Nokia X1-00 brings a lot of BANG for Rs 2500 euro worth of buck

How low can you go? The Nokia X1-00 aims for a sub €35 price and with dedicated music keys, powerful loudspeaker and a microSD card slot, the X1-00 makes for a great portable music player.

The Nokia X1-00 has a strong focus on music - the loudspeaker on the back is rated at 106 phon (a unit of perceived loudness) and has been calibrated not to distort the sound even at the loudest setting.

The music prowess of the X1-00 doesn't end here - there are three dedicated music keys, 3.5mm audiojack, a stereo headset in the box, FM radio and support for microSD cards up to 16GB along with a single-key playlist creator.

    
Nokia X1-00

The phone runs Series 30 and is obviously aimed at developing markets, so the five separate phonebooks will be very useful if the phone is shared between the family. The X1-00 offers the basics with standard package of organizer and some games.

The Nokia X1-00 also packs a dedicated torch for when the power goes out and if you use the phone sparingly, the 1320mAh battery should last a mammoth 61 days of standby.

 

The X1-00 measures 112.2 x 47.3 x 16mm and weighs 91g. It will be available in Orange, Ocean blue and Dark grey in select markets starting in April and should cost €34 (before taxes and subsidies).

Samsung Google Nexus S review: Royal droid

Another year, another heir to the Droid throne – and Google are trying to be democratic about it. Which is a roundabout way of saying they’re not monogamous. For the Nexus One, Google teamed up with HTC. This time around, they trusted Samsung to do the job, using the Galaxy S as a base.

  
Google Nexus S official photos

It’s only their second try and users are given a second chance to like the Royal Droid. A tall task it is – the very concept is fundamentally incompatible with the free and open source Android system. Royal blood is not a benefit in a free democracy. Google did learn it the hard way with the Nexus One.

Google’s second smartphone child has more than just an image problem to tackle. The Samsung Google Nexus S has to keep pace with the evolution of the platform. The “S” in the name may stand for many things – from second to superior. But with Android 2.3 Gingerbread inside, speed is not far from the truth either. Here’s what else the Nexus S has to offer in a nutshell.

Key features:

• Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G support
• HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps
• 4.0" WVGA (480x800) Super AMOLED Contour Display with curved glass screen
• Android OS, v2.3 Gingerbread
• 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 (Hummingbird) processor
• 16GB storage, 512 MB RAM
• 5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging
• Front-facing VGA camera
• Wi-Fi b/g/n with DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS
• Portable Wi-Fi hotspot and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
• Near Field Communication chip
• Accelerometer, proximity and light sensors
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB port (charging)
• Adobe Flash support out of the box
• Latest Google Mobile apps

Main disadvantages:

• No microSD slot
• No 720p video recording
• All-plastic body, fingerprint magnet
• No DivX and XviD support (no actual video player) out of the box
• No dedicated camera key and no lens cover
• No FM radio
• No smart dialing
• Overly expensive for its feature set

As you can see, the Nexus S shares a lot of the Samsung Galaxy S components. Powered by the very same 1Ghz Hummingbird processor and having the same 512MB of RAM, it feels a bit quicker probably thanks to Gingerbread.

The fact aside that our review isn’t exactly on time, this hardware is so 2010, while the imaging department is surely from 2009. We wouldn’t fuss about it was it not for the Tegra 2 SoC and its 1080p video recording, which has the power to be the next big thing in the industry. The emphasis here being on next. Maybe Google should’ve thought of that and instead of rushing to release the Nexus S.

If they chose to wait a couple of months, a dual-core CPU could’ve made a lot of difference – especially with Gingerbread. The Nexus S would have been a beast just like its predecessor was, with the first droid powered by a 1Ghz processor on the market. With this hardware, the Nexus S is no more than an overclocked Nexus One.

   
Google Nexus S live shots

But wait a minute – maybe not all is lost and the Nexus S will be salvaged by the software. Not only is it the first Gingerbread-powered phone to the market – it can also count on special treatment in terms of getting updates on time.

Anyway, when you have a second try at something the results are supposed to be better. Just like when parents raise a second child differently having learned from their past experience. Stick around to find out if the Google Nexus S is the definitive, all-muscle replacement of the Nexus One we’ve all been waiting for.

Here's the Samsung Galaxy S on Gingerbread, benchmarked

Our hands were itching to try the leaked Gingerbread update for the Samsung Galaxy S and to give it a spin to see what's what. The update doesn't bring anything spectacular in terms of looks; only the notification bar has changed icons and looks, but the rest of its is basically the same old TouchWiz 3.0.

   

The new version of the Samsung custom launcher that will launch on the Galaxy S II is sadly unavailable here. At least you get the download center that Gingerbread brings. Plus the leaked ROM feels surprisingly bugless for a beta release.

We also ran a few benchmarks to see if it's noticeably faster than its Froyo-running twin brother. Here are the results:

 

Compared to a Froyo-powered Galaxy S, these results are obviously better, which is pretty good considering that this is not a final version of Gingerbread.

Samsung launches two dual-SIM Champs - the E2652 and E2652W

Samsung has released two new versions of its youthful C3300K Champ without any fanfare. The E2652 and E2652W Champ Duos are both boosted with dual-SIM capabilities and 0.2-inch bigger screen, while the W-fella also gets Wi-Fi connectivity.

 
Samsung Champ Duos in black

The new Champ Duos phones look much like the original Champ, even the rest of the specs are the same - a QVGA resistive display, a 1.3 megapixel snapper, an FM radio, a 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card slot. There is no built-in FM radio antenna and stereo speakers this time, but we guess those have been sacrificed for the second SIM slot (and the Wi-Fi connectivity).

 
Samsung Champ Duos in white

Anyway, the Champ Duos E2652 and E2652W are currently available in Russia and the MEA region. There is no word on the pricing or expanded availability just yet