HTC recently announced a new mid-range quad-core smartphone, the Desire 600. This handset packs a 4.5 inch qHD display, 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, 8 megapixel camera and more. The HTC Desire 600 is a dual-SIM smartphone and it runs on the old Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) OS. It is also the company’s first mid-range handset to offer the latest Sense 5 UI along with HTC BlinkFeed and HTC BoomSound.

Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation, said,
“People rely on their smartphones every day to be their news channel, email inbox, social network and music player. The HTC Desire 600 dual sim combines speed and easy multitasking with the truly innovative HTC BlinkFeed home screen. The result is an affordable mid-range phone that sets the standard for its class, keeping the busiest user up-to-date at a glance and offering them the power and range of features to switch between work and play.”

HTC Desire 600 features a 4.5 inch qHD display, sporting a resolution of 540 x 960 pixels, 1.2 GHz Qualcomm MSM8625Q Snapdragon 200 quad-core processor, Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) OS, HTC Sense 5 UI, 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash, full HD (1080p) video recording and playback, 1.6 megapixel front-facing camera and much more.

Other features include a 3.5 mm headset jack, Beats Audio, Bluetooth 4.0, 1 GB RAM, 8 GB internal memory, MicroSD card slot, 32 GB internal memory, 25 GB DropBox cloud storage, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, 3G Connectivity, NFC (Near Field Communication), A-GPS, up to 11 hrs of talk-time, up to 539 hrs of stand-by time and a 1860 mAh battery.

This handset measures 134.8 x 67 x 9.3 mm and weighs 130 grams. HTC Desire 600 will be available with major mobile operators and retailers in Russia, Ukraine and MEA (Middle East and Africa) from next month. The price of this handset will be announced soon.

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Samsung has already created history with its Galaxy S range of smartphones. Back in 2011, Galaxy S II became the largest selling device in the history of Android smartphones. The South Korean mobile phone manufacturer sold 10 million units of Galaxy S II in 7 months. Later in 2012, Samsung Galaxy S III broke the record of its predecessor and held the title of fastest-selling Android phone by shipping 10 million in less than 2 months.

Earlier this year, Samsung launched the company’s latest flagship device, the Galaxy S4. Almost everyone were expecting that the Galaxy S4 will sell like hot cakes and earn the title of the fastest selling Android smartphone. Today, Samsung finally announced that the Galaxy S4 is indeed selling like hot cakes and the company has managed to ship more than 10 million units of this device in just 26 days. You heard it right! The phone is estimated to be selling at a rate of four units per second.

JK Shin, President of the IT & Mobile Communications at Samsung Electronics, said,
“On behalf of Samsung, I would like to thank the millions of customers around the world who have chosen the Samsung Galaxy S4. At Samsung we’ll continue to pursue innovation inspired by and for people.”

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is currently available in more than 110 countries and will gradually be rolled out to a total of 155 countries with the support of 327 partners in the coming days. Apart from that, Samsung has also announced that the Galaxy S4 will be soon available in 4 new colors – Blue Arctic, Red Aurora, Purple Mirage and Brown Autumn.

AT&T has also announced that the wireless carrier will exclusively sell the Red Aurora Galaxy S4 in the US. AT&T subscribers can pre-order the new color variant from tomorrow, however the device will go on sale from June 14 for $199 with a 2 year service agreement.

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After spending a little over two months in the beta-zone, Opera for Android is now ready for prime time. The Norwegian browser maker has published the first stable version of Opera with Chromium rendering engine to the Play store.

Opera for Android is a major revamp for the popular mobile browser. Under the hood, it ditches Opera’s Presto engine in favor of Google’s Chromium rendering engine, which itself is based on WebKit. The biggest advantage of Opera for Android is that it supports Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and up. Chrome for Android on the other hand requires at least Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0). This is crucial as almost 40% of Android users are still on Gingerbread. Opera also mentioned that it intends to “stay closely in sync with the Chromium development cycle, doing frequent updates”. This might indicate that Opera intends to move away from feature driven release cycles to schedule driven rapid release cycles like that of Chrome and Firefox. Google has already announced that it will be forking WebKit to create its own rendering engine called Blink, which Opera will also be adopting.

In addition to everything that Chromium 26 supports, Opera for Android also features some additional ‘standardsy goodness’ like WebGL 3D context and CSS3 @supports. Another new feature is background playback support for native HTML5 audio. You can start playing a song on Soundcloud, switch to a different tab or even a different app, and the audio will continue playing. You will be able to control the playback from the notification area.

Opera for Android also features a complete revamp of the user interface, which is now more in line with Android design guidelines. It adds a new speed dial with folder support, a discover feature with latest news and updates, a combined search and address bar, and an off road mode. Off road mode is the new name for Opera Turbo, which compresses web pages to save bandwidth and improve browsing speed on slower networks. Some of the major features that didn’t make it to this release include Opera Link (sync) integration, custom search provider support, and access to about://flags. Support for tablets like the Nexus 7 and the Nexus 10 is also missing.

[ Download Opera for Android ]

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Earlier this month, Samsung announced the “Own Now” plan which offers some mid to high end Galaxy smartphones and camera at 15% discount along with 0% processing fee and 0% interest on 12 months EMI. Today, BlackBerry joined the bandwagon and announced a similar EMI scheme for the high-end BlackBerry Z10 smartphone and the entry-level BlackBerry Curve 9220 in India.

If you were planning to buy the BlackBerry Z10, but refrained due to its high price tag, then this is the right time to buy one. Under the new EMI scheme, customers can get the BlackBerry Z10 using their credit card by paying an EMI of Rs 4799 per month for 9 months. On the other hand, BlackBerry has announced a similar scheme for BlackBerry Curve 9220 where customers can easily get the device just by paying an EMI of Rs 799 per month for 12 months.

Currently, this scheme is available only for Axis Bank, Citibank, HDFC bank, HSBC, ICICI Bank, Kotak, SBI Card and Standard Chartered credit card users. These plans offer Rs.0 down payment, 0% processing fee and 0% interest on EMI. Idea subscribers will also get 1GB/ month of 3G data usage just by paying Rs.999/year in 8 circles including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.

The new BlackBerry EMI scheme will be rolled out in 3000 BlackBerry outlets across the country by this weekend. Are you planning to buy one? Let us know in the comments section below.

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LG has announced the Optimus GJ: a waterproof variant of the ever so popular Optimus G. This smartphone can withstand 30 minutes in 1 meter of water, giving the Optimus GJ a IPX7 rating. Aside from being waterproof, the Optimus GJ is also dustproof, making it suitable for those who work on construction sites. To make this all possible, LG has opted for a plastic battery cover on the Optimus GJ with a removable battery. This is opposed to the glass back found on the Optimus G.

The Optimus GJ’s spec sheet is impressive as the device features a spacious 4.7-inch IPS HD display, a quad-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon CPU, 2GB of RAM and a 13mp rear-facing camera. The device is also equipped with Bluetooth 4.0, a MicroSD slot for expansion as well as a 2,280 mAh battery pack. The device will be available in two color combinations: red/black and black/black.

If you’d like to purchase an Optimus GJ for yourself, you’ll have to either live in Taiwan or import one from the country sometime in June. The smartphone will retail for a hefty $17,990 TWD ($600 USD). As of now, we’re not sure if the device will be available for purchase in markets outside of Taiwan

Source: ePrice via UnwiredView
Image Source: ePrice

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There are number of companies which offer online data backup. However, most of them do not offer their services as advertised. Today, we are going to review the popular Carbonite online backup service. Before talking about Carbonite, let’s check out the advantages of online backups. Most of us still prefer to back up our data using conventional backup methods such as DVD or external hard disk. However, online backups have a number of advantages compared to conventional backup methods.

Online backups are automatically performed on a daily basis or on a frequency set by you. It runs quietly in the background so there is absolutely no need to worry about it. Moreover, it is less expensive and saves your valuable time. Conventional backup methods have a risk of losing all your data due to natural disaster or if your device is lost or stolen. On the other hand, online backup services allow you to easily get your data back with the click of a button in the event of data loss. Restoring your files is incredibly simple and it does not require any technical knowledge.

Recently, I was looking for a reliable online backup service which can back up most of my important files, images and videos at reasonable rates and finally zeroed down on Carbonite. First of all, Carbonite is one of the most trusted brands in cloud backup. Carbonite has already helped its customers to back up more than 300 billion files and recover nearly 20 billion files. The backup and restore process is extremely simple.

It allows you to back up pictures, documents and all your important files automatically to the cloud. Once you are connected to the internet, Carbonite will automatically start the backup process. Your files are encrypted before they leave your computer and are stored safely offsite at one of their data centers. Carbonite’s Home plans start at $59 per year, while the business plans start at $229 per year. Before purchasing the yearly plans, you can even try out Carbonite for freewithout spending a dime.

Setup:

To get started, all you have to do is just visit the Carbonite’s website and sign up for a 15 days free trial. You won’t be charged anything for the first 15 days, however the service will cost you $59 per year for a single PC after the trial period. Once you have created an account, you will be asked to download and install the application on your Windows PC or Mac. After installing the application, you’ll need to name your computer or laptop. After that, you will be asked to select the automatic backup process or the manual backup process.

The automatic process will back up all your pictures and important files from desktop, document and media directories. On the other hand, you can select the manual option and add files and folders to store on the cloud. If you own a small business and need to comply with certain industry regulations – like HIPAA – Carbonite can assist with your compliance requirements. You can choose to manage your own encryption key for any Windows computer, NAS device or server. It is not recommended to set your own key unless you are experienced at managing encryption keys or have a special need to do so.

User Interface:

After completing the setup process, you will be greeted with the Carbonite Info Center. The application will prompt you to start the backup process immediately. Carbonite will back up all your photos, documents, e-mail, settings and everything on your desktop. However, it will not back up any videos, executable files and other files larger than 4 GB automatically. You will need to manually upload them by right-clicking the file in Windows Explorer or in the Mac OS X Finder.

You can activate the Carbonite Info Center from the desktop or click on the tray icon. Right-clicking the tray icon allows you to open the Info Center, freeze your backup or pause the backup process for a predefined set of time. Carbonite has a great marking system for the files and folders. You can easily know the status of backed up data on your hard disk. It will mark the backed up files and folders with green dot, awaiting backup with yellow dot and partly backed up folders with green donut.

Scheduling and Restoring Backups:

Carbonite will back up all your content by default. However, you can set the application to back up once a day or even exclude certain hours. Carbonite does not allow you to specify a file type for backup, which can be a major drawback for its customers. You can manage and access your backed up files from the Carbonite Backup Drive on your computer or directly from Carbonite’s website.

You can restore your files from the desktop application as well as from their website. To restore your files from your computer, open the Carbonite application and select the Restore tab. The restore tab has 3 options – search & restore, browse & restore and restore all files. To restore your files and folders from their website, just log in to your Carbonite account and select the restore files. From there you can select individual files and folders or you can select the complete restore option to get back all of your files and folders.

Final Verdict:

Carbonite is without a doubt an excellent service to back up your data online. Their plans are quite affordable,. Unlimited backup space is just $59 a year. However it comes with some limitations. You can switch to a premium plan which allows you to back up an external hard drive and uploads videos automatically. Carbonite also provides free mobile and tablet apps for devices running on Android, BlackBerry and iOS Operating Systems. These apps can be extremely useful to access all your files on the go. With unlimited backup space, affordable plans and extremely simple backup and restoration process, Carbonite is definitely one of the best online backup services that you can’t afford to miss!

Start your free trial (no credit card required) at Carbonite.com. Use offer code SUNNY13 and you’ll get two months free if you decide to buy.

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Looks like Yahoo isn’t done yet after the $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr. The tech giant has finally made an attempt to make its once popular photo-sharing service Flickr alive again, with the hopes to reboot the service not only in a beautiful manner, but bigger and better than anything else.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer on Monday took stage to debut the all new redesigned Flickr photo site, including an announcement of 1TB free storage to all its users, which is enough to host nearly 537,731 photos in “full original quality” (6.5 megapixels). The downside, however, is that everyone who opts for the free storage will be seeing ads.

Flickr is now a whole new experience. The redesigned Photostreams and Sets layout is cleaned up to display the pictures in a proper grid fashion. Along with that, it is now easier to share photos on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, email, and of course, Tumblr.

The new layout also has a cover photo just like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, where users can edit it and replace the default picture with any of their existing uploaded photos. The photos are displayed in a grid format, where users can open them in a new page or simply mouse hover the cursor and click on the double-arrowed button to open in lightbox.

Flickr Photostream before

Flickr Photostream after

The Explore option, which is quite a known feature on Flickr, has been added to the navigation bar, which shows off the most popular uploaded images on a day-to-day basis. There is also a little slideshow button on the second navigation bar, which on clicked will switch to full-screen mode and you can navigate through the photos.

The redesign also comes to mobile devices on iOS and Android. On the other hand, Flickr Pro is no longer supported on the site as many of the features have been integrated with the free account. To quote Marissa Mayer’s words, she says “there’s no such thing as Flickr Pro, there is no such thing as professional photographers.” However, Flickr provides two options to upgrade their account: Go ad-free and Double your space.

The ‘Go ad-free’ option, of course, will remove ads displayed on your stream, which is priced at $49.99 a year. The ‘Double your space’ option will give you an addition 1TB of space for $499.99 a year, which I think is very unlikely that anyone would want to buy it. 1TB itself is a huge amount of space.

Yahoo is the new buzz now. What more can we expect from the new CEO? Only time will reveal.

And just in case you didn’t notice, visit dearmarissamayer.com

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Sony has announced yet another Android smartphone, the Xperia UL. The design of this handset is somewhat similar to the company’s flagship Xperia Z smartphone. This device will be exclusively available for the KDDI and NTT Docomo subscribers in Japan. As expected, Sony will ship the Xperia UL smartphone with the Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) Operating System. Sony Xperia UL is also a water and dust resistant smartphone.

Sony Xperia UL features a 5 inch full HD TFT Reality display, sporting a resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels, 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor, Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) Operating System, 13 megapixel Fast Capture camera with Exmor RS for mobile, HDR video, Superior Auto and Noise Reduction, Full HD (1080p) video recording and playback, 3.1 megapixel front-facing camera for video calls and much more.

Other features include a 3.5 mm audio jack, FM radio with RDS, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, 3G Connectivity, 16 GB internal memory, MicroSD card slot, 32 GB expandable memory, 2 GB RAM, Google Play Store, GPS with A-GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, DLNA Certified, HDMI support, Micro USB, NFC (Near Field Communication), Wi-Fi Hotspot functionality and a 2300 mAh battery.

Sony Xperia UL will be available in black, white and pink colors. The price and release date of this handset will be announced in the coming days. Stay tuned!

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Today, Samsung launched the Android powered Galaxy Grand Quattro in India. This handset is nothing but the Indian variant of the Samsung Galaxy Win smartphone. It packs a 4.7 inch display and a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor. The Samsung Galaxy Grand Quattro runs on the older Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) Operating System. This handset comes with the Motion UI feature which allows you to perform common actions simply by shaking the mobile to update contents, turning it over to instantly mute the device, etc.

Mr Vineet Taneja, Country Head, Samsung Mobile, said,
“Galaxy Grand Quattro is a revolutionary device that combines powerful performance with smart multi-tasking and advanced usability. Following the success of the Galaxy Grand introduced in January this year, we are confident that the Galaxy Grand Quattro will meet the needs of consumers looking for the ‘Grand’ experience in a slightly smaller display.”

Samsung Galaxy Grand Quattro features a 4.7 inch touchscreen display, sporting a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) OS, TouchWiz UI, 5 megapixel rear camera with auto-focus and LED flash, HD (720p) video recording and playback, 0.3 megapixel front-facing camera for video calls and more.

Other features include a 3.5 mm headset jack, FM Radio with RDS, Dual-SIM capabilities, 1 GB RAM, 8 GB internal memory, MicroSD card slot, 64 GB expandable memory, GPS with A-GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, Samsung Hub, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, 3G Connectivity, DLNA, Google Play Store, Wi-Fi Direct and a 2000 mAh battery.

This device comes pre-loaded with Samsung ChatOn, Games Hub and Samsung Apps store with easy billing options, try before you buy service, vouchers for discounted prices and more. This handset is available in black mist and frost white colors. Samsung Galaxy Grand Quattro comes with a price-tag of just Rs.17,290 (approx. $315) in India.

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Samsung might be notorious for overloading its Android smartphones with oodles of gimmicky features; however, in spite of the plethora of software modifications, the Korean giant is generally among the quickest to push out Android updates. LG and Sony delivered Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) to its 2012 devices only recently. HTC is still working on rolling out Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) to the One with the One X to follow later on. However, Samsung shipped the Galaxy SIV with the latest Android straight out of the gate, delivered Android 4.1 to the S II last year itself, and has been working for several months on bringing the latest version of Android to its older Galaxy SIII handset.

SamMobile has managed to get its hands on an Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean test firmware for the Galaxy S III – I9300XXUFME3. The new version doesn’t have all of the fancy new features of the SIV, many of which are expected to eventually end up on the SIII. However, it does have enough to make users happy. The new firmware has all of the official Jelly Bean goodness including lockscreen widgets, quick settings, and Daydream mode. Additionally, Samsung has added a driving mode, revamped the settings interface, improved S Voice, introduced full screen Samsung apps, and ported the SIV lockscreen with new unlock effects and the option to add custom text.

You can download the flash the firmware from here. Please keep in mind that this is a pre-release firmware.

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