Popular phones below Rs. 5000

Top 5 camera phones for Diwali

Not all smartphones are good when it comes to camera capability even though they may have similar megapixel counts. Moreover, for an occasion like Diwali you should go for a smartphone that can click pictures in low light.
These handsets are best for low light photography.

Nokia Lumia 1020

 We have chosen this one not because Priyanka Chopra pitches for it, but because it has a huge 41 megapixel primary camera that we tested very recently.
This 41 megapixel camera is armed with Pureview technology, a 1/1.5 inch sensor, BSI sensor, and optical image stabilisation feature. Besides, Nokia has used Carl Zeiss optics with a new 6 element lens comprising five plastic aspheric lens layers and one high precision glass layer. Its f/2.2 aperture allows it to capture more light, which makes it one of the best smartphones for Diwali during when you will capture images in low light only. Besides, dual LED Xenon flash adds to the charm of Lumia 1020, at least for low lighting photography.
Currently it is available for around Rs 45,000 in India. If you are not a Nokia fan, then buy Apple iPhone 5 or HTC One, which are equally great camera smartphones in this price bracket.

Sony Xperia Z1
Sony might have erred in signing Katrina Kaif as its brand ambassador for India, but it has done the right thing to arm the Xperia Z1 with a 20.7 megapixel camera with Exmor RS mobile image sensor, which is renowned for its capabilities to capture high definition images in low-lit areas. Further, the camera has the backing of G Lens. It has a 27 mm wide angle lens with F2.0 aperture that allows it to capture more light.But it is not only low light imaging that makes it so special; you can also capture videos and pictures under water; so buy it this diwali and you can use it next holi as well!Currently available for Rs 38,000, the Xperia Z1 comes with a 5 inch full HD display, Android 4.2, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB internal storage, and 64 GB micro SD card slot.

   Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom

As its name suggests, it is primarily a camera with smartphone functionality. Available for around Rs 26,000, the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom comes with a 16 megapixel rear camera and a 1.9 megapixel front camera. It has a BSI (Back Side Illuminated) CMOS sensor that will allow you to click pictures in dim lighting. Further, it has 10x optical zoom that will come handy this Diwali and you don't have to burn your hands while trying to get a close up of the firecracker. Thanks to its optical image stabilisation technology you don't have to tell people to stay still while you photograph them.Its other specifications are equally good. It comes with a 4.3 inch Amoled display, 1.5 GB RAM, 64 GB expandable storage, Android Jelly Bean operating system, and a 2330 mAh battery.Nokia Lumia 925 is another big contender in this price bracket, which you can consider if you don't want to go for Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom.

  

HTC Desire 500

It is quite confusing to pick out a smartphone in the Rs 10,000-20,000 range as all smartphones look more or less equal. However, we have opted for the HTC Desire 500, which has been praised by many for its 8 megapixel rear camera and 1.6 megapixel front camera.Thanks to its F2.0 aperture and 28 mm lens, the HTC Desire 500 is able to capture decent images in low light for which it gets further backup from its BSI sensor. Also, it comes armed with HTC ImageChip that is used in HTC's One series handsets, like HTC One X, One S and One V. According to HTC, it removes noise, balances colour, and extends depth of field. It has a multi-shot burst mode that allows the phone to capture many pictures with just a click. Its VideoPic feature allows it to get both videos and pictures at the same time.Besides its great camera, the HTC Desire 500 has decent features including a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor, 4.3 inch touchscreen, 1800 mAh battery, 1 GB RAM, 4 GB ROM, 64 GB micro SD card slot, and Android Jelly Bean operating system.

Spice Stellar Pinnacle Pro Mi-535

Though the inclusion of this handset in this list may be opposed by many but we had opted for this over many others as it has very good features alongwith good looking an 8 megapixel autofocus rear camera and a 5 megapixel front camera.The Pinnacle Pro has a 5.3 inch touchscreen, 1 GB RAM, 16 GB ROM, 32 GB expandable storage slot, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system, dual SIM connectivity, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a 1.2 GHz quad core processor.

The first real smart watch is from India

The first real smart watch is from India, and is the cheapest

A bunch of Indian whiz-teens overtook IT giants like Apple, Google, Samsung and Sony in bringing out a fully functional smart watch. Androidly Systems, the Delhi based start-up has given the watch also the same name-Androidly. They claim it to be the  as the smallest Android device in the world.

And, who made it? A team of five who prefer to call themselves 'team of dreamers' One of them is in his late teens, the other four in early twenties! All bitten by the computer bug and the entrepreneur bug.

This is how the Android team compare themselves with other smart watch brands 

More than half a dozen smart watches are already in the market--including the much hyped Pebble from a startup of the same name, and those from giant corps like Sony and Motorola--the Sony LiveView and MotorACTV.

However, all of them are just add-ons to your smartphone. None of them work independently. They just display information from the phone--incoming texts, tweets, and other notifications.

Features  of smart watch 

1.        Androidly does everything itself. It is a fully featured Android   smartphone that you wear on your wrist. 

    In Androidly there is a phone, there is a camera, there is GPS (displayed on the tiny 2-inch screen though). You can make and receive phone calls, shoot photos with the 2-megapixel cam, and navigate routes.

There has been jeers asking if it is a 'big smartwatch' or a 'small wearable phone'? 

It’s all about optimisation and compromise.Whatever is lost in slimness is more than compensated for in functionality. Androidly runs hardware specifications found in a low-budget mini handset: 

416 MHz processor
256 MB RAM
8 GB of storage via SD card
2 megapixel camera
2-inch, 320 x 240 pixel capacitive touchscreen
GPS / aGPS, accelerometer, Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and GSM network support
And the machine runs on Android 2.2 Froyo

Not stunning specs in the time of quad-core and octa-core processors with other matching hardware, and Android in its 4.3 version. But remember, it doesn’t have to power a 5-inch HD display, it is just an experimental startup. Much can follow.

There has been jeers asking if it is a 'big smartwatch' or a 'small wearable phone'? 

It’s all about optimisation and compromise.Whatever is lost in slimness is more than compensated for in functionality. Androidly runs hardware specifications found in a low-budget mini handset: 

    Android will be priced around $299-$349 on open market sale; however, it is available for pre-order at the androidly website for $150 and is expected to start shipping in September.

Google unveils new Nexus 7 with Android 4.3

Google along with Asus has announced a new thinner, lighter and full 1080p HD resolution display bearing Nexus 7 tablet with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean running on it. 

                                                       New Google Nexus 7:

     

Google and ASUS have formally announced the much awaited new Nexus 7 tablet with full 1080p HD display. The new ASUS Google Nexus 7 tablet also is the first device with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update running on it out of the box. The new Nexus 7 tablet is significant improvement over the first Nexus 7 in terms of core hardware, camera, weight and mobile operating system entirely.

  Hugo Barra, director of Product Management at Android, holds the new Nexus 7 tablet during a Google event at Dogpatch Studio in San Francisco, California, July 24, 2013. REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Google-ASUS team worked together to bring a 8.45 mm thin new Nexus 7 tablet weighing just 290 grams. This tablet will feature 7-inch touchscreen display with 1080p HD resolution natively. The            Nexus 7 (2012 model) featured 1280x800 pixel resolution native with pixel  density of 216 pixels per inch. That has been bumped to 1920x1200  pixel resolution natively with pixel density of 323 pixels per    inch.

ASUS has housed a quad-core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon Pro along with 2 GB RAM. This is a major change over the NVIDIA Tegra 3 chipset with 1 GB RAM in the Nexus 7 

The Slicker, Faster and – Maybe – Cheaper iPhone

Excitement over the new iPhone is building to a frenzy this week as rumors abound that Apple (AAPL) will unveil upgraded models on September 10.

That would be almost exactly a year after Apple introduced the iPhone 5, which grabbed the title of best selling smart phone model in the world last year.

Apple isn’t commenting on new models yet but the September 10 introduction date has been confirmed by major news organizations including the Wall Street Journal’s AllThingsD and dedicated Apple bloggers such as Jim Dalrymple.

The rumored new handset, expected to be called the iPhone 5S, will probably look quite similar to the current model 5 but is sure to be lighter and more powerful than ever. It may also be accompanied by a lower-priced, plastic-cased model, dubbed the iPhone “5C” on the Internet.

Pictures leaked onto the Web of the purported lower-priced iPhone show an array of bright colors instead of just the same old black and white models available in recent years. That would make 2013 a banner year for colorful phones, as the new Google (GOOG) Moto X phone arriving in stores in a few weeks is being offered in 18 colors.

A rising share price

And it's not just customers who are excited about a new iPhone. Investors have been driving up Apple's share price — even before billionaire hedge fund manager Carl Icahn tweeted this week that he had bought a large position. After lagging the market for most of the year, Apple shares have gained 17% over the past month.

Apple remains a top player at the high end of the smartphone market, especially in the United States, where most carriers subsidize more than two-thirds of the cost of a new phone for customers who sign a two-year contract.

The lower-priced phone would help Apple better compete for customers who pay month to month and those who live in less-wealthy countries where carriers don’t offer subsidies. Apple currently offers older models, such as the 2010 iPhone 4, to those customers. But the older phone still costs $450 without a subsidy and may lack the appeal of more recent models running Google’s Android software.

“They’ve been wickedly profitable but their market share is kind of plateauing,” says Ramon Llamas, mobile research manager at IDC. Apple captured 18% of the smartphone market in 2011 and 2012, according to IDC. “A little more attention to emerging markets is warranted.”

Competitors with $200 to $300 phones have been growing faster than Apple in many less-wealthy markets, according to data from Gartner. Apple sold 31.9 million phones worldwide in the second quarter, up just 10% from a year earlier, Gartner reported, second to Samsung. But Apple’s next three competitors – LG Electronics (066570.KS), Lenovo Group (0992.HK) and ZTE (0763.HK) – sold almost as many, 31.8 million combined, as their sales jumped 93%.

Still, Llamas isn’t sure a new lower-priced phone is needed. Lower pricing and greater promotions of older models could work just as well, he argues.

Could the cheap phone move backfire?

And Apple’s rumored move to offer lower-priced new iPhones could backfire. Some analysts fear that a portion of wealthy customers will forgo buying more-expensive models in favor of the “5C.” That could cut into Apple’s revenue and profits. The move could also tarnish Apple’s reputation as a leading premium phone maker, particularly if the lower-priced model is seen as chintzy or with key functions crippled.

But if Apple announces a lower-priced model, it is more likely to create a desirable, full-featured product in keeping with the company’s premium image, according to John Gruber, who has followed Apple for over a decade at his website, DaringFireball.net.

“The 5C is not about selling a piece of junk to some sort of unwashed masses,” Gruber wrote on Tuesday. “It’s about continuing to push the price down to expand the iPhone’s market without changing what the iPhone brand stands for.”

At the high end

Following a pattern Apple has established over several years, the new high-end iPhone is likely to retain the outward appearance of the current iPhone 5. Apple tends to produce a major iPhone overhaul only every other year, in keeping with the two-year contract cycle of many mobile phone subscribers. And pictures floating on the Internet show a rumored new iPhone with a similar shape and upgraded internal components to the current model.

But many analysts expect Apple may incorporate a brand-new feature this year – a fingerprint reader hidden in the iPhone’s tiny home button. Apple bought mobile security firm AuthenTec and its fingerprint-scanning technology last year for $356 million. And text contained in beta versions of Apple’s new iOS 7 software appears to reference a finger print sensor, too.

“It’s a great way to ease the hassle of remembering passwords,” says Ken Hyers, senior analyst at Strategy Analytics. “It will be much more reliable than the facial-recognition technology that Samsung first introduced with the Galaxy S3, and easier to use, too.”

Combined with several wireless technologies already in the iPhone, the fingerprint scanner could also be part of a new mobile-payments network from Apple. That would be quite different from Google’s Google Wallet payment system, which relies on phones that have specialized hardware, known as a Near Field Communications, or NFC, chip. U.S. mobile carriers have blocked Google Wallet apps and are planning to roll out their own NFC-based payment network known as Isis. But neither has caught on yet.

Apple’s system, relying on Bluetooth and Wifi standards, could ignore the NFC wars and build off its existing iOS app called Passbook, which currently works for items like travel and entertainment tickets. Apple mobile development chief Craig Federighi made fun of Android's NFC-based file transfer system at the company's developer conference in June. "There's no need to wander around the room bumping your phone," he said, referencing the system featured prominently in Samsung television ads.

Apple fans hoping for a bigger screen are likely to be disappointed. Android phones have featured ever larger screens – the new LG G2 model unveiled August 7 has a 5.2” screen, one of the biggest yet. Google's Moto X phone has a 4.7" screen.

But Apple is trying to avoid further fragmenting its lineup in order to make it easier for developers to write apps that will look good and run smoothly on all iOS hardware. Analysts expect Apple will stick with the 4” screen introduced on last year's iPhone 5. The screen was slightly longer than earlier models but maintained the same width, so apps that weren’t updated for the new size could just display a black bar over the extra space.

Some analysts say Apple needs to move to bigger screens to better compete against Android. That probably won't happen until the company's 2014 upgrade cycle.