Tag: Pros and Cons

Motorola Moto X Play Cons and Pros Review
Motorola Moto X Play is a mid range dual sim Android smartphone. It has many of the features of previous generation Moto X smartphones. It is no more a flagship variant. The flagship variant is Moto X Style. This Moto X Play will be learn more on the pros and cons of the device and features of this midrange Android smartphone.

Moto X Play is powered by 1.7 GHz Octa Core Snapdragon 615 Soc with 2GB of RAM and Adreno 405 GPU. The device runs on stock Android 5.1 out of the box along with few useful Motorola Apps. Though it has only 2GB of RAM, there was no lag and shutter observed on day to day performance. The casual games were played without any issues. However, the high end games such as Nova 3, showed laginess. There are two variants of Moto X Play. One 16GB variant and another one is 32GB variant.

Motorola Moto X Play sports 5.5 inch ful HD display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The screen is bright and hence there is no issue with the sunlight legibility. The viewing angles and colors reproduction are also good. Moto X Play has thin bezels. Hence, though it has 5.5 inch screen, it doesnot feel big in hand. Also the curved back with textured panel, gives good grip to hold the phonw.

Moto X Play key highlights are camera and battery life. It sports 21MP rear camera with Dual LED flash and a 5MP front facing camera. Comparing with previous gen Moto X, there is a improvement. The outdoor camera shots came well. But low light performance is also decent.But it does not feature OIS. Hence you should be extremely carefull while taking the low light shots. The front facing camera performance is just average.

Motorola Moto X Play comes with 3630 mAh battery with fast charging feature. The battery life on this device is impressive. With casual usage, it lasts upto 2 days. But with heavy usage, our test unit lasted for a complete day. The connectivity features of the device includes 4G, 3G, WiFi, NFC and Bluetooth. It also supports USB OTG. The call quality on this device is good. But in poor network connectivity areas, call quality is just average. We expected a better performance here.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Motorola Moto X Play

Pros of Moto X Play
- Decent build quality and in hand experience.
- Full day battery life.
- Good camera performance.
- Stock Android experience.
Cons of Moto X Play
- No wireless charging.
- No bundled Turbo charger.
- Average front facing camera.
- No Gyroscope sensor.
Motorola Moto X Play specification
- Android 5.1 Lollipop Out of the box.
- Dual sim.
- 1.7 GHz Octa Core Snapdragon 615 Soc with 2GB of RAM and Adreno 405 GPU
- 21MP primary camera with dual LED flash.
- 5MP front facing camera.
- 3630 mAh battery with fast charging feature.
October 2, 2015
OnePlus 2 Cons and Pros Review
OnePlus 2 is a dual sim Android smartphone. It runs on Oxygen OS which is based on Android Lollipop. It accepts 2 Nano sim cards. OnePlus 2 price in India starts at Rs.24,999 and for purchasing the device you need to have invites.

OnePlus 2 is powered by 1.8GHz Octacore 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC with 4GB of RAM and Adreno 430 GPU. The smartphone handles all everyday tasks without any issue. Multitasking, switching between apps or games we have not faced any lag. However, when we played games like Asphalt 8 for 20 minutes, phone became considerably hot. However, phone has few issues which are majorly because of the software glitches. These can be fixed with software update. Some of the issues we faced with this device includes some apps just won’t run and others would always crash at the same point, unable to receive calls when phone is locked( We actually unlock the phone and then need to tap on to ‘back to call’ option to answer the call), issues of accelerometer-related problems etc.

OnePlus 2 sports 5.5-inch full-HD display that offers good viewing angles and has good brightness. Colors look natural. The sunlight legibility is good. The call quality on OnePlus two is good when there is a good network strenght. However, in areas with weak connectivity call quality is just average.

OnePlus two houses a 13 megapixel rear camera with Laser focus and LED flash. There is also a 5MP front facing camera. The rear camera take excellant still images both in well-lit conditions as well as low light condition. However, it struggles to focus while recording 4K videos. The major disadvantage of OnePlus 2 is its front facing camera video recording capability. It can record only upto 720p. Also, phone gets heated up while recording 1080p video for decent lenght of time. The camera section now where comparable to the 2015 flagship smartphones.

Advantages and Disadvantages of OnePlus 2

Pros of OnePlus Two
- Good battery life: The battery life comparing with other flagship, is good.
- Decent Camera: Comparing with OnePlus One, there is improvement in the camera segment.
- Alert slider and Fingerprint scanner.
- Less Heating Issues.
- Decent performance.
Cons of OnePlus Two
- OnePlus Two feels bit bulky. The weight distribution is not good.
- Front facing camera is restricted to 720p video recording.
- Buggy Oxygen OS.
- No NFC and fast charging features. Charging takes long time.
- Availability: Device available only through invite system.
OnePlus Two Specification
- 1.8GHz Octacore 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC with 4GB of RAM and Adreno 430 GPU.
- 5.5-inch full-HD display.
- 13 megapixel rear camera with Laser focus and LED flash.
- 5MP front facing camera.
- 3300 mAh battery.
September 29, 2015
Asus Zenfone 2 Laser ZE550KL Review- Cons and Pros
Asus Zenfone 2 has many variants. These variants causes confusion. You should be very careful when you buy Zenfone 2. Asus Zenfone 2 Laser is the new addition to the list. In this Zenfone 2 Laser, there are two variants. First one is powered by Snapdragon 615 SoC with 3GB 0f RAM and another one is powered by Snapdragon 410 SoC with 2GB of RAM. In this post, we will be doing the review on Asus Zenfone 2 Laser ZE550KL base variant which has Snapdragon 410 chipset.

Recommended Reading:

How to take screenshot on Asus Zenfone 2 Laser

How to download PC suite for Zenfone 2 laser

How to Use Asus Zenfone 2 Laser as modem through Hotspot and USB tethering

Asus Zenfone 2 Laser sports 5.5 inch IPS screen with resolution of 720×1280 pixels. The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 4. Colors and brightness are decent. However, if you set, auto brightness, the brightness level is little low. The device has screen to body ratio of 72%. Due to this, though it has 5.5 inch screen, phone does not feel much big. The design is identical to the Asus Zenfone 2 which we have seen already.

Asus Zenfone 2 Laser

Asus Zenfone 2 Laser is powered by Snapdragon 410 SoC with 2GB of RAM. It has 16GB of internal storage and support for microSD card upto 128GB. It is dual sim smartphone and both sim supports 4G. The standard connectivity features such as 2G, 3G, Bluetooth, microUSB, WiFi also available.

Asus Zenfone 2 Laser has 13MP rear camera with Dual tone flash and Laser. There is also a 5MP front facing camera. The laser guided rear camera does a good job when it comes to taking macro shots. The laser technology based focus system is useful only for taking the close objects. The camera does a decent job. However, in bright day light, images taken with auto settings produces wash out images. Indoor and low light performance is just ok. The front facing camera performance is also decent. There is one con here. That is default camera app cannot record videos using the front facing camera.

Asus Zenfone 2 Laser is powered by 3000mAh battery. This is one of the main attraction of the device apart from laser guided camera. The battery lasts almost a day with heavy usage and with casual usage, it lasts around 2 days. The screen on time is around 6 hours which is very good for a Android phone in this budget.

Asus Zenfone 2 Laser run on Android 5.0 Lollipop and ZenUI on top of it. There are few tweaks which are very useful such as double to tap to wake up or go to sleep etc. Unfortunately, Asus bundled many bloatwares which cannot be uninstalled easily by the user. The day to day performance is good enough and not felt much lag. The call quality of the device is excellant. One of the disadvantage of Asus Zenfone 2 Laser is its speakers. The volume of this speaker is bit low.

Advantages and disadvantages of Asus Zenfone 2 Laser

Pros of Zenfone 2 Laser
- Excellent battery life.
- quick and accurate auto focus on macro shots.
- 4G connectivity on both sim.
- Decent performance.
- Good sturdy build quality.
Cons of Zenfone 2 Laser
- No 1080 display: It would have been great if it had 1080p resolution for a 5.5 inch screen.
- Low speaker output: The speaker output on this device is bit low.
- No video recording features for front facing camera.
- Average camera performance on open environment.
- No latest Android 5.1.1 Lollipop out of the box
Asus Zenfone 2 Laser Specification
- Android 5.0 Lollipop with ZenUI
- 13 MP Primary Camera with Dual tome flash and Laser
- 5 MP Secondary Camera
- Dual Sim (LTE + LTE)
- 5.5 inch Capacitive Touchscreen with 720p resolution and Corning Gorilla Glass 4 Protection.
- 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 MSM8916 Quad Core Processor with 2GB of RAM.
- 16GB internal storage & Expandable Storage Capacity of 128 GB.
- 3000 mAh battery.
August 30, 2015
Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime Review – Pros and Cons- Incremental Upgrade

Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime is a incremental upgrade over original Redmi 2. Another USP of this device is, it is made in India. The device is manufactured at Foxconn facility in Sri City. The price of Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime in India is Rs.6,999. As it is a incremental upgrade, we will see the difference between the Redmi 2 and Redmi 2 Prime.

Read: Xiaomi Redmi 2 Review

Difference between Redmi 2 and Redmi 2 Prime

Display:

Both Redmi 2 variant comes with 4.7 inch IPS LCD screen with screen resolution of 720x 1280 and pixel density of 312 ppi. There is no visible difference here. The dimensions of the devices are same at 134.00×67.20×9.40. In this section, both are same.

Processor:

Both Redmi 2 and Redmi 2 prime is powered by 64-bit 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 CPU processor. Once again there is no difference.

Operating System:

Both smartphones runs on Android Kitkat with MIUI 6 skin on top of it. It is sad to know that, there is no Android 5.0 out of the box when there are multiple smartphones with much less price available with Lollipop. In this section too, you will not get any thing more.

Camera:

In terms of specifications, both smartphones features 8MP primary camera with LED flash and 2MP front facing camera. But with short time with Redmi Prime, i felt that, original Redmi 2 camera is slightly better.

Battery:

Once again there is no change. Both Redmi 2 and Redmi 2 Prime feature 2200 mAh battery which lasts for almost full day with casual usage. There is also a quick charger feature on these devices.

Connectivity:

As the SoC is same, there is no difference in connectivity. The connectivity features of these Xiaomi’s smartphone are dual SIM (both SIMs of the smartphones support 4G LTE), WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, FM, etc. There is no NFC.

RAM and storage:

This is the segment where there is a difference. The Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. This is the double the RAM and storage compared to original Redmi 2. Redmi 2 has only 1GB RAM and 8GB of internal storage. Both smartphones support for microSD card.Redmi 2 Prime is the winner here.

Price:

Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime price is Rs.6,999 and Redmi 2 Price is Rs.5999.

Verdict:

With a extra Rs,1000, you will be getting extra 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. So if you are planning to buy Xiaomi Redmi 2, then it will be advisable to consider Redmi 2 Prime .

August 29, 2015
Phicomm Energy 653 Review- Budget 4G Dual Sim Android Smartphone
In recent times we have seen many feature rich 4G dual sim Android smartphone at attractive price. China-based Phicomm is taken this competition to next level. It released 4G enabled smartphone Energy 653 at Rs.4,999. At the time of writing this review, this is the most affordable 4G Dual sim Android smartphone in India with 5 inch 720p HD display screen. The device is exclusively available on Amazon.in.

Phicomm Energy 653 is powered by quad-core 1.1GHz, Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor with 1GB of RAM. It has 8GB of internal storage out of which 5GB is user available. This budget 4G smartphone runs on Android Lollipop with Expect 5.0 UI. The UI is simple and very close to stock Android experience but there are few customizations and tweaks. The day to day performance is decent on this device for the price. I was able to play basic game like Minion Rush without any issues. However don’t expect to run graphic intensive games on this device.

Phicomm Energy 653 houses 8MP rear camera with LED flash and 2MP front facing camera. The pictures taken in daylight came out good. But low light pictures missed the details. The 2MP front facing camera is good enough for occasional video chatting and selfie. Phicomm Energy 653 sports 5 inch IPS screen with 1280x720p resolution. The display is sharp. Viewing angle and sunlight legibility also decent.

Phicomm Energy 653

Phicomm Energy 653 connectivity features includes 2G, 3G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and microUSB. Unfortunately, it does not support USB OTG. As this device does not have compass sensor, sometimes GPS has shown some issues in locking the locations. The device comes with removable 2300 mAh battery which lasts for a day on normal usage which includes 3G enabled all the time, 1-2 hours of talk time and play few casual games.

For the price of Rs 4,999, Phicomm Energy 653 does offer good features. Though there are few demerits on Phicomm Energy 653, it is acceptable considering the price. If you want branded budget 4G Android smartphone then you need to go for Moto E 4G at Rs. 7,999.

Advantages and Disadvantages Phicomm Energy 653

Pros of Phicomm Energy 653
- Affordable price.
- Dual sim and 4G support.
- Decent Display screen.
- Good camera for the price.
- Good battery life.
Cons of Phicomm Energy 653
- No USB OTG support.
- Glossy back cover. The design feels cheap.
- GPS fails to lock the location at times.
- Limited service centers.
- Availability: Available only through online.
Phicomm Energy 653 Specification
- Quad-core 1.1GHz, Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor with 1GB RAM
- 8GB internal storage and support for microSD card
- 2G, 3G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and microUSB
- 8MP rear camera with LED flash
- 2MP front facing camera.
- Removable 2300 mAh battery.
August 18, 2015