With the improvements in the phones themselves, even the phone cases are coming with the upgrades. The phone case was originally meant to protect the phones from damages in case of accidental drops. And, then the cases started being a fashion statement giving users the freedom to customize how their phones look and feel. Recently, phone cases started being an additional power source for the phones. Even the Apple itself made such battery cases for the iPhones and it got the warm welcome as well. When it comes to choosing between Apple and Android, it is so hard and many of us end up buying two phones. But Now, you don’t need to. Just buy a case for your iPhone that is not just a case but an android phone itself. Yes, I’m talking about the “Eye”.

Eye – The Smart iPhone Case

The Eye by ESTI is such an amazing idea that started on Kickstarter and is turning into reality much sooner. Keeping up with its thin profile just like any traditional phone case, Eye offers a lot. It is not just a case but the phone itself running on Android 7.1 Nougat. By using this phone case on your iPhone, you can make your already good iPhone even better. Eye currently is being designed for iPhone 6, 6s, 7 and 7plus. The manufacturer claims to make such phone case even for the next iPhone, the iPhone 8, as sooner as within next month from its release.

Highlight offerings from Eye

• 5inch Full HD AMOLED Display
• Pure Android
• Wireless Charging
• Always On Display
• 2800mAh Battery
• 2 Sim Slots (4G)
• Up To 256GB of Storage
• NFC Enabled
• Infrared Sensor
• 3.5mm Headphone Jack
• Selfies using the back camera of iPhone

The Eye is just 90grams heavy and 13.1mm thick. Under the hood, this case (or should I say phone), is powered by Helio P20 OctaCore processor coupled with 3GB LPDDR3 RAM and backed by Mali-T880 MP2 GPU. It has 16GB of onboard storage expandable up to 256GB via microSD card. It comes with Gyro, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, and Ambient light sensor along with Bluetooth 4.2 and IR blaster. For charging, it has lightning port even supports Qi wireless charging. For network connectivity, it has dual hybrid SIM tray. It comes in two different color options of Jet Black and Matt Black. The retail pricing of the product will start from $189 and goes up to $239. However, the backers can get the same product for the price as low as $95. The backers worldwide will get their product shipped in August 2017.

Verdict:

This is truly what I call thinking out of the box. This case is really innovative one and is worth the buy. For those who want to have the best of both the Apple and Android, now no longer need to buy two separate phones. The Apple fanboy now can feel proud to have the added features to their iPhone that will make their already good iPhone even better. The best part about this case is functionality to use iPhone’s back camera for selfies. I wish if this was available right away but 6 months of wait for accessories like this is totally worth it.

“Sale” the word itself is an intriguing one and can be considered to be a second name to “huge discounts”. In the market of Nepal, to go something on sale we’ve to wait for either new year or a major festive season. But things are changing lately and it can be felt in this Kaymu Smartphone Sale. Kaymu has started 3 days long Smartphone Sale that has listed 99 different phones and tablets from 15+ different brands. The discounts one can find in this sale offer ranges from 3% up to 50%.

What and How products are listed in Kaymu Smartphone Sale?

This Smartphone sale from Kaymu includes 99 different products but not all of them are worth buying. Few are even away from considering. However, there are few products that are worth buying. For easy filtering of products, the users can find products in four different product segments: High-End Smartphone, Mid-Range Smartphone, Value-End Smartphone, and Tablets.

High-End Smartphone lists includes iPhone 7 (3%discount), Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 Edge (-21% / -19%) and Xiaomi Mi 5 (-6%).

The options are huge in Mid-Range Smartphones listed in this offer since the listing comprises of 49 different products from brands like Xiaomi, Samsung, Micromax, Leagoo, Obi, Zopo, Lava, Gionee, Oppo, and Others. You can find discounts of around 7% to 9% on phones from Xiaomi, Samsung, Oppo, Gionee, and Obi. Those looking for heavy discounts might be happy to see around 30% of discounts on phones from Micromax.

Someone looking for heavy discounts should check the products in Value-End Smartphone segment that is getting discounts up to 50%.

Verdict:

Well, this is a good initiative from Kaymu and we really want them to come up with such offers every so often. That said, this Smartphone Sale does come with much of room for improvements. For example, they could have come up with an exclusive sale of some product with exclusive pricing. The pricing of products does come with some discounts but that much of discounts we believe can be obtained by bargaining in any offline retail outlets. That said, yes few products did get my attention. But next time smartphones go on sale online, I want them to be as many as possible. And, they should cost as less as possible too.

The reason that keeps us on hold from buying a drone is they are simply destructible. One crash and puff, it’s gone. But things are about to change with this new drone that survives any crashes and drops like nothing happened. This insect-inspired drone is so flexible that it easily absorbs shocks when it crashes and automatically reforms itself making it flight ready within another second.

What made this drone “Indestructible”?

The main property lies in its design that is insect-inspired. Just like a wasp’s wing is rigid and flexible at the same time. The researchers from Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) worked on this idea and came with this research product that looks so promising.

This drone prototype is made of a central case and a thin fiberglass external frame with four arms held together by four magnetic joints. This soft and flexible fiberglass helps to make the drone withstand crashes without having permanent damages. The circular magnet is placed at the middle making the magnetic connection to all those four magnetic joints. That is how the drone now becomes rigid and ready to fly. At the time of crashing, the drone flexes and deforms as the holding magnet gets out-of-place but doesn’t split away. To avoid magnet from splitting away a rubber band is attached to the magnet from all four arms. That way, right after few seconds from the crash, the drone reforms and becomes flight ready as you can see it from the video above.

Verdict:

Well, this research is hinting towards more durable commercial drones in the future. But, is this drone really that indestructible? Honestly, the answer is “Not really”. It is because this drone did survive 50 drops but from the height of 2 meters only. So, it’s not the regular height for flying drones. The real question now is can this drone survive drops from like say 50-100m? Only when it can survive such drops then we could confidently say that it’s an indestructible one. However, it is so good to see that not just the consumers but even the designers and manufacturers are also interested in making durable and crash-resistant drones.

Android One from Google was targetted at the budget-oriented segment of people who wanted to enjoy the sweetness of pure android. But previously, Google and the manufacturers focused on making the phone as cheap as possible. But cheap Android One couldn’t get the hit as expected since the manufacturers cut different edges while making the phone cheaper. So, though the software was never an issue, Android One happened to be far from someone’s buying option because of it’s below par offering in the specs.

But things changed after Google and General Mobile started making the Android One phones. Yes, the Android Ones are no longer sub-$100 phones but are surely worth the buy even in the price range of around $300. One of the Android One offerings from General Mobile is the GM 5 Plus which is now available for preorder in Nepal. It is priced at Rs. 25,000 in Nepal. The phone will be on sale from 4th April 2017 and the first one to preorder will be the first one to get the phone.

PreBook Your GM 5Plus Here

General Mobile GM 5Plus: What’s Inside?

The GM 5Plus comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protected 5.5inch Full HD display with 2.5D glass up top. This phone, with metal frame and textured plastic back, is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 Octacore 64-bit Processor coupled with 3GB of RAM. It has 32GB of Storage and is expandable up to 128GB. On Cameras, it has 13MP unit both on the front and the back. Inside the device is the 3100mAh battery. The phone with USB Type C even supports QuickCharge 3.0. Well, the software will always be the latest since it’s an Android One device. So, the device comes with Android 7 Nougat and will be getting timely updates right after the Google releases them.

Specs Highlight:

• 5.5″ IPS LTPS Full HD (1080×1920 pixels) Display
• Corning Gorilla Glass 4
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 Octa-Core 64 Bit
• 3GB LPDDR3 RAM
• 32GB Storage (expandable up to 128GB)
• Rear Camera: 13MP AF with Dual Led Flash
• Selfie Camera: 13MP AF with Front Flash
• Li-Po 3100mAh Battery,
• Type-C connecter, GM Turbo Charger
• Android 7 Nougat (completely stock)

Verdict:

The availability of a phone with pure Android is always welcome. The device looks appealing and worth the price. Previously, I had made up my mind that I would never buy an Android One device but with this release, I’m reconsidering my last decision. If you wanted to enjoy the pure Android then this device is the right one for you. One of the perks of buying this device is you don’t have to cry out for the updates. The updates come as quickly as they’ll be announced. But few things still make this device far from the best buy and that is not necessarily because this device is giving less but because devices in the similar price range are giving more. Yes, I was talking about the fingerprint sensor. Had it had a fingerprint sensor, it would probably have been the best phone to buy in its price range.

Every other social media application has been copying Snapchat, be it with their ‘story’ mode or their ‘timer’ in pictures. Facebook has come under a lot of criticism lately for cloning Snapchat’s features on Instagram, Whatsapp, and Messenger.

And now, another messaging application, Viber has followed this trend too albeit in a different manner. The messaging giants have thrown in some of the old Snapchat features which had made the application popular among the public.

Viber users will now get to set a timer on their entire messages and pictures by creating a new ‘secret chat’ with someone. While we had already got to see the timer feature, secret chat is a new of its kind. Even though other social media applications let you add self-destructing timer for texts, Viber is the first to let users automatically delete an entire text.

Similar to Snapchat, Viber also alerts users when another person takes a screenshot of their conversation. The ‘secret chat’ feature adds up to Viber’s ‘end-to-end encryption’ feature and the ‘hide messages’ feature.

Users can simply add a person to talk to in a secret chat. Along the ‘send’ button sits a timer when lets users set a time limit for the message to self-destruct. The new feature is easy to use and configure.

“Make your conversations more meaningful by choosing what stays and what goes. Secret messages give you the ability to decide when the photos and videos you send will disappear from your conversation and, in doing so, let you decide what should and shouldn’t be a permanent part of your conversation history”, the application shared on their blog.

“Some things are meant to be seen once and then never again. When you send a secret message, it can be viewed exactly one time and, maybe more importantly, it can’t be shown to anyone else afterward.”

The above mentioned features can be found on Viber’s newest update.