Samsung Galaxy S III, Sony Xperia Ion, the two real 'Smart Phones'

There's a form of extra-sensory perception called psychometry, whose practitioners claim to learn things about objects by touching them. Smartphones set to be released this month by Samsung and Sony will have some of that ability: they'll learn things when you touch them to pre-programmed "tags."

For example, you can program a tag with your phone number, and stick it on your business card. When someone taps the phone to the card, the phone would call you. Or you can put a tag on your night stand. Place the phone there, and it goes into "alarm clock" mode, holding your calls until the morning.

Concerning Sony, since it's also an entertainment company, the Xperia Ion ad campaign is an opportunity to highlight Sony-owned content like the coming Spider-Man movie, music by the group Matt and Kim, and PlayStation video games. The device, a 4G LTE Android phone, will be available through AT&T and will cost $99.99.

“This is not just about launching a device,” said Peter Farmer, the vice president for marketing for Sony Mobile in North America. “It’s about establishing credibility and visibility for Sony in the smartphone space.”

Sony focused its out-of-home advertising in New York and Atlanta. It includes bus shelters, traditional and digital billboards, interactive kiosks, taxi tops and the Sony digital billboard in Times Square.

Samsung takes this one step further with the Galaxy S III. Tap two phones together, and they set up a connection via Wi-Fi. That means the owners can walk away from each other, and as long as they're in the same room or so, they can transfer photos and even hefty video files between their phones.

Though the Galaxy S III is already out but as said the Sony Xperia Ion will be available on June 24.

Samsung, hoping to sell 10 Million Galaxy S III in July

Samsung Electronics Co., challenging Apple Inc.’s iPhone, began rolling out its Galaxy S III flagship smartphone in the U.S. through T-Mobile USA Inc.

Shin Jong-kyun, president of Samsung’s mobile communications business, said the Galaxy S III will hit the 10-million milestone within two months of its launch, he further said ...

“It has been tough to keep up with demand,”

T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, is selling the Galaxy III for $279.99 with a two-year contract. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint will offer it for $199.99 with a two-year commitment.

Apple and Samsung, the top two smartphone makers, have accused each other of design imitations and are waging patent battles on four continents. Apple has said it’s considering a restraining order request to block sales of the Galaxy S III in the U.S. The Cupertino, California-based company lost an earlier appeal to ban Samsung phones from the country last month.

Samsung’s sales estimate for the S III reflects robust demand from mobile operators. Unlike Apple Inc., Samsung does not disclose sales figures to consumers.

The S III will be released by around 300 mobile carriers in 147 countries by the end of July, aiming for an early start before rival Apple announces a new version of the iPhone in the third quarter ...

The almost ready Blackberry 10 won't have a Keyboard

BlackBerry enthusiasts who favor the device’s traditional physical keyboard will have to wait to get one on Research in Motion’s new smartphone models.

RIM’s first set of phones running the BlackBerry 10 operating system will have touch-screen keyboards — but not physical ones.

Top-selling smartphones these days, including Apple Inc.’s iPhone and several running Google’s Android software, also lack physical keyboards. But RIM’s attempts in the past to offer touch-only phones have largely flopped.

Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Financial, called it puzzling that RIM isn’t leading with its strength by releasing a keyboard BlackBerry first.

“The physical keyboard is the most dominant item that separates out Research In Motion from its competitors,” Gillis said. “If you are not playing to your historical strengths you may find it more difficult to get traction.”

But Jefferies analyst Peter Misek said BlackBerry 10 is all about touch and closing the gap with Apple, so people should not be surprised that the initial model will have only a touch screen.

"They are going to build a BlackBerry device with a keyboard, but it's just going to take longer," Misek said. "Maybe it will come a month or two after, but frankly it might be already too late."

RIM might feel like it owes physical keyboards to its loyal users and enterprise customers. As CEO Thorstein Heins said in May, it “would be wrong -- just plain wrong” to lose focus on physical keyboards. He's probably right.

But if those keyboard-loving customers haven't already jumped ship, I doubt a couple of months is going to make a huge difference. It's better for RIM to focus one piece of hardware--one that represents where the industry is headed--than launch Blackberry 10 with a lackluster keyboard model just to appease a fraction of its shrinking customer base.

Is Microsoft trying to come up with a Mobile Phone of their own?

Microsoft has had a big week. On Monday, the company unveiled its latest Windows Phone 8 software, and the same week it announced an own-brand tablet. On Wednesday, Microsoft showed off the core features of Windows Phone 8, a significant leap forward for the platform that should boost its appeal to consumers, businesses, and developers alike.

Microsoft has experimented unsuccessfully with handsets before. It bought fashionable phone designer Danger and developed a phone in-house called Kin In 2009. The devices ran a Microsoft-contrived operating system on Microsoft-designed hardware. They were soundly bashed by the tech press and Verizon stopped selling them after just two months. The Kin were a resounding market failure.

Windows Phone 8 is the latest version of Microsoft's mobile software, set for release in autumn. So far, the software giant has struggled to make a mark, with Windows-powered smartphones taking only 2% of a worldwide market dominated by Apple Inc's iPhone and devices running Google Inc's Android system.

Surely a disaster such as the Kin would give Microsoft pause before pursuing a hardware strategy again. Is Windows Phone 8 the right platform for it to make a comeback? It's possible.

Does Phones Increase the Risk of Getting a Cancer or Not?

The strangest thing!, according to a recent research (well it started a long time ago from 1998-2007) which was published in the journal Bioelectromagnetics January edition suggested that actually brain cancer and cellphone waves does not have "close relationship" at all.

Since the usage of cellphone has risen in the past 20 years with noticeable amount (you bet) the researchers suggested that from the data they analyzed from UK Office of National Statistics from 1998 to 2007 would show a noticeable uptick in the data. But according to them it is not.

According to researchers, it is assumed that around 5-10 years of high exposure is necessary for brain cancer to arise. So logically the 1998-2007 is pretty long. Here is a quote from their research paper concerning the matter...

Our analysis suggest that the increased and widespread use of mobile phones, which in some studies was associated to increased brain cancer risk, has not led to a noticeable increase in the incidence of brain cancer in England between 1998 and 2007. Therefore, it is very unlikely we are "at the forefront of a cancer epidemic" related to mobile phone use. A small increased rate of brain cancers in the temporal lobe was observed corresponding to the time period when mobile phone use increased from 0 to 65% of households. However, to put this into perspective: if this specific rise in tumour incidence was caused by mobile phone use this would contribute to less than 1 new case per 100,000 population in a decade. We cannot exclude the possibility that there are persons who are susceptible or some rare brain cancers are associated with to RF from mobile phones. However, we interpret the present data as not indicating a pressing need to implement the precautionary principle to reduce exposure to RF from mobile phones by means of population-wide interventions.

Source : this Washingtonpost cellphone and cancer risk article.
 

Nokia Dual Sim Mobile

Nokia dual sim mobile is a bit unusual name for most of us because using two sims at once is not something that the mobile giant seemed to be interested in. But that's now is the past and with the introduction of the latest phones (few months actually but the trend is really new to nokia) called C1 and C2 are among the first two mobile phones by this Finland based company which fully supports double or dual sim ability. Before moving into the review let's talk a few things about the advantages and disadvantages of this feature.

Advantages

*. The apparent ability to hold two frequency bands at the same time thus enabling the user to use one of the available connections is the first to mention.

*. You can also reduce carrying another separate phone for office related calls and another for personal usages which not only save a lot of money but also makes it easy to "manage" calls, etc.

*. Or you can use one sim as a monthly billing type mobile deal while the other can be used as somewhat cheap or emergency calling, etc.

*. One can also use the other sim to back up few of the contacts, etc.

*. If you travel frequently from one country to the next country and if one service on the sim has cheap local charges but has expensive international calling charges then you can use the second sim for more cheaper mobile deals, etc.

Disadvantages

*. With the older versions the user had to turn off or restart the phone before using the next sim (which is not necessary with never versions however).

*. According to experts (because of restarting, etc) they consume more battery power than a singe sim phone.

*. These devices usually aimed at low cost or low end market meaning they won't come with Wi-Fi or even lacks 3G. So not cutting edge products in today's standards.

So not let's head back to the review.

Dual Sim Mobile Phone from Nokia the C1-00, Review

Here are few of the specifications first,

*. The weight is 72.9 grams or almost 73 grams. So light weight device when comparing.

*. Only 15mm of thickness. So not the world's slimmest mobile phone but ok.

*. 1.8 in display area with 128x160 pixels of resolutions and the color quality is 65k (depths). So not the sharpest or the most sharpest as but as mentioned above you'll have to cope with these characteristic if you want this type of mobile device.

*. Dual band ability which operates at 900 and 1800 MHZ frequencies.

*. FM radio embedded.

*. A flash light is also provided.

*. And as mentioned you don't have to turn off or restart to switch between two sims but can be done through the software interface within a matter of seconds.

*. Two colors choices are available (blue and red).

*. A reasonably bigger keypad (QWERTY) is also provided by Nokia.

*. Other more standard type utilities such as calender, clock, alarm, few games, etc are also included.

*. The contact can hold up to a maximum of 500 user data + a hand free set ability.

*. And no 3G, Wi-Fi and even Bluetooth, EDGE, GPRS are also wiped out. So if you're looking for a much rich web browsing (facebook, etc) experiences then please avoid the C1-00 dual sim phone.

*. No memory expansion slots are available either.

*. 3.5mm audio jack and USB for pc to phone date exchange (with software) are also provided.

*. No simultaneous sim connections are possible meaning you can only use one connection at a time but switching to the other sim is pretty easy also (just keep pressing the asterisk key for few seconds).

So anyway, even after few disappointments such as no memory expansions, etc the price is also very low in comparison. And there aren't even a web browser (no use without those networks anyway). The multimedia ability is ok but when comparing newer models from nokia this is not even close and again you cannot expect much from this little fella nonetheless. The battery has a holding capacity of 1020mAh. So as a final note this latest nokia dual sim mobile is for those of you who search for a device which is both cheap and a robust at the same time. 

Latest Phones 2009

This is a list for those of you who are searching for the latest phones 2009. And in comparison the time may seem a bit old but still the phones themselves are (some of them) still very popular among electronic geeks. OK let's begin the list,

iPhone - 3GS

Now thanks to the latest iPhone release (version 4.0) the price of the somewhat "old" 3GS dropped significantly from what used to be around $300-200 now can be purchased on around $99 (according to Apple). This is one of the main benefits of these types of mobile phones since the more they age (it can even be months) they more cheaper they can get. Here are some of the key features of this old iPhone,

*. CDMA/HSDPA/GSM/EDGE and Wi-Fi are included for networks (and Bluetooth of course).

*. 3.5 in of main display area and the resolution is 480x320 which is pretty decent in comparison some of those "new phones".

*. All of the Apple (both audio and video) formats are supported - AAC/C+, MP3, Loseless, etc and for video - MP4, H264/H263 and other containers such as .m4v, .mov, etc.

*. 3MPX (mega pixels) of camera with video capturing at 30fps (640x480 resolution which is pretty decent) also includes the geo-tagging feature also.

*. Phone Battery - 12 hours of continues talk time when using 2G only but while on 3G it's reduced to 5 hours. 5 hours of internet through 3G networks and 9 hours through Wi-Fi.

*. For connectivity USB is provided. And the screen is touch sensitive and the 16million colors looking extremely beautiful.

HTC Hero

This is another one of the still very popular latest phones that was introduced in 2009 called the Hero (manufactured by HTC and somewhat the little brother of HTC EVO 4G). Here are some of its specifications,

*. This is an Android powered OS and from the beginning the users had the luxury of multitasking while using it (which was very lately introduced by Apple through the iPhone 4). There is a ROM chip which has the capacity of 512MB (for storing OS and other software, etc) and 256MB of RAM and according to the user preference the memory can be expanded through the microSD card slot.

*. Weights at 4.76 grams and consists of 3.2 in gorgeous looking display area which is second to no other (with a resolution of 320x480 resolution, yep another iPhone "killer"). For networks it also has GSM/CDMA, HSDPA and Wi-Fi.

*. One thing is that HTC has included a microphone jack with the standard 3.5mm output which is really a good thing since if you lost it or for some reason not happy with the quality of your headphones then simply purchase any standard one and simply plug it in.

*. The camera came with an impressive 5MPX (mega pixels) of depth with auto focus, etc.

*. Various types of both audio and video formats were supported by it such as - mp3, mp4, h263, h264, aac, aac+, wma, wmv9 are just to name a few.

*. For talking using CDMA (which is better than GSM but still not that wide spread) it can last up to 7 hours and while one GSM slightly ahead of the CDMA just above 8 hours. And standby time of 750 hours for CDMA and for GSM 440.

Check out the HTC Wildfire review also...


Palm Pre

Palm Pre is a mobile phone that has a way of its own. It's slim and weight very little but still Palm has been able to include almost everything inside of this sexy looking mobile gadget. They do deserve some honest praise for this. Again let's have some of it's characteristics first,


They introduced WebOS with this mobile phone which did receive many positive feedback from the users. Including the multitasking and other things such as robustness and durability (+ ease of use) the OS does rock!.

*. Display - The 3.1 inches of display screen is one of the best ones in my tastes (ya it's all about taste actually). It has a 16 million color depths and 320x480 resolution and the graphics looks really (I mean really) sharp.

*. Unlike many other models since they started to follow the iPhone's style of dropping the keyboard (physical one I mean) Palm on the other hand decided to include a "real" one and it did pay off. It looks just a little bit small (but you can complain that much after having a look at the overall size of the device itself) but easy enough to use it. And further more for those of who want a touch sensitive display with a keypad, yep the Palm Pre has a all that too.

*. The camera has 3MPX of digital power with other built in features such as LED, auto focus and geo-tagging are just a few to name (including video capturing, etc).

*. For audio - MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV and for video - MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 formats are supported which is pretty decent.

*. 3G and Wi-Fi are also included.

*. It comes with a 8GB of memory stick (7GB usable since OS and other utilities use some of the space)

*. Battery - According to the manufacture it has 5 hours of talk time and 300 hours of standby time. And again they also included the 3.5mm jack output which is really handy thing.

So this is not the all of those mobile devices that came in this time frame but these are somewhat one of the best latest phones 2009 and I hope you enjoyed the news.

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Latest Phones - The Motorola CHARM, A Review

Latest Motorola Phones - The CHARM

As mentioned in the previous article (Motorola BackFlip Review) the mobile giant is now into some serious competition with others. That phone was more likely to be competing against iPhone and the Google Nexus One but this unit the "Charm" is looking more likely a Blackberry device. And except the keypad the front interface looks a bit like the LG Remarq Turquoise With a roomy keyboard and a gorgeous looking display at the front are among the main features of this device. Let's have a look at how the hardware stands...



OK let's start with the length which is about 98cm, width 62 + the depth is around 11.4cm. Including the battery it weights about 110grams. There are only two color choices available but as the time goes on we'll see many third party skins also come in to life. Anyway the display has a 320x240 resolution in pixels. The total size is 2.8". Although it certainly big in comparison with other models still when analyzing it did lack some brightness and sharp enhancements.

The camera is a decent one but not a excellent in today's standards. The 3MPX can capture images in some high resolutions but again for some reason some basic features like brightness, etc were not that good. But the overall quality of the colors were pretty decent. And if you're interested in taking some serious pictures then you should check out the Sony Ericsson Vivaz which has a 12MP (12.1 to be exact) monstrous camera which can take HD standards both video and images. Anyway it also has LED flash and autofucus functions.

The keyboard is pretty good and because of the larger width has enabled them to include a bigger keys + camera and some other controlling buttons also. It has 3G, HSDPA (with a maximum speed of 3.6Mbps) and surprisingly WiFi also (after considering the low price). USB and Bluetooth is also included. Both audio and video capabilities were also impressive. By default it can playback man popular formats such as MP3, AAC, eAAC, WMV, MPEG-4, H.264/3, WMA, AMR. 

The operating system is Andriod 2.1 and since they released the latest 2.2 version it should be available by now. The overall usability concerning the user friendliness was also very good. In the home screen there are few widgets available and can add and remove more according to the needs of the user. It comes with a 2GB of microSD card and can be upgraded up to 32GB in the future.

The quality of the calls were also pretty decent even though it did picked up few noises it's not a huge issue here. Youtube and many other flv files including the Web pages were loaded without much of a hassle. The web browser was also pretty robust thanks to the Android OS.

The phone battery can give around 5 hours of continuous talk time and almost 14 days of standby time. This may not be one of the best latest phones concerning especially the capturing device but, if you can just ignore the 3MP camera, when considering the asking price the Motorola CHARM is certainly a pretty good device.

Latest Phones from Motorola - The BackFlip, review

Latest Phones - The BackFlip

"Even though there are many new phones out they're not all worth writing about. But the reason that I choose to write a bit about it is that, even though they've been designing these devices for a long time because of Apple, Blackberry and some other giants in the field has been dominating the market with devices such as Sony Ericsson Vivaz, Nokia N8 for instance it just feels like they were a bit thrown away."

But starting with Droid X and some others recently (are flip phones, slide-type, becoming popular again?) and I don't know what they did different (maybe firing some of the "old" heads in the engineering section - just kidding) but this time it seems like they've what it takes to get there and win some decent portion of the market.

So anyway let's see the see hardware specifications first,


* Display - 262K colors, 3.1" with a resolution of 320x480

If you have a look at the picture below you'll that the display actually is really good looking one. But be aware that in my experience most of the time these companies (they're really good with that aren't they?) usually make sure to post a small picture of the phone so the less the resolution (+ some dark background - another trick - ha) of the image most of the time the screen can look gorgeous. Anyway even without the 16Million depth the images looks good but in comparison with some others (Nokia N900 for instance) did lack some quality.But that being said, again the 262K certainly looks really good.

The weight is 4.7 ounces. The length is around 108 mm, width 53mm and a depth of 15.3 mm. The Motorola BackFlip also comes with a physical keyboard  (+ onscreen one too - since it's touch-sensitive). And as the name suggests you have to do a back-flip to see the keypad. It'll also be nice if they include Swype with the OS as it has revolutionized the way we use the keyboard (you can achieve 40WPM - yes it makes it easy to type on mobile phones). The buttons and the arrangement seems nice and roomy. The large space-bar button and navigation keys to the right end were also good. The backlight is there too which is something most of the manufactures seems to "forgot" to include. It certainly makes using it easy when you're in darker surroundings.


For some reason the OS is Android 1.5 but they say you can easily jump to the 2.1 version. Even though Google now has released the 2.2 version too but they decided to stay with the latter maybe because of some sort of stability issues. There is also 3G and WiFi. There is also Bluetooth (2.0) and the only reason that it exists in these latest phones mainly due to the Handsets. You can use it as a remote controller device too. WCDMA and an accelerometer is there too. GPS with Google powered maps, etc are also there. The USB port (micro) is included by default for Sync functions.

The camera is a 5MPX unit with 4x digital zooming capacity, Autofocus, LED, image editing utility and also Geo Tagging. But for a 5MPX camera the overall image quality wasn't that good. It can certainly take some decent pictures with high resolutions but in comparison with others wasn't great. For serous image capturing checkout the 8.1MP Vivaz. Audio and Video playback is also looking good. MP3, WMA, AAC, MPEG4, H264/263, etc are supported (with 24fps).

The call-output quality was very satisfying indeed. Both incoming and outgoing voices were very clearly heard from the both ends. So when it comes to making some serious call this is highly recommended.

Almost all E-mail clients such as Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, etc, are supported through IMAP + POP3. And thanks to the faster wireless networks the web experience was also good. The browser picked and loaded pages + flv videos pretty quickly. It comes with a 2GB memory (non removable) and through the microSD card you can install up to 32GB which is pretty much the standards size in comparison with others.

The phone battery can give some decent continues duration of roughly 6 hours but most of the time will go below or up depending on the conditions. Anyway other than a bad digital camera this is a decent unit from Motorola. And I hop you enjoyed this review about the latest Motorola Phones. Thank you for reading.

*Read Web Updates from this blog. 

Another Latest Samsung Phone - The "Moment (SPH-m900)", A Review

With a roomy keypad + beautiful touchscreen and an exceptional call quality the codenamed "Moment" is another latest Samsung Phone from the mobile giant. Anyhow other than those features the OS is powered by Android which is again gaining some respect from the community. While there are many other reasons one apparent thing for the choice could be because of the low cost and the multitasking ability also. Anyway let's get back to the review...

The weight is around 5.6 ounces. Length 4.6", depth (0.63") and the width (2.34"). The AMOLED powered screen 1.78"x3.2" (320 x 480) resolution. The color depth is set at 16 Million and the display looks really good. There are many widgets which are visible on the "Home" page such as a clock, battery status meter, convert, etc. The keyboard (QWERTY) consists Power on and off, etc but the absence of navigation keys can hurt a little (they are not on the keypad but on the main surface). The outside appearance looks a bit like the Samsung Vibrant SGH-t959 . The typing experience was also good thanks to the well designed key-pad. It would be nice if in the future applications such as Swype (type faster on mobile phones) are introduced through online stores with this latest Samsung phone.

The file format support for proprietary software such as MS office, Excel and Access for instance are also embedded. Almost all e-mail clients like Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Gmail are also supported with POP3 + protocols. The web browser was also performed well. Thanks to the high speed internet access through networks like 3G or WiFi hot-spots online video playback (Youtube etc) were smooth too.

The camera (3.2 Megapixels) was also good. It is capable of taking some quality pictures with high resolutions but other than the standard LED-flash there isn't much to mention concerning features such as digital-zooming, timer, etc. The video recording were also not bad but wasn't in the top of the list concerning other mobile phones like mentioned in the review of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz with a staggering 8MP. Another popular that comes with this latest Samsung phone  is the ability to directly upload your photos to web sites such as Flicker, Facebook is also there and can come in handy for those who are social.

There is Bluetooth, headphone connector jack and also an USB port for data syncing functions and GPS is also there. And as mentioned earlier the overall clearness of the calls were pretty good. The noises that usually get picked up from background were at a minimum level. According to the manufacture the battery can give a decent amount of time (5 hours) and the testings confirmed that the numbers are decently accurate. 

Slide type devices like this and also flip phones are also starting to reappear with some added features to compete against iPhone type units which is nice to see actually because different people have different needs and one trend won't reach all of their needs. So all in all,  Moment(SPH-m900) is a pretty good latest Samsung phone.



   

Flip Phones - Samsung SGH-a107

Flip Phones - Pros & Cons

Before touching into the subject I thought that it would've been nice to give you some information about the history of flip phones first + few of the good and the bad. They may not be as popular as they were but in countries like Japan for example they're still among the favorites. It is said that GT&E was behind the introduction of these devices back in as early as 1970 (well the trade-name anyway) and the name and the theme was then "copied" by many other manufactures in producing devices of their own.

One of the main advantage of using cellular flip phones is that after the opening the length is elasticated thus giving the user a better comfort while making a call thanks to the overall length. This is something most of the so called "cool latest phones" lacks these days. Anyway apart from that apparent advantage usually they include two separate screens. One on the main body (much smaller than the one inside) and the main unit which lies on the inside area which is revealed once opened.

Thanks to the design the main display is well protected. And also a "real" keyboard is always included with them too. However as mentioned earlier one of the main reasons behind their popularity within certain individuals is that you don't have to turn your head aside while making a call which can prevent many related injuries which are common among non flip phones users.

Another thing about these units is that they tends to be very short after the flipping is done and makes it really easy to carry around and can almost always easily fit in your shirts' pocket. And they're not that thick or doesn't weight that much either. However when it comes to multimedia playback they're not the best.

Anyway lets head back to our review ...

Samsung is not new in inventing these type of things and they've been doing it for a very long time. But before going any further please bear in mind that this is lacks many useful features for example, it don't even has a camera! and no display-screen on the main outer area either. Forget 3G not even Bluetooth, you can listen to few music codes but no video because there is no player for that. But considering the low cost and few other things this is not even close to be called one of the best flip phones but if all you need from it, just main basic functions such as making some decent calls then this won't be such a bad choice either.

The dimensions are as follows. The length is 3.46", width 1.7" and a depth of .78". It's really light too (74g). The screen (2") is powered by a 65K color depth and the resolution is set at 128x128 (pixels). There are few buttons for navigation and power-on-off, etc. One good thing about the keys, they were easy to push and use thanks to the roomy design. The contact utility can holds up to 500 information. There are few other common software like calculator, clock, messaging, etc. For connectivity there is WAP.

The GSM engine operates around 850/1900 MHZ frequencies. The overall clearness of the calls were good actually and the person in the other end also heard decent inputs but not as good as we could hear them. The talk time of the battery is set around 3 hours which is again low in comparison with other latest flip phones. The standby time consists of 10 days. For connectivity there is a USB port included also. The only major audio codec supported is MP3.

Anyway this is no where near the requirements of this type of an electronic device by any means. But as said before considering the low price (below $30 pre-paid) and all you need is to make some calls then this is OK, but certainly not one of the ideal latest flip phones you can find.

4G Phones - A Brief Review

4G Phones - A Technological Overview,

There are many apparent reasons and needs which are behind the introduction of the 4G. However as I see it one of the main reasons for its appearance in mobile phones such as the HTC EVO 4G for example is the dominance of the HD videos (online playback to be precise). While there are many other important reasons do exist. For instance operating systems or OS and applications are climbing up more and more in Gigabytes and for the user to download them online would take a long time using current network solutions (3G). In my opinion these are one of the main reasons.

As said earlier the popular HD related social activities not just movies and stuff but also VOIP, Mobile TV, etc services are also behind the seen and will also benefit in a greater manner with the introduction of 4G phones. The speeds are not measured in megabytes but it GB. The standards are laid out by the IMT organization which is responsible for setting up telecommunication standards. One main feature among these type networks are that they're not backward compatible. Or in other words you won't be able to use 4G phone (in the very near future  - HTC already introduced one - see at the top) as a 2G or 3G device. Anyway as we move on to the future the more popular it will get and hopefully the latter or its predecessors will be wiped out.

Again this is merely a name and not just a single wireless-network solution, so we'll see more than one embedded wireless functions. Some well known companies such as Sprint Nextel (another cell phone giant - who's concentrated on giving calling plans) as far as in 2006 said that they've chosen WiMAX is going to be used in latest 4G phones.

They are hoping to achieve a minimum data exchange rate of 12 - 13 MB/s (note -not bit but Bytes) between two devices (anywhere globally). This is staggeringly fast in comparison even with today's standards. The Internet is growing at a fearsome rate and by the time of its introduction it should be fully compatible with IP6 protocol. So as a result more devices will be in constant touch with each other without having to slow down much thanks to their faster 4G phones or the any unit that has it.

Another thing to remember is that this new arrival on the G family will suck some power out of the battery at a rate higher than its ancestors. So to keep up and give the end user a reasonable amount live time through the cell phone battery there should be some powerful units too. This could be one of the shortcomings of it but hopefully lats assume that the engineers involved in bringing this to life will be able to get around this so "we" don't have to empty our pocket when buying 4G phones!.

Latest LG Phones - The Remarq Turquoise, Review

"The Turquoise Remarq is another latest phone from LG and just by looking at its physical expressions one can tell that anyone who's heavily involved in typing on mobile phones are gonna love it. The rounded + the wide attributes gives room to a nice and comfortable keypad to be included by default. The digital-camera is however is a bit of a disappointment with this latest LG phone."


The camera is a 1.3 megapixel powered and is not capable of racing with other devices by any means. However, it didn't perform well when capturing images with reasonable quality. You can use it to upload them to your Facebook account or any other social media services. It's capable of capturing pictures in 3 different resolution settings.

The phone is 3.5 inches (the height), 2.5 inch in width and 0.6 inches thick. The manufacture "talks" highly about its being Eco-friendly. They say over 19-20% of the cover or the skin of this new phone is made out of recycled materials. And over 87% of the handset is reusable and manufactured according to the Energy-star standards. Anyway, including the battery it weights around 3.8 oz. The screen is a 2.5" area with a display resolution of 240 x 320. The applications and graphics looks nice and sharp but the color depth is set at 262k. But after considering the low price and its performance its not something to really worry about. 

On the side of the phone there is a microSD slot for memory upgrades (max 16GB). The usable memory is 22MB. And also an USB output for data syncing such as using a computer. The Bluetooth 2.1 is also included for connectivity. And as said earlier the key-pad is quite spacious (worth mentioning the big space-bar and enter keys) which make the typing easy on this latest LG phone. There are keys for Emoticons which are gonna come in handy for IM and Twitter type fans + the availability of the back-lit technology.

The Turquoise phone includes a contact saving utility which is capable of storing up 600 of your information. And the support for e-mail services such as Yahoo, G-mail, AOL, MS-Outlook and many others (POP and SMPT protocols).

It also has a reasonable music player with playlists, tag-editing, equalizer etc. Popular formats such as MP3, WMA, WAV etc can be played through it. The output audio was also good but certainly not the best when comparing with Sony Ericsson Vivaz for example. The overall calls had decent clearness but the people on the other end had few buzzes coming out through this latest mobile phone.

There are few other software such as a world clock, alarm, currency converter, web-browser, etc. For network technologies there are CDMA and GPS (with good accuracy). The battery possesses 5.5 hours in talk-time and the standby time is set at 7 days. So to wrap things up if you can cope with the VGA unit and the lack of 3G and WiFi but loves to have a spacious typing-pad around then this latest LG phone won't disappoint you.

The Latest Nokia N8 - A Review

"The N8 from Nokia is more likely a latest camera phone because of the whooping 12 Megapixel digital camera it consists of. It may not be the world slimmest phone (well not that thick either) but as a personal preference I like devices that are a bit thick. Because they are easy to grip, especially while typing. But the non removable battery is really a big disappointment."



There are multiple color choices with the N8 such as, Black, Red and few others which may differ according to the purchasing country. Its  4.47 inches long, 2.32 inches in width and 0.51 inches in depth. With the battery inside it weights around 4.76 ounces.

The display is big (3.5"). One of key aspects of Nokia phones is that when it comes to color depth most of the time they make sure to build them around 16 Million depth mark. Some may not see much of a difference especially if the screen is small. But the more it gets bigger the more the color-depths should go up otherwise (if you have a sharp eye) pictures and web pages will miss the most of their "beauty". Anyhow this latest phone model the N8s' has a 16:9 nHD touch sensitive surface with a 640x360 resolution. It consists of, starting from, ambient light sensor, accelerometer to a manometer (just to name a few).

The camera as pointed out earlier is one of the main features with this unit. Its a 12 MPX powered with a digital zooming capability of 3x. The 3x-zoom may not look like a lot, but keep in mind of the staggering capturing horse power of the phone "three" is a big number. There is also a front device with a 640x480 pixels for video calling facility. Captured pictures are stored in JPEG or EXIF formats. Other features such as flash, smile-detection, auto focus, etc are there also. Another popular feature is the Geo-tagging which enables you to automatically insert the location with the help of GPS is also there. Its capable of taking HD videos with 720p pixel-resolution and even playing them . There is also a TV-output.Thanks to the processor which runs at close to 1GHZ (coupled with another GPU)  there are no fuzzy or dragging "effects". The playback is really smooth. The picture and the video quality was great in N8 like with the Nokia X6.



There is a 16GB of memory embedded and another slot (microSD) is available for expansions in the future up to a maximum of 32GB. Three is a FM radio and the audio playback includes - mp3, WMA, MIDI, AAC, eAAC/+ and AMR. The output quality of the sounds were excellent. The overall call clearness was really good and should receive some credits also. 

The refreshed interface of the latest Symbian 3.0 looks eye catchy. Nokia N8 is the worlds first phone which is powered by the Symbian 3.0 version. There are many widgets for everyday use (calender, clocks, etc.). This mobile phone consists of rich wireless network solutions such as HSDPA, WCDMA, WiFi and the Bluetooth 2.0 is also there.

One of the concerning things about the device is the phone battery (1200 mAH). According to the manufacture it has a talk time of 12 hours. The standby time is roughly around 16 days. This is certainly not bad but the battery power strength is seems a bit low. But again according to the company this is a "power friendly" device. Anyway other than that that Nokia-N8 is a sexy looking latest camera phone.

Samsung Smiley - SGH-t359, Review

"The Smiley SGH-t359 is a slide type mobile phone from the mobile giant Samsung. It's apparent that it's meant to be used in heavy typing. Anyhow one of the most disappointing things about the phone is the poor camera (1.3 MPX). But the overall design and the physical appearance certainly looks beautiful."



As mentioned earlier the digital-camera is a 1.3 megapixel unit with a screen resolution of 240 x 320 pixels and a 2x zooming capacity. To take pictures you'll need to open the unit first. The 262k color depth does a good job and it seems the default color choice or the theme is optimized for "hiding" some of the colors that may jeopardize the "beauty" of the look n feel otherwise.





The Samsung Smiley SGH-t359 looks round and small until you slide it out. The QWERTY key pad looks good. But the apparent problem is the size. This again could be more of a personal problem but it would have been better if it was a bit larger. It also misses some shortcut keys too. But that being said it's not a bad choice when it to typing (especially if you have small and "slim" fingers - good news for girls!).

Its 3.92 inches long, 2.34 inches wide and .59 inches thick. The weight is around 3.98 ounces (well lets say 4 ounces). It's covered by a plastic skin and there are no multiple color choices either. This phone is a great looking device actually coupled with some nicely rounded corners.

The memory available is limited around 50 Megabytes which is pretty low considering the latest phones in today's market. But it can be expanded through the MicroSD slot in the future (up to 16GB). The contacts can hold up to 1000 user entries including address, e-mails, etc.

Samsung Smiley SGH-t359 also include other useful applications such as a calender, alarm clock, currency converter, etc. The Bluetooth 2.0 and WiFi are included for wireless network solutions. But it lacks the popular 3G. This may not be much of a problem if you travel within hot-spots frequently, but it should have been there for more smooth Internet experience. Talking about the web, the included HTML browser ( web2go) performs well. There is also a zooming button for page-zooming. But it feels like the screen is pretty much wasted with the non-touch-sensitive surface and there is no space for utilities such as the Swype (a software which can be used to type fast on touch-screen phones). Yahoo, G-mail, AOL, etc - mail clients are supported by default. And Facebook and Twitter are also available through "Samsungs-Social-Buzz".

The call quality (including the clarity) is also very satisfying with this latest mobile phone. The speakers are capable of giving clear and loud audio outputs. The included network is the GSM operating at 850/900/1800/1900 MHz frequency levels.


The battery life of the phone is around 5.5 hours and the standby time is  300 hours or around 12-13 days. Anyway if you can cope with the absence of 3G and a small keyboard the Samsung Smiley SGH-t359 won't dissatisfy you. But if you want a phone with rich-wireless solutions and touch sensitive screens, etc (eg- Samsung Captivate - SGH-i897) then Samsung Smiley is not for you.

Nokia X6 Phone - Review

"While many other mobile phone manufactures trying to achieve more "slimness" in their models Nokia on the other hand introduce devices like the Nokia X6 for example that are a bit thick. It may not look that "sexy" on the out side but as many experts pointed out many times in practical use (such as typing) the thickness can come in handy. One of the main aspects of this phone is the inbuilt memory capacity of 16GB, but when the X6 was first introduced it didn't include such monstrous storage data capacity."

Not just the memory support there are few other major improvements that come with this latest phone. The screen color depth of 16Million for example. Now one may think that many other manufactures also embed such high quality color-depths. Yes but let's take Blackberry for example, most of their version of smart-phones do not come with 16M-colors. Anyway back to the specifications again,




The screen consists of a 3.2" area with a 640x360 nHD resolution in pixels. As said earlier the devices is a bit thick which is set at .54 inches (L - 4.37, W - 2). The display is a 16:9 (wide)-screen coupled with the popular accelerometer (rotate the phone the display automatically rotates - there are some people who might not know that ok - no disrespect intended).                                  

There is no Key-pad (physical), since its a touch-screen Nokia has decided to go for a touch-keypad. The buttons and the overall key ares does a good job when it comes to typing. But it would have been nice if the buttons were a bit bigger. There are numerous finger-tip functions that are available with the Nokia X6 such as screen-zooming (finger double tap) etc. If they can give the end users typing utilities such as the Swype like with the Samsung Captivate - SGH-i897 the overall speed could be much higher. Let's hope it'll available in the future.

Thanks to fast internet access through high speed 3G connections the web experience is very satisfying. The browser loads page pretty quickly and some smooth video (Youtube etc) playback too. But there were some drawbacks (such as browser crashes) while accessing heavy detailed web pages including flash files. Hopefully this could be due to software errors and let's hope they'll provide updates for them. By default there are WCDMA, HSDPA (max download speed 3.6 Mbps) and for connectivity Bluetooth 2.0 and USB for PC to phone sync is available. With the help of the Nokia PC suite the Nokia X6 can easily be used as a modem for your laptops or PCs. WiFi is also included.

When it comes to producing quality pictures the 5MPX camera is one of the best. The highest image resolutions is 2592 x 1944. The digital zooming is set at 4x and other functions include auto-focus, LED flash (2), self time and scene modes are just to name a few. The video capturing is also very impressive. Even though comparing with other latest phones out there it may not the best. But certainly the 640x480 at 30 fps should be more than enough for the most of us.



When it comes to the multimedia support Nokia has always been one of the best. While Apple is forcefully trying to hold their users to "their" formats the X6 supports wide variety of formats such as MPEG4-AVC playback 30 fps QVGA, WMV9 playback 30 fps QVGA, MPEG4-SP playback 30 fps nHD. And audio codecs include mp3, SPMidi, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA. The overall multimedia experience was really good. Oh there is also a FM stereo radio available too.

The battery (according to the manufacture) supports up to 17 days for standby. And the talk time is more than 11 hours (using GSM) and it's reduced to 6 when using WCDMA.

So all in all this is a great phone from the famous manufacture, if they can send some updated web-browser and fix few other software errors the Nokia X6 (even the price is reasonable) could be a handy choice also concerning the cell phones' battery life.

Swype - How to Type Faster on a Mobile Phone

Swype - Type fast on your Touch-Sensitive Smart Phone,

Most of the mobile devices these days seem to go for a touch-type screen rather than the old physical button layout and other functional keys. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Anyhow when it comes to typing on a phone few advantage of using a "virtual" key-pad are the ability to customize, fix bugs, change button size, arrangements etc. But one of the most important of all the advantages is the flexibility it gives the mobile phone designers and engineer to introduce new and efficient ways to make the typing faster.

So is it (Swype) any better?

Well, the traditional method of touch-typing on a phone is done simply by finger contacts on the display screen. So is with the new method. But the only difference is that, when typing rather than move your fingers all over from that button to this, Swype lets you simply "drag" the keys and build words. If you're a touch typist then you're aware of the fact that our fingers feel really uncomfortable jumping from this to that, it's human nature, I think. But simple dragging (without much of a finger raise) can make you feels at ease almost immediately. But let me remind you than to get used to this method takes a bit of a time, but according to results (there are still some good and bad attributes) it performs better than the traditional method (over 40 WPM - according to the company, anyway). 

The Swype software is not available for all platforms currently and only comes only with some latest smart phones only. But if it gets popular and some attention from the community then it "could" be available for almost all mobile platforms such Samsung, Nokia, iPhone, etc(since its a software this can easily be achieved).

Currently it comes with certain models and only seems to support Android OS and if you're a Droid X fan then you already have it (if not simply visit the site below and get it). But as said earlier things can change dramatically in the future. For example more and more Facebook and Twitter apps are (demanded by users) embedded in latest phones and people need ways to type faster on phones, so lets see what the Swype has to offer to us in the future.

To know more about the technology and availability please visit this site -> Swype - Touchtype

Samsung Captivate - SGH-i897, Latest Phones News

This is another latest phone arrival from Samsung. Just by having a glance at it you can feel that it's an iPhone "type" device. The Captivate (SGH-i897) is powered by Android 2.1 version + 16 Million colors. The resolution is not as high as the iPhone but its 4 inch with 480x800 pixels powered by AMOLED technology is looking gorgeous.


The Captivate weights around 4.5 ounces (+ battery). In dimensions, 4.18 (L), 2.5 (W) and almost .4 inches in depth (0.39). As said earlier the screen resolution is really high and the 4" touch space should be more than enough to web browsing (I mean especially facebook), Typing etc.

The camera is a 5 Megapixels unit. The digital zoom is set at 4x, auto-focus and include many more shot-modes (smile detection, action shot, cartoon, etc...). The video files supported are include MPEG4, AAC/C+, H.263 and H.264. AAC/MIDI/MP3,WMA and XMF are the supported audio formats. There are 40 polyphonic ring-tones comes loaded by default.

Mobile TV - This seems te be getting more and more into new phones (especially with Samsung phones). Bluetooth, USB interface, WiFi, A-GPS (a handset based GPS system) and also a TV-out.

There is also a 16GB of a ROM and 512MB RAM. The microSD slot supports up to 32 Gigabytes of maximum memory upgrade. The Samsung Captivate SGH-i897s'battery is capable of 5 hours and 50 mins (according to Samsung) and 300 hours of stand-by time duration.

One thing about the key-pad,

The technology is called Swype, the QWERTY keyboard with this technology make typing easier. It actually a touching techniques and if you followed the link there are few video tips for beginners. But remember as for now only Swype certified devices (or business partners to be accurate) are bundled with the utility (yep it's a software). Because of this reason in the future it should be available to download for any smart and touch sensitive screen. According to the inventor after some practice users can achieve up to 40 WPM ! (yes that's right) on their phone.

Anyway I hope this information was helpful to you and I will shortly create a post about the Swype technology. Thank you.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz - Review,

Sony Ericsson Vivaz  Review

"This phone was released by Sony Ericsson in the early 2010. One of the main features with this latest phone the Vivaz is the screen and the 8.1 MPX camera which support HD resolution picture capturing. And also the ability to connect TV to the phone directly is a main features even though it's not a breathtaking one as many new units seems to embed it."

The weight is around 97 grams (with the battery). The size of the phone is as follows. 107 mm (L), 52mm (W) and 12.5 mm thick. The screen resolution is also good but not certainly one of the highest like in the Samsung Vibrant (SGH-t959).With a resolution of 360x640 (wide-screen 16:9) coupled with 16 million colors of TFT display, certainly the graphics look sharp and the brightness is also good.

There are four choices in colors such as Black, Moon Silver, Blue and the Ruby. The default memory is  75MB through the Micro-SD slot upgradable up to 32 Gigabytes. The networks include EDGE/GSM/GPRS/HSPA/UMTS. For connectivity there is WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0 version (high speed)


The scratch resistance surface is good but sometimes it feels like they've concentrated too much on the surface and as a result it a  there is a bit of a hardness on the surface. But this is not anything to worry about.

The camera consists of 8.1 Mega-pixles and is easily capable of taking pictures of HD standards. Other features include Auto focus, Touch sensitive, HD-video recording (720p), LED flash, Geo tags (automatically tags the location into the pictures) and smile detection. Oh and the 4x zoom is also included in the Samsung Vivaz. This can be used even while the phone is "lock-ed". And the ability to switch between wide screen (16:9) and 4:3 is also there. But remember when using geo-tagging the battery tends to drain faster as it requires some reasonable power from the device. So when not necessary make sure to disable it. And the overall image quality is excellent. But the negation of a front camera waste the video calling abilities which is another disappointment.

The key-pad is a bit frustrating and the keyboard is not fully visible while using some applications. But this again can be fixed in the Vivaz through an OS or software update from Samsung. Again as with the most latest phones these days the twitter and the Facebook functions are accessible through the "home screen". Again while using the social web sites the non fully visible key-pad is really annoying not to mention one really need to use the typing functions in such occasions.

The processor runs at 750MHz and does performs well while giving short delays when using simultaneous applications. The web-browser loads web-pages quickly thanks to the 3G/WiFi wireless networks. It plays Youtube with HD/SD resolutions (not the all highHDs) smoothly but crashed few times. Another main error was that the Sony Ericsson Vivaz never seems to save the last used network settings (such as 3g or WiFi). These may be due to a software error (hopefully) have to wait for updates to see if we're or not.

The media player is a pleasant app to use and the overall audio output is very satisfying + the call quality. The phone battery support 13 Hours of talks time and 430 Hrs of stand-by usage. So anyway this is really a good phone and most of the problems are fixable through software updates so if you're thinking about buying it just wait for some bug-free updates for the Vivaz.