INDIA’S FIRST 64-BIT ANDROID PHONE

 64-bit Android phones have been quite a while in the workings, primarily because of shortcomings with ARM and its chip making partners to get the platform ready. Now it’s about to change with the 5-inch Huawei G621, expected to be priced at a modest Rs 13,500.

Apple has been the only company to successfully incorporate 64-bit chips in its mobile phones as it unveiled the iPhone 5S late last year, and Android companies have been waiting to get their hands on some 64-bit hardware as well. 64-bit chips will be much more powerful than the 32-bit chips that are currently in use in the mobile phone world. 64-bit chips have almost ejected their 32-bit cousins in the desktop world.

As of now, only three Android phone models, the Huawei G621, Samsung SM-G510F and the Lenovo A805e, have been revealed as upcoming Android phones with 64-bit hardware. And it looks like the Huawei model will beat Lenovo and Samsung to an actual launch in India, according to sources.

It must be noted that the launch may still take a couple of months more.

The underlying Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 chipset promises to deliver quite a performance boost to mid-range Android phones starting from September onwards.

Though it is being speculated that the 64-bit chips may actually come with 32-bit Android, according to leaked benchmarking scores, the phone will be about 40% more powerful than typical phones based on the 1.2 GHz quad-core A7 architecture available in the market. Against a benchmark score of 13,000 in Antutu tests, the Huawei G 621 scored 18,000.

The Snapdragon 410 will be the first 64-bit chipset meant for Android phones and will be based on four ARM A53 cores. The A53 is the successor of the ARM A7 core. The Snapdragon 410 itself will be the successor to Snapdragon 400 chip, which comprises four A7 cores clocked at 1200 MHz.

A newer, more powerful 64-bit Snapdragon chip, meant for top-end phones, will be announced towards the end of this year.

ANDROID L

Android L is an upcoming release of the Android mobile operating system developed by Google. Unveiled on June 25, 2014 and released in beta the next day for select Google Nexus devices, it is expected to be released in late 2014.

The most prominent changes to L include a redesigned user interface built around a responsive design language referred to as "material design", and improvements to the notification system which allow them to be accessed from the lockscreen, and displayed within other apps as banners across the top of the screen. Internal changes were also made to the platform, with the Android Runtime (ART) officially replacing Dalvik for improved application performance, and changes intended to improve and optimize battery usage

Android L introduces a refreshed notification system. Individual notifications are now displayed on cards to adhere to the material design language, and batches of notifications can be grouped by the app that produced them. Notifications are now displayed on the lock screen as cards, and "heads up" notifications can also be displayed as large banners across the top of the screen, along with their respective action buttons. A do-not-disturb feature is also added for notifications. The recent apps menu was redesigned to use a three-dimensional stack of cards to represent open apps. Individual apps can also display multiple cards in the recent menu, rather than only one entry per app; for example, a web browser can show all of its open tabs as individual cards.

Android L also contains major new platform features for developers; over 5,000 new APIs were added for use by apps, and the Dalvik virtual machine was officially replaced by Android Runtime (ART), a new environment introduced as a technology preview in KitKat. ART is a cross-platform runtime which supports the x86, ARM, and MIPS architectures in both 32-bit and 64-bit environments. Unlike Dalvik, which uses just-in-time compilation (JIT), ART compiles apps upon installation, which are then run exclusively from the compiled version from then on. This technique removes the processing overhead associated with the JIT process, improving system performance.

Android L also aims to improve battery consumption through a series of optimizations known as "Project Volta". Among its changes are a new battery saver mode, job scheduling APIs which can restrict certain tasks to only occur over Wi-Fi, and batching of tasks to reduce the overall amount of time that internal radios are active. The new developer tool called "Battery Historian" can be used for tracking battery consumption by apps while in use. The Android Extension Pack APIs also provide graphics functions such as new shaders, aiming to provide PC-level graphics for 3D games on Android devices.

A number of system-level, enterprise-oriented features were also introduced under the banner "Android for Work": Samsung contributed its Knox security framework for segregating personal and work-oriented data from each other on a device, along with accompanying APIs for managing the environment, and bulk app purchases for Google Play Store. Devices can also be configured so that users can bypass the need to enter an unlock PIN or pattern if it is within a certain geographical location or in proximity to the user's Android Wear device

HTC Desire 500

Price

The HTC Desire 500 Cost around $350/Rs.21,490

Design

Cutting the crowd of 5-inch plus phablets, the HTC Desire 500 is a rather compact smartphone featuring a 4.3-inch display. The phone fits easily in one's hands and pockets, and is light in weight. It's made of good quality plastic and feels nice to hold.

The Desire 500 is available in two colour variants, Black and White. We got the latter as our review unit, with a touch of red on the edges and the back.

The front of the Desire 500 is dominated by its 4.3-inch WVGA display surrounded by a Black bezel. 

Display

The HTC Desire 500 features a 4.3-inch TFT panel WVGA display with a resolution of 480x800 pixels and pixel density of 216ppi. We were a bit disappointed that HTC has not equipped the phone with at least a 720p display, especially considering the phone's price.

The Desire 500 display's viewing angles were good, though. The screen is not very reflective and sunlight visibility was decent. Colours appeared to be vibrant and blacks looked deep.

Camera

The HTC Desire 500 sports an 8-megapixel rear camera lens which comes with auto-focus and an LED flash. The phone also includes a dedicated HTC ImageChip for quick processing of images and has Smart Flash, that offers a five-level flash that is automatically set based on the distance to the subject. 

The HTC Desire 500 doesn't include the HTC Zoe mode seen on the HTC One.

The Desire 500's BSI sensor does help in capturing images in low-light situations, however, the images shot in low-light with the night mode on had a high amount of noise similar to pictures shot with the Desire 600. 

The Desire 500's 1.6-megapixel camera also takes decent images and is suitable for self clicks and video chats.

Software/User Interface (UI)

The HTC Desire 500 runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, which is not the latest version of the OS considering that Google has released Android 4.3, and will soon announce Android 4.4 KitKat. As with other recent HTC Android phones, the phone comes with Sense 5, HTC's own UI layer that runs on top of Android. The new version of Sense was first seen on the HTC One. 

The highlight of the Sense 5 UI is a home screen feed that the company likes to call BlinkFeed. You can select 'topics and services' for the BlinkFeed and it will push updates from them on the home screen. You can also select categories of interests. It also lets you select services such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn and Plurk, configure your account and receive updates on the Blink Feed.Updates are in the form of tiles that can be tapped to offer full text or videos. One can also share the update via social networks and email.

Performance/Battery Life

The HTC Desire 500 is powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 quad-core processor with 1GB RAM, and an Adreno 203 chip for processing graphics. The phone has 4GB of internal storage, out of which only 1GB is available to the user. Storage is expandable up to 64GB through microSD cards.

The HTC Desire 500 comes with an 1800mAh battery.

Pros

• Decent build quality
• Dual-SIM support with dual-standby

Cons

• Low-resolution screen
• Underwhelming performance

HTC One Mini

Price

The HTC One Mini is Priced at $600/Rs.37,000

Design

We have seen our share of elegantly designed phones, but we were still taken aback by the understated looks of the HTC One mini. You get a feeling of awe when you hold the One mini in your hands. The sheer slimness and compact form factor of the phone did impress, when the HTC One mini came to our doorsteps.

The HTC One mini looks like a replica of the One (except for its size), and this is a good thing, as it gives the One mini the same premium look as its bigger, elder sibling.

Display

It's worth pointing out that the HTC One's full-HD display won a lot of accolades and even was considered one of the best displays in the premium segment. The HTC One mini features a 4.3-inch Super LCD 2 display that sports a resolution of 720x1280 pixels and pixel density of 341ppi. The company has also used Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the device, making it stronger, and more scratch-resistant.

The Super LCD 2 display doesn't gives the fullest colours or the deepest blacks like AMOLED displays do, but it is a bright panel at nearly all times. Colours on the One mini are quite vibrant nevertheless, and consistently reproduced well. The viewing angles were never a problem. The display is not very reflective, and sunlight-legibility was acceptable. Reading text on the device was always crisp and clear against white backgrounds.

Camera

HTC, earlier this year, instead of continuing to run the race for higher megapixel counts, defected and introduced the UltraPixel technology on its flagship device, the One, which features a 4-megapixel rear camera. The megapixel count might be on the lower side, but the sensor size is bigger which enables the camera to capture more light. The result is usually better than regular cameras and one gets crisp and vivid shots. HTC ships the One mini with the same 4-megapixel UltraPixel camera at the back.

The HTC One mini further comes with a dedicated HTC ImageChip 2, the Taiwanese handset maker's own Image Signal processor (ISP), which enables faster and better shots in any light conditions. We did not face any lag, both in capturing and saving an image.

The 1.6-megapixel front-facing camera shouldn't be relied on for anything other than self portrait.

Software/User Interface (UI)

The HTC One mini runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with Sense 5 UI on top, (slightly updated from the UI seen on the One) which is HTC's own skin that includes some custom apps as well.

The flagship HTC One natively runs Android 4.1.2 out of the box and is still waiting for the updated Sense 5.0. The device is expected to be going straight to Android 4.3 update, giving Android 4.2.2 a miss.

The central homescreen on the One mini is replaced by the BlinkFeed, the most popular Sense 5.0 UI feature that was first seen on the HTC One.

BlinkFeed is basically a blend of several Internet and social feeds running on the homescreen in the form of panels or tiles, as seen on Windows Phone. One can select which feeds to show on this screen and can pick categories of interests from topics like astrology, news, sports, lifestyle, society, videos, technology and others. There is also an option of having local news services in the BlinkFeed that popularly includes NDTV, Hindustan Times, India Today, Aaj Tak and a few others.

Performance/Battery Life

The HTC One mini is powered by a 1.4GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor with Adreno 305 for graphics processing. It comes with only 1GB of RAM onboard. There is 16GB of inbuilt storage, out of which only 11GB is user-accessible and sadly the phone does not support expandable storage. Considering that the One mini comes at a premium price, the limited storage on the device is definitely a deal breaker. We wished that the One mini could come with at least 32GB onboard storage at its price, if not a microSD card slot.

The HTC One mini ships with a 1800mAh battery that according to the company can deliver up to 692 hours of standby and up to 13 hours of talktime on 3G networks. Based on our testing period the One mini delivered satisfying battery performance.

Pros

• Premium build and style
• Good ergonomics
• BoomSound feature
• UltraPixel camera

Cons

• Expensive
• Lags often
• Limited storage

Sony Xperia Z Ultra

Price

At $750/Rs. 46,990, the phone isn't cheap, but that's no surprise given its top-of-the-line specs and performance.

Design

At first glance, the Sony Xperia Z Ultra looks like a slab of premium chocolate - it sports the same rectangular design, and is about the same thickness, and the Black colour variant looks especially biteable. Pick up the phone and try getting your fingers around the width of its display and you realise that the phone just about fits in your hand, if you have big hands that is. If you have a tiny frame, forget about trying to get your fingers around the sides of this monster. Don't even think about trying to operate the phone with just hand, unless you have it resting on a surface.

Display

The Sony Xperia Z Ultra comes with a 6.44-inch full-HD display with a resolution of 1080x1920 pixels. While the pixel density takes a hit due to the humongous screen size, at around 340ppi, most won't notice the difference in the quality of text and images.

While the Sony Xperia Z Ultra does not bundle a stylus, the screen will recognise taps from a stylus, or even a pen or a pencil, if you prefer to use your device in that manner.

Camera

The Sony Xperia Z Ultra comes with a 8MP Camera with Fast Capture and Exmor RS With 16X Digital zoom with auto focus

the camera on the Sony Xperia Z Ultra is a bit of a mixed bag. The images look good on the phone's display or when you are viewing images at the default zoom level.

Software/User Interface (UI)

The Sony Xperia Z Ultra runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean carrying build number 14.1.B.0.471.

The Ultra is quite heavy on skinning, customising stock apps and adding a number of pre-installed apps. Like other devices in the Xperia series, you have WALKMAN (for Music), Album, and Movies for media consumption, all with additional functionality and UI touches from Sony. Other pre-installed apps on the Xperia Z Ultra include Socialife (A Flipboard-like app from Sony), TrackID (Sony's answer to Shazam), Wisepilot for XPERIA (GPS-based navigation app), File Commander (a file explorer), Voice Dialer, Word Search, Converter, X4 Video Player (lets you play four videos simultaneously), McAfee Security, Foneclay (live wallpapers), PicsArt (photo editor), Smart Connect (perform actions when certain accessories are connected), X-Alert for XPERIA (Sony's anti-theft solution), Notes, and Drag&Share. The list of bundled apps doesn't end there, with popular apps like Facebook, Chrome, YouTube, WhatsApp, Box, and LinkedIn thrown-in for good measure.

Performance/Battery Life

Sony Xperia Z Ultra is powered by a 2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor alongside 2GB of RAM. It's safe to say it is the fastest device we've come across, handling everything that we threw at it with great aplomb. From multi-tasking and switching between apps, to casual as well as heavy duty games, everything was butter smooth.

Thankfully, the phone doesn't feel too heavy despite weighing 212 grams, since the weight is evenly distributed across its large frame.

Battery life is another area where the Xperia Z Ultra just about does the job and it should last a full working day with moderate to heavy use. The giant display on the device is a bit of a battery guzzler and power users will likely find themselves reaching for the charger before the day is over.

Pros

• Brilliant performance
• Good display

Cons

• Battery life could be better
• Clicked pictures lack detail, no flash
• Too bulky for most

LG G2

Price

At a starting price of Rs. 41,500 (for the 16GB version)

Design

The two things that strike you when you first hold the LG G2 are its almost bezel-free display panel and lightweight nature.The phone doesn't feel bulky and fits in the hand despite sporting a rather large screen.

The 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera, a notification LED and the sensor array are located above the LG G2's display.

The power / screen lock key and the volume rocker keys are located at the back just below the 13-megapixel camera lens and LED flash. 

The power key of the LG G2 also features a light surrounding it that glows up while making a call. The two keys are metallic and offer good tactile feedback. The Volume-up key also doubles up as a shortcut key to launch the Quickmemo app on long press and the Volume-down key acts as a camera shortcut key on long press when the phone is locked.

Display

The LG G2 sports a 5.2-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) IPS LCD display, with a pixel density of 423 pixels-per-inch (ppi). The G2's display comes with Corning 's Gorilla Glass 3 protection making it resistant to scratches.

Software/User Interface (UI)

The LG G2 runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, which is a disappointment as we expected LG to ship Android 4.3, the latest iteration of the OS at this time, with the phone. 

LG has added its own Optimus UI layer on top, majorly changing the look and feel of the interface and enabling users to customise the phone according to their liking.

LG even allows you to customise the onscreen Android navigation buttons on the G2, allowing users to choose a colour theme, and transparency, and put custom buttons for launching the notification panel or QuickMemo.

LG has also skinned the G2's notification tray, including toggles for various settings such as for sound, data, NFC, Quick remote, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Hotspot among others. It also features shortcuts for invoking QSlide apps, and controls for changing screen brightness and the phone's call volume.

Another new software feature that the LG G2 offers is Slide Aside, a way to multitask by moving between three apps at once via a three-finger swipe gesture. This is similar to the iPad's or Mac's three finger app switch gesture but limited to three apps. The apps are listed under a notification tapping on which stacks  and brings all the three apps together, at the front. We don't see how this solution is better than the built-in app switcher.

Camera

The LG G2 sports a 13-megapixel rear camera and a 2.1-megapixel front facing camera. The phone features LG's own Camera app which features controls for switching between the front and rear cameras, turning the flash on or off, selecting between the Normal, HDR, Panorama, VR Panorama, Burst shot, Beauty shot, Intelligent Auto, Shot & Clear,Dynamic Tone, Night, Time Catch and Dual camera photo modes and for accessing the camera settings.
 

The LG G2's 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera also takes good quality pictures and combining it with the Beauty mode will satisfy the needs of most narcissists. it also does a good job for making video calls and supports 1080p video capture.

Performance/Battery Life

The LG G2 sports top of the line hardware (at this point in time), as it is powered by a 2.26GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor with 2GB RAM, and an Adreno 330 chip for processing graphics. Our review unit had 32GB of built-in storage (a 16GB variant is also available), out of which 24.8GB is available to the user. The phone doesn't offer a microSD card slot for expandable storage. 

The speaker on the LG G2 delivers good quality sound at high volume levels and the sound doesn't get muffled when the phone lies on its back as the speaker is located at the bottom edge.

The G2 comes with a giant 3000mAh battery.

Pros

Brilliant display
Great performance
Good battery back-up

Cons

Awkward hardware key placement
Plastic back

 

Samsung Galaxy Note 3

Price

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 translates into an off-contract pricing of approximately $700 (Rs. 46,000 approximately) 

Design

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 retains the same design that gave the Note series of smartphones their own identity.

The Note 3 is essentially made of plastic but Samsung has cleverly disguised the finish of certain elements to give the smartphone a premium fit and finish. Despite its huge size, the phone doesn't feel heavy and fits in the pocket in a better manner.

Display

The Galaxy Note 3 is in a way Samsung's other flagship device, other than the Galaxy S4. All flagship devices now tick the full-HD display checkmark, and keeping with the trend, Samsung has also upgraded the screen to full-HD. The screen's also bigger by 0.2-inches at 5.7-inches. 

The Galaxy Note 3 comes with a full-HD Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 1080x1920 pixels packing 386 pixels per inch. 

The display was not very reflective and sunlight legibility was great. The viewing angles on the phone are excellent.

Software/User Interface

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, the latest iteration of the OS and TouchWiz Nature UX,Samsung's own UI that includes custom apps in addition

to a skinned interface.

The major feature of the Note 3 that integrates the S Pen is Air Command. The  -Pen that comes with the Note 3 features a button that can be pressed to invoke an Air Command menu on the screen when you hover it over the screen. The Air Command menu brings Action Memo, Scrapbooker, Screen Write, S Finder and Pen Window options. One can also insert content, and contacts and view additional options while hovering the S Pen around the display and pressing the button on the S Pen. It does make things a bit complicated but if you're someone who loves to create content and share it in a jiffy, you might like this feature.

Camera

The Galaxy Note 3 features a 13-megapixel rear camera that takes excellent shots in daylight and good artificial light.

The Note 3's rear camera is capable of recording 1080p video and performs well.  It can also capture Slow motion, Fast motion and Smooth motion videos. It also offers video stabilisation to let you take steady shots. The phone's rear camera performs well in the video capture department. It's worth pointing out that unlike the Snapdragon 800 variant of the Note 3, the Exynos 5 Octa-version sold in India does not offer support for 4K video recording.

The Galaxy Note 3's 2-megapixel front camera does a decent job when it comes to video chats but pictures taken indoors were grainy at times.

Performance/Battery Life

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is powered by Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa 5420 processor which is essentially a set of two quad-core processors- a 1.9GHz Cortex A15 quad-core processor and a 1.3GHz Cortex A7 quad-core processor that work together to optimise processing. It has 3GB RAM onboard, and a Mali T628 MP6 chip for processing graphics. Our review unit had 32GB of expandable built-in storage, out of which 24GB was available for our use.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 comes with a 3200mAh battery.

Pros

• Brilliant HD screen
• Excellent performance
• Latest OS version
• Options for easy single-handed operation

Cons

No FM radio

No 4K video recording

Expensive

Bad low light photography