Huawei G play Mini Review: Find If its a Good Buy

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June 11, 2015

Huawei G play Mini Review: Find If its a Good Buy

Huawei G play mini made up of plastic

Huawei recently launched a new mid-range phone—G play mini for Rs.19,999 (USD $200) in Nepal. I have been using this handset for almost 2 months, and many of you have been asking me on whether Huawei G play mini stands out to be the best phone to buy for NRs.20,000. Well, let’s find out in this article.

Huawei Gplay mini looks identical to Honor 4c

More About Huawei G Play Mini

At a first glance at the specs, you will notice that the Huawei G play mini specs look identical to Honor 4c— the phone that was launched in India for INR 8,999 (NRs.14,400). So, you might want to know why are we paying more for the phone with almost same specs? Huawei Device Nepal says that Huawei Honor 4c and Huawei G play mini are different phones with Huawei G play mini sporting a superior design better suited for gaming. But, after some research and comparison, it turns out Gplay mini and Honor 4c has almost similar design. So, why is the Honor 4c cheaper? The main reason is that there is too much competition going on in Indian smartphone market with the likes of Xiaomi Redmi 2 and Micromax Yuphoria providing decent phones under INR 10K. But, unfortunately, that’s not the case here in Nepal.

Moving on… I actually bought Gplay mini for Rs.18,500 and also got a free screen guard and an egregious flip cover that will only make your phone look ugly. The box content comprises of a wall charger, data cable, and a chintzy earphone.

DESIGN & BUILD: 6/10
Like any other sub-20K phones, G play mini made up of plastic. Talking about ergonomics of this phone, the phone feels heavy and is extremely difficult to use with one hand as the phone comes with bigger bezels. The phone weighs 162 gms, which is abnormal for a 5-inch phone. Last year’s Huawei Honor 3c has a 5-inch display and weighs 140gms. Comparing it with other 5-inch devices, it feels bulky and heavy.

Smartphone with 5-inch Display	Weight	Height	Width	Thickness
Huawei Gplay Mini	163 gms	144mm	71.9mm	8.8mm
Huawei Honor 3c	140 gms	139mm	71.4mm	9.2mm
Samsung Galaxy E5	125 gms	141mm	70.2mm	7.2mm

DISPLAY: 7/10

The Huawei G play Mini features a 5-inch (1280 x 720) pixel display with 294ppi (320dpi). High-definition displays are common these days in a mid-range segment, but what really matters is the quality of the screen, brightness, color reproduction and touch sensitivity.

As far as Huawei G play mini is concerned, the quality of the screen is really good with decent viewing angles thanks to the IPS technology. The display panel manages to produce vibrant and accurate colors, but there are two minor glitches that I saw in the display. First of all, the screen is not bright enough. Under normal usage, it’s okay but when you keep Honor 3c and Gplay mini side by side, Huawei Honor 3c screen is brighter and better compared to Gplay mini.

Another thing that might annoy you is how fingerprint magnet the screen is; it easily attracts smudge marks and you will find yourself cleaning the display quite often. Moreover, the display lacks Corning Gorilla Glass protection and is therefore prone to scratches.

SOFTWARE UI: 7/10

The Huawei G play mini is running the Huawei Emotion 3.0 UI on top of Android 4.4.2 KitKat. The Emotion UI is not stock, but the 3.0 version is much better than any of its previous version. However, there are still improvements to be done from Huawei in its Software UI.

PERFORMANCE: 8/10

The Huawei G play mini is equipped with Huawei’s in-house Kirin 620 chipset with an Octa core 1.2Ghz Cortex A53 64 bit processor supplemented by 2GB of DDR3 RAM.

The Kirin 620 Chipset is somewhat similar to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 615 chipset seen on Micromax Yureka Yu, HTC desire 820 and Xiaomi Mi4i. Under normal usage like browsing, chatting,etc., the phone is deprived of any lags. The phone runs smoothly while multi-tasking or switching between apps.

I installed some heavy games like FIFA15, MC5, etc and it runs smoothly without any lags. It tends to heat after continuous usage, but that won’t bother you too much. Even flagship phones like Samsung Galaxy S6 and HTC one M9 heats up while playing that kind of graphics demanding games.

Overall, the performance of the G play mini is its biggest asset. If you want a phone with the best performance in this price range, G play mini would be a worthy choice.

MEMORY: 7/10

The Huawei G play mini comes with 8GB inbuilt storage out of which only 3.5GB is available to users. This big chunk of memory is taken by the Operating System. However, you can expand the memory via a microSD card slot up to 32GB. You can move most of the apps to SD card, but some apps can only be installed to the internal storage.

CAMERA

The Huawei G play mini is capable of capturing some nice shots as it’s been equipped with a 13MP rear facing camera – and decent feature for such a low-cost device. Up front, a 5MP camera can capture excellent selfies.

The 13 MP back camera can capture good photos during daylight. Macro shots are amazing with lots of details, vividness, and accurate color reproduction. Low or artificial light shot is not impressive but doesn’t disappoint at all. Check out the photos sample here: LINK

BATTERY: 7/10

The non-removable 2550 mAh battery on the Huawei G play mini is more than enough for one day of moderate usage. You can watch Youtube Videos continuously for 4 hrs. Upon continuous browsing and chatting, it should give you 5 hrs of backup.

CONNECTIVITY: 8/10

The phone supports Dual GSM 3G SIM (HSPA). Other connectivity includes WiFi 802.11b/g/n, WiFi Direct support, WiFi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0, and GPS/GLONASS. However, the phone doesn’t support USB OTG and neither has 4G LTE bands.

VERDICT:

Overall, the Huawei G play mini is among the good mid-range smartphones available in Nepal. At Rs. 19,999 it’s bit costly compared to the Honor 4c even though the smartphone has almost the same specs.
If you are looking for a Dual SIM smartphone with a really good performance around Rs. 20,000, the G play mini is a good choice. To summarize, here are the pros and cons of the smartphone.

PROS	CONS
-Value for Money	-Bulky and Heavy
-Decent Performance	-Still Runs Kitkat 4.4.2
-Good Camera	-Screen isn’t the brightest

Thanks for the tip Pujan

Find the Latest Huawei Smartphone’s Specification and also the price in Nepal.

Xiaomi Mi4i Price in Nepal: Now available for Rs.28000

Xiaomi

GadgetByte

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June 11, 2015

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#DealAlert: Xiaomi Mi4i Price in Nepal: Now Available for Rs.28,000.

Xiaomi is one the most influential and leading manufacturer of smartphones in the world right now. All of its devices are packed with high-end specs but with a price tag so low that everyone wants a piece of it.

Here in Nepal, although we don’t have the official Xiaomi online stores, people buying the device from the 3^rd party retailers have really admired the Xiaomi’s approach on delivering affordable smartphones with high-end specs.

And now the miniature version of the Xiaomi’s flagship Mi4, Mi4i is available in Nepal with a very low price tag of just Rs.28,000 which is Exclusively Available on M.K.Tradeline.

BUY MI4i HERE

Specifications of Xiaomi Mi4i:

5inch IPS LCD screen with the resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels (~441 ppi)
Runs on Android 5.0.2 on top of MIUI v6.0
Qualcomm MSM8939 Snapdragon 615 Chipset
Quad-core 1.7 GHz Cortex-A53 & quad-core 1.1 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU with Adreno 405 GPU
2GB RAM with 16GB internal storage (No Card Slot)
13 MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels Rear Camera with 5MP Front Camera
Fast battery charging: 40% in 60 min (Quick Charge)
Li-Ion 3120 mAh battery

Mi4i specs looks promising and at a price of Rs.28,000 it’s a steal. It is certainly the best phone to buy right now for Rs.28,000. Here are the pros and cons of Mi4i:

PROS	CONS
-Full HD Screen	-No Expandable storage
-Decent Performance	-No official Service Centres
-Great Camera

Gionee Launches Elife E8 And Marathon M5

Gionee

Yural Maskey

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June 10, 2015

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Gionee, the Chinese mobile phone manufacturer, has announced two smartphones Elife E8 and Marathon M5 in the event that took place in Beijing.

Update: Gionee Elife E8 Launched in Nepal & Gionee Marathon M5 Launched in Nepal

Elife E8 is company’s flagship phone of 2015 and offers new high-end specs which we all have been waiting to see since the launch of Elife E7 back in 2013. The major attraction about the E8 is its 23.7 MP rear camera, which will be able to produce photographs up to 120 megapixels in resolution. And it will also be the first Android smartphone to offer lossless zoom. Gionee aims to make it as the best camera phone in the market, but again we shall wait and see.

Also, the Gionee Marathon M5 has caught a lot of attention with its dual battery. It packs a huge 6,020 mAh battery, a great improvement over the 5,000mAh battery in it ancestor M3. People have been plagued by battery problem since smartphone displays getting bigger and brighter, but thanks to M5 dual better that’s designed to solve this problem. Gionee says that the Marathon M5 will give a four-day battery life.

Gionee E8 Specifications:

6 inches AMOLED Screen with resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels (~490 ppi)
TBC glass protection
Runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop on top of Amigo UI 3.0
Mediatek Helio X10 Chipset(MT6795) with OctaCore 2 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU and PowerVR G6200 GPU
3GB RAM and 64GB Internal Storage without expandable memory
24MP Rear Camera and 8MP Front Camera
Fingerprint sensor
Dimensions: 164.0 × 82.3 × 9.6 mm
Weight: 207 g
Dual SIM, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, GPS, NFC
Non-removable Li-Po 3250 mAh battery

Gionee M5 Specifications:

5inch AMOLED Screen with the resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels (~267 ppi)
Runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop on top of Amigo UI 3.0
1.3GHz QuadCore Processor
2GB RAM and 16GB Internal Storage, Expandable up to 64GB
13 MP (3264 x 2448 pixels) Rear Camera and 5MP Front Camera
Dual 6,020 mAh battery

Pricing:
Gionee Marathon M5 is priced at $370 and it will be available for purchase starting June 25 whereas Elife E8 is priced at $645 and will be available for purchase starting July 15.

Lava Iris X8 Set to Launch in Nepal

Lava

Yural Maskey

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June 10, 2015

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Lava Smartphone Nepal is set to announce a new budget smartphone—Iris X8. The phone comes with a 5 inch HD display, Octa-Core processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, 8MP & 3MP cameras, and a 2500 mAh battery. The asking price should be around NRs. 16,000.

Lava Iris X8 Full Specs:

SIM	Dual (micro SIM); 2G+3G
DISPLAY	5’’IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen; 720*1280 pixels; Dragon Trail Glass for scratch protection
MEMORY	16 GB internal memory; micro SD up to 32 GB
RAM	2 GB
PROCESSOR	1.4 Ghz True-octa core processor (MT6592)
BACK CAMERA	8 MP with Auto focus and LED flash
FRONTCAMERA	3 MP
OS	Android v4.4.2 Kitkat; Guaranteed Lollipop Update
CONNECTIVITY	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0
BATTERY	Li-Ion 2500 mAh battery (non-removable)
BATTERY LIFE	291 hours of standby time and 10 hours of 3G talk time
PRICE	TBA

Lava Smartphone Nepal is yet to provide any further details on the pricing and availability of the Iris X8 in the market, but we expect the phone to arrive this month. Pre-booking has already begun .

LG G4 Local Price in Nepal

LG

Yural Maskey

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June 10, 2015

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DEAL ALERT: It’s been a few months LG officially unveiled the LG G4, and the price has gone down since then. Originally, during launch, the LG G4 was priced at Rs.75,000 in Nepal, but the price of the phone has gone down since then and you can buy one of these at a price of Rs. 50,000 from M.K.Tradeline shop.

Buy Now LG G4

LG G4 Specs:

5.5-inch Quad HD IPS Quantum Display (2560 x 1440, 538 ppi)
Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 system chip (Qualcomm MSM8992 )
3GB RAM
32GB storage
microSD slot up to 128GB
16MP 1/2.6-inch CMOS sensor with F1.8 aperture
3-axis optical image stabilization
Laser AF
Color spectrum sensor
4K video
8MP front camera with F2.0 aperture
Android 5.1 Lollipop
3,000 mAh battery (removable)
Color: Gold

LG has emphasized more on its Camera specification in the G4 and touts its performance as a professional-grade DSLR. The phone comes with 16 megapixel 1/2.6-inch CMOS sensor with F1.8 aperture lens. The phone now sports improved optical image stabilization system with 3 axes. In addition, the G4 comes with laser AF for better focus and a new color spectrum sensor that reads RGB color and Infrared in order to recognize objects in a scene and their color. The raw data is then processed to optimize white balance and color processing. At the front, LG have opted for an 8MP sensor combined with an F2.0 aperture.

**LG G4 is equipped with IPS Quantum QHD display.**

In terms of Display, LG G4 has a new IPS Quantum Quad HD display, which is quite similar, yet better than G3. There is the slightly unusual processor inside the LG G4- the hexacore Snapdragon 808 processor with 4 Cortex A53 Cores and 2 Cortex A57. Obviously, this processor is less powerful than the latest Octa Core Snapdragon 810 seen in the HTC one M9 or the Exynos 7420 of Samsung Galaxy S6, but LG says the hexacore processor is destined to save more power and will give better battery life. The phone boast a 3000 mAh battery which can be removed as well. The body of the G4 is slightly curved, nothing like the G flex 2, but the curved design means it’s easier to grab in the hands. The G4 runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system with the new human-centric UX 4.0.

Report: Gionee Marathon M5 To Sport Two Batteries

Gionee

Yural Maskey

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May 26, 2015

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Report: Gionee Marathon M5 To Sport Two Batteries

Battery life has always been a big issue for smartphone these days. Keeping that into perspective, Gionee has decided to use two batteries inside a single smartphone. Teaser shows that the successor of Marathon M3—the Marathon M5 will boast two Batteries that will provide a battery life for four days. Rumors also point out the total capacity of batteries to be of 6000mAh.

Gionee is yet to reveal more official details about the device, but we expect Marathon M5 to be energy efficient and hence should boast a 5 inch 720p screen (1080P would be meaningless), low power consuming Cortex A7 Quad-core processor, LP-DDR4 memory, but then again official specs might surprise us all. So stay tuned for more information in the coming days.

Gionee Nepal recently launched its latest flagship phone from Elife series—GioneeElife S7. It is one of the thinnest phone measuring only 5.5mm thick, yet premium since the phone is build by aviation-grade alloy and a stainless steel sheet with nano-molding plastic making the phone solid and durable. In terms of display, Elife S7 sports a 5.2” AMOLED screen with 1080p resolution. It is powered by Mediatek’s new 64-but 1.7Ghz octa core processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB of storage. It is a dual sim phone with 4G LTE capability. It comes with Gionee’s new Amigo 3.0 user interface that is based on the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop. Read more

Nepal Telecom Upgrades Billing System For Mobile Data Packages

Featured

Yural Maskey

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May 26, 2015

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Nepal Telecom Upgrades Billing System For Mobile Data Packages

Nepal Telecom has come up with a new billing system for GSM prepaid users which automatically reserves Rs.7 as soon as you turn on your mobile data. The exact amount is then deducted after you turn off your mobile data.

Here’s a small illustration:

1. I have a balance of Rs. 90.58 right now.

2. As soon as I turn on my Mobile Data, NTC reserves Rs.7.01 from my account.

3. After browsing few websites and then turning off the mobile data, NTC deducts the amount that I surfed, Rs.0.11 in this case.

So, questions might be popping out of your head on why did NTC change their billing system to make it more complex? As far as I know, there was a flaw in their previous payment system. According to some NTC users, with the previous payment system, they were able to surf the internet for free with some tweaks. NTC has not mentioned anything about it, but this might be a viable reason for the upgrade.

What is Gorilla Glass?

Tech Guides

GadgetByte

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May 26, 2015

1

Gorilla Glass simply refers to the registered trademark name of a specialized glass developed and manufactured by Corning. It’s light weight, slimness, and strength make it one of the widely used glasses in smartphones.

Corning had introduced “muscle glass” with several experiments conducted from 1950s. The glass marketed as “Chemor” was used in automotive, aviation and pharmaceutical industries. Steve Jobs wanted a strong glass to be used in his phone instead of plastic as plastic glasses were prone to cracks. At that time, Corning was not set up for mass production but Jobs placed an order for a ton of Gorilla Glass motivating Corning to take the risk. For this purpose, those experiments were rejuvenated which gave birth the use of gorilla glass in I phone which was released in 2007.

Gorilla Glass 2 is 20 percent thinner than the original Gorilla Glass. Gorilla Glass 3 is up to three times more scratch-resistant than the previous version, with enhanced ability to resist deep scratches. It’s design had first use of atomic-scale modeling. After Gorilla Glass 3, Corning indicated that areas for future improvements would be reducing reflectivity and susceptibility to fingerprint smudges, and changing the surface treatments and the way it is finished.

Gorilla glass 4 is of same thickness and scratch resistance properties than its prior version. But this time Corning focused on accident related impact damages that shatter the phone screen which is a real issue to be dealt by the phone user instead of the minor scratches.It is twice as stronger than its counter competitors. It says to survive 80% of 3.3 feet flat drop which is the emulation of real life surfaces keeping the phone intact. Today Corning states that over three billion mobile devices used Gorilla Glass.

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DEALS: Xiaomi mi3 up for grabs at Rs.24,999

Xiaomi

Yural Maskey

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May 24, 2015

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DEALS: Xiaomi mi3 up for grabs at Rs.24,999

With new smartphones getting announced every week or so, the Xiaomi mi3 surely is getting out-dated, but don’t let you think it can’t compete with recently launched phones. The Xiaomi mi3 is more than a year old phone, but it is still more than capable of providing a solid Android experience. Hotdealsnepal.com, one of the emerging eCommerse site here in Nepal, is offering up a new Xiaomi Mi3 for Rs.24,999 with free delivery.

If you are not aware of the Xiaomi mi3, it is one of the best phones to buy at this price point. It is powered by a Snapdragon 800 SoC with 2GB of RAM, has a 5 inch 1080p display, 16GB storage, a 3050 mAh battery and runs Android KitKat 4.4.2—although a Lollipop update should not be far away. It has a 13MP primary camera and a 2MP secondary camera. For Rs.25,000, you will certainly won’t get a handset with these kinds of specs and performance, despite the device being more than a year old.

Xiaomi Mi3 Specs:

2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 MSM8274AB processor
2GB of RAM
16GB of storage, non-expandable
5-inch full HD IPS display, 1080 x 1920 resolution
13-megapixel camera with autofocus, dual LED flash
2-megapixel front camera
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, NFC, USB OTG, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS
3G, HSDPA
144 x 73.6 x 8.1 mm
3050mAh li-ion battery (non-removable)

PROS	CONS
Best phone to buy at Rs.25,000	Lacks a microSD card slot
Full HD screen	No 2 SIM slot
Reliable Performance	No authorised service centres

Samsung Galaxy A8 specs revealed in leaked GFXBench Benchmark

Samsung

Yural Maskey

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May 23, 2015

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Samsung Galaxy A8 specs revealed in leaked GFXBench Benchmark

Samsung has already launched 3 metal body phones to their A series—the Galaxy A3, A5 and A7. Now we are expecting Samsung to add a new smartphone to its A-series, thanks to a leaked benchmark for the rumored Galaxy A8.

The Galaxy A8 will offer a 5.5 inch Super AMOLED Display with Full HD resolution, Octa Core Snapdragons 615 SoC, 2 GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, 15MP & 5MP cameras, and Android Lollipop 5.1 out of the box. The design will likely be same as other A-series i.e a metal uniform body. There is no official word on when it’s going to be unveiled, but it should be launched in the second quarter of this year and should be priced around $400.

Source: GFXBench