- Affordable
- Decent performance
- 2GB of RAM
- Neat Design
- Average camera performance
- Average battery life
- Phone heats up pretty fast
Yu Yuphoria Review: A nice budget smartphone with Cyanogen 12 Android skin
Yuphoria brand by the Indian handset maker Micromax was written off by many at the start. However, the handset maker is doing decently well and the market is slowly waking up to them. The latest smartphone from their house is the Yu Yuphoria. Want to know about it a little more? Read on.
Design
The YU Yuphoria is available in buffed steel with black back plate and champagne gold with white back plate. We received a black unit for review and quite liked it. The Yuphoria’s body is supported by a metal frame, which is curved all over and has rounded corners. The screen has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 over a 5-inch display and is very comfortable to use with just one hand. The phone is on the heavier side as it weighs 247 grams.
At the back of the mobile phone, we have a removable plastic panel that fits well with the frame. Under this removable plastic panel, there is a removable battery, two Micro SIM card slots and a Micro SD card slot. At the back, you will also see a ring surrounding the camera lens. The power button is located on the right side of the phone in between the volume rocker keys. The USB port is located at the bottom of the phone and the 3.5mm headset jack is located at the top of the mobile phone. A neat pair of headphones also come in the box for music lovers.
Performance
Now here is where all the magic happens. The Yuphoria has the 1.2GHz quad-core processor that comes along with 2GB of RAM for applications and services. The users also get 16GB of internal memory to store files. Over that, there is the option to add up to a 32 GB microSD card where users can also store files. All this runs on the Qualcomm MSM8916 Snapdragon 410. For graphics an Adreno 306 is also on board. Other features includes Gyroscope sensor, Accelerometer sensor, Qualcomm’s quick charge technology and Cyanogen 12 The mobile phone also features HTML5 for browsing.
The primary camera of Yuphoria can capture 8-megapixel still images and 1080p videos. For selfies, there is a 5-megapixel front camera with 4MP lens. The camera captures very decent pictures but in low light and dark areas, the picture quality was not up to the mark. The camera requires sufficient amount of light for a beautiful snap. The camera can autofocus and it also comes with a LED flash.
Games, music apps and video galleries ran extremely well. But, the mobile phone heats up really fast after extended use. We faced no problems when it came the audio and call quality on the Yu Yuphoria. The supplied headphones get the job done and one can hear the beats clearly. Screen, image and video quality is above average.
Moving on to its battery life, the Yuphoria does not manage to stay awake for a long duration. With 2,230 mAh battery inside it, it worked for 18 hours after a full charge (under nominal use).
Verdict
The Yuphoria has a good voice quality and also has some great features in it. It has the latest Android Lollipop 5.0.2 with Cyanogen 12 and some excellent apps such as Audio FX and YUniverse browser. The skin enhances everything from the security to the UI design. We heard of some phone freezing issues in few reports, but we did not face any certain issue. The experience was pretty much smooth throughout. The company has priced the Yu Yuphoria for Rs 7,999. People can get the mobile phone for Rs 6,999 at any online retail store.
Pros
Facebook is the favourite social media site among Indian teenagers
The net savvy, tech savvy post millennium youth of India have rapidly adapted to a lifestyle, which is a cocktail of gadgets, internet and social media. “The need to be constantly aware always connected and make an informed choice is in the basic DNA of the post millennium students” says Ajoy Mukhejee, EVP & Head of Global HR, TCS.
As per a survey conducted by Tata Consultancy Services, 2014-15, across 14 cities in India, of over 12,365 high school students, of the age group of 12-18, the GenY of today is highly social and more than 75% spend at least an hour everyday online. They lead a gadget rich lifestyle and are constantly in touch with friends and family, being heavy internet users.
Facebook remains the favorite with 90% followers among the respondents, Google plus followed by 65% and surprisingly Twitter had 40% followers. 70% of the youngsters say, it keeps them abreast with current affairs and connected with friends and family, but they do not find it useful for studies.
36% of the youngsters still prefer face to face communication with friends, even though 46% liked to stay in touch digitally using video chat. As far as text messaging is concerned, WhatsApp stands the most popular instant messaging platform with 58%, followed by SMS having 20% followers, among the respondents. More than half (55%) of the students used desktops/home PC and laptops to access the internet while 30% liked to use smart phones. Among the surveyed youth 72% owned Smart phones and 40% found it the most preferred gadget.
As far as studies and learning were concerned, Wikipedia stays the favorite with 63%, followed by PDFs with 53% and educational online videos at 44%. Good old newspapers and TV still has a following of 76% as far as news and current affairs were concerned, whereas online sources had a 53% following, links from family and friends stood at 36%. Fifty percent of the parents kept a close eye on their online activities and of these fifty, more than half gave their children access to online accounts, trending with the fast proliferating online portals.
1 million and still counting: 4G smartphones that Lenovo managed to sell via Flipkart in 2015
At the beginning of the year, Lenovo had made it clear its ambition to crack India’s top three smartphone sellers spot. The year hasn’t come to an end yet, but the company has shown healthier growth in 2015 as far as the numbers of 4G-LTE device shipments in the country are concerned.
The company has shared a press release which says that it sold 1 million units of its 4G smartphones Lenovo A6000, A6000plus and A7000 till June 2015 via Flipkart.
Lenovo Smartphones Director Sudhin Mathur attributed this success partly to Flipkart’s vast network across the country. He said, “Apart from providing great devices, our partnership with Flipkart gave consumers in more than 1,000 cities and towns across the countries access to our 4G smartphone portfolio. Beyond the metros, we have seen also seen a good uptake in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. ”
As per CMR’s India quarterly data, Indians are showing great interest in 4G-LTE smartphones and revealed that the overall 4G-LTE device shipments in the country has grown 108% to 2.2 million units for the January-March quarter.
LG is planning to come back in the smartphone game, has announced Rs 1,000 crore investments on R&D and marketing
Four years ago, LG smartphones were selling like hotcakes in India, but then something went wrong and LG smartphones kind of disappeared from the market. However, now the company seems to be planning on a comeback after the launch of its latest flagship LG G4. Priced at Rs 51,000, the LG G4 would replace the G3 as the top of the line device.
LG India’s managing director Soon Kwon has great expectations from this pricey phone and is expecting to sell around 1 lakh G4s in the next three months. Not only this, the man also has other visionary plans for LG branded smartphones in the country, and shared his investment and manufacturing plans with the financially daily, The Economic Times, recently.
Kwon said, he plans to invest around Rs 1,000 crore towards research and development (R&D) and marketing, as well as aims to hit the 10% market share in the country by December 2015. And if LG manages to hit this target, then LG will start manufacturing phones in India, Kwon told ET.
You can read his full interview here.
Source: Economic Times
Twitter will start educating people about its micro blogging platform soon
Twitter is feeling the need to educate people on how they can make the most of their micro blogging site. The idea is to get non Twitter users to bring on to its platform and start engaging with the world.
As per an article published on Australia’s Sunday Morning Herald, Twitter, which has recently seen its CEO walk out, is preparing for a new marketing campaign to make people understand its value.
To start off the campaign, twitter will be developing a new feature called Project Lightning that will organise content around live events. So, what else would this feature help Twitter do?
The Sunday Morning Herald informs, Twitter will be able to curate photos, videos and updates for an audience whether they have an account or not, using a mix of human editors and algorithms. That could appeal to people who don’t want to go through the trouble of setting up an account and figuring out whom to follow.
However, the Australian daily couldn’t find any official announcement of the new happening.
Amazon launches New Kindle Paperwhite for Rs 10,999
Amazon has recently launched the new Kindle Paperwhite. The new Kindle Paperwhite comes with 300 pixels per inch display that can be seen on the Kindle Voyage. The display delivers laser-quality text, which makes it easy for a user to read it at any font size. It also includes smaller fonts so that a user can easily fit more words on each page. Amazon claims that Kindle Paperwhite has a great battery life that is measured in weeks rather than hours.
Amazon also says that the newly introduced Bookerly font is a warm and is a contemporary font designed from the ground up for reading on digital screens. It is light and has a more graceful look. It also outperforms other digital reading fonts that help a user to read the text faster with less eyestrain.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO said “We love inventing for readers, the new Kindle Paperwhite obsesses over the details that matter most to readers—we’ve added our highest-resolution display so the words are crisp and clear on the page, a new font that is crafted exclusively for reading Kindle books, and a new typesetting engine that makes pages beautiful. Together, these details help you read faster and with less eyestrain, so you can lose yourself in the author’s world.”
With the new Kindle Paperwhite, some improvements like hyphenation to break words at the right place, creates paragraphs with consistent lines and adjusts the space between words can be seen.
This device not only improves character placement, but also provides a better reading experience with large fonts. This new typesetting engine uses drop caps, text and images on the Kindle. Kindle Paperwhite automatically adjusts the largest font sizes and customize the margins, columns, indents, nested lists, borders and drop caps, which makes it easy for a reader to read the text.
Amazon has priced the new Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi version at Rs 10,999 and the new Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi+3G version at Rs 13,999.
Micromax launches slimmest 4G enabled smartphone Canvas Sliver 5 for Rs 17,999
The domestic smartphone manufacturer Micromax has launched the slimmest smartphone of the company dubbed as Canvas Sliver 5. The device comes with 5.1mm thickness and has been priced for Rs 17,999. The smartphone will be come in White and Black colour options and will be available in the market from the first week of July.
Talking about the specifications, the smartphone flaunts a 4.8-inch AMOLED display with 1280×720 pixels resolution protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The device runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system and is powered by a 1.2GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 410 processor. The smartphone comes with Single nano SIM support and offers 2GB of RAM.
The Canvas Sliver 5 has an inbuilt storage of 16GB which cannot be expanded any further. The device sports an 8.0-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 5.0-megapixel front facing camera for video calling. The connectivity options in the device include 4G, LTE, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS and it packs in a 2,000 mAh battery.
Speaking about the device, Vineet Taneja, CEO, Micromax Informatics Pvt. Ltd. said, “At Micromax, we have been consistently working on the design language of our devices to align them with the evolving needs of new-age consumers, and addressing them before anyone else in the eco-system. The Canvas Sliver 5 is a testimony to this vision, bringing together the elements of unmatched design, style and performance in one device as a result of diligent efforts of our R&D team to find the perfect balance. Our association with Hugh Jackman for the smartphone truly embodies the aspirational and fearless persona of the brand Micromax.”
The company has also launched an Onsite Care service with the device. As per the new service it will offer a pick up your phone for service and delivers it back within 7 days.
Panasonic launches a new range of headphones in India
Panasonic has recently launched a new range of headphones, which are very different from each other in many ways. These new headphones are called: Technics Pro DJ headphones, Enhanced Bass Sound headphones, Bluetooth headphones, Noise Cancelling headphones and Sports headphones.
Technics Pro DJ Headphones
The Technics Pro DJ is also known as RP-DJ1210. These headphones are specially built for the professional DJ’s, producers, musicians and music-loving consumers. These headphones are designed to produce unsurpassed sound quality. The Panasonic Technics headphones provides a user with unique style, ultimate comfort and rugged durability. These headphones have a wide, padded headband that offers comfort to a user. The closed-ear design ensures users hear every note clearly. The company has priced the Technics Pro DJ Headphones (RP-DJ1210) for Rs 13,999.
Key Features of Technics Pro DJ Headphones (RP-DJ1210)
- Wearing Style: Around Ear
- Compatibility: Coiled durable cords for pro-usage, 41mm pro driver units and frequency response 5 Hz-30 KHz
- Colour: Black
- Wearing Style: Around Ear
- Compatibility: 32mm drivers, frequency response 9 Hz-25 KHz and tangle fee flat cable
- Colour: Black
- Wearing Style: Around Ear
- Compatibility: 40mm premium drivers, aptX for superior music streaming, convex remote keys on housing and NFC for easy pairing
- Colour: Black
- Wearing Style: Around Ear
- Compatibility: New NC circuit for superb cancelling effect, robust construction for travel usage, ergonomic ear-pads for long comfort, frequency response 10 Hz-25 KHz and 40 hrs operation time with 1xAAA alkaline battery
- Colour: Black
- Wearing Style: On Ear
- Compatibility: 3mm driver unit and frequency response 10 Hz-25 KHz
- Colours: Available in blue, orange, black, purple and white
Opera Software launches Opera Max Data Management App in India and Bangladesh
Opera Software, recently launched a wonderful app called Opera Max in India and Bangladesh. Opera max is a free, data-management & data-saving app that extends a user data plan.
With Opera Max, a user can easily manage the data not only on mobile networks, but on Wi-Fi networks, as well. Opera Max provides data savings by compressing videos, photos, media and more on most apps and websites – without any noticeable loss of quality. It gives a fast and efficient web experience. A user can easily monitor how apps are using their data. With Opera Max, a user can also track the non-essential apps that are using valuable data without their knowledge and block them.
Opera Max is the first app that compresses videos. This compression allows users to spend less data while gaining more time to watch videos on the web. Opera Max can condense a 10 MB video down to 3 MB and significantly reduce instances of video buffering without any noticeable loss of quality.
This app can be easily downloaded from the Google Play Store. All non-encrypted data requests (excluding websites and apps with HTTPS connections) are sent through Opera’s compression servers, which optimize video, images and websites to use less data. This is a good app for people who use there smartphones to surf the net all the time.
Netgear launches first smart and wireless home security system in India
NETGEAR has recently launched a new Arlo Smart Home Security Camera. The company claims it to be the first 100 percent wireless WiFi security camera with crystal-clear, high definition video. A user can easily monitor their home from every possible angle from inside or from the outside. These smart cameras are also equipped with night vision. Over that, this camera not only is battery-operated with true wireless design, but also has weatherproof construction, which provides a user the ability to set up a camera wherever they want.
With the help of the internet on PC, tablet, mobile phone or laptop, a user can easily use the free Arlo app. This enables a user to watch live streamed or recorded videos, see motion event recordings, customize activity alerts and arm/disarm motion-sensors.
The Arlo Smart Home Security Camera Kit includes two HD outdoor cameras equipped with motion sensors, a smart home base station that can also “talk” to other connected devices, four magnetic dome mounts – two for securing each camera wherever a user needs it, and two extra mounts for moving the camera around the home. A Free app is also available for displaying and managing the cameras and video from iOS or Android smartphones, tablets, laptops etc.
Subhodeep Bhattacharya, Regional Director – India and South Asia at NETGEAR said “With the explosive growth and early adoption of the Internet of Things, consumers are telling us they value smart devices that help them monitor property and loved ones to give them peace of mind. But not everyone needs a professionally-monitored, expensive security system with 24/7 surveillance, and on-call personnel. Furthermore, people want to place cameras in places where a power outlet is difficult to come by. Arlo is the only camera that can deliver secure monitoring in HD, without the need for a power outlet at all. Because the camera is battery operated, you can take it anywhere inside an unobstructed perimeter of up to 150 feet from the base station. Because it’s easy to initialize with a push of a button, setup is super easy.”
The company has priced the Arlo Smart Home Security Camera Kit for Rs 35,000 (Tax additional).
Tech Specs Arlo Smart Home Security Camera
- Wire-free design for easy placement and convenient relocation from room to room
- 720p resolution with a wide 130-degree field of view
- Night vision
- Robust, weatherproofed double-shell case for maximum protection from sun, wind, rain, snow and curious pets and children
- Motion sensors activate customizable alerts for real-time email or app notifications
- Easy setup with magnetic mounts
- Ultra-low power consumption with long-lasting battery life up to 6 months
- Secure cloud storage infrastructure and up to four concurrent camera streams to mobile or desktop browsers
- Free app for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets and for the Kindle for watching live streamed or recorded videos