IDC: Android takes 75% market share

Market trackers IDC have released their finding on the third quarter of smartphone business, and it places Android as the clear leader with a dominating 75% market share. This leaves iOS with little less than 15% market share, 4.3% for Blackberry, and about 2% each for Symbian and Windows. Meanwhile, Linux in its other forms has made some inroads with 1.5% market share, which IDC believes may improve with the release of Firefox, Sailfish, and Tizen.

Android has had a phenomenal year with 91.5% annual growth and shipped as many devices in one quarter as it had done in its entire year of debut. As expected, Samsung lead the charge with the most number of Android units shipped, but had its market share chipped away by new market entrants.

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New iPad GPU benchmarks reveal significant power

The latest release of iPad may have seem like a modest hardware revision, but reports from Chipworks and AnandTech suggest the new A6X SoC packs a significant graphics processing boost. Chipworks has identified that A6X chip is 30% larger than the A5X, and most of that is dedicated to graphics processing. The graphic cores on the new chip are larger and take up double the space than the ones on A5X.

Meanwhile, AnandTech dug little deeper and identified the quad-core GPU as PowerVR SGX 554MP4 by Imagination, which scored 76.8 GFLOPS, compared to 38.4 GFLOPS from GPU on the third generation iPad. All this gives the fourth generation iPad significant graphics processing boost that may not be so apparent yet, as it waits for developers to tap into this pool of extra power.

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Airtel announces 3G data plans for iPhone 5

Hundreds of Apple fans lined up to for the iPhone 5 at its launch in UB City, Bangalore on Friday, as Airtel held simultaneous events in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Airtel is offering a 50 per cent discount on postpaid plans, with an option to purchase the device on EMI coming soon. The launch coincided with Airtel issuing stocks of nano-SIM cards at the sales counters, which will be available at all their branded showrooms.

The iPhone 5 has starting price of Rs.45,500 for the 16GB model, Rs.52,500 for the 32GB model and Rs.59,500 for the 64GB model. There are no reverse subsidy plans this time around, but Airtel is offering a 50 per cent discount on postpaid plans, starting from Rs. 300 to Rs. 1,000. The plan offers free local minutes, SMSes and 3G data.

While the iPhone 5 supports LTE frequencies, it doesn't work on Airtel's 4G LTE network, launched earlier this year. Consumers can expect speeds of 1.5-2 mbps on Airtel's 3G networks, said Rohit Malhotra, chief executive officer, Karnataka circle. Airtel presently offers USB dongles and a Wireless Gateway which are which are based on ZTE's TD-LTE standard. Rohit also said that Airtel will be launching handsets compatible with their 4G networks in the future.

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HTC One X+ and Desire SV released in India

HTC has released two new, Android 4.x touting smartphones in the high-end and the mid-ranged categories. HTC One X+ is a spruced up version of One X, with improved battery life, faster processor, and more onboard storage. Other release is the Desire SV with modest smartphone class specs, and dual-SIM support.

The One X+ has a 4.7-inch (720p) display, Tegra 3 SoC with 1.7 GHz quad-core, processor, 1GB RAM, 2100mAh battery, Beats audio processor, and choice between 32GB and 64GB of onboard storage. The phone lacks a microSD card reader, so HTC is throwing in 25GB of storage on Dropbox. There are NFC, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS radios for non-voice communication, and for video capture the 8MP camera can do 1080p recording, while the 1.6MP front camera can capture at 720p.

Meanwhile, the Desire SV gets a 4.3-inch (480x800) screen, Qualcomm S4 with 1GHz dual-core processor, 768MB, Beats audio processor, 1620mAh battery, 4GB onboard storage, microSD card reader, and support for dual micro-SIMs. The phone has a single 8MP camera that is capable of capturing video at WVGA resolution. The One X+ starts at Rs.40,190, while the Desire SV is on sale for Rs.22,590.

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Sony releases a new full-HD, 3D projector

Sony has released the VPL-HW50ES 3D projector that is meant to sit a notch above the VPL-HW30ES that is already lurking in retail. For this particular model, Sony has used an adapted version of the same signal processing engine and projection system that it uses in its 4K grade projectors. The projector’s lamp achieves 1,700 lumens of brightness, which Sony claims is 30% more than its predecessor, and dynamic contrast ratio of more than 100,000:1. Other improvements in this model include wider vertical shift, and a quieter (21dB) fan. The Sony VPL-HW50ES will set you back by a cool 259,900 rupees

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Karbonn launches Android 4.0 ICS based A21 and A9+ in India

Karbonn has now launched two new devices in the Indian market - these include the Karbonn A21 and the Karbonn A9+, both of which are Android 4.0 ICS based smartphones. The former is priced at Rs. 11,990 while the latter is available for Rs. 9,990.

Both the smartphones are powered by a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor clocked at 1.2GHz and features dual-SIM connectivity. The A21 sports a 4.5-inch qHD display with a resolution of 960x540 pixels while the A9+ sports a 4-inch display with a resolution of 800x480 pixels.

Other features are common across both the devices. The feature a 5 megapixel rear camera, 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, 512MB of RAM, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and 3G connectivity. They also support expandable memory via a microSD card. The Karbonn A21 is equipped with a 1,800 mAh battery and the Karbonn A9+ is equipped with a 1,420 mAh battery.

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Android Stats: 50 per cent devices run 2.3 Gingerbread, Google Play now hosts 700,000 apps

The latest developer stats tracking active devices based on Google Play access lists Android 2.3 Gingerbread as the most popular Android OS, with over 54 per cent users running a version of Android introduced nearly two years ago. The second most popular version is Android 4.0 ICS, with over 25.8 per cent devices running a version the firmware. Less than 2 per cent run 3.2 Honeycomb, initially released for tablets in Feb 2011, and only 2.7 per cent devices run Jelly Bean, the latest Android release. Google recently announced that the Play Store now hosts 700,000 apps, matching recent figures quoted by Apple for its App Store.

In September, Google announced that over 25 billion apps had been downloaded on Google Play. Apple still has the lead in terms of apps downloaded (35 billion apps), and payouts to developers ($6.5 billion). Android device activations are at 1.3 million per day, and an estimated 500 million users now use Android, making it the world's most popular mobile OS.

At the iPhone 5 launch event, Apple reported that there are over 400 million iOS users as of June 2012, and at the iPad Mini event, said that over 200 million iOS devices that run iOS 6. At the official launch of Windows 8 earlier this week, Microsoft reported that 120,000 apps were available in Windows Store in 191 countries.

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Micromax Launches Canvas 2 A110 and Superfone PIXEL A90S

Micromax has been launching a plethora of devices in the past couple of months, and it doesn’t look like the manufacturer is going to stop until the festive season ends in the country. Micromax has today officially unveiled two more devices - the Superfone A110 Canvas 2, and the A90S Superfone PIXEL.

The Micromax A110 Canvas 2 is a successor to the company’s first attempt at the phablet segment, the A100 Canvas. Boasting a 5inch FWVGA display (480x854; 196ppi), the Canvas 2 is powered by a faster 1Ghz dual-core processor, 512mb RAM, features an 8mp camera with dual-LED flash and a 0.3mp front-facing camera, comes with 2GB internal storage expandable upto 32GB via an MicroSD Card, and runs on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. The phablet houses a 2000mAh battery pack, and is dual-sim capable.

As we earlier reported, the Superfone A110 Canvas 2 is priced at Rs. 9,990 and is available in two colour options - White and Black.

The A90S Superfone PIXEL however, is a successor to the Superfone A90. The A90S has a 4.3inch Super AMOLED display (480x800; 217ppi), 1.2Ghz dual-core processor, 512mb RAM, 8mp CMOS camera with LED flash and a 0.3mp front facing camera, and runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The smartphone is backed by a 1600mAh battery pack, and is a dual-sim device.

The Micromax A90S Superfone PIXEL will cost you Rs. 12,990 and is available in both black and white. Both the devices come pre-loaded with Micromax apps, and feature connectivity options like GPS, WiFi, 3G, and Bluetooth 3.0. The devices are now available at all major retail outlets throughout India.

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