Bachana – Unplugged Cover

Here’s a cover I did of a song called ‘Bachana’, originally sung by talented Pakistani musician Bilal Khan.

iPad mini vs. iPad 2: Which one is for you?

This idea came across my mind just a couple of days back, when I convinced my grandfather to buy an iPad instead of one of those netbooks that I think are no good. Since his requirement was just to type a few emails, browse the web and print a document or two every once in a while, the iPad 2 was a logical choice. I own an iPad mini given to me as a birthday gift. Since the internals of both these tablets are basically the same, I started to think which tablet would be ideal for whom.

They seem to look more similar than they actually are.

To be clear, this won’t entirely be an objective view about a specs comparison. This is a subjective view more than anything else. I’ve been using the mini for almost a year now and the iPad 2 is, well, exactly the same internally but that should come as no surprise. There are a few differences and let’s talk about them first.

Cameras

The cameras on the iPad 2 are horrible when compared to the iPad mini. I’ve posted pictures from both the cameras of the respective tablets. The difference seems quite evident when seen side by side. The mini has wider viewing angles on both the cameras and captures better low light shots. Images clicked indoor are less grainy than ones on the iPad 2. I am not very fond of taking pictures on a tablet if I have a potent camera on my phone. The front camera on a tablet is definitely more important than the rear. Using Skype on both tablets tells you exactly why that is so. Video quality from on the iPad 2’s front camera is, relatively speaking, pretty bad. The fact that most Skype calls are made indoors doesn’t help. What good is the mini’s HD camera if the quality of video is downgraded anyway? Regardless, self-portraits turn out to be beautiful, invariably.

iPad 2: Rear Camera

iPad mini: Rear camera

iPad 2: Front Camera

iPad mini: Front camera

Connector

The 30-pin connector is, frankly speaking, a pain in the neck. It’s unidirectional ,so you just can’t connect the device when you need to charge your tablet as a typical impatient person would. To add to the misery, the charging speeds are slower and so are the speeds achieved when copying files across the device.

Speaker

While the iPad 2 definitely has speakers that are loud enough to get the job done, the mini has better (and more as claimed on Apple’s website) speakers. You can actually listen to music on in a small room and won’t feel the need to pull out your earphones which, incidentally, aren’t there in any of the iPad’s boxes, in case you were naïve enough to expect the earpods along with the mini, like I was.

Now let’s get down to the real and probably the only thing that matters, since it is not fair to compare the mini’s specifications to something that was released two years ago. What really matters is the screen size. Whether you need a bigger screen size of 9.7” or you can manage with a 7.9” tablet is what your question really should be. Basically, a 9.7 inch tablet amounts to a laptop replacement. You should pick one of these up if you are really into doing work such as photo editing, video and music editing or creating and editing presentations, word documents using the iOffice suite of apps etc. However, this isn’t to say that those apps wouldn’t be used satisfactorily on the mini. There is absolutely no difference across the board except the roomy-ness you get with the iPad 2. The mini, holds good as a true tablet since it is extremely portable and gives the iPad 2 a run for it’s money. It makes more sense to get the iPad mini if reading e-books is your thing.

Typing doesn’t seem cramped up at all on the mini, but it would take a few mails to get used to. Using the iPad 2’s keyboard is as comfortable as typing on a 15.6” laptop, the reason being that the keyboard on the iPad 2 is exactly the same size as that of a regular sized keyboard.

A comparison of the iPad 2 and my 15.6″ laptop’s keyboard

While both have the same screen resolution, the smaller screen size on the iPad mini results in a greater pixel density which is just right for reading text on web pages. On the contrary, the iPad 2 will let you enjoy movies on a bigger screen. Keep in mind though that holding the iPad 2 in one hand for a long time is definitely a taxing affair.

Do you require the retina Display?

The mini doesn’t require it at all. The pixel density (162 ppi) is sufficient enough for me to not make me feel the absence of a retina display. When you use the three finger tap gesture to enlarge any portion of the screen, which by the way, is an incredibly useful feature at times, the the screen does get pixelated to quite an extent making it look ugly at times.

On the iPad 2, umm…yeah! If you’ve seen the ‘resolutionary iPad’ you’re going to hate the display on the iPad2. If not, you can surely make do with it. A small factor that helps you in doing so is you instinctively hold the larger screen a tad far than you would hold the mini.

Of course, things might change once (and if) the next iPad mini with a retina display shows up.

Play it smart:
If you think the mini is winning all too much here and something is just not fair, you are absolutely right. The reason is because the mini has an ‘all new design’ as Apple prefers to call it. The sleek bezels on its sides and its thinness are what hold the key to the mini’s success. All the regular sized iPads have been extremely heavy and have had huge bezels which seemed a necessary evil until the mini was introduced. Worry not, though, Apple has been known to put in some impressive engineering in its products, especially in the past couple of years to make its products faster and slimmer whilst maintaining the battery life. Rumors point to a similar recipe being adopted to cook the next regular sized iPad. And at the time of writing this post, the next iPad isn’t that far away, so waiting seems to be a wise option. The iPad with Retina Display might see a few hundred dollars being slashed off it’s price tag and we might even get to see a new iPad mini.

This should give you a perspective into the thickness of both the tablets.

One more thing…
There is just one more thing though. The iPad 2 lacks Siri integration. No talking jibber jabber with a digital assistant just for the gags if you choose the iPad2.

Talk to me on WeChat

I’ve been receiving a few emails each day from people wanting to know about Chinese devices, mainly the Find 5. Here’s a QR code you can scan on your WeChat app to be able to talk to me. I usually come online (on WeChat) at least once a day, so you can be sure of your questions getting an answer within 24 hours.

All those who aren’t QR code savvy can add me using my username – thequalcomm.

 

Cheers!

Burger (King) – Good Food at a Great Price!

Burger King, East Street. 

A good place for food. I’ve tried some other things apart from the awesome Mini Chicken Burger (priced 35/- INR). The fact that I don’t even remember the names of those other dishes goes to tell how good the Mini Chicken Burger is.

Happened to visit the eatery again today, with friend Mayur (who will soon be joining me here, so be easy on him) and decided to do a video on his thoughts about the place.

Back to the Mini Chicken Burger, you get a delicious chicken patty sandwiched between buns, with a generous (too much sometimes, if you’re a shabby eater) amount of sauces and salad (consisting of cucumber and onion) around. A soft drink to wash the awesomeness down, and you’re in heaven, sitting right at one end of East Street.

As you will hear Mayur say, the franchise has another outlet in Koregaon Park. You get better food (surprisingly) at the East Street outlet though, and a much better and open ambiance at the KP outlet.

We usually choose to have our burger on the first floor, which provides ample view of the bustling streets and a cool breeze thanks to the many windows.

The windows I just talked about.

The walls of this one are adorned with mirrors and posters of cult music acts like The Beatles, John Lennon, etc. and a few newer ones like Linkin Park which blend in very well with the minimalistic design of the place.

The Beatles in all their glory.

Here’s what Mayur had to say about the place, the food and some other things

 

As is pretty evident, we’re still n00bs at this, however, this is just the start!

Our longest ride yet: Pune-Daman-Surat-Pune

Prologue

It was an early January morning. We were managing through our lecture and Yash says, ‘I might get an R15 v2.0’. I was shocked! Upon asking why, he said he needed an upgrade from his present bike even though he loved it.
Over the next few days we explored different options for his new bike. Finally on the 10th of February, he bought himself the Pulsar 200 NS. It was a brilliant day for him, but the bug had been passed on to me.
I decided it was time for me to upgrade as well and I needed it too since touring meant pushing my Honda Stunner to it’s very extreme. The CBR 250R C-ABS was my choice as I thought it hit the sweet spot. That is when this idea came to mind.
We started deciding that a big trip was due, since the small ones weren’t as entertaining as the kilometres piled on. Yash came up with the idea of riding to Daman. It was at perfect distance and Gujarat roads are absolutely brilliant. It was final then, we were to go to Daman at the end of the semester. We’d already ridden to the coast of Konkan and the ride was very successful.
But the semester still had 3 months to go. Those were spent day dreaming. We had this crazy idea to ride at night since that was something none of us had done. We thought about how much fun riding parallel on a deserted Gujarat highway would be.
During this time, one of Yash’s friends, Suraj, said he would also be joining.
Long story short, I got my CBR and the run-in was complete. The date was decided as the 1st of June (more on this later). We decided to leave early in the morning (late in the night?) at 3am to try our best to avoid as much traffic through the city as possible. Bookings were made at Hotel Emerald, Daman for 2 nights meanwhile also considering Hotel Sovereign as Suraj thought Emerald’s prices didn’t include taxes. The confusion was sorted out and the rooms were booked on the 29th.

30th May

Now, I was deciding on buying the Viaterra Claw from DSG since a while but when I finally went there, they were out of stock. Had to make-do with a cheap saddle bag for bought for 1600 INR from Probiker. I say ‘cheap’ because the handles were made of thick ribbon and it just felt like it would give away any moment. There was nothing except ‘sports’ written on it. With the fear of the saddle bags getting burnt, as many people have shared their experiences on this matter, I had no option on such short notice so I made my peace with it. Got nitrogen filled in the tire, a little more than the recommended level. Got the fuel topped up. Nothing like a full tank of petrol eh?

31st May

We (Yash and me) had our last exam today. I managed to set my routine for waking up at 12:00am since the last thing I wanted was fatigue or drowsiness to settle in while riding all the way. But the excitement just didn’t let it happen.
Somehow, Yash and I gave the last exam and unlike other people who were excited, I was both excited as well as eager to go home and prepare.
After reaching home, I packed my clothes, snacks, water and Gatorade and a basic medkit in the saddle bag.
This is when I realized something. My bike had no saree guard and even though I despise that ugly piece of metal, I did require it or my saddle bags would definitely touch the tires while leaning. I did manage a ‘jugaad’ by tying a generous amount of rope all the way around the tail lights, pillion grab rail and both the rear foot pegs. (On asking the Honda ASC guys after the trip, they said the saree guard needs to be purchased separately, which seemed a bit odd). All other preparations were made and it was time for me to sleep, which even though I hadn’t slept throughout the previous night, was somehow hard to come by.
Finally, I dozed off at about 7:00pm. Yash, on the other hand ran behind schedule and could get to bed only by 10pm. However, both of us managed to get up on time, which is what matters.

1st June

Although the heading says 1st June, it was pretty much the night of the 31st. Even though the alarm was set for 1:00am, I was up by 12:30am, and Yash, by 1am. I checked everything one last time and had a bath. It was time to put of my gear, the jacket, riding pants etc. and with every passing second I was feeling like the dream was about to come true, one steady kilometre at a time. I called up Yash to tell him I was leaving for his place and asked him to call Suraj up as well. Next thing, the saddle bags were fastened securely keeping in mind that the weight should be more towards the left side as I didn’t want to risk the bags getting burned. Said my goodbyes to my mother while the bike was idling beside me with the parking lights illuminating the dark street ahead. I sat on the bike and went towards the gate which the watchman closes at night. It’s always an amazing feeling when I ride my bike out even during the day, so it’s natural that his eyes were wide open when I woke him up by flashing my pass light and he saw me in the gear and the saddle bags on.

I calmly made my way to Yash’s house, enjoying the cool breeze as I went along. The streets were almost deserted save for the occasional Splendour guy near the local ‘tapri’ for a smoke. I reached at his place at exactly 2.58am knowing that we had to leave at 3am. Suraj hadn’t come yet, which was expected.

Yash was fastening the rope around his bag. He had taken a travel bag which was contoured in such a way that the ropes were tied easily under his NS. It wasn’t long before Suraj also joined in and we spent a good 10mintues trying to figure out a way to adjust his bag in a proper way. Now something to be noted here is, Suraj just had a basic helmet on, Yash had a jacket and elbow+knee guards and an LS2 helmet. I was wearing a pair of riding pants, something I would pay for badly in a couple of days. Finally, we checked the tire pressure and everything was okay except Yash’s Bike had a little less pressure in one of his tires.

‘Agla stop seedha Lonavla’ was the last words I heard from them and with that we rode out of Yash’s colony on the deserted streets of Pune as the pale yellow street lights shone on the road.

Somewhere, deep down under all the protective gear, I had a feeling, ‘THIS IS IT.’
As we rode along, we couldn’t go faster than 80kmph as it was pitch dark, even with the street lights on while exiting Pune on the highway towards Lonavla, a popular hill-station. Nothing more than the occasional truck was seen on the highway.
Now, I had only revved my bike till 5k RPM during the run-in, which allowed me to touch speeds of 100-110. After the first service, I didn’t ride much, since I had to concentrate on the on-going exams. This was especially exciting for me, because now I could push it further and experience speeds in excess of 110kmph. As we had decided earlier, Yash’s bike’s rear tire had low pressure so we would stop at the next petrol pump to refill the air. By the time we actually got out of Pune, I had started pushing the left side of the saddle bag down repeatedly, in an effort to save the right side from touching the silencer. I also asked Suraj a couple of times to keep an eye out.

 

Finally, at around 4:00am, we reached a petrol pump at Lonavla where we decided to take a break for a couple of minutes. I got off to see the bags. The saddle bag to the right was a good inch above the silencer.
The petrol pump was deserted except for one guy right at the back who was probably asleep in his chair. Yash decided against getting his tire topped up. Instead he said he was feeling a bit hungry and drowsy. This was a matter of concern, because we were just about an hour into our ride and he hadn’t slept for the past 2 nights in a row. So we decided to look for a place where we could grab a quick bite.
We spotted a shop about 5 minutes away which was open, remarkably, since the streets of Lonavla were pretty much deserted. Sadly, he had nothing except packaged food. I wasn’t very hungry myself because I’d had a bite to eat before I’d left but I could understand the importance of fresh hot food to a hungry person. We moved on to find a thela with a few locals gathered around for a cup of early morning tea. We decided to take a break. Yash and Suraj ordered a plate of egg bhurji and paav. After the meal, a cup of tea was due. The tea, sadly, was very watery. Over the cup of tea we discussed how people mix all kinds of crap in tea to save up on money and garnish it well.

With that, we left from Lonavla. Our next stop would Hotel Fountain at Ghodbunder in Thane (100km from where we last stopped), for proper breakfast. As we crossed the outskirts of Lonavla, I told the others that we would stop for a photo of the sun rise. After travelling a some distance, we could see the Khopoli sun breaking in and that led us to speed up a little. On the roads, at small intervals, crows were busy pecking away at tit bits. When we could finally see properly at about 6 am or so, we stopped to take a few photos as well as to ask directions.

We stopped by the roadside and Yash and Suraj went to talk to a trucker and ask about directions. Meanwhile, I was busy clicking a few pictures on my iPad. Sadly, there was a mountain towards the east so we couldn’t exactly see the sun itself. Suraj took his first picture of the entire trip on his S3 since he doesn’t like taking many pictures.
After a quick inspection of the saddle bags, we were off again. Our next stop was to be Hotel Fountain at Thane after which the roads were brilliant as Yash used to take that route often to go to Surat. Unfortunately, disaster was headed our way pretty soon.
After a few hours of riding at speeds of around a little less than hundred, we became quite unsure of the way and stopped to ask around. No one knew properly the route to Thane but thankfully the GPS on my phone as well as the boards pointed towards the right way from the ‘V’ junction we had stopped near. As we started making our way towards the other road on the ‘V’ as indicated by the GPS, I saw Yash stopped by a man nearby and pointing above him towards a board. The man had a serious look on his face so I decided to go ahead and see what the matter was with Suraj tailing behind and chose to overlook the board. Upon reaching, we learnt that the man was telling Yash that the road was the expressway, where 2-wheelers aren’t allowed. Almost instantly, we heard someone blowing his whistle. Of course, it was a cop. Thankfully we hadn’t gone on the Expressway so we turned around and the other two took the previous road again and halted while I rode up to the cop and asked him for directions for Thane. He asked us to go straight on the road we originally were and from their police station, head straight. I thanked him and we were on our way for a few minutes when disaster struck. Ahead of us, was a HUGE traffic jam.

‘That doesn’t sound so bad’ you would say? Well picture this, we were at a ‘Y’ junction with each of the other two roads being one ways and us having to go on the left one. What’s the bad part? There were trucks everywhere you looked including the road on which we were coming, which obviously implies that we couldn’t look anywhere in the first place. What’s even worse was that none of the trucks were on. They’d all stopped with none of them having any intention to move for quite some time. Some truck drivers had even gotten out of their trucks to see what the matter was. That was a luxury we couldn’t afford.
After being left stranded for a while and realizing that the situation wasn’t going to improve anytime soon, we decided to take advantage of us being on bikes and started making our way slowly between the trucks through any small space that could accommodate the width of our bikes, mine being the widest, I was going ahead. By now the radiator fan on my bike was throwing out hot air and it was all being thrown on the riding pants. Since the mesh doesn’t allow air to pass in or out, this just meant it would fry my thighs pretty soon. Thankfully, it was still 7am so the atmosphere wasn’t very hot as yet. Somehow we managed to push our bikes further ahead with people trying their best to give us space. Some other people on their bikes were dealing with the same problems. In another 5 minutes or so, we found a clearing nearby and decided to stop and decide what to do next. Turns out, that place was the Police Station which was mention previously by the cop. Yash and I stopped there to look back and find that Suraj was missing. We decided to park our bikes and wait for him at the Police Station and ask him to rendezvous with us there.
We tried calling him many times and each time he was at some different location since he always mentioned different landmarks around him, none of which we could quite locate.
The dehydration due to the gear had started getting to us. We decided to make a move towards Thane through the traffic. We decided to take the road on the right this time as the GPS showed that the left one goes ahead and meets the right one anyway. Besides, Suraj confirmed he was on that road and he asked us to meet him in front of a massive hoarding.
As we started, we made our way through the trucks again and could barely manage. Somehow, we made it to the other road only to find that more people were coming towards us on that road and the road had muddy water collected over it. ‘Screw it’, we thought and made our best attempt to cut through the incoming traffic, which primarily consisted of some trucks and some more trucks. With all kinds of vehicles honking and some two wheelers giving us the required room to move, we managed to make it to the place where the one way ended and stopped for a minute near a local dhaaba and saw how dirty it was. The canal flowing nearby smelled like…what a canal usually smells like. I gulped down a bit of water and headed straight on the road ahead which finally had less traffic. We tried our best to ride fast to cool ourselves down and in about 5min, we saw Suraj standing by the board and pulled over next to him. He told me how his front tire went into a pothole that went unseen by the water collected over it. Because of that, his legs and the front tire were all covered in mud. Soon Yash caught up as well and he told him what he went through. Apparently, some bystanders there were kind enough to help him get the bike out. Anxious to get away from there as soon as possible and to catch up on the time we lost, we rode towards Thane.
Unfortunately, we encountered a LOT of speed breakers on the way at the outskirts of Thane. There was literally a speed breaker at about every 200 meters. So, we couldn’t pick up speeds more than 40kmph.
What followed was another bad element for a tourer, traffic signals. We found ourselves standing between trucks again inching our way by but thankfully the trucks were moving too. This happened on the Mumbra bypass.
At about this time, Yash and Suraj told me later that they’d spotted people doing their business on the road side (answering calls, nature’s) which I, thankfully, didn’t see. After the traffic light incident, we were stuck with more trucks that were standing still. As we later found out, a cop had stopped traffic. While between the trucks, I saw a footpath to my left and could only see Suraj behind me. I am generally strictly against people riding on the footpath but this seemed to be a good half an hour to one hour stuck between the immobile trucks so I decided to just go for it. I edged my way towards the footpath with Suraj right behind me. Once on it, we rode past the stationary trucks. I felt bad for the people who were in their cars. As we were getting off the footpath, I saw my RVM to find a blue Pulsar NS behind Suraj. While getting off the footpath, I was a little careful not to let the engine guard touch. There I noticed the Cop who was too busy to notice three bikers getting off the footpath. As soon as we were down, Yash directed us to follow him and we entered Hotel Fountain.

Once there, we thought this would be a good break from the monotonous and tiring traffic jams since good food can work wonders, if it actually turns out to be good that is.
We parked our bikes between a couple of cars. The thing that was on our mind was the luggage. We were perplexed whether we should leave it there and risk something being stolen, or carry the load with us and spend time fastening and unfastening the ropes. Yash wanted to leave it there since the traffic jams had started to take a toll on him. I on the other hand, wanted to take it with us because it had valuables and the bags had no locks. I saw his point though and decided against it but took my iPad along with me. We tried talking to the watchman at the gate behind us to keep an eye on the bikes. Instead, he asked us to move our bikes to a different location, to the bike parking, and be responsible for our own luggage. The man looked drunk so I saw no point in trying to convince him. We went to freshen up after ordering food. Yash also wanted a Red Bull for his drowsiness. He went outside to buy one while I and Suraj waited inside the open-air restaurant for our food. The place was pretty crowded and we were lucky to be able to get a table for four.

Since the food took a while, I and Yash later went to look at the shops surrounding the Hotel. Interestingly, there was a shop that sold all types of crisps, sweets etc. all of which were imported. Yash bought a box of mints from there. As we headed back, it took only a couple of minutes for the food to arrive. I had ordered a cheese uttappa (which seemed like a completely different dish from what you get at Vaishali), Suraj, an onion uttappa and Yash had ordered a sandwich. Our choice for South Indian food was majorly because it would be served fast, I find it delicious, and it’s easy to digest.

After wrapping up, we made our way back to the bikes. I checked the bags and everything seemed to be in place. As we were putting on our gear and I was zipping up my jacket, I started to get pretty gloomy about the journey ahead. We had barely had any fun in the past few hours and stress was getting on to us by now. The only hope of things looking any brighter, was the fabled NH8. As Yash would sometimes say to me while sitting in a boring class ‘Woh feel nahi aa rahi,’ I just hoped things took a hundred and eighty degree turn soon.

We left Hotel Fountain at around 9:00am. At the first signal, an old, gentle guy in a Maruti asked Yash why we rode? What we got out of it?
“Main aqsar dekhta hoon, bikers ko. Kya yeh kisi tarah ka adventure hai?”. Before Yash could give an answer the innocent question, the signal turned green and the conversation came to an end. After that signal, we took a right and the next 160 kilometres were pure and absolute bliss! The roads were one of the best we have EVER ridden on. There was not a single patch where the road had potholes. The road was absolutely clean, the dividers looked colourful owing to the plants. To top it all off as it was still relatively early in the morning, there were very little cars and barely any trucks. I finally got a chance to open up my bike and I easily touched 120kmph. The bike felt absolutely stable and all concerns I had about the saddle bags touching the exhaust became secondary. The thrill of air passing you at 120kmph and adjusting yourself to be aerodynamic is just something else. Thankfully there weren’t any crazy drivers either so I could focus all my attention on enjoying the ride.

Yash touched speeds of 135-138kmph but said his bike wasn’t very stable at that speed. Suraj on the other hand was taking it easy on his 5 year old Pulsar since he said his handle was going haywire at times. He maintained speeds of about 90kmph and occasionally touched 100.
Cars seemed slow were overtaken in the blink of an eye (metaphorically of course). The roads were straight with just the right amount of curves to not make it boring and allow the perfect lean.

About halfway I stopped to the side of the road to gulp down half a bottle of Gatorade and half a power bar since I began to feel sleepy, something I couldn’t afford. It did the trick though. I and Yash also stopped at regular intervals to let Suraj catch up. Soon enough, we went under the ‘Welcome to Daman’ board, at which point the roads were horribly bad again but it didn’t matter this time.
Daman was much more crowded than we expected. It is a fact that we ride more for the journey and not the destination. The heat was rising by now and the Jacket, pants and gloves weren’t helping. After asking around and getting a couple of wring directions, we ultimately decided the follow the navigation on my phone to reach our hotel, Hotel Emerald on Sea face road.

Another 15 minutes and we were there. I went in to ask about our reservation. The lady at the reception was shocked at seeing me walk in. She confirmed our booking. We went outside and asked for a parking spot. The watchman asked us to just park in front of someone’s gate just adjacent to the hotel. Neither of us approved of it but we just wanted to relax for a while. We unpacked our stuff and made our way inside.
As we went in our room, the first thing we did was switch on the AC. At around 12.45pm, we were FINALLY in Daman, in our hotel room.
All of us freshened up and ate the food that was ordered. The tap water was saline, a big con. Food however, was not bad. After wrapping up, we took a well deserved nap.

In the evening, we strolled to a beach just down the road which turned out to be full of people and dumped with waste and beer bottles. A cop told us there was a beach at a little distance which was better so we decided to go there, the Devka beach. That one wasn’t any great either, just very lengthy. We bought a coconut each for coconut water which turned out to be oxidized and we thought we better not have it. All in all, the beaches were quite disappointing.

On our way back we spotted a domino’s and ordered food.

2nd June

I had this urge since the beginning that we should cover a long distance at a stretch on this ride which for which I had my new bike to blame. We came up with the idea of going to Surat and riding back to Pune the next day. Daman turned out to be worse than what we’d expected and we had seen almost everything it had to offer, save for the churches. Yash also agreed upon the idea and since he has been to his uncle stayed in Surat, he had been there often. He said he knew of a place in Surat, which offered mouth watering chicken. Suraj seemed sceptical at first but eventually agreed.
Surat was roughly a hundred and thirty kilometres from Daman. This was really exciting for me since our trip from Surat to Pune would be around 450 kilometres. The receptionist was persistent about us vacating within 10 minutes since we were past the check-out time (11:00am). Even though we had cancelled our stay for that day, the hotel’s staff was genial about helping us out with our bags and filling our bottles with cold water.
We packed our bags and mounted them on the bikes and fastened the ropes. Yash and Suraj helped me in tying the saddle bags in a secure manner. In a matter of minutes, we were making our way out of Daman. The road, pretty much lead us straight out of Daman onto the highway.
Gujarat roads were again there to welcome us with open arms, albeit with a little more traffic. We gained good speeds again and pretty soon the average car was overtaken in the ‘blink of an eye’. We were doing speeds well above 100, Suraj included. During the first few kilometres, we stopped to refuel.

At the petrol pump, only Yash and I were getting our tanks filled while Suraj still had plenty of juice to go. Since he was at a distance, I yelled out to him and asked him to switch his headlight on so he’s easier to spot. When the attendant started to fill my tank, he asked me why I told Suraj to do so. Him being inquisitive was a good feeling.
Pretty soon we were back on the road. Without taking any breaks, I stopped when I saw the first board that showed Surat towards the left and waited for the others. Soon they joined me and we stopped by the side of the road. A herd of buffalo passed us by. The worst part about such a thing happening apart from grievances caused to the traffic is the road is absolutely mess up once they’ve passed.

Also, some ‘crazy lover’ had carved in a verse on the roadside.
After drinking a lot of water and a few pictures, we made our way to Surat, asking around as we did. Turns out it was another 10 kilometres from where we had stopped. We took a left and we were on a beautiful yet narrow road that was relatively less congested. It felt reassuring that we were riding all the way on India’s finest roads.

After a few kilometres, the ‘Welcome to Surat’ Board was in front of us and we stopped for a few pictures. A picture of the three of us was due so Suraj asked an ice-cream guy passing by with his hand cart and a friend to click a picture for us. The guy seemed extremely puzzled. Suraj tried explaining to him how to click the picture yet, he somehow couldn’t understand so we dropped the idea.
Heat had started to set in so we were eager to find our way to our Hotel. Once inside the city, Yash guided us the best he could, until we had to rely on the GPS navigation again.
The roads in Surat seemed as they were regularly paid attention to. There were no traffic signals but people managed to not ride like maniacs, although there were the occasional ‘triplies’ here and there but nothing compared to Pune.
Our hotel was just left from a flyover that was under construction. Whilst me and Yash parked our bikes, Suraj was already standing there since he had lost his way but asked around and reached just fine.

I was sceptical of the hotel at first but it turned out to be much better than the one in Daman.
The lobby was fantastic. The room was a no-nonsense. Compact, yet elegant in some weird way. Three beds, a TV, what seemed like a 10 year old AC, a fan dangerously close to the ground and a well-furnished bathroom.

We ordered food and tea. Sandwiches were quite decent and the paranthas were good. Although we still couldn’t figure out whether it was the readymade parantha or not as Suraj said he has had plenty of these at his office.

After getting fresh, Yash and I watched Gangs of Wasseypur on the iPad while Suraj was busy chatting and seeing his Facebook. In the evening we had decided to go to Yash’s uncle’s place. We went on mine and Yash’s bikes. The place was not far away, Surat is a small city. A few flyovers and a couple of turns later, we were there.
The were very courteous to us.
After some time, both of Yash’s cousins was kind enough to take us out for dinner and show us around the city, in their car.
We had chicken at the place which offered mouth-watering food (Tandoori Nights, in Piplod) that closed down just after taking our order. On our way back, we were introduced to the tradition of the resident families getting together on wide footpaths along the road and have a bite to eat. We also saw about ten different car showrooms all in a row which were closed since the time was well past 10:00pm.
We wandered the streets for any shop that would give another famous dish, a blend of egg and veggies served in the form of various different dishes. We had about 4 different dishes of egg none of which were known to us except for the boiled egg.

Once we were back, we thanked them for their hospitality and generosity. They enquired about our bikes as well. No one seemed to understand our fascination of riding all the way on the bikes though.
On our way back, the traffic was as light as it gets. When we reached back, we had a cup of tea and watched a few Russell Peters videos on YouTube.
I packed up my bag since we were planning to leave early tomorrow morning. After a while, Yash and I resumed watching Gangs of Wasseypur while Suraj was busy with his phone. Not too long before we were all sound asleep.

3rd May

I woke up around 10am to see that Suraj was already up. Yash woke up too. Breakfast was ordered and all of us packed whatever little was left. I adjusted the bottles appropriately to balance the weight equally on both sides of the saddle bags.
It didn’t take long before Suraj paid the bill at the counter while I was eager to get on with, what was going to be the longest ride for any of us. We helped ourselves in taking the bags all the way down. Office hours had long begun so the parking lot was full with corporate employees parking their Passions and their Splendours. It was a little tough to get the bikes out through the ruckus. We made it out however and started tying the bags once again. To be on the safer side, Suraj measured everyone’s tires too, with his Radioshack air gauge. Mine were doing pretty good but Yash’s rear tire still had low pressure but we moved on anyway. I had my riding pants and jacket on though it wasn’t zipped up. I was wearing a black T-shirt too. Why would that be relevant in anyway? You’ll know.
As we took the road to the highway and took our first right, the construction site caused a huge traffic jam. Now, consider the fact that Surat was a pretty humid place and these were still the summers. Personally, I was suffering heavy water loss due to perspiration. Suraj was much better off, since he had absolutely no protective gear on except for a helmet. Somehow, we managed to make it past that traffic jam since the vehicles were at least moving. In just a few minutes however, we encountered, what would be the worst part of the trip, from my perspective at least. There was yet another traffic jam.
This time, the road was fully constructed so there was a boatload of people on the road. Since the traffic lights didn’t work, everyone had their vehicles on, emitting heat and smoke out of their exhausts, since the traffic could move at any time. The sun shone brightly and to top it all off, my CBR’s fan had started. Anyone who owns a 250 knows how horrible the air blown out from the fan can be. I had started to get frustrated by now. The traffic moved extremely slowly. The temperature would have easily touched 50 degrees. After nearly 10 minutes of this torture, we crossed the signal that caused that huge traffic jam and I sped away without giving a damn about my speed or that we were still in the city. The wind felt very good and I didn’t want it to stop. Relatively speaking, we were out of the city in no time. A little longer on the highway at speeds of around 100 to cool down and we stopped to drink water. I gulped down an entire bottle of water (which had also become hot) in one go. A few curses to the traffic and we decided to move right along.

The longest journey had begun and seemed all too good. We went at breakneck speeds. My bike was extremely stable at 120kmph and I did push it further as and when the road and traffic allowed. I wasn’t too careful anymore of the saddlebags and just concentrated on enjoying the ride. Roads were as beautiful and smooth as they were when we came back. Our aim was to reach Thane as soon as we could. Suraj was behind me and Yash many times owing to the bike but we decided to slow down from time to time rather than to actually stop. This was because back in Pune, it had started raining and that was one thing we didn’t want to deal with as yet. Water breaks were taken in due time but no major stops as such.
At one point, I and Yash decided to switch bikes. His pulsar seemed VERY different since it was a naked bike. Since I wasn’t used to his bike I decided to keep the speed under 80. He however, touched 125 on my CBR. I realized how tiring it must get since an upright position meant all the body weight lies on your bottom even though the seat was more comfortable than my bike’s. The wrists had no pressure at all. After sitting on his bike I realized how much importance a visor had since the air blast ensured higher fatigue than required. His bike had a much smoother engine than mine though. Gears wear short and zippy. About 10km later, we switched back.
As we were exiting Gujarat, the roads were less congested and the scenic beauty was ever so good. I stopped to take a few pictures of the road. As I continued on, I noticed in the sky above, clouds had started setting in. My bags were not water proof so I wanted to avoid the rain at all costs. I sped up and increased my average speed. While going back, Yash saw a diversion for a newly made road and suggested we go via the new road since it might have less traffic and would be relatively straight without many curves. A policeman, however, suggested otherwise and we continued on the main highway.
It wasn’t too long before we reached the outskirts of Thane. There, at Hotel Fountain, we stopped for lunch. The best was yet to come. This, after we covered 260km in a little over 3 hours!

There, at Hotel Fountain, we stopped for lunch. We ordered an egg-chicken sandwich. All of us wanted to make a move as early as possible and that is exactly what we did. Soon, we sat on our bikes and were off towards Thane. The roads were decent, at best. We couldn’t pick up any speed at all. While we were in the outskirts of Mumbai, it started drizzling. There is nothing we could do about it since ther were traffic lights and, obviously, traffic everywhere. Meanwhile, while I was riding, there was sumo a little distance ahead of me. There was a little kid sitting at the back seat and look at me since quite a while. I waved at him and he started smiling and waved back. I waved again, since we were all at a slow pace and it was good fun, and this time the kid smiled and called his mother. She was fascinated as well. This continued for about a minute until Yash also caught up. The kid turned his attention towards him and decided to take a chance and wave at him too. Yash waved back a couple times and took over. I did too and the kid watched us overtake the sumo. Suraj, meanwhile, was behind us.
After a while, as the rain showed no signs of subsiding, we decided it was a good time to keep our mobile phones in a secure, waterproof pocket. We stopped under a tree and Yash told me about a guy he say who was wearing and XBHP T-shirt and had just passed by. With that, we started off once again only to realize we were lost, within the next 30 minutes. The rain had still not stopped and we wandered the streets of Mumbai for a good 45 minutes or so until we finally did find the right way. At this point, the rain had started pouring not very heavy but enough to pass through the waterproof jackets. After a while, we realized Suraj had taken a wrong turn and since it was raining, he had put his phone in his bag so there was no other option but to stop and wait for him. Yash and I stopped under the shade of a tree to help us dry for a bit.
While we had stopped, a guy on a pulsar 220 came by, checked out our bikes and started to rev his engine while looking at us as if he were trying to show off and then sped away while riding in a rash manner. Both of us had a good laugh.
About 15 minutes later, we spotted Suraj coming by. He realized he had taken a wrong turn and had called us up. Without wasting any more time, we were back on track. After a little more riding in the rain at slow speeds and almost going on the expressway again, we found our way to the old Mumbai-Pune highway.

The next few kilometers were the best and most satisfying of the entire trip. The sun was about to set, there was virtually no traffic and the roads were smooth albeit wet and narrow, but it didn’t matter anymore. We took our time. The tires rolled over the tarmac with utter grace. The climate was ideal with just the right amount of chill in the air. About half an hour later, we passed the same spot where we had faced our first traffic jam. The recollection of the unhappiness then and the splendid joy now, made that stretch extremely satisfactory. We were truly understanding the meaning of ‘all is well that ends well’.

After another few kilometers, the surroundings just became exceptionally better. There were trees and kills all around. The sun was setting and the rain had stopped pouring, yet the clouds were still scattered up in the sky. This called for a few pictures. We were at the peak of our euphoria. Energy was restored almost instantly. So much so, that we even considered filming the few minutes ahead but weren’t able to quite manage a comfortable position for the iPad between my bike’s visor so we dropped the idea.

A little while later, it was dark and we still hadn’t reached Lonavla yet. My helmet and Yash’s alike, had smoked visors on them so it was very tough to see through them at night. On top of that, mud was splashed all over the visors and that made things even worse. All the three of us wear spectacles, so we somehow managed even though they were stained too.

Our next stop, was to have a cup of tea. We stopped at Lonavla near a Maganlal chikki shop. All of us took our turns to go and buy something from the shop while the other two stayed back and watched the bikes. At this point, I noted the saddle bags had mud dried all over them and a part of the strap had melted even though there was no contact being made with the exhaust.
We wrapped up and off we were, again. This time, the roads had something entirely different to throw our way. We were riding uphill on a mountain that was absolutely pitch black. Not a single soul to be seen and even the moonlight was obstructed due to the clouds. Of course, there was no question of any street lights. This patch was particularly spooky, especially if one were to ride alone. We did manage however and thankfully, this road led straight to the Pune-Lonavla expressway.
Now, as I saw the two roads meet, I as doubtful whether I should go on the expressway or not but Yash passed me by and went on the highway followed by Suraj. Since Yash and Suraj had been to Lonavla many times before, I trusted their judgement and went on the expressway. Yash later told me, this was a certain patch where bikes were allowed. I was cautious through, since I didn’t know this at the time. Thankfully, it didn’t take us more than about 20 minutes to get off the expressway and onto the old highway. This was reassuring in its own way and every kilometer marked the end of the amazing journey.
The ride on this highway was ordinary except for the fact that it had started drizzling again and I had adjusted my visor in an awkward position so it could save my spectacles from the rain drops and yet not obstruct my vision. Since it was raining, we were moving at slow speeds.

About an hour later, we had entered the outskirts of Pune. We made our way to Yash’s and Suraj’s society, and once there, we stopped to say goodbye. Meanwhile, two elderly women were sitting beside the footpath and were busy cursing each other for no rhyme or reason.

Three days of awesomeness had finally come to an end.

This is a guest post by my dear friend, Mayur, with inputs from me. He is an intelligent man with a passion for technology, and I managed to get him interested in touring. We share a lot in common, apart from being classmates in an engineering college! Thanks dog. I look forward to more rides.

OPPO Find 5 Unboxing and Review [Developing Post]

Been a long time since I posted, and things have changed since. I got a part time job, so I could afford a better phone than the Jiayu G4 which I had earlier planned to get. Not only that, the Jiayu is still out of stock. So with the money I got off selling the UMI X1, I added my first salary and was still short of more than half the cost of a 32GB OPPO Find 5. Dad chipped in with a generous amount, and here it is. Full in-depth review will come soon, keep watching this space.

OPPO Find 5 full specs:

• Screen size: 5 inches
• Resolution: 1920x1080p Full HD
• Display type: IPS LCD
• Protection: Gorilla Glass 2
• Cameras: 13MP rear (Sony Exmor RS sensor), 1.9MP front
• RAM: 2GB LPDDR2
• ROM: 16GB (White), 32GB (White/Black)
• Expandable memory: No
• Processor: APQ8064 chipset, 1.5GHz quad core Krait CPU
• OS: Android 4.1.1 customized by OPPO
• Battery: 2500mAh
• Removable? No
• In the box: Phone, Users manual, SIM ejector pin, 2 NFC tags, Dirac HD earphones, USB Cable, USA Charger
• SIM type: Micro SIM
• OTG, MHL: None
• Other: OPPO’s first international phone. Great community support at OPPOForums. Dirac HD sound, which is pretty amazing.
• Price: 16GB 499USD, 32GB 569USD.
• Here is the link to GSMArena’s specs page if you will.

Packaging:

China is giving me sweet surprises. First it was the UMI X1 with neat packaging, now the OPPO. This is by far the best phone packaging I have come across, the box is of good quality laced with a metal sheet on the corner of one flap. The front has ‘OPPO Find 5’ etched, with the numeral ‘5’ highly stylized. The two flaps open like doors and are held together by magnets when not open. The backside of the box has the key specs printed on it with a few important information such as the IMEI and barcode. When you open the flaps, you are greeted by the phone which sits on top of everything else, which looks great. In my opinion the black version looks even better than the white one. PIC 1. There is a matte-styled screen guard installed on the phone from the factory, which again has some information regarding the phone usage. The phone itself sits on a paper/cardboard sheet which has a little flap on the top which makes it possible to take the phone out without having to invert the box. The level of detail in the packaging shows you how much OPPO are trying to impress their customer. I’d say they’re highly successful with me at least.

Upon taking the phone out, you see a black envelope sitting in the box, with a white USB charger on the other side. The two-side open envelope carries the user’s manual and a credit card shaped card which houses the 2 NFC tags. Under the envelope, in one section there is the pair of Dirac HD earphones and the USB cable, and the charger (USA pin) in the other. That is pretty much it for the packaging. Impressions: Excellent.

Accessories:

As I said, the phone comes with one micro-USB to USB cable, a USA pin charger, and the Dirac HD earphones which are open type. That’s all from OPPO, my seller included a USA pin to EU pin adapter because that is what we use here. The adapter is ok OK quality, costs about 15 INR in my country.

PICS

Device:

The device feels insanely sturdy. I’ll be updating the review with comparisons with phones like the Lumia 920 and SGS3, etc. Almost the entire front is covered by glass, which is coated with Gorilla Glass protection. One thing I’d have liked would be curved glass, but then it might not have suited the sharp design of the phone. Below the glass, there’s the phone’s chin which continues from the sides and back. The front top houses the proximity, light, etc sensors, the 1.9MP camera on the left and the notification LED on the right with the speaker sitting in the center.

PIC

The Power/Lock button is on the left, while the vol+/vol- buttons sit on the right. It might take some getting used to for you to properly operate the phone since most major manufacturers have the power button on the right.

PIC

3.5mm audio output on the top.

PIC

Micro USB port on the bottom.

PIC

The phone’s back is curved, meatiest at the center. This makes you feel that the phone is thinner than it actually is, since you only get a measure of thickness on the sides, and this on is at the thinnest at those points. The phone feels extremely premium and well made, and the weight adds to the premium feel. The weight (162g) might actually not suit the fairer sex or in general people with small hands.

The design takes a minimalist approach, and there’s literally nothing printed on the front. Even on the back, there is OPPO printed in the center and other certifications and warning below the grilled holes for the speaker. It really makes you want to look and the device over and over.

Having played a bit with the SGS3, this phone beats the S3 hands down in terms of overall feel and the satisfaction of holding something premium in your hands. The metal frame around the phone again adds to it.

Screen:

The screen is a full HD panel measuring 5 inches diagonally. It is extremely bright, and viewing angles are excellent. Since I’ve been indoors during day-time ever since I got the phone, I haven’t been able to test it under sunlight but I would assume the screen would not let me down.

 

Post in development, will be updated as and when I can. You can comment and discuss in the meantime.

AndroidGuruz are NOT official resellers of OPPO atleast; confirmed

As I (maybe many more, looking at their attitude towards potential buyers) suspected, AndroidGuruz (www.androidguruz.com, oppo.androiduruz.com) are NOT an official reseller of OPPO products in India. As you can see from the picture posted, I had a conversation with OPPO on Twitter (@OPPO) and they confirmed the same. AndroidGuruz have been misleading the media according to OPPO, and one should be careful before making a deal with them. This is like a nationwide scam and people are giving it a lot of footage on blogs and websites, and no one has bothered to check their authenticity yet. I think I saved myself a hard time by confirming this with OPPO themselves, as I was about to place an order with AndroidGuruz for an OPPO Find 5. Time to start thinking again.

Foul play by UMI India

Being a follower of electronics – especially those having origins in China, I was very excited to hear about UMI being launched in India. I was glad about the fact that I would be able to avail the X2 at the same price as the Chinese, and avail domestic warranty without having to send the device back to China. I was caught off guard by the UMI guys over at India – if they actually represent UMI, which is not clear even as of today. I will be referring to the people behind this as ‘the people’ henceforth in this article. So, the people were fast in setting up innumerable Facebook pages and websites – www.umimobiles.in, www.umimobiles.com, www.umimobile.in, https://www.facebook.com/umimobile, https://www.facebook.com/UmiIndia. Indians are in the coming-of-age phase when it is electronics, so the interest they managed to garner was HUGE. Apart from the websites and webpages, the people were also quick in setting up a working bank account and a ‘customer care unit’ which never had an executive who could attend your call, all of them apparently were ‘busy on other calls’.

The first Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/umimobile, also the most popular in terms of followers (3376 followers at the time of writing this post), was set up on January the 30th, 2013. Since then, the people have announced various devices – ranging from ultra low budget phablets to UMI’s flagship, the UMI X2. The device became hugely popular, and UMI got many takers at the same time. The device was priced at 14,000 INR which is pretty much at par with the Chinese counterparts, and a person like me would think the device is a steal at that price, since I have only been importing gadgets from China and they tend to cost a whole lot more after import. Anyway, back to the people. They also put up a pre-order link, where the buyer had to pay 500 INR at the time of booking and the remaining 13500 INR before shipment. Pre-ordering and online payments do not have many fans in India, where people started buying online only after the introduction of the COD (Cash On Delivery) concept. In spite of that, people went ahead and pre booked the UMI X2 in huge numbers – only to be disappointed through the coming months. If my memory serves me right, people started pre-booking in February, and were promised delivery in March. In March, the people started putting up statuses on the UMI Facebook page saying the devices would be in India on xxx date, and that they would start shipment on yyy date. Unfortunately for the buyers, nothing materialized, the string of false promises grew by the day. Now, people were starting to get agitated, and the only way to get in contact with the people was via the Facebook page. So, buyers started putting allegations on the people and started posting their queries on the Facebook page as they had nowhere else to go to. The people’s reply to this was amazing – all those who asked questions on delivery and vented their anger, WERE BLOCKED FROM THEIR FACEBOOK PAGE. People without access to the internet and debit/credit cards paid the pre-booking amount offline, and many did not even have proof to show they did. This sort of a behaviour from a company trying to make a name for itself is not expected.

I bought myself an UMI X1 last year, imported from China, and was quite happy with it. I had also reviewed the device which got a good response and pushed me forward to review the UMI X2 as well – but this behaviour from the people made me swear to myself to not buy an UMI device unless it is for free.

I am still in confusion if it is the same UMI guys as the ones who make the device in China, since there were talks about a franchise called AndroidGuruz (www.androidguruz.com, https://www.facebook.com/Androidguruz (the website says ‘coming soon’ since more than 2 months)) which would be selling a total of 42 Chinese branded phones in India including UMI, Jiayu, Xiaomi, etc. I would hope that it is the AndroidGuruz people behind this fiasco, being a liker of UMI.

Also I would suggest readers to NOT pre book any device with UMI/AndroidGuruz until you have seen the device in stock or at a retail store out of the 200 they claim to be working on.

Following are the sort of false promises I talked about – none of them has materialized yet.

I was one among the other 9000+ to call and there was no call back, which they had promised to do.

Posted this picture a few weeks back but no word yet.

It never came to India.

No deliveries were announced, even after almost 2 moths.

Riding to the West Coast of India – and then a hill station

Places: Konkan (Karde Beach) and Mahabaleshwar
Date: 22-24 Dec 2012
Total distance: 520km (as per my RTR’s speedo)
Starting point: Hotel Ambience, Wakad, Pune
Riders:
1. Abhijit (Jeetley) – RTR160
2. Suraj – Pulsar 200
3. Mayur – CBF Stunner
4. Myself – RTR180

Route:
NH4-Bhor-Poladpur-Khed-Dapoli-Karde Beach (Day 1) – 252km on odo
Karde-Dapoli-Poladpur-Mahabaleshwar (Day 2) – 383km on odo
Mahabaleshwar-Pune (Day 3) – 520km on odo

Accomodation and nutrition:
Konkan – Were surprised to see most (all) hotel booked to the capacity at Karde. Finally found a (not great) room for a night, for Rs. 800, almost attached to the beach. You could smell the beach there. Food was sub-par, anyone riding to anywhere close to Dapoli take along a few packets of Maggi.
Mahabaleshwar – Jeetley has been here tonnes of times, knows this place in and out. Tried at Soonder Villa, but was packed to its capacity. A middleman took us to Apsarra hotel, got a superb room for 1000 for 24 hours. The place was amazing and recommended to anyone, will post the contact soon. Got some amazing tea, talked to the owner about his 1971 RE which he kickstarted for us. Woah! Food wasn’t a problem there, lunch was ordered from Domino’s and ate a little in the market at night as no one was really hungry. Breakfast was at the awesome Mapro’s on the way back.

Everything else:
Getting permission from Mom was checkpoint #1. Dad had a near fatal accident 10 years back, she was apprehensive. But agreed nonetheless.

The roads after Bhor were simply awesome. Rode at good speeds for long times. Felt great! You don’t get to do that everyday. Also the backwaters of the Nira-Deoghar dam served a superb view. Couldn’t help but stop multiple times. Very less traffic too, so it was really good. But there was a bad patch of about 10-12km till Bhor, and then a real bad patch of 10km exactly on the way to Mahabaleshwar from Poladpur ghat.

Okay. so here’s some pictures.

PS: They’re clicked on the UMI X1.

Cheers!

In review – UMi X1 [Updated 5 Feb 2013]

Hello to all. Thanks for heading over, I will try my best to cover as many aspects as I can in this review. If I have missed on something which you want to know, please feel free to ask.
Also, it may help to keep in mind my phone history – had an LG Optimus One before this which I used for a year and a half.

UMi X1 – Specifications

Manufacturer’s website: http://www.91umi.com

URLs contained in QR code on box: http://www.91umi.com, http://www.weibo.com/u/2949207210, t.qq.com/umi2012sz

Price: USD 200-230 (As of Nov 2012) for international buyers; USD 159 for people in China

OS: Android – ICS 4.0.4, default unrooted.

Screen:

• Size – 4.5 inch touchscreen IPS, 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio
• Resolution – 1280×720 pixels, 326 PPI

Battery: 1750mAh

Network support:

• GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz

Dual SIM (WCDMA+GSM)

Chipset/internal hardware:

• CPU – MediaTek MT6577 Dual-Core Cortex A9 @1 GHz
• GPU – PowerVR SGX 531 clocked @394MHz
• RAM – 1GB, 970MB usable
• ROM – 4GB (System – 503MB, 2.16GB – internal, 1GB – Apps)

Cameras:
8MP rear with dual LED flash and autofocus, 2MP front

Dimensions and weight: 129x68x8.5mm, 138g with battery

Other features: GPS, A-GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi b/g, microSD support up to 64GB, gravity sensor, accelerometer, light sensor, proximity sensor.

Accessories available (sold separate): Screen protector, plastic case, leather case, spare batteries, UMi Hi-300 earphones, desktop charger (to charge spare batteries)

Ok, so here’s my take.

PACKAGING:

Comes in a very sleek and beautiful box which you’d never have seen before. I like it a lot. In fact, the box is so sleek that the charger as well as the additional accessories come in separate boxes. The fact that it looks like a book may help some people who’re looking to avoid paying customs. :P

IN THE BOX:

As stock, you get only the phone, data cable and charger, nothing else, not even a user’s manual in Chinese. My seller sent a microSD card reader, a soft pouch I’ll never use, and fake Dr. Dre beats headphones as freebies. I paid extra for – UMi earphones, extra battery, desktop charger, leather case.

HARDWARE:

In the front there is the 4.5″ screen, three capacitive (there’s a marker under each button which is backlit as opposed to the buttons themselves being backlit) buttons below the screen – back, home and menu respectively. Above the screen there are the sensors – light and proximity, and the 2MP camera. There is the speaker in the center, and ‘UMI X1’ printed. Strangely, it is printed on the screen protector instead of the phone itself.
On top – power/lock button, 3.5mm earphone jack
Left – microUSB port
Right – Volume up/down
Bottom – Microphone

The phone itself feels extremely thin and light. At first, it felt like it was cheap quality. But now after two days it doesn’t feel cheap in any manner, nor does it feel Samsung/LG quality. It took me time to get used to the 8.5mm thickness. I’d been using an LG Optimus One for quite long, and it was much much more thicker.

I compared it to SGS, SGS Advance, SGS 2, SGS 3 in terms of weight and feel. It felt lighter than any of those at first, but when I took both (UMi X1 in one and SGS 1/2/3/advance in the other) it felt heavier than SGS and SGS 2. Please keep in mind there’s no numbers here.

They’ve made the back cover extremely thin, maybe to save on a millimeter of thickness. I advice anyone to be careful when taking that off/putting it back on.

Screen – The screen is an IPS screen, with a superb resolution of 1280×720 pixels. Personally I am not extremely happy with the screen, viewing angles are not as good as my Chinese tablet’s (Aoson M11) screen which uses an IPS panel too. Apart from the viewing angles, the brightness is satisfactory, but I haven’t tested it outdoors yet. The resolution is amazing, pictures look fluid and pixels cannot be detected by the human eye, at least mine. The high PPI of 326 definitely pays off, simple built in wallpapers look gorgeous. Here are a few pictures:

Touch sensitivity – Sensitive enough. 5 points multitouch. Nothing more.

Capacitive buttons – It will take you some time to get used to the back button being on the left, as most popular phones have it on the right. The buttons are very sensitive, as good as my brother’s Samsung Galaxy S advance. I’m happy with the sensitivity. Not happy with the backlight on the buttons, very dim. Here’s a picture:

Sensors, etc – The light and proximity sensor work just fine. I never really set brightness to automatic, most of the time (indoors) it is set to minimum. On this phone, the sensor is too sensitive, brightness levels are changed as soon as there is a change in the amount of ambient light (or maybe the software reacts too quickly?). Not everyone will like this, plus it might drain more juice out of the battery.
As for the proximity sensor: I’ve been using the phone with the leather case, and when I’m on a call I close the leather flap, this turns the screen off. Samsung Galaxy Note style. There are appropriate holes on the leather case for the speaker, rear louspeaker and the rear camera. The USB port cannot be accessed with the case on.

Call quality – The speaker is loud and clear. All fine. No complaints from the receiver.

Micro USB port and charger – I am disappointed with it. Only the stock USB cable fits tight and snugly, and using this one my computer was not able to detect the phone, but the phone could charge itself this way. I tried a few other microUSB cables and they worked fine, but they don’t fit as tight as you’d want them to be.

The charger is rated at – Input: 100-240V–50-60Hz/150mA
Output: 5V–400mA/800mA

It works fine, has an EU plug by default.

CAMERAS:

Rear camera – This one is a decent performer in daylight. Autofocus is good and pretty fast. I would say it is as good as the 5MP unit on my brother’s SGS Advance. Also, the stock settings are pretty useless for me, pictures come out well with HDR turned on. Strangely with HDR on there are 2 pictures saved in the gallery for every click. But you’ll know which one to delete. Flash is not well directed – by that I mean that flash will wash away the picture, making it pretty much useless most of the time.
Here are some pictures; the first two are with HDR on and the other two with HDR off.

Front camera – I’m quite happy with this. Maybe because I didn’t have much expectations. But this 2MP unit is good enough to make video calls and stuff like that. No self potraits.

This picture is taken using the front camera:

CONNECTIVITY:

Dual SIM functionality works fine. I tried it with two AirTel SIMs, one on 2G and the other on 3G. I’m planning to get myself another SIM from a carrier who offers good 3G speeds, and is cheap. I found GPRS on this phone to be faster than on my Optimus One, I don’t know if its just me or not.

Here’s how the SIM and microSD ports are arranged:

As I listed above, the phone is completely unlocked for worldwide use.

Bluetooth works fine, tested it with a bluetooth headset, my laptop and paired it to a phone to send and receive files, flawless, as expected. WiFi is fine too, I haven’t used it much so I can’t say. Just used it once with my brother’s phone as the hotspot.

GPS – Here is a screen from the app ‘GPS test’. It took quite some time to lock my position, but I believe there are various fixes to overcome this problem. I will update once I try them out. Google Maps was extremely quick to show my position.

I haven’t tested the WiFi hotspot functionality as yet, but there should be no problems, I guess. Also, there is an option for Bluetooth tethering which I quite like. But I guess it can be used only with PCs, not with phones.

OS, USAGE AND PERFORMANCE:

This is one department where this phone just shines. The Android OS is extremely stable, in two days of extensive usage and testing I haven’t been able to notice any lag. The dual core CPU coupled with the PowerVR GPU handles the system well enough for an average user. There are some goodies for the advaneced as well as average user; such as automatic power on/power off, audio profiles, battery percentage, etc. These may not sound much but these come in very handy to me.
Also, it came with Google Play store preinstalled. Works fine out of the box, I didn’t expect that.

It comes with ‘GO Launcher’ as default, but a little tweaked by the factory. The app drawer icon now says ‘UMI’. I personally don’t like GO Launcher much, have replaced it with Nova Launcher.

Here’s how the stock launcher looks:

I suggest anyone interested in this phone to buy a desktop charger seat as well, this way I do not need to plug the phone at all. The desktop charger charges the spare battery, and all I need to do is just swap this with the drained one.
Battery life out of the box was a little less than satisfactory, but then I rooted the phone and tweaked it a little and now it is much much better. Keep in mind this is a huge screen with a 1750mAh battery, so you might want to re-think what your expectations are.

Rooted the phone yesterday.

I’ll do a tutorial on how to root if people want.

One thing I noticed last night when I used the phone for really long non-stop (around 3 hours I think) was that the region around the camera got quite heated up. I’d assume that is where the processor sits.

I do not believe benchmarks much, it is more of user reviews which give a better picture. Anyway, just did an AnTuTu test. If anyone wants me to do more benchmark tests, I’ll oblige.

The phone comes with 4 GB ROM on board. Obviously, all of this is not usable. A a part of it is reserved for the system, a part for internal storage, and the rest for the user.

In this case the partitions looks like:
System – 503 MB
Apps – 1 GB
User – 2.16 GB

Sound and music: The rear speaker is really loud, louder than most phones I’ve seen. But at max volume there is noticeable distortion. I don’t play music on the loudspeaker anyway, it might be a problem for those who do. Solution: keep the volume 2 steps lower than maximum.
One important thing readers might want to make a note of – the IMEI is in 86xxxxxxxx format, luckily it works for me. Some countries need the IMEI in international format (ie 35xxxxxx). Also, as this is a dual SIM, I expected it to have two different IMEI numbers, instead, it comes with two same numbers. But it can be easily changed. It might be considered as a criminal offence in some countries to change the IMEI, and there are tutorials on the net to do the same.

ACCESSORIES AND VALUE FOR MONEY:

The original UMi earphones are simply amazing. Maybe I had too low expectations, but the sound quality with those earphones on the UMi is at least as good as my iPod. Unfortunately I can’t use this as a music device, as I can’t afford to dry up the battery too soon. But if you’re confused whether to buy the earphones or not, please go ahead.

The leather case is not very useful. In fact, I don’t think it is leather in the first place. :P

And yes, I’d placed an order for the ThL W3 dual core initially, this phone did not seem to be available at all. The seller shipped it with FedEx, and during that time FedEx weren’t shipping any parcels which contained a battery. So I got refunded. The process took 10 days, and the UMi started to appear. So I pre-ordered.

This is it from me. If you have any questions or queries, please feel free to comment. Thanks!

UPDATE – 5th Feb 2013

After updating to the 20130101 ROM (Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean) the AnTuTu scores have gone up by quite a bit. From 5357 to 5962, which is a good improvement. The ROM is pretty smooth, and recommended to anyone.