Asus ROG G752VT-DH72 Review: A PC gaming giant slims down slightly

When shopping for a big, bulky gaming laptop, the kind that will take any new game and crank it up to high settings at full HD resolution without a problem, there are generally two camps to choose from. The first is a legion of smaller boutique PC builders, from Origin PC to Velocity Micro, who take ugly off-the-shelf laptop shells and stuff them with carefully tweaked gaming parts. The second is machine from an established major league PC brand, such as Asus, Dell/Alienware or Acer, which all have custom-built bodies and slick designs, but at the loss of that hand-crafted care that comes with a boutique PC.

Of the major-brand gaming systems, the ROG (or Republic of Gamers) line from Asus has always been a favorite. Last year's G751 was built like a tank, included a top-of-the-line Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M graphics card, and powered through every game we threw at it. But, it was also incredibly big and bulky -- attach a long handle and it could be used as a snow shovel.

This new revamp gives the ROG laptop series its biggest facelift in years, and trades up to Intel's latest Skylake generation of processors. But, there has not been a new mobile GPU from Nvidia in some time, so it still has the same 900-series mobile graphics chips as every major gaming laptop from the past year and a half.

Not also that this $1,799 configuration bumps the graphics down a step, from the Nvidia 980M to the 970M, but at least pairs it with a 128GB SSD/1TB HDD combo and a generous 16GB of RAM. It's hard to find the exact same Asus configuration internationally, but similar models sell for £1,343 in the UK and AU$2,699 in Australia. A DVD optical drive is also included, but largely superfluous, as PC games are almost entirely downloaded from online stores such as Steam and GOG now.

ASUS ROG G752


Price as reviewed 
$1,799

Display size/resolution 
17.3 inch, 1,920 x 1,080 screen

PC CPU                                                
2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ

PC Memory
16GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,133MHz

Graphics
3072MB Nvidia GTX 970M

Storage
128GB SSD + 1TB 7,200rpm HDD

Networking
802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.0

Operating system
Micorsoft Windows 10 Home (64-bit)

The new look takes the classis Asus ROG matte black finish and trades it in for warmer palette of brushed aluminum with copper accents and red/orange lights. A few sci-fi-inspired touches, like carved hieroglyphic-like lines above the keyboard and honeycombed speaker grilles along the hinge, add some character. The new chassis is definitely slimmer and more streamlined than the bulky industrial look of its predecessor, but it's still way too big and heavy (at 8.8 pounds) to carry around more than once in a great while.

Along with a backlit keyboard with deep, satisfying keys, Asus includes a handful of programmable macro buttons above the left side of the keyboard. I've been playing PC games going all the way back to my first Tandy Color Computer 3, and rarely if ever use macro keys -- your milage may vary. The macro keys, good for launching apps or running through a series of key commands, can be programmed through a simple included app called Asus MacroKey.


More interesting is the Asus ROG Gaming Center app, which offers a wealth of system information, including CPU and GPU frequencies and temperatures, and allows for adjusting some display and audio settings and controlling the system lights, all from a single view. Multiple profiles can be set up, optimized for media playback, gaming, or extended battery life.

This midlevel configuration of the G752 has plenty of hard-drive space, including a 128GB SSD for OS files and some basic apps, plus a big 1TB 7,200rpm hard drive for storing big game files, which can be 25GB or more each. The Intel Core i7 6700HQ processor is about as up-to-date and powerful as one could ask for in a gaming laptop, but the 980M from Nvidia is really what you're looking for in a gaming laptop, at least on paper. To trade up to it requires a step up to a configuration Asus sells for $2,599, which is a big jump (but also includes a 256GB SSD and a more advanced cooling system).

Fortunately, in hands-on and performance benchmark testing, the G752 as configured here turned in impressive scores. In standard application tests, it was second only to the Origin Eon17-SLX, which packs actual desktop PC parts into a laptop body, although really any of the high-end gaming laptops we compared this system to are more than fast enough for everyday tasks, even heavy photo and video editing.

In gaming tests, the difference between systems with the Nvidia 980M and the 970M were more pronounced in some cases. And, as newer, more demanding games are released, that difference could become more pronounced. However, in hands-on gaming, the 970M card was more than powerful enough to run Fallout 4 at maximum detail settings and full 1,920x1,080 resolution, as well as other demanding games such as Metro: Last Light and The Witcher 3. For about $2,000, Dell, Acer and other PC makers can get you a gaming laptop with a GeForce 980M in it.

One bonus not available in most other gaming laptops is Nvidia's G-Sync technology. That allows properly configured graphics cards and displays to sync up, with the GPU producing a new frame of animation at exactly the right time for the display to use it, which leads to smoother gameplay and less stress on the GPU.

Obviously, no one buys a gaming laptop for its battery life. In this case, running for 2:25 on our streaming video playback test isn't going to change any minds about that, but for an hour or so of disconnected gaming, it should be fine.

Conclusion

There are gaming laptops that offer more features, slimmer designs, or more graphics power, but Asus has managed to find something close to the sweet spot in this mid-priced (for a gaming laptop) version of the G752. The design is less overpowering than last year's model, performance is fine for the games of today or tomorrow (but less future-proof than something with the step-up GPU), and adding G-Sync is a valuable extra that really makes a difference in the handful of systems we've used it in.

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Micromax Yu Yureka Review- Best Phone in it's category

On Dec 18 2014,  new online brand from Micromax Informatics along with the greatest developer of Android Custom ROMs, CyanogenMod announced the Yureka smartphone. Yureka is the first device in India to get launched with the Cyanogen in India. The registrations for Yureka begins from 19 December 2014, 2pm on the popular eCommerce website, Amazon.in. 

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Call Of Duty-Advanced Warfare Review Xbox-One

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare developer Sledgehammer Games has the unappealing responsibility of cleaning up someone else's mess.

Last year's Call of Duty: Ghosts was a low point for the series coming off its most successful game ever. Its campaign and story were uninspired and boring. Its multiplayer design took away what had proven so successful in Black Ops 2 and replaced it with something that failed to improve on the series' defining mode of player progression, and its maps felt awkward and empty too often. And now, with Advanced Warfare, new developer Sledgehammer has to make everyone forget any of that happened with their first full Call of Duty release.

With little exception, Sledgehammer has demonstrated itself up to the challenge. Advanced Warfare's production values and excellently paced campaign set the table, and its major additions to Call of Duty's multiplayer, from basic mechanics to its deeply addictive progression system, might be enough to chase away bad memories of Ghosts.

Advance Warfare's Big changes revolve around the new Exo Suit.

Sledgehammer hasn't veered away from the basic building blocks of the Call of Duty formula with Advanced Warfare's trip to a near future of massive paramilitary corporations and superhuman technology. It remains a fast first-person shooter oriented around crouching behind cover and aiming down gunsights with the left trigger while firing with the right. It's arguably the most-copied set of mechanics in games from the last decade, because it works. Movement and shooting in Advanced Warfare is quick, smooth and recognizable to anyone who's played a shooter since 2005.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare's big changes are all oriented around the Exo suit, an exoskeletal support system that's standard issue for all soldiers in Sledgehammer's near-future setting. Practically speaking, the exo adds new kinds of mobility to Call of Duty's genre-standard toolset, with actual options varying somewhat from level to level based on the situation at hand. Most exos allow for a double jump, and every exo allows a sort of boost left, right or backward.

All of this makes moment-to-moment navigation much more interesting in Advanced Warfare than previous entries in the series or its imitators have managed. The exo conceit also allows Sledgehammer to vary up the single-player campaign's format and ideas in some exciting new ways. There are some real standouts, including a brilliant stealth mission and an extended drone sequence that gives the AC-130 mission from the original Modern Warfare a run for its money.

In fact, speaking strictly from level and encounter design and mission variety, Advanced Warfare is the best campaign the series has seen since Infinity Ward re-imagined the franchise with Modern Warfare in 2007. There's no muddy objectives to get stuck on, and at least on my playthrough on the "Hardened" difficulty setting, there were very few cheap-feeling death loops to get stuck in. It balances fairness with enough challenge and sophistication to make success feel worth it, and I never felt like any one part overstayed its welcome.

This is somewhat more surprising, given that Advanced Warfare is longer than last year's Call of Duty: Ghosts by a healthy amount — I dragged myself through last year's game in around four and a half hours, which was more or less on par with Modern Warfare 3. My time throughAdvanced Warfare on Hardened clocked in closer to seven. And through that extended playtime, I didn't feel like Sledgehammer had run out of new scenarios or concepts.

In fact, the only truly deflating element of Advanced Warfare is a story that never manages to get off the ground. Much has been made of House of Cards actor Kevin Spacey's turn as Jonathan Irons, the CEO of a paramilitary-oriented corporation named Atlas, but his performance tends toward over-the-top. This is at odds with the over-genuine, hyper-serious sobriety of literally every other character and the overarching environment the story takes place in. The plot is just an inch or two short of completely predictable, the dialogue is frequently gibberish, and the "interactive" points in scripted scenes are often in "press X to whatever" territory — a staple that reaches some almost parodically frustrating lows here.

This is an especially sour note for the campaign given that it moves the series forward in other small ways that I appreciated regardless. In a departure for first-person war games, Advanced Warfare isn't predicated on killing some evil invading force that seems primed on capitalizing on border paranoia, and the enemy isn't composed of third-world canon fodder. There's concern shown for civilians. There is a somewhat sophisticated view of geopolitics and America's place in it, and the most interesting character in the game is former-Spetsnaz-turned-Atlas operator Illona, one of the series' first major female characters.

Sledgehammer even wisely knows when to pull back, when to let the game breathe for extended periods of time without shooting or violence, something the series often felt like it lost afterModern Warfare. But the protagonist and leads all otherwise hedge closely to the Call of Duty status quo, leaving Advanced Warfare's otherwise forward-thinking changes in the background. The result is a really good Call of Duty campaign that feels like it could have been truly great.

Multiplayer is a different story, as Sledgehammer more successfully leverages the new possibilities for movement and player ability more consistently. Advanced Warfare's levels all seem tailored to the exo — you can walk around, but you'll find much more speed and access by looking up and plotting a less conventional path. There are multiple points of entry everywhere, and they're accessible from more places.

This change of philosophy might sound like a small addition among a list of new levels, new guns and the like. But this makes the biggest difference from its predecessors in Advanced Warfare's immediate play experience. There's less safety, less predictability, and it combines with some of the best map design the series has seen — hiding places never have total cover, and corners are hard to find. Sight lines exist all over, but there's just as many means of breaking out of a field of fire by using a boost or performing a running slide.

One new game mode, Uplink, seems designed completely around the new physicality. Uplink most closely resembles single-flag CTF, but the "flag" is actually a ball-shaped satellite device, and each team's capture point is an "uplink point" represented by a glowing sphere suspended in midair. You can throw the ball through for one point, but running it through yields two, and a rewarding sense of satisfaction. Uplink takes advantage of every new mechanic that Sledgehammer introduces to fantastic effect, making it the best mode to happen to Call of Duty since Modern Warfare 3's Kill Confirmed (which also returns).

CO-OP

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare features co-op that should feel familiar to fans — it's a wave-based survival mode taking place on the multiplayer maps, where you earn points to buy better weapons and upgrades for your exo. There are wrinkles that mix things up a bit. For example, some waves have objectives that need to be completed to avert additional obstacles, like a glitched-out exo.

It's all competent enough, but it lacks the distinctive identity that powers the zombies mode in developer Treyarch's Call of Duty games. We'll see if that remains the case.

The exo suit also offers new sub-abilities and perks to choose from, such as an energy-based riot shield, enhanced healing or temporary invisibility. All of these new options can make for more variety in play, but usage is based on a battery that only recharges after death. I found myself discouraged from using these exo abilities — I never knew when I might need them more and was afraid to "waste" my one shot per life. It's a small complaint in the grand scheme of what Advanced Warfare is introducing, but it feels like a moment of indecision in an otherwise confident game.

But if the exo and its additions are the draw for lapsed players and jaded veterans alike, it's Advanced Warfare's progression that will keep them playing.

That, and the loot.

The Pick 10 system introduced in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 returns, albeit with more options and opportunities in the form of Pick 13. Players can pick and choose weapons, perks and streak bonuses as they like, albeit at a price. The more obscure your choices, the more they will cost you. If you want to take a primary weapon in your secondary weapon slot, you can — but you'll have to pay with more points. Score streaks can be modified in many ways, including making them support streaks (which keeps progress for them on death, but makes them take longer to earn).

It's a welcome return, and it allows for the most personal customization of your character class the series has seen when joined by the updated options available for avatar customization. Male or female presets can be outfitted with various cosmetic items, which are in turn now visible in multiplayer lobbies between games.

It's cool to see other players' operators, but this seems particularly oriented to showing off the various bits of cosmetic loot that you can earn in-game. As you play, you'll see the same challenge rewards that have defined Call of Duty since Modern Warfare, but achieving challenges can now also yield "supply drops," which is a fancy, Call of Duty way of saying treasure chests. You can open these chests between matches for special rewards like temporary XP boosts and improved in-game called-in support drops.

But you can also collect new pieces of armor and gear to set your soldier apart, which is a truly diabolical addition. The Pick 13 system let me find a loadout I really liked without much encouragement to vary it up, and gaining new scopes or attachments for my weapons felt tired years ago, but I got excited for every new cosmetic item I earned via a supply drop.

Supply drops can also include special versions of Advanced Warfare's weapons with multiple levels of rarity, another smart feature snagged from MMOs. This might be the most encouragement to leave your comfort zone that Call of Duty has offered in years. These weapons have minor bonuses to their attributes (along with a couple of penalties as well) and hard-wired attachments that can't be removed; the pull to use them was almost impossible to resist. This is especially useful in Advanced Warfare, given the presence of unrecognizable weapons for long-term fans — for example, directed energy weapons like the TAC shotgun or, you know, the lasers.

No really. There are lasers. And tracking robots you fire out like grenades.

That said, I would have resisted more, if not for the genius of Advanced Warfare's firing range. Until now, testing a new weapon loadout in Call of Duty meant using it in a match and hoping for the best. But now, a press of a button in the pregame lobby will take you and your loadout more or less instantly into a virtual arena where you can fire on targets and get to know your guns without feeding yourself to the wolves.

It seems like a small thing, but the firing range is symptomatic of smart decisions that seem poised to continue moving Call of Duty's multiplayer forward. And in the present, right now, Advanced Warfareis the most fun I've had with the series since it reinvented the shooter mold. Which isn't to say everything is perfect, exactly — there's still a meat-grinder mentality to the multiplayer, where a few great players will likely contribute the lion's share of the kills, and anybody below that threshold will probably die again and again.

Advance Warfare shows what this series needed most was Risk.

But it might be too much to ask for that to change too. For whatever minor missteps Advanced Warfare makes with its story, it more than compensates with vision and remarkable execution. The latter has never really been Call of Duty's problem — Ghosts notwithstanding — but Advanced Warfare adds enough and moves far enough forward with its new abilities to feel like a risk. Turns out, that's just what the series needed.

Here is a Gameplay Video Demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r66PFe_BeGs 

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Windows Phone 8.1 Review

Windows Phone 8.1 brings Microsoft's mobile platform to the modern age, finally, with a handful of big new updates. In fact, it's strange to call it 8.1 when it could really warrant a whole new name.

Many of the issues that we've always had with Windows Phone have finally been addressed, for the most part, and it makes the platform slightly more pleasurable to use. Things that had given us headaches, like the lack of a better notification system, are all gone.

Of course, it's still very much Windows Phone. So for those of you already familiar with previous iterations of Windows Phone, you'll feel right at home with some pleasant surprises along the way.

Live Tiles, the Metro UI and everything else remains mostly the same, but with tweaks here and there that improve the overall experience. Perhaps the biggest addition to Windows Phone 8.1 is Cortana, Microsoft's voice-recognition personal assistant.

With Cortana, Windows Phone finally joins iOS and Android in having a personal assistant, so to speak. Like its competitors, Cortana responds to all kinds of commands and requests, from the very basic things like setting alarms to more advanced stuff, like asking if a nearby restaurant is any good.

Another new feature is the notification pane, called Action center, which is just like the ones on iOS and Android. We can't thank the stars enough for this, especially since the previous system, Toast notifications, were just awful.

When you pull down from the top bar, a window pane comes down with toggle switches for things like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, along with a list of all your pending notifications. You'll also have the option to jump into settings or clear all notifications from this pane. Thank heaven. Seriously.

With that quick intro out of the way, let's dive a little deeper into this new stuff and see what the fuss is all about. But before we proceed, it's important to note that we have a developer preview version of Windows Phone 8.1, meaning that a lot of things could change before the final software version reaches the masses.

Cortana

With Cortana, you should be able to do all kinds of things without having to press more than a single button. First, like a good personal assistant should, Cortana learns important tidbits about you and who you are and things you're into.

Keeping track of your habits, interests and daily activities better helps Cortana guide you through things and make suggestions. It probably also helps Microsoft gather way more data about you, even though the company promises the info won't be used to advertise to you.

You'll get suggestions and reminders when you set them, or when you're interested in taking a look, and you can also schedule things in your calendar and send messages, too.

When you open up the app, the first thing you'll see is the weather and other items that might be pertinent to you, like transportation times, and more. Your information is kept in Cortana's Notebook, which holds your interests, quiet hours, places you visit, music searches you make and more.

Based on your interests compiled in Cortana's Notebook, you'll get information that suits you, rather than random suggestions that might have no interest to you. It's a little like Google Now, which shows you your travel data, calendar updates and more.

In the Interests section, you can quickly glance at your day by checking traffic, weather, news headlines and more. You can also get suggestions on what to eat nearby, plan trips and check for local attractions.

One neat feature in Cortana is quiet hours, and it works much like iOS's Do Not Disturb feature. You can set certain times of the day when you won't be bothered with notifications and calls. However, there is an option to let callers get through if they call a number of times within a given time frame, which makes it likely an emergency. Although, I did have a drunk ex once who'd call me repeatedly and bypass iOS's Do Not Disturb, so I just had to shut off that feature altogether. Your mileage may vary.

An additional option in quiet hours, like other OSes, is making exceptions for certain contacts. If you add people to your "inner circle" they can bypass the quiet hours entirely. This would be useful if you need to answer your boss's phone calls at 1 a.m., for example.

Cortana also works with speech to text, so you can just talk instead of typing when you need to. Like iOS and Android, all you do is tap the microphone button and start talking to your phone. Once you're done speaking, the phone will recognize when you're finished and the text just pops right up where it should be. Easy.

No virtual assistant is perfect, and Cortana isn't immune to the same faults as Siri or Google Now.

Occasionally, Cortana has some trouble hearing or deciphering things, so you'll just have to do a few things manually when that's the case. And if you ask Cortana for something that it doesn't understand, it will default you to a Bing web search, just like Siri would. Straight to the web.

We'd expect Cortana to get much better over time, and it's definitely a welcome addition to Windows Phone. Once a few bugs are squashed, it'll be right up there with Siri and Google Now.

Our Rating: 3.5

Pros

• Cortana Voice Search is super-cool.
• Cortana Home and Notebook is easy to use and Navigate.

Cons

• Some efforts will be needed to make a phone truly personal.

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Intex Cloud FX Firefox Phone Review

Intex's attempt with Firefox OS does not impress us much, thanks to the poor performance and the battery that does not last even for a day, although no big complains about the Firefox OS.

Intex Mobiles, the Indian brand can claim to be one of the early manufacturers to bring out a smartphone with the Firefox OS. The Intex Cloud FX is a decent looking phone for the price of Rs. 1999, but does it really have everything that comes together to call this a smartphone? Let’s find out.

In our design overview and photo gallery, we mentioned that the phone doesn’t really look like a great phone, but there is nothing bad as well. Most of the button and port placement is good enough, except for the MicroUSB port, which is on the top of left panel. The matte finish on the back does give some friction against slipping, but anyway the phone is small enough to fit into the hand and thus can be well held. There is just one touch-sensitive button below the display, and no other buttons beside it or within the display.

The power button is on the top, and there is a 3.5mm jack beside it. Turning the phone back, you would see the brand logos of Intex and Firefox OS The back cover is removable, and the thin cover when pulled out, exposes the battery and under that there are slots for the MicroSD and two SIM cards. Overall, the design is decent enough and actually this is better than what you would get for a cheap phone for this price.

The display on Intex Cloud FX comes with a low resolution of 480×320 pixels and that is not really bad because the color output is decent enough, but do not expect to get great view from side angles, because you will be able to see the content well from only the front but not from even a little side angle. We are expecting too much if we wanted good viewing angles on this little device.

The brightness too is not great, but at least we were able to read the content properly in bright conditions, though that is not the case under sunlight. The screen tends to look like being on low brightness under the sunlight, although we have set it on full brightness. This could prove a little disappointing for those who spend a lot of time traveling, walking in natural light.

What we really had to put a focus on, was the Firefox OS, and it is quite interesting and is not that bad, although we found several issues on our first few days of usage itself. Only because these issues were not restricting the regular usage of the phone, they were not easily noticeable, but yes, these issues can give an overall bad experience for the Firefox OS users. Right from the lock screen, you keep wondering about what specials you might find here and there (just like one keeps talking about the hidden options and tricks in other smartphone OS), but you end up getting nothing except for the simple interface, although the adaptive search is something worth trying.

Using it for a week and the final feeling about the OS is that the Firefox OS is made not for low-end devices, because the adaptive search and the apps are all not well furnished to work on low RAM and low-power processors. At least that is what we experienced with the Intex Cloud FX we reviewed, and sometimes after continuous usage, opening an application took even more than half a minute. That doesn’t sound good if someone plans to use this phone as a primary device after having used the feature phones for a long time, and because those feature phones never give up with the functions although there are limited things you could do with it.

The RAM in Intex Cloud FX is 128MB and we noticed the apps automatically being closed in the background once we open any other extra apps. Keeping aside the details about the processors, cores and clock speed, the actual performance isn’t good at all. Compromises in every other aspect can be acceptable, but when the performance itself isn’t what one would least expect, the phone is not worthy of a purchase. The keyboard too is slow enough that quick typing won’t be read well and you could end up seeing some other text than what you typed because it does not recognize the pattern of your typing.

Talking of the features and applications, this is the interesting part. The apps seen pre-installed in the Cloud FX include Camera, Gallery, FM Radio, Marketplace, Calendar, Data usage, Email, Music, Video, File Manager and a few entertainment apps like ConnectA2, 2048 game, Facebook and Youtube. The marketplace is quite loaded with many frequently used apps, but the missing apps include the ones like WhatsApp, Hike, etc. Of course there are alternatives, but the actual apps are not available in the marketplace and there is no way you can try and install them from an external source.

This is a Dual SIM device, and there are settings to turn the Wi-Fi hotspot on, and also share the data network using USB tethering, although the best network you can connect to, is the 2G EDGE data network. There is no GPS locator but the geo-location feature helps find the approximate location using either mobile network or Wi-Fi network. While the specs sheet reads that 4GB of external storage card is supported, a 32GB MicroSD card was read and it was supported, surprisingly. But at the same time, you are bound to spend a little extra for the phone because a MicroSD card is necessary, because you don’t get even 20MB of internal storage for media files, and about 70MB is there for app storage.

There is no clarity about the OS version the phone is running, and the software update system is not able to fetch any information about OS updates, giving a constant error when prompting the device to check for any updates. Firefox OS comes with the Firefox browser, which is decent on looks but not the same on performance and loading of websites. Sometimes, a heavy page stops loading mid-way. While nothing much is seen in the settings, Firefox OS has made sure that the user can control the privacy while browsing the websites. There is a setting called “Do Not Track” where the user can decide and tell the website not to track the usage behavior.

 The notification panel comes with toggles for Wi-Fi, Data network, Bluetooth and Airplane mode along with the shortcut for Settings app.

The 2-megapixel camera on the back of the Intex Cloud FX doesn’t do a good job of capturing pictures in any conditions, with any level of light. There is no focusing, and this is not what one should get for a 2-megapixel lens. The camera app too doesn’t have any options except for the toggle for video and photo mode, and once the capture is done, you can at least try to give some effects to it, or crop the image by going to the Gallery app. You can judge the quality of camera with the capture samples given below.

Another really disappointing feature and the biggest deal breaker, is the 1250 mAh battery that doesn’t last for an entire day, even with no usage and when only one SIM card is there on standby. For the exact numbers, we found the Intex Cloud FX to go down from 100% battery to zero in exactly 13 hours and 20 minutes, and during this period, the screen was not turned on even once and the SIM was just there with no calls, messages at all. After removing even the SIM card, the phone on standby could survive for approximately 5 hours more, making it 18 hours for the device to survive without any activity.

With the USB charging from a laptop, it took around 3 hours for the battery to get fully charged from zero, but from the direct power adapter, it took just a little above 2 hours, which still isn’t a good sign because you have to give the phone at least a couple hours every day and cannot even expect it to survive for an entire day.

Final Verdict

Neither Firefox, nor Intex have made this phone to compete with the standard smartphones, and even the pricing is set at a point where only the feature phones are available, but the biggest drawback with the device is that, it doesn’t give a good experience at all. Whatever the price, whatever the OS or special features, if a phone user is not able to use the phone with ease and is not seeing the phone stay with even a little battery towards the end of the day with regular usage, the phone is not worth buying. This is still a start for the Firefox OS but Intex did a lot of compromise with everything they included, both internally and externally to bring out the phone in the market for this low price point. Firefox OS is interesting, with no big fuss or confusion, but the experience gets a hit with the non-responsive apps, the poor battery and a camera that cannot match even the 2MP camera of a low-end device. It would be wise to raise the budget a little higher and go for a decent phone, rather than this.

Bottomline

The phone is a welcome challenge to the feature phones, but the performance gives a bad experience.

PROS

Very affordable price point
Dual SIM
Decent design

CONS

Very bad at performance
Poor battery, not lasting even a day
Camera worse than 2MP

Our Rating: 2

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iPhone 6 Plus Review- The First Well Designed Truly Big Smartphone

Apple is launching not one, but two premium smartphones, and the iPhone 6 Plus is the one many probably were skeptical even existed just a few short months ago. With a screen size measuring 5.5-inches across the diagonal, it’s well into the territory labeled “phablet” on the ancient sea charts of mariners who’ve braved the Android waters. However, Apple’s version of a smartphone that strains the inclusion of “phone” in any word describing it might surprise even those dead set against the trend toward ever-bigger mobile screens.

Basics

• 5.5-inch, 1920 x 1080 display, 401 ppi with 1300:1 contrast.
• 16, 64 or 128GB storage.
• A8 processor (64-bit).
• 8MP iSight camera (rear) with 1.5 micron pixels and optical image stabilization, 1.2 megapixel FaceTime camera (front).
• Dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi.
• 20-band LTE support.
• MSRP: 16GB for $299 on contract/$749 contract free; 64GB for $399 on contract/$849 contract free; 128GB for $499 on contract/$949 contract free.
• Product Info Page.

Pros

• Larger screen is great for productivity and media consumption.
• Battery and camera noticeably better than iPhone 6

Cons

• Not a one-handed device for most.
• Priced above even the usual premium segment.

Design

The iPhone 6 Plus is literally an exaggerated version of the iPhone 6 in terms of its physical design, with dimensions stretched to accommodate its much larger 5.5-inch display. It’s 0.01-inches thicker, just under half-an inch wider, and just under an inch taller than the iPhone 6, and you’ll notice each of those increases in the hand, including the additional thickness, even if it is just a shade of difference. In terms of carrying and holding the device, the additional size makes for a less ‘perfect’ ergonomic quality, something the iPhone 6 definitely achieves, but there’s still lots to love about the industrial design of the 6 Plus.

Like the iPhone 6, it benefits from rounded edges and smooth surfaces that recall the iPad mini and iPad Air. The curved sides make it easier to page back and forth through content with swipes, and it’s easy to imagine how a design with right angles would’ve resulted in an uncomfortable grip with a device this size. The screen is also the star here, and that 5.5-inch high res beauty is set off by thin side bezels, and top and bottom bezels that appear much smaller since they take up a far smaller percentage of the overall front surface of the device.

Attention to detail is Apple’s forte, and that’s apparent in the way the volume keys, relocated power button (it’s on the right side now) and lock switch are all machined. Perforations including the speaker holes on the bottom right are similarly well-executed, and overall the sense you get of the iPhone 6 Plus is one of extreme high quality, which is not something that can be said for the rest of the ‘phablet’ field. Apple has managed to make the very first well-designed smartphone of epic scale, regardless of your thoughts on the merit of the category as a whole.

Performance

The iPhone 6 Plus may be powering a much larger display, and it may need to output content at a higher resolution, but it’s not showing any additional strain vs. the iPhone 6 despite the extra legwork required. The 64-bit A8 process that Apple has designed, which uses a new, smaller and more power-efficient 20nm process, is more than up to the task of serving up animations, swipes, switches and multitasking for the 6 Plus.

If you’re new to the world of iOS and iPhone, you’ll probably just note that the performance is excellent and move on. But if you’re upgrading from an older device, like perhaps the iPhone 4 or 4S, you’re going to instantly take note of just how speedy everything is with this new processor architecture. The screen sizes are stealing headlines, but the performance of the A8, in graphics-intensive applications and in rendering interface flourishes, means that you’ll be feeling the effects of Apple’s next-generation processor improvements long after people are used to the bigger displays.

The iPhone 6 Plus, like the iPhone 6, also features faster wireless performance, on both cellular and Wi-Fi connections. The 802.11ac Wi-Fi felt blazingly fast when used on my home network, which is run from a current-generation Airport Extreme that supports the latest Wi-Fi speeds. LTE is now able to handle up to 150 mbps connections, where supported (and with 20 bands supported on a single model number, you’re more likely to find it works with carriers around the world). Apple has also worked with carriers to get LTE roaming working with more international carrier arrangements, and I found that my AT&T testing sim provided a strong Rogers LTE connection here in Canada.

Features

Apple has brought a number of great new features to both the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, including Apple Pay, which works as advertised in demos but will launch publicly in October in the U.S., and ‘Focus Pixels’ phase detection autofocus for faster, better picture taking. But there are a few featues that are specific to the iPhone 6 Plus that make it a device destined to appeal to both power users and everyday customers looking to simplify their life with a single gadget, instead of requiring both a tablet and phone (and even a computer).

Reachability is the feature Apple created to help users deal with much larger devices, regardless of the size of their hands and digits. The iPhone 6 Plus leans on this especially, as it’s impossible for anyone not in the NBA to reach their thumb across to the top opposite corner. I find it difficult to even reach across the other side of the screen, let alone the corner, when one-handing the device. Reachability helps reach the stuff that’s in the top row, but it doesn’t bring down the status bar on the Home screen (it does in app), which would be helpful, and it’s still a stretch to reach the relocated opposite corner.

For most tasks, I find the iPhone 6 Plus to be a two-handed device – but I also find that I’m absolutely fine with that. The 6 Plus is closer in usage style to an iPad mini, in my experience, albeit one that’s pocketable and capable of full cellular voice communications. Part of the reason that it works so well as a tablet-style gadget is that Apple has introduced special landscape support for both the homescreen and some its first-party apps, which really add to my ability to be productive using them.

The apps in question include Mail, Messages and Calendar, and these now offer up overviews in a column on the left, and detail views on the right, much like they do on tablet or desktop devices. In Mail, it lets you quickly scroll through and triage your email without having to constantly swipe back and forth, and in Messages, it lets you keep abreast of the latest goings on in multiple conversations at once. Using these landscape views effectively almost requires two-handed use, but it ends up feeling well worth the trade-off.

Apple has also introduced new optical image stabilization for still pictures to the iPhone 6 Plus, and the effects are very impressive. That’s something I’ll address in greater detail in the ‘Camera’ section below.

Display

The iPhone 6 Plus has the best screen of any iPhone. It’s above that of either the iPhone 6 or 5s in terms of pixel density, and it’s capable of playing back full HD content in native resolution. The improved contrast and color rendering Apple has also worked into its screen tech is also even more obvious here than it is on the iPhone 6, and that results in a display that’s perfect for viewing photos or watching movies, as well as for showing off well-designed apps and software.

By the numbers, the iPhone 6 Plus’ display offers 88 percent more viewing area that the iPhone 5s, but at a cost of just 55 percent more volume. That means that while it’s very big, it’s not nearly as gigantic as if they’d just increased the proportions of the 5s. The screen trade-offs have real benefits for certain kinds of users beyond just enabling landscape mode, too – with Display Zoom, all interface elements suddenly become easier to read even for those with age-related vision loss, and that’s going to be a big selling point.

I showed my mother both phones and she was instantly drawn to the larger display of the 6 Plus. For these users, too, the 6 Plus can represent a single-device computing solution; it replicates much of the functionality of a tablet, with additional portability, and if you don’t do much beyond browsing the web, or interacting with the rich field of current apps, you’ll be better-served by this with its always-on connectivity than you would by even the combo of a smaller phone and a Chromebook, for instance.

Camera

Apple’s other big selling point here, besides the advantages of a larger display, is the improved camera. Thanks to extra space inside the iPhone 6 Plus, it managed to fit in an optical image stabilization module, which can actually shift the camera lens around both vertically and horizontally to capture a clear image free of the camera shake that can afflict photos taken freehand. And the optical stabilization, in addition to the software-based stabilization Apple already uses in its iPhone camera, results in a photo-taking experience like no other.

As you can see, it works great both indoors and out, and produces some of the best looking low light photos I’ve seen out of a mobile device. The iPhone 6 Plus image stabilization results in pictures that look crisp even when captured casually, and Apple’s new autofocus tricks mean there’s almost no waiting before a scene is properly focused and exposed, with as little manual intervention as possible. You can still manually adjust the point of focus and exposure, but the camera is smart enough that in most cases, you shouldn’t have to.

Battery

The iPhone 6 Plus has another trick up its sleeve, aside from the optical image stabilization and the landscape orientation bonuses: Better battery life. The improved powerhouse on the 6 Plus affords it a full 10 hours more talk time compared to the iPhone 6, plus an additional 6 days of standby time (16 in total), as well as 2 more hours of browsing on 3G and LTE. It’s a trick that, with mixed use, resulted in at least a full day of extra use over the iPhone 6 in my testing, which could stretch to even longer if I used it only sparingly. During one cycle, where I used my phone only a few times a day to check calls, weather and messages, I got over three days of standby time and nearly 11 hours of use.

This alone might be enough reason to get people to opt for the 6 Plus over the 6, and it definitely helps increase the overall appeal of Apple’s big phone. Accustomed as I am to using my phone during the day and plugging it in when I get home in the evening, however, it’s not as great of concern – but already there have been a few times when an extended lack of readily available outlets have shown the merits of the 6 Plus and its capacious power core.

Bottom Line

The iPhone 6 is still the best smartphone for your money in my opinion, owing mostly to the fact that the majority of people are going to feel most comfortable using a smaller device as their daily companion of choice. But the iPhone 6 Plus surprised me: I went into this review expecting to find it was a niche gadget, reserved for those seeking the absolute top-of-the-line, convenience be damned. Instead, I found myself getting strangely comfortable with a phone I still find difficult to use one-handed. In short, the 6 is my favorite current smartphone, but the 6 Plus is its closest competition.

I suspect we’ll see the trade-offs Apple has made in building a phone on this scale downplayed further by the introduction of the Apple Watch next year, as it means the iPhone 6 Plus can stay in the pocket for small things like seeing a message or figuring out why it just vibrated to indicate some kind of inbound notification. Even know, it’s a device well worth your consideration, and if you’re thinking about which to purchase, you should consider how much you value: 1) The ability to more easily manage communications from your pocket; 2) Having energy reserves at the end of the day; 3) Putting the best possible mobile camera in your pocket; or 4) Replacing up to three devices with just one for casual users. If you rate any of these things as high priority, then the 6 Plus might be the better choice.

Our Rating: 4.5

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