Bharadwaj Chandramouli | Fone Arena

LG Optimus G vs Nokia 808 PureView #BOTF12 Round 2

After a resounding victory for the Nexus 4 over the Apple iPhone 5, here comes the first battle of the penultimate round of Battle of the flagships 2012. After the round 1, four devices have emerged as winners, two from one sided battles and the other two from fierce neck to neck battles. The ones from the fierce neck to neck battle have been chosen as the first candidates for this battle. Yes, LG Optimus G won by a narrow 30 votes vs the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Nokia 808 PureView won against the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 by a even narrower 20 votes. To keep it fair, we have been running all the polls for exactly 48 hours, making sure they are to the point. With that said, lets dive into the battle between the LG Optimus G vs Nokia 808 PureView!

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iOS 7 to be announced between March/April and released June/July?

Earlier this week, TheNextWeb reported that one iOS app developer had already seen references to the next iPhone and iOS 7 in their app logs. Now, sources tell FoneArena that iOS 7 will be revealed during a media event sometime between March and April. This event will give a sneak peek of the upcoming major version of their mobile operating system. The company will also make iOS 7 available to the public between June/July.

In the past, Apple has held media events during these months for iOS. iOS 4 was announced on April 9th 2010 and was released to the public on June 21st 2010. Last year, Apple first announced iOS 6 at WWDC 2012 in June. In September, iOS 6 was made available to the public.

Last October, Apple fired Scott Forstall, and put Jonathan Ive, senior vice president of industrial design, in charge of leading all Apple’s “human interface”, including software. No details regarding the features of iOS 7 have leaked yet, but we can expect Ive to make his presence felt on iOS.

Chennai Airport prepares for paperless tickets using smartphones, tablets and laptops

Just after the BCAS(Bureau of Civil aviation Security) announced that, like the Indian Railways, Airports in India can accept tickets on phone or any computing device, the Chennai Airport has started preparations for the same. If implemented, passengers will be permitted into terminal buildings with tickets in digital form, but the boarding pass will still have to be paper once checked in.

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Ubuntu for phones announced

Ubuntu for Android has been there for a while, enabling you to dock your phone and make it your desktop, with a full blown OS on the phone, but what about Ubuntu, the OS itself on your smartphone? Yes, Canonical has let loose the details of the new Ubuntu OS for smartphones, with devices slated to launch by 2014. Watch the virtual keynote video here –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpWHJDLsqTU

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Apple iPhone 5 vs Google Nexus 4 #BOTF12 Round 1

After yet another close-call battle ending up in Nokia’s favour as the 808 PureView came out as the winner, we are now onto the grand finale battle of Round 1. Yes, when we say “Grand finale” battle of the Round 1, we mean it. The original iPhone was supposed to be the Google phone with Google itself, a partner of various services that debuted on the iPhone, but as the industry changed, a lot of things have changed. Google has been at the forefront of the Android juggernaut that is currently the most used smartphone software on the planet and hence, it is a no brainer that Google has its own range of Android devices, called the “Nexus”. And their flagship smartphone? The Google Nexus 4. Made with LG’s help and partnership, it is all set to take on the iPhone in the real world as well as here. Let the battle begin then!

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Samsung Galaxy Note II vs Nokia 808 PureView – #BOTF12 Round 1

After a brilliant close-call battle between the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the LG Optimus G, with the Optimus G ending up on top, we now turn to a different kind of a flagship battle. This involves a fight of innovation and fierce market disruption from two long time industry veterans. Yes, Samsung and Nokia have been in this game far too long to be considered irrelevant. While Samsung is at the top of its game right now, Nokia have been more or less lost it and even came out of the top 5 Smartphone manufacturers list in terms of shipments, but they are still fighting, and to show the world that they have still got a lot left in them, Nokia released the last Symbian flagship device this year, and it was a disruption. At the same time, Samsung continued its dominance with its own innovation flagship, a sequel to the one that stormed the world in its first version, the Galaxy Note. Yes, it is the innovation factor of these two companies at stake today, and the ones battling it out are the Samsung Galaxy Note II vs the Nokia 808 PureView.

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Samsung Galaxy S3 vs LG Optimus G #BOTF12 Round 1

After the fierce battle between the Nokia Lumia 920 vs HTC One X+ ended up in the Lumia 920’s favour, it is time for the next battle. This time, it is the battle of the two largest consumer electronics giants of this world and they are both based out of the same country. Yes, the two korean giants have been battling it out regularly in every facet of the consumer electronics industry and it is about to get even better today, with their own smartphone flagships pegged at each other for the ultimate crown! Lets start the battle then!

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Apple iPad 4 WiFi+Cellular version unboxing

The Apple iPad 4 was a launch that was completely unprecedented. It was so weird because of one main reason, it strayed from the yearly refresh cycle that is usually religiously followed by Apple. The iPad 4th generation was an immediate successor and unlike other successors, the predecessor was immediately taken out of the shelves to make way for the new one. After causing some outrage in the stateside, it has now landed in our labs for extensive testing. So, lets get to the ceremonious unboxing of the new iPad 4, in our case, the 64 GB WiFi LTE version.

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HTC HD2 now runs Windows RT, cue slow claps for the undying spirit

This counts as the most wonderfully bizarre news of the day. HTC HD2, the long lost Windows mobile flagship device from HTC was initially denied the spanking new Windows Phone 7 operating system because of unknown reasons. But that didn’t stop a legion of hackers from XDA to port each and every available OS onto the HD2. The HD2 got everything from Android 2.2 to Windows Phone 8, so one guy @cotullacode(responsible for other ports) thought “why don’t we port Windows RT onto this?” and then Windows RT happened on the HD2. You can clap now.

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Apple reportedly moving its ARM chip supplies away from Samsung

According to a report from China Times, a Taiwanese publication, Apple is shifting its “flip-chip chip scale package for ARM chips” contract from Samsung’s SEMCO to Taiwanese printed circuit board maker Unimicron Technology Corp. Unimicron is a Taiwan based semiconductor company which deals with PCB related technology. This move clearly indicates Apple’s unwillingness to work with Samsung.

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#BOTF12 Round 1 – Nokia Lumia 920 vs HTC One X+

Hello readers! We welcome you to the first round of the “Battle of the flagships 2012” at Fonearena. The devices at battle today don’t need any introduction, they are the highly acclaimed flagships of two companies very recently getting known for their fresh designs and striking devices. Yes, Nokia and HTC, outside the Apple world, have been leading the industry with the best designed smartphones in the market for a while now, with their Lumias and the One series of devices respectively. But what will happen when they are made to fight head to head? Lets start the battle and find out!

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Fonearena – Battle of the Flagships 2012 #BOTF12

Note: The above chart is regularly updated with each result, check below for the complete chart as it was in the beginning.

2012 has been a great year for the smartphone industry. It has grown leaps and bounds and has been nothing short of a revolution. The major innovations in the mobile industry this year have been larger beautiful high resolution screens, better cameras that can see in the dark, and more larger beautiful, even higher resolution screens and on the software side of things, we have innovation in the form of new entrants like Jolla. But when it comes to company flagships, the bar has always been set high. So, we thought, why not take a look at all the major flagship phones that have been released this year and make them battle it out for the ultimate top spot. And that’s precisely what we are going to do now!

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Toshiba challenges Lytro with its new refocusing smartphone sensor

Lytro, the kaleidoscope-like camera that hit the markets last year had a special advantage to it. It could refocus the image, AFTER it was taken. It was a market disruption and there was no competition, till now. Yes, Toshiba has now announced that they are manufacturing a similar sensor that can be used for Smartphones and Tablets with commercial availability slated for sometime around 2013.

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Airtel launches WiFi hangout – a prepaid hotspot service in select cities

India’s leading mobile and broadband provider Airtel has now sought after a new way to provide its broadband internet as a service. While the notion of a paid WiFi hotspot is nothing new in India, there has not been a wide commercial push that has widened its reach, and Airtel may fix just that, with its new “WiFi Hangout” service, a prepaid WiFi hotspot, initially launched in three cities/regions namely Mumbai, NCR and Bangalore.

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Reliance to test voice services on 4G networks

Coming from an Economic Times article, it looks like Reliance Industries limited (RIL) is all set to get approval from the telecom department (DoT) for testing voice services on its yet-to-be-launched 4G networks. This comes as a surprise as Airtel has been the only 4G player as of now, with limited network distribution.

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