Samsung Galaxy Y Pro Duos

Samsung Galaxy Y Pro Duos Review

 

Platform: Android 2.3; Processor: 832MHz; RAM: 384MB; Display: 2.6-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen (320 x 240 pixels); Storage: 160MB available to the user, expandable up to 32GB via MicroSD; Camera: 3.15MP with VGA videos; Battery: 1350mAhIf there is one OS that is found on a diverse range of smartphones, it is Android. You have smartphones ranging from Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 40,000 running Google’s mobile OS. All these phones come packed with a variety of features but one thing remains constant - the OS is designed for a touchscreen experience and you need a 3-inch screen at the very least to take advantage of the features the OS has to offer.

Today we have with us a smartphone that breaks the tradition of Android smartphones a little by throwing in a smaller screen, QWERTY keypad and Dual-SIM capabilities. Is this shift for the better?

Look and feel
A quick glance at the Samsung Galaxy Y Pro Duos and you could mistake it for an entry-level BlackBerry or a QWERTY smartphone from Micromax. It has a candy bar form factor with a 2.6-inch TFT touchscreen display and a QWERTY keypad. The device feels well built to withstand a few drops. The rear panel of the device is solid plastic and houses the 3.15MP camera without a flash.

On the front, above the screen rests the VGA front facing camera for video calls. Below the touchscreen you have a menu, home, back and search buttons between which rests the optical trackpad. This trackpad feels a lot like the one found on the BlackBerry Curve 8520 and is a welcome addition as the small touchscreen itself isn’t always very comfortable.

In terms of connectivity, the device has the micro USB port at the bottom, a volume rocker on the left panel and the sleep/wake button on the right. On the top we have the 3.5mm headphones jack.

Overall, the device fells quite well built, and sturdy. The matte finish of the rear panel and the QWERTY keypad is nice as it prevents the device from becoming a fingerprint and dust magnet but the same cannot be said about the screen.

Features and performance
Straight out of the box, the device runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. This feels like a step back considering the fact that majority of the Android smartphones and budget tablets launched are coming with ICS. Running Android on a smartphone with a QWERTY keypad could have been a good experience especially for those that aren’t comfortable with a touchscreen. The experience however fells like a bit of a letdown because of the size of the display.

Unlocking the screen is as simple as swiping on it and you are greeted with the same TouchWiz interface we have come to expect from all Android powered Samsung smartphones. Unlock the device and you are greeted to three customizable home screens and quick access to the menu, call, contacts and messages via a bar that is constantly present on the right side of the screen.

The overall feel of the OS on the device is the same as any other Gingerbread smartphone but the experience feels a little cramped due to the small size of the display. One big downer to the display is that it doesn’t support multi-touch.

So how does multimedia function? Well in a word, smoothly. We played some music, ran a few YouTube videos and they all ran smoothly. The screen resolution or the display size isn’t the best for videos but it gets the job done nonetheless. Angry Birds Space did take its own sweet time to load on the device but once the game started, it ran quite well. The device will however lag if you multitask on it.

The QWERTY keypad is the best feature of the phone especially if you are one who isn’t a really big fan of the touchscreen interface. Typing messages, emails etc. felt natural and the keypad is well spaced and comfortable to type on.

The 3.15MP rear snapper clicks some good pictures if the lighting condition is right. It shoots images in a maximum resolution of 2048x1536. If the lighting conditions aren’t the best, the images get dark and noisy. There is no dedicated camera button on the device and this is ok as you can use the trackpad to click pictures. There are three shooting modes to choose from – single shot, smile and panorama. You can also select from a variety of scenes such as landscape, night, sports, beach, sunset, etc.

The screen does feel like a letdown when you use apps such as Google Maps. The screen doesn’t support multi-touch so you will have to rely on the onscreen zoom to navigate, which can get quite cumbersome.

Under the rear panel rests the place for the MicroSD card and the two SIM cards. You can hot swap the MicroSD card as you don’t need to remove the battery to access its resting place. The same however cannot be said about the SIM cards. You will need to remove the battery to place the 2 cards.
The call quality of the device is fantastic. The voice from the earpiece is very clear but the microphone isn’t the best. The receiver of our call said that our voice sounded slightly echoed. There is no physical call receive/end button and you will have to rely on the touchscreen. A minor problem but still one for those inclined towards the QWERTY keypad.

The battery life of the device can last you for almost two days with above average use, which is probably the biggest advantage of the device. Most Android smartphones find it difficult to make it through one day.

Our take

The Samsung Galaxy Y Pro Duos isn’t the best QWERTY smartphone out there especially considering the OS and the price point. If you want a complete Android experience, you can take a look at the Motorola Fire XT and you can get a great QWERTY experience, but with Symbian, from the Nokia E5 under the 10K price point. If you want to experiment with the Android OS on a QWERTY device you can take a look at the Samsung Galaxy Y Pro Duos. 

Summary

The Samsung Galaxy Y Pro Duos isn't the best QWERTY smartphone out there especially considering the OS and the price point. If you want a complete Android experience, you can take a look at the Motorola Fire XT and you can get a great QWERTY experience, but with Symbian, from the Nokia E5 under the 10K price point. If you want to experiment with the Android OS on a QWERTY device you can take a look at the Samsung Galaxy Y Pro Duos.

Rating: Good

3.5/5

Features:

Performance:

Value:

Design:

PROS

• Optical trackpad
• Touch and type on an android device
• Good battery life
• Dual SIM

CONS

• Lackluster Android experience
• Display feels disappointing
• No multi-touch
• Average camera
• Specifications

Micromax to launch 10-inch Funbook Pro tablet

After the Micromax Funbook which the company launched earlier this year, a new tablet is on its way with a much larger display. Micromax has updated its website and revealed that the company is all prepared to launch a new 10.1-inch Funbook tablet sometime next month. This device will be called the Micromax Funbook Pro.

The Funbook Pro will sport a 10.1-inch display with 1024x600 pixels resolution and will be powered by a 1.2GHz single-core processor along with a dual Mali 400 graphics processor. The device will also sport a front facing VGA quality camera, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage memory and expandable memory up to 32GB using a microSD card.

The device will also include Wi-Fi connectivity and may lack the ability to connect to cellular data. This Micromax tablet will come pre-loaded with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Compared the previous version the new Funbook Pro seems to have improved RAM and a larger display. The pricing for the device is not confirmed yet, but when available we will update you on the same.

Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

FOR

• Notifications
• Low impact of Gatekeeper
• Share sheets
• Mission Control better
• AirPlay mirroring

AGAINST

• Awkward iCloud documents
• iMessages needs work
• Tab View too restricted
• No custom Finder groups
• Finder icons still mono

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion review

The ninth major version of OS X adds more than 200 new features

The ninth major version of OS X adds more than 200 new features. A few major additions stand out from the crowd, but there are many more small tweaks tucked in for good measure.

Just like its predecessor, OS X Mountain Lion draws much inspiration fromiOS, the operating system that powers the iPhone and the iPad.

The only place to get it is the Mac App Store. Unlike OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple won't be selling this version on a pricey USB flash drive, so you'll need access to a fairly good internet connection to download the installer.

Getting it is a cinch. Open the Mac App Store and you're sure to see Mountain Lion listed prominently on the front page, just a couple of clicks away from purchase. It installs right over the top of your current version. It's wise to make a complete backup of your system before you go ahead with the upgrade. If you do that with Time Machine, it's easy to roll back to your previous operating system if something goes wrong.

You can upgrade straight to Mountain Lion from Lion or Snow Leopard. If you're still running Snow Leopard, make sure it's updated to 10.6.8. You don't have to upgrade to Lion first; save some money and skip it entirely.

Some Macs that shipped with Leopard (10.5) are able to run Lion, too. You'll need at least 2GB of RAM installed, but the ride will be smoother with 4GB. Most Macs provide easy access to their memory sockets, so you can upgrade much less expensively by purchasing third-party RAM and fitting it yourself, instead of paying Apple to do it.

• Read our tutorial: How to install Mac memory

To get from Leopard to Mountain Lion, you'll first have to install Snow Leopard, because it's the earliest version of OS X with access to the Mac App Store. Snow Leopard is still available on DVD from the Apple Online Store for £26/$29.

The maximum cost of upgrading your OS is £40, but check that any applications you depend upon have no known issues with Mountain Lion. OS X no longer includes Rosetta, the technology that enabled PowerPC apps to run on Intel Macs. If you're upgrading from Leopard or Snow Leopard, you'll need to ensure that your applications have been rewritten to support Intel processors.

Mountain Lion abandons support for some old models, some of which aren't really very old at all. Apple lists compatible models by the time and year they were introduced.

It's easy to confirm your Mac's age in Lion. Click the Apple icon in the menu bar, choose About This Mac, then press More Info. The next window lists your model's era.

Older versions of OS X don't reveal the age of hardware so easily. Open System Profiler, copy your Mac's serial number from the Hardware Overview to the clipboard, then paste it into this form to find it out. 

Set aside any consternation at the continued adaptation of features from iOS. The best thing that Mountain Lion borrows from its leaner, mobile sibling is undoubtedly Notification Center. When you're swamped with meeting alerts and emails all day long, it's a convenient way to filter out some noise, while remaining in touch with people who matter.

We liked

Sometimes the simple ideas are the ones that take you by surprise. That's certainly our view of the Share button, which is an efficient way of getting things done without dragging things from the Finder. It's a particularly good point if you use a trackpad.

Apple's efforts to tidy up some of Lion's messy attributes haven't gone unnoticed. The restoration of Exposé-like organisation in Mission Control will appease some, as will the ability to once again show contact groups and a list of calendars on the left-hand side of the eponymous apps. But these are capabilities that should not have disappeared in the first place.

We disliked

Apple's insistence on a minimal file system in iCloud is fine if you only author the occasional document, but the simplicity soon becomes awkward when you have to deal with many of them. In stark contrast to the Share button, it makes a long-winded job of doing things with different types of document. Apple's determination to avoid a complex folder hierarchy would be laudable if search options worked better (folder names are excluded), and if there was a quicker way to gather related files of any type into a project.

We're also disappointed that icons in the Finder's sidebar are steadfastly monochromatic. Without a lack of colour as a guide, it inevitably slows you down. And iMessage needs improving to better handle file incompatibility when sending from a Mac to iOS device.

Verdict

If there's one feature that makes it worth upgrading, it's Notification Center. At £13.99, Mountain Lion is a real bargain for that alone. The true cost might be higher if you have to upgrade from Leopard, or upgrade any of your applications to make them compatible.

The rearrangement of Notes and Reminders into their own apps is very welcome if you also use an iOS device. And the swathe of other minor tweaks around the system are positive as a whole.

Apple needs to rethink iCloud document libraries before we're willing to start putting work online. Using iCloud to store documents is entirely optional, and it can be supplanted with alternatives such as Google Drive and Dropbox, which offer a more flexible file system.