Dell XPS 12 Review

PRICE IN INDIA

94,990

Technoluverz Rating

7.0

Dell has managed to make a strong name for itself as far as Ultrabooks go and it is once again taking the lead in the Indian market with the swanky new XPS 12. The smallest in the series, the XPS 12 combines the same premium, high-quality craftsmanship we’ve seen in the XPS 13 with a bit of razzle dazzle. On one hand, it’s a regular Ultrabook and then with a quick screen flip, it turns into a tablet. Dell had debuted this same concept a few CESs back, but it never really made it to production because the software wasn’t quite touch friendly at the time. So, does the XPS 12 have enough practical value to justify the high price tag? Let’s find out.

Design and build
On the face of it, the XPS 12 looks like nothing more than a shrunken down version of the XPS 13. Save for the carbon fibre finish on the lid, it looks pretty much identical to its elder sibling. The chassis is made up of a mix of carbon fibre, machined aluminium and Gorilla Glass for the display. This makes the notebook extremely durable and sturdy and it will happily take the beating of everyday use without showing any scars. It’s quite light as well with a starting weight of 1.54 kg. While this is quite light for a notebook, it’s a lot for a tablet.

Well crafted

The ports and buttons are arranged a little differently so that it’s convenient to use in either modes. We have speaker grilles on either side for stereo sound, a volume rocker and orientation lock button for tablet mode, headphone jack and the power switch to the left. The other side houses two USB 3.0 ports, the charging port and a mini DisplayPort connector. There’s no card reader, LAN jack or HDMI present.

Doing the flip

You can switch to tablet mode by simply rotating the display within the bezel itself. There are latches that hold the screen in place when locked into position so that it doesn’t accidentally pop out when travelling. The mechanism is extremely smooth and fluid, allowing you to flip the screen in one swift motion. The backlit keyboard is the exact same one used on the XPS 13 and just like it, the battery is also non-removable. Overall, the Dell XPS 12 is very well designed and built and simply exudes style and luxury.

Low on connectivity

Features
The XPS 12 is available in four pre-set configurations. The base model that we received came with an Intel Core i5-3317U Ivy Bridge CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and 128GB SSD storage. This being a hybrid notebook, you get Windows 8 as the OS of choice. The XPS 12 maxes out at a Core i7-3517U, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. Sadly, there’s no option for a discrete GPU even if you want it. The battery capacity also remains the same. One good thing is that you get a Full HD display as default, no matter which configuration you pick. The panel has very good viewing angles and excellent colour reproduction, which makes watching video or simply using Modern UI a real treat. However, one side effect of having such a high-resolution display on a screen this small is that the desktop environment does not scale as well as Modern UI so everything looks really small. This makes it a real task to work on text documents or simply read anything without having to zoom in.

Performance
Thanks to the SSD onboard, the XPS 12 performs very well. We recorded a very healthy read speed of 420MB/s in SiSoft Sandra 2013’s ‘File System’ test. PCMark 7 returned an overall score of 4685 points while 3DMark Vantage scored 10,523 points with the entry level preset. Video encoding and files compression will also benefit greatly here due the SSD. Storage is limited here, so you won’t be able to dump your entire music and movie collection on the notebook.

Comfortable keys

As an Ultrabook, the XPS 12 is extremely portable and very comfortable to use even for extended typing. The keys have good tactile feedback as well. The trackpad is large enough to use comfortably, but it tends to get in the way while typing. Audio quality is also pretty good. The volume levels are high thanks to the side mounted speakers and the quality of audio is also very good for music and movies. The weight of the XPS12 can be a problem in tablet mode though. Don’t expect to carry the Ultrabook around in one hand for too long like you would a typical tablet since it’s just not possible. Fatigue tends to set in very soon on your wrist. One tablet feature we found missing was the ability to toggle the screen on and off like you do on a smartphone or tablet. Even in tablet mode, pressing the power button puts the XPS 12 is standby mode, so you can’t really wake it up instantaneously.

Tablet mode

Battery life
We found the battery life to be average. We managed to get two solid hours, which roughly translates to about 4 hrs of good usage. You’ll be able to squeeze a little more if you’re careful with your usage, but don’t expect too much.

Verdict and price in India
With a starting price of Rs 94,990, the XPS 12 is one expensive notebook, even for an Ultrabook. While it does have a very good feature set, behind the fancy new rotating screen, it’s a very average performing notebook. The hybrid nature of the device is fun to use, but we’re sure that the novelty will wear off after a while. The Windows 8 store has still a long way to go in terms of Windows apps and until that happens, traditional desktop applications will still rule—and you don’t need a fancy touchscreen to use them.

How To: Get the fastest Internet connection ever

A powerful utility to combine multiple Internet connections into a mammoth broadband pipeline.

It has always been a geek’s dream to have the fastest Internet connection ever, and we bet you would desire the same too. Almost all those who are hooked on to the Internet to surf, download or entertain themselves would definitely be owning an broadband connection at home. It could be via a telecom service provider, your local cable guy or 4G wireless Internet providers. Some even own 3G USB Internet dongles for their work and entertainment while being outdoors. Most smartphone users today also opt for 3G Internet services on their phones and tablets. All these connections can be individually used on your PCs, laptops and handhelds efficiently.

Download, set up and activate the utility

Though you can connect them all together on a single PC and access the Internet, the Internet speed will be only drawn from the last connected network, leaving the others unused. For instance, you have four different Internet connection sources A, B, C and D.  Your PC will access Internet from A when it is connected. The moment you initiate a connection from B, the PC will divert all network connections via B, leaving A unused. The same happens when C is initiated; A and B are unused and it applies the same to D. The operating system is not smart enough and does not know that there are multiple Internet networks. It needs help, but is unable to do so. In Linux, it is possible to do so by tweaking the kernel, adding some modules and running some scripts that will tell the operating system about the various active Internet connections and balance the network load accordingly. On Windows, it is not possible and a third-party utility is required.

Single connection speed

Clubbing all your available Internet connections into one single mammoth pipeline was not possible until Connectify, a well known software development company which developed Connectify hotspot, a virtual software router for Windows, stepped in. It kickstarted a campaign to help collect funds for the project and achieved it. It finally came up with Connectify Dispatch, a utility to connect to multiple Internet connections for combined speed and reliability. Using this utility, you can now connect all your available Internet connections – be it from a DSL modem, a wired cable connection, a wireless router, a tethered mobile phone or a USB Internet dongle – into a single mega broadband connection. Read ahead to know how you can do it in four simple steps.

All adapters active and associated with Dispatch

Step 1: Download Connectify Dispatch and install it. It is not a free utility and there are no demo versions available. The utility costs Rs 5,114 for a lifetime license, which includes the HotSpot Pro utility as a bundle. Optionally, you can opt for a one year license for Rs 4,023, but we recommend the lifetime offer, which is reasonably cheaper than this one. Once installed, activate the utility and you can see it running, but not active, in the system tray.

System tray showing adapters activated and deactivated

Speed using a single Internet connection only

All Internet connections combined as a single large bandwidth

Step 2: individually set up and test all your Internet connections on the PC. Install the USB dongles, tethered phone, wireless network, Ethernet cable Internet, or whatever sources you may have. Ensure they are working and all connected to the PC.

Using only three connections

Step 3: Double-click on the Connectify icon in the system tray to pull up the Dispatch user interface. Here you see the Dispatch utility, which is not started as yet. There is a graph available to know the bandwidth of all your available connection’s, and the overall bandwidth speed. Also, you will see the number of active adapters (Internet connections) in the lower half. Other icons available are Hotspot (to start the Wi-Fi hotspot) and Settings (to tweak a few changes).

Step 4: Connect, enable or start all your Internet connections. Once all are active, hit the ‘Start Dispatch’ button on the Dispatch window and you are ready to cruise the Internet highway by utilising all the Internet connections simultaneously. The Dispatch utility will automatically combine all the Internet connections together, analyse each one of them and route the Internet traffic accordingly whenever and wherever necessary. You can check the download speeds by downloading some large file, video or torrent. You will definitely notice a difference.

Assign individual applications to select particular Internet routes

How we tested
1. Internet connection A – Tikona Wireless 4G broadband via Ethernet – 2 Mbps speed.
2. Internet connection B – Tata Photon Plus 3G USB internet dongle – Speeds up to 3.1 Mbps.
3. Internet connection C – Tata Photon Plus 3G USB internet dongle – Speeds up to 3.1 Mbps.
4. Internet connection D – Tata Photon Plus 3G USB internet dongle – Speeds up to 3.1 Mbps.

Set bandwidth limitations for each Internet connection

The setup was done on a Lenovo laptop and was conducted inside a house in the suburbs of Mumbai. The testing was done at night around 1 AM when we could obtain maximum speeds and minimum interferences from any other networks in the surroundings. As we all know, the USB 3G Internet dongles claim maximum speeds of up to 3.1 Mbps, but this entirely depends from area to area. In our case, the maximum Internet speeds we acquired was between 800 Kbps to 1.5 Mbps at any given time. The Tikona connection was stable at around 2 Mbps. In all, estimating the USB dongles gave us around 1.2 Mbps speeds and the Tikona Wireless giving us around 2 Mbps speeds, clubbing them together, the speeds we acquired was a little more than 6 Mbps.

Override the default DNS

Testing and using the Connectify Dispatch for a few hours, we definitely state that the utility works and can benefit those who are looking for higher broadband speeds. BitTorrent is designed to make use of many network sockets simultaneously, which makes it a perfect application for Connectivity Dispatch.

Select adapters to act as Primary connections or stay as backups

Other options possible with Dispatch
You can further tweak the Dispatch utility to benefit your work. You can set up individual applications to use particular Internet connections to balance the load manually too. In this way, for example, you can download multiple files from Hotfile, Rapidshare, Mediafire and other similar file hosting websites that have IP-based time limitations to download the next file. It can also benefit those who want to download particular files faster than others, such as torrents can be on a faster bandwidth while smaller files can use the slower Internet connections.

Start Hotspot with a combined speed and share it to other devices

You can also use Dispatch to balance the load as per your will. You can set it to keep particular Internet connections as standby or backup connections in case any one of them fails. Other options available are to use DNS servers other than the ISP provides you. You can use Google or OpenDNS to your advantage. You can also meter individual connections to limit the Internet usage so that you don't exceed the download limits according to your plans. This can be done on daily, weekly or monthly rules according to your download plans. Lastly, you can set Dispatch to draw the bandwidth from the available connections that have the best latency and reliability.

An Android phone using Hotspot over Wi-Fi with full combined speed

Finally, if you have bought the Dispatch + Hotspot utility together (Rs 5,114), you can start up HotSpot and share this combined mega-Internet pipeline to all other computers and devices on the network wirelessly or using a router.

Connectify Dispatch is a very powerful utility that can benefit small and large business environments too. Take for example, a large organisation that provides most of the employees with a USB Internet dongle for use when they are travelling. When they are not travelling, the Internet connection is wasted as they are lying unused and the office Internet connection is used at work. By using these dongles on a PC installed with Dispatch, the entire bandwidth can come in handy for the entire office to have a faster Internet connection. Other areas where Dispatch can come in very handy is for video chat, online high-definition and 3D video entertainment, distributed or cloud gaming, online backups and data sync servers, remote desktop sharing, and a few others.

Opera to launch Ice, a new browser for smartphones and tablets

Opera Software has a new browser for smartphone and tablet users. The maker of the widely used browser of the same name will be launching a new smartphone and tablet browser called Opera Ice in February.

Pocket-lint revealed that Opera Ice is an attempt by the company to make a foothold in the mobile browser field dominated by Google and Apple. In an attempt to take these giants heads on, Opera has changed its approach strategy, switching to the WebKit rendering engine that Google Chrome and Apple Safari use instead of Presto, the engine that has powered Opera since 2003.

Opera Ice in a screen-grab (Photo Credits: Pocket-lint)

In a video published by Pocket-lint, Opera CEO Lars Boilesen explains that Opera has traded in the traditional tabs and buttons in favour of an all-touch gesture based control system. The homepage contains compact icons or ‘apps’ as Boilesen describes them. These apps can be used to open pages directly, like Boilesen shows with the Google Maps app. The URL bar and search functions have been combined to make the experience of browsing simpler. Boilesen shifts back and forth between pages via simple swipe hand gestures.

The ‘apps’ can be bookmarked and an icon placed on the opening screen for easier access. Boilesen also showed how going on to a website deemed dangerous by the browser will throw up a very animated warning sign.

"This is a full touch and tablet-focused browser," said Boilesen in the video explaining Opera Ice’s interface. "Most are taking a PC browser and squishing [it] into a tablet, or they are taking a mobile browser and blowing it up to fill the space."




What about the company’s existing mobile web browser Opera Mini? Boilesen says that while Opera Mini was ‘great’, it wasn’t offering features up to Chrome and Safari’s standards. There are also many sites Opera Mini does not work with. Instead of trying to stretch Opera Mini’s capabilities, the company decided to chalk out a new, smartphone and tablet-based browser that was customised to be used via hand gestures and had a UI that was built especially for the platform.

Boilesen confirmed that the company will not be ditching Opera Mini. "Mini is super important … It needs to be a platform where we create users and then migrate those users to over to our smartphone products,” he said. Boilesen also mentioned that there will be a desktop Opera browser to be launched in March.

Opera Ice is slated to be released in February for iOS and Android, said Boilesen. He said that Windows Mobile will also figure in Opera Software’s scheme of things soon, but it isn’t a priority till sales of the platform pick up.

Windows Mobile has seen a severe problem with browsers in the past, with Google blocking Maps on Windows Phone 8. Google had said that Internet Explorer was not a WebKit supported browser, leading to the blocking of the service. Of course, Microsoft refuted the claim saying, “Internet Explorer in Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 use the same rendering engine.” Given this tussle, it wouldn’t be a bad move for Opera to take advantage.

Nokia Lumia 920 Review

PRICE IN INDIA

38,199

Technoluverz RATING

7.5

AVERAGE USER RATING

8.5

Enter the Nokia Lumia 920. It’s round two for Nokia to try and prove itself to its fans as being a company that’s still quite relevant in the smartphone game. The Lumia 920 is its latest flagship device for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 platform. HTC beat Nokia to the punch by launching its 8X first, ushering in the new Windows Phone 8 age in India. But it wasn’t a race, so no winners here. So, we’ve done a review based on just the specifications as well as a hands on with the Lumia 920. We’ve also done come comparisons pitting it against other high-end devices like the 8X and the iPhone 5 based on specs and camera samples respectively. This is our official review of the Lumia 920 after using it for a few days and putting it through its paces.

Form factor
Our first impression is that the Lumia 920 is a good looking handset, but it’s large and rather bulky as well. Take into account the fact that HTC has a super slick looking WP8 device and the 920 comes off in quite a bad light. It does, however, feel very sturdy just like the Lumia 800 and 900. Unfortunately, like both its predecessors, this one too is quite heavy at 185 g. There also seems to be an offset of balance as the upper portion of the handset seems to be slightly heavier. The 920 also features a unibody design form, which means no access to the battery and no support for additional memory over and above the 32GB of onboard storage.

All buttons are placed on the right

All buttons are concentrated on the right side of the handset starting with the volume rocker, power/screen lock and the camera’s activation/shutter release button. A MicroUSB port is located at the bottom while a 3.5 mm handsfree socket is placed at the top near the SIM card (micro) tray. The now famous PureView camera (8 megapixel) with Carl Zeiss optics is just slightly off centre on the rear panel with dual LEDs for the flash. There’s also a 1.3MP front facing camera placed right next to the earpiece.

Lastly, Nokia Lumia 920 has one of the most impressive displays yet. With a 768 x 1280 pixel resolution spread across the 4.5-inch display and 332ppi, the screen is crisp at all times and easily legible with colours that really pop. Nokia has included what it terms a PureMotion HD+ display and coupled it with its ClearBlack technology to make it more appealing to your eyes. Being an IPS LCD panel also ensures that your visual experience is as good as possible. The display is also sheltered by Corning Gorilla Glass 2, which we noticed was quite handy in keeping scratches at bay.

The rear panel is host to the advanced PureView camera

The Lumia 920’s glossy shells are colorful and very chic, but a matt or rubberised option would have made the handset easier to grip.

Features and performance
Interface
The Lumia 920 comes running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 8 on a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor of the 1.5GHz dual core variety (Krait with 1GB RAM). The OS on its own is smooth and quite fluid and there’s a slight (only a slight) improvement in motion blur reduction while scrolling thanks to the PureMotion HD+ display. The Windows phone 8 platform offers quite a bit in terms of it being a very user friendly, clutter free setup. Where it sorely lacks is in the application department. The lack of popular application support for this OS will be a make or break type situation for a handset this highly priced.

The Lumia 920 with Windows Phone 8's new Start screen

The new Windows Phone 8 homescreen with the options to resize tiles comes in very handy as you can fit so much more on the page and still keep it neat and tidy. Pop-up messages that show up on the upper part of the display can easily be accessed with a simple tap. The keypad is still just as good as it was in the older devices. It’s large and well spaced out, but should have had tap-and-hold characters. Transitions and animations are smooth with no lag.

Media
Thanks to the USB mass storage accessibility and non requirement of the Zune software for media transfer, it’s a simple drag and drop option now for movies and music alike. The music player’s interface is very well set up, but the biggest issue is that one has to go to the settings menu in order to adjust the EQ or to switch the Dolby enhancement on or off. This should have been made accessible right from the player interface. Tone quality is quite above average. With the help of Dolby and the 7 band customisable graphic EQ option, or the many presets, the audio proved to be really good.

Great audio that gets better thanks to Dolby and the presets

You can access your music via the dedicated music app or via the Nokia Music app that also gives you access to a lot of online content for streaming audio. The same service also lets you download music for free onto your device. For some reason, we were unable to do so as we kept getting a “Network problem” error. Mix Radio is an ad hoc streaming service for online music. You can choose from multiple languages as well as genres etc. A Podcast option is also available.

The new Windows Phone 8 comes preloaded with quite a few video codecs that support MP4, WMV and a few AVI formats as well. Full HD videos in the supported formats play without a hitch and thanks to the vibrant display, they look really good while doing it. Another plus point for the WP8 system.

Connectivity
To start with, the Lumia 920 features an LTE (FDD) that isn’t supported in India, so you’ll have to stick to 3G or EDGE. Wi-Fi (dual band) support is also provisioned and so is NFC and Bluetooth (with A2DP and EDR) for data transfer. With an Internet sharing option thrown in, you can set your phone up to be a Wi-Fi hotspot whenever you need it. The Wi-Fi also comes in handy for DLNA.

Web page rending is swift and setting up accounts can be a little buggy at times

WP8’s IE browser with full support for HTML5 is as swift and easy to use as they come. There are a couple of alternatives available on the Market as well, including US Browser. It’s not too hard to set up your email, Outlook or social networking accounts, but we did have issues with syncing some accounts including our Microsoft Hotmail account. In some case, it would only sync our email or contacts and sometimes it would sync the rest but not contacts. “800xxx” errors seem to be a plague on Windows Mobile device. The Contacts or People tab syncs with your FB account and it’s well integrated with the social network.

Offline maps are a Godsend

GPS with GLONASS is on board to support Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive as well as other location-based services like City Lens etc. Nokia Drive is a well-designed mapping application that’s extremely versatile. Maps are available for pan India and quite a few other countries as well. The maps themselves are downloaded to your handset's memory and are very usable offline.

Misc. features
Like the others, the Lumia 920 WP8 handset also comes with One Note and Office that allows you to access SkyDrive, email and documents stored on your handset. Angry Birds Roost has been preloaded, allowing you to access all the goodies from Rovio’s best seller. Of course, the game is not free on this platform. On the application store for WP8, Nokia has a list of apps available for the handset. They range from freebies to those that are priced at Rs. 160. The Xbox game tile lets you access your downloaded games and your Xbox account. Wireless charging is also another capability of the Lumia 920. However, all the charging stations are accessories you'll have to purchase as extras. The handset can also be set to activate a few chosen features via NFC when placed on any of the wireless charging stations.

A few extras thrown in

Camera
And now for the piece de resistance – Nokia’s famous PureView camera. In the settings, you’ll find Scene options, ISO settings, Exposure control, White Balance and more. Nokia has also thrown in four lenses that include Panorama; Cinemagraph, which lets you capture animated images; and Smart Shoot that’s a brilliant feature giving you the ability to capture multiple images, choosing the best one and removing unnecessary obstacles from the way. Bing Vision lets you scan QR codes. There are also a few edit options for cropping or auto fixing images.

Here are a few samples taken from the 8MP camera:

Close Up

In Close Up mode (scenes), the closest focus range is 7 cm from the subject. The depth of field is the shallowest (background blur) for that range as you can see in the image. Images appeared very crisp with colours looking quite vibrant.

Low Light, Night Mode

Low light shooting is this cameras forte. The Night scene mode keeps the shutter open for a longer time, allowing the camera to expose the scene optimally in low light. The Lumia 920 did this beautifully. The PureView’s floating lenses technology is handy for slight handshakes, but we recommend resting your handset on a surface for the best results.

Standard Out Door

The overall exposure, white balance and colour reproduction proved to be well above average for mobile camera technology. The Lumia 920’s camera is definitely one of the best out there in the mobile domain.

The handset can also capture videos in 1080p full HD and once again, the floating lens comes to the rescue to counter movement. The front camera can also record videos in 720p HD.


Battery
Nokia Lumia 920’s 2000mAh battery managed to give us a full day’s usage on a full charge. Usage included almost 20 images captured in low light, 2 hours 45 minutes of video, constantly accessing email accounts and social networks and a few calls as well. It works out to be quite an asset. The system also comes with battery saving options as well that we estimate will extend battery life by a couple of hours at least.

Wireless charging uses the Qi standard already available in many accessories.

The bottom line
Nokia has launched the Lumia 920 for a whopping Rs 38,000. That’s quite a hefty price tag all things considered. But that being said, the handset is easily the highest spec'd WP8 device available for India right now. It does have its kinks with the lack of expandable memory and possibly its biggest issue is constraint by an ecosystem that’s in dire need of apps. However, Nokia has tried to offer a few choice apps to compensate. So while the bulky, heavyset smartphone should have been better priced, you do end up with a product featuring a really great camera, decent battery and a great mapping software. If that’s what you’re interested in, the Lumia 920 satiates your needs.

Nokia should, however, consider the fact that in today’s fast-paced smartphone world, they still have to deal with tough competition from competing operating systems and better spec'd handsets at lower prices.

Here's probably why India got a dual-core Samsung Galaxy Grand

 

 

Samsung recently launched its mid-level smartphone, the Galaxy Grand, in the Indian market. Now, news has it that the mobile giant has launched the same phone on its home turf, but with a more powerful processor. The Grand will hit Indian stores with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor while Korean users can lay their hands on a 1.4GHz quad-core processor. Moreover, Samsung is marketing the Grand as a budget handset in Korea with a price tag that reads 350,000 KRW, which translates to approximately Rs. 17,524. Eyebrows are being raised over Samsung selling a quad-core phone in Korea for a lower price while it sells the same phone with lesser hardware for a higher price in India.The Galaxy Grand is priced at Rs. 21,500 in the Indian market.

The dual-core Samsung Galaxy Grand unveiled in India

A quad-core processor would have meant a rise in production cost, which would automatically place the device in the high-end league in terms of the price and to a certain extent the specs.

So how is it possible that Samsung is selling a better version of the same device at a lower price in Korea? Well, for one Samsung isn’t importing the phone into Korea. On the contrary, introducing devices in the Indian market involves custom duties and other applicable taxes. Most of the features of the Grand like 5-inch display and others remain same as the Galaxy Grand in India. The only differentiation is the LTE and NFC feature for the Korean version, besides the quad-core chip. In India, we don’t have LTE coverage yet and wouldn’t need this feature anyway. However, Samsung could have included NFC for Indian audiences.

Samsung has played its cards quite well. It launched the Galaxy Grand with dual-SIM capability for the price-sensitive Indian market and the same phone with LTE and quad-core for the uber-connected Korean market. The Broadcom chipset used in the Indian version doesn't support LTE (and also helps lower the cost). Now, we can't whine about LTE as there is no support for LTE in India. On the other hand, it is certainly a must-have for Korea. LTE is a burgeoning market in Korea and is fast turning into a technical standard. Currently, one out of five people use LTE phones and networks. Just by adding a quad-core chip in the Indian version, it wouldn't greatly benefit the Indian experience, but instead would have simply increased the cost of the smartphone.

Poweramp for Android Review

PRICE IN INDIA

129

TECH2 RATING

 

 

When it comes to music players for Android, there’s no shortage of free players and after pretty much trying all the good ones, you will come back to just one and that’s Poweramp. Ever since Gingerbread days till now, Poweramp continues to be the most powerful music player for Android and has a huge fan following. Let’s take a closer look at what makes this paid player outshine any other in the Play store.

Interface and Features
Poweramp is available as a trial app by default from the Play store and you later purchase the unlocker to make it a full version. Once installed, you’re presented with a clean and easy to use interface. The UI is extremely novice-friendly giving you oversized media controls for Play, fast forward, etc. with plenty of space for a big album art above it. Your music can be sorted according to the usual artist, album categories or you can choose folder view, which shows you all your music the way you have copied it on your phone. Tapping on this takes you to the playlist from where you can switch folders. The album art area also houses the shuffle and repeat toggle buttons along with a five star rating system. The placement and transparencies of all these extra options can be customised in the settings.

Simple and easy to use UI

What makes Poweramp one of the most sought after music player is the long list of audio formats supported. The list includes mp3, mp4/m4a (including alac), ogg, wma, flac, wav, ape, wv, tta, mpc, aiff, which covers pretty much every format you can find audio in these days. The ability to customise the sound is also very extensive. We start off with a 10-band graphic equaliser that can be used to fine tune your music depending on what genre of songs you listen to the most. There are plenty of presets as well and you can also use the sound enhancements (like Dolby or HTC FX) that come with some phones in Poweramp. Besides that, you also have the option to adjust the bass and treble separately along with a volume limiter. You can also add extra effects like Stereo eXpansion, mono mixing and adjust the balance. Every change you make is noticeable provided you have a good pair of headphones. Other features include support for crossfading, gapless playback, queuing system, ability to update missing album art and even download lyrics of the song through the musiXmatch plugin.

Plenty of options to tweak the audio

Performance
With the right pair of headphones, the audio quality is really good and beats any other player in the market. The equaliser and or audio effects make a huge impact on the audio quality and you can actually make out the difference between mp3 and flac files. One neat feature is the ability to parse .cue and m3u files. If you download radio shows, especially trance music, you’ll often come across one single file that’s an hour long. Cue and m3u files help breakdown this singular file into individual tracks so you can skip to the one you want without having to split the track physically. Gapless playback support is also present for albums that feature it.

Customizations galore

You also get plenty of widgets for your homescreen to choose from, including a very nice lockscreen widget. You can customise the amount of information to be displayed on the lockscreen widget too, from album art to equaliser controls. Poweramp also gives you the option to change the theme. You get a bunch of them by default and you can even install third party themes from the Play Store. One feature that we feel should be added is a social component. Apps like MixZing allow you to play your music from your library as well as search for trending tracks around the globe. You can even see what your friends are listening to at the moment and rate songs so your friends can find them.

Verdict and Price in India
Poweramp is available for as little as Rs129 for the full version, which makes it extremely good value. The app is compatible with Android v2.1 and upwards and is constantly being updated with bug fixes and support for the latest version of Android. If you want to get the best out of your music then we strongly suggest you ditch the stock player for Poweramp.

To download this app for Android click here.

PS4 ‘getting ready’ for possible May reveal [rumour]

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By Riazul Haque
01.26.13 |

Sony’s vice president of home entertainment, Hiroshi Sakamoto, hinted at the announcement of the PS4 during an interview with Emol (translated).
Sakamoto spoke about “a new announcement related to the new PlayStation.” He also said that the news is “still a big secret” and that the PlayStation side of Sony, “are getting ready for it.” Hmm, all very cryptic and ambiguous, but with all the rumours that have surfaced over the last couple of months, one can only suspect that he is talking about the next PlayStation, even though he did not outright mention it.
Sakamoto went on to say that the PlayStation team “is focused on E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo)” and that “the announcement could take place at that time, or maybe even before, in May.” When asked if he could be more specific whether it would be just an announcement or something specific, Sakamoto carefully dodged that question with: “Probably the former (an announcement), on that date we hope to deliver big news, but we must wait until May at least.” E3 will take place 11 – 13 June.
This would mean that Sony could get the jump on Microsoft, and announce a new console before its major rival. The verdict is still out whether that’s a good or bad move, but it sure will put all eyes on Sony. Gamers should also curb their enthusiasm, as Sony are renowned for stalling after an announcement of a new product, as was the case with the PS3.