Vodafone, one of the country's largest telecom providers have announced to launch 4G VoLTE services in the country next month. This will enable new and existing Vodafone 4G customers to experience the high-quality 4G VoLTE calls on the network. As a test phase, the company will launch VoLTE services in the districts of Mumbai, Gujarat, Delhi, Karnataka, and Kolkata. The services will expand to other regions in a short period of time offering VoLTE services all around the country. This will enable the companies customers to make 4G VoLTE calls without any charge. It will enable its customers to enjoy a high quality of calling for no extra charge.
"Vodafone is getting Future Ready with the advent of newer technologies and digital services. The introduction of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) will enhance customer experience with HD quality calling and offer our customers newer possibilities. Vodafone VoLTE is an important step towards introducing futuristic technology enhancing our Data Strong Network."
-Sunil Sood, Managing Director and CEO, Vodafone India said after announcing the Vodafone 4G VoLTE services
Presently, Vodafone offers its 4G mobile services in 17 cities and has around 46 million 3G and 4G subscribers. The operator presently has around 140,000 network sites, which includes around 128,000 3G/4G sites. These 3G/4G sites are being upgraded to provide better call quality and mobile internet experience to its customers.
Vodafone is the third of the Indian telecom operators to provide these 4G VoLTE services in the country. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have already been offering 4G VoLTE calling benefits to their subscribers. While Reliance Jio has a pan-India VoLTE network, Bharti Airtel offers these services in select cities as of now. Airtel offers 4G VoLTE in Mumbai, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Telangana, and Karnataka as of now.
Airtel also promises to provide these services in 22 of the remaining telecom circles it operates in before the end of the financial year 2018 ie March 2018. Idea Cellular is also planning to launch 4G VoLTE services in the country. They are also expected to launch it before the end of first quarter of 2018.
OnePlus recently unveiled the OnePlus 5T and the smartphone has gained immense popularity since then. One of the reasons behind the popularity is the feature called Face Unlock. Face Unlock on the OnePlus 5T is a really fast way to unlock the smartphone and the company is now improving the feature by releasing OTA updates. The company has rolled out the OxygenOS 4.7.6 update which brings the December Security patch and a few improvements in the system.
The new OxygenOS 4.7.6 brings the following changes to OnePlus 5T
Camera
Stability improvements
Clarity improvements for selfie in low light
Performance improvements for 3rd party camera apps
System
Added assistive lighting for face unlock
Improvements for expanded screenshot
Improvements for Wi-Fi display
Updated Android security patch to December
OxygenOS 4.7.6
Apart from the improvements, one of the major changes that OnePlus 5T gets is the "Added assistive lighting for face unlock." This new feature will help the phone to recognise your face even in low lighting conditions. In cases where the smartphone is unable to unlock, the screen will light up to help the camera to recognise your face. The OxygenOS 4.7.6 has been rolled out by the company and OnePlus 5T users should get an OTA update anytime soon.
Meanwhile, OnePlus is also working on rolling out the Android Oreo update for the OnePlus 5T under an Open Beta programme. The company made a tweet on its Dutchland's official twitter handle which translates to "Christmas is over, but we still have a gift for you! ;) How about with the open beta for Android Oreo on the #OnePlus5T!"
Not so long ago, Facebook-owned Instagram started experimenting with a feature known as Recommended posts. What this actually means is that these recommended posts will show up on your Instagram feed but won't be the people you have followed. Instead, the social-media application will now automatically find posts for you which will be from the friends of your friends or random pages on Instagram which it thinks you will be interested in. Something of a similar sort was seen on Facebook and it is now rolling out to Instagram as well.
In the past also, such a feature was present in Instagram, but the users would have to click the Explore Button before they started seeing such posts. Now, these posts will be automatically be shown to you in your normal feed with the posts from people you follow. These posts will carry some tag as "Recommended" or "Popular among Instagram" to differentiate between them and normal posts.
What does it mean for Instagram?
This new feature defines how Instagram wants its feed to look like. It's will define how the company works and how the people will use it in the future. Earlier it shifted from chronological order to a more algorithmic order. Now it lets users follow hashtags instead of just only the people. Hashtags enable users to follow an interest and not only people.
The people will be able to hide the recommended posts for a while but won't be able to disable them temporarily. To hide them for a while, you can press the hamburger menu at the top of the post and just press hide. However, it will come up after some while and you can't completely disable it as of now.
In a statement to TechCrunch, an Instagram spokesperson confirmed the new feature but said that it isn’t there to replace any of the content you would typically get. Instead, the recommended posts will only show up after you’ve scrolled through all of the posts in your feed.
The feature is not presently rolling out to all users of it's Android and iOS app.
Nokia is now gearing up to bring its 2018 edition of smartphones and expand its portfolio. The company is currently working hard to catch hold of a position in the smartphone industry since its comeback. Nokia entered the market space by bringing a line up of budget smartphones and saw the growing popularity. The company is now planning to bring an even cheaper smartphone, the Nokia 1 which will be based on Android Go.
As Google has not announced much about the Android Go's progress, the Nokia 1 might be one of the first smartphones to come with Android Go. Android Go is a platform created by Google recently for the budget-oriented smartphones that come with less than 8GB of storage or 1GB of RAM. Android Go is based on Android Oreo but has the light version of applications and operating system which uses less storage space and less RAM.
The reports on the Nokia 1 are coming from a Russian tipster Eldar Murtazin who revealed in a tweet that Nokia 1 will be a part of Android Oreo (Go edition) programme. Reports suggest the Nokia 1 smartphone will feature a 5-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels. The smartphone will pack 1GB of RAM and 8GB of onboard storage. Murtazin also stated that the Nokia 1 will be priced at RUB 5,990 which roughly converts to Rs. 6,700. He also added that Android Go smartphones will soon be launched by Nokia and Huawei.
Xiaomi is one of the biggest budget smartphone sellers in India but their after-sales service is known to be really awful with inadequate repairs and delays all along. One of the biggest complaints a Xiaomi user has is the service quality. In order to combat this issue, Xiaomi has introduced something new. With this service, the users can track the status of their request. This essentially means that the user can track the service and repair status of the device online just as they would do for an online delivery of the device.
"It is one of its kind and very few platforms in India have deployed it. You usually call the service center executive to know the status of your device given for repair. Now with the help of service order status, you can easily track your device and know its service status online"
To track your Xiaomi device using service order status here’s what you need to do
You firstly need to visit Xiaomi’s Service order status page. Then you need to enter your phone/order/service/IMEI/Sn number. After that, you will click on "confirm" to receive an OTP on your registered phone number. You need to verify the OTP and hit "submit". After that, you will get the status of your service order along with the details of your device according to Xiaomi.
Xiaomi has also listed out the meaning of the few status terms and what they actually stand for to avoid confusion among its users. For example, under inspection means your device is being checked by the service representative. Work in Progress means your device is still being repaired.
Xiaomi’s new service policy comes shortly after the introduction of the Redmi 5A in the offline market. The company is selling the 3GB variant of the device for just Rs. 7,499. The smartphone is available across the Mi Preferred stores all in the country as well as Flipkart and Mi.com.
Samsung faced a bad time with the Note 7 fiasco and then gained back the good image by bringing the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy Note 8 to the market. These smartphones had been performing great and had good user response until today. Samsung Galaxy Note 8 users have started complaining about some strange issues with their batteries.
People using the Galaxy Note 8 have come forward complaining that their smartphone would refuse to take charge once the battery has reached 0 percent. According to the Samsung’s Community Forums, users are facing this issue where the smartphone once reached to 0 percent will become completely unresponsive as it would not take any charge. These users also tried switching chargers and cables in order to revive the smartphone back to life.
However, Samsung has started responding to the users facing the issue. In the forum, a moderator by the name 'SamsungMel' suggested these users get a replacement under the warranty. He also said, "this particular problem with the Note 8 not turning on is definitely something that we want to get addressed immediately."
If this continues to be faced by other users, Samsung might face a big problem this time. To recall, the South Korean giant got into trouble when their Note 7, a smartphone from the popular Note series, started to explode. the smartphones were sold with faulty batteries which led to a fire. Though the company replaced the smartphones by announcing, users faced similar issues with their replaced Galaxy Note 7 smartphones.
Xiaomi recently launched the Redmi 5A expanding its portfolio in India at an affordable price. The smartphone was launched under the tagline "DeshKaSmartphone" and the company was able to bring down the smartphone's price as it was "Made In India".
The smartphone was initially launched as an online-only smartphone where it was available only at Mi.com and Flipkart.com starting at Rs. 4,999. Now the 3GB RAM variant of the Redmi 5A has entered the offline markets with a price tag of Rs. 7,499. The offline price is slightly higher than the online price which is set at Rs. 6,999. Offline stores here means all the major Mi preferred stores across the country.
In terms of specifications, the Xiaomi Redmi 5A is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 SoC coupled with Adreno 308 GPU. The smartphone features a 5-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels. The Redmi 5A was launched in two variants, one with 16GB of onboard storage while the other one comes with double the amount of storage at 32GB. The 16GB variant ships with 2GB of RAM whereas there is 3GB of RAM in the 32GB variant. The smartphone is backed by a 3,000mAh battery and runs on MIUI 9 based on Android 7.1 Nougat.
As for the optics, the Redmi 5A sports a 13-megapixel camera at the back with an aperture of f/2.2 and a LED flash. Up front, there is a 5-megapixel selfie shooter with f/2.0 aperture.
On the connectivity front, the Redmi 5A supports 4G LTE, VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, IR Blaster and a micro USB port.
When you have bought a new Android Device, you are excited to dive right in and get do all sorts of things with it. Maybe play a new game or take amazing photos, you boast to your friends how fast your phone is. But the thing that makes Android is the ability to customize it to your demand. It might sound tedious and unnecessary at the moment but it is the way to go. We know it can be hard at first.
That's why we have compiled 10 things to do with your new things. We feel every Android user should do this to their new Android Device. They go a long way to make your experience better.
Check out your device
We know it feels like the most unnecessary thing to do but it goes in a long way. You should appreciate the power of your mobile device where one touch can bring delicious food to your house or make you laugh using a funny youtube video.
But you need to make sure all the parts that were supposed to be in the box are in the box. All the electronics such as chargers work. Some manufacturers require you to register the device for warranty purposes. Make sure you go through the packing wee before throwing it away or dumping it.
Prep it for Data Download
Mobile devices generally smartphones these days don't come with a lot of applications installed in them. With the case of Android, there are very few Applications pre-installed and you will need to download most of your Applications. You should always plug in a new Device before you start to download your favourite applications and songs and funny videos.
You should connect to a Wi-Fi if you can. Setting up a new device and installing all the apps can consume a lot of data and mobile data bills are not cheap. Also, many applications start restoring data automatically when you are connected to Wi-Fi and your phone is charging. Now you know how to prep it for a great time it will serve you.
Log into all your accounts
One of the first thing that will come up on your phone when you will power it on for the first time is to set up your Google Account. You can skip this however, it is not advised.
Logging into Google connects your device with a ton of other services offered by Google, and it’s arguably the first step towards personalizing your phone. Activating this will sync your contacts, email and calendar across all your devices. It’s also required for downloading apps from the Play store.
If you already had an Android Phone, this will also help you download all your apps from the play store automatically. Turning your new phone into a faster version of your old phone will just one tap.
Logging into all your other accounts of all the other apps you may use like Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter are advisable for ease of access later on.
Disable Bloatware
Many manufacturers fill up your brand new device with apps they feel will either make your experience better you will be required by you. These are called Bloatware.
You should ideally disable them or even delete them if you can by heading over to App Management in Settings. This will help you unclutter your device. It's just like cleaning your room.
Just make some of the apps are used to make your experience better as promised by the manufacturer. And by disabling them you might lose on that experience. Also please don't disable Apps like the dialer. They are essential for your phone.
Tweak the settings
Just because you have all your apps and have logged into your accounts doesn't mean yours have completely set-up your new device. There might be things you old device couldn't fo and this one can. You need to make sure you have checked it out and tweaked all the preferences according to your will and wishes.
Also, you can check out newer applications that have come out and maybe replace your old ones with new ones. Like, use the Swift Keyboard instead of the stock one. Maybe shift to MX player from the stock Google Play music. It all depends on which one you like better.
Secure your Device
Nowadays, smartphones can be used to banking and online shopping and various other personal and non -personal tasks. It is really important to secure your device in to protect your personal information.
A PIN and Pattern is the most common form of protection on an Android Device. Nowadays most of the devices come with a Fingerprint sensor, which is not only faster but also more secure. IF you have got a High-end device like the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 you can use features like Iris Scanner to protect your phone. Many devices like the LG V30+ and OnePlus 5 also have facial unlock which is not as secure as the Fingerprint Sensor.
Make sure Everything is up to Date
Considering the modern trends of security update and software updates, there’s a pretty good chance that your device might have a few updates waiting for you. Sometimes they will be minor fixes or speed improvements. Sometimes whole new versions of Android. You can check for the latest software updates by going to Settings > About Phone > System Updates.
Source: MIUI Forums
In addition to the operating system, you may also need to update the pre-installed apps. You can do so by visiting the Play Store, selecting “My apps & games” from the menu, and tap the “Update all” button on top, if available.
Set up Mobile Data Tracking
With your new device, comes a ton of possibilities using the Internet. All of us don't have unlimited data plans. So we need to take care of our data consumption. Most of the Android Devices have data manager inbuilt into them, which can be used to track our data usage. If not, there are many Alternatives available on the internet.
You can also set up a data cut-off point after which the phone will disable all the mobile data usage.
Know your Device
Just scroll through the menus and certain functions to get to know your device. You don't want to be figuring out something in the middle of your friends when you are bashing how good your new phone is. You certainly want to know its how-tos and get to know how to do everything on your new phone before you can start flaunting it off.
Also, it will save a lot of time, in the long run, to remember your usual tasking on the phone rather than figuring it out each time you set to do it.
Oppo, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer, has launched two new smartphones in Taiwan. The Oppo A75 and A75s are basically the same smartphones and just differ in terms of inbuilt storage. The highlights of the smartphones are the 18:9 displays and the 20-megapixel selfie cameras.
Specifications
As far as the specifications are concerned, the Oppo A75 and A75s feature a 6-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1080x2160 pixels. The smartphones are powered by the MediaTek Helio P23 chipset clocked at 2.5GHz coupled with 4GB of RAM. The Oppo A75 comes with 32GB of onboard storage while the A75s comes with 64GB of inbuilt storage. Storage on the smartphones is expandable up to 256GB using a microSD card. The smartphones run on ColorOS 3.2 based on Android 7.1 Nougat. Under the hood, both the smartphones are powered by a 3,200mAh battery.
In terms of optics, the Oppo A75 and A75s sport a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera with a LED flash. up front, both the smartphones come with a 20-megapixel selfie shooter.
As for the connectivity, the Oppo A75 and A75s come with 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS and microUSB. The smartphones also come with a fingerprint scanner at the back.
Price and Availability
The Oppo A75 is launched in Taiwan at a price of TWD 10,990 which roughly converts to Rs. 23,500. The higher end A75s comes with a price tag of TWD 11,990 which roughly converts to Rs. 26,700. Both the smartphones are available in Taiwan in Champagne and Black colour variants. However, there is no word as on when these smartphones will make their way to other markets.
Motorola launched the Moto X4 with the promise of timely updates for the near future. However, this promise seemed to have been lost since the launch. Thankfully, with just under a week to go for 2017 to end, Motorola seems to have fulfiled its promise of updating the Moto X4 Android One Edition to the latest software.
As per a report by Android Police, the Moto X4 Android One Edition has started receiving the Android 8.0 Oreo update, with all of the popular features of the operating system like - autofill and picture-in-picture mode. According to the report, the update is just over 1GB and is rolling out in phases, so if you haven't received the update till now, don't worry it is en route. Android Authority spotted that the update comes with a security patch of December 1 instead of the December 5 patch, which is extremely troubling as the December 5 patch has a few additional security fixes.
The update also brings support for Google's Project Treble, which allows the software to theoretically allow for much more timely updates. The interesting thing here is that Project Treble support is not guaranteed for phones updating from Android 7.0 Nougat to Android 8.0 Oreo.
Currently, there are two variants of the Moto X4 available in the global markets, Android One variant and the normal variant. And seeing the history of the update cycles of the normal Motorola smartphones, don't expect the normal variant to see the Android 8.0 Oreo anytime soon.
The Moto X4 sports a 5.2-inch Full HD display. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor along with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. All of this is backed by a 3,000mAh non-removable battery. This is a good option to consider, however, we would recommend the Xiaomi Mi A1 over this any day, as it has much better specifications and is additionally cheaper than the X4, which would, in turn, would help you save money for spending on the other things.
