This edition of our 'Top five mobile phones under Rs 10,000' has two smartphones that were earlier priced around Rs 15,000.
Samsung Galaxy Y S5360 @ Rs 7,000
It maintained its numero uno status in our last list of 'Best smartphones under Rs 10,000' purely on the basis of its specifications and price.
Currently priced at Rs 7,000, the Samsung Galaxy Y has impressive specifications like Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system with 830 MHz ARMv6 processor, 290 MB RAM and a 2 megapixel camera. In fact, it is one of the few smartphones under Rs 10,000 to feature Android 2.3, and that too with a powerful processor.
Galaxy Y comes with a 3 inch TFT capacitive touchscreen, Samsung's TouchWiz user interface and multi touch function. It has 180 MB internal memory which can be expanded by up to 32 GB. Other features include WiFi b/g/n with hotspot, Bluetooth v3.0 A2DP, a 1200 mAh battery, 3G and A-GPS, making it an ideal choice if you're on a budget.
LG Optimus Net P690 @ Rs 9,999
Not long ago this handset was priced around Rs 15,000 in India. However, several online retailers are selling this LG Optimus NET P690 for as low as Rs 9,999 now. This reduction is one of the prime factors for us to include this handset in this list.
That does not mean Optimus Net disappoints as far as specifications or performance is concerned. The Optimus Net comes with a 3.2 inch capacitive touch screen with accelerometer and proximity sensor for better gaming. It has an Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system powered by an 800 MHz Qualcomm processor. This is only the second handset to feature Android 2.3 with above 800 MHz processor.
Its other features include a 3.15 megapixel camera, 32 GB expandable memory, WiFi b/g/n, WiFi Hotspot, DLNA capability, Li-ion 1500 mAh battery, A-GPS support etc.
Nokia E5 @ Rs 9,000
Nokia has close to 60 per cent market share in India and has a product in almost every category — be it the best feature phones or top of the line handsets. Though there are many more Nokia handsets within the Rs 5,000-Rs 10,000 price bracket, such as the Nokia C series X series phones, we zeroed in on the E5 for its specifications.
Available for around Rs 9,000, Nokia E5 runs Symbian S 60 operating system on an ARM 11 600 MHz processor. Though Nokia has shifted focus to Windows Phone, it has promised to support Symbian for a couple of years to come. Besides, there are thousands of users in India who use Symbian devices and Nokia isn't likely to leave them in the lurch.
Nokia E5 has the best in the industry 5 megapixel camera with flash, 32 GB expandable memory slot, 2.36 inch display, 1200 mAh battery, A-GPS, Nokia Maps, Bluetooth, WiFi b/g etc.
Micromax A70 @ Rs 7,600
Notwithstanding its very reasonable price of Rs 7,600, Micromax A70 3G comes with Android 2.2 Froyo operating system and a 600 MHz ARMv6 Qualcomm processor. Its 3.2 touchscreen is a capacitive one that supports multi touch input.
A70 is the only handset in this list to feature dual cameras — a 5 megapixel camera at the back and a front facing VGA one. Other noted features of Micromax A70 include a 1450 mAh battery, 32 GB expandable memory option, WiFi b/g with hotspot feature and Bluetooth.
Sony Ericsson Mix Walkman @ Rs 6,250
Mix Walkman qualifies for this list for its uniqueness and overall specs.
As the name signifies, its key feature is its Walkman. Sony Ericsson Mix Walkman comes with a Zappin key to search music. When pressed, the Zappin key opens a preview of the next track and lets you decide whether it is a favourite you want to listen to or not. A Karaoke function also enables the vocal track from any song to be lowered instantly so you can sing along.
Though it's the only phone in this list to run on a Java operating system, it has a decent specification list with 3 inch scratch resistance display, 256 MB internal memory expandable memory up to 32 GB, WiFi, Bluetooth, 1000 mAh battery and 3.15 megapixel back camera.
It is priced at Rs 6,250, and is the cheapest phone in the list.
Kolaveri
Superstar Rajinikanth's son-in-law and National Award winner actor, Dhanush's song 'Why this Kolaveri Di' from the upcoming Tamil movie 3 has taken the internet by storm. Though the song is in 'Tanglish' (Tamil and English), it has captured the pulse of everyone.
After creating hysteria amongst the netizens with its peppy music and catchy lyrics, 'Kolaveri di' sung and penned by Tamil star Dhanush, is now getting popular amongst Bollywood actors too. And the latest to be smitten by the song is the Shahenshah of Bollywood: Amitabh Bachchan.
Bachchan recently heard the song and was much impressed by the foot-tapping number. Senior Bachchan sang paeans about the song on the micro-blogging site Twitter, writing, "Just heard #Kolaveri after much talk on it ... its so original and catchy ..congrats Dhanush and Aishwarya(Rajni's daughter) .. love"
Neha Dhupia tweets, "Have shown tremendous restraint by not listening to #Kolaveri even once all morning. ..."
Singer Shreya Ghoshal tweeted, "Finally heard! Aiyyo! I lou! Hittu!! Soopera! "@aneeshb: This Kolaveri Di is super nice. 8shakes head n sings along*"
And Big B is not the only Bachchan raving about the song. Abhishek Bachchan too took to Twitter to praise the song. "how cool is Kolaveri di!!! slamming it LOUD! well done Dhanush and Aishwarya. big up guys!" He added later, "If you like Kolaveri di you guys must check out manmatha rasa. One of Dhanush's early songs. MINDBLOWING!! how does he move like that?"
Karan Johar tweeted, "Kolaveri di...definitely the sleeper song blockbuster of the year!!! Rock on dhanush!!!"
'Kolaveri di' is from the Dhanush and Shruti Haasan starrer '3' slated to release in 2012.
Let us pay tribute to those who gave their lives to save ours. Let us salute those who made their own lives, a trifle, to make sure that we lived ours.
Salute the men who fight our battles for us !
They have lost their precious life to save us, so why can’t we just say hat’s off to them? Come on show the spirit of what we Indians are and let’s stand brave against the terrorism.
Nokia gave a pompous debut to the first trio of Symbian Belle software update loaded smartphones — Nokia 701, Nokia 700 and Nokia 600. Out of these three, we got lucky to receive the best of the three — Nokia 701. Loaded with the neat looking Symbian Belle operating system, the Nokia 701 comes with fancy set of features, functions and interesting bunch of pre-loaded applications.
Nokia has stepped in with couple of first with Nokia 701 — it's the first Symbian Belle device, first to have a 1 GHz processor among Nokia handsets and first with a 'functional' Near Field Communication chip. Most important is its 1000 nits brightness spreading display which measures 3.5-inch. Amongst the three Symbian Belle handsets, the Nokia 701 remains to be the high end.
Journey of Nokia Symbian Belle devices started off with a hiccup when Nokia 600 got cancelled even before it arrived. However, Nokia immediately has replaced it with 603 model.
The closest competitor of the Nokia 701 handset in terms or form-factor, feature set and pricing is the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray. However, the focus is on the Symbian Belle laden Nokia 701.
Design and Displaying
In terms of physical appearance, the Nokia 701 comes in a metallic shell body and the curved as well as angular edges reminding of the Symbian Anna icons. Despite of the metallic body, the phone weighs 131 grams sans the SIM card and is actually feels almost like the metallic body bearing Nokia E75. At the first look, Nokia 701 does look similar to the Nokia C7 smartphone but the obvious differentiator lies in the home/menu button design.
Nokia 701 comes with a super-bright 3.5 inch ClearBlack display with the IPS panel LCD with Corning Gorilla Glass technology. That means it offers good viewing angles and also scratch resistant strong glass. The display is a 24-bit colour depth supporting IPS panel which offers 640x360 pixels native resolution. That promises you three things — crisper text, vibrant colours and high brightness. The screen indeed made the images and the text legible under the direct sunlight but bit of contrast settings would have been welcome there.
At the left are well laid volume buttons with Voice Command activator button in the center. There's a dedicated camera button on the left side of the bezel in the bottom and just above it is the spring lock button. It is high time Nokia should drop this spring lock button and integrated the sleep/wake function into the power button, just like several other smartphones mostly — Android and Apple iOS based devices.
The Audio port (3.5mm) rests between the power button and microUSB slot. Just to note over here that the Nokia 701 does support the USB-on-the-Go function which will let the users connect the compatible set of USB peripherals with the smartphone. The metallic back panel cover protects the 1300mAh battery. The speaker mesh is visible from the button that pops open the back-panel cover to expose battery and SIM card slot.
User Interface
The feature set that arrive with Symbian Belle have been covered number of times earlier. Major ones include the new notification drawer that also brings toggle switches for mobile data, WiFi, Bluetooth, and turning the phone to silent mode. The multi-tasking feature offering task manager remains the same and is visible when the Menu key is pressed and held for couple of seconds. Apart from more home screens, free-form widgets and improved navigation, the native browser offers better scrolling but the number of tabs is still limited to six.
The touchscreen is quite responsive and responds well while working with the apps or while gaming. Major highlight of the Symbian Belle update is the new Notification tray system that offers combined list of notifications related to the respective apps. This tray is accessible by pull down gesture and resembles so much like the Notification tray in an Android handset. While the four Toggles Switches stand out, it would be great if those switches could be interchangeable or replaced with any other toggle function.
The ARM11 architecture based 1 GHz processor with 512 MB RAM does make lot of a difference in the user interface to make it appear slick and fluid between transitions.
However, one of the pitfalls of this interface would be lack of icon differentiations because many icons come with similar/same color. But you can group the icons together and form a folder with them. The keyboard appears pretty cramped up in the portrait mode and support for SWYPE would be heavily applauded.
Imaging and Multimedia
Nokia has added an 8 megapixel camera with a fixed focus which is capable enough to record 720p HD video at 30fps. The camera does lure to click amazing images with dual LED flash. However, the actually image quality does appear bit washed in case of too much brightness or sunlight. The lack of auto-focus even during video shooting mode is kind of a downer over here. But if you are more of a casual shutterbug, then you might just be happy with the image quality provided the settings are being used properly. However, Nokia has tried to compensate for that with a still image editor. There's also a front facing VGA camera that is usable for video calling.
The Nokia 701 has a Broadcom GPU chip with 128 MB RAM dedicated to it so forget playing the HD quality videos on it. Along with the regular set of video and audio file format supports, the 701 comes with FM Radio and FM transmitter. The sensitive mic located just between the aluminum bezel and the Menu key offers active noise cancellation feature. During voice calls, the voice was clear and quite audible to the other end. No network issues were visible during the usage.
NFC fun
Just for record, we thank Nokia for sending a C7 unit to test out the NFC Tippit app that comes preloaded in the Nokia 701 handset. Exchange of business card and other information by merely tapping the phones back to back was quite a smooth process.
Also the Nokia 701 was also used to get the exclusive content from the movie specific posters placed at the Nokia Priority Partners. Must say, that the NFC interface has been coded nicely to share and accept the data from equally supporting devices.
Power Management
Nokia had packed 1300 mAh battery with the 701 and given the high luminance display coupled with 3G Network support, we doubted the phone would last even 18 hours. Surprisingly, the phone lasted just a bit more than a day with brightness limit hit, email accounts set, social features active, music listening of an hour or two, number of phone calls and bit of texting. Nokia indeed has done a commendable job with power management with the Symbian Belle by using it with the low-power consuming ARM11 architecture based processor.
The handset also offers power saving mode that automatically configures the necessary settings to save battery juice for longer run time. Keeping the technical terms aside, the Nokia 701 is capable of offering you longer talk time on 2G networks but it drops drastically when it comes to 3G networks which eat up more battery. Considering the form factor, 1300mAh was the perfect size for this handset and Nokia certainly proves the 701 is one of its best high-end handset with good battery life and power management features.
Conclusion
Nokia 701 smartphone is meant for the multimedia frenzy folks who wish to make the best of their handset without having to wrap their heads around operating system or hackery. This smartphone is meant for serious travelers who wish for a mobile with promising battery life and compelling features. Packed with metallic finish, by looks the Nokia 701 does look chic and premium.
Typing on landscape mode is quite comfortable due to the rounded corners that provide a good grip and also it is much easy to use the virtual keyboard in that mode. The Automatic screen rotation is still not smooth as compared to the competing operating system.
As an overall package, Nokia 701 indeed is an amazing package with fresh looking Symbian Belle and long lasting battery support. Available in India at a price of Rs. 18,990 in retail stores, you can also buy the same handset for less online.
