<div><span style="line-height: 1.4;">The romance starts even before you take the Dell XPS 12 out of its box. And as soon as you set eyes on this laptop-tablet you see how well made it is. </span></div><div><div><div><strong><a href="http://www.businessworld.in/en/storypage/-/bw/flipping-over-it-dell-xps-review/761035.37524/page/0" target="_blank"><br />Flipping Over It: Dell XPS Review</a></strong></div><div><strong><a href="http://www.businessworld.in/en/storypage/-/bw/all-set-to-dazzle-nokia-lumia-920-review/760877.37524/page/0" target="_blank">All Set To Dazzle: Nokia Lumia 920 Review</a></strong></div><div> </div><div>This high-quality piece of hardware has obviously been created with great attention to detail. The body is covered with a soft touch rubbery carbon fibre material. On the sides is a brushed aluminium skirting. <br /> </div><div>When you open it, this machine is a laptop, or rather, an ultrabook. Slide a subtle button on the side of the laptop to power it on and take a deep breath. Before you exhale, Windows 8 is loaded up and looks beautiful on the lovely 1080p IPS screen. It’s made of Gorilla glass that reflects light in certain positions. This is a touchscreen, of course — a super-responsive one. </div><table width="100" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" border="0" align="right"><tbody><tr><td><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><strong>Nokia’s flagship smartphone will turn heads with its sizzling youthful colours</strong></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div> </div><div>But this is no regular laptop or ultrabook: Reach out to the screen and push it back gently. It will unfasten from its magnets and tilt all the way back, leaving the borders to become a sort of easel. Now you can either flip the screen, which swivels all the way around, or let it turn to settle over the keyboard. Ladies and gentlemen, we now have a tablet. Very clever, except that it’s too heavy to be either an iPad-like tablet or similar to any of the Android competitor tablets. Together, the keyboard and screen weigh about 1.5 kg, which is about three times heavier than a typical tab. So now what?<br /> </div><div>Think of the XPS 12 as an enhanced laptop but a less-than-perfect tablet. There are some situations when you can use it in tablet mode such as when you want to sit back and do a short spell of reading. It’s just that at 1.5kg, it will be difficult to hold without a backrest for very long. At work, it’s great for looking at documents, spreadsheets or diagrams with colleagues and for making presentations. <br /> </div><div>In laptop mode, the XPS 12 has a wonderful keyboard. It’s soft and backlit and the keys are ‘chicklet’-style. It has a 1.7 GHz Intel Core i5-3317U (turbo up to 2.6 GHz) processor and 4 GB of RAM. For storage, we have a 128 GB Samsung 830 solid-state drive. There are 2 USB 3.0 ports, and a display ‘out’ port. No SD card slot though. The battery is a 6-cell 47WHr Li-ion and lasts about 5 hours. The specs are enough for everyday work. At Rs 90,000, the XPS 12 is expensive, but a great CEO kit.</div><table width="200" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4" border="0" align="right"><tbody><tr><td><img width="200" vspace="4" hspace="4" height="195" alt="" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=3d1e484d-d26e-401f-9110-ddd96b8f20de&groupId=222922&t=1359816726631" /></td></tr><tr><td><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><strong>Nokia Lumia 920 low light pictures and stable video</strong></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><strong><br /></strong></div><div><strong>Signature Phone for Windows 8</strong></div><div>The Nokia Lumia 920 enters the arena when the battle between smartphones is nice and tense. For Nokia, which has lost market share, much depends on the 920’s success, and that of the other Lumias, especially as Nokia is, in a sense, between two platforms — Symbian, to which it has officially bid goodbye, and Windows, on which it is staking its future. So what’s its snazzy flagship phone like?<br /> </div><div>For a start, the 920 zings with colour. The cherry red and lime yellow are glossy on the polycarbonate body. The cyan, if available, is matte and so is the black. The Lumia 920 is meant for those who love the feel of a solid well-built device in their hands — even if it’s much heavier than other smartphones its size.<br /><br />You feel the 920’s 185 grams straight away, but also get used to it pretty fast. <br /> </div><div>The Lumia really dazzles when you turn the phone on and take a look at that gorgeous 4.5-inch screen. The screen uses a technology they call PureMotionHD and Clear Black, which makes it more vibrant and clear. The pixel count is 1280 x 768, with a density of ~332 ppi. It’s super responsive and liquid smooth. <br /> </div><div>There’s no microSD card but it has 32GB of storage. The 920 runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core 1.5 GHz processor with 1 GB of RAM. The battery, which is a 2,000 mAh, lasted a day on light usage.</div><div>Windows 8 really shines on this flagship device, though it’s standardised across smartphones. A manufacturer can’t really make changes to much of what is on a Windows 8 phone, but it can enhance the experience for the user with additions. That’s something Nokia has been able to do with some of its own signature applications such as Nokia Drive, Maps, City Lens, and Nokia Music.<strong><a href="http://www.businessworld.in/en/storypage/-/bw/all-set-to-dazzle-nokia-lumia-920-review/760877.37524/page/0" target="_blank"> <br /><br /></a></strong>Windows 8 brings a beautiful interface to smartphones, particularly large ones. Moreover, it connects you with other Windows-based applications such as Office. You can create and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. And if your company uses Microsoft’s products, you can use Office 365 and also save automatically to Microsoft’s cloud service, SkyDrive. If you’re a previous Windows phone user, the look will be familiar but better, with features such as the ability to create Rooms where you interact with others exclusively. There are, however, many minuses. The poor availability of apps is one of them. For example, you can’t use Dropbox, Instagram, Instapaper and many other apps. <br /> </div><div>The 8.7 MP camera on the phone is a star attraction. It carries the PureView brand, but disappointingly, it isn’t a 41 megapixel shooter like the one on the Nokia 808. It does, however, have a different set of capabilities, including OIS or optical image stabilisation, which steadies the capture. The results show up best on a video. I took a video from my car on a bumpy road only to be amazed at how smooth it was.<br /> <br />The other capability is low light shots. Put the camera on night mode with flash off, and you will get a picture filled with light. This is not to say the camera doesn’t have its annoyances. Pictures are not always sharp because you don’t have complete control over focus when you tap the screen. Pressing the two-stage button can often blur the image. <br /> </div><div><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 11-02-2013)</span></div></div></div><div> </div>
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
