2014 was the year when we saw smartphone brands change market dynamics by introducing powerful phones with disruptive pricing and exclusive e-commerce deals. Even before Xiaomi, Lenovo, Huawei and OnePlus introduced their value-for-money devices, there was one company that started this trend – Motorola. With the introduction of the Moto E last year, we had a smartphone in the sub-Rs, 10,000 range... 

Xiaomi certainly has ambitions beyond the low end of the Indian market, but its bread and butter so far has been the sub-Rs. 10,000 segment. The launch of the outrageously powerful Redmi 1S was perhaps the most disruptive event in the entire Indian mobile market in all of 2014, and even with competitors coming in, there has been no shortage of demand. Hundreds of thousands of units were sold before... 

We were afraid that Nokia’s glory days were well and truly over, when it announced the sale of its entire handset business to Microsoft. The Finnish giant defined generations of mobile devices, especially in India. As we moved from basic bricks that made only voice calls to smartphones with cameras and Internet connections, chances are we all owned a number of Nokias along the way. As it turns... 

Sony has been very proud of the fact that its flagship Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z3 Compact phones are highly dust- and water-resistant. This has been one of things that set Sony apart from its competition. Of course, it didn’t hurt that those phones were also beautifully designed and constructed. Now, Sony has launched a mainstream model with both the design and the weatherproofing of the Z3 siblings.... 

Samsung unveiled its latest and greatest flagship devices, the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge, at its Unpacked event in Barcelona on Sunday. Despite multiple leaks already giving away most details of both devices, especially the design, Samsung had a few tricks up its sleeve in the form of new additions and some interesting new cutbacks. We managed to play around with both the smartphones at Samsung’s... 

Lenovo seems to be on a budget smartphone launching spree without giving us time to breath. It’s not even been two whole months since Lenovo introduced the budget A6000 with LTE at CES 2015, that the Chinese smartphone giant has already announced its next budget smartphone A7000 at the ongoing MWC 2015. The A7000 is geared towards an audience that consumes a lot of multimedia content; the phone... 

A Chinese company that has always stretched the boundaries of how thin a smartphone can be, Gionee showed off its first big ‘thin’ smartphone of 2015 – Gionee Elife S7 – at the MWC 2015 in Barcelona. Unlike its earlier phones that were as thin as their monikers suggested – the Gionee Elife S5.5 and Gionee Elife S5.1 – the Elife S7 does not have a thickness of 7mm.... 

Even before major telecom players such as Reliance Jio and Vodafone roll out their 4G networks on a nation-wide scale, brands including Xiaomi, Micromax (Yu Televentures) and Lenovo are looking to introduce budget 4G-enabled smartphones in the Indian market. Looking at the enthusiasm of these companies we can be assured of one thing – at least someone is optimistic that 4G will be adopted rapidly. China-based... 

The Tata DoCoMo Photon Max Wi-Fi Duo has a name that’s almost too long to keep track of, but it’s also the most useful personal Wi-Fi hotspot we’ve used. The Duo has a built-in battery so you can charge it up at home and then use it to connect your devices to the Internet on the move. The cool part is that it also has a standard USB port, and this can be used to recharge your phone.... 

If there is one part of the market that HTC hasn’t managed to crack yet it is the budget segment. It is not like the company hasn’t made any effort. The Taiwanese smartphone giant launched the HTC Desire 210 Dual SIM and the Desire 310 in the sub-Rs. 10,000 price range last year but they were overpriced compared to the competition. Moving forward, it looks like HTC is keen to right the... 

It was almost exactly one year ago that we reviewed the Lava Iris Pro 30, a phone that we thought looked good but performed below par. Even though it was very obviously iPhone-inspired, it had an appeal of its own. Performance wasn’t too great, but overall the device offered a fair balance of features and aesthetics. A little while later we managed to try out the Lava Iris Pro 20, which looked... 

Asus was one of the players responsible for upending the Indian smartphone market in 2014. After years of missteps entering the smartphone space, the Taiwanese PC component giant finally hit it big with its ZenFone lineup – the ZenFone 4, ZenFone 5, and ZenFone 6. Each of the three served a different market, giving customers plenty of choice under Rs. 20,000. Now, following plenty of positive...