5 smartphone launches to watch out for

We look at five most-awaited devices in the Indian smartphone market that are creating a buzz even before their launch.

Motorola will launch the third-generation of its highly popular Moto G smartphone - expected to be called the Moto G (Gen 3) - on July 28.

Speculations are rife that the smartphone will be a major upgrade over Moto G (Gen 2) and would come with 5-inch or 5.2-inch full HD display, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 610 system on chip (SoC) with 1.7GHz quad core processor paired with 1GB of RAM.

Expected to be launched in September, OnePlus 2 will be made available by an invite-only system.

The device will feature USB Type-C, adapted to offer enhanced features. The company says it will be the first handset available with USB C, again hinting at an imminent release date.

Rumours doing the rounds suggest the new device will come with a 5.5-inch or 6-inch display, sporting a 1080p or QHD resolution. There have also been claims of a 16-megapixel rear camera, 8 or 5-megapixel front camera, 32GB storage and a 3300mAh battery.

Sony is rumoured to have plans of releasing Compact and Ultra versions of its Xperia Z4.

Xperia Z4 Compact is expected to offer a 4.7-inch 1080p display, a Snapdragon 810 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a 20.7-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing shooter.

The Ultra variant could pack a 6.44-inch or 5.9-inch Quad HD display, a bigger battery, a 16-megapixel camera, 4GB of RAM and a stylus.

Both the devices will come with an IP6X dustproof rating and  IPX5 and IPX8-certification.

Asus ZenFone Zoom is expected to be available in the current July-September quarter in Glacier White and Meteorite Black colours. It is estimated to be priced at Rs 25,300 approximately.

Designed by keeping a photographer in mind, the phone supports 3x optical zoom. It will run on the latest Asus ZenUI based on Android 5.0 Lollipop and comes with almost similar specifications as the ZenFone 2 except that it sports a 13-megapixel rear camera, 10-element lenses with 3X optical zoom, OIS (optical image stabilisation), laser auto-focus and dual-color Real Tone flash.

The Oslo is expected to be much like the BlackBerry's Passport, but a "re-do" of the device.

The device is speculated to come with a  2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 13-megapixel camera, 3GB of RAM, and 3,450mAh battery.

An actual release date is not yet known but with the leaks ramping up, the tech world is abuzz with a late 2015 release.