HTC's next flagship could be called One Two, feature exchangeable lenses

Along with Samsung’s Galaxy S5, rumours about HTC One’s successor are also in full swing. A report now says the successor to the flagship One will be launched early next year and there's much talk about some cool hardware additions.

According to Forbes, the successor could be named One Two and come with changeable camera lenses. Firstly, that would be a very weird name, but it must be noted that this is still in speculative territory. The report says the One Two will have separate lenses to suit the lighting conditions. It is speculated to be launched in the first quarter of 2014, could be announced at the Mobile World Congress in February.

HTC One's successor could be called One 2... really?

Some rumoured specifications of the device include slightly bigger 4.9-inch display, an unspecified Qualcomm processor (we'd be highly surprised if it's anything less than the Snapdragon 805) and a fingerprint scanner. We aren’t really surprised about the fingerprint feature, as we’ve already seen it in the HTC One Max.

The HTC One launched earlier this year was competing with the high-end smartphones from companies such as Samsung and LG, in the Indian market. It remains one of best designed phones of the year.  The One Two should ideally follow on the same lines, but we have seen HTC update their design each year with the flagship and we have some idea about how it may look thanks to an earlier leak. It does look like HTC will be playing on the One's stellar design, which features a zero-gap aluminium unibody. Read our HTC One review to know more.

Nokia Lumia 720 Review

We’ve already established that the Lumia 720 is Nokia’s best effort as far as Windows Phone 8 handsets go. This could soon change once the Lumia 925 hits markets, but as it stands now, the Lumia 720 offers the best blend of features and performance, wrapped in a beautiful package that’s quite affordable. The only limiting factor we saw during our brief stint with the phone was the limiting 512MB RAM. But how much of a deal breaker is it? Let’s find out. 

Design and build 
The Lumia 720 features a polycarbonate unibody design, just like the Lumia 920 – only this time it’s slimmer, lighter and much better to hold. The 4.3-inch display has a much slimmer bezel as well as width, making it one of the slimmest Lumia’s at just 9 mm and super light at 128 g. The ClearBlack display blends seamlessly with the rest of the chassis, giving it a very elegant look.

Beautiful design

The button placement is very similar to the other Lumia’s; we have the volume rocker, power/sleep and the camera shutter all lined up along on one side. The button size and tactile feel is very good and it’s easy to figure out which one is which by just a simple touch. There’s a microUSB port at the bottom, microSD card slot on the side followed by the microSIM slot and headphone jack on the top. Around the back, we have a 6.7MP camera sensor with Carl Zeiss optics and an LED flash. The speaker grille is at the bottom and is fairly loud for alerts.

The Lumia 720 scores full marks for aesthetics and ergonomics in our books. The handset is very well put together – even better than the more expensive Lumia 820.

The 6.7MP Carl Zeiss camera

Features 
Nokia hasn’t held back when it comes to the display. The Lumia 720 features a fairly dense 4.3-inch IPS display with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution. The ClearBlack technology certainly helps when it comes to viewing the screen under direct sunlight. The IPS panel produces bright and vivid colours with very good viewing angles.

A familiar interface

The Lumia 720 runs Windows Phone 8 (WP8) OS and is powered by a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon chipset from Qualcomm. This is the same MSM7227 SoC used in the Lumia 620 and the Lumia 520. The RAM configuration also remains the same, which is 512MB. The reduction in RAM is not much of a problem for the OS functioning, but it is a problem when it comes to using apps. Most of the good games for Windows Phone 8 require 1GB of RAM, so you’re straight away limited, which is a shame since there are just a handful of good games to begin with. Luckily, all popular apps make do just fine with 512MB of RAM and work well. 

Good placement of buttons

The OS itself offers the same typical user experience as you’d find in the higher-end models, and it does so quite well for most part. The WP8 UI with its Live Tiles and social network integrated phone book worked seamlessly and was as smooth as they come. 

Media 
The Lumia 720 is a well-equipped media device. Thanks to Dolby’s Headphone Sound Enhancement technology, the handset provided well-balanced tones with a resounding bass line and slightly sharp but well-managed higher tones. There are equaliser presets in the main settings menu and you can also toggle the Dolby enhancement mode and Audio levelling. The enhancements work on a system-wide scale and not just for the music player.

1080p files play with ease

The video player is capable of reading a few DivX and XviD coded files as well as MP4 – even those in full HD. HD files didn’t seem to have any issue during playback. What’s missing is an FM radio, so you’ll have to suffice with third party apps for online services, if that’s your thing. 

Connectivity 
Nokia has included most connectivity options we’d expect from any standard mobile handset these days, minus a couple of features. The Lumia 720 features quad-band 3G capabilities, Wi-Fi (dual band), EDGE and GPS with GLONASS for Nokia Drive, Maps and apps like Nokia City Lens, all of which work well. NFC, Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP and, of course, USB 2.0 for PC interfacing and charging is also present. What the handset lacks is Wi-Fi Direct and AV out (MHL). Wireless charging is available as an option through a charging jacket. Since the body is non-removable, there are contact points on the back for the charging jacket. You’ll also be happy to know that the memory expansion slot supports cards up to 64GB.

Bundled productivity apps

Camera 
The primary camera is a 6.7MP  with wide-angle lens and Carl Zeiss optics. While the resolution has been dropped a little as compared to the Lumia 820, the 720 does one better by offering a much larger aperture of f/1.9, which is quite a rarity in smartphones. This allows much more light in as well as gives us very good depth of field, which is evident from the image below. Other features remain pretty much standard, such as scene modes, manual and auto white balance options, ISO settings and Nokia’s array of lenses – Cinemagraph, Panorama, Smart Shoot and Bing Vision. Having a dedicated camera button also lets you start the camera without having to unlock your phone.  

Camera excels at macro shots

Battery life 
The battery life is very good as compared to other Windows Phone 8 or even Android smartphones of similar shape and size. The 720 easily chugged along our complete battery suite which lasted 8 hours. This involved 2 hours of calls, 2 hours music, 2 hours video and 2 hours of YouTube streaming. All this time, the brightness was kept at "Medium" and Wi-Fi was on. We still had 27 percent battery remaining after the test. 

Verdict and price in India 
The Nokia Lumia 720 is priced at roughly Rs 18,200 and will go head on with the Sony Xperia L and even the Samsung Galaxy Grand. Comparing it's specifications with the Xperia L, we can safely say that the Lumia 720 is slimmer and lighter, and will have a much better display and battery life. In that respect, the Lumia does make a better buy. The only thing holding us back is the 512MB of RAM, which will restrict you from installing many good apps that would typically need at least 1GB to run. If gaming is not a priority, then it’s still a very good option. For those who don’t mind a bulkier – but more powerful – handset, there’s always the Galaxy Grand for a grand more. 

Samsung Galaxy S4 mini

The Samsung S4 mini is a highly trimmed version of the powerful Galaxy S4. Offering a dual SIM option, the S4 mini comes with a considerable list of specs. Just like the Xperia Z1 mini, its display size is 4.3-inches, but it comes with even lower qHD resolution of 960 x 540 pixels. The display gets a layer of the Corning Gorilla Glass protection. Under the hood, one will find a 1.7GHz Snapdragon 400 dual-core processor with 1.5GB RAM, and runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean OS out of the box. Obviously, one will find a layer of the TouchWiz interface on it. In terms of storage, the smartphone provides 8GB of internal memory, which can be expanded up to 64GB via a microSD card. It's pretty light with 124.6 x 61.3 x 8.9 mm dimensions and weighs 107 grams. On the camera front, it has an 8 megapixel primary camera along with LED flash and a 1.9 megapixel front shooter.

First Impressions: LG Nexus 4 (E960)

Just like Apple’s annual ritual, Google has also begun refreshing their Nexus handsets on a yearly basis. The Nexus smartphone is a platform for Google to showcase what their latest OS can do at its absolute best. The purpose of this handset was a reference point for developers who could build and perfect apps around it and then tweak it to work on lower-end hardware. Due to that, Nexus devices have never had the best hardware specifications compared to other phones but just enough for it to handle the current OS to its fullest. However, after seeing the wild success of the Galaxy Nexus, which despite its poor camera and battery life sold by the dozen, Google has decided to create a much better package this time around and has turned to LG for the task. 

On Video
 

Design and Build

The Nexus 4 looks remarkably similar to the Galaxy Nexus and perhaps that was a deliberate design choice made by Google rather than LG. Starting with the Nexus S, all the (two) handsets till date have shared the same iconic rounded edges and curved body design and it continues with the Nexus 4. The display on the new one isn’t curved but one look at it and there’s no mistaking it’s a Nexus. The front is dominated by a massive 4.7-inch screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720 which gives it an effective pixel count of 318ppi. The screen, however, tends to look much bigger and that’s because the Nexus 4 is wider while the Galaxy Nexus is a bit longer. The bezel on the sides has also been shaved down a bit more, giving the effect of an edge-to-edge display. The Nexus 4 also uses a vastly superior IPS display, which manages a lot more accurate colours with the same viewing angles and deep blacks of AMOLED. The difference is instantly noticeable when you place both phones side-by-side.

Fits in your palm perfectly

The handset is put together nicely and is surprisingly light weight as well, a lot lighter than the Galaxy Nexus. The glass back does give it a nice premium touch but the plastics on the side say otherwise. What we’re getting at here is that the Galaxy Nexus has a much better feel to it in your hand. This textured back offers much better grip and the extra weight just makes it feel solid. The Nexus 4 on the other hand feels like any other LG phone, it just feels like there’s something missing. All the buttons are where they should be and now, we even have a side-loading microSIM slot. You guessed right, Nexus 4 has a non-removable battery and once again, no way to expand the storage either. Two models are on offer, a 8GB and a 16GB variant.

Similar dimensions to the GNex

The Nexus 4 comes with Jelly Bean out-of-the-box and will continue to get any new update from Google first, until next year when they launch its replacement. The Galaxy Nexus has already started getting step-brotherly treatment as updates aren’t released simultaneously for both handsets. Needless to say, the UI is super quick and fluid with absolutely no hint of lag. You won’t notice any increase in power of the Galaxy Nexus from the UI alone but apps really benefit from the increased power, especially games. Rather than using a Tegra 3 SoC (which they could have done) and calling it a day, LG has wisely used the newer and more efficient Qualcomm APQ8064 quad-core SoC. This is based on the S4 Pro chipset and features four Krait CPUs running at 1.5GHz along with an Adreno 320 GPU.

The fake chrome bits kill the otherwise premium look of the handset

At the moment, this is the only handset in the market that uses this chipset but come 2013, we’ll be seeing this in many more high-end smartphones like the HTC Butterfly, Sony Xperia Z and in some of the new BlackBerry handsets. Even with all this power, it’s a lot more efficient that Tegra 3 due to the smaller 28nm fabrication process. We’ve compared the speed of the SoC against the Galaxy Nexus in the video by loading Need For Speed: Most Wanted at the same time. The Nexus 4 is considerably faster - not only in loading the game due to the 2GB of RAM - but also in producing smoother frame rates when rendering the game. 

Camera

The second most notable change is the camera. We now have an 8MP BSI (Backside-Illuminated) sensor, which thanks to some clever arrangement, allows for more light to be captured than a standard 8MP sensor. BSI sensors are quite common now in high-end smartphones and we saw one of the first ones being implemented in Apple’s iPhone 4. The image quality speaks for itself and when compared to the Galaxy Nexus, it’s miles ahead.

No real competition here

One special camera feature in the Nexus 4 that’s not available in the Galaxy Nexus is HDR mode. We’re not sure why Google left this feature out for the Galaxy Nexus as it clearly seems to be a software feature rather than hardware. It could be due to a sensor limitation or the fact that Google wanted to keep something exclusive to the Nexus 4. In any case, it’s not a big deal as you have plenty of camera apps that can pull off HDR so there’s always a work around. 

A worthy successor, but…

The Nexus 4 is a big upgrade from the Galaxy Nexus even though it may not seem like it from the outside. The switch to an IPS display was a very smart move by LG and it really makes all the difference in the world. Sunlight legibility is very good, although reflections can be a pain at times and the colour reproduction is bright, vivid and more importantly, accurate. The beefed up SoC will easily let you use this phone for the next two or even three years as there’s plenty of untapped potential which we hope the next version of Android will exploit. Finally, the camera is actually usable even if the lighting is not ideal; a flaw that still haunts the Galaxy Nexus. The BSI sensor captures a lot more detail and adjusts the white balance beautifully.

But, the phone for some reason just doesn’t have the same feel of the previous Nexus devices. It’s a bit hard to put into words but when you hold both the handsets in your hand, the Galaxy Nexus feels a lot more wholesome for some reason. This is just our opinion; however, we would suggest you do that yourself to get an inkling of what we’re on about. There’s no word on an official launch from LG yet but we hear a possibility of an early Jan launch. If LG decides to go ahead with it, then we can expect some very aggressive pricing. We predict the 16GB model to be priced well under Rs 30,000 and we know they can do it since their Optimus 4X HD dropped below 30K, just a few months after being launched. If you’re really eager to get one now, then there’s always the gray market where you can find it retailing for Rs 36,000. If you ask me, I would go for the Galaxy Nexus now and wait for the 2013 Nexus, which will hopefully launch along with Android 5.0.  

Sony Xperia ZR Review

The Xperia ZR is a new waterproof smartphone from Sony. Based on the similar chipset and almost identical hardware specs from the older siblings, the Xperia Z and Xperia ZL, the Xperia ZR is a smartphone ideal for the Indian climate conditions. With an IP58 certification under its belt, the phone is dustproof and waterproof, submersible up to 2 metres underwater for almost 30 minutes. Read ahead to find out what the ZR has under the hood and how the phone fares in our tests.

4.5-inch TFT HD display, 13MP rear camera, IP58 certified water and dust proof chassis

Design and build
On the design front, the Xperia ZR looks similar to the Z and the ZL variants when referring to the front panel, while the rear panel looks similar to the ZL. The front is an entire glass panel with just the opening for the ear piece on the top. Alongside are the front camera and a translucent window for the sensors beneath it. The control buttons for menu, back and home are incorporated within the user interface itself. The power button is similar to the Z series with a round chrome button placed in the centre on the right side. The volume rocker is provided just below the power button, which is pretty slim, but highly tactile and responsive. A physical button for the camera shutter is also available on the same side below the volume rocker. The earphone jack and the micro USB connectors are placed on the top and left sides respectively and sport a water tight port flap each. This port flap ensures that the inners are safe from water, moisture and dust, provided they are shut when not in use. Lastly, the bottom sports two openings, one for the mic and the other for a lanyard. The rear sports the main shooter with an LED flash just below it. On the lower side of the rear panel is a small speaker grille with a water and dust-proof mesh installed.

10.5 mm thick, water-tight port flaps for headphone and micro USB sockets

The entire chassis is build with a strong weatherproof polycarbonate plastic. The rear panel can be opened to access the battery, microSIM card and the microSD card. The three (battery, SIM and storage card) are placed well within a small chamber that gets sealed with a rubber gasket placed on the rear panel. The rear panel and the rest of the chassis have a matte-finish surface and the handset feels very firm and comfortable to grip. The handset weighs 138 grams and measures 67.3 x 131.3 x 10.5 mm.

The 2300 mAh battery, microSD memory slot and microSIM GSM card slots are well protected

Features
As mentioned earlier, the Xperia ZR is a mini version of the big brothers, the Xperia Z and ZL. However, unlike its rivals, HTC and Samsung, who made their “Mini” handsets a strip down version of their flagship models, Sony has squeezed its entire flagship model (the Z) in a mini package by only sacrificing on the display. This is a huge step from Sony which offers its new users the same performance of the flagship phones for a cheaper price along with an IP certification. The Xperia ZR has almost 90 percent similar hardware as that of the Z and ZL. Features that are identical are the chipset, which is the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064; the processor, which is a quad-core 1.5 GHz Krait; the GPU, which is the Adreno 302; 2 GB of RAM and the main camera, which has a 13MP sensor. Other identical features again are the connectivity options, which include Wi-Fi dual-band a/b/g/n, 3G and LTE, Bluetooth v4.0, NFC, A-GPS and GLONASS, FM radio and TV out. What we only found missing was an infrared transmitter. Few differences spotted are the smaller display size, which is a 4.55-inch TFT with a reduced resolution at 720 x 1280 pixel (323 ppi), 8GB internal storage, the front VGA camera and lastly, the removable Lithium Ion 2300 mAh battery. With almost identical hardware and a slightly better battery running on the smaller, lower resolution display, you are definitely in for a longer battery life.

Power button, volume rocker and camera shutter button on the right side

Some features that we could also highlight are the IP certification and the display type. Unlike the Xperia Z, which has an IP57 certification, the ZR sports the IP58 certification, which is a tad higher than the former model. It can be submerged under 1.50 metre of fresh water for up to 30 minutes. As far as the disply type is concerned, here too the display is similar to the type of OGS technology used. It is called the OptiContrast and Direct Touch technology where the layer between the LCD display and the touchscreen is eliminated and the surface is coated with a shatterproof layer for additional durability. The display also runs on the Mobile Bravia Enigne 2 technology for better contrast, sharpness and colour with less noise and distortion.  The Xperia ZR runs the Android Jelly Bean operating system with the version being v4.1.

Android Jelly Bean v4.1 with Timescape UI

Performance

As per our routine, we stress out the phone to get some scores so that we can find out the actual performance of the internal core hardware. In our tests, AnTuTu Benchmark scored 21501, Quadrant scored 7695 and Linpack resulted in 163.4 MFLOPS and 423.3 MFLOPS in the single-thread and multi-thread tests respectively. NenaMark2 was almost useless as the maximum recordable frame-rate by the utility is 60 fps and the ZR was trying to exceed these limits. We did run a new benchmark, 3DMark - The Gamer’s Benchmark, and the scores are only for your disposal. 

Display and media
We did test the display quality of the ZR by playing a few movies ranging from HD to full HD. The media playback is excellent and all thanks to the powerful GPU, there was no stutter or framing witnessed even in full HD 1080p content. The display quality is good too—crisp, bright and sharp, the videos are enjoyable. Although the quality of the display is good, we did notice that the brightness levels, when pushed to max, affect the black levels and make them look greyish. Put the brightness levels to auto or reduce it to around 50–60 percent and the display gets a bit darker. Though this level is best suited for watching videos in low light conditions or at night, watching in broad daylight gives you a washed out display. Also, we did notice a tad display angle issue where the colours change levels a bit from different angle—but it is not as noticeable.

Apps pre-installed on the Xperia ZR

The media playback, file format support and audio quality of the ZR are similar to the Z series. The onboard speaker is pretty loud and clear, but can be shrill in certain types of audio. You may have to reduce the volume a bit to get a comfortable listening. Overall, the media performance and experience of the ZR is pretty good and we have no major complaints.

System hardware information as per AnTuTu

Camera
The rear camera being a 13MP is similar to the ones on the Z and ZL. Functions such as Geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, image stabilisation, HDR and sweep panorama are available. The camera can record videos at full HD 1080p resolution and at 30 fps. Full HD 1080p recording in HDR mode is also available. Outdoor still images are good, but seem a little dark. The image in broad sunlight still seemed low on light. Nevertheless, using a simple photo editing software like Picasa or Irfanview can correct the images and make them better. We found similar results in the indoor shots. Overall, the camera performance is not bad and could be a bit better.

Outdoor shots are good, but images are a bit dark

Battery life
The 2300 mAh battery powering the Xperia ZR lasts pretty long even with extreme usage. We tested the device using our standard benchmarking procedure, which includes two hours of talk, two hours of videos and two hours of internet browsing. The battery lasted these six hours with 30 percent charge still left on the battery. We also tried two hours of video, two hours of Internet browsing and two hours of gaming where the battery died just short of six hours. Compared to the Xperia Z, the display on the ZR is smaller and so is the resolution. With similar battery capacity on the two handsets, the lower resolution and smaller display size on the ZR compensates for more battery life. To sum up the whole, you can expect the ZR to last you through an entire bright day and even more depending on the type of usage on the handset. Additionally, Sony has included the Stamina Mode in the handset. When switched to Stamina Mode, the Wi-Fi and data traffic are automatically disabled during standby, and you can still receive incoming calls, texts, and keep alarms active. This saves on additional power to keep your handset running for a few hours more.

Indoor shots are pretty decent

Verdict and price in India
To sum up the whole, if you want a decent quad-core based Android smartphone with a dust-proof and water-proof body, the Xperia ZR is a great choice. The closest rival handsets we can list out in the price and performance category are the Samsung Galaxy S3, Samsung Galaxy Note 2, Nexus 4, LG Optimus G and the HTC Desire 600. However, the Xperia ZR additionally has an IP58 certification under its belt, which makes this handset a perfect smartphone for the Indian user. Priced at an MRP of Rs 30,990, the Sony Xperia ZR seems a worthy contender in the market full of smartphones equipped with quad-core processors. The ZR is presently available for a street price as low as Rs 27,800, which could give the rivals a run for their money.

LG G2 (D802) 32GB Review

LG’s had a rough couple of years trying to break into the Android big leagues. For quite some time now, not many took them seriously when it came to premium handsets. I count myself among those people. While the company has managed to release offerings which were comparable spec for spec, they somehow lacked the premium look and feel, something companies like HTC, Nokia and Samsung have always managed to nail. When LG announced the G2 at IFA 2013, we were still a bit sceptical of how it would stack up against today’s crop of premium smartphones. Specifications aside, is the G2 dressed to command a premium? 

Design and Build 
LG has stuck to a simple candy bar design with sculpted edges and a lacquer finish around the back. Despite the 5.2-inch display, the phone doesn’t feel ungainly to hold and the slight curved back gives you good grip. The G2 loves fingerprints and will grab one every chance it gets. We liked the black version a lot more than the white. The handset is devoid of buttons on the side as everything has been moved to the back. We feel this was done in order to offer an additional differentiating factor from the competition rather than an actual design choice as LG claims but on the flipside, it’s not terribly inconvenient either.

The Quick Window cover wil be bundled as part of LG's introductory offer

There’s a microSIM tray on the side, an IR port on the top and the speaker, microUSB and headphone jack down at the bottom. No LG phone would be complete without some chrome highlights and we have some running along the edge. The buttons take their place just below the 13MP camera. Overall, the G2 is a marked improvement from what we’ve seen from LG in the past. The phone feels solidly built, has good ergonomics and feels premium. It has a reassuring heft which we quite liked.

A pretty rear end

Features 
Display is one area where LG nails it and the G2 is another shining example of this. The Full HD IPS panel is incredibly bright for good sunlight legibility and produces punchy colours that aren’t oversaturated like AMOLED panels. This is easily on par with HTC’s SLCD 3 panel on the One or Apple’s iPhone 5. There’s barely any bezel on the top and bottom and even lesser on the sides which gives the illusion of all screen.

Slightly tweaked Optimus UI

In terms of software, there’s Jelly Bean 4.2.2 along with their Optimus UI, although I don’t think they call it that anymore. The interface has all the tricks of the Optimus G Pro along with some new ones thrown in. There are a whole mess of them which would take too long to write about so it’s best I just show them to you.

The G2 is powered by Qualcomm’s finest Snapdragon 800 SoC. This quad-core beast can scale up to a scorching 2.2GHz and has 2GB of RAM to keep it happy. Despite the speed, the G2 never gets hot even after using the camera, GPS or gaming. The rear portion gets slightly warm but nothing more, which is pretty impressive.

Blazing fast

Media 
The audio and video player are skinned differently in the G2 and one big enhancement is support for 24bit, 192kHz audio, which is studio quality. This lets you get the most out of your FLAC audio files and the difference between them and MP3s are very noticeable given the right earphones. The speaker is also fairly loud although it’s best left for alerts. There’s a 16GB and 32GB version available but sadly none of them has a slot for memory expansion and we fail to see why. The G2 clearly has enough girth for a microSD card slot so we don’t get why LG would leave this out when their previous flagship had it.

Very good media playback

The video player plays back most video formats including MKV. A new addition is Audio Zoom which lets you selectively listen to audio from parts of a video and drown out the rest. The problem with this is in order for it to work, you need to use digital zoom and that ruins the quality of the video. As much as we tried, the effect wasn’t too convincing.  

Wireless storage is a very handy addition which lets you access your phone wirelessly through your laptop. Provided everything’s on the same network, you simply punch in the IP of the phone and you can view and edit your files without having to connect it physically. 

Camera 
The G2 boasts of the first 13MP sensor to have Optical Image Stabilization or OIS. This feature is similar to what the Lumia 920 had, the stabilization works well for very slight hand movements but isn’t as capable when it comes to recording from the moving vehicle. Nokia still rules the roost in this arena. The camera performs admirably in good lighting conditions. The level of detail captured is good in macros as well however; we noticed that the post-processing tends to create unwanted artifacting around edges which is only noticeable if you zoom in all the way. The same goes for landscape shots where the details in distant objects aren’t as clear as they should be. We feel a software update should fix this. Night shots are thankfully not as bad as the Z1 as there’s no colour noise noticeable in the dark areas.

Good macros but the details around the edges of the flower aren't great when zoomed in

Landscape shots are good but once again, it lack details in distant objects

Manages motion capture very well

Low-light is not as bad as the Z1

Video recording is handled well and goes up to 1080p at 60fps. Besides dual recording, there’s also Live effect which morphs your subject's face and tracking zoom which records video with a window overlay. 

Battery life 
The 3000mAh battery puts on a really good show as it easily pulls the G2 through two full days of usage. After sailing through our 8-hour loop test, we still had about 43 per cent battery to spare. It’s been a while since we’ve seen such good battery life from a droid that wasn’t larger than your hand. 

Verdict 
The 16GB version of the G2 is priced at Rs 41,500 while the 32GB sits at Rs 44,500. Of course, you can find them for cheaper online which makes the G2 one of the most value for money flagships in the market. The lack of expandable storage is possibly the only major downside to this phone but if you make your peace with it, the G2 has all the bases covered. It’s very well built, blazing fast, has a gorgeous screen, has more gestures and features than you’ll ever need and very good battery life. Between this and the Sony Xperia Z1, I’d pick the G2.

Google Nexus 5 Review

The Google Nexus 5 has unsurprisingly become one of the hottest sellers this holiday season. LG’s second attempt at building a Google phone has proved to be even more successful as the handset is flying off the shelves rapidly, and for good reason. The Nexus 5 offers a pure Android experience without any unnecessary bloatware, along with incredibly powerful hardware that will easily stay relevant for the next two years or more. Today, we’ll be putting together our final take on the device after having used it for over a couple of weeks. Is this the best Android device out there right now? Let’s find out.

 

Design and Build 
The Nexus 5 is one of the better built Nexus devices and while it’s not as reassuring as the Galaxy Nexus, it’s a notch above the Nexus 4. LG has ditched the glass panel for the rear and has gone with a simpler, rubberised texture. This allows you to grip it better and is nicer to hold. It’s light weight at just 130g and fairly slim at just 8.6mm in depth. We also love the minimalistic design and the fact that LG has consciously stayed away from chrome trimming. The Nexus 5 looks similar to the G2 because it’s modelled around that handset. However, where the G2 is full of flowing curves, the Nexus 5 is more flat and block-ish. This ties in well with the overall Nexus design language as the refreshed Nexus 7 bears a similar design.

We love the new minimalistic design choice

The buttons take their usual place around the handset and have good tactile feedback. The power button feels a little fiddly but apart from that, we don’t have any complaints. There are two grills at the bottom, flanking the microUSB port. One is for the speaker while the other hides the microphone. The earpiece is interestingly designed as well. Rather than a horizontal slit, we have a circular mesh. 
Overall, the Nexus 5 is a big improvement over its predecessor when it comes to aesthetics and build quality. 

The earpiece and power button on the side

Features
The brand new True HD IPS+ display is just what the Nexus 5 needed to stand out. It’s also Full HD and is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass, which makes it a tough cookie to crack. Sun light legibility is good although the screen is a bit reflective. Colours and viewing angles are really good and the high pixel count of 445ppi gets rid of any jagged edges on icons or text. The Nexus 5 also happens to be the launch platform for Android 4.4 KitKat. We’ve already covered the new features of 4.4, and in the video above as well, so we won’t dive too deep into that now. Despite minor changes, KitKat still manages to look fresh and new.

Refreshingly new

The new improvements aren’t merely cosmetic however as Android simply flies on the Nexus 5. Without the burden of another cosmetic layer, the Snapdragon 800 really gets to stretch its legs. The phone is incredibly responsive and there’s so much untapped power in the handset that it begs you to push it to the limit. You can easily switch between an intense 3D game to browsing the web without any lag or delay, it’s that fast. With all this speed, also comes a lot of heat. The Nexus 5 gets warm pretty quickly once a couple of cores fire up.

This is definitely an anomaly that's restricted to our unit

Coming to the benchmarks, the unit we tested was from the initial batches that rolled out in the US and for some reason; the device consistently posted very low scores across benchmarks when compared to other Snapdragon 800 handsets. We’ll be testing the unit sold in India as well very soon and will update this article accordingly. 

Media 
The music player has undergone a few cosmetic tweaks and looks a lot slicker than before. With the Cowon EM1s plugged in, the Nexus 5 delivers very good audio quality and the volume goes pretty high. You’ll mostly have it at around 75 percent, which is perfectly audible even in noisy environments. Of course, it also helps to have good IEMs that give you a good seal. The audio quality is good right out-of-the-box and we didn’t feel the need to turn to the equalizers. The loud speaker isn’t great however and could have been louder. Users of the first batch of Nexus 5s seemed to have faced many audio issues. In fact, the speaker on one of the Nexus 5’s in our office just died one day. This particular handset was from the first batch that rolled out in the US so we hope LG has rectified these issues before bringing it to India. Out of the 32GB of onboard storage, there’s 26.7GB that’s available to the user.

Media playback is good despite the limited features

Full HD video playback is smooth and the colours and viewing angles are really good. The large screen also makes a good canvas for catching up on TV shows while travelling. MP4 and MKV videos play just fine but other formats like AVI, FLV, WMV don’t play with the default player.  

Camera 
Many will be disappointed by seeing the ‘8MP’ tag in the specifications box but don’t let that fool you. Compared to the 8MP snapper on the Nexus 4, the sensor in the Nexus 5 is a vast improvement. In fact, we’ve proved that it easily beats the iPhone 5c as well, which is priced a good Rs 10,000 more. The UI is very similar to the previous Jelly Bean release but the Nexus 5 gets an exclusive new feature called HDR+. This works well when you have uneven lighting on your scene. The camera app takes a while to fire up and then getting it to focus is another couple of seconds before you can actually take the shot. This lengthy process should be shortened very soon with an update from Google. Image quality on the other hand is very good even for indoor shots.

Familiar JB camera UI

Very good depth of field

The HDR+ mode in action

Video recording maxes out at 1020p and the frame rate is a steady 30fps. The Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) onboard does help a little but not as much as Nokia’s implementation. 

Battery Life 
This has been another sore point for most Nexus devices and sadly, continues to be the case with the 5 as well. In our initial outing with the phone, we barely got about 7-hours with regular usage. This included some gaming, videos and mail and chat constantly connected on 3G. After a couple of weeks however, the battery life has actually gotten better. We are now seeing around 17-18 hours of the same usage pattern. These tests were performed on the US version of the Nexus 5. We’ll update this once we run our loop tests on the version sold in India very soon. 

Verdict and Price in India
The Google Nexus 5 is available on the Play Store for Rs 28,990 for the 16GB model and Rs 32,990 for the 32GB model. At these prices, it’s hands-down the best value-for-money, flagship droid you’ll ever find and even more so if you can source one from the US. But is it the best Android smartphone? Definitely not. The Sony Xperia Z1, LG G2 and even the Samsung Galaxy S4 are much better Android smartphones as they offer more features and better performance right out the box. If you’re only looking for the best Android experience and timely updates are of utmost importance to you, then look no further than the Nexus 5. Google’s current offering gives you a powerful chipset, the promise of updates for the next two years, improved camera sensor, a gorgeous screen and most importantly – no bloatware. However, if you want to be spoon fed and have your phone know when you’re looking at it or take it for a swim, then the aforementioned alternatives will fulfill those needs abundantly.