Over the past couple of years, Android has been quite a revolution in the smartphone market. Android’s increasing popularity has meant that manufacturers have been churning out Android-based mobile phones at all possible price ranges.

Lava Mobiles, well known for their low-cost handsets, introduced their first Android based smartphone, the Lava S12 recently. Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve been using the Lava S12 as my primary phone and this gave me a chance to evaluate the phone. Let’s see how the phone fares.

Specifications

Being targeted at the low-end segment, the Lava S12 is powered by a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor running on Android 2.2. The screen is a 262k color, 3.2HVGA LCD screen with 320×480 resolution and unlike most low-end phones, comes with a capacitive touchscreen.

The phone features a 5megapixel camera and comes with the regular connectivity options including WiFi(802.1 a/b/g) and Bluetooth on the wireless side and a microUSB port on the wired side. The internal phone memory is a paltry 120MB , but can be expanded with the help of a microSD card.

Bundle

The Lava S12 comes with a pretty impressive bundle & packaging.

Besides the phone, the bundled box comes with a microUSB cable, a stereo earphone headset, charging plug-point, a User’s guide, a leaflet highlighting the phone’s features, a leather pouch and a 2GB microSD card. The leather pouch is a pretty nice addition & feels good to hold.

Build Quality & Hardware

The Lava S12 has a pretty nice feel to it. The phone has a curved front and back shape and feels very good to hold. Though the phone still has a plasticky-feel to it, it doesn’t look bad. The back cover has a pseudo-leather look and this helps in improving the look   feel of the phone. The sides of the phone have a very nice brushed-aluminum finish. Unfortunately the microSD & microUSB slots are covered with a rather flimsy plastic cover and gives the sensation that it might break anytime.

As mentioned above, the phone features a 3.2HVGA capacitive touchscreen. The top-left corner features the lock/power off button and volume control buttons. The right side of the phone features the headphone jack, the microSD &   microUSB slots. Rounding off the side was a dedicated button for activating the camera.

The capacitive touchscreen was fairly responsive, however, at times the phone failed to register my input. Though the phone has a dedicated camera button, more often than not, pressing the button would result in no action and I had to open the camera by launching the Camera app, rather than holding the button.

The phone features four dedicated buttons at the bottom of the screen the back button, the app launcher button, the home button and the search button. The home button is programmed to bring up the 3D UI, while the rest work as expected.

Software & Performance

The S12 runs on Android 2.2 Froyowith a custom spinning 3D UI that Lava touts heavily as it’s distinguishing feature. Hitting the home button brings up the 3D UI. The 3D UI feels like quite a novelty at first. However, with increased usage, the novelty factor wears off and the 3D UI feels gimmicky and isn’t really usable. To make things worse, the 3D UI is quite slow & navigating though the UI becomes a chore.

The S12 apparently comes with quite a few bundled applications including SlideIT keyboard(a keyboard replacement quite like Swype), a Lava service center app which will bring up a list of all Lava service centers that you can filter based on the city you’re in. The service centre app however doesn’t make use of the GPS to retrieve your location. Addition of this would have been a nice touch.

The bundled booklet mentions that phone also comes with Advanced Task Killer, Saavn, Facebook, Twitter, Times of India, Adobe PDF Reader, Hungama MyPlay, ngPay, Nimbuzz, Zenga TV and more. These apps were absent in my review unit and I couldn’t evaluate these. The Lava S12 also comes with Android Market app. However, my attempts to install some of my favorite apps such as twicca, facebook, GoSMS(amongst others) wasn’t  fruitful the market app refused to show these apps and trying to install the via the Market web UI resulted in a cryptic This item is not compatible with your deviceerror.

Performance-wise, I found the device to be quite average. Some of the basic functionality like going through the contacts(I have over 800 contacts in my address book), sending an SMS was alright, the device’s response in the Camera app was horrendous. The S12 took about 5 seconds to capture the image after pressing the button.

To test out something a little more stressful, I installed & played Fruit Ninja(oddly, I didn’t face the item not compatibleerror). Fruit Ninja hummed along just fine, with some occasional stuttering. Overall, the S12 works fine barring the occasional stutter.

Camera & Multimedia playback

The S12 comes with 5megapixel fixed focus camera with up to 2x digital zoom. The camera performance was rather average, nothing outstanding. At proper light levels, camera captures are fine, although they seem to have a little bit of a green tint. At low-light conditions however, the performance is rather poor & the pictures are quite noisy. The absence of a flash means that low-light photography is a no-no.

The S12 features stock Android media players and has a FM radio app as well.The bundled earphones are supposedly Dolby SRS compliant. However, SRS logo doesn’t do any justice to the earphones the sound quality on the earphones was rather bad. It was almost like the sounds were being drowned underwater.

The bass & highs were nonexistent, the mids were muddy and had a strange echo-feeling the same feeling that you get when you try to put some decent earphones across some really bad software filters. At high volume levels, the earphones jarred excessively. I tried the earphones on my iPhone & my HP Envy laptop and on both, the audio quality was really, really abysmal. I’d strongly urge to dump the bundled earphones for a different set.

Lava Android Manager

Buried within Lava’s website is a download link to the sync software for the Lava S12, dubbed the Android Manager. The Android Manager is nifty little utility which handles the S12′s sync capabilities. The Android Manager looks very much like an iTunes clone and works as bad as iTunes.

The biggest problem with the sync tool is that it supports only WiFi sync, not wired sync. Why is it that Lava chose to implement only WiFi sync I’ll never know. WiFi-only sync would have been nice, if the sync software could manage to retain the connection long enough for you to choose the files to sync. However, trying to sync anything other than contacts was an absolute disaster. Half the time  the software would lose contact with the phone. Trying to select any music or videos would cause the sync tool to break the connection. To make things worse, this was often followed by a spike in CPU utilization and memory leaks. With these issues, it’s now clear why Lava has the Android Sync Manager hidden.

Battery Life & Conclusion

The Lava S12 comes with a 1300mAh Li-Ion battery with a rated standby time of 590 Hours(GSM)/650 Hours(UMTS) and talk time of 650 minutes(GSM)/485 minutes(UMTS). Practically, with my usage of couple of phone calls, some light web browsing, Mail, Calendar sync enabled and with Plume running and with 3G on, the phone lasted about 14 hours before needing a recharge, which isn’t too bad. The charging however took a long time well in excess of 6 hours to recharge it back to 100%. With the SIM removed and only WiFi enabled, the phone lasted about a day and half.

Lava’s first foray into the smartphone segment isn’t too shabby. The phone feels good, looks good and has rather okay-ish performance. The phone however has some glaring drawbacks from the pathetic Sync Tool to the laggy camera response time. If these could have been looked into,   the S12 could have been a lot better. Officially, the S12 retails at about Rs. 9,999. At this price rate it’s hard to recommend this phone since there are other better phones at this price range.

However, as of now, the phone is available for about Rs 8450 on Flipkart which isn’t too bad of a deal, especially if you’re looking for a low-budget smartphone.

The most downloaded  apps are inevitably the games. As soon as I was in  possession  of my new and sleek iPad2, my kid brother (the gaming pro) immediately took over and started downloading games. As I always  appreciate  his input for online games, I have used his  expert  comments in this post as well. Many thanks Fran.

Here is our list for the Top 5 Free Games for the iPad

1. Metal Storm: Wingman

Metal Storm: Wingman has excellent graphics. You actually get the feeling that you are flying a fighter plane in a dogfight against a rival. The game’s controls are sensitive enough to allow you to move into a specified direction without any fuss. The  sensitivity  of the controls can either be reduced or increased based on your specifications. The “Automatch” feature allows you to play with a randomly-selected player  who is also logged on to the game from any part of the world.

2. DLF IPL

DLF IPL has wonderful  flexibility as it allows  you to fiddle with the player’s field placement and other game controls (that are very responsive).  Also as  ergonomics has been taken into account,  you don’t have to break your fingers to pick the direction that you choose to play or on how you want the player to deliver the ball.  This game is very simple and straight  forward.

3. World Cup Table Tennis

World Cup Table Tennis is probably one of the best games available  on your iPad  for Table Tennis aka ping pong. You play with competitors from different countries (that is actually the iPad processor) based on the level of proficiency that you attain. The controls are easily learnt and allow you to form your winning technique and tricks. It is one of the most downloaded ping pong games.

Things that the creators could do to improve the game:

The game lacks the multi-player option.

4. Angry Birds

i. Angry Birds HD

Angry Birds HD is fun to play and exercises your grey-matter a lot ( as a lot of logic is required to get rid of the concrete, wood, and ice blocks). My brother finds this game interesting. He says, “this game is not a walk in the park like most of the other games I have played. Also, the difference in the features available between the free and paid version is very limited, and hence the free version is a real catch.”

ii. Angry Birds Rio  (BONUS Review)

Angry Birds Rio differs from Angry Bird HD in the fact that it requires you to be the rescuer (primarily) versus the destroyer (as is for Angry Birds HD). You have to save the birds from their mean little cages and destroy some annoying monkeys too. The story line (there actually is one) is a comic-book style. The extensive use of flash, specially visible in all the small touches that are shown, makes this game a crowd-pleaser.

5. Contract Killer

Contract Killer is a treat for all you gaming expert-hitmen. The graphics and story line, while not refreshingly new, are funny and provide the comfort of a familiar sniping game.  In this world of mobsters and hitmen, the more cold blooded your shot, the better are your chances of raking in the moolah. But beware, nothing is as it seems, and as likely as you are to get a hit, equally certain is the  possibility  that you will be the target of a hit as well. You have to check this game out everyday as a bonus awaits for those that do.

Things that the creators could do to improve the game:

This is a very heavy game. It will gooble up space in your memory.

Note: Some  images  are used from the iTunes store.

I’ve mentioned before that blogging can sometimes mean reading a lot of news. However, it’s always possible that you will miss a big story because you weren’t looking in the right place. That’s why I think it’s important to have more than one path to news. While my primary sources are always RSS feeds and direct press releases, I often find interesting topics for posts in other places.

One such place is MixTab, an app that was ported from iOS to the Mac. MixTab reminds me a lot of Flipboard, the extremely popular iPad app that lets you see news feeds, Twitter, and Facebook in a magazine style presentation. However, what makes MixTab pretty special is that it includes user generated tabs of news.

The user experience of MixTab is pretty nice. It has a nice looking interface with a few customization options. It gives you the option to control which tabs you subscribe to, and even create some of your own. It also supports the full screen mode introduced in OS X Lion, which is a nice touch.

The one real downside I see to the current revision of the MixTab interface is the way it handles full screen mode. While it will become an independent desktop like other apps, it doesn’t scale the content up. Instead, it simply makes the background behind the content bigger. That’s kind of upsetting, but not a huge deal.

The content that is presented in MixTab is out of their control. However, I wish they would work on a system to filter languages of posts and sources. I subscribe to several different Technology tabs, and many of them have international sources. However, I only speak English fluently, with some minor understanding of Spanish. I want to be able to control the language of my tabs.

Overall, I like MixTab. I feel like they have brought sometime good from iOS and made is work well on the Mac. If they fixed the two major issues I pointed out above, this would be a must-have app for me. As it stands, it’s only a nice addition to my arsenal. Sometimes, it takes more work than it should to use it effectively. I give it 3.5/5 stars. You can grab it for Free in the Mac App Store.

App: MixTab for Mac
Developer: MixTab Inc.
Price: Free
Score: 3.5/5 Stars

As a recent convert from Windows to Mac, there are some aspects of OS X that seem counter intuitive. Some of them I love, like the simple application installation process. Others I down right hate. Specifically, I hate the native function of the Green Plus button on windows.

For my Windows readers, I will give you an idea of what I mean. In Windows, you have the ability to maximize a window using a simple mouse click. Then, if you decide that you don’t want that window to be so big anymore, you can click again and it shrinks back down. In OS X, the Green Plus button serves a similar function. It will make a window big enough to fit all its contents.

My issues with the Green Plus are pretty simple. First, I want the ability to take some apps full screen. Second, I would really like the be able to undo the size change as I see fit. It serves neither of these purposes. I have a solution however, and its an app called Moom.

Moom is aan  extremely  powerful app that extends the functionality of the Green Plus without taking away is original purpose. Moom solves most of my problems with window sizing in OS X, and gives me another feature I missed from Windows 7: Window Snapping.

If you use Windows 7, then you probably know by now that you can snap a window to an edge of your screen, and it will resize to take up exactly half. As a student, I used that feature all the time when writing papers. OS X contains no such feature, but Moom does.

To access any of Moom’s features, you simply hover your mouse pointer over the Green Plus. As you can see, there are pictures to help you understand what functions are available. To fit the window to the contents (original Green Plus), simply click the button itself.  Moom also gives you a full set of keyboard controls, and even a grid mode. You can select any or all of the features you want through the application preferences.

As far as I am concerned, Moom is the best 5 dollars I have spent on my Mac. It gives me features that I wished OS X had built in, and it does it in a non-obtrusive way. I recommend that you head over to the Mac App Store and buy it right now.

App Name: Moom by Many Tricks
Price: $4.99 in the Mac App Store
Score: 5/5, Techie Buzz Approved

The issue that most people have with creating their own website is that they don’t know how to do it. They can figure out how to get a host, a domain, and even a .com if they want it. Where they run into trouble is the part of the process where you take a design and make it into HTML (the backbone of a lot of websites.) If that is what is holding you back, then fret no more. BlueGriffon, a free Open Source WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor based on the Firefox rendering engine, is here to help.

I don’t think that its important for me to take you through the steps of implementing a design using BlueGriffon. What I am going to do for this review is let you know what I think are the biggest strengths and short comings of the software. All screenshots will be from the Mac OS X version of the software, but there are clients available for Windows and Linux as well.

What BlueGriffon Does Right

I think its best to start with what BlueGriffon gets right. In my time playing with it and testing it out, I found myself loving the ability to manipulate my images and text and have code written for me. While I have some experience writing in HTML, I sometimes find parts of it cumbersome, like arranging images. This is one of the best things about BlueGriffon, and any WYSIWYG editor. You can move things around, and the code automatically updates to reflect the changes.

One of the biggest plusses for BlueGriffon is the range of HTML that it can support. Not only does it support the more basic HTML 4 version of the standard language, but it also supports HTML 5. HTML 5 has become very popular among developers, and is considered the gold standard at the moment. One major reason for this being such a big deal is Apple’s iOS, which supports HTML 5, but not Flash, which HTML 5 is sort of designed to replace.

BlueGriffon has also found a great price point (FREE!) for an editor of this caliber. While the stock set of features is a little bare for my professional needs, which we will talk about later, it would be perfect for an amateur just looking to set up a simple webpage. On top of being great for amateurs, its one of the first free cross-platform editors of its kind. That has a special place in my heart because, while I write and work on a Mac, a large part of my development and web design is done on a Windows machine.

What BlueGriffon Gets Wrong

As I said above, BlueGriffon doesn’t come with all the features I look for in a web development toolkit out of the box. These features are available, but they cost money. One of the things I really need is an advanced CSS editor, which BlueGriffon offers as an ‘add-on’ for around $15 USD, or 9.99 Euros. Another add-on that I wish came with the suite is the FTP uploader. While i understand the reasoning behind selling these more advanced features as add-ons, it is sad to see them not be made free like the main program.

Another issue that I have with BlueGriffon is its lack of support for other coding languages. While I championed its offering of HTML 5, I have to shame it by saying that all it really offers is HTML and CSS. Some of the things I need to write or implement are done in JavaScript or even PHP. Neither of these are natively supported by BlueGriffon.

Final Verdict On BlueGriffon

BlueGriffon presents its self as the “next-generation Web Editor.” While I agree that it has some fo the best potential and features of any free web editor I have come across, it doesn’t exactly live up to its name. If you need to do simple HTML work, or if you are looking to write in HTML 5, then I would check out BlueGriffon. However, if you are an advanced user, then you will probably need to buy some add-ons.

It is important to note that, even with all the add-ons, BlueGriffon is one of the most affordable web editing suites around. If you are int he market for a web editor, I recommend you check out BlueGriffon. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and the download itself is Free.

Final Rating: 4/5, for a freemium model for HTML  editors.

The Motorola Droid was the most popular Android phone in 2009. The Droid along with Verizon’s DROID campaign played a very major role in Android’s popularity. In 2010, the Samsung Galaxy S was the de-facto Android handset. The phone sold in excess of 10 million handsets within 7 months of its launch. The handset helped Android in gaining market share outside the U.S.

When Samsung announced the Galaxy S II at MWC this year, the expectations from the handset were pretty high. Everyone hoped that Samsung had solved the issues which plagued the original Galaxy S poor GPS performance and the lag issue.

The Samsung Galaxy S II has a huge task on its shoulder, meet the popularity of its original brother and also emerge the top-dog in this dual core race with HTC Sensation and LG Optimus 2X.

Read our review to find out whether the Samsung Galaxy S II lives up to the expectations or not.

Specs of Samsung Galaxy S II :

• 4.27-inch Super-AMOLED+ screen with WVGA (800×480) resolution
• 1.2GHz Dual-core Exynos 4210 processor
• ARM-Mali 400 GPU
• 1GB RAM, 16GB/32GB on-board storage
• 8MP camera with Auto-Focus, LED Flash
• 2MP Front Facing Camera
• Dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 HS, Wi-Fi Direct, HSDPA/HSUPA, USB O-T-G, MHL port, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, GPS with A-GPS, Proximity Sensor

Build Quality and Screen

Right out of the box, Galaxy S II will surprise you with its extremely light weight, slim waistline and the big screen. The handset weighs only 113gms, and is one of the slimmest Android handsets, measuring only 8.49mm.

The phone is constructed with plastic, like the original Galaxy S. However, the handset feels a hell lot better when held in hand, when compared to the original Galaxy S. Samsung also re-designed the back cover on the Galaxy S II so as to make it pleasant to hold and scratch proof. However, the back cover is extremely thin. However, I am pleased to say that the back cover won’t break so easily, even if you twist it.

The top of the handset sports a 3.5mm audio jack, while the bottom houses the MHL or microUSB port. The microUSB port on the Galaxy S II can output videos at 1080p, when an MHL adapter is plugged in. The power button is situated on the right side, while the volume button is on the left side of the phone.

Unlike most other Android handsets, the Samsung Galaxy S II sports only 3 buttons Menu, Home and Back, in the same order. Like its predecessor, the Menu and Back buttons are capacitive while the Home button is a physical one.

The build quality of the Galaxy S II is a HUGE improvement over the Galaxy S. The phone might not have a premium look or feel to it, but neither does it have a cheap build quality feeling.

The handset sports a 4.27-inch Super-AMOLED+ screen with WVGA (800×480) resolution. Even though the SGS II sports a bigger screen than the Galaxy S (4-inch), it has a much sharper screen. This is because the Super-AMOLED+ screen has twice the sub-pixels, when compared to the Super-AMOLED screen on SGS.

The original Super-AMOLED screen has a PenTile Matrix display, while the Super-AMOLED+ screen has a RBG pixel arrangement. This is a major reason why the Galaxy S II has a bigger display than its predecessor. Excluding all the geeky part, the SAMOLED+ screen on the SGS II is absolutely brilliant. The contrast, viewing angles, and brightness are all top-notch. Sunlight legibility is decent as well.

The WordPress team started planning for WordPress 3.2 back in March and released WordPress 3.2 beta last week. I spend some time playing around with the next generation of WordPress to see what is new with it.

Here is a review of WordPress 3.2 and a list of the new features that you will be using when the final version comes out. Please note that WordPress 3.2 will require PHP 5.2.4 and  MySQL 5.0, so you might have to upgrade your server software or ask your hosting provider to do it for you.

Important Note: This is a beta version of WordPress, don’t install it on a production server.

New Admin Interface

WordPress 3.2 has a refreshed admin interface which does away with the curved corners and cuts down on the space used between the menus.

Last year was pretty bad for Sony Ericsson. The company launched its Xperia branded Android handsets including the X10, but all the models failed to generate user interests and revenue.   The X10 was criticized for its outdated Android OS (v1.6) and lack of multi-touch. Later on, Sony Ericsson was also criticized for delaying the Android 2.1 update for its flagship handset.

Nevertheless, Sony Ericsson has learnt a lesson or two from last year, and is trying to change it this year. The company announced a bunch of Xperia branded handsets, running on the latest version of Android OS, and each standing apart from the crowd.

The Xperia Arc is Sony Ericsson’s flagship phone for this year. The handset is slim, stylish, packs an awesome camera and runs on the latest version of Android OS.

However, 2011 is all about dual-core Android handsets, and will the Xperia Arc be able to compete with its upcoming competition. Read our review to find out!

Build Quality And Screen

Right out of the box, anyone will be surprised by how thin and how long the Arc is. True to its name, the Arc has an Arc shaped design. At its thinnest point, the Arc measures only 8.79mm, which is… insanely thin!

The Arc is mainly made up of glossy plastics, but has a premium fit and finish. There is a metallic ring covering the sides of the phone. Sadly, all that glossy plastic is a fingerprint and smudge magnet.

Like the X10, the Arc only has 3 hardware buttons – Back, Home and Menu button – in the same order. The keys are not backlit. There are two small LEDs between the three buttons, but they are of hardly any help.

The top of the Arc houses a mini-HDMI port, while the top right houses the notification light, microUSB port and a tiny volume button. Oh! There is also a camera button at the bottom right of the handset, which will definitely go un-noticed by most people. The left side of the handset is pretty empty, and only has a 3.5mm jack.

The front of the handset is dominated by a 4.2-inch LCD screen, with a resolution of 854×480 (FWVGA). The LCD of the Arc has decent contrast and brightness. The Arc does have automatic brightness control, but there is no option to turn it on or off in the Display settings.

The Arc also features Sony Ericsson’s new ‘BRAVIA Mobile Engine’. This new technology boosts the screen’s color contrast, and sharpness whenever a user is watching images or videos on his handsets. The technology definitely helps improve the image quality of the display. Images and videos look mind-blowing on the Arc’s display. The Bravia engine does not impact the screen performance in any other aspect except when viewing images and videos.

Sadly, the biggest problem with the Arc’s display is its viewing angles. The display looks washed out, if viewed from anywhere except its perfect viewing angle.

User Interface And Performance

The Arc runs on Android 2.3.2 Gingerbread, with Sony Ericsson’s proprietary UI on top of it. Unlike the X10, Sony Ericsson’s UI changes do not run right into the OS core, and are merely cosmetic changes. Sony Ericsson has replaced the black theme, which Google introduced with Gingerbread, and is using a blue theme instead.

The changes made by Sony Ericsson are positive in all aspects. Sadly, the Gingerbread screen-off animation as seen on the Nexus S, is not found on the Arc.

By default, the phone ships with 5 home screens. Users cannot add or delete home screens if they want. The app launcher dock can incorporate up to 4 icons, excluding the ‘menu’ button in the center. The application grid offers users with a nifty feature to sort apps alphabetically, in order of their use, manually or recently installed.

The MediaScape UI, found in the original X10, has been merely reduced to a desktop widget now. The music player of the Arc looks gorgeous, and even has a few equalizer presets. However, there is no option to manually create a new equalizer preset.

The Timescape UI looked good in the X10, and it still does. Basically, the Timescape UI aggregates all the social updates of your friends from Twitter and Facebook in a 3D view. Sadly, the dialer on the Arc does not feature smart dialing. The back of the handset also features a secondary mic. for noise cancellation purposes.

During the trial period, I had no issues with the performance of the Arc. The handset totally flies, and users will hardly feel the lack of a second core, on a day-to-day basis. The phone scores around ~1400points in the Quadrant benchmark, which is pretty decent.

Camera And Video Recording

This is very where the Xperia Arc truly excels. The 8MP camera at the back of the Arc is a truly mind-blowing. In proper lighting, the images came out crisp and sharp, with more than enough details.

Below is an image sample clicked at the default camera settings 6MP, 16:9 aspect ratio – from the Arc :

The rest of the images below, were clicked at 8MP resolution with auto scene detection :

Sony Ericsson also touts that the Xperia Arc has an Exmor R sensor, which allows users to click some stunning low-light pictures. I clicked some pictures in complete darkness, and the results are truly stunning.

The Arc is also able to record videos in 720p HD resolution at 30fps. The phone also features continuous auto-focus while recording videos. The back of the handset features a second microphone, to cut down on background noise while recording videos.

The camera interface of the Arc is very clean and smooth. However, the phone only offers very limited scene modes including Smile detection, scene recognition and normal mode. The camera also has touch-to-focus while clicking still pictures.

The videos taken from the phone came out clear and sharp, with no choppiness and duplicated frames were rare as well.

Web Browsing And Battery Life

The web browser on the Arc, like any other Android phone, absolutely rocks! The general web browsing performance is smooth, with no troubles. Scrolling around through web pages was smooth as well. Things did get a little jerky when browsing heavy flash based web sites like Espnstar.com. The Arc was able to playback Flash videos embedded in webpages without a hitch, as well.

Even though the Arc is insanely thin, it packs in a 1500mAh capacity battery.   The handset will easily last a day on moderate to heavy usage on a single charge. Compared to most other Android handsets, especially HTC branded ones; the battery life of the Arc is a major plus!

Conclusion

The Xperia Arc is a decent all-round phone. I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of the phone. The camera, looks, battery life, and the performance of the Arc are its major plus points. The dated internal hardware of the handset can be a problem 2-3 months down the line, when nearly every phone will launch with a dual-core processor.

For the general users out there, the Arc is more than enough. They will be highly satisfied with it. However, for the Andro-geeks out there, the Arc is nothing but an outdated phone with an awesome camera.

At the moment, the Arc retails for Rs 28,000, which is quite steep for the features and out-dated hardware it offers. The phone will be a hot seller if priced below the 25k mark. Once the Arc’s price settles below the 25k mark, it will be a true VFM phone.

It goes without saying that a big chunk of platforming games depend on level design, ambiance and the variation of the enemies. Nifflas’ Games eliminated that last dependency and upped the ante on the other two and have presented NightSky for PC gamers. Originally conceived as a WiiWare game during Game Developer Conference 09 as Night Game that never saw the light of the day, NightSky is a muted and atmospheric physics based puzzle-platformer that will have you admiring each level’s silhouetted and dreamy denizens as you whizz past them.

You control a ball with some sort of life force. In some levels you can speed up the ball or invert the gravity as well. In some levels, you do not have any control over the ball (except braking). That is not all. Some levels allow you to control pinball flippers instead of the ball while others put the ball inside a car, with the ball touching both the wheels of the 2D car. It is interesting to note that the game’s physics are spot-on with the ball’s spin and momentum being conserved and realistically damped. If you’ve catch and throw or any other game involving spherical objects, this game will be very easy for you to get into.

This is also attributed to the game’s design. NightSky is made for casual play, preferably right before you sleep. The atmosphere is mellow and soft with an enchanting music track that suits the game’s feel perfectly. Each level is beautiful and silhouetted against the waning sky ,with quirky creatures of the night looking curiously at you, the player. You will roll past dark caverns (not the scary kind, mind you), grassy meadows at dusk and mountainsides silhouetted against the dark blue twilight sky in the background. Everything in NightSky is designed to ease you into the splendor of slumber.

With eleven worlds (not including the very well designed creditsworld), NightSky will keep you entranced for quite a while, as the difficulty scales up well in the later stages. An easy game to play, NightSky is a welcome break from the hair-loss-inducing VVVVVV and Super Meat Boy.

Get the demo of NightSky at Nifflas’ Games’ website. You can buy the game at either Fastspring or Steam.

The Finn folks at Rovio Mobile have had quite the blast with their superstar physics-based puzzle game Angry Birds. Taking cue from simple castle destruction games of old (and other flash-based games), the developers at Rovio put together a bunch of really angry birds at war with egg-stealing gluttonous green pigs, added special powers to some birds and some great level design throughout the game and published it to the iOS. The rest is, well, the adoption. According to an interview with Rovio CEO Mikael Hed, the game became a bestseller almost overnight in the home country of Finland and thus began its conquest of all the major mobile operating systems.

So, after the iOS, Android, Symbian^3 and the WebOS, the game headed towards its first major gaming console entry: as a PlayStation Mini for the PlayStation Portable handheld console and the PlayStation 3 home console. The game’s 63 playable levels are available on the PSP/PS3 for a sum of $3.99.

The main game is pretty simple: you have a catapult and a lot of gung-ho kamikaze birds at your disposal. You have to aim these birds at pig fortresses and kill all the pigs on a level because they stole the birds’ eggs. Those pigs are evil. If that did not make much sense, this video will.

There are five types of birds available as you progress with various powers available to them. The birds’ launch order is pre-determined, so you have to use some strategic thought to get through many of the higher levels.

The game has been ported well into the PS system. The controls are rock solid (unlike wonky touch controls that were especially fidgety on my phone), and the gameplay is (for the most part) buttery smooth. There were lag issues when a lot of destruction happened on screen at the same time, especially when the blue birds hit ice barriers and the like. Although they were minor, I really hope they don’t spoil the fun later with the black birds (aka the bomb birds) and the flying chickens. The sound is crisp, just as expected.

But is there a really good reason for buying this game on the PlayStation Store, especially when you can get the exact same experience on your mobile phone for much less (read: free on the Android)?

This is exactly the same experience that you get on your mobile phones. Nothing extra added (as far as I could tell; it has been a while since I’ve played episode 1′s levels) and nothing extra promised as yet. While the load times are a pain (as with all PSP games), the [almost] no-lag gameplay on a larger and brighter screen might hold appeal for fanboys.

As for me, I had $4.03 left in my PSN wallet, and did not know anything better to spend the money on. Do let me know of your thoughts in the comments!