Author: Varun Krish

Samsung Galaxy S5 Hands On


FoneArena was live at the Samsung Unpacked 5 event here in beautiful Barcelona and we were live blogging the keynote for your guys. We also managed to get our hands on the newly announced Samsung Galaxy S5.Check out our video below where we show you the cool new features on the Galaxy S5.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_cw_fisMKsOn the front you have a 5.1 inch 1920×1080 SuperAMOLED display which does appeal to the eye. There is a 2 MP camera on the front above the display and the earpiece and the various sensors. Below the display you have the home key, menu key and back key. The home key actually packs a Fingerprint Scanner underneath.
On the inside is a 2.5 GHz Quadcore processor most likely a Snapdragon 801 or 805 paired with 2GB of RA. There is 16GB of built-in storage along with a microSD card slot supporting upto 128GB cards.
The main difference between the Galaxy S4 and the S5 is that the S5 is slightly thicker and heavier than the S4 and also the back cover is very different.
One cool feature on the S5 is the addition of IP67 certification which makes the S5 water and dust resistant. The battery capacity is 2800mAh which …


FoneArena was live at the Samsung Unpacked 5 event here in beautiful Barcelona and we were live blogging the keynote for your guys. We also managed to get our hands on the newly announced Samsung Galaxy S5.Check out our video below where we show you the cool new features on the Galaxy S5.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_cw_fisMKsOn the front you have a 5.1 inch 1920×1080 SuperAMOLED display which does appeal to the eye. There is a 2 MP camera on the front above the display and the earpiece and the various sensors. Below the display you have the home key, menu key and back key. The home key actually packs a Fingerprint Scanner underneath.
On the inside is a 2.5 GHz Quadcore processor most likely a Snapdragon 801 or 805 paired with 2GB of RA. There is 16GB of built-in storage along with a microSD card slot supporting upto 128GB cards.
The main difference between the Galaxy S4 and the S5 is that the S5 is slightly thicker and heavier than the S4 and also the back cover is very different.
One cool feature on the S5 is the addition of IP67 certification which makes the S5 water and dust resistant. The battery capacity is 2800mAh which …

Apple iPad Air Unboxing


We have the all new thinner and faster iPad Air for an unboxing at FoneArena. Apple announced this iPad along with new iPad mini with retina display at an event last month. The new iPad Air went on sale in the US and several other countries on November 1st.  There is no clear date for India yet but it is expected to be launched soon. So we decided to unbox the iPad Air for you and also quickly compare it to the iPad 4 and iPad mini. Hit play on the video below to catch all the action.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFnr736EltM
Apple has managed to cut down the thickness of the iPad to just 7.5mm and still retain the 9.7 inch display and all day battery life and even managed to make it lighter by 200 grams in terms of weight compared to the iPad 4. It is powered by the all new Apple A7 processor which was first used in the iPhone 5S. It is the first time a nanoSIM card slot is making its appearance on a full size iPad.  It is also the first iPad to ship with iOS 7 out of the box.
Box Contents
The box contents are fairly minimal and …


We have the all new thinner and faster iPad Air for an unboxing at FoneArena. Apple announced this iPad along with new iPad mini with retina display at an event last month. The new iPad Air went on sale in the US and several other countries on November 1st.  There is no clear date for India yet but it is expected to be launched soon. So we decided to unbox the iPad Air for you and also quickly compare it to the iPad 4 and iPad mini. Hit play on the video below to catch all the action.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFnr736EltM
Apple has managed to cut down the thickness of the iPad to just 7.5mm and still retain the 9.7 inch display and all day battery life and even managed to make it lighter by 200 grams in terms of weight compared to the iPad 4. It is powered by the all new Apple A7 processor which was first used in the iPhone 5S. It is the first time a nanoSIM card slot is making its appearance on a full size iPad.  It is also the first iPad to ship with iOS 7 out of the box.
Box Contents
The box contents are fairly minimal and …

Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Benchmarks


We are here in San Francisco on invitation from Qualcomm to benchmark their Snapdragon 800 processor which features a quad core Krait 400 CPU capable of running at 2.3GHz per core and the new Adreno 330 GPU.It is expected to be the fastest mobile processor in the market and even beat the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa and Qualcomm’s own Snapdragon 600 processor in terms of benchmarks and performance.Dive in and take a look at the jaw dropping numbers in the Benchmarks.
Here are some benchmarks we ran on the Snapdragon 800 reference devices at the event.
Quadrant
The Snapdragon 800 scores 21661 in Quadrant  and is almost 1.7X faster than the Snapdragon 600 processor and it manages to even beat the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa processor which has 2 quadcore processors. It is amazing to compare the performance to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro or APQ8064 which they let us benchmark last year. It is almost 3X-5X in terms of the Quadrant score.
AnTuTu
The Snapdragon 800 comes out at the top yet again in the AnTuTu benchmark test and is over 8000 points ahead of the previous leader in the test – the Exynos 5 Octa.
Vellamo 2.0
We clocked about 3008 points in Vellamo which is …


We are here in San Francisco on invitation from Qualcomm to benchmark their Snapdragon 800 processor which features a quad core Krait 400 CPU capable of running at 2.3GHz per core and the new Adreno 330 GPU.It is expected to be the fastest mobile processor in the market and even beat the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa and Qualcomm’s own Snapdragon 600 processor in terms of benchmarks and performance.Dive in and take a look at the jaw dropping numbers in the Benchmarks.
Here are some benchmarks we ran on the Snapdragon 800 reference devices at the event.
Quadrant
The Snapdragon 800 scores 21661 in Quadrant  and is almost 1.7X faster than the Snapdragon 600 processor and it manages to even beat the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa processor which has 2 quadcore processors. It is amazing to compare the performance to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro or APQ8064 which they let us benchmark last year. It is almost 3X-5X in terms of the Quadrant score.
AnTuTu
The Snapdragon 800 comes out at the top yet again in the AnTuTu benchmark test and is over 8000 points ahead of the previous leader in the test – the Exynos 5 Octa.
Vellamo 2.0
We clocked about 3008 points in Vellamo which is …

Deal Alert : Samsung Galaxy S3 for Rs.22945 and Galaxy Grand Duos for Rs.16495


Homeshop 18 is back with an exciting deal.  If you are looking to buy a Samsung Galaxy S3 or Galaxy Grand for a nice discount and don’t mind a slightly older phone in the quest for saving some bucks, here is your turn.The Samsung Galaxy S3 will cost you Rs.22495 only after a nice fat discount of Rs.4554. The Galalxy Grand Duos will cost you Rs.16495.
Head over to Homeshop18 and apply a discount coupon. One of the colours of the Galaxy Grand Duos is already out of stock. The S3 might got out of stock soon. I have personally purchased a lot of stuff from Homeshop18 including a 64GB iPad 4 on the site and was satisfied with the purchase.
There are some excellent deals on the Sony XPERIA Z (Rs.32495 ) and Samsung Galaxy Fame too (Rs.9495 ) and the Nokia Lumia 820 at Rs.19495
Here are coupons for grabbing the deal before it expires :
Galaxy S3 – GCP2E5CAY9GZ , Grand Duos – GCDM29NPF3H8, Nokia Lumia 920 – GC1NFAUP5DF2, Sony XPERIA Z – GC3NMCH2HV4M
Head over to the link below for checking out the deals and the the relevant gift coupons
Read


Homeshop 18 is back with an exciting deal.  If you are looking to buy a Samsung Galaxy S3 or Galaxy Grand for a nice discount and don’t mind a slightly older phone in the quest for saving some bucks, here is your turn.The Samsung Galaxy S3 will cost you Rs.22495 only after a nice fat discount of Rs.4554. The Galalxy Grand Duos will cost you Rs.16495.
Head over to Homeshop18 and apply a discount coupon. One of the colours of the Galaxy Grand Duos is already out of stock. The S3 might got out of stock soon. I have personally purchased a lot of stuff from Homeshop18 including a 64GB iPad 4 on the site and was satisfied with the purchase.
There are some excellent deals on the Sony XPERIA Z (Rs.32495 ) and Samsung Galaxy Fame too (Rs.9495 ) and the Nokia Lumia 820 at Rs.19495
Here are coupons for grabbing the deal before it expires :
Galaxy S3 – GCP2E5CAY9GZ , Grand Duos – GCDM29NPF3H8, Nokia Lumia 920 – GC1NFAUP5DF2, Sony XPERIA Z – GC3NMCH2HV4M
Head over to the link below for checking out the deals and the the relevant gift coupons
Read

Sony XPERIA Tablet Z announced for Japan


The XPERIA Tablet Z which was rumoured to launch at CES 2013 has finally got officially announced for the Japanese market today. This sexy looking Android tablet is barely 6.9mm thick and weighs around 495 grams. It is also dustproof and waterproof to a certain extent. The display is 10.1 inches in size and features the Mobile Bravia Engine found on most Sony mobile products these days. The resolution on the display is an impressive 1920×1200 pixels.The design looks very similar to the XPERIA Z and ZL smartphones we saw at CES 2013. It is strange why Sony chose not to show off this beast at the world’s biggest tech show. May be it is coming to MWC 2013 next month !
In terms of specs , it is powered by a 1.5 GHz Quadcore Snapdragon processor and supports LTE networks too. It packs 32GB of internal storage. It has a 8.1 Megapixel camera featuring Sony’s EXMOR R sensor on the back. It packs NFC too and it will run on Android 4.1.2 Jellybean on the software front.
It is coming to the Japanese market this spring in Black and White colours  mostly on Japanese carrier NTT Docomo. No word about the …


The XPERIA Tablet Z which was rumoured to launch at CES 2013 has finally got officially announced for the Japanese market today. This sexy looking Android tablet is barely 6.9mm thick and weighs around 495 grams. It is also dustproof and waterproof to a certain extent. The display is 10.1 inches in size and features the Mobile Bravia Engine found on most Sony mobile products these days. The resolution on the display is an impressive 1920×1200 pixels.The design looks very similar to the XPERIA Z and ZL smartphones we saw at CES 2013. It is strange why Sony chose not to show off this beast at the world’s biggest tech show. May be it is coming to MWC 2013 next month !
In terms of specs , it is powered by a 1.5 GHz Quadcore Snapdragon processor and supports LTE networks too. It packs 32GB of internal storage. It has a 8.1 Megapixel camera featuring Sony’s EXMOR R sensor on the back. It packs NFC too and it will run on Android 4.1.2 Jellybean on the software front.
It is coming to the Japanese market this spring in Black and White colours  mostly on Japanese carrier NTT Docomo. No word about the …

Unlocked Apple iPhone 5 Prices for UK Revealed


While Apple has revealed only the Contract-only pricing for the Apple iPhone 5 in the US, the company is going to sell unlocked versions of the iPhone 5 at launch in the UK. Interestingly the base model starts from 529 pounds an increase of 30 pounds compared to the iPhone 4S. One point to note is that the price includes a 20% VAT or Sales Tax. If you were thinking of getting the iPhone 5 from UK , 529 GBP at current pound levels is about Rs.47000 approx in terms of the Indian Rupee.
The iPhone 5 features a 4 inch Retina display and a lot of changes under the hood including a faster A6 chip. The new iPhone also support faster LTE networks but only a few operators will be supporting the device at launch. The device also uses a smaller nano SIM card which means that your existing microSIM card won’t work in the iPhone 5.
The reason we are talking about the UK prices for the iPhone 5 is because , going by the past history , the pricing for the iPhone in India has been close to the UK pricing.
The 16 GB version will cost 539 GBP , …


While Apple has revealed only the Contract-only pricing for the Apple iPhone 5 in the US, the company is going to sell unlocked versions of the iPhone 5 at launch in the UK. Interestingly the base model starts from 529 pounds an increase of 30 pounds compared to the iPhone 4S. One point to note is that the price includes a 20% VAT or Sales Tax. If you were thinking of getting the iPhone 5 from UK , 529 GBP at current pound levels is about Rs.47000 approx in terms of the Indian Rupee.
The iPhone 5 features a 4 inch Retina display and a lot of changes under the hood including a faster A6 chip. The new iPhone also support faster LTE networks but only a few operators will be supporting the device at launch. The device also uses a smaller nano SIM card which means that your existing microSIM card won’t work in the iPhone 5.
The reason we are talking about the UK prices for the iPhone 5 is because , going by the past history , the pricing for the iPhone in India has been close to the UK pricing.
The 16 GB version will cost 539 GBP , …

Samsung to pay $1.05 billion in damages to Apple for infringing patents


The jury presiding over the Apple vs Samsung trial in a US court has just reached a verdict. We were thinking this trial would last several weeks or even months and to everyone’s surprise the jury announced the verdict just minutes ago. Pretty bad news from Samsung has it has been found to infringe several patents owned by Apple.  Samsung must pay Apple $1 billion, 51 million 855 thousand dollars $1051855000 . That is about Rs.5828.33 crores or five thousand odd crores of rupees in damages to just give you an idea about the magnitude of the verdict.Apple had accused Samsung of copying the iPhone and iPad and claimed over $2.5 billion in damages after talks between the two companies which are the largest mobile phone companies in the world did not seem to be fruitful. Judge Lucy Koh who is a US District Judge handling this trial had even requested the CEO’s of the two companies to meet and try to reach an agreement but even then talks failed. We are still waiting for details regarding the verdict and damages.
Here is an official statement from Apple regarding the verdict on NYT
We are grateful to the jury for their service and …


The jury presiding over the Apple vs Samsung trial in a US court has just reached a verdict. We were thinking this trial would last several weeks or even months and to everyone’s surprise the jury announced the verdict just minutes ago. Pretty bad news from Samsung has it has been found to infringe several patents owned by Apple.  Samsung must pay Apple $1 billion, 51 million 855 thousand dollars $1051855000 . That is about Rs.5828.33 crores or five thousand odd crores of rupees in damages to just give you an idea about the magnitude of the verdict.Apple had accused Samsung of copying the iPhone and iPad and claimed over $2.5 billion in damages after talks between the two companies which are the largest mobile phone companies in the world did not seem to be fruitful. Judge Lucy Koh who is a US District Judge handling this trial had even requested the CEO’s of the two companies to meet and try to reach an agreement but even then talks failed. We are still waiting for details regarding the verdict and damages.
Here is an official statement from Apple regarding the verdict on NYT
We are grateful to the jury for their service and …

Motorola RAZR MAXX Unboxing


Is battery life a problem on your android phone ? Well it’s a problem with most smartphones today and Android phones are the worst affected. What’s awesome about the Motorola RAZR MAXX is that it packs a massive 3300 mAh battery.  Moto promises about 17.6 hours of talk time on this handset which is almost twice the talk time on the RAZR. Check out our unboxing video of the Moto RAZR MAXX below. There is a brief comparison with the Motorola RAZR as well.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQyfysr9mLo
In terms of the specs , the RAZR MAXX is identical to the RAZR except for the thickness and weight.
Do you have any questions about the RAZR MAXX ? Feel free to ask us , we shall try to answer them.
 


Is battery life a problem on your android phone ? Well it’s a problem with most smartphones today and Android phones are the worst affected. What’s awesome about the Motorola RAZR MAXX is that it packs a massive 3300 mAh battery.  Moto promises about 17.6 hours of talk time on this handset which is almost twice the talk time on the RAZR. Check out our unboxing video of the Moto RAZR MAXX below. There is a brief comparison with the Motorola RAZR as well.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQyfysr9mLo
In terms of the specs , the RAZR MAXX is identical to the RAZR except for the thickness and weight.
Do you have any questions about the RAZR MAXX ? Feel free to ask us , we shall try to answer them.
 

Samsung says its the No.1 Smartphone brand in India


When I was checking out some news sites ,  I noticed an unusual thank you banner and the Samsung logo and decided to check it out. It took me to a landing page which is a thank you page for Samsung mobile users. Samsung says that it is currently the No.1 Smartphone brand in India according to the promo. It is quoting a GfK nielsen India Retail Store Audit Report for mobile phones in 50,000+population towns in November 2011. Samsung claims to have a market share of 37.9% in Smartphones in that month for that particular segment.
We all know the Galaxy S2 sold like hot cakes ever since launching in June 2011. Now the Galaxy Note is also gaining some popularity.Symbian has been the most popular operating system for several years now but with Nokia going with Windows Phone ,  Symbian has been losing market share pretty fast but Nokia is still the leader in the Indian mobile space in terms of overall market share.
And Dear Samsung , we can see the Galaxy Nexus in the promo above but not in stores ? WHY ?
Source


When I was checking out some news sites ,  I noticed an unusual thank you banner and the Samsung logo and decided to check it out. It took me to a landing page which is a thank you page for Samsung mobile users. Samsung says that it is currently the No.1 Smartphone brand in India according to the promo. It is quoting a GfK nielsen India Retail Store Audit Report for mobile phones in 50,000+population towns in November 2011. Samsung claims to have a market share of 37.9% in Smartphones in that month for that particular segment.
We all know the Galaxy S2 sold like hot cakes ever since launching in June 2011. Now the Galaxy Note is also gaining some popularity.Symbian has been the most popular operating system for several years now but with Nokia going with Windows Phone ,  Symbian has been losing market share pretty fast but Nokia is still the leader in the Indian mobile space in terms of overall market share.
And Dear Samsung , we can see the Galaxy Nexus in the promo above but not in stores ? WHY ?
Source

Vodafone 3G Free Trial Ends Today ?


Vodafone India launched it’s 3G services during the Cricket World Cup with a really funny advert and surely got a lot of attention. Vodafone pulled the tariffs details from it’s website after a really short period, guess why ? It decided to offer a free trial of 3G services to all it’s customers with 2G rates. If you are one of those users who are enjoying the free 3G on Vodafone, sad news is upon us folks !  The offer is supposed to end on April 10.
If you want to cancel your trial you can send an SMS to Vodafone or you would be charged according to rumoured Vodafone 3G Tariffs.
Send CAN 3G to 111 (Postpaid customers) and CAN 3G to 144 (Prepaid customers), to deactivate 3G services.
via @VodafoneIN


Vodafone India launched it’s 3G services during the Cricket World Cup with a really funny advert and surely got a lot of attention. Vodafone pulled the tariffs details from it’s website after a really short period, guess why ? It decided to offer a free trial of 3G services to all it’s customers with 2G rates. If you are one of those users who are enjoying the free 3G on Vodafone, sad news is upon us folks !  The offer is supposed to end on April 10.
If you want to cancel your trial you can send an SMS to Vodafone or you would be charged according to rumoured Vodafone 3G Tariffs.
Send CAN 3G to 111 (Postpaid customers) and CAN 3G to 144 (Prepaid customers), to deactivate 3G services.
via @VodafoneIN