Lumia 430: quick review of the most affordable Lumia

If the only differentiating factor of a smartphone is that it is cheapest, it won't probably sell. But if it says it is the cheapest Lumia, heads turn. This is Lumia 430, and this is my quick review of the phone.

The Phone is superbly build. It is great to hold it in hand, though it feels slightly heavy for the form factor. I have been using this phone as a secondary backup device for over a month now, and have dropped it a couple of times, surprisingly there are no dents. The back cover of this phone also doesn't come of during the fall, as is with most other phones.

 
The display, however is below average. At a slightly higher price point (but below 5K) you can get an HD IPS display from Android vendors, see for instance Yu Yunique (http://www.snapdeal.com/flash-sale/yu/yunique). It is usable though. That is pretty much I can say about it. I have had Lumia 800, and it had a stunning display. With this kind of low display however, I feel that the premium of the Lumia brand has been quite diluted. It just doesn’t feel good.

One of the main selling points of the Lumia phones was the camera, and in this compartment too it fails quite miserably here. Again at this price point, you can get a 8MP autofocus camera with flash (http://www.snapdeal.com/flash-sale/yu/yunique), where as this Lumia provides only a paltry 2MP fixed focus camera. The quality of photos however is decent for quick sharing on social networks.

At the end of the day, it is a well build phone. A good secondary smartphone, that is reliable and easy to use. A good phone for first time buyers. But very hard to recommend wholeheartedly when you can get phones at much higher specs on the Android side at the same price point. If you speak Windows however, and you are tight on budget, or just want a Windows phone to try out: this is a no barrier. And yes, it will run Windows 10 for mobile devices, whenever that gets released. The same cannot be said any Android devices you buy in this segment today, there is simply no software (aka OS) update guarantee.

 
Get the Lumia 430 here: http://fkrt.it/sycRUGNN

Lumia 430: the new super affordable Lumia

Microsoft has introduced a new Lumia - 430, it's cheapest so far. At $70, and available from April, this would very well be a better pick than Lumia 435 if it is priced below ₹5k at launch.

For specs see http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/lumia430-dual-sim/

Nokia 215, the least expensive internet connected phone from Microsoft available in India

The Nokia 215 is finally available more than a month after it was initially announced. You can get it from the Microsoft store hosted at Indiatimes shopping site (http://www.nokia.indiatimes.com/nokia/value-phones/nokia-215-dual-sim-black-/10023/p_B22866).

What is interesting however is that the Firefox smart phones launched in India are a bit cheaper than Nokia 215 (see for instance: http://fkrt.it/urZ9FXNN). It is possible however that the experience of Nokia 215 may be just better than using the Firefox OS with quite low end specs.

This is exactly why the launch pricing of Microsoft Lumia 435 is completely wrong

And it is not any great logic, but simply this news piece: http://www.telecomtiger.com/mobile_tabs_fullstory.aspx?passfrom=breakingnews&storyid=21041&section=S182. For the exact same price of Lumia 435 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/mobile/phone/lumia435-dual-sim/offers/?ct=S), you get remarkably spec for a smartphone. The major differentiator being the 5MP front facing and 8MP rear camera in comparison to paltry 0.3MP front and 2MP back camera of the Lumia 435.

Microsoft, at the current price point, it is simply very difficult to actually recommend a Lumia 435, unless, of course if one is looking for a Windows based phone or is a Microsoft fan!

And, oh, I am not sure if any one actually purchases the overpriced 128GB SD cards (http://fkrt.it/NUacefNN) which is even more expensive than the phone itself!

Microsoft releases new affordable Lumia

Microsoft just announced Lumia 435 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/mobile/phone/lumia435-dual-sim/specifications/) and Lumia 532 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/mobile/phone/lumia532-dual-sim/specifications/), both affordable and premium. Lumia 435 will probably be the the first Lumia to cost below 5K INR at the release.

Karbonn Windows Phone: Wanted to like it, but..

I have been using the Karbonn's first Windows phone for about 2 days now. My initial impressions with the phone were very good. The performance and the touch response seemed to work very well. The display was not so good, with very poor viewing angles and grossly incorrect colors. The camera was OK, the Skype calls using the front camera was like - atleast it is there - !.

But the bummer of the whole thing was when I installed the SIM card on the phone. The phone never stabilized on the network signal, which seemed to go on and off. After some time the phone restarted. And this kept on happening. I changed the SIM to another spare one, and the same thing repeated.

There is also another issue with the piece I received, the battery doesn't seem to charge fully. Infact, it never goes beyond 97% charge, no matter how long you wait.

With these basic issues, I am left using this thing like an iPod touch, only not as good! I have contacted Snapdeal, and would report back on what happened. In short, I don't think it would be prudent to review this product based on this particular faulty unit.


Update: Snapdeal sent me a replacement device. But to my horror it too has the same problem with keeping a stabilized network signal. Given the experience, I would strongly *NOT* recommend the product, unless if you are just an enthusiast!

 

#MORELUMIA coming on 11th Nov

Microsoft just announced that there are more Lumias coming on 11th (http://conversations.nokia.com/blog/2014/11/07/want-to-see-morelumia/). This will also be the first Microsoft Lumia phone after it took over Nokia. I just hope they price it right.

Notion Ink Cain : best affordable 2-in-1 Windows device

Background

Back in 2010, I was so excited to hear about an Indian company called Notion Ink, planning to design and develop a tablet in India, that I emailed their founder and current CEO Rohan Shravan expressing my desire to somehow contribute to this whole process. At that time I was not in India, and pondered about my ability to actually contribute with my minimal experience in hardware design. Notion Ink at that time was in Hyderabad. I didn't end up contributing anything, except exchanging a few mail with Rohan. Later Notion Ink moved to Bangalore, and released Adam and then its successor Adam II. They were interesting, but none of them gained wide acceptance. One of the problems Notion Ink faced was distribution. And then second problem I strongly felt was that there was a complete lack of 'awareness advertising' of their beautifully designed a superiorly useful products. Another factor was an external problem: the Android (the OS on which Adam I and II are based) tablets were getting extremely cheap. With the full control of Android development resting with Google, whatever software customizations that Notion Ink made probably ended up no where and were never 'main-stream'. The software 'philosophy' that one has is only as much useful as the number of people using it. If no one actually used any of the "cool" software features - it is destined to be doomed - and hence is the requirement of 'awareness advertising', something Notion Ink still lacks to this date.


Notion Ink Cain

So when I heard the news of Notion Ink releasing Cain - a Windows based 2-in-1 exclusively on Snapdeal (see: http://www.snapdeal.com/product/notion-ink-cain-2in1-touchscreen/1556812847), I was pleasantly surprised. Not only because the tablet was no longer a custom Android ROM but was a full fledged PC with the ability to run 'standard Windows application', which are humongous in number. Another subtle reason for which I was happy for Notion Ink was that it was for the first time selling the device on a major e-commerce platform in India. Earlier Adam sales were mostly restricted to buying from the Notion Ink portal itself - or for a brief period on another ecommerce site. Notion Ink is for the first time getting some real advertising.

Without further ado, let us delve in to the device itself.


The device

Notion Ink Cain (http://notionink.com/) comes powered by Intel Bay Trail processor (Z3735 @ 1.83 GHz), which is a quad core processor. Bay Trail is a successor to Atom processor and is based on new Core design, and addresses most of the shortcomings of its predecessor. The processor also has GPU core (clocked at 646MHz), which is powerful enough to drive HD movies without shutter. Bay Trail processors are designed to be power efficient and are expressly designed for mobile computing devices, that sets it apart from desktop class Intel processors.

The Cain has 2GB of RAM, which is unfortunately soldered and is non-upgradable, 32GB of internal storage (approx. 24GB useable on initial boot) and host of ports (USB 3.0, Mini HDMI, Micro SD card slot, Micro USB - that also acts as a standby charging port). The device also comes with slot for attaching a 3G ultrastick (for 3G data connectivity).

The screen is 10.1" diagonally with a resolution of  1280 x 800, and features capacitive touch with 10 touch points.

There is nothing remarkable about all the specs, to see detailed specs visit http://notionink.com, what makes the difference is however the superior design and build quality of the device. More over Notion Ink is so confident about the quality of their hardware, that they claim to provide full device replacement in case of any defect over the warranty period of the device.

On the software side the device comes with Windows 8.1 preinstalled. There are a lot of naysayers on the interweb about the Windows 8 operating system, but I absolutely like it and is my daily OS on my home desktop. The device also comes with a 1 year subscription to Office 365 + 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage. While 1 year subscription to Office 365 is a definite plus, I am not sure if I would like to pay 3K+ INR annual subscription fee for a software that I only occasionally use. I would rather use free alternatives like LibreOffice when the subscription expires. Also I am not sure whether the 1TB storage on OneDrive is tied to Office 365 subscription.

Here are some quick shots of the device:

Absurdly quick unboxing! To match the 5 sec boot time of Notion Ink Cain ;-)

The mint letter. I love this personal touch from the team at Notion Ink.



What is in the Cain package? The one that I unboxed had the unit, keyboard flip cover, charger, Offce 365, a 500GB external hard drive, and a lovely letter with mint from Notion Ink.

Cain's screen is a little glossy, but that doesn't hinder normal use. Color reproduction and viewing angles are decent, if not stellar.

Cain is a well designed portable computing device.




The tablet works well, but it is a little heavier to my taste to replace my Kindle as a reader when I am in bed.

Though well designed, in a laptop mode the Cain can not really be placed on your lap. It is just not as stable. Even on desk if you have the habit of moving around your laptop, the case stand comes apart - a solution use a clip!

You can install a lot of Windows applications on the device, even on the external USB 3.0 drive. Here I have installed the absolutely 'Made In India' molecular modelling software by VLife Sciences - VLifeMDS (see: http://www.vlifesciences.com/) - on the Notion Ink Cain. Great combination right ?

The provided wireless mouse is useful in desktop mode, however I just tend to touch the screen to get things done faster.

App story

There is a huge ecosystem of apps on Windows. I haven't tried a lot of apps, but the ones that I have tried work great. Apart from the standard apps, there are also modern apps that can be installed from the Windows Store. Have only tried two at the moment: Kindle app and the Freshpaint app. The Kindle app from Amazon is well made for Windows 8 and works great for reading books. I however, find the weight of the device slightly on the higher side (although it is very light weight at 630 grams) for a book reading device. The Freshpaint is a great painting app from Microsoft, if you love painting and making sketches.

I am not really interested in games, so I have not tried one till now, but plan to do so later.


Keyboard, Touch response

The keyboard and the magnetic snapping reminds me of the Microsoft Surface. I find the keyboard to be quite good for light to moderate typing. However when I started using the keyboard for some coding purpose I found that the keypad bends slightly near the centre. This seems normal, but gives a strange feeling of not having a even stable surface to type. The integrated touch pad, is ok, but I feel it should have been a little larger. The touch pad keys could also have been a little flatter.

Screen touch response on the device is pretty good and is at par with any top notch tablet you can buy currently. That said, many desktop applications may not be touch optimized, so you will have to fall back to the good old mouse to stay productive.


Reaction from others

Over the course of the review the device was shown to a number of people. All absolutely loved the device. The sweetest reaction came from an owner of computer shop: "This is absolutely fantastic device. I would easily pay 25 K for a Designed in India device, around 20K is too good!"


Conclusions

Overall, I feel that Notion Ink has a winner here. With collaboration from Intel and Microsoft, and Notion Inks own design talents put into the device, you get a solidly build device of high quality plastic, hardened aluminium and soft velvet keyboard cover. All the ports are placed evenly and are always accessible - which is a very positive point for an ultraportable. The exclusive availability and prominent placement on Snapdeal solves the last puzzle for Notion Ink - the advertising and selling - of a beautifully crafted useful product.

Highly recommended 'Designed in India' device. Hope Notion Ink can also put a 'Made in India' tag for their future devices.


Notes

1. The unit actually belongs to my colleague Amit Bedi. I was waiting for this line to be written using the Cain itself ;-)

2. Just tested Skype call on Notion Ink - works great - including with the back and front camera.
 

Lumia 530 : the new affordable WP from Microsoft

Microsoft today announced single and dual sim version of Lumia 530 (http://conversations.nokia.com/2014/07/23/lumia-530/). It would be priced at about $115 (6800 INR), and will be available in India in August 2014. If Microsoft actually prices this near 6K and towards 5K, this device will be a hit like Lumia 520, and would be a tough competitor for Moto E. But at a price that is closer to Moto E, it is difficult to recommend Lumia 530 over the earlier.

Nokia (err .. Microsoft) thinks they have a winner: