Apple iPad Air: Lighter and more powerful than ever before

Apple continues to dominate the tablet realm and despite worthy efforts from the Android camp, no one has been able to truly knock them off the pedestal. Rather than just getting a beefed up version of the iPad 4th Gen this year, we got a completely overhauled iPad, heavily influenced by the iPad mini. The iPad Air is currently the lightest 10-inch (9.7 to be specific) tablet in the market and manages to beat the Sony Xperia Tablet Z as well by a good margin. But is the drastic weight shedding and new internals worth the higher starting price? Let’s see if the Air can make a strong enough case for itself.

Design and Build

First off, we’re really glad Apple has decided to give the new iPad a proper name, rather than going with something like ‘new’ or just ‘iPad’. The Air also has many visual differences to distinguish it from its predecessors. For starters, it looks like a bigger iPad mini so there’s no mistaking it for any of the previous versions. As with any Apple product, there’s a sense of overwhelming premiumness to the Air and that anal attention to detail can’t be missed. It looks good in white or black frankly and the chamfered aluminium bezel completes the look nicely. The Air is quite thin at just 7.5mm however; the Sony Xperia Tablet Z remains the thinnest at a ridiculous 6.9mm. Still, the Air is big improvement over the out-going model and is light as well at 469g (for the Wi-Fi model).

Media

The music and video player is similar to what we saw on the iPhone 5c, the difference being, you have to scroll a lot less due to the larger screen real estate. There aren’t any Ear Pods bundled along with the Air. Audio quality is pretty good through earphones and equally good via the speakers. There’s no stereo effect like some of the other tablets in the market but it’s loud and clear. The new music player gets a complete cosmetic overhaul while still remaining functionally similar to the previous version. The stock video player only supports MP4 files so any other format will need to be converted, unless you use a third party app.
Connectivity

 The version we’re reviewing today is the Wi-Fi-only model so there’s no LTE/3G or GPS even. You do get dual-band Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth v4.0 and TV-out via the Lightning jack. Siri is also at your beck and call, whenever you need something. It’s not as accurate as Google Voice in understanding Indian accents but it works after a couple of tries. Apple bundles a whole bunch of apps with iOS 7 like Newsstand, Photo Booth, Game Center, iBooks and you also get a prompt during initial setup, to download additional free Apple apps like iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, etc.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo to reportedly launch in mid-February

One of the rumoured variants of Samsung Galaxy Grand, the Galaxy Grand Neo, will launch in Europe in mid-February 2014, according to a new report, which also quotes a price of 300 euros (roughly Rs. 25,000) after taxes, expectedly fitting it into the mid-range segment.

The yet-to-be-announced Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo, which is being speculated to arrive with a retail name of Samsung Galaxy Grand Lite, is reported by GSMArena to launch in Belgium (Europe) in the seventh week of this year, which is from February 10 to February 16.

For now, Samsung has not yet acknowledged or detailed the Galaxy Grand Neo. Recently enough, Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo's complete specification list was leaked via some internal documents surfaced online by GSMArena.

According to the leaked documents, the alleged Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo will run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean out-of-the-box with company's TouchWiz on top. The smartphone is likely to be powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core A7 processor (unspecified chipset) with 1GB of RAM.

The documents further indicated that the handset sports a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, alongside VGA front-facing camera. The Galaxy Grand Neo is said to come with 8GB of inbuilt storage with expandable storage support. Connectivity options are said to include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, GPS/ AGPS, 3G, GLONASS, and Micro-USB. The smartphone is rumoured to boast dimensions 143.7x77.1x9.6mm. The smartphone is also said to pack a 2100mAh battery.

Samsung finally launched the Galaxy Grand 2 for the Indian market in December last year. However, the company is yet-to-announce the final price of the smartphone, though it did give a tentative price range between Rs. 22,900 and Rs. 24,900.

New gadgets at the Mobile World Congress

Sensirion's tiny temperature and humidity sensors will put a weather station in the palm of your hand:


FonePad, Phablet, call it what you will -- the phone-tablet hybrid is the next step in the evolution of mobile technology: