December 2008 Archives

It's not Wal-Mart who's going to bring you a $99 8GB iPhone but it's AT&T. And it's not a 4GB version but an 8GB version that AT&T is going to sell for $99. How's that possible you ask? Those 8GB iPhone 3G are refurbished ones. They will come with a 2-year contract and the $100 discount I've just told you about.

And in case your mind keeps wondering about refurbished 16GB iPhones then you'll be happy to know AT&T will offer you the same $100 discount for them. A $16GB iPhone 3G with a 2-year contract will sell for $199. Just make sure you check the iPhone you're going to choose! You wouldn't want it damaged in any way!

via AT&T

We weren't expecting this to happen, especially after Christmas but it looks like Microsoft, Apple and Google will be sued by a little company from Michigan called Cygnus Systems. Why? Cygnus Systems holds on to patent US 7,346,850 called "System and method for iconic software environment management." The abstract of the patent describes "a method and system for storing, navigating, and accessing files within an operating system through the use of a graphical thumbnail representing the video display of the active document within the active application."

This patent which happens to describes features which are similar to Windows Explorer or Apple Finder was awarded to Cygnus in March 2008 despite being filed in 2001.

In other words, Cygnus' patent describes features similar to those of Windows Explorer and Apple's Finder. Will Microsoft, Google and Apple pay the price for their icons system? Probably they will. I don't want to imagine the alternative.

via ArsTechnica

Now here is a laptop that packs quite a punch but doesn't exactly break the bank. Acer has recently announced it's new Aspire 8930G.

Under the hood is a Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000 2GHz processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a GeForce 9700M GT complete with 512MB of video RAM, a 500GB hard drive and Vista Home Premium.

Also included is a Blu-ray/DVD Super Multi combo burner, WiFi connectivity, an 18.4 inch 1920x1080 LCD display with webcam, 6-in-1 media card reader and Dolby Home Theater sound.

All of this packed into the neat little package above for $1,799.99. Not bad

Read (BusinessWire)

If you still believe in Philips phones than you should take a look at the new Philips Xenium 9@9q Dragon and Phoenix which are here for the holidays. The phones look good but that's pretty much all you can expect from them. The two clamshell phones will offer you about 1 month of standy time and up to 8 hours of talk time. Both also have a cool external display which will show you unread messages, missed calls and battery power. The phones cost 4999 Russian rubles or $172. A little too expensive for what it has to offer.

via Mobile-Review

Nokia 6208c is inspired from the 6708, the first touchscreen phone with a built-in keypad. And now the handset has been displayed on the Chinese site of Nokia. It will sport Nokia's S40 OS and it will have both the full alphanumeric keypad and a 2.4 inch touschreen display. We don't know if it's a capacitive or resistive screen but the stylus present will suggest it's a resistive one.

Other specs include tri-band EGSM 900/1800/1900, Bluetooth 2.0, support for tethering, a 3.2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom and dual-LED flash and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The phone will be available in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, India, the Middle East and North Africa but the price hasn't been revealed yet.

The Samsung i8510 Innov8 might be closer to us than we think. The phone has just passed through the FCC and North American customers might see it arrive from AT&T and/or Rogers soon. The American model will come with dual 850/1900 3G support which means you will have great data support in case you want to mail lots of photos taken with that 8 megapixel camera. As always, we don't have expected arrival dates or pricing just yet.

via fcc

It feels like only yesterday I was telling you about the last Nokia 8800. Oh, wait a minute, I did do that! Nokia 8800 Gold Arte was the last 8800 we knew about at the time. Today however we found out there's a Goldstriker 8800 from Nokia. The Princess Edition will be released in January and it will cost £12,000. I guess those 8.2 carat diamonds, the platinum and the leather finish are pretty expensive. Make sure you head to Paris at the Colette store to get a Princess Edition when it will be available next year.

[caption id="attachment_22380" align="alignleft" width="125" caption="Motorola Krave ZN4"][/caption]

Released earlier this fall, Motorola's Krave ZN4 from Verizon Wireless joins a strong crowd of competitors in the U.S. touch screen phone market. Unlike the Apple iPhone or the latest BlackBerry Storm, the Krave is no smartphone, but it offers features and design that is unique in its own right.M

The Krave touts not one, but two innovative touch screens, a one-of-a-kind design and superior multimedia services including live television from Verizon's VCAST Mobile TV, Rhapsody music service and the VZ Navigator GPS application.
Despite being a flip phone, the Krave's transparent cover only enhances the phone's vibrant 2.8-inch TFT LCD screen underneath. Additional highlights include a 2.0-megapixel camera, MP3 music player software, 3.5mm headset jack, full QWERTY keyboard and Bluetooth 2.0

Looking for a cute phone for your lady? LG has just introduced a new phone for here. The "make-up" phone or the LG-SH490 has a shiny colored case with various designs. It comes with a 2.4 inch QVGA internal display and a 1.1 inch external display. The 3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, music and video playing capabilities and the 512MB of internal memory are all under this clamshell's case. The phone will be available in three colors with fancy names: Smoky Red, Deep Blue and Pearl White. There's no word on pricing and availability although we heard SK Telecom is going to launch it soon.

via Akihabaranews

Are you a Blackberry fan? Cause I know I am! I totally dig the cool way RIM have allowed us to mix pleasure with business when it created these highly new intelligent handsets. The only problem is there are now too many to choose from. How do you know what the best pick is eventually? Do you happen to have an old one and would like to swap it with a brand new one over the holidays, but just don't know which one to pick? The Storm is really amazing with its features and functionality, and all that is achieved without the usual QWERTY keyboard. The Curve 8900 which is a definite upgraded version of the former Blackberry phones is a dependable smartphone for anyone that would like an old fashion keyboard to play with.

Take a quick glance at this video, where the two are being compared and it might help you solve your dilemma. It could be a little longer but then again size doesn't matter, does it?

Samsung has launched a new clamshell phone, the SCH-W690 which will be available in South Korea from SK Telecom soon.

The phone comes in black and white and it features a 2.6 internal AMOLED screen which supports 240x320 pixels and 262K colors and an external 1.5 inch OLED display which supports 128x128 pixels and 65K colors. The W690 will get you GSM and HSDPA connectivity, GPS and Bluetooth, an MP3 player and 2 megapixel camera.

How much will it cost? We don't know that yet. Will it arrive to any other markets? We'll just keep our eyes peeled for you.

via Samsung Korea

There's this little teaser site with Dell written all over it that says a future laptop is going to be even lighter and thinner than the lightest of them all so far, the MacBook Air. Is Apple ready to get a competitor for that share of the market?

The Adamo might be the future laptop of choice for someone interested in an Air-like experience. What we can say for sure is that Dell's version of a thin laptop will be way cheaper than Apple's Air. We have no idea when this notebook is going to be released but we're hoping 2009.

via NYTimes

The folks over at PureMobile.com sent us a BlackBerry Pearl Flip for review.

The first time the phone was turned on, it took nearly 1 minute, 35 seconds for the BlackBerry OS to boot up.. After navigating through the initial setup (language, date/time, and introduction to using the QWERTY keyboard on the Pearl), I finally reached the main screen.

The Phone

Let's start with a phone call - from the main screen, I simply started dialing the numbers. Now I don't know if there was an issue with this particular phone or it's an issue with all Pearl Flips, there's a definite delay between the time the key is pressed and the keypad tone is played back. It's a minor thing, but for someone used to Nokia phones pretty much all my mobile life, it was kind of annoying.

The speaker on the phone was pretty crisp and clear, and the speakerphone was pretty great. In fact, the speakerphone is, arguably, better than most phones including the iPhone (on which it generally sucks). Build quality is rather nice, although when you keep it in your pocket, it seems a bit bulky - which is most likely because it's a flip. As with the original Pearl, typing on the new-ish keyboard on the flip phone is something that old-school crackberries may have to adjust to.

Contacts

How long does it take to add a contact? At the minimum, a contact with a name and phone number takes approximately 4 minutes. Reason? Here are a few UI bloopers:

1. The dictionary seems to be turned on when adding the contact's name. Which annoyingly pops up suggestions when I don't want it to. Not everyone has a generic name, see.
2. When adding a contact, the order of the fields is as follows:
   • Title
   • First name
   • Last name
   • Picture
   • Company
   • Job Title
   • Email
   • Work phone (<-- FINALLY); granted, the BlackBerry is primarily a business user's phone. But look at the distance (in scrolling) between adding the contact's name and phone number - it's ridiculous! This is supposed to be a phone, damn it.

Text messaging

After the contact adding episode, I was hesitant to try sending a text SMS. Thankfully, this was simpler, although when in the 'Compose an SMS' screen, when I entered the recipient's phone number (instead of selecting from a contact), it initially filled up junk characters but gave me the option to choose the number that I typed.

Synchronization

As always, sync works beautifully with the BlackBerry Desktop Manager - no questions asked. I was able to sync my contacts and email and the phone was up and running. It is also seamless to add and update your applications with the Desktop Manager.

Camera

Yes, the Pearl Flip has an on-board camera. It's a 2 megapixel one, and not too great at that. Then again, you don't want your mobile workforce to be clicking away at everything in sight, so it's probably fine.

The Browser

The BlackBerry Pearl Flip comes with both a full-fledged browser and a WAP browser. I'm pretty sure you'd like to read more about the former, so here it goes. Now, T-Mobile's EDGE network is not the best network out there, and the Pearl Flip does not support 3G, so that's the best I could use for testing. The T-Mobile co-branded browser loads the default T-Mobile page, featuring a few news sources and Yahoo! search.

The column mode available on the browser lets you see the entire page in a single column, which is convenient at times. However the browser was nothing to write home about - it seemed sluggish, and things did not vastly improve when I switched to Wi-Fi. You're better off with Opera on this one.

Business User

The Pearl Flip, despite its keyboard, is made for the business user like any other BlackBerry and therefore comes with support for adding various email accounts including POP3, IMAP, Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange. IM client support is also pre-installed, with Yahoo Messenger, MSN Live Messenger, Google Talk and AIM on board.

Extras

The phone we received had a few games pre-installed, including Texas Hold'Em King 2, BrickBreaker and Sudoku. There was also the Facebook application for BlackBerry, which failed to load with a message from T-Mobile stating that "Your rate plan does not support this feature." Obviously because I wasn't on a BlackBerry data plan but a regular data plan.

Conclusion

Overall, I liked the phone - except for the boot up time. Plus, I am still not very comfortable with SureType but with a few more days of practice, it should come easy. No support for 3G means you would have to use Wi-Fi more often - draining your battery faster.

Whack Rating: 7.5/10

Buy the Blackberry Pearl 8220 Flip (unlocked) from PureMobile

So it's PMPs you want for Christmas isn't it? Well we heard Samsung does PMPs too. In fact the Yepp YP-P3 PMP should be coming soon. In the mean time Korea is the place where the PMP has been launched well ahead of CES 2009.

Here's what you can expect from Samsung's Yepp YP-P3 PMP:

• 3-inch, 480 x 272 touchscreen


• haptic feedback


• new Flash-based UI


• customizable widgets


• Bluetooth with A2DP


• 30-hour audio playback battery life.

via DAPreview

We've seen quite a few mobile phones covered in gold, like the Vertu Boucheron, the Gold Edition of Motorola A1600, and the 18-Karat Gold LG Iron Man Phone, but the ugliest one is certainly the Givori Nefertiti.

The cellphone is only available in Dubai and costs close to $4,500. What makes it special is the cover that includes crystals, and 24 carat gold. To make it even more special, only 50 units were created so there isn't a big chance of getting your hands on one. Other than the price and gold, the handset is similar to a Nokia mixed with Pirates of the Caribbean.

Telus seems to be on a roll lately, and on top of the recently launched Blackberry Storm, they've added a Motorola handset entitled V750 to their growing catalog. One of the positive points of this Motorola phone is meeting the US Military specifications for special conditions, which means it can resist to sand, dust, humidity, rain, and more.

In terms of features, the Motorola V750 will come with a 2-megapixel camera, slot for memory cards that can hold 8GB of audio, a 2.5mm earphone jack to listen to all the music, and a display screen that provides a resolution of 240x320 pixels. As for the price, $200 with 3-year contract, $300 for 2-year contract, $350 with a 1-year contract, and finally the non-contract version costs $400.

Well then iDEN fans will definitely love this release. Sprint Nextel launched the BlackBerry Curve 8350i so if you are a push-to-talk person, you should definitely check it out. This RIM smartphone will wear OS 4.6 and it will have WiFi and GPS support. It has a 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.0 and microSDHC support. It comes with International Direct Connect and Talkgroup support and it will get you talking to your friends in no time. The full QWERTY keyboard is right there of course and the 1400 mAH battery is removable. The phone is available for $149.99 with a two year contract and it should be your first choice when choosing push-to-talk smartphone.
Danny Bowman, president of Nextel Direct Connect said:

The BlackBerry Curve 8350i smartphone is the most recent example of our solid commitment to iDEN technology and our Nextel Direct Connect customers. The BlackBerry Curve 8350i smartphone is designed for customers who require instant convenient push-to-talk services to communicate with friends and family as well as with employees, customers and suppliers. The BlackBerry Curve 8350i is a premium smartphone that strikes a perfect balance between performance and usability.

via Press

The iDEN ready BlackBerry 8350i Curve has been released by Spring Nextel today and coincidentally the same day Motorola i9 pictures appeared around the web. The phone should be released soon by Sprint Nextel as this is another iDEN ready phone.

The i9 is a clamshell phone which will feature a 3 megapixel camera with auto focus and flash, ModeShift and GPS and push-to-talk services. Feeling lucky? Will it be released before Christmas? We are yet to find out!

Neoi 906E seems to be the hottest piece of technology in the QWERTY galaxy. As you have gotten used to seeing at least nice-looking gadgets over here, I don't really know how you'll find this particular item. As the motto on the picture says, this is ''The Worlds...'' whatever whatever whatever as far as it's something really cool.

So what we could add would be the first, thinnest, most wonderful, most calculator-like full QWERTY phone. Leaving jokes aside, this thingy here is actually a sort of, way smallish Java J2Me hand phone, with GSM/GPRS particles, multimedia features, a MP3 Player, a camera, and a microSD slot. Unfortunately for all those of you who have been impressed by this handset, there is no official release date, so you'll know when it arrives immediately after we do!

Asus has a new Eee Box for you to play with. It's the Eee Box B203 which will sport a new Intel Celeron processor, the C220. Besides the processor we have Windows XP Home, 2GB RAM and about 160GB of storage space. Nothing new besides the C220 right? The price should go down about 30 Euro, but we're going to confirm that later.

via eeepc.it

Pantech C630 is the new cellphone that will become available at AT&T on December 12th, in other words, tomorrow.

This is the third basic cellphone for today, because we've already mentioned the ZTE C78 and the Alcatel 206, but at least all of them have low prices, which in this case is $40 after signing a 2-year contract. In terms of specifications, the Pantech C630 has a microSD slot to expand its small internal memory, a 1.3-megapixel camera, bluetooth, 3G, and finally an unusual feature - GPS.

Besides the Storm which created lots of buzz lately, RIM has other Berries ready for the grabbing. Such a BlackBerry is the 8900 Curve which is available from Rogers.

The smartphone features a 2.4 inch screen that senses the light around it, a 512MHz processor, quad-band EDGE, WiFi, a 3.2 megapixel camera, GPS, a microSDHC card slot, Bluetooth 2.0 and a removable battery. Yes, there's no 3G unfortunately. The 8900 Curve will cost $179.99 with an interminably 3-year long plan. Better get a Storm you say?

Motorola has released a new clamshell phone in Australia. The EM330 is available for just $99 and you'll find it your local Virgin store.

The EM330 might be the perfect phone for your musical needs. It has touch-sensitive keys which appear only when needed to help you control that music player without actually opening the phone. The phone comes with a built-in audio equalizer and with preset settings for 11 types of music. There's mono FM recording which will let you record parts of your favorite songs and turn them into ringtones. With FMShare you can share you favorite radio stations with your friends.

Besides the music capabilities the phone comes with a 1.3 megapixel camera, a 3.5mm universal jack, stereo Bluetooth and Motorola's CrystalTalk technology.

via Press

Nokia 2605 is the new cellphone available at Verizon Wireless. The clamshell phone is also known as Mirage, and additional X-press-on snaps can be bought so the device can have different looks: flowers, animals, and stripes are the 3 options.

In terms of technology the simple Nokia 2605 has bluetooth, a built-in speaker for when you decide to do handsfree calls, voice recognition, and an internal and external screen. Priced at $50 with a 2-year contract and mail-in rebate of $50, and available on January 2009.

On top of the RoverPC P6 and P7 that we already mentioned on the past, there is a new smartphone this time entitled G7.

The RoverPC G7 runs with a 624MHz processor, and has 128MB of RAM memory. The internal storage capacity is only 256MB but that can be expanded with the help of a microSD memory card. The quad-band phone uses Windows Mobile 6.1 as the operative system, and obviously it comes with WiFi.

Lastly, the G7 has a GPS receiver and some software to check locations, view info about traffic cameras, and supply a detour rote.