China iPhone: Xiaomi Mi 3 With Snapdragon 800 Launched in India at Rs. 13,999

Xiaomi has on Tuesday launched its first smartphone for the Indian market, the Mi 3. The smartphone, first announced for India last week, is available from July 22, 12pm IST, exclusively on Flipkart. Pre-registration opens on Tuesday and will last until July 21 midnight.

The company also announced the Redmi 1S and Redmi Note will be launching in India in August.

The Xiaomi Mi 3 runs a highly tweaked version of Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, called MIUI version 5. It comes with a 5-inch full-HD LCD display (1080x1920 pixels) offering a pixel density of 441ppi.

With the announcement of Mi 3, Xiaomi has become the first handset manufacturer to offer an Android smartphone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset below the Rs. 15,000 mark. It is powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8274AB) processor coupled with 2GB of RAM and Adreno 330 GPU. The Mi 3 is listed with 16GB of inbuilt storage with no word on expandable storage support.

It sports a 13-megapixel rear camera featuring a f/2.2 aperture and dual-LED flash while the front houses a 2-megapixel camera. It is backed by a 3050mAh battery. The Mi 3 measures 144x73.6x8.1mm and weighs 145 grams. It will be available in Metallic Grey colour.

    Notably, earlier this week, Xiaomi, also referred to as 'China's Apple', teased its next flagship smartphone, expected to be called the Mi 4, with images of a 'steel invite' for the July 22 launch event.

    Xiaomi's Google+ page shared the images of the invitation letter made of steel for "The Journey of a Piece of Steel" launch event where the company is expected to reveal the Xiaomi Mi 4 with a metal chassis.

    The company said in a Google+ post, "Invitation letters for the 2014 Xiaomi Annual New Product Launch Event on July 22: The Journey of a Piece of Steel." The Google+ post further confirmed that the Xiaomi's invitation letter has been made of real steel.

Micromax A116 Canvas HD selling 25 units per minute

Micromax had recently launched its A116 Canvas HD smartphone. The smartphone was available for pre-booking from company's website and through the deal site snapdeal.com, and a total of 9,000 units were sold out in just 24 hours. As per company's claims this smartphone is being booked at a pace of 25 units per minute.

Shedding more light on the trend, Snapdeal.com has shared that the first lot of the A116 Canvas HD was sold out within 15 minutes of announcing the sale at midnight of 14 February 2013. The second lot which consisted of 300 units and was up for sale at 9:00 AM to was sold out within 15 minutes and the third lot of 1,200 phones took about 45 minutes to be sold out.

Just to recap, Micromax A116 Canvas HD come with 5-inch HD IPS screen that sports 1280x720 resolution and a colour depth of 16.7 million. Micromax A116 Canvas HD is powered by MediaTek's MT6589 quad-core processor that clocks 1.2GHz. It runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) out of the box. It packs in a 2000mAh battery.

For camera, there is an 8-megapixel rear shooter with LED flash and 4X zoom and a VGA front camera. Other features of the smartphone include 1GB RAM and 4GB of internal storage, which can be expanded to up to 32GB via microSD card. It is a dual-SIM GSM + GSM smartphone.

Commenting on the sales, Shubhodip Pal, CMO Micromax, said, "The response from our consumers has been phenomenal and the demand has been increasing every passing minute. After the unprecedented success of the Canvas 2, we are overwhelmed with the customer response for Canvas HD. This is the first time our online sales partners have ever witnessed a digital queue in cyberspace to such an extent for any product, to the traditional cue one normally sees. The data also shows that 60% of the orders received online have come from the metros."

He further added, "It was great to witness consumers wait until 12:00am for their chance to book the Canvas HD on Valentine's Day. We expect the sales of this device to touch a new high in the coming weeks which will soon be available for sale at all leading retail stores in the country. We hope to further strengthen our leadership in the new phablet category in India."

Commenting on the sales Tony Navin, Vice President - Business Development, Snapdeal.com said, "This product, one of the most awaited launches exceeded our expectations by a huge margin. We took this live at midnight and we were completely surprised to see all 500 units which we expected to sell in the entire day sold out within 15 minutes of launch. Our call volume shot through the roof with enquiries and we have replenished inventory levels to cater to more sales. In a category such as Mobiles, this kind of pace of sales beats our previous records that we have witnessed. Our partnership with Micromax is now more than a year old and has been one of the most exciting journeys for both the parties. We look forward to such meaningful associations in the future as well".

Micromax has shared that they are now looking at replenishing the stock at the earliest but did not mention the exact availability date for the same.

Top 5: Smartphones coming to India this Summer

This summer, it will be raining smartphones in India, as we have some amazing new devices coming our way. Listed here are five smartphones which have confirmed their launch in the next couple of months. While there are many other devices which will launch in that period, these have already confirmed their arrival.

Tegra 3 powered LG Optimus 4X HD not far from Indian launch

Since the last year we have seen an increasing number of smartphones populating the Indian market, almost instantly after their international launch. There have been some expections, but it we may not have to wait a long time for the latest flagship smartphones from LG and HTC. The HTC One X and the LG Optimus 4X HD are expected to launch in the Indian market sometime in the next couple of months.

The LG Optimus 4X HD will launch in India sometime in the month of May, as suggested by a post on The Mobile Indian. The post mentions that by the end of this year LG would bring a total of 12 new Android based smartphone in the Indian market. The LG Optimus 4X HD has very similar specifications to that of the HTC One X, just like the latter it is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor, has an 8 megapixel camera and a 4.7-inch HD display.

The pricing for both the smartphone is yet to be officially announced. In my opinion both the device should be priced around 35,000 INR.

CES 2012: Sony announces Xperia S smartphone

Sony has announced its first self branded smartphone at CES 2012 which is will be available in the market sometime later this quarter in select countries. This is the same device which was previously leaked as the Sony Ericsson Nozomi.

The Sony Xperia S has a 4.3-inch 720p Reality display and it is powered by a 1.5 dual-core processor. Additionally, the device sports a 12-megapixel camera, secondary 1.3-megapixel front facing camera with 720p video capture, NFC support and runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. However it will receive an Android 4.0 ICS update sometime in Q2 2012. It will be a PlayStation certified smartphone and will be available in black and white colors.

HTC announces One V, entry-level Android smartphone [MWC 2012]

HTC has announced a new entry-level smartphone this year ant MWC 2012 and this one will be known as the HTC One V. The HTC One V would sport a chin back design similar to the one of early HTC Android smartphones like the Hero and Legend.

The device will sport a 3.7-inch WVGA display and it will run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, topped with HTC Sense 4.0 UI. The One V is powered by a 1GHz processor, includes 512MB RAM, 4GB ROM, a 5-megapixel rear camera with 720p HD video recording. It will also include a dedicated processing chip which will bring ImageSense, including features like the ability to click photos while recording a video, HDR mode, burst mode and better low light photography. It will have a microSD card slot and will also include 25GB of storage space on Dropbox.

We'll have more details on the phone later this week, stay tuned.

HTC One X coming to India in April

Earlier yesterday, HTC India announced on their Facebook Page that their new flagship device, the HTC One X will make its debut in the country this April. The One X was announced at MWC 2012, and will be launched in India on Airtel's network, but an unlocked version should also be available. From the first look, the HTC One X is a complete stunner, and probably one of the best looking devices we've come across in recent times. But, it is not only the looks that impress us, the One X is also probably one of the most promising devices of 2012. Starting with a 4.7-inch HD display (720x1280p), it is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core processor from Nvidia. It runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, with HTC's own Sense 4.0 skin on top of it. The device is 8.9mm thick, and features an 8MP camera with an LED flash (1080p HD video recording), which is one of the best available in the Android line up. We'll talk more about the camera in a bit. The HTC One X comes with 32GB of internal storage (only 26GB available to user), and 1GB RAM. Apart from that, it has and HDMI port, NFC capabilities, and has built-in Beats Audio technology. The device also houses an average 1800mAh battery pack. HTC has partnered with DropBox, the popular cloud storage service, and is providing One X users with free 25GB of online storage for two years. Cool, right?
The one thing that HTC is really emphasising on in this device, is its camera. The phone's camera is powered by the HTC ImageChip, which allows the camera to turn action shots into crisp photos, focus in 0.2 seconds, take continuous shots, and handle low light conditions very well. You can also take pictures while recording HD video. The device could hit shelves anytime in April, and we are expecting HTC to price the One X upward of Rs. 30,000.

HTC One S announced at Mobile World Congress

HTC has announced another smartphone at the Mobile World Congress, meet the Ones S. This smartphone will also include HTC’s ImageSense technology which will help users capture better quality photos. The HTC One S will run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich topped up with HTC Sense 4.0 UI.

HTC ImageSense will include features like improved low-light photo quality, enhanced HDR mode, still photography while recording videos, adaptable flash and more important a superior photography experience, says HTC.

The device will be powered by a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB onboard storage, 8 megapixel camera with an f/2.0 aperture and a 4.3-inch qHD display. It will be a 7.9mm thick smartphone and will include 25GB of cloud storage on DropBox for two years and Beats Audio integration for better music quality.