PhoneRadar Report – Episode 2

It’s time for second episode of the PhoneRadar Report, where you get the glimpse of the latest in all things mobile.

News Report:

Proceeding with announcements in India:

1. This week we saw launch of the Lenovo Sisley S90, although the name might be a bit silly, but the handset features pretty decent specs, starting with a Snapdragon 410 processor. The S90 comes with 5-inch Super AMOLED display and is priced at a pretty steep pricing of INR 19,990. Lenovo is known to keep aggressive pricing for its flagship, mid- range and even a budget range smartphones like the recently launch A6000 which is doing pretty good in the Indian Market sold through the flash sales.
2. Continuing the talk about Indian market, there has been a bunch of analysis reports popping this week about the smartphone market share in the country. While the Canalys report stated that, Micromax accounted for 22% of smartphone sales in India in the quarter of October-December last year, which is ahead of Samsung’s 20% share in the same quarter. But after bursting this news, Samsung responded that there shares in India are not down, instead according the report shared by company officials, which was done by counterpoint research, state that Samsung shipped 27.4 percent of smartphones in the country in Q4 2014, while Micromax shipped 19.5 percent. Its time these brands come up by pushing their actual data off rather than fighting based on these third party reports.

Talking about the international announcements:

1. Vivo couldn’t hold on to the title of making the world’s slimmest smartphone, for long. The 4.75mm thick Vivo X5 Max is now the second slimmest, with the Coolpad Ivvi K1 Mini becoming the slimmest at 4.7mm, and it comes from a Chinese brand Coolpad. While the other slim devices have no much compromise with the specs, the Ivvi K1 Mini doesn’t seem like a high-end device with the specs included. It is priced at just $210 and comes with 4.7-inch display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor (64-bit, quad-core 1.2 GHz CPU), 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage. The cameras included are an 8-megapixel rear and 5-megapixel front-facing shooter, while the device has 1800 mAh battery. The 4G LTE connectivity support will be there as well.
2. ZTE BLADE S6 LUX was another smartphone launched in China this week, which is a 64 bit powered device, and will be shipped with Android 5.0 lollipop. The phone is priced at around $320. The Blade S6 Lux is a bigger variant of recently launched Blade S6, which has a 5-inch display. While other specs are mostly similar to the original Blade S6, like the 2GB RAM, 13MP rear camera, 5MP front camera, and it will pack 2400mAh battery.
3. Coming down to some software news, did you just receive Lollipop update? Feeling good that your smartphone is running the latest OS? Too bad, Google just announced Android 5.1 Lollipop! Too early? I don’t think so. Considering it brings much-awaited improvements, it’s a welcoming update. You can read the change-log where we had mentioned about the AndroidOne series being launched in Indonesia with this 5.1 Lollipop update.
4. On a side note, there are some images leaked of what appears to be the cases of Samsung Galaxy S6 and its dual-edge screen variant. The covers are made by South Korean manufacturer, versus.

Review Report:

This week we reviewed the Redmi Note 4G, which faces stiff competition from the likes of Lenovo A6000, Yu Yureka and even the Nokia Lumia 730. The battery life and a decent camera keep the Note 4G a bit ahead than the other mentioned phones, but on the other side, the company’s 3G variant of Redmi Note has a better overall performance.

The most important point apart from the connectivity, in this smartphone, is the chipset powering it. Qualcomm Snapdragon 400, Adreno 305 GPU and 2GB RAM comes on the 4G model. On the other hand, the 3G one had an octa-core CPU (with all cores running at the same time), Mali 450MP4 GPU and 2GB RAM. While there’s always a fight about the processors and Qualcomm comes out as a winner, it isn’t the case here.

The Redmi Note 4G, in the first flash sale sold about 40,000 units in just six seconds according to Xiaomi India which clearly points that there is a decent interest from the consumers. The difference between the two devices, is with the processor that runs the device, and the data network connectivity. Now, with the limited 4G connectivity in India, and with some good contenders already in the market, will the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G prove its worth? We find out in the detailed review of Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G.

App Report:

Coming to the App Report. This week you should check out TunnelBear VPN Application which unblocks websites and allows you to browse privately. The idea is that you get free VPN connection through your smart phone to any country. If you are a person who is interested in buying gadgets from US then you would have noticed that certain websites like the Google Play Store is accessible only to people from the US. In these situations you need a VPN App which connects you to the Tunnelbear’s servers around US, Canada, UK, Netherlands, Japan, Australia, and more.

The application is free and its one of the must install app for your Android or iPhone and make sure you are ready to Unblock your favourite websites.

Keep sending your suggestions, feedback & we would love to read them. Hope to see you in the next one.