Over the last 20 years, mobile phones have evolved from being a luxury to an absolute necessity for many of us. The technology within the phones has also reached levels that your 20-year younger self (that is if you are old enough) will find it difficult to believe.
Our phones first got smaller, then they started getting bigger (and bigger) and in the interim, they also got slimmer while developing abilities to potentially replace most household gadgets. The smartphones of today are more powerful than the most advanced supercomputers of the 1990s.
Two things, however, remained the biggest stumbling blocks in this smartphone race: the battery and the fragile screen. The most significant feature we have seen in the solving the battery issue is fast charging - that actually solves only one part of the problem. But there is significantly more hope now in resolving the other big phone conundrum - the fragile screen.
Motorola has a credible solution that they demonstrate in the Moto X Force, the phone the company is touting as the world's first with a shatterproof display.
So what happens when you get a phone that is guaranteed not to crack or shatter? You automatically develop butter fingers. And it also unleashes a certain kind of phone aggression in many people (watch the video below this post). But then Motorola didn't make the phone to be smashed against a concrete wall in a fit of anger. However, the phone has the potential to survive bouts of even the occasional uncontrollable rage.
Though in my decade-and-a-half of mobile phone usage, I never had the misfortune of a shattered phone screen in phone I owned (though I did damage the glass back of my old Nexus 4), but have seen it happen to family and friends and can somewhat understand their desire for extra protection in the form of phone covers and tempered glass and other screen protectors. Though I don't use any such protection on my phones and am not really a fan of such accessories.
So when the Moto X Force first made its appearance as Droid Turbo 2 last year, I, like a lot of others, was intrigued at how Motorola came up with this unbreakable Moto. The solution now might appear to be simple, but it took Motorola years of research to fine tune their ShatterShield tech.
The X Force undeniably is a tough phone that will survive many a fall, unless, it is in a pool. I would have expected Motorola to have added waterproofing to it but it is only water repellent with protection against accidental spills, splashes and light rain.
The 5.4-inch phone looks a little wide, quite like the Moto X and has that distinctive ballistic nylon back that has now become a Motorola signature. The innards are robust with a Snapdragon 810 processor along with 3 GB RAM. The storage variants are 32 GB and 64 GB with microSD card support of up to 2 TB (but don't shopping for that 2 TB microSD yet). The battery is also a generous 3760 mAh (with support for quick charging) that was good enough for a day's work in our tests.
The 2560 x 1440 pixels Quad HD is vibrant and responsive but the replaceable top protective layer might appear as a slight irritant for users (such as me) who are not so comfortable with screen guards.
Even though megapixel count has never been the true gauge of any digital camera, the 21 megapixel shooter in the Moto X Force does a decent job. While they may not win a battle with the cameras on other flagship phones, the cameras in the Force do their job well, though I have always found Motorola's camera app too basic for my liking.
The user interface is near stock Android with a little customisations and apps thrown in. Beyond the Nexus, Motorola is the closest to a native Android experience that any major phone maker offers, now that no new Google Play edition devices been coming out.
I also believe that the hybrid SIM trays (that allow support either two SIM cards or one SIM and one microSD card at a time) such as the one in this phone limit user options.
Given the rough ride that I (and quite a few of my colleagues) gave the Moto X Force, it is one tough survivor. But then this toughness comes at a cost - at Rs 49,999 this phone is way more expensive than any other Motorola phone available in the Indian market. The 32 GB variant of the Moto X Style is Rs 21,000 cheaper.
There is actually little that goes against the Moto X Force other than its price. For people prone to dropping their phones around this might be THE device, given that most warranties don't cover physical screen damages. Motorola covers the less-likely instances of screen damage on the Moto X Force. That too for a full 4 years.
The importance of screen strength in smartphones cannot be understated, but there are viable alternatives that don't cost as much and protect against more. I got the new phone I recently bought, insured. And in addition to protection against physical damages and repairs, my phone also gets theft coverage. But then insurance doesn't trump a damage deterrent phone (as the non-monetary trouble you face with a damaged phone isn't covered by insurance).
The people I showed the phone to, were very impressed by its unbreakable claims and even showed an eager interest in buying such a phone till they were told of the price tag.
It is quite likely that Motorola will bring its ShatterShield tech to other future phones that will not be as expensive. It is really then when the era of carefree phone use will begin (more so if they add waterproofing).
Source: ibnlive
A team led by an Indian-origin professor at Columbia University has created a novel sheet camera that can be wrapped around everyday objects to capture images that cannot be taken with one or more conventional cameras. "Cameras today capture the world from essentially a single point in space. While the camera industry has made remarkable progress in shrinking the camera to a tiny device with ever increasing imaging quality, we are exploring a radically different approach to imaging," said Shree K Nayar, computer science professor at Columbia University. "We believe there are numerous applications for cameras that are large in format but very thin and highly flexible," added Nayar who graduated from the Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, in 1984. Nayar's team designed and fabricated a flexible lens array that adapts its optical properties when the sheet camera is bent. This optical adaptation enables the device to produce high quality images over a wide ...