A cheaper nexus one for India?

Apparently, Google is planning to launch a cheaper, stripped down version of their nexus one phone in India. Here is a tweet by CNBC-TV18 reporter Ankit, who  met Google India head Shailesh Rao in an editorial meet:

Nexus One will not come to India in its US avatar, the India specific Google Phone may be a stripped down version and priced lower!

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Tata Docomo launches first Android powered handset in India

Looks like Tata Docomo is all set to compete with the big players in India. After starting the per second billing war, they are now getting into the Smartphone market in India with the launch of Android powered Samsung Galaxy (I7500) handset.

Here is a run down of the features:

Android 2.0 is here and it’s good

Google has revealed the new Android 2.0 API and the video below is not only a great introduction, but it actually looks very good. Now if Droid does what all it says, I’m leaving the Apple camp.

Features in brief:

• Accessible anywhere Contacts and with something they call Quick Contact.
• Support for multiple screen sizes in a write-once run-anywhere sort of way.
• Full Bluetooth 2.1 support for those awesome games.
• Exchange support
• Full multitouch and many other tweaks and improvements.

[via Gizmodo]

Palm Pre Intro Movie

Palm Pre was recently launched under much speculation. It has received good reviews from most of the popular blogs. It is a good choice for people who do not like the iPhone. Here is the movie which plays when you switch on the phone for the first time. It shows you what all you can do with the awesome gestures on the Pre:

Is it just me or does the island really look like the one in the famous TV series Lost?

How Nokia tests for durability

I’ve always appreciated how durable those plasticky Nokia phones are. I appreciated that even more when I broke my iPhone while playing iBaseball

Nokia Test Labs

Now after watching the Nokia Labs tour video by AAS guys, I’ve become even more of a fan of the build quality of Nokia’s phones.

A few facts to get you interested:

• On an average they break 2000 pieces to test each model.
• 2000 different mechanical tests.
• Temperature range from -40° C to 85° C.
• Super slow motion cameras for drop tests. 100,000 frames/second!
• All keys/buttons/sliders are tested almost a million times.

You can see many more pictures from the labs at Gizmodo. Make sure you watch their brilliant slow-motion drop test video too.

[via All About Symbian & Gizmodo]

Samsung U900 Soul [Mobile Phones]

Since a last few months Samsung has been trying really hard to capture the fancy of Indian mobile market. From making Aamir Khan a brand ambassador to launching some really sleek phones, they have been clear like anything that they want a lion’s share in the world’s 2nd largest mobile market.

All these years, Samsung has never managed to impress me enough to make me recommend any of their phones to anyone. But now they have come up with an exciting lineup that surely deserves a look. Let’s see how alive is the Samsung Soul.

Samsung U900 Soul

Let’s look at the specifications.

At the first look the Soul looks just like other Samsung phones, a thin metal slider. But look closely and you realize that this one has much better finish and actually looks good and solid. The dimensions are very comfortable and really slim for a 5 Megapixel camera phone, almost 30% slimmer than it’s rivals Nokia N95/N96 but it’s in no way the slimmest of all phones.

Samsung U900 Soul Dimensions

Just below the average 2.2″ display is the wow factor of the phone. It is a touch OLED display with haptic feedback. I personally like navigation buttons to be hard as they allow me to control stuff in media players without looking but this sure looks awesome. Play around with it on the Samsung Soul microsite, you’d love it!

Samsung Soul OLED Touchpad

The major selling point of the phone is it’s camera. A 5 Megapixel camera with all the features you could imagine. It has the usual autofocus, LED flash and a macro mode. But the cool and new features are Face Detection, Image Stabilization and Wide Dynamic Range.

• Face Detection allows the phone to detect faces in the picture and focus upon them, resulting in better focus and details.
• Image Stabilization is not optical but electronic so it actually works like Auto ISO mode in digital cameras. If the camera suspects shake, it boosts the ISO hence allowing the shutter to stay open for a lower duration. The increase in ISO increases the noise but you get a sharper picture in the end. In a nutshell, it’s gimmicky.
• The Wider Dynamic Range also is a gimmicky feature but a bit more useful. It actually works like Nikon D-lighting and enhances the contrast in such a way that typically darker/shadowy areas are brightened up a notch making up for a more balanced picture.

The most important thing though is that how is the picture quality. All 3 of my favorite expert reviewers, GSMArena, Mobile-Review and MobileBurn, share a common opinion. The camera is great. If not better, it’s almost as good as the Nokia N95 camera which we know is as good a benchmark as any.

Coming to media playing capabilities, the phone features an ICEpower® amp developed by Bang & Olufsen which is supposed to sound great. The phone has no huge inbuilt storage but allows adding microSD cards to store your media. It also doesn’t have a 3.5 inch port but bundles an adapter that allows you to plugin your own set of headphones. And yes, it also allows Bluetooth audio streaming and has and FM Radio. All in all, it’s a decent music player solution.

The phone has a proprietary Operating System and only Java application support. While it is limiting, it still allows you to install the ever improving Opera Mini and browse the web as should be done.

In conclusion, I am surprised to say, I really like the Samsung Soul. It’s a great feature packed solution and performs well in almost all areas. It’s not a phone for the geeks as it lacks proper application support (like Series 60/Windows Mobile or Apple phones), has no WiFi, no decent email support etc etc. But it’s not made for geeks. It’s a simple phone for fashion conscious people that find the Nokia N95 too heavy and clunky for their needs. If only it was priced around 15k INR, I would’ve recommended it to anyone blindly. But at around the 20k region, there are better options like Nokia 6220 Classic and Nokia N82. I’d suggest giving them a look before you buy the Samsung Soul.