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Tech

Review: OnePlus 2

We review the newest OnePlus phone and find that it has some good features while it lags behind on some others.
by Manik Kakra | @Manik_K on Twitter

OnePlus has been among the most talked-about phone manufacturers in the last one year or so – whether for a good reason or a bad one is debatable. The OnePlus One helped usher in this new era of affordable smartphones that give bang for the buck when it comes to overall performance. Does the OnePlus 2 justify itself? Let’s find out.

The looks. OnePlus 2 (A2003) follows a similar form factor, but is noticeably narrower and denser. Its Sandstone rear panel is still there, and you get unique rear cover options like Kevlar, Rosewood to add if you like. This time, the company has also added a silent/notification switch on the left side, so that you can switch between silent and alarm (as per Android Lollipop’s changed notification system) where you can choose what alerts you and what doesn’t without having to turn the screen on.

On the right, you have volume rockers and Power/Lock key. Another change is the new USB type C port (more on it later) at the bottom around the mic and loudspeaker grill at the bottom. On the back, an annoying thing, at least for me, is the metal case around the infrared laser focus, camera and dual flash. The metal ring isn’t flush with the surface, and you keep hitting it with your finger.

The aluminium chassis around the phone and thinner bezel are definitely welcome changes. The phone feels a lot more solid in hand. It isn’t a small phone by any means, but that curved back, Sandstone back cover and rounded edges help in gripping a bit more comfortably.

Screen. The OnePlus 2 boasts a 5.5-inch full HD LCD with Gorilla Glass on top. I found the screen a little brighter than the OnePlus One, and has good viewing angles and decent colour reproduction, but some might spot washed out colours coming from a better panel. Visibility under sunlight is okay and full HD videos and high quality images look pretty good on it. It isn’t the best LCD on a phone today, but certainly not bad either.

Sound. The loudspeakers at the bottom are just about okay for videos and games, but not as punchy as the best out there. It has modes like time lapse for video, HDR and Panorama for images.

Camera. On the back, there is a 13 MP (OmniVision sensor) camera with dual LED flash and an infrared laser focus. Here are a few sample images.

The camera can take good detailed shots. It struggles in low-light conditions (improved with last two updates), giving grainy shots, but performs well enough in decent lighting condition. The camera app was a little sluggish to use and had some shutter lag in the beginning, but has improved with the last update, too.

Battery. The phone is equipped with a 3,300 mAh battery unit that is not user replaceable. I found its battery life to be decent – quite a few times it lasted me almost a day for light to moderate usage; while requiring to be charged in about after 20 hours (4 hours of screen on time) with quite heavy usage (single SIM card). It isn’t as good as the OnePlus One, but not below the average Android flagship today.

The phone has a USB type C port, meaning no more juggling which side of the USB cable goes up. On the contrary, there is no quick charging, which a lot of people will miss having seen or used it on many Android phones launched earlier this year. The phone takes almost two and a half hours to charge from 0 to full.

Software and performance. The device runs on Android OxygenOS 2.1 that’s based on Android 5.1.1. If you’re familiar with stock Android (mainly seen on Nexus and Android One devices, as well as Motorola phones), you should be at home while using this phone for the first time.

There is something called Shelf on the left-most Home screen that shows weather, your most used apps and contacts and you can also all widgets on it, not of much utility at this time. You can now change the phone’s screen colour temperature (added in the latest update). Customisations options include the option to change what LED colour for a particular type of alert; using any icon pack from the Play Store in the default launcher, which is same as the Google Now launcher in most ways. You can also decide between physical touch buttons or on-screen keys, and later assign which key does what function.

Under the hood, there is a Snapdragon 810 SoC (1.8 GHz octa-core processor, Adreno 430 GPU) along with 4 GB of RAM (that’s for the 64 GB storage option; 3 GB for 32 GB storage). I found the OS to be quite smooth and stutter-free. Leo’s Fortune, a popular game, runs smoothly on it and doesn’t drop frames. Having said that, I found strange issues like the default dialer lagging, or Home button not recognising a single tap, quite a few times. Though the fingerprint scanner itself works really quickly and about 8 out of ten times. Oh, and it certainly gets a bit hot around edges and camera module after a bit of gaming and watching HD videos.

All in all, the OnePlus 2 seems like a great device under Rs 25,000, but doesn’t leave a great impression that its predecessor once did. It has a good screen, decent battery life, one of the best cameras in this price budget, but lags behind a little due to its software issues. And while you might want to buy a OnePlus 2, you still need an invite to purchase one from Amazon.

(Pictures courtesy Manik Kakra)

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Do

Artistes, this if for you: Coovum Art Festival

This public art and outreach project, that started with a walk, will celebrate the Coovum river and water through art.
by PA Madhavan

It gives me immense pleasure in announcing Goa Centre for Alternative Photography’s (Goa-CAP) brand new initiative, ‘Coovum Art Festival’, Chennai, India. The Coovum Art Festival is a public art and outreach project that leads people to the Coovum river banks, to take ownership and celebrate the river and water through art. It unites the works of local, national, and international artists through exhibitions, installations, performances, and educational programmes that engage residents and visitors throughout the City of Chennai/Madras.

Coming up in January 2015, the festival has now opened calls for proposals on our website for those who would like to create an installation, art exhibit, workshop, screening, etc.

In July 2015, a group of 25 artists, activists, and journalists from India led by me, walked 10 days along the river Coovum (www.walkalong.in). This walking project was conceived with the aim to bring different genres of artistic and social media together to experience the river ecosystem, its interaction with the landscape and the relationship between river and people. During the walk the participants felt strongly that a programme should be organised to bring the people of Chennai to the Coovum and change their understanding and perspective of this river. This snowballed into Coovum Art festival.

Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai, the German Cultural Institute, Chennai City Connect, Confluence 10 and Chennai Rivers Restoration Trust (Government sponsored trust) are principle partners to this festival.

We invite imaginative, well-conceptualised, bold and thorough proposals from artists in India and internationally for the festival. The last date for sending the proposals is October 31, 2015, 23:55 IST.

Visit www.walkalong.in/coovum for more details.

(Picture courtesy madrasmusings.com)

Categories
Film

Review: The Intern

A heart warming story about bridging the generational gap, this one’s a must-watch for its Academy Award winning lead performers.
by Ravi Shet

Rating: 3 out of 5

A 70-year-old widower, Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro), fights his boredom and looks for something to do. While buying groceries, he finds a flier mentioning a recruitment drive for senior citizen interns at an e-commerce startup that sells clothes. He decides to apply and go for the interview; in an age of Instagram and Facebook, he is confident that his experience will serve the company.

Aboutthefit.com is a small online clothing shop owned by Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway), which has now turned into a successful business. Jules is a hands-on, informal boss who is strict about the brand and customer service. When informed about the senior citizen recruitments, she is initially skeptical about keeping an intern, then later finalises Ben.

 

Ben is punctual, warm and hard working. Meanwhile, Jules juggles a busy career with a daughter and stay-at-home husband, Matt. At work, Jules initially ignores Ben – after all, he is just an intern – but later they develop a good understanding become good friends. There are some interesting scenes, such as Jules helping Ben open his account on Facebook and their conversations that take place while doing so.

Robert De Niro and Anne Hathway portray their roles with ease and deliver sparklingly good performances. There are some genuinely warm and funny moments in the film which will make you laugh out loud. This one is a one-time watch, especially for fans of Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway.

Categories
Tech

Review: Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe

Not much has changed from the Zenfone’s last outing. It has an improved design at the back, but little else.
by Manik Kakra | @Manik_K on Twitter

We reviewed the ASUS Zenfone 2 a few weeks back, and came away quite impressed with what the company offered under Rs 25,000. Now, there’s a slightly newer version of the device’s high-end model – the Zenfone 2 Deluxe. Let me put it this way, the only change here is its rear cover and storage options.

If you glanced at the Zenfone 2 Deluxe, you couldn’t tell it apart from the original Zenfone 2. With its blockish build and physical buttons, Power/Lock key at the top, brushed aluminium chin, rear-facing volume keys, there really isn’t much changed here. What is definitely different is the multi-face prism-like rear cover (see image below). The back feels really nice and is the standout feature in the phone.

Prism like back elevation on the phone

In fact, this multi-reflecting (Blue and Green) White back was the only thing people asked me about when I was using the device. The Zenfone 2 Deluxe weighs about 170 grams, but isn’t slippery, though certainly not a compact phone.

Let me tell what’s better in the Zenfone 2 Deluxe over the Zenfone 2, as there isn’t much changed here, and if you want complete lowdown in the device, you should check our full Zenfione 2 review.

Screen. The screen is the same 5.5-inch full HD panel, but this one seems a little brighter with same colour sharpness and accuracy. It’s good and works well for images and videos. For the loudspeaker on the back, it still has the same average output that does an okay job for videos and games.

Features. Basic features on this dual SIM (4G/ 3G + 2G and dual active) device like call quality network reception, WiFi, Bluetooth and USB OTG worked fine.

Camera. The camera performance, too, is a lot like the Zenfone 2 Deluxe – detailed, colours are quite sharp, but lags behind in low-light and macro shots. Though I did find the camera app to be a little quicker to take a shot in case of the Zenfone 2, the difference isn’t much. The device has a 13 MP rear camera, and here are a few sample images.

Battery. The battery performance was slightly short of the Zenfone 2 with the average being 14 to 15 hours. There’s a 2A charger bundled with the phone that charges it up in a little under two hours (0-50% in about 40 minutes).

Software and performance. There’s an Intel Z3580 chispet in place(2.3 GHz quad-core processor, PowerVR G6430 GPU) coupled with 4 GB of RAM. It runs on Android 5.0 with ZenUI on top. The overall performance on the phone is satisfactory. It handled games like FF Legacy and Real Racing 3 quite well, as there weren’t any frame drops or stuttering during playing. The phone does warm up a little near the dual tone flash, but not to an alarming extent.

Extensive customization options – icons packs, themes, icon text colour, double tap to wake and lock – are present here. Plus, four dozen ASUS apps are also present, something that really needs to be cleaned up ASAP. The only place it seemed to struggle a little was the recent apps list where scrolling isn’t as smooth and sometimes the selected app would take a while to load up, a known Android Lollipop issue.

All in all, it can perform most tasks well and hardly lagged during my usage. I used the 64 GB model that had about 54 GB of available space, which you can further expand using a microSD card. There’s also a 128 GB model priced a bit higher (and 256 GB in select markets).

It’s clear that ASUS really had one thing in mind for the Zenfone 2 Deluxe – the same content, but new packaging. It would be fair to say ASUS has done well with it. If you want a phone with a rear that is rather not boring, you should consider this phone that has a similar performance and experience as the original Zenfone 2.

(Pictures courtesy Manik Kakra)

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Do

Pest proof your home

Pests can make your life miserable and your home inhabitable. Treat the problem before it gets completely out of hand.
by Reyna Mathur

All houses are attacked by pests at some point in time. While some infestations are minor and can be handled swiftly, others remain hidden for some time and quickly become unmanageable.

The problem normally starts with the entry of ants, which are then followed by cockroaches. In houses that are not dusted regularly and which are located in areas of dense traffic and construction activity, there will be an abundance of dust mites on the furniture and clothes. After cockroaches settle in and begin to multiply, they will be followed by lizards. In the meantime, if bed bugs have entered the home, they wreak their own havoc.

Don’t subject yourself to this torture. Once pests make an entry into the home, it takes a lot of effort and money to clean out the house in its entirety. It is not a problem that goes away forever after one bout, you have to be on your vigil. But if you take the right steps on time, you can save yourself a lot of trouble later.

This is what you should do:

Examine all wet areas. The wet areas of the home are the bathroom, toilet, wash basin and kitchen sink. Moisture is omnipresent in these areas, however much you try to keep them clean and dry. However, your cleaning routine in these areas should include a strong disinfectant cleaner. Wipe down all surfaces at least twice a week to discourage fungal growth, and spray all water traps with insect killers thrice a week at night. Cockcroaches tend to come out of these traps from water pipes, so they should be discouraged at the earliest. If there are any places that remain moist even without direct contact with water, have them checked for hidden leakages. Wet areas breed vegetation, mosquitoes, and certain types of bugs and worms, and are most prone to attack.

Enlist the help of a pest control agency. The first line of attack should always be launched by a good pest control system involving sprays, gels and powders. A basic pest control clean-up will comprise three rounds of spraying and powder-treating all vertical and some horizontal surfaces of the home with chemicals to repel ants, bugs, dust mites, cockroaches and lizards. Bed bug infestations will have to checked every 10 days for a month with intensive sprays in the affected areas. Borer infestations are normally controlled by special anti-borer sprays and gels with two spells of treatment. If you have rats in the house, you will require a multi-pronged strategy requiring sprays, foods laced with poison, adhesive surfaces to which the animal will adhere, and also rat traps. Explain the situation in detail to the pest control company, and they will suggest the course of treatment to you.

Bird-proof your windows. Birds are not pests, but when allowed to enter the home, they can cause infestations. Of the birds present in the cities, pigeons are the most prone to enter the homes looking for nesting places. Their droppings contain carbon compounds that cause respiratory disorders in humans and pets, and their feathers contain dust mites. Too often we ignore birds’ feathers that blow into our homes with the breeze, but we must get rid of them at once because they house several bacteria that can cause allergies and pests. A simple remedy is to install a wire mesh on your windows so that birds cannot get in. When you leave water outside the windows for the birds to drink, be sure to examine the area every day, since crows have a tendency to drop hard food like animal bones and tough rotis inside the water to soften them. This gives rise to a column of ants and bugs that are attracted to the carcass and which soon enter the home.

Examine your pets for ticks and mites. Dogs and cats have hidden ticks and mites inside their fur, and these soon multiply if the pet’s skin is not cleaned thoroughly. Chemists and pet shops stock several sprays and dips to clean out mites, and you can also invest in a firm comb to remove the animals hiding in the fur. You must get rid of these animals at the earliest, because over time, they can also infest your furniture and wherever the pet is accustomed to sleeping. They can also pose a danger to very young children who constantly play with the pet.

(Picture courtesy www.in.all.biz. Image is used for representational purpose only)

Categories
Film

Review: Pawn Sacrifice

A fine piece of work on chess, battling a mental illness and becoming a champion, this one is a must-watch.
by Ravi Shet

Rating: 4 out of 5

Director Edward Zwick’s Pawn Sacrifice is a film based on rise and fall of American chess legend, Bobby Fischer. Young Bobby (Aiden Lovekamp) stays with his mother sister in Brooklyn. Bobby becomes a chess champion at the age of 12, but his home life is in turmoil owing to his mother’s relationship with another man. He even orders her out of the home because he needs complete peace and quiet to focus on chess.

In 1962, the adult Bobby (Tobey Maguire) goes to Bulgaria for a chess championship event, but he leaves mid-way after accusing the Russians of cheating. Vowing never to play chess again, he lives in ignominy for three years before lawyer Paul Marshall (Michael Stuhlbarg) approaches Bobby and asks him to represent his country in a chess tournament. Paul even arranges a meeting of Bobby with William Lombardy (Peter Sarsgaard), an American grandmaster and a priest.

 

Bobby agrees to participate in the match as part of a US and Soviet Union diplomacy initiative. Soviet Union gives star treatment to Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber), Soviet Grandmaster and world champion while Fischer has to depend on donations and cheap lodgings. In the match, however, Boris loses to Bobby badly and leaves the venue. This sets the stage for a classic rivalry between the two players, culminating in the legendary Game 6 match that still enjoys cult status in the chess world.

Tobey Maguire is top notch in portraying’s Bobby’s many insecurities and frustration. The film is paced well, focussing on Bobby’s genius and a mind hard at work thinking up chess moves and also battling its own demons. This is a must-watch for lovers of great acting and excellent storytelling.

(Picture courtesy hypebeast.com)

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