MasHD Blog

Obi Worldphone is probably not the first name that pops into your head when start-up companies come to mind , Obi , a company headed by former Apple CEO John Sculley has officially unveiled two smartphones running Android .The Worldphone SF1 - a classy mid -range Android device has familiar looks and a premium build while the other - the SJ 1.5 features a affordable price tag and a well designed chassis . Obi WorldPhone SF 1 If a Lumia and a iPhone 4 had a baby , this is what it would possibly look like , although the design cues are a bit obvious the handset certainly looks a lot more premium than its $199 asking price .The phone , made using premium materials includes a strong metal chassis and Gorilla glass 4 arranged in a "floating" laminated sheet gives the user a feel of having apps almost floating at the surface (many high end models feature this zero air gap method now) .The handset -which comes with a gorgeous 5" 1080p display is sure to give the phone a c...

Ubuntu has once again tried their hand at making a smartphone ,although their first attempt didn't go well , Canonical - the guys behind Ubuntu are now partnering with OEM's to produce ubuntu running smartphones including this new BQ Aquaris E4.5 (Ubuntu edition) , this phone , which originally came with Android out of the box , is now re purposed as a Ubuntu smartphone .The phone packs mediocre specs , but its low price and its software might woo in some of the eager tech crowd . The phone packs a 4.5" 540x960 resolution IPS display , a  1.3 Ghz Mediatek Quadcore processor (Cortex A7) and it has 1GB of RAM with 8GB of internal storage , the phone has a 8mp rear camera with a 5mp front sensor , the phone also has a dual LED rear flash . Overall the phone is expected to retail in Europe either as a unlocked model which retails for about EUR 169 ($192) or come as a part of a "sim-bundle" in (3) Sweden , Amena in Spain or giffgaff in the United kingdom .Currently ...

Android One is Google's latest project to bring affordable Android smartphones for the next 5 Billion consumers .The Android one project , first demoed at Google IO this year was thought up to be a off the shelf design platform , where manufacturers can take ready made hardware designs and re-brand them to their liking .This project was mainly focused at large emerging markets such as India where branded smartphones with software updates is still a luxury for many people . Today, Google made the project official by launching 3 new Android wear devices from three Indian OEM's , the phones are Micromax Canvas A1, Spice Dream UNO and Karbonn Sparkle V The phones are basically the same , all models come with Android 4.4.4 out of the box and Google guarantees that these phones will be getting updates for 2 years . The phones will also be one of the first phones to get Android L  other than the Nexus line . All 3 models have a Quad-Core Cortex A7 processor ,1GB Ram , 4GB onbo...

Wait , is that a iPh...never mind , well that's the first thought anyone who isn't tech savvy will thing when they see the Xiaomi Mi4 , the Phone , presented by the Chinese OEM that gave us hit products such as the Mi-Pad , Redmi Note ,Red Rice (not the grain) ,Mi 3 and ex - Google executive - Hugo Barra has now produced a new ,premium sequel to Xiaomi's Mi series . Dubbed the Mi 4 , this is basically , the " fastest " (one of the fastest) Android phone upto now. The phone , which looks a bit Deja-vu is actually made out of SAE 304 stainless steel ,in layman terms , this is basically a term for good steel . The steel is pressed and shaped into a unibody design so this means the 3080 mAh battery is non accessible , the phone also lacks a MicroSD card slot ,but in return , the phone offers removable/custom back panels which come in the form of Wood(Bamboo) ,linen, leather and even marble .  The phone , although it is not given IP certification is said to...

After revealing Android marketshare specs , Google announced that they plan to expand to the next 5 Billion people in emerging markets with the new Android One project , this is basically a off the shelf  hardware and software platform that allows OEM's to use Google's pre produced designs and hardware components to create sub $100 Android smartphones for people who like to buy a smartphone , but are unable to afford them . Apart from the hardware reference models , Android One  will feature a Google backed software solution as well , and this includes Stock Android , Promised updates for future versions of the software and minimal bloatware . The Android One project will start in India with Micromax taking the lead with their first Android One device , which has Dual Sim Support , a SD card slot , 4.5" hd Display and FM Radio  for  less than $100. other Indian OEM's like Karbonn and Spice are said to join soon , along with other OEM's from around the world . ...

THL is a name that makes us cringe whenever we come across it, not only because its logo is clearly "inspired" by HTC's older counterpart, but more so because it's been shamelessly cloning designs from the likes of HTC, LG and Samsung. Alas, these KIRF phones sell well in China, thus letting THL rapidly expand its retail business in recent years -- there are now a handful of THL stores in Shenzhen alone. But today, the company finally has something worth writing about: the Android 4.2.2-powered W11, also known as "Monkey King" (a main character from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West). Officially launched in Shenzhen earlier today, the W11 is a WCDMA phone that boasts a whopping 13-megapixel front-facing camera with the usual beautification offering. This means bad news for local competitor MeituKiss, which was just launched in May with an 8-megapixel selfie camera. Just to rub salt into the wound, THL's latest phone comes with another 13-me...

The device known as FairPhone has reached its initial funding goal, hereby making the device a reality and taking the aim of the program to a much more real place. This device aims to be manufactured and sold in as “fair” a way as possible, starting with conflict-free resources, an “open, flexible design”, and what the group calls “transparent” production and pricing. This machine aims to go to market to take on top-tier smartphones like the Samsung GALAXY S 4, the iPhone 5, and the HTC One while it does so with a clear conscience. While we’ve got no word at the moment on how this device’s process compares to the smartphones made by their competitors, there are some details we’re able to share on the surface. This smartphone works with scratch-resistant glass up front going by the name “Dragontail”. This glass covers a 4.3-inch qHD (960 x 540) display, while under the hood is a Mediatek 6589 quad-core processor. This machine works with an 8 megapixel camera on its back, 1.3 megap...

Away from all the glitz and glamour, Notion Ink unveiled the Adam II tablet at a function organized for National Technology Awards 2013 in New Delhi. The tablet, which is being funded by Technology Development Board (Department of Science & Technology), will be released to the public at a price of just INR 12,000 sometime in the coming weeks. The exact release date of the tablet is unclear at the moment, but it is likely to reach market next month. We have got exclusive details about this tablet (thanks to an anonymous tipster), which reveal everything about Adam II from the Bangalore start-up Notion Ink. As we had heard recently, Notion Ink Adam II features two screens, one is the normal IPS display (1280x800p) that is seen in most of the tablets; the other screen is located on spine of the device (like a spine in a magazine or book). This secondary STN (Super-twisted nematic display) display shows the notifications or contextual data related to what is being displayed on...

"Battery is running low....better drink my own piss " There are plenty of rugged devices which can survive in harsh conditions and vouch to bring intelligent functionalities at the same time. While we had our share of tough Android slates over the time, we hardly saw a product that stands above the crowd. Usually, manufacturers base their designs on a regular tablet with slim forms and powerful specifications to create a slate that can resist dust, water, mud and small impacts. Product after product, the pattern repeats itself and the market ends up saturated. This is not the case with the Earl tablet. An ambitious project which is still in a funding phase at the moment, Earl is designed as the perfect companion for outdoor use. Thanks to a flexible E-Ink display of medium size, a hard-shell case and plenty of intelligent features hidden underneath, Earl does more than to simply survive against threatening factors like water and dust: it helps owners fulfill their ques...

Chances are you've owned a "free" phone at some point or another, a beater that cost zero-down with your contract. That's still nothing compared to this $12 off-contract "Gongkai Phone" you can pick up from the Mingtong Digital Mall. But what is in one of those? Not much. The folks over at Bunnie's Blog picked up one of the suckers and opened it up in what might be the most budget teardown in history. Inside the snap-together plastic case, there was a 32-bit, 260 MHz processor, 8MB of RAM, a two-color OLED, and of course, a battery. But it's not just the quality of components used to save a buck, they're almost all soldered directly to the board as another cost-saving shortcut. But clearly, a beater phone this spare isn't likely to be your primary device; it's a backup that, for some reason or another, needs to be dispensable. And for $12, that's not a bad deal. You can hop over to bunnie's blog for even more details on t...

Apple seems to have hit the screen size limit with the iPhone 5′s four-inch diagonal screen squeezed into a taller package. That’s not stopping the iPad mini from being one of Apple’s more popular devices, eating into the full-sized iPad sales, though. But it’s still a tablet and not a phone. What would you get if you had an iPad mini that could make phone calls? A Chinese knockoff tablet does just this. The tablet, named “No. 1 mini Pad” looks like an iPad mini from afar, and even the packaging mimics that of the iPad mini. However, you can distinguish it from the real thing with its wider bezel (the screen measures 7 inches rather than 7.9) and the branding at the back. It also runs an un-identified build of Android, although there’s no word whether it will be skinned to appear like iOS like some knockoffs. Specs-wise, it’s not exactly an iPad mini or a Nexus 7 competitor, but it’s not likely that it would matter for this device’s target market. Quad-core Mediatek MT6589 pro...

Talk about commitment to a cause. Not a noble cause, but still. You have to give it up for the makers of the latest Chinese clone, which doesn’t only replicate the original’s design, but also its name. Almost to the letter. The gadget pictured above is the HDC One, a pretty good knock-off of one of the hottest Android smartphones around – the HTC One. The funny thing is HDC doesn’t only make HTC lookalikes, but also clones for Samsung devices, so it’s almost like this is nothing more than an unfortunate name coincidence. HDC One’s design is no coincidence though and the thing looks a lot closer to its inspiration than the first One clone that emerged back in February – the GooPhone One . We highly doubt HDC can afford to use aluminum for the clone’s frame, but the “plastic unibody” could fool anyone into thinking this is the real deal. Naturally, once you’ll get your hands on the HDC One, you’ll be able to tell the difference, especially performance-wise. The copycat only pack...

Copyright infringement is never a problem for Chinese phone manufacturers , apart from releasing exact clones of Apple , Samsung HTC devices , they sometimes take the name of the actual product they copied from and add it to the device as well  . Introducing the  Star S5 Butterfly  - this , as the name implies looks like a cheap copy of the HTC Butterfly (which will be succeeded by a second gen model soon ) . The specifications of the S5 Butterfly include a 5-inch 720p display, 1.2 Ghz quad-core MediTek MT6589 processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage expandable via microSD, 12MP rear camera and 3MP front camera, dual-SIM support, and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean on-board. Of course, the specifications and build Quality  of the Star S5 Butterfly aren’t in the same league as the HTC Butterfly, but they aren’t bad at all, and it does come with the latest Android OS iteration, especially considering the fact that the device is priced at just $222.99.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 won’t be out until the end of April and manufacturers are already taking a crack at it. Thanks to a tip from  Caotic.it, we found out that Chinese manufacturer Sunle has cloned the Galaxy S4, calling the creation the S400. It’ll cost around $220 USD and will be available in China starting April 5. Available in black or white, the specs are actually pretty solid: 5-inch IPS HD display at 1280 x 720 1.2GHz Mediatek MTK6859 quad-core processor 1GB RAM 8GB internal storage with support up to 32GB 8-megapixel rear-facing camera 3-megapixel front-facing camera 3G, Bluetooth, GPS Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean 2100 mAh battery As with any smartphone or device from relatively unknown manufacturers, quality is always a concern. With Samsung more popular than ever, many companies will do whatever they can to get a slice of the Android marketplace, even if that means shameless ripoffs

The Colorfly CT781 is a brand new iPad mini clone from China that runs Android, in addition to the Goopad mini and the Onda V818  that we’ve seen a while ago. Made by Colorful, the Colorfly CT781 sports a 7.85-inch display, and while it looks like an iPad mini, it’s actually thinner than one. The Colorfly measures 6.71mm in thickness, compared to the iPad mini’s 7.2mm. The Android tablet has a bezel of only 4.90mm, while the iPad mini measures in at 5.70mm. When it comes to specs, the device offers a quad-core AllWinner A31 processor, 1GB of RAM and PowerVR SGX544 MP2 GPU and Android OS under the hood, although it’s no clear what version we’re talking about. Pricing details and launch dates aren’t available at this time, but the Colorful’s 9.7-inch tablet retails for around $177 in China, which means the 7.85-inch tablet should be even cheaper. According to DigiTimes, Colorful expects to sell as many as 800,000 Colorfly CT781 units in China. (AndroidAuthority)

Looking for an Android-based iPad mini lookalike with a little more pizazz than the GooPadmini clone ? Meet the Onda V818 Mini. This is not a clone per se, but it does steal borrow iPad mini’s overall design and display size. All while keeping the price uber-low. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start from the beginning. Who the fudge is Onda? To be frank, we never heard of the company before December 2012. And the most relevant Google search results for the OEM’s name send us to a Portuguese sportswear brand. Only this Onda is not Portuguese and it doesn’t sell sneakers. Instead, the company is based in China and does what nearly everyone does in Shanzhai Land, only with a little bit of extra style. In other words, you can’t really expect reliability from its gadgets, but you might just be surprised. And now let’s sink our teeth in Onda V818 Mini’s specs. The 7.9-inch IPS display is no Retina unit, but it’s not that bad either, boasting a 1,024 x 768 pixels resolutio...

The competition in the budget-friendly quad-core smartphone category in India continues to heat up, with WickedLeak now joining the party with their latest offering, the WickedLeak Wammy Titan 2. As is the case with all other low-cost quad-core smartphones in the country, the Wammy Titan 2 is powered by a 1.2 Ghz quad-core MediaTek processor. Here is a quick look at the specifications of the WickedLeak Wammy Titan 2 - 5.3-inch IPS display with 960×540 resolution 1.2 Ghz quad-core processor PowerVR SGX544 GPU 1GB RAM 4GB internal storage, expandable via microSD up to 32GB 12MP rear camera, 5MP front camera 2,300 mAh battery Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Dual-SIM support (2G + 3G) While the qHD display of the Wammy Titan 2 doesn’t match up to the 720p resolution of the Micromax A116 Canvas HD, the WickedLeak device boasts a competition-leading whopping 12MP rear camera, and even a 5MP front camera! The device comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean on-board, but the company promises ...

If you’re looking for an Android tablet that doesn’t skimp out on specs, but at the same time won’t cost a fortune, you may want to consider getting the Cube U30GT2. We’ve seen some worthy tabs from Cube in the past, such as the 9.7-inch U9GT5, which was released last year sporting a 2,048 x 1,536 resolution and offered for about $270. The 10.1-inch U30GT2 only packs a 1080p IPS screen of 1,920 x 1,200 resolution. However, the overall specs have been vastly improved. Starting with the processor, instead of going the dual-core route, the slate is powered by a quad-core 1.8GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, Mali 400 GPU, and paired with 2GB of RAM. On paper, the CPU is apparently faster than both Tegra 3 and Exynos 4412. The Cube U30GT2 also comes with 32GB internal storage, microSD support, a 5-megapixel main camera, a 2-megapixel front cam, a mini HDMI slot, an 8,000mAh battery, and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean onboard. As for its price, you can grab the tablet online for $250 , but reme...

Blu Products may not be a company you’re familiar with, but it has announced three new smartphones that all run the Android operating system. The new smartphones all fall into the Blu Life series and promise premium build quality with flagship performance. The three smartphones share a lot of the same hardware in common. The devices used the MediaTek MT6589 1.2 GHz quad-core chipset featuring a ARM Cortex A7 subsystem. The phones also use a PowerVR Series 5XT GPU and support fast HSPA+ data connectivity offering 4G speeds within the United States. All three the phones run Android 4.2 and have dual-SIM capability. The phones also support dual-active functionality allowing users to make and receive calls on both SIM cards at one time. The phones also all use new IPS HD displays promising wide viewing angles and lots of contrast. The Life One is made using a solid aluminum body and has a five-inch HD resolution display covered in Gorilla Glass 2. It also features a 13-megapixel camera...

Always wanted a Quad Core 1080p Phone? and want something below $200 ?  well a chinese company called Neo has the answer for that . The Neo N003 has all the horsepower to join the Quad Core arms race without looking like a N00B , the N003 has a 5" 1080p IPS display  and might possibly carry a Mediatek MTK6589 processor because most other budget handsets are powered by that chipset . although specs are not official , GizChina says the price will be 899 Yuan ($144) which currently makes the N003 the cheapest 1080p smartphone ( rival devices such as the iOcean X7 . cost $16 ($160 for the iOcean vs $144 for the N003) more but in a world where a few dollars make a differece , the N003 might have a slight edge , Both the iOcean and the N003 are probably China-Only phones so don't  have big hopes for the device(s) ever reaching Europe or North America .Specs are not given in detailed but i'll be sure to update the blog once the data flows in  .  Source -  Giz...