วันจันทร์ที่ 2 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2553

Review of the Motorola Backflip MB300

Review of the Motorola Backflip MB300

Look, Design, Feel.....................7/10

Motorola Backflip contains a very unique design which makes it fashionable and in demand within the smartphone industry these days because its keyboard is located on its back. It is a flip phone, not a slide phone. It has a rectangular shape and rounded edges; however it has a somewhat smaller footprint with a dimension of 4.25 inches in length by 2.08 inches in width and 0.6 inch thick. It actually looks a lot like the Motorola Cliq at first glance.

Features.....................8/10

Being a flip phone, the keyboard is uniquely located on the back of the smartphone, so when you swing it open, the keyboard sits right beneath the display. The keyboard and the screen are both faced outwards when closed. It can be flipped flat or it can stand on a table while watching a movie, and can even function as a digital picture frame or an alarm clock.

However, some users worry about the durability of the keyboard on the flip phone, although Motorola has continuously assured its consumers that the keyboard on this flip phone can withstand for a definitive period of time. The keyboard is spacious and its square buttons are exceptional because they minimize mistakes when pressing the wrong buttons when typing. The number and symbol keys which are marked in blue are doubled up with the letters marked in white, and its bright backlight makes the keys very visible especially in a dark room. With this flip phone, shortcuts in the bottom row and left side give quick links to web access, search button, messages and the home and menu screens. The camera lens and flash is placed in the corner of the keyboard.

When the backflip is open, a trackpad or the backtrack navigation pad located on the back of this smartphone can be used in scrolling through photos, menus, lists, and home screens without touching the 3.1-inch HVGA (320x480) screen.

On the right side of the phone is a volume rocker, a Micro-USB expansion port that supports up to 32GB cards, and a camera placed on an activation and capture button. The power/lock button can be found on top of the phone, alongside with the headphone jack.

The Backflip is operated by a customizable Android 1.5 which includes AT&T Navigator, AT&T Radio and AT&T Mobile Hotspots. The Android feature has a 5.0 megapixel camera with zoom and flash, 2GB pre-installed memory card and has great access to the Motorola Phone Portal which by the way, enables you to back up, edit and delete all files from your pc when the smartphone is connected to it

Connectivity.....................8/10

The phone supports the new HSPA 7.2 network that AT&T is putting into place, according to Motorola representatives and the phone's spec sheet; the spec sheet says it only works on AT&T's 3G band, not T-Mobile's. Other specs include 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, and a 2GB memory card included with up to 32GB. MicroSD cards are supported, according to the device spec sheet. The 2GB memory card enables storage of an unlimited number of contacts in the phonebook and unlimited calls on its call records, as well as its photo calling option.

The Backflip also features voice dialing, a speakerphone and noise reduction technology aside from its 3G support, WIFI connectivity, Bluetooth and GPS.

With its Android operating system along with Qualcomm MSM 7210 A 528 MHz processor, the connectivity of the Backflip is super in the sense it can browse any type of website. It comes with EDGE and GPRS for uninterrupted network connectivity along with the 3G technology. The phone's browser supports HTML and xHTML formats so internet browsing will be smooth-sailing. Its Bluetooth 2.0 feature makes data and multimedia file-sharing easy. The JAVA and GPS features of the smartphone makes it trouble-free in finding any location.

With its MotoBlur software, it is the only smartphone where your Facebook updates, Twitter feeds, Google, Yahoo, Exchange, and Picasa contacts and messages are synchronized to the home screen. Motorola Backflip is powered with MotoBlur software to merge information from various email accounts and makes it visibly functional for social networking sites. Motoblur enables the user to stream contents such as updates on RSS newsfeeds right to your home screen.

With Motorola Backflip, you have the Android Webkit HTML browser, Android Market, Amazon MP3 Store, Gmail, Google Talk, Google Maps, and Youtube. However, the default engine for this smartphone is Yahoo.

Performance.....................8/10

Its QWERTY keyboard is awesome and spacious, however, it gets so exposed when the phone is closed.

Sad to say, even though this is AT&T's first Android phone, the Backflip runs the Motoblur Android which takes on the Android Operating System and shuns the standard, grid-like home screen in favor of a gizmo-based user interface. However, these widgets are customizable and function really well. Browsing the news and weather sites, or search engines and social networking sites is impressive.

The phone's 528-MHz processor gets sluggish due to a handful of widgets functioning simultaneously. Motorola tries hard to address this by presenting multiple home screens, which are accessible through left-and-right hand whisks, however, there is not much you can do with a screen 3.1 inches in size.

Call quality is pretty good, its audio performance is crisp and clear using AT&T service as the phone blocks noise during talk time. Its speakerphone performance has also good sound quality.

On its 5-megapixel camera, photos tend to be murky, even though it has flash and autofocus features. Watching videos or movie clips is fairly decent except for a couple of seconds for some videos to buffer. Its powerful speakers give so much delight in watching movies or video clips.

Although the Backflip is powered with a 528-MHz Qualcomm MSM7201A processor, it has a hard time keeping up with its performance as it lags at times even with very simple tasks like accessing email or toggling with the home screen.

Its 1400mAh lithium-ion battery life is quite short with a rated talk time of 6 hours and standby time of 13.5 days.

Value for Money.....................7/10
It is quite pricey for a phone with limited technology. However, if you want your phone primarily because you want to be constantly connected to social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, then the Motorola Backflip is a good choice.


Pros

+ 350 minutes talk time, 315 hours standby time
+ MotoBlur to back up info, sync with social networking sites
+ GPS
+ Wifi connectivity
+ Music is compatible with itunes and windows media player
+ Its 2G memory card allows unlimited storage of contacts in phonebook
+ MicroSD expansion slot enables storage of music and photos from pc to phone
+ QWERTY keyboard makes texting and intern
+ Its Bluetooth 2.0 makes data and multimedia sharing easy and fast
+ 5.0 camera with flash and autofocus
+ Internet connectivity is uninterrupted especially when browsing Facebook or Twitter accounts
+ It has a trackpad that can navigate lists or messages fast without using the touch screen
+ Notification menu bar at top of the screen is useful and well-situated
+ It vibrates on touch mode

Cons

+ QWERTY keyboard and touch screen are exposed when phone is closed or not in use
+ Sometimes it is sluggish when sending a text message or email
+ Autocancels user out of programs when internet connection is slow
+ Poor quality of photos
+ Poor battery life could be better
+ Uses Old Android OS (Android 1.5)
+ Camera causes phone to reboot
+ Finicky backtrack and touch screen

Kyles Humphreys writes about the latest phones that are released on the market and gives in-depth reviews once he receives the products from the manufacturers, click to find out more about the Motorola BACKFLIP

Reference: http://ezinearticles.com/?Review-of-the-Motorola-Backflip-MB300&id=4445986

วันอาทิตย์ที่ 11 กรกฎาคม พ.ศ. 2553

Brand New Blackberry Tour (9630)

Brand New Blackberry Tour (9630)
Summary

Targeting the business professional always on the go, whether it’s across the ocean or across town, Canada-based Research In Motion released the first global 3G BlackBerry into the wild. Sharing design features with last year’s Bold and Storm, the Tour marries everything BlackBerry devices are known for with the best Verizon data speeds we’ve seen.


BlackBerry devices scream professionalism from every angle, and the Tour is no different, but the growing number of quality, and quite often-free entertainment apps in addition to productivity apps like Word to Go, Excel to Go, and PowerPoint to Go, make this the perfect phone for both the busy professional and Internet radio junkie alike.

Features and Design

We thought it looked like the Bold at first, but upon closer inspection, the Tour is quite dissimilar. The dimensions are all just a bit different, with the width of the Tour being the most noticeable. At 2.4 inches wide, the Tour fits perfectly in a pants pocket without feeling bulky, but surprisingly the screen is a higher resolution on the Tour than the Bold (480 x 360 vs. 480 x 320).

The Tour features lock and mute buttons in familiar places on the top of the handset, a gunmetal bezel, chrome accents separating the rows of the full QWERTY keyboard, and a chrome camera button, volume rocker, and voice command key. We would have liked to see a standard mini-USB output for charging, though. Enough with every phone having a different receptacle!

We liked the rubberized back cover of the Tour, too. Its grippy surface means you won’t have to worry about dropping the device when taking it out of your pocket, and it feels comfortable in your hand. The inclusion of a standard 3.5mm headphone jack was music to our ears, but the mono-speaker on the handset wasn’t; For voice it was decent, but we had to use headphones for listening to music via the included 2GB Micro SD card or the free Pandora and Slacker Internet radio apps.

RIM smartly changed the color of the trackball to that of what the Bold’s commonly looked like after a few months of use: black. Strangely, the trackball became stuck during our tests, thus making navigation impossible until we cleared whatever it was that was stopping movement.

The keys on the Tour are soft, with a raised edge on them much like a laptop keyboard, making it easy to type out an e-mail, instant message, or text with few mispressed keys. A raised dot on the combination D/5 key gives a centering point for your thumb when dialing the phone without looking. The only gripe we had with the keyboard is that the backlight bleeds through the spaces between rows of keys, making the Tour look on the cheap side.

Setup and Use


As is the case with other BlackBerry devices, setting up our e-mail account on the Tour was a breeze, and we were sending and receiving e-mails within minutes of initially turning the device on. The Tour also supports up to 11 e-mail accounts, ten of them being personal and one being a BlackBerry address. We found ourselves using the BlackBerry e-mail client more often than not when compared to the available Gmail app for a number of reasons. PDF attachments displayed correctly, images and all, rich text HTML e-mails displayed correctly, and it was generally faster at receiving e-mails too, usually by ten minutes. The only gripe we had was that e-mail conversations with the same sender don’t stack, meaning that a series of messages between you and another person appear as multiple messages instead of one that becomes progressively longer.

In addition to Word to Go, Excel to Go, and PowerPoint to Go, the Tour features the BlackBerry App World. While it’s not as bloated with junk apps and clones of cool apps as the iPhone App Store, what’s available on the App World is rock solid. We’re fans of Internet radio here at Digital Trends so we were beyond pleased to find that both Slacker Radio and Pandora have free apps available. TheStreet.com offers stock updates and analysis; Poynt finds local movies, restaurants, and bars; ScoreMobile delivers instant sports updates and stats; and those are just some of the free offerings.

The 3.2-megapixel camera squeezed into the tour is impressive, especially when considering the lackluster image quality of previous BlackBerry cameras. Even when taken at full resolution of 2048 x 1536, images were incredibly sharp. There are multiple settings for flash output, white balance, and image size. The Tour also features video recording capabilities with a 2x zoom.

In our informal tests, the Tour performed admirably in regard to battery life. We were able to squeeze over eight hours out of the battery with heavy Web surfing, Twitter, e-mail, and AOL Instant Messenger use. Once the phone turned the antenna off to conserve what little battery power it had remaining, we were able to work for about an hour in Word to Go before the phone finally died on us. Very impressive.


Network

While we weren’t able to send someone to Europe to test out Verizon’s global 3G service, we’ll take their word that it’s fast – because that’s just what the domestic service is. Loading the DigitalTrends.com homepage (not the mobile version) took eight seconds before we could navigate and 15 seconds before the loading dialog disappeared from the bottom of the display, indicating the load had finished. Loading up the xbox360.ign.com page however, took 50 seconds, which was extremely impressive given the amount of graphics and scripts running on the page. It’s a shame that RIM didn’t include Wi-Fi on the Tour, but when Internet speeds are this fast, we barely missed it.

Voice quality was excellent as well, even in rural areas, which are usually torture tests for any mobile phone service.

Price and conclusion

The BlackBerry Tour is available for $199.99 with a $70 mail-in rebate and new two-year service agreement. The fact that it prices out at $100 cheaper than the Bold and offers nearly the same experience is remarkable. While the BlackBerry App World isn’t worth throwing your iPhone away for just yet, the Tour offers the best BlackBerry experience on the Verizon network to date.

Pros:

•Unmatched e-mail performance
•Speedy 3G voice and data network
•Smart design
•Best BlackBerry camera yet

Cons:

•Backlight bleeds through on keyboard
•Nonstandard USB input
•No Wi-Fi
•Slow startup
•Low speaker quality

Sony Ericsson E10i (X10 Mini) Review

Smartphones have multimedia capabilities and the ability to view lots of information at once at their core, and for that you need a large screen, right? Well not according to Sony Ericsson whose Android toting Xperia X10 mini has landed.


Sony Ericsson describes the Xperia X10 mini as ‘compact’ and says it is smaller than a credit card, which is true if you take the on-the-table footprint of 83mm x 50mm as your guide.

The handset is 16mm thick though, so while it won’t fit into your wallet like a credit card does, it will squeeze into all but the smallest of pockets, and at 88g you’ll barely notice it is there.

Our review sample came from Orange and had an exclusive and rather nice lime green backplate. It is free on contract. You can also pick it up from other operators and SIM free for around £230 (we found ours at Play.com).

Now, getting right back to basics, that size means, quite obviously enough, a small screen.

It delivers 240x320 pixels in just 2.55-inches. So, quite obviously, one thing you aren’t going to be doing a lot of with this handset is Web surfing even though Sony Ericsson has worked hard to make this task efficient.

The WebKit Web browser offers a thumbnail of a whole page over which you drag a magnifying window in order to see what you want to zoom into.

Scrolling is efficient too thanks to the capacitive screen, but if you’ve used a large screened smartphone you’ll likely feel that browsing is a very squeezed experience here. Oh, and there’s no Flash support.



There is also a bit of an issue with text entry. The screen simply is not big enough to accommodate a mini qwerty keyboard. Sony Ericsson has again tried to be helpful here with separate slide-out screens offering different characters.

One delivers smileys (scroll up for loads of the critters), @, brackets and other important symbols. Another is a basic 1 to 9 pad, the third your alpha keypad.

Multitap and Quicktext (predictive text) are both on offer and we found the system remarkably quick to get to grips with. We’ll be looking at the X10 mini pro in due course, and that has the added element of a slide out qwerty keypad, but suffice it to say here that if you are an infrequent texter and mobile email user you might find the Xperia X10 mini works for you.

We said at the outset that the Xperia X10 mini runs Android. Sadly it is version 1.6. Why Sony Ericsson can’t populate its handsets with the most up to date version of Android we can’t understand. We sincerely hope an upgrade is coming very soon.

On top of Android Sony Ericsson has overlayed its own user interface. There are multiple home screens which can carry widgets – only one each, but when you add a new one you get a new screen for it. On the main home screen is something called corner control.


This boils down to customisable icons, one in each corner of the screen, for launching oft-used apps. It’s a super idea which works really well. In fact, we’d have liked more shortcuts along some of the straight edges of the screen.

We remain unconvinced by the Timescape app we first saw in the original Xperia X10.

Yes, it shows your texts, calls and Facebook messages in one place, but we didn’t like it on the X10’s big screen and on this one it just feels like too much data to handle. We’re happier with separate apps, to be honest.

Sony Ericsson hasn’t stinted on features despite the small overall size of this handset. It is a 3G phone with GPS (with geotagging support for photos), Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. A 2GB microSD card augments the 128MB of on board memory.



A 5 megapixel camera with light and auto focus has a side button for quick launch and easy use. With the handset being so small we did find our fingers straying over the lens at times – you’ll need to take care with that.

Audio output is of very good quality through the provided speakers and there is a 3.5mm headset jack on the bottom edge.

The 600MHz processor seemed up to the tasks we threw at it. With such a small screen to manage it has to work less hard than is often the case and we were happy with its performance.

Battery life is quoted at up to 4 hours of talktime GSM and 285 hours of GSM standby (3.5 hours and 360 hours on UMTS).

The battery is fixed inside the chassis – you can’t replace it, but the good news is that it seems to perform fairly well. We got two days of medium level use out of it – but heavy GPS, Wi-Fi or music listening will mean daily charging is needed.

In the end, whether or not you like the Xperia X10 mini is going to be about personal choice. If you have large hands you probably won’t like it at all. Whatever your hand size, the small screen and fiddly text entry could be deal breakers.

But anyone with average to smaller hands should not dismiss it without giving it a go. We think you might be pleasantly surprised.

Reference: http://www.knowyourmobile.com/sonyericsson/sonyericssonxperiax10mini/x10minireviews/504673/sony_ericsson_xperia_x10_mini_review.html

วันอังคารที่ 6 กรกฎาคม พ.ศ. 2553

Samsung Galaxy S i9000 Review

Samsung Galaxy S i9000 Review
3 Jun 2010

The first thing anyone would notice with the Samsung Galaxy S is the big screen. Measuring at 4 inches, the 480 x 800 pixels super AMOLED touch screen can display 16 million colors beautifully. It also comes with an accelerometer sensor that provides you with automatic rotation of the user interface. Featuring Samsung's own TouchWiz 3.0 user interface, you could easily see how improved the navigation is.

This is actually Samsung's second mobile phone to use a Super AMOLED screen, the first being the Wave, and touch detection is better than ever because it is integrated on the screen itself. It is also very visible even under direct sunlight, brighter and saves up to 20% battery juice.

Like the iPhone 3G S, the Galaxy S comes with two versions: one featuring 8 gigabytes of internal memory and another with 16 gigabytes. Whichever you choose, the I9000 will be ready for all your music and video files right out of the box. In the event that you should run out of memory, you can always pop in a 32 gigabyte microSD card for more.

Powered by the latest Android operating system, the Eclair, you can bet that the I9000 Galaxy S works well with Google products like search, Maps, Gmail, Picasa, Gtalk, Calendar and YouTube. It also features a social hub for your social networking accounts.

Internet connectivity is a vital component of any smart phone, and the I9000 does not disappoint. You can enjoy high speed internet with HSDPA and HSUPA on top of the standard Class 12 GPRS and Class 12 EDGE compatibility. Wireless connections are possible too. Further, you can also connect your mobile phone to any laptop or desktop computer with the microUSB port or via Bluetooth 3.0.

Samsung's latest flagship phone also features the Swype text entry. Instead of tapping on the onscreen QWERTY keyboard, you only have to slide your finger to the letters that you wanted to tap. The high level of accuracy makes inputting text a breeze.


Also, camera work should be splendid on the I9000 with its 5 megapixel camera that takes pictures with resolutions of up to 2592 x 1944 pixels. It can also take better-quality videos that have 30 frames per minute at 720 pixels. A secondary VGA camera is included that is perfect for video calls. Samsung has also thrown in a lot of goodies such as the autofocus, geo-tagging, touch focus, smile detection and face detection.

The I9000 has a music player that can accommodate MP3, eAAC+, AC3, FLAC and WAV files. It can also handle MP4, H.263, H.264, DivX and WMV video files. Further, the handset has a stereo FM radio built-in, image and video editor, document viewer and editor, and a flashlight.

With all these mouth-watering features, you would think that the I9000 would be a bulky handset, but it is actually at par with other smart phones and is even thinner. Measuring 122.4 mm. long by 64.2 mm. wide, this mobile phone is noticeably thinner at only 9.9 mm. thick!

The use of a Super AMOLED screen should mean more battery life for the I9000. It would take more than a month before you would need to charge your handset if you are on standby on a 2G network (24 days on 3G networks), while talk time is significantly increased to 13.5 hours on 2G networks and 6.5 hours on 3G.

Limitations

It would seem that the Samsung Galaxy S is a mobile phone of superlatives. It has the biggest screen among all Samsung phones, and the latest of Android OS's newest technologies. Sadly, it is also one of the most expensive mobile phones that are planned for this year.

On top of the prohibitive price, there are some small nuisances on the I9000 without which would have made the handset perfect. For one, its camera does not have an LED flash. It also has no free GPS navigation.

Further, the browser, great as it is, does not support Flash while the loudspeaker churns out poor quality audio.

Lastly, it is very difficult to keep your I9000 looking clean as its casing can really get covered with your fingerprints!

Reference: http://www.dialtosave.co.uk/mobile/Samsung/i9000+Galaxy+S/review/

วันพุธที่ 30 มิถุนายน พ.ศ. 2553

BlackBerry Bold 9700 Review

BlackBerry Bold 9700 review


RIM's successor to the original Bold -- the BlackBerry Bold 9700 -- has finally landed on our doorsteps. The 9000 is in many ways a hard act to follow. Hardware-wise, it lived up to its name, going where most phones never went with its retro, leathery, nearly clunky looks in an age of rounded edges and shiny curves. Don't get us wrong -- we loved the 9000's aesthetics obsessively -- which is why we couldn't wait to get our hands on its newborn child. A few questions we had in mind: would the 9700 live up to its predecessor's notoriously uncompromising fashion sense? Would the new Bold feel as good to hold and use in the hand as its loving parent? How would it stack up against other, new devices from RIM? If these are the kind of questions you think you might want answers to, read on for our impressions.

BlackBerry Bold 9700 hands-on


As we already mentioned, we were serious fans of the original Bold's hardware, and it would be pretty hard for a successor to live up to it. As far as we were concerned, it really had no close competitors in terms of mobile phone design and, you know, attitude. What we liked most about it aesthetically was its fearless defiance of conventional phone stylings at the time of its release. Faux leather and chrome edging rather than plastic all combined to produce a phone that was just a little off the beaten path, that felt substantial in our hands, and that definitely caught and kept our attention. The 9700 has kept some of those details -- there's still bits of chrome and leather here -- but it's also dropped nearly any flourish of attitude from the original design. RIM's chucked out the weird metal surrounding the camera on the back, and the full, old timey-looking leather battery cover, in favor of what essentially amounts to a Tour with an optical trackpad. Honestly, we recognize our own personal oddities, and understand that a lot of RIM's choices here favor modernization of the handset, which we heartily support. However, we also sort of wish the designers had had some exciting new ideas to add to this Bold -- but it feels like they didn't. The new Bold is all about, well, normalizing the handset and bringing it up to speed with other new RIM offerings, a la the 8520 or the Tour, as we previously mentioned.

We do, however, love the smaller, more sleek form factor of the whole package, and the device feels nice in the hand. Much more streamlined than the previous Bold, the 9700 feels light without feeling overly cheap, though it does feel a little less substantial than older BlackBerrys to us. We prefer the leather-strip on the back's feel over the slightly more rubberized Tour, and the rubberized volume rocker on the right side is preferable to the 9000's variation.



The QWERTY keyboard will be familiar to a Bold (or more recently, Tour) user, and it's worthy of our affection. Typing on it is a joy, and if you've been away from it for a while, as we had, it's just like getting back on a bicycle... it all comes back to you, and you're in love again pretty quickly. That said, the 9700 is much smaller than the 9000 or the Tour, and you'll feel that. We still don't mistype on the keyboard, but we could see the larger-handed among us feeling pretty cramped.

RIM's gone ahead and popped its new optical trackpad into the 9700, too, and this is one modernization we can really get behind. Yes, it takes a little getting used to -- but in our opinion it makes a far superior navigational tool and provides a smoother experience. Regardless, we were also big fans of the old trackball, but this is probably the right direction for RIM to move its hardware in. All of the 9700's other hardware buttons feel great and clicky, and we have no complaints about them.

The 480 x 360 display on the 9700 is up from the 480 x 320 of the original Bold, but in practical terms, it looks very much the same -- also terrifically clear, crisp and beautiful. The colors are bright, but we find ourselves wishing for a bit more screen real estate, (which is par for the course in our experiences with BlackBerrys), especially in the increasingly sad browsing experience. More on that in a moment.



The 3.2 megapixel camera (up from 2.0 on the original) is noticeably improved, with crisper images, and it responds a lot faster than the 9000 as well. They've ditched the 3x digital zoom for a 2x digital zoom, which in practice is fine with us as the extreme zoom always produced rather disappointing results, anyway.

Bold 9700 test shots





This brings us to the performance of the 9700 in terms of user experience. Although the processor is clocked at the same 624MHz as its older sibling, the 9700's obviously got some special sauce under the hood, because with no interface changes in sight, this device is much snappier overall. Navigation, which has always been pretty quick on a BlackBerry, is tightened up a bit, and we found that opening up a bunch of applications stressed our device out a lot less than the original Bold, which was sometimes inclined to give us the dreaded clock. Thankfully, we haven't seen much of the old lag here -- and the fact that the 9700 ships with BlackBerry's OS 5.0 probably helps it along a bit, too. The battery -- which RIM says gets about 6 hours of talk time -- seems like a real strong point on the phone, and is more than adequate to get through a full day's heavy use.

Call quality is good, and the volume is nice and loud, though we can't help but feel the speaker phone is a bit weaker than the 9000's, but that could just be our weakening hearing, of course. RIM says it's enhanced the browser on this newest device, and we'll admit it's a bit faster, but as we said earlier, we are left with the feeling that browsing on a BlackBerry will not be satisfactory until there's a serious updating of the software.



And, at the end of the day, that's one thing we can't get past -- serious BlackBerry enthusiasts will tell you that the interface is doing just fine, and there are plenty of reasons to get hooked on these devices. For us, however, the BlackBerry UI is showing its age, and ultimately, beautiful hardware aside, this device is essentially exactly the same as every other BlackBerry. Whether that's a good thing or not, we'll leave you to decide. The BlackBerry Bold 9700 (as you can see) is headed for T-Mobile by Black Friday, and the AT&T variety will appear on November 22nd. Both carriers are offering the handset for $199 with a 2-year contract (AT&T's deal requires a $100 mail-in rebate).

Reference: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/05/blackberry-bold-9700-hands-on-and-impressions/

วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 24 มิถุนายน พ.ศ. 2553

What are Unlocked Cell Phones ???

Some cell phones are designed to use a Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card, or microchip that stores subscriber data. The SIM card is issued by a carrier and provides cell service by activating any phone into which it is inserted. A locked phone, however, will only recognize a SIM card from a particular carrier. If the cell phone is unlocked, it will recognize a SIM card from any carrier. The "lock" is a software setting that keeps the cell phone "loyal" to one carrier.

In areas like the United States where carriers offer free or deeply discounted phones with cell plans, the phones are commonly locked so that they will not work with other carriers. Carriers claim this is necessary to subsidize the cost of the phones. After a period of time, a carrier might agree to unlock the phone upon request, perhaps charging a fee. However, due to proprietary settings sometimes installed in locked handsets, the phones don't always function correctly with other carriers, even once unlocked.

From the viewpoint of the consumer, the practice of carriers locking phones and using proprietary settings defeats many of the benefits of SIM handsets. Complaints led to a class action suit filed in California in June 2004 by American watchdog group Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR). Ideally phones should be left unlocked, or at least unlocked after the initial contract expires.

One way to get an unlocked phone without proprietary settings is to buy it new from a third party vendor in its original, unlocked state. The downside is that the price is commonly close to full retail. Some consumers might find it tough to dish out big bucks for a phone that they can get for free with a plan. The advantage is that the third party unlocked phone should work equally well with any carrier that uses SIM cards.

Unlocked cell phones are in such demand that third party services will unlock your cell phone for a fee. This doesn't guarantee the phone will always work correctly, as proprietary settings might remain. There are also hacking instructions online to unlock many models of phones, but a phone that is unlocked improperly can be rendered inoperable.

Carriers operating on the GSM network use SIM cards. In the United Sates, this includes Cingular Wireless, now one with AT&T Wireless, and T-Mobile. Carriers that use the competing CDMA network do not yet use card-enabled phones. These carriers include Sprint PCS, Verizon and Virgin Mobile. The CDMA equivalent of the SIM card — the R-UIM — will be used by these carriers in the future. R-UIM cards are already in use in some parts of Asia. Why we have to buy phones with contract, be free with these unlocked cell phones.

Reference: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-unlocked-cell-phones.htm

Google Nexus One Review

The Nexus One. In the modern climate of hyped (and over-hyped) smartphone launches, Google's official entry into the phone-sales game has excelled in a department where many find difficulty: generating legitimate excitement. Of course, long before the name Nexus One or the recent bounty of pictures and details existed, the very concept of a "Google Phone" had been ingrained in the public conscience, predating even the Open Handset Alliance and Android itself; the company dabbled in the concept of direct sales through its offering of the Android Dev Phones 1 and 2 (alias Ion), but this time, it's a public retail ordeal, not a couple of one-off developer specials. The genuine-article Google Phone is finally here -- for better or worse.

The device, a Snapdragon-powered, HTC-built phone looks -- on paper, at least -- like the ultimate Android handset, combining a newly tweaked and tightened user interface with killer industrial design. A sleek, streamlined phone that can easily go toe-to-toe with the iPhone 3GSs, Pres, and Droids of the world, powered by the latest version of Android (2.1 "Flan," if you're counting), and hand-retooled by Google. But is it all it's cracked up to be? Can the Nexus One possibly live up to the hype ascribed to it? And more importantly, is the appearance of the phone the death knell for the OHA and a sign of the coming Android autocracy? In our exclusive review of the Nexus One, we'll answer all those pressing questions and more... so read on for the full scoop!

Google Nexus One unboxing and hands-on


Note: The unit we have in hand is -- by all appearances -- a production model, save for the QR code imprint on the back, which is likely an employee-only Easter egg. However, Google is making its official announcement tomorrow, and there could always be differences. If anything changes with the device, or there are revelations about the marketing or sale of the phone, we'll be sure to update the review with new info.


Hardware

As we said in the intro -- and our previous hands-on write up -- the Nexus One is nothing if not handsome. From its ultra-thin body to sleek, curved edges, the phone is absolutely lustworthy. While it's unmistakably HTC, there are plenty of design cues that feel authentically Google as well -- and it's that balance which makes the phone such an intriguing piece of hardware.


Industrial design


When you first lay eyes on the Nexus One, you can almost hear someone at Google say something like, "Make us something as sexy as the iPhone, but let's not forget what got us here" -- "what got us here" being the G1, which Google worked tightly with HTC to create. Whether you love or hate the iPhone, it's hard to deny its obvious physical attractiveness, and it's clear that Google and HTC made strides to bring an Android handset into the same realm of base desirability that Apple's halo device occupies. For the most part, they've succeeded. The phone shape finds itself somewhere between the iPhone and Palm Pre -- taking the Pre's curved, stone-like shape and stretching it into something resembling a more standard touchscreen device (a la the Hero or Instinct). The body of the handset is comprised of what appears to the eye as two interlocking pieces, a main, dark gray housing (coated in a soft-touch treatment) which is intersected and wrapped by a lighter gray, smooth, almost metallic band. The overall effect is fluid, though we're not crazy about the choice of coloring -- we would have liked to see something a little more consistent as opposed to the two-tone, particularly when the choice of hues is this drab and familiar. Still, the shape and size of the phone is absolutely fantastic; even though the surface of the device houses a 3.7-inch display, the handset generally feels trimmer and more svelte than an iPhone, Hero, and certainly the Droid.

HTC has managed to get the thickness of the phone down to just 11.5mm, and it measures just 59.8mm and 119mm across and up and down -- kind of a feat when you consider the guts of this thing. In the hand it's a bit lighter than you expect -- though it's not straight-up light -- and the curved edges and slightly tapered top and bottom make for a truly comfortable phone to hold. On the glass-covered front of the device there are four "hardware" buttons (just touch-sensitive spots on the display) laid out exactly as the Droid's four hard keys: back, menu, home, and search. Clearly this is going to be something of a trend with Google-approved devices.

Unlike the Droid, the Nexus One has a trackball just below those buttons that should feel very familiar to Hero users -- the placement feels a bit awkward here, and there's literally nothing in the OS that requires it. Along the left side you've got a volume rocker, up top there's a sleep / wake / power button on one end, and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the other, and along the bottom there's a micro-USB port, a mic hole, and three gold dots that look destined for some kind of dock (which would jibe with what we've seen and heard). Around back you'll find the strangely pronounced 5 megapixel camera and accompanying LED flash, along with Google's Android mascot holding up a QR code -- a decidedly geeky Google touch that we expect won't make it to the final retail version. The layout of the phone is solid, though we would have liked a physical camera key (no biggie), and we actually had some real trouble with those four dedicated buttons. Hopefully it was just our review unit, but the target areas seemed to be too high on the row, and we found ourselves consistently accidentally tapping them while composing an email or text message, or missing them when we tapped a little too low. It wasn't a deal breaker, but it was definitely maddening -- especially considering that we don't have similar issues on the Droid.

Despite the minor niggles, HTC and Google have put together pretty damn good looking and feeling phone; it's not without faults, but they're pretty few and far between.


Internals

As you've heard, the Nexus One runs atop the much-hyped, rarely seen 1GHz Snapdragon CPU from Qualcomm (the same processor powering the HD2) -- really the highlight of this show. The phone also has 512MB of both RAM and ROM, but those hoping for new application storage options will find themselves out of luck yet again -- you're still limited to that small partition for app use. The display is an AMOLED, 480 x 800 capacitive touchscreen, and the handset also contains a light sensor, proximity sensor, and accelerometer, along with an HSPA-capable GSM radio (AWS and euro 2100MHz bands only for 3G -- sorry AT&T users), WiFi, the prerequisite AGPS chip, and a microSD slot (which comes loaded with a 4GB card, but is expandable to 32GB). By late-2009 / early-2010 standards, there's really nothing notable about the guts of this phone beyond the presence of a Snapdragon processor, and even that left something to be desired. The phone is fast, assuredly, but not so much of a leap up from the Droid that we felt it kept pace with the boost we were expecting. Scrolling lists and opening apps seemed speedy, but put simply, it's not a whole new Android experience (we'll talk more about this in the software section).

Display

The 3.7-inch display should be stunning -- and is for the most part -- but we did have some issues with it (at least on the unit we have). In terms of touch sensitivity, the display is as good or better than any Android phone we've used. While the resolution is high (480 x 800), it's missing 54 pixels that we expected given the size of the Droid's screen. It didn't bother us that much, but it's noticeable in certain apps -- Gmail for instance, where you have to scroll further in some menus than you do on the Droid. The big issue with the screen, though, is actually the color balance. We found colors on the Nexus One, particularly in the reds and oranges, to be severely blown-out and oversaturated -- a common effect with AMOLED displays like the Nexus One's. At first we thought Google had tweaked some of the Market settings because the highlight orange was so bright, but comparing images on the web across different displays, the Nexus One consistently looked brighter then it should have. Oh, and using this thing in daylight? Forget about it. Like most screens of this type, the Nexus One is a nightmare to see with any kind of bright light around, and snapping photos with it on a sunny day was like taking shots with your eyes closed.

Google Nexus One outdoor shots


Camera

One place where the Nexus One seems to be improving things is in the camera department. Not only has Google bumped up the speed of the camera app (which we're still not that stoked about in general), but the 5 megapixel lens and flash took sharp, detailed images with none of the HTC-related issues we've seen on other models. The focus of the lens was super speedy, and images came out looking more or less as we'd hoped. The flash felt a bit stark at times, but given its size, we didn't lose too much sleep over it. One place where Google has really made some smart decisions is within the Gallery application. Instead of the drab, flat iterations of Android past, the new version is extremely attractive and user friendly, giving you far more options than before (like a nice pan and scan slideshow) and making browsing photos a much more enjoyable experience.

Nexus One camera shots



Telephony / data / earpiece and speaker


As a phone, the Nexus One isn't dramatically different than most GSM devices you've probably used. In terms of earpiece quality and volume, it's certainly on par with its contemporaries, providing a loud, reasonably clean talking experience, though it doesn't touch the Droid in terms of call clarity and evenness. The loudspeaker, on the other hand, seemed extremely tinny to our ears, making for a pretty unpleasant companion for conference calls, with the midrange cutting through in a way that could be painful at times. We'd be inclined to blame that issue on the extremely thin housing here, but it's hard to say what the real culprit is. As far as connections and 3G pickup, the Nexus fared as well as our iPhone did when traveling, but -- surprise, surprise -- neither of these could touch Verizon. For instance, at JFK airport, we had no trouble placing calls on the Droid, but both the Nexus One and iPhone were completely incommunicado. When we hit the ground in Las Vegas however (you know, for a little event called CES 2010), 3G seemed to function as we might have hoped. In a few cases, T-Mobile did seem to be hanging onto a signal a bit better than AT&T was, and in a browser test between the two, even though the iPhone ended up with a slightly faster load time, the Nexus One pulled down initial content considerably quicker. In all, we averaged download speeds of around 559Kbps on the phone -- about where we expected things to be.

Software

Now, the big story with the Nexus One (besides how it's being sold -- we'll get to that in a minute) has been the rumored alterations or updates Google has made with Android 2.1. There's been talk that this is somehow the "real Android," a suggestion that other, earlier versions weren't true to Google's mold. There's been talk that the Nexus One is worth the hype, and will blow people away when they see what this version of Android can do. Mostly, there's been a lot of talk. So, what's really the story here?

Well the real story is that Android 2.1 is in no way dramatically different than the iteration of the OS which is currently running on the Motorola Droid (2.0.1). In fact, there is so little that's different in the software here, we were actually surprised. Of the notable changes, many are cosmetic -- if there are major underlying differences between this OS and the one on the Droid, we can't see what they are. Still, there ARE changes, so here's a peek at just what Google has cooked up for the new phone.

Firstly, the place where Google really seems to have put a lot of its energies has been in the look and feel of homescreen navigation. Obviously the feedback the company has gotten is shaping the next steps on Android's path, and as anyone who has used Android will tell you, the homescreen situation was kind of a mess. In 2.1, Google has jettisoned key chunks of the established Android paradigm for how to get around its device. Most noticeably, the company has killed the sliding drawer which used to house all of your application icons -- the tab is replaced with a handy "home" icon which zooms in your icons over top of whatever homescreen you're on. You can scroll up and down through those icons, which is now accompanied by a cute 3D animation where the items slide over the top and bottom edge, like wrapping a piece of paper around the side of a table. It's nice, but not necessarily functional in any way. Google has also added a little bounce to the menu, in keeping with its contemporaries' love of physics.


Additionally Google has expanded the number of homescreens accessible from three to five (following a precedent set by skins like Sense and BLUR), adding a combo of webOS and iPhone style dots to help you keep track of where you're situated. If you long press on those dots, you get a kind of "card" view of all your homescreens which you can use for quick jumps. All of the homescreen improvements are just that -- improvements -- and it's nice to see Google thinking about a user's first impression of this device. Not only do these additions bolster the look and feel of the UI, but they're actually sensible and helpful solutions to problems which Google had heretofore approached in an obtuse way.

Elsewhere, there are nips and tucks that are welcome, such as the improved Gallery application we mentioned previously, which seems to be one of the few areas actually tapping into the Snapdragon's horsepower. But Google stumbles as well; the dated and always-underwhelming music player has undergone almost zero change, and the soft keyboard -- while better than previous models -- can still be inaccurate. Of course, Google wants to provide another option for text input that we haven't seen before the Nexus One. Now included when the keyboard pops up is an option to use the company's speech-to-text engine, which will (attempt) to translate your words into onscreen text. Our experiments with the technology were marginally successful, but we don't see this being a big part of our communications game until the audio recognition gets a little more robust. It might work for an occasional SMS where use of the Queen's English isn't a priority.

One other thing. As we mentioned in our impressions post, there's no multitouch on the Nexus One. Now, we can live with a browser or Google Maps with no pinch-to-zoom, but not having a hardware keyboard hamstrings this device in other ways. For instance, gaming on the phone is pretty much abysmal save for a few accelerometer-based titles. And some of our favorite software, such as Nesoid (an NES emulator) is a total dead. For a phone which uses touch input as its main vehicle for navigation, relegating that experience to a single digit is really kind of bogus. There were plenty of times when using the Nexus One (and this does happen with other Android devices as well, but it's pronounced here) where we felt not just bummed that you could only use one point of contact, but actually a little angry. Why won't Google open this up? Why have they kept what has become a normal and quite useful manner of interaction away from their devices? Only Eric Schmidt knows for sure. What it made us realize, however, is that an Android phone is really better off with a keyboard, and we were longing to get back to the Droid a number of times while using this device.

Battery life

We haven't had a lot of time to spend with the phone just yet (you may have heard, it's been a bit hard to get ahold of), but from what we've seen, the battery performs admirably. Thus far we haven't had any major shockers when it came to power drain, and that AMOLED screen seems to go easy on things even when cranked up to a pretty stark setting. That said, we did see a dip when taking long calls, which indicates that this might not be a charge-free device day to day if you've got some serious gossip to dish. We're going to be running some more tests this week to see how the phone performs over a lengthier stretch of time, and we'll let you guys know how it fares.

Pricing and availability

As of this writing, all we have on the Nexus One in terms of pricing and sales plans comes to us in the form of leaked documents and tipster screenshots. That said, if everything falls into line the way we think it should, the sale of the phone won't be the kind of barnstorming industry shakeup that many predicted -- rather, it's business as usual, with one small difference. While the phone is manufactured by HTC and destined for use on T-Mobile's network, Google will be the one doing the selling of the device. By all appearances, the company will have a new phone portal where buyers can pick between an unsubsidized, unlocked Nexus One for $529.99, or sign up for a two-year agreement with T-Mobile and purchase the phone for $179.99. This shouldn't seem strange or exciting to anyone who's recently bought a smartphone -- it's pretty much the lay of the land right now. Previous to the documents we'd seen, the hope was that Google had found some ingenious ad-supported way to get this phone into consumer's hands for a low, seemingly subsidized price but without the shackles of a contract or specific carrier -- but those plans seem have been either invented, or somehow dashed.

Wrap-up

Never mind the Nexus One itself for a moment -- there's a bigger picture here, and it might spell a fundamental change for the direction of Android as a platform. Whereas Google had originally positioned itself as a sort of patron saint for Android -- sending it off into the cold world to be nourished and advanced in a totally transparent way by the widely-supported Open Handset Alliance -- it has instead taken a deeply active role and has elected to maintain some semblance of secrecy as it moves from pastry-themed version to version. In general, that approach isn't necessarily a bad thing for device variety, functionality, and availability, but the way Android's evolution in particular has gone down certainly seems like a bait-and-switch from an outsider's view. Take Motorola and Verizon, for example: what had seemed like a deep, tight partnership literally just weeks ago with the announcement of Eclair and the selection of the Droid / Milestone as 2.0's launch platform has taken a distant back seat just as quickly as it rose to the top. In a word, Google is plunging head-first into the dangerous game Microsoft has adamantly sought to avoid all these years on WinMo: competing head-to-head with its valued (well, supposedly valued) partners. Whether Android risks losing support over manufacturers and carriers being treated like pieces of meat remains to be seen, but realistically, Motorola (which has very publicly gone all-in with Mountain View over the past year) and others are likely to grin and bear it as long as the platform pays the bills -- no matter how awkward competing with the company that writes your kernel and huge swaths of your shell might be.

Industry politics aside, though, the Nexus One is at its core just another Android smartphone. It's a particularly good one, don't get us wrong -- certainly up there with the best of its breed -- but it's not in any way the Earth-shattering, paradigm-skewing device the media and community cheerleaders have built it up to be. It's a good Android phone, but not the last word -- in fact, if we had to choose between this phone or the Droid right now, we would lean towards the latter. Of course, if Google's goal is to spread Android more wide than deep, maybe this is precisely the right phone at the right time: class-leading processor, vibrant display, sexy shell, and just a sprinkling of geekiness that only Google could pull off this effortlessly.


Reference: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/nexus-one-review/