A Blooming Gift To Mobility - The Asus Zenfone 2

Where the wealth of wisdom flourishes, there starts human’s form of mettle, satisfaction and curiosity.Under the boon of Science for twentieth century, people around us have been breathing in technology in sacred incarnations of the Personal Computer, the Mobile and the Internet. What indeed, could have been better, radical and innovative in this Age of Evolution, to the human race!

One such boon here, for the psyche in the world of mobility is the new Asus Zenfone 2 (ZE551ML). A premium gaming brand for motherboards and other PC-s, Asus had made its mark dating back to almost two decades of glory and fame down the path of competition in computer peripherals and PC-s. In recent past, Asus mobiles are slowly becoming their hallmark.
 

Asus is known for the quality in the build and performance of its devices and the all-time positive feedback and the word-of-mouth promotions successively added the seed to its popularity. With a minimal market share of 7.4% in Q42014 [EQ], Asus mobiles had seen a soaring growth of 402% which never failed to tell. Now in 2015, one of its flagship mobiles have been the Zenfone and ZE551ML has proven all quality standards exceeding consumer expectations, including those of color accuracy and color Gamut chart, AnTuTu, Vellamo, Quadrant and CPUMark, NenaMark 2 and GFXBench.

With its powerfully sleek ergonomic body design, it has won a tremendous score over customer choice in the most economic or pocket-friendly mobile handset in the range of Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 20,000. The Value-for-Money has a jaw-dropping ratio of 11.4% taking into account the project cost and shadow bid which surpassed every other budget smartphone in this price range, such as Xolo, Micromax, Oppo, RedMi, Karbonn and alike.

The first thing a typical mobile-buyer would feel in hand, is the iconic concentric-circle textural design which had put the engineering team of Asus to test. With the tough and theoritically scratch proof Corning Gorilla 3 screen protection, The ZE551ML boasts of a 5.5” IPS density screen along a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. The color density and reproduction which stretches to provide an enormous 403 ppi density, viewing angles and tough response ar beyond par excellence than any other competitor in its price range. The Zenfone in its uniquely modeled Zen UI provides for everything an Android user may ever crave for in customization and optimization of performance. To fuel it and yet keep it cool in the processors, Asus is using a 64-bit Quad Core (maxed to 2 by 2 cores) in Intel Atom Z3560 clocking the max at 1.8 Ghz. The processor temperature gets peaked to 45 degrees while playing graphically overdriven games like Modern Combat 4, C.O.D. Strike Team, Real Racing 3, Asphalt 8 etc. This temperature is normal as the Intel processor hyperthreads whenever multiple cores take the heave.

It is no mighty a beast in performance if its not strong at the lens and the pixel density in the offering. The Zenfone 2 stacks in potentially inculpable 13 megapixel rear auto-focus with 4128 x 3096 p.d. with dual-LED flash and F/2.0 aperture lens and 5 megapixel front-facing lenses which is capable of providing 4k videos in full High definition at 30 FPS with zero shutter lag. Though initial launch premiere reviews of the handset didn’t bring appraised feedback about the picture qualities on paper, but Nenamark 2 score of 60FPS just breaks the ice of all critics.

As far as the package goes which comes out-of-the-box, the Zenfone 2 features the latest Android 5.0 lollipop powered by a decent Lithium-polymer 3000 maH non-removable battery and a special add-on for “fast charging” which allows the device charge upto 60% in just first 40 minutes! The Zenfone 2 is even bio-friendly to keep in the pocket of your denim or your shirt and you would not be searching for earplugs in haste, if a call rings up- thanks to the SAR value as low as 0.35 W/Kg.

Now, the sacrament of this handset at this price is providing a 4 GB RAM which even some of the modern PC-s do not come boxed with. This piece here, is one of its kind in the world of mobility for the 21st Century and beats all other peers hands down when it comes to the build, design, quality, camera, performance, battery or the amazing special features it comes preloaded. ZenMotion, SnapView, Mini Movie are just a handful of some other gifts the buyer gets alongside of.

Needless to say, rolling out the next Android hallmark, post the Android One, Google may choose Asus to bless with the next flagship Google mobile considering the quality standards, hardware specifications, benchmarks and promise of service that Asus delivers to its overwhelmed customers. Rest assured, this gizmo in your pocket would keep you happy at the end of the day as it meet both your ends of budget and what Asus offers you in a steal!

Hi, this is WhatsApp. Who’s this?

Nearing 5,000,000,000 installations and 28,000,000 ratings across the web of Android, it has facilitated for us, the first-of-its-kind offering of the basic instinct of human- to communicate. This Android app has brought a revolution in 2009 among Android users across all age-groups which compelled them to send text messages free, by usage of a bare minimum mobile data of 0.028 Kb. Since then, down the memory lane of 6 years, this application has governed the world of Instant Messaging in an all-encompassing aura. March, 2015 has crowned it with an approximate 700 million users online devoting almost 47% of their day’s time to fiddle with, putting back all its trailing competitors such as Skype, Hike, WeChat, Line, QQ Mobile and Viber. You guessed it right, the hubbub is all about “WhatsApp”, the undisputed king of the IM world.

Besides being the most responsive app for communication, WhatsApp runs even on weak 2G mobile signals. Topping the charts at 69% market penetration in India, WhatsApp was recently acquired by Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook at a whopping US $16 billion deal. WhatsApp now caters to 7 different platforms including iOS, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Phone, Series 40 of Nokia and Tizen.

Following a recent rumor of WhatsApp offering free service to its existing customers, the curtailing of annual upgradation price of $0.99 for one, $2.67 for two and $3.71 years is still a mystery as WhatsApp still automatically offers a free service extension, much to the happiness and satisfaction for all its users. WhatsApp uses an open standard XMPP which creates the user account just by his or her SIM number and tagging the contact list for communication from the address book or contact-list of the device. There has been multiple workarounds and fixes by the development team of California-based WhatsApp, which now allows it to use in Dual-SIM devices as well. A user can have multiple WhatsApp accounts but only one account can be linked to one SIM number. A buffer of 30 days is provided by the WhatsApp server wherein the message (colloquially termed as “ping”) from the sender is stored, before the message gets deleted if the receiver does not or cannot receive the sent message either due to service expiration or due to poor network coverage overmuch.

One of the top-grossing app in Android, WhatsApp ensures maximum lasting security to its users using the TextSecure encryption which keeps hacks and other intrusions at bay. The popularity of WhatsApp has called for dramatic events an ample number of times. A new judicial rule was brought up in UAE by which swearing in WhatsApp could impose the person a fine of US $68,000 under cybercrime. On another note, an event led to leaking of the question paper for annual examination of First year, B.Com of School of Open Learning, Delhi University. Though a handful of events, but they are alarming enough of the cons WhatsApp could bring if the perpetrator chooses to exploit a chance.

WhatsApp, apart from sending text pings to other users in the Address Book of the device, also allows to send multimedia files. Unlike Hike Messenger which allows large files as well as files with .exe extensions to be shared across the IM, WhatsApp has restricted users to send and share Audio, Video, Image files and Contacts through the attachment window. It also allows the users to change the background of the home-screen and choose a status just as Google Talk, which is displayed every time another user views his or her WhatsApp profile. It provides an easy way for senders of messages to know when a particular ping is delivered from his device, received by the receiver’s device and seen by him or her. It uses denotations of a single tick, double tick in gray and a double tick in blue respectively, for the sender to know them. 2013 saw a wide range of piracy in cyber world releasing copies and versions of WhatsApp which allowed the users to mask the “last seen” notifications, notifications about being online and even changing the color or basic WhatsApp logo, homescreen and messages and font of all text pings and menu options. The pirated version was popularly known as WhatsApp plus. WhatsApp took the issue aggressively and detected and banned those SIM numbers on which the pirated versions of WhatsApp were registered. The logo of WhatsApp Plus turned the green color in genuine WhatsApp logo to black.

In a recent introduction of feature in WhatsApp at the onset of 2015, VoIP or Internet calling was rolled out to all its users. They can now make a call to another WhatsApp user over the Internet using either the Mobile Internet (2G, 3G or 4G) or the Wi-Fi. This feature was mainly introduced to compete with Skype and Viber for the offerings they provide. But on the downside, WhatsApp uses approximately 1.3 Mb of Internet data vis-à-vis 240 Kb for Viber, per minute in making a VoIP call to any contact in your Address Book. Through this route of calculation, over a normal 500 MB 3G monthly data plan for instance, WhatsApp VoIP would eat that up entirely in just a matter of six hours, which otherwise accounts for 11-minute voice calls per day in a standard calling plan. Users are hopeful and anticipating a fast version upgrade to sort this out as they do not want to switch over to another app just for voice calls voids them off their pockets.WhatsApp also recently shelled the feature to use its service on personal computers. What the users need to avail this service is to travel to the settings in WhatsApp in the device its currently installed, select the “WhatsApp Web” option, scan the QR code that comes in the webpage web.whatsapp.com and wait for a couple of seconds depending on the connection speed, to load up the entirety of his account onto his or her PC!

Since the Paleolithic Age, when the ancestral beings started the basic survival instinct for “communication” till now in our Modern era, the most advanced breakthrough among them all, will remain the creation and development of WhatsApp. It caters for mass of all economic form of living standards as WhatsApp also caters to budget multimedia phones like S40 which uses a MD5-hashed mechanism for the lower end devices as well as top-notch innovations like the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and akin. Even the Traffic Police in India have started making WhatsApp groups for service inspectors across a State or a District to help monitor the cities in better ways by improved method of departments’ intra-communication. Noida’s WhatsApp Helpline number fetches the Police Department remarkably 5,300 messages in an average of 15 days a month.

Thanks Jan Koum, for instigating the property of communication among the youth in the world- a cyber sensation in itself. As predictive economics says, sooner or later, WhatsApp together with Facebook is going to surpass more than 80% of world traffic for communication. All hail, WhatsApp!

Get Instant Financial Assistance before Your Next Payday

We’ve all been there; half way through the month with barely enough money to make it until our next payday; it’s awful feeling that you’re not in control of your finances. So, it’s vital that we find help and advice to prevent ever being in that place again.

However, if you’re currently in that position you need to find a solution to get out of it, fast! Now this may seem like an impossible task when you’re in financially tight position, but don’t get despondent, there is a way out.

There are numerous ways you can get financial assistance before your next payday; it’s just a case of finding which option suits you best. Here are some ways to relieve you of your financial strain:

Friends and family: You may not want to ask those closest to you for financial help as you may feel a bit embarrassed. But there’s no need to feel ashamed; they are there to help, they won’t think any less of you. Also, since they aren’t as strict as the conventional lending institutions a casual repayment arrangement can be arranged, as opposed to regimented deadlines. This eliminates the worry over late penalty charges, which in turn alleviates any additional mental strain.

Sell your belongings: There is always a whole host of unused items lying around your house and garage; dig them out and make some money! We take for granted the amount of general ‘stuff’ we accumulate over the years; you could in fact be harbouring a small fortune without even realising it. So when you have a weekend free don’t waste your time lazing around the house; be pro-active and have a clear out. Once you’ve gathered everything you can have a garage sale, go to a car boot sale or sell your things on eBay.

Take out an unsecured loan: Just as you would take out a mortgage to solve the financial hurdles you face when buying a house you can also take out a loan to help you when to resolve other monetary issues. Unsecured loans, such as payday loans, give you the opportunity to get out of any financial tight spot instantly. They are short-term loans that require you to pay the borrowed amount back by your next payday and since they are unsecured they do come with interest rates. However, the interest rates vary from one lender to the other.

Financial assistance is always available in some form or the other; it only depends on where you find it and how you use it.

About the Author:  

The guest post was contributed by Alicia, financial guest blogger from Manchester, UK. Find out more about her finance related blogs at financeport