Nokia 301 dual-SIM feature phone available online for Rs.5,149

The Nokia 301 feature phone which was announced by the Finnish handset maker during the Mobile World Congress is now available online at a price of Rs. 5,149.

The phone has been listed at online retailer Flipkart's website and comes with a 1 year Nokia India warranty. It's available in Magenta, Black and Cyan colour variants.

The Nokia 301 is built on the same design approach as the company's higher end Lumia phones, featuring multiple colours. It is a dual-SIM, dual standby phone and also offers 3G connectivity.

The Nokia 301 has a 2.4-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 240x320 pixels and has an alphanumeric keypad, bearing the conventional candy bar form factor. It runs Nokia's proprietary Series 40 operating system.

The device comes with the Nokia Xpress Browser preloaded which according to the company's claim offers up to 90 percent more data efficiency. The phone is also being touted as "the most affordable Nokia device to offer video streaming" and comes with new smart camera features, inspired by the digital camera lenses on the Nokia Lumia smartphones.

The Nokia 301 has a 3.2-megapixel camera that will offer "Sequential shot," which allows users to takes 3-5 pictures in a row. It also offers a Panorama mode and self-timer, among other camera features. Nokia has also included a simple self portrait assistant with voice integration. It will tell you to move your camera up, down, right, left to centre your face for the shot.

It also comes with Nokia Slam, through which users can share photos via Bluetooth. It's an easy way to share photos and other files to other basic phones and you don't need to pair on Bluetooth. It works with other non-Nokia phones as well. The phone also offers FM radio. The phone weighs 102 grams and comes with a 1200mAh battery.

Jelly Bean-running waterproof smartwatch to go up for pre-order in China

Over the months, we've all been reading and acquainting ourselves with the topic of smartwatch, which is emerging as a popular device category. Google and LG were previously reported to be developing their own smartwatches, and here’s one more to that list. Meet Geak Watch. This smartwatch runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and, among other things, comes with Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n connectivity. The Geak Watch sports a 1.55-inch capacitive multi-point touchscreen OGS with a resolution of 240 x 240 pixels. This Android-running smartwatch lets you download Android apps or receive OTA upgrades. Interestingly, the Geak Smartwatch is also waterproof.

The Geak Watch is fuelled by a 500 mAh lithium polymer battery and is powered by 1GHz JZ4774 processor that's based on MIPS architecture. It comes with 512MB RAM and 4GB ROM.

Is waterproof

In addition to these specifications, the smartwatch comes with a variety of smart sensors, including ones for temperature, navigation, power acceleration and gyroscope. It can also monitor the wearer's sleeping pattern via its advanced sleep-tracking management system, allowing it to track a user’s daily sleep. In addition to that, it also monitors pulse, blood pressure, body temperature and mood of the user. It also includes support for NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and even FM Radio.

The smartwatch offers global weather information, allowing users access to weather forecasts. It also offers real-time updates on pollution index.

The smartwatch is priced at 1,999 yuan or $300 and will be up for pre-orders in China starting July 3.

HTC makes the budget 3.5-inch Desire 200 official

Following up to a report yesterday about an HTC Desire 200 hands-on video being leaked online, it now looks like the company has formally announced the smartphone on its website.
The HTC Desire 200 and the Desire 600 were first found last month via leaked BenchMark reports. The phone has finally been announced officially, but there's no word on the official price tag or the availability of the phone as of yet.

As noted earlier, the HTC Desire 600 will be made available in Russia, Ukraine, Africa and the Middle East from early June onwards. So it may be possible for HTC to look at similar markets for the Desire 200 as well. An offical announcement is needed to confirm this, though.

HTC has formally announced the budget 3.5-inch Desire 200 (image credit: HTC)

As it stands, the phone will come with a 3.5-inch screen with 320 x 480 resolution LCD display. The processor under the hood is a single-core 1GHz CPU from the Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 line-up. It comes with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage, which can be expanded up to 32GB via a microSD slot. The phone also has a 1230 mAh removable battery.

The smartphone will also feature a 3G modem for HSDPA, which will give speeds up to 7.2Mbps. The Desire 200 will come with a 5 megapixel, f/2.8 fixed focus camera with 34 mm lens that supports VGA video recording as well as a pair of Beats audio in-ear headphones. 

In terms of features and specifications, the Desire 200 doesn’t seem to offer much that is different. The few things that may set it apart from any other budget Android phone is the presence of HTC’s Sense UI.

Another factor that may work in its favour is the way the phone is designed, with the promotional shots showing a pretty decent phone overall. All told, the Desire 200 should come with a decent price tag if it hopes to find many takers in the market.

Here's a quick look at the official specifications of the Desire 200:

• 3.5-inch (320 x480 pixels) display
• 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor
• Android OS with Sense UI
• 5MP rear camera
• 11.9 mm thick and weighs 100 grams
• 3.5 mm audio jack, Beats audio
• 512MB RAM and 4GB of internal storage, expandable up to 32GB via microSD
• 3G (HSDPA 7.2 Mbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS /aGPS
• 1230 mAh battery

HTC announces Snapdragon 600-powered Butterfly S with 3200 mAh battery

HTC has officially announced Butterfly S, a refresh to the company’s first 1080p smartphone. And this one seriously takes the original’s specs to the next level.

The original Butterfly, launched last year in certain markets, had a great full HD Super LCD 3 display, which has been retained by HTC along with the screen size of 5 inches. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 3. However, the low battery capacity of 2020 mAh had been heavily criticised by users. HTC looks to have listened to their clamour as the Butterfly S will come with a 3200 mAh battery that sounds quite capacious. This is the highest capacity battery in an HTC phone, the company says, and it's quoted as good for up to 25 hours on 3G and up to 29 hours on GSM.

The Butterfly S looks like a cross between the One and the original Butterfly

Just like the HTC One, the Butterfly S comes with the Snapdragon 600 SoC, with the four Krait cores clocked at 1.9GHz. In addition, there’s 2GB of RAM. The Butterfly S comes with Android Jelly Bean out of the box with Sense 5 (BlinkFeed et al) on top. The press release does not mention whether this is Android 4.1 or 4.2, but our money is on the former, considering 4.2 is not yet out for the HTC One either.

There are other inspirations from the HTC One too. The camera on the back is the same HTC UltraPixel unit that’s on the flagship and there’s the now-familiar dual front stereo speakers powered by HTC BoomSound. The camera will come with features like the HTC Zoe, which were reserved for the One till now. The front-camera is a 2.1 megapixel affair with support for HDR stills and 1080p video recording.

Connectivity wise, the Butterfly S will come with support for HSPA+ and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac bands. This one is DLNA compatible and comes with an IR blaster, support for Miracast wireless display and MHL support in the micro USB port. The Butterfly S also has an NFC chip and Bluetooth 4.0. The HTC Butterfly S will be available in select Asia Pacific markets from July.

A redesigned Firefox is coming soon

Are browsers really just used to surf the net anymore? They’re used now to access web apps, have deep social network integration and more. So, while the browser’s functionalities have changed, how can the design remain stagnant? Mozilla is first in line to embrace change. “Maybe we shouldn’t even call it a browser anymore,” Jonathan Nightingale, Mozilla’s Vice-President of Firefox Engineering told TechCrunch. “‘Browser’ is really an antiquated word. People don’t really browse all that much anymore.”

Mozilla has been working on a project called Australis, named after a star system, the company’s version of what the future of modern browsing could look like. You can expect to find parts of this product incorporated into Firefox release channels, starting with Nightly, as soon as it hits version 25. Australis will also make its way to the web through the usual release channels thereafter.

Chrome in Firefox, anyone?

Looking suspiciously similar to Chrome, tabs in Australis are more rounded than in Google’s version of the browser. The search bar, download, home and menu button then are pretty much what they look like in Firefox currently. The cleaner, “more intuitive” design of the browser is part of what Nightingale says is a capable, yet simple browser.

Simplicity of design and customisation are the key points as far as Australis is concerned. The design makes sure that tabs and icons are non-intrusive while you’re surfing the internet. Unlike Chrome, tabs not in use currently will blend away into the background till you decide you need the again. Firefox will even move to a scrolling bar once you’ve reached the minimum width of tabs.

The theme is big on customisation too. Mozilla is working on letting you add way more tools than what Firefox offers currently. Australis may not land on stable channels till October at least, though. Nightingale says that today’s version of Firefox is already influenced by this project. It now features a combined stop/load/reload button as well as the download manager. Considering the fact that Mozilla is currently rolling out updates at a rapid pace, it may want to roll out some of Australis’ features with the current release, and can keep adding to Firefox with further releases. This means that while we could see Australis in the Nightly version of Firefox 25, the stable one might not have it at all.

Acer unveils Iconia W3, the world's first 8.1-inch Windows 8 tablet

Acer has made a string of announcements at the ongoing Computex, and one of the major ones among these announcements is the Iconia W3. The tablet is the industry’s first 8.1-inch tablet running on Windows 8. It is worth noting that the tablet runs on an Intel chip with Windows 8 instead of an ARM-based chip on Windows RT. This means that the 8.1-inch tablet will have all the capabilities that a typical desktop PC does.

The 8.1-inch LED display has a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, which gives it a pixel density of 186 ppi. The tablet is capable of displaying videos at 720p resolutions just fine. It is equipped with two cameras – both being 2 megapixel shooters.

The Iconia W3 has a micro-HDMI port that allows users to connect it to a TV or external display. There is also a micro USB port that allows connection to devices such as phones, MP3 players, USB drives and even a mouse. It comes in two variants—32GB and 64GB capacities. Both variants have microSD card slots with support for cards up to 32GB.

The tablet runs on an Intel Atom chip that is said to be optimised for mobile devices. All of this is kept alive by a battery with a quoted life of 8 hours. The device uses Connected Standby, which helps the battery life by turning the display off while the tablet remains powered on to perform other tasks in the background. Connectivity options on the Iconia W3 includes Wi-Fi.

The Iconia W3 is the world's first 8-inch Windows 8 tablet

The tablet comes with Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 pre-installed, which includes softwares like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The company claims that the tablet is small enough to operate one-handed when it comes to simple tasks like reading and web browsing.

The Iconia W3 weighs in at 540 g and is 11.35 mm in thickness, which makes it one of the most portable Windows 8 tablets that we’ve seen. The tablet can pair with a full-sized Bluetooth keyboard that can hold the device upright. This makes the tablet a portable replacement for a laptop. The keyboard mirrors the size of a 13.3-inch notebook. The company claims, however, that the tablet was made with thumb-typing on the virtual keyboard in mind.

Since the Acer Iconia W3 runs Windows 8, it can keep files, photos and contacts synced across other Windows 8 devices, so users can work on documents and programs on the go and then access the most current version from another device.  Because it runs full Windows 8, the Acer Iconia W3 is also compatible with x86 legacy Windows programs.

Both the 32GB and the 64GB variants of the tablet are expected to hit store shelves in Q2 2013. As of yet, Acer has not revealed the pricing for the Iconia W3.

Facebook could soon let you message from the status box

Soon you could use your status bar to send private messages on Facebook. This is after TechCrunch reported that Facebook is planning to incorporate the option of sending private messages on its homepage status bar, which is fixed on the top of the platform, to increase the messaging rates.

It is expected that the social networking platform will integrate the existing status bar and the chat option that appears on the top left corner of the screen to allow users to use the chatting option in an easy manner. This move could help Facebook to compete with Google, whose web chat presence is strong thanks to its hangout option.

If the rumoured change comes into effect, users could switch between posting their status and privately communicating with select friends. However, if not cautious, the user could end up revealing a message to all his friends when it was meant to be seen by just one person.

You could soon start a message thread using your status bar 

As things stand now, users have to click the untitled message icon to start or continue a private message thread. This sometimes results in users being less likely to send messages.

The functions of the status composer messaging could mirror the recently launched Chat Heads feature for the Facebook mobile app. The chat heads overlay the message conversation on top of all pages of the Facebook app for iOS and Android.

It is also believed that Facebook is trying to increase the pace of conversations that generate notifications and repeated visits from their participants on the web and mobile platform. It is also expected that status composer messaging could result in better user experience.

Samsung Galaxy S4 mini launched with 1.7GHz dual-core processor, Android 4.2

Samsung has officially announced its Galaxy S4 mini smartphone, a compact version of Samsung's flagship smartphone.Samsung Galaxy S4 mini is powered by a 1.7GHz dual-core processor along with 1.5GB of RAM. It packs in 8GB of internal storage of which 5GB is user accessible. The internal storage can be further expanded by up to 64GB with the help of a microSD card.
The smartphone comes with 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display. For camera, there is an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and 1.9-megapixel HD front-facing camera. The camera of Samsung Galaxy S4 mini also supports additional features like Sound&Shot. Apart from this, the images clicked through the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini are automatically gathered and saved according to the user's timeline, geo-tagging information, or a specific event to create a photo album.
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini runs on Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) and has a 1,900mAh battery. It also supports Group Play feature, S Translator and S Health, all found in Samsung's flagship Galaxy S4.
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini had leaked extensively over the past couple of months and there were speculations being made that this smartphone will be unveiled at the June 20 event being held in London along with other Galaxy and Ativ devices.
Samsung will be offering the Galaxy S4 mini smartphone in two colours options - White Frost and Black Mist. As per the company, the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini will support either 4G LTE, or 3G HSPA+ or 3G Dual-SIM. The connectivity option will vary across different regions.
Samsung had officially launched Galaxy S4 smartphone at a gala event on March 14, 2013. It has been recently introduced in India for Rs. 41, 500. The company recently announced that it has managed to ship over 10 million units of the smartphone.

Google Chrome has 750 million active users, increased two times since last I/O conference

Google Chrome is definitely one of the highlights of the ongoing Google I/O conference. The gist of Chrome-focused presentation was the increasing number of Chrome web browser users in the recent month and the fact that most of them are coming from mobile. Sundar Pichai, Google’s Senior Vice President for Chrome and Android, and Linus Upson, VP of engineering, presided the Chrome-based presentation at the Google I/O.

More mobile users for Chrome?

Chrome, Google’s home-brewed web browser, has 300 million active new users since the I/O conference last year. Currently, it has 750 million active users, revealed Pichai, although neither Pichai nor Upson said how many of them are mobile users. Upson also showed how a Chrome web browser can be used to mimic your Android tablet experience by running gaming apps. It showed that if the user starts a race or begins a function on a touchscreen Android tablet, he will be able to see the same game on the desktop browser. He also demoed Racer, which is a multiplayer Chrome experiment that allows using Chrome across up to five devices.

Chrome mobile is getting faster, with improved performance. The performance has been improved more than 50 percent on mobile on comparison with 25 percent speedier on desktop. The Chrome OS is a computer system based on the Chrome browser, but nothing much was spoken about Chromebooks or the OS. However, we could hear a lot about later this year.

Apple App Store hits 50 billion downloads

Apple lovers out there celebrated yesterday when the Apple App Store officially ticked off its 50 billionth download. The milestone came just under two weeks after the company announced that it was reaching the number.

The milestone also brought to an end the promotional venture that the company had launched, called “50 billion app download”. The end of the promotion will now have one iOS user getting a $10,000 gift voucher, which can be used on the App Store, Mac App Store, or any other iTunes Store content, while 50 other users who will get a $500 gift voucher.

A vote of thanks, the Apple way. (photo credit: Apple)

What is interesting about this is that the milestone was reached around the time that Google was announcing its own downloads numbers in its Google I/O developer’s conference. The number took four years for the Apple App Store to reach. Apple celebrated an earlier milestone when it hit the 25 billionth downloads mark just over a year ago. In the 14 months since, the App Store has seen the number double, which is a feat in terms of both scale and size.

The download numbers of the App Store, which was launched in 2008, shows a huge growth rate. The company acknowledged this by a graphic showing the word “thanks” on its website. This graphic was made using an iPad app, Paper by fifty three.

With the last 14 months showing an exponential increase in the app downloads, the estimated time for the next few milestones is tough to estimate. If the numbers are broken down, the App Store now has over 20 billion downloads a year, or over 50 million downloads a day. And while the lucky iOS user who won the app voucher has not been revealed, it seems that the speed and scale of the store’s growth may see many more winners in the future.