tech2touch

Author: Aniruddh

  • Nokia Lumia 520 Review-Advantages And Disadvantages

    Nokia Lumia 520 is the most affordable Windows smartphone available in the market right now. It has 1GHz dual core processor and runs on latest iteration of Windows mobile OS Windows Phone 8.  Good touch screen and Nokia own apps makes this device one of the best deal to get it. The Nokia Lumia 520 latest price in India is Rs.8500.

    The Nokia Lumia 520 has 4 inch TFT capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 800X480 pixels and pixel density of 235 ppi. The touchscreen works even if you operate through key chain or finger nail. The screen produces good viewing angles and has scratch resistant glass. Nokia Lumia 520 is powered 1GHz dual core Krait processor with 512MB of RAM and adreno 305 GPU.

    Nokia Lumia 520 Smartphone

    The internal storage capacity of Lumia 520 is 8GB. The memory can be further added upto 64GB through microSD card. The connectivity features includes GPRS, EDGE, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth and USB. The device has 5MP primary camera for taking the snaps or recording videos. Nokia Lumia 520 camera is not as good as Lumia 720 but it does decent job for the price. The device is fuelled by Li-ion 1430 mAh battery which provides a power backup of 14 hours of talk time.

    Nokia Lumia 520 Disadvantages

    • There is no front facing camera and LED flash for the primary camera
    • Some of the popular apps are not available on Windows platform.
    • No USB tethering is possible
    • The call quality is not that great.

    Nokia Lumia 520 Specification

    • 1GHz Dual Core Processor with Adreno 305 GPU and 512MB of RAM.
    • 5MP autofocus primary rear camera
    • Microsoft Windows Phone 8 OS
    • 8GB Internal storage.
    • Expandable storage upto 64GB via microSD card.
    • Li-ion 1430 mAh battery
    • 4 inch IPS capacitive touch screen with WVGA resolution and 233 ppi pixel density.

    Nokia Lumia 520 Tips and Tricks

    Taking screen shot on Lumia 520: Taking a screen shot or print screen on Nokia Lumia 52o is very easy. Just press and hold power button and Windows button. You will hear a shutter sound for the confirmation. The screen shot will be saved in the gallery.

    Read: How to take screenshot on Nokia Lumia Smartphone.

    Nokia Lumia 520 as modem: The current stream of Android devices can be used as modem using the USB tethering or WiFi hotspot features. But Windows platforms do not support USB tethering. So to share data connection of Lumia 520 with PC, you can use Internet sharing feature. This feature enables the Lumia 520 as WiFi Hotspot.

  • How to Remove spaces from a cell in Excel

    In today excel tip let us discuss on how to remove leading space and trailing space in a cell of Excel worksheet.  By default there are three excel functions which are very useful in removing the space in a cell. The Excel function we are going to use cleanup the cell are CLEAN, TRIM and SUBSTITUTE function.

    TRIM Excel Worksheet Function:
    The TRIM function is used to remove spaces from a text excluding the one which is there in between two words. The syntax of TRIM function is as follows.
    TRIM(text)
    Examples:
    TRIM(A17) which removes the spaces in the starting of the text and end of the text.
    CLEAN Excel Worksheet Function:
    The CLEAN worksheet function removes all the non printable characters from the text. In real time, we can use CLEAN function for data which is exported from the other applications which contains characters that may not print with your operating system. The syntax of CLEAN function is as follows.
    =CLEAN(text)
    If you want to remove non printable characters as well as space, then you need to first use CLEAN function and then use the TRIM function.
    SUBSTITUTE Excel Worksheet Function
    The substitute function helps you to replace old text with new text. The syntax for substitute function is as follows.
    SUBSTITUTE(text,old_text,new_text,instance_num)
    Text     is the text or the reference to a cell containing text for which you want to substitute characters.
    Old_text     is the text you want to replace.
    New_text     is the text you want to replace old_text with.
    Instance_num     specifies which occurrence of old_text you want to replace with new_text. If you specify instance_num, only that instance of old_text is replaced. Otherwise, every occurrence of old_text in text is changed to new_text.
    As you could has assumed, now we can use this formula to replace blank with non blank. Look for the example below.
    =SUBSTITUTE(A1,” “,””)

  • Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Multi Window Tips

    We have seen multi window sidebar features in Galaxy Note 2,Galaxy S3, Galaxy Grand etc.  But with Galaxy Note 3, Samsung has introduced much improved and more feature rich Multi Window Feature.  In 5.7 inch full HD display, the Multi Window feature works flawlessly.  The previous models, one needed to change the screen constantly to suite the particular function we were using. But in the latest Samsung Galaxy Note 3, you can do two different tasks simultaneously such as looking up webpages while sending text in a single screen side by side.

    Multi Window Sidebar in Galaxy Note 3

    How to Use Multi Window Feature in Samsung Galaxy Note 3

    Activating muti window feature in Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is very easy.  Here is the quick steps which will useful for activating and using the multi window feature.

    Step 1:  In the home screen, swipe down from the top of the screen. This opens a quick settings bar.

    Step 2: Swipe to right till you get the Multi window icon. Tap on it to enable the Multi Window.

    Step 3: The left side middle of the screen you will find a arrow mark.

    Step 4: Drag the application in the Multi window sidebar to the main window.

    Step 5: Drag the another application which you want to work along with the first opened app.

    Step 6:  You can adjust the size of the windows by moving the split bar handle.

    Step 7: Thats it. Start working on the both the applications at time.

    How to Disable Multi windows Side bar in Samsung Galaxy Note 3

    Follow the same steps 1 & 2 given above. As you know, when you first tap it, it will enable and if you tap it twice it will get disabled.

    Creating Paired windows

    As  mentioned earlier, muti window feature of Samsung Galaxy Note 3, you work with two apps at time. If you are using two apps always together, then you can use this feature. Using the Paired windows feature, you create a single to open two apps at a time with single tap.

    Step1:  When you have two apps open, Tap arrow key from the left of the screen.

    Step2: Tap on to see more option

    Step 3: Tap the create button.  New pop us comes up.

    Step 4: Enter the name  you want to give it to the paired window.

    Step 5: Tap Ok. Paired windows is created.

  • HTC Desire 600 Dual Sim Review

    HTC Desire 600 is a Dual sim Android smartphone with stylish design and good build quality. In terms of design it resembles HTC One smartphone. The device runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean along with HTC ‘s own UI layer HTC Sense 5. The price of HTC Desire 600 in India is Rs.26,299. Does it worth for the money? Let us see the pros, cons and features of the device.

    HTC Desire 600 sports 4.5 inch Super LCD2 qHD panel that has a resolution of 540×960 pixels resulting in a pixel density of 245 ppi.  It is disappointing that HTC did not added at least 720p screen considering its high price.The viewing angles and sun legibility are decent. The text and images looks decent as the screen size is small.

    HTC Desire 600 Review

    The HTC Desire 600 comes with a 8 megapixel primary rear camera with LED flash and auto focus.  HTC also included a dedicated image chip for quick processing of images and has smart flash which offers a five level flash that is automatically set based on the distance to the subject. Like other recent Android phones from HTC, this phone too comes with HTC own camera app. This provides option for users to select different scene settings among Normal, Landscape, Portrait, Backlight, Night, Text and Macro for still still images. Users can also switch between HDR, Sweep Panorama and Anti shake modes and choose the slow motion video mode. HTC Desire 600 also offers self timer through which one can put timer ranging from 2 to 10 seconds, select the resolution, video quality, review duration, image adjustments, ISO  and white balance settings.

    HTC Desire 600 Camera performance: The HTC Desire 600 takes good quality images with accurate color reproduction and captures good amount of details in daylight. However, the images taken in the indoors and artificial light looks soft and even grainy to a certain extent.

    HTC Desire 600 is powered by 1.22GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor with 1GB of RAM and Adreno 203  GPU.  The internal storage of the device is 8GB which can be further extended through a microSD card upto 64GB. The phone performance is good enough for web browsing and even games like asphalt 7 we were able to play without much lag. The call quality of Desire 600 is good and captures signal in weal areas too. The HTC Desire 600 houses 1860 mAh battery which lasts almost one full day with ,medium to high usage.

    Disadvantages of HTC Desire 600

    Any review without discussing the negative of the device cannot be completed. So here is the list of demerits of HTC Desire 600.

    • The screen has only qHD resolution. Where as for the same price, there are many 720 p screen devices.
    • The camera performance in indoors and under artificial light are disappointing.
    • No Full HD 1080 p video recording support.
    • relatively slow chipset.
    • The price of the device is high considering the features.

    Summary of HTC Desire 600 Specification

    • 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 Quad Core Processor
    • 1GB RAM and Adreno 203 GPU
    • 8 MP Primary Camera and 1.6 MP front facing camera.
    • 8GB internal storage and 64 GB external storage support through microSD card
    • Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) OS wih HTC sense 5
    • Dual SIM (GSM + GSM)
    • 4.5-inch Super LCD 2 Capacitive Touchscreen with qHD resolution.
    • 2G, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth and USB connectivity

  • Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 Review

    With Micromax Canvas A250, Micromax has joined the league of full HD sporting smartphones. The device is powered by quad core processor and 2GB of RAM. The Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 price in India is Rs.19,299. The question raises is, is it worth of pay around 20k for this smartphone? Does it justifies its price with features.
    Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 sports 5 inch full HD CGS(Continuous Grain Silicon) IPS display with 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution and 440 ppi pixel density. The highlight of the Canvas Turbo is its Full HD screen. The text and image looks very crisp and clear. However, the color reproduction is average especially how it displays blacks. The viewing angles and sunlight legibility of Micromax Canvas Turbo display is decent.
    Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 is powered by 1.5GHz MediaTek MT6589T quad core processor with 2GB of RAM and PowerVR SGX544MP GPU. The internal storage of the device is 16GB, in that 13.4GB is user available. The Micromax flagship phone runs on Android 4.2.1 Jelly bean with little bit of customisation. The Canvas Turbo does not show any lag while launching apps, playing games, scrolling web pages or switching between apps. Overall performance is good. Playing games such as Jetpack Joyride, Subway Surfers etc provides good experience. Having said that, graphic intensive games such as Asphalt 7 did show little bit of lag. The default media player plays AVI format decently but MKV format faces some kind of issues. However, installing third party applications.

    Micromax Canvas Turbo
    Micromax Canvas Turbo houses 13MP primary rear camera and 5MP front facing camera. The device comes with customized camera app which offers features like Normal, HDR, Smile detection, Panorama and Scene detection shot modes. This Micromax Android phone also offers a burst mode, letting users click up to 99 shots at once, in addition to GIF Animation, 3D Panorama and Remove Object modes. The images and videos captured in day light looks good. But the low light camera performance is average.
    The Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 has 2000 mAh battery which lasts for a day with medium to heavy usage. The connectivity features of the device are 2G, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth and USB. The standard features of Android like USB tethering and WiFI hotspots also works fine with the device. Free Download of PC suite for Micromax Canvas Turbo is not available. However, Micromax does provides driver for Canvas Turbo. It is required to use Micromax Canvas Turbo as modem to connect to internet from PC using the USB cable. You can read more details on this in my previous post.

    Disadvantages of Micromax Canvas Turbo

    Before purchasing any smartphones, it is good to know the demerits of the device. Because some of the shortfalls of the device might be a deal breaker for you. So here is the quick list of cons or demerits of Micromax Canvas Turbo which we came across.

    • Color reproduction of the display screen is just average
    • Camera performance is mediocre. The low light performance is below average. If you are looking for a decent camera phone, then Nokia Lumia 720 is a better option. In terms of camera performance, Micromax Canvas Turbo will disappoint you.
    • Playing high graphic intensive games shows bit of lag.
    • There is no expandable storage option.  Storage is limited or stick to the internal storage capacity of 13.4 GB user available storage.
    • Not much established service centers. Buying a high end phone, one will expect to get the quality service. Unfortunately, Micromax has very limited service centers and the quality of the service center too not so impressive. Feature bug fix updates and firmware upgrade also not guaranteed.

    Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 Specification summary

    • 1.5 GHz MediaTek MT 6589T Quad Core Processor with 2GB RAM and PowerVR SGX544MP GPU
    • 13 MP Primary Camera and 5 MP Secondary Camera.
    • 5-inch Capacitive Touchscreen with Full HD 1080X1920 resolution and 440 ppi pixel density.
    • 2G, 3G, WiFi, USB and Bluetooth.
    • Dual SIM (GSM + GSM).
    • FM Radio with Recording.
    • Android v4.2.1 (Jelly Bean) OS.
    • Li-2000 mAh battery with talk time upto 7 hours and 105 hours of standby time.
    • 16GB internal storage. 13.4GB user available

    Verdict: So what is the conclusion of Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 Review?  Micromax Canvas Turbo is undoubtedly has many features. But at the current price point, we feel it is little over priced. If you are planning to buy a smartphone with an intention to use it for longer time, this is not the right phone. You can go to HTC Desire 500 or Sony Xperia C which provides the bug fix updates and you will get a decent service center support. Even we feel that  Micromax Canvas HD is a better buy than this. What your thoughts? Share it in the comment section below.