Apple iOS 6

Today at Apple’s WWDC keynote, far and away the most exciting product announced has to be refreshed and replenished mobile operating system. The days of iOS 6 are upon us, and the platter of 200 new features Apple is serving up is more than enough to make any fanboi’s mouth water.

Up until now, we’d swallowed down a hearty rumor stew, complete with trusted source claims, leaked beta sites, rumors, and pure speculation. We’ve more-than expected Apple Maps, iCloud features, and Facebook integration, but the rumor mill had taken us further than that, with hopes of Siri APIs, Siri for iPad, and even deeper customization, with live apps not unlike the live tiles seen in Windows Phone’s metro UI.

So which dreams came true, and which will be left for later generations of the software?

All that after the break (and I’ll be updating as the announcement is made so be sure to hit refresh).

New Siri Abilities:

• Siri pulls in sports info from Yahoo, allowing you to get game updates.
• Sports include Football, Baseball, Basketball, and possibly more. Those were the sports demoed.
• Siri has also gotten better at restaurant/Yelp integration, offering average price per menu item, reviews and Yelp rating.
• Siri has also partnered with Open Table, offering a tab to make reservations, which takes you to the Open Table app.
• Siri also partnered with Rotten Tomatoes to watch trailers, etc.
• You can ask for “movies with Scarlett Johansson” or “movies playing at the HERP DERP theater.
• And the moment we’ve all been waiting for: Siri can launch apps. Simply say something like “Play Temple Run.”
• Siri will also let you Tweet by voice.
• Siri may come packaged nicely in a button on some car’s steering wheels. Brands include BMW, GM, Land Rover, Audi, and Honda, among many more.
• Siri is now available in English, French, and German. Japanese will roll out next, with Spanish, Italian, Korean, Mandarin and Cantonese to follow after.
• Siri is now available on the iPad.
• You can access Siri by hold-tapping the home button on the iPad.
• Siri only takes up a small portion of the bottom half of the screen, popping up with rounded corners and the same blue linen finish as on the iPhone version.

Facebook Integration:

• Facebook is now a baked-in part of iOS
• Just sign-in once through settings and everything is set up
• You can share photos, links, maps, iTunes links, and Game Center content.
• Maybe and RSVPed Facebook Events are automatically added to Calendar
• Birthdays, too.

• Phone numbers will appear in Contacts list.

New Phone app:

• The app will set a reminder to call someone back if you don’t want to pick up when they’re calling.
• You can choose to send a message instead of pick up the call.
• Geo-fence feature allows you to be reminded to call someone when you leave a certain area.
• DO NOT DISTURB feature: Lets you tell your phone not to bother you with alerts or badges. Messages come through but there is no alert paired with its delivery.
• A little like Mail VIPs, the DO NOT DISTURB feature lets you assign certain contacts to let through during DO NOT DISTURB mode.
• Two calls in a row will be sent through, in case of emergencies.

FaceTime over Wireless:

• FaceTime has long been a WiFi-only experience, but iOS 6 brings it to wireless status.
• You will have a unifying phone number and Apple ID for FaceTime, as well as Messages.
• It’s unclear if the service will be available for all carriers.

Safari/iCloud Tabs:

• iCloud Tabs will work in Safari only. (Duh.)
• The feature does not automatically synchronize browser tabs at all times. Instead, it offers a synchronized list of tabs open across all iDevices.
• The feature is exclusive to OS X Mountain Lion and iOS 6.
• Safari in iOS will add an offline reading list.
• You’ll be able to upload photos straight from Safari.
• Smart App Banners will let people know about your native app in the App Store.

Photo Stream:

• Shared photo streams: “Choose your photos you’d like to share, choose the friends you’d like to share it with, and you’re done.”
• Commenting is built-in.
• Available on Mac, Apple TV, and via web.

Mail VIPs:

• The feature essentially offers you a way to “star” email correspondents that are most frequently contacted or “very important people.”
• You can insert a photo or video from the Compose field.
• Mail VIPs will not be pushed to the top, but rather be starred off in chronological order among other inbox contents.
• Mail VIPs will be hooked into iCloud, meaning that all VIP Contacts will be synced across devices.
• You’ll have two extra inboxes: VIP inbox and a flagged inbox.
• Mail will also support opening password-protected Office docs.

Passbook:

• Get all your passes in one place, including boarding passes, tickets, and coupons.
• It works with other apps that make natural sense, like the Starbucks store app or various apps to buy movie tickets with.
• Brands include Starbucks, Fandango, United, Amtrak, and Apple Store of course.
• Shows gate changes, account balances, etc. as pop-ups on lock screen.

iOS 6 Maps:

• Apple has given Google Maps the ax, opting to use their own in-house system.
• Maps has over 100 million local businesses listed upon launch.
• The app integrates with Yelp, just like Siri!
• Apple is building a traffic service to show incidents and general traffic conditions in a certain area.
• The traffic feature will use anonymous crowd-sourced data from iOS users to stay real-time and up-to-date.
• Hoorah! Turn-by-turn navigation is in the works.
• The Maps app will offer real-time ETA thanks to that crowd-sourced traffic info.
• Maps works from the lock screen, and also plays nice with Siri.
• Siri can find certain venues, like say a gas station, for you on your way to somewhere, making sure that the gas station is en route to your desired end-destination. She’ll also answer every parent’s favorite question: Are we there yet?
• Maps will have a beautiful 3D mode, which users can toggle on within the app.
• Flyover lets you hover above your intended route to see the perspective from an airplane or helicopter.
• You can rotate and zoom, or simply tap on a place in 3D mode to learn about it.
• Turn by turn navigation voice brought to you direct from Siri.
• The icon for the Maps app has changed to pin Apple’s 1 Infinite Loop headquarters, and also has a tad different coloring than the original app icon.
• Apple did all the cartography themselves, which explains the snazzy look.

Support:

• iOS 6 will be supported on the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS.
• iOS 6 will be supported on the iPad 2, and the new iPad.
• iOS 6 will be supported on the fourth-generation iPod touch.
• No word on Apple TV support.
• Coming this fall.

LG Optimus Vu review

LG may have given up on tablets, but not on the Optimus Vu - it's halfway between a phone and a tablet, a hybrid of form factors that we like to call "phoneblets". The Samsung Note was one of the first, but that doesn't mean it can have the market all for itself. The LG Vu pairs the big screen with a handy stylus to enhance tasks like note taking, something that can be a chore on a normal thumb-operated handset.

The dedicated Notebook app lets you create elaborate, multiple-page notes with images and text, or you can just hit the QuickMemo key, which snaps a screenshot and lets you scribble on it - you can screenshot a website, a part of an email, a document, an image, and just about anything else.

This makes the Optimus Vu a handy tool for putting down reminders or helping you communicate with others - it's much easier to explain what you need when you can take a screenshot and sketch your idea over it. Once you're done, sending the image via email, Dropbox, a social network or another channel is just a tap away.

The phoneblet sure has a lot going for it, but it's not all sunshine and roses - you can go ahead and copy our notes on where it scores and where it misses.

Key features

• Dual-band CDMA, 1x EV-DO, HSDPA and LTE connectivity
• 5" 16M-color capacitive HD-IPS LCD touchscreen of XGA resolution (768 x 1024 pixels)
• LG Rubberdium stylus and QuickMemo button
• Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread
• Dual-core 1.5GHz ARM Snapdragon processor, 1GB of RAM, Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8660 Snapdragon chipset
• 32GB of inbuilt storage
• 8 MP autofocus camera, face detection and geotagging
• 1080p @ 30fps video recording
• Front facing 1.3MP camera, video calling
• Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot
• NFC connectivity
• GPS with A-GPS
• microUSB port (charging)
• Stereo Bluetooth v3.0
• MHL TV-out
• Polaris Office document editor
• Smart dialing, voice dialing
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• DivX/XviD video support
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Dolby Mobile and SRS sound enhancement
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• T-DMB TV tuner

Main disadvantages

• microSIM cards only
• Runs older Android 2.3 Gingerbread
• Wide form factor needs getting used to
• 4:3 aspect ratio not a good fit for video watching
• No microSD card slot

With a rich app package, the Optimus Vu has solid business credentials. It features the Polaris Office document editor and an app that can automate backups (with an option to encrypt them).

You also get an NFC app, with which you can easily share your contact details, web site, memos, scheduling info and more. You can share it directly with another NFC-enabled device or write the info to NFC tags that you can hand out to people.

The extensive connectivity options go on - you get fast data connections over LTE, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 and Wi-Fi Direct, then there's the fun stuff like DLNA and a T-DMB TV tuner

How Computer Mice Work

Mice first broke onto the public stage with the introduction of the Apple Macintosh in 1984, and since then they have helped to completely redefine the way we use computers.
Every day of your computing life, you reach out for your mouse whenever you want to move your cursor or activate something. Your mouse senses your motion and your clicks and sends them to the computer so it can respond appropriately.
In this edition of HowStuffWorks, we'll take the cover off of this important part of the human-machine interface and see exactly what makes it tick!
Evolution It is amazing how simple and effective a mouse is, and it is also amazing how long it took mice to become a part of everyday life. Given that people naturally point at things -- usually before they speak -- it is surprising that it took so long for a good pointing device to develop. Although originally conceived in the 1960s, it took quite some time for mice to become mainstream.
In the beginning there was no need to point because computers used crude interfaces like teletype machines or punch cards for data entry. The early text terminals did nothing more than emulate a teletype (using the screen to replace paper), so it was many years (well into the 1960s and early 1970s) before arrow keys were found on most terminals. Full screen editors were the first things to take real advantage of the cursor keys, and they offered humans the first crude way to point.
Light pens were used on a variety of machines as a pointing device for many years, and graphics tablets, joy sticks and various other devices were also popular in the 1970s. None of these really took off as the pointing device of choice, however.
When the mouse hit the scene attached to the Mac, it was an immediate success. There is something about it that is completely natural. Compared to a graphics tablet, mice are extremely inexpensive and they take up very little desk space. In the PC world, mice took longer to gain ground, mainly because of a lack of support in the operating system. Once Windows 3.1 made Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) a standard, the mouse became the PC-human interface of choice very quickly.
Inside a Mouse The main goal of any mouse is to translate the motion of your hand into signals that the computer can use. Almost all mice today do the translation using five components: Mice come in all shapes and sizes. This is an older two-button mouse.
The guts of a mouse
1. A ball inside the mouse touches the desktop and rolls when the mouse moves. The underside of the mouse's logic board: The exposed portion of the ball touches the desktop.
2. Two rollers inside the mouse touch the ball. One of the rollers is oriented so that it detects motion in the X direction, and the other is oriented 90 degrees to the first roller so it detects motion in the Y direction. When the ball rotates, one or both of these rollers rotate as well. The following image shows the two white rollers on this mouse:
The rollers that touch the ball and detect X and Y motion
3. The rollers each connect to a shaft, and the shaft spins a disk with holes in it. When a roller rolls, its shaft and disk spin. The following image shows the disk: A typical optical encoding disk: This disk has 36 holes around its outer edge.
4. On either side of the disk there is an infrared LED and an infrared sensor. The holes in the disk break the beam of light coming from the LED so that the infrared sensor sees pulses of light. The rate of the pulsing is directly related to the speed of the mouse and the distance it travels.
A close-up of one of the optical encoders that track mouse motion: There is an infrared LED (clear) on one side of the disk and an infrared sensor (red) on the other.
5. An on-board processor chip reads the pulses from the infrared sensors and turns them into binary data that the computer can understand. The chip sends the binary data to the computer through the mouse's cord. The logic section of a mouse is dominated by an encoder chip,
a small processor that reads the pulses coming from the infrared sensors and turns them into bytes sent to the computer. You can also see the two buttons that detect clicks (on either side of the wire connector).
In this optomechanical arrangement, the disk moves mechanically, and an optical system counts pulses of light. On this mouse, the ball is 21 mm in diameter. The roller is 7 mm in diameter. The encoding disk has 36 holes. So if the mouse moves 25.4 mm (1 inch), the encoder chip detects 41 pulses of light.
You might have noticed that each encoder disk has two infrared LEDs and two infrared sensors, one on each side of the disk (so there are four LED/sensor pairs inside a mouse). This arrangement allows the processor to detect the disk's direction of rotation. There is a piece of plastic with a small, precisely located hole that sits between the encoder disk and each infrared sensor. It is visible in this photo: A close-up of one of the optical encoders that track mouse motion: Note the piece of plastic between the infrared sensor (red) and the encoding disk.
This piece of plastic provides a window through which the infrared sensor can "see." The window on one side of the disk is located slightly higher than it is on the other -- one-half the height of one of the holes in the encoder disk, to be exact. That difference causes the two infrared sensors to see pulses of light at slightly different times. There are times when one of the sensors will see a pulse of light when the other does not, and vice versa. This page offers a nice explanation of how direction is determined.
The Optical Mouse With advances it mouse technology, it appears that the venerable wheeled mouse is in danger of extinction. The now-preferred device for pointing and clicking is the optical mouse.
This Microsoft Intellimouse uses optical technology.
Developed by Agilent Technologies and introduced to the world in late 1999, the optical mouse actually uses a tiny camera to take 1,500 pictures every second.
Able to work on almost any surface, the mouse has a small, red light-emitting diode (LED) that bounces light off that surface onto a complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor. The CMOS sensor sends each image to a digital signal processor (DSP) for analysis. The DSP, operating at 18 MIPS (million instructions per second), is able to detect patterns in the images and see how those patterns have moved since the previous image. Based on the change in patterns over a sequence of images, the DSP determines how far the mouse has moved and sends the corresponding coordinates to the computer. The computer moves the cursor on the screen based on the coordinates received from the mouse. This happens hundreds of times each second, making the cursor appear to move very smoothly. In this photo, you can see the LED on the bottom of the mouse.
Optical mice have several benefits over wheeled mice:
• No moving parts means less wear and a lower chance of failure.
• There's no way for dirt to get inside the mouse and interfere with the tracking sensors.
• Increased tracking resolution means smoother response.
• They don't require a special surface, such as a mouse pad.
Apple has transformed its optical mouse into a modern work of art.
Although LED-based optical mice are fairly recent, another type of optical mouse has been around for over a decade. The original optical-mouse technology bounced a focused beam of light off a highly-reflective mouse pad onto a sensor. The mouse pad had a grid of dark lines. Each time the mouse was moved, the beam of light was interrupted by the grid. Whenever the light was interrupted, the sensor sent a signal to the computer and the cursor moved a corresponding amount.
This kind of optical mouse was difficult to use, requiring that you hold it at precisely the right angle to ensure that the light beam and sensor aligned. Also, damage to or loss of the mouse pad rendered the mouse useless until a replacement pad was purchased. Today's LED-based optical mice are far more user-friendly and reliable.
Data Interface Most mice in use today use the standard PS/2 type connector, as shown here: A typical PS/2 connector: Assume that pin 1 is located just to the left of the black alignment pin, and the others are numbered clockwise from there.
These pins have the following functions (refer to the above photo for pin numbering):
1. Unused
2. +5 volts (to power the chip and LEDs)
3. Unused
4. Clock
5. Ground
6. Data
Whenever the mouse moves or the user clicks a button, the mouse sends 3 bytes of data to the computer. The first byte's 8 bits contain:
1. Left button state (0 = off, 1 = on)
2. Right button state (0 = off, 1 = on)
3. 0
4. 1
5. X direction (positive or negative)
6. Y direction
7. X overflow (the mouse moved more than 255 pulses in 1/40th of a second)
8. Y overflow
The next 2 bytes contain the X and Y movement values, respectively. These 2 bytes contain the number of pulses that have been detected in the X and Y direction since the last packet was sent.
The data is sent from the mouse to the computer serially on the data line, with the clock line pulsing to tell the computer where each bit starts and stops. Eleven bits are sent for each byte (1 start bit, 8 data bits, 1 parity bit and 1 stop bit). The PS/2 mouse sends on the order of 1,200 bits per second. That allows it to report mouse position to the computer at a maximum rate of about 40 reports per second. If you are moving the mouse very rapidly, the mouse may travel an inch or more in one-fortieth of a second. This is why there is a byte allocated for X and Y motion in the data protocol.
Some mice use serial or USB type connectors. See How Serial Ports Work and How USB Ports Work for information on these technologies.
For more information on mice and related topics, including troubleshooting and repair, check out the links on the next page.

Canon EOS 650D DSLR camera

A
fter months of rumours and a ton of speculation surrounding the launch, Canon has officially taken the wraps off their EOS 650D, the successor to the popular EOS 600D. This new, easy-to-use Digital SLR (DSLR) offers high image quality and simple touchscreen operations, allowing anyone to capture beautiful images and Full HD movies. Ideal for photography beginners, the EOS 650D combines intelligent automatic shooting modes with a range of advanced features.

The EOS 650D is the first-ever EOS to feature a dual AF system, which ensures exceptional detail in stills and continuous autofocus tracking when shooting movies. At the camera’s heart is an 18 megapixel (MP) Hybrid CMOS sensor and powerful DIGIC 5 processing, enabling the capture of sharp, full resolution images at up to 5 frames per second (fps). A Vari-angle capacitive touchscreen also makes camera operation quick and easy, providing instant access to an extensive range of settings and scene modes.

Canon claims that its newly-developed 18MP APS-C Hybrid CMOS sensor provides super-fine resolution, capturing poster-sized images that are rich in colour and detail. Ideal for shooting in low-light without flash, the camera features a native 100-12,800 ISO range, allowing the capture of natural-looking shots with minimal noise, while an expanded ISO 25,600 range also offers the ability to shoot in more extreme low-light conditions. Though it is available on a handful of other cameras, the EOS 650D is the first entry-level EOS to be powered by Canon DIGIC 5 processing, offering greater speed, responsiveness and advanced colour rendition. DIGIC 5’s 14-bit image processing provides beautiful and subtle transitions between colour tones, such as those of an evening sky, and its vastly-increased power also makes the camera ideal for capturing fast-moving action, such as football or other sports.

The new dual AF system makes it easy to capture sharply-focused shots of all subjects, whether capturing stills or movies. A superior 9-point all cross-type AF system provides exceptional performance during stills shooting, offering precision accuracy when capturing sports, action and wildlife. Additionally, a new Hybrid AF System offers continuous autofocusing during movie recording, and when shooting in Live View AF in Live View and Movies - subject to use with Canon stepping motor (STM) lenses mode.

Here is a quick look at some of the highlighted features of the Canon EOS 650D

• 18.0 MP APS-C CMOS sensor
• Full-HD movies with manual controls and continuous AF
• 5 fps continuous shooting
• Vari-angle Clear View LCD II Touch screen
• ISO 100-12,800 sensitivity, extendable to ISO 25,600
• 9-point wide-area AF
• Integrated Speedlite Transmitter

Canon claims that getting the perfect shot has never been easier, thanks to the new 1,040k-dot resolution, 7.7cm (3.0-inch) Vari-angle Clear View LCD II touchscreen. Featuring capacitive technology, the screen is highly responsive and supports a variety of multi-touch gestures, such as pinching and swiping – making it easy to access shooting modes, alter settings and even capture a shot using the screen alone.

The EOS 650D makes it easy for anyone to shoot Full HD (1920x1080p) videos. Thanks to Hybrid AF, users can focus exclusively on story-telling, while the camera continuously tracks the subject. New EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM and EF 40mm f/2.8 STM lenses are also ideal for shooting videos, utilizing a virtually-silent stepper motor to ensure movies are smoother and clearer than ever.

The Canon EOS 650D has been priced at Rs. 59,990 for Indian shores and is Canon’s new entry level flagship.

LG Optimus 4X HD P880 Review

Last year LG was in pole position in the dual-core game with the Optimus 2X. It was the phone everyone looked up to, before there was a Galaxy S II and before there was an HTC Sensation.

There was obviously no rush this time although, to be fair, LG did announce their forthcoming flagship well on time. The Optimus 4X HD was among the headliners at the MWC in February, right next to the HTC One X. Back then, the Samsung Galaxy S3 was but a distant rumor.

In the end, LG were beaten to market by their closest rivals. A bit beyond fashionably late to the quad-core party, you can bet it doesn't want to miss out on the action. Its name is on the guest list and, if things like 4X and HD don't get them in the VIP lounge, we don't know what will.

There's more to the Optimus 4X HD though than multiple CPU cores and a 720p screen. LG may be late but not behind. They made sure that, at least specs-wise, their quad-core flagship matches the competition.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM and quad-band 3G support                                  
• 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• 4.7" 16M-color True HD-IPS capacitive touchscreen of 720p resolution (720 x 1280 pixels), ~312 ppi; Gorilla glass
• Android OS v4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich with Optimus UI v3.0
• 1.5 GHz quad-core Cortex-A9 CPUs, low-power companion core, ULP GeForce 2 GPU, Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset
• 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB (12.26 GB user accessible) of storage
• microSD card support (up to 32 GB)
• 8 MP autofocus camera with LED flash; face and smile detection , geotagging and image stabilization
• 1080p and 720p video recording @ 30fps with stereo sound
• 1.3 MP 720p-capable front-facing camera for video-chat
• Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
• GPS with A-GPS
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Accelerometer, proximity sensor and auto-brightness sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v4.0
• MHL TV-out (requires MHL-to-HDMI adapter)
• DivX/XviD video support
• High-capacity 2150 mAh Li-Ion battery
• Smart dialing, voice dialing
• NFC support
• LG SmartWorld app

Main disadvantages

• No native video calls
• Video recording has autofocus issues
• Tegra 3 CPUs are built on 40nm process, while Exynos uses 32nm
• Disappointing audio output

The Optimus 4X HD is Tegra-powered just like its dual-core predecessor. It's the Tegra 3 platform this time around, adding two more cores to do the heavy lifting and an extra one to discretely handle the low-key computing.

Unlike last year's Optimus 2X, which was behind the curve on Android 2.2 Froyo, the LG 4X HD has Android ICS 4.0.3 right out of the box and the custom Optimus launcher is doing its best to offer both visual and functional improvements.

LG has pulled all the stops out to design a phone that can hold up against the heaviest competition imaginable. The screen resolution and processing power are the minimum requirements for entry into the elite club. It's from then on that the contenders are trying to make a difference. It's now LG's turn to present their credentials to the discriminating user. Ready to be impressed once again?

Review: Nokia PureView 808

Depending on which part of the timeline you are looking at, Nokia has ruled the mobile phone market and it has also been the underdog. So, there’s reason to believe that by now they know what works and what doesn’t with different consumer categories. With their latest flagship product, the Nokia 808 PureView, too, they seem to have a very specific, very high-end offering for their potential customer. Justifying the super-camera smartphone tag is a 41-megapixel sensor and sharing the USP-status of the phones is integrated Dolby Digital technology. Does Nokia have a winner where it intended one?

Build quality

The handset overall feels like you are holding a solid block during usage. But we really wish the smartphone looked more premium, say with anodised aluminium elements like in the Nokia N8.

The HDMI port, microUSB and the 3.5 mm headphone jack are located at the top of the handset. The slider Lock/Unlock button doubles up as a flashlight after a long slide-and-hold. Note that it’s not a quick-access button to switch the Flash on or off when you operate the camera, the dedicated key to which lies right next to the slider.

Company officials claim the design at the back was aimed to be reminiscent of a smiley – with the camera lens block resembling eyes and a thin protruding plastic element at the bottom tracing the slight curve of a smile. We don’t think the resemblance is so obvious.

Most of the bulk on the smartphone is attributed to fitting the cube-shaped 41-megapixel sensor in. A little more than one centimetre is the most compact the design guys could get while still managing to fit the sensor in. It’s a little worrying to see that the most important part of the phone – the lens – remains uncovered but it’s also slightly depressed as compared to the rest of the back panel. This will hopefully save it from scratches.

The Corning Gorilla glass display lends a good share of sturdiness to the display as well. The 4-inch display is an AMOLED one and looks brilliant despite the low screen resolution. Nokia’s proprietary ClearBlack technology bumps up the brightness and helps retain readability under bright sunlight.

Camera

It’d be a real surprise if Nokia had invested five years of effort into making a super-camera smartphone that didn’t deliver stunning results. So, it shouldn’t probably come as a surprise when we say that the results from the 41-meg snapper were every bit as good as we’d expected them to be.

Landscapes as well as buildings shot during the day were impressively sharp and there were no compromises in colour. Nokia claims that the super-camera smartphone delivers 3x lossless zoom for still images. We tested this with a couple of outdoor shots and even when we zoomed in to the maximum the images were still reasonably sharp. The Macro Mode didn’t let us get too close to the object we were shooting but at a distance of about 6-7 cms or so we could focus well on the object.

Even zooming in with the camera app is distinctly different. You just slide your finger up along the frame to zoom in to the element you want to focus on. This is also useful during video recording where gestures like pinch to zoom or even conventional zoom aren’t the most optimal ways to compose a frame while you are shooting it. The 808 PureView can shoot 1080p videos at 30fps.

Dolby Details

Although it’s not the first time that a Nokia handset features Dolby Mobile technology, the two companies have exclusively partnered to bring in surround sound experience to the mobile platform. On the speakerphone itself, the sound streamed is crystal clear and loud enough to entertain a bunch of friends sitting together. When you plug in however, not only does Dolby work to cancel ambient noise but also imitates a surround sound experience that you would otherwise only find in a home theatre setup. Nokia claims that even if you do not use the headset given in the box the inherent technology ensures that the sound quality remains the same. Even during the voice calls that we made, we could notice each time the noise cancellation came into play. Nokia also claims that the 808 PureView comes with the best microphone integrated into any handset in its segment.

Apps

To make use of the hardware, Nokia has included a couple of pre-installed apps that you can have some fun with. SilentFilm Director is one such. The app post-processes videos that you capture and applies filters to make them look like a 60’s home video or 20’s movie. You can tweak the resolution of the capture and go for low-res ones to save on storage memory and processing time or go for a high-def one if you are shooting something special.

You also have ColorizIt which lets you selectively colour one specific part of an image you have captured.

You’ll also find the usual JoikuSpot app which helps you turn your smartphone into a mobile hot-spot. The PureView includes only the Light version which you can later upgrade with a purchase. An app that works to protect your PureView against theft is F-Secure. No surprises with the Social app – it integrates all your social networking sites activity from Facebook and Twitter.

The Nokia 808 PureView is NFC-enabled and directs you to a couple of NFC-enabled apps that you could make use of. However, we didn’t have a lot of accessories on hand to try these out. You can tap and connect the smartphone to NFC-enabled speakers, headphones or other smartphones not only to stream music or voice calls but also play games on, for example, Angry Birds has a pre-installed NFC-version on the smartphones. With an NFC tag you can easily access more content, film trailers, songs, microsites, maps as well as discount vouchers from various vendors.

C’est Belle!

The Belle might be the most intuitive user interface we’ve seen on a Symbian device. The interface now gives you up to six home screens to customise and play around with. You can access a quick pull-down menu to tweak your internet settings, change profiles or set an alarm.

The widgets too are easy to operate and can be resized to five different dimensions. The Toggle widgets such as NFC or Bluetooth, are especially easy to use. The smoothly rounded icons adorn the main menu which displays all the apps in your smartphone.

The Belle also makes for a better browsing experience although by now we just instinctively download Dolphin HD browser on any smartphone we try out.

Connectivity and performance

The Nokia 808 PureView supports USB On-The-Go which means you can connect another smartphone or mobile storage device and transfer data directly from/to the handset. The device has a built-in memory of 16GB, but you can expand it up to 32GB or 48GB with external storage.

The internal storage capacity should suffice for someone who loves his multimedia. The phone is powered by a 1,400 mAh battery and while constantly being connected to the internet, we could use the smartphone for easily more than a day.

We say

The target audience for the Nokia 808 PureView couldn’t be more defined – someone looking for the most pixel-dense camera available and someone who puts a lot of emphasis on the acoustics – basically someone who goes way beyond just making phone calls or checking emails on his/her smartphone.

Those who are sticklers for product design will find the smartphone slightly more bulky then they’d like it to be. And although this is not a problem when you are holding it, it doesn’t exactly make for a great fit in your pocket. However, for the kind of optics and acoustics integrated into a smartphone, not to mention an almost one of a kind combination, your pocket will not be uncomfortably lighter if you do decide to go for this.

Rs. 33,899

Love – Great camera, crystal clear acoustics, decent battery life

Hate – Bulky design,