Month: April 2014

Categories
Tech

Review: Oppo N1 phone

We take a look at the Chinese entrant’s new phone in the Indian market and come away more than impressed.
by Manik Kakra | @Manik_K on Twitter

Oppo has entered the Indian market this calendar year, and we have seen a few other Chinese manufacturers foray into India recently. The N1 is company’s first flagship device launched here, and it has quite a few firsts. This Oppo phone has a swivelling 13 MP camera that rotates 207 degree, it also comes with an accessory called O Click (more on that later), and it also packs a touch-sensitive back panel with control capabilities. So, let’s get started with our review.

Hardware and design

N1 and O ClickThe Oppo N1 sports a 5.9-inch full HD display, and follows a similar phablet (larger phones) form factor. With a slightly curved back and rounded edges, the device does fit quite well in the hand, if you have a bit large hands, but it is, without a doubt, a bit on the large side. Many people may feel uncomfortable handling it for their day-to-day usage, but then you would have bought one already knowing its size and weight. The build quality and finish is actually pretty nice. The phone doesn’t creek or produce any weird sounds and I didn’t notice any bendable or loose parts anywhere on the body, and thanks to ceramic finish, there’re almost no fingerprints to be seen on the body. Coming to the right sidepanel, it sports the Power/ Sleep button, and volume rockers below them. On the left sidepanel, there’s only the SIM tray to be seen. On top, you have the camera module and two LED flash; while the 3.55mm headset jack and loudspeakers are placed right at the bottom.

The phone’s 5.9-inch full HD IPS display, which dominates the front, is crisp to look at. The colours come out vibrant, and it is decent for outdoor usage. Viewing angles are good, and there isn’t any loss while viewing HD videos or playing graphic intensive games on it. While the PPI count may not be the highest out there, it is definitely a good screen.

Camera

The 13 MP f/2.0 camera with two LED flash and swivelling mechanism in place is certainly one of the USPs of this device. You can rotate the camera to use it has the front-facing camera, or just adjust its angle as per the subject of your photo. The rotating module is fitted well and doesn’t give any problems. The company says it has been tested for 1,00,000 rotations. The camera takes sharp and very nice photos. I got well-contrasted and clear photos pretty much every time.

The only time you feel that the camera could have done better is when used in low-light or indoors, when you get some noise. And because it doubles up as the front-facing camera, you get higher quality video calls and selfies (if you’re into them). Also the camera app is very nice and simple to use. The settings options are clear and there’s a lot to choose from. All in all, this camera is one of the best things about the phone, delivering good shots majority of times.

Audio quality and battery

The in-ear audio quality is clear, though it could have been a bit on the louder side. Use your third-party headset and then the phone delivers. Call quality is very good, and I didn’t notice any abnormal or strange network reception issues throughout my usage of the phone.

The N1 comes packed with 3,100 mAh battery, and it lasted me a full day on a single charge, like, 8 out of 10 times. I was less and less worried about the battery life the more number of days I used the device, meaning its battery is not bad at all. The usage mainly includes lots of Emails, Twitter, a few videos and games, one or two calls and a bit of Web.

O Touch

The phone is also equipped with something called O Touch. Basically, there’s a small square on the back that has is touch-sensitive, and you can scroll the screen using your finger OPpo N1_ (2)on the O Touch area. It works but not very neatly and accurately; not something you would use frequently.

O Click is a fancy accessory that you get along with the phone. It can be paired with the phine via Bluetooth – and can be used to do a few things. You can, using the available settings options, use it to click a photo on clicking the O Click; program it to alert you when the phone is away (pre-specified distance) from your O Click.

Software and performance

Running on Android 4.2.2 with the company’s own ColorOS, the Oppo N1 has hardly any stock Android feel and design intact. ColorOS is quite different and looks nothing similar to stock Android. With three Home screens in place by default, you also get a separate screen for Camera. When you plug in your headset jack, you automatically get another screen with Music player widget in place. There are few added Settings options to like here. It allows you to choose from your network carrier’s logo or name on the notification; you can add custom gestures to a separate notification centre, which can be pulled down from either left or right hand top side of the screen (conventional notification centre from the rest of the screen’s top). Notification centre gives you a lot of options to select from, including an ‘End All’ option, which ends Sync, WiFi, etc, just about every connectivity option, except voice calling.

Under the hood, there is a Snapdragon 600 SoC (1.7 GHz quad-core processor and Adreno 320 GPU), along with 2 GB of RAM. The phone, with its ColorOS, runs smoothly and doesn’t lag in almost any department.  Apps run and open without any glitch and you get a very buttery, responsive experience. It comes in 16 GB storage option for Indian customers (around 9.5 GB of available storage space) with no expandable microSD storage option.

Another USP of the device is that it’s the first phone to be officially available on CyanogenMod. Any user, whether using this ColorOS model, can flash CyanogenMod on the device without havin to worry about losing the phone’s official warranty. CyanogenMod is one of the most popular custom ROMs in the Android community. You can flash it using the stock recovery in place. If any of you would like to know, the latest stable CyanogenMod for the phone runs very wel and supports O Click to be used with the device. And going back to the original ColorOS firmware is also a convenient thing to do. PS: Try a custom ROM only if you’re familiar with this stuf about flashing and moding before.

Concluding the review, the Oppo N1 is indeed a step in the right direction from the company to foray its business in the Indian market. Two things, I think, are very much required for the company to make their mark in the Indian market today – price according to the available devices and what their own devices offer, and try to provide software and firmware upgrades to their existing phones, which could give them an edge over some of the other players. The N1 is one of the recommended devices to use for camera, watching videos and just about every general use from your phone for people who prefer smartphones with larger screens, and gives the company a solid start in the Indian market.

Will you try out this device? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Categories
Achieve

Rewas to Gateway in 5 hours, 5 minutes

Thane school children show their mettle, swim from Rewas jetty to Gateway in two separate events in under five hours.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

It is wonderful indeed to swim like a fish, but what if you’re a child swimming against time and tide? 11 school children from Thane proved their swimming prowess recently in two separate events – individual and relay – from Rewas jetty to Gateway of India, and beat all expectations by marking great time.

The six boys who participated in the relay event – Savar Akuskar, Dhruv Sonak, Aryan Kamble, Melroy Cardoza, Om Jondhale and Atharva Kolvankar – kicked off their event at 5.55 am on April 20 from Rewas jetty. Each was given an hour to swim. Dhruv started the event and clocked in six kilometres in an hour. He was followed by Om (4 km), Aryan (4 km), Savar (3 km), Melroy (3 km) and Atharva (2 km). “Atharva finished his distance in under 15 minutes and joined the rest at Gateway of India,” said their proud coach Kailash Akhade, who trained the teams at Thane’s Yashwant Rama Salvi municipal swimming pool. The children swam a distance of 24 km from Rewas jetty to Gateway of India in five hours and five minutes.

Kailash added, “Most of the children training with us are winners of State level swimming meets. With deep sea swimming being a separate event at the Olympics now, most children are hoping to catch a break internationally, and are training from a very young age.”

The event was organised by parents’ body, Starfish Group, and was totally funded by the parents of the participants.

(Picture courtesy Kailash Akhade)

Categories
Trends

‘Pet pooja’ in the city

Animal adoption camps are picking up pace in Mumbai and surrounding cities and suburbs, as one in Thane recently proved.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

As each day passes in Mumbai, stories of animal cruelty and abandonment of pets are on the rise. While such tales pain most of us, only dedicated animal lovers decide to do something about it.

Camp in ThaneHence,while some rush to the aid of an injured animal on the street and treat it for free or facilitate its adoption, others set up dedicated camps where those wishing to add a pet to their families can come and adopt a suitable dog or cat. Mumbai and Thane are increasingly seeing more and more such adoptions in the last few months.

A Thane-based NGO, PAL Thane, which has been working in the field of animal welfare since 2010, held a pet adoption camp – Pet Ok Please – in Thane on Sunday, April 27, where over 500 people showed up for a look at the animals on offer. “The adoptions were done free,” explains PAL’s Aditi Nair. “The focus of the event was to spread the word about adoptions, helping pet owners and making people awere in general about animals. Of the 20 animals which were up for adoption, 15 found homes.”

Aditi added that the event is likely to be a monthly or quarterly feature in Thane, and it introduces the common public to concepts such as adoption and most importantly, free adoptions.

The animals in such camps are normally a mix of dogs, cats, kittens and puppies. Some of them are rescued from abuse or injury, while others are victims of abandonment and lack of care. ”

Rise in the number of animal adoption programmes

Aditi says that this was the first ever adoption program in Thane, while Mumbai has a couple of NGOs who have regular programmes. “We request people to do a registration for the animal they are interested in and then we contact them in the next couple of days to reach the animals to them. We do not do over-the-counter adoptions as people tend to take the animals home on an impulse and many a times they end up coming back in a few hours or the following day. The registration method gives them more time to mull over the decision they took the previous day.”

Says Gayatri Sarang Patkar, a city-based baker who uses social media to highlight cases of foster homes needed or impending adoption programmes, “I think there is a lot more awareness, and I think social media has gone a long way in ensuring that. NGOs like World For All and Yoda brought animal rights movements to Facebook in a big way. So someone, who earlier wouldn’t even have known that adopting was an option, now suddenly sees all these shares on their feed. A lot of first-time adopters find out that way.”

Why adopt?

Adds Sneha Shetty, who is studying to be a vet, “Since many people today live in nuclear families with stable incomes, they can afford to have a pet. Children, especially, insist on adding a pet to the family. Besides, the awareness about adopting an animal instead of buying a puppy has gone up, which is a great sign. There are several animals needing a home, and it is better to adopt an abandoned or injured animal that needs love and care, than to buy one.”

But, Aditi cautions, it’s not an easy decision to make and should be considered carefully. “Animals are taken home many a times just because they are cute or because the children Camp in Thane 1of the family want something to play with. The fact of the matter is that it is not just a furry looking cute living thing. They have to be fed the right things, watered, walked regularly, vaccinated, taken to the vet regularly, potty trained, trained to do the right things in the house in the right ways, etc. There comes a huge responsibility with an animal. And people should be very clear on this. Such programmes encourage people to interact with animals and understand the factors involved and then take an informed decision about taking an animal home.”

A question of abuse

However, the numbers of animals either abandoned by their masters or left injured owing to abuse and cruelty have also seemingly gone up. Gayatri says, “I think cruelty and abandonment cases happened just as frequently earlier, too, it was just that few recognised it as that.” Aditi adds, “The general apathy of people has increased these days. When people do not do anything and watch girls being raped on the streets in our country, you cannot really expect the general public to raise their voice when they see cruelty to animals. There are a lot of wrong practices as well in the field of animals which are encouraged without being aware about the consequences.

“For example, people readily pay Rs 20,000 and purchase a breed animal from a breeder. They do not check if this breeder is registered with the Animal Welfare Board of India or not. They do not check if the puppy is a result of inbreeding. They do not ask even to see the parents. They are not told by anyone about the responsibilities which go into adopting an animal. They take the puppy home and within a week, it dies maybe because it was sick from the very beginning or because the family had no guidance on what to do and what not to do. The vets many a times get commissions from these breeders if they recommend them, and this results in them recommending the same vet back to the customers for business. It is a vicious cycle and this can be broken only if more correct awareness is generated about all kinds of animals.”

She also explains why animals are being increasingly abandoned. “If the family was not prepared from the very beginning to have a pet and not guided well, the chances of abandonment are very high. We need to break all these intersecting circles and make the non-animal loving as well as the animal-loving public aware. Many a times, being an animal lover is not enough. Anyone can be an animal lover, you need to know the right things to be able to actually help animals.” 

(Pictures courtesy PAL)

Categories
Event

Silent event for silence at Sanjay Gandhi National Park

SGNP officials, school children, conservationists and volunteers stage silent event at SGNP entrance to demand silence zone at the Park.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

It is an idea that needs urgent replication all over the country. A group of over 350 persons, comprising volunteers, school children, journalists, conservationists, bird and animal enthusiasts and more importantly, officials of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), participated in a ‘silent’ event to demand that SGNP be declared a silence zone.

The group met at the SGNP gates at 7 am on Sunday, April 27, and stood silently with placards for passersby to see. The campaign was aimed at spreading awareness that all parks and sanctuaries are hallowed grounds that demand silent appreciation from those who visit their precincts.

“SGNP woke to birdsong in the company of 350 kids, volunteers and forest officials, all gathered to express their silent support for Mumbai’s incredible forest and its wild denizens,” said Valmi Shah Shirodkar of Sanctuary Asia. “The Sanjay Gandhi National Park is Mumbai’s lifeline – it provides us with clean drinking water and invaluable climate control services. It is home to more butterfly species than the whole of the UK as well as free-ranging leopards and countless other mammals and birds. Having the park declared a silent zone will go a long way in protecting the forest.”

The campaign is jointly initiated by Maharashtra Forest Department and Sanctuary Asia. “The forest staff was led by Vinay Gupta, Director SGNP, and there were a host of NGOs, conservationists and journalists. [This is] the first silent event of its kind in support of a national park in India, and we fully expect that this quiet and peaceful demonstration will become a trend across India in the days ahead,” Valmi said.

Young children, some dressed as flamingos and miscellaneous birds, plus a host of volunteers, stood silently at the entrance of SGNP, on both sides of the forest access road, holding up placards for thousands of walkers to see. Later, all participants agreed that the morning provided great relief and contrast against the din and cacophony that engulfs their lives on a daily basis in Mumbai.

Other participants included Conservation Action Trust (CAT), PAWS, Sprouts, Eco Folks, Vanashakti and Valmiki Eco School.

(Picture courtesy Siddharth Mane)

Categories
Overdose

Because Mumbai likes to sleep

What happened after we found our names missing from voter lists? Did we remedy the situation or just keep talking?
Jatin Sharmaby Jatin Sharma | @jatiin_sharma on Twitter

By now, we have heard it a million times. ‘Mumbai is a city that never sleeps’.

But the truth is, we do sleep, at least most of the time. Whether it is a terror blast in the city or a girl being stabbed at the Gateway of India in front of hundreds of onlookers, we like to sleep our way through most events.

Our tongues are way stronger than our legs. We like to discuss every thing and condemn and crib, but seldom do we have the time or the strength to cause a change. Being the financial capital of the country, we like to think that the taxes we pay will automatically deal with most of the problems that the country faces. 54 per cent voting figures in the recent general elections seem like a big victory to us. Newspapers touted this figure as a record-breaking percentage.

Seriously? We’re not okay with our children getting 54 per cent marks in their exams. 54 per cent is neither here nor there – it means the Names missing from voter listschild has not failed but not done well either.

Of course, we are very quick to say that our voting percentage would have been higher if there hadn’t been so many missing names in the voters’ lists. Nobody will own up to a simple fact – we’ve had months to check if our names figure in the list or not, but we chose not to check. Instead, Mumbai just likes to wield its tongue more than actually do the things it should do.

It is time to shake off the slumber and take responsibility.

Mumbai has to realise that every time a road caves in at Peddar Road or a part of the Metro falls and kills a person, every Mumbaikar is responsible for it. Mumbai needs to wake up from the dream of being a money spinner whose problems will automatically vanish because it has so much money to throw – steadily, the money will disappear if the city doesn’t take responsibility of nurturing itself first, and then the country.

Being inked and posting your pic on Instagram is a cool fashion statement, but being an Indian is never going to go out of fashion. All of us need to stop sleeping. Let’s start with a small step – Mumbai, stand up and reclaim the missing names from the voter lists. It isn’t enough to make a racket about your name not being in the list. You should be seriously offended at being denied your democratic right to vote.

If we can burn a million candles when a single’s person right is taken away, isn’t it the right time to burn a million candles for the rights of lakhs who were shooed away from the polling booths?

But again, I stand here and see that Mumbai is already back to its old ways of not caring and not doing enough. The city has already gone back to its pre-voting slumber.

Sweet dreams.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everybody else. ‘Overdose’ is Jatin’s take on Mumbai quirks and quibbles.

(Pictures courtesy dnaindia.com, livebharat.com)

Categories
Watch

Film screening: Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha

Gandhi Film Foundation will screen the film, shot in 1930, till May 31. School students and historians are particularly invited.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

We’ve all read about Mahatma Gandhi’s famous Salt Satyagraha and the Dandi March that led to the breaking of the British monopoly over the first use of salt in India. Now, you’ve got the chance to see the actual journey.

Salt The Gandhi Film Foundation is screening a 15-minute film that shows rare footage from Gandhi’s historic 241 miles-long walk from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi. The film is being screened several times a day from April 22 and will be shown till May 31, 2014. The Foundation believes that students of schools, colleges and activity centres, as also historians, would like to see the footage that was recorded in 1930.

Says Nitin Potdar, Chairman of the Gandhi Film Foundation, “The audio-visual medium the best medium to keep students interested in history and since we have the footage of this great historic movement which occurred almost 85 years ago, we thought it would be good for students to see the manner in which the Salt Satyagraha was lead by Gandhiji rather than reading the same in text books.”

Subhash Jaykar, Director of Gandhi Film Foundation adds, “Gandhiji started a 241-mile-long walk from the Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, a village on the sea-coast, along with his chosen band of seventy-eight Ashramites. After 24 days, on April 5, 1930, Sarojini Naidu received Gandhiji and his followers on the outskirts of the village. On April 6, after the dip into the sea, walking at a slow pace in solemnity, Gandhi picked up a lump of natural salt on the seashore and the nefarious monopoly was broken.  Nowhere had a law been more peacefully and yet more defiantly disobeyed. We have captured this very journey in the film.”

Head to Gandhi Films Exhibition Centre, at Mani Bhavan, Annex Building, at Laburnum Road, Mumbai 400007. Call Subhash Jaykar or Pratibha on 022 2380 4681 or write to info@gandhifilms.org for details.

(Pictures courtesy www.sumit4all.com, www.starsai.com)

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