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30k+ Smartphones: Samsung Galaxy SII, Nokia Lumia 800, Samsung Galaxy Note, Motorola Droid Razr,

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PCQ Bureau
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Samsung Galaxy SII

Price: Rs 30,000

Pros: 4.3 inch display, Camera, Android 2.3, Touch Wiz 4.0, Bluetooth 3.0, Dual core processor

Cons: None

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Samsung Galaxy SII is one of the slimmest phones around, featuring dual core processor and an impressive touchscreen. Successor to the most popular Samsung Galaxy S, the new Android 2.3 phone is slimmer than an iPhone. It features 1.2 GHz dual core processor, and boasts of dual cameras. The 2 MP front facing camera provides for video calls/conferencing and the 8 MP rear camera with LED flash suffice for anything from a simple shot to HD recording at 1920x1080 pixels. Galaxy S2 has Samsung's latest custom UI, TouchWiz 4.0, in addition to Bluetooth 3.0, EDGE, GPRS, Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS.

Bottomline: Justifiably, one of the hottest selling Android phones in the market.

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Nokia Lumia 800

Price: Rs 29,999

Pros: Amazingly clear and scratch proof screen; Exclusive apps for Windows Phone

Cons: Very flimsy microUSB cover; Slightly underclocked CPU

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The Lumia 800 runs the latest version of Windows Phone (WP) and is really a pleasure to use. The Lumia 800 has a 3.7” ClearBlack AMOLED capacitative multitouch screen with Gorilla Glass that makes it completely scratch proof. The curved AMOLED screen makes the 800x480 resolution really shine through and looks gorgeous. The camera button allows you to not just wake the phone when on standby but even takes you directly to the camera even if the phone has a screen lock — a feature that Apple copied into its latest iOS5. The 8MP camera with Carl Zeiss lenses make for a really powerful and nice camera which also shoots 720p video. Internally, the phone uses a Qualcomm single-core CPU. Quite enough for the graphics capabilities of WP. However, the chip has been underclocked for some reason. Nokia does have some exclusive apps in the phone. Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive are some of the exclusive apps for the

Windows phone. Drive is highly recommended for use in India. Nokia Music is another exclusive app.

Bottomline: The Nokia Lumia 800 is a great buy for getting a new and fresh smartphone. It looks gorgeous and apart from some small issues, will make you quite happy that you got it.

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Samsung Galaxy Note

Price: Rs 38,250

Pros: Functionality, processing power, camera quality

Cons: Given the size, difficult to make call

The Samsung Galaxy Note could possibly be called one of the biggest contenders in the list of devices which is entertaining, productive and provide the best networking at the same time. The size is exceedingly large for a mobile phone, and that's what makes it odd to have it beside the ear while making a call.

The S-Pen that pops out from the bottom part of the Note, comes with features such as pressure sensitivity, preciseness and it provides one of the best alternatives to your finger touch; and this pen brings the best out of the dedicated applications like the S-Memo and S-Planner. The S-Memo does something that the high-end software in the laptops and this doesn't need any designing knowledge to bring out some geeky results of designs made out of the pictures captured through the Note's camera.

The rear camera comes with a plethora of options to play around with, and capture the best using the 8MP lens. The videos captured are of 1080p high-definition, the quality of which could be judged while capturing a video itself, given the screen resolution. Overall, the Samsung Galaxy Note is an impressive beast which would keep the Dell Streak, The Galaxy Tab 7”, the Galaxy S II at bay, in terms of specs and performance. But given the cons, we recommend it to those who don't care about the design and size, but the actual functionality.

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Bottomline: Nice blend of a smartphone and a tablet. However, the size of the device might deter a few people looking for a smartphone.

Motorola Droid Razr

Price: Rs 33,990

Pros: Fast processing, high resolution screen, MS Office compatibility, ultra slim design, light weight, camera

Cons: Battery cannot be changed, smaller SIM

The Motorola Droid Razr, one of the slimmest, sexiest and excellent mobile phones powered by the Android operating system, proving a slap to all the best smartphones around, including the Samsung Galaxy S II, the Apple iPhone 4S and the Galaxy Nexus. But it has its own disadvantages too. The Razr is 7.1 mm at its thinnest point, and thus feels delicate. For the large screen size, the weight of 127 gms is pretty less and is quite a light device.

For what the Droid Razr is known apart from the size, is the interface and the performance of the Audio and Video, which is brilliant. The voice clarity is neat and there is a clear sound output with a high decibel level.

Camera takes the beauty to the next level, located on the top bulge, on the left corner side and it has a LED flash along. The feel and experience of viewing the videos is superb.

The specifications worth mentioning, and which a Razr user could boast talking about, include the customized user interface in the Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread operating system which can be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, There are many outstanding features which Motorola has tried to include in, which collaborate with the Android OS to bring out the best from the Razr. The settings has a Data manager, which manages the Data network content browsing limit and count.

The worth-mentioning pros of the Moto Droid Razr include the fast processing, high resolution screen, MS Office compatibility, ultra slim design and light weight, kevlar back and a good camera for still and video capture. The cons include hard-to-hold and dial in one hand, fiddly text messaging; only Micro-SIM cards acceptable, battery is non-replaceable.



Bottomline: fine performing, feature rich smartphone to give competition to the best in business but Micro -SIM usage would hinder adoption.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Price: $799.99 (to be launched in March in India)

Pros: Latest Android OS, slim, light in weight, large screen

Cons: No expandable storage, Android Beam issues with older phones

The Galaxy Nexus, the first Android phone that runs Android 4.0 - Ice Cream Sandwich. As of this writing, the phone runs Android 4.0.2 - installed via an OTA (Over The Air) update.

The phone houses a 1.2 GHz dual core processor, 1GB RAM and 16GB storage. Of the 16GB, about 13GB is available to store new apps, music, videos and photos. But, the storage is not expandable.

The contour screen curves nicely to fit the face when held for a phone call and looks good when looked at from the sides. The blocky hardware buttons on the phone are limited to only those for power and volume control.Coupled with Android 4.0, the camera has zero shutter lag. It has a built in NFC (Near Field Communication) chip. There is an option in settings to force hardware acceleration. With this option checked, I could see an apparent difference while scrolling through my tweets. However, it is cautioned that forcing hardware acceleration may crash some apps.

The next interesting feature of Android 4.0 is Android Beam. Coupled with the NFC chip, you just need to tap two phones together to share contacts, URLs and map locations. It worked flawlessly when I tested it with another Galaxy Nexus phone. With a Nexus S (running Android 2.3.6) sharing Market apps worked flawlessly, but sharing of contacts and URLs from Nexus S to Galaxy Nexus did not work.

With Google Apps Business Edition and the Device Policy app, Android phones have always been enterprise ready. Now with Android 4.0, administrators can go one step further with a new policy to disable the camera. This helps to simply disable the camera instead of having to ban camera phones in organizations — a boon for BPOs.

Galaxy Nexus comes preloaded with Google+. With the 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, the phone is set to hold video meetings using Google+ Hangouts. Android phones have traditionally offered pin and pattern based screen-lock features. Galaxy Nexus boasts Face Unlock (face detection), which performs well in daylight or in a well-lit environment. If face detection fails, the phone falls back to pattern-based unlocking.

Bottomline: The phone brings the much-awaited Ice Cream Sandwich to taste. And despite the large 4.65'' screen and the powerful hardware, it's light to hold. Galaxy Nexus is supposed to be launched in India in March 2012.

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