camera

Best Budget Phone: Moto G

I was impressed with Moto X from Motorola, but went with Nexus 5 as I want to have pure android experience, as a developer. But I still loved Moto X for it’s camera/picture clarity.

Moto G on FlipKart

Motorola has now released Moto G, and it created a lot of buzz. I din’t want to be involved in creating the hype, but once I had the device and tested it, I was convinced that this is ‘the best’ midrange android phone we could get. Look at the specs:

KEY FEATURES OF MOTO G
5 MP Primary Camera and 1.3 MP Secondary Camera – with LED flash, HDR(auto), Slow motion video recording.
Digital Zoom – 4x
Corning Gorilla Glass 3
Android v4.3 (Jelly Bean) OS – Moto G can be updated to android KitKat
1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 Quad Core Processor and 1 GB RAM
Dual SIM (GSM + GSM)
HD Recording
4.5-inch HD Display: 720p HD resolution and 329 ppi – every pixel is sharp, vivid and crystal clear.
Wi-Fi Enabled
Quad Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 Processor is clocked at 1.2 GHz.
1 GB RAM to support multitasking and the Adreno Graphics 305 to let you play graphic-heavy games.
16 GB and 8 GB Internal Memory devices available.
2070 mAh Li-Ion battery – Up to 24 hours backup

It’s an awesome phone. If you were still thinking and waiting till your friend or coworker takes it, you need not wait – it’s good device for the price. You can go ahead and buy it.

For 8 GB Moto G it costs : Rs. 12,499/-
For 16 GB Moto G it costs: Rs. 13,999/-

I would recommend to go with 16 GB device, as it has a small difference of cost compared to 8 GB device, but comes with double the storage space. So go for 16 GB Moto G. You can also get original Cover / Case for your Moto G as an introductory offer on online sites like FlipKart, for a small extra cost.

Check out:
Moto G on FlipKart
Moto G on Amazon
Moto G on Amazon India

KitKat 4.4.1 Improves Camera Performance

As reported earlier, Nexus 5 is a great phone but lacks in camera performance. Well atleast, it’s not something great compared to Nexus 4

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Update: We got KitKat 4.4.2 update and here is what the update improves upon the existing KitKat flavor.
Well, it’s 54.0 MB of update.

This update improves the Nexus 5 camera with faster shooting(less shutter lag, less motion blur); faster, more accurate focusing; better white balancing for truer colors; and more accurate exposures. The update also includes other bug fixes and performance improvements.

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Nexus 5 KitKat 4.4.2 Update

Nexus 7 First Generation Tab: KitKat 4.4.2 Update

Google soon recognized it’s users feedback and has released a patch for it, which fixed most of the camera issues.

1. Improving contrast.
2. Improves exposure.
3. Improves autofocus. Now you can get clear pictures even on the move.
4. The camera app in itself opens faster.
5. The time gap between the click and the capture has been reduced (in layman’s language!)

It is impressive that Google has come-up with a patch to the camera issue within weeks of release of Nexus 5

If you still haven’t got the update on your phone, it’s coming. Google is rolling the update and you’ll get it soon.

Nexus 5 and KitKat Treat: Live!

After all these drama and PR games of specs/image leaks, the curtains have been finally pulled! LG made Nexus 5 has been announced along with much awaited android flavor – KitKat (Don’t be frustrated, if you didn’t win any contests here and there 😛 )

On FlipKart: Nexus 5 (32 GB)

Some KitKat’s Sweetness

A smarter caller ID: Whenever you get a call from a phone number not in your contacts, your phone will look for matches from businesses with a local listing on Google Maps.

All your messages in the same place Never miss a message, no matter how your friend sends it. With the new Hangouts app, all of your SMS and MMS messages are together in the same app, alongside your other conversations and video calls. And with the new Hangouts, you can even share your location and send animated GIFs.

Emoji everywhere Emoji are colorful Japanese characters, which are now available as emoticons in your Google keyboard.

HDR+ photography HDR+ mode on Nexus 5 automatically snaps a rapid burst of photos and combines them to give you the best possible single shot. Daytime pictures are vivid with clean shadows, and nighttime photos are sharp with less noise.

Nexus 5
Watch this video before you read boring text 😛

..well to be brutally honest, this video dint impress me as much

But Nexus 5 device in itself is so well designed, it grabbed my attention much before I watched these videos.

Nexus 5 Specs
Nexus 5 comes with 4.8 oz and 8.59mm thin.
Display: 4.95” 1920×1080 display (445 ppi). Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3
Operating System: Android 4.4, KitKat.

Processor:
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon™ 800, 2.26GHz
GPU: Adreno 330, 450MHz

Camera: 1.3MP front facing and 8MP rear facing with Optical Image Stabilization.

Dimension: 69.17×137.84×8.59 mm, 4.59 ounces (130g)
Battery:(under test environment)
2300 mAh
Talk time up to 17 hours*
Standby time up to 300 hours†
Internet use time up to 8.5 hours on Wi-Fi, up to 7 hours on LTE‡
Wireless Charging built-in

Audio: Built-in speaker. 3.5mm stereo audio connector

Wireless:
Dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4G/5G) 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
NFC (Android Beam)
Bluetooth 4.0

Networks:
2G/3G/4G LTE

North America:
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
CDMA: Band Class: 0/1/10
WCDMA: Bands: 1/2/4/5/6/8/19
LTE: Bands: 1/2/4/5/17/19/25/26/41

Rest of World:
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
WCDMA: Bands: 1/2/4/5/6/8
LTE: Bands: 1/3/5/7/8/20

Memory:
You can Choose 16GB or 32GB internal storage (actual formatted capacity will be less)
2GB RAM

Ports and Connectors:
microUSB
SlimPort™ enabled
3.5mm stereo audio jack
Dual microphones
Ceramic power and volume buttons

Sensors:
GPS
Gyroscope
Accelerometer
Compass
Proximity/Ambient Light
Pressure
Hall

Device Color: White and Black

Price:
For 16GB variant $349
For 32GB variant $399

Nexus 5 Price In India
Nexus 5 – 16 GB – Rs. 28, 999
Nexus 5 – 32 GB – Rs. 32, 999

These devices are officially unlocked and are not bound to any contracts.

My Views On Nexus 5

Camera
It’s an awesome device. But you may think, these days smartphones are shipping with 32 MP camera’s and Nexus 5 is stuck with 8 MP!, well clarity of pictures don’t just depend on Mega Pixel rates, so lets wait with the new additional camera features Nexus 5 is shipping with. I’m sure, they’ve taken much care about video recording and photo capturing, as it has been highly emphasized in promo videos. The new HDR+ fixes all your shaky captures!

Sensors
It also comes with cool sensors. We could play around and create wonderful applications for devices running KitKat.

Speed
2GB RAM in a smart phone is awesome. Not long ago we had only 256 MB of RAM in our desktop computers 😛 – good old days. So we could expect this smart phone to be a faster device.
Also not to forget: CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon™ 800, 2.26GHz and GPU: Adreno 330, 450MHz

..talking about the speed – According to Sundar Pichai, head of Android, apps have been fine-tuned to use less computing power, with new android KitKat. Also, Google wants KitKat to be compatible with even the low end(hardware wise) android devices. Application developers could build application that would run based on the memory the device has. This way, Google is aiming to bring android KitKat to all the android enabled devices. But providing upgrade to these devices are left to device manufacturers. This way, Google wants to bring uniform user experience for all android device users.

Nexus Devices
If you follow our blog, you might already know that, I love android devices. Recently I bought Nexus 7 (first generation tablet) and I’m still loving it. It’s really an amazing device.

As always, one of the biggest advantage of Nexus devices is that it gets the new versions of android( updates ) sooner than any other devices. That being said, Nexus 4, Nexus 7(both 2012 and 2013 models), and Nexus 10 will be getting KitKat i.e., android 4.4 in coming weeks.

You can order Nexus 5 from FlipKart: Nexus 5 (32 GB)

Use Mobile Phone as a Webcam

This is a guest post by Keith Palmer. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

If you want to use your camera phone as a web camera, I assume that you are advanced enough to follow below instructions.

Webcams themselves can be expensive, at least for a high quality one, and wireless webcams can be even more expensive (not to mention rare). Most of us already own several cameras and don’t really want to invest more for a webcam. If you have a cameraphone running WindowsMobile 6.x, Symbian, or Java (I’ve used a new Nokia c6), as well as a Bluetooth enabled computer or laptop, and you can use some nifty software to turn your phone into a wireless webcam.

You can download the PC software at sourceforge, and the phone software here. Install both pieces of software on their respective hardware, and then pair your phone with your computer over the Bluetooth connection. You will need to make sure that both are set to be publically visible, and that you know the password for both Bluetooth connections (if applicable).

Running the actual software and connecting it to your phone is pretty easy. Run the SmartCam software on both your computer and your phone. On the computer side, go to the Settings dialogue under the File menu, and then choose Bluetooth as the method of connection. On the cell phone, simply choose the computer from the list of visible devices (do make sure that your computer is visible as a Bluetooth device).

Assuming that everything above has been done properly, you should now see your phone as a webcam and be able to use it with video chat applications, as well as record and save video streams from it. This is really great because having the wireless feature makes it a lot more versatile than traditional webcams, and having the camera in a small, lightweight phone makes it easy to move around, and set up in different locations. Nowadays, more and more phones have video chat features built-in, but not all of them do, and so this is a great way to get around that limitation. Even though phone camera quality isn’t that great, webcams generally aren’t high quality, and don’t need to be, because of the limitations of most people’s bandwidth. The one thing about this kind of setup that might limit the quality is the Bluetooth connection, as it is not made for streaming large amounts of data. However this is a great way to add an extra feature to your phone, and it does work pretty well.

Keith Palmer is a student at technology science class. He writes tutorials and reviews for warious magazines and websites. At this point he writes tutorials for mobicity