Online latest technology news

After being available in the other market for quite some time, Nokia has announced to sell the 6208 Classic in the Indian region. 6208 Classic is Nokia’s first touchscreen attempt on Series 40 platform and features a 3.2MP sensor with dual LED flash, 2.4-inch QVGA touchscreen display, handwriting recognition, music player, FM Radio and microSD card slot expandable up to 8GB.

The phone is priced at Rs. 13,259 which makes me think why would one go for this one when they can get a better phone in the form of LG Cookie or Samsung Star?

We take Sony’s portable noise cancellation solution for a spin to see if it’s worth Rs. 4,500. Does it fulfill the promise? Well, read on.

MDR-NC7 comes in a small package that includes headphones, one carry pouch and a dual pin adaptor for in-flight use.

Sony products are known for its aesthetics and NC7 is no surprise. The headphones look stylish with its white hue and silver accents on the side of the earpads. The NC7 is adjustable to suit everyone’s ears and folds down completely to be carried easily. The earpads consists of sponge that is covered with leather-like material to give it a classy look.

Making the NC7 work is a no-brainer. Just plug the pin into a 3.5mm slot supporting player and you could delve into uninterrupted music instantly. The noise cancelling feature actually works two ways – passively and actively. The passive noise cancelling is done with the help of the thick layer of sponge covering your ears while the active part kicks by activating the noise cancelling feature with a switch located on the side. However, this feature requires a single AAA battery to work.

We tested the noise cancelling feature by commuting in the ever crowded Mumbai local-train and even though it did not fully block the outside noise as promised, it effectively cut the noise by half. There is also an obvious difference when the noise cancellation is turned on. Apart from blocking noise, the music quality is also enhanced. It sounds better and is easy to pick up low notes, which with a regular set of earphones might be impossible.

However, despite the fact that it fared well in other departments, it lacked something which many users look out for – the bass thumping effect. The bass is not totally absent but we can say it has a minimal effect. Another thing is that it cannot be used for prolonged sessions. Not that its not ergonomic but the leather-like material is the culprit. Continuous use tends to make the ears sweaty.

Overall, MDR-NC7 performed decently for an entry level headphone but the price is the dampener here. Maybe lowering it to around Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 3,000 could give users more bang for their buck.

Airtel launched Net PC today claiming to be “a next-generation computer that never goes obsolete and never crashes”. Really? To straighten the marketing lingo, it’s basically a PC in the clouds (on the server) and for Rs. 7,999 Airtel gives the user a 15-inch LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse. A user also gets a 10GB storage and Companion, a small router-like device from Nivio, responsible for storing all the user data on the cloud.

The idea is attractive but there are many reasons why this initiative can turn into failure.

- Net PC requires Airtel broadband. This requirement cripples the potential user base. Imagine a user wanting a Net PC but cannot do so because Airtel does not provide broadband service in his area.
- Add to it, crappy broadband plans. Airtel is offering monthly plans – Rs. 699 (256Kbps conn, 3GB bandwidth, MS Office Standard), Rs. 899 (256Kbps conn, 3GB bandwidth, MS Office Standard with Admin rights) and Rs. 1,199 (256Kbps conn, 3GB bandwidth, MS Office Premium with Admin rights). These are recurring expenses since the plans are on monthly basis and did I say they are unattractive?
- If broadband plan prices are not a deterrent, the bandwidth is. Who in the world can be satisfied with 3GB/month bandwidth when he has to edit his office docs, download content on his 10GB space and then re-download on the USB drive, surf the internet, all from the same account.
- A user cannot use it like a normal PC. What happens if the Airtel connection is down?

Despite all the aforementioned reasons if you’re still intrigued by the idea of a “crashless” PC, you can head over here to register yourself one.

It’s time for celebrations for India’s top cellular operator. Bharti Airtel today confirmed that they have surpassed the 100 million subscriber mark, making them the world’s third operator to achieve such a figure in a single country.

A big celebration is in the offing but wouldn’t it be nice if they include their customers too. How about some free talktime or free SMSes?

UPDATE: It will sell for Rs. 1,99,900. Ouch.

First seen in August last year, Sony has brought its thin wonder to India. The 40-inch Bravia ZX1 LCD TVs’ (KLV-40ZX550A) thickest part measures 9.9mm and weighs 15kg. The TV’s picture quality is enhanced by Bravia Engine2 which supports full HD (1920×1080) resolution, Edge LED, 100MHz Motionflow and Image Blur reduction.

There are other features like Live Color creation, 24p Cinema, XMB (Xross Media Bar), Bravia Theatre Sync and Wireless HD. Wireless HD allows the TV to receive the content via the supplied HD media receiver. The wires and cables are connected to the media receiver and the TV wirelessly communicates with the receiver to display images.

Samsung today introduced its N Series mini-notebooks (netbooks) and R Series notebooks in India. The N Series includes N110, N120, N310 and NC20 netbooks. First is a 10.1-incher N110 that promises to give up to 9.5 hours of run time with its 6-cell battery. It has an Atom N270 processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD and a 93 percent sized keyboard. It will go Rs. 25252.

N120 improves on few things and brings in a full 12-inch notebook sized keyboard to a 10.1-inch netbook. It also has SRS 2.1 speakers with a dedicated sub-woofer and an extra ordinary 10.5 hours of battery life. It is priced at Rs. 26, 327.

N310 caters to the fashion conscious crowd with its pebble shaped design styled by renowned designer Naoto Fukasawa . The netbook is lightest in its class and has a frameless screen and ergonomic design. There’s no word on the price but it will hit the retail shelves next month.

NC20 is different from the rest of the lot as it has a different processor and ups the screen size. The 12.1-inch netbook has a VIA Nano processor onboard along with a gig of RAM and 160GB hard disk storage. It costs Rs. 30,089.

Moving onto the laptops, Samsung outed R522, R518, and R470 models. The 15.6-inch R522 comes in two variants and offers a screen supporting a 16:9 aspect ratio, water resistant keyboard, HDMI and separate USB/eSATA combo port. The notebook pricing starts from Rs. 37,399. R518 is very similar to R522, specs-wise and it starts from Rs. 33,637.

Finally, the R470 is pegged at Rs. 48,364 and sports a 14-inch display, Nvidia GeForce 105M GPU, spill resistant keyboard, HDMI, eSATA and an active USB port that charges USB powered gadgets even when the laptop is turned off.

P835 that was officially announced in March has now reached the Indian shores. The phone also known as Galaxy packs in a vivid 3.5-inch WVGA screen with Asus’ in-house Glide UI, Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, 5 megapixel camera, trackball, high speed HSDPA and doubles as Wi-Fi Access Point for up to 10 devices that can share the phone’s cellular data connection over Wi-Fi.

The phone will sell for Rs. 31,900 ($647).

Specifications:

Networks: HSPA (DL: 7.2Mbps, UL: 2Mbps), UMTS 900/1900/2100, EDGE/GPRS/GSM 850/900/1800/1900, Class 12
Operating System: Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
Color: Black
Form factor: Bar type
Dimensions: 115mm x 59mm x 13.8mm
Weight: 148g (with battery)
Standby Time: 350hrs with 3G and 300hrs with 2G
Talk Time: 6hrs with 3G and 7hrs with 2G
Display: 3.5” TFT, 65K-color Touchscreen, WVGA (800 x 480 pixels)
Processor: Qualcomm 7201A 528MHz
Memory: 4GB Internal Storage + 288MB SDRAM + 256MB ROM
Expansion Slot: MicroSD with SDHC support
Connectivity: WLAN 802.11b+g , USB v2.0, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
WAP Browser: HTTP / WAP 1.2.1/2.0
Messaging: SMS / MMS / Email / MSN / Push Email
Battery: 1100mAh Lithium
GPS: Yes (AGPS supported)
Camera: 5 Megapixel Auto Focus
Video Record: MPEG4/H.263
Playback: MPEG4/H.264/H.263/WMV
Video Call, Audio/Video Streaming
Picture Format: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP
Audio Format: MP3, WMA, WAV, AMR, AAC and AAC+
JAVA J2ME (CLDC 1.1 + MIDP2.0)

Business Applications: PIM, Word (editor), Excel (editor), PowerPoint (viewer), Adobe Reader, Windows Live, MSN, Voice Commander and Push Email (Exchange Server).
Other Features: Opera browser, Wi-Fi Access Point, YouTube, Flickr, ASUS Virtual Keyboard, Anytime Launcher, ASUS Today, EziMusic, EziPhoto, Google search and RSS Reader.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has finally put all the rumors to rest regarding Mobile Number Portability (MNP). The MNP service is slated to start on September 20 in Delhi, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Chennai, Kolkata, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Rest of the country will get it by March 20, 2010.

Another piece of good news is that DoT hasn’t left the MNP transaction fee for the operators to decide but TRAI will do it. The rumored fee is below Rs. 300 and will take around 2 days to change the operator.