Mobile Industry Insider

How much do you know about mobile phones？
For the millions of unconnected souls living in emerging markets around the world the possibility of owning the increasingly ubiquitous ‘smartphone’ has been somewhat hampered by its hefty price tag.

Luckily, the ever growing presence of Chinese mobile manufacturers in the global mobile industry, of which AMGOO is an active part of, and years of painstaking research and development has helped us develop affordable smartphones that directly address the mobile needs of end users otherwise restricted by financial constraints.

With this in mind we humbly present to you 4 of our entry-level 3G Android smartphones that we believe the developing world has been waiting for

First introduced globally last year, AMGOO’s AM506 ‘Spark’ is a powerful

3G smart phones Dual-Core 3.5" Entry-Level Unlocked Android Smartphone that  has all of the features that phone users need from a smartphone, but with the affordable price tag of a feature phone. Designed to be the upgrade for feature phone users to make the leap from ‘dumb phone’ to smartphone, the Spark boasts some amazing features that include:

    Stock Android 4.4 KitKat OS
    Google Media Suite (GMS) Licensed
    3.5” HVGA LCD 320*480 display
    Rear (2.0 MP) and forward-facing (0.3 MP) camera
    Dual-SIM Card Support
    Extra optional micro SD storage up to 32G
    USB mass storage and Bluetooth 2.0 supported
    FM radio
    Removable 1300mAh battery provides up to 8 hours of call time and 130 hours of standby

Some familiarity may turn you mobile phone.

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Choosing The Oil Painting That Fits Your Home

If you are thinking about decorating your home, acquiring an oil painting is a great way of accomplishing this. It doesn't matter what style your home is, be it modern, classical or Victorian there is an oil painting that will fit your style. With the explosion of galleries, online art websites and auction houses the chances of not finding the perfect piece of art for your home is nearly impossible today.

Understanding colors and layout of the room - When looking at the room make note of the wall space. Is there enough room to hang the painting, are the walls mostly windows? What are the colors of the walls, will they make the painting standout? Each room is different, the family room is a place where the family congregates and usually watches TV or other activities. So a relaxing or serene painting might not fit into this type of room. Take in the room in, look at the color, the furniture, the lighting and use this information to determine what type of painting would be right for the room.

Room style - The furniture in the room defines your style for that room. Is the room modern, Victorian or traditional. Choosing a Modern Oil Paintings and placing it in the modern will not have the desired effect. The painting you choose should complement the room and the room should complement the painting. The painting you choose should enhance and complete the room's style.

Room color - There are so many paint colors on the market today that many people have changed their wall color to one of these fancy new wall colors. Choosing a painting that consists of many colors and hanging it on a colorful wall the painting will most likely get lost. Using neutral colors in a room will allow your painting to standout. Neutral colors are in the family of whites and tans. Using these colors will allow your painting to "pop" on the wall. Before changing the color on the wall take a photo of painting and use it to see what the painting would look like on the wall in the room. This will help you make a decision on the wall color and the painting you choose.

Painting size - Many people make the mistake of purchasing a painting that is either too small or too large for the room. Oil paintings are much different than prints, posters or any other type of medium, to appreciate an oil painting, artists normally paint them on a larger scale. These paintings need to be viewed from a distance to be appreciated. When acquiring an oil painting make sure the wall size is large enough to fit the oil painting. You need to have enough space around the painting for the artwork to look proportionally correct.

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Cheaper smart phones market is dominated by Android

For the most part, the cheaper smart phones market is dominated by Android. With Windows Phone 8, however, Microsoft targeted one of Android's biggest weaknesses — performance. As powerful and customizable as Android is, it has a track record of poor performance on phones with lower specs. Windows Phone may not be as popular as Android, but it's a relatively standardized platform — meaning that using one Windows Phone feels like using nearly every Windows phone.

Before it was officially acquired by Microsoft, Nokia released the Lumia 520, 521 and 525 handsets that quickly became the most popular Windows phones in the world. A sub-$100 price point and fairly smooth everyday use made the series ideal for first-time smartphone users. Since then, Microsoft has rolled out more cheap models that feature significant hardware upgrades, while maintaining ridiculously low price points. Entry-level Lumias demonstrated what companies could accomplish by building software meant to run on simpler, cheaper hardware.

The rising quality of smartphones priced under $200 is making them more attractive to the average consumer, but the low end is being redefined from above as well.

"Increasingly, people are starting to understand the true cost of signing a contract, and we want to make it easier to purchase a high-end device without having to give a large portion of money to a middleman," Pei said. "We're here to show everyone what's possible once you step outside of the traditional rules of the smartphone market."

ARM, the company that designs most of the world's cellphone processors, projects that by 2018 1 billion low-end smartphones will ship compared to 250 million high-end devices. What those devices will look like exactly is unclear, but it's obvious that the low-end market that we knew is evolving into something bigger, stronger and cheaper than ever.

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Why do people need to buy a painting?

Besides the obvious reason that it simply appeals to you, is representational painting still relevant in today’s high-tech, fast-paced digital world? Yes,The more chaotic the world gets, the more important art becomes.

From a purely financial standpoint, a good and Cheap Oil Paintings should appreciate in value over time as the artist’s standing and reputation grows.The real reason fine art is a great investment is about quality of life. Money can’t buy happiness, but a great painting can generate feelings of happiness, calm, nostalgia, remembrance, joy, and more each time you look at it in your home.

A great painting can light up a room. It occupies its own space. And no it doesn’t need to match your couch or decor. It simply needs to speak to you, to give you a moment to pause and think about what’s important in life.But a great painting continues to live for generations.Few things allude to your intelligence and taste like an original painting in your home.

As the world seems to lose its way, art provides positive and fertile ground for the intelligent creative mind. Art bridges across cultures, continents and class. Art relieves stress and helps keep us grounded. Since the days of the caveman, art has held up our hopes, dreams, fears, and creativity for all to share. Art is a universal language, as the world becomes increasingly divided art has the power to help unite us. A great painting is the result not only of the artist’s vision, but also a skillful execution in paint, a story told one stroke at a time.

Yes, I know your walls are full. But unless you're a serious collector, chances are that you have more than one piece of 'decor' that you're not completely in love with anymore. Why not replace it with a piece of original art, something of real value, beauty and interest.

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Smart Phones Are Changing Mobile Consumer Habits in the UK

China Android Smart Phones are increasingly more present within the UK and greatly influence consumer habits.

To what extent are the smart phones impacting on the lives of its users? A report published in 2014 by Deloitte named UK Mobile Consumer Survey gives us some key insights into this query.

Keeping informed, entertained and in touch with family and friends is becoming more and more seamless thanks to the ever increasing popularity of mobiles and handheld devices worldwide. Within the UK two thirds of people (35 million people) now own a smart phone. For the majority of UK mobile users it is the first thing they check in the morning and the last thing before they turn in for the night. One of the main reasons for the increase in mobile activity is thanks to the fact that we can now perform tasks on them that were previously only possible on computers. For example, 2014 saw a sharp rise in consumers checking their bank balances with 40% signing in with a smart phone, 10% more than the previous year. Smartphones are constantly facilitating our daily lives thus leading to this 'addictive' attachment.

On average 18-24 year olds check their phones 53 times a day with a steady decrease in 'looking' correlating with age. The 35-44 age group check their phones 34 times a day while the 65-75s only reach for their phones a mere 13 times in a day.

Another day, another new phone launch in Asia. Although, today announces the unlikely union of Nokia, an up until now Windows-only kinda guy, has decided to switch to Android.

The latest phone series is meant to be low budget and hopes to compete well in Asia where apparently everyone just loves a budget phone.

Android as the winning ticket
When it comes to the smartphone industry, neither Nokia nor Windows have fared very well. Indeed, the flagship windows phone from Nokia has sold a reasonable amount of handsets but is no competition to the big boys.

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The history of oil painting

Oil paints may have been used as far back as the 13th century. However as a medium in its modern form, Belgian painter, Jan van Eyck, developed it during the 15th century. As evidenced by the innumerable masterpieces Gallery Oil Paintings exhibited on gallery walls of the most prestigious museums worldwide, perhaps it is the medium of oil that has created the most significant impact on the development of painting as visual art form. Painting with oil on canvas continues to be a favored choice of serious painters because of its long-lasting color and a variety of approaches and methods. Because artists were troubled by the excessive amount of drying time, van Eyck found a method that allowed painters an easier method of developing their compositions. By mixing pigments with linseed and nut oils, he discovered how to create a palette of vibrant oil colors. 

Over time, other artists, such as Messina and da Vinci, improved upon the recipe by making it an ideal medium for representing details, forms and figures with a range of colors, shadows and depths. During the Renaissance, which is often referred to as the Golden Age of painting, artists developed their crafts and established many of the techniques that provided the medium of oil to emerge. The refinement of oil painting came through studies in perspective, proportion and human anatomy. During the Renaissance, the goal for artists was to create realistic images. They sought to represent all that was caught by an artist’s detailed eye, as well as capture and present the intensity of human emotions.  

Easily removed from the canvas, oil allows the artist to revise a work. With its flexible nature, long history and large body of theories, oil painting has created a most significant impact on visual art. New developments in oil paints continued into the 20th century, with advent of oil paint sticks, which were used by artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Anselm Kiefer. Since the Renaissance, the masters used oil to create works that continue to inspire, intrigue and delight, and today, artists continue to use this significant medium to express their visions, goals and emotions.

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Xiaomi's Phones Have Conquered China

Xiaomi, the four-year-old high quality chinese phone manufacturer, has found just such a sweet spot, and as a result is taking the smartphone industry by a storm. Pundits claim that Xiaomi is just a Chinese copycat of Apple, and not without some reason. Some point to Xiaomi’s product introductions, which are eerily just like Apple’s.  Others point out the strong similarities between Xiaomi’s operating system (named MIUI) and Apple’s iOS. What’s more, Xiaomi’s products rank among the best in the industry in terms of performance.
So far from being a copycat, Xiaomi presents a knotty disruptive challenge to the largest smartphone manufacturers. As it continues to expand in developing economies by marketing to the emerging middle class, it remains sheltered from the competition by its margins and the way it makes products profitable. Sooner rather than later, as it continues to propagate its new business model, this disruptive competitor is going to change how this industry works.

Xiaomi is one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the world. It’s the sixth-largest handset maker on earth and No. 3 in China, behind Samsung Electronics and Lenovo Group, according to research firm Canalys. Xiaomi’s recent growth is impressive, and its potential is even greater. In 2013, the company says, it sold 18.7 million smartphones almost entirely from its own website, bringing in $5 billion in revenue. Earlier this year, Lei set an internal goal of selling 40 million smartphones in 2014, then raised it to 60 million. In a financing round last August, venture capitalists gave Xiaomi a $10 billion valuation, about on par with 30-year-old PC maker Lenovo and Silicon Valley darlings Dropbox and Airbnb. At the same time, Xiaomi has branched out from smartphones to tablets, the large-screen HDTVs, a set-top box and home router, phone cases, and portable chargers.

While the phones and tablets have obvious echoes of better-known products from Apple and Samsung, they’re not clones. Xiaomi’s Mi 3 smartphone, its flagship, is appropriately light and thin (8.1 mm), with nicely beveled curves. A color-popping display from LG and a high-performance Qualcomm (QCOM) processor give buyers the same components they’d find in other top-of-the-line phones. The device runs MIUI, Xiaomi’s own version of the Android operating system. Regular software updates, which come at the end of each week, often incorporate ideas from users.

Xiaomi’s real invention is its business model. It sells online, never in stores, and avoids conventional advertising, devoting only about 1 percent of its revenue to marketing. Instead, the company relies on China’s social networks, Weibo and WeChat, and the free press Lei gets as a national tech hero. The money Xiaomi saves on marketing lets it buy top-notch components while keeping retail prices down.

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