The sleek Vsun Race works on the Android Lollypop 5.1 platform and is
equipped with a 1.3 GHz MTK 4G Quadcore Processor and 5-inch
high-definition IPS 2.5D Curve Display screen, along with advanced
features such as 13 MP Auto Focus Sony Exmors back camera and a 5 MP
front camera, Ultra Snapshot, Live Photomode, Dual SIM facility, and
Gesture and Voice Capture. The smartphone comes preloaded with VR themes
designed to excite and entertain the user and VR Glasses as part of the
package.
Vsun Mobile is a new entrant in the already crowded smartphone market
place in the Middle East. In hopes of differentiating itself from the
competition, the company launched the Vsun Race - an 4G LTE smartphone
that also features support for 360-degree Virtual Reality. The company
made sure that its customers get to experience VR by bundling a VR
Cardboard glass with the device.
The smartphone is available on the market at a very affordable price
tag of AED 599. The Race features a metallic frame with the back of the
phone made in plastic. The battery back cover is removable, and so is
the battery. Under the hood, the Vsun Race runs a 1.3-GHz quad-core
processor from Mediatek. On the front of the device, you will find a
5-inch HD IPS 2.5D Curve Display, which is laminated to protect it from
scratches and dents.
Below the screen, you will find the home, options and back buttons.
On the top of the screen you will find a 5-megapixel front camera. Flip
the phone around you come face to face with a 13-megapixel rear camera
that packs in a Sony sensor. The phone runs Android 5.1 Lollipop
operating system.
Other points that round off the specs include 16GB of storage space
and 2GB of RAM. The internal storage can be further expanded to up to
128GB using the microSD card slot built inside the battery compartment.
The phone supports Dual SIMs, with one of the slots doubling up as a SIM
card slot or a microSD card slot.
The phone derives its power from a 2250 mAh battery. The company
claims the phone offers 6+ hours of talk time on a single charge, and on
our battery tests, we did manage to clock around 7.5 hours of talk
time.
The Vsun Race is being marketed as a VR phone - so the company, as
mentioned earlier, bundles a cardboard glass. The phone also packs in VR
applications such as Deep Space VR, lamper VR, Little VR Shooter, and
Rollercoaster VR. In order to use these apps, all you need to do is to
click the VR icon on home screen, put the phone into the cardboard
glass, and start experiencing VR.
In order to gauge the performance of the phone, we ran AnTuTu
benchmarks on the device. The Vsun Race came up with an average
performance of 24107 points. VR experience through the phone was good,
too. The phone's 13-megapixel rear camera can take some really good
photos in outdoors. However, under low light conditions or indoors, the
camera sometimes turns up with grainy images. The phone's front camera
takes average looking selfies.
For a price point of AED 599, the Vsun Race is a good smartphone that
features some average VR capabilities. If you are on the market,
looking for a second phone, the Vsun Race might fit the bill.
Purists will argue that you need a PC to truly play games, especially if
you're a fan of pushing the levels of graphics quality beyond the
capabilities of a mobile phone or a mere gaming console. In this regard gaming desktop
is still the king, particularly when it comes to having the kind of
components and horsepower needed to smoothly run 4K gaming and to
support virtual reality (VR) setups, such as the Oculus Rift,
but sometimes you want something to tote around the house or over to
your friend's place. If that's what you need, we're here to help you
choose which gaming laptop to buy for playing on the go.
MicroSD cards have become standard in Android smartphones and a
wide range of other devices. They’re insanely tiny and still manage to
offer as much as 256GB of storage. These little cards are the ideal
solution for phones and other compact devices, but Apple refuses to add
microSD card support to its iPhone lineup so it can keep ASPs as high as
possible.
Well, Lexar has a simple new accessory that adds microSD support to any modern iPhone or iPad.
It’s called the Lexar microSD To Lightning Reader and as the name suggests, it’s a simple device about the size of a thumbnail with a Lightning connector sticking out.
Popping it into the bottom of an iPhone takes you to the App Store
where a free companion app from Lexar can be downloaded. Once installed,
content including photos, videos and music can be moved off the phone
and onto any microSD card. Is it fast? Well, I tested it out with a new Lexar Professional 1800x microSDHC card and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen faster data transfers from a mobile device.
Lexar’s companion app lets users pick and choose files to offload, or
they can configure the app to sync files automatically. The latter is a
fine option for people with 128GB iPhones, but it defeats the purpose
for users with smaller capacities.
The Lexar microSD To Lightning Reader costs $29.95
and is compatible with any and every microSD card you might already
own, making it one of the cheapest options out there for
iPhone-compatible external storage. The solution certainly isn’t as
desirable as microSD storage implemented at the system level, but since
that’s probably never going to happen, this is the best iPhone users are
going to get.
Split-Screen Multitasking
Remember how excited Apple fans were when split-screen mode finally
came to the iPad? And remember how annoyed they were when they found out
it wasn’t available on the iPhone?
Smartphones have giant screens these days and there’s simply no
reason to restrict multi-window view to tablets alone. Samsung has
offered this feature on its Galaxy phones for years and users love it.
Read a webpage in one window and take notes in another. Watch a YouTube
video while you respond to emails. Chat with friends in WhatsApp without
closing the Facebook app. In Android N, the world is your oyster.
Instant Apps
Google flew past this at the very end of the keynote on Wednesday but
it’s actually a huge deal. In fact, it’s probably the biggest
advancement in mobile app distribution since Apple first launched the
App Store back in 2008.
With Instant Apps, users can begin testing out an app from right
within the Google Play store… without purchasing it or even downloading
it.
Think about how awesome that is. Is that new Twitter app really any better than Falcon Pro 3? Is Google’s hot new Allo app
really worth downloading? Is that Flappy Bird clone you just happened
upon even more infuriating than the original? You’ll be able to answer
all those questions and more in an instant without having to purchase or
download anything.
Power-Saving Features
Battery life continues to be the most frustrating thing about the
iPhone. Apple’s phablet has decent enough battery life (though it still
isn’t quite as impressive as rival phablets) but the 4.7-inch iPhone 6s
sometimes can’t even make it through a workday.
Apple added a new Low Power Mode and some other power-saving
functionality in iOS 9, but they’re nowhere near as impressive as
Android N’s Doze and Svelte features.
Doze debuted in Android Marshmallow and it works very, very well. The
feature puts devices in a dormant state when not in use, and it’ll see
further optimizations in Android N thanks to “Doze on the Go.” Instead
of requiring a phone to be motionless for Doze to work its magic, phones
running Android N will see Doze benefits anytime the screen is off.
Then there’s Project Svelte, which prevents apps from waking up when
network connection statuses change. It doesn’t sound all that exciting,
but the result is far less draw on your device’s battery.
Background System Updates
This, Android fans, is a game-changer.
Smartphone updates are a huge pain because your phone is completely
unusable while updates are being applied. That might be 5 minutes or it
might be 15 minutes, but your communications are completely severed
while updates are underway.
With Android N, updates will work like they do in Chrome OS. They’ll
be downloaded in the background (over Wi-Fi only, don’t worry) and
they’ll be applied instantly when the phone reboots because they’re
installed as separate system images.
Virtual Reality
While iOS users continue to daydream about VR, Android device owners
will enjoy a comprehensive VR experience courtesy of Daydream.
Daydream is Google’s attempt to take control of the VR experience,
which is already seeing fragmentation in these early days. Google
Daydream is a software platform and a hardware reference platform for
both headsets and controllers, giving developers and vendors the tools
they need to take full advantage of Android N’s virtual reality
capabilities.
