of a user interface. Settings menu is straight-forward and there are motion gestures as well.

Long pressing on the square shaped menu button, brings up the recent apps which can be swiped off to shut the app or pulled down upon and released to lock them. To clear all the apps you just swipe from the base to the top.

Performance:

The benchmark scores of the Honor 6 Plus are comparable to Snapdragon 800 SoC, and in some cases to the Snapdragon 801 SoC. They are not the highest, and that can be attributed to its lower clock speeds as compared to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC. But if terms of daily use case, the device performs quite well. The phone has a speedy response despite the skin on top. It can work smoothly even with multiple apps open and multi-tab browsing dosen’t slow down the device. 

Gaming was smooth as well with heavy games such as Asphalt 8, Frontline 2 running without breaking into a sweat. All in all a powerful device which runs anything you throw at it.

Call quality was good and at no point did we notice any call drops. 4G testing was not possible as we are still awaiting 4G networks in Mumbai. The earpiece speaker is loud enough to be audible even in high traffic areas.

Display: Huawei Honor 6 Plus offers a 5.5-inch full HD display with the Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. It sports an IPS LCD panel which offers great viewing angles. The display is bright and blacks are impressive. Of course, the display does not merge with the bezels in dark backgrounds. The text appears sharp and we did not notice any pixellation. Watching movies is a good experience and legibility in sunlight was also great. The auto-brightness feature works well outdoors. The glass protection keeps smudges and fingerprints at bay, which is appreciated.

Camera: One of the most important features of Huawei Honor 6 Plus is the dual-lens rear camera. It has two 8MP sensors in place of one and it’s located in the top left hand corner on the rear side of the phone. There’s a dual LED flash unit just beside the camera section. Even the front-facing camera is has an 8MP sensor. There are no details as to what sensor Huawei has employed.

P

S: The sample images below have been resized. Please click on the images to see a full resolution version on Flickr. You can also check out more sample images in the Huawei Honor 6 Plus Flickr album. The sensor used in the rear camera has a 1.98 micrometer pixel size which is as big as HTC’s UltraPixel (seen on the HTC One M8) which was around 2 micrometers in size. The HTC One M8 was the first phone to sport two cameras, they were placed one below the other and in the One M8, only the 4 Ultrapixel camera was used as a primary camera whereas the other camera was used for depth sensing. The Huawei Honor 6 Plus on the other hand has two 8MP sensors placed side by side.

Shifting

One of the USP of the dual lens is that its lets you change the focus and aperture in the Wide Aperture mode. The bokeh appears natural

Just like the HTC One M8 though, the dual camera of the Honor 6 Plus lets you adjust the focus of the image after the fact. If you have shot an image in the wide aperture mode, you will see an aperture like symbol. Tapping on that opens up the image and you can choose the focus you want, and beside the focus circle, you will see a slider. This slider has the aperture range from f/0.95 to f/16 which lets you play with the depth of field in your images. We got pleasing bokehs when we opened the aperture all the way to f/0.95. Also the bokeh looks more organic and natural than the simulated refocussing seen via apps.

In terms of image quality, we were quite impressed with the daylight shots. The focussing is speedy and images are packed with a lot of detail. There was barely any chromatic aberration or purple fringing around the edges. Barrel distortion was noticeable in the landscape shots. The colours appear natural and there isn’t any warm tinge as we have seen with some phone cameras in the past. The wide aperture mode is fun to play around with, but ensure that there is a decent gap between the objects in the foreground and background to get a proper bokhelicious image.

Low light photography isn’t as impressive as that seen on the iPhone 6. Noise is noticeable in low light, but it does not ruin the image with colour noise which is generally seen with most smartphone cameras. In some instances, the noise appears as fine grain which adds an aesthetic value to the image. The low light image quality is better than that seen on the OnePlus One and the Xiaomi Mi 4.

Honor 6 Plus is capable of shooting full HD videos and it also offers video stabiliser mode along with object tracking feature. The video quality is quite normal and the stabiliser is not of much use while shooting handheld. Object tracking worked fine so long as there was a clear background.

Battery Life

With a 3,600mAh battery capacity, the Huawei Honor 6 Plus should easily last you over a day and a half. In fact in our 8-hour loop test involving 2 hours each of video streaming, video playback, calling and audio-playback we had 41%  battery remaining. Although in the PC Mark for Android test, we got around 4 hours and 43 minutes, the actual battery life lasts much longer. In addition to this, the Honor 6 Plus comes with the Ultra saving mode, which similar to the one seen on Samsung Galaxy Note 4 switches to a monochrome display which only keeps the calling and messaging feature activated.

Best Buy

OnePlus One Android update with Cyanogen OS 12 and Oxygen OS is out

OnePlus One Android update with Cyanogen OS 12 and Oxygen OS is out

On April 14, Cyanogen released the eagerly-anticipated Cyanogen OS 12, and immediately began rolling it out to the OnePlus One. You should receive the update OTA soon, but if you're feeling impatient then you can download it and install it yourself here.

Cyanogen OS 12 is based on Lollipop, but has its own (highly customizable) UI and unique features such as PIN scramble (randomizing the PIN behind the numbers on the screen every time), sound-tweaking app AudioFX, and a whole bunch of themes.

OnePlus officially released OxygenOS on April 3. You can download it and find out more info at OnePlus' official OxygenOS page. OxygenOS is essentially a stock version of Android 5.0 Lollipop with a few extra tweaks, such as OnePlus' own gesture controls, some wallpapers, and added customizability to the Quick Settings menu. For now, the only way to get OxygenOS is by manually installing it as no OTA roll-out is currently planned.

With OnePlus now being opened up to two Lollipop variants, it'll be interesting to see what each one does to distinguish itself from the other, and whether one will become a favorite among users in time for the OnePlus Two release.

10 Most Expensive Mobile Phones in the World

10 Most Expensive Mobile Phones in the World

Mobile phone or even has the prices vary widely ranging from the cheapest phones in the world up to the most expensive mobile phone in the world. In today’s society, there aren’t many things that people are more attached to than their mobile phones. A person’s cell phone is his gateway into everything that goes on in his life. With the recent advances in technology, it now seems as if your cell phone can do everything that your computer can do. It then comes as no surprise that your cell phone could cost as much as it does. If you’re in the market for a phone that will do nearly everything, then you should expect to pay a lot of money. Here is a list of world’s top 10 most expensive mobile phones.

10. Vertu Signature Diamond

Exclusive luxury phones from Vertu. Vertu is very famous for its luxury mobile phone products, including mobile phones Vertu Signature Diamond is included in order to-10 list of the world’s most expensive mobile phones. This phone is made of platinum and claimed the best assembly process is done by hand, not machines. Phone decorated with a pretty fancy diamonds produced only 200 pieces. The price of this phone is $ 88,000.

9. iPhone Princess Plus

iPhone Princess Plus has a feature that is not much different from other Apple iPhone mobile phone, which makes this into the top 10 most expensive mobile phones in the

world. This iPhone is designed by famous designer Austria, Peter Aloisson. Beside the gold, this special iPhone flavour comes with no less than 138 princess cut and 180 brilliant cut diamonds with a weight of 16.50 – 17.75. And according to Peter Aloisson, the diamonds have the best quality, so owning such a device is quite a remarkable thing. It’s price is $ 176.400.

8. BlackDiamond VIPN Smartphone

At no. 8 in the world’s most expensive mobile phone is Sony Ericsson’s Black Diamond. Jaren Goh created this stylish concept for Sony. It features mirror detailing, polycarbonate mirror and an organic LED technology. Of course, when it comes to Sony, nobody can challenge the screen results. It is decorated with two diamonds, one on the navigation buttons and the other in the back of the phone. The price of this phone is $300,000.

7. Vertu Signature Cobra

Vertu Signature Cobra ranks seven of the world’s most expensive mobile phone. The designs are quite exclusive with the existence of forms such as the Cobra snake on the phone side. Designed by French jeweller, Boucheron, the ritzy phone features one pear-cut diamond, one round white diamond, two emerald eyes, and 439 rubies.

6. Gresso Luxor Las Vegas Jackpot

This phone comes from a traditional purveyor of a luxury handsets – Gresso, and is called Luxor Las Vegas Jackpot. This phone was established in Switzerland in2005. It is made of solid gold weighing 180 grams. The back panel is made up of African backwoods that is more than 200 years old. That wood is the most expensive wood in the world. Its keys are made of sapphire crystal. And it costs a cool $1 million.

5. Diamond Crypto Smartphone

Based on Windows CE, this smart phone was designed by luxury accessories maker Peter Aloisson. This unique object de art is priced at a crisp $1.3 million and is tagged as the costliest in the world. This one features a cover adorned with 50 diamonds, 10 of which are the rare blue ones. Apart from this, it also features s few sections made in

rose gold as well. It also gives protection against kidnapping and technological blackmail.

4. GoldVish Le Million

Goldvish “Le million” is designed by renowned designer Emmanuel Gueit, who designed lots of luxury watches and jewellery. The most luxurious and expensive mobile phone, “Le Million” Piece Unique, had launched in Switzerland. This phone awarded by Guinness World Records as the world’s most expensive mobile phones sold in the Millionaire Fair in Cannes, France in September 2006. Often referred to as the world’s most expensive phone at $1.3 million, this designer phone is bejewelled with 18k white gold and 20 carats of VVS1 diamonds.

3. iPhone 3G King’s Button

For the third most expensive mobile phone in the world is still occupied by a variant of the iPhone, named King’s Button iPhone 3G. The renowned jeweler from Austria Peter Aloisson is the creater of this phone. 138 diamonds are installed on this phone that makes it worth $2.4 million. The beautiful white diamon of 6.6 carats serves as the home screen button which enhances the beauty of this phone.

2. Supreme Goldstriker iPhone 3G 32GB

For the second most expensive mobile phone in the world, a variant of the iPhone from Apple, the Supreme iPhone 3G is priced at $ 3,200,000. The iPhone 3GS Supreme features a casing made from 271 grams of solid 22k gold and a screen trimmed with fifty-three 1-carat diamonds. The home button is covered with a single rare 7.1-carat diamond. That’s not all, though—the iPhone 3GS Supreme comes in a chest carved from a single block of granite and sports Kashmir gold and an interior lining made with nubuck top-grain leather.

1. Diamond Rose iPhone 4 32GB

The world’s most expensive iPhone to date is the 32 GB iPhone 4 Diamond Rose by Stuart Hughes. With a price of about $8 million the phone’s bezel is made of rose and approximately 500 individual flawless diamonds that total over 100ct. The back is also rose gold and features the Apple logo all decked out with 53 additional diamonds, while the front navigation button is platinum with interchangeable single cut 7.4ct pink or rare 8ct Flawless diamonds in the center.