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.

4.7HTC Titan. 5Dell Streak. And now, Samsung Galaxy Note at 5.3. To borrow Samsung’s tagline, Next is what?’. Samsung launched Galaxy Note, the 5.3display mobile device, today in India. This device probably creates a new category in the market as a hybrid between smartphones and tablets.

Featuring a 5.3HD Super AMOLED display, this Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) device provides an immersive experience and brings an advanced pen-input technology to the table. Samsung calls the stylus, the Smart Pen.   While most people have relegated stylus to be an old-world input technology, Samsung insists it has many interesting use cases specially to unleash your creativity and impulsive ideas.

The 1.4 GHz processor and 1GB RAM are packed in a nice looking device that is only 9.65mm thick and weighs 178 gms.   It features an 8MP camera with LED flash as well as a 2MP secondary camera. Samsung also announced the launch of a new S-Choice category under Samsung Apps. It features applications specially designed for Galaxy Note’s Smart Pen feature. Here’s a quick hands-on that I did at the launch event held at New Delhi, India.

The MRP of the device is INR 34,990 and it will be available in Indian market this week.

The payment processing industry has always been a battleground with many merchant service companies fighting to gain market share. The industry itself is over 50 years old, and has come a long way since the days of the Diner’s Club Card and carbon-copied credit card receipts. However, the last 12 months have brought on some of the biggest changes, and have the potential to dramatically change a once stable industry.

In May of this year, Google announced a new product that could potentially revolutionize the way in which consumers pay for goods and services. Since the introduction of the Diner’s Card was established in 1950, credit and charge cards have been just that; a card. However, Google and it’s new partner, Citibank, are looking to change that. They are introducing Google Wallet later this year, which allows a person to link their Citibank credit card account with an Android-based smartphone and use it instead of a physical card when making purchases.

The technology is not new. In fact, it has been used in credit and debit cards for some time. A near-field communication (NFC) chip will be installed into specific Android-based phones and programmed to a card number. Consumers will then be able to swipe their phone in front of chip-reader enabled point-of-sale terminals and charge transactions directly to their credit card account.

Since NFC technology has been around for almost 10 years, there are many merchants already set up to accept this method of payment, including most large retailers, supermarkets and gas stations. The initial roll-out will take place in New York City, followed by other major metropolitan areas later in 2012. If the test proves to be successful, nationwide roll-out will follow.

The smartphone has already begun replacing everyday items such as calculators, remotes, and in some cases, entire computers. Since it’s a device most people always carry with them, it makes logical sense that it will begin replacing your wallet contents.

==== About the Author ====

This post was provided by Eric Stauffer, a small business advocate who reviews and rates processors such as First Data and ProPay. He also assists business owners in reviewing merchant service contracts and negotiating better processing rates.

One of the biggest and boldest leaps in auto anti-theft security was the introduction of the automated tracking system, the earliest and most popular being the LoJack Vehicle Recovery System.

It was simple in premise: Auto owners attached this device to their vehicle, and should it be stolen, some desk-jockey at LoJack HQ could watch the little radar bleep via a screen and figure out the location of your ride.

The anti-theft idea spread out from only automobiles. Today, you can find anti-theft devices for your laptops, pets, and even your kids. And thanks to McAfee, you can now download a LoJack-like application that monitors your cell phone and keeps it safe.

McAfee has long been lauded as one of the premier providers of PC antivirus software, so it does make sense that the company would branch out and increase its brand to include Smartphone protection via its brand new WaveSecure app.

This move, of course, is strong evidence that PC-based companies like McAfee are turning their focus toward the rapidly expanding mobile market. Where PCs and laptops used to sell hand over fist, now it’s Smartphones flying off the shelves.

Sure, people might wait in line in their mock tent sidewalk cities to buy a Smartphone, but data suggests that around 15% of all cellular owners lose their phones in some fashion permanently, and even more misplace them from time to time.

The McAfee WaveSecure app not only ensures that your phone can be located if it is ever nabbed from you, but it also allows you to back up your important contacts (or to wipe them out completely), to restore your phone’s settings, to upload media securely, and much, much more.

WaveSecure is not the only anti-theft security application out there for Smartphones, but it is slated to be one of the most comprehensive applications and one of the most affordable.

For contrast, Lookout Mobile Security, which is a big-selling brand amongst Smartphone users, offers a free download to their users but then charges roughly $30/annually for a run-of-the-mill protection package. McAfee, on the other hand, provides much more coverage, many more options, and all for $19.99 from the Apple App Store.

McAfee is working hard to increase the profile of their mobile suite, and WaveSecure seems to be a legitimate step in the right direction.

For any Smartphone user out there, you know how important a little added security can be. Even if you closely guard your phone at all times, there’s always the risk of someone picking it up and checking out your personals. WaveSecure provides the peace of mind that most of us would greatly appreciate, and the tracking device added in is just a big bonus.

==== About the Author ====
This article was provided by Edward Cathill, lead writer at carinsurancelist.com  and other popular websites. Edward has been writing web articles for five years and tested many of today’s hottest apps for review.

If there was one theme that dominated the Mobile World Congress this year, it was Android. Android reigned supreme at MWC 2011, with a series of Android powered devices including smartphones and tablets being launched by almost every major player in the industry.

MWC 2011 also saw the unveiling of some of the most highly anticipated Android smartphones of 2011. Many impressive Android phones were showcased there, but these three are definitely the best Android phones which were announced at MWC 2011.

Samsung Galaxy S II

The Samsung Galaxy S was the most popular Android smartphone of 2010. Samsung was expected to launch the successor to the Galaxy S at MWC 2011, and it did.

The Samsung Galaxy S II is twice as better as the Galaxy S and is bigger, faster and slimmer. It comes with a 4.3 inch SuperAMOLED Plus display with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, a 1 GHz dual core processor, 1 GB RAM and is powered by Android 2.3 Gingerbread. It also offers 32 GB internal storage and comes with 3G HSDPA, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with DLNA and Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS. It is also slimmer, at just 8.5 mm and has a powerful 1650 mAh battery. It comes with an 8 MP camera with autofocus and LED flash and is capable of recording 1080p videos.

LG Optimus 3D

The LG Optimus 3D was the best LG Android smartphone unveiled at MWC 2011. As the name suggests, it comes with a 4.3 inch, 3D capable capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. It is the first phone to support a 3D display and comes with a dual core 1 GHz processor and 512 MB RAM with 8 GB internal storage.

It has dual 5 MP cameras which can capture 3D videos at 720p. It can record 1080p HD videos at 1080p. It comes with Android 2.2 Froyo and has 3G HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth as well as GPS support. It comes with a 1500 mAh battery.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play

Besides these two, there was another mind blowing announcement at MWC 2011, but this one was no surprise. It was the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, or the Playstation Phone, details of which had leaked out way before MWC started.

The Xperia Play is modeled after the PSP Go, and comes with a sliding gamepad with gaming controls, and a 4 inch capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels.

It comes with a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor and 512 MB RAM, along with the Adreno 205 GPU. It runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread with a custom UI and has a 5 MP camera with autofocus and LED flash.

It is a Playstation Certified smartphone, and will come with a library of more than 50 PSP games, exclusive to the Xperia Play.

The start of a new year has prompted numerous predictions of what the mobile and technology sector can expect from 2011. We are promised exciting new apps and faster connectivity, but these innovations come at the cost of new dangers presented by malicious coding and cyber-delinquency.

The advent of the Smartphone, with its sophisticated operating systems, is nothing new. But their proliferation and rapidly growing popularity there are well over 40 million users in the US alone is increasingly drawing the unwanted attention of virus programmers who, like hungry wolves contemplating the arrival of fresh lambs to the herd, celebrate the adoption of Smartphones by the technologically ignorant as an opportunity for renewed mischief.

Previously, producers of Trojans and worms largely concentrated their efforts on traditional PCs, the sheer volume of global Smartphone activity has suddenly rendered mobiles a worthy target. This is reinforced by the capability of the devices that has allowed users to conveniently conduct their finances on their mobiles, wherever they are and whatever they’re doing. There is a clear monetary incentive and opportunity for data theft, which characters from the murkier side of programming are taking advantage of.

Although attacks on mobile security date back to around 2004 (remember Cabir?), previous viruses were on the whole merely irritating rather than genuinely threatening. So far, the security risk to mobiles has been held in check by factors such as the existence of the iPhone App Store (which cuts out external app providers) and its various equivalents, the lack of compatibility across different models (which meant that viruses could be isolated and limited to specific makes of phone), and the fact that the vast majority of users were technologically aware and therefore harder to dupe.

However, with the increasing tendency to transmit sensitive information via a Smartphone, cyber-attacks on mobiles will become more common. Data will be stolen, destructive files downloaded and information illicitly transmitted. It is therefore important that users take precautions to reduce the chances of a successful attack: switch off Bluetooth when not in use; never download files you are sent without asking for; and beware that a device can catch a mobile-specific virus from an infected personal computer. No one wants to be a victim of a mobile WinCE/InfoJack; check out some anti-virus software – but don’t be frightened into making an unnecessary purchase.

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About the author: Jude Harrison is a freelance technology writer.

Monday, The California Supreme Court decided to allow police to search arrestees’ cell phones without a warrant. The ruling of the 7 Justices was a 5 to 2 vote in favor of this. The majority said that defendants lose their privacy rights for any items on them when taken into custody. (Source SF Chronicle)

The dissenting opinion was voiced by Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar. She says this allows police “to rummage at leisure through the wealth of personal and business information that can be carried on a mobile phone or handheld computer merely because the device was taken from an arrestee’s person”.

Under current guidelines from the US Supreme Court, police are allowed to go through your wallet and other items. Should this right be extended to the data we carry on us? What happens when you are carrying not only a phone, but a laptop or tablet? Can they dig into these now without a warrant?

The American Civil Liberties Union hasn’t issued a statement concerning this decision yet. However, they have previously defended the rights of students in schools not to have their phone data seized by school officials. If they don’t defend the rights of an arrestee in this case, can they be taken seriously?

The Ohio Supreme Court reached the opposite opinion in 2009, which forced police to get a warrant to search cell phones or other portable devices.

What do I think about this?

I now have one more reason to be proud that I live in Ohio, a state that defends my rights to carry personal data. I feel sad for the people of California. If taken to extremes, anyone there can now have all of their personal data seized, simply by being given a speeding ticket or jay-walking.

People of California read this post at eHow.com: How to Encrypt a cell phone.

Intel leads the processor market in terms of sales by a huge margin. With the success of the Core 2 Duo, and then the Core i7, Core i3 and Core i5 line of processors, AMD has been completely relegated to the sidelines.

However, when it comes to mobile, Intel is still trying to get a foothold in the processor market. The majority of mobile processors are based on the ARM platform, mainly because its architecture is much more power efficient, which is a very important requirement in smartphones. ARM based platforms are also being increasingly used in tablets, a relatively new market which Intel is desperately trying to corner.

With Microsoft’s latest move though, the fight may get even tougher for Intel. Microsoft may be planning to launch an ARM based version of Windows at CES 2011, according to a report by Bloomberg. Such a move would be very beneficial for Microsoft which is trying to make a dent in the tablet market, as well as ARM which will cement its position in the mobile processor segment.

via Bloomberg

Until recently, smartphones and mobile devices have seemed all but immune to viruses and malware. All of that changed in the summer of 2010, when the first round of viruses hit Androids and iPhones, two devices that were thought to be completely resistant to attacks. Even before the first attacks, companies had been busy making antivirus software for mobile devices. Is it something you should be thinking about too?

Why You Need Smartphone Antivirus Software

IT experts overwhelmingly agree that every mobile user needs some form of protection. We’ve been doing fine with just the default settings for a long time, but there are some serious reasons why this isn’t enough.

First of all, you’d never even think about using your personal computer without some form of protection. Why not consider it for your mobile? On our PCs, we keep sensitive information, including financial records and passwords. Increasingly, we’re using our mobile devices for the same thing.

In the last year, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of people using iPhones, Androids and other smartphones. There’s been an increase in not only personal use, but business use as well. Cyber criminals are going to target the systems that are used by the most people. This makes it inevitable that, as smartphone use increases, they’ll be working hard to create malware to attack these devices.

We’ve all been lulled into a false sense of security with our smartphones. For example, many people believe that Androids are immune to viruses because they use the Linux system. This leads people to believe that it’s enough to simply use the default settings. However, Android has already had its first major virus, and the virus had no problem getting past the Linux security features.

This is definitely the most compelling reason There have already been attacks. Computer security companies like Norton and Kaspersky started developing their anti-virus software long before the first attacks, in anticipation of them. Now that it’s become a reality, it’s essential for all smartphone users to make sure they’re covered.

Let’s look at the three major mobile systems and see how they’ve fared so far in fighting off viruses.

iPhones

iPhone has its own built-in security system that’s pretty effective. It limits what other computers, applications and networks you interact with. Although there have been many attacks, they’ve usually been against iPhones that had their security settings unlocked (also called jailbroken), which means that if you use the default settings and let it do its thing, you have little to worry about. However, in the dreaded summer of 2010, iPhone got its first serious virus. Hackers developed a code that could get around its security settings, which means that even ones that weren’t jailbroken were open to attack.

Blackberry Systems

Blackberry phones can do nearly everything your computer can do. People use applications, store sensitive data and surf the web with them. Because they function like little computers, Blackberry smartphones are used by lots of businesses. Unfortunately, like personal computers, they can get spam, malware and viruses too. A number of malware programs have already attacked Blackberry smartphones, using scams like automatic dialers that call sex chat lines and rack up phone bills.

Androids

Androids were thought of as invincible. Users were convinced that no virus could penetrate their Linux security systems. However, this presumption was blown away in the summer of 2010 when the first Android-specific virus swept through. It attacked media applications and called pay phone numbers. This surprised users everywhere and sent them scrambling for anti-virus protection.

As you can see, there is a definite need for protection. Long before the first attacks, Internet security companies began introducing their software packages. Here’s a review of some of the best in the business.

The best known Phone Security software

Norton Smartphone Security

Norton is one of the most well-known anti-virus protection software companies. They make this package for smartphones and, like the version for the PC, it does a great job of warding off evil malware. It also has a spam protection program to get rid of annoying messages and pop-ups.

Kaspersky Mobile Security

Kaspersky is another popular brand known for its high quality system. This is one of the oldest smartphone anti-virus systems. It fights viruses and all sorts of malware, including Trojans, worms, adware and pop-ups. It also offers spam blocking and anti-theft features. Kaspersky uses a removable SIM card to back up your data in case your smartphone disappears.

McAfee Mobile Security for Enterprise

McAfee also makes its own smartphone anti-virus software. It’s known as one of the easiest to use, and comes with anti-spam as well as anti-malware protection. In addition to your mobile device, McAfee’s software also protects any system that your smartphone is connected to. While the other programs listed here are made for both Windows and Symbian operating systems, a Symbian version of McAfee Mobile Security hasn’t been released yet.

F-Secure Mobile Security for Business

With more people using smartphones for their businesses, F-Secure made this program to focus on business applications specifically. It protects data stored on the device and keeps away malware. This program is an all-in-one business package with anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-theft settings.

ESET Mobile Antivirus

ESET’s anti-virus software does a little of everything, including fighting viruses, spyware, spam, Trojans, worms and adware. They’re known for their PC software for Windows, and this product has many of the same advantages. Another bonus is that it’s very easy to use.

BullGuard Mobile Antivirus

BullGuard is another system that’s designed to be user-friendly. Once it’s downloaded and installed, it should run without any kind of user interaction. Like many of the programs listed here, it has its own firewall to protect your smartphone from questionable sites. It also protects integrated memory and memory cards.

SMobile Systems

SMobile protects your smartphone against viruses, malware, Trojans and more. It also has a unique anti-theft feature. If you lose your smartphone, SMobile helps you find it again using GPS tracking.

Trend Micro Mobile Security

Trend Micro Mobile Security is also a great program for businesses. It offers all the usual anti-virus protection, but has special features to protect PDF’s, which are especially prone to attack.

There are lots of programs to choose from. The key is to find one that you like and that offers the features you need. You can usually download free trial versions of these programs to give them a test drive and see how you like them.

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Guest post by Steven Papas, the owner of the VeryBestSoftware.net. In his blog you can find Internet Security and Parental Control software reviews, as well as Acronis coupons and Norton 360 coupons.

During a press event with journalists, Steve Felice (President of consumer and SMB, Dell) talked about the company’s plans for Europe and India.

Dell has been working on a tablet and cell phones for quite some time. Felice, confirmed to journalists that Dell will be launching their 5tablet computer in Europe and cell phones in India later this year.

HP’s acquisition of Palm and subsequent news of a WebOS tablet will put pressure on Dell who so far have focused on computers. HP has been in the smart phone market since years and as such isn’t new to the territory. Dell, is looking at Asia, especially China and India as potential markets. Nokia still dominates India and pricing the phones will be crucial for Dell.

Other OEMs like Acer and ASUS have been dabbling with phones as well. This expansion to phones for primary computer manufacturers signals a clear market trend, people want small form factor devices. India’s successful completion of 3G auctions, government’s directive to ban cheap Chinese knock-off handsets are some positives for Dell.

Details about Dell’s Windows Phone 7 devices had leaked earlier, whether this will be part of Dell’s India portfolio remains to be seen.

via WSJ