Joyce Gray

With year coming to an End and if by any chance you wanted to k now on what are the mantras for buying the best smartphones, then we will guide you so that you can buy the best possible smartphone at an affordable price. We will tell you on which core specs you should focus on before finalizing to buy any smartphone / tablet. Many times we have been asked about on which phone is better, though it’s difficult to keep on a track on the phone launches as almost every day one or other smartphone is launched. There’s no Greek or Latin in this Smartphone buying guide, everything is explained in simplest possible language. So, let’s proceed to the Smartphone tablet buying guide. Though we will be covering all the latest from the World of Android.

While the Android apps are constantly putting pressure on Apple, it’s now time that Android to look for quality devices and quality apps as there are many reports of Malware apps being doing the rounds in the Google PLAY Store. So, let’s check out the Top 7 parameters which you need to look for before you purchase the Android smartphone.

RAM (Minimum of 512MB, higher the better): One such parameter which you will have to look for if you wish to have a device which doesn’t hang is RAM. A minimum of 1GB RAM is required if at all you want the best performance out of your smartphone, just in case if your budget is low then you can go with some smart phones which are optimized 512MB of RAM. These days some smartphones have even come up with 2GB of RAM, which are LG Nexus 4 and also there are some select Galaxy S3 variants which have 2GB of RAM.

Processor (Minimum is 1GHz, higher the better): After RAM, the second thing which you need to look for is Processor which is in fact the heart of the smartphone. Now, the current trend is the Quad Core processors but it’s good enough to buy a smartphone which comes with a decent Single Core 1GHz processor, though higher the processing speech, better will be the performance of the smartphone. Also, you will have to ensure that the GPU presence will further enhance the performance of the graphics as it will render games in a better manner.

Warranty (Minimum of 1 year, go with extended warranty): Beware of devices which are having No Warranty or Limited Warranty, go with the devices which have a minimum of 1 year Warranty, also if you are getting the Extended Warranty option then you MUST go with the same as in Android while updating / customizing with the new updates the motherboard of the device might get hampered which is covered in the Warranty. With extended warranty, you can actually have peace of mind, also ensure that the extended warranty is given by the manufacturer and not the reseller.

Android Version (Minimum of ICS Android 4.0 version, higher the better): The latest Android version till date is Jellybean 4.2.1 version, though its only available for select devices as of now, you will have to look for the devices which are on the ICS Android 4.0 firmware version. Though there are many custom ROMs available, it’s always better if manufacturer comes out with the ICS Android 4.0 firmware version.

Hands ON Experience (Experience device before buying): Before proceeding to buy, you will have to make sure that you haveensure that you have had a hands on experience with the device which you have shortlisted to buy as at the end of the day it’s your hard earned money. With hands on experience, you can actually check on the screen brightness, colour experience, user interface and also you can check on the build quality as it should not be more platicky.

Camera (Minimum of 5MP, select devices with Front Camera if you do Video Calling): Device should have a minimum of 5MP camera and also ensure that when you take a hands- on experience it has all the advanced features like Panorama Mode, Flash etc. as you may require the same in future. If you are into Video calling, you can probably go with the devices which has front camera, preferably go with devices which have better camera quality greater than VGA.

Do let us know in the comments section just in case if you have any further queries in the comments section below as we will be more than happy to reply all your queries. In the coming days we will also be coming out with the top devices of 2012 which you may consider for buying.

Customizing your Android smartphone the way you like it to appear like is one of the smaller features that’s used a lot on Android. Users like  to customize their smartphones with new wallpapers, lock screen themes or just rearranging the icons on their homescreens with some new widget addons too. However, if you’re using a HTC Android Smartphone that runs the HTC Sense UI, the HTC Sense Version on Android 4.1 and above has made it difficult to get to the personalization option as easily as before.

To get around this and reach personalizing your homescreen as quickly as you can, there’s a easy way to go about doing it. Two of them, actually. Read further to get it working on your HTC Sense enabled phone instantly:

Proceedure

Method 1

• When your phone is unlocked, pull down the notification bar.
• Tp the settings icon in the top left corner.
• Now, scroll down to the “Personalize” option and tap on it.

Method 2

• It’s also noted that the Personalize option is present in the Settings menu of the phone.
• Thus, add the Settings option to your homescreen directly by holding the Settings app from the app tray.
• Once settings is added to your homescren, you can tap on it and hit personalize inside directly.

These are two simple, yet efficient ways of hitting the personalization option as quickly as possible on your Android smartphone. Using it on the long run would be effective in having your wallpapers and other custom options changed quicker than the usual way. Do let us know if you find any other workaround for the same too!

If you’re an Apple’s Mac OS user and also have a Google Nexus 7 device, getting to access the files in your Nexus device might be tougher than how an external storage generally is. You might have experienced that it doesn’t show up as a normal storage device in the Finder application. This is because the Nexus 7 uses MTP protocol and OS X does not support the Media Transfer Protocol out of the box.

However, there’s a small application that can be used for this which can be implemented to ensure that file transfers through the Nexus 7 work normally as they’re supposed to.

Here are the steps to do them:

1. You need to head to http://www.android.com/filetransfer/ and download the File Transfer application and have it installed on the Mac.
2. Now, install the DMG that has been downloaded.
3. That’s with the setting up of the Android File Transfer Application. Go ahead and connect your Nexus device now and you can see it appear on your desktop screen of your OS X operating system.
4. If at all the device’s files aren’t seen, go to settings on your Nexus device, USB Settings and make sure USB MTP is enabled.

That’s all is needed to get the Nexus device’s files accessible on your Mac. Pretty simple, isn’t it? Do let us know if you have any queries in the comments section.

With over 450,000 apps and counting on the Play Store, there are many applications which run in the background without the permisson of the user, making the phone much slower and also sometimes, by collecting some data in the background etc.

For this purpose, one could use Task Managers or Task Killer applications which are available aplenty in the Android Play Store or even some widgets which can kill all the running apps in the background in one click. However, sometimes it might be disadvantageous. Say Skype is running the background and you want to kill it, one could do so manually or use a third party task manager app.

However, some of these apps from unknown developers do not kill just the app but also some processes that are used by the app which are also required for the phone’s normal functioning. By disabling the app, it totally disappears from the app drawer as well and no third party app can execute it.

Thus, it is recommended to use trusted Task manager applications or the default one in Android, which is the best alternative. To use this, follow these instructions :

1. Open the App drawer from your homescreen and choose Settings. Alternatively, ICS devices also have a quick shortcut to settings from the notification bar when pulled down from the top.
2. Once you’re into settings, choose ‘Apps’ from the list there.
3. Here, you will see three tabs on the top namely ‘On SD Card’ , ‘Running’  and ‘All’ .
4. Tap on All and you’ll be taken into the screen displaying all the installed apps on your phone along with default stock apps of Android.
5. Choose the app that you want to stop and you’ll get two boxes named ‘Force Stop’ and ‘Disable’ .
6. Tap on the ‘Disable’ button and a warning notification pop-up box might come up asking if you’re sure in executing this action. Tap ‘OK’ .
7. Now the app is disabled and is pushed towards the end of the list. To enable, choose the app again and choose Enable.

Note that by disabling the app, the app will disappear from the App drawer until it is enabled once again in the settings page. To temporarily stop apps, you should choose the ‘Force Stop’ button while disabling it totally stops the app from being executed or functioning till it is enabled manually by the user.

Call it as out of curiosity or hacking, in this article we will be guiding you on how you can find the password for the Network SSID with the help of your Android smartphone. Though we don’t believe in supporting hackers but it’s just an eye opener to you that simple passwords might are more prone to hacking. To ensure that this trick works or to make use of the same, you will have to first up ensure that your Android phone is rooted. To check on whether your device is rooted or not, you will have to download the “Root Checker” app from the Google PLAY Store.

Tip: Just in case if your device is not rooted, then you can do let us know in the comments section about the same so that we can guide you to the rest of the process for rooting your Android device.

Procedue to Find Wifi Password with Android Phone – Network SSID

• Assuming that you have rooted your device, head over to the Google PLAY Store to download an app called “Root Browser Lite (free)” app.
• Once you have downloaded the app, open the same and navigate to the Data/misc/wifi folder to find the wpa_supplicant.conf file for opening the same.
• Now, with the help of “RD Text Editor” you will have to open the conf file. Please note that it’s not necessary that you will have to make use of RD Text Editor but any text editor can be employed for the same.
• Now, you will see that a list of data mentioning about various detais will be listed, so you now need to navigate to the “SSID” row in the name of Wi Fi network and then the “PSK” row will show the password of that particular Wi Fi connection.

Tip: To ensure that your Wi Fi connection password is not hacked, you need to ensure that the MAC based security is enabled in your MODEM which is in fact the toughest to crack.

Do share with us in the comments section just in case if you need any more help regarding the same as we will be more than happy to assist you with the same. The only limitation of this is that just in case if that Wi Fi based connection is having MAC level of security then you won’t be able to access the Wi Fi connection as one needs to add the MAC address of that device which is to be latched on in the modem settings.