[Review] Moto X Style: Phone with Style!

My new hobby is technology. Yes, you read that right. I am surprisingly enjoying learning about the technical side of everything be it phones, camera or laptop and let me tell you, it's intoxicating! The things you can do, once you know the tech behind things is stupendous!! My latest tech toy has been this newly launched phone by Motorola, Moto X Style. I have always been a fan of their impressive cameras, my mom has been using a Motorola phone and I always find myself grabbing her phone to take pictures whenever she is around. So, naturally I was really excited to get a chance to experience and review their new model. Let's get started!

SPECIFICATIONS

- Moto X Style was launched in India in October 2015

- Being a large sized phone like Samsung Note Series or iPhone 6Plus, it can also be called a Phablet (Phone+Tablet)

- Dimensions: 6.06 x 3.00 x 0.44in with 5.7in Display (What this means is iPhone 6Plus is 3% taller and wider but Moto X Style has 7% bigger screen size!)

- Weight - 179gm (iPhone 6Plus, despite being a little bigger, is 4% lighter than the Moto X Style)

- Display Protection - Corning Gorilla Glass 3

- Platform: OS - Android OS, v5.1.1 (Lollipop), planned upgrade to V 6.0 (Marshmallow)

- Chipset - Qualcomm MSM8992 Snapdragon 808

- CPU - Quadcore 1.44GHz Cortex-A53

- Expandable memory upto 128GB

- Internal Storage - 16GB/32GB/64GB [3GB RAM]
(Now, this is cool...iPhones offer only 1GB RAM)

DESIGN
- Two colors available: Black with silver edge & White with champagne edge
- Moderate weight
- Sleek looking
- Volume Control is on the right side and so is the Power key
- The edges are curved and smooth
- Comes with a transparent bumper case
- Very good grip because of the textured back
- Subtle speaker placements in the front, looks very cool
- Very good build quality
- No physical buttons for home screen(There are touchscreen icons for home screen, back and multi-tasking window)
- Needs Nano SIM Card



BATTERY
- Non-removable 3000mAh battery
- Turbo-charging feature which charges the phone upto 8hrs worth of battery life in just 15mins of charging!
- From my personal experience, battery life is pretty good. It lasts me all day with 3G/Wifi. I normally use Ymail, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Navigation which is not something you can call a light usage. When I say all day, I do not mean 24 hours, I mean 10-12 hours of heavy use.



CAMERA

Rear Camera:

- 21MP camera (iPhone 6plus has 8MP rear camera)

- 5248X3936 pixels

- Dual-tone flash (This means no stupid white flash! It has one yellow and one peach flash, this makes the selfies taken with flash much more normal and pretty)

- Features: Auto Focus, Face Detection, Auto HDR, Low Light, Easy Exposure Control, Slow Motion, Panorama, Ultra HD(4K) 2160p

- 1080p at 60fps

Front Camera:

- 5MP Camera (iPhone 6plus has 1.2MP front camera)

- Dual-tone Flash (This is something new! You can now take selfies in dark or low lit rooms! Apple doesn't offer this feature!)

- Rest all the features are same as the rear camera except the Ultra HD feature.

Now, let's see some unedited samples of the camera!

Outdoor Photography w/o flash

Indoor Photography w/o flash

Outdoor Photography with flash

Indoor Photography with flash



Outdoor selfie (front camera)

FEATURES

- Multiuser accounts can be created just like in your Macbook.

- Latest Android Version

- Motorola being a Google company, the updates will be the quickest

- Smooth Touch (though lately I have been facing few glitches)

- Excellent sound quality

- Excellent video quality 

- 4G compatible

- Moto Voice feature (Similar to Siri in Apple phones)

- Motorola Migrate feature (lets you migrate your pictures, contact, music, etc from your old phone which is very convenient!)

- Comes with free earphones 

PRICE
Rs. 29,999/- for 16GB
Rs.31,999/- for 32GB

AVAILABILITY
You can buy the Moto X Style on Flipkart.

RATING

7/10

RECOMMENDATION

I have been using this phone for a month now and I love it. The camera is fabulous and the pictures come out great even in flash. I just wish the front camera had the beautification mode. Also, I have been facing touch screen glitches, nothing major though. Would totally recommend. It's a great replacement for these iPhones which are super overpriced. 

xoxo,

Srish

[Review] Getting Selfie Ready with the Asus ZenFone Selfie and Lolliflash

I wouldn't call myself a technologically challenged person but I am not into it either. I can operate a phone or a laptop just fine and I know my way around the apps and softwares. Most of the credit goes to blogging as it does challenge you to practice these skills on Photoshop, Premier Pro, various image editing apps on phones and what not. So, I was actually quite excited when I got a chance to experience and review this new kickass phone in the market! Without more blabbering, let's jump into the review, if you are a selfie person (or a camera person in general) you are going to LOVE this phone!!!

P.S. - I am mostly going to compare ASUS Zenfone Selfie to iPhone 6Plus as it's the most sought after phone in the market right now and also Samsung Note 2 and Moto X Style as these are the phones I own right now.

SPECIFICATIONS

-ASUS Zenfone Selfie was lauched in India in August 2015

- Being a large sized phone like Samsung Note Series or iPhone 6Plus, it can also be called a Phablet (Phone+Tablet)

- Dimensions: 6.16 x 3.04 x 0.43in with 5.5in Display (What this means is basically it is smaller compared to iPhone 6Plus but almost double in thickness, nonetheless the screen size is the same!)

- Weight - 170gm (So inspite of the double thickness, it's just as light as an iPhone 6Plus)

- Display Protection - Corning Gorilla Glass 4 (It's supposed to be very strong being able to survive 80% of drops from 1m on rough surface!! That's not something you can say for iPhones!)

- Platform: OS - Android OS, v5.0 (lollipop)

- Chipset - Qualcomm MSM8939 Snapdragon 615

- CPU - Quadcore Cortex - A53

- Expandable memory upto 64GB

- Internal Storage - 16GB[2GB RAM] and 32GB[3GB RAM] (Now, this is cool...iPhones offer only 1GB RAM)

DESIGN
- Different Colors available: Aqua Blue, Pink, Gold, Silver, White, Red
- Lightweight
- Sleek looking
- Volume Control is at the back of the set which is a very cool and convenient placement (The long Silver button below the camera in the above picture)
- The edges are not smooth so it can dent easily.
- Nice grip but slightly slippery due to the smooth plastic curved back
- Speakers at the bottom of the back
- Build quality is alright, nothing too extraordinary
- Consists of touch buttons for Back, Home and Multi Window as seen in the image below
- Power button is on the top middle of the set
- One handed operation is possible if you have had bigger phones before but if not, it can be a bit inconvenient

BATTERY
- Li-Po 3000mAh battery
- From my personal experience, battery life is pretty good. It lasts me all day with 3G/Wifi. I normally use Ymail, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Navigation which is not something you can call a light usage. When I say all day, I do not mean 24 hours, I mean 10-12 hours of heavy use.

CAMERA
- The Front Camera and the Rear Camera, both are 13MP.
- The features are exactly the same for both cameras, including flash and beautification mode!
- 4128x3096 pixels
- Laser focus (very quick and accurate focus)
- Dual-tone flash (This means no stupid white flash! It has one yellow and one peach flash, this makes the selfies taken with flash much more normal and pretty)
- Features: Touch Focus, Face Detection, HDR, Low Light, GIF, Depth of Field, Smart Remove, Panorama, Smile Detection, Slow Motion, Timer, Time Rewind, Time Lapse and last but not the least, Beautification(you can not only soften your skin but also apply blush, slim down your jawline, make your eyes bigger while taking the picture!!!)

{These pictures have not been edited at all}

{Comparison of Low Light photography}

LOLLIFLASH

Now, being a 'selfie' phone, the selfies have to be perfect, right? So, they have come up with an external flash that you can pop over the phone right where the headphones jack is located and there you go, dual-led flash light for those perfect afterparty selfies and late night snapchat videos!! And it has 3 settings, if you click the power button on the lolliflash once, it gives medium light, if you click it twice, it glows even brighter and on three clicks, it becomes it's brightest. And that's not all, it comes with 3 external filters! White, to soften the flash, blue for a bluish filter especially when you are clicking under yellow light and pink for a pretty pink glow! It can easily be charged using the same charger as your regular phone and it can not only be used with ASUS phones, you can pop it over ANY phone!!! How cool is that! Check it out HERE.

PRICE
Rs. 15,999/- for 16GB[2GB RAM]
Rs.17,999/- for 32GB[3GB RAM]

AVAILABILITY
You can buy the ASUS Zenfone Selfie on Flipkart.

RATING

8/10

RECOMMENDATION

If you have a budget of 15k or so, this is one of the best phones available in the market and maybe the best selfie camera in any range. The front camera is better than any other phones available in the market, no matter how expensive. No wonder, it's selling out fast! Grab one before it gets out of stock!

xoxo,

Srish