LG Outs the G4, Featuring a Super-Bright Camera and a Leather-Clad Body

The G4 features a 5.5-inch Quad HD display that uses quantum dotDisplay logy. The company says that it is a first on the phone and results in higher brightness and contrast. The processor fitted on the device is a six-core Snapdragon 808 processor. LG says that the Snapdragon 808 churns out power similar to Samsung’s octa-core Exynos chip. With 3GB RAM, the internal storage space of the G4 is 32GB, which can be expanded via a MicroSD card. As teased, the smartphone runs on Android Lollipop.

Talking about the camera performance, then LG G4 boasts a 16MP camera with f/1.8 aperture. LG earlier released a teaser video revealing its ability to capture photos in low-light conditions. An 8MP camera sits on the front for selfie requirements. The improved gesture control on the device lets users take multiple selfies in one the go. Other features include manual mode, RAW shooting and a color spectrum sensor. The handset holds a removable 3,000mAh battery, which the company states can last for one day.

LG has introduced some noteworthy features in the new device. The phone comes with built-in tools like smart widget, SmartBulletin, and a refurbished gallery app. Buyers of the handset will get 100GB of free space on Google Drive for two years.

The phone will be available in four colour options – Black, Blue, Yellow, Beige. The back plates of the phone are carved out of leather and will come in multiple shades.

For now, LG hasn’t disclosed the price and availability details of LG G4. But we can expect to hear about it soon.

Let’s have a look at the spec sheet below:

SPECIFICATION LG G4
Display-
5.5-inch Quad HD LCD display 2560 x 1440 resolution
Processor-
Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 with X10 LTE
RAM-
3GB
Primary Camera-
16MP
Front Camera-
8MP
Storage-
32GB
Expandable Up to-
128GB
Battery-
3,000mAh
Operating System-
Android 5.1 Lollipop with LG UX 4.0
Price-
Not Yet Revealed

Nokia denies plans to re-enter the consumer smartphone market

  Nokia has just published a statement on its official company website claiming that it has "no intention to manufacture or sell consumer handsets". Furthermore, the company also deemed as false recent reports that quoted a Nokia executive as confirming the company's ambitions to manufacture smartphones out of an R&D facility in China.

Earlier this week, a couple of reports suggested that Nokia is staging a comeback to the smartphone market. The initial report, published on Monday by ReCode, quoted sources familiar to Nokia's plans according to which the company is planning a return to the smartphone market in 2016. A few days later, a Chinese newspaper quoted Mike Wang, the President of Nokia China, communicating an intention to to manufacture smartphones in the Chinese city of Sichuan.

Nokia's recent statement doesn't specifically make any mention to plans of designing smartphones in the near future. The statement only mentions that the company has no plans to sell or manufacture consumer handsets, and this specificity leaves room for interpretation. ReCode originally reported that Nokia will licence smartphone designs to third party manufacturers, which is exactly what the company did with the Nokia N1 tablet, a device designed by Nokia, but manufactured and commercialized by Foxconn.

Nokia is bound by its deal with Microsoft not to release any Nokia-branded smartphones until the third quarter of 2016. We're keeping an eye on the situation and we'll get back to you as soon as there's more to report.

Google Glass version 2.0 said to be coming soon, version 3.0 being planned

Just over a month after chairman Eric Schmidt made it clear that Google isn’t giving up on Google Glass, Massimo Vian, CEO of Italian eyewear manufacturer Luxottica, has said that the next iteration of the high-tech eyewear is coming out soon.

Speaking at the company’s general meeting in Milan, Italy, Vian also revealed that while the version 2.0 is currently being worked on, version 3.0 is also in the planning stages. “In Google, there are some second thoughts on how to interpret version 3 [of the eyewear],” he said. “What you saw was version 1. We’re now working on version 2, which is in preparation.”
It was also announced that the partnership between the two companies is going ahead. For those who aren’t in the know, Luxottica entered into a deal with Google last year to design and market fashionable Glass devices

Lenovo A5000 quietly makes its way to India for 10,250 INR (~$162)

The competition in the sub-$160 smartphone is really intense and hot. Lenovo is one of the companies aiming to gain ground in that segment, launch a host of models there. After introducing Lenovo A6000, A6000 Plus, and A7000, the company is soon expected to introduce the new A5000 at INR10,250 ($162), as estimated from a retailer Mahesh Telecom's post.

Yesterday, the A5000 was introduced in Russia for $227 which is way higher than the price set for India.
The A5000 features a 5" 720p display with special nano coating for prevention from water splashes. It is powered by a MediaTek MT6582 SoC with quad-core 1.3GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, 8MP rear snapper with LED flash, 2MP front camera, Bluetooth 4.0 and FM radio.
Weighing about 160 grams because of the 4,000 mAh battery, A5000 is a 10mm thick dual-SIM phone with 3G support.

Xiaomi Mi 4i goes official with 5" 1080p screen, 13MP camera

Just moments Xiaomi's latest handset was made official at a dedicated event in New Delhi. Just as expected, the Xperia Mi 4i is a more-affordable alternative to the Xiaomi Mi 4 and comes with a polycarbonate unibody.

The Snapdragon 801 has been swapped with a Snapdragon 615, which is less powerful, but does offer an important upgrade over the aforementioned chip - it is 64-bit. The SoC in question is octa-core with Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.7 GHz and the other four at 1.1 GHz. The device is equipped with 2GB of RAM an onboard storage is 16GB. Graphics are courtesy of the Adreno 405.

The smartphone is built around a 5.0" Full HD OGS IPS display with a density of 441 ppi. The panel comes with adaptive brightness technology, called Sunlight display, which improves its legibility when outdoors. Sony have been using such a technique for quite some time and it essentially boils down to brightening darker areas under direct light.

The camera setup is also changed and the Mi 4i now offers 13MP F/2.0 main snapper and a 5MP F/1.8 front-facer. The main camera packs a dual tone dual LED flash for better white balance in low light shots. There are a lot of changes on the software side as well and not just the camera app. Beautify and HDR have received a major overhaul. Low-light quality is improved and the new image filters now come with an array of clever algorithms that are custom-tailored for the best possible results on facial features, based on an estimation of your age and sex.

In terms of connectivity the Xiaomi Mi 4i offers dual-SIM slots with 4G support on both of them. There's also dual-band MU-MIMO Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac support - ensuring the fastest local transfer speeds around. Bluetooth version is 4.1, while the microUSB 2.0 port supports USB host mode.
The Xiaomi Mi 4i is powered by a 3,120 mAh battery. It will be available in a total of five color choices - white, blue, orange, yellow and pink. It exact dimensions are 138.1 mm x 69.6 mm x 7.8 mm, and weighs in at 130 g, making it smaller and lighter than the Mi 4.

On the software side, we find Xiaomi's own MIUI 6. It is based on Android 5.0 Lollipop so you get a really up-to-date experience. Xiaomi has also developed a few interesting new features, like IVR (Interactive Voice Recognition), to simplify annoying service line calls.

The most impressive bit about the Xiaomi Mi 4i however is its pricing. The smartphone will cost $205 (INR 12,999) when it launches on April 30 on Flipkart. Registrations start today at 8PM IST. Unfortunately we didn't get anything on international availability.

ASUS Outs 4 Variants of ZenFone 2 in India; Pricing Revealed

The much-awaited flagship by Taiwanese consumer electronics firm has finally arrived in India. Today, ASUS introduced the latest ZenFone 2 with 4GB RAM in the Indian market. The smartphone was first showcased at CES this year. The ZenFone 2 enfolds some top-notch specifications that give it an edge over other smartphones in the budget segment. The device will be available in India exclusively on Flipkart.

ASUS has launched the ZenFone 2 in four variants – ZE551ML (4GB RAM) with 64GB and 32GB inbuilt storage, ZE551ML (2GB RAM), and ZE550ML. The former one is a top-tier device, while the other three have comparatively lower specifications. The ZE551ML with 4GB RAM comes in two storage versions. The one with 64GB storage space will cost customers Rs. 22,999, while the 32GB model will cost Rs. 19,999. The ZE551ML (2GB RAM) variant is launched at Rs. 14,999 and the ZE550ML will be available for Rs. 12,999.

ASUS ZenFone 2 ZE550ML (both 4GB and 2GB of RAM) sports a 5.5-inch full-HD (1920x1080p) IPS display with Gorilla Glass 3 protection. On the other hand, ZenFone 2 ZE550ML features a 5.5-inch HD screen. A 64-bit 2.3GHz Intel Atom processor Z3580 is equipped to the ZE550ML with 4GB RAM. It’s 2GB RAM version, along with ZE550ML has a 64-bit 1.8GHz quad-core Intel Atom Z3560. All the handsets run on Android 5.0 Lollipop OS with custom ZenUI on top. All the variants can expand up to 64GB via MicroSD card.

The ZenFone 2 packs a 13MP PixelMaster rear camera with dual-LED Flash along with a 5MP selfie snapper. The rear shooter also offers 52MP Super Resolution mode. A 3000mAh non-removable battery is fitted with all the ZenFone 2 models. The handsets are dual-SIM and offer dual active support. The devices have ZenMotion touch and gesture control support features common in them.

Facebook launches Hello, a new dialer and contacts app for Android

Facebook Home may not have been a success at all, but the social network isn’t ready to give up on the idea of replacing built-in functionality on Android with its own apps. Case in point – today Facebook has launched a new app called Hello. This is basically an alternative dialer app for Android, and it’s already up for grabs in the Google Play Store (though it seems to be geo-restricted, so you may not be able to download it depending on where you are).

Hello combines a dialer with an interface for viewing contacts, along with easy call blocking and seamless search for people and places. The search part feels especially well tailored for queries relating to businesses. You just need to type a few letters of the name, and if that business has a Facebook page you’ll then be able to call it with one tap (if it has a phone number listed on Facebook itself, of course).

The same process also works for people, as you’d expect. You can message contacts using Facebook Messenger, and even call them via VoIP using Messenger’s dedicated feature. But the main thing Hello does is take over when a call comes in, which is where it shows you information about people even if you don’t have them in your contact list. This is obviously powered by Facebook’s vast database of people and phone numbers. The photo that shows up is the person’s Facebook profile picture, and some additional details are shown on the call screen too – for example, if it’s someone’s birthday.

Hello offers to automatically block numbers that have been blocked by a lot of other people, but you can also manually block any number in a very simple way. Since the app ties into Facebook, contact information such as profile pictures and birthdays always stay up to date. And like with the dialer and contacts apps built into Android, Hello lets you add and edit contacts too.

Android 5.1.1 changelog arrives in Google AOSP

A changelog for Android 5.1.1 made an appearance in the Android Open Source Project. Google is yet to release to release the aforementioned Lollipop build.

Sporting the build number LMY47V, Android 5.1.1 will bring a number or under-the-hood improvements to the platform. Notable tweaks include a camera timeout fix for LG Nexus 5 and Motorola Nexus 6, addressed security issues, as well as a fix for Chromecast remote passthrough feature.

As its version number suggests, Android 5.1.1 will be a update that will fix some of the minor niggles in Android 5.1.

Micromax Canvas Spark with Lollipop launched for 4,999 INR (~$79)

Micromax has added yet another smartphone to its entry-level Canvas series. The all new Canvas Spark boasts of running Android 5.0 Lollipop update out of the box and is priced at INR4,999 ($79) for India. Following Xiaomi’s strategy, Micromax will offer the Canvas Spark through flash sale exclusively at Snapdeal.

The Canvas Spark packs a 4.7-inch qHD display covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and is powered by a MediaTek MTK6582M chipset with a quad-core 1.3GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM. The smartphone offers 8GB of expandable storage and sports an 8MP rear camera/ 2MP front camera combo.

Canvas Spark supports dual-SIM with support for 3G in one of the slots and offers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS as connectivity options. Bearing a thin metallic frame running round the sides, the Spark is mere 8.5mm see and weighs 134 grams including the 2,000 mAh battery.

Those eager to buy this Redmi 2 competitor can register at Snapdeal from April 22 for the flash sale set to start on April 29.

This Android 6.0 Muffin video concept calls for a Multi-Window feature, more Material Design goodness

Android 1.0 Alpha, Android 2.0 Beta, Android 1.5 Cupcake, Android 1.6 Donut... all the way to Android 4.4 KitKat and Android 5.0 Lollipop. Notice a relationship? That's right, not only is Google always using the names of sweets for its major Android updates, but it has, so far without a fault, followed an alphabetical order for those name. So after KitKat came Lollipop, and after Lollipop we're guaranteed to have something starting with an M.

Like Muffin. That, at least, is one possibility, and it certainly sounds widely-appreciated enough to appeal to Google. A concept video, designed by Vladislav Vitula, gives us a look into what the author thinks Android 6.0 Muffin should feel like, and even dreams up new features: Multi-Window and Quick Reply.
In case you're unfamiliar with what Multi-Window is, it's a feature available on some Samsung and LG devices, and it basically allows you to run two apps side-by-side and simultaneously. As you can imagine, it has the potential to help multitasking, and is a welcome addition to devices with large enough displays (i.e. phablets) to comfortably visualize two apps at once. As for Quick Reply, that would simply let you answer incoming notifications right from a notification that appears in the status bar. Overall, the designer's love for Google's Material Design is quite obvious, as his conception has a ton animation-rich transitions at its core, and we found that we don't really mind!