video | Fone Arena

Nokia Asha 503 Dual SIM Unboxing

We just unboxed the Nokia Asha 502, and next up we have the Asha 503 Dual SIM phone, which is technically a variant of the Asha 502. The Asha 501 led the portfolio of devices based on the Asha SW platform earlier last year, but now, it is accompanied by new devices offering more choices of the same. Even by design, the unique iced look of the casings presents a compelling point for people looking at buying their first quasi-smartphones. So, how does the Asha 503 look and feel, and what are its box contents? We unbox the phone for you on video, to find out –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9fHSOojQdg

Continue reading “Nokia Asha 503 Dual SIM Unboxing”

Nokia Asha 502 Dual SIM Unboxing

The Nokia Asha 501 was the company’s pilot for the new Asha SW platform. The lineup grew to a full portfolio when they launched the Asha 500, 502 and 503 at the Nokia World event in Abu Dhabi. While we had taken a hands on look at these devices at the event, it was quickly clouded by the flashier lumias. But now we have a chance to check them out again, as these devices have finally launched into the retail market here in India. We have the Asha 502 here, which is basically the Asha 501 with a new cool chassis and a 5 megapixel camera with flash. For a better understanding of the device and the retail box contents, we unboxed the device for you on video, watch –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnvN7oVHN74

Continue reading “Nokia Asha 502 Dual SIM Unboxing”

Nokia Lumia 525 Unboxing

The Nokia Lumia 525 was announced a while back, with the sole intention of removing the 512 MB RAM limit that barred the original Lumia 520 from getting all the games and apps on the Windows Phone store. This is very similar to the 256 MB limit some of the devices had on Windows Phone 7.5, so Nokia made a quick revision by upping the RAM on the 520 and releasing it as the Lumia 525. This is, by no means, a generational successor to the 520, rather just a minor upgrade to the already popular best seller. We just got the retail version in India, which costs Rs. 10,400, as announced, so of course, we bring you the unboxing to see what’s in the box, and a quick hardware overview.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmuuuLywH20

Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 525 Unboxing”

Xolo Q1000 Opus Unboxing

Xolo Q1000 Opus Unboxing

Broadcom, a company that powers most of the WiFiac chips inside smartphones these days had been very quiet in the SoC business, but they had recently announced new chips and a partnership with Xolo for their Quad Core low end chip. The fruition of that partnership is the Xolo Q1000 Opus, yet another Q1000 that looks and performs nothing like the other one. This low-mid range device, that launched to retail in December last year, is priced at Rs. 9,990 and has modest specifications to rival the competition in the same segment. We have got this phone for testing in our labs, so as a first order of business, here is our unboxing with a quick look at the hardware and an overview of the minimally modified software –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF_4qpUaOrA

Continue reading “Xolo Q1000 Opus Unboxing”

Nokia Lumia 525 Hands On

Nokia announced the Lumia 525 sometime back last month and basically, it was a Lumia 520 with a very slightly different design and 1 GB of RAM. The Lumia 525 is primarily for addressing the low RAM issue on Windows Phones. Phones with 512 MB of RAM, like the Lumia 520, were not allowed to download some apps and games from the Windows Phone Store because of them demanding more resources. This was partly solved with more optimizations from the developers’ side, but we still see a lot of new apps and games releasing with the limitation, so Nokia simply went the other way and updated the 520 with 1 GB of RAM, and that’s exactly the reason why 525 exists. It was revealed at an event in Goa today that the Lumia 525 will be arriving to India during the first week of January 2014. The Lumia 520 is already the best selling Windows Phone in India and we hope the 525 directly replaces it. That said, we went hands on with the Lumia 525 at the Annual Strategy Sharing Summit in Goa, you can find our impressions below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-oY6Hp5Zs

Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 525 Hands On”

Nokia Lumia 1520 Unboxing and First Impressions

Nokia Lumia 1520 Unboxing

The Nokia Lumia 1520 just launched a couple of days back in India for a price of Rs. 46,999/- after launching internationally in Abu Dhabi back in October. Being the company’s first phablet sized device with a 6 inch 1080p screen, it also naturally is the first Windows Phone with a full HD resolution and quad core innards. With these specs and more, the platform finally comes to parity with Android in the mobile space, at least in the hardware department. Software too has seen small changes with an additional column, upping the information density to a higher level than before. We have got the Indian retail unit with us now, so we went ahead and unboxed it for you –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiWULtK6ZV0

Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 1520 Unboxing and First Impressions”

Notion Ink Adam II Unboxing and First Impressions

Notion Ink Adam II Unboxing

Notion Ink Adam, the tablet with a tumultuous past had died down after riding the initial hype wave. People called it vaporware due to the massive launch delay, but the tablet did eventually launch, but again, was marred with hardware issues. The company aims to wash away the past with a new refreshed sequel – the Notion Ink Adam II. It has been re-designed from the ground up and it now looks like a text book, which is really interesting. The box and the tablet’s default wallpaper says “It all starts with the book!” indicating that a human’s tryst with knowledge starts with a book, and may be now, it’s with a tablet, especially when the Notion Ink Adam II, which the company hopes, is an evolution of that. That’s the hope and promise the Adam II seeks to deliver. We start to find out if it does, with an unboxing and overview of the product in our labs –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXS9t9QWeEs

Continue reading “Notion Ink Adam II Unboxing and First Impressions”

Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 Unboxing

Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 Unboxing

Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2, successor to the original S Duos, was officially launched in India just a day back, for a price of Rs. 10,990. This is out and out a mid range device from Samsung, building upon the success of the original, which was quite popular for its price tag and the value it offered. It just got better with the S Duos 2, but not as much as one would expect. Today, we bring you the unboxing of this device, just a day after launch, so that you can probably decide whether to go for this or not. Here’s the quick unboxing and overview of the Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoMHb8Z-tEc

Continue reading “Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 Unboxing”

Xolo A600 Unboxing

Xolo A600 Unboxing

Xolo launched the A600, its mid range entry in the A-series sometime back in November. It’s a neat little device, powered by a MediaTek 6572W dual core processor and has modest specifications for its cheap price – Rs. 8,199. We have got it for unboxing today, and we kinda like how this device looks and feels. Yes, this is a cheap device, but that hasn’t stopped other similarly priced devices like the Nokia Lumia 520 to stop short on build quality, and we think there is something very similar happening here, with the Xolo A600. Watch our unboxing video to get a look at it –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF5QoTZtSvg

Continue reading “Xolo A600 Unboxing”

Google Nexus 5 Review

Google Nexus 5 Review

The Google Nexus One was strictly a developer device, with promises of instant updates and stock Android experience. It did not retail at prices that undercut the competition($530) but managed to become the only device that had the latest Android version. The Nexus S was similar, but with Galaxy Nexus, Google managed to price it surprisingly lower than the competition with similar hardware, thanks to introduction of the Google Play ecosystem. Somehow, from being a costly developer device, the Nexus became a highly desirable and affordable device, that brought users the best Google experience.

Video Review

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1qKZAXVVbw

Continue reading “Google Nexus 5 Review”

Xolo Play Tab 7.0 Unboxing

Today we unbox the Xolo Play Tab 7.0, the Tegra 3 based gaming-focused tablet that launched a while back. Xolo Play was the first phone from the Indian manufacturer to sport a decent build quality and the Tegra 3 processor. It was clearly focused at gaming and Xolo wants to take it further into the hands of tablet seekers, with the 7 inch Xolo Play Tab. This is pretty much a Nexus 7 2012 repackaged with better materials and a different display. So, how does it look and perform in real? We give you a preliminary look into it in our unboxing video, with a quick overview of the hardware and software, watch –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0z2Yt8C1MI

Continue reading “Xolo Play Tab 7.0 Unboxing”

ZTE Open Unboxing

Yet another Smartphone OS in an already crowded market? Is there a breathing gap for platforms with differentiated offerings? So many questions needed answering when the Firefox OS was announced. And now it is here, residing within a handful of devices. Firefox OS might be the litmus test for a new OS’ sustainability in a fiercely competitive market. And for sustainability, any OS needs hardware, and tailored ones are the demand of the day. So Firefox announced their partnerships with several manufacturers for manufacturing low cost devices to push their platform forward to the ideal first smartphone user segment. ZTE is one of them, and one of their first devices featuring the Firefox OS is the ZTE Open.

The name Open signifies Firefox’s mobile vision in a word. The platform is based on web technologies, and much like Firefox, the browser, most apps it has run on HTML5 or Javascript. Previously we had seen phones or apps based on web technologies didn’t perform that well, and that was exactly the case with FFOS too, when we had last seen the ZTE Open at the MWC event. But, has it changed, is it smoother and usable now? We unbox this low cost device to find out –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJqRx0-KyVY

Continue reading “ZTE Open Unboxing”

Oppo N1 Unboxing

The Oppo N1 has landed at the FoneArena office today! As expected, we bring you the first look at the device through the unboxing of the gorgeous flagship device from Oppo. The Chinese company had announced this camera-centric flagship device as a part of its N-series smartphones, aptly naming the first one, the N1. While the camera is the most important feature of this phone, there is also the innovative OTouch rear sensor for an experience that you cannot see on any other phone out there in the market. With a 5.9 inch screen, this is the first Oppo device that firmly cements itself in the phablet territory and is unquestionably huge to prove that fact. So, how does it actually look and feel? Here’s our unboxing video, featuring the device and the box contents, or rather the boxes’ contents. Watch –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4s8elQOdwQ

Continue reading “Oppo N1 Unboxing”

Android 4.4 KitKat In-depth Walkthrough

Google announced the Nexus 5 a while back, and with it came the latest iteration of Android – 4.4 KitKat. Within a day, Nexus 5 made its way into the hands of talented developers and Google too helped along, with the AOSP builds instantly going live. We then rapidly saw ports and AOSP builds popping up, with one for the Nexus 4 claiming to be a direct port of the Nexus 5 ROM. That was intriguing enough for a flashing opportunity, and so we jumped on it, right away. It turned out to be exactly that, with the complete feature set, rather than the lacking AOSP builds. We used it long enough to discover and use all the user-facing features of Android 4.4 KitKat and hence, presenting you an in-depth overview of the same in a 26-minute video –

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

Read past the break for a walkthrough in text and photos.

Continue reading “Android 4.4 KitKat In-depth Walkthrough”

Google Nexus 5 Unboxing

It’s been exactly 6 days since the Google Nexus 5 officially launched, but it had leaked out in full glory earlier, with complete details of specifications and even the information about its build quality. So, we surely knew what to expect when the Nexus 5 landed in our labs today. The latest “Pure Google” experience phone has launched with absolutely tons of retail stock this time, so acquiring it was certainly an easier job than it was with the Nexus 4 last year. Costing roughly around 29K for the 16 GB unit from the UK, the Nexus 5 is ready for the FoneArena treatment, so, lets start with the unboxing. We have shot a video of the retail package contents, a quick rundown of specifications and the hardware overview of the White Nexus 5, watch it below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMzyLzQmX0c

Did you check out our Google Nexus 5 Photo Gallery?

Continue reading “Google Nexus 5 Unboxing”