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Top Reasons to Trade In Your Old Phone for a Smartphone

Posted May 25, 2013 By admin
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Everyone wants a smartphone these days. Since bursting onto the scene a few years ago, smartphones from manufacturers like Apple, Samsung and Blackberry have pushed the boundaries of what we thought phones were capable of. Every year they become more advanced, and soon they will be essential items to carry out even basic actions like paying for goods.

All in all, now is a very good time for people with old mobiles and feature phones to sell up and invest in a smartphone. Here are some of the main reasons why you might want to sell your old phone online and use the money to invest in a new smartphone.

1. Prices Have Fallen

You may have balked at the idea of investing in a smartphone before because they were too expensive. It is easy to assume that it will prove to be out of your price range when you see all of the flagship devices released by the major manufacturers. These are the most expensive models, and because they get the most publicity you may think that all smartphones are in the same price range.

However, more and more manufacturers are releasing budget smartphone models to capture the other end of the market. You really don’t have to spend a fortune these days to get hold of a handset that performs all of the most important functions, so it could be worth checking out what is available as you may be surprised.

Untitled

 

2. You Can Still Get a Good Price for Your Old Handset

If you have a good-quality handset then you may be able to get some good money from this if you decide to sell. Blackberry Bold 9900 handsets, for example, can still fetch a good price, and you can then use this money to put towards your new smartphone.

Many people assume that their old phones are worthless, but this simply isn’t the case. If you have grown bored of your old device, there is a good chance that someone else will be happy to take it off your hands, so never discount this option.

3. Smartphones are Becoming Increasingly Essential

Smartphones are now used for a variety of purposes, and soon they could well become essential. For example, in the near future you may need your smartphone to open the door to your house or pay for your shopping. This is not as far fetched as it sounds, and it could very soon become a reality, so now could be a good time to get an upgrade.

4. They Save You Having to Buy Separate Devices

One of the great things about smartphones is that they include a range of features all in one device. For example, new smartphones often have a decent camera, GPS and eBook readers all built into one, meaning you can save money on all of these other devices by having one good smartphone.

Time to Invest in a Smartphone?

Is it time that you invested in a new smartphone? If you are still using an old feature phone or even just a basic handset, your first smartphone will prove to be a revelation. You can easily sell your old phone online via a website offering cash in return, and then you can use that money to invest in your new smartphone. If you want to get involved and see what all the fuss is about, sell your old phone and start looking for smartphones today.

 

 

Cameron Hart writes about technology and mobile phones, including how to sell your old models online. You can sell Blackberry Bold 9900 handsets as well as other makes at a dedicated website offering cash payments, which could be a good way for anyone to invest in their first smartphone.

 

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Increase Your Smartphone’s Battery Life [How-To]

Posted June 25, 2012 By Arjun Singh
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One of the major concerns of smartphone users is the battery life. Smartphones do a lot of things and  they consume a lot of energy in that process. Though there have been major breakthroughs and new discoveries made in different aspects of smartphones, there isn’t much new with batteries. We still live with poor batteries for mightier devices. You can make your smartphone last longer than usual, with a few simple and obvious tweaks. The basic is this, we find out the stuff which consume more power and we eliminate them or rather reduce it’s usage. Let’s see how we can increase smartphone battery life.

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#1 Switch to energy saving mode.

The first and simplest way to save smartphone battery life is to put it in an energy saving mode. Consider this a first step in your effort to extend the battery life of the phone.

#2 Turn Bluetooth and Wi-Fi off when not in use.

Another energy saving tip is to turn off data connections including the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi especially when you do not really use them. Otherwise the air signal including the wireless connection can significantly use up power and thereby decrease the battery’s life span. As the smartphone works to scan and browse for wireless networks, it uses a lot of power.

#3 Make an adjustment on the screen’s brightness.

The display always consumes a better part of the power consumed by smartphones. You can save a lot of power by doing one simple change – adjusting your screen’s brightness to a lower level, so that the battery lasts longer.

#4 Consider talking more and texting less.

You may like to send texts and emails and you may be thinking it uses less power than talk time. But it is actually the other way around. It has actually been recorded that data connections use between 2 and 4 times more than a voice connection would consume.

#5 Update you smartphone OS.

Newer OS versions have improved power consumption. So whenever there is a newer OS version available, make it a point to get it. That is if you want to save your phone’s battery life.

#6 Have a battery charging plan.

When you attempt to devise a charging plan for your phone’s battery, make sure to check what kind of battery your smartphone uses first. If it is a Nickel-based battery, it is important that you consume all its power content first before charging the battery again. If you have a Lithium ion battery though, you can recharge it without the need to use up all the battery’s power first.

#7 Minimize the use of animation on your smartphone.

Some people like having different wall papers with highly animated characters. Others also like browsing online videos as well as animated advertisements on their phones. While this can be fun, it also eats up battery life. If you are more interested in prolonging the use of power, make sure to avoid these activities. This also applies in ringtones. If you want to save battery power, it is best you simplify the use of your smartphone.

Finally, make sure to keep the phone away from heat. You should also avoid exposing the phone in hot places. Overheating would definitely cause a significant damage to the battery cells which can make it die much faster even right after charging. 

Author’s Bio : This article is written by Andreas. Andreas has recently migrated to the UK and is living quite happily there. Andreas provide laptop finance deals to the local residents of the UK and is hoping to lead a happy life.

Hope you liked the article and learned how to increase smartphone battery life. You can guest post at Axleration, if you are interested. If you’ve any doubts in this process, let us know and we’ll help you out. :-)

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Root Samsung Galaxy SIII [How-To]

Posted May 29, 2012 By Ganesh Babu
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Samsung Galaxy SIII isn’t officially launched in most countries now. But, still the inquisitive minds at the XDA developers forum has rooted this device with the help of Odin by flashing an insecure kernel. For those who are new, Odin is a third-party, windows only software used to flash Android smartphones.

Like most other rooting processes, rooting the Samsung Galaxy SIII is simple and easy. It is proved to work quite well, provided all the steps are correctly followed in the same order provided. However we can’t be held responsible if you brick your device. There is only less possibilities, however we are just warning you before hand that there is the slightest of possibility.

You are voiding your warranty as you root. However you can claim it back once you unroot the device.

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If you are all set, then we can start the rooting process. ;-)

Check-list

  • You should be on the XXALE8 firmware for this root to work. To check your firmware version, go to Settings -> About phone and scroll to the bottom to find it.
  • Make sure that your phone is charged more than 50%. Best, if it is fully charged. Also make sure that the computer you are going to use doesn’t switch off as it will damage your device forever.
  • You should have Samsung Kies installed on your computer, we need some drivers for rooting the phone and Kies has them. [Download]
  • Download Odin 1.85 – We need this to root. [Download]
  • CF-Insecure-SGS3_XX_NEE_ALE8-v1.2 – The Insecure kernel for XXALE8 firmware, which we are going to flash. [Download]

How to Root Samsung Galaxy S3

Step #1

You should enable debugging mode in your phone:

Settings > Developer Options > Check USB Debugging

Step #2

You should start your S3 in the Download Mode. To do this, switch your phone off and restart it by simultaneously pressing Volume-down + Home + Power buttons.

Step #3

Connect your phone to your computer using the microUSB cable.

Step #4

Extract the zip file and open Odin. There’ll be a few text boxes under the text “ID:COM” and the first text box will turn yellow to imply that your phone is connected properly. This is a checkpoint. If it doesn’t turn yellow, then you are doing something wrong. So, start from Step 1. Make sure that the Re-Partition and Flash Lock check boxes are not checked. The other two can be checked.

Step #4

Extract the CF-Insecure-SGS3_XX_NEE_ALE8-v1.2.zip file that you’ve downloaded from chainfire’s site. You’ll find a .tar file.

Step #6

In Odin, Click on the PDA button and choose the insecure kernel file that you have extracted.

Step #7

Click the Start button to start the flash. It’ll take some time.

Your device will be rooted, once it is done. Then you can make use of your Samsung Galaxy S3′s rooted potential to its maximum extent.

If you have any doubts during the process, feel free to let us know and we’ll help you out. Happy rooting. Subscribe to our email newsletter to stay updated on rooting procedures for other firmwares.

Via [Chainfire]

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5 Ways to Check How Your Website Looks on a Mobile Device

Posted May 16, 2012 By Ganesh Babu
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People using the internet from mobile devices is on the rise, with the outburst of smartphones, these mobile devices share a very good part of your site’s traffic. So it is high time, that you create a mobile friendly version of your website. Okay, let us assume you have created a quick-loading, touch-friendly mobile version of your site. Now, how do you test it ?

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It is easy for us to check how our website looks on a desktop, we can manually try on different browsers or use wonderful tools like Adobe’s Browser Lab and  Browser Shots to check how our website looks on different possible OS and browser combinations. But it gets tricky when you need to check how your website looks on a mobile device, because there is a huge number of mobile devices available in the market and it is impossible for anyone to validate their site on each and every one of them.

That is when these tools come in handy to us. I’ve listed a few tools, which are basically emulators, that try to replicate how your site will look on different mobile devices. After knowing that you can make the necessary changes to your site design to make it even better. For your convenience, the links to all the tools are provided at the end of the article.

#1 Opera Mobile Emulator

This is the best tool available in the list. It has a huge list of supported devices. It basically emulates various devices according to their screen sizes and run an instance of Opera Mobile in them. You can filter the devices based on their resolution, pixel density and even input method.

This wonderful tool also emulates a few popular tablets too. Since it runs an instance of Opera Mobile, you might be worried how it might look from a native android browser. You can change the user-agent to android, S60 or even Meego. After opening a device, click on the Opera icon and go to Settings -> Advanced to change the user agent. However, this emulator doesn’t emulate BlackBerry and iOS environments. For that, we’ll look at other options.

#2 Mobilizer

Mobilizer lets you emulate a smaller, but popular set of phones including the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry Storm, Palm Pre etc. It is an Adobe AIR app, so you need to have Adobe AIR installed to use this. You can compare multiple instances simultaneously, take screenshots by right-clicking and do a lot more using this nifty tool.

#3 iPhoney

iPhoney is an open source tool to check how your site looks on an iPhone. It isn’t an emulator but helps you create 320 x 480 px websites for use on the iPhone. It is complete with Zoom in/out, plugins, landscape/portrait etc. However you would require a Mac to try this.

#4 iPad Peek

Like iPhoney, this web-based tool is solely used for checking your web sites on an iPad environment. It is advised that you use an webkit based browser like Google Chrome or atleast a CSS3 capable browser like Opera which supports transformation properties, because iPad Peek uses them to render your site in the portrait mode.

#5 Opera Mini Simulator

We checked our site on all high end devices. But, there are over 120 million+ devices which come with Opera Mini pre-installed. There is an Opera browser for almost all platforms. So if your website looks well on the Opera Mini, then it will on many devices. So you cannot skip this at any cost. You need the Java plugin to run this web app.

I hope I have listed the most useful tools that would help you check how your website looks on a mobile device. If I had missed anything, do let me know through the comments. If you have any doubts in the process of testing your mobile site on various tools mentioned here, do let us know through the comments and we’ll help you out.

[stextbox id="info"]Links[/stextbox]

Download Opera Mobile Emulator

Download Mobilizer

Download iPhoney

Use iPad Peek

Use Opera Mini Simulator

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A Quick Guide to 4G Android Phones

Posted April 21, 2012 By mohdakthar
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Smartphone has grown to be remarkably a famous category in mobile phone world. With the release of 4G-capable smartphones, it is more popular in a short time. Pick out the best future smartphones that suits your needs and tastes among the list mentioned in the article presented below.

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4G signifies fourth generation of wireless service that typically comes after 3G, and that is currently made available by most services. This is actually a faster and even more useful service that is becoming a lot more widespread. Annually, once better and latest mobiles are unveiled along with Android apps, users except the choices to be more highly innovative, faster and fascinating than the preceding one.

The listed below mobiles are powered by Google’s Android OS.

Sprint

    • Samsung Epic 4G

      • - The touchscreen display holds up a sequence of sophisticated touchscreen gestures. Moreover, it enables for an HD-quality viewing experience, providing the most effective illustration of color on a mobile handset. It includes Dual Cameras having five megapixles and Swype text-entry technique.

 

  • HTC EVO 4G – EVO 4G looks more or just like the HTC HD2, which has a simple attractive layout. The phone features Android 2.1 and Qik video chat application. Featured with dual camera, one with 8 mega pixels as well as the other is really a 1.3 mega pixels camera phone existing aids in video calling.
  • HTC EVO Shift 4G – Sensible speeds for EVO Shift’s 800 MHz processor approximately 5 to actually 6 megabits per second and 1 megabit per second for downloads and uploads respectively. The EVO Shift comes preloaded, which has a range of wonderful apps.

 

T-Mobile

  • HTC G2 – There’s an excellent in-built 3.2 Mega pixel color camera, supports video file formats, resolution of 320X480 pixels, and multimedia features.
  • myTouch 4G – It features 3.8 inch display, 1 GHz processor chip, 5.0-MP camera, larger sized screen, HTC Sense user interface, and Mobile hot-spot.

Verizon 4G Phones

  • Motorola Droid Bionic – The 4G network offers download and upload speeds of around five times those particular possible on 3G. It includes 1 GHz OMAP4 Dual Core Processor, resolution of 4.3 Inch Screen having 960 x 540, Android Gingerbread 2.3.4 Operating systems, and Wi-Fi Enabled.
  • HTC Thunderbolt – The Thunderbolt is Verizon’s leading phone. The HTC Thunderbolt features a 3. 5mm audio jack and a wireless bluetooth connectivity of 2.1 having EDR.
  • LG Revolution – It features a 1GHZ processor and 4.3″ screen. It is one of the most budget friendly 4G phone, however, original pricing and existence as well.

 

AT&T 4G Phones

  • Motorola Atrix – It is a tremendous phone. It is available with the new Tegra 2 dual-core processor inside. The Atrix also has a dock that’s supposed to make it a full-featured laptop.

Thats’s it ! We’ve listed some of the most powerful 4G Android phones out there. If we’ve missed out anything, let us know and do share your favourite one’s with us.

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Android vs. iOS : Top 5 Reasons for Choosing Android

Posted April 6, 2012 By dbdnvikas
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Android has gained more reputation and has build up a good impression over software developers. Recent studies show that Android has significantly gained more percentage of ad impression shares when compared to iOS. Android development has increased speedily over few years. iOS has always been a tough competition but the remarkable improvements and user friendly platform has given a heads up to the use of Android OS. Whether its cell phone technology or tablets Android has captured a significant part of the personal electronic device industry. The compatibility and flexibility offered are unmatched with other operating systems.

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[stextbox id="info"]Why Android?[/stextbox]

Android has an edge over iOS because it offers a reliability of features that iOS could not deliver. It is an open source platform and users are able to do their customizations and make new apps. Another important aspect to have a look at is the price. The price of an Android product is way much flexible and cheaper than iOS. You also have a variety to choices to make while going for an Android platform device. These things give an edge to Android platform and also the quality check of apps and user dependability is much more on Android.

[stextbox id="info"]Top 5 Reasons To Choose Android Over iOS[/stextbox]

Well if you want to consider Android over iOS, following 5 reasons could really be helpful to judge it.

  • Android platform lets your run any app that you want to. In iOS platform, you cannot run any app unless until it is available in the App Store.
  • Customization is much more flexible on Android platform. You can design your own theme and put it on your cell phone. Whereas, iOS lacks this functionality. You have only limited themes and options to choose from.
  • More hardware choices – Android platform device will give bundle of choices in their hardware configuration. Android screen are negotiable whereas iOS lacks this functionality.
  • Custom ROMS – Android platform gives you access to customized ROMS. This functionality is solely available on Android phones and tablets. You can customize your Android operating system as per your need and requirement through rooting.
  • No iTunes – Android platform gives you easy access to mass storage transfers. Unlike iOS where you need to have iTunes installed to transfer files.

These features provide a strong edge to Android over iOS. There are still new innovatives technologies being developed to surpass the use of Android to the extremes of technology world.

About the Author: Vikas Bhatt is a blogger who blogs on various technology websites and Android Blogs. He has been blogging from a very small age. Apart from this he runs and manages a signup online bookmaker website.

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Why Samsung Galaxy S II Outshines Other Android Phones

Posted April 3, 2012 By Guest
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With numerous smartphones on the market right now, it may get difficult to find the best one. But the Samsung Galaxy S II is one of the t-mobile best Android phones out there. Users will be able to listen to songs with Google Music, stream shows on the amazing screen and snap incredible pictures, all on the super fast 4G network.

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The Samsung Galaxy S II has a breathtaking 4.52-inch Super AMOLED Plus WVGA touch screen with 800-by-480-pixel resolution. This will make watching movies and TV shows a whole new experience. The phone comes preloaded with Netflix, T-Mobile TV and the Samsung Media Hub. It also has HDMI outlets and DLNA so users can wirelessly stream shows, movies, videos and photos from their phone to their TV.

Turning the Android phone into an entertainment hub is easy with its connectivity, processor and operating system. The Samsung Galaxy S II runs on the 4G network with up to 42 Mbps download speed, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0. It comes with the Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 Processor with 1.5 GHz dual-core CPUs and the Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread. All this allows users to minimize download times and browse the web faster.

The smartphone is compact as it only weighs 4.77 ounces and measures 5.11 inches by 2.71 inches by .37 inches. It comes with a rechargeable 1850 mAh lithium-ion battery. The Samsung Galaxy S II has 1 GB RAM and 16 GB of internal phone storage with a microSD slot that has the ability to expand to up to 32 GB of memory.

Some of the many features of the Samsung Galaxy S II include Goggle Search and Google Maps, while allow users to locate directions and follow real-time traffic updates. The results can be found with Voice Search, which allows users to find what they need hands-free.

The Samsung Galaxy S II is great for fun, but it’s just as successful when it comes to business. Free business applications are preselected and are easy to download. Microsoft Exchange integration delivers e-mail, contacts and a calendar with the same security expected from a business phone. Cloud services keep important documents and information available so users can access them whenever and wherever needed.

So whether using the Samsung Galaxy S II for work or play, it still remains one of T-Mobile’s best Android phones.

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Why do we Think May 22 as the Launch Date for Samsung Galaxy S3?

Posted March 24, 2012 By Arun Sathiya
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As the iPhone 5, coming with 4.6″ inch retina display, rumors mill grows larger and larger day by day, so does the Galaxy S3 from Samsung. As known to all Apple and Samsung have proved to be the biggest arch rivals the gadgets world has ever seen and each has made use of every opportunity to pull the other down the ladder. If the reports are true, Apple will might unveil the highly anticipated iPhone 5 very soon and so will Samsung. Samsung is getting ready to revolutionize the markets very soon, once it launches the Galaxy S3.

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If you remember well, Samsung refused to unveil the Galaxy S3 at the Mobile World Congress 2012 that was held at Barcelona last month and instead it pushed the device’s launch to the Samsung Unpacked Event. Also, it was just a few days back when we had a look at the possible Galaxy S3 device’s image. The image was from Weber Shandwick, a popular company that handles PR for Samsung in most of the countries.

If you take a deeper look at the image from Weber Shandwick, you will notice a calendar widget in the device’s display that reads May 22 of this year 2012. And also the timestamp would read 6 – 7 pm and also did you note that May 22 happens to be Tuesday too? To put everything together, it seems pretty much like Samsung’s big day is all set to be May 22, which will witness the launching of the Galaxy S3.

What do you think? Do you think Samsung will probably unleash this beast at the Unpacked event on May 22? To surprise you more, Samsung has indeed confirmed the Unpacked event’s date as May 22 and it seems pretty much so. What’s your thought on this fellas?

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Is This The Samsung Galaxy S3?

Posted March 17, 2012 By Arun Sathiya
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Well, well, well. Yet another leaked image of the highly anticipated Galaxy S3 from Samsung is now out. When compared to the previous images of the Samsung Galaxy S3, this one seems far convincing. In my view I believe that this is the Galaxy S3 that will make it’s appearance in the markets very soon and make a revolution. This image was leaked first on Reddit and now, the image is all over the web.

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This image was caught spreading viral on the web and we fellows thought you guys might love to take a look at this. This image shows a very convincing image of the much awaited Samsung Galaxy S3. The image shows a logo of Weber Shandwick, a popular company that handles PR for Samsung in most of the countries out there, at the bottom right. When you stack the previous released images, even the one with the flexible display, and this one together, this one seems far convincing and better in my opinion.

It was days back when Samsung refused to unveil this at the Mobile World Congress 2012 and pushed the launch date. According to the previous reports, Samsung will unveil the device in March and will set the devices for sale in the markets in the month of April. If the information is true, the device will get a warm welcome at the Unpacked Event 2012 very soon.

As you take a deeper look at this image, you will notice that the Samsung Galaxy S3 sports a big display at the front. Below lies a physical button for your usage. A 12MP camera is fixed at the back of the screen and there lie volume control buttons on the left side with the camera button on the right.

Do you think that Samsung is possibly releasing this device at the Unpacked event this year? And if you are big fan of Samsung, here is a good news for you. Galaxy S3 seems to be launching on May 22, most probably. :-D So, are you eager to lay hands on this ultra cool device?

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