Canon raises the curtains on the EOS 5D Mark III full frame DSLR

After Nikon recently announced the D4, we knew it was just a matter of time before Canon addressed this by responding to the competition. On the 25th anniversary of its world-renowned EOS System, Canon have announced their latest model, the new EOS 5D Mark III Digital SLR Camera. Positioned between the extremely popular EOS 5D Mark II and Canon's top-of-the-line professional EOS-1D X model, the brand claims that the EOS 5D Mark III delivers superb image quality, due to a new 22.3-megapixel full-frame Canon CMOS sensor, a high-performance DIGIC 5+ Imaging Processor, a 61-point High Density Reticular Autofocus (AF) System and six frames-per-second (fps) continuous shooting speed. 

Finally announced!

The EOS 5D Mark III incorporates enhanced video features for professionals in the fields of cinematography, television production and documentary filmmaking, including improved noise reduction, longer recording times and a built-in headphone jack for audio monitoring. The EOS 5D Mark III is Canon's answer to hundreds of thousands of advanced amateurs and emerging professionals looking for a compact, high-quality camera system to help them achieve their artistic vision, whether it be through still or video imagery.

Speaking at the announcement, Yuichi Ishizuka, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Imaging Technologies and Communications Group, Canon U.S.A. said, “We are extremely excited to announce the highly anticipated follow-up to our EOS 5D Mark II, a camera which has been called a 'game-changer' in most professional photography and videography circles. The EOS 5D Mark III will carry on that tradition, delivering better and more advanced features, helping our customers achieve excellent image quality for stills and video.”

Canon claims, “Special optical technologies like the 61-Point High Density Reticular AF and an extended ISO range of 100-25600 (expandable to 50 (L), 51200 (H1) and 102400 (H2) make the EOS 5D Mark III ideal for shooting weddings in the studio or out in the field, and great for still photography. Advanced professional-level high definition video capabilities (that includes a host of industry-standard recording protocols and enhanced performance) make it possible to capture beautiful cinematic movies in EOS HD quality. A newly designed 22.3 Megapixel full-frame Canon CMOS sensor, Canon DIGIC 5+ Image Processor, and shooting performance up to 6.0 fps provide exceptional clarity and sharpness, even when capturing rapidly-unfolding scenes. Additional technological advancements include an Intelligent Viewfinder, Canon's advanced iFCL metering system, High Dynamic Range (HDR), and Multiple Exposure mode — all of which that help make the EOS 5D Mark III the perfect multimedia tool.”

Here is a look at the specifications of the Canon EOS 5D Mark III:

• Type: Digital, AF/AE single-lens reflex, camera
• Recording Media: CF Cards (Type I); Compatible with UDMA CF cards; SD, SDHC, and SDXC
• Image Format: Approx. 36 mm x 24mm (35mm Full-frame)
• Compatible lenses: Canon EF Lenses (excluding EF-S Lenses)
• Lens Mount: Canon EF mount
• High-sensitivity, high-resolution, large single-plate CMOS sensor
• Effective pixels: Approx. 22.3 megapixels
• Total pixels: 23.4 megapixels
• Aspect ratio: 3:2 (Horizontal: Vertical)
• Colour Filter System: RGB primary color filters
• Image format: JPEG, RAW (14-bit Canon Original), M-RAW, S-RAW, RAW+JPEG, M-RAW+JPEG, S-RAW+JPEG
• Video format: MOV (Image data: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC; Audio: Linear PCM)
• Large file size: Approx. 22.10 Megapixels (5760 x 3840)
• RAW + JPEG Simultaneous Recording
• Viewfinder: Eye-level pentaprism
• Autofocus: TTL secondary image - registration, phase detection

The Canon EOS 5D Mark III Digital SLR camera is expected to be available at the end of March 2012 and will be sold in a body-only configuration at an estimated retail price of $3,499.00 (approximately Rs.1,73,407). The EOS 5D Mark III will also be available with the EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM zoom lens in a kit for an estimated retail price of $4,299.00 (approximately Rs.2,13,055).

Nokia Asha 300 Review

Nokia launched their Asha range of feature phones, back in December 2011 and today we have with us, the Asha 300, the candy-bar feature phone, which was touted as one of the first phones to have Angry Birds pre-installed. Let’s find out if this Series 40 phone is any good.

The Nokia Asha 300

Design and Build Quality
As is the case with most Nokias, the Asha 300 brings with it superb build quality and great attention to detail. The candy bar phone rests neatly in your palm and isn’t too heavy as well at just 85g. The phone is mostly built of plastic, but thankfully, there aren’t too many glossy bits, other than the screen and the chrome strip at the front. The volume rocker and the lock screen button are placed on the side. You remove the back cover with the help of the groove on the side. This process feels a little delicate and if you’re not careful, then there are good chances of the bottom retention clips breaking off.

A good looker

This is a touch-and-type phone, so there’s no directional pad - just the keypad and the call answer and end keys, along with a shortcut to e-mail. The keypad is built well and the buttons offer good feedback. Having been accustomed to QWERTY keypads, going back to this conventional style was a bit odd, but those who are used to them should not have a problem. The rest of the connectors like the 3.5mm headphone jack, charging port and microUSB port are placed on the top. The Asha 300 also supports 3G, but there’s no front facing camera for video chat. In the box, you get a 2GB microSD card, charger, user manual, data cable and headset. Overall, a pretty good feature set in a very nice form factor.

Features
Interface
Despite the Asha 300 running on the Series 40 Operating System, it still comes with a 1GHz CPU. The interface is fast, but it doesn’t feel snappy and that’s probably the way the OS is designed. The homescreen is similar to the C2-03, which we reviewed a while back with similarly styled icons. You even get your Facebook and Twitter updates through a widget. There’s only a single homescreen, though, so Nokia have crammed in as much as they possibly could.

A similar looking interface

The resistive touchscreen is not the best and on several occasions, while trying to scroll through a menu, you’ll accidentally activate an app, which is quite annoying. If you’re careful, though, then the screen responds well, but you need to have some patience. The ‘Go to’ shortcut button lets you jump to applications, like the browser, game, camera, radio, etc. The resolution of the screen is not too much of a problem, as are the viewing angles, which are quite poor. 

Media 
The music player supports the standard fare of formats. The loud speaker is actually quite powerful and music sounds quite good, so you can play it out loud when among friends. The player will automatically pick up any album art, if present and display it. The player also comes with a bunch of equalizer presets and the ability to create a custom setting from a 5-band graphic equalizer.

Music player is not too shabby

The video player only supports MP4 and that too, only SD videos, so if you have anything else, you’ll have to convert it. Despite this, however, we managed to get our SD AVI test file playing just fine. Video playback is a bit of a hit or miss. If you’re lucky, then the files will play out of the box, else they may play, but without any audio. During playback, we did notice some amount of banding in the picture, possibly due to the type of screen used. Connectivity
The Asha 300 is a quad-band GSM phone as well as 3G with HSDPA speeds maxing out at 10.2Mbps and HSUPA speeds at 2Mbps. Unfortunately, there’s no Wi-Fi present, which is one of the biggest downers of this phone.

Facebook is present

To make up for this, you do get USB On-the-go support, for what that’s worth. The onboard memory is just 140 MB, so you can’t really do much with it, but you do get a 2GB memory card to help you out. Provision for Facebook and Twitter is present, so you can get your social media fix through this phone. Chat applications, like Nimbuzz can be downloaded from the Ovi Store. There isn’t much variety in terms of apps, but we’ll take what we can get. 

Misc. Applications 
The Asha 300 comes pre-installed with Angry Birds, which isn’t very forgiving on a resistive screen. The game isn’t particularly smooth, despite it having a 1GHz CPU. We feel the problem is the less RAM as 128 MB just isn’t enough for such rich multimedia apps. Other games bundled include Brain Challenge, Climate Mission, Diamond Twistr as well as some utilities like Life Tools, Communities, Converter, Money, etc. 

Some Internet apps

Camera
The camera maybe a 5MP shooter, but the quality of the sensor is quite appalling. It’s bad enough that it’s a fixed focus camera; the sensor isn’t able to pick up any detail or colours accurately. The picture appears fine on the viewfinder, but the final captured image is quite bad.

Really bad sensor

The video recorder can capture videos upto 640 x 480 resolutions, but as you may have guessed, the quality and frame rate isn’t the best. 

Battery Life 
The Asha 300 is fitted with an 1110mAh Li-ion battery, which lasted for about 5hrs in our video drain test, so not the best, but not bad, either. Charging the phone to its full capacity does take quite a while. Our loop tests gave us a slightly better result, since there wasn’t Wi-Fi streaming involved. Here we got 1.5hrs of call time, 2hrs of video and 3hrs of music. 

Verdict 
The Nokia Asha is available for a street price of Rs.7,000; although you can find it for a bit cheaper, if you look online. This is just a ridiculously high price for this phone, all the more, when you can get some very good Android handsets at this price range. The Samsung Galaxy Y, Spice Mi-350n and even the Samsung Wave Y (which is based on Bada 2.0) are all much better alternatives to the Asha 300. Honestly, when the phone first came to our labs, we thought it was under Rs.5,000, since it looks like that sort of handset. Rs.3,000 would be the ideal price for this phone. It may have a 1GHz CPU, but the fact is that power is never fully harnessed and how can you, when you’re using an old Operating System. We guess, even if it was running a 600MHz CPU, you would hardly tell the difference.

The Asha 300 is put together very well and we applaud Nokia for their craftsmanship. 3G support is also a bonus, but besides that there really isn’t anything going for this phone that would make you shell out seven large ones. Like we said, if it drops to 3K, then pick it up without thinking twice

Nokia Lumia 800 price slashed to Rs. 23,500

We guess all the promotions, lightshows and airplane rides haven’t really done wonders for the Lumia 800 sales and now Nokia have resorted to Plan B - slash the price and hope for the best - and we have a feeling this will work a lot better. The Lumia 800 now retails for just Rs. 23,500 on online stores like Flipkart and you may be able to find it for a lot cheaper, if you dig around a bit. This price is more like it and we can finally give a nod in its favor. At this price, the Lumia 800 now competes with the Incredible S and the Rhyme and between these phones; it’s a very attractive buy. If you were holding out for the Lumia 800, then now would be the time to grab it. For those who’ve bought it for the old price, what can we say, but tough luck.

Now, more affordable!

For all those who’ve just woken up from a coma, the Lumia 800 is Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone 7 device and sports a 3.7-inch ClearBlack display from Nokia, themselves. The main attractions towards this handset, lies in the feel and build quality of the phone. The entire chassis is built using a polycarbonate shell which, besides being strong and durable feels unique and different from any other plastic chassis handsets. This also makes it very lightweight and easy to carry around. Here are some of the main specifications of the phone.

• 3.7-inch Clear Black display with a capacitive touchscreen featuring a 480 x 800 pixel resolution under Gorilla Glass
• 3G, EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi,
• GPS with A-GPS support for Bing Maps and hopefully Nokia Maps, as well
• Bluetooth with A2DP + EDR and USB 2.0
• 8MP AF camera with Carl Zeiss optics and a Dual LED flash, 720p HD recording (pity there's no full HD support)
• FM radio
• 16GB of internal storage
• Active noise cancellation

Google wants Assistant to be its Siri

Google doesn’t like to be one-upped by Apple, but by any account that’s sort of what happened when the Siri voice recognition platform was introduced. The technology, currently available only on the iPhone 4S, is likely to be heading to other impending Apple devices and is already one of the big trends to watch in 2012. Google wants a piece of that action.


The search giant is planning on beefing up its voice-centric technologies to launch a full-fledged Siri rival. Called Google Assistant, it has three ambitious tasks – pack in as much information as possible, make the presentation or output of data as personalized as possible, and use those elements to create an algorithm that goes beyond a “search engine” look and feel.
It’s the last part that could set Assistant apart from Siri. Siri’s goal is to answer questions and perform system functions. So you can find out where the nearest McDonald’s is, or schedule a meeting on your iPhone calendar. However, it doesn’t really have a social component. If you truly boil it down, Siri is just a new search engine interface and an iPhone control interface. For what it is, it’s pretty awesome.
But Google wants to open Assistant up to third-party developers that could create all kinds of new applications and ideas. The company is calling Assisant a “do engine” as opposed to a search engine, with the task of helping users accomplish real-life goals. Details are still just unfolding but Assistant should be a real product by the end of the year.

iPad 3 leaked parts combined into Frankenslate

Apple’s official iPad 3 reveal is this coming Wednesday, but with so many leaked components floating around in the wild, it’s surprising its taken this long for an unofficial Frankenstein’ iPad to be pieced together. M.I.C. Gadget has done the honors, for the outside of the third-gen tablet at least, plus apparently confirming that despite speculation to the contrary there will be a physical home button. More in the video after the cut.


The absence of that button – something we’ve been used to seeing on iOS devices since the first-gen iPhone – has been rumored for some time now, with Apple expected to shift to a touch-sensitive bezel or gesture-based navigation system. The angled shot of the iPad 3 in the Apple invite fueled that speculation, seemingly not showing a button where a button should be. However, the physical key is still found on what’s said to be official casing components.
Interestingly, the site also says its sources are throwing cold water on integrated LTE connectivity, with the suggestion that the target market for 4G-enabled users is still too small for Apple to consider the bulk and battery consumption of LTE wireless chipsets. The same 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models are also reiterated by the insiders.
As for cases, Apple’s Smart Covers apparently work with the slightly changed profile of the leaked iPad 3, but close-fitting third-party covers generally do not. We’ll know all the details come Wednesday, March 7, so join us at live.slashgear.com for all the details as we liveblog from 10AM PST!