Asus Bangalore Divas Meet.

Well, I happen to attend a Divas meet. Yes, I am not a Diva. But was forced to attend. Courtesy one of two most important Divas in my life, My wife. She was invited to one of All-Girls only affair blogger meet at Taj Vivanta, Bangalore by ASUS. She wanted me to also come there as our 10 months son, Akshaj, need to be taken care of and at the same time Akshaj wanted his mother's company. In all this affair of mother, son and Asus a poor dad, that's me, got involved.

After a lot of reluctance, I had a call to the organisers and they agreed that it was fine if I can accompany my wife. This gave more ammunition to my diva for life to convince and attend. Well, I finally succumbed to all the emotional "attyachars" and we went ahead with our plans to attend. I have to admit the event was really good, even though I was initially reluctant to be part of it as it was a Diva meet.

We reached the venue - Taj Vivanta, M G Road, Bangalore on 13th Aug 2015. We were late by 30 mins, courtesy Bangalore traffic and heavy rains which took place. Event started a bit late too probably for the same reason. I utilized the time to go over to counters which had the Zen Phones displayed. One of the counters had Zenny - the ASUS mascot. There were some Zenny Pen drives too.

The other counter had all the new Zen phones getting launched. I got chance to get hands on all of them.

Arindham & Komal from Team ASUS gave all the guests a brief overview of ASUS and what this event was all about.

Peter Chang, MD of Asus India, took over the centre stage and gave more details about the devices launched in the ZenFestival by ASUS. Steffi later on gave a live demo of the devices from the Zenfone portfolio.

Anusha Dandekar, one of the most popular VJs was the surprise for the divas. She gave them a good know how on make-up tips and poses required for perfect selfies. Divas also had a Selfie Ramp walk & group Selfie contest anchored by Anusha. All the exercise were really liked by the guests present at the venue.

Winners of both the contests were given Asus Zenny pen-drive and a Lolli Flash accessory from Asus. At end, ZenTalk, a platform to connect with ASUS users,  was introduced. Nice Dinner was also served there.

The phones at display were:

ZenFone 2 Deluxe This device delivers powerful all-round performance. It has a gorgeous new multifaceted polygonal finish accentuating the signature ZenFone 2 Ergonomic Arc design. It features a display size of 5.5-inch with Full HD IPS display, 13MP/5MP Pixel cameras, 2.3GHz  processor and 4G/LTE connectivity. With 4GB RAM, the device's responsiveness was really good. It has a fast-charge technology which can charge for 60% capacity in just 39 minutes. 

ZenFone 2 Laser had a powerful 13MP camera with an f/2.0 wide-aperture lens to capture stunning, high-resolution photos with zero shutter lag — augmented by laser auto-focus technology that empowers users to capture perfect clarity in just 0.3 seconds.  It is Available in 5-inch (ZE500KL), 5.5-inch (ZE550KL) and 6.0-inch (ZE601KL) versions with up to 1920 x 1080-pixel Full HD resolution. It has Corning Gorilla Glass 4 and also boasts an up to octa-core 64-bit Snapdragon processor with up to 3 GB of fast memory for unwavering performance.

ZenFone Selfie (ZD551KL) has a dual 13MP cameras, dual-color, dual-LED Real Tone flash both front and rear, plus laser auto-focus for ultra-fast shots with complete clarity. Ergonomic Arc design and intuitive rear key makes capturing selfies much easier than ever before. It has a huge 13MP resolution and an f/2.2-aperture, 88-degree wide-angle lens to capture more of every smile in selfie mode. The unique Selfie Panorama mode enables selfies with an outlook of up to 140 degrees, so everything and everyone becomes part of the shot.

ZenFone Selfie’s rear camera is just as advanced, with a large f/2.0 aperture lens for superior low-light shots. Both cameras are engineered with five-prism Largan lenses and top-quality Toshiba sensors, and include dual-LED Real Tone flash technology for perfect illumination in any lighting conditions. ZenFone Selfie also delivers superb macro photography that works on subjects as close as 6cm, plus rear laser auto-focus to compose shots in the blink of an eye.

ZenFone Max (ZC550KL)  has a incredibly-long-lasting high-capacity 5000 mAh lithium-polymer battery that gives users an unprecedented amount of battery life. It has a bright and clear 5.5-inch IPS display with wide viewing angles, protected by the latest Corning Gorilla Glass 4 for unrivalled scratch-resistance, strength and everyday durability. At the heart of ZenFone Max is a powerful yet power-efficient 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor with up to 2GB of RAM. ZenFone Max features a 13MP  /5MP PixelMaster cameras with a wide f/2.0 aperture, and the rear camera also boasts laser auto-focus for sharp, near-instant shots. 

In Short I will say, Overall all the devices are good. But depends on your present pain area.

• If battery life is the most important thing for you, go for ZenFone Max (ZC550KL). 
• If you do lot of picture capture & sharing, then go for ZenFone Selfie (ZD551KL)
• If you want a highly responsive device, then go for ZenFone 2 Deluxe or ZenFone 2 Laser

Airtel - The Fastest Network in India

Recently Airtel launched 4G services nationwide roll-out across 296 cities in India. With the launch, Airtel has become the first telecom operator to roll out 4G services. The expected download speed on Airtel 4G can be as high as 42 Mbps and Upload speed of about 12 Mbps on airtel 4G TDD network. That's simply amazing. It will definitely move India up in the ranking of nations based on that mobile data speed average. Airtel is undoubtedly the fastest mobile data network in India at the moment.

 For any user to start using 4G services, user needs the below three things

1. 4G Device
2. 4G SIM
3. 4G Plan

To make it even simpler, you just need to input your airtel mobile in the Airtel 4G website, to check if 4G ready. Based on your check, if you don't have a 4G device, you can buy one, e.g. say Moto 3 gen or any other device of your choice. 

Most of us will probably not have a 4G SIM. So if you are an Airtel customer with a 4G capable device, Airtel offers a free upgrade from 3G to 4G. Getting a 4G sim is easier than ever before. Just tweet using #GetAirtel4G to get a 4G SIM delivered to your home for free, Once you tweet you will get a reply from @AirtelIndia twitter handle directing you to a link where you can enter your details for 4G SIM delivery.

Isn't it amazing that one can just upgrade from 3G to 4G for free and get a 4G SIM delivered at home real fast that too for free. Now no more waiting for song or movie downloads or picture uploads.

One can get speed as high as 42 Mbps. Just imagine now we can download movies in less than 3 minutes. If we are streaming a movie we don't need to wait/stop in between because of slow data connection.  Songs can be downloaded in just 1 seconds.

Interestingly, the TV commercial by Airtel clearly show the difference the huge leap which this launch will take in common Indian's life who were deprived of good data speed.

Video Downloads:-  Just imagine with 42 Mbps download speed a movie of say 900 MBs can be easily downloaded in less than 3 minutes. Its real. No more waiting for download to complete.

Photo Uploads:- With upload speed of 12 Mbps, one can upload an album with 40 pictures of 2 MBs each.

Download Songs:- With 42 MBps download speed a song of 5 MB can be downloaded in just 1 second.

Well I'm moving to Airtel 4G as soon as my Moto G 3rd Gen is getting delivered to me. When are you moving to the Fastest network in India?

Airtel 4G laga dala to Life Jingaa La La !!!!

Bangistan : Movie Review

Genres: Comedy
Director : Karan Anshuman
Cast: Riteish Deshmukh, Pulkit Samrat, Jacqueline Fernandez, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Kumud Mishra and Arya Babbar.

This story is about two misguided people, Hafeez-bin Ali (Riteish Deshmukh) and Praveen Chaturvedi (Pulkit Samrat), from a strife-torn land called Bangistan. In their excitement to serve a cause, both of them get involved into a global terror plot in Poland. Well that's quite a stretch! There is not a enough good scene where you can appreciate director's work, rather he drags scenes.. 

This film is full of exaggeration. Later this exaggeration turns into irritation. First of all, main plot of interchanging religion is totally illogical. Secondly, the selected duo are so stupid that even being on a bomb planting mission they agree to share a duplex type of flat, with unbelievably hole in the roof. They have a scene where a pigeon brings a letter, not sure which era this movie is from. Motel owner clearly mentioned that no animal is allowed but person takes that animal for a walk.
For me whatever solution they tried to stretch looked like a childish solution by the Bangistan Team.

Detonation of the bomb planned by Riteish & Praveen proves to be an anti-climax. The Bangistan film actually implodes even earlier. It ran out of ammunition halfway through.

Director does not know his craft for sure. 
Ritesh Deshmukh is a good actor but was not done justice by script.
Pulkit Samrat has done it well, as his unbalanced acting perfectly fits this flick. 
Jacqueline Fernandez is obviously wasted as a bar hostess Rosie. With nothing much to offer, her character is easily dispensable. 
Music by Ram Sampat is good.

Rating: **

DON'T watch this movie unless you are a hardcore fan of Riteish Deshmukh.

#FlipkartImageSearch : Look --> Like --> [Shoot --> Search] --> Buy

Thanks to Flipkart for giving 120 odd bloggers an opportunity to  to meet on 1st of August 2015 at Hard Rock Cafe. Well many might say that Saturday 10:30 am is early, but I was happy that with this timing I get to meet the blogger friends as well spend time with the family in the evening. Anyways coming to point and talking about my experience.

I took metro to reach MG Road from Indiranagar. I was astonished to see good number of people presence on Saturday morning. Hard Rock Cafe was completely energetic and gave an awesome atmosphere to the whole meet. Most of the folks looked excited and were waiting to know whats in store coming from Flipkart.

The meet started with a jamming session and introductions. Once team Flipkart, lead by Punit Soni (CPO, Flipkart), took over we were enlightened with what they are doing in the mobile application side to make e-commerce buying experience better for the Indian consumers.

Now it was turn for the demo of #FlipkartImageSearch by Flipkart team. Using #FlipkartImageSearch, a typical user whenever he likes any fashion accessory can just capture the image and search using #FlipkartImageSearch . #FlipkartImageSearch will search based on various attributes like color & pattern and provide good list of similar items for user to select and buy.

In 4 simple short steps,

1. You LOOK at something
2. If you LIKE and have a desire to buy it
3. #FlipkartImageSearch :- Take a Camera SHOOT of the item from Flipkart App & SEARCH 
4. If you like the options shown, select and BUY

After demo, we had some Question and Answer interaction session, in which we interacted with Flipkart team on various other areas like their future plans, seller network, avatars, etc.

The short break was also utilized for networking. I got a great chance of having good interaction with Punit Soni and many other Flipkart folks.

After this short break, it resumed with a new session which was an eye opener. We had got demoed about #FlipkartImageSearch, but this session gave us a real feel about how this #FlipkartImageSearch feature works. All were divided into teams with 20 members each and they have to find the exact item in Flipkart App as available with any of the folks present in the meet using Image Search from mobile device. Yes, after this exercise I realize that Image search from Flipkart was really good & easy to use. If i would have missed this activity,I wouldn't have realized the potential of this new awesome addition.

With the conclusion of team event results, it was announced that all the attendees will get a free copy of "10 love stories" - book published by Indi-Blogger. Lunch was very delicious and great along with Hard Rock Cafe's bar serving drinks. At the same time, we had an inexplicable dance performance by Hard Rock Cafe team.

You can download Flipkart App from here .

Thanks to Flipkart & Indi-Blogger team for organizing such a great event. Had loads of fun and good time. 

Alla Re Alla Airtel 4G Alla !!!

I remember few years back when I was reading one of the reports from Bloomberg which talked about India being at No. 20 with respect to mobile data speed among the 20 countries surveyed. I was disappointed to read that. It also projected the approximate position a nation will obtain by 2017 and expected data speed they might achieve. The projection in 2017 also ranked India to number 17 with average data speed of ~2.5 MBps.

I recalled about that article today when I saw the news that Airtel launched 4G nationally. I was delighted to read and about this. With this expected download speed on Airtel 4G can be as high as 42Mbps and Upload speed of 12 Mbps on airtel 4G TDD network. That's simply amazing. It will definitely move India much more up in the ranking of nations based on that mobile data speed average.

Interestingly, the TV commercial by Airtel clearly show the difference the huge leap which this launch will take in common Indian's life who were deprived of good data speed.

Video Downloads:-  Just imagine with 42 Mbps download speed a movie of say 900 MBs can be easily downloaded in less than 3 minutes. Its real. No more waiting for download to complete.

Photo Uploads:- With upload speed of 12 Mbps, one can upload an album with 40 pictures of 2 MBs each.

Download Songs:- With 42 MBps download speed a song of 5 MB can be downloaded in just 1 second.

Wow. I simply can't wait to get hands on Airtel 4G. I will just say "Alla Re Alla Airtel 4G Alla !!!"