19 Mar 2014

Moto 360 - The smart watch is here.

Motorola has announced the launch of the Moto 360 watch powered by Android Wear. It will be available in summer this year.

The watch features a round face and is made with "premium materials" (not sure what that means) available in a number of styles. It responds to your voice, for example, users say “Ok Google” to ask questions to search and to start other functions including scheduling an appointment, sending a text, setting an alarm or taking notes.

I am really looking forward to trying it out. Dick Tracy's watch has become a reality.




3 Mar 2014

The Nokia X family

Looks like one of my wishes has finally come true. Though it sounds impossible, Nokia has finally come out with Android powered phones. Don't get me wrong. I love my Nokia Lumia 900 and the Windows operating system. However, the fact that several popular apps including Instagram, Vine, etc are not available for the Lumia 900 has left me quite disappointed. As I have discovered, not having the Candy Crush Saga app can influence the choice of mobile phone for a number of people.

Apparently the apps are available for the newer Lumia phones powered by Windows 8 OS but not for the Lumia 900 and apparently the OS in the Lumia 900 cannot be upgraded to Windows 8 (the current version is Windows Phone 7.8) because "Windows Phone has been re-coded from the ground up for Version 8".

My contract runs out in a couple of months and I have been thinking of a suitable replacement. My budget is a maximum of £200 and
I have a few candidates in mind, namely the Nexus 5 and the Moto G. However, the new Nokia XL which is priced at €109 is a strong contender.

All three of the new phones are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon Dual Core processor and are Dual SIM. Several third-party apps comes preinstalled, including BBM, Plants vs. Zombies 2, Viber, Vine and Twitter.

Other extra features in all phones include HERE Maps with turn-by-turn navigation and offline maps are included, Nokia MixRadio, Microsoft OneDrive with 7GB of free storage space and Skype with a month’s free calls to international landlines in selected markets.

The Nokia X is the entry level phone, with 4-inch IPS LCD screen, 512MB RAM and a 3-megapixel camera.

The Nokia X+ has similar specs to the Nokia X but has 768MB RAM and a 4GB MicroSD card is included in the box. Both the Nokia X and Nokia X+ are available in green, black, white, yellow, cyan and red.

The Nokia XL has a 5-inch screen, 768MB RAM,MicroSD card. It has a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, as well as a 5-megapixel rear camera with autofocus and flash. It is available in green, black, white, yellow, cyan and orange.