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Bluetooth Review: Plantronics M100

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Since the day of its inception, the name Plantronics has been synonymous with communication aides, be it wired or wireless devices. Its innovative products, such as the Discovery and the Voyager, have their own unique characteristics for which it is known and appreciated and followed by people.

Plantronics has recently added the M100 Bluetooth headset for mobile phone users in its product line. This headset carries a price tag or Rs 4,199.

It features knacks like active noise cancellations and a sleek design. So how well does its proves itself on the given price point, let’s find out.

Design

The M100 has a sleek look and a unique design that gives it an exciting and sophisticated look, which suits both executive and casual attires.

The M100 comes in a dual colour graphite and blue colour tone with a glossy outside and a matte finish in the inside surface.

In a nutshell, the look and design of this device is great and with a slim profile it can be worn every day without any hassles.

Feel

The M100 weighs nine grams and is very appropriate for long time wearability. All thanks to the gel based ear supports and the comfortable ear harness, it stays put in its place and hardly bothers the user while in use. The ear gels also feature a notched design to avoid the ear gel from rotating while wearing, ensuring a comfortable and a care free wear.

Connectivity

Along with the Bluetooth version 2.1, the M100 features Quick Pair technology that eliminates the need to input any passwords to connect the device to the mobile phone.

Also the M100 can be paired to two or more devices simultaneously, making it easier for people to use a single headset with multiple devices.

But it would have been certainly better if it supported simultaneous device connections as well just like the Jabra JX 10. For charging it uses the new mini port and has the provision to be charged via PC also.

Features

One of the best features of the M100 is its voice alerts. Users are alerted when the device is switched on, paired, connected and even the battery level, making it a virtually vision less operation.

M100 is even better for iPhone users as it gives the exact battery level on phone’s screen.

The supplied ear gels come in three different sizes so that user can adjust it according to need and use.

There are three buttons in it. The main button is placed on the front side for accepting and disconnecting calls, while the other two to control volume placed on the side of the headset.

Performance

This is one department where the M100 shows its real talent. The dual microphone design gives it a fabulous noise cancellation. We tried the M100 while traveling in the Delhi Metro that too during the morning rush hour. Quite amazingly, the audio on the recipient’s side as well as from my side was absolutely flawless.

In windy conditions too, the M100 provides noise cancellation to a great extent but the threshold is soon surpassed by strong winds so all of you who were planning to use it while riding a motorcycle would be disappointed and for the good as it is banned to talk over phone while driving.

M100 provides five hours of talktime, almost close to the company’s claim of six hours. Remember, the higher the volume level the lower will be the talktime.

Conclusion

To sum it all up, Plantronics M100 is a great looking Bluetooth headset and a good performing one too. In a sentence it would be beauty with brains. Noise cancellation, Dual microphones for clear voice, Quick pair, multi connect and many such useful features make this a must have accessory for cellphone users, but the only concern is that the price of this will restrain many users from just go and buy this headset.

The price tag although might be more but there are many places like Croma store and online stores like ebay where this is available for a much affordable price tag of around Rs 3,000 or so.

If you are looking for a top notch Bluetooth headset with advanced features and looks, then look no further but while buying just make sure that you check out the price at a couple of places to get yourself the best deal possible.

3G data plans from Idea Cellular

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Idea Cellular, which launched services in the last week of March, has become the latest operator to do so. Since it became the last major operator to launch third generation telephony services in the country, the teleco was expected to come up with some competitive tariff plans.

Here we have analysed Idea’s 3G tariffs to decide how competitive they are.

For the occasional user Idea has two sachet plans: Rs 7 for 10 data; and Rs 51 for 50 MB, which is a little weird since the cost per MB of data normally goes down with larger packs. However, Idea is slightly cheaper than Airtel which offers 10 MB for Rs 11, but as you go higher its packages are similar to Idea’s.

Data is charged at 10 paise per 10 beyond free usage. This is the same as what RCom and Tata Docomo charge, but is cheaper than Airtel, which charges 30 paise for 20 KB.

Usage based plans are also being offered by Idea and they are at par with similar plans offered by other operators, if not cheaper. Prepaid recharge options start at Rs 103 for 100 MB and go up to Rs 1,750 for 5 of data, which is a good option for heavy users. In between these two plans are five others.

For post paid users, plans start at Rs 100 for 100 MB and go up to Rs 750 for 2 GB; there are four options in between.

Time based plans that charge based on minutes of use are also on offer. Idea offers 30 minutes for Rs 46; for Rs 79 you get 60 minutes; and for Rs 148 you get 2 hours. Usage beyond these limits will be charged at Rs 3 per minute.

For users of dongles (data cards) there are three post and pre paid plans each. These are Rs 599 for 1 GB of data; Rs 750 for 2 GB; and Rs 1,750 for 5 GB. Extra usage is charged at 5 paise per 10 KB.

Idea’s dongle plans are better than those offered by most other operators. However, Tata Docomo is the only operator that has unlimited data plans.

Data is also available but only in towns where Idea offers 3G services. Roaming charges for voice are the same as they are on 2G. Data tariffs for post paid subscribers are the same as on the home network, while prepaid users are charged 10 paise per 10 KB.

Idea offers a maximum speed of 21 on its 3G network, which is standard for the rest of the industry as well.

Idea Cellular’s plans come as a mixed bag. While dongle tariffs are among the most attractive on offer, Idea’s rates for mobile users are at best similar to other operators’ plans.

Idea Cellular has 3G spectrum in 11 circles, which include Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (E), Uttar Pradesh (W), Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir.

So far Idea operates its 3G network in eight of these circles. Except Kerala, it offers 3G services in 29 cities across seven circles. In Kerala its 3G services are available in almost every part of the state. So we can safely recommend Idea Cellular 3G for Kerala customers.

However, Idea is yet to launch services in Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab. One city each in Himachal, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat is covered by Idea 3G so far.

HTC Sensation unveiled

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As reported by The Mobile Indian, HTC has unveiled its latest and the most advanced smartphone, the HTC Sensation, during a press conference on 12th April 2011 in London.

Although the expectation was that the new device will be named as HTC Pyramid but the company chose a different name all together and named it the ‘HTC Sensation.

The new handset features a brand new HTC sense user interface coupled with Android’s version 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system. The HTC sense has got some brand new changes and tweaks in terms of its look and feel and bring a whole lot of new animations for the benefit of the user.

To give the sensation a flawless and faster performance, HTC has chosen the latest and the fastest smartphone from Qualcomm the Snapdragon 8260, featuring a 1.2 Ghz processor and the latest Adreno 220 graphics engine for better and faster graphics.

HTC is calling the Sensation as a multimedia super phone that has got the reason to do so too. The Sensation features a 4.3 inch S-LCD display with a qHD of 540 x 960 pixels, which is protected from scratched by a Gorilla glass. It features an 8 camera which is capable of recording Full 1080p resolution videos along with stereo sound.

It also features a standard 3.5 mm audio connectivity jack for easy connectivity with audio devices.

HTC has not yet revealed the pricing details of this device yet but is planning to launch this device world wide in the month of May. As for now the expectation is such that the device should be priced with a sub Rs 35,000 price tag.

Official Vimeo app for iOS devices

The Mobile Indian Network
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Vimeo, the well known YouTube competitor, recently launched its official app. Vimeo’s videos are encoded in HTML5, the standard supported by Apple.

Viewers earlier had to open the and type web addresses to watch their favourite videos. With the launch of this the situation has changed. Now users just have to open the app to browse videos of their choice.

Not just that, people can create a film using the video editing tools in the app. They can edit video using the iMovie app too, but that costs money. Vimeo app, on the other hand, is free. With the Vimeo iOS app users can browse, download, or even upload videos. The social sharing facility is also present right within the Vimeo app.

At a time when other providers are also coming up with similar apps for tablets and smartphones, video viewing activity on the mobile web is increasing substantially. The tough part, however, is that video apps on the web are not searchable.

An Vimeo app is also expected to arrive soon.

Ovi store sees 5 mn downloads a day

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The number of downloads from Ovi Store, which has about 40,000 applications, have hit the mark of five million per day, Nokia has announced recently.

Notably, Symbian devices, such as the Nokia N8, Nokia C6-01, Nokia C7 and Nokia E7, account for about 15 per cent of the daily downloads despite the fact that the Finnish handset maker is doing away with it in favour of Windows Phone 7.

Tero Ojanpera, Nokia’s executive vice president of services and developer experience, says, “This momentum continues to demonstrate consumers’ appetite for Nokia’s global and locally relevant apps, and will help us plan the future apps store experience for improved and new Symbian devices, as well as Nokia smartphones based on the planned collaborative opportunities with Microsoft”.

Nokia is increasing the size of the whole Ovi platform. In fact, the Nokia Ovi Store support has been extended to Series 40 devices also in the last two months. This move is also probably sort of a preparation for a smooth transition to the Windows Phone Marketplace.

It can be safely said that as long as the Windows Phone device doesn’t get launched from Nokia, Symbian phones and apps will have a good run in the Ovi Store. Nokia claims there are 158 studios which have got one million downloads each.

When the Ovi Store began its journey, users did not have pretty easy time finding their way around it but the company learned quickly from its experience. It reached the figure of 2.3 million downloads every day last October itself, and now it is more than double. The store is definitely behind its competition, but the direction it’s headed in seems to be right.

HTC launches video streaming service

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HTC recently launched a video streaming service, the HTC Watch application, which allows users to rent movies and watch television shows via Wifi or even when they are traveling.

As of now this service is only available on the HTC Sensation, which was released outside India on Tuesday. HTC Sensation is likely to come to India soon.

Smartphone companies have increasingly been relying on innovative applications to attract users. The way apps are sold by mobile platforms such as and Apple, the executives at HTC believe, is confusing customers.

Similar apps seem to be popular across all platforms, including BlackBerry, Android and iPhone, a recent Nielsen study said.

The way Google is dominating the smartphone market, it is becoming more important for handset makers to differentiate their offerings. HTC Watch is an attempt to do just that.

Microsoft is pursuing a similar policy for its smartphones as it intends to bank upon Xbox Live and SkyDrive to differentiate its products.

Sony Ericsson too has started selling Xperia Play, a PlayStation phone. Google recently acquired PushLife, which allows users to shift their iTunes music library to non Apple phones as well.

iTunes from Apple is a similar service, and it drives the company ahead of the herd in the smartphone race.

Get real world reward for virtual game achievements

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Brian Wong, the 19-year-old wunderkind and University of British Columbia graduate, has scored $4 million in financing to fuel a new ad model that gives mobile game players real rewards ranging from vitamin drinks to a $100 Sony tablet.

Called Kiip, the new venture was launched on Monday in USA. This is Brian’s second venture the other being the popular Digg website, which helps you share content from anywhere on the net.

With this venture Wong becomes the youngest entrepreneur to raise venture capital funding, He beats Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to this title.

This project is supported by Sony (a biggie in mobile gaming space), 1-800 Flowers, Dr Pepper and Sephora.

Kiip (keep.me) will be offering gifts from some major brands for players who reach milestones in games on their smartphones and other mobile devices.

For 1-800 Flowers, the reward could be a gift certificate for flowers. Other rewards range from vitamin water to Sony’s recently released personal Internet viewer, the Dash.

Kiip hasn’t disclosed the games that are using its service. The rewards are only available to players in the United States for now, but Wong promises Canada will soon follow.

HTC rapidly climbing to the top, backed by sales

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There was a time when HTC didn’t brand its own phones and left the task to carriers. Times have changed and HTC has recently posted record sales surpassing even Nokia in terms of market value.

As its tagline, “Quietly Brilliant” indicates, the Taiwanese company has quietly become the third largest phone manufacturing company in the world. The first two positions are occupied by Samsung and Apple, respectively.

Only three years ago, not many people knew about HTC. The big break for the company came in 2007 in the form of Android, the open source phone operating system from Google.
The first smartphone, HTC Dream, was released in 2007, following which Android handsets were available only from HTC for about 18 months.

According to Businessweek, the queues outside HTC’s stores when ThunderBolt was released were longer than those for the iPhone.

The popularity of smartphones has also played a big role in HTC’s success, as instead of just talking and sending SMSs through their phones, users are also looking to browse the internet, watch videos, chat with friends and consume videos and music on their phones.

Popular HTC phones that are currently available in India include HTC Touch, Hero, Desire, Aria and Wildfire.

Game Review: Galaxy on Fire

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Galaxy on Fire takes motion gaming on mobile devices to a whole new level of excitement. You find yourself in the middle of a never ending fight between the social and antisocial elements of society. Only, this time society is not just limited to your state or country, nor even to your planet, but is spread across galaxies.

The game takes you into the future when inter galactic travel has become a day to day affair. You play the part of Keith Maxwell, an intergalactic pilot who is hired for a few initial missions and once he learns the job, he sets out to make his own identity in the universe.

The storyline is not very complex but has some twists and feels like a big emotional movie.
It goes like this: Keith Maxwell is called upon by law abiding people to help them out in a few basic missions, which he does well. He is asked for help in a few more missions by Christine, the only lady in the story, who helps him in every mission with guidance and tips. Christine dies in a battle prompting Maxwell to take revenge and he sets out to rid the universe of all antisocial elements.

Playtime of the game is long because there are multiple levels and space dimensions to play in. Once a player finishes the initial basic missions, he becomes a free pilot who can choose where he wants to be and what he wants to do. He is sent on a plethora of missions from across galaxies that enable him to earn money and continually upgrade his ship so he can fly faster, and with more lethal weapons.

The graphics are of top quality and you always crave for a bigger screen version of this game but sadly there is none. The game can be played by the touchscreen based joy pad or accelerometer. Newer cellphones can also make use of the gyroscope sensor for better movement and controls.

Galaxy on Fire is very easy to play and gives ample tips for the player to learn and improve over every mission.

Some features like auto save and manual save are much appreciated. They allow users to continue the game from where they left off.

The game is a big hit. This can be gauged from the fact that Nokia has included it as the default game in its flagship phone, the Nokia N8, on which we reviewed it.

Others can download Galaxy on Fire from the Ovi application store. However, its price may vary from platform to platform.

But one question: Why did Fish Labs, the makers of the game, name it Galaxy on Fire when the battle moves beyond the milky way to many other galaxies?

Top gaming phones in India

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Top gaming phones in India

Gaming is something that each one of us can enjoy. Real or virtual, games are a perfect way to relax.

With changing lifestyles, however, we hardly have any free time for real games. Therefore most people have resorted to virtual gaming. Virtual gaming has caught on with people so well that it has become a crucial part of mobile phones.

Games on mobile phones have always been in demand. Since the first smartphones, such as Nokia nGage, devices have been manufactured specifically for gaming on the go.

Here, we have the best gaming phones in India:

Micromax Gameolution G4

The name brings to mind the memory of an advertisement featuring Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar jumping here and there in a restaurant, destroying everything while playing a game.

Priced at Rs 3,000 G4 has advanced gaming capabilities that include motion sensor based games. This phone provides a gaming experience similar to the Nintendo Wii console, but without the exorbitant price tag.

The phone has built in games that can be enjoyed on the go. Users can also connect the device to a laptop or desktop computer to play four bundled games that come with the phone, which include games such as tennis and badminton that can also be played by two people using their own phones.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play

Built on the lines of Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP) platform, Xperia Play smartphone features dedicated PSP keys along with a joy pad that is capacitive but works as well as the physical kind.

At the heart of this device you will find a 1 GHz and dedicated graphics engine that makes better gaming possible. Apart from being a gaming device, this is also a full featured smartphone running Google 2.2 on a big 3.7 inch display.

Sony currently has a few known PSP games for Xperia Play and is bundling them free of cost with the device, and we can expect many more titles in future.

Xperia Play is available for Rs 30,990 in India.

Nokia N8

This is among the most talked about products of the past year, and one of Nokia’s best till now.

N8 has a 3.5 inch display with 360 x 640 pixel resolution, which is a bit smaller than handsets with similar features but in terms of clarity and brightness, it stands out of the crowd.

The N8 has a 680 processor but the inclusion of a dedicated Broadcomm graphics engine gives it enough muscle to take on the biggies. Nokia pre installs full versions of games such as Real Golf and Need for Speed Shift in new phones, and these games can also be manually installed on old N8s.

N8 is also known for its 12 camera, which is by far one of the best cameras to ever exist on a phone, and uses Xenon flash.

Over all the N8 is a nice smartphone for Rs 23,000.

Samsung Galaxy S &#151 4 GB

With a sleek design, this smartphone from Samsung is simply gorgeous.

The 1 GHz processor with a dedicated and 4 of internal Nand flash memory makes it a perfectly portable device for gaming. The four inch further gives ample room for playing games comfortably.

Galaxy S uses a 1650 battery pack that can survive for almost two days of medium usage and gaming. Running on Android, the handset can make use of games that are released from time to time on Android Market.

In India, it costs around Rs 19,500.

HTC Desire HD

With a 4.3 inch display, it is the biggest smartphone available in India right now. Desire HD uses a 1 GHz processor, dedicated graphics engine, a mighty 1.5 GB ROM, and 768 of that make for a memorable gaming experience.

The phone also has Dolby Mobile and SRS sound enhancements that address the audio component of games.

HTC’s Desire HD can rightly be acclaimed as a heavyweight contender in the smartphone arena. Big on features and small on price, Desire HD can be purchased from the market at less than Rs 26,000.

LG Optimus 2X

Optimus 2X is officially the first dual core processor based smartphone in India. It features the slightly older version of Android, Android 2.2, but is upgradable to version 2.3.

The phone has 512 MB of RAM and 8 GB of on board storage along with an nVidia Tegra GPU. It uses a gyro sensor and accelerometer, and is said to be a notch above the rest as far as gaming is concerned. Optimus 2X has a 4 inch display with 480 x 800 pixel resolution.

It also has an 8 megapixel camera capable of recording HD videos. The device is priced at Rs 30,000.

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