Category: PC

HP is all set to launch a large Android tablet with 12.5 inch display. We discovered it on a GFXbench website which is a benchmark site containing scores of device’s processor. While full concrete HP Slate 12 Pro specifications are not yet available we do know something.

Here are the specifications of HP Slate 12 Pro tablet.

* 12.5 inch display with 5 finger gesture support
* 1600 x 1200 pixel resolution
* Android 4.4.2 kitkat operating system
* Qualcomm Adreno 330 GPU
* Quad core Qualcomm Snapdrgaon 800 Krait ARMv7 processor @ 2265 MHz clock speed
* 2 gigabytes of RAM
* Support for Open GL ES 3.0
* 8MP rear camera and 2MP front-facing camera

We do not have its pricing details but it will probably be a lot cheaper than Samsung’s Note Pro, so many will probably be my next buy.

• Via gfxbench.com

The Asus Zenfone 5 is one of few Intel x86 powered smartphones out there. The phone just like its siblings run on Atom Z2580 processor which coupled with light Asus Zen UI promised lag free Android experience. It thus feels zipper than the Galaxy S4 which has a heavy UI comparatively.

Like almost any other Android phone you get some bloatware which is not uninstall-able. Yes you can go into settings and disable them but an average Joe will not be able to figure that out. We adore how you can uninstall anything on Windows Phone and we wish we would uninstall third party apps like Amazon Kindle, Movie Studio, Omlet and so on. Fortunately they don’t make the device laggy.

We love how the Asus Zenfone 5 feels in the hands. Its curved back fits just perfect in my palm. The back is matte and overall design is elegant and stylish.

The volume keys and power button have unique texture to it. We felt great every time we picked the unit to play with it.

The display is 5 inch diagonally and packs HD resolution. Being IPS it is very bright and boasts excellent viewing angels. It is very bright too and we had no problems using it in the sun.

Speakers on the back are fine for notifications and phone calls but loud enough for sharing a YouTube video with the person sitting next to you. We recommend using an external speaker or earphones if you are going to listen to a song or video with your friend sitting on your side.

There is a notification bar just like any other Android phone but you must tap on the little top right icon to see your unseen notifications. It took us a while to find that out. Asus should play a tutorial about it the first time user uses notification panel.

Just a suggestion, immediately remove the weather widget from your home screen as it ships quite a lot of battery for some reason.

Its battery life is good enough for a busy work day. My work requires me to have Internet on 24×7 and I am always connected to Wi-Fi or 3G at all times. I sent about 10 emails in a day; talked for around an hour; used it for half an hour as music player at gym and relaxed in the evening by watching videos on YouTube using my A2DP Bluetooth headset. By the end of the day I was left with 25% juice. Not bad at all. Just make sure to charge it everyday and you should be fine. I wish it was removable though.

Camera takes excellent pictures. Color reproduction is at par with Galaxy S4 and Lumia 920. Here are few untouched photos that we uploaded on our Flickr account.

Verdict: An excellent Android phone that offers lag free user experience.

Pros:
* Dual SIM functionality
* Wonderful display
* Sensitive touch screen
* Responsive user interface and lag free Android skin
* Expandable internal storage
* Good battery life

Cons:
* Non removable battery
* Bloatware not uninstall-able
* Only 8GB built in storage
* No NFC (near field communication)

MSI has launched S100 windows bay trail tablet. The tablet features 10.1 inch 1280×800 pixel IPS display that looks glorious in person. Other specs include an Atom processor, a dock and windows 8.1 operating system.

MSI S100 Specifications

* 10.1 inch display with 10 point multi touch functionality
* 1280 x 800 pixel resolution
* Intel Atom Z3740D quad core processor
* 2 gigabytes of memory
* 64 gigabyte of flash storage
* Micro SD card slot
* Mini HDMI output port
* 802.11 N WI-FI + Bluetooth 4.0 radios
* 2 mega pixel front and back cameras

This 3 in 1 device comes bundled with a keyboard cover that lets you device as a regular laptop, much like the Microsoft Surface 3. There is HDMI connectivity on board too and that lets you connect an external display or projector with it. 

Lately low cost laptops have got very popular especially those with the Windows with Bing OS as Microsoft is offering it with a lower price tag. Many of these cheap laptops, for instance Asus Chromebook C200 and C300 make use of Intel Celeron N2820 and N2830 processors respectively.

The TDP of these processors is just 7.5 watts which is much lower than your typical thin laptops with 17 watt TDP (Intel Core i5-4200U, E5- 4210U or i5-4300U). But how do the new CPUs do in benchmarks? Let us see.

The benchmark score of both N2820 and N2830 is 1000 in the passmark benchmark test.

Both of these new CPUs are based on bay trail architecture and made using 22nm manufacturing process. Both support 64 bit operating systems and come with 1MB L2 cache.

Dell has churned out Alienware 13 which is the smallest and lightest gaming laptop company has ever produced. Two years back, Dell used to offer Alienware M11x but axed as the company wanted to focus on thin and light laptops.

Continue reading “Alienware 13 Specifications Price, smallest and lightest gaming laptop from Dell”

Nokia X series devices are amazing but since they do not come preloaded with Play Store, there is no easy way to install WhatsApp.

Fortunately it is not impossible as folks at NokiaViews have laid out instructions on how to install WhatsApp on Nokia X series devices including Nokia X, XL and X+.

WhatsApp is the most popular instant messaging client and has enjoyed immense success in densely populated countries like India, China, Brazil and Indonesia. People use it because it is free for one year and without ads.

While it lacks voice calling unlike Viber, it is still regarded as must have as everyone already have it on their phone. There is no sticker support too but since it has become an indispensable application, people do not really care about what the WhatsApp lacks.

Vido has extended its range of tablets with a low cost Vido M80. It has a 8 inch display and retails at 74 dollars excluding VAT.

Vido M80 Specifications

* Quad core MediaTek MT8127 processor with a maximum clock frequency of 1.3 GHz
* Mali-400 graphics processing unit
* 1 gigabyte of RAM
* 8 gigabytes of flash storage
* Micro SD card slot
* 8 inch display with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution
* 4000 mAh battery
* 2 megapixel rear camera
* Micro USB port, HDMI and GPS receiver
* 802.11n Wi-Fi network card
* Android 4.4 KitKat operating system

• Via padnews.cn

If TWRP is not your cup of tea you will have to stick with the good old clock work mod recovery for getting new ROMs on your Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 SM-G7102.

Here is how you can download and install it on your phone. Download links are given at the bottom of this post.

1) Install whatever drivers make you happy and make your device connect (i would suggest Samsung ones).
2) Reboot your device in download mode you can use ADB reboot download or the hardware key combo for your device.
3) Load up Odin and uncheck auto-reboot. Uncheck the option RE-PARTITION(important) and select AP/PDA, select the downloaded recovery.
4) Click PDA and select the CWM tar you downloaded.
5) Connect your device in download mode.
6) Click start.
7) When its finished disconnect your device, pull the battery out.
8) Reinsert the battery and use the hardware keys for your device to power directly into recovery mode (this will bypass install-recovery.sh if you are stock).
9) Enjoy having a custom recovery.

CWM for NG4 (4.4)

http://www.mediafire.com/download/dx2mm590clsynzt/CWM-6.0.5.1-mukul.zip
Odin http://shabbypenguin.com/?developer=Tools

And here are the instructions on performing root on Galaxy Grand 2 SM-G7102

Get the file from here and copy it to your device. Then flash it in recovery. Reboot and load up the Super SU file. Then disable KNOX and reboot into recovery. Reflash Super Su and you will be rooted.

Custom kernel from Deds allow you to control the clock frequencies of CPU and GPU and thus overclock / underclock. Here are the features of the kernel:

* CPU Governors: Performance, Powersave, Conservative, Inter active, Ondemand, Hybrid
* CPU I/O Schedulers: Noop, Deadline, CFQ, Sio, FIOPS
* GPU Governors: Simple Ondemand, Performance, Powersave, Userspace, Adreno TZ
* Frandom.Read more about it here
* O3 Optimizations
* Many performance tweaks
* Kernel version 3.4.98

• You can download the required files from here.

This is a TWRP of Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 SM G7102 and it will allow you to flash custom firmwares onto the device. You will also be able to root the Galaxy Grand 2.

Here are the steps on how to do it.

1. Install Samsung USB drivers. Download Odin and my TWRP recovery.
2. Open Odin 3.07
3. Switch off and Go into download mode(Home+Vol down+ power).
4. Put the recovery.tar file in PDA.(leave other options as they are)
5. Start and let it flash. After pass you can boot into TWRP by Volume up + power + home.

That is it – you have successfully installed TWRP on your phone.