Review:Ubislate 7+ and Ubislate 7C

Datawind has travelled down a long and controversial path to officially launching the commercial version of the Aakash tablet, the Ubislate. And they did seem highly excited about it, repeatedly claiming: “This is not a product launch, this is a revolution.” But are such hyperbole justified for a product that is so late to the game that it has left many who pre-ordered with a bad taste in their mouth? Will it really trigger a digital revolution among the masses, or will it fizzle out into the dark annals of public memory? We go hands-on to find some answers.

  

Let’s start with the specs, both the Ubislates, 7+ and 7C are pretty much identical, save for the resistive screen on the 7+ and the capacitive screen on the 7C:

• 7.0-inch display with an 840x480 pixel resolution
• 800 MHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, with a graphics accelerator and HD video processor.
• Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS
• Memory:  7+: 256mb RAM with 2 GB internal flash storage  /  7c: 256mb RAM with 4 GB internal flash storage

• Memory expandable up to 32GB with a microSD card
• One full USB 2.0 port
• GPRS with Wi-Fi a/b/g
• Rated with 3 hours of battery life with a 3200 mAh battery

As far as hardware goes, both Ubislates feel sufficiently sturdy, with a matte plastic finish that feels pretty good in the hand, and does not betray its price. There were a few visible compromises though, such as the microSD card slot, which has been fashioned in such a way that the card juts out of the main body of the tablet and goes only about halfway in. We can easily imagine a fall breaking the microSD card, or even the internals of the slot itself. Coming back to the physical body of the device, it lives in that middle ground of thin and fat that is quite ergonomic to hold and we were quite pleased with it, considering the price.

  

On the software front, they ran a stock version of Android 2.3, modified a bit to run with on-screen touch buttons, which are one of our major gripes with the tablet. The touch buttons basically live on the notification bar, and thus, one can imagine how small and finicky they were. More than half the time during our hands-on we would not be able to make them work and they didn’t exactly spell intuitive. There was also a physical Home button, which was sufficiently springy, but a bit oblong and hard to notice.

Another one of our gripes is the exclusion of all Google services from the device. Instead, Datawind has opted to go for Yahoo integration as far as mail is concerned and GetJar for apps, neither of which are as well-made or all-encompassing as Google’s own Gmail and Play store. Also, surprisingly, the 720p HD playback on the screens was quite pleasant, a little slow while seeking, but all in all a solid experience.

Touch sensitivity was altogether a different ball-game. The resistive screen on the 7+ was one of the more sensitive resistive panels we’ve seen, and reminded us more of the Nokia N900 than a cheap Chinese iPhone clone, which is always a good thing. But, it was still aeons away from a capacitive panel, and that’s where the 7C came in. But, alas, the touch sensitivity was limited by the hardware at play here and though we didn’t think that the 800 MHz processor would be a bottleneck, it is our suspicion that it’s the limited amount of RAM that is responsible for the lag. Again, considering the price, it was still quite acceptable.    There was a recurring theme with our first hands-on of the fabled Ubislates, there seemed to be many compromises, but the price absolutely blew them away. At  र2,999 for the 7+ and र3,999 for the 7C, our complaints with the devices failed to gain ground. For the price, they offer a good value-for-money proposition and it would be interesting to see how well they do in the Indian market and whether they are able to bring out a digital revolution. Consumers that have pre-booked the Ubislate 7+ should start receiving them shortly and retail availability would only start once all pre-bookings have been fulfilled. Delivery of the Ubislate 7C on the other hand will start near the end of May. Image credit: Tech2 Teams

DataWind launches Ubislate 7+ and 7C tablets in India

DataWind, a leading provider of wireless web access products and services, today launched the much awaited Ubislate series of tablets. Providing smartphone communication, internet access, tablet computing and multimedia entertainment, the devices also pack a powerful combination of content and applications. Intended to help bridge the digital divide, DataWind’s new products break the affordability barriers of computers and bandwidth constraints of wireless networks to deliver internet access to anybody that can afford a simple mobile phone. The UbiSlate tablets are the only devices in the market to offer DataWind’s UbiSurfer browser, based on 18 international patents, that can deliver internet access on traditional GPRS networks which cover the far reaches of the globe. In India the devices will offer unlimited web-browsing using DataWind’s web delivery platform for under Rs.100 per month on traditional mobile networks. The UbiSlate 7+ and UbiSlate 7C models were introduced at respective MRPs of 2,999 and 3,999. If you’ve pre-booked your Ubislate then your tablet is on its way to you. For the rest of us who weren’t pro-active, we’ll have to wait till the end of May to get our hands on a retail piece.

The cheapest tablet yet!

Differentiated by a resistive screen on the UbiSlate 7+ to the four-point multi-touch capacitive screen on the UbiSlate 7C, both models come with embedded GPRS modems in addition to Wi-Fi connectivity allowing ubiquitous internet access. The 7” screen tablets support the Android 2.3 operating system that delivers a rich touch-screen graphical user interface which significantly reduces the learning curve for new computer users in joining the world-wide web. The tablets are powered by an 800Mh Cortex-A8 processor which allows smooth usability of a broad range of applications. The embedded HD video co-processor delivers high quality video content making it a perfect multimedia device. DataWind CEO, Suneet Singh Tuli said, “Over the last year, I’ve been travelling the globe, talking at the World Bank, with heads of state, at numerous universities and at global conferences, evangelizing the power of the internet to transform people’s lives. We’ve now created a product that removes the barriers and levels the playing field.”

A view from the side

DataWind also unveiled its ecosystem of partners for providing content, applications and access, making it the industry’s largest collaborative effort to deliver consumers a complete turnkey offering in a single unit. DataWind announced relationships with Aircel for voice and data services, VMC Systems Ltd, Yahoo! India, The Indian Express Group, Reverie Language Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Get Jar, InMobi, Mango Learning solutions, RKS Learning Private Ltd, Intelligia, Pixatel, Poketalk, MyJobs and Blueworld.

Here are some of the highlights of the Ubislate 7+ and 7C

• Android 2.3
• 800MHz Cortex-A8
• 7-inch display with a resolution of 800 x 480 (7+ has resistive screen while 7C has capacitive)
• 2GB internal storage for 7+ and 4GB for 7C
• 256MB RAM
• Wi-Fi a/b/g, , Standard USB 2.0

Compare SkyDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox

You have your files, photos and documents on your home computer that you would like to access from other locations on different devices. Dropbox has been the de-facto choice for long but that could potentially change as Microsoft and Google have just entered the arena with the launch of Windows Live SkyDrive and Google Drive respectively.

The three services are very similar – you get online storage (you can access your files anywhere) and file synchronization – edit a document on one computer and the changes are propagated to all your other computers almost instantly.

Let’s see how these online drives stack up against each other:

SkyDrive vs Google Drive vs Dropbox

Supported Platforms

Dropbox is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, BlackBerry and Android devices. Windows Live SkyDrive is available for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Windows Phone devices while Google Drive is currently available for PC, Mac and Android phones /tablets. All services do offer a web mobile version that can help you access your files from the web browser of any mobile phone.

The other important difference is that Dropbox is also available for Windows XP and Linux while SkyDrive is not.

Storage Limits

Dropbox offers 2-3 GB of free online storage storage, Google Drive offers 5 GB while SkyDrive, if you are new, offers 7 GB of storage space.

You can upload files of any size to Dropbox through the desktop client while that limit is 2 GB in the case of SkyDrive. Both SkyDrive and Dropbox let you upload files up to 300 MB from the web browser while that limit is 1 GB in the case of Google Drive.

Storage Plans

If you are running out of storage space on SkyDrive, you can buy an additional 20 GB for about $10 per year or 50 GB for $25 per year. Dropbox Pro offers 50 GB of storage space for $99 per year while Google Drive offers an extra 20 GB for $2.49 per month.

Built-in File Viewers

Both SkyDrive and Dropbox web apps have built-in file viewers for most common file formats including Office documents, PDFs, videos and images. Google Docs supports even more formats – including Photoshop mockups and AutoCAD drawings – and no wonder that you can also view these files in Google Drive without additional software.

Unfortunately, maybe because of licensing issues, none of these drives will stream MP3 songs in the browser – you will to have download the MP3 file locally to play the audio.

File History

Your free Dropbox account will save any file’s history for 30 days meaning if you accidentally delete or change a file, you can easily restore the previous working version for the next 30 days. SkyDrive and Google Drive also store the previous versions of all files though they have not exactly specified how many reversions are preserved.

If you delete a file or folder inside SkyDrive web app, it’s gone forever whereas in the case of Dropbox and Google Drive, the files are moved to the Trash from where they can be easily restored.

Account Security

Since your Google Drive is connected to your Google Account, you can apply 2-step protection and non-authorized user won’t be able to access your online file even if they are aware of your Google username and password. This extra layer of protection is not available to Dropbox and SkyDrive users.

Google Drive and Dropbox also maintain a detailed log of every single change that was made to your files (or account) but this seems to be missing in SkyDrive.

File Search

This is one area where Google Drive has a definite upper hand.

When you search for a file on Dropbox.com, it returns results where the file names matche your search keywords. SkyDrive lets you search the content of documents that are in common Microsoft Office formats. Google Drive goes a step further as it can even read the text content of scanned documents and photographs using OCR. That is, if you have saved a photograph of the whiteboard to your Google Drive account, you should be able find that image by text without having to remember the filename.

Offline Access

The mobile apps of Dropbox and Google Drive let you save any document or file on your mobile for offline use.  Such a facility is not available in the iOS apps of Windows SkyDrive though you can always export the document to another app (like iBooks or Good Reader) from SkyDrive and access it offline.

Selective Sync

If you have multiple computers, all these “online drives” will copy your files across all your machines. Sometimes, you don’t want this to happen and both Dropbox and Google Drive offer you an option to selectively synchronize folders per computer. For instance, you can tell Dropbox not to download your family photographs folder on the work computer.  This saves bandwidth and your hard disk stays light too.

Selective Sync is however missing in SkyDrive.

What I like about Windows SkyDrive

SkyDrive offers plenty of storage space but the best part is that the SkyDrive web app lets you access files and folders of all your other computer right from within your browser. You just need to have SkyDrive on these machines and you can then easily access any of their files from any other computer, anywhere simply using your Windows Live ID.

SkyDrive is an absolute must-have service for Microsoft Office users because it gives you the ability to edit documents in the web browser while preserving all the formatting.

What I like about Google Drive

Google Drive offers the most pleasing interface, the search feature is brilliant and the new grid view lets you quickly browse your stored files visually. You can email any file from your Google Drive account to another user as an email attachment, a useful feature that’s missing in all the other online drives.

If you live in the Google ecosystem and do not have Microsoft Office on your computer, skip SkyDrive and go with Google Drive.

What I like about Dropbox

The basic Dropbox account offers a mere 2 GB of storage space but you can easily increase your account space to 16 GB by referring a couple of friends to Dropbox. Also, you can find tons of apps that make the Dropbox service even more powerful and useful.

Google Drive and Windows Live SkyDrive are extremely promising services but none of them support as many platforms as Dropbox does. The best part about Dropbox is that it just works and it won’t be easy even for Google and Microsoft to build the kind of developer ecosystem that currently exists around Dropbox.

Angry Birds Updated With New Levels

Over the last couple of years, Angry Birds went from being just a popular iOS game to a following. In fact, the game became so popular that even a movie was made based on the game – Rio. As time went by, Rovio updated the original Angry Birds with new levels, released it for free on Android, and later on released many different versions of the game with a different theme like Angry Birds Seasons, Rio and the latest version, Space.

With so many versions of the game, not many people thought that Rovio would update the original Angry Birds to add new levels to the game. However, last night Rovio updated the original Angry Birds to add 15 new levels to the game. The new levels are called Surf and Turf, and as the name implies, the theme will be based on beach.

In other app related update news, Google also updated two of its apps last week, Google+ and Google Wallet. The updates for both the app don’t bring any new features or changes, but mainly aim at improving the security and performance of the app. The Google+ app update also supports hash tags in stream, along with better sharing with third party apps. Both the apps can be downloaded from Google Play for free.

Samsung Galaxy S3 Image Leaked

There is no doubt that the Samsung Galaxy S 3 is a highly expected smartphone, actually it’s probably the most expected device of 2012. A lot of leaked pics appeared lately, most claimed to be the real thing when actually all of them were obviously fake. This one is different from the others because it truly seems authentic. This time, the Samsung Galaxy S 3 appears to be unveiled on May 22nd, in a press invite.

The photo is not exactly what we wanted as it doesn’t show many details, though most press invites don’t reveal much anyway. The clear fact is that the design is very intriguing with lost of nice curves which give it a futuristic appearance. The image was exposed by the guys at Phandroid which means that there is a good chance that it could a real capture of the Samsung Galaxy S 3.
However, if I take my time in thinking about it, there are some aspects that just don’t fit in the equation. The first thing that makes me doubt the authenticity of the image is the fact that the presumed press invite on which the photo was taken took place so early (these kind of press invites never go out two months early). Another thing, if I look closely at the phone’s design, though I really like it and think it could be the next flagship of Samsung as the company is always trying to separate itself from its competitors and to make it different from the Galaxy S 2, it looks a little out there. If we look back in time, the leaked images with the Galaxy Nexus had the same curved appearance that was really extreme, and I think that this would be the same situation. Also, the gash on the side looks kinda weird which makes me believe that the phone could come with a stylus, which would be very odd and extremely disappointing.


But lets not be so skeptical because the leak is very mind blowing indeed. It’s very confusing as there are two possibilities: either this is in fact the real Samsung galaxy S 3 or someone took a lot of time imagining a smart plausible press invite photo. As for the unveil date, May 22nd was speculates more than once, thus it might be something about it.


Rumor has it that the new Samsung Galaxy s 3 will have a quad-core 1.5 Exynos processor, 1 GB of RAM, a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED display with 16:9 ratio,  a NFC chip, a highly advanced 12 MP camera with LED flash and 1080p video recording support and 4G LTE capabilities (where available). As for the out of the box OS, the Samsung Galaxy S 3 will come packed with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Dropbox offers upto 16GB free space

As Internet connection speeds continue to rise, depending on the cloud will get easier. Online file storage has been around for a while, but with connections not offering sufficient speeds to upload substantial amounts of data online, it never really took off. Now however, major cloud storage companies - everyone from Dropbox to Google are lining up offers to attract as many customers and users as possible. Dropbox is now offering up to 16GB of free space for users who can get their friends and contacts to join Dropbox. For every user that you add, Dropbox adds 500 MB of space to your account. You can add upto 32 people and get 16GB of free space in the process. Of course, if you want something more, Dropbox offers paid Pro accounts. The offer only gets better for those users. Dropbox will add 1GB of free space per referral in this case. Get 32 people to signup and you’ll get 32GB of free space.

Upto 16GB for free

This offer has been around for a while now, and Dropbox used to offer 250 MB of space per referral back then, but that’s been increased. Dropbox in their blog post announcement state that word of mouth is the best way to get their service out to the masses. Dropbox recommends using e-mail, Facebook and Twitter contacts to get the referrals out. Dropbox has been one of the more popular and older cloud storage solutions on the web. They have clients available for Windows, Linux and other mobile platforms, such as Android, iOS and BlackBerry.

But, Dropbox isn’t the only one and off late, Google too has emerged as one of the biggest players in the market and is expected to enter the space. Google Drive service screenshots have been leaked and the service is expected to launch on the 16th of April, this year, which is under two weeks from now. Google’s resources, expertise and existing massive user base should give them the boost they need to make it the most popular service around. They’ll only offer 5GB of space at first, but those looking for much more, have free services, such as Microsoft’s Skydrive, which offers 25GB of free space to its users.

Download Chikka Messenger Latest Version for Android, iOS, Windows

Chikka Text Messenger lets you send free text messages to mobile subscribers in the Philippines from wherever you are in the world. Your friends can also reply to your Chikka messages instantly, either from their mobile phones or downloadable messenger clients.

Features

• Text for Free: Send up to 100 free text messages to Philippine mobile phones.
• Everywhere: Chikka Text from the Web, Mobile, Windows Desktop, Chrome Extension, iPhone, Android, Facebook.
• Cheaper Replies from Mobile phones: Avail of Chikka Reply plans and Chikka text from your mobile phone for as low as PHP 0.50 per text.
• No mobile number required: Create an account just the same and send free text to Philippine mobile phones.
• Never miss a message: Even after you have signed out, get your messages on your mobile phone or email.
• Chikka with Online buddies: Exchange Instant Messages with online buddies.
• Email via text, Text via Email: Send email messages from your mobile phone using text. Send text messages from your email account.
• Instant Contacts: From your iPhone or Android, send free text to anyone in your address book, or text Facebook friends.
• Messenger Themes: Choose themes for Chikka your Desktop, iPhone and Android.
• Share via Chikka: On your iPhone or Android phone, tweet or post on Facebook and invite friends to Chikka text with you.

Download Chikka Messenger for iOS

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Google Drive is coming with 5GB of Cloud Storage

Following up on rumors that Google would be offering a cloud service to access files and multimedia no matter what screen you're looking at, some pictures with details of Google Drive have emerged. Apparently Google Drive will be giving away 5 GB for free with the option to upgrade for more, and the source of this shot claims that it will be launching on April 16.

Google Drive has been rumored for a long time; if this service is actually nearing a launch, it's taken its sweet time. Obviously Google already has a ton of cloud services already synced up with Android, but the only real file locker they've pumped out for Android is Google Music. Being able to wirelessly sync individual files between mobile devices and computers is bound to garner lots of interest, not because it hasn't been done before, but because Google will be able to feed it deeply into the Android OS and make it make it completely seamless.