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Thursday 12 January 2017

Pebble signs deal with leading technology distribution chain Ingram Micro

Pebble (not to be confused with Pebble , smartwatch maker), a known name in power banks and other branded mobile accessories has announced a partnership with Ingram Micro, world's largest technology distributor and a leading technology sales, marketing and logistics company. The partnership will give a further boost to Pebble’s existing market presence over 18 states in India. Through the partnership with Ingram Micro as its National Distributor, Pebble has started Pan-India operations on a large scale across various states and is soon to delve into LFRs and Modern Retail.

Pebble Accessories for Mobile

Pebble, one of the fastest growing brands in India, was launched in the year 2013. A leader in organizing and branding the highly cluttered unbranded Mobile Accessory Industry that had no clear quality standards until now, Pebble stays a step ahead by offering a blend of user friendly elegant design and top-notch quality products. Headquartered in Delhi, Pebble is part of a group of companies that has been leading provider of various power back-up devices and other electronic products for the past 16 years. A one-stop shop for any and every electronic and portable mobile accessory, Pebble is the ‘Go-to’ brand offering an array of exciting range of products such as chargers, cables, charging cases, BT speakers, headphones, headsets, earphones, OTG pen drives, fitness bands and VR headsets along with superior quality power banks.

Commenting on the partnership, Komal Agarwal, Director-Marketing, Pebble, said, “We are extremely happy to have partnered with Ingram Micro as our national distributor, the world leader in technology distribution. With this association, we hope to strengthen the relationship with our consumers by making our products widely available throughout the country. As a brand, Pebble’s philosophy has been “Convenience with Quality” which is well reflected in all its products such as Power Banks, USB Cables, Bluetooth Speakers and others. For instance: Pebble power banks are among the most efficient in terms of output and quality, and sleekest in terms of design which make them extremely portable and convenient to use.”

It is the only brand in India to be well placed and established across all possible channels including General Trade (Retail stores), Modern Trade (Retail Chains), Online Portals, In-Flight and Airport Shopping & Corporate Gifting. Pebble products are also available on leading ecommerce portals including Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal.

ASUS Zenfone 3 Max (ZC553KL) Review: Good Build , Design and Battery Life but high on Price

For long the battery life of Android Smartphones have been the Achilles heel. Though the shift to larger screens, media consumption, internet connectivity made phones really smart but the lack of enough juice left users in dilemma whether to save the power to last for the day or make use of the 'smart' features of the phone. When the race of Quad core/ octa core processors, number of Mega pixels in smartphone was still in market, there were few who took upon to solve the most prominent problem of smartphone usage. Gionee Marathon, ASUS Zenfone Max , Redmi Note 3 are product of such efforts.  We are doing a review of more refined version of one such device from ASUS which is ASUS Zenfone 3 Max. Zenfone 3 Max was launched along with Zenfone 3 series phones and is priced for Rs 17,999/- for 5.5 inch version (the one we are reviewing here). Let's take a look into the phone and see if its worth the price and hype.

Build and Design:

The ASUS Zenfone 3 Max, definitely brings a good change in terms of design language and build quality, In fact we are glad that ASUS has listened to feedback from tech community to change on the design which was not so appealing and had lot of waste space in the devices. The Zenfone 3 over comes all those drawbacks we could point out in Zenfone 2, Zenfone Max and other Zenfone devices. The phone is easy to hold and grip, it looks sturdy thanks to its unibody aluminium chasis.






On the front we have a 5.5 inch full HD display with very thin bezels around, on the top of the display sits proximity sensor, the ear piece and 8 MP front camera, whereas at the bottom of the screen there are three capacitive buttons viz. back, home and multi tasking in same sequence from left to right. The capcitive touch buttons are non-backlit though and it can be difficult to use the phone in dark in initial days of use, until your fingers are trained for the exact position of the buttons. The front is protected by 2.5D contoured glass which makes it look more elegant and premium.

ASUS Zenfone 3 Max comes with a 5.5 inch Full HD display which produces sharp pictures and brightness is good, Auto brightness works well for most of the cases however in direct sunlight we had to manually increase the brightness to make screen readable. Around 73% screen to body ratio makes it easy to use with single hand. We watched few videos on Amazon Prime and Youtube to test the display and we were satisfied with handling of the content by the phone.

The left edge of the phone has a sim tray towards the top which can hold one Micro SIM and another Nano SIM or a micro SD card. On the right side there is a power button just above the middle point and volume rocker is placed one finger distance above the power button. All the buttons are placed ergonomically, the feedback of buttons is good as well. On the top edge of the phone there is a 3.5 mm Audio jack and a secondary mic for noise cancellation. While the bottom edge sports a mic, micro USB slot for charging and data transfer and speaker grill.

Turning the phone backwards you will see a 16 MP rear camera adored by dual tone LED flash and Laser Assist Auto Focus on both sides. Just below the Camera unit, adhering to central line there is rounded square finger print sensor which is easy to reach by the index finger. The finger print sensor is active one which wakes the phone as well so you don't have to press power button to unlock your phone. The sensor works well most of the time and is accurate but its definitely not the fastest one around.

On the bottom there is sticker with IMEI details for the phone below which you can see the ASUS branding.

Features and Specifications:

Zenfone 3 Max(ZC553KL) comes with Octacore Snapdragon 430 chipset which we feel is not the best choice looking at the price and accompanying hardware. The chipset is fine in handling normal day to day tasks but when it comes to some power intensive games the phone shows clear lags.  The phone comes with a 3 GB of RAM, 32 GB storage, single band Wi-Fi b/g/n, FM radio, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, 4G support as well as VoLTE.

On software side the phone comes with Android Marshmallow with ASUS ZenUI 3.0 skin running on top of it. Still the new skin doesn't interfere much with the stock Android and you get lots of option to customize things as per your choice. However, there are still a lot of , really lot of pre-installed apps which unfortunately looks more of bloatware to us. You get few useful apps pre-installed as well such as Instagram, puffin browser, Facebook, NFS: No Limits, SimCity etc. There is a Game Genie widget as well for enhancing the gaming experience which can be activate for your chosen game and then you can close background apps to free some memory, record your game , livestream your game on YouTube or Twich.

At last the reason for the name Max, the battery of the phone has 4100 mAh of juice when fully charged. The battery lasts for more than a day easily for more than average usage for me which includes some 15-20 minutes gaming, few videos on YouTube, some browsing internet and reading Quora Feed. However if I extend the gaming session the battery drop was sharp. So we can comfortably say that with day to day usage one can even get 2 days of power but with some resource intensive tasks the battery starts draining quickly. There is a reverse charging feature too, but we don't feel its practical if you are on the move as you might want to save the fuel for yourself instead of donating it to others, nevertheless the feature is novel in its nature and can come handy in some situations.

Performance:

Despite Mediocre processor, we didn't  faced any major issues in day to day tasks, except sometimes while typing we felt that Keyboard was lagging a word or two. We didn't faced any overheating situation either even when the camera was used for a long time. The call quality is good, sound is crisp and clear on both sides of the call.

We have got 43680 score in Antutu Benchmarking test and Vellamo Metal Score of 1196 which is lower than even ASUS Zenfone 2. As mentioned earlier the video playback was good , at upto 1080p videos the phone handles videos quite well. The audio quality as well is pretty good with or without headsets.

Camera:

The  rear 16 MP camera with f/2.0 aperture produces detailed landscapes and works particularly well in daylight, however in low light the noise becomes dominant in shots taken by the phone. The lowlight mode and Night mode helps to some extent. ASUS Pixelmaster tech has been always good in terms of imaging and Zenfone 3 Max is no exception to that. Below is a slide show of shots taken by Zenfone 3 Max in various modes and conditions. Rest we leave it upto you to decide.


Verdict:

Here comes the tricky part and ASUS hasn't left any stone unturned to confuse us. For the Design, Build, Display, and Battery performance this device will be an easy pick. Even Camera is decent enough for the price range. So if you want to buy yourself a ASUS phone with all these qualities you can go for it, but if you are looking for some serious performance oriented smartphone then Zenfone 3 Max isn't the phone you should look at. Specially with the 17K plus price tag I would expect better performing phone based on the competitive phones present in market. Another deal breaker can be absence of Gorilla Glass protection for many. 
If you can ignore on the performance aspects then the phone packages a lot in itself, at the launch price it may be bit over priced but if the prices are dropped around 2000  less than it would make lot more sense to buy this device.

Wednesday 11 January 2017

Honor 6X to be Amazon exclusive in India

Honor, Huawei’s Smartphone e-brand for digital natives, announced today that the much awaited Honor 6X will be exclusively available on Amazon.in upon its India launch.The Honor 6X was recently launched at International CES 2017 and is a smartphone created for digital natives with cutting-edge dual-lens rear camera, sturdy performance and extended battery life.

The Honor 6X, carries dual camera setup which is a 12MP + 2MP combination, the secondary 2MP camera is for depth of field calculation and that makes the USP of the phone in terms of imaging power. The phone runs on Kirin 655 processor and will be available in two variants 3GB RAM/32 GB ROM and 4 GB RAM/ 64 GB ROM. The Honor 6x will come with a 5.5 inch Full HD display. The device also features one of the fastest finger print sensor on the back we have experienced so far in smartphones.The smartphone is also very light weight and thin considering the fact that it packs in a 3350 mAh battery.

Honor 6X


The Honor 6X, which is labeled as the SWAGphone in India is designed to offer the young and bold consumers around the globe a superb internet experience. The Honor 6X is a powerful and versatile all-rounder packing top-of-the-shelf features, empowering consumers to explore the world, cultivate their inner artist, and enjoy the world of music, gaming and movies.
“We are very delighted with the opportunity to showcase Huawei’sHonor brand on Amazon.in, and to bring the Honor 6X to the Indian customers. India is one of the fastest growing economies and we are delighted to partner with Amazon.in. We believe Amazon.in is in sync with our expectations and strategies of how we want to reach the consumers,” stated P. Sanjeev, Vice President, Huawei Consumer Business Group.


Samsung launches its first product of year, the Gear S3 smartwatch for Rs 28,500 in India

Samsung India has launched its first product for the year, the company unveiled Samsung Gear S3, the successor to Gear S2 in India yesterday in an event held in Delhi. The Gear S3 has upped the ante with lot of processing power and sensors on board. The new watch now has the much required Barometer and Altimeter for those who are avid trekker and look out for such details in their gadgets.

Inspired by traditional timepieces and the art of watchmaking, the Gear S3 combines timeless watch design with the absolute cutting edge in mobile wearable technology, including IP68 water resistance, up to 4 days of battery backup, dedicated app store and built-in speaker and GPS, making it the ideal addition to any watch collection.


Samsung Gear S3 is available in two design patterns to suit different users’ lifestyles: frontier and classic. Inspired by the active explorer, the Gear S3 frontier evokes a rugged outdoor look with an enduring style that blends form and function. The frontier was designed to perform in any setting or environment – whether business or leisure. We personally liked Frontier.  The Gear S3 classic design is minimalist, elegant style found in the most iconic timepieces. The classic was designed with meticulous attention to detail – with its size and shape chosen to attain the same consistency and balance of a well-crafted luxury watch. 

The Gear S3 comes with Corning Gorilla Glass SR+ designed specially for wearables to give them more toughness along with a crisp display. The case is crafted from high end watch grade 316L steel. The 16 million colors full-color Always On Display (AOD) and Super AMOLED technology further differentiates the Gear S3 from other smartwatches. The AOD always shows the time rather than automatically fading to black, causing the Gear S3 to exude the aura of a luxury analog watch with a perpetually visible watch face & a ticking second hand.


The Gear S3 puts convenience at the flick of the wrist, allowing users to leave their smartphone behind when they don’t need it on-hand. Pushing the connectivity envelope to the hilt, the Gear S3 offers ‘hyper-connectedness’ with the Remote Connectivity feature that allows the Gear S3 to receive phone notifications way beyond the limits of BT or WiFi. All that is required is for ‘Remote Connectivity’ to be turned on in the Gear Manager app. The built-in GPS functionality enables users to accurately monitor their daily fitness activities while the Alti/barometer and Speedometer allow users to track everything from altitude and atmospheric pressure to sudden changes in weather, distance traveled and speed. 

Additionally, with the built-in speaker, users can take calls, activate voice messaging and listen to their favorite tunes. The battery is also a significant leap forward for the segment in terms of delivering the smartwatch experience uninterrupted. Lasting up to four days on a single charge, users can enjoy their music, make calls and show off their stylish smartwatch longer.

The Gear S3 was designed with consumers’ safety in mind. In case of an emergency, users can activate the SOS from the designated button to alert family, friends and emergency professionals about crisis situations, even when their phone isn’t in-hand.

Consumers can access a diverse range of apps, including fitness, music, news, sports and travel apps – all optimized for the Gear S3. With a variety of customizable watch faces available for download, users can personalize the circular UI to fit their lifestyle. Select apps and watch faces are also available for download directly from the Gear S3 without the need to download via a smartphone. Through an open collaboration with developers and partners, Samsung continues to enrich its wearables ecosystem and provide users with a unique smartwatch experience. 

For the first time ever on a smartwatch, the Samsung Knox Tizen Wearable SDK will be available to third-parties, enabling management capabilities and the development of customized applications for Samsung’s wearable ecosystem. With the Samsung Knox security platform, the Gear S3 will enable broader enterprise business opportunities.


Both the Gear S3 classic & frontier will go on sale from 18th of January, 2017 and will be available in all leading Samsung sales channels at a price of Rs. 28,500/-.


Friday 6 January 2017

ASUS unveils Zenfone 3 Zoom with a dual Camera setup, 2.3X optical zoom and 5000 mAh battery at CES 2017

ASUS has unveiled the successor of Zenfone Zoom , the Zenfone 3 Zoom at CES 2017. Continuing on its legacy the USP of the phone is its camera albeit in different terms from its predecessor. The Zenfone 3 Zoom retains the optical zoom feature however its lowered to 2.3X while the original Zoom had an optical zoom of 3X. On brighter side other parts of the phone are much improved and a major of such improvements is its 5000 mAh strong battery and slim design. To give you an idea the new Zoom is around 3mm thinner than the previous Zoom. 

Zenfone 3 Zoom
Zenfone 3 Zoom is a much better device overall in terms of design, build and compactness of the device. ASUS has really heard the feedback about its design and made a mark with entire Zenfone 3 series. The Zenfone 3 Zoom comes with a dual camera setup, where in one is  for 2.3X optical zoom while another one is 12 megapixel wide-angle lens with f/1.7 aperture. ASUS claims that these two lenses can also work in conjunction to produce depth-of-field bookeh effect which we are sure it can as we are witnessing the same on Honor 6x review unit.

An improved TriTech+ autofocus system automatically chooses among three autofocus technologies — Dual Pixel PDAF, subject tracking autofocus, and second-generation laser focus — depending on the situation to achieve accurate focus in just 0.03 seconds, even when photographing moving subjects.

ZenFone 3 Zoom is also the first ASUS smartphone with SuperPixel camera technology that enables it to focus incredibly quickly and capture clear photos at night or in low-light environments. ASUS-exclusive hardware and software enhancements boost sensor light-sensitivity by up to four times by intelligently adjusting ISO levels while shooting and applying noise reduction in post-shot processing. SuperPixel technology enables the camera on ZenFone 3 Zoom to have 2.5-times (2.5X) greater light sensitivity than Apple iPhone 7 Plus as claimed by ASUS.

ZenFone 3 Zoom has a high-capacity 5000mAh battery that is sculpted to fit in the phone’s super-slim, 7.9mm full-metal body. The phone weighs just 170 grams, yet with its large battery and powerful, efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor it provides users with up to 42 days of standby time. The high-capacity battery also complements ZenFone 3 Zoom’s photographic capabilities, allowing users to shoot more photos, enjoy power-intensive operations like time-lapse photography, and capture up to 6.4 hours of continuous 4K UHD video on a single charge. ZenFone 3 Zoom can also double as a high-speed power bank for charging other devices.