Nokia Lumia 620 unveiled, brings WP8 on the cheap

Nokia has just introduced a new member of its Lumia family of WP8 smartphones. The Nokia Lumia 620 runs on the latest edition of the Microsoft mobile platform and hopes to impress you with a distinct youthful design, S4 Snapdragon chipset and an attractive price tag.

The Nokia Lumia 620 comes with a 3.8" ClearBlack LCD display of WVGA resolution and is powered by a two Krait CPU cores clocked at 1GHz, the Adreno 305 GPU and 512MB of RAM. The internal storage is 8GB, and is expandable though the microSD card slot.
The Nokia Lumia 620 offers a 5 megapixel primary camera with LED flash at the back and a VGA front-facing shooter for video-chats. Video recording maxes out at 720p@30fps.

Nokia Lumia 620 official photos
Being a part of the Nokia Lumia lineup, the 620 has access to the exclusive Nokia Drive app, which provides free lifetime voice-guided navigation and offline access. The Nokia Music no log-in streaming service is also available. The smartphone will be relying heavily on those to help it in its battle with the HTC Windows Phone 8S, which has very similar hardware.
The Nokia Lumia 620 comes with the usual for WP8 smartphones set of connectivity options - Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, GPS, 2G and 3G with HSDPA support. There's no LTE here, but given the handset's mid-range status, that was to be expected.

The Nokia Lumia 620 will be available in a range of colors including, lime green, orange, magenta, yellow, cyan, white and black. It's estimated to cost $249, excluding taxes and subsidies and will begin selling in January 2013 in Asia, followed closely by Europe and the Middle East before expanding further.

Samsung may deliver flexible displays as soon as next year

We've been hearing promises and seeing demos of flexible displays for a while now. So long that it seems as though the tech may never arrive, but a new report is saying that we could actually see flexible displays as soon as next year, and that Samsung could be leading the pack, at least that's what the BBC is saying. 

Samsung is obviously not the only company working on the technology. LG, Philips, Sharp, Sony and Nokia are all working on flexible displays, but the word is that Samsung will be the first to actually ship the displays in products, and it could happen next year. According to the report, LG has already begun mass producing flexible e-ink displays, but Samsung could be the first to make a flexible smartphone display, likely using Samsung's favorite OLED tech. 

Of course, we still don't have flexible motherboards, or flexible batteries, so don't expect fully flexible phones just yet. But, flexible displays would definitely end that whole problem that we saw with the iPhone 4/4S, and that the Nexus 4 is having with cracked glass. Flexible displays are said to be virtually unbreakable. 

HTC DROID DNA vs Samsung Galaxy Note II

Introduction:

Looking at what transpired this year alone, it’s a safe call to proclaim it as the year of the phablets, especially considering we’ve seen a handful of devices pushing the 5-inch mark. In the last couple of months though, we’ve seen the very best in this category, as the Samsung Galaxy Note II showcased the advantages with its larger than life screen and extensive software enhancements. Although it’s not technically regarded as a tabphone/phablet, the HTC DROID DNA is still one hefty handset with its 5-inch display. However, there’s no arguing it’s a strong competitor to the Note II with its immaculate 1920x1080 display – the highest resolution on any smartphone! With these two shaking up the Android scene, there can only be one that’s viewed as the premier device.

Google Nexus 4 vs Samsung Galaxy S III

We have used the US version of the Samsung Galaxy S III for this comparison.

Introduction:

For as long as we can remember, Samsung has proven itself as being the premier smartphone maker out of Korea, as Sammy’s renowned Galaxy smartphone handsets have seemingly been greeted with open arms by people worldwide. Sitting in the shadows, it wasn’t until recently that LG finally emerged from out of the depths with the impressive LG Optimus G, but without pausing for a moment, they’ve undoubtedly came out of nowhere with the one-two punch offering of the Google Nexus 4. With the mighty name behind its product, will LG’s Nexus branded smartphone pull ahead of the Samsung’s current pride and joy in the Galaxy S III?

Meizu MX2 goes official - quad- core, HD screen and Jelly Bean

The Meizu MX2 has become official today, just as previously expected. The device comes with a new MX5S chipset with four 32nm Cortex-A9 CPU cores, 2 GB worth of RAM, a 4.4" screen of WXGA resolution (1280 x 800 pixels) with the impressive ~347 ppi density. There's also a faster GPU and Flyme 2.0 on top of Android Jelly Bean on board.
The Meizu MX2 will hit the shelves in China in the middle of December in 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB versions. They will cost $400, $480 or $640 respectively or ¥2,499/¥2,999/¥3,999. It remains unclear if the MX2 will launch globally and when.

Meizu MX2 official photos
The Meizu MX2 has borrowed many design cues from its predecessor's, but instead of a physical home button there is a capacitive one this time. The display on the Meizu MX2 has really thin bezels around it (3.15 mm), giving the smartphone an even more impressive look.

Meizu MX2 official photos
The camera on the back is still an 8 MP one - it's has a backside illuminated sensor abd an F/2.4 lens. The MX2 can do 9 frames per second in drive mode and comes with the Wide Dynamic Range mode we know from previous MXes and four-direction Panorama, among others.

Meizu MX2 official photos
The Meizu MX2 is powered by Jelly Bean, topped with Meizu's Flyme 2.0 UI. Aside from the backup to the cloud option Flyme offers, the smartphone will also offer video and lossless music cloud streaming, but we'll need to wait and see how good that actually is.

Adblock Plus for Android released, Blocks ads in Mobile Browsers and Apps

Adblock Plus, popular ad-block extension / add-on on Firefox and Chrome is now available for Android. It blocks ads on most Apps and Browser over Wi-Fi even if you are not rooted. You need a rooted Android phone for ad blocking over 2G / 3G. It does not allow ads to be blocked on SSL encrypted websites. According to the Adblock site, the Android app only blocks ads Firefox and Opera browsers, but we tried it on the default Android browser and Chrome, and it worked fine.
Features of Adblock Plus for Android

• Blocks mobile ads, video advertising, banners, push notifications, display advertising, HTML5 advertising, and much more.
• Rooted: Ads can be blocked on Wi-Fi and mobile connections.
• Non-rooted with Android 3.1 or later: Ads will be blocked on Wi-Fi connections only.
• Non-rooted with Android 3.0 or earlier: Some manual configuration for proxy settings is required.
• Over 40 continuously updating filter lists in over a dozen different languages
• Filter subscription list

Download Adblock Plus for Android from the Google Play Store for free.

Lava XOLO A700 Dual SIM Android Smartphone now available for Rs. 9999

Lava XOLO A700 that surfaced earlier this week is now available from online retailer Flipkart. It has a 4.5-inch (960 x 540 pixels) 16M color capacitive touch screen IPS display and is powered by a 1GHz dual-core MediaTek MT6577 processor. It has Dual SIM support and runs on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). It comes with a 5MP auto focus camera with LED flash at the back with 720p HD video recording and a VGA front-facing camera.
XOLO A700 Specifications

• 4.5-inch (960 x 540 pixels) 16M color capacitive touch screen IPS display with 245 ppi pixel density
• 1GHz dual-core MediaTek MT6577 processor
• Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
• Dual SIM (3G + 2G)
• 5MP auto focus camera with LED flash, 720p video recording, HDR, VGA front-facing camera
• 512MB RAM, 4GB of internal memory, expandable memory up to 32GB with microSD
• 3G (HSPA 7.2Mbps; HSUPA: 5.76 Mbps) , WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth v2.1, aGPS
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• 1700 mAh battery

The XOLO A700 is now available from Flipkart for Rs. 9,999. It is expected to ship in 6 to 8 business days. The XOLO A700 would compete with the recently launched Dual SIM phone Karbonn A21 that also comes with a 4.5-inch display at qHD resolution and a dual-core processor.

Samsung Galaxy Premier review: A droid of stature (Our Rating-8/10)

Introduction

Spreading the Galaxy S III magic to as many market segments as possible is what Samsung is actively trying to achieve these days. After the power users were treated to the Note II and those looking for a premium experience in a compact shell got the mini, it's now time for the mid-range market to get some attention.

Samsung Galaxy Premier official photos

HTC One X+ vs iPhone 5

Introduction:

The HTC One X+ is shaping to be one of Android's battleships this season, thanks to its sped-up quad-core procesor and 64 GB of storage, so as always we are pitting it against the iOS flagship, Apple's iPhone 5.

Both handsets have sealed chassis, great LCD screens, and 8 MP cameras, but they target different categories of users from the onset with the size gap. What other differences are there between the two? Read on our comparison to find out...