Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe edition was first unveiled in Brazil last year, and nobody could resist talking about it. Why? A high-end smartphone with whooping 256GB internal storage on board; if it isn’t enough to have your attention, I don’t know what else would.
The Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe special edition finally made a debut in India after 5 months of its official announcement. The specifications of this smartphone are similar to the Brazilian version but it is uncertain whether the device will be shipping with an exclusive version of Asphalt 8 as it did in Brazil.
The premium smartphone will come equipped with a Quad Core Intel Z3590 chipset clocked at 2.5GHz with 4GB low power DDR3 Ram. Other general specifications include a Gorilla Glass 3 protected 5.5-inch display with 1080 x 1920 resolution, an Intel Atom Z3580 SoC along with an octa-core 2.5GHz CPU and a PowerVR G6430 GPU. The phone also comes with an additional expandable microSD card slot up to 128GB along with a 4GB of RAM space. The camera comes with a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front camera. Other connectivity features include 4G LTE (Cat.6), 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS connectivity, Dual SIM, Dual Active capabilities and the Asus Boostmaster fast charging technology. It is powered by a 3000mAh battery and runs on the Android 5.0 with Zen UI.
The Zenfone 2 Deluxe will be available in two designs, Silver Polygon and Night Carbon. No launch date or price has been revealed, but expect it to start retailing for around the Rs 25,000 mark in India.
It is the time when we leave behind our past, groom our memories, cultivate the best of it and store the most vivid one somewhere in the vast archive of our brain. The good, the bad or the worst, everything that happened there in 2015 was special; not only because we get to learn something from it, but we do know exactly what we have there for us. Nothing in this world can change what has happened in 2015, and what it had to offer, especially in the smartphone industry. From incredible Nexus (6P and 5X) devices, LG G4, Samsung Galaxy S6 (which is somewhere between the line), Apple iPhone 6S (Plus) to Amazon Fire; every one of them contributed in the composition of smartphone’s advancement and disappointments in 2015.
With my belly still full of festive foods, I am here to list down 5 worst smartphones of 2015 that attracted some buzz over the internet but surprisingly failed to actually deliver what they promised.
HTC One M9
HTC One Series (Especially 2013 Lineup) introduced itself as a new hope for the smartphone industry, and an escape from the boring rectangular bar-like design offered by iPhone and Samsung flagships. The HTC One M7 was an immediate hit, praised by millions of users. The trend was passed on to the next iteration of the smartphone (M8), which was another success. However, the company soon witnessed a downfall in their sales chart of HTC One M9 in 2015. So, where they went wrong?
Most of the smartphones of 2015 were widely affected by the bug in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, which was responsible for uncomfortably overheating the devices. It would further throttle the processing power once the temperature rises, and would continue to do so until the temperature would fall down again. Coupled with poor battery performance, surprisingly drastic rear UltraPixel Camera, slow charging, random restarts and other software bugs; HTC One M9 was one of the worst smartphones of 2015.
LG G Flex 2
The Original LG G Flex promised us a curved smartphone with some amazing technology. The year 2013 was one of the most important milestones in Tech history, giving us a glimpse of future tech as we see them today. LG, Samsung and other big names jumped into the experiments to bend the smartphone displays to the extent that we could fold/unfold it like a newspaper; a vision which still seems too far away to be fetched. LG G Flex, however, came up with a curved display, which was unique and new innovation at the time. There’s no surprise that this piece of tech was hugely adapted, and became a topic of buzz.
LG G Flex 2 was supposed to be the most innovative smartphone of the year, with some top notch specifications and technology that deemed as a non-achievable future tech. However, this phone turned out to be just an upgrade from the previous version which was whipped by Snapdragon 810’s performance and heating issues. LG did try to bring some new tech onboard; such as gimmick self-heal back cover, which didn’t work as expected. At the end owners complained that they had to replace the back cover just as they would usually do on other smartphones once its surface has unbearable scratches.
Some even claimed that the lack of removable battery and fingerprint scanner actually made this phone worse than the original.
Blackberry Passport
Blackberry Passport lives with the motto of “Work Wide,” that being said, the smartphone is specially designed with enterprise workflow in the mind. The wide screen surprisingly makes it very easy to read emails, e-books and surf through the internet (especially heavy websites as desktop mode). The high-end specifications that offer great performance, coupled with 3,450 mAh battery that lasts for an entire day, makes it an ideal business companion. However, things get little outside of the comfort zone if you try to use it for another purpose, such as watching videos on the go. It is very subjective opinion, but I hardly believe that we have moved past the physical keyboard adaptation. It was actually very trendy and advantageous over the resistive touch screen keyboards in the past, but capacitive display, SwiftKey gesture, and the bigger screen has left those days into the dust. The fact that this smartphone weighs 194g, which makes it really uncomfortable to operate with a single hand when coupled with the wide display. All these advantages and radical issues make ‘Blackberry Passport’ best and worst blackberry smartphone of 2015 at the same time.
Asus Zenfone 2 Laser (ZE550KL)
Asus Zenfone 2 Laser has some of the worst ‘specification’ and ‘value for money’ ratios than any other smartphone that was released last year. Asus tend to confuse the consumers with their iterative naming style, a trend that has been followed by many top brands, such as Samsung Galaxy series, HTC One Series, Sony Z series, LG G series and so on. There is only one way to eliminate the confusion, i.e. looking up the information about any specific smartphone based on their model number before purchase. We reviewed the Asus Zenfone 2 Laser (ZE550KL) last year, and our first impression concluded with this device sorted out as ‘0’ (zero) value for money.
Amazon Fire
Launched in September 2015, the Amazon Fire was Amazon’s attempt to offer a successive version of their budget tablet lineup. These tablets are highly modified to provide a specific environment for eBook readers, and, in turn, builds an exclusive user base on this idea. The Tablet has mediocre specifications which result in series of performance issues and bugs. It is true that you can’t expect much from an eBook reading device that costs only $50 but, shouldn’t it, at least, iron out minor bugs? The design feels cheap. Performance is slow if many apps are open in the background and when downloading. The display has a low resolution and touchscreen response can be sluggish. Gaming performance for large games is slow and the graphics can experience frame rate drops.
The words got out that there is no way these bugs are worth being included in our already cluttered life, and, as a result, consumers started shifting to next best thing. Amazon got desperate to keep up their annual sales report, which resulted in them to re-launch these tablets with ‘Buy 5 get 1 free’ pack.
The phone is not overpriced, but it certainly is not worth the money.
Did I miss something? List down your own list of 5 worst smartphones of 2015 in comments below.
2016 is going to be quite the year when it comes to technology and electronics, for there is a lot to look forward to as the year unfolds. Selecting the right laptop just during purchase can be quite hard, but knowing what is coming up beforehand can be quite helpful towards making the right choice. Here is the roundup of the some of the best upcoming laptops of the year.
The Dell 9343 seems to be the beacon of hope in a world full of substandard windows laptops. It is a rather compact machine, promising to outdo its competition in most of the specs. With a 13.3 inch screen, it comes with an almost borderless display, I processor, 4GB of ram coupled together with 128 GB of STA-SSD hard disk. For those looking for higher ram and storage, two more variants with these upgraded specs are also available. However, it comes with a soldered and non-upgradable Ram.
Rather unheard of yet changing into an extremely sought after manufacturer; the Razer Blade Stealth is one of the perfect machines out there. With an aluminum chassis only 0.5 inches in thickness and 2.75 pounds of weight, it packs in a configuration of i7 CPU together with 4K touch display. It can be thought of as an ultrabook-cum-gaming laptop, for all you will need is the Core graphical amplifier (sold separately) in order to make it the ultimate gaming machine.
The LG Gram was announced at CES 2016, and many found it hard to distinguish this from the new MacBook. With a 15.6-inch display, options of Core i5 or i7 processor and a full HD display, it runs Windows 10 along with 8GB of RAM. Internal storage options include 256 and 512 GB variants. LG is, however, still keeping this seemingly mean machine under wraps and have not revealed as to when will the Gram actually come out.
Tablets and hybrid laptops have been all the rage in these last few years, and Samsung has been trying to take on its competitors since then. With the TabPro S, it sure is looking to make a nice entry into the laptop-cum-tablet segment. It is not only super slim but super light as well- especially when you consider it comes with a 10.5-hour battery life and is powered by a 6th generation Intel Core M dual-core processor. Not bad at all, especially along with a 12 inch Super AMOLED 2160 x 1440 display. It is expected to come with 4GB or Ram and 128/256 GB storage.
The Lenovo Yoga is what the manufacturer chose to begin its 2016 lineup with- a 12.8 mm thin laptop weighing less than a kilo. Yet, they have managed to pack it with 12-inch QHD screen, a 10.5-hour battery life and a 360-degree hinge that allows to completely flip the screen to get a tablet. With Intel Core M processor and a design that looks to be a competitor to Apple, Lenovo is for sure trying to make this one as its first MacBook beater!
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Winner of Xiaomi Mi headphone Giveaway
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The internet world is on fire with the rumors of Apple giving away the headphone jack to create a thinner version of iPhone 7. There are already many news in the media about Apple filing a patent for a headphone jack that is D-shaped. Also, there have also been rumors surrounding a lightning connector that serves the dual purpose of being used for charging as well as serving as a headphone jack.
Apple giving away its 3.5mm jack
With the growth in the trend of using Bluetooth headphones these days, the change in the headphone jacks would impact quite a few users. The thickness of the current iPhone 6s is 7.1mm.The 3.5mm headphone jack would be too round if Apple plans to bring down the thickness of its upcoming model.
Surprisingly, Apple is planning to ditch its 60-year-old innovation. The next generation device of Apple, iPhone 7, would be thinner than the current model by 1mm. The super slim design of the anticipated iPhone 7 would require Apple to get rid of its 3.5mm headphone jack. The rumors surrounding the use of a multipurpose lightning slot as a charger as well as a headphone port have already triggered anger amongst Apple users. There are also reports stating that Apple may start selling a converter that would let the users plug in their old headphones into their newer devices.
The latest smartphone from Apple, the iPhone 6s, is 7.1mm thick and features a jack of 3.5mm. Apple plans to reduce the device’s size by 1mm in its upcoming model by avoiding this jack. This change would also imply to those stereo headphones that are larger and those, that run on an internal battery would be able to draw power from the iPhone and other devices. Less signal interference or crosstalk would be experienced with the use of lightning-based headphones.
Third party manufacturers already sell lightning-connected earphones. Apple would want to monopolize the market by launching its accessory for its upcoming device. The company has the record of previously ditching its software and hardware support once they were believed to be obsolete.
Apple has plans to release Ear pods that are lightning-equipped. They may be included along with the accessories being offered with iPhone 7. It would also be sold separately for using with other iOS devices. If this rumor turns out to be true, this decision by the company for using a single port for charging as well as for audio output will trigger a controversy.
Ditching the 3.5mm jack would mean killing its history of 60 years
Killing the iPhone headphone jack in its upcoming new model would imply that the company is planning to ditch its history of 60 years. In the pursuit of thinness, the company is planning to lose its history. The 3.5mm jack has been there for as long as the transistor radio (which was developed during the mid-1950’s). Apple previously ditched its 30-pin connector in 2012 to bring in its the then brand new lightning plug. That shift resulted in the old charging cables not working with the new device and triggered anger among the iPhone users.
The change that is being planned by Apple with its upcoming device may also trigger the same response. Running audio through the same port as lightning implies that the users may have to purchase new headphones. Once the new device is out, we would be aware of Apple NIL the actual changes in its latest device that has already managed to create headlines.
A few days ago, a user posted a video online showing him bending his brand new Huawei Nexus 6P. It did create a lot of ripples over the internet, but a simple analysis would suggest that bending a smartphone with sufficient force applied deliberately is no indication of its weakness. Bending of Nexus 6P is definitely nothing to worry about unless someone with an insane mind would try to break it deliberately.
And now another news is doing the round. The glass at the rear panel of the phone that covers the camera is being touted as susceptible to spontaneous cracks! The glass covering the rear camera is named “visor” due to its appearance. Four users on Reddit have claimed that the visor of their Nexus 6P shattered spontaneously without exerting any external force.
This weird phenomenon has been taken seriously by several users who have been asking for clarification both from Google and Huawei. These claims cannot be validated due to the lack of any proper evidence and any confirmation from either Google or Huawei. But what is weirder is the fact that neither of the companies has refuted these claims either. So, what is the truth behind these so-called spontaneous shattering of the glass and what could be the probable reasons?
Well, for now we will look at both the possibilities. There is insufficient proof to prove the shattering phenomenon or to disprove it. Since the time users of Nexus 6P are reporting the cracks in the visor of their phone, various theories are doing the round.
According to one theory, the cracks are due to overheating and sudden cooling of the glass. It happens when the phone camera is used for a longer period resulting in the heating of the visor. As it would happen with any glass that is warm and suddenly cools, the visor also breaks “spontaneously”. This theory assumes that the poor management of heat is the reason for the cracks in the visor. Another theory suggests that the tempering method used for the glass could be the reason it cracks when there is a shear force impact. There could be some structural flaw in the glass resulting in the cracks.
Both these theories seem far-fetched. There is a very low probability of the cracks due to sudden heating and cooling phenomenon as the glass used to manufacture the visor is a gorilla glass. Such glasses are robust enough to withstand such fluctuations in the temperature. The second theory sounds even more outrageous. A glass of this quality used in a phone like Nexus 6P must have undergone various stress testing thereby nullifying any chances of it breaking due to any structural faults.
Having said that, why would anyone take a chance with a $600 smartphone, especially when there are reports of shattering of the visor? Instead of worrying whether to buy Nexus 6P or not due to these reports, it is a good idea to wait probably for a while before this news can be validated. Alternately, you may buy a Nexus 6P with a protective case and a Nexus protection program.
