Laptop Freeze and Only cursor working (wmpnetwk.exe)

By: Nikhil Malankar

The other day I was playing Skyrim and experienced a seriously deathly lag on my Alienware m14x. To notice a lag on my gaming rig was a pretty unusual thing for me since I’m not used to play on a laggy system for almost a year now! Well, before this I had experienced a problem wherein my laptop’s screen froze but my cursor was working. Something was wrong but I just could not figure out what it was. And suddenly laptop again froze while I was playing Skyrim after the painful lag. My internet connection was enabled that time. So, I had to other option than to directly turn it off by long pressing the power button.

After doing this I was put into another state of shock by seeing the BSOD(For non-techies: BSOD means ‘Blue Screen Of Death’). That scared the crap out of me. The system again restarted by itself after the BSOD. And what next?? AGAIN BSOD!! Shit! I was screwed! My dad was just sitting besides me having his lunch and me besides him on a scary way to Blue Hell! And this loop of BSOD continued for 3 times. After that I entered the BIOS mode and tried to change some values there. And at the ‘Exit’ screen of BIOS I chose to restore the default system settings and saved the changes. Now, after a reboot, Windows started to the screen where it asks the user to Launch a Startup repair or to start Windows normally. I preferred to start Windows normally. But then to my surprise I again encountered the BSOD! Laptop restarted again and then again the Blue Screen error came so I decided to use the same trick of entering the BIOS and exiting. After that again the Launch Windows Startup repair or Start Windows normally screen appeared. This time I chose to launch startup repair. (My dad was still eating!) And then my good luck, startup repair fixed the issue and my laptop started to the login screen. And my dad finished his lunch, phew!

I quickly started taking backup of all the important stuff on my hard disk. After taking a backup I decided to run a scan on my laptop since may be this could be a virus or a malware. After about 3 hours my laptop experienced the same freeze again. I thought that there is some problem in my network card and thats why I mentioned in the first paragraph that my internet connection was enabled. Something was seriously wrong with my Alienware m14x. I was worried but then I could only repeat the procedure that I followed previously to login to Windows. I had to go through the BSOD again but fortunately enough I could skip the startup repair. I started thinking, what possibly could cause this issue? And my logic pointed to two things: over-heating or excessive memory(RAM) usage. So, I opened the task manager and observed that my logic was right
for the excessive memory usage. I’ve got 4GB RAM and the RAM usage was almost as high as 90-97%. To simplify the terms, my physical memory, as one can observe from a task manager, was that high. Something was using a lot of RAM. Now the challenge was to find out what was it? I took a little break to eat something. And then got a little bored with the problem so I turned off my laptop and went to my classes for the lecture.

After I came back from classes it was about 9 PM and I worked on the laptop for about 3 hours without any issues of BSOD or screen freeze. But I knew that the problem was still there. It was around 12 AM when I had taken a back up of all the data on my laptop and was totally exhausted now so decided to go to sleep. So, I turned off my system and went to sleep.

The next day I was equipped with a new inspiration to fix this issue and so started off on the quest to do the same. Task manager was the first step that would further act as a great help to solve this issue. Now I had to somehow find which process/service was using up so much of physical memory. So, I went to the Task Manager’s ‘Performance’ tab. There you can observe how many cores your Laptop/PC has. Plus it also shows you the graph of your physical memory and the CPU usage (i.e. usage of cores). In that you can observe the ‘Resource Monitor’ option. I clicked that. Alternatively you can directly go to your ‘Run.exe’ and type in ‘perfmon.exe’ to launch the ‘Resource Monitor’. Now, in ‘Resource Monitor’ there are 5 tabs namely: Overview, CPU, Memory, Disk and Network. I was experiencing problem with excessive memory usage so logically my solution would lie in the ‘Memory’ tab. Now here I observed that one service was using around a 200k something commit memory which was obviously very high. Then I saw its name and it was ‘wmpnetwk.exe’. Alrighty, so I had got the cause of the problem and now was the fixing service.

Nikhil Malankar

Resource Monitor in Task Manager’s Performance tab

Nikhil Malankar

Resource Monitor Window

Well, I would like to explain ‘wmpnetwk.exe’ program in this paragraph. This is Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service and it should not be consuming so much of physical memory on a computer and if it does then you got a hint that something is wrong with it. A 60%+ physical memory for a single service is way too much and this was the reason for the game lag and screen freeze.

If you are experiencing the same issue then here is the solution that I tried:
Click Start and type ‘services.msc’ in the Start Search. This will open up a window wherein you can see all the services that are executed either automatically/automatically(delayed)/disabled on your system.

Nikhil Malankar

Type services.msc in the Start Menu (For Windows 7 users)

Nikhil Malankar

Services.msc screen and Windows Media Player Network Sharing highlighted. (I’ve already disabled it)

Search for ‘Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service’ and right-click and select ‘Stop’. This will stop the service. Now again right-click and this time select the ‘Properties’ option. There in the Startup Type select either ‘Manual’ or ‘Disable’. Since I don’t use Windows Media player at all so I chose to disable it for good. I’m a VLC fan.

Nikhil Malankar

Properties Screen of wmpnetwk.exe (warning: Before disabling please make sure that you stop the service)

Problem solved gum gums, u jelly Windows??

I hope this little experience of mine would help you if you ever encounter the same problem. And now Skyrim runs without a lag!! ^_^

check dimensions

Posted by Gaurav

There is this theorem in the first semester engineering (MU) which gives the formula of centrifugal tension in a belt.

T=m(v^2)

T->the centrifugal tension in the belt

m->mass of the belt

v->the belt velocity

Even if u don’t know anything about this let me tell you that the equation is written as it is given in the various textbooks many of which are recommended by the best colleges of Mumbai.

The problem is with the dimensions. The left side of the equation has the dimension of force whereas the right side has the dimension of energy. We already know that an equation with incorrect dimensions is incorrect. I asked about this to my teachers but I am not satisfied by their answers. Hoping to get the answer from you.

IIT TechFest Day 1

By: Nikhil Malankar

2012 has started on a very good note for me since I just got cured from chickenpox and then all things are going perfect till now. Because of my illness I had to cancel some of my plans the previous year but luckily enough I got cured before the TechFest 2012. Now I won’t be whining further about my illness which would of course bore you but I’ll continue with what the post is actually about. So, yeah the TechFest! I’ve been using this word TechFest all the time. What exactly is this ‘TechFest’? Ofcourse, you guessed it right that it has to do something with Technology and Festival. Well, the TechFest 2012 is an annual College Festival of Indian Institute Of Technology – Bombay (IIT-B). First of all before proceeding with the info on the TechFest I’d like to give a short description to IIT-B.

IIT-B Main Building

IIT-B is located in Powai, Mumbai. It would not be wrong if I were to say that IIT-B is the ‘Indian Harvard’. Right from the awfully big campus to the scattered genius talent, everything reflected a bright atmosphere. An atmosphere that is way beyond a conventional education center. And I was like, ‘Whoa! What would it be like to be in such a great institute?’. But then even the most beautiful thing in this world has some flaws in it. And that would soon be realised by us in the coming hours. So, let’s get to the TechFest now! The day was 6th of January, 2012 when this magnificent campus had invited us to witness this Fest. The day started off with us reaching Powai and actually getting trapped in the ‘Entrance Test’. No! There was no official test to get an entry (Who would go to such a place then?) but we were confused about the entry to the campus. And then after asking here and there we finally found it in a matter of a mere 15 minutes. Anyways, we got in to find out that we had forgotten to take the Visitor’s card that was required for certain activities in the fest. After walking for almost an hour we had to go all the way back to the main gate to get the visitor’s card. How boring was that, buf!

Well, now we were in utter confusion! Such a big campus, so many things to do and ample amount of time. What to do? Sit four lectures? Eat? Keep walking and discover more of IIT? Or just sit at one place and wonder? Well, to be on safe side, we tried it all! First we were just randomly wandering here and there. Then we almost had entered a lecture hall and we also sat there but then they told us to wait outside and stand in that awfully long line! Duh, who would like to stand in a line after sitting on those comfy sofas? So, we went ahead. Kept walking in the almost seemingly infinite path to discover this ‘CricBot’. Cricket is a famous sport, for my American, Chinese and Japanese Bros and sis’. And ‘Bot’, well as we all know, Robot. So, basically it was a Robot which can play cricket. Participants assembled their robots and one by one came to display their seemingly overflowing knowledge. Extensive C++ codes and wires here and there plus a laptop in every student’s hand-made it seem like a perfect geek spot! So, we went inside and there the first participating group came. Unfortunately because of some technical difficulties the robot was working in a bizarre manner. Just think! Almost a year’s effort getting destroyed in front of your eyes in 10 minutes. Despite of the efforts the team only managed to make the robot twirl around and get itself tangled. Felt bad for those guys. Then came the second group. By this time our enthusiasm was almost finished so we waited for 15 minutes and left the hall to enter again the vast world of IIT.

CricBot poster

After this we went to the Japanese exhibition wherein they had kept all the JapTech on display ranging from artistic vases to hybrid cars and PlayStation 2. Well, a time pass item.

Now we had already wasted a lot of time so we really wanted to do something. One of the friend in our group was really frustrated and wanted to go home. But then you can never actually leave your friends when you are in a group. You just can’t resist to be with the group. So, convinced that he would be convinced somehow we headed for the lecture. And yeah! Our conviction held true. Now we were heading to the lecture that would completely change the way we looked at life. It was about a 10 minute wait for the lecture and then we headed into this classroom that we had seen only in films and newspapers. Truly magnificent and sliding classrooms with ample space for walking and ample space for sleeping on the back benches.

So, the lecturer was Mr. Sugata Mitra, an Education Technology guy from MIT Media Labs. He explained us about his work that primarily focused on spreading education through computers and his research states that if a person can read then he can learn anything, and by anything I seriously mean anything ranging from basic arithmetic calculations to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Much of this concept depends on belief and creating curiosity within a child. He presented some awesome statistics that represented his research in the field from 1999-2002, 2002- 2006 and 2007 to present. Mr Sugata believes that if a child is provided with a computer and a broadband connection he/she can learn anything and everything as swiftly as the child who is attending that expensive school in the neighborhood. Not only this but you can even pretend to be a Doctor by just renting an apartment and putting up a signboard as ‘Dr. So&So’ and buy a nice desk plus a computer with a broadband
connection. This experiment carried out by Mr. Mitra, known as ‘The Hole In The Wall’ project, was a worldwide success. How cool would it be to never learn from a teacher, isn’t it? In simple words: You can teach yourself. I’ll give you a simple example for this. Now that you have read about Mr. Sugata Mitra, if you are interested in knowing more about him, you will directly contact your best friend ‘Google’ for more info on him. This means that you are teaching yourself about this person and adding to your knowledge. As simple as that. Truly mind-blowing speaker. I also got the opportunity to talk with him in person and appreciated his efforts in the field of Education Technology. Sugata Sir’s research has helped many students from rural India to England, America, Indonesia and many more.

The 2nd one from right in Black T-Shirt is Sugata Mitra Sir

After attending the lecture we were all charged up to sit for yet another lecture since, by now, we had realised that the lectures at IIT are truly magnificent. But then our stomachs had a different story to tell. So, we went to the cafeteria near the Hospital/Parking lot and ate. The next lecture that we wanted to attend was at 4.30 and it was 2.30 as of now. So, we did a lot of time pass strolling around here and there and then time went by swiftly.

Next was Simon Singh’s lecture. Simon Singh is the author of many best seller books and notably known for ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem’. 4.30 to 5.30 and that was his lecture. Truly magnificent. Manas has posted his experience about Simon’s Lecture. Here I’ll provide some snaps of him.

The one in the Mohawk is Simon Singh

Oh and after the lecture got over it was almost 6 PM. And we had to rush now or else we would reach home late since the college was far away from our residences. And well, would not like to share the travelling experience back home. We were CRUSHED in that jam packed bus! Anyways, signing off.

Well, that’s the way we roll!

I hope you enjoyed reading this post. Comments welcome!

IOBIT GAME BOOSTER- For all your Gaming Needs

By: Nikhil Malankar

 

We all gamers sometimes experience performance lag in some games because of those shitty background processes which cease to stop. Well, for such frustrated lot here I present a solution-> TADA! ‘ioBit Game Booster’. This software works efficiently. Further more I’ll explain you how this actually works.

Take for example you are playing Skyrim and you are experiencing performance lag. You are really frustrated taking all those arrows in the knee. What to do? What to do? Worry not my bro! Close Skyrim and start Game Booster and then hit the Performance Boosting button on the Game Booster. This will close all your unnecessary background processes and give you the performance that you craved for. Well, this does work each time since this directly works on your GPU and hardware thereby boosting the overall system performance too. And now you are ready to play at smooth FPS. And for those old skeptics- Well, if you are having a system with 256MB RAM and an integrated graphic card and you wanna play any game on high graphics without performance lag then please don’t read this post!

You can download Game Booster from here.

Thanks for reading. Have a nice play!

L.A. Noire Game Review

By: Nikhil Malankar
This is the review of the superfantabulouslyawesomelyaddictive game by Rockstar Games named ‘L.A. Noire’. Yeah! I know that was a very offbeat introduction but I just couldn’t help it!!
Initially I didn’t feel that the game would be so awesome but then it slowly and steadily made a way into my life. I feel like the game actually made its way instead of me just going and getting it. This feeling itself was very special. So, this is a review, right? Let me not waste more of your time and give you a short review of what I feel about the game.

Alrighty, so in this game you play as Detective Cole Phelps. Now this guy is a perfect combination of a war hero and a crime fighter. The gameplay is such that you are compelled to travel in the past in those golden olden times of 1940s. Old roads with less traffic, those precious old Chevys, the typical dressing style of the people and rich environment, motion capture graphics (Oh this is my favorite feature). You actually get to live the 1940s as a crime fighter.

And now for the spec-savvy guys here are some tech specs for the game:

• Operating System: Windows 7 / Windows Vista Service Pack 1 / Windows XP Service Pack 3 / OnLive for PC or Mac
• Processor: Intel Dual Core 2.2GHz to Quad Core 3.2GHz / AMD Dual Core 2.4Ghz to Quad Core 3.2Ghz
• RAM: 2GB to 8GB
• Hard drive space: 16GB
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 512MB to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 1536MB / Radeon HD 3000 512MB to Radeon HD 6850 1024MB
• Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9 Compatible
• DVD Drive

Some other requirements include:

• Initial game and DLC activation requires an internet connection.
• L.A. Noire PC requires the installation of software and components including including GameShield IronWrap & Patcher;
• DirectX, and Microsoft’s Windows .NET Framework, and Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86).

And beware of these unsupported hardwares for the game:

• Nvidia 8600 GT 512 MB AGP Pro
• ATI Radeon HD3870 512 MB AGP Pro
• GPU setups with less than 256MB per GPU

If the above tech specs made you feel dizzy then I apologize but it was necessary for the sake of the review. Okay well, now I’ll give you a little background of the game which will compel you to buy(or at least download ) and play this beautiful masterpiece by Rockstar Games.

The game starts to impress you from the very beginning. And by saying that I mean from the very beginning. The menu style is great and innovative. You will be really impressed by that. And then you can play in the story mode(I won’t reveal the story or else why would you play the game?? ) Just to give you an overview, you have to solve cases by finding evidence on crime locations and, believe me, this really makes you feel like a detective. And if you have watched The Godfather movie then you will be surprised to notice the resemblance between Cole Phelps and Tom Hagen.

The interrogation feature brings more life-like gameplay with motion graphics. You actually get to know if a character is lying by watching their facial expressions. (As mentioned before, my favorite part!!)

Rockstar Games has gone a step further and added a touch of its true ‘Rockstar sense’ which is the ‘Black and White’ gameplay mode. In times where Game developers are striving hard to churn out cutting edge graphics and merging 3d technology this surely was a bold step and it does add a plus point to the gameplay.

Warning for GTA fans:
Well, GTA fans might think that this is one more game from Rockstar wherein we are destined to kill every random person we see. But its quite the reverse. We have to find such maniacs and put them for interrogation and punish them. So, re-incarnations of Niko Bellic and his likes might not enjoy this game.

My verdict: Well, the ending was really disappointing but if you leave that all-in-all this is a near perfect attempt by Rockstar Games and Team Bondi.

Cheers!

Death Of The Desktop

By: Nikhil Malankar

 

One of the greatest innovations of all time is undoubtedly the computer and because of the same many further things were made possible. Right from knowing how the child in the mother’s womb is to the launch of a satellite. Nowadays everything is done on the computer. The computer has advanced a lot since it was first invented. At first it was a big idiot box. Then after that because of semiconducting devices it was possible to have smaller computers. Due to further advancements the size went on decreasing whereas the capabilities went on increasing. (Moore’s Law) And now finally! The desktop is approaching its death! Let’s see how!

Ok. So, as I mentioned earlier that because of semiconductors the size of the computer went on decreasing. The size went on decreasing and a new innovation known as the ‘Laptop’ was introduced. The laptop is classified into 2 main categories. First being notebooks and second net books. Net books are cheap laptops but nowadays they are also becoming a rage for business class people who need a handy book to carry their business with ease. For more updated information let me tell you that these ‘net books’ will soon be getting replaced by something called ‘ultra books’ which would be having the same mobility of net books but with more processing power. The laptops offer everything to everyone. There are gaming laptops, business laptops and also useless time pass laptops!  And the biggest advantage is that laptop does not require more space unlike the desktop. Plus a battery charge of 6 hours can make the laptop work for 10 hours or more depending on the assurance given by the company.

Recently the launch of tablet PCs have further contributed to the desktop’s death. The Apple iPad, Blackberry Playbook, Samsung Galaxy Note, Samsung Galaxy Tab and many others are no less than a computer (with a small space of 32 GB or 64 GB but that’s fine!). The real innovation was the iPad but due to its big dimensions it became inconvenient to carry it. The solution to this was Samsung Galaxy Tab which had smaller dimensions and more power. But if the Apple iPad would not have been launched then maybe we would have never known what a tablet is and we would have stuck to medical science for the same  .

And after the launch of tablets we got these amazing range of smart phones with 1GHz processing power like the Xperia series, Samsung Galaxy S II and many more. Plus the Windows-Nokia phone Lumia 800 was a new cocktail of technologies. These smart phones offer a wide variety of features including business features like Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and updates on the go. Social networking experience is also awesome. With all this and much more to come, I think that the Desktop is slowly but steadily breathing its last.
Maybe after some years or even months nobody will use the desktop on a large scale and everyone will work on laptops and tablets. The desktop will be popular only with the people who like to relax and sit at home or only at large corporations. The geek community will always be on the desktop as they love it a lot! Also gamers will prefer desktops over laptops and tablets. But the bitter truth is that the desktop is approaching its death.

Oh and yeah Happy New Year folks!

Cool websites and softwares

By: Nikhil Malankar

 

Its been a horribly long time since anything was published on this blog. We sincerely apologize to keep you waiting for such a long time and to compensate for this time we are going to introduce some really interesting softwares and websites to you which are very useful in the computer world. Lets start with some cool websites.

Whoa! That’s a cool website!!
1. Giveawayoftheday.com
This cool website gives you access to random PAID softwares and you can download them for free. It keeps updating everyday and you get a lot of useful softwares here on this site. Now, you can save that buck to buy yourself other accessories for daily use instead of wasting them on softwares. 100% legit and no spywares or adwares guaranteed!!

2. CgTantra.com
This is your one stop shop for all animation data and information. You can take a look at some professional works over here and it would help you a lot if you are, in any way, related to the animation industry.

3. Hackforums.net
Your enemy causing a lot of trouble in your life? Go hack his facebook account and troll people! This site will help you in doing that and also a lot more other stuff. And not only hacking but you can also learn a lot of other geek stuff. After all geek is the new cool!

4. Khanacademy.org
Started by Salman Khan(HEy! Not the actor! ), this site gives you online videos for all your academic needs right from basic addition and subtraction to higher level complex physics mechanics, chemistry and a whole lot of other stuff. Now dont spend your money on those tuition classes! Be smart, use KhanAcademy.

5. dl4all.com
Okay now you have to agree that putting that game of over 5 GB on torrents takes loads of time to get downloaded if the seeders are less and sometimes all you want is a direct downlaod. So, this is it! dl4all gives you access to directly download ANY computer game for FREE!!

Welcome to the software world!
1. KGB Archiver
Ever seen your de-compression tool do crazy amounts of decompression like de-compressing a 14MB file to a 1 GB file and wondered how do they compress it? The answer is KGB Archiver. This software has the capacity to compress a 1 GB file to a 14 MB file.

2. VMware workstation
This is an OS emulator which lets you use any operating system on your computer. But then what is its need? Ever felt the urge to play Road Rash on your Windows 7 OS? You downloaded the game and to your surprise it didn’t work quite well in Windows 7 since its a classic game. So, all you do is download an XP iso file and open it from this software. In short play anything and everything on your computer. Windows all editions, Linux and Mac supported.

3. IOBIT Game Booster
Is that copy of GTA IV running extremely slow on your computer? The reason is that the internal computer RAM is not in your control and in background your computer simultaneously uses it to do other tasks which slows down your game. This software stops all the unnecessary background processes which add richness to your gaming experience!!

4. A-One FLV to AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod Converter
Searching for a software to convert ‘.flv’ extension to ‘.mp4′ or some other format which supports your phone? Try this cool software which lets you do so. Best format converting software!!

5. Free hide folder
Works as the name describes. If you wanna hide some important documents, files, photos (or something else ) then this software is for you. It lets you hide a folder and you can only open this software using a user-set password.

We hope you liked the websites and softwares. Add your valuable comments to let us know.

How to download torrent files?

By: Nikhil Malankar

Most of us know about the torrent files and how to download them. This post is for those who don’t know about it. Before starting with ‘How to download torrent files?’ let me just give you a little introduction to the ‘Torrent World’. Torrents are basically small files which are able to extract data from computers all over the world which have the specific information of the files which are attached or linked to the magnet torrent. Torrents act as strong magnets. For example if you want to download a movie from a torrent you basically download the torrent file of that movie and then you place it for downloading in a torrent client which will attract (download) the file in your computer.

Torrent files have extension of ‘.torrent’. This means that if you download a torrent file, say sample, then it will be named as ‘sample.torrent’. Some of the torrent sites include:

http://www.piratebay.org

http://www.queentorrent.com

http://www.h33t.com

But mind you! These torrent downloads are illegal.

Anyways! Now we will see some more information about torrents. Whenever you download a torrent files first have a look at the ‘Seeders’ because if there are more seeders then your file will be downloaded fast. Low seeder count may lead to slow download or no download at all!

One of the best torrent client is ‘utorrent’. Download this from the internet and then download ‘.torrent’ files and then click on it. If it opens then it will directly open in utorrent or else manually select utorrent from the programs list to open the file.

If used properly, torrents can be a great way to download almost anything for FREE FREE FREE!!!!!

Important note:- Once you finish downloading the torrent remove it from the torrent list or else it will keep on uploading which will in turn be using a lot of your network resources and also increasing your bill!

My Astronomical shots!

By: Manas Chaturvedi

 

Gone are the days when you have to buy a telescope just to fulfill your dreams of catching a glimpse of an heavenly body millions of miles away from the Earth. Or perhaps almost pass a whole lifetime without catching a glimpse of a telescope itself, let alone an heavenly planet!

But we, the netizens so to speak, are far more lucky than our ancestors, for the newest technology provides us with softwares so goos that we need not feel the need of buying a telescope after all! Astronomical softwares like Celestia, Stellerium, etc are great simulation softwares wherein you can not only explore the large infinite vacuum spaces of the universe, but also catch a glimpse of your journeys! Here’s some of the shots that I took on my PC using those amazing astronomical softwares!

Here’s me operating a software wherein I can use my CPU power and net facility to operate a universal research program in finding extraterrestrial creatures in our universe! No wait, I’m not kidding lol. Go search for SETI if you don’t believe me…

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Review

By: Nikhil Malankar

 

Just recently, as in April 2011, Sony launched it’s much hyped Sony Ericsson Xperia range of phones which includes the Arc, X10 and the Xperia Play or better known as Xplay. This post is a review of Sony’s Xplay. Xplay is a one of its kind phone with an impressive design and innovative features. This phone is PlayStation certified and can play games with graphics as good as the PSP.

Lets have a look at this phone’s features.

The Sony Ericsson Xplay has an impressive PSP type design, as you can see in the above image, it is a slider phone. The Xplay has Android 2.3(Gingerbread) OS which is efficiently integrated with the PlayStation Suite. On the portability side this phone is a bit bulky and has dimensions 119X62X16mm and weighs somewhere around175g. It’s screen size is also impressive and watching movies on this phone is sheer pleasure.

With 512 MB RAM and Snapdragon system on ship this phone offers a good speed and is very efficient. It is available in 2 colors and they are black and white. Xplay has a 1 GHz Scorpion Processor with Andreno 205 GPU which makes it more efficient to use and promises a good experience.

The camera is a 5 megapixel autofocus with LED flashlight. Record Videos in WVGA and also has a secondary VGA camera on the front side. The camera menu is also user friendly and we can easily switch to the front cam from the rear one or vice-versa.

With features like 3G, Wi-fi, Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP, GPRS, EDGE and many more this phone is a complete package! The battery life is also impressive with 425 hours of standby in 2G and 413 hours in 3G. Talk time upto 8h 25 minutes in 2G and 6h 25 minutes in 3G. Xplay has internal memory of 400 MB and can be expanded upto 32 GB. An 8 GB memory card is included with the phone.

The main feature of this phone is its gaming side. Till date this is the best gaming phone after the ‘N-Gage’ era. It has some cool pre-loaded games like FIFA 10, Sims 3 and Bruce Lee(which is almost like Street Fighter) and you can download more from the internet. Games like Asphalt 6 HD can be played with the play panel which can be accessed by sliding the phone. Also Assassin’s Creed offers the best graphics on this phone. What else does a gamer want?

The phone is priced at Rs. 35,000 MRP and in dollars it is approximately 777$. So, if you have that money to spare on a phone then this is the best choice. As a reviewer we should also mention its downsides. So, if you compare this with the E7 you will find the only downsides are that it does not have a HDMI port and does not support HD video recording. But if you see it this way, the Android market has millions of applications compared to the thousands or may be hundreds of that of OVI store. So, Android is any day better than Nokia.

And now you can also enjoy GTA III on this phone PSP style!

Have a nice day!