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LG mobiles has announced that their latest innovation the LG G Flex handset with curved flexible display with a self healing back cover will be available in India in February 2014, for a price tag of approx Rs. 60,000.

The price may seem a lot but considering the special features it may be worth it, and as the technology progresses it will become cheaper with time. The LG G Flex was in the news for quite some time especially for its curvy display that’s flexible too and the rear back cover that has the tendency to heal itself from minor scratches.

The G Flex sails on Android 4.2.2 OS with 2GB RAM and 32GB storage. There is no external card support. The curved P-OLED screen is 6 inches supporting resolution of 1280×720 pixels. The handset houses a 13MP rear AF camera with LED flash and front 2.1MP camera. The rear camera can record 1080p videos at 60fps where as the front camera can record the same in 30fps.

This handset is powered by MSM8974 Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 chipset (2.26GHz quad core Krait 400 + Adreno 330 GPU). There are magnetic, gyro, accelerometer and proximity sensors. Other features are (probably 4G), 3G, 2G, Wi-Fi (a/b/g/n/ac), GPS with GLONASS/A-GPS, NFC and Bluetooth 4.0. There is a non-removable battery of 3500 mAh capacity.

Though the specs are good we hope LG upgrades the OS from 4.2 to the latest available before launching the handset in India.

Be-Bound is a new mobile app for Android that uses text messaging as the means by which to provide internet access at very low bandwidths to mobile devices when there is little or no data connectivity available through a Wi-Fi or 3G connection.

Most travellers will have experienced the frustration of being disconnected from the internet when abroad – or facing expensive hotel Wi-Fi charges to go online.

But those days are set to be consigned to the recycle bin of history thanks to a new free Android app called Be-Bound that connects users to the web even when there’s no data connectivity.

It doesn’t need a Wi-Fi signal, 3G or 4G to work, but instead moves information around on the 2G network, the same bandwidth used to send text messages

The app, which launched in the UK on October 21, includes built-in applications for email, weather report, news, stocks quotes, geolocation services and even Twitter.

‘We started with a simple observation: everybody has faced connection issues, even in covered areas like trains, subways, indoor buildings or any other areas with poor or limited connectivity,’ said Albert Szulman, CEO of Paris-based Be-Bound.

‘We aim to connect the world. There’s no plan or contract, you buy credits, and use it.’

Be-Bound’s app requires no infrastructure investment and will eventually works with every phone carrier in the world.

The service is free when there’s a data network available, with users having to spend prepaid messaging credits called Be-miles when there isn't.

The price for 80 Be-miles is currently £4.30. 'Light' apps like the stock exchange or weather use one Be-Mile, apps that use up more memory like email or the search function use two Be-Miles or more.

It's Bound to be popular.

The Lava Iris 352e, a dual SIM, dual core handset is priced at under Rs. 3,800. This handset runs on Android 4.2, comes with 2MP rear camera and sports a 3.5 inch HVGA screen. Is it worth the price? Find out.

Box pack

Inside the box you will find the 352e handset, 1450 mAh battery, screen guard, a free silicon back cover for added protection, power adapter, data cable, earphone and user manual.

Design, display and OS

The handset weight is just 108 grams with battery, it is not at all slim (12.3mm thick), breadth is 62.63 and length is 118.05. The black and silver color combination gives an elegant look.

The front side and the rear are black color. The rear side is matte finish and feels like rubber. The sides have got a silver line (matte finish) that runs all the way around, surrounding the micro usb port. The top side looks bulky cause of the ports and the bottom side gets narrower following a curve.

The volume rockers are placed on the left side and power button / micro USB port and 3.5mm audio jack are placed on the top side. There is 2MP FF camera on the rear along with speaker out vent.

The TFT screen is 3.5 inches supporting 480×320 pixels resolution (262K colors). The viewing angles are not at all good (for the price you cannot expect something better), though the touch is smooth and responsive.

There is only one sensor the accelerometer and the screen supports 2 point multi touch. Lava Iris 352e sails on Android 4.2.2 OS.

Memory and storage

This is a low budget handset and hence comes with minimal RAM of 256MB. Of the 256MB RAM, on the first boot you will get around 129MB free. There is 512MB internal storage (ROM), of which 147MB is assigned for apps – the free space is 100MB and there is a Phone storage of 12.15MB of which 11.18MB is available. External SD card of up to 32GB is supported and you can move / install apps on external storage. OTG is not supported.

Performance

Though the Lava Iris 352e is powered by the known MT6572 chipset it is clocked at 1GHz with Mali 400 GPU does not performance like the 1.3GHz MT6572 dual core, probably because of low RAM (256MB). The performance is okay but at times it does lag.

Benchmark scores

Quadrant Standard – 2684.

AnTuTu – 9176.

Vellamo – did not run cause of Low free memory.

Nenamark 2 – 47.4 fps

Multi touch : 2 points.

Gaming, Camera and entertainment

The Gaming experience is not at all good. But cannot really complain because of the price tag. This handset is not for gaming users. I could install the Asphalt 8 on the external card, however when playing the game it got stuck on the menu screen (check video review).

The hardware is capable but the main issue is low RAM. I tried installing the Temple run 2 but it failed (it was trying to install on the app/ internal storage). I guess very few games will work or low end games that can directly install on external storage.

There is 2MP fixed focus camera on the rear without flash and VGA camera on the front. In video mode there is 720p option however the videos got recorded in 864×480 pixels resolution. The still camera /video recording quality are not at all good.

As far as entertainment is concerned you can watch 720p videos in MX player with ease using both H/W and S/W modes.

Others

Sound is loud and clear. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth worked well. This handset does not support 3G, but does support the 2G networks (GPRS / EDGE). There is no built in GPS receiver.

Battery

The 1450 mAh battery seems decent enough. When running the benchmark apps for approx 17 minutes the battery level dropped by 6 percent. You can expect a 3 to 5 hours of battery life with continuous usage (both cores used).

Verdict

It is a low cost handset for Rs. 3,692 and for the price it is a good handset, do note there is no 3G support. Do not buy it for gaming and for its camera. Apart from this if your usage is limited to phone calls, social networks, surfing etc and in case will not be using heavy apps, then this is a good, cheaper option.

The dual SIM iBall Andi 5.5 N2 handset with a 5.5 inch screen is now available on Amazon for 13,799 and on Snapdeal for Rs. 13,215. The Andi 5.5 N2 is not yet listed on the iBall official website.

The specification on Snapdeal are not accurate. The technical specifications part seems to be a copy past of some other model and Snapdeal have forgotten to update it (they might correct that anytime).

The iBall Andi 5.5 N2 is powered by 1.2GHz quad core processor (Chipset unknown). It runs on Android 4.2 with 1GB RAM and probably 4GB storage. The screen is 5.5 inches with 720p resolution. This dual SIM handset also comes with 12MP rear auto focus camera and 2MP front camera.

Other features are 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. Battery is 2500 mAh capacity. There are quite a few 5.5 inch handsets available in the market. The iBall Andi 5.5 N2 will compete with Karbonn Titanium S9, Gionee GPad G3, Spice Mi-550 and the Xolo Q2000.

For now the handset can be purchased online for Rs. 13,215.

MX100 is a low cost basic phone with an impressive battery capacity of 4400 mAh. This handset is priced at Rs. 1,932 only. The Maxx MX100 power house leader is targeted at users looking for a secondary backup phone with excellent battery life and those living in rural areas.

It is a compete value for money. This handset supports dual SIM (GSM+GSM) and comes with a 4400 mAh battery which is the key attraction. The phone also comes with built in LED torch and is of a good built quality.

According to Krishna Singh, the COO of Maxx Mobiles there is a good demand of affordable mobile handsets in rural areas. Maxx MX100 is a perfect device that meets the expectations and has been built with rural consumers in mind. It is a very basis phone but loaded with good features like dual SIM, MP3 / MP4 player, Bluetooth and a digital camera.

The Motorola Moto G may probably hit the Indian markets in Jan 2014, but if you cannot wait you can buy the Moto G from ebay.in. The online store has the ‘G’ listed – 8GB version for Rs. 15,990 and the 16GB version for Rs. 17,990.

The Moto G handset will be shipped from United States, it supports Global GSM i.e. any GSM SIM card will work. Shipping is free but it could take few days to weeks to get the handset delivered in India. After sales support could be an issue in case the device has some problems. Shipping is free, so in all you pay Rs. 15,990 and Rs. 17,990 depending on storage options.

The Motorola G runs on Android 4.3 with 8GB /16GB storage options. There is 1GB on-board RAM. This handset is powered by 1.2GHz quad core processor (Qualcomm Snapdragon 400) with Adreno 305 GPU. Screen is 4.5 inches with HD resolution (1280x720p). Other features are 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4 and GPS. This is single SIM handset and also includes a 1.3MP front camera and 5MP rear camera with LED flash. Battery is 2070 mAh capacity.

The Moto G is yet to make its way into the Indian Markets but is available on ebay.in. For the price it surely will give tough competition to budget quad core handsets that are already quite popular.

Moto G 8GB Rs. 15,990.

Moto G 16GB Rs. 17,990.

Samsung Galaxy Win Pro G3812 is listed on the Samsung (cn) website. When you compare the Win Pro features with the Samsung Galaxy Win sold as Galaxy Grand Quattro in India you will find that some features are downgraded while some upgraded.

The key difference is the screen – Galaxy Win (Quattro) is with 4.7 inch TFT screen supporting 800×480 pixels resolution whereas the Galaxy Pro G3812 sports a smaller screen size of 4.5 inches (TFT) but with slightly higher resolution of qHD (960×540 pixels).

The battery capacity on the Win Pro model is +100mAh more i.e 2100 mAh. The older version (Quattro) ran on Android 4.1.2 and Galaxy Win Pro sails on Android 4.2. Rest of the features look the same. There is 5MP rear AF camera with flash and front VGA camera. Wino Pro can record 720p videos.

The Samsung Galaxy Win Pro G3812 is powered by 1.2GHZ quad core processor. Other features are 3G, 2G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS. There is no mention of the RAM and internal storage on the Samsung (cn) website.

When (and if) launched in India (probably by the name Samsung Galaxy Quattro Pro) we can expect the price to be around the same at what the Samsung Galaxy Win Duos I8552 (Grand Quattro) is priced at (Rs. 14K to 16K).

The Karbonn Titanium X that briefly showed up on the Karbonn website is priced at Rs. 18,500. The handset does come with full HD screen and the specification are now mentioned on the official website.

When the Titanium X was first mentioned there was confusion regarding the screen resolution, now it is confirmed that the 5 inch OGS IPS screen is with 1920x1080p (full HD) resolution. The specifications still does not clearly indicate the chipset or the processor, but the image on the X page does mention a 1.5GHz quad core that points to MediaTek MT6589T chipset with SGX 544MP GPU, however if you look at the Karbonn Titanium S7 specifications it is the same as X, this could mean that the X may come with some other chipset probably Snapdragon, better wait and watch..

The Karbonn Titanium X dual SIM handset is 9.9mm thick and weight is around 143 grams. It sails on android 4.2 with 1GB RAM and 16GB storage, plus 32GB external SD card support. There is 13MP rear auto focus camera with dual LED flash and front camera of 5MP resolution. Full HD video recording / playback is supported.

Other features are 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. Not sure if the handset supports NFC cause the graphics does show NFC support but the same is not mentioned in the specifications. The removable battery is 2300 mAh capacity with talk-time of up to 6 hours and can be fully charged in about 3 hours.

The Karbonn Titanium X will hit the stores within few days for a price of Rs. 18,490.

The YotaPhone that was unveiled at the MWC event a few months back has finally been launched. Yota, a Russian company specialized in Modem development has now entered into the Smartphone domain. The YotaPhone is their first smartphone with a unique touch!

The YotaPhone comes with dual touchscreen. There is a main 4.3 inch LCD screen with 1280×720 pixels resolution and another 4.3 inch on the rear with 640×360 pixels resolution. The rear side is with E-Ink display that consumes minimal power.

The rear e-ink display can be used to view information without waking up the phone. The YotaPhone also comes with gesture options and a put2Back app that can be used to assign apps to run on the e-ink display for example you can assign social networking apps like Twitter to show up on the rear display – you can view the tweets without having to wake up the phone, what’s more the E-ink or electronic paper display is always on.

The E-ink display is 50% thinner, lighter and easily blends with the back side without taking up much space and is always on. The YotaPhone rear screen supports black and white colors.

This handset runs on Android 4.2.2 with 2GB RAM and 32GB on board storage. YotaPhone is powered by 1.7GHz MSM8960 Qualcomm Snapdragon dual core processor. The weight is 146 grams and thickness is 9.9mm. There is 13MP rear camera (AF) with flash and full HD video recording support and front camera of 1MP resolution.

Other features are 4G, 3G, Bluetooth 4, GOS with GLONASS/A-GPS and Wi-Fi (a/b/g/n). The battery is 1800 mAh capacity. The handset is available in Russia for approx Rs. 45K. Not sure if this handset will make its way into the Indian markets.

HTC has launched 3 new Desire models HTC Desire 709d, HTC Desire 7060 and HTC Desire 7088 in China. These handsets are powered by quad core processor and the pricing details are not yet disclosed. We are not sure if these handsets will be rolled out in other countries.

As mentioned these handsets are powered by quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor clocked at 1.2GHz coupled with Adreno 203 GPU. All of these 3 handsets sports a 5 inch Super LCD 2 screen with qHD resolution, 8MP rear auto focus camera and 2.1MP front camera. These handsets come with dual SIM slot and HTC BOOM Sound speakers.

The HTC Desire 709d, HTC Desire 7060 and HTC Desire 7088 runs in Jelly Bean OS with Sense 5 user interface. Internal storage is 8GB and RAM could be 1GB (not confirmed). It seems that all these 3 desire handset come with the same hardware but in different design and layout.

Let’s wait and see if the new HTC Desire handsets are made available in India.