Kochiness

[6 Reasons] : You shouldn't jump into buying a Xiaomi

08:27 Mohammed Ibrahim 0 Comments

Everywhere in the web you can see posts about Xiaomi Mi3 Releasing in India. Flipkart being the sole dealer of the brand in India, the site crashed as soon as the phone's sales started. The phone was sold out in 40 Minutes. The phone is priced pocket friendly and has mind blowing specifications. Everything about this smart and cost efficient phone is convincing. But there are certain things to consider before you jump into buying one. Here are our 5 Reasons for this post.

1. Lack of Service Stores.
Xiaomi has only now made its first foray into the highly lucrative Indian market, and therefore they do not have a wide network of service stores. The after sales services associated with this brand is yet to be reviewed. Once you encounter an issue with the device, there is hardly anyone you can approach. Flipkart being the dealer, might offer services through courier companies, and this would be time consuming as well as a tedious job. Therefore before you get one in your hands, make sure you have a service station near you or at place that you can reach conveniently. Here is a list of service centers as of now. You can hardly find one near you.

2. Lack of Support - Hardware and Software.

The device can be classified under a high-end android device based on its specifications. And mostly require an expert guidance to enjoy the complete performance before you get used to the device. Unlike the leading brands of Indian market, Xiaomi is yet to come up with online or offline support systems. All that is running now is a customer care that you can reach at 1800-103-6286.

3. Quality of the product.The quality of the product is yet to be reviewed. Customers are just getting the device into their hands. Specifications alone wont make a good deal. The quality of the product is an important factor. It would take at least 6-12 months for some good reviews to come up. Until the then you can blindly invest into an electronic device, without much hope. We do not say that the product is cheap in build quality, but we cannot assure you that the product can make wonders happen. Better give a wait.

4. Pixel Density of the Screen

One of the few features in which the device lags a bit is in the display. The display comes with an approx. 440~ Pixel ratio, which is definitely less than an average display quality. For those mobile freaks who look for ultra clear displays, this isn't your piece of cake. The competent Motorola or Micromax has a better deal for you in store. Have a comparison before you buy one.

5. Lack of Expandable Memory
With all the things that we would want to store on our smartphones, the option of expandable storage will always come handy. However the Xiaomi Mi3 has no option for expandable storage and this is a major let down for a phone with such impressive specifications.

6. Slippery Build.

The Xiaomi Mi3 body is made of brushed aluminum and this makes it extremely slippery. If you are planning to buy this smartphone, you should also consider investing in a good protecting case.

So let us keep aside all the existing Taboo against the Chinese products and keep these technical factors in mind before buying this budget device. But for the price tag associated with the gadget, it is a pretty good deal.

featured, Technology

Why go for a budget smartphone? Why a leading brand?

00:57 Mohammed Ibrahim 0 Comments

Have you ever wondered about the pros and cons of buying a less popular smartphone brand? Why do the
leasing brands price their devices higher than the less popular ones that offer better specifications? It is not just the brand name that decides the price tag. There are various factors that influence the price of a smartphone. Know it right, before you open your wallet.

In the recent years we have a lot of emerging smartphone brands in our market. Some of them being Micromax, Karbonn, Xolo, Gionee, etc. Most of these brands offer up to the mark specifications as well as amazing designs, but are priced much lower than their competing popular counterparts. Most probably you can get half the specification at double the price while you go for a popular brand like Samsung, Nokia, Sony or HTC.

In both rich countries and poor ones, cheaper smartphone brands are making inroads. Demand for pricey phones, mainly in developed economies, is slowing, but that for less expensive devices is booming. People buying their first smartphones today, perhaps to replace a basic handset, care less about the brand and more about price than the richer, keener types of a few years ago. The brands that get affected due to this washout is the richer ones like Apple or Samsung. Apple may still seem to struggle for existence due to the unique OS they have and apparently impregnable brand. But the most vulnerable would be the brands dealing with Google's Android OS. Samsung and Sony would definitely have a hit back in the coming years.

The latest strategy played by the brands today is that they make both cheaper as well as dearer models. But the cheaper models are too behind in the specifications they possess. While the budget brands pack in powerful machines at a price that is lower than the popular brand's budget phone's. This confuses the buyer at-least to some extend. Even though these factors least influence the techy buyers who go for specifications rather than the brand name, they make a good deal in the minds of those middle class people who still seem to be running behind the brands.

Now the questions comes up, is there anything that only the leading brands can offer? One answer for sure. Innovation. The leading brands always come up with the latest features where as the budget brands take a while to create the duplicate. This is one of the most exclusive feature about the leading brands. While they introduce something to the market, it will always be unique and exclusive. We cannot expect such wonders from the budget brands. But in a few months you can grab that newest feature on a budget smartphone, just allow them some time to get it rebuilt.

While we question the quality and performance of the product, mostly there isn't any appreciable difference seen. In terms of performance, both the smartphones with the same specifications seem to perform equally. The processors and the memories function competently. There are no lags created just because it is a budget brand. Even if you have heard someone saying that, it is just the mind set of the people that you get something more in a leading brand just because you pay more. The quality of the product is also somewhat appreciably good for the budget brands today. While they strive to develop an identity to their brand in the market, they wont tend to compromise on its quality, at least these days of brand's growth. So you can count them on this. Earlier there were things such as the touch sensitivity, the speaker clarity, the camera quality, etc being accounted only to the top brands. All this has changed now. Try your hands on those budget brands, you might get amazed that they are better than the leading brand you own.

Next issue is regarding the radiation and safety concerns. Every smartphone has to pass through the international standards to introduce them to the public. The standards are tested by the authorities and indeed there might be slight differences due to the difference in the components used by different brands, but nothing to worry upon. At the end of the day, its all the same. Using anyone of them would make somewhat the same impact on you and the nature.

Which means the conclusion is that if you do not bother in showing off the brand in your hands, you can definitely rely upon the budget smartphones in the market. In terms of quality you can find a metallic build budget phone far better than a plastic build leading brand. The choice is yours.

City Lights

Weekend Getaway: Go Karting at Kochi

08:30 Mohammed Ibrahim 0 Comments

The weekend is here again, and are you confused over your plan for the weekend? TalkandSpeak is also back with its handpicked weekend destination. Let us keep away the restaurants and shopping malls. There are no much awaited releases at the cinemas either. So we are going for a different experience this time. We suggest you to 'Go Kart' this weekend. Kochi has one of the newest 'Go Karting' track opened at the Info Park, Kaloor. Before you ask, we answer you the basic questions.

What is 'Karting'?
Kart racing or karting is a variant of open-wheel motor-sport with small, open, four-wheeled vehicles called karts, go-karts, or gearbox/shifter karts depending on the design. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits. Karting is commonly perceived as the stepping stone to the higher ranks of motor-sports. Art Ingels is generally accepted to be the father of karting. A veteran hot rodder and a race car builder at Kurtis Kraft, he built the first kart in Southern California in 1956. Karting has rapidly spread to other countries, and currently has a large following in Europe.

This is one of the best picks for the boys as well as the girls who are keen to test their driving skills. Keep aside those illegal street racing and try your hands on this professionally built racing track. Speedway Kochi offers a 350m long track, which is comparatively small in size but has quite a lot of challenging twists and turns which would test your driving skills. We hope that they expand their tracks further for a longer driving experience. This is considered to be first of its kind in Kerala and has a huge response from the drive lovers of our town.

Plan your visit!

Bookings can be done by calling Speedway Kochi’s contact number – 9645962434.

The charges would be around Rs. 300-400 for an average ride.

We suggest you to make a call before you start to avoid unexpected problems due to over booking or huge response as it is a recently opened venue.

You can reach Speedway by passing through Kaloor onto the Infopark.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend ahead. :)

Technology

The Bansal Brothers - A story every Indian should know!

07:42 Mohammed Ibrahim 0 Comments

The Bansal brothers - namely Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal are the founders of the most popular online Flipkart. These brothers never thought that they would turn in to Billionaires while they started the earliest online store of India. During a time when the Indians were unaware of online shopping, these champs brought about a revolution into our market. Soon the Indians started buying anything and everything online. Starting from socks to high end computers, everything is shopped online today. Raising a challenge to the retailers of our country, e-commerce sites has emerged to a very large extend. We now have more than 50 online shopping stores functioning around us.

Flipkart emerged as the largest and the most popular online store and continues to stay the best even as global players like Ebay and Amazon has entered our market. With an initial investment of about

400,000, the Bansal brothers have now grown to be millionaires. Now Flipkart has a revenue of

11.8 Billion which is the largest among the online stores in India. Flipkart was founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, both alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. They had been working for Amazon.com previously. The business was formally incorporated as a company in October 2008 as Flipkart Online Services Pvt. Ltd. During the initial period, they concentrated only on books and later expanded to almost anything that you'd look into buying. Flipkart has also launched their flagship brand Digiflip which deals with pouches and bags.

This is a story that every aspiring entrepreneur of our nation should read. It is a story of hard-work and dedication along with innovative ideas. The story of a company started with an initial investment of Rs 4 lakhs is simply amazing and inspiring too for many aspiring entrepreneurs. The only milestone they had in front of them was to make their customers happy. The worked to provide timely delivery and up to the mark after sales delivery. While they watered the tree, the fruits started growing up. Co-Founder of Flipkart, Sachin Bansal got Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2012-2013 from Economic Times, leading Indian Economic Daily. Flipkart.com was awarded Young Turk of the Year at CNBC TV 18′s ‘India Business Leader Awards 2012′ (IBLA). Flipkart.com, secured second position in the List of Cheapest Mobile Store 2013, compiled by Indian e-commerce observer Zoutons.com. And above all these, it is the name Flipkart that every Indian knows, their achievement.

It is not how much you invest or how big you start that determines your future, but it is the hard-work and innovative ideas that trigger success. The Bansal brothers are one of the best examples that you can rise from ashes. They had nothing while they started. But now they are the best online store in India, while the global giants like Ebay and Amazon are mere miniatures.

Definitely these are Indians who have made us proud, and here is a bonus - Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal are related in no way.

Here is how their relationship emerged - ''My business partner, Binny, is also from Chandigarh. We are not related in any way, it just happens to be a coincidence that we are now working on Flipkart together. We both grew up in Chandigarh and went to the same schools yet did not know each other well. I went to the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, where I studied computer science, and that is where I really got to know Binny because he was studying computer science as well. We graduated from IIT in 2005, and we took different jobs in Bangalore. I joined a company called Techspan. Our paths converged again in 2006 when we both joined Amazon.com India.''

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