Nikon launches a range of new cameras
April is usually the time when we see camera companies such as Nikon bring a flurry of new cameras in the Point and Shoot category. This year is no different, as Nikon launched 12 new camera variants that are available in multiple hues. The new offerings are now available to the customers through online and offline stores.
Hiroshi Takashina, Nikon India’s Managing Director, said at the launch ‘’that the company would also hold workshops to promote the photography culture in India.
“Over last few years, we have witnessed a surge in the demand for high performance cameras from the southern states of India and we thought it to be perfect opportunity for us to expand in the region,” said Sajjan Kumar, Vice-President of Nikon India.
The launch saw new models being added to P, S, L and AW series. The price of the cameras starts from as low as Rs 6,950 for S series entry level shooter and goes up to Rs 29,950 for the advance CoolPix P900. The P900 is their flagship offering in the super zoom category. It has 83X optical zoom, which is highest in its class. With the new series of cameras, Nikon is set for the year 2015. They have brought something for everyone.
Moto E second gen 3G Video Review
Moto E second gen is a great device. Here is our video review of the Moto G second gen 3G.
Philips does a comeback, re-enters Indian market with 4K LED televisions
Philips is a brand that is pretty much liked by the matured audience in India. It is a brand that people have complete faith on. Weather it is your trusted Philips iron or the CFL bulb, people from the pre-2000’s era knows the brand well and trusts it to the core.
However, when Philips somewhat retracted from the home entertainment industry in India, people kind of forgot about it. As brands like Samsung, LG and Sony quickly gained speed. Now, the brand is back with an all-new UHD 4K LED television range that can give some of the best in the business a run for their money.
Philips 4K LED TV range sports its patented Ambilight feature, which emits an ambient light around the television panel (on to the rear wall) in accordance to the picture being shown on the LED screen. This has been seen in earlier LCD models from Philips and was quite a hit. So it made sense for them to bring it back in the newer version of televisions as well.
The Philips 4K televisions support 3,840 x 2,160 pixels resolution to bring movies, sports and games to life. 3D capability is what these TVs possess as well; the TV’s use active 3D method for the same. The range is available in 50, 58 and 65-inches, and the range starts from Rs 1.55 lakhs and goes upto Rs 3.72 lakhs.
Philips is again trying to make a mark and own a piece of the pie in the Indian TV industry. Yes, they are a bit behind in the race, but we do expect them to bounce back and hold a decent TV market share, considering they will launch more TV models in the near future.
New range of Canon projectors come to India
Canon is a well known brand for cameras, printers and projectors. They have recently refreshed their projectors range and have brought 9 LV and 4 XEED series of projectors to India. These are aimed at medium and large sectors such as big corporates, educational institutes and government organisations.
Mr. Yasuhiko Hoshino, Senior General Manager, Canon Inc. said, “We are excited to bring our globally leading projectors equipped with world-class technology and user-friendly features to customers in India. The projectors offer quality and brightness along with lower operating costs enabling both businesses and end-users to deliver optimum results at a minimum cost.”
Mr. Kazutada Kobayashi, President and CEO, Canon India Pvt. Ltd, said, “Projection requirements of Indian customers have evolved over the years. Apart from being used for projecting data, customers are now using it to project movies, videos and games as well. The new Canon projectors are equipped with high quality optics to cater to such needs. We will be reaching out to potential customers across all the major metros and aim to capture 10% market share by 2017.”
The LV Series of Canon projectors are the portable range that utilise DLP BrilliantColor display technology to deliver rich, realistic colour, 3,000 lumens of brightness. These also have 2,300:1 contrast ratio to reproduce excellent blacks with depth and dimension in moving pictures. The new range of Canon projectors is also 3D-ready.
On the other side, the XEED Canon projectors series have inbuilt liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) technology, which produces fine and detailed images. LCOS technology and constant brightness is a technology adapted by Canon, and is supplied to its users to experience outstanding imagery.
The new Canon projector range starts from Rs 40,750 for the entry level models and goes upto Rs 5,00,000 for the more professional ones. The pricing is pretty decent as there is something for each business. But, they do have stiff competition in the market in the form of Epson and NEC.
Blueair launches its premium range of indoor air purifiers
Let’s face it we live in a deadly environment. Every other day there is a report in the papers that shows us how polluted each of our cities is. Doctors in cities like New Delhi are telling patients with breathing problems to flee the city if they want to live. In these circumstances it becomes extremely important to take care of yourself and your loved ones health.
To keep the air around you clean and fresh, Blueair has just brought 3 new indoor models of air purifiers. These will help you combat germs and allergies within the confines of your homes and offices. Blueair recently fitted 1,800 of these air purifier machines in the American embassy (New Delhi), ahead of president Obama’s visit. Blueair indoor air purifiers have won lot of awards for supplying pure including the Red dot Ward and Good Design award from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design. And is the preferred choice in 50 countries around the world.
The three models launched are 270E for rooms as big as 270 square feet, 450E for rooms as big as 370 square feet and 650E for rooms as big as 698 square feet. They are definitely priced on the more expensive side when compared to other purifiers in the market. The Blueair 270E is available for Rs 50,000, the Blueair 450E can be picked up for Rs 75,000 and the asking price for 650E is a whooping Rs 90,000.
What is Net Neutrality and how will it benefit or not benefit the Indian Consumer?
The Tsunami of protests and flake of the irked netizens has forced Flipkart to withdraw from the Airtel Zero platform. TRAI (Telcom Regulatory Authority of India) has received 3 lakh emails so far from India’s fuming internet population.
Airtel’s Airtel Zero, is a platform that allows internet companies to pay to Airtel to allow the consumers access certain apps for free. Anything free is always tempting and sounds lucrative at the outset. But, free always has a hidden cost, when the user will try to get to a site that has not paid with the telecom operator, the site will be either blocked or very slow. The whole concept is a staunch violation of the freedom of Net and its open and neutral nature. What is Net Nutrality?
As defined by Wikipedia, Net Neutrality is the principle that the internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.
“Net Neutrality” literally means that the internet should be neutral i.e the data on the net should be available without any biases, discriminations and democratically. Each data should be treated equally in terms of speed, access and cost. Access to knowledge, freedom of speech, innovation as well as ease of doing business are the core benefits of the internet and the internet owes its success to it’s neutrality–the fact that the net provides equal access to all legal websites and services, without prioritizing one over the other.
Net Neutrality tends to maintain the internet like a public utility, like electricity or water, same for everybody.
Airtel Zero is not the only violators of Net Neutrality; other telecomm companies have also tried a piece of the pie:
- The Reliance-Facebook deal for Internet.org- free access on 2G and 3G networks in select part of the country
- The free WhatsApp pack by Reliance in 2012– free Facebook and WhatsApp to its GSM users for Rs.16 per month, without extra data cost.
- Aircel and Wikipedia (2013)-free Wikipedia on Mobile phones.
- Reliance and Twitter pack (2013)- free Twitter access pack for reliance user.
- No Throttling- The cost of downloading is the same, irrespective of the content the user is accessing.
- No Censorship- There is no restriction as to the kind of content or the quantity that one can download besides connection rates.
- No Restriction- There is no restriction on accessing any part of the internet [except for content blocked by the Government]
- Capitalism- It provides a free market, an equal platform for start ups and for competing companies.
- Monitoring- The ISP,s would be monitoring all the content, product or services that their customers would be viewing. The availability of the content would depend on which content provider can pay to be there.
- Restrictions- Access to the web pages can get restricted, depending on who pays what. For E.g. peer to peer file transfers can be blocked, along with criticisms, political, social or business.
- Throttling- Intentionally slowing down some websites or speeding up others, the ones who have paid the ISP’s.
- Higher Cost- The increased cost to the service or content providers will eventually be extracted from the customers only and they only will end up paying more.
- Anti-Competition- The ISP’s could prevent access to their competitor’s products, services, or web pages.
Google ups the handwriting experience on Android devices
Google doesn’t like to sit idle and that is why it keeps rolling out new product enhancements every day. And no, we are not talking about the Android OS here—in fact, our focus is on one of the Google apps, which the company has recently announced. It is the new Google Handwriting Input using which you can write your messages the way you do on your notebooks—with or without stylus.
The app will be available to for Android 4.0.3 (or above) users. You can write text, draw emojis and do a lot more with this tool. This would be supporting 82 languages in 20 distinct scripts.
As per what is written on Google’s Research Blog, the idea behind this app is to allow for natural and intuitive method for text entry. It says, “Voice input is an option, but there are situations where it is not feasible, such as in a noisy environment or during a meeting. Using handwriting as an input method can allow for natural and intuitive input method for text entry which complements typing and speech input methods.”
If you want to use this app, simply download Google Handwriting Input available on the Google Play Store.
After a hit flash sale yesterday, Lenovo A6000 Plus launch was next on their to-do list
Lenovo seems to be going aggressive in the smartphone segment—especially in India. After receiving a good response for its A6000 phones in the country, Lenovo decided to sell its next device A7000 through a flash sale on Flipkart. This sale, which happened yesterday in the country, helped Lenovo sell 30,000 units in four seconds flat.
And guess how the company began its day today? It launched another device in the country, which is the Lenovo A6000 Plus. It is the updated version of the A6000 device. While all other features—right from the screen size to the camera, processor to the battery—remain the same. The company has only doubled up the RAM and storage capacity of the device; you get 2GB RAM and 16GB storage space on the Lenovo A6000 Plus.
This dual SIM Lenovo A6000 is priced slightly higher than its predecessor as it is a 4G-variant with slightly better features. One can pick it up for Rs 7,499.
Here is a quick rundown of its Tech Specs:
- 5-inch HD screen with IPS,
- 2GHz 64-bit quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor
- 2300 mAh battery.
- 8MP rear camera along with a 2MP fixed focus front camera
- Android 4.4 KitKat OS
Microsoft Surface 3 will be available for $499 in a months time
Well, it is about time. We for one are fans of Microsoft Surface series of tablets. Unlike the earlier models of the Surface, Microsoft has announced that the new Microsoft Surface 3 will be available soon for a super low price tag of $499 (roughly Rs 31,000). This is about $300 cheaper from the previous models.
Microsoft Surface 3 will run Windows 8.1 operating system right now. Users can upgrade to Windows 10 (for free) once it is available. Microsoft Surface 3 has a 10.8-inch full HD display. Behind this lies an Intel Quad-core Atom X7 CPU and 2 GB RAM. The Surface 3 will be available in 2 variants. The 64 GB and the 128 GB tabs can be picked up after May this year.
The Surface 3 also sports an 8 MP rear camera and a 3.5 MP front camera to take care of your selfie and video chat needs. We quite liked the stand that came with the earlier versions of the Surface. Well, the kickstand is also part of the package and with it the tablet measure meagre 8.7mm (thickness). It weighs 622 grams.
As far as connectivity is concerned the Microsoft surface 3 supports 4G/LTE networks. It also has a USB 3.0 port, a mini display port along with a microSD card reader slot. Seems like Microsoft has thought of everything for this tablet, we are just keeping our fingers crossed and hoping that they decide to bring this version to India, finally.
Microsoft is planning to launch a $149 laptop to compete with Chromebook
It is not the first time that we are hearing Microsoft trying to shut down Chromebook’s growth by launching its competition. Reports suggest in August last year, they did try to do compete with Chromebooks in partnership HP. Now, reports have again emerged that Microsoft is building a $149 laptop, which will be in the same ring as Google’s Chromebook.
If we were Microsoft, we would be nervous too. Google has already taken a big market lead when it comes to mobile operating systems in the form of Android. Microsoft is rightly trying to secure its top position in the laptop market with low-end devices, which will not let Google Chromebook pick up steam.
The new laptops from Microsoft are set to have Windows 10 OS and Intel’s Bay Trail platform. They will be available in the normal clamshell design. A major point of differentiation between the Chromebook and new MS laptops will be the screen size. The screen size of the Microsoft laptop is going to be smaller than the ones found on Chromebook. This laptop will have an 11.6-inch screen, while the Chromebooks are available in 13 and 16 inches.
The Microsoft laptops would be available in mid 2015 and are aimed at emerging markets. By the likes of it India and Brazil should be on the list of early roll-outs.
Moto E 4G can be pre-ordered on FlipKart now
Seems like the 4G wave is sweeping the country. 4G services are being deployed across India and mobile makers such as Motorola want to make the most of it. They have gone ahead and put the Moto E 4G on pre-order on FlipKart.com. Yes, consumers can grab the upcoming 4G version of the Moto E on the online megastore.
The Moto E 4G, besides having 4G capabilities and speed services, has a 4.5-inch qHD display. That hides a 1.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU and 1 GB RAM. Users will get the latest operating system in the form of Android Lolipop and can click away to glory with a 5 MP rear camera or the 0.3 MP front camera.
A 2,390 mAh battery will keep this phone alive. Consumers can download and store files on the onboard 8 GB memory. This can be further expanded by up to 32GB using a microSD card. Overall, the phone seems to be a decent option for people looking to buy a 4G device in under 10K. The phone can be picked up from FlipKart for Rs 7,999.
Tech Specs
| OS | Android 5.0 Lollipop |
| Processor | 4G-LTE Model: 64-bit class 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 series quad-core CPU with Adreno 306 GPU) 3G Model: 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 series Quad-core CPU (with Adreno 302 GPU) |
| RAM | 1GB |
| Camera | Main: 5.0-megapixel camera Front: 0.3-megapixel (VGA) camera |
| Display | 4.5-inch TFT qHD (960x450p) screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 shield Pixel density: 245 ppi (pixels per inch) |
| Storage capacity | 8GB, expandable up to 32GB |
Lenovo launches its A7000 smartphone in India
India is a growing market for smartphones. There are millions of people standing in the queue to pick up a smartphone. This is probably the reason why many companies, such as Lenovo, see India as a great market for its brand of smartphones.
Recently Lenovo got good acclamation for the A7000 at Mobile World Congress 2015. They have brought the nifty little smartphone now to India, which features an excellent 5.5 inch HD wide-angle display. Under the hood this latest mobile from Lenovo has a 64-bit 1.5 GHz CPU and 2 GB DDR3 RAM. Lenovo says together they can play the most challenging games and apps smoothly. Over that, Lenovo in association with Dolby has introduced the all-new Atmos technology in this phone, which is world’s first to be seen in a smartphone. We reckon with this technology the sound experience on the A7000 should be first-rate.
4G layout is just around the corner in India and Lenovo knows it. The newly launched Lenovo A7000 is 4G/LTE ready and users can easily jump to the new network when it becomes available in India. The A7000 is powered by 2,900 mAh battery with enhanced battery optimisation features that will keep the phone alive for longer. The phone weighs 140 grams and is 7.9 mm thin.
“At Lenovo we are committed to providing cutting edge technology to our consumers” – said, Sudhin Mathur, Director- Smartphones, Lenovo India. “The A7000 brings in flagship worthy features and performance at an incredible price making it a perfect choice for consumers looking for a trendy and powerful phone loaded with future-proof features.” he added.
The A7000 is priced at Rs 8,999 and will be exclusively available with FlipKart.
Tech Specs:
- 5.5 Inch HD IPS Touchscreen Display
- 8 MP Rear Camera With LED Flash
- 5MP Front Camera
- 1.5 GHz MT6752m Octa-Core Processor
- 2GB RAM
- 4G
- WiFi
- Bluetooth
- 2900 MAh Battery
- Dual Micro SIM
Asus launches top-end anniversary edition graphic cards in gold and white
Asus is a brand well known for computer products such as motherboards and graphic cards. They just launched a special anniversary edition of graphic cards that every gamer would want to own. In association with NVIDIA, they introduced GTX 980 GPU that houses in a beautiful golden enclosure. This graphic card has clock speed of 1.43 GHz.
The other graphic card that is part of the celebrations is the NVIDIA Turbo GTX 970. This one comes in a suave white colour packaging and we for one love the look. This is what every gamer wants to showcase in his computer cabinet and with it gain some bragging rights.
Asus has a history of innovating and they were kind enough to send us what they have done in the past decade and a half.
- 1998: Established an industry standard by creating the first graphics card with a fan-enhanced heatsink for optimal cooling and stability.
- 2002: Established an industry standard by delivering the first graphics card with premium black PCB.
- 2007: Released the first external graphics card — the XG Station — featuring a physical dial to let users control clock speed, and a screen to show graphics-related information, such as GPU temperatures and fan speed.
- 2008: Released the first Republic of Gamers (ROG) graphics card, the ROG Matrix EN9600/EN9800 GT. Designed for user-friendly overclocking and blisteringly-fast speed out of the box, ROG Matrix EN9600/EN9800 GT set the trend for all future ROG graphics cards.
- 2010: Established an industry standard by creating the first direct-contact, GPU-to-copper-heat-pipe cooling solution.
- 2011: Established an industry standard by developing Super Alloy Power components, which ensure maximum performance and lifespan with minimal power loss and thermal levels. Super Alloy Power components are still used on all ASUS graphics cards today.
- 2013: Established an industry standard with the first hybrid air/liquid cooling solution on a graphics card, the ROG Poseidon.
- 2014: Established an industry standard with the release of the Strix Gaming Series, advancing DirectCU technology with the addition of its innovative 0dB-fan technology that lets gamers enjoy gaming in complete silence.