TechMotif

Apple iPad Air: More power, less weight!
- Pranay Parab.

Apple Inc's obsession with sleek and light devices continues with its latest tablet, dubbed iPad Air.

It packs all the great features of its predecessor, including a high-resolution 9.7-inch Retina display, in a much lighter package at just 469 grams.

The new tablet has Apple's A7 processor, twice as fast as the older A6.

Apple promises 10 hours of battery life on the tablet, and the starting price for the16 GB WiFi is Rs 35,900. Apple also announced the availability of iPad Mini with Retina display.

This tablet ships with the latest A7 processor, upgraded from the two-year-old A5 on the iPad Mini.

It has a display resolution of 2048×1536 pixels. The price is Rs 28,900 onwards.

Crazy dual-screen YotaPhone goes on sale.
- By Kate Solomon


The strange yet strangely compelling YotaPhone will actually go on sale in some countries in December.

Although the UK, US and Australia are not first in line for the dual-screen phone, the device is rolling out to more countries in early 2014 and we're confident that the UK, at least, will be among them.

For now, if you want to try the device, which comes with a screen on the back as well as a screen on the front, you'll have to pick one up in Russia, Austria, France, Spain or Germany.
Weird

The Android-running YotaPhone comes with a standard 4.3-inch 720p LCD screen on the front and another 4.3-inch e-ink screen on the back - the idea being that it's perfect for ebook reading.

The other major benefit of an e-ink screen is that it can display images and information even if the phone runs out of battery - we can think of a few times having a saved map that we could still see when our phones died could have saved our bacon.

The YotaPhone also prides itself on its touchy-feely emotional approach - kooky messages like "Smile for the camera" come up on the second screen when you're taking a picture, for example. It's not clear if these can be disabled or not.

And this is just the beginning, the company's head honchos say: "This is YotaPhone 1.0. Expect other big and new things to follow."

If the first YotaPhone takes your fancy, pricing has been announced as €499 across Europe - likely to be around £420 in the UK, and $680 and AU$750 if it makes it round the world.