A few years ago, TV Cable service and Internet were two different services. Recently, many ISPs are giving NetTv as a bundled service. Similarly, DTH providers have included internet service in their packages as well. That is considered a most-welcome service from customer’s point of view. There’s already a healthy competition among the ISPs in Nepal giving better services at cheaper prices. In the current scenario of customers not being satisfied with their latest subscriptions, the establishment of a new service provider is always welcome. Talking about a new DTH in Nepal, HamroTV is struggling to come to the limelight. With a promise to give 4K digital TV service, we can already foresee this company will shortly be the talk of the town.
HamroTV (a new DTH with 4K TV channels and the Internet)
Currently, there isn’t much of the information regarding packages and their pricing from HamroTV. However, their already live website looks promising but lacks the package details. As far as TV channels are concerned, it’ll have over 50 HD channels. There aren’t specific channel names and we don’t know how many of Channels will be in 4K yet. Despite that, their website includes six different channel categories.
We look forward to getting the package details from the HamroTV very soon. We’ll certainly give you details about everything you need to know about this new emerging company and its services. Stay Tuned.
Open Datais a concept that some data should be free without any bounds that means no copyright, patents, or any restrictions. The concept is similar to what we’ve been hearing about the Open Source Software. Open Data are usually the data collected by governments or from several other projects which ensures transparency and accountability. More importantly, people get benefited after being informed with data available in open formats for re-use. But these data may not be recognized by every other average Joe so this is where the Open Data Day Hackathon comes in, where these open data are used to create a platform either web or mobile to visualize and understand the data and also use these data to tackle the real challenges of the society.
Open Data Day Hackathonwill be held on 25th February and the participation is completely free. The event will be taking place on Leapfrog Academy.
To be eligible to participate in the Hackathon, you must be:
Data Analyst
Front End Developer
Project Manager
Data Enthusiast
Designer
Mobile Developer
Student (Having the aforementioned specs)
What will happen on the hackathon day?
Individuals with different skillsets get along to form a team to take up one of the challenges.
The teams will work on creating solutions such as visualization, web app or mobile app.
The judge will visit each team, while they are working, and starts evaluating each team.
Each team will have 5 minutes to present their solution
Once again, judges will evaluate each team.
The teams will have a week to refine their solutions and showcase during Open Data Day.
The winners will be announced on the Open Data Day which will be held on March 4th, 2017.
The event is Scheduled in the following codification:
Registration: 7:30 AM to 8:30 AM
Team Formation: 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM
Development: 9:30 AM to 12:00 PM
Lunch: 12:00 AM to 12:45 PM
Development: 12:45 to 2:00 PM
Tech Check: 2:00PM to 3:30 PM
Judges Visit: 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Presentation: 4:00PM to 5:00 PM
Judging Criteria
Impact
How much impact (quality and quantity) can this project have? Does it solve a big problem or a little problem?
Creativity
How creative is the approach? Is the project new and something that hasn’t been attempted before? Is it something that isn’t being addressed by the market?
Product
How well does this project fit the needs of the challenge it addresses? How user friendly is the technology? Is it a complete solution or does it have a long way to go?
Presentation
How well did the team communicate their project? Are they effective in telling the story of the project and why it is important?
The Indian smartphone brand Lava has been in the Nepali smartphone market for quite a while. Lava has been providing low-end mobiles and smartphones for the Nepali users. However, now Lava has been expanding its horizon and toiling to provide mid-range phones. It has recently brought a Lava A3 phone, which is packed with greater specs as compared to its previous models. And this smartphone probably is the first mid-range phone in the Lava family. This new device costs Rs. 25,000 in Nepali market. The manufacturers have claimed that the device comes with greater specs and the slogan ‘Never miss a detail’ justifies it. So, in order to dig the truth, let’s explore what is inside the phone and let’s find out if the phone worth the price and worth a buy.
Design
Lava A3 includes sleek metallic back with carefully placed and convincingly colored plastic caps on the top and bottom of the phone. Though provided with an Aluminum body, the phone is light in weight.
The device is thin, which has added elegance to its design. The curved edges have eased the user to hold the device with a single hand. However, the smooth and soft finish has made the device somewhat slippery. This can, however, be avoided with the addition of skins or back cover to the device. The device also lacks capacitive touch buttons on the chin. However, the on-screen buttons will help you do the job anyway.
Display
Lava A3 comes with a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display with Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The presence of Gorilla Glass has made the device secure from cracks and scratches. However, the presence of IPS LCD when the other devices are furnishing OLED, Optic AMOLED and Super AMOLED displays has made the Lava A3 somewhat obsolete. The device’s display includes 720p (HD) resolution. As most of the devices in this price segment are available with Full HD resolution, this feature might be the reason to pull back Lava A3 in the race.
However, this resolution slows down the battery consumption and hence provides greater battery backup. On the contrast side, the phone has low contrast ratio. The minimum brightness of the device saves you from the eyestrain. However, in the broad daylight, even with the full brightness, your eyes have to struggle to view the display. The phone comes with auto brightness option, which saves your time of frequently changing display brightness while being on indoors and outdoors. The screen drawback also includes the lack of color saturation in which the true color disguises.
Hardware
Moving on, the device includes circular slot fingerprint scanner on the back, placed right below the camera and LED flash. Lava A3 is furnished with speaker grills on the bottom. There is a single speaker installed to the device, however, two grills are provided for the sake of symmetry. The audio quality of the device is good to the speaker and even on the earphone, however; the sound is not loud enough to struggle in a sonorific environment. The hardware also includes the power button, volume buttons and the charging slot, which is placed on the right, left and bottom of the device respectively. The volume keys and power key are well placed with a suitable distance between them providing the ease even to press them simultaneously when desired. The hardware also includes a tiny LED on the top, which physically reminds you about the notifications by blinking.
Software
On the software, Lava A3 is favored by Android Marshmallow 6.0 and flavored by Star OS 3.3 on the top. The UI of the device is not of the top-notch quality. When I was using the phone, the UI failed to impress me. The lack of app drawer became the problem at first; however, after the installation of a launcher, that absence was never felt. Out of the box, the device does come with some bloatware, which is useful and easily removable if unwanted. The device also includes smart gesture and custom gesture option for the users, which in addition to ease, provide the users to turn their scribbles into the meaningful tasks to the device.
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Performance
The device is powered by Mediatek MT6750 chipset, which is an Octa-core processor running at the clock speed of 1.5 GHz. The graphics portion is taken care by the Mali-T860 GPU. The device also comes with the 32 GB of internal memory, which can be expanded with the use of SDcard (upto 64GB). 32 GB is a good amount, however, nearly one-fourth of the internal memory is devoured by the system. This could be the reason to make you fall short while storing your data. The phone also inherits 3 GB DDR3 RAM. The GPU and RAM assembly has done a great job on the device. Even running multiple high-end games, I found no glitches on my play and the performance was lag free. However, there was a heating issue, when the games were played for long.
Battery
Out of the box, the device comes with 3020 mAh non-removable battery. It provides a greater backup on standby and normal use, though, it could betray you being out of charge on the heavy usage. I noticed a quick draining of battery while playing the high-end games. Though the battery served me with an around of five hours of backup even while playing high-end games with my Wi-Fi on. The device also lacks Quick charging technology and indulges itself with the wall-charger for a long time to gain the full charge.
Camera
The camera of the phone is top notch. The 13 MP Sony sensor on the back does a good job with the photos. The camera comes with many options. The camera option includes Gif mode, intelligent selfie, template, sound picture and QR code scanner options, which is a rare feature to be seen in a smartphone camera. In addition, the camera also includes a Bokeh option. The nifty photograph with the option set to Bokeh effect reminded me of some high-quality digital camera. Though the camera is greatly built, we can experience conspicuous grain on the photos shot in the low light. This can be somewhat avoided by shooting photos with the flash on.
On the front, the device includes an 8 MP shooter. Following the footsteps of the rear, the front one too shoots great photos. Even on the low light, the LED flash ensures the clarity and sharpness in the picture. To avoid the blurry and shaky images, the camera is flowered by EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) and phase detection autofocus. While taking videos, the front one is capable of taking VGA videos and the rear one capable of shooting FHD videos. The cameras are also capable of taking customized fast motion videos in the speed interval of 2x to 10x. Both cameras on the phones in the similar price section are capable of shooting Full HD video in the least. So the video resolution of the device failed to dazzle me.
Connectivity
For the cellular connectivity, the phone carries a SIM card tray near the power button. The device is capable of having two SIMs standby. However, this will cut you from the privilege of expanding your storage by the use of SDcard. The phone also encourages 4G compatibility, which is a good news as 4G is now available in Nepal. Other connectivity option includes A-GPS, Bluetooth, Radio and Wi-Fi 802.11 (b/g/n). However, the lack of dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 ac and OTG cable compatibility is not convincing in this price segment.
Fingerprint
Lava A3 Back View
The sensitivity of the fingerprint sensor in this device is the most astounding feature on the Lava A3. The unlocking of the device will take 0.16 seconds. Putting my finger on the rear-mounted circular slot of fingerprint scanner unlocks the device almost instantaneously. This could probably be the most sensitive fingerprint sensor in this price range. This nifty fingerprint sensor might turn out to lure the customers to buy Lava A3.
Conclusion
In the overall, Lava A3 is a great device. The toils done by the Lava to step up itself from low-end budget devices to the mid-range range device of this quality deserves a due respect. The device’s metallic design, snappy fingerprint scanner, stunning camera, astounding hardware, and performance will not fail to impress you. Display, battery, and software have a place for improvement. They may fall short in the specs as compared to other devices in the price range. However, they are not that disappointing to push you to engulf in the regrets. I will not call it great but this device could definitely be a good buy in this price segment.
A U.S. jury in Texas, on Wednesday, ordered Facebook to pay $500 million to ZeniMax Media Inc., a video game publisher. The lawsuit was filed against Facebook-owned Oculus for allegedly stealing the intellectual property of ZeniMax.
Oculus has been charged for- copyright infringement ($50 million), failure to comply with a non-disclosure agreement ($200 million), and misuse of Oculus trademarks ($50 million). Also, former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe must also pay $150 million, and current CEO Palmer Luckey must pay $50 million — both for false designation.
ZeniMax has claimed that Oculus founder Palmer Luckey had exploited the Zenimax computer code and trade secrets in order to develop its products. It also said that Oculus’ VR device Oculus Rift was very much lacking until John Carmack, Oculus chief technology officer and founder of a company owned by ZeniMax, improved on the device using his knowledge from his previous work as a ZeniMax employee.
Zenimax – the parent company of id Software which has produced iconic video games such as Doom – has claimed that Facebook had purchased Oculus with ‘full awareness’ that Carmack had indeed stolen the technology. However, Facebook CEO -Mark Zuckerberg had testified in court stating that he had no idea whatsoever about the intellectual property claims between Oculus and ZeniMax.
Anthony Sammi, ZeniMax lawyer has stated that they are pleased with the jury’s award in this case as it reflects the damage done to the company as the result of the theft of their intellectual property. They have also hinted at seeking proper steps to ensure that there will no longer be any use of their misappropriated technology.
Facebook has said that they are, indeed, disappointed by a few aspects of the verdict, but they are undeterred. They have stated that their belief and commitment to the long-term success of VR still remains the same, and the entire team will continue the work they’ve done since day one. They are looking forward to filing an appeal and eventually putting litigation behind them while moving forward to develop a VR that is, simply put, beyond ordinary; and will change how people interact and communicate.
Virtual reality has been a subject of vast approach, scheme, and ideas for the past few decades. Oculus Rift has definitely set the notch up a bit. From the latest reviews, one can clearly know that the Oculus’ attempt in VR, will certainly not go unnoticed. The experience provided by this innovation has genuinely surpassed many of the VR experiences, undoubtedly. But what affect will this lawsuit have against Oculus, against Facebook? We will all have to wait and see.
Evolution Enterprises, the exclusive authorized distributor of ZTE mobiles in Nepal, is preparing to launch the successor of Blade A610 in Nepal. Dubbed as the Blade A610 Plus, the handset offers several decent improvements over its predecessor like a bigger battery (4000mAh Vs 5000mAh), better display (5” 720P Vs 5.5” 1080P), and better performance (1.3Ghz Quadcore CPU/2GB RAM Vs 1.5Ghz Octacore CPU/4GB RAM).
Full Specs Breakdown of ZTE Blade A610 Plus
The ZTE Blade A610 Plus boasts a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display with 2.5D curved glass and 1080P resolution netting a total pixel density of 403ppi. It is powered by a 1.5Ghz Octacore MT6570T processor alongside 4GB of RAM. Storage wise, it has 32GB of internal storage which can be further expanded via microSD card upto 128GB. Backing up this device is an enormous 5000mAh battery rated to provide 3 days of backup during normal usage, 12 hours of video playback, and 30 days of standby. The battery supports MediaTek’s Pump Express 3.0 — A fast charging technology that can charge 50% charge in just 1 hour. The phone boots on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with Mi Favor UI layered on top.
In the optics department, the ZTE Blade A610 Plus has a 13-megapixel rear camera with Phase detection autofocus for accurately focusing the object in just 0.3 seconds. Up front, the phone has 8MP selfie snapper with wide angle lens and LED flash. Connectivity options include dual-SIM slot with 4G LTE support, GPS, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, BT 4.0, MicroUSB 2.0, and 3.5mm Earphone port. The fingerprint scanner is located on the back and ZTE claims it can unlock the phone in just 0.1 seconds. It also boasts an elegant design with a full metal unibody design. It weighs 183gms and measures 155*76.2*9.8 cubic mm in dimension.
Launch Date & Price of ZTE Blade A610 Plus in Nepal
According to our close source, the Chinese firm is working on launching the A610 Plus in Nepal before the end of March. We can expect the phone to be priced in between Rs.28,000 to Rs. 30,000.
Today, Nepal Telecom released Call Waiting service for its GSM Prepaid Users. On the occasion of 13th Anniversary of NT, this services has been implemented.
How to activate Call Waiting in NTC (Prepaid Users only)
To activate this service in your NTC number, dial ” *43# ” and press call.
If you later felt like deactivating the service then you can do so by dialing ” #43# ” and press call.
To check the status of the Call Waiting service, dial ” *#43# ” and press call.
Bear in mind, this is a free service from NTC. That’s why there won’t be any activation charges. Plus, there won’t be any service charges of any type while activating, deactivating or status checking of the service.
Verdict:
Well, this is a must-have service for every mobile user. I wish if they had released the service for all pre-paid and post-paid subscribers of both GSM and CDMA. Plus, this kind of services should rather be auto-activated since who wouldn’t use the service that’s free and really useful. At last, I would like to say “better late than never” to NTC.
Zack Nelson, the owner of JerryRig Everything, has been doing durability, teardown, and repair tests on many different phones since 2012. Many of his YouTube subscribers might have mistaken his name to be Jerry which is not. Those who already know him might have an idea of what he does in the durability tests. For those who don’t, I would like to give a quick walkthrough. He starts with testing of the screen for scratch tests followed by heat test on the screen. Then he checks the material used in the build of the phone. Before doing the bend test, the durability of earpiece material and protecting glass used in cameras are also put to the test.
Zack’s Durability Test on Huawei Honor 6X/ GR5 2017 Explained
In his latest YouTube video, Zack performed a durability test on the Honor 6x. If the phone name Honor 6x sounds new to you, it is same as Huawei GR5 2017. In short, the phone failed badly in his durability test and ended up in his “Shelf of Shame”. The screen gets scratched pretty easily as the protecting glass used isn’t a Gorilla Glass. The screen starts getting scratches at the Level 2 of Zack’s hardness tool whereas many other phones’ screens only start having marks at the level 4 in the earliest.
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On the bright side, the metallic grill over the earpiece is a durable one as compared to fabric materials. The plastic panels at the top and bottom of the phone will be a good player for shock absorption in case of occasional drops. Zack peeled off the plastics used in volume rockers and power button. Well, the Honor 6X is a budget phone and its build quality was no exception. Nonetheless, the back is made out of metal as expected.
When a phone is made out of metal, it is expected to be a sturdy one. Despite the metal back, Zack easily bent the honor 6X in his bend test. The bending didn’t crack the protecting glass but the LCD couldn’t survive it. Anyways, It is the same LCD that survived the heat test for up to 12seconds and recovered effortlessly. Zack mentioned the reason behind this bending to be the back metal not being screwed to the phone’s chassis.
As you can see from JerryRigEverything, the honor 6x failed the durability test of Zack Nelson. Hence, the phone has found its place in Zack’s Shelf of Shame along with other phones like Xiaomi Redmi Note 3.
Is Huawei GR5 2017 still a good buy?
Well, this durability test’s result was a disappointing one. The phone gets scratches easily and will bend without much of effort. Yes, they are problems but they have easy fixes as well. Your GR5 2017 will last longer if you handle it with care. All you need to have after you buy this phone is a quality tempered glass and a good phone case. The specs it offers and its performance as a daily driver and the promising cameras it has got easily overshadowed this durability test for me. In my personal preference, Huawei GR5 2017 is still a good buy for a phone under 30k in Nepal.
Here’s our full review of Huawei GR5 2017:
Apple is now the top player in the smartphone industry in terms of total devices sales in the Q4. This is the first time in the last five years that Apple has taken the lead over their biggest rivals Samsung according to Strategy Analytics (market research firm).
This was the iPhone’s best performance for over a year, as Apple capitalized on Samsung’s recent missteps
Apple managed to sell 78.3 million iPhones in Q4 2016, which is 17.8% of the total market share. Coming up second was Samsung who managed to sell 77.5 million phones gaining 17.7% of the market share. Let’s not forget that Apple sells only high-end iPhones opposed to a variety of lineups from Samsung ranging from budget to high-end ones.
Samsung’s Note 7 battery fiasco turned out to be very advantageous for Apple’s iPhone sales. China’s Huawei, OPPO, and Vivo filled rest of the top 5 positions ranking respectively.
Yes, Samsung has confirmed that it will be hosting an event to showcase its newest device. While a few had suggested that Samsung would be launching its newest member of the S-series at Mobile World Congress (MWC), it looks like the Korean giant will instead launch a Galaxy Tab tablet instead. Rumors have suggested the tablet to be dubbed as the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3.
According to an official image, the event will be held on the 26th of February, exactly a day before MWC starts.
A successor to the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2, the Galaxy Tab S3 will sport a 9.7-inch Super AMOLED display with the resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. Beneath the hood, it is rumored to be powered by a Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor that will be aided by 4GB of RAM and Adreno 530 GPU. It will most probably run on Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. On the optics front, the Galaxy Tab S3 is rumored to feature a 12-megapixel rear facing camera and a 5-megapixel front facing camera. There will also be an inclusion of a memory card slot if some rumors are to be believed.
Some reports suggest the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 to be priced at $600. It might go on sale next month.
If the rumored specs are considered, the tablet might be a good buy to those looking for a bigger display and top-notch specs. However, with tablets losing their place to smartphones nowadays, it will be interesting to see how Samsung plans to make the tablet a success.
The event will be broadcasted live on Samsung’s official website at 11:45 PM NST.
Here’s everything you need to know about the rumored specifications of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3:
DISPLAY
9.7-inch 2048 x 1536 pixels Super AMOLED display
CHIPSET
Qualcomm Snapdragon 820
CPU
Quad-core processor
OPERATING SYSTEM
Android 7.0 Marshmallow
INTERNAL MEMORY
32/64 GB
EXPANDABLE MEMORY
Up to 256GB via microSD
RAM
4GB
REAR CAMERA
12MP
FRONT CAMERA
5MP
FINGERPRINT SCANNER
Available
BATTERY
Non-Removable Li-Ion
PRICE
$600 (approx.)
Note: The specs might be different once the device is released.
Lalitpur Mobile Complex has been toiling to establish itself as an absolute mobile hub and the ongoing Mobile Expo is just an example. The expo started from 27th of January and is going to end on 4th of February.
“Because of the CAN InfoTech 2017, the visitors seems to be diverted. However, the visitors’ count has already exceeded an overwhelming number of 50,000. And as CAN InfoTech has come to an end, the number is definitely going to make an exponential rise.” the Chairman of Lalitpur Mobile Complex, Purushottam Basnet explained us in a Bloggers’ Meet “Before the end of the sixth day, the sales on the expo has exceeded the net worth of one crore. And the visitors’ craze has encouraged us to continue such mobile expos. We will definitely be trying to organize such expos once and twice every year. Our next target is Bhadra of next year.”
With the sole purpose to discourage the sales through the gray market, this expo started. This mobile expo has been an authorized platform to make a sale of a number of smartphone brands under one roof. In this mobile expo, more than fifteen smartphone brands are selling their authorized products. Some of which include customers’ most awaited smartphones like Apple’s iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Samsung’s Galaxy C9 Pro, Huawei’s GR5 2017, Colors’ P85+, Lava’s A3, Zopo FV5, etc. The sale includes the mobiles and smartphones, which worth the price from Rs. 1,000 t0 Rs. 1,40,000. And on every purchase, there is discount or goodies as gift hampers like Bluetooth speaker, selfie stick, earphone, power bank, etc or both. Probably the most exciting gift is given by Windows phone, which includes a ‘Buy one, get one free’ offer.
In the expo, different smartphones are providing different discount and gift schemes, so consumers’ can check on the provided schemes and make a buy. Except for the discount and gift hampers scheme, Lalitpur Mobile Expo is also providing exchange offer, which lets you own a 4G smartphone in an exchange with your current 3G smartphone. In the exchange offer, the valuation of your current 3G smartphone is done by the valuation expert and a 4G smartphone is provided worthing the value.
During the end of the Bloggers’ Meet, Chairman requested the customers through us (bloggers) to visit the expo, not just to buy the products but also to help the expo to grow or improve through the feedbacks. He also mentioned that there is still three days left and the team would always be glad to welcome the visitors and provide gifts and discounts to the interested ones.
Lava A3 in the race.
The camera of the phone is top notch. The 13 MP Sony sensor on the back does a good job with the photos. The camera comes with many options. The camera option includes Gif mode, intelligent selfie, template, sound picture and QR code scanner options, which is a rare feature to be seen in a smartphone camera. In addition, the camera also includes a Bokeh option. The nifty photograph with the option set to Bokeh effect reminded me of some high-quality digital camera. Though the camera is greatly built, we can experience conspicuous grain on the photos shot in the low light. This can be somewhat avoided by shooting photos with the flash on.
In the optics department, the ZTE Blade A610 Plus has a 13-megapixel rear camera with Phase detection autofocus for accurately focusing the object in just 0.3 seconds. Up front, the phone has 8MP selfie snapper with wide angle lens and LED flash. Connectivity options include dual-SIM slot with 4G LTE support, GPS, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, BT 4.0, MicroUSB 2.0, and 3.5mm Earphone port. The fingerprint scanner is located on the back and ZTE claims it can unlock the phone in just 0.1 seconds. It also boasts an elegant design with a full metal unibody design. It weighs 183gms and measures 155*76.2*9.8 cubic mm in dimension.
