Motorola bills the Moto G as the phone for the rest of us - the ones who can't afford $500 to $700 for a high-end smartphone. That's a big deal overseas, where carriers don't subsidize phones with two-year service contracts the way they do in the United States. But even in the U.S., more people are moving to contract-free plans and ones that offer frequent upgrades, meaning the full retail price is what's going to matter.
(Also see: Moto G budget smartphone goes official at $179, coming to India in January)
The Moto G started shipping in the U.S. this week, initially for the GSM networks used by AT&T and T-Mobile. I spent the past week testing the Moto G, comparing the phone primarily with its more expensive cousin, Motorola's $500 Moto X. I also put it up against another lower-cost phone, Google's $349 Nexus 5, as well as the premium, $649 iPhone 5s from Apple.
Where the Moto G fell short was in its camera, battery life and inability to access faster, 4G LTE cellular networks. For everything else I tested, the Moto G stood up well.
Motorola, which is owned by Google Inc., doesn't skimp in equipping the Moto G with a speedy processor. Apps launch almost as quickly as they do on the phone's pricier rivals. The Moto G runs a fairly recent version of Google's Android system, with a promised upgrade to the latest, Kit Kat, early next year.
(Also see: Moto G dual-SIM smartphone to land in India with Android 4.4 KitKat: Report)
The Moto G also has a decent screen. It's about as sharp as the Moto X's and the iPhone's, enough for 720p video, though the Nexus and various Samsung phones do better by offering full, 1080p high definition. The Moto G's screen measures 4.5 inches (11.4 centimeters) diagonally, which is larger than the iPhone's but small for Android. Colors aren't as rich as on the Moto X's display, but if I want a superb visual experience, I'd turn to a tablet, a TV or even a movie theater. For a phone, the Moto G's screen delivers video quite well.
As for the other shortcomings
Cellular access
The Moto G delivers 3G performance at best. Many parts of the world are moving to 4G, but Motorola points out that many of its target markets are still upgrading to 3G. Even in the U.S., many regions lack 4G. If I'm doing a lot of things requiring top-notch speeds, I'm better off finding a Wi-Fi network anyway.
Battery life
The Moto G has 6 percent less battery capacity than the Moto X. I got about up to eight hours of streaming video on Hulu with the Moto G, compared with nine to 10 hours on the Moto X. Although the Moto G has a removable plastic back, the battery can't be exchanged with a spare. That said, eight hours for streaming video is a lot, and you can stretch it to a full day with more moderate use.
The main camera has a resolution of 5 megapixels, less than the 8 megapixels on the iPhone and the Nexus and the 10 megapixels on the Moto X. There's more to a good camera than the pixel count, but the pictures I took with the Moto G weren't particularly good, especially in low light. They are passable for selfies and Facebook posts, but you'll want a better camera for keepsakes. Perhaps the money you save on the phone can go to a point-and-shoot camera that takes better pictures.
The Moto G is also short on frills. Part of that stems from Motorola's philosophy not to tinker with the Android operating system too much. Many rival phone makers do just that and wind up creating more chaos and confusion.
Instead, Motorola tries to limit what it adds. In the case of the Moto X, you can twist the phone to automatically launch the camera. You can initiate voice commands by saying, "OK, Google Now." The Moto X also offers unprecedented customization when you order; you can choose everything from the color of the power button to a personalized message on the back cover.
Be aware that the $179 price gets you 8 gigabytes of storage, half of what most phones offer. Given all the room your photos and video will need, pay the extra $20 for a 16 gigabyte model. Unfortunately, there's no slot for memory cards, as some Android phones offer.
Motorola sells the phone unlocked, meaning you can switch carriers as long as they use GSM. Verizon and Sprint are among the few carriers in the world using a different technology, CDMA. A Verizon version is coming early next year, while Sprint won't say whether it will have one.
Phone makers have been trying to set themselves apart by loading phones with more and more features, only some of which are useful. Motorola doesn't try to do that with the Moto G, apart from including an FM tuner. Instead, it's distinguishing itself through price. No one can question whether that's useful.
Build/ Design
The Nexus 5 sports a very understated look and there's nothing really striking in the phone's design that will shout for your attention. The phone is made of plastic and doesn't feel very premium.
However, when you place the phone in your hand, you'll feel that it's very pleasant to hold thanks to the soft touch matte finish. Also, despite its large 4.95-inch screen, we didn't face any issues operating it with one hand. This is also due to the phone being quite lightweight at 130 grams.
The Nexus 5's edges are less curved and its corners less rounded compared to other phones, including the Nexus 4. The phone is available in Black and White colour variants and we got a Black one as our review unit.
The 4.95-inch full-HD display dominates the front of the Nexus 5, and there are no hardware buttons. A round LED notification light is placed below the display, while the sensor array and the front camera sits above it.
The right edge of the Nexus 5 features the Power/ Screen lock and the Micro-SIM card tray, and the left edge features the volume rocker key. All the keys are made of ceramic and offer decent tactile feedback.
The 3.5-mm headset jack sits at the top edge of the Nexus 5, while the Micro-USB port and speaker grill sits at the bottom edge.
As we mentioned, the back of the Nexus 5 sports a matte soft touch finish giving it a good grip. It is a bit susceptible to smudges, though. The rear features an 8-megapixel ring shaped camera lens and the LED flash, apart from LG and Nexus branding.
Display
The Nexus 5 comes with an IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels and pixel density of 445 ppi. The display comes with Corning's Gorilla Glass 3 protection making it resistant to scratches.
In our use, we found the Nexus 5's screen to be very bright, with text and images looking crisp and sharp. Colours looked vivid and not oversaturated like they look on AMOLED display though blacks don't look very deep.
The screen delivers great viewing angles, though it was a little reflective. Sunlight legibility was good though the screen brightness levels could be better.
Overall, the Nexus 5's display is one of the best in its class.
Software/ User Interface
The Nexus 5 is the first smartphone to ship with Android 4.4 KitKat, the latest release of the operating system. As with all Nexus devices, the phone includes the stock build of the operating system, without any additional UI skinning.
Android 4.4 KitKat on the Nexus 5 features a number of visual changes including a new launcher, making the interface even more minimalistic. It sports flatter design elements, muted colours in status icons, transparency, and smoother transition animations.
With Android 4.4 KitKat, you can now have as many home screens as you want by simply dragging an icon or placing a widget on a new one. After enabling Google Now, Google's smart assistant that fetches information and offers updates based on your data and usage behaviour, you'll see that the left most home screen would be Google Now pane with information cards and a search bar. The screen can also be invoked by swiping up the screen from the Home button. The Google search bar with the voice search icon is present on all home screens and cannot be removed.
Interestingly, you can also initiate voice search from the Nexus 5 when it's in the unlocked state by simply saying, 'Ok Google.' The option is only available when you choose US English as the default language option in the Google Now app's settings, though. With this change, Google search is integrated deeply with the phone.
The launcher has been revamped with icons looking bigger than their Jelly Bean avatars and dots are used to indicate the pagination in the home screen and app launcher, similar to iOS.
When you launch the KitKat app launcher or go back to the home screen, you'll notice a smooth fly away animation.
The app launcher now only features app icons and gets rid of widgets. Due to the larger icons, you'll see a 4x5 grid instead of a 5x5 grid.
Long pressing on the home screen brings up the menu to change the Wallpapers, Widgets and Google Now settings. The choice of default still wallpapers, live wallpaper and custom wallpapers are now available under a single menu.
The KitKat notifications tray features notifications that can be expanded by using two finger pull. It also features buttons for clearing all notifications and for displaying toggles for Brightness, Settings, Wi-Fi, Network, Battery, Aeroplane Mode, Bluetooth, Location settings and Alarm clockAndroid 4.4 KitKat also includes an immersive mode that hides the status and navigation bars offering a full screen experience in apps. Apps like Google Play Books already support this mode and developers can choose to enable it for their apps. The OS also allows developers to display semi-transparent navigation and status bars. We've not seen any apps that take advantage of this feature, however.
Android 4.4 also includes a revamped Phone app that now automatically prioritises your contacts based on the people you talk to the most. When you first launch the app, you'll see a screen that displays a search bar, a place where most frequently called contacts and favourites are displayed and shortcuts to launch all contacts, the dialling pad, call history and settings.
You can also search for nearby places and businesses, contacts, or people in their Google Apps domain directly from the search bar.
If you receive a call from a phone number that is not saved in your contacts, the Android 4.4 KitKat-based Nexus 5 will look for matches from businesses with a local listing on Google Maps.
We felt that the new Phone app could be a little overwhelming for some as it's not very intuitive when it comes to describing what the shortcut keys do. However, the search feature packs in an online phone directory in the app. It will even fetch numbers for users who've registered their phone numbers with Google. The number identification feature also works for incoming calls eliminating the need for apps like Trucaller.
Camera
The Nexus 5 sports an 8-megapixel rear camera with Optical Image Stabilisation, and a 1.3-megapixel front facing camera. The phone features the stock Android 4.4 Camera app with 4 default shooting modes - Still, Video, Panorama and Photo sphere (360-degree).
Similarly, in the Video mode, you can change video quality settings (1080p, 720p or 480p), Time lapse, Exposure settings and Flash. We have to say that we're no fans of the nested arc shaped settings toggles and find the app a bit unintuitive.
Putting the camera of the Nexus 5 to test, we observed that images taken outdoors during daylight came out a tad brighter. However, there are a number of issues with the phone's camera that we encountered in our use. We observed that auto-focus is not consistent, and focusing manually takes time resulting in images being different from what we desired. We also observed that there was a slight lag between the time we fired the shutter and when the phone captured the image.
Comparing images with the ones taken with an iPhone 5 in the same settings revealed that the white balance on the Nexus 5 camera (in the default mode) is skewed towards the warmer end of the spectrum. Low-light shots were also not up to the mark and had noise.
The camera does a good job for shooting videos and supports 1080p video capture.
The 1.3-megapixel front shooter does a decent job for video calling and taking self clicks. It supports 720p video capture.Overall, the Nexus 5's camera is underwhelming at best. We hope Google pushes out a software update to fix the focus issues and shutter lag.
Performance/ Battery Life
The Nexus 5 comes with top of the line hardware (at this point in time), as it is powered by a quad-core 2.26GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB of RAM, and an Adreno 330 chip for processing graphics. Our review unit had 32GB of built-in storage (a 16GB variant is also available), out of which 26.7GB is available to the user. The phone doesn't offer a microSD card slot for expandable storage.
The overall experience of navigation through the Nexus 5's interface was extremely impressive, thanks to all the power under the phone's hood and the UI being devoid of unnecessary bells and whistles such as transition effects.
We did not experience any lag at all while launching apps, playing games, scrolling web pages or switching between apps on the Nexus 5. The gaming experience on the Nexus 5 was pretty good with games like Temple Run 2, Subway Surfers, Shadow Gun: Dead Zone and Asphalt 7 running without encountering any issues.
We were able to run a number of video formats except for full-HD MOV and AVI through the native video player on the Nexus 5. We also experienced some issues with audio while playing an MKV format video. This was easily fixed by downloading a third-party video player. The phone then plays full-HD videos without any issues.
The speaker on the Nexus 5 is another pain point. It delivers below average quality sound at high volume levels and the sound gets distorted. However, the speaker grill is located at the bottom edge so the sound doesn't get muffled when the phone lies on its back.
Notably, the Nexus 5 doesn't include FM radio functionality.
Call quality was good on the Nexus 5, and we were able to receive cellular signals even in low signal areas.
The Nexus 5 comes with a 2300mAh battery, and in our usage, it lasted us just about a day with medium usage, including 1-1.5 hours of phone calls, two e-mail accounts with push notifications, playing some music, clicking a few pictures, Twitter notifications and WhatsApp chats.
It's worth pointing out that we had mostly used 3G data with intermittent use of Wi-Fi and had put the phone's screen brightness at the highest level. Altering these settings might help in running the phone for a longer duration, depending on your usage pattern.
Verdict
The Nexus 5 is one of the best Android smartphones that you can buy for under Rs. 30,000. Powered by a Snapdragon 800 processor, and 2GB RAM, the phone ticks all the right boxes in terms of hardware specifications. Since it's a Google experience device, you're always assured of regular software updates (at least for the 18 months promised period).
These two big factors do partially offset the main disadvantages of the phone, namely its mediocre camera, lack of external storage support and underwhelming battery backup. Google may or may not bring a software fix to resolve the issues (if these are due to the software limitations) but even assuming that this is not the case, the starting price of Rs. 28,999 makes the Nexus 5 a great deal. We can't think of a phone in this price range that delivers the same value.
Price: Rs. 28,999
The SmartWatch 2 is also 33 percent cheaper, at about $200, and works with a variety of Android phones, not just Sony's. Samsung's Galaxy Gear sells for $300 and is compatible only with a handful of high-end Samsung phones.
(Also see: Sony SmartWatch 2 launched in India for Rs. 14,990)
That said, neither company has made a compelling case of why people need a smartwatch this holiday season.
These wrist-bound gadgets are supposed to free you from constantly pulling out your phone to check for messages. But I found myself checking the watch more often than I would pull out a phone. That proved more distracting - and less private - over dinner, for instance.
The SmartWatch 2 is worth considering primarily if you want to be among the first with the latest technology.
What Sony's watch does
Think of the watch as a companion to your phone. The phone needs to be within Bluetooth wireless range, or about 30 feet (9 meters).
You install a free Smart Connect app on the phone to manage what gets sent to the watch, be it messages or call notifications. You give the watch functionality by adding watch apps to Smart Connect one by one. Smart Connect fetches the watch apps from Google's online Play store.
For example, I installed Sony's Messaging app to get texts on the watch. I get full texts and can reply with emoticons or pre-written responses such as "I'll get back to you." There's no keyboard on the watch to type individual replies, given that its screen measures just 1.6 inches (4 centimeters) diagonally.
The Facebook watch app lets me check the latest posts and endorse some with "likes" right from the watch. With Twitter, I can read the latest updates, retweet them or mark some as favorites. But I'm limited to text on the watch. I can't access photos and other links that are often embedded into tweets.
Getting too much? Through the phone, I can choose specific friends and accounts to get notifications for, though I can't simply add "family" and other groups I had already created on Facebook.
The watch can act as a remote control for your phone, but calls themselves are made through the phone. For the watch to be useful, you need a Bluetooth wireless headset linked to the phone.
When calls come in, you can reject the call, with or without a canned text reply. If you have a Sony phone, you can answer calls from the watch as well. With any phone running at least Android 4.0, you can initiate calls from the watch using its dialpad or your Android contacts list. But again, the calls go through your phone. You can control volume, but it took me a while to figure out how.
There are nearly 250 other apps you can add, many coming from outside app developers.
I particularly like a 99-cent app called Fake Call. Tap on the watch to make your phone ring with a phantom call. Use that to get you out of whatever sketchy situation you might find yourself in.
A free app called GPS Maps sends a map to your watch with surrounding blocks. The map moves as you move, though I don't get directions.
Samsung's Galaxy Gear wins on style: The watch has a metal frame and straps in six colors. It can work as a fashion accessory, at least for men. It's on the larger side, with a 1.6-inch screen matching Sony's. The SmartWatch 2 from Sony feels cheap, by comparison, though the straps are replaceable with other 24-millimeter watch straps if you're really buying this for fashion.
The Gear also wins on features: Sony's watch doesn't have a speaker or a microphone. It doesn't have a camera. The Gear has all that, which means you can make phone calls through the watch itself, without a Bluetooth headset. The camera produces low-resolution images, but it beats missing the shot because your phone is in the pocket.
But I don't believe these features are worth an extra $100. The speakerphone doesn't offer much privacy or work well in noisy environments. The speaker allows you to reply to text messages using voice dictation, but the transcriptions are slow and error-prone.
Where the SmartWatch 2 outperforms the Gear is in delivering messages.
The Gear gives you full texts, but that's about it. Get a Facebook or Gmail notification? You have to return to the phone to read the message. The watch is supposed to reduce the need to pull out your phone, but not if you keep getting notifications urging you to check.
And while I got about 2.5 days on the SmartWatch 2 on a single charge, the Gear dies in a day. You can charge Sony's watch with a standard micro-USB charger, while the Gear needs its own. The Gear's watch face also goes dark so it could last just a day. With Sony's watch, you can see the time even in a low-power mode.
Sony's SmartWatch 2 also has many more apps to choose from - more than three times as many.
Do you need it?
Maybe one day, smartwatches will truly be smart. They need to be better at filtering the important notifications from the noise, and they need to do more than tell you to go back to the phone to complete a task.
For now, we're in an era of experimentation. Sony's SmartWatch 2 advances the field with a just-the-basics smartwatch, but I'll wait at least a year or two for even more advances before buying one myself.
Canon EOS 700D review
Canon EOS 700D is the 'flagship' device in company's entry-level consumer DSLR range. Canon has included some creative features as well as a very responsive capacitive touchscreen to make sure this camera appeals to first time users as well as those looking for an upgrade. Bundled with the camera is the 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 stock lens. So how does it work, let's find out.
In the box
- Canon EOS 700D body
- LP-E8 rechargeable battery
- AC adapter kit ACK-E8
- Manual
- Warranty card
- USB cable
- Hand strap
- 512MB SD Card
- Software CD
- Canon EF 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 lenses
Image Quality
I have been using a very high-end DSLR as my primary camera for about a year now, so I didn't have high expectations from the entry-level Canon EOS 700D, but the image quality on the camera was surprisingly good.
Most of the low-light photos taken with the kit lens were shot anywhere between ISO 800 and ISO 1600, and I was worried about the images being slightly noisy. However, the camera handled these very well and the noise was barely noticeable, though images over ISO 3200 did show a bit of noise. If you want, you can take up ISO Settings up to 12,800 in the snapshot mode and 6400 in video mode, but I would really not recommend that. Canon also let us use their prime 28mm f/1.8 lens for some shots, and I was very happy with the way this worked.
The Canon EOS 700D performed well in most situations, indoors as well as outdoors, and the lens also kept up with it. A few shots in the gallery were taken with the prime lens, specifically for getting the lights to look like stars, but with the bundled 18-55 lens too I managed to get some interesting shots.
Video
One of the things that stood out for me when I had read the Canon EOS 700D press release of the new kit lens was the silent motor, and I really wanted to give it a shot. In scenes where you depend on the autofocus, you usually get the motor's hum, and then have to come back and edit that out in the movie.
Battery Life
The battery on the Canon EOS 700D is rated at 400 shots and my testing gave similar results. On a four day trip across Hong Kong and Taipei, I did not need to charge the battery once, even though I was shot videos and a number of delayed-shutter shots, which can be battery intensive. The LP-E8 is the same battery that shipped in the previous generations, hence getting a spare battery is not an expensive affair in case you propose to shoot a lot of pictures.
Price
- Rs. 53,995 for body only
- Rs. 59,995 for body and 18-55 lens
- Rs. 39,995 for the prime 28 mm f/1.8 Lens
- Good noise control
- Quality video and sound capture
- Lightweight body
- Responsive touchscreen
- Not a big upgrade from the previous generation
- Viewfinder not bright enough
- Build/ Ergonomics: 3.5
- Features / Performance: 4
- Image Quality: 4
- Video: 4
- Battery Life: 4
- Value for Money: 4
- Overall: 4
The company's Curve series did exceedingly well and gave BlackBerry a share in the Indian market. In 2013, a time when BlackBerry is reinventing itself after a massive overhaul led by BlackBerry 10, the company is launching new devices across different segments. After BlackBerry Z10, its full-touch smartphone, and BlackBerry Q10, a premium hardware keyboard equipped device, it's now looking at capturing the mid-range segment with the new BlackBerry Q5.
Unlike its two BlackBerry 10 predecessors, the BlackBerry Q5 doesn't feature premium materials, sports inferior hardware specifications and less internal storage, but runs the same OS and delivers the same software features.
After being widely panned for the pricing of its first two BlackBerry 10 smartphones, will BlackBerry be able to capture the attention of the Indian consumer with the Q5? We try to find out in our review.
Build/ Design
The BlackBerry Q5 doesn't resemble the company's Curve series smartphones, a major reason for which is the inclusion of a bigger 3.1-inch touch enabled display. The phone is taller and less curved, and looks more playful than the BlackBerry Q10, which has a more serious appeal targeting business users. However, the Q5 also looks more plasticky, which is fair enough since BlackBerry's aim was to cut costs.
Just like the Q10, the front of the BlackBerry Q5 features a square screen that measures 3.1-inch on the diagonal and the 35 key keyboard in addition to the 2-megapixel front facing camera, the notification LED and an array of sensors, sitting above the display.
The keyboard reminds us of the BlackBerry Curve phones, except that the keys on the BlackBerry Q5 are arranged in a more linear fashion and are spaced out. The keys offer good tactile feedback and are large enough for convenient and quick typing. Unlike the Q10's keys that are soft to press, the Q5's keys produce a 'clickety' sound and offer a great typing experience.
Unlike legacy BlackBerry devices, the Q5 does not include any extra hardware keys for navigating through the phone, or for accepting and rejecting calls, giving the display area more space. Also, since the BlackBerry 10 OS relies a lot on swipe gestures, there's plenty of room to swipe into and out of the screen.
The BlackBerry Q5 doesn't come with a non-removable back cover, though at first glance it was hard to realise this as there's demarcation between the back and front panels.
On the right side of the phone, you will find the Volume rocker keys with a Mute key sitting between. The keys are made of plastic and feel a little cheap, though they offer good tactile feedback.
There's a flap that covers the Micro-SIM and the microSD card slot located at the left hand side with the Micro-USB port. We found the flap to be a little flimsy and even after closing, the flap did not get tightly secured with the phone.
The Power/ Screen-lock key, 3.5mm headset jack and a secondary noise cancellation microphone sit at the top of the phone, while the speaker outlet and the primary microphone are located at the bottom of the phone.
Turning towards the back, the BlackBerry Q5 features a plastic panel with matte finish. The BlackBerry logo in silver sits at the middle, while the 5-megapixel rear camera lens and an LED flash are at the top left. The back is prone to smudges.
Display
The BlackBerry Q5 offers a 3.1-inch (diagonal) square shaped screen. Unlike the Q10 that comes with a Super AMOLED display, this one is an IPS LCD screen that offers a resolution of 720x720 pixels and pixel density of 329ppi. The screen packs in few more pixels per inch than the iPhone 5 (326ppi) and text, images and videos appear extremely sharp and clear. It offers excellent viewing angles and good sunlight legibility.
However, the screen's 1:1 ratio makes watching videos feel awkward as most HD videos have a 16:9 ratio, and appear smaller. We also compared the screen with that of the Samsung Galaxy S III, and found it to be less bright. Perhaps this is a deliberate move from BlackBerry in a bid to conserve battery life.
Overall, due to its small size and awkward screen ratio, the BlackBerry Q5 is not great if you want to primarily use the phone for accessing multimedia content.
Software/ User Interface
The Q5 has a hardware keyboard and runs BlackBerry OS 10.1, just like the BlackBerry Q10. As we mentioned in our Q10 review, BlackBerry has made some changes to the operating system (when compared to what we saw in the Z10) in order to add support for the QWERTY keyboard and include some new features that make full use of the hardware.
The Q5 comes with BlackBerry OS 10.1, which is a small yet important update to the first version of the OS but the basics remain almost the same and you can have a detailed look at the operating system in our BlackBerry 10 OS review.
In terms of the look and feel, the updated OS looks pretty similar to its earlier version. The OS on the Q5, though, is a little different than what we saw on the Q10, and doesn't include the new dark theme in native applications like the call logs and contacts screen, though it's still present in the system-wide sharing menu. The phone features smaller active frames in the running apps panel of the home screen. The navigation remains the same incorporating all the swipe gestures we have seen earlier in BlackBerry 10 on the Z10 and the Q10.
Unlocking the screen takes you to a list of app icons arranged in a 4x3 grid. You can swipe to the right to continue exploring them or to the left to go to the BlackBerry Hub that collates all your messages, emails, WhatsApp and BBM chats, Facebook and Twitter notifications, Voicemail, call logs and even PIN to PIN messages.
After opening an app, the only way to close it is to swipe from the bottom of the screen and you'll see that the app gets minimized to a small pane that offers a preview of the app's screen or even acts like a widget offering key information from the app. All these active panes or frames are displayed in a screen panel between the Hub and the app icon lists. This panel can have a maximum of 8 active frames and on Q5's display you'll need to swipe down to see all of them. Swiping up from any screen gives you a peek into your notifications, though it's still not detailed and just comes with the number of unread items and the red and white star if there are new items. Swiping up and immediately swiping to the right takes you to the BlackBerry Hub.
BlackBerry OS 10.1 offers some additional functions on the BlackBerry Q5 and Q10. The phone offers Instant Action, which is a sort of advanced universal search (Mac users, think Spotlight) combined with actionable commands, making full use of the phone's keyboard. You just need to start typing what you want to do on the home screen and the phone gives you options to complete the task in addition to a list of search results that feature the keyword.
For example, if you start keying in 'tweet' followed by what you want to post on Twitter, the phone will give you a compose window within the search for posting the same without going to the Twitter app in addition to search results that contain all emails, reminders and other content that features the word 'tweet'. Similarly, the phone offers actions for writing mails, SMS, BBM messages, playing music and videos, Facebook status updates and setting a reminder or jotting a note in the Remember app though the feature along with search results.
We found this to be very convenient and a great way of getting to what we wanted.
Just like the legacy BlackBerry OS versions, BlackBerry 10.1 also offers keyboard shortcuts and even lists them in some system menus. The OS offers about 200 such shortcuts. For instance you can use the 'T' key to go to the top of the list and 'B' key to get to the bottom. Similarly, you can go to the next message in the BlackBerry Hub by pressing the 'N' key, reply by pressing 'R', and reply all by pressing 'L' among others. Combine that with the physical keyboard and hard-core BlackBerry users will feel right at home.
While the BlackBerry Z10 keyboard offered a unique way to input text through a touchscreen, the Q5, just like the Q10, offers a more conventional mode. You can configure the phone to show three word predictions while entering text, although the option is not turned on by default. It also learns new words and offers them as suggestions when you type. We observed that it was able to catch Hindi words typed in English ('Hinglish' if you will) over our course of using the phone.
The software experience offered by the BlackBerry Q5 is similar to the Q10. You can read our detailed review of the BlackBerry Q10 to know about other changes and improvements that the BlackBerry 10.1 OS brings to the table.
Camera
The BlackBerry Q5 sports a 5-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front facing camera. The phone's camera app comes with limited number of settings. It offers three shooting modes namely, Still, Video and Timeshift. In the Still mode the phone offers options to shoot in Normal, Stabilisation, Burst and HDR modes. There's no Panorama mode.
The rear camera of the BlackBerry Q5 is equally competent at recording videos and supports recording resolutions up to 1080p.
The front camera is good for video chats and for clicking self portraits. Overall, the Q5 is good for casual photography.
Performance/ Hardware
The BlackBerry Q5 features a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, 2GB RAM, and 8GB of internal storage expandable up to 32GB via microSD card, which is a significant upgrade on the legacy Curve devices.
With BlackBerry 10.1, the overall experience of navigating through the interface was impressive. The phone is extremely responsive and we did not experience any lags while opening apps, navigating the menu, browsing the web on the phone's native web browser and even playing games such as Angry Birds Star Wars, Beach Buggy Blitz and The Odyssey.
The BlackBerry 10 user interface offers a user interface that's extremely fluid. Gone are the days when your BlackBerry phone used to reboot after installing and even updating individual apps. You'll not see the spinning clock or hourglass on your screen and wait for your phone to perform its assigned task with the BlackBerry 10.The native web browser comes with Adobe Flash and renders web pages swiftly.
We were able to play full-HD clips, with most formats including MOV and AVI being supported natively, though some formats like MKV did not play. Videos do tend to look a little odd due to the screen's awkward 1:1 ratio.
The speaker outlet on the phone delivers good quality sound at high volume levels thanks to the placement of the speaker outlet, though it's a little inferior compared to the BlackBerry Q10.
Call quality was very good and the phone is able to latch on to cellular networks even in weak signal areas. We also got HD Voice at certain times with our mobile operator, Airtel.
The phone lacks FM radio functionality, which will surely disappoint many, especially in our Indian audience. We were also able to transfer images and other content using NFC between the BlackBerry Q5 and the Samsung Galaxy S III, easily.
Unlike its more expensive cousins, the BlackBerry Q5 does not feature a micro-HDMI port.
The BlackBerry Q5 comes with a 2180mAh battery, and in our usage, it lasted us more than a full workday. We charged the phone in the morning, and with medium to heavy usage, including 1-1.5 hours of phone calls, two email accounts, playing some music, gaming, taking some photographs, Twitter notifications, BBM and WhatsApp chats, the phone lasted a good 13-14 hours.
It's worth pointing out that we had turned off Wi-Fi and auto-brightness, and the phone was hooked to a 3G network with the screen brightness at the highest level. Altering these settings might help in running the phone for a longer duration, depending on your usage pattern.Verdict
The BlackBerry Q5 is a great keyboard equipped smartphone. In fact, it's the only smartphone in the price bracket that comes with a hardware keyboard. Having said that, it becomes a little difficult to recommend this phone to anyone who is not looking for a QWERTY keyboard and doesn't make heavy use of messaging features majorly because of what's being offered by other handset makers at this price point. However, the device will definitely appeal to BlackBerry fans looking for a cheaper alternative to the Q10.
BlackBerry is targeting a different demographic with this phone. It's not business users, but young professionals and college students who are being eyed by the company. Unfortunately for the company, these customers are extremely price conscious and want full value for their money. With BBM's declining popularity, and the fact that it's even available on OS 7 phones (soon to be available on iOS and Android as well) that are priced much cheaper, there's little chance that people will buy this phone just for its messaging capabilities.
There's no doubt that the Q5, despite being a mid-ranger, offers all major features with an operating system that's extremely responsive. There's no software fragmentation here, unlike other platforms, and the Q5 runs all apps that the Q10 can. However, it's worth pointing out that a lot of BlackBerry 10 apps made for the Z10 have still not been optimized for the Q5 and the Q10, and are not available in BlackBerry World, yet.
The BlackBerry Q5 also comes with plenty of power under the hood, so you don't experience the slightest of lag. Of course, the swipe gestures that are part of the OS might take some time to get used to but once you get hooked to them, it's difficult to go back.
As we mentioned earlier, at a price of Rs. 24,990, we feel that the phone is a little overpriced especially when one looks at what's available in the market at the same price point. BlackBerry 10 is also lacking in terms of the available apps on the platform.
If you're fine with a device that doesn't have a physical keyboard, you should check out devices in the same price range such as the Nexus 4, the Galaxy S III and the HTC One X. You can even look at the Nokia Lumia 720, which is a great phone that costs less. If you want a QWERTY device and don't want to spend a large amount of cash, you could consider BlackBerry OS 7 devices like the Curve 9320 and Curve 9360, which are still selling and will continue to be supported by the company.
Price: Rs. 24,990
Pros
• Excellent physical keyboard
• Good performance
• Great battery backup
Cons
• A bit overpriced
• Lacks good third-party apps
• Screen's 1:1 aspect ratio is a bit awkward
• No FM radio
Ratings (Out of 5)
- Design: 3
- Display: 3.5
- Performance: 4
- Software: 3
- Battery Life: 4
- Value for Money: 3
- Camera: 3
- Overall: 3.5
Sony likes to call the Cybershot DSC-WX300 the smallest point-and-shoot camera with a 20x optical zoom, and on it's own the camera indeed looks tiny. Let's take it for a test and see what it holds.
In the Box
- Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 camera
- Manual
- Warranty card
- Power cable
- USB charger
- USB cable for charging
- Hand strap
- Battery
- HDMI cable
- 4GB memory card
The Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 is a small little camera when you hold it in your hand, but the moment you put it next to another point-and-shoot you realise it is not as small as it initially seems. Having said that, you have to admire the work of the Sony design and engineering team for managing to put a large 20x optical zoom into such a small body.
The camera fits nicely in the hand and the rounded edges make it easy to hold. The controls are easy to reach and comfortable for one-handed use. The back of the camera is taken over by a huge 3-inch LCD that is nice and bright both indoors and outdoors. The LCD is not a touchscreen but shows all the information you need. It is also a bit of a fingerprint magnet, as one cannot avoid touching the screen at times and needs to be cleaned frequently.
Features / Performance
Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 does not feature any manual controls like most other point-and-shoot cameras. It comes with eight preset modes that you can choose from, selectable via a rotating dial. The dial lets you choose between a Scene mode, a Background defocus mode (ideal for clicking portraits), an Intelligent Auto mode (indicated on the dial in green), a Superior Auto Plus mode, Program Auto mode, rama mode, Movie shooting mode and a 3D mode.
The Scene selection mode features further sub-modes based on the type of picture you are trying to click including Soft Skin, Gourmet (for food shots), Night Scene, Landscape, Snow, Fireworks and more. The Intelligent Auto mode is the one you would use on this camera to take most of your pictures. If you use the Intelligent Auto+ mode, the camera takes multiple shots and overlays them giving you a picture that's a bit more saturated but appears nicer to the naked eye, especially if you are shooting in a dimly lit room. However, for me this was a complete no-no, as most pictures ended up loosing details.
The Panorama mode on the WX300 is very well implemented and it takes a panorama beautifully, unlike it's predecessors where the camera kept constantly reminding you to go slow or go fast. With the WX300 one just sweeps through and gets the work done, and was so much fun that I ended up shooting quite a few panoramas.
Battery Life
The Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 has a small battery and the entire package (battery + camera) weighs just 166 grams. Looking at the size, I was worried if the camera would be able to last an entire day, but that fear was unfounded as I could shoot an impressive 300 shots, including a few panoramas and a video, on a single charge. As mentioned, you can charge the camera over USB, which means should it run out of juice, your mobile charge can perhaps double up as a charger for the WX300.
Verdict
Overall, the Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 is quite impressive with good image quality and a 20x optical zoom that lets you click some interesting pictures. The lack of manual controls bothered me personally, but the target audience of the camera won't mind it as much. The lack of iPhone app to go with the Wi-Fi features of the camera might limit the camera's appeal as well.
Price: Rs. 19,990
Pros
- Powerful and sharp zoom
- Good quality images and video
- Built-in Wi-Fi
- Slightly slow autofocus at full zoom
- Missing macro detection in auto mode
- No rubber grip for thumb rest
- No iPhone app
- Build/ Ergonomics: 3.5
- Features / Performance: 4
- Image Quality: 4
- Video: 4
- Battery Life: 4
- Value for Money: 4
- Overall: 4
In the box
Nikon Coolpix P330 camera
Nikon EN-EL-12 Lithium Ion Battery
Charger with unpolarised NEMA plug
Convertor to use with Indian sockets
USB cable
RCA to USB/AV out cable
Lanyard (Handstrap)
CD With reference manual
CD With Nikon View NX2 software
Warranty cards and manuals
Though the camera is capable of recording full-HD video, and also has an HDMI port, Nikon does not include an HDMI Cable, and gives a RCA Cable. This felt a bit odd.
Build/ Design
The moment you take it out of the box, the first thing that you notice about the Nikon Coolpix P300 is the boxy sharp feel. When you hold it in your hands, the grip is pretty solid - from the rubberised thumb rest to the metal body, it feels solid and very nicely built, yet remains light enough to be carried around.The buttons are easily accessible for single-handed shooting, with your thumb being able to control both the mode dial as well as the shutter speed dial in case you are shooting on the manual. From an ergonomics standpoint, the front of the camera is flat, but a raised bump of rubber ensures that your grip is tight and the camera stays firm in your hand.
Features/ Performance
As mentioned earlier, the Nikon Coolpix P300 is designed for a user who wants more from a point-and-shoot camera, or for someone who is used to a DSLR but wants to travel light. The mode dial lets you select from a Full Auto mode, Portrait mode, Shutter Priority mode (S), Aperture Priority mode (A), a full Manual mode (M), a User Defined mode (U), a Scene mode and a Night Picture mode. The on-off button is in the middle of two large dials, the mode dial and the shutter speed control dial, and both the dials are easy to operate. With the Power button depressed in a groove, you don't accidentally hit it while shooting, which is nice.
The typical Wide to Tele zoom dial and a rather large shutter button are present as well.
The Nikon Coolpix P300 comes with more 'mode's than your typical point-and-shoot camera. In most compact cameras, you typically get a Portrait mode, a Auto mode, a Scenes mode and perhaps a Night Shot mode. The P330, however, comes with a Shutter priority mode, the Aperture priority mode, the Full Manual mode, as well as a User Defined mode, offering the kind of control and flexibility you usually see in a DSLR.
To get started with the camera, you pop it open at the bottom and insert the battery and the memory card (the camera takes SD, SDHC and SDXC Cards). With the memory slot at the bottom, if you mount the camera on a tripod, you'll have to take it off just to change the card.
Switching on the camera the first time around requires you to setup the time, date, the country you are in and the language. Quickly finishing this setup, you can go and setup the ISO Settings or leave them to the default Auto. There is a Function button on the front side of the camera, that you can allocate a function of your choice, such as to change the ISO, which is what I did. Setup your metering to either spot or centre weighted, and your focussing, and the camera is ready to go.
It is nice to see that Nikon offers RAW capabilities on the camera, and you can save the images in RAW and JPEG both. If you are shooting in JPEG mode (default) make sure you set the image quality to Fine Setting as by default it is set to Standard.
The screen is pretty sharp and bright, and worked well on an outdoor shoot across the day at the Golden Temple, Amritsar. I had the sun shining on me, and with the water from the sarovar reflecting the sun, there were very few times I missed the viewfinder.
I was expecting the front dial around the lens to be rotatable so that I could use that for settings but that is fixed, this means in a full Manual mode, the shutter speed settings are done by the dial on top, but for the Aperture settings you have to depend on the scroll wheel near the menu buttons at the back. I changed to Aperture mode to realise that the aperture settings can be controlled only by this dial, and was unable to find a way to switch the settings so that I could use the dial on top for aperture control.
Anyway, since the camera offered an f/1.8 aperture and I was shooting some scenes at the end of the day, it made more sense for me to use aperture mode, I setup the ISO to be around 400 and put the camera on a wide Shutter of f/1.8 and got some great pictures.
The fact that I could not switch between choosing which dial is for aperture setting and which for shutter was a bit of a bother at first, but once I got used to the placement, it wasn't much of an issue. But yes, I did manage to rotate the wrong dial on a couple of occasions.
What is nice to see with Nikon is that the flash is now only a manual popup. This means the camera will warn you that it needs the flash and you will have to pop it up manually from the side, so no mis-fires of the flash and getting bad pictures. If you don't really need flash, you can shut it by depressing it and it won't fire again until you raise it again manually.
The camera comes with a built-in GPS that records location of your photos. The GPS performs spot on, but you do have to update the A-GPS file when you start it, it is sharp and precise and finds a lock instantly, though indoors is usually an issue.
Nikon Coolpix P330 can be attached to a WU-1A mobile adapter accessory from Nikon that allows you to take pictures remotely over Wi-Fi from your mobile phone. You can see the live view sitting at a distance from the camera and even transfer images from the camera to your mobile phone to share over the Internet. The accessory costs an additional Rs. 3,510.
The Camera charges over a USB Port, this means there is no need to carry an additional adapter, but you do have to carry the USB cable supplied as it uses a different format of the USB connector on the Camera end. You can also buy a separate charger for the battery in case you need one.
The Nikon Coolpix P330 comes with a 3.0-inch screen with 912k dots that is nice and bright but at times on a very sunny day you may miss a viewfinder.
Focus system
The focus system on the Nikon Coolpix P330 is pretty efficient for a point-and-shoot. A half press of the shutter kicks in the auto focus and in about quarter of a second the image is focussed with no delay going forward. In tricky situations, like sunlight coming from the front of the camera, I did miss the manual focus, but the camera adapted pretty well, and the resultant image was quite good.
Image quality
One does not expect DSLR quality images from a point-and-shoot, but the P330 performed well over all. I shot most of the images in RAW and used Aperture on a Mac to process these images. Even while viewing and cropping at full-zoom, the images retained their sharpness. While the image quality can't really be compared to those from a larger sensor, but the backlit sensor in the P330 helped in getting some great images in the evening and some very sharp images in the day.
Pros
High-speed autofocus
Good quality, sharp pictures
Good low light performance
Fits easily in pocket
Cons
No viewfinder
Can't switch Shutter and Aperture dials
No gridlines to help compose shots
Price: Rs. 16,950
Ratings (Out of 5)
Build/ Ergonomics: 3.5
Features/ Performance: 4
Image Quality: 4
Video: 3.5
Battery Life: 4
Value for Money: 5
Overall: 4