Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Monday, October 5, 2015
Gadget Ogling: Eyes on Google
Welcome to Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, the column that gladly steps far away from presidential debates to voice partisan opinions on the latest gadget announcements.
On the rostrum this week is a slew of new Google devices: a refreshed Chromecast; another Chromecast for audio; and the company's first completely in-house-created tablet. We also take a gander at a new LG smartphone that might cause double vision.
Note: These are not reviews. The ratings indicate only how much I'd like to use each item, and do not reflect how much of my life is wrapped up in Google services. That would rate at about a four.
Chromecast (pictured above, Chromecast Audio on the right) helps people easily stream whatever they want through their TV via a simple dongle. Now Google's adding a splash of color to the device, along with a string of new features.
Instead of resembling a USB stick, Chromecast 2 is more like a colorful button, and Google says it is easier to plug into an HDMI slot. It's built for speed, apparently, as it seemingly can stream videos faster and with less buffering.
It also can preload content -- for instance, start downloading a movie -- as soon as you open the Chromecast app, which Google also has refreshed.
On the content side, Chromecast users now can access Spotify and Showtime's latest app, as well as stream NBA and Major League Soccer games.
What's really useful is the option in the latest app to search for content across all the services you use. If you'd like to watch the latest season of Archer -- to use my current obsession as an example -- but don't know where to find it, this universal search can help. It's a great feature we're seeing more often, including in the new Apple TV, so I'm glad Google included it here.
Meanwhile, there's a new version of the device for music, called "Chromecast Audio" (pictured above with Chromecast). It connects to a 3.5mm auxiliary input, RCA jacks, or an optical input, and it can stream music from your favorite streaming services and your computer. It supports Google Play Music, Spotify, Deezer and BBC iPlayer.
What's especially neat is it can play audio from most sources on an Android phone. So if you don't have a TV and are streaming a movie to a tablet, you can cast the audio to your home speaker system and get an immersive surround-sound experience.
Chromecast already was a solid device, and these upgrades and the Audio version only enhance it. Best of all? Google's keeping the US$35 price tag of the original Chromecast, which is far less expensive than most other streaming hubs. Thumbs up all around.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Xiaomi Redmi 1S
After entering India, Xiaomi has always been in the headlines for
anything and everything. The bulk selling process through e-retailer
website Flipkart has fetched huge business for them. After their
official appearance, every flash sale has gone viral.
The biggest reason behind this was the flaunted specifications.
People, particularly youngsters, who always crave for phone with lower
price and flagship smartphone-like configurations, rolled their eyes
with an "Oh My God" gesture.
The only question that appeared in most people's mind was, "how can they offer such configuration at a throw-away price? Are they making a profit? Are they featuring the same on-paper configuration on the phone?"
Here's our take on this, with every minute details.
Design and Built
Xiaomi has not experimented much on this segment, hence resulted
in a traditional rectangular handset with no conspicuous design
innovation. The traditional candy-bar shape with tapered edges makes it a
regular smartphone. But Xiaomi has put everything in place to get it
going.
We found Xiaomi Redmi 1S reasonably comfortable to hold. Measuring 137x69x9.9mm Xiaomi Redmi 1S weighs 158g, which is not quite light in hand. With 9.9mm thickness, Redmi 1S feels quite thicker as well.
The interchangeable back covers are made of matte plastic. The grey cover, came with our review unit looked durable and makes the device looks a bit better. Available in different colours those back covers are available across online stores, starting from ₹150 onwards.
The edge-to-edge AGC Dragontrail glass has occupied the major portion of the front. Below the 4.7-inch display there are three capacitive buttons with a red mark on them. Above the display there is a regular earpiece unit along with the light ambience, proximity sensor and a 1.6MP camera for making video calls and taking selfies.
The left side of the handset has left completely unoccupied while the right side of the device features the volume rocker and a power button with a silver finish. The 3.5mm port housed on the top and the regular mic and a micro USB port is on the bottom.
The 8mp camera occupies the top rear along with a single LED flash. It also has a speaker on top and the Mi logo has been placed on the rear bottom.
Display
The Xiaomi Redmi 1S' 4.7-inch HD IPS display has a resolution of 720x1,280 pixels with a density measurement of 312ppi. For added protection, Xiaomi has protected the display with an AGC Dragontrail glass.
We had no problem with gaming, movie watching, internet browsing or editing documents. The screen looks bright and crisp with excellent presence of colour, gamut and saturation. However, visibility under direct sunlight is a matter of concern for the high reflectivity of the protection glass. But it works well while protecting the display. Scratching with corks, coins or any other sharp element cannot create a dent and hence it is easy to keep it inside a jeans pocket or a handbag.
The phone features option for tweaking colour temperature and saturation and also for using the phone while wearing gloves.
Operating System & UI
Instead of using Kitkat, Xiaomi Redmi 1S uses Android Jellybean operating system with a customised interface, MIUI 5.0. However, Redmi users are now awaiting Xiaomi's update of MIUI 6.0.
Each screen has been designed with simple bars, buttons and options. Not a single window looks cluttered or exaggerated. The option bars and menu are logically arranged with a simple layout. Xiaomi has sacrificed the inside menu button and placed everything right on the first screen with an easy-to-use file explorer and a well-designed custom browser with all essential links.
All the essential features have been grouped according to their usage. For example, radio, torch, compass, clock and voice recorder are put together in Tools folder, while all Google features are in the Google folder. The file explorer supports compressed files and offers compressing and decompressing features by default.
There is a theme section on the home screen with heavy customisation
options. For downloading themes an Mi cloud account is necessary. After
logging in, there are plenty of options for tweaking the interface. The
essential apps like music player, video player or image gallery are
well-crafted with equal amount of simplicity.
Though the usage is flawless, we wish Redmi 1S will soon get updated to a newer version of MIUI, featuring Android Lollipop, which creates less hog on the system and makes the experience much better.
A special note on MI Cloud
Recently there was a huge brawl over Mi cloud's data transmission factor. But according to Hugo Barra, a patch was issued to fix the bug. It was found that the Cloud is off and nothing is syncing automatically unless initialised and asked to archive data in the Mi cloud.
Performance
The Xiaomi Redmi 1S runs on a Snapdragon 400 SoC with a quad-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz Cortex-A7 processor, Adreno 305 GPU coupled with 1GB RAM.
In our benchmarking test, Redmi 1S did fabulous, performing better than most of the Snapdragon 400 based SoC, for its higher clock speed (1.6GHz instead of 1.4GHz).
The processor is not outstanding, since several latest 64-bit processors would perform similar or better, but Redmi 1S gives an overall stable experience.
For general tasks like web browsing and document editing, we found Redmi 1S offers a decent performance. Apps and web pages gets loaded in a while even when the phone enjoys a WiFi connection.
We experienced a slight lag in heavy games, but logically those games are meant to be played with more powerful processors. The overall performance experience is decent and it would prove to be suitable for most users.
The box comes without an earphone, hence the users are free to choose a third party earphone for pairing up. However, Xiaomi has some set-up options while being paired with their own earphones. The bass and treble get tuned in a precise way.
Xiaomi Redmi 1S FaceIbtimes India
The only question that appeared in most people's mind was, "how can they offer such configuration at a throw-away price? Are they making a profit? Are they featuring the same on-paper configuration on the phone?"
Here's our take on this, with every minute details.
Design and Built
We found Xiaomi Redmi 1S reasonably comfortable to hold. Measuring 137x69x9.9mm Xiaomi Redmi 1S weighs 158g, which is not quite light in hand. With 9.9mm thickness, Redmi 1S feels quite thicker as well.
The interchangeable back covers are made of matte plastic. The grey cover, came with our review unit looked durable and makes the device looks a bit better. Available in different colours those back covers are available across online stores, starting from ₹150 onwards.
The edge-to-edge AGC Dragontrail glass has occupied the major portion of the front. Below the 4.7-inch display there are three capacitive buttons with a red mark on them. Above the display there is a regular earpiece unit along with the light ambience, proximity sensor and a 1.6MP camera for making video calls and taking selfies.
The left side of the handset has left completely unoccupied while the right side of the device features the volume rocker and a power button with a silver finish. The 3.5mm port housed on the top and the regular mic and a micro USB port is on the bottom.
The 8mp camera occupies the top rear along with a single LED flash. It also has a speaker on top and the Mi logo has been placed on the rear bottom.
Xiaomi Redmi 1S InterfaceIbtimes India
The Xiaomi Redmi 1S' 4.7-inch HD IPS display has a resolution of 720x1,280 pixels with a density measurement of 312ppi. For added protection, Xiaomi has protected the display with an AGC Dragontrail glass.
We had no problem with gaming, movie watching, internet browsing or editing documents. The screen looks bright and crisp with excellent presence of colour, gamut and saturation. However, visibility under direct sunlight is a matter of concern for the high reflectivity of the protection glass. But it works well while protecting the display. Scratching with corks, coins or any other sharp element cannot create a dent and hence it is easy to keep it inside a jeans pocket or a handbag.
The phone features option for tweaking colour temperature and saturation and also for using the phone while wearing gloves.
Xiaomi Redmi 1S Interface-UtilitiesIbtimes India
Instead of using Kitkat, Xiaomi Redmi 1S uses Android Jellybean operating system with a customised interface, MIUI 5.0. However, Redmi users are now awaiting Xiaomi's update of MIUI 6.0.
Each screen has been designed with simple bars, buttons and options. Not a single window looks cluttered or exaggerated. The option bars and menu are logically arranged with a simple layout. Xiaomi has sacrificed the inside menu button and placed everything right on the first screen with an easy-to-use file explorer and a well-designed custom browser with all essential links.
All the essential features have been grouped according to their usage. For example, radio, torch, compass, clock and voice recorder are put together in Tools folder, while all Google features are in the Google folder. The file explorer supports compressed files and offers compressing and decompressing features by default.
Xiaomi Redmi 1S UtilitiesIbtimes India
Though the usage is flawless, we wish Redmi 1S will soon get updated to a newer version of MIUI, featuring Android Lollipop, which creates less hog on the system and makes the experience much better.
A special note on MI Cloud
Recently there was a huge brawl over Mi cloud's data transmission factor. But according to Hugo Barra, a patch was issued to fix the bug. It was found that the Cloud is off and nothing is syncing automatically unless initialised and asked to archive data in the Mi cloud.
Xiaomi Redmi 1S -MI CloudIbtimes India
The Xiaomi Redmi 1S runs on a Snapdragon 400 SoC with a quad-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz Cortex-A7 processor, Adreno 305 GPU coupled with 1GB RAM.
In our benchmarking test, Redmi 1S did fabulous, performing better than most of the Snapdragon 400 based SoC, for its higher clock speed (1.6GHz instead of 1.4GHz).
The processor is not outstanding, since several latest 64-bit processors would perform similar or better, but Redmi 1S gives an overall stable experience.
For general tasks like web browsing and document editing, we found Redmi 1S offers a decent performance. Apps and web pages gets loaded in a while even when the phone enjoys a WiFi connection.
We experienced a slight lag in heavy games, but logically those games are meant to be played with more powerful processors. The overall performance experience is decent and it would prove to be suitable for most users.
The box comes without an earphone, hence the users are free to choose a third party earphone for pairing up. However, Xiaomi has some set-up options while being paired with their own earphones. The bass and treble get tuned in a precise way.
Friday, February 6, 2015
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