GADGET GIZMO SPECIAL............ HANDSET POWER PACKERS

GADGET GIZMO SPECIAL HANDSET POWER PACKERS





Nowadays, you can pick almost any handset costing less that `15,000 and it will handle almost every task you expect from a modern-day smartphone. Still, if you're looking for that little bit extra when it comes to features and processing muscle, you might want to up your budget.
The devices in this review are more than capable of handling each and every productivity app and even high-def multimedia, including video games and Full HD movies that you might throw at it. So how do you decide which phone is worth your hard-earned money?

ASUS ZENFONE 2 | Rs 19,999

The ZenFone 2 sports a large display, yet is only slightly larger than the 5-inch phones on test here. Its curved back makes it more comfortable to hold, while its buttons ­ situated at the back of this handset ­ give it a seamless appearance and make it easier to adjust volume while holding the phone in portrait or landscape mode. Overall, it exudes a solid feel. This is complimented by a Full HD display that's bright, renders true colours and crisp text, and lets you switch between three colour profiles: vivid, balanced and reading. On the storage front, the ZenFone 2 has 25GB of onboard space (more, if you opt for the 64GB version), a microSD expansion slot and support for USB OTG pen drives. You will need all the space you can get because the camera will have you taking pictures quite frequently . The shutter has minimal lag and results are good enough for sharing online even in low light. Brighter environs, however, result in washed out images.

The snapper comes with a host of shooting modes ­ like HDR, manual, low light, super resolution, GIF animation, etc ­ along with the ability to apply a number of photo touch-up options, remove objects from a scene, create time lapse videos, and more. You don't need to hunt for photo editing apps either. A collage and slideshow maker is baked in to the Gallery app itself.

The handset is a workhorse, switching between apps without a stutter. This is despite it running ZenUI, Asus' heavily customized user interface, which includes SnapView (to create a private user profile for work), a separate kids mode, call recorder, gesture recognition, and more. We did not face any issues with network reception either and call quality was found to be crystal clear. You can expect to get over a day's worth of work on a single charge of the battery .

SPECS: 5.5-inch (1920x1080px) Corning Gorilla Glass 3 IPS display | 2.3GHz Intel Atom Z3580 quad-core processor | 4GB RAM | 32GB (internal), microSD, USB OTG | 13MP with dual-LED flash, 5MP front camera | Dual SIM (4G) | Android Lollipop | 3000mAh battery

HONOR 6 PLUS | Rs 26,499

The 6 Plus is built solidly and looks pre mium. Its front face as well as its entire back is protected by scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass, while three of its sides sport a brushed metal frame that fuses into the hard plastic of its bottom edge. Still, users might want to house this device in a protective casing, and one with a better grip ­ as its smooth build makes the hand set slippery to hold. That said, its 5.5-inch touchscreen display is crisp and legible even in sunlight; colours are vibrantly rendered, and it's also very responsive to swipes and taps.

The 6 Plus' 32GB storage (25GB available to users) makes it stand out among its competition. It also houses a microSD card slot and support for USB OTG to augment its storage. Call quality is clear and with minimal call drops, though you might have to use headphones to augment its speaker's tiny sound when watching movies in noisy environs.

The stand out feature of this device are its dual rear cameras. This stereo set-up allows it to shoot two images of a frame simultaneously, where the captured subject is in sharp focus, but with softened surroundings. This output, in large part, is due to software processing, but it does allow you to create interesting photographs. You can apply photo filters to only a part of the image, and even decide on the area of focus after you have captured a frame.Pictures shot in daylight with the rear cameras are clear and crisp, albeit with war mer tones. The front camera is equipped with the usual software enhancements that make selfies look smooth and blemish-free.

But that's not all. The 6 Plus packs an IR blaster that allows you to use it as a universal remote for your AC, TV and DVD player. You also get a magnifying glass feature, to read fine text or zoom into smaller objects using the device's rear camera. Plus, it supports motion control such as flip to mute and pick up to reduce ring volume.

SONY XPERIA M4 AQUA |Rs 24,990

The M4 Aqua looks just like the rest of the Xperia line of smartphones.There are no surprises here: a slablike design with rounded corners, smooth edges and a glossy back. It is extremely light, has a quality feel, and is easy to manage. However, it feels a little slippery to hold. This is a minor grouse because this is the only phone on test here that is dustand waterproof. You don't have worry about it getting wet while taking pictures in the rain. Even though the Aqua does not come with a Full HD display like the Asus and Honor, it renders rich colours with excellent contrast and dee p blacks. However, at this price, the Aqua should have ideally had a higher resolution screen.But what you get is 16GB of storage and the option to add more with a microSD card. Unfortunately , even though it runs Android Lollipop, it does not support USB OTG pen drives.

In pure performance, the M4 Aqua is anything but a laggard.Switching between apps, watching Full HD movies and playing the odd action game are all handled without a whimper. Its custom ized user interface includes pre-loaded software like Movie Creator (to create video clips of your photo albums), Sketch (a great drawing app), a social news aggregator and OfficeSuite for word processing.

The waterproof camera does a great job of capturing sharp images with quite a bit of detail. It is accompanied with a bunch of preset tools that let you take photographs quickly with minimum fuss. You can capture background audio along with a photo, add a virtual 3D landscape into the frame, and shoot multiple angles of a subject for a single picture. More tools or “apps“ can be downloaded from the camera app itself to add fun capabilities to the shooter. The front snapper takes shots that snapper takes shots that show minimal smoothen ing, so your skin will not look patchy.

Apart from the camera, this handset gave us great battery life. It will give you well over a day's worth of service, that too without enabling it powerful bat tery optimization feature.

Configure that and you will easily get two days from a single charge.

BLACKBERRY LEAP | Rs 21,490

The Leap is built on clean, straight lines. It is fronted by Gorilla Glass and you get a rubberized, dimpled non-removable back. Its flattish, slab-like design (like the Honor 6 Plus) makes it slightly unwieldy to handle, but overall feels nice and solid. Its display is crisp and colours are rendered accurately though you may find that legibility is slightly affected under direct sunlight.

Now, if you're an early adopter of (or are constantly installing new) apps, you will find the BlackBerry ecosystem lacking. The Leap comes with the Amazon Appstore pre-installed, but you won't find most new games, or as many titles when compared to Android or iOS. You can, however, download the .apk installer files for Android and install those on this smartphone. During tests, we installed Instagram for Android on the Leap, and while the app works for most part, it acts erratically at times. All in all, its really a hit-and-miss affair with non-native apps.

Also, the Leap is not a phone you buy for its camera. It has a few nifty tricks like photo filters, HDR, Burst, and TimeShift (lets you combine the best features from eleven burst photos to create the best picture) mode, but we did find the Android phones to have better cameras overall.

That said, the Leap will playback most HD videos without a stutter. What you also get is a pure business device with superb calls and e-mail handling, productivity apps (Docs to Go, the Remember task manager and BBM for messaging), one of the best on-screen predictive keyboards, and the BlackBerry Hub: a notifications display that lets you see and interact with all your e-mails, messages, tweets, and voicemails from a single location.

What we really like is Blend. Install the software on your PC, Mac, or app for iOS and Android, and you can the connect the Leap to these machines either via Wi-Fi or cable. The software creates a dashboard on the larger screen of your computer or tablet to display the messages, calendar appointments, contacts, e-mails, and even real-time alerts of phone calls so you can work on your computer without having to check your phone constantly.

Savio D'Souza & Ashutosh Desai

TOI20jun15