This handset sports a 4.5-inch qHD display which will play host to the Sense 5 UI that’s laid on top of Android Jelly bean. It runs on four Cortex-A5 processors chipset which clocks at 1.2GHz and that’s backed by 1GB of RAM and an Adreno 203 GPU.

It’s outfitted with a pair of snappers; 8MP at the back and 1.6MP at the front. Speaking of stills and clips, the Desire 600 is equipped with Video Highlight feature that was first seen on the HTC One. What it does is that it stitches stored photos/videos on your phone to create a 30-second clip that you can share through HTC Share.

Apart from Video Highlight and Sense 5 UI, the Desire 600 shares other features with its high-end counterpart like the BlinkFeed and BoomSound speaker setup that’s backed by Beats Audio software.

It seems that everything is going well for this dual-SIM handset until we got to the storage part. As if having an 8GB internal storage wasn’t bad enough, the handset also lacked a micro-SD slot that would’ve at least offset the drawback of having a rather fiddly storage capacity.

The HTC Desire 600 will initially be made available in select countries including Ukraine, Russia and some parts of the Middle East and Asia. The roll-out is said to kick off next month, but the pricing is yet to be disclosed.

HTC Desire 600 specs:

4.5-inch qHD S-LCD2 display, 245ppi
1.2GHz Snapdragon 200 quad-core processor
Adreno 203
1GB RAM
8GB internal storage
3G/HSPA+
Dual-SIM, dual-standby
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
8MP rear autofocus camera, LED flash
720p video recording
1.6MP front-facing camera
GPS w/ aGPS support, GLONASS
Li-Ion 1,800mAh battery
Android 4.2.1 Jellybean
Dimension: 134.8 x 67 x 9.3mm
Weight: 130g

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To help you decide, we’ve enlisted a few smartphone features that we think, if adjusted, could possibly lead to a device with longer battery life. So let’s start off with design.

Design

Now I know some of you are already thinking; why won’t manufacturers just slap a big-ass battery pack inside their smartphone and be done with it? I mean, can’t all the smartphone be like the CloudFone Thrill 430X which boasts a 4100mAh battery?

Well, we feel that it has something to do with the design and the aforementioned smartphone is a testament to that. Fitting a huge battery inside a rather small device like a smartphone, oftentimes result to a bulkier handset, as is the case for the 430X which has a thickness of 14.2mm.
Having said this, would you sacrifice a few millimeters of thickness for better mileage?

Display

As most of you may’ve noticed already, most flagship handsets that were released in recent times sports a 1080p displayed. Now, apart from being an overkill (as discussed on this post) in terms of pixel density, another thing to note about Full-HD screens on a smartphone is that it actually requires more power to drive.

Don’t believe my claim? Let’s take iPad 2 and iPad 3 as an example. Now, I don’t know if you can still remember it, but the two major differences between the two tablet is increase in screen resolution on the latter model, as well as the 70% difference in battery rating (iPad 2 – 6,944mAh vs iPad 3 11,560mAh) which resulted to a slight increase in thickness and heft (0.36 millimeters and 39 grams respectively).

Now, based on countless reviews and comparison between the two generations, you probably noticed that the iPad 3 didn’t fare any better than its predecessor in terms of mileage. This leads us to a conclusion that Apple only outfitted the iPad 3 with a bigger battery for the sole purpose of counteracting the effect of the increase in resolution.

So, would you settle for a smartphone with a display that has a lower pixel count in exchange for longer battery life?

Processor

Now this one’s a little tricky to judge. Moreover, there’s also the question of whether multicore processors consume more power than single core chipsets. And depending on who are you talking to about this matter, you’re gonna get a different response.

Let’s start with the skeptics’ take on multicore processors. According to them, processor cores are similar to cylinders in a car engine; the more cylinders it has, the more powerful it gets. However, in exchange for the performance boost, the engine consumes more gas.

Chip manufacturers, on the other hand, have a different take on this. They too used the car engine analogy, but explained that unlike car engines, multicore processors have the ability to switch off other cores if it deems it unnecessary then switch it back on if the user requires more torque.

In addition to this, chip makers have taken the necessary steps to ensure that their processors/SOCs power consumption is always in check. In fact, NVidia has added a 5th “battery-saving” core on the Tegra 3 that ensures that the chip only consumes energy based on the current need.

Both parties present a convincing argument on the difference in power consumption between single core and multicore setups. Thus, it’s really hard to tell which side is right. So instead of identifying which setup will provide more mileage, the question we should be asking is if we can live with a slightly slower chipset that consumes less power.

Data Connection

We all know that leaving data connection on, will drastically decrease the amount of up time of our device, not to mention if your connection is LTE. However, by turning it off we’ll be missing out on real-time feeds/updates on our email and social media.

You can make a few adjustments to your device such as controlling the frequency of synchronization, when to turn on mobile data and such, but the power consumption is still relatively higher compared to when you just turn off the mobile data.

In actuality, most people do turn off their phone’s data connection to extend its battery life. However, the question is how much time are you willing to spend offline for the sake of stretching you device’s juice?

Summary

Mobile phones have indeed gotten more capable over the years, but it seems that with every addition of new features to it, the amount of time we spend being hooked in to a wall outlet, charging our devices, has also increased.

This is exactly the reason why we got curious as to what smartphone features consumers are willing to give up in exchange for longer period of mobility. We hope you can share your thoughts about this.

The post What feature would you trade for longer battery life? appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.

The AR feature of the new Foursquare for WP8 is only limited to some Lumia handsets like the 920, 820 and the 720. It works similarly to Nokia Here City Lens where in the app uses the device’s camera in order to display information about the nearby venues around the user.

Apart from providing details such as the distance of a given venue from the user’s current location, the app also displays some info about the place which can aid users to decide which place best suit their need. The app also makes check-ins easier by taking advantage of the handset’s NFC and voice recognition feature.

You can find out more information about the new Foursquare for Windows Phone 8 by heading over to the source link below. But if you want to skip through that part, you can download the app here.

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The 4MP ultrapixel camera of the HTC One is probably one of the most controversial technology that HTC introduced in their flagship phone. It potentially has that same game-changing effect as Nokia’s 41MP PureView technology.

So what we did was to take it to the streets and test it. Here are some sample photos we got:

Here’s a compilation of videos taken using the camera.

Just in case you are wondering how the HTC Sense UI 5.0 behaves, here’s a quick run-through:

The HTC One is now available ins tores today for a suggested retail price of Php32,990 for the 32GB model.

The post HTC One: Sample Photos and Video appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.

Congratulations to:

Please email me your complete name, address and contact number for verification. We’ll then schedule the awarding of the prize.

Up next, another Alcatel One Touch Idol smartphone contest here.

The post Microsoft Surface Pro Giveaway Winner appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.

The postpaid plan will include unlimited mobile internet (subjected to FUP of course), unlimited intra-network SMS and 4 hours’ worth of Sun-to-Sun calls.

You can apply for this postpaid plan online by heading over to this link or you can personally drop by any Sun Shop. Just make sure that you have the requirements handy! For more information about the Lumia 720, you can check out our full review here.

The post Lumia 720 now free at Sun Plan 999 appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.

The Optimus GJ is similar to the original G, sporting 4.7-inch 720p display, 13 megapixel camera, 1.3 megapixel front-facing, 16GB of internal storage, and 2,280mAh battery. Running under the hood is a Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz, 2GB of RAM, and Android 4.1.2 Jellybean.

What’s more notable here is the addition of dust and water resistance, allowing the device to survive under a meter of water for 30 minutes. With these kind of specs, the Optimus GJ is clearly trying to go head-to-head with another rugged rival, the Sony Xperia Z.

The LG Optimus GJ is now available in Taiwan with a price tag of TWD 17,990 or almost Php25,000.

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At home, the two DSL connections are divided between the media server and the general WiFi internet use. The mobile hotspot subscription is generally used to power internet inside the car and the two smartphone subscriptions with LTE service are my primary source everywhere else I go.

It is almost impossible to imagine that with this setup, I would hit the wall and still hit that data cap. That’s what happens if you rely too much on your LTE connection. And indeed, two of my smartphone subscriptions finally met their match last month.

My iPhone 5 subscription comes with unlimited surfing plans from Globe. Within the month of April, I hit the data cap with an estimated bandwidth consumption of 6GB. Not bad, even for heavy phone usage. Had this for 4 years and this is the first time I hit the cap. The culprit — using LTE and sharing the hotspot with 4 other devices.

My LG Optimus G LTE was also on postpaid subscription (Plan 2500) but does not have any mobile surfing plans and is fully consumable. What I do is subscribe to PowerSurf 99 and just let is consume as much bandwidth as it can. Incidentally, I also use this phone as my primary hotspot service even at home (forgoing the much slower DSL connection). The result, almost 94GB of bandwidth consumed in less than 30 days.

Fortunately, Globe’s No Bill Shock policy saved me from a Php118,000 data charge (computed on a per KB basis) beyond the PowerSurf 99 consumption and billed me just Php999 (plus VAT).

What is noteworthy to share in this experience is how the telco engineered the appropriation of bandwidth once the soft limit is crossed. In this instance, we saw two different techniques.

1) For the iPhone 5, once you reach the bandwidth limit of your plan, the telco will cut off service to the Personal Hotspot. This means you can no longer share your phone’s internet to other devices. They will still give you fast LTE access on the phone.

Whenever you hit the Personal Hotspot toggle on the iPhone 5, it will freeze and prompt you with a message that you need to call them to re-activate the hotspot feature. Fair enough.

This restriction method emphasizes that the internet subscription plan for your phone should be just for the phone only, not 12 other laptops, smartphones or tablets that you or your family owns.

2) For the LG Optimus G LTE, it’s a different story. Since I was using the per-KB charging, there’s technically no data cap. The idea is that you are charged by the amount of bandwidth that you download so it’s up to you how much you want to consume and be charged accordingly.

That is probably the reason why I was able to consume over 90GB in less than a month and almost got away with it. So why did I think I hit the cap? I guess it’s probably because the postpaid account has a certain credit limit and once that credit limit is breached, they need to throttle you down with the charging (just a theory).

My download speeds can sometimes reach up to 3.1MB per second (~24 Megabits per second).

Unlike the iPhone 5 where the Personal Hotspot is disabled, the Android device can still use the WiFi hotspot feature.

However, what the telco will do is kick you out of their LTE frequency and dumps you back into the 3G/EDGE network. The network checks your phone’s settings every 30 seconds and switches you automatically from GSM/WCDMA/LTE to WCDA only.

To overcome this, I would create a shortcut to the mobile network settings and manually switch back to LTE (yeah, it’s a switching back game every 30 seconds or so!). The experience was pretty interesting as it gives us an idea how the telco manages the network among users (especially the heavy users like me).

I have no experience with Smart (my only subscription is a Smart Bro Plan 999 on a pocket WiFi) with how they manage their networks so I assume that those on Unli Data Plans (attached to a smartphone subscriptions) have that 1.5GB monthly data cap (based on their Fair Usage Policy) and utilizes almost the same techniques as well (we need to do some more actual research on this one though and share with you our results).

Nevertheless, this is something a number of our readers have experienced too but did not realized. So the next time you suddenly noticed that you’re getting EDGE signal from your smartphone instead of the usual LTE or HSPA+, then it’s possible you’ve hit your monthly quota and they’re kicking you out of the data “skyway” back to the slower “service road”.

The post What happens after you reach the Data Cap? appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.

We have here an unboxing video if you may want to check it out as the package includes an SD card and some red & white themed accessories.

Design and Construction

The O+ 8.6 is a great looking device. It’s solid and it carries design elements that make this phone much more unique. Also, the device falls perfectly into your hand and we didn’t encounter any problems with handling this phone.

On top you’ll find the place for the 3.5mm audio jack & the micro USB port while on the left you’ll find the volume rocker and the power button. Nothing is found all the way to the right and the bottom except for the microphone. The whole phone is surrounded by a shiny chrome side casing, which in our opinion makes it look cheap, but that’s just our take.

As for the capacitive buttons down below, they are pretty responsive – but we’d like to note that the home button blinks green when you have unread notifications and red if you are charging.

What stains the beauty of the device though is the way it attracts fingerprints. Yes, it looks good by itself but not when there are oil smudges all over, so you really have to wipe it very often – both the front and back sides.

Display

Some sites stated that this one had an IPS panel, but nothing really confirms it. To add, the 4.5-inch qHD display has a bad viewing angle from the top portion.

The screen becomes a little hard to navigate when there are too much smudges, but other than that, we were pretty impressed with the clear text and the vibrant colors.

OS, Apps and UI

As for the OS, it runs on Android 4.1 Jellybean. The interface is basically the same across all O+ devices, and while it is indeed too cartoony & colorful, we feel that the stuff injected by O+ here is much more polished than Cherry Mobile‘s or Starmobile’s.

We have no bloatware apps here, and most of the changes are visual. Like what we’ve said in our O+ 8.15 review, it still would have looked better if they left it on stock Android.

Multimedia & Camera

The speakers sounded good, but we’re sure other phones can produce audio louder. Video playback on the other hand was a bit disappointing too despite the qHD display – some parts of selected video can show pixilation regardless of if it is HD or not.

The 5 megapixel shooter on the back of the phone sadly takes soft and mushy photos. On the bright side, it keeps an acceptable amount of noise in low light situations and the colors are warm.

Video recording in 720p dropped a few frames, and the audio sounded a little buggy. Asides from that, it all worked well – from shaking & colors to focus.

Performance & Battery Life

With a dual-core processor, it does very average just like other phones of this class; the lags found on other phones running a similar chipset are also apparent here. The 1GB RAM helps though, and for the most part, it can do what it is expected to do.

• Antutu – 6,071
• Quadrant – 2,741
• Nenamark 2 – 23.8 fps

In a video loop with 50% brightness & audio, the device drained 60% of the battery in 2 hours. That’s a bit disappointing since that seems like it wouldn’t even reach a near 5 hours. On standby, it was also unimpressive as we had to recharge it a lot of times in a week without even using it.

Conclusion

O+ did a great job with some elements – the packaging by adding red & white themed chargers & earphones, the OS by keeping bloatware minimal & the version not too far behind and the little things such as a notification light in the home button.

Over at the flipside, the rest are mediocre – the display, the camera and the build have drawbacks.  It should have at least excelled in some points to justify the Php7,995 price tag, and somehow, we think that your money will be better spent on something else, or you could save up for another O+ phone like the O+ 8.15.

O+ 8.6 specs:
4.5” LCD display @ 540 x 960 pixels
Mediatek MT6577 1GHz dual-core processor
PowerVR SGX 531
4GB internal memory
1GB RAM
Dual-SIM, dual-standby
WiFi
Bluetooth
5MP rear autofocus camera, LED flash, 720p HD
VGA front-facing camera
GPS w/ aGPS support
FM Radio tuner
Android 4.1 Jellybean
Li-Ion 1,500mAh battery

What we liked about it:

• Clean O+ UI
• Solid construction

What we didn’t like about it:

• Subpar battery life
• Fingerprint magnet
• Unimpressive video playback & other minor elements

The post O+ 8.6 Review appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.

The results page doesn’t actually name the handset as the Galaxy Note 3, but it shows a model number (GT-N7200) that highly suggests that it is indeed the SGN2’s (GT-N7100) successor. That is of course if the Samsung decides to keep its numbering scheme.

Another fascinating information revealed in the result page is that the handset used in the test is running on a yet-to-be-released version of Android (Android 4.3) and is powered by a processor with a clock speed of 1600Mhz or 1.6GHz.

As for the benchmark score, the alleged handset actually fared a little worse than the Galaxy S4 which got a score of 28,444 on our test. Regardless, the SGN3’s score (27,914) is still worthy of some props considering that the software installed on it is presumably still under development.

Of course, there’s a possibility that the test page shown above could be fake or rigged so do take this with your usual grain of salt.

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