Starting next month, mobile provider Digicel Group will sell its own Android smartphone, the Digicel DL600, in an apparent attempt to grow and monetise Internet usage.

It’s Digicel’s first branded phone using the Android operating system developed by large US-based search provider Google, but not the first mobile phone to wear the telecoms’ brand. The first were issued six years ago.

“While this is the first Android smartphone to be branded Digicel, we also released the Coral range of handsets in 2007,” said Group Commercial Director, Brian Finn in response to Financial Gleaner queries sent via its communications department.Read more
Courtesy :jamaica-gleaner.com

A few months ago, I dug out an old cellphone for a friend to use in a pinch. It was an LG Shine, a circa 2007 slider that was one of the glitzier feature phones in its day, albeit nothing to write home about in 2013.

Or so I thought. With all that’s packed into our smartphones today, it’s difficult to imagine the Shine as anything more than a quaint relic, an artifact harkening back to the days when consumers stole music but paid for 15-second ringtones of the same songs. Surprisingly, my friend was thrilled because the Shine lasted all day on a single charge. Many of us haven’t seen that since, well, 2007.

I scanned a few reviews from when the Shine was first released, and the phone was generally well received — though poor battery life was a common complaint. Apparently, consumers at the time didn’t like having to charge their phones every evening. Read more
Courtesy :www.informationweek.com

Hungama has revamped the free music and video streaming app with new user experience and bunch of features for three major mobile platforms.

Hungama Digital Media Entertainment has pushed a new update for its Music service app – Hungama Free Bollywood Music. The update brings stability and new user experience along with bunch of audio-video content centric features.

The Hungama music app is available for free on the Apple iOS, Google Android and BlackBerry 10 mobile platforms. The company has plans to release the app for the Windows Phone platform in coming two months.Read more
Courtesy : www.themobileindian.com

The feature phones are priced below Rs 1,800. While ARC8c is CDMA, ARC 3 is a GSM phone.

Lava mobile, which announces new phones every Friday, has launched two new feature phones this Friday priced below Rs 1,800. While Lava Arc 8c is a CDMA phone, Arc 3 is a GSM phone.

Arc 8c is available for Rs 1,799 and comes with a 2.2 inch display, 0.3 megapixel primary camera, FM Radio with recording and alphanumeric keypad.Read more
Courtesy : www.themobileindian.com

The dual SIM Signature HD comes with a 12 megapixel rear camera, 1 GHz dual core processor and 1 GB RAM

Celkon has announced the launch of a 5 inch display based smartphone, called A119 Signature HD, for Rs 13,499.

The dual SIM Signature HD comes with a 12 megapixel rear camera and has a marathon 2100 mAh battery with a 1 GHz Dual Core processor with 1 GB RAM and with a 4 GB internal memory. Also has a 3 megapixel front camera for video calling via 3G connectivity.Read more
Courtesy : www.themobileindian.com

The phone has features like Micromax Canvas HD which is priced at Rs 13,999.

Xolo, a sub brand of Lava International, has announced its first quad core Android phone, called Xolo Q800. The Android 4.1 Jelly Bean based phone has a 4.5 inch IPS panel display with qHD (540 x 960 Pixels) resolution. Though it’s not a HD display like the one in Micromax Canvas HD A116, but due to the small screen size, Xolo Q800 has a decent 245ppi pixel density compared to 293 ppi of the Micromax handset.

Xolo Q800 comes with a 1.2 GHz quad core Mediatek chipset and 1 GB RAM as Micromax Canvas HD. The Q800 has 4 GB ROM. It has an 8 megapixel autofocus camera with backside illumination CMOS sensor for better low light photography at the back, which sounds better than the camera of Micromax Canvas HD. Q800 has a 1.2 megapixel camera in the front.Read more
Courtesy : www.themobileindian.com

Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS (TKC), Turkey’s biggest mobile operator, will start selling the nation’s first self-branded smartphone this year, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Koray Ozturkler said.

“It’s going to be designed in Turkey, by Turkish engineers,” Ozturkler said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. “We’re contributing to Turkey and our customer base.”

Turkcell is working with chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) to produce the Gebze phone, as it seeks to offer cheaper alternatives to handsets designed by Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Samsung Electronics Co. The Tepebasi, Turkey-based company, which had about 35 million subscribers at the end of 2012, is following emerging-market carriers in Brazil and Indonesia by selling customers more affordable devices to access the Internet. Read more
Courtesy : www.businessweek.com

Salora has 2 tabs with a 7inch display, while the cheaper one gets 800×480 pixel resolution & 512 MB RAM; at a slightly higher price you get 1280×600 pixel resolution & 1 GB RAM.

Salora, a well-known TV brand from yesteryear, and a new entrant in the Android device market, has launched its first two Android tablets in India, priced at Rs 4,999 and Rs 5,499. Both tablets get 7 inch displays and support only WiFi. Both get 4 GB inbuilt memory, a 3200 mAh battery and 0.3 megapixel camera in the front and no rear camera. However, both are different in other aspects and while the cheaper Salora Pro tab runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system the Salora Pro Tab HD is based on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Read more
Courtesy : www.themobileindian.com

Mobile phones in India are set to become costlier as Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has increased the excise duty on mobiles costing more than Rs. 2,000 from 1 percent to 6 percent.

“About 70 per cent of imported mobile phones and about 60 percent of domestically manufactured mobile phones are priced at Rs 2,000 or below,” the Finance Minister said in his Budgetary speech.

“I do not propose to change that in the case of low priced mobile phones. However, on mobile phones priced at more than Rs 2,000, I propose to raise the duty to six per cent,” Chidambaram said.

This means that a phone that earlier cost Rs. 10,000 will now cost approximately Rs. 10,495. Phones that earlier cost Rs. 20,000 all now cost approximately Rs. 20,990, while a phone that earlier cost Rs. 30,000, will now cost Rs. 31,485. Read more
Courtesy : gadgets.ndtv.com

Sony announced that it’s considering launching a Firefox OS phone next year and today released an experimental ROM to run the new Mozilla-made OS on the Sony Xperia E. This will give app developers a chance to evaluate the platform and give Sony valuable feedback.

In case you’re wondering why the company picked the Xperia E and not a more powerful phone, the answer is pretty simple – Firefox OS will target the very low end of smartphones. The E has almost the exact same specs as the ZTE Open and Alcatel OT Fire, the first two Firefox phones that were announced at the MWC.Read more
Courtesy : www.gsmarena.com