Motorola sells record 100,000 units of Moto e3 power phones on Flipkart in 24 hrs

Motorola's new budget smartphone Moto E3 Power, which went on sale on September 19 midnight, made a record sale on Flipkart.

Motorola India head Amit Boni (via Twitter) revealed that the company sold 100,000 units of Moto E3 Power in just 24 hours. The company also added that this is the highest single device sale on the first day in Flipkart's history.

The overwhelming response from the public is palpable, as the Moto E3 Power, for its price, offers some pretty cool features that no entry level phone can boast off. Motorola phone comes with water-repellent coating, fasting charging and many other value-added features.

Going by the first day response, Motorola has got a winner in Moto E3 Power and this budget phone can help the company and its parent firm Lenovo to increase its market share in the third quarter.

As per IDC's second quarter report, Lenovo and Motorola together have 7.7 percent market share behind Micromax (12.9%) and Samsung (25.1).

Motorola sells record 100,000 Moto E3 Power units on Flipkart’s first day saleAmit Boni (@AmitBoni)via Twitter

Motorola sells record 100,000 Moto E3 Power units on Flipkart’s first day saleMoto India (@Moto_IND) via Twitter.

Key specifications of Moto E3 Power:

Model Moto E3 PowerModel

Display5.0-inch HD (1280x720p) IPS display with smudge-free coatingPixel density: 294 ppi (pixels per inch)

Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow

Processor1.0GHz MediaTek MT6735P (Cortex-A53) quad-core CPU

RAM 2GB

Storage 16GB, expandable up to128GB

Camera Main: 8MP camera with LED flash, auto-focus Front: 5MP camera

 Battery 3,500mAh with 10W quick charger

Network 4G-LTE (download:150mbps/ Upload: 50mbps ) with VoLTE (Voice-over-LTE)

Add-ons Water-repellent nano coating, Dual-SIM slots, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, micro SD card, micro USB v2.0, GLONASS/GPS, 1W based rear loud speaker,

Price Rs. 7,999

Panasonic launches 4G VoLTE enabled affordable P77 smartphone

Expanding its 4G smartphone portfolio ahead of the festive season, Panasonic India on Thursday unveiled a unibody smartphone P77 for Rs. 6,990 that comes with 4G/VoLTE support.

The device, available in grey and white colour variants, will go on sale in India from September 20 at Panasonic outlets across the country.

“We are pleased to offer new P77 with 4G/VoLTE technology to our Indian customers at an affordable price of Rs. 6,990. With this device, we reassure our commitment to offer better design and quality products to our valued customers,” Pankaj Rana, Business Head-Mobility Division, Panasonic India, said in a statement.

The dual-SIM P77 has a 5-inch HD display and is powered by a 1GHz Quad-core Processor coupled with 1GB of RAM.

It has 8GB of internal storage which can be further expanded up to 32GB via microSD card. The device is backed by a 2000mAh battery.

The smartphone runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop and features an 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a 2MP front-facing camera for selfies.

According to Rana, the company is looking to gain more than 200 per cent growth over the corresponding period last year and is expecting Rs 600 crore sales this festive season.

Karnataka Decides To Turn Off Cauvery Tap For Now: 10 Updates

Bengaluru: After a late night cabinet meeting, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said it has been decided to defer the release of more Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu. The decision came on the heels of an all-party meeting, where the leaders said the Supreme Court's order to release of 6,000 cusecs of water a day for a week, starting today, was "unimplementable".

Here are the latest developments in this big story:

The Karnataka cabinet has decided to hold a special session of the legislative assembly on September 23, which will discuss the state's response to Tuesday's Supreme Court order. Till the assembly reaches a decision, the cabinet has decided to defer the release of water, which usually happens at night.

The Supreme Court order is "not implementable", said former Union law minister Veerappa Moily after an all-party meeting earlier in the evening. "What is contempt (of court) when we are dying?" added Congress' Mallikarjun Kharge.

Former Prime Minister and JD(U) leader HD Deve Gowda told NDTV that his advice was not to release water."Drinking water is more important than crops.If crops fail, farmers can be compensated," he said.

Former chief minister and Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy expressed the view that no Cauvery water should be released to Tamil Nadu now despite the Supreme Court order.

The BJP boycotted the all-party meet and demanded a special session of the legislature.

The government also fears that the release of more water can result in another outbreak of protests across the state. Yesterday, eminent jurist and constitutional expert Fali Nariman had warned the Supreme Court that the order will have "consequences" and that is the "ground reality."

Karnataka remained largely peaceful today, and schools, colleges and offices remained open. Sporadic protests were reported from parts of Bengaluru and Mandya.

While it has opposed any sharing of water with Tamil Nadu, the BJP -- one of the two largest opposition parties -- has remained critical of the Siddaramaiah government's handling of the situation.

Karnataka is opposing the release of more water, claiming that with the rainfall being deficient, there is not enough water for drinking purposes. More than 80 per cent of the water requirements of key cities like Bengaluru and Mysuru are met from the Cauvery waters.

The livelihoods of more than 4 lakh farmers and 16 lakh farm laborers in Tamil Nadu are dependent on release of Cauvery water. Karnataka has claimed Tamil Nadu will benefit from the north-east monsoon in October.

This Google Maps update makes it easier for Android users to find the way A new shining 'direction beam' will point you in the right direction.

One of the most frustrating things about using the maps app on a smartphone is knowing where you are -- but not being sure in which direction you're facing.

Google may have made finding out a little easier with an update to its Google Maps for Android: the update replaces the previous direction arrow on the blue dot that represents your position with a shining blue beam. "Think of it as a flashlight guiding your travels," said Google comfortingly.

The beam, as well as showing direction, also shows how accurate the phone's direction data is at any given time: the narrower the beam, the more accurate the direction.

If the beam is wider, it suggests that the phone compass is uncalibrated and the sensors aren't working as they should. That might be because the phone is being charged or the phone is close to a large metal object like a pole -- something that's pretty hard to avoid while walking through a city.

To re-calibrate the compass sensors, Google recommends moving the phone in a figure-of-eight motion a few times. "This should immediately result in a more accurate direction," said Google Maps product manager Raja Ayyagari

BSNL plans free voice, cheaper package than Jio

NEW DELHI: State-run BSNL will be the first to cut tariffs to better Reliance Jio's offer, a top official said on Wednesday, setting the stage for a price war in the country's crowded mobile telecom market.

The public sector player is planning to follow Jio in offering free voice calling on its network, and at plans that will be cheaper than the new entrant's. And unlike Jio's offer that is available for only 4G subscribers, the BSNL plan will be open to 2G and 3G users, which constitute the majority of mobile customers.

"We are closely observing the market as well as Jio's performance. We will also come up with lifetime free-voice plans from the new year as part of fresh offerings," BSNL chairman and managing director Anupam Shrivastava told TOI. "We plan to be even lower than the Jio plan, and this could be by Rs 2-4."

BSNL, that has a strong market penetration and significant share in many key markets such as Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha, Punjab and UP , will announce the zero-voice-tariff plans from January and these would be lower than the Rs 149 entry price of Jio. The loss-making PSU is, however, absent in key markets such as Mumbai and Delhi (serviced by MTNL).

Shrivastava said that the plan will be offered to BSNL's mobile customers who also have a broadband connection at home. "The idea is to use the home broadband to route outgoing mobile calls through the landline network. We estimate that a large amount of time is spent at home, and so here we can ride on our wire-line operations," he said.

However, the free-voice facility will also be available when a subscriber would use it outside the residence.

BSNL's offer may put further pressure on operators such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea to slash tariffs, said experts. Prashant Singhal, partner at Ernst & Young, said the BSNL offer will impact other telecom companies. "Others will also have to follow suit. But this can be a risk for BSNL and its ARPU can be hit.

Lenovo to launch modular Moto Z smartphone in India next month

Hoping to cash in on Diwali sales, Lenovo is expected to launch the modular Moto Z smartphone next month. The price still remains a mystery.

Lenovo is all set to bring its modular smartphone, the Moto Z, to India next month. The smartphone was unveiled in June 2016, and you can check out our initial impressions of the device here. Lenovo India's Executive Director of Mobile Business Group, Sudhin Mathur, told PTI, "We will launch 8 new devices, of which six we have already announced, in this festive season. This includes the Moto Z."

Coming to the specifications of the Moto Z, the smartphone has a 5.5-inch 1440p display, and is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC. It sports 4GB of RAM and comes with 32GB and 64GB of native storage. The rear of the smartphone has a 13MP camera and the front has a 5MP camera. A 2600mAh battery powers the entire package, and the smartphone runs on Android v6.0.1 out of the box. Unlike theMoto X or Moto G, the new Moto Z is quite slim, and is just 5.5mm thick. There is a rather raised camera bump at the back, and this is also the first time that Motorola has opted for a USB-C port, removing the long-trusted 3.5mm headphone jack. This is something that we have seen on the LeEco Le 2, and the recently launched iPhone 7 family.

The Moto Z Force, on the other hand, has a 5.5-inch 1440p display and is also powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC coupled with 4GB RAM and 32GB/64GB of storage. It has a 21MP rear camera, and a 5MP front camera. A 3500mAh battery powers the entire package, and the smartphone runs on Android v6.0.1 out of the box. The Moto Z Force features a larger battery and is a little thicker than the Moto Z.  At just 6.99mm, though, it is still quite slim. The Moto Z Force features a Shattershield display, which was earlier seen on the Moto X Force launched in India earlier this year.

The phones feature something called MotoMods. These are snap-on mods, somewhat similar to the LG G5's Friends. They connect with the phone using magnetic contact points located at the back of the phone. So, unlike the LG G5, you don’t need to power off the smartphone to change or add a mod. There are three main Moto Z mods, one is a simple battery mod called the Incipio offGrid Power Pack, one speaker mod by JBL called the JBL SoundBoost, a portable projector mod that can project a 70-inch image to a wall and has an hour's worth of battery by itself, after which it uses the phone's battery. It projects at a resolution of 854x480 pixels.

The concept of a modular smartphone isn’t something new, but the concept hasn’t been very successful. Google recently pulled the plug off Project Ara, and LG has said that the G5's modular concept has not been a hit in the market. Can the Moto Z, with its mods, turn the image of modular smartphones around, or is this the end of modular smartphones

Microsoft surprised everybody by announcing what's probably its last Nokia phone

Microsoft Lumia 216Microsoft

Microsoft may be in the process ofselling its feature phone (as in, not smartphone) business to Foxconn, but that apparently hasn't gotten in the way of the launch of the new Nokia 216— making it likely the last Microsoft-made Nokia phone ever.

The Nokia 216, a super basic phone with a pair of lousy 0.3 megapixel cameras, a web browser, a 24-day battery(!) and not much else, isn't going to distract people away from the iPhone 7, nor is it meant to.

Instead, it's a last-minute play for developing nations like India, where smartphones are only still building up momentum, and where Microsoft has historically had its only real successes in the phone market. Instead of any of the Windows phone operating systems, it's a stripped-down, more old-school interface.

As the Verge's Tom Warren points out, the point of Microsoft's feature phone business was to get people to sign up for a Microsoft account, which would then act as kind of an on-ramp into their whole wide world.The Microsoft Nokia 210 and its specs.Microsoft/Screenshot

From there, it would act as kind of a gateway, ideally resulting in customers moving up to Windows 10 Mobile smartphones like the Lumia 950.

Well, that didn't really happen, andanalysts expect Microsoft's overall smartphone share to hit 0.5% by the end of 2016. The Microsoft Lumia brand recently got its swan song in the form of the Lumia 650. And Microsoft's rumored "Surface Phone," its last great hope to make a dent in the smartphone market, isn't expected to drop until themiddle of 2017.

So say farewell to the era of Nokia phones from Microsoft, and get ready for a long wait before the next — and possibly final — act for Windows on phones.