Fly E171 Review

Fly mobile is a less popular brand of mobile handsets in the mobile industry as compared to Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Nokia etc. But E171 proves that it is time we gave Fly the due credit and well deserved appreciation. This handset has all the features that are, if not better, then atleast comparable to all the bigger brand names.

This dual sim handset has a TFT-LCD full touchscreen with a resolution count of240×400 pixels. The touch is decent and even the resolution count is good enough. But when compared to Samsung Corby, Fly E171 definitely falls a little short of the pixel count .It is a really light weight phone of 95g contrary to what the touch and solid body suggests.

This is one gem of a mobile phone when connectivity comes into the picture. You name it and you’ve got all possible kind of connectivity options; like Wi-Fi, GPRS, and WAP browser. Bluetooth and FM radio are the other two requisites fulfilled by the handset. The music player quality is one issue that has always concerned the owners of Fly products.E171 has definitely tried to work hard upon in this point but still hasn’t been a good as that of Nokia 5800 xpress music or Sony Ericsson W980.

Fly E171 is also equipped with a 3.2 MP camera with a video recording feature but it lacks flash. The battery is a 1000mAh but only gives 3 hrs of talk time which is another shortcoming of this handset.E171 is a good handset but not something you won’t get for the same price in a brand of your choice.

Read more »

ZTE Tania Phone

With Android phones like the popularSkate, ZTE devices have so far offered smart phone functions without the usual sky-high price tag. The Tania is ZTE's first Windows Phone and it's hoping the large, clear screen and typically low price will attract those after some Windows fun on a budget.

It's available soon on contracts between £10 and £20 per month. We've gone hands-on with the Tania to bring you this preview, but keep your eyes peeled for a full review when one lands in our office.

Design and build quality

The ZTE Tania -- we're pronouncing it like the name Tanya, although the company laughably says Tann-ay-ah -- isn't part of the budget smart phone crowd that aims to be small enough to swallow (we're looking at you, HTC Explorer). Instead, it offers mightier dimensions for some proper fist-filling fun.

It's packing a 4.3-inch screen, which is the same size as you'd find on the gloriousSamsung Galaxy S2. That large display gives the Tania an overall length of 129mm and a width of 68mm. Those are pretty much identical proportions to the newMotorola Razr, which we found sat comfortably in our hands when typing in landscape mode or playing games, but was perhaps slightly awkward to hold and type in one hand.

The Tania's 4.3-inch screen is impressively high-res for a budget blower.

Unlike the Razr's 7.1mm thickness, the Tania comes in at just under 11mm. It's certainly not what you'd call chubby, but it's lacking the stunning razor-sharp design that'll turn heads in a cocktail bar. It weighs in at 158g, which is heavier than the Razr, but won't drag your trousers down.

We only had a limited hands-on with the Tania, but we made sure to give it a good squeeze and poke. The back casing didn't seem to offer the firm quality we like to see, but overall the phone seemed well put together and didn't leave us with any immediate concerns about durability. We'll make sure to sufficiently mistreat it in our full review to see just how sturdy it is.

In terms of looks, the Tania isn't particularly remarkable. The whole front of the phone is dominated by the screen, below which are the three dedicated Windows Phone touch-sensitive buttons for navigating around.

The 5-megapixel camera won't impress anyone, but you can't expect much at this price.

Around the back is a plain expanse of black, punctuated by the 5-megapixel camera and the Windows Phone logo at the bottom. It's hardly the most stylish blower available, so if you really want to make a statement, you might want to check out the LG Prada phone.

Screen

The 4.3-inch screen has a resolution of 480x800 pixels, which we're really rather pleased with for a phone in this price range. It's the same resolution as the Galaxy S2, so browsing the web or reading your email won't require quite as much swiping around to see everything.

It's not the Super AMOLED Plus display we loved on the S2, however, so we're not expecting it to have the same vivid colours and deep contrast. In our eyes-on, it seemed pretty bright and colourful, but we were in a dark room, where even the dimmest of screens can shine like a star going supernova.

We'll leave our final verdict on the screen for our full review, but we're pretty confident it's at least good enough to display your photos without embarrassment and will probably do the odd YouTube clip justice as well. The resolution is certainly impressive.

Windows Phone Mango

The Tania is the first ZTE phone to offer Windows Phone software rather than Android. It's packing the latest version of Microsoft's software, 7.5 -- codenamed Mango -- which fills the phone with big, colourful live tiles.

Although very much the underdog in the smart phone world, we're really rather keen on Windows Phone. The tiles are very easy to use and the integration of your Xbox Live account and social networks is particularly handy for gaming and Facebook addicts.

It's not the most powerful mobile, but Windows Phone is as smooth and classy as ever.

Currently, Windows Phone lags far behind Android and iOS in the size of its app store. You can get most of your essentials, such as Spotify and the ever-popularAngry Birds, but it's got a long way to go before it challenges the hundreds of thousands of apps available to Android and iPhone users.

We're hoping that the more popular the platform becomes, the more developers will create apps that really take advantage of the interface. Budget phones such as this are a great way to expand the market and convince devs it's worth making apps for Windows.

Performance

Stuffed inside the Tania is a 1GHz processor paired up with 512MB of RAM. Compared to the dual-core offerings of the higher-end smart phones, that's nothing special, but it's a fair chunk more firepower than the 600MHz offering on the HTC Explorer.

We weren't able to perform our usual arsenal of processor-shattering tests on it, but swiping around the home screen, loading menus and booting up apps seemed quick and responsive. Once you start to fill it up with power-hungry live tiles it's likely to slow down, but it seems like it's off to a good start.

read more: http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/mobile-phones/zte-tania-review-50006712/

Read more »

Motorola MILESTONE 2 Review

Here is the FoneArena Motorola Milestone 2 Review, the latest version of the handset that saved Motorola in the past. It is unbelievable that barely two years ago, Motorola was on death knell. Then the company announced and release the Droid/Milestone, a high-end Android smartphone that was well received by smartphone enthusiasts. It was a remarkable comeback for Motorola and the rest, as they say, was history.

The Milestone 2 is Motorola’s successor to the successful Milestone. With the Milestone 2, Motorola aimed to fix what was wrong with the original Milestone and also keep the specs current and relevant. Announced in late 2010, it is their current flagship QWERTY device and features a slide out full four-row QWERTY keyboard. In a world of nearly identical keyboard-less slate Android devices, the Milestone 2 is one of the few modern high-end smartphones remaining aimed at people who are stubbornly clinging on to physical keyboard.

The specs read like a typical late 2010 high-end product. Powering the Android 2.2 (Froyo) device is a TI OMAP3630 chipset with a single core 1 GHz Cortex A8 processor and PowerVR SGX530 GPU. The device has 512MB RAM for running applications and 8GB internal flash storage for installing applications. A 1400mAh Li-Pol battery ensures the device runs from at least a couple of hours a day to two days depending on how heavily used.

Other features includes quad band GSM, dual band 3G HSDPA, accelerometer, proximity sensor, WiFi 802.11b/g/n, DLNA, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with A2DP, GPS receiver and 5MP camera with auto-focus and dual LED flash (including support for Geo-tagging) and electronic compass. The microSDHC card slot supports cards up to 32GB (the maximum currently supported by the standard).

Motorola has kept the packaging of the Milestone 2 to a minimum. The box is small which reduces wastage. Included with the Milestone 2 is a USB cable, a USB wall charger and a pair of earphones. It also comes with a 8GB microSDHC card for expansion.

The Milestone 2 is not only attractive, it is well designed. On the right side you will find the volume keys. The power button and 3.5mm headphone jack can be found on the top. The microUSB port and LED to indicate charging resides on the left side. The front is dominated by the display and four touch sensitive keys: menu, home, back and search. I am not a fan of touch sensitive keys as they are easy to accidentally activate. Above the display are the earpiece, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor and LED notification.

The rear of the phone features a 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash. Like all phones, the lens itself is protected by a glass. The glass itself isn’t protected by a cover however. Opening the battery cover reveals the battery. Unfortunately the microSDHC slot isn’t hot-swappable as the battery is in the way.

The Milestone 2 looks and feels smaller than it is. It is slightly thicker than the keyboard-less Nokia N8, just a bit slimmer than HTC’s Desire Z and about the same as the QWERTY toting Nokia E7. Below is a comparison of the thickness of the Milestone 2 with other devices. From bottom to top: HTC Touch Pro 2, Motorola Milestone 2, Nokia N8, Samsung Galaxy Ace, Nokia 5630 and iPod Touch 4G (in case).

The built quality of the Milestone 2 is brilliant. It is almost entirely clad in metal. Even the battery door is metal with rubber texture on the outside to help with grip. At 169g, the Milestone 2 is reassuringly hefty. The bottom half of the slider (the one that houses the keyboard) is heavier which helps with balance and usage.

The keyboard is plastic in nature and offers decent feedback. The much maligned D-pad on the original Milestone is gone, replaced by four arrow keys on the bottom right. The keys are thus bigger and more evenly spread over the surface. I was also disappointed to find that the keyboard was only limited to four rows of keys.

While I initially hated the keyboard, after two weeks of us I’ve grown used to it and actually prefer it to the on screen QWERTY keyboard. Key travels are small and top row is built too close to the display making it difficult for people with stubby thumbs. It isn’t the best keyboard on a smartphone I’ve ever used, but it isn’t the worst either. The keyboard has a backlight, which makes typing in the dark a breeze.

The 3.7” capacitive TFT display with 480×854 pixel resolution is sharp and has sufficient brightness. The colours are well presented and aren’t as over saturated as those on an AMOLED display. This may be good or bad depending on your books. Personally while I do not mind the saturation of an AMOLED display, as I prefer the flexibility offered by TFT displays where you can use white background without overwhelming the battery. An IPS display like the one featured on the iPhone 4 would have been a better compromise. A Gorilla Glass coating provides resistance against light scratching.

The Milestone 2 runs on Android 2.2 (Froyo) customised with Motorola’s MOTOBLUR UI. Motorola has promised that Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) will be made available as a firmware update sometime this year but have not given any clear date as to when they will unleash it. Having been using the Milestone 2 for two weeks, it is clear that the Milestone 2 is in dire need of an update. Compared to a Gingerbread running Nexus S, the Milestone 2 is slow and almost always struggle to cope with multi-tasking. A snappy device this isn’t.

Almost all Android manufacturers are installing some form of custom UI in order to differentiate and MOTOBLUR is Motorola’s attempt to take on HTC Sense UI and Samsung’s TouchWiz. The love it or hate it UI doesn’t completely skin the whole of Android, but its presence is clearly felt in the homescreen. Unlike Samsung’s TouchWiz, Motorola did not attempt to skin the application launcher.

Motorola has made it very easy to migrate from another Motorola device with MOTOBLUR. I simply logged in to the account I previously set up when reviewing the Motorola DEFY and voilà, all the widgets were set up to the appropriate social networking accounts.

Speaking of widgets, the MOTOBLUR features plenty of them, both the default Android widgets and their own. The resizeable widgets are boxy and offer no control over their transparencies. I am not saying they are ugly, but it does take some getting used to especially when compared to third party widgets. Having said that I love how we can customised each of the social networking widgets to only display updates from a certain group of friends or tweeps I am following. It makes it much easier to keep updated on people who matters most.

Other widgets included are Weather, a self explanatory Sticky Note, Picture Frame, News and Calendar. You can easily download free and paid widgets via the Android Market. There are seven screens to populate the widgets across, which should be plenty.

As expected for a device that comes with a QWERTY keyboard, the Milestone 2 is an excellent messaging device. Built over Google’s now almost mature Android platform, the Milestone 2 has a universal messaging application with support for standard text messaging (including MMS), Google Mail, Facebook and Twitter direct messages. It also supports other email services. Threaded messaging is included as default. Universal Inbox is where everything goes into and can get overwhelming. There is also a dedicated GMail application available from the Android Market.

The Webkit browser is a good performer. As the Milestone 2 is bundled with Adobe Flash 10.1, it handles Flash content well. I’ve had no issues loading YouTube and Flash-based games, apart from the odd stutters associated with the device. The browser works like any modern smartphone browsers do – it was pinch to zoom, as well as tap to zoom. Text reflow makes it easier to browse websites that are not mobile optimised.

Coming from Motorola it wasn’t surprising to find that the Milestone 2’s reception was excellent and I’ve not encountered any major issues with my two sim cards (Three UK and T-Mobile UK). The phone supports HSDPA so is theoretically capable of downloading at speeds up to 10.2Mbps, but as always this is dependent on many factors like network base station and congestions, as well as the kind of data plan the user has. Call quality is excellent as it comes with a dual microphone with active noise cancellation.

The built-in GPS receiver is good to get a cold lock, even with aGPS turned off. With aGPS turned on (wireless networks), locks are almost instantaneous. While Google Maps is preloaded, it is advisable to download the latest version from Android Market. Where available, Google Maps also provide Street View and voice navigation.

The 5MP camera is usable in daylight but forget about using it in areas with poor lighting. Get a compact camera instead. It also supports 720p video recording. There is no front camera so forget about face to face video calling. Below are samples from the Milestone 2′s camera. Click on them for the full unedited image.

Read more »

Samsung Galaxy Y (GT-S5360) Review

PRICE IN INDIA

6,850
View Stores

TECH2 RATING

6.5

AVERAGE USER RATING

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

8.0

Write a Review

How we test

Budget Android devices are gaining popularity as the ‘high-end’ specifications are finally starting to trickle down to phones under Rs.10,000. Samsung’s latest Galaxy Y is one such example of an affordable, yet very much user friendly Android phone. It’s designed for the young teenager on a budget, something his/her parents don’t want to spend a lot on, but at the same time save the kid from being ridiculed by his peers. Design and Build The Galaxy Y is small and compact and with just a 3.0-inch screen, it’s clearly designed for those with small hands. It’s quite light at just 97.5g and rounded edges lend it a very sober look. Although it has been built mostly out of plastic, it does not feel very plasticky and the matt finish on the cover attracts fewer fingerprints. On the front, we just have a proximity sensor, but no front facing camera or an ambient light sensor. A smart looking phone The buttons, include a volume rocker and a power/sleep button and... that’s it. The 3.5mm headphone jack and microUSB port is placed at the top. It’s a good setup with the buttons being easy to press and within reach of your fingers. None of the shortcut buttons are backlit, there’s just a physical home button and two capacitive ones. The sensitivity is good, but at times some of the inputs failed to register. Overall, the design is pleasing; it’s simple, yet functional. The build quality feels like it can handle accidental drops without shattering. Features Interface Samsung has bundled the latest Android 2.3.6 along with a stripped down version of Touchwiz UI. Thanks to the 830MHz ARM v6 chipset, the Galaxy Y is a peppy little phone. Swiping through homescreens and apps is quick and relatively fluid with very little to no lag. A familiar looking interface This being TouchWiz, you get the handy toggle switches in the notification bar and the colourful icons that go with it. My only issue with the screen is the low resolution and 240 x 320 is just too less. The edges of practically everything look a bit blurry and pixellated and there’s quite bad colour banding noticeable on the homescreen as well as videos. Media Samsung once again brings its A-game in the audio department. The music player is borrowed from their other phones like the Galaxy S and S II and features 5.1 channel audio enhancements. There are also equalizer presets to play around with, but honestly you won’t need any, as the audio processor does a very good job. It sounds best when used with a good pair of in-earphones like the EP630s. Unlike their higher-end handsets though, the Galaxy Y doesn’t play FLAC. Excellent sound quality The video player isn’t as impressive as the music player, since Samsung have gone with the stock Android player depriving you of sound enhancements. The player supports the standard MP4 file format, but the video quality leaves a lot to be desired, mainly due to the poor screen. read more: http://tech2.in.com/reviews/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-y-gts5360-review/273722#show

Read more »