Lenovo Vibe X2 review: A good looking, feature rich smartphone

The phone's edges give an impression that several layers have been stacked on each other, to make the design interesting. It surely is a good deviation as the phone looks pretty different with three coloured layers - golden, orange and red stacked below the black display panel layer. As we mentioned, these are not actual layers as the phone's internals are placed inside the phone's body.

The phone's edges are not rounded and even the rounding at the corners is very subtle, giving the phone a very sharp look with the dominant straight lines.

At 120 gram, the Vibe X2 feels very light and the dimensions (68.6x7.27x140.2mm) make it ideal for one hand use. Despite the low weight, the phone doesn't feel flimsy or fragile.



The capacitive touch navigation keys are placed below the display and offer good touch sensitivity.

The right edge sports metallic keys for volume control and power. The keys bear the same colour as that of the layer they're placed on, have a brushed metallic finish and offer great tactile feedback.

The left edge holds the sim card tray that has both micro and nano sim card slots.

The top edge features the 3.5mm headphone jack while the micro-USB port is placed at the bottom edge. The back has a gold coloured matte finish which is not very prone to smudges and looks good.



The rear camera lens and LED flash are placed towards the left side and are flush with body of the phone. There's some Lenovo branding and a small speaker grill at the back.

Display
The phone sports a 5-inch full-HD IPS display that looks bright and vivid. The display offers wide viewing angles and decent outdoor legibility. Text and images look sharp and crisp and colours were accurate. Sunlight legibility was also good.

The display panel is protected by Gorilla Glass 3 to guard against minor scratches. Touch response was also good.

Software 
The Vibe X2 comes with a heavily customized version of Android 4.4 KitKat. Lenovo deploys its own UI skin to offer enhanced features and customization options.

Just like Xiaomi's MiUI and Huawei Honor 6, the phone's default UI is devoid of an app drawer and app icons and widgets are spread across the home screens. The unified home screen-app launcher style may come across as user-friendly to people who have not used an Android phone before. But it will take some time to get used to if you have already been using an Android smartphone. You can of course download and install an alternate launcher.



The phone also comes with six themes each of which comes with a different set of icons, wallpapers, font style, sounds, and lock screen styles. There's no way to download or install new themes but existing ones can be customized.

The software does not include any stock Android app and everything including the Gallery, Calculator, Calendar and Email apps are built by Lenovo's software team. The apps look beautiful and offer additional value added features.

Lenovo also offers smart gestures including double tap to unlock, automatically answer the call when the phone is raised to the ear and double tap the home button to shoot a picture, among others. You can set audio profiles to activate at a predefined time or when the phone joins a particular Wi-Fi network.

The phone also features a Float button, which, when enabled can float anywhere on the screen. It houses the back button, a button to lock the screen, another one to add shortcuts and shortcuts to launch Calculator, Camera and Music apps in addition to recent apps. Lenovo also allows you to invoke the float menu without the button showing up on the screen. You can simply program the display to detect your thumb impression and launch the menu. This is a nice functionality and helps in navigation.

Lenovo bundles a large number of apps with the Vibe X2 including a Security app, its SyncIt, CloneIt and ShareIt apps, Guvera music streaming app, Route 66 navigation, WPS Office, UC Browser, Txtr eBooks app and a number of Gameloft games. Thankfully, these can be uninstalled to free up storage space.

Overall, we feel the software tries to maintain the balance between customization and functionality and has been optimized for the phone's hardware. However, stock Android fans may find it a little intimidating.

Camera
Lenovo Vibe X2 sports a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front facing camera.

The phone features Lenovo's own camera app that offers settings for all optical attributes, HDR, Panorama and Timer modes, among others.



Images captured by the camera in daylight turned out well but missed out on detail. Colour reproduction and contrast levels were decent. We also experienced problems in focusing while taking macro shots.

Images shot in low-light and indoors were grainy and also lacked detail.



The front camera shoots good quality selfies and the phone offers all the tools to make you look as good looking as possible.

The phone is capable of recording 1080p videos and we found the videos shot with the phone to be decent, especially for casual use. Don't expect high-quality videos as the phone lacks optical image stabilization resulting in shake being apparent.



Overall, the camera is one of the weak points of the phone.

Hardware & performance
Lenovo Vibe X2 is powered by a 2GHz MediaTek MT6595M octa-core processor and 2GB RAM, and comes with 32GB internal storage. There's no storage card slot but we feel 32GB space is sufficient for most users.

According to MediaTek, the MT6595 employs ARM's big.LITTLE architecture with MediaTek's CorePilot technology to deliver a Heterogeneous Multi-Processing (HMP) platform to unlock the full power of all eight cores of the processor. What this really means in simple terms is that the processor can deliver enhanced multi-tasking performance and save power at the same time.

Thanks to all the power under the hood, the phone is extremely responsive and snappy even though the software can get heavy on animations and transition effects.

We did not experience any lag whatsoever while navigating through the home screen and menus, launching apps and switching between them. Scrolling was smooth and the phone was able to play full HD video files without any problems.

In synthetic benchmarks, the phone scored in 47,616 in Antutu and in 59.1 Nenamark 2 benchmark tests. We were not able to run the Quadrant Standard test. We do not recommend a phone based solely on benchmarks as real world performance is different at times.

Of the 32GB internal storage, about 26GB is available to the user.

The phone offers Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS connectivity options and even offers support for Band 40 4G LTE which has been deployed in India.

Lenovo Vibe X2 offers good call quality and signal reception and we did not encounter issues while making calls even in areas where cell signal is relatively weaker. The phone was able to lock to GPS without any hiccups.

It also offers FM radio. We were able to play most popular video and audio file formats.



The external speaker outlet on the phone, located at the back, offers loud sound output but is not stereo. Also, sound gets muffled when the phone is placed on a soft surface.

Lenovo also offers Xtensions or rear covers that fit tightly with the phone and enhance functionality. We've seen a battery Xtension that charges the phone and a music Xtension that adds an external JBL speaker. The concept looks interesting, however, the Xtensions do add some extra bulk.

The phone is backed by a 2,300mAh battery (non-removable) and will last you a full working day (10-11 hours) if you put the screen brightness at the highest level and use 3G data all the time. You'll be able to make about 1-2 hours of phone calls, play some casual games and browse the web in this time period. Your mileage may vary with different usage pattern.

Gaming
We were able to play games like Subway Surfers, Temple Run 2, Asphalt 8 and Dead Trigger without encountering frame drops or freezes. The phone heated up a little after playing games for longer duration.

Verdict
At Rs 20,000, the Lenovo Vibe X2 makes for a good buy if you can do with a mediocre camera.The phone looks good, has a good quality display and performs decently. It's possible that Lenovo may fix the camera with a future software update.

At the same price, you could also look at the Huawei Honor 6, another value for money smartphone that sports a conservative design but offers similar performance. You could also wait for the OnePlus One and Xiaomi Mi 4, which are expected to arrive at the end of the year.

WHERE TO BUY

1.Lenovo Vibe X2

Flipkart.com : INR 19,999Buy now2.Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro Flipkart.com : INR 32,999Buy now

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RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10 Explained with Diagrams

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (Independent) Disks.

On most situations you will be using one of the following four levels of RAIDs.

• RAID 0
• RAID 1
• RAID 5
• RAID 10 (also known as RAID 1+0)

This article explains the main difference between these raid levels along with an easy to understand diagram.

In all the diagrams mentioned below:

• A, B, C, D, E and F – represents blocks
• p1, p2, and p3 – represents parity

RAID LEVEL 0

Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 0.

• Minimum 2 disks.
• Excellent performance ( as blocks are striped ).
• No redundancy ( no mirror, no parity ).
• Don’t use this for any critical system.

RAID LEVEL 1

Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 1.

• Minimum 2 disks.
• Good performance ( no striping. no parity ).
• Excellent redundancy ( as blocks are mirrored ).

RAID LEVEL 5

Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 5.

• Minimum 3 disks.
• Good performance ( as blocks are striped ).
• Good redundancy ( distributed parity ).
• Best cost effective option providing both performance and redundancy. Use this for DB that is heavily read oriented. Write operations will be slow.

RAID LEVEL 10

Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 10.

• Minimum 4 disks.
• This is also called as “stripe of mirrors”
• Excellent redundancy ( as blocks are mirrored )
• Excellent performance ( as blocks are striped )
• If you can afford the dollar, this is the BEST option for any mission critical applications (especially databases).

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Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 review: SuperResolution

Nvidia has always been right up there on the graphics card foodchain. With solutions not only for gamers but also for creative professionals who work with intensive graphics, 3D or video editing. Now, Nvidia has just launched the GeForce GTX 980, a mighty graphics card with a whole host of new features.

Design and build
The GeForce GTX 980's looks can only be summed up as industrial. The PCI express card is completely clad in a black and silver metal jacket, with a fiberglass finish along sections, protecting the powerful internals. On the jacket is a high speed fan as well as heatsink ribs on the side and a triangular cut duct on the IO panel to dissipate heat. All of these details are designed to follow the same industrial theme set.

Specifications



At the core of GeForce GTX 980 hums a second-generation Maxwell GM204 GPU consisting of 16 streaming multiprocessors and 64 render output units capable of upto 5 Teraflops and 144.1 GigaTexels/sec at a power consumption of 165 Watts with a transistor count of 5.2 billion in a 28nm die size with a 2MB L2 Cache.

The base clock speed of GeForce GTX 980 is 1126MHz and can go up to a boost clock of 1216MHz when games or applications demand it. GeForce GTX 980 has 2048 CUDA cores and it also comes with 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM with a 256-bit pipeline capable of 7GB per second — useful for loading up games fast, as well as making sure you have very high-resolution textures.

As GeForce GTX 970 too has 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM, the 980 could have done with a gigabyte or two of extra VRAM, especially when you consider the Titan Z has 12GB of VRAM.

Installation and setup
Installation was quite easy, though a fair warning: this card is massive at 10.5-inch in length, so you will need a large cabinet. As compared to GeForce units of past, the new Maxwell technology is extremely power efficient, and GeForce GTX 980 is the most powerful in the new architecture's fleet, requiring a 500 Watt power supply.

To power up the card you will need two 6-pin power connectors. Just plug it in and the GeForce GTX 980 logo lights up in green, too handsome to lock away under the hood of your cabinet.

Features
The GeForce GTX 980 is choc full of new graphical features, one of them being an Anti Aliasing algorithm called MFAA, which switches between various AA modes to do away with jagged edges on graphics smoothing pixels, and is 30% faster than 4x MSAA, currently one of the best modes for reducing aliasing out there today.

Also introduced was a dynamic lighting engine only used by the 980 called VXGI, Voxel Global Illumination, as shown in a nifty moon landing demo, with real time light sources being switched between.
The 980 is also ready for the Virtual Reality headset wave like the Oculus Rift, with VR Direct which makes sure the left eye and the right eye displays are both in perfect sync, thereby cutting down on nausea cause by motion sickness.

For gamers who love streaming on the popular gamestream network Twitch, which has been gaining popularity, Nvidia's ShadowPlay now lets you record and save QHD videos, not to mention you can also record and stream at the same time, while using your microphone to give real time commentary as you play.

Dynamic Super Resolution benchmarks



Rather than benchmark a card we already know is the fastest out there, we focus on one of it's biggest features, called Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) and make that the crux of this review.

Dynamic Super Resolution has been around for a while, a technique otherwise known as Superscaling or Downscaling, which allows you to run higher resolutions on your base resolution display. Therefore, you can run a Quadruple High Definition (QHD) resolution on a regular 1080p (Full HD) display.

Earlier, you had to tweak your system quite a bit based on math calculations of the resolution, so you get the least amount of aliasing. Now, Nvidia has offered 2 QHD resolutions for you to upscale to, so you can run your games, movies, programs at higher resolution. The DSR is, sadly, a Maxwell-only feature.

We tried a host of games as well as normal desktop uses on a HDTV as well as monitor using the upscaled resolutions. GeForce GTX 980 offers you a choice of two resolutions, 3840x2160p and 2715x1527p, both available from Nvidia settings and GeForce Experience panel as well as from within the games themselves. We tested the games on an Intel i5-3580k, 16GB RAM and Asus Sabertooth Z77 motherboard in a closed NZXT Phantom 420.

Desktop mode on a 27-inch monitor in 2715x1527p was quite usable, and though there was a bit of aliasing here and there, it was not too much. However, with Windows Aero enabled on Windows 7, there was a bit of aliasing on the mouseovers. 3840x2160p was a bit extreme as it made icons etc appear very small.

However, both resolutions on HDTV's worked superbly. 2715x1527p on a 40-inch monitor just did the trick, while 3840x2160p made everything too small; However, if you do have a bigger HDTV, about 55-inch plus, this resolution would work perfectly.

In order to push the new Maxwell to the max, we used the highly detailed open world of Chicago. At 1080p with maximum crown, vehicles and rain particles the game ran flawlessly at above 60fps, not even a hint of slowdown. We upscaled it to 1527p and the game was still playable at 30-32fps.

At 2160p (the highest possible currently), the game crawled along at 17fps. However, the image quality got a bit muddled. Since Watchdogs packs very high detail textures into their game already, the upscale and then condensation into a smaller resolution resulted in detail loss. However, the game looked absolutely gorgeous at 1080p and 1527p. All these settings are running in ultra.

Battlefield 4 is now almost a year old, but the Frostbite 3 engine it uses is the most malleable in the gaming world. Its destruction and particle effects is a test for any GPU, and it's old enough to benefit from the upscaling process.

We cranked all settings to ultra and the game was perfectly playable on all three resolutions, yielding in excess of 90+ fps on 1080p, 1527p gave about 53fps and 2160p ran smooth at 32fps. The game looked absolutely gorgeous on the highest resolution, with the textures and graphical fidelity bringing the game on par with what we've seen of games coming out later this year.

Metro: Last Light Redux is a beautiful and dark game, with an almost God-like level of detail in each stage, which will bring most GPUs to a crawl. We got 50fps at 1080p, 34fps on 1527p and just 6fps on 2160p; however, like Watchdogs, this game looks and plays fantastic on 1527p.

On Uniengine's Heaven benchmark, which tests overall performance (including how fast textures load, the Physx engine as well as temperature), we got 62.2fps and a score of 1568 at 1080p, while 1527p yielded an average of 32.7fps. Through all these tests, the card remained cool at about 55-60 degrees.

So what does all that mean?


To summarize the above tests, the Dynamic Super Resolutions increases the quality of your gaming, media, desktop exponentially. However, if you want to use DSR on a daily basis you can use the 1527p setting. The 2160p setting is useful when you have an older title that needs the upscaling without you losing the performance. Not only that, it's especially useful in real-time strategy games like StarCraft II or DOTA 2, which render a larger map space and give a larger area of view.

Those running this card on native QHD monitors will get silky smooth frame-rates, as the GPU is just rendering one frame on the native resolution. So, if you have a 2560x1440p monitor or HDTV, you will see a good performance boost.

Conclusion
Gamers on a budget can go for GeForce GTX 970, which has the same architecture and VRAM but has scaled-down specs. It retails for Rs 28,000, which is almost half of GeForce GTX 980's price.

However, If you are a gamer who has been holding out, saving up for a rainy day, then the 980 is that thundercloud on the horizon. Sure, it may cost a pretty penny at Rs 46,000, which is what most smartphones and consoles cost nowadays. However, you're getting a powerful addition to your PC that not only lets you turn your 1080p monitor or HDTV into a QHD beast, but also has enough pixel pushing power if you're a graphic professional, 3D artist or video editor.

WHERE TO BUY

1.GALAX GeForce GTX980 PCI-E 4GB GDDR5 256Bit w/DP/HDMI/DP/DP/DVI-IAmazon.in : INR 44,500.00Buy now

2.GALAX GeForce GTX980 PCI-E 4GB GDDR5 256Bit w/DP/HDMI/DP/DP/DVI-I

Flipkart.com : INR 46,500.00Buy now

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WhatsApp user base crosses 70 million in India

Mobile messenger service WhatsApp's user base in India has grown to 70 million active-users, which is over a 10th of its global users, its business head Neeraj Arora said on Sunday.

"We have 70 million active-users here who use the application at least once a month," Arora, a vice-president with WhatsApp, said at the fifth annual INK Conference in Mumbai.

He said the total user-base for the company, which was bought by Facebook in a blockbuster US $19-billion deal earlier this year, is 600 million.

With over a 10th of the users from the country, India is one of the biggest markets for WhatsApp, he said, adding connecting billions of people in markets like India and Brazil is the aim of the company.

Arora, an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and ISB Hyderabad, said WhatsApp will continue to hold a distinct identity even after the takeover by Facebook and will not get merged with the social networking giant.
He said WhatsApp, which has only 80 employees, will benefit through learnings from the social networking giant.

Arora, who first heard of WhatsApp as a business development executive for the Internet search giant Google and later joined as its business head, said it took two years to stitch the US $19 billion deal announced this April. Interestingly, Arora said he would have paid a fraction of the sum to buy WhatsApp three years back.

It would have been in "low tens of million" dollars, he said stressing that the company has grown a lot since then.

Arora said the user-base has doubled to 600 million from the 30 million when he joined three years ago. The company has flourished because of its focus on the product, rather than the business side of things, he said.

"The founders wanted to develop a cool product which will be used by millions and did not have business things like valuations," he said, stressing that this continues to be a motto of the company.

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