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Nokia Perks: A new paperless discount coupons service

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Nokia is secretly working on a new service that will attract smart shoppers with perks. Similar to the Google Groupon, the upcoming Nokia Perks service will get consumers discount or deal coupons directly on their devices reported ZOMGITSCJ.

Perks is a paperless coupons service that one can search on their mobile handsets and redeem the coupons without taking out a physical print.

It is expected to work with the upcoming Near-Field Communication Chip based handsets.

A commercial of the new service says: “If you like saving Money, you’ll love Perks. Perks are paperless coupons that you can find and redeem right on your mobile. Perks will show you brilliant offers on everything from jeans to sushi. It’ll even show you how to get there, with the Map View. Now that’s smart shopping.”

It further adds: “Perks is free to use, save serious dough by planning ahead, subscribing to your favourite brands, and checking for deals when you’re out. So get out there, and make any hour a happy hour, with Perks!”.

In last few months , several deals and discount coupons sites have cropped up in India. Consumers indeed are looking to spend their money wisely by saving few bucks instead of splurging it out blindly.

But, most of these services require print outs of the coupon copy, which the users are required to carry to the respective merchants. With the new Nokia Perks, users can check for deals and coupons anytime, anywhere and without need for print-out. For starters, Nokia N9 comes with chip and we can expect the Perks service to launch in coming months.

Now book train ticket through mobile and show SMS as proof

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Indian Railway has launched a mobile phone based railway ticket booking service called ‘M-ticket’. This allows users with an internet enabled mobile phone to book ticket though a mobile application. This free application can be downloaded from here.

While the booking of the ticket was already available through applications like NGPay (which in fact allows so many other purchase and books), the service is particularly useful as now the users will not have to take printouts of the booked ticket.

Instead, they will receive an containing the ticket details. Called as Mobile Reservation Message, the SMS can be used like a physical ticket. Alternatively, screen shot of the e-ticket on tablet or laptop will also work as a proof.

Other rules remain the same, so they will still need to carry a valid id proof along with the SMS for their booking to be valid.

Handset Review: Spice Mi410

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Honestly speaking, when we got to know that we will be getting the Spice Mi410 for review we were hoping for a device that will be more on the lines of other Spice handsets. But the day we got the device delivered at out office all things changed.

The device comes in a small box, possibly designed to minimise shipping cost and to reduce the price for the device. Well upon opening the box, we were sort of shocked and amazed at looking at the quality of the device – it stands apart from all the other Spice handsets till date and by far is the most impressive smartphone that we have reviewed with a price tag of under Rs 15,000.

Looks and Build Quality

The Mi410 has a striking resemblance with the Huawei U9000 IDEOS X6 smartphone which is due for launch sometime this year. The phone has a slim profile for a smartphone and the metallic brown finish on the device look amazing, grabbing a lot of eyeballs.

In terms of the build quality, the Mi410 is good. The overall finishing of the device is great and it seems as the design department has put in a lot of efforts to get there. By far, the Mi410 has been the best smartphone that has come from Spice’s stable and those who are willing to buy this device will not be disappointed by the by the device at all.

Display and Touch

The Mi410 has a big 4.1 inch TFT display featuring a 480 x 800 pixel in 16 million colour pallets. The display might be a little low on resolution as compared to most big screen smartphones that are available today but the price difference between them and the Mi410 bridges the gap.

The capacitive touch of the Mi410 is great and has functions like pitch to zoom, two finger scrolling and even the pinch to rotate application. The Mi410 comes with a bundled scratch guard as well but remember that it may also reduce the touch sensitivity of the screen by about 30 per cent.

There is no special scratch resistant glass used here to protect the screen so users will have to be careful while using the device without the scratch guard or they can also invest is a good quality holster for this device as well.

Performance

Looking at the price tag, it is hard to believe that this phone offers so much for so little. The most striking of them is the inclusion of the Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM 8255 chip that includes a 1Ghz and Andreno 205 graphics engine for dedicated graphics support.
In terms of performance, the Mi410 is a speeding train! It performed well as per our expectations. So be it gaming or multitasking, this device does not show signs of fatigue.

A suggestion – install a task manager application that will help the device to keep performing at speed while saving valuable RAM.

The phone has a 2GB of that doubles up as and another 2GB of as well. The external memory supported by this device is 32GB which is pretty much a standard these days.

Although Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread is already out in the market and many device manufacturers have already shifted to that, the Mi410 still features the older 2.2 Froyo. But spice has promised an upgrade it to 2.3 soon, so no worries there.

Connectivity

In terms of connectivity, the Mi410 is a straight forward winner. The Mi410 is a enabled phone that supports HSPA upload and download speed. It is also DLNA certified which allows it to connect to any other DLNA certified device over the WiFi network.

DLNA is not the only option, the Mi410 can be connected to any HDMI supporting device by using its dedicated HDMI port as well, but for that you will have to buy an HDMI cable separately.

Apart from just being a WiFi enabled device, the Mi410 can also be used as a WiFi hot spot as well.

Camera and Multimedia

The Mi410 features a 5 snapper at the back and a frontal VGA camera, which is strictly meant for video calling. The camera supports video recording in 720p HD mode at 30 which is pretty impressive. The presence of a flash adds a few more points for low light or night photography but some more illumination is still required.

On multimedia front, the Mi410 can play almost any media file with the help of applications that can be downloaded from the marketplace. Along with that, users can also see HD videos on it big 4.1 inch screen.

Its 3.5 mm audio output is good for maximum connectivity options while the stereo loudspeakers allow this device to play great sound that is made even richer with its Dolby sound enhancement feature.

Finally

The Mi410 has a 1500 battery pack that powers the device but it would be unjustified if we were to rate this device on the battery backup. It is almost like asking how much a mug of coffee will last; it depends on the speed at which you finish it. So simply put forth, the battery backup of this phone is decent as it lasted for two days with nominal usage which includes moderate WiFi and web browsing.

So ultimately all things boil down to one common thing and that is how much does this handset costs. Well the Mi410 cost Rs 14,000 which makes it an excellent buy for the price considering its features. Even when compared to other phones within the price bracket, this phone emerges as a straight forward winner as it offers a great value for money proposition.

Handset Review: Tech-Com T65

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Dual phone today have changed the market from what it used to be in the earlier days. Today the dual SIM handset boom has even forced big manufacturers like Nokia to jump in to the arena.

Tech-Com, an India based PC peripheral player, has announced a couple of handsets for the Indian users out of which we got the T65 handset for review. As per Tech-Com, the T65 is one of the best dual SIM phones that have been launched in India so far but how does this phone perform in the real world? Let’s see.

Look

Right out of the box, the T65 looks impressive. The phone comes in a tiny box, perhaps the smallest ever seen in the market – the phone has literally been adjusted inside the box among the other accessories.

The accessories are the regular ones including a wall charger, an USB cable and a hands free kit. One of the best things bundled with this phone is a 4GB memory card, which is an industry first at this price range.

Design

The T65 comes in a rose gold colour, which looks classy, with the black accents and a big black bordered display. The phone’s face has been divided in a 60 &#151 40 ratio with 60 per cent area being allocated for the display while the rest of the area goes for the keypad.

All the keys on the phone are placed on the face only making it easier to handle as side keys tend to get accidentally pressed while keeping and taking out the phone from pocket.

Display and keypad

It has a big 2.4 inch TFT- display (non touch) with a of 320 x 240 pixels. The display reproduce bright and quite colourful images and the display has a protective plastic shell as well which is integrated in the outer body of the T65 that will definitely protect the display from scratches and damaged during accidental falls.

The keypad on the T65 is probably one of the sweetest keypads we have ever seen on a dual SIM phone. The keys are soft to use but have the right pitch and feedback making them easy to use for people with fat fingers too.

The keypad also has a big D-pad in the centre for navigation which is more like a black ring in the upper centre of the keypad making it a little difficult to use for first time users but becomes easy once you get used to it.

Build Quality

Although the device is completely made up of plastic the build quality of the device is not bad. It will withstand a couple of drops and everyday usage jerks easily.

We drop tested this device on flat hard concrete floor and it hardly got a scratch from the height of 40 inches. In short the device is built to last and it will.

Call Performance

Being a dual SIM phone, this phone can be connected to two cellular networks or two different numbers at any given time, but it does not feature two SIM standby feature that allows the other SIM to be active while the first SIM receives a call.

The signal quality of this phone is normal and it works flawlessly in most places. The call sound quality both for the speaker and the receiver are good without any distortion or voice quality loss.

The microphone positioning of the phone is towards the bottom of the phone it allows the T65 to catch minimal ambiance noise as well.

Multimedia

The T65 comes with a free 4GB and that will really come in handy while saving your music library on to this device. It has an inbuilt audio video player that supports most popular audio and video formats like MP3, WMA, MP4 and 3GP as well. Plus, the T65 comes with a standard port so users are not likely to face any compatibility issues.

The handset has a 3.5mm connectivity that allows it to connect to any audio device very easily. In terms of music playback the headset works good from low to medium volume levels and at high levels the quality goes for a toss. You can also try plugging in another or a better set of ear plugs but the T65 has some issues at high volume levels.

Just opposite to it, the T65 has got a big speaker with a very good sound quality, which is better than most dual SIM handsets out there in the market.

The T65 also features a nice 1.3 camera, without a flash though. The quality of the camera is good in bright light to medium light conditions while in low light all you get to see in pixels and funky colours all over your snaps. But ultimately it works as a basic camera and while connected to the PC this can also be used as a Webcam.

Battery life

One of the major liking features of the T65 is its big battery. And we must say that it has impressed us to the maximum. The T65 has possibly gotten the biggest mobile phone battery ever made, the 1800mAh battery pack powers the device for good 10-12 hours of along with decent time being spent on music and other activities too. But due to the bigger size of the battery it takes a longer time too to fully charge the device. But overall the T65 give you a week long device usage time with moderate usage with just one charge.

Finally

The T65 is a good featured dual SIM based phone with a small price of Rs 2,100, for which you get a bundled 4GB memory card as well. The phone has got decent performance, good features and no non sense features like touch screen and those funny looking FM antennas that steal the look away from the phone. So if you are on a limited budget go ahead grab this one.

App Review: Songify

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The Apple Store has several music related apps, which do varied tasks from identifying tracks to creating music. Now comes a unique application for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch devices that is capable of turning normal speech into a song.

YouTube sensations &#151 The Gregory Brothers formed by Michael, Andrew and Evan – have teamed up with Khush Inc to create the app.

The app, Songify, is a free to download and functions pretty much straight and simple. Just tap the circular button and hold the phone or the mic closer to the speakers’ mouth. Then speak whatever you or record any random speech on your device. Stop recording whenever you feel like and the app will randomly create a song based on one of the The Gregory Brothers’ song.

One can record music for maximum of 60 seconds or 1 minute at one go. There are 12 different “Styles” in which the recorded speech can be manipulated into a song. At this moment, the only few styles are offered but you can buy certain locked styles for $1 (Rs 45 approx).

You can also save the songs with titles or names you wish to. Also you can share it with your friends via Facebook and Twitter share buttons. Do note that it will require a decent data connection, or Wi-Fi, to upload your song on to a cloud-based service and then share it on Twitter or Facebook.

Songify provides a nice way to record special messages for your friends. However, the app needs longer recording duration and also larger library of songs/loops to choose from. Besides, it would be really cool if the developers added possibility to modulate the tone or use a custom voice of characters like Donald Duck, Darth Vader or anyone else.

The Songify app is meant for iPad 2, iPhone and iPod touch fourth generation since these devices have built-in microphone. Whereas the iPod touch second generation and third generation users can make use of Apple’s earphones with built-in mic to record the songs.

Download and try out Songify for free from iTunes link here.

MSI to launch two new tablets in India

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Micro Start International (MSI) is all set to launch two new tablets by the end of July in India, an MSI spokesperson revealed to The Mobile Indian.

The tablets, MSI Windpad Enjoy 10 and Enjoy 7, were unveiled by MSI at the Computex 2011 in Taipei a month back.

Both the tablets feature 1.2 GHz Arm Cortex 8 (Single core) along with 512 of and 4GB of internal storage, while the expandable memory supported by both devices is 32 GB.

The Windpad Enjoy 10 will feature a 10 inch display with a 1024 x 768 pixel and dual 2 cameras at both front and rear capable of recording 720p resolution videos too. The Enjoy 10 is expected to be priced at Rs 15,999.

The smaller cousin of the Windpad Enjoy 10, the Windpad Enjoy 7 will not be much different in terms of specifications as the only difference is the smaller display with a 800 480 pixel resolution with a lower price tag of around Rs 11,999.

The only downside of both the devices is the inclusion of Android Gingerbread 2.3 as the operating system and not the adoption of Honeycomb 3.0. But as MSI said during the Computex 2011, Gingerbread offers better compatibility and stability for the devices.

Brilliant pricing and neat hardware specifications will definitely help MSI to create their own market share with the upcoming launch of the two tablets. But until the tablets hit the market nothing concrete can be said about how the market will react to them.

Motorola Xoom may get Android 3.2

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Motorola Xoom tablet owners are in for a treat. The tablet is set to receive an operating system update to 3.2, said a website which, however, provided few details.

The update will bring Qualcomm processors’ support for the 7 inch tablet and is expected to fix some bugs.

Android Central says that a Google employee is the source of the news and that the update will be coming within days. This will probably be the last update before the Android Ice Cream Sandwich comes to the Motorola Xoom. The Ice Cream Sandwich is likely to arrive later this year.

At this stage, however, it remains just a rumour since there is no official confirmation from Android people yet.

Gingerbread gaining popularity over Froyo: Google

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Google has released a comparison chart of different versions. According to it, smartphones running on Android Gingerbread operating system has doubled over the previous fortnight whereas Froyo’s share has gone down.

However, Froyo still enjoys the No 1 status with 59.4 per cent device currently using the Android 2.2 version, whereas two weeks ago its share was 64.6 per cent.

At the time when Froyo’s share of Android devices was dropping, the number of devices running on Gingerbread nearly doubled and it currently stands at 18.6 per cent. The increase in Gingerbread market share includes both Droid X Gingerbread update as well as new phones.

The Android version market share on the chart doesn’t tell the whole story as most of the gains in the Gingerbread share is coming from new phones being released with the new software updates and not because the older devices are getting the Gingerbread update.

Android Eclair remains at the third spot with 17.5 per cent market share, whereas a couple of months ago it was at 27.2 per cent.

While, the Gingerbread share does seem impressive since it first appeared on the scene in December 2010, once those devices which are out in the market with earlier versions also get Gingerbread, its market share will really take off.

The Froyo version of Android was launched in May 2010. The ideal situation would be when all the devices have the latest version of Android, but that seems somewhat unrealistic expectation.

Google Nexus S was the first Gingerbread phone launched by Google itself. The Gingerbread handsets available in India include HTC Sensation, Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC Salsa and HTC Wildfire S.

Google Docs get updated for mobile devices

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Google has released a new updated version of Google Docs to make it more popular and useful for the tablet and smartphone users.

With the new update, Google has tried to give a facelift to the cloud based application. Along with that, the Google Docs for mobile now gets a custom sort option as well which can be based on the name, modification date and also on the basis of last usage of the document.

Also added is the ability to share documents with multiple users and multiple documents with others on the go.

For sharing the document, users can simply chose the email account or can make the document public. Alternatively, they can also send the document as an attachment with Gmail as well.

You can get the latest Google Docs from its website. Google Docs is presently available for almost all popular mobile operating systems.

Motorola Droid 3 hits US stores

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Motorola has finally launched its much anticipated Droid 3 full Qwerty smartphone with 2.3 Gingerbeard operating system.

Sporting a 4-inch high quality display, the Motorola Droid 3 handset will come in CDMA and GSM options. Featuring a dual-core 1GHz processor, 8-megapixel camera and 5-row full Qwerty keypad, the new Droid 3 is ready to rock your world.

Motorola will make the Droid 3 available from Verizon in US from July 14 onwards at $199 (Rs 9000 approx) for a two-year contract and $459.99 (Rs 20,500 approx) as an unlocked SIM-free version.

Quite similar to the first Droid and Droid 2, the new Droid 3 smartphone features beastly hardware that promises top performance. Under the hood lies a dual-core 1Ghz Texas Instrument OMAP 4430 with 512MB and 16GB on-board storage.

As usual, Motorola continues its push for high-resolution displays by adding 540×960 qHD support to the 4-inch TFT display.

Droid 3 has a front facing camera for video chat and an 8-megapixel camera with 8x Digital Zoom, auto-focus and Flash. Back-panel’s 8-megapixel camera is capable of recording 1080p crisp video which shutterbugs will certainly adore. Besides that, the phone also has an HDMI 1.3 port that allows plugging it to an HD display.

By default, Droid 3 runs the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update and will be upgradable to the next Android update &#151 Ice Cream Sandwich. Hopefully with the Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread update, the video chat option would be enabled for the Droid 3. Seamless web-browsing experience is promised with the Adobe Flash Player 10 support.

Motorola certainly has packed Droid 3 with amazing hardware that will please the geeks but the phone falls short in certain areas. For instance, it doesn’t offer the support and there’s no clarity as yet whether the Bootloader for the same would be unlocked or not. The latter reason mostly caters to the developers as well as the enthusiasts. Also there’s no update on whether the Droid 3 carries the updated Blur (previously MOTOBLUR) user interface or not.

Though the phone comes in CDMA version, it is capable of supporting and working on GSM networks network as well. If you have a friend or relative coming down from the United States after July 14 then you can ask them to carry the Motorola Droid 3 which approximately will cost about Rs 21,500 including the taxes. Do note that warranty can be bit of an issue over there.