Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Cheap Unlocked Cell Phones-Nokia Asha 210 (hands-on) Review

Bright, budget-friendly Nokia Asha 210 (hands-on) -Cheap Unlocked Cell Phones,

By Mylan Cellular
April 29, 2013

Nokia announces bright and budget-friendly Asha 210

Following Monday's teaser photo of a keyboard-equipped device, Nokia announced today its newest entry-level handset, the Asha 210.

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As a member of the Asha family, which is the company's line of inexpensive phones aimed at emerging markets, the 210 will not be heading to the U.S. Rather, it will launch in Q2 in parts of Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia for about $72 (before tax and subsidies). It will come in single- and dual-SIM models as well.

Nokia is also partnering with three social networking and messaging apps, and bringing them onto the Asha 210. Depending on where you are, the device will sport a shortcut key for either Facebook, Weibo, or WhatsApp.

Design

The handset is compact and has a sleek, minimalistic aesthetic that's similar to the Lumia. Save for the top of the phone (which houses a 3.5mm AV jack and Micro-USB port for charging), and a door on the left edge for the optional second SIM slot, its edges remain largely unblemished. It has a polycarbonate construction and a thin, severely bricklike shape. I especially welcome its smooth, almost chalky feel as well.

The Asha 210 measures 4.39 inches tall, 2.36 inches wide, and 0.46 inch thick. At 3.43 ounces, it's lightweight and fits well in the hand. It comes in four other colors besides yellow: white, cyan, magenta, and black.

The Nokia Asha 210 sports a 2-megapixel camera and a polycarbonate construction.(http://www.mylancellular.com)

The front includes a 2.4-inch QVGA screen, with a 320x240-pixel resolution. So, while it won't display crisp HD video, text and menu icons still looked clear and easy to read when I handled it. Below the display are two selection keys, two buttons to make and end a call, a center navigation key, a shortcut camera button on the right, and a hot key on the left that will launch a certain social networking service (more on that later).

The four-row QWERTY keyboard lights up when in use and is textured for easy typing. In addition, the space bar doubles as a Wi-Fi launch button when long pressed. During my time with the device, I found the keyboard to be a bit cramped. However, save for a few typos and missed letters, the buttons are easy to press and again, I love the keyboard's chalky texture.

Discount Cell Phone-ZTE Director Review

Discount Cell Phone-ZTE Director Low-end specs that yield a low-end performance

Editors' Rating3.0 starsGood

Overall rating: 6.3

Design: 7.0

Features: 6.0

Performance: 6.0

Set price alert
Review Date: 4/26/13

The good: U.S. Cellular's ZTE Director is reasonably priced and has respectable call quality.

The bad: The Director is sluggish and takes poor photos, and call volume is severely low on speakerphone.

The bottom line: Although U.S. Cellular's ZTE Director is inexpensive under contract, the carrier offers better handsets at the same low price.

I have nothing against entry-level devices. As long as they work well and are priced reasonably, there's nothing wrong with these handsets for people who don't need to be on the bleeding edge of technology.

But while the ZTE Director is indeed priced inexpensively (without a contract, it's $99.99, but with one, the price drops to 1 cent), it's not a great performer. Its screen can be frustratingly unresponsive, its camera takes washed-out photos, and its processor is sluggish. Frankly put, the ZTE Director is more of a Tommy Wiseau than a Steven Spielberg.

Design
With its long chin, smooth matte back plate, and indented edges, the Director looks pretty much identical to all other entry-level ZTE devices, like the T-Mobile Concord and the ZTE Fury, save for the fact that it features three hot keys (back, home, and menu) instead of four.

The Director's right edge houses a shortcut hard key that launches the camera www.mylancellular.com

Compact and comfortable to hold, the handset measures 4.65 inches tall, 2.46 inches wide, and 0.48 inch thick. Its left edge houses a Micro-USB port for charging and a volume rocker. Up top you'll find a 3.5mm headphone jack and a sleep/power button, and on the right is a launch button for the camera.

On the back, in the left corner, you'll find a camera lens, flash, and a small reflective square for framing self-portraits. Below that are two small slits for the audio speaker. Using a small indent at the bottom, you can pop off the plate to access the microSD card slot (which accepts cards of up to 32GB) and the removable battery.

The 3.5-inch HVGA touch screen has a 320x480-pixel resolution. Unfortunately, the display isn't very responsive, and oftentimes it took several taps for an action to register, whether it be launching an app or closing a window.

It also looked grainy or speckled, which is especially apparent when it displays a blank white image. Lastly, the screen is very difficult to view in sunlight. While taking photos outside, I had to shield the display with my hand in order to see feedback.

Spotlight on U.S. Cellular's ZTE Director (pictures)

Features
The phone runs on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich and features your standard complement of Google apps, such as Gmail, Google+, Chrome, Latitude, Local, Maps with Navigation, Messenger, several Google Play Store portals like Books, Magazines, Movies & TV, and Music, Search, Talk, and YouTube.

Other apps include several from Amazon (for its retail site, Appstore, Amazon MP3, Audible, and Zappos), the game Bubble Bash 2, City ID, Daily Perks (which notifies you of deals from U.S. Cellular), MiEasyAccess, Slacker Radio, apps for getting ringtones and games, Twitter, and a navigator app.

The ZTE Director runs Android Ice Cream Sandwich and comes with Slacker Radio. www.mylancellular.com

Basic task-managing apps include a clock with alarm and world time functions, a native browser, an e-mail client, a music app, a video player, a calculator, a calendar, a news and weather app, a notepad, a sound recorder, a timer, and a voice dialer.

Other features include Bluetooth 3.0, 4GB of onboard memory, and 512MB of RAM.

Camera and video
Understandably, the 3-megapixel camera has very few photo options. It has a flash, digital zoom, five white balances, three photo sizes, three shutter tones, a timer, compositional lines, an exposure meter, and geotagging. The video camera includes the same zooming, geotagging, and white-balancing options, and it has five video qualities (from QCIF to WVGA). Because the ZTE Director is slow, it takes several seconds for the camera to take a photo, and another several seconds after you press the shutter for it to ready itself for another shot.

Photo quality was obviously poor. Aside from needing to struggle to view the screen in sunlight as I mentioned before, brightly lit outdoor photos were often blown-out, colors appeared muted, and objects weren't quite in focus. Indoor photos fared even worse. You can see lots of digital noise, photos looked grainy, and colors, once again, weren't as vibrant as they were in real life.

In this well-lit indoor photo, you can see the graininess against the wall and the white chairs appear bluish.

The Latest Galaxy Phone-Samsung Galaxy S4 India launch weirdly tries 'Gangnam Style'

Samsung Galaxy S4 India launch weirdly tries 'Gangnam Style'-The Latest Galaxy Phone

A new YouTube video shows the hyped smartphone launch with a Bollywood actor performing "Gangnam Style" as "Samsung Style."

by Mylan Cellular

April 29, 2013

Comedic spoofs on popular songs can sometimes work, but what about if they're earnest remakes?
It appears that Samsung is testing those waters. At the launch party for its Galaxy S4 smartphone in India, one of the country's Bollywood actors, Ranveer Singh, performed "Gangnam Style" as "Samsung Style" (imagine pronouncing Samsung like Gangnam).
A video posted to YouTube shows the entire spectacle of Singh rapping and attempting the signature "Gangnam Style" dance backed by men and women in sequined outfits. But it's the lyrics that are the real kicker to the remake.

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"If you like the S3, than this phone is even better. It has an HD screen and it's just a lot slimmer," he belts out. "Samsung Style."
According to A source, it was Samsung's India retail partner Reliance Digital that organized the launch and enlisted the Bollywood actors to perform "Samsung Style."
However, this isn't the first questionable example of Samsung's marketing. At the launch of the Galaxy S4 in New York in March, the company put together a flash mob of men in suits dancing in Times Square. This followed on the heels of a couple of curiously bland ads starring a little boy called Jeremy Maxwell.

Mylan Cellular

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Cheap Verizon Cell Phones-Verizon Cloud app is the wireless carrier's answer to Dropbox

Verizon Cloud app is the wireless carrier's answer to Dropbox-Cheap Verizon Cell Phones-

By Mylan Cellular

April 29, 2013

There’s no shortage of places to store your files online, but that isn’t stopping mobile carrier Verizon from jumping into the mix. Today, the company is announcing Verizon Cloud for smartphones and tablets, a storage and syncing service that lets people save 500MB worth of text messages, call logs, contacts, music, and other files for free. If that’s not enough, you can also get extra space for prices that range from $2.99 a month for a 25GB plan to $9.99 for 125GB. Comparatively, the biggest plan gives you more storage than Dropbox’s identically-priced 100GB offer, but is roughly twice the price of 100GB plans from Google Drive and Microsoft’s Sky Drive, although the ability to easily save phone-specific data like text messages offers some extra utility.

So far, the service is available on the web and a handful of Android devices from Motorola, HTC, and Samsung, as well as desktop apps for OS X, Windows, and Linux. But Verizon says more are on the way, including iOS devices, which it says will be "following soon." In the meantime, iPhone owners will have to resort to one of the other dozen cloud storage solutions out there.

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The Newest Galaxy Phone-Apple, Samsung's next critical play: Affordable smartphones

Apple, Samsung's next critical play: Affordable smartphones-The Newest Galaxy Phone

Both companies have made a killing with their flagship products, but the next wave of growth will depend on how well they adapt to the low end of the market.

by Mylan Cellular

April 29, 2013

If Apple and Samsung want to see their stock prices rise higher, their smartphone prices will have to fall lower.

Both companies have established a dominant position in the wireless industry thanks to their buzzworthy, feature-packed, and polished flagship smartphones. The iPhone 5 and the Galaxy S3 (soon to be displaced by the Galaxy S4) reign atop the sales charts, allowing the two to control more than half the smartphone market and virtually all of the profits.

But a look at both of their most recent financial results show that dominating the high-end smartphone market is no longer enough to satiate the ever-increasing demand for more growth. If Apple and Samsung are going to keep their stellar runs going, they will have to get more aggressive about the market for affordable smartphones -- particularly in emerging markets where consumers are just buying their first mobile phone.

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One problem: the low-end market is fraught with established competitors such as the Chinese vendors that know how to build and sell phones on the cheap.

"The low end is a really competitive space to play in," IDC analyst Ramon Llamas said. "If you're going to the low end of the market, proceed at your own caution."

China's Huawei, for instance, saw its meager market share position rise by 40 percent in the first calendar quarter, according to IDC. Its gains come as Apple actually lost market share in the period, and the iPhone maker has already warned that its sales for the current quarter will fall below Wall Street expectations.

The signs that the low-end influence are already taking hold at Apple and Samsung were apparent from their respective earnings reports last week. At Apple, the average selling price of its iPhones dropped $28 sequentially in the first quarter, as more people spurned the iPhone 5 and 4S in favor of the cheaper iPhone 4. While Apple has been mum about a low-cost iPhone, the rumor mill has been burning up with reports of one in the works.

Samsung, meanwhile, reported better-than-anticipated first-quarter results, gained market share, and its growth outpaced that of its rival. But the period marked an end to the company's five-quarter streak of record profits, and Samsung also warned that it "may experience stiffer competition in the mobile business due to expansion of the mid- to low-end smartphone market."

Qualcomm, which supplies chips for most of the world's mobile devices, including the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S4, said last week that the average selling price for devices in the last three months of 2012 slid sequentially to about $217 from $227 (based on the midpoint of its estimated range).

Where's the growth?
Mature markets like the U.S. may be saturated with smartphones, but places such as India and China sure aren't. The latter country recently surpassed the U.S. as the biggest market for smartphones, and India is viewed as one of the only countries that could overtake China sometime in the future.

While the population of developing nations presents a huge opportunity, many people in those areas simply can't afford $600 gadgets. China's gross national income per capita totaled $4,940 in 2011, according to the World Bank, and more than 170 million people lived below the $1.25-a-day international poverty line. People in those regions will more often buy phones that are priced under $200, helping that segment grow faster than the high end.

The low-cost smartphone market is growing quickly. Note, the figures are based on the wholesale price of a phone for a carrier, not the retail price or subsidized price offered by the carriers.

(Credit: ABI Research) Last year, a quarter of smartphones cost less than $200, according to ABI Research, while 27 percent cost more than $400. This year, the high end should hold steady at 27 percent of shipments, but the low end will gain four percentage points. By 2017, 42 percent of shipments will be low-cost devices versus 23 percent in the high end, the firm estimated. The figures are based on the wholesale price for carriers, not what the phone costs in retail.

That growth at the bottom end -- and the huge volumes that come with it -- is attracting other handset vendors like Nokia. The Finnish company, which has struggled to compete with the market leaders in the U.S., is pushing low-end phones in places like India and Russia. Its products, including the $180 Lumia 520 Windows Phone, are winning versus the iPhone in places where carriers typically don't subsidize phones for customers.

Who's better suited on the low end?
Apple and Samsung know they need to address the lower end of the market, and both are making efforts to do so. Apple has long said it wouldn't introduce a cheap iPhone and wouldn't sacrifice quality, but it recently has suggested that a lower-cost iPhone that's still high quality makes sense. It also pushes its older devices at discounted rates, both in the U.S. and abroad.

"China has an unusually large number of potential first-time smartphone buyers," Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said during the company's earnings call last week. "And that's not lost on us. We've seen a significant interest in iPhone 4 there and have recently made it even more affordable to make it even more attractive to those first-time buyers. And so, we're hopeful that that will help iPhone sales in the future."

Even discounted, iPhones are still much pricier than most handsets from Chinese vendors. And even if Apple makes a phone specifically for the lower end of the market, it's unlikely such a device would sell for as little as $99 unless Apple makes significant compromises in quality. That means even a "low-cost" iPhone could be tough for many people to afford.

"By and large, Apple doesn't even touch the mid-range segment at all in terms of the price point," ABI Research analyst Michael Morgan said.

The Galaxy S4 is now available from some carriers.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET) Samsung, meanwhile, has some advantages over Apple when it comes to lower-priced devices. The Korean company supplies its own components, which means it has more control over the bill of materials for a smartphone. Also, it's not as dependent on one single device as its strategy involves introducing handsets in a wide range of designs and prices.

In addition, Samsung already has a foothold in emerging markets. It became the biggest smartphone vendor in China last year as its device sales in the country nearly tripled, according to Strategy Analytics. What will be key for Samsung is holding onto that position versus the emerging Chinese rivals.

"We will keep a keen eye on the market demand and the changes in our environment, and we are prepared to meet any changes in the environment or customer needs," a Samsung executive said during the company's earnings call Friday, according to a transcript from Thomson Reuters. "Going forward, we will try our best to expand user experience and to give them their best value."

Perhaps the biggest difference between Apple and Samsung is how much they're willing to sacrifice to reach cheaper prices. Apple has long said what's most important is making great products, and it's not willing to make big compromises to cut pricing. Samsung, however, has taken a different approach. It makes high-end, aspirational devices but also makes lower-cost devices to get people to open their wallets. That may mean quality isn't as high for some of those smartphones, but it also means more people have Samsung devices in hand.

What will be key for Samsung is holding on to its position in developing nations -- or at least not giving up too much share to the Chinese vendors. As for Apple, it may be time to take a page from Samsung's playbook. If the California electronics giant doesn't act fast, it may miss out on the emerging markets boat.