Lenovo K3 Smartphone: Directly compete Xiaomi Redmi 1S

Lenovo has introduced a new budget smartphone called the K3 in China. The smartphone was

listed by a Chinese online retailer, JD; with an impressive price roughly Rs. 6,000. The Lenovo K3

is being touted as a direct competitor of Xiaomi's popular budget Redmi 1S smartphone.

A Chinese publication claims that the Lenovo K3 will be available only online, just like Xiaomi

handsets. So far no announcements have been made by Lenovo regarding K3's global

availability.

The new budget smartphone from the company is available to buy in China via JD's e-commerce

website as the Lenovo K3 Music Lemon.

The Lenovo K3 features a 5-inch HD (720x1280 pixels) IPS display with a pixel density of 294ppi.

The listing notes that the smartphone sports a sleek profile of 7.9mm. The Lenovo K3 is

powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor clocked at 1.2GHz alongside

1GB of RAM. There is 16GB of inbuilt storage with microSD card support.

The Redmi 1S, on the other hand, came with a 4.7-inch HD display; powered by a 1.6GHz quad-

core Snapdragon 400 SoC; 1GB of RAM, and packs 8GB of built-in storage with expandable

storage support.

The Chinese handset brand back in October had revealed that it plans to create a new mobile

brand and company next year to counter the sudden rise of Xiaomi, which is just a three-year

old company. The company had claimed that its new smartphone brand and company would

mainly focus on selling mobile phones online, and officially open for business in April 2015.

Xiaomi Piston: For Style and Performance

Ever since the Chinese company Xiaomi entered the Indian market with aggressively-priced high

quality smartphones, everyone has been sitting up and taking notice of all its moves. That's not

all; the company has also introduced accessories including cases, power banks and a pair of in-

ear earphones.

It is their marketing stratagy that even so, the Xiaomi Piston in-ear earphones finds themselves

in a price range that is replete with options. The Cowon EM1, Creative EP630, SoundMAGIC ES

18 and Panasonic RP-TCM125E-K Ergofit are really good options.

Xiaomi don't give headgear with their phones, it is very rare and strategic marketing move

because everyone talks about that and that directly benefit product sale.

The Piston managed to drown out a significant amount of office chatter but could not really

suppress the sound of a moving train, which is much louder. It also sounded great for watching

movies on the move, since the mid-range is reproduced well.

Verdict

At the current price of Rs. 799, the Xiaomi Piston in-ear earphones are a must buy for anyone

who owns a Xiaomi smartphone, and definitely a great option to consider for folks who use

other Android phones.

Gionee Marathon M3 All Charged Up

A few smartphone companies are experimenting by providing higher capacity batteries in their

smartphones, thereby adding a little bulk. We prefer this approach since the race to build

anorexic smartphones is going a little too far in our opinion.

Gionee experimented with a massive 4200mAh battery in its Marathon M2 smartphone. The

Chinese company has already released its successor, the Gionee Marathon M3. We've seen a

feature phone, the Maxx Power House MX200, tout a 5200mAh battery but the Marathon M3

is the first Android smartphone we've come across that boasts of a 5,000mAh battery. Let's find

out if the Marathon M3 can cross the finish line with energy to spare.

The Marathon M3 is not distinctive with respect to its candybar design, and Gionee has decided

to keep things simple. The design is purely utilitarian, which is not bad at all. At the heart of it

all is the massive battery, which is unsurprisingly non-removable. The sheer size of this battery

contributes to the phone's 10.4mm thickness and 180.3g weight. We are not complaining about

this heft because it is actually reassuring, and the Marathon M3 does feel comfortable to hold

and use with one hand.

The phone is running the latest Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) with Gionee's proprietary skin Amigo UI

on top of it. However, the flavour of Amigo in this phone is slightly different. Unlike the Gionee

Elife S5.1 (Review | Pictures) we reviewed a little while ago, Amigo UI on this phone has a

dedicated app drawer and home screens. In that sense, except for the bright colour palette, the

software is not too different from stock Android 4.4.2. Just like what we saw on the Elife S5.1,

Gionee bundles a ton of bloatware most of which are not fun to use. You'd be better off

deleting a few right at the onset of using the phone.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G Vs Yu Yureka Smartphone

Well, if Xiaomi can offer a 4G smartphone for under Rs 10,000 then Yu, Micromax co-brand can

better that by introducing Yureka for under Rs 9,000. Yu's Yureka has taken over the laurels of

becoming cheapest Android phone with 4G supports, right now in India. We expect more

names to follow up on this listing in the coming months but for now, Yu can live with that.

To give you a fairer idea about how Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G and Yu Yureka are similar to each

other on price point but different from experience point of view, we've made this comparison

chart. See for yourself and figure out the value offered by both these affordable 4G devices.

Brand Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G Yu Yureka (4G)

Price Rs 9,999 Rs 8,999

Display 5.5 inch HD with Corning Glass 3 5.5 inch HD with Corning Glass 3

OS MiUI 5 over Android 4.2 CyanogenMod 11S over Android 4.4

CPU Octa-core Mediatek 6592 Octa-core Snapdragon 615

RAM 2 GB 2 GB

Storage 8 GB exp. 32 GB 16 GB exp. 32 GB

Cameras 13 MP (rear) 5 MP (front) 13 MP (rear) 5 MP (front)

Battery 3100/3200 mAh 2500 mAh

Weight 199 grams 155 grams

Dimensions 154 x 78.7 x 9.5 mm 154.80 x 78.00 x 8.8

Dual-SIM Yes Yes

Available Online (Flipkart) Online (Amazon)

All in all, Redmi Note makes use of the existing credentials of Xiaomi in India, whereas Yu,

which might be a Micromax co-brand but still has a lot of work to do alongside Cyanogen Inc.

On paper Yureka sort of trumps the Redmi Note but we'll get more clarity on the performance

standards of Yureka in the coming weeks, when it will be available in the country. For now,

Yureka feels like a good start but as always, we want more.

Right Phablet At Right Price

Stay tuned more stories on the battle of Mi Vs Yu around the corner.

Microsoft Lumia 535 Dual SIM Review

The Lumia 535 Dual SIM is an important phone for Microsoft, as its first Windows Phone that

has been announced globally sans the iconic Nokia branding. Will the first Microsoft Lumia

phone manage to uphold the legacy of Nokia's great designs, build quality, performance and

cameras?

Look and feel

Not much is new in the design department, as the Microsoft Lumia 535 Dual SIM carries

forward the same trend of colorful plastic rear shells that we are accustomed to seeing with

Lumia phones. However, the build quality leaves a lot to be desired. We were thoroughly

unimpressed with the rear shell flexing when pressed, and the popping sound it makes because

it doesn't fit very well. This makes us believe that the plastic used for the rear shell is not of a

very high quality.

Microsoft uses on-screen buttons for navigation. Above the screen lie the front camera and the 

earpiece. There is a tiny speaker grille at the bottom on the rear. The primary camera is on a 

slight bump on the rear. The Micro-USB port is on the bottom of the phone whereas the 3.5mm 

audio jack sits on the top. The power button and volume rocker are on the right edge of the 

phone and they have great tactile feedback.

The phone has 5-megapixel cameras on both the rear and the front. The primary camera on the 

rear has a 1/4-inch sensor and a flash. The front camera on the other hand has the same 24mm 

wide angle lens as its elder sibling, the Lumia 730 Dual SIM. On the connectivity front, the 

phone supports 3G, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. It has a relatively small 1,905mAh battery.

Micromax's first Yu smartphone, Yureka launched with octa core chip for Rs 8,999

Micromax's first Yu brand smartphone, Yureka comes with Snapdragon 615 octa core CPU and a

huge 5.5 inch display. Micromax today unveiled a new brand Yu, as reported earlier. The first

phone under this brand is Yureka. The handset is priced at just Rs 8,999 and registration for the

phone will start from December 19 on Amazon.in. Micromax is also promising special gift worth

Rs 999.The Yureka comes with a 64 bit Snapdragon 615 octa core processor that has a clock

speed of 1.5 GHz and Adreno 405 GPU and claims to have Antutu benchmark score of 31117. It

comes with CAT 4 LTE (4G) connectivity that is said to be 15 times higher data transfer rate

offering speed up to 150 Mbps. Besides, it has a huge 5.5 inch IPS display but with only high

definition resolution and not full HD which would have made justice to this huge screen. The

display has though Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. It comes in Moonstone finish and comes

with a leather back panel. The Yureka has a 13 megapixel rear camera with f2.2 apreture and

Sony Exmor sensor and 5P lens. The camera can capture slow motion videos in 30 FPS. In the

front, it has a 5 megapixel camera with 4P lens and OV5648 sensor. It has 16 GB inbuilt storage

and 2 GB DDR3 RAM. There is an expandable storage slot too for a micro SD card of up to 32GB.

Besides, the Yureka has a 2500 mAh battery that claims to offer 7 hours of 4G talktime, or 8

hours of 3G talktime, or 9 hours of 2G talktime, or 6 hours of music playback with maximum

brightness. As is known, Yureka like all other Yu brand phones has a customised Cyanogen 11

operating system based on Android 4.4.4 version. As is known, it offers bootloader access to

help users come up with software upgrades that they want on their phones. Yureka users will

also be the first to get the Android 5.0 Lollipop update from Cyanogen. Besides, the phone will

allow users access to Kernel source and its warrantee will not be void if rooted. Micromax is

also promising free doorstep repair service (complaints can be genreated online) and promising

OTA (over the air) updates every month.

Verdicts: Bang for the Bucks.

Intex Aqua Xtreme

Intex on Thursday launched the octa-core Aqua Xtreme smart phone in India at Rs. 11,490. It is

a dual-SIM device which runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat out-of-the-box, but upgradable to Android

5.0 Lollipop, says Intex.

The Intex Aqua Xtreme features a 5-inch HD IPS display with scratch-free Dragontrail glass

protection. The smartphone is powered by a 1.7GHz true octa-core processor coupled with 2GB

of RAM.

It sports a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, while there is a secondary 5-megapixel

front-facing camera also onboard. The Intex Aqua Xtreme comes with 32GB of inbuilt storage,

which is further expandable via microSD card (up to 32GB).

On the connectivity front, the Intex Aqua Xtreme offers 3G, GPRS/ EDGE, Wi-Fi, Micro-USB,

Bluetooth, and FM radio options. The handset is backed by a 2000mAh battery and is 6.99mm

thick. The Aqua Xtreme is available in three colors options - Red, Black and Grey.