The Lenovo ZeeUK (ZUK) Z1 launch story

Being part of a launch event by FoneArena and Lenovo, us bloggers were one of the first few to lay our hands on Lenovo’s newest phone and brand launch – the ZUK Z1.

The event was hosted at multiple cities in India by a collaboration between FoneArena and Lenovo and we could manage to attend the same in Bangalore. The event was to showcase Lenovo’s latest ZUK Z1 mobile phone.

Some of the key points about the brand and the phone are better explained to you by letting you know the history of where this all came from. Lenovo spun off its ZUK brand as a smaller entity giving the team empowerment to create the next grade of devices which had better innovations up their sleeve. Some of the key challenges they attempted to solve were:

how to ensure the hardware and software were made for each other and to complement each others’ capabilities
whether the phones that saw the day through this brand could be as customizable and personal as possible
to showcase innovations that other brands did not have solutions to in terms of common problems such as water resistance or battery related topics

In order to get the best solutions to these challenges the ZUK Z1 runs Cyanogen OS which all of us know to be extremely secure and customizable in the Android world. Lenovo also made cases by tying up with super hero movie makers to get a variety including batman, superman, captain america cases and the likes for a good level of personalization. Custom themes is also possible on the Lenovo ZUK Z1. The cyanogen camera app is also included to work in conjunction with the camera on the phone providing some advanced controls.

The phone has AudioFX lossless sound output, and also has Truecaller integrated right into the OS. Further it comes inbuilt with the Cyanogen broswer as well. The processor in the phone is a SnapDragon 801 2.45Ghz with 4 x Krait 400 cores. Couple that with 3GB RAM and atleast on paper you must have a scorching device. The device is a 5.5” with a 1080p display with a 100% colour gamut reproduction which leads to a lot of sharpness in what you see.
The camera is a 13MP rear shooter with OIS image stabilization with a Qualcomm double ISR image processor. While we found the camera to be really quick in taking non HDR snaps, it was laggy when it came to HDR processing in low light. The continous burst mode also at times lagged a bit than expected and slowed down once in a way. Perhaps some software tweaks for the upcoming versions would solve this issue easily in my opinion.
What this phone also has is an Adreno 330 GPU which means that you are basically going to have flawless game performance without stutters. While we didn’t get a chance to try out games at the event, there is no doubt that there would be no issues playing graphics intensive games with this phone. Whether or not the phone will warm up or heat up is a question left to be answered by actual users on longer term ownership basis.

The design of the phone seems to be straight out of looking at an iPhone, but not extremely thin so to say. The bezel is of what you would expect out of a phone in 2016 and there are two colours gray and white.

The ZUK Z1 was launched at a price of 13,500 today in the market and for this price it mostly has what one would expect out of a lenovo or any other smartphone of the category. What is more intuitive among the innovations is the 360 degree fingerprint scanner which will read your print in whatever angle you keep the fingers on the scanner. Even if the finger is wet 🙂 The phone unfortunately does not come with a expandible storage, but it has 64GB of memory which boasts of a 10x improvement over speeds of a class 10 memory card.

The phone comes with a USB type C charger, and a whopping 4100 maH battery which must keep us going for a long time without a need for charging. Talking of which this phone also comes with a charger and battery cut off when the phone reaches 100% so as not to have mini discharge cycles between 90 and 100% through the night. Thoughtful of them to not let the battery lose its charm even after years of use. Real world statistics are yet to be proven on this count, but I cannot imagine why battery quality wont be preserved with such innovations. Good one lenovo.

Coming to network support, the phone supports most global bands of frequencies so it would just be a plug and play. The phone has 2 nano sim 4G sim slots which should provide you with enough to go through your heavy usage days, and also compatibility with current day SIMs.

To summarize the ZUK Z1 is a breath of fresh air in the commotion caused by other brands. Hopefully with the level of customization provided, the rather strong specs for the price point, some nifty innovations on the battery, and fingerprint sensors, theming support, a decent form factor and some cool skins one can expect that this phone will have its own fan following in the days to come. Lenovo in my opinion must also ensure the ZUK brand continues building on its strong points to bring in more powerful devices in future to make a sizeable market impact.

Toyota Innova Crysta prices in Bangalore

The Toyota Innova Crysta is now launched and it also carries a price tag. And the price tag is not cheap. It starts with 13.83 lacs ex showroom Mumbai for the Basic-G version and it goes all the way upto 20.83 lacs for the top end versions.

As per the estimates and speculation, it also means that the Bangalore prices are higher than that of Mumbai for some reason. As per Toyota’s websites, these are the prices in Bangalore (all ex-showroom)

So for example the GX version comes to 18.43 lacs or so which is a whopping 3.5 lacs more than the ex showroom. This would mean that the Innova just went out of many people’s budget.

This also would mean more market for the already raging Creta from Huyndai. The Ecosport got bashed by Brezza from Maruti, the Lodgy is growing in numbers though being an ugly duckling, mostly due to the cab guys and the S-Cross having got eaten up by Creta.

The Baleno’s long waiting period is not helping either for Maruti. So its an interesting and exciting time for auto manufacturers this quarter with on the one side great products devouring competition and on the other a single manufacturers two products marginalizing one another.

The Innova for its new version is bound to get many takers who swear by its reliability, great engine, great service and many smiles on the road. With the automatic it just is going to ace the sales charts shortly.

Toyota Innova Crysta prices in Bangalore

So for example the GX version comes to 18.43 lacs or so which is a whopping 3.5 lacs more than the ex showroom. This would mean that the Innova just went out of many people’s budget.

FastTag now operational across 275 highways in India, pay online and zip through

The NHAI has issued a notification that around 275 toll plazas are now considered for FastTag clearance. Which means if you have a FastTag pass, waiting in lengthy toll queues on holiday drives would be a thing of the past for you.

ICICI and Axis Bank support payments for FastTag passes and their respective web links can be found here:
ICICI: http://www.icicibank.com/Personal-Banking/cards/prepaid/fastag/index.page?#toptitle
AxisBank: https://etc.axisbank.co.in/ETC/Login/#
The list of exact toll booths covered as part of this venture as listed here: http://www.icicibank.com/Personal-Banking/cards/prepaid/fastag/list-of-active-toll-plazas.page?#toptitle
Fast Tag is used in many countries and is basically an RFID card or sticker that you put on your windshield. This is automatically scanned by scanners mounted on the toll booth that would deduct a certain amount for every trip you make across a toll booth. You would get SMS notifications for amounts spent as well.
The website however does not specify what happens if you try to use a fasttag lane with no amount left on the tag. Only real users who have tried this may wish to comment on ths blog about the same.
The company running this operation is called IHMCL (you can read more about them in these articles : http://www.indiantollways.com/category/ihmcl/ ) and it is one of the government concerns managing the show.
Their website can be accessed here: http://www.ihmcl.com/?p=9313
These FastTag cards are available at ICICI or Axis branches which are designated to sell them or in Bangalore at the electronic city toll plaza.
Some of the frequently asked questions about FastTag are answered here: http://www.nhai.org/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions.pdf
So what has your experience been with respect to FastTag, hit the comment section to speak about it.

FastTag now operational across 275 highways in India, pay online and zip through

The New Innova Crysta is coming

Toyota is about to launch their new Innova Crysta in a short while in the Indian Market. If you see the used car prices for Innova, a car that has done anything between 70000 and 100000 kms still sells anywhere between 7-10 lakhs. This shows how the company has managed to keep the quality of the car top notch for many years now.
The new Innova also will sport a better engine and an automatic variant which maybe the most needed for city driving. The video shows the host of new features that the car will offer which makes it a compelling buy this year. Further, the new design and some smart additions in the car will make it ever more popular. The only strong contender to this until now was the Renault Lodgy, which has failed to create any dent in the market and now sells only to cab drivers across the country mostly due to its ill formed design that makes it lose sheen in front of potential owners.
One only hopes that the Innova is available with good bank loans for longer tenures to make it more enticing to customers. Legendary toyota service only means that the whole onwership experience gets much better all long starting with the new Crysta.
Expect this car to be a scorcher in terms of sales and as usual, it would still dominate the market for sometime to come. The trump card from Honda would be the Honda BR-V which is no less better in terms of design, and being a seven seater at a lesser price tag can pose some serious challenges to Innova in the near short term. But it is no doubt that when it comes to rock solid reliability, the Innova manages to be a top notch vehicle and will continue its winning streak for a long time.
The Duster 7 seater would hardly make any impact due to its delayed launch by which time the Crysta would have an even bigger fan following. Service costs and issues with Renault as compared to Toyota will only make the latter consolidate its position as the number one MUV maker in the Indian Market easily for another 5 years or more.
With every new Auto Expo, things only get better, and we need to wait and see which other manufacturer will checkmate Toyota. But given their presence in India for a long time now, and looking at how established they are, the Innova will continue to be the mainstream people mover both for taxi operators and families alike.
So let me know in the comments if you will be buying the new Innova and if so, what features attract you to do so!

The New Innova Crysta is coming

Read why the Electrohome alarm projection clock is one of the most useful gadgets for every home

From a long time I had one drawback being myopic. If I removed my spectacles while sleeping at night, I could not read my clock no matter how near it was. It was annoying to switch the light on, or use any other means to read the time. The last thing I needed was to do all this to disturb my sleep and others’ sleep around me.

In India there are innovative and useless solutions for these things at the same time. Like the talking clock which was like someone spooking you from the dead in the middle of the night, to Ajanta’s huge big LED clock that required a 220V AC supply which it had to be tied upto in order to display a red LED schemed clock somewhere high up on the wall. I was always yearning to just lie down on the bed, and know what the time was without audio hints, or switching on the light or disturbing others.

Enter the electrohome projection clock sold on Amazon.com. From a long time I was fascinated by projection clocks, but never really understood how difficult they would be to maintain over a period of time. Plus the nuisance of their availability only abroad meant that I could never ask someone to get me one or even buy it myself simply because it would not be shipped to India.

I had a chance to go to USA on an official trip, where I decided to order this off Amazon to fulfil my long standing desire to own a projection clock. For 29.99$ this was not very expensive, so I went ahead and ordered it. Amazon shipped it to me promptly enough. The one drawback in year 2016 was that these were still being shipped with 110V power adapter instead of having a universal 110-220V one, which meant I had to do more gimmicks to get it working in India. I had to plug in into a crude step down transformer to ensure I did not blow the device up by mistake.

Once I setup the device, I was rather pleasantly surprised, and very happy with the investment made on the most important feature of the clock – the projected clock face. The clock projects via a red LED, the time to the nearest point on the wall or ceiling. And the digits were huge, and could be read at any time of the night with or without spectacles, even if you were in half sleep. I have even tried reading it through a mosquito net (commonly used while sleeping in a country like India) and it was still quite legible. However I must point out here that projection it to a rather far off surface beyond 10 feet may not yield great visibility all the time.

With two alarms, a button to switch the clock face by 180 degrees depending on how you would like to read it, and a soothing blue LED clock display with three brightness levels, and an add on FM radio, this thing is totally worth the 30 bucks you put on it. There are so many people who design something but the ultimate question is always on how usable it is eventually. In the case of the Electrohome projection clock, this is the best value for money 30 bucks can give you for a clock. Highly legible, highly non intrusive, always there for you on the ceiling or a nearby wall, bright and clear and with good amount of features – all these make the buy an absolutely valuable one. There are even focus controls for improving legibility on each wall you project the clock to. Further to that for a country like India, a feature where there is an internal battery to keep track of time in case of a power cut, adds all the more icing on the cake. And it even displays the ambient temperature based on where you have put the sensor to measure the same.

So should you buy one of these? Oh heck absolutely yes. Plonk 30 bucks and order it right now, and I give you my word, you would not be disappointed with the purchase. Be reminded that to use this in India, you need a step down transformer 220v to 110v. Plug it in, and enjoy the show.

Read why the Electrohome alarm projection clock is one of the most useful gadgets for every home

Read this before you go to ‘Unleash 2016 Kids Festival’

My kid’s school had provided a pass to the UNLEASH 2016 KIDS festival by AtomConnect at the Nimhans Convention center bangalore. Today though I wanted to drive there early, I managed to reach there only by 10AM.
The registration counters were swelling with people who were not even aware of what form to fill and what activities are available for the day. Car parking had already become a hassle and I somehow got a slot after much searching which did not leave a pleasant experience for me either.

Once I was inside by paying Rs.49/- each for two parents, many activities were there some paid and some free. This include the playstation area, trampoline, carousel with horses and benches, caricature, photos with comic characters, revolving bull, automated cricket practice etc.

There was also a pottery class, but strangely it was restricted to girls alone! Very bizzaire. The queues were not much for all these activities but there was some wait nonetheless. However, due to the hot sun, I did feel that the event organizers could have done a better job to keep the little ones more comfortable.

Inside the auditorium there were carnival games like dart boarding, foosball, merry go round, etc. Also there was a fashion show organized where little ones could walk the ramp. There were also remote operated toy cars for smaller kids. In the first floor was a concert hall which was getting ready for a magic show and singing competition which I did not attend.

The rear area behind the auditorium had food stalls selling doughnuts, chats, sandwiches, etc. All these were medium fare and not really tasty at all.

One of the highlight for me in this whole event was the DJI phantom drone which was used to capture high quality videos of the event. While the person managing the drone told me it costed him about 5 lacs, an actual web reckoning threw up a price of 799 USD which is only about Rs.50000/-. Either it was then a much more professional version or its simply a jacked up price being quoted. Either way it is good to see drones into event video making and these gadgets are bound to get cheaper and cheaper as time goes by. One must also remember that drones can be operated only against permissions within the city.
Overall the event experience was not even average including event management, food, and general stalls and games available. I hope a lot more professionalism is put in, into organizing such events in the future.

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