Google and HTC have finally announced the new Nexus 9 tablet. Just like the rumors, it is a 8.9 inch tablet with a Nvidia Tegra K1 chip on the inside. The Nexus 9 is superbly well made, which became evident with a few minutes of hands on time wis had with the device.

It features a stainless steel frame and robust finish, a beautiful example of HTC’s craftsmanship and also their welcome back into the tablet world. You get a 16 and 32 GB variant along with a LTE based 32 Gb variant, along with 2 GB RAM in all units.

The camera at the rear will not do 4K video because it is just an 8 MP snapper, but its a wide lens and a great module and clicks great pictures. The aperture is f 2.4 and the sensor is a BSI sensor.

For power you get a 6700 mAh battery that should last you through the day and then some. The Tegra K1 chipset has 2 x 2.4 GHz cores on 64 bit architecture. The front has a 8.9 inch display with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 px giving it a 4:3 aspect ratio.

It weighs only 425 gm for the Wifi only and 436 for the LTE variant, keeping it light and extremely portable. The tablet is easily held with one hand and the back panel feels great as well.

Google has just made the Nexus 6 official and yes it’s a Moto X on steroids. The Nexus 6 is the first phone to run Android 5.0 Lollipop, yes it’s called Lollipop. For whatever reason, everything that you wanted in the Moto X has actually been given in the Nexus 6. You get a 5.9 inch QuadHD, screen a faster Snapdragon 805 chipset and a heftier 3220 mAh battery.

Regretting buying that Moto X yet? You get the Moto logo along with a Nexus badge at back and the same 13 MP snapper with the ring dual LED flash.

The phone will be available in the following sizes 32 GB and 64 GB  in either the Cloud White or the Midnight Blue colors. The Pre-Orders are set to begin on the 29th of October according to The Verge.

The phone has the same metal structure of the Moto X and also presumably will have the same strength. The button locations are the same, and thanks to the minimal bezel design, the Nexus 6 should look a lot less big.

As far as India is concerned, there is no news on arrival but we are in talks, so stay tuned.

Xiaomi Redmi 1S

Xiaomi, the Chinese 4-year-old smartphone manufacturer, which rose to take the top 5 position in the world, made its debut in India recently. After a successful launch and sale of the Mi 3 handsets, they have sold more than 2 lakh Redmi 1S handsets in the country. The Redmi 1S is presently the only budget Android smartphone with a quad-core processor, 5-inch display and an 8 MP camera.

ALSO READ: Budget smartphone war: Xiaomi Redmi 1S vs Motorola Moto E

However, since the sale of the Redmi 1S in India, Xiaomi has been getting a lot of flak from customers with regards to the sale as well as the handset. Customers have been flocking in more than 2 lakh numbers to buy the handset, but Flipkart and Xiaomi have managed to only cater to maximum 1 lakh customers in each sale.

Apart from buying woes, customers who have already purchased the handset and are using them are complaining about heating issues and a sluggish user interface. While some power users will definitely spot the issue, others who use the smartphone for basic communication and minimal voice and data will not notice the same.

ALSO READ: Xiaomi Redmi 1S review

To ensure that their customers and fans are satisfied, Xiaomi has been working on a lot of feedback and have managed to resolve the related issues. A post by Xiaomi VP Global Hugo Barra was shared on their official Indian Facebook page, which stated that Xiaomi has addressed the issues such as overheating, laggy UI, battery life, RAM availability and overall performance by rolling out an update for India.

Hugo Barra stated that the issue of the handset overheating (sometimes more than 45-degrees C) could be due to the warmer areas in India. To overcome this issue, they have released the update (v45), which improves their algorithm for thermal control and regulate the temperature in a better way. They have run a few tests in their labs and confirmed that the new update helps keep the handset temperature below 38-degrees C and also significantly improves the battery life. He also promised that all future updates for India will have this optimisation and also urges customers to send them feedback.

Hugo further stated that customers complained about RAM issues, where certain apps would get killed in the background and the new update also addresses these issues. Other customers who reported performance issues (due to CPU throttling and temperature rise) would also be solved. Lastly, a few customers claimed that the Xiaomi Redmi 1S specifications were different on the Mi website, Flipkart portal and the handset specifications. These issues are related to a certain system information file (build.prop) inside the MIUI ROM, which is the main culprit for reporting the errors. The new update will also fix the same.

Xiaomi seems to be active on resolving handset and operating system issues and urges their customers to send them feedback so that they can resolve the issues at the earliest. So make sure you have updated your Xiaomi Redmi 1S handset to the latest operating system version (v45) to solve your heating and performance issues.

In order to make sure that your handset is in top performance without any issues or bugs after an update, ensure that you take a complete backup of your apps, data and settings before the update. Once the backup is done, copy the backup files to your computer and factory reset your Xiaomi handset. Then update the operating system to the latest version and later copy the backup back to the handset and restore the data.

The Redmi 1S is a dual SIM smartphone featuring a 4.7-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels and protected by an AGC Dragontrail scratch-resistant glass. The smartphone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset with four processors clocked at 1.6GHz and coupled with an Adreno 305 graphics processor and 1GB of RAM. The internal storage provided is 8GB, expandable to 64GB via a micro SD card. The rear shooter is an 8MP with a single LED flash, while a front-facing 1.6MP camera is also provided. Connectivity options include 3G, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS and GLONASS. Lastly, the phone is fuelled by a 2050 mAh battery and runs on a custom Android flavour of Jelly Bean v4.3 operating system, MIUI V5. The Redmi 1S weighs 158g and is 9.9mm thick.

The Xiaomi Redmi 1S is priced at Rs 5,999 and Flipkart will be holding their flash sale today at 2PM. They are presently having 100,000 Redmi 1S handsets for sale

HTC at a live press event in New York launched the new HTC Desire Eye. The phone is the first of a kind phone designed to allow users to capture front and rear images in 13 mega pixels. Other specs mostly make it compete with several flagship smartphones out there, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset clocked at 2.3 GHz.

The HTC Desire Eye also boasts a 5.2 MP full HD 1920 x 1080p IPS LCD display, along with BoomSound speaker config. The cameras however, are the highlight of the Desire Eye, with a set of 13 MP cameras, and dual led flash on both sides, the rear camera is a f/2 aperture lens equipped module, whereas the front camera has a f/2.2 aperture lens setup.U

HTC has also added nifty features for the HTC Eye experience with face tracking, screen share, split capture, face fusion, live makeup, auto selfie, voice selfie, photo booth, crop me in.

The HTC Desire Eye is also IPX7 certified so it can take a 1 meter dip for about 30 mins. You get a 2400 mAh battery pack and nano sim card slots.

The Desire Eye is LTE enabled globally and will come with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of inbuilt storage, expandability will allow you to add upto 128 Gb via a MicroSD card.

Combined with the portable RE camera and the EYE software experience, HTC is essentially trying to capture the new age youth, those who have traditionally had a keen eye for taking pictures and most importantly “selfies”.

The design and built of the HTC Desire Eye, is essentially like the Desire 820 which was recently launched

The next big Windows is finally here. Microsoft did what it does best; arbitrarily name its products. First there were Windows 3.1x, then there was Windows 95 followed by the 98 and then the ME. After these came the modern Windows, namely the XP, Vista, 7 and the 8. Now Microsoft has brought out Windows 10, and it seems it wants to challenge Apple with this one.

This release will bring back some of the traditional characteristics of Windows that were lost in the Windows 8 transition. Microsoft has said that users from any previous Windows OS can easily switch to Windows 10. The bit that will excite a lot of users is the glorious revival of the Start Menu, which was a characteristic feature of Windows until the 8. It will also be one operating system percolating through desktops to tablets to smartphones.

Windows 10 will work across devices.

The new operating system was unveiled at San Francisco for Business customers. Microsoft will be releasing a technical preview version for selected users. It will be unveiling consumer features early next year. Windows 10 is expected to reach the market by mid-2015. Considering Microsoft nails its flagship operating system in every alternate release, we have a lot of hopes with this one.

 Motorola recently came up with their latest generation of smartphones, the Moto X (Gen 2) and the Moto G (Gen 2). Moto G (Gen 2) is already available in the market for Rs. 12,999, but we had been waiting to get our hands on the new gen Moto X.

Well the wait is over, the company today has revealed the pricing of the Moto X (Gen 2) through their Motorola India Twitter handle. The new handset will be available exclusively on Flipkart from midnight today starting at the price of Rs. Rs. 31,999.

The new Moto X is not much bigger than the previous one, with a 5.2 inch AMOLED display. It is still protected by Gorilla Glass. It is about 0.5 inch wider than last year’s X. However, the refreshed model sports a 1080p full HD display instead of a 720p one.

The screen takes almost all the space on the front, leaving the bare minimum for bezels.  It measures 72.4mm wide by 140.8mm tall and weighs 144 grams. To give the device a premium feel, the company has added a smooth piece of aluminium wrapping the entire edge of the phone.

At the back, it has an updated 13-megapixel camera lens with 4x zoom and a ring flash. The camera has the ability to capture 4K video instead of just 1080p and it’s also got a new feature called Best Shot.

As far as the hardware is concerned you won’t be disappointed. The device runs on  a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor with a 2.5GHz quad-core CPU, an Adreno 330 578MHz GPU and 2GB of RAM. It is powered by 2,300 mAh battery which Motorola claims will last a full day.  The new Moto X has four microphones to help reduce background noise, and comes in a “splash guard” water repellent coating  and will be available in both 16GB and 32GB variants.

One the software side, new Moto X comes with hand full of softwares, same as the older Moto X, including Migration tool and some others like Touchless Control, Active Display and Motorola Assist have been renamed in the new Moto X as Moto Actions, Moto Display and Moto Assist respectively. Another great iteration in the new Moto X is that instead of ‘OK Google’  as a voice prompt, you can customize the voice command prompt to anything you like.

As we reported earlier, Jolla was expected to launch its first smartphone in India. The Finnish handset maker has now launched its debut smartphone that runs on company-owned Sailfish OS in India. The handset will be available exclusively on Snapdeal for Rs. 16,499.

Sailfish OS has born from the Nokia-backed project, Meego. The Sailfish OS is unique in the sense of its gesture heavy interface. Multiple functions on the phone can be targeted through interactive gestures. The learning curve is minimal if you have the basic smartphone experience. The best part, Sailfish is compatible with Android applications which will definitely make it desirable for many enthusiasts.

The company also heavily promotes Sailfish OS’ multi-tasking abilities that allows users to see all the running apps on one screen. A feature which isn’t available on any other mobile operating system. It is also capable of running Android apps which you can download via the Yandex and Aptoide Stores and other third-party Android marketplaces.

SPECS	JOLLA SMARTPHONE
Display	4.5-inch IPS qHD display
Processor	1.4GHz dual-core processor
RAM	1GB
Storage	16GB expanable
Camera	8-megapixel rear camera / 2-megapixel front-facing camera
Operating System	Sailfish OS, based on Linux and runs Android apps through third-party app stores
Battery	2,100mAh battery
Connectivity	LTE support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS