Mobile Phones News Blog

Students can now use technology not only to excel in their studies but also to employ their time in a better way.

Here, The Mobile Indian has compiled five must have applications that are available on Android Market for students. All these apps are free of cost.

Wikipedia

This application does not need any introduction. It is one of the most used reference sites in the world and is being referred to by practically everyone. If you need to quickly look up a term or want to know something in detail, just go through the app.

The Wikipedia app on Android has more than 20 million articles in 280 languages, and is the most comprehensive and widely used reference work humans have ever compiled. You can save articles to read later or offline, search articles nearby, share articles using Android’s ’share’ function, or even read an article in a different language.

Canonical, the company behind the Linux based Ubuntu operating system, has unveiled an Android version of the operating system. The new Ubuntu Android app will enable any multi-core Android smartphones docked with a keyboard and monitor to offer a full desktop experience. The new solution will be showcased at the Mobile World Congress which is to be held later this month in Barcelona, Spain.

When the smartphone with Ubuntu is connected to a computer, a full Ubuntu desktop will appear on the latter’s display. It’s exactly the same desktop that you will find on any computer running Ubuntu OS, and includes certified applications, from office productivity to photography, video and music.

With the app, you can also share data and services between the Ubuntu and Android environments. So, Android applications such as contacts, telephony and SMS /MMS messaging are accessible from the Ubuntu interface. All data created using the Ubuntu OS on PC can be accessed through the smartphone at any time, docked or not.

While Ubuntu is marketing it as an enterprise tool to reduce cost and management for the IT teams, which will need to manage only the phone while offering desktop experience as well. It will be of equal importance to home users in reducing the cost of computing.

Ubuntu offers a range of native applications and excellent support for web browsers like Chrome and Firefox. The desktop can also include Windows applications, using thin client and desktop virtualisation tools.

With a range of dual core and quad core Android phones in the market, it makes perfect sense as it will unlock the full potential of the power of these phones.

What is also great is that fact that Intel and Nvidia are working on brining affordable dual core Android handsets to the market. This will make it even more lucrative for users to use this Ubuntu and Android combination.

Hardware requirements for installing Ubuntu on Android includes support for HDMI and USB, which is a standard features in high-end handsets planned for 2012.

Motorola has done a similar thing with its lapdock, however it is a dedicated hardware that one needs to buy.

On the contrary with Ubuntu Android, the total investment apart from the phone will be in the range of Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 depending on the computer that one prefers.

Research In Motion (RIM) is set to release its new PlayBook tablet with BlackBerry OS 2.0 on February 21, according to a report. N4BB, a media website, claimed to have received confirmation from its sources that the final version of the major update for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is due next week. The BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0 is expected to bring new set of features including the much awaited Android App Player that allows loading Android Apps .

The PlayBook Tablet OS 2.0 updated was rumoured to arrive on February 17 but recent developments hint that bit more testing is required. Hence RIM’s BlackBerry Tablet OS development team aims to release the final version of the update on February 21.

RIM demonstrated the BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0 at the Consumer Electronics Show 2012 last month. Its most awaited feature is the Android App Player which creates a sandbox to run the Android Apps on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Apart from that, the Unified Inbox experience with full Rich-text email composing, Inbox management tools, etc. will exist natively.

The PlayBook will have a new Contacts app with social networking blend to integrate/link the user’s accounts in one place. PlayBook can also be used as a remote control through the BlackBerry Bridge connection and act as a keyboard or mouse.

Most importantly, the BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0 will bring native email support for the users to get emails on the tablet instead of fetching it from BlackBerry smartphone using a BlackBerry Bridge.

If you wish to try out the BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0 beta, then you can follow our guide to officially install it on your PlayBook Tablet.

Research In Motion (RIM) has extended the free PlayBook offer for developers to March 2. Under the offer, which was announced few days back, RIM is offering its PlayBook tablet for free to developers who can successfully port Android based applications to the BlackBerry platform.

RIM also has a similar program for Indian application developers. As a part of the program, Indian developers will also be getting free BlackBerry PlayBooks as their international counterparts. This program is being run by RIM in order to provide the proper platform to the Indian developers for successfully porting application from the Android platform to the BB platform.

“RIM will be providing free BlackBerry PlayBooks to developers in India which will help them in porting and testing of the applications on the BB Platform and in return help us add more Android based applications to the list,” Annie Mathew, head of alliances and developer relation at RIM in India, had told The Mobile Indian earlier.

Now with the international program getting extended by few weeks, it is highly possible that RIM will also extend the deadline for India as well. Notably, the deadline for Indian developers to submit their applications ended yesterday (February 13).

Through this program, BlackBerry has benefitted a lot and over 1500 Android applications have been submitted which RIM will now review to get them ported to its BB platform. Looking at the bigger picture here, developers alone are not being benefitted as the end users of the BB platform will be harvesting the fruits as they will now surely get bigger and more elaborate application catalogs.

The ported application may be added to the BB platform with the release of the new BlackBerry 2.0 operating system which is set to be released in just about a couple of days.

Android music player app, Poweramp has been updated with Ice Cream Sandwich support and Honeycomb notification controls. The app is available for all devices with Android 2.1 and above.

Poweramp is a very popular music player for Android devices. It comes with an equalizer which has numerous preset options, and the controls of the app are easy to use.

In the app, users can adjust their own settings and can choose from standard preset options such as Classical, Rock, Dance and Classical. Users, however, don’t have access to podcasts through the app. The app supports several music file formats including mp3, mp4, m4a, flac, ogg, wav, tta, ape, and wv file types. Users can choose whether they would like to store their music in the default Android media folder or in any other folder.

On the main media player page, users can see the album artwork and the standard control buttons. To change the settings, users can use the reset button. Currently, users can only access the trial version of the app, as the full version is not available in the market.

Samsung reportedly is working on an affordable tablet to compete with Amazon Kindle Fire and alike. As per the User Agent Profile, a Samsung tablet with model number GT-P3100 might be one of the affordable tablets due this year.

The tablet, named Samsung GT-P3100, will house a low power ARM11 mobile processor and is expected to feature 7-inch touchscreen display, reported PocketNow.

The device will have 1024×600 pixel resolution supporting display. Co-incidentally the Samsung Galaxy tab 7.0 Plus also has the same resolution.

Surprisingly, the report lists ARM11 based processor for the GT-P3100 tablet. That means Samsung would be using its own Samsung S3C6410 Application processor which can clock up to 800 MHz clock speed.

With the low-power consuming ARM11 Architecture based mobile processor, the tablet surely does promise longer battery life, if a decently large battery has been bundled. Besides that, it is fine if this tablet has only front facing VGA camera for video chat. But no such details about the camera were revealed. As for the operating system, we believe Android 2.3 Gingerbread would be the best bet over here.

Even for Indian market, there is a dearth of decent specifications and build quality bearing tablets in the Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 price range. No wonder the BlackBerry PlayBook was sold like hot-cakes last month when RIM announced a special discount price of Rs 13,490 for the tablet.

At this moment, Amazon has not announced any plans or intentions to release Kindle Fire in India. But the existing lineup of tablets has certainly created a demand for affordable tablets with telephony or 3G data connection support.

Samsung may announce these affordable series of tablets later this year.

Apple as always is tight-lipped about the upcoming next generation iPad tablet. However, the people working on that project were not able to hide excitement like many others and revealed that that iPad 3 may be launched in March this year.

An Apple Employee told NY Times that the next iPad tablet is “truly amazing” and will feature a faster processor. CultofMac got hands on images of the iPad 3 tablet and hints that it will have the same design and shape as that of iPad 2.

Apple iPad 3 will feature the same screen size but will feature a Retina display made using the Gorilla Glass technology. This Retina Display will be made with 20 lighter and stronger Gorilla Glass to handle scratches. Bearing the same 9.7-inch screen size, it will support 2056×1536 pixel resolution natively.

There are 50 per cent bets on the iPad 3 tablet to house a dual-core mobile processor instead of quad-core processor. Also, at the Mobile World Congress 2012, we shall get to see couple of quad-core mobile processor bearing tablets as well as smartphones. Apple will aim for better and powerful graphics chip along with slightly higher clockspeed bearing dual-core mobile processor.

Also, this year we shall get to see loads of Android OS based tablets with different price points and dimensions. That is why some people continue to believe that Apple will introduce a 7-inch tablet later this year. Along with the Apple iPad 3, we also expect Apple to give a sneak peek to iOS 6.0 in next month or after that.

Acer will unveil a new smartphone with its own cloud storage technology this month which will subsequently come to the market toward the end of this year.

The new handset, Acer CloudMobile will be first smartphone to offer AcerCloud technology, which will enable users to retrieve their data from any CloudMobile connected device anytime, anywhere. Users can store thousands of photos and songs on CloudMobileTM and thus can listen to their entire music collection whether at home or on the go.

“The Acer CloudMobileTM smartphone will be unveiled at the end of February 2012 at the Mobile World Congress exhibition in Barcelona, Spain, and will be available in Q3, 2012 (September onwards),” Acer said in a press release.

The statement further added: “AcerCloud also enhances mobile productivity by providing seamless document management. Users can access and browse all recent files from CloudMobileTM and print wirelessly with Acer Print”.

While the statement doesn’t reveal the specification, it is expected to have the Android 4.0 operating system. Acer however confirmed that the smartphone will be 1 cm thick and will come with soft, wrapping contours which would ensure a comfortable handing.

Besides, the smartphone will come with a stainless steel receiver on the front, Dolby speakers on the back and a 4.3-inch fully laminated HD display.

Notably, the Acer CloudMobile smartphone has just received the “iF design award” for 2012. Organised by the International Forum Design of Germany, the iF award is being given since 1953 and is regarded as an indicator of outstanding quality in design.

Toshiba has formally announced that its slimmest Android 3.x Honeycomb tablet, Excite X10 AT200, will be available in the UK from February 15 onwards. The 10.1-inch display bearing tab will will be made available for 400 British Pounds (Rs 31,225 approximately).

The company plans to make the tablet available in other regions in few weeks after that. Carphone Warehouse, Online retailer in UK has already listed for purchase.

Toshiba announced the Excite X10 AT200 tablet at the Consumer Electronics Show 2012 four weeks ago in Las Vegas. The new Excite AT200 tablet is set out to compete with super slim tablets like the Apple iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy tab 7.7 tablet.

Measuring mere 7.62 mm thick, the Excite AT200 has a 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen display that supports 1280×800 (WXGA) pixel ration in 16:10 aspect ratio. Under the slim chassis, Toshiba has housed a dual-core 1.2 GHz Texas Instrument OMAP 4430 mobile processor coupled with 1 GB RAM. This hardware is good enough to run the Android 3.x Honeycomb update run butter smooth.

Toshiba Excite features a 5 megapixel camera at the back and a 2 megapixel camera in the front for video chat. Despite its thin form factor, the tablet easily accommodates a micro USB, micro HDMI and micro SD card slot.

Toshiba will offer Excite preloaded with Android 3.2 Honeycomb operating system. Hopefully this tablet will soon get the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update in coming months.

By default the tablet comes in 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB on-board storage options. In the slim form factor, Toshiba has managed to add a batter that will let user watch movies for up to 8 hours and listen to music to up to 13 hours.

Considering the price, the Toshiba tablet stands amongst the other Android 3.x Honeycomb based tablets already available in the market. However, the slim form factor and powerful hardware does offer it an edge over its competitors.

LG has teased a video of its latest smartphone, named as Optimus Vu, which will sport a 5 inch screen with 4:3 aspect ratio. This will be pitched against the Samsung Galaxy Note which also has a 5 inch screen though with a 16:9 aspect ratio.

The difference in aspect ratio means that the Optimus Vu will be broader but shorter than the Samsung Galaxy Note. Whether that will help users in having a better grip of the device is something that will be clear only when one gets it in the hand.

According to a website (androidadvices.com), which cited a US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) report, the device has Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread operating system. But we can expect it to have Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update when it will be released in the market.

The FCC, which tests devices for compliance to US standards, has reportedly mentions that the device has 1024 x 768 pixel resolution based screen with an 8 megapixel camera and has features like Android Beam (NFC for Android), WiFi Direct for faster file transfer, Bluetooth 3.0 and a front camera as well.

As per the teaser of LG, the handset will have four capacitive buttons. The design of the device is quite interesting with very rectangular shape, which looks very smart and elegant in the first look. Infact, it resembles LG’s Prada 3.0 smartphone.

Samsung Galaxy Note is currently selling at Rs 29,000 and features a dual-core 1.4 GHz Exynos microprocessor with Mali-400 MP dedicated graphics processor. The Galaxy Note also features a 1 GB RAM along with 16 GB memory onboard as storage memory. Its 8 megapixel camera comes with LED flash capable of recording 1080p full HD videos at 30 fps. There is a front facing 2 megapixel camera as well that can provide self-portrait shots and video calling. It is slated to be upgrades to Android 4.0 in the next couple of months.