Chinese smartphone brand Ulefone has launched its flagship smartphone — UleFone Future. The handset features tempting specs like 4GB of RAM and 16MP rear camera for an asking price of just $239.99. It is available exclusively via gearbest.com, and the shipping is done almost in every nation including Nepal.
Hardware Specs:
The UleFone Future’s biggest selling point is the combination of an affordable price and powerful specs. It comes with a 5.5 inch full HD display (1920 x 1080 pixels) with a pixel density of 403 pixels per inch. As per the company, the display comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Under the hood, the phone is powered by MediaTek Helio P10 SoC which is a 64bit Cortex A53 Octacore processor running at a frequency of 2GHz.
In terms of memory, the UleFone Future sports 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of inbuilt storage that can be further expanded via a microSD card slot. As far as the camera is concerned, the phone boasts a 16-megapixel rear camera (Samsung S5K3P3 sensor) with phase detection autofocus, autofocus and Dual Flash with Dual color temperature. There is also a 5-megapixel front facing camera for selfies and video calling.
The smartphone is running on the latest Android Marshmallow 6.0 with stock, bloat free user interface. Connectivity wise, it supports 2 SIM card slots with 4G LTE and comes equipped with basic modules such as WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and GPS. Powering the phone is a standard 3000mAh battery with USB Type-C port and Quick charge support. The company says that its charger can charge the phone from 0% to 100% in just 60 mins.
Design & Build Quality:
Like most of the Chinese midrange flagships, the Ulefone Future also houses a full metal body. Up front, the screen is nearly bezel-less and has the body to screen ratio of 75%. It measures 151.5 x 73.5 x 8.6mm in dimension, and has volume rockers, power button, and a dedicated fingerprint sensor — all located on the right side of the device. The phone is available in two color options: Gray and Golden.
Pricing & How to Buy:
You can grab the Ulefone Future in a special 80 unit flash sale, starting today for a promotional price of just $199.99. However, if you are not in a hurry, you can grab it for a pre-purchase pricing of $239.99, and get a free set of accessories, such as a TPU cover, screen protector, a fast-charge wall plug, and a Type-C to micro USB converter. Starting 25th of May, it will retail for its full price of $269.99.
The Ulefone Future is currently available only from gearbest.com. They accept payment methods such as PayPal, Wire Transfer, as well as the Western Union. Also, you need to know that you need to pay for shipping fees and import taxes, wherever applicable.
As expected, Vatsal Impex has officially launched the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 in Nepal for a price of Rs. 24,999. Buyers can pre-book the phone from their official website or from different Xiaomi outlets located all over Nepal. Prebookers get a free back cover and a tempered glass, which is limited only during the booking period.
Although Redmi Note 3 has been priced slightly higher here in Nepal compared to international pricing, it is still the best smartphones to buy under Rs. 25,000 in Nepal. Redmi Note 3 flaunts a metallic unibody design which is sleek and feels premium. Apart from that, there’s a fingerprint sensor on the back which is pretty fast and accurate. Powering the phone is a massive 4050mAh non-removable battery. Under the hood, the phone is powered by a Snapdragon 650 SoC with a hexacore processor (2x Cortex A72 + 4x Cortex A53) and Adreno 510 GPU.
In terms of display, the Redmi Note 3 sports a 5.5-inch FullHD IPS panel with a total pixel density of 403ppi. The company claims that the sunlight display that the phone comes equipped with boasts sunlight legibility. Also, the Night Display dims brightness in the dark to produce a comfortable glow. In addition, there is also a Reading Mode which reduces blue light emissions and prevents eye strain, which is great for reading up on study notes.
The Redmi Note 3 that’s launched in Nepal comes in 2 color variants: Silver and Gold.
There are two variants of Redmi Note 3, one with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal another with 3GB RAM and 32GB internals. Both these variant supports microSD card upto 128GB. The Redmi Note 3 variant that’s launched in Nepal comes with 2GB of RAM and 16GB internal storage.
Highlights of Xiaomi Redmi Note 3:
5.5-inches Full HD (1080 x 1920 pixels) @ 403ppi
MIUI 7.0 on top of Android 5.1.1
Qualcomm MSM8956 Snapdragon 650 Chipset
Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 & Dual-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A72 CPU
Adreno 510 GPU
16GB eMMC 5.0 internal with microSD support upto 128GB
2GB RAM
Hybrid SIM slot (SIM+SIM Or SIM+MicroSD)
16 MP Rear Camera with f/2.0, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED flash, 1080p@30fps
5 MP Front Facing Camera with f/2.0 and 1080p Video Recording
Non-removable Li-Po 4050 mAh battery with Fast Charging
Price in Nepal: Rs. 24,999
Our Impressions with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
Our time with the Redmi Note 3 was pretty good. It is a great phone to carry with awesome design, well-built metallic body, clear and vivid 1080P screen, good 16MP camera and a heavy-duty battery life. If you want to know more about the Redmi Note 3, check out our video review on this phone:
Lifecom Pvt Ltd, the authorized distributor of Lenovo phones in Nepal has launched Lenovo A6000 Plus. Lenovo A6000 Plus is a mid-range phone of 2015 which is the successor of Lenovo A6000. The upgrade on the Plus variant is the bump in RAM from 1GB to 2GB and storage from 8GB to 16GB. It is a pretty solid budget phone and is still preferable in 2016. With every purchase of Lenovo A6000 Plus, you’ll get a free 8GB micro SD card and it will be delivered free of charge within Kathmandu valley. You’ll also get a one year warranty on the phone and six months warranty on the battery. Lenovo A6000 Plus is exclusively available via Hamrobazar for Rs. 14,900.
The A6000 Plus is a pretty good mid-range device with dual 4G connectivity enabled and features a 5-inch HD display, 2GB RAM, 8MP Rear Camera, 2MP Front Facing Camera, Dual Stereo Speakers and backed up by 2300mAh user replaceable battery. The phone is still running on Android 4.4 Kitkat out of the box but it’ll soon be receiving Android 5.0.2 Lollipop update. But since the phone is heavily skinned with Lenovo Vibe UI 2.0 you won’t notice any difference visual-wise after the update.
The Lenovo A6000 Plus is rocking the same chipset as the Moto G 2015 — the Snapdragon 410 coupled with Adreno 306 GPU. It is a very capable performer and you can easily run demanding apps and play high-end games at low to medium settings with ease. Also, the low 1.2Ghz Cortex-A53 CPU results in a great battery life.
Lenovo A6000 Plus is priced at Rs.14,900 in Nepal and is exclusively available from hamrobazar.
Voice over Internet Protocol is commonly known as VoIP, is the most used technology to make a call by the means of the Internet around the globe. If anyone happened to know about Google Voice, Facebook call, Viber etc. then the person is not untouched and unknown about the technology. But how about the underlying technology behind it and the context in Nepal.
Technology behind VoIP
In general VoIP technology was developed to make calls between the two specific people within the internet. Unlike traditional PSTN telephony, VoIP works by transporting the voice signals into data via IP. These signals then are broken down into the packets with the routeing information. The process includes breaking down and reassembling of voice data and changes into the voice. Within the process, the compression and the decompression of the data take place commonly referred as the voice quality.
Making calls using VoIP
Calls originated from the internet and destination being the internet is quite similar to the data packet transferring process. However in order to make and receive the calls, the softphone application must be installed on the user computer itself. The softphone is similar to the traditional dialling phone but this time, it is a computer or mobile application which will send the data from one softphone to another softphone. Softphone might be vendor specific e.g. skype, Viber, Facebook, Google etc. This vendor has their datacenter which will ultimately transfer the originating voice data to the receiver. Commonly known as On-Net Calls.
Calls to PSTN from VoIP
Transferring calls to PSTN and vice versa is the most discussed topic in the VoIP industry. Referred as call termination and (Session Initiation Protocol) SIP trunking. In this process, the originating call from Softphone is dropped into the vendor data centre and then dropped into the nearest PSTN network. In between these process, the calls are transferred from the SIP gateway. This gateway will convert SIP to PSTN or PSTN to SIP. However, PSTN to SIP is more of a broader prospect. The call quality depends on upon the vendor route provider and the audio codec that is being used by them. Most popular used codec is G721 but for the highest quality and having enough bandwidth the softphone caller can use G711 codec as well.
A Brief History of VoIP in Nepal
There is not proper information since when VoIP was introduced in Nepal. But as per my experience there was some kind of boom in VoIP market in Nepal during the 2000-2005 and then rooted since then. The main reason for its popularity was because of the high cost of the cross-border call in Nepal. This was because most of the Nepalese headed abroad to make their living. Since then and now the only reliable service provider was the Nepal Telecommunication.
Although there was few competitor but it was near impossible to compete with the government organisation – NTC (Nepal Telecommunication Corporation). Compared to another provider such as NCELL (Mero Mobile back then) and UTL (United Telecommunication) it was cheaper but was not much reasonable for the customer. The customer had to spend 25-40 Rupees per call/minute depending upon the destination. In order to avoid high price in making calls, the technology was introduced by the people from abroad who had used it at least once and thought they could help people and make money out of it.
Illegal in Nepal or is it?
There is a huge difference in understanding of VoIP being illegal in Nepal. But in fact, it is not what it seems. We can take an example to clarify this part. We everyday use Skype, Viber or any internet telephony services to make calls to our relatives abroad or from abroad to Nepal. These are not illegal. These Skype and Viber will charge anyone to make a VoIP to PSTN call, if the tax is paid during the purchase then it is legal. Similarly, any paid service that is being used by Cyber Café in Nepal is not illegal having said that it is used for personal purpose. But in the case of Cyber Café, it is just opposite, the tax is not paid and hence is illegal. In order to offer VoIP services, the entity has to obtain a service provider licence from the NTA (Nepal Telecommunication Authority).
However in few years, illegal VoIP has been covering headline in the news. This has put fear in the customer regarding the VoIP use. Demystifying this, it is very important to know , what those raids were which linked so-called high-class people .
As mentioned earlier, in VoIP business buying and selling calls are called call termination. Basically, these calls termination are done by telecom service provider. For example, if a person is calling to Nepal, then the caller service provider must buy the call/route from Nepal in order to land the call and vice-versa. Here comes the messy part. Illegal VoIP business comes to the existence with few devices, Sim Gateway, Sim (working one with the number), high-speed internet connection with static IP, software and Electricity. Basically, the Sims are put in a gateway.With the help of software, it can allocate vendor IP to transfer the calls from another end. Instead of the call going from the NTC gateway to the receiver now the call would go from the NTC to dodgy sim gateway and to the receiver. This will lead to a huge loss for NTC. Because the calls are made as a normal call, NTC will not be benefited much other than a normal call. But on the other hand, the person who has setup, such would sell the calls at a higher price in dollars and benefit out of it.
The quality of the call depends on upon the internet connection, the number of calls per second and the availability of the sim. Normally with the VoIP, there are three ranges, Silver, Gold and the Premium or grey, white or premium. The quality is determined by how free the ports (SIM) are, and how long the call can continue in a given specific time. White, Gold are relatively fine compared to the silver and gold. However, the premium is expensive. It is expensive because the ports must be freed all the time.
It is always better to make calls in and out from the proper service provider which pays the tax. Some examples of licenced provider are Call Bidesh,Broad Tel,CT Talk,Radius Call, EasyPhone and much more.
Teletalk Pvt. Ltd., the authorised distributor of Colors Mobile in Nepal, has slashed the price of their last year’s flagship — Pearl Black K3. Previously priced at Rs. 20,995, the phone is now available for just Rs. 17,495. The highlight of this phone is its storage as it comes with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of inbuilt storage. If you have been thinking of buying a new device and have a budget of around Rs. 17,500, now may be a good time to buy a Colors Pearl Black K3.
Colors K3 images
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Here are some key details about the Colors Pearl Black K3:
5-inch HD IPS display with Asahi Dragontrail glass
1.3GHz quadcore 64bit CPU (MediaTek MT6735)
3GB RAM
32GB ROM (expandable upto 64GB)
13MP rear camera with LED Flash
8MP front camera
2350mAh battery
Dual Hybrid SIM slot
Connectivity includes: 3G HSPA+, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and GPS.
With the Pearl black dislodged out of competition with the launch of better sub-20K phones such as Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 and Marathon M5 Lite, the price reductions are predictable and welcome. There’s no indication on how long the price drop will stay in place. The price drop also gives us some hint that Colors is preparing to launch their upcoming flagship phone somewhere next month.
Vatsal Impex Pvt Ltd, the authorized distributor of Xiaomi Phones in Nepal, held a Bloggers Meet on Tuesday where they revealed that the Redmi Note 3 is set to launch in Nepal next week. They also showcased the Xiaomi Mi5 which is set to launch sometime around next month. The price of the Redmi Note 3 hasn’t been revealed yet, but they clued it will be around NRs.25,000 to NRs.27,000.
Redmi Note 3 is one of the best midrange smartphones of 2016. Redmi Note 3 flaunts a metallic unibody design which is sleek and feels premium. Apart from that, there’s a fingerprint sensor on the back which is pretty fast and accurate. Powering the phone is a massive 4000mAh non-removable battery. Under the hood, the phone is powered by a Snapdragon 650 SoC with a hexacore processor (2xCortex A72 + 4xCortex A53) and Adreno 510 GPU. There are two variants of Redmi Note 3, one with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal another with 3GB RAM and 32GB internals. Both these variant supports microSD card upto 128GB. The Redmi Note 3 variant that will be launched in Nepal will be of 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage.
If you want to get your hands on Redmi Note 3, Mi Nepal has created a Contest where you can win a brand new Redmi Note 3.
Highlights of Xiaomi Redmi Note 3:
5.5-inches Full HD (1080 x 1920 pixels) @ 403ppi
MIUI 7.0 on top of Android 5.1.1
Qualcomm MSM8956 Snapdragon 650 Chipset
Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 & Dual-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A72 CPU
Adreno 510 GPU
16GB Internal 2GB RAM
16 MP Rear Camera with f/2.0, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED flash, 1080p@30fps
5 MP Front Facing Camera with f/2.0 and 1080p Video Recording
Fingerprint Sensor
Fast Charging
Non-removable Li-Po 4000 mAh battery
Expected price in Nepal: Rs. 25,000-Rs. 27,000
Our Impressions with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
Our time with the Redmi Note 3 was pretty good, it will be by far the best phone to buy under the price of Rs.30,000 in Nepal. It is a great phone to carry with awesome design, well-built metallic body, great screen, good camera and a heavy-duty battery life. If you want to know more about the Redmi Note 3, check out our take on this phone:
Huawei subbrand Honor has officially launched the successor of Honor 4c(Gplay Mini), Honor 5C. The Huawei Honor 5c has improved emphatically over its predecessors Honor 3c and Honor 4c as it features a 1080P display, a better processor, and has a metal body for an asking price of just CNY 899 ($138).
Specs | Huawei Honor 5c
The Honor 5c, unlike the plastic build Honor 3c and Honor 4c, now sports a full metal body to live up with the competition created by Le Eco 1s and Redmi Note 3. It sports a 5.2-inch Full HD display with 74% screen-to-body ratio, although Honor is yet to mention any kind of protection that the screen boasts. The phone is powered by a Kirin 650 SoC which comes with an octacore processor ( 4x 2.0 GHz Cortex A53 cores + 4x 1.7 GHz Cortex A53 cores). The Kirin 650 SoC is really powerful with high-frequency 64bit cortex A53 cores and Mali T830 GPU meaning it should do perfectly fine during multitasking and heavy gaming.
Honor 5c (Photo credits: androidheadlines.com)
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In terms of memory, the Huawei Honor 5c comes equipped with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The storage, however, can be further expanded via microSD card slot upto 128GB. Camera wise, the phone has a 13MP rear camera with LED Flash, f/2.0 aperture, Auto Focus, and 5P lens construction. Upfront, there is an 8MP selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture and 4P lens.
The Android Marshmallow based Honor 5c runs on the latest version of Emotion UI 4.1 and has 3000mAh non-removable battery. As far as connectivity is concerned, the phone has a Dual SIM nano SIM slots, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1 LE, and GPS. The phone also houses a Fingerprint scanner on the back, which is the same sensor that can be found on Huawei’s recently launched phone GR5.
Pricing and Availability | Huawei Honor 5c
The Huawei Honor 5c comes in Grey, Silver and Gold colors and is priced at CNY 899 ($138/ Rs. 14,000 approx.) for the standard variant and CNY 999 ($155 / Rs. 16,000 approx.) for the dual 4G variant. It is currently available for preorder in China, and will go on sale from May 5. There has been no word on global launch yet.
Teletalk Pvt. Ltd., the authorised national distributors of Gionee smartphones in Nepal, has officially launched a budget oriented android smartphone — Gionee P5 Mini. The phone is available for purchase from different gionee outlets for a maximum retail price of Rs. 7,999.
Gionee P5 Mini comes with a 4.5-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels. Like most entry-level phones, there is no protection on the screen. It is powered by a 1.3Ghz quad-core processor (32bit, Cortex A7, MT6580M). In terms of memory, the phone has 1GB of RAM and 8GB of inbuilt storage that is expandable upto 32GB.
The Android Lollipop 5.1 based Gionee P5 Mini sports a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, and a 2MP front facing camera. Connectivity wise, there is a dual SIM slot with 3G capabilities, WiFi b/g/n, WiFI hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, and A-GPS. It houses an 1800mAh battery and is removable in nature thanks to its polycarbonate back. The phone is relatively heavy for a 4.5-inch device as it measures 153gms, and is a tad thicker at 9.1mm for a phone with only 1800mAh battery.
The Gionee P5 Mini is running on Amigo 3.1 skin and comes with preloaded apps like the Gionee Xender, Whatsapp, Facebook, Battery Doctor, WPS office, 360 Security lite, Clean master, TouchPal 2015.
It isn’t your internal storage that can be affected if you don’t give your device an occasional spring clean. Many application includes features that dramatically lowers the battery life and without paying attention to it your devices charge will soon run out.
Top-notch Android phones are really powerful but, unfortunately, they don’t have endless battery life. In fact, many android users would be happy to make it through a single day hoping that a nightly recharge would be sufficient. But sadly it isn’t sometimes.There are a lot of things that should be kept under consideration to increase or maintain a good span of battery life.
1. Brightness of the Screen:
Your screen especially the new one like IPS display suck up more battery from your device. The AMOLED display are more power efficient since the LED don’t have to produce blacks. By default the brightness is in auto adjustment mode, which works fine but, it is recommended to put it down to 10% which works well in indoor places. But this can be toggled outdoor using a power control widget on your home screen.
2. Cellular Data:
Cellular data are also the best battery drainers. Even though you have a brand new 4G or a 3G phone your data will use up the same battery even when you are not using the phone. Sending a text message via Viber, we chat, Line application as such EDGE or 1X is more than sufficient. And you can turn the data on if you need an extra speed. It is difficult to maintain the process but will definitely save you a lot of battery charge.
Battery life is one of the most important aspects of a smartphone. Since it is the powerhouse of a cell-phone, it is a vital part that keeps the phone running. And so, it is also one of the major things to consider while buying a smartphone. Even if a phone is capable of doing a […]
When you are using a smartphone with a GSM or a CDMA SIM, there is a process called locking. The smartphone locks with a base station (tower) that has the strongest signal. This process occurs even when the phone is not in use.
Photo source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/
When you are travelling in a vehicle, the phone will connect with another base station so that the phone stays connected to the network. This process takes more power since during the “handover” the signal strength is lower, hence impacting battery life.
Even if you are not travelling, handover process can still occur. For eg. in a densely populated area, there are many base stations meaning your phone is always searching for the best network with the strongest signal. Also, if you are living in an area with lots of signal interference like buildings, and trees, accessing the base station in such areas requires more energy to mitigate the interference, again juicing up more battery from your phone.
3. GPS:
GPS are very best in sucking battery. It can be called the most battery killer in an android phone. The Global Positioning System (GPS) has to receive and decode time signals that come out from satellites. If the signal is weak, then the processor has to decode more meaning the battery consumption is more. Similarly, while you drive a car and use GPS for navigation, the time signal from the satellite is being sent repeatedly for accuracy. If you are not using GPS, then we recommend you to switch it off when not in use.
4. Power Consuming Processors:
Gone are the days when smartphone used to have a single core or dual core processors. Now, almost all the smartphones come equipped with quadcore or octacore processors. As weird as it might listen, the increment of cores is done to make the battery life better.
photo source: coding4.net
Smartphones processor sports ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture that features a small energy efficient 64 bit Cortex A53 cores and high performing 64 bit Cortex A57 cores. The Cortex A53 cores come into play when you are doing light tasks such as sending email, chatting, or watching movies. The Cortex A57 cores are only used when you are playing high demanding 3D games, and capturing 4K videos. More often, we see smartphones with Cortex A7 processor which is again an energy efficient cores, but unlike the Cortex A53 cores, the former boasts a 32bit architecture. So, if you are buying a new smartphone, always check if the processor has a 64 bit Cortex A53 cores.
5. Sync:
The built in Email feature (not Gmail, it uses push technology) can badly consume a lot of battery. Facebook, Twitter, weather app and many other application are used to syncing data from the web. It usually is set to auto sync, this can be turned into manual sync from the option in the setting. Turning this to manual sync or syncing time set to an along period can help to prevent battery to drain a lot less.
6. Animated (Live) Wallpaper, Home widgets:
Just because the Home widgets are there sitting on your home screen and seem inactive but they are draining a lot of battery. The live wallpaper which seems to look cool as a wallpaper is very good in draining battery. So removing these are a good way to save battery.
7. Signal Strength:
Being in an area where there is very less strength signal can also take part in draining a lot of battery charge from the battery. This is because when a mobile phone has a weak signal the phone tries hard to search for signals which use a lot of power and also comes in the list of battery drainers. There is nothing that can be done for this but is also the culprits for your dead battery.
8. Using a rooted phone:
Using a rooted phone also makes an android phone battery to resist more. A suggestion can be using a autostart utility which can be used to keep the application from launching them automatically. Since this is something you cannot do on a non-rooted phone.
These are not only the facts that make your battery drain fast but are the most common facts that are responsible for draining battery.
