HTC Desire 600c Goes on Sale in India

The CDMA-enabled HTC Desire 600c recently went on sale in India. The GSM version has been launched in the country for quite some time, but the CDMA model has just arrived and is priced a bit higher than the former.

Customers can pick this one up for no less than Rs 28,900 outright, which is about $465 or €345. The smartphone is now available through major retailer Flipkart, as AndroidOS points out. HTC Desire 600c ships with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean operating system out of the box and packs a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor clocked at 1.2 GHz along with 1GB of RAM.

The smartphone sports a 4.5-inch Super LCD2 capacitive touchscreen display that supports 540 x 960 pixels resolution, as well as dual cameras (8-megapixel main camera and 1.6-megapixel front-facing camera). Dual-SIM support and microSD card slot for memory expansion are included as well.

HTC Desire 600c
Image credits to Flipkart

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Lava Iris 506Q Lands in India with Quad-Core CPU and 5-Inch Display

Lava Mobiles has just released another mid-range Android smartphone in India, the Iris 506Q. The handset has been announced earlier this week, but only went on sale recently.

The new device comes with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean platform out of the box and offers dual-SIM support, as it should for a handset aimed at the Indian market. As fonearena points out, Lava Iris 506Q packs a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor inside, along with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal memory that can be further expanded up to 32GB via microSD memory card.

The handset boasts a large 5-inch qHD capacitive touchscreen display that supports 540 x 960 pixels resolution, as well as a 5-megapixel rear-facing shutter with LED flash. A secondary VGA front-facing camera is included as well, along with 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity.

Lava Iris 506Q
Image credits to Fonearena

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Google Makes Quickoffice Free for Everyone, Integrated to Google Drive

A year after Google acquired Quickoffice, the company is pushing forward with its Microsoft Office alternative (that isn't called Drive/Docs) and making it more appealing than ever by making the Quickoffice app for both Android and iOS free.

Google was already offering some Quickoffice functionality, including editing documents and spreadsheets, for free to Chrome OS users. But it has now made all the apps free, all you need to do is log in with your Google account. "Quickoffice also integrates seamlessly with Google Drive storage so you can safely access your files from anywhere. And while the easiest thing to do is simply convert your old files to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, Quickoffice gives you another way to work with people who haven’t gone Google yet," Google explains. Quickoffice is a bit of an odd thing at Google, a rare admission that it can't do everything in-house perhaps. Google Drive has always had a the ability to view Office files or convert them to native Drive files. But the conversion has never been great and many details are lost in the process.

By comparison, Quickoffice offers great support for Office files, so Google bought the company behind it and started integrating the functionality into its products. But, even as the new free Quickoffice is tied into Drive, it's still a separate app requiring a separate download. But to drive the point home, that Quickoffice is a part of Drive, Google is offering 10 GB of free Drive storage for two years to anyone who installs the Quickoffice app by September 26. The bonus storage space will be enabled in the next few weeks after you install the app. Apart from being free, the updated app also comes with a new Google Drive inspired icon, support for ZIP folders and Excel and PowerPoint charts.

Quickoffice is now free
Image credits to Google

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Sony Confirms Camera Issues with Unlocking Xperia Z1’s Bootloader

Xperia Z1, the latest Android-based smartphone from Sony Mobile, is showing a series of problems when trying to unlock its bootloader.

Apparently, those who would like to the remove the lock from their handset’s bootloader will find out that the camera might no longer work when the process is completed. Those who would still want to proceed will need to back up the TA partition, which is responsible for Sony’s DRM keys, XperiaBlog reports.

Thus, provided that the camera no longer works after the unlocking, they will be able to restore the partition, though this would re-lock the bootloader. Sony has already posted a warning message on its unlocking website, informing users on the issue: “At the moment, unlocking the Xperia Z1 boot loader will stop the camera functionality.” Hopefully, it won’t be too long before the problem is resolved.

Sony Xperia Z1
Image credits to Sony

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Nexus 5 Allegedly Spotted in Brazil

LG and Google have been long rumored to plan the release of a new device in the popular Nexus lineup, and it appears that they might actually launch it worldwide.

The handset, supposedly called Nexus 5, was recently spotted in Brazil with model number LG-821 attached to it, and might arrive at wireless carrier Anatel in this country. The same LG-821 was previously seen at the FCC as a version of LG G2, suggesting that the Nexus 5 will be another model from the handset vendor, namely the LG-D820.

However, as PhoneArena notes, LG-D821 emerged at Anatel with dimensions similar to those of LG G2, namely 137.9 x 69 x 8.6mm, but with a weight of only 135g, less than that of LG’s new flagship. Chances are that LG and Google are currently working on two different flavors of Nexus 5, though nothing is certain until the device goes official. This might happen as soon as the next month, so stay tuned.

Nexus 5 allegedly makes an appearance in Brazil
Image credits to AndroidSpin

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