Once a must-have device if one wanted email on one’s cellphone, Research In Motion (RIM) has witnessed its fortunes dwindle in the past couple of years. Just like Nokia, which failed to notice the tectonic shift in smartphone usage trends, RIM failed to evolve its BlackBerry smartphones to keep up with changing times and needs of the users. Today BlackBerry’s market share is all but wiped off in most mature countries. However, in emerging markets, especially India, RIM is growing its market share primarily due to its free IM service called BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and cheap Internet service plans with most carriers.

Even as RIM goes through a period of transition – it is developing a new OS called BlackBerry 10, which is based on QNX – it acknowledges the need to keep refreshing its products for markets like India, where it still has a chance to grow. With no high-end products planned for release before the first BB10 smartphone towards the end of the year, RIM hopes its entry-level Curve 9220 and in the near future its 3G variant, the 9320, will be enough to satiate the needs of its demanding user base. RIM hopes to sell these relatively cheaper smartphones by the millions to keep up is shipment numbers. But is the Curve 9220 cut out to fulfil RIM’s needs? Let’s find out.

Back in the day, tablets meant something a doctor would prescribe one to take when sick. In tech-world, it meant super-expensive laptops that had a swiveling display on which users could scribble using a stylus. I know of at least one C-level executive who had bought one such machine costing upwards of Rs 100,000 only to sign documents! Then came the iPad in the beginning of Summer 2010 and turned the tablet space on its head. With almost 60 million iPads already sold globally, the iPad has not only defined a brand-new gadget category but has also dominated it like no one’s business. In fact, many executives of rival companies have admitted to me in private that it is really an iPad market and not a tablet market even in India, where we have numerous usable tablets selling for under Rs 20,000. So much for India being a price sensitive country.

Now in its third generation, the iPad hasn’t changed drastically in its looks and feel. Unlike the iPhone, which has now settled into a design refresh every two years, the iPad refreshes have all been about adding more hardware capabilities. I own all the three generations and I feel almost at home irrespective whether I’m using the first-gen iPad or the latest third generation. That’s not saying that the new iPad is only an incremental update over the older ones but instead how iPads age graciously unlike Android tabs that suffocate to death within a year, lacking timely updates. Mind you, most of the first-gen Android tabs of 2010-2011 were much more powerful machines if one were to strictly talk about hardware.

Without getting into discussing the merits of Apple’s new naming scheme for the iPad, now just called the iPad or the new iPad rather than the iPad 3, the third-gen iPad is probably the most controversial of all. Many think it is just an incremental update with no ground-breaking hardware shift from Apple. Their usual gripe is the absence of a truly new processor (the Apple A6 with four cores – the new iPad has the A5X, the same dual-core processor as the iPad 2 but with a quad-core GPU) and probably the same design as the iPad 2. However, the question still remains – is the new iPad still THE must-have tablet or the iPad 2 continues to rule the roost. Let’s find out.

The Xperia S is not only the first Sony branded device but it is also the device that Sony hopes will revive the company’s relevance in the smartphone space. Kaz Hirai has already pointed out mobile is going to be a key area of focus for the company and Sony smartphones will be backed up with content and services owned by Sony Corporation. In our first impressions, we pointed out some positives and negatives of the device, but we took it around for a longer drive. Read on to find out if the Xperia S has what it takes to stand against the likes of the iPhone 4S, HTC One X and the Samsung Galaxy S II.

These days one can find Android tablets in every nook and cranny. That, however, does not mean they are very good. This is clearly true at the high end of the market, the situation gets even worse at the low-end. These budget Android tablets are seldom usable, come with cheap hardware, poor quality software and most times are not even compliant with Google; hence they drop support for Google Mobile Suite (calendar, maps and Gmail) and the Play Store. Obviously, in India we have many examples of such low budget tablets. The Aakash is right up there, but competitors like LACs, iBall, Beetle and the Reliance tablet are also there, however none of them have the bells and whistles to dazzle the average consumer.

Clearly Micromax thinks differently. It hopes that its Funbook will provide a quality experience at a price point that will not hurt many and at the same time will provide content for students. The presence of the latest version of Android in its native state makes this device even more enticing, but the proof of the pudding will be in the tasting. For that read on.

I fondly remember the day when HTC started its operations in India. A sunny (read hot) afternoon in June of 2007, Peter Chou unveiled the HTC Touch, mesmerizing everyone. It was nothing like you had ever seen before – a Windows Mobile smartphone that did not require a stylus. It was not a me-too iPhone wannabe product, both Apple and HTC had sensed that future had no space for a smartphone that was dependent on a stylus.  At best, a stylus could be an accessory. Nothing more.

HTC then belted out one major innovation every year – the Touch Diamond with its stunning looks and one-handed operation, the Hero with its pronounced chin and teflon coating, Sense UI… But somewhere over the years, HTC lost its mojo. I can’t be certain whether it was with the departure of its Chief Innovation Officer, Horace Luke, but I think that could be one of the big reasons why HTC started making phones that had no soul. They were no longer fun to use, just a minor update over the model they replaced. All HTC products started looking the same. They had nothing unique about them.

It seems like I was not the only one HTC disappointed. Last year was a horrendous one for HTC, which started slowing down after years of growing sales and profits. Its most recent quarter isn’t any good but HTC is pinning its hopes on the One Series of smartphones to bounce back, which it announced at MWC this February. The flagship model, the One X, has everything any flagship Android smartphone has these days – a big beautiful display, top-of-the-line hardware specs and a lot of hype. But will it be enough to take HTC out of the woods? Has HTC got its mojo back? Let’s find out.

As we reported yesterday, Angry Birds Space is now available for download and causal gamers all around the world can fling their favorite bird in space. Frankly, Angry Birds Space is a very different game from its predecessors. Gone is the mindless flinging of birds, Space brings a completely new gameplay to the table and perhaps that is the game’s biggest draw. We have taken a very close look at the game, in fact we have already completed around 55 levels on Android, though have also tested it on the Mac and as well as the iPad. Read on for our review.

As the dust settles and people start to consider the idea of mainstream computing in a pure Metro environment we took the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and used it in a more traditional way – with a keyboard and mouse – and not touch. The way the new Metro UI and the updated desktop interact with the keyboard and mouse interface is crucial to 90 percent of the Windows user base as it the most familiar way of interacting with ones content and the most known way of getting work done. While BGR Classic has already done an in-depth preview of the Metro UI on touch, its relevance on a non-touch interface remains unknown and this is the object for our review.

Apple’s iOS platform seemed to come out of nowhere and take the world by storm in 2007. The introduction of the first-generation iPhone set in motion a chain of events that lead up to the holiday quarter in 2011, when Apple recorded the most profitable quarter in technology history thanks mainly to unbelievable iPhone, iPod touch and iPad sales. No platform is selling as quickly as Apple’s mobile platform right now, but iOS is still in its infancy and the fact remains: as hot as iOS is right now, and as popular as smartphones and media tablets are, no platform installed base on the planet even comes close to approaching the size of Windows right now.

This post originally appeared on BGR: The Three Biggest Letters In Tech.com

These days deciding which smartphone to buy is not the easiest thing in the world. There is no shortage of choice and there are numerous platforms offering varied user experiences. Perhaps, Google’s Android OS is the most widely available platform as it is available in devices starting from around Rs 6,000 to devices obscenely priced north of Rs 30,000 . The lion’s share of the market is still dominated by the low-end, but the mid-segment, the sub Rs 17,000 price bracket is the most prominent one and in this bracket Android is not the only major player. This is the most competitive segment and we have devices running Android, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, Windows Phone and Bada.

While Android dominates this segment, the newest player in the market – Windows Phone – in our opinion offers slightly more value to end users, apart from also offering users the most unique and intuitive user experience. Not only the Windows Phone devices in the sub Rs 15,000 price band come with more firepower, they also manage to offer a user experience comparable to Apple’s mighty iPhone in terms of fluidity. Users will also not face the problem of excessive choice with Windows Phone devices, as there are only a handful of smartphones due to the platform’s nascence. In our review we are attempting make things simpler for end users as we will compare the two best Windows Phone offerings in the sub Rs 15,000 price band – the Nokia Lumia 710 and the Samsung Omnia W. Read on to find out more.

Apple just did something the company hasn’t done very often in recent years — it completely surprised nearly every single person with the announcement of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the next OS for the Mac. Inching a step closer to bridging the gap between iOS and OS X, Mountain Lion brings practically all of iOS’s featured apps to desktop and laptop computers. From Messages, which I’ve been waiting for ever since iMessage was announced, to built-in iCloud support, Notification Center, Game Center, Reminders, Notes, a much-improved Safari browser, AirPlay and more, the two OSes are practically the same now in terms of system apps. This is the first developer preview of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, and the OS will only improve before it is released in the summer. If you’re itching for my thoughts, though, you’ll find them after the break.

This post originally appeared on BGR: The Three Biggest Letters In Tech.com

We live in an era of connected devices, be it smartphones, tablets, PCs and even televisions. However, the problem is that cloud storage has not been fully realized due to a myriad of issues. Here is where local cloud paradigms come in. People who want the connected experience in their households can purchase these Network Storage Devices (NSDs) and hook them up with their local Wi-Fi connections and setup their local cloud, where all the devices in the household have access to NSD. The Western Digital My Book Live is one of the most popular NSDs on the market and it works well across a wide array of devices. Let’s see if it’s the perfect storage medium for your personal cloud.

As a self confessed audiophile I literally live for innovative audio products. As it so happens, my very first audio review for BGR.in is a very unique product – the OrigAudio Rock-it – a portable vibration speaker system, which claims to convert any surface into a sonic boom siren! On the face of it sounds very interesting, but the truth about the product will only come out once I put it through the BGR testing hoops. Read on for more.