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Monday, November 29, 2010
Micromax Andro A60
For More Info : http://devdimension.com/?p=801
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Infibeam Phi Review
Infibeam Phi Review – Windows and Android Tablets
Since the Apple iPad launch, many manufacturers have been planning to launch their own tablets. Some, like the HP Slate, have been cancelled, some have been delayed while some are slated to launch soon.
Notion Ink, the original Indian tablet, was one of the most anticipated tablets since its announcement about an year back. However, its launch has been delayed to the end of 2010.
However, there is still hope – After launching its own ebook reader – the Infibeam Pi and mobile phone range, Infibeam has now announced its own Tablet – the Infibeam Phi
Infibeam Phi Preview – Windows and Android
The Infibeam Phi will be available in two versions – the Infibeam Windows Phi and the Infibeam Android Phi.
The hardware specifications of both the Windows and Android version are similar. They comes with 8 GB internal memory (with support for upto 32 GB memory cards), a 7 inch TFT touchscreen display with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and come with the Windows CE / Android OS. They support both Wi-Fi and USB connectivity. THe Phi has dimensions of 225 x 175 x 75mm and weighs around 180 grams.
Both of them will have image, audio and video support. You can buy ebooks from Infibeam directly on these devices. The Windows Phi comes with Microsoft Office and GPS while the Android Phi is supposed to support the Android Market. Both the versions are supposed to have a battery life of around 5-6 hours with moderate usage. (1800 mAh Li-ion battery)
Infibeam Phi Price and Availability
Both the Windows Phi and the Android Phi will be available for Rs. 14,999 ($330) with a 1 year warranty and will be available on 30th July 2010.
Preorder – Infibeam Android Phi and Infibeam Windows Phi
Infibeam Android Phi
Infibeam Windows Phi
Since the Apple iPad launch, many manufacturers have been planning to launch their own tablets. Some, like the HP Slate, have been cancelled, some have been delayed while some are slated to launch soon.
Notion Ink, the original Indian tablet, was one of the most anticipated tablets since its announcement about an year back. However, its launch has been delayed to the end of 2010.
However, there is still hope – After launching its own ebook reader – the Infibeam Pi and mobile phone range, Infibeam has now announced its own Tablet – the Infibeam Phi
Infibeam Phi Preview – Windows and Android
The Infibeam Phi will be available in two versions – the Infibeam Windows Phi and the Infibeam Android Phi.
The hardware specifications of both the Windows and Android version are similar. They comes with 8 GB internal memory (with support for upto 32 GB memory cards), a 7 inch TFT touchscreen display with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and come with the Windows CE / Android OS. They support both Wi-Fi and USB connectivity. THe Phi has dimensions of 225 x 175 x 75mm and weighs around 180 grams.
Both of them will have image, audio and video support. You can buy ebooks from Infibeam directly on these devices. The Windows Phi comes with Microsoft Office and GPS while the Android Phi is supposed to support the Android Market. Both the versions are supposed to have a battery life of around 5-6 hours with moderate usage. (1800 mAh Li-ion battery)
Infibeam Phi Price and Availability
Both the Windows Phi and the Android Phi will be available for Rs. 14,999 ($330) with a 1 year warranty and will be available on 30th July 2010.
Preorder – Infibeam Android Phi and Infibeam Windows Phi
Infibeam Android Phi
Infibeam Windows Phi
Sony Playstation PSP Phone Review: First Look and Specifications
Sony Playstation PSP Phone Review: First Look and Specifications
It seems like the rumored PSP phone by Sony wasn’t a rumor after all. It’s very real, and it’s awesome. Engadget, today, revealed some detailed images and specifications of the soon-to-be-launched Sony Playstation phone.
Sony Playstation PSP Phone Review: Specifications
It will sport a horizontal slider design with a 4.1 inch touchscreen display and a sliding control pad. It will run Android 3.0 Gingerbread and will support both the Android Market and a custom Sony Marketplace which will offer games designed specifically for the PSP phone.
It will be powered by a 1 GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor with 512 MB RAM. It has a 1 GB ROM and supports microSD cards. It will likely launch in Q1 2011, though a late 2010 holiday release seems plausible too.
Finally an awesome Android phone to replace my aging PSP and not-so-smart Symbian phone. The perfect device for all gaming geeks. Definitely my next phone (For real, this time).
For more details, head over to Engadget.
Note: I hope the Apple-Sony buyout deal doesn’t happen now, as we all know what the fate of this phone will be, if that deal does go through.
It seems like the rumored PSP phone by Sony wasn’t a rumor after all. It’s very real, and it’s awesome. Engadget, today, revealed some detailed images and specifications of the soon-to-be-launched Sony Playstation phone.
Sony Playstation PSP Phone Review: Specifications
It will sport a horizontal slider design with a 4.1 inch touchscreen display and a sliding control pad. It will run Android 3.0 Gingerbread and will support both the Android Market and a custom Sony Marketplace which will offer games designed specifically for the PSP phone.
It will be powered by a 1 GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor with 512 MB RAM. It has a 1 GB ROM and supports microSD cards. It will likely launch in Q1 2011, though a late 2010 holiday release seems plausible too.
Finally an awesome Android phone to replace my aging PSP and not-so-smart Symbian phone. The perfect device for all gaming geeks. Definitely my next phone (For real, this time).
For more details, head over to Engadget.
Note: I hope the Apple-Sony buyout deal doesn’t happen now, as we all know what the fate of this phone will be, if that deal does go through.
Intel core i7 Vs core 2 duo
With the launch of the new Core i7 (Nehalem) processors by Intel, there are many doubts regarding the Difference between Intel Core i7 and Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors. In this post, I will try to list all the differences and also reasons why the new Core i7 architecture is much better
than the Core 2 architecture.
Fabrication: 45 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1366
Bus: Quick Path Interconnect
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: X58
Codenamed: Conroe, Allendale, Wolfdale – Core 2
Fabrication: 65 nm / 45 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.1
Socket: LGA 775
Bus: 1333 MHz FSB
RAM: DDR2
Chipset Support: 965, P3x, G3x, P45, X48
The Core i7 is a completely new architecture which is much faster and more efficient than the Core 2 Duo. Currently only the Core i7 920, 945 and 965 XE versions are available. Of that the Core i7 920 is available at just $284 which makes it a great buy. It offers better performance than almost all Core 2 Duo processors.
Native Quad Core, More Cache and Hyper Threading:
All the Core i7 processors are Native Quad cores (4 cores), which means that they actually have 4 cores on a single die, while the older Core 2 Duo processors like the Q6600 (2×2 = 4 cores) had two cores on a single die, and two such dies merged together. This increases the processing speed greatly. They also have 256 KB L2 cache per core and a shared 8 MB L3 cache which has proven to be much better than any cache configuration in Core 2 Duo.
It also has HyperThreading support which means that each of the 4 cores can process 2 threads simultaneously, so you get 8 virtual cores. This helps in running many applications parallely and also in gaming.
Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) and On Die Memory Controller:
The Core i7 processors sport the new Quick Path Interconnect technology which replaces the FSB (Front Side Bus) to connect the various components in a computer. QPI is much faster than FSB and hence improves the overall performance. It is even faster than AMD’s similar HyperTransport 3.0 standard.
The Core i7 have an On Die Memory Controller which means that it can access memory much faster than the Core 2 Duo processors which had an external memory controller. Intel has borrowed this feature from AMD. All the four cores, memory controller, cache are on the same die which improves the speed and performance greatly.
than the Core 2 architecture.
Intel Core i7
Codenamed: Bloomfield – NehalemFabrication: 45 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1366
Bus: Quick Path Interconnect
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: X58
Intel Core 2 Duo
Codenamed: Conroe, Allendale, Wolfdale – Core 2Fabrication: 65 nm / 45 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.1
Socket: LGA 775
Bus: 1333 MHz FSB
RAM: DDR2
Chipset Support: 965, P3x, G3x, P45, X48
Explanation:
(Difference between Intel Core i7 and Core 2 Duo)
-The Core i7 is a completely new architecture which is much faster and more efficient than the Core 2 Duo. Currently only the Core i7 920, 945 and 965 XE versions are available. Of that the Core i7 920 is available at just $284 which makes it a great buy. It offers better performance than almost all Core 2 Duo processors.
Native Quad Core, More Cache and Hyper Threading:
All the Core i7 processors are Native Quad cores (4 cores), which means that they actually have 4 cores on a single die, while the older Core 2 Duo processors like the Q6600 (2×2 = 4 cores) had two cores on a single die, and two such dies merged together. This increases the processing speed greatly. They also have 256 KB L2 cache per core and a shared 8 MB L3 cache which has proven to be much better than any cache configuration in Core 2 Duo.
It also has HyperThreading support which means that each of the 4 cores can process 2 threads simultaneously, so you get 8 virtual cores. This helps in running many applications parallely and also in gaming.
Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) and On Die Memory Controller:
The Core i7 processors sport the new Quick Path Interconnect technology which replaces the FSB (Front Side Bus) to connect the various components in a computer. QPI is much faster than FSB and hence improves the overall performance. It is even faster than AMD’s similar HyperTransport 3.0 standard.
The Core i7 have an On Die Memory Controller which means that it can access memory much faster than the Core 2 Duo processors which had an external memory controller. Intel has borrowed this feature from AMD. All the four cores, memory controller, cache are on the same die which improves the speed and performance greatly.
intel core i3 vs i5 vs i7
Intel Core i3 vs Core i5 vs Core i7 Comparison- The Difference
This post explains the difference between the Intel Core i3, Core i5 and the Core i7 processors.
Intel Core i3
Codenamed: Clarkdale (Westmere)
Fabrication: 32 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1156
Bus: Direct Media Interface
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: P55, H55, H57, Q57
Intel Core i5
Codenamed: Lynnfield (Nehalem), Clarkdale (Westmere)
Fabrication: 45 nm, 32 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1156
Bus: Direct Media Interface
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: P55, H55, H57, Q57
Intel Core i7
Codenamed: Bloomfield (Nehalem)
Fabrication: 45 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1366
Bus: Quick Path Interconnect
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: X58
Intel has classified the Core processor range into Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7. Both the cost and the performance goes on increasing as you move from Core i3 to Core i7.
This post explains the difference between the Intel Core i3, Core i5 and the Core i7 processors.
Intel Core i3
Codenamed: Clarkdale (Westmere)
Fabrication: 32 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1156
Bus: Direct Media Interface
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: P55, H55, H57, Q57
Intel Core i5
Codenamed: Lynnfield (Nehalem), Clarkdale (Westmere)
Fabrication: 45 nm, 32 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1156
Bus: Direct Media Interface
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: P55, H55, H57, Q57
Intel Core i7
Codenamed: Bloomfield (Nehalem)
Fabrication: 45 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1366
Bus: Quick Path Interconnect
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: X58
Intel has classified the Core processor range into Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7. Both the cost and the performance goes on increasing as you move from Core i3 to Core i7.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
NFS: Hot Pursuit (PC) To Be Patched Next Week
While console gamers are enjoying the crap out of EA’s latest Need for Speed title, it seems PC gamers (once again) are having a miserable time with a crappy port. While I personally haven’t played the PC version I’ve heard it suffers from erratic frame rates, no aliasing options and other issues that hamper the experience.
PC gamers, it seems your prayers and abuses have not gone unanswered as Criterion are busy working on a patch that should smoothen out all your issues by early next week. Here’s what it brings to the table according to a post from one of the game’s developers on the official forums:
PC gamers can hopefully experience the Need for Speed by next week
PC gamers, it seems your prayers and abuses have not gone unanswered as Criterion are busy working on a patch that should smoothen out all your issues by early next week. Here’s what it brings to the table according to a post from one of the game’s developers on the official forums:
- Fixed issues where the game would crash on Car Select, Map Screen, Loading screen or just at the start of an event
- Missing Rain / Snow and Corona effects have been fixed
- CL Eye Driver crashing the game on startup has been fixed
- Corrupted Dreamshots in non 16:9 aspect ratios has been fixed
- D-BOX motion chair support has now been added
LG GT350 Town
The GT350 could very easily be categorized as a Cookie Series device but instead it’s been called the Town. The reason for this eludes me. It’s a mid-low end device that’s designed for the avid texter/social networking fiend but the question always is, does overall functionality or features really make up for lack of performance? Take a closer look.
Form Factor
The simple but tasteful design is definitely an appealing factor about the GT350. It has a 3 inch resistive touchscreen with a 240 x 400 pixel resolution (256K colors) that’s just about perfect for a handset in this range. It’s clear and fairly visible in direct sunlight (can’t expect much more). LG has deviated a bit from conformity by placing the volume/zoom keys on the left side making it just a little bit awkward for the right handed. On the same side is the MicroSD card slot (2GB card included). On the right side you’ll find the micro USB port and camera shutter release while a standard 3.5mm handsfree socket is well located at the top near the power button.
The GT350’s slide out keypad is by far its biggest asset. It pops in or out smoothly without much of an effort. The keys are just a bit hard to press but the layout is extremely set and the keypad overall is very well designed for comfortable use with four way navigation keys neatly placed on the right. The handset is comfortable to handle with the keypad neatly tucked in.
Features and Performance
Interface
I’ve never been a fan of LG’s user interface S-Class or otherwise and the GT350’s is no exception. It’s sluggish and not altogether comfortably responsive for speedy usage. It took annoyingly long to open applications like the music player or video player and a few others. A few options like accessing the Running Apps, the drop down menu that offers quite a bit of functionality from the desktop like changing profiles, activating and deactivating Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and accessing the music player were handy. As usual the UI also comes with three desktops assigned for separate tasks – shortcuts that are neatly assigned to specific backgrounds, favourite contacts and LG’s LiveSquare.
Media
Media functionality, although limited to just the basics, was decent at best. The music player managed to scrape through with decent tone quality. There was a reasonable punch in the bass line and the higher frequencies were well balanced. I could have used a boost in the decibel level but as is, it was ok. There are a few presets included that do make a bit of difference but not much to sing praise over. The FM radio was also just about adequate with a fair amount of reception in most places of the city that I happened to be at. While commuting though, it was quite a bust. No points there.
The video player only supports low resolution 3GP and MPEG4 files. If you’ve converted them properly they’re not too bad, but there will be a bit of framing irrespective. Videos captured from the camera won’t have this problem though.
There are a couple of games like Music World and Sudoku Café and other mildly entertaining apps like A Banner apps that allows you to display anything you type on the screen like a ticker. The app even allows you to edit the colors and fonts to an extent. It serves no real world purpose but it can be fun.
Form Factor
The simple but tasteful design is definitely an appealing factor about the GT350. It has a 3 inch resistive touchscreen with a 240 x 400 pixel resolution (256K colors) that’s just about perfect for a handset in this range. It’s clear and fairly visible in direct sunlight (can’t expect much more). LG has deviated a bit from conformity by placing the volume/zoom keys on the left side making it just a little bit awkward for the right handed. On the same side is the MicroSD card slot (2GB card included). On the right side you’ll find the micro USB port and camera shutter release while a standard 3.5mm handsfree socket is well located at the top near the power button.
Comfortable keypad
The GT350’s slide out keypad is by far its biggest asset. It pops in or out smoothly without much of an effort. The keys are just a bit hard to press but the layout is extremely set and the keypad overall is very well designed for comfortable use with four way navigation keys neatly placed on the right. The handset is comfortable to handle with the keypad neatly tucked in.
Features and Performance
Interface
I’ve never been a fan of LG’s user interface S-Class or otherwise and the GT350’s is no exception. It’s sluggish and not altogether comfortably responsive for speedy usage. It took annoyingly long to open applications like the music player or video player and a few others. A few options like accessing the Running Apps, the drop down menu that offers quite a bit of functionality from the desktop like changing profiles, activating and deactivating Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and accessing the music player were handy. As usual the UI also comes with three desktops assigned for separate tasks – shortcuts that are neatly assigned to specific backgrounds, favourite contacts and LG’s LiveSquare.
Media
Media functionality, although limited to just the basics, was decent at best. The music player managed to scrape through with decent tone quality. There was a reasonable punch in the bass line and the higher frequencies were well balanced. I could have used a boost in the decibel level but as is, it was ok. There are a few presets included that do make a bit of difference but not much to sing praise over. The FM radio was also just about adequate with a fair amount of reception in most places of the city that I happened to be at. While commuting though, it was quite a bust. No points there.
Cute and easy to manage
The video player only supports low resolution 3GP and MPEG4 files. If you’ve converted them properly they’re not too bad, but there will be a bit of framing irrespective. Videos captured from the camera won’t have this problem though.
There are a couple of games like Music World and Sudoku Café and other mildly entertaining apps like A Banner apps that allows you to display anything you type on the screen like a ticker. The app even allows you to edit the colors and fonts to an extent. It serves no real world purpose but it can be fun.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Acer Announces Android Smartphone with a 4.8-inch Screen
After a long break, Acer finally made an announcement on its upcoming Android devices which include tablets and smartphone for next year. The new smartphone sports a tablet-like format and it has a gigantic 4.8-inch LED backlit widescreen with a 21:9 aspect ratio. With this screen size, the phone falls in Dell Streak category but with the much higher screen resolution i.e 1024x480 pixels - the highest we've seen for any smartphone.
Apart from the super-packed pixel screen, the phone is powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor. There is an 8MP camera with LED flash and it records 720p HD video recording. The front has a 2MP video camera as well. There is also a 6-axis motion sensing ( Gyroscope + accelerometer) for better gaming experience. With the tablet-like form factor and the large 4.8-inch, Acer claimed there is no need to zoom in on web pages or scroll left and right while browsing. All users need to do is scroll up or down just like browsing on the PC. The browser will offer full multi-touch, Jave script optimization, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 support, and multiple page opening. The device support HSDPA, Wi-Fi N, DLNA and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity. There is also an HDMI out to connect the phone to an HDTV. Acer will launch the phone April next year so, hopefully, it will run Gingerbread.
Apart from the super-packed pixel screen, the phone is powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor. There is an 8MP camera with LED flash and it records 720p HD video recording. The front has a 2MP video camera as well. There is also a 6-axis motion sensing ( Gyroscope + accelerometer) for better gaming experience. With the tablet-like form factor and the large 4.8-inch, Acer claimed there is no need to zoom in on web pages or scroll left and right while browsing. All users need to do is scroll up or down just like browsing on the PC. The browser will offer full multi-touch, Jave script optimization, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 support, and multiple page opening. The device support HSDPA, Wi-Fi N, DLNA and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity. There is also an HDMI out to connect the phone to an HDTV. Acer will launch the phone April next year so, hopefully, it will run Gingerbread.
Airtel 3G: Special Offers For Nokia N8, Samsung Phones
Airtel has not launched 3G services yet. But their 3G showcase section already has interesting details to mull over. You will get good offers on 3G data usage plan pricing if you own one of the mobile phone handsets listed on the page. So which are the lucky phone models? Listed on the "Handset offers" page are the Nokia N8 and other select Nokia phones, Samsung Galaxy S, Samsung Galaxy Tab (Android tablet), Samsung Wave and other Samsung phones. If you use an Airtel SIM card with any of these phones, you can get 3G speeds, and 2GB data transfer at barely Rs. 50 per month.
Scroll further for more information. Seen below is a screenshot of what Airtel claims to offer as special offers of 3G plans at low rates for specific mobile phones. Clicking the "know more" link currently throws up a "404 - Page not found" error. When we called up Airtel's Mobile Customer Care, they had no information about these offers. So further tariff details of 3G might take a while yet to become available for these phones, or for general public in the 13 circles for which Airtel has 3G licenses in India.
Scroll further for more information. Seen below is a screenshot of what Airtel claims to offer as special offers of 3G plans at low rates for specific mobile phones. Clicking the "know more" link currently throws up a "404 - Page not found" error. When we called up Airtel's Mobile Customer Care, they had no information about these offers. So further tariff details of 3G might take a while yet to become available for these phones, or for general public in the 13 circles for which Airtel has 3G licenses in India.
Sony Ericsson Spiro
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Summary
The Sony Ericsson Spiro is basic slider phone with good looks and a penchant for playing music.Pros:
- Simple UI
- Looks Good
- Very Good Music Playback
- Inexpensive
Cons:
- No Wi-Fi, 3G or GPS Support
- Terrible Camera
- Only 5MB of Internal Storage
- Video Playback is Choppy
Monday, November 22, 2010
LG Optimus one Selling for Rs. 13,500 in India
Finally, Android Froyo laden LG Optimus One has been launched in India - Officially. Priced at Rs. 13,500, the new Optimus One will compete with current Android models in the Indian market. Last week, we reported that over one million Optimus One handsets were sold worldwide in about 40 days. Obviously, Indians would like to get their hands on a Google Android phone running Froyo 2.2 update in mid-range price segment. LG also promises to bring Optimus 7 that runs Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system.
LG Optimus One has a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen supporting 320x480 pixel resolution. Under the hood, Optimus One has 600MHz microprocessor and 419MB RAM which are good enough to run Android Froyo 2.2 update on them. For the social network frenzy youths, the phone offers Social Network integration along with other useful applications like Google Maps and Digital Compass since it has GPS with A-GPS support.
Expect mediocre quality photos with the 3.15 megapixel camera that can record VGA video at 18 frames per second. Users can browse faster web using Wi-Fi, thanks to the 802.11 b/g standards supporting chip and enjoy the Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP. For storage, Optimus One comes with 2GB microSD card for storage since 170MB internal memory is too meager. If you want, you can add up to 32GB microSD card to it.
Optimus One will join the current Google Android based handsets offerings that fall in the price range of Rs. 10,000 - Rs. 15,000. Take a look at the current Android phones available in India and do note that all the prices mentioned below are approximate and collated from different online e-tailers.
Android 2.1:
Android 1.6 or lower:
Amongst all these phones, LG Optimus One is the only one that comes with Froyo 2.2 update in the box, i.e; pre-installed. This phone is 3G ready so users can enjoy a faster mobile web browsing experience when 3G Services are made available all over India.
LG Optimus One has a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen supporting 320x480 pixel resolution. Under the hood, Optimus One has 600MHz microprocessor and 419MB RAM which are good enough to run Android Froyo 2.2 update on them. For the social network frenzy youths, the phone offers Social Network integration along with other useful applications like Google Maps and Digital Compass since it has GPS with A-GPS support.
Expect mediocre quality photos with the 3.15 megapixel camera that can record VGA video at 18 frames per second. Users can browse faster web using Wi-Fi, thanks to the 802.11 b/g standards supporting chip and enjoy the Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP. For storage, Optimus One comes with 2GB microSD card for storage since 170MB internal memory is too meager. If you want, you can add up to 32GB microSD card to it.
Optimus One will join the current Google Android based handsets offerings that fall in the price range of Rs. 10,000 - Rs. 15,000. Take a look at the current Android phones available in India and do note that all the prices mentioned below are approximate and collated from different online e-tailers.
Android 2.1:
- Motorola FlipOut: squarish-QWERTY phone for Rs. 15,200
- HTC Wildfire: Full touchscreen handset for Rs. 14,800
- Motorola Charm MB502: QWERTY phone for Rs. 13,500
- Samsung Galaxy 3 GT-i580: Full touchscreen phone for Rs. 12,000
- Motorola Quench XT3L: Full touchscreen handset for Rs. 12, 500
- Dell XCD28: Full touchscreen phone for Rs. 10,600
Android 1.6 or lower:
- Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro: Small Slide-out QWERTY phone for Rs. 15,800
- Sony Ericsson Xperia X8: Full touchscreen phone running Android 1.6 for Rs. 13,900
- HTC Tattoo A3232: Full touchscreen phone running Android 1.6 for Rs. 13,000
- Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini: Small touchscreen phone running Android 1.6 for Rs. 12, 900
- Videocon Zeus Evolve V7500: Full touchscreen handset with Android 1.6 for Rs. 11,000
- LG Optimus GT540: Full touchscreen handset running Android 1.6 for Rs. 10,750
- LG GW620: Slide-out QWERTY phone running Android 1.5 for Rs. 14,600
Amongst all these phones, LG Optimus One is the only one that comes with Froyo 2.2 update in the box, i.e; pre-installed. This phone is 3G ready so users can enjoy a faster mobile web browsing experience when 3G Services are made available all over India.
The Angry Birds Take The Egg-Hungry Pigs To Court
Here's a trippy trip. An Israeli sketch show took advantage of the Great Avian-Porcine Struggle of 2010 and created a sketch wherein the birds and pigs try to settle their differences. The video was originally made in Hebrew but after much demand from the US, they made the English version you see below. And it's for good reason because this video getting as viral as a common cold in winter.
The sad bit of news is that while Angry Birds is still the most popular game for the iPhone, it's not the number one grossing game anymore.
Wanna watch this with real life birds and pigs?
For now, check out the video of the sketch below. Be warned though, some of the language is Not Safe For Work.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Review:Sony Ericson Cedar
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Summary
The Sony Ericsson Cedar is an inexpensive basic phone that has one great feature: 3G support.Pros:
- Inexpensive
- 3G Support
- Looks are a mix of Old School with Curves
- Very Good Music Player
- Did I Mention it looks Good?
Cons:
- Average Camera
- Web Browser is Terrible
- No Bundled USB Cable and MicroSD card
- Bundled Games are all Demos
Nokia MeeGo Z500 tablet spills on Ovi Store
Nokia may just have accidentally disclosed a MeeGo tablet on its Ovi Store yesterday. The Nokia Z500 is apparently a MeeGo tablet secretly in the works from Nokia, which will hopefully see the light of day sometime in early 2011. According to Engadget, search strings for the Nokia "Z500" on Nokia's Ovi Store gave results for a short time. The Nokia Ovi Store gave search results for the device name Nokia Z500, but since then rejects the search string as a valid result. No further details of the Nokia Z500 MeeGo tablet are known at this point.
MeeGo's developed by Intel and Nokia, and MeeGo powered devices will only release in 2011. Whether the Nokia Z500 MeeGo tablet is the first among those devices remains to be seen. We'll bring you more news on the Nokia Z500 when we get more details.
Despite high price, Dell Streak deserves attention
Dell Streak's price in India hovers around the Rs. 35,000 mark. Despite its high price, Dell's Streak Android Tablet is unique among tablets with a 5-inch multitouch screen -- poised at the threshold of the line dividing tablets and smartphones. Dell Streak launched in India last month and even though Dell Streak's India price may be Rs. 34,490, it still has features and unique capabilities to help it stand its ground in a rapidly growing tablet market.
Portability: The Dell Streak is still the smallest tablet available in India -- it has a 5-inch form factor; comparatively the OlivePad and Samsung Galaxy Tab tablets both have a larger 7-inch screen. With a larger screen comes the problem of carrying the device and using it. If you're looking for a smaller, highly portable tablet in the market, you should look at the Dell Streak.
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Build Quality: The Dell Streak Android tablet is a sleek, sexy device with very good build quality -- definitely better than the OlivePad. We still have to get our hands on the Samsung Galaxy Tab.
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5MP Camera: The Dell Streak Android tablet offers a 5MP autofocus camera that captures colorful, vivid images -- see more in the Dell Streak Review. Both the OlivePad and Samsung Galaxy Tab come with a 3MP camera.
Phone Use: With the Dell Streak's smaller 5-inch form factor, is more naturally fit for conventional (non-handsfree) phone use -- speaker to ear, microphone near the mouth. With the larger 7-inch OlivePad and Samsung Galaxy Tab Android tablets, you will need a handsfree headset to use them as a phone.
Build Quality: The Dell Streak Android tablet is a sleek, sexy device with very good build quality -- definitely better than the OlivePad. We still have to get our hands on the Samsung Galaxy Tab.5MP Camera: The Dell Streak Android tablet offers a 5MP autofocus camera that captures colorful, vivid images -- see more in the Dell Streak Review. Both the OlivePad and Samsung Galaxy Tab come with a 3MP camera.Phone Use: With the Dell Streak's smaller 5-inch form factor, is more naturally fit for conventional (non-handsfree) phone use -- speaker to ear, microphone near the mouth. With the larger 7-inch OlivePad and Samsung Galaxy Tab Android tablets, you will need a handsfree headset to use them as a phone.
New Airtel Logo
Airtel 3G services aren't rolling yet, but Airtel has a new logo it unveiled couple of days ago. The new Airtel logo is part of a re-branding exercise that is estimated to cost Rs. 300 crore to Bharti Airtel. While we still await Airtel's 3G services to flag-off in India, the new Airtel logo will be advertised wherever Bharti Airtel operates in India and abroad.
But what does everyone think of the new Airtel logo? The old Airtel logo wasn't bad, but the new logo is supposed to give Airtel and the brand a more "youthful and international" look.
The verdict on Airtel's new logo has been mixed so far. While a lot of voices on Twitter have welcomed Airtel's new logo, a significant number have voiced their discontent, too. As I write this, fans of the old Airtel logo are bashing the new Airtel logo on Twitter as a crude inspiration of Videocon's new logo and Vodafone. From over 1000 responses on Fonearena's poll on Airtel's new logo, 50-percent voted against the new Airtel logo. For all the voices of discontent, I wonder if there could be a hue and cry as big as the recent GAP logo redesign. GAP changed its iconic decades-old logo to something less iconic and the new logo was slammed unabashedly by fans. The result? GAP reverted to the old logo within a week. Although, such a reaction to Airtel's new logo looks highly unlikely, one can never be 100-percent sure.
Of all the tweets for and against Airtel's new logo, one sentiment was loud and clear, summed up nicely by Gul Panag's tweet: Airtel shouldn't sit pretty and bask on its current glory, but work towards improving its service. And Airtel's 3G launch will be a good first step on that path.
But what does everyone think of the new Airtel logo? The old Airtel logo wasn't bad, but the new logo is supposed to give Airtel and the brand a more "youthful and international" look.
Of all the tweets for and against Airtel's new logo, one sentiment was loud and clear, summed up nicely by Gul Panag's tweet: Airtel shouldn't sit pretty and bask on its current glory, but work towards improving its service. And Airtel's 3G launch will be a good first step on that path.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Google Brings Out Interactive Book on the Web
Today the world is moving from eBooks to interactive ebooks. But there are several users who aren't fully aware of the technical terms and functions of the browsers and Web. To aide such users, Google has released an interactive online guide illustrated by Christoph Niemann and put it up for public access at http://www.20thingsilearned.com. So if don't know what TCP/IP is or what a Cookie is, you now know where to go and look for an answer.
Web technologies used in everyday life while browsing the web are most of the time not visible directly to an average users. For them it's just a computing marvel. Google's Chrome Team has scripted to explain the complex concepts like Cloud Computing, IP Address and DNS, Web Apps, etc. in a simple manner. Built on HTML5, this online interactive book will certainly make you aware about the current day web browsers and what' s being used on the current generation of Web.
Even though you've been reading on and using the web quite profusely, there's no harm in checking out this nicely illustrated interactive book.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Google Apps expands for an 'Appier workplace
That means that as well as the usual services you might use with your Apps account, like GMail and calendar, you'll also now have access to the likes of Picasa, YouTube and Google Reader, without the bother of multiple log-ins.
In total there will be more than 60 productivity-boosting applications within easy reach from your Apps account.
The Big G has also revised the versions of Google Apps available, offering up four different variations: Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Google Apps for Government and Google Apps for Education. Canines will have to wait as there is still no sign of Google Apps for Dogs.
"The team has worked hard to unlock all of this new functionality for our customers, and we think many of these new applications will become indispensable within your organisation", said Derek Parham, lead software engineer of the Google Apps team.
BlackBerry Bold 9780
The BlackBerry Bold 9780 takes RIM’s flagship QWERTY device - the Bold 9700 - gives it a fresh new operating system with BlackBerry 6 and spits out a practically identical handset. It isn’t a new move from BlackBerry, we’ve seen them release multiple devices with minor hardware differences in the past - remember the BB Curve 83xx series?
Here too the BlackBerry Bold 9780 looks every bit the same as the 9700. The colours have perhaps been changed, our current Bold 9700 has chrome trim running across the bottom of the keypad, up the sides and across the top, whereas our 9780 is all black, so it looks like a stealth Bold. Of course, we can’t claim to have seen all the colourways of the 9700, so even this might not be new.
Whilst we are picking up on minuscule details, the finish of the keyboard on our 9780 is slightly different to the 9700. The keys are slightly less glossy, but we suspect this has nothing to do with design and may just be down to a different finishing process, or simple wear on our existing device. Step on to the street, and basically, no one will know which device you have.
To recap, you get a QWERTY handset that measures 114 x 66 x 15mm. It is a little fat by smartphone standards, but at 136g is average weight. It sits beautifully in the hand thanks to a curved back with rubberised material on the edges supplying grip in all the right places. It has a softly curved top edge too, so is wonderfully comfortable for making calls with. This is a BlackBerry after all and it is all about communication, rather than out-and-out multimedia prowess.
The QWERTY keyboard, the best QWERTY keyboard you’ll find on a mobile phone, occupies the bottom half of the front, the 2.44-inch display above offers up a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels. Small numbers, but 236 pixels per inch means it is incredibly sharp. Yes, it will never compete with a 4-inch screen for watching video, but it is sharp, it is vibrant and you can read it in direct sunlight.
Around the body of the Bold 9780 you have the same connections and controls as previously. There are two user-definable shortcut keys which offer up the camera and voice control by default and are easily switched to those apps you want, be it Twitter, Facebook or a particular email account. There is the 3.5mm headphone jack, Micro-USB connection, volume on the sides, the mute and standby buttons on the top.
Around the back you have the faux leather insert in the centre of the plastic backplate and the new 5-megapixel camera and LED flash. The build quality overall is good, there are more panels and sections than you’ll find on the slick body of something like the HTC Desire Z, but we found it to be free from creaks or warping under pressure. It might not give you a minimalist high-grade finish, but it has a sort of Master Chief busyness to its look that we like. It looks like a smart business tool, which is essentially what it is.
Aside from the 5-megapixel camera, the BlackBerry Bold 9780 has seen a boost internally to 512MB of memory (over the 256MB previously) as well as a step up to 515MB of RAM. The processor is the same 624MHz as we’ve seen previously. Whilst we don’t advocate playing the numbers game for the sake of it, there was noticeable lag dealing with some applications on the Bold 9700. The RAM upgrade and the refinement of the new operating system mean these are certainly reduced.
We liked the Bold 9700, but it was showing the hallmarks of a phone reaching the end of its operating system. In the highly competitive world of mobile phones, where every couple of months we see a new feature arriving on one of the major platforms, BlackBerry OS faces the challenge of evolving fast enough to keep pace. We saw BlackBerry 6 on the Torch, but it was immediately obvious that it wasn’t the greatest multimedia handset out there.
BlackBerry 6 on the 9780 is essentially the same and has the feel of an operating system designed for a touchscreen device to a certain extent. That may, admittedly, be a result of us using the Torch before getting hands-on with the 9780, but there are certain aspects of BB 6 that don’t seem to fit quite as well as they did on the touch-enabled Torch.
The main one is the use of those pull-up tray menus. On the Torch, you can swipe from side-to-side and pull the menus up and down as much as you like. Without touch, you are left to open the menu to its entire three lines of icons either using the menu button and selecting “Open Tray”, or by hitting the top category line (All, Favourites, Media, Downloads, Frequent). It looks as though it doesn’t quite fit, but it is easy to navigate once you get savvy with the optical navigation key in the centre of the device.
For existing Bold users, the first impression might be that an extra step is involved with getting into the menu - previously a press of the menu button would open your menu so you could scroll to the application you wanted, now it opens a menu, offering to open another menu. However, there is a chance that you’ll need to use the menus less than before because of the introduction of universal search.
Start typing and the Bold 9780 starts returning results. You can customise what you want it to search, and what you want it to offer by way of results, and it is a really powerful tool. It pretty much is only possible with a permanent keyboard too, as touchscreen-only devices will need you to open something or select something first. So, if you want to open an application, just type the name - a lot like Spotlight on Mac OS X.
Type a person’s name and it will return their contact card, emails they’ve sent you, calendar details and so on. It makes it really easy to pick up a conversation or message stream, without entering messaging and scrolling through the list, or performing a search in that application. Universal search will also offer to search YouTube, BlackBerry App World, Facebook, Google Local or Google web too, so if you don’t have it in your phone, you can seek it out elsewhere in a flash.
The homescreen of BB 6 is much more usable than the rather static BB 5 screen. It has always conveyed a great deal of information (sound profile, battery, time, date, networks, connection status, message indicators from various core apps) but now this information is better managed and more useful. It is divided into five selectable areas. The sound profile is very much as it was before, but now the message display can be opened to give you a quick overview of messages and calendar entries, so you can click through to what you want.
The search area opens the search window, but you don’t need to use it, because as mentioned, as soon as you start typing, universal search swings into action delivering results. The final area lets you manage your connections (cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth), set alarms, as well as providing direct access to settings for connections. Lurking at the bottom of the list is “options” which takes you into your settings menu, which is a nice shortcut to have.
Of course the tray menus aren’t just static, they adapt as you use applications and download them from BlackBerry App World. There is the potential for a lot of duplication of applications - not only can you get to an app by searching for it, but it will be in All, Downloads, Frequent and possibly in Favourites too. There is an argument that those frequent apps you use don’t ever need to be marked as a favourite, but this sort of management is down to the user. We found it took a week or so before we were totally happy with access and to begin with you’ll spend a lot of time getting to things via different routes - it can be confusing, but there is plenty of choice and we like being able to turn a shortcut into a Favourite and have direct access from that section, a little like dropping a shortcut on the home screen of an Android device.
The inclusion of a Media tray means you can swipe across to get to video, music, your pictures, podcasts, ringtones and video camera. We’ve already said that the Bold 9780 isn’t a great media device compared to rivals like the HTC Desire HD or the iPhone 4, but it still offers those features you’d expect. The resolution of the screen means there is detail in the video you do opt for and the external speaker is very good, having more body than many other rivals. This makes it a great device to use on speakerphone, as well as watching a little video in your hotel room.
We’ve mentioned apps, and of course the apps experience is very much the buzzword around smartphones at the moment. BlackBerry App World is a little lacklustre without the strength or depth of the major rivals. There is a lot of obscure paid-for content, and the addition of new and exciting applications is a little slow. The core is just about represented, but not all content has been updated for BB6 compatibility, including some of RIM’s own apps, like the eBay app. So, for the immediate term you have the basics covered, but the full experience is yet to arrive. (UPDATE: eBay has arrived on BB 6 as of 17 Nov, so updates are coming.)
Drilling deeper into BB 6, you’ll find that much is the same as previously, but with some reorganising and a visual lick of paint. Settings are better organised and laid-out and the fiddly Wi-Fi/3G options have been simplified so you don’t find yourself having to select between Wi-Fi preferred and 3G preferred when you want both to be handled by the device without your involvement.
The browser is one of the biggest changes however, and one of the most dramatic improvements. Previously the browser was slow to load pages and often stopped mid load. The new WebKit browser is much better placed to deliver pages, offering up tabs and a much faster experience. You don’t get the niceties of pinch zooming like you do on a touch device, but you do get to zoom with text reflowing to fit the screen. It will never compete with larger screened devices, but it’s certainly a marked improvement over previous versions. One downside, however, is that UK residents will find BBC iPlayer, supported on the old browser, it isn’t supported here at present.
The BlackBerry family is really about communication and central to this is the email experience. BlackBerry has always been a smart choice if you are a big emailer because of the ease of setting up your emails, the instantaneous delivery and general no nonsense experience. In recent years the BlackBerry has become equally adept at dealing with your personal email as it has at handling the corporate email that brought it into favour.
You also get the option to sync contacts and calendars natively from Google (as well as the Google Sync app option that supports BB 6). We’ve found the contacts works reliably with Google, but the calendar is sometimes a bit hit and miss - some appointments populating the calendar and some not. But as we said, the Google Sync app can always be downloaded to fill in instead if that is a concern.
BlackBerry still offers a universal inbox, bringing together not only all your message streams (email accounts, MMS, SMS) but also those core app services that have messaging, so your Twitter direct messages will appear here, as will your updates to Facebook. You also compose not only emails, but Twitter and Facebook postings here too, and when other core apps appear, we’d expect to see direct interaction supported here too.
We’re still big fans of the BlackBerry approach to email and give it top marks. There are a few quirks, like the universal inbox not offering threaded conversations (that’s a feature of the individual mailboxes), but on the whole, it is an excellent device for staying connected, especially as it isn’t overly dependent on 3G networks as the service over older GPRS networks is still speedy. We like the new ability to flick through your messages by swiping across the optical key - it takes some practice, but once you've mastered it, you'll be well placed to sit and browse through all your messages with never having to exit back to the mail folder.
Of course BlackBerry Messenger has found favour with teenagers, as has competitive pricing on BlackBerry devices. You also get apps to handle other messenger protocols - Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, AIM - all pre-installed on the device. The only glaring omission for us is Skype support, with the Nimbuzz app not yet available on BB 6.
With a nod to the rising influence of social networks, BlackBerry has introduced a new Social Feeds app. This neatly runs together a collection of feeds from the networks you are signed in to (Facebook, Twitter, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger) as well as offering up RSS feeds. You can opt to post updates to those services from one location too. It’s convenient, but with the simplicity of Facebook (recently getting an update to include Places) and Twitter apps, we can’t say we ever found ourselves using Social Feeds to any great extent.
Moving with the times, the BlackBerry Bold 9780 has updated the camera offering to 5 megapixels, as well as redesigning the interface to give you easy access to a selection of scene modes, the camera and geotagging. The performance overall is better than before, with better overall definition and better low light performance. It isn’t exceptional, but it copes well enough for passing snaps to share online. There is a single LED flash supporting the camera.
Video hasn’t seen the same love however, with a maximum resolution offering of 640 x 480. This puts the Bold 9780 behind the times, with most rival handsets offering 1280 x 720 HD video capture. We suspect that the processor wouldn’t handle a higher definition of video capture which would then be an argument for a upgrade in that department.
BlackBerry Maps is still disappointing, especially alongside the superior offering from Google Maps and it is a shame that you can’t nominate Google Maps as your mapping service. Whilst on that topic, a more comprehensive maps and contacts integration would be welcomed - there is a notional recognition of addresses, but we’ve never actually managed to get it to return an address on the map.
One of the real strong points of the BlackBerry Bold 9780 is battery life and this is where it runs rings around those large screen touch devices. Under average use you’ll probably get at least 2 days from it. It’s the sort of handset you can take away for a weekend and not need to charge. Yes, hitting it hard and making lots of calls will drain the battery faster, but under normal use you’ll still be connected when others are scurrying for a charger
Here too the BlackBerry Bold 9780 looks every bit the same as the 9700. The colours have perhaps been changed, our current Bold 9700 has chrome trim running across the bottom of the keypad, up the sides and across the top, whereas our 9780 is all black, so it looks like a stealth Bold. Of course, we can’t claim to have seen all the colourways of the 9700, so even this might not be new.
Whilst we are picking up on minuscule details, the finish of the keyboard on our 9780 is slightly different to the 9700. The keys are slightly less glossy, but we suspect this has nothing to do with design and may just be down to a different finishing process, or simple wear on our existing device. Step on to the street, and basically, no one will know which device you have.
To recap, you get a QWERTY handset that measures 114 x 66 x 15mm. It is a little fat by smartphone standards, but at 136g is average weight. It sits beautifully in the hand thanks to a curved back with rubberised material on the edges supplying grip in all the right places. It has a softly curved top edge too, so is wonderfully comfortable for making calls with. This is a BlackBerry after all and it is all about communication, rather than out-and-out multimedia prowess.
The QWERTY keyboard, the best QWERTY keyboard you’ll find on a mobile phone, occupies the bottom half of the front, the 2.44-inch display above offers up a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels. Small numbers, but 236 pixels per inch means it is incredibly sharp. Yes, it will never compete with a 4-inch screen for watching video, but it is sharp, it is vibrant and you can read it in direct sunlight.
Around the body of the Bold 9780 you have the same connections and controls as previously. There are two user-definable shortcut keys which offer up the camera and voice control by default and are easily switched to those apps you want, be it Twitter, Facebook or a particular email account. There is the 3.5mm headphone jack, Micro-USB connection, volume on the sides, the mute and standby buttons on the top.
Around the back you have the faux leather insert in the centre of the plastic backplate and the new 5-megapixel camera and LED flash. The build quality overall is good, there are more panels and sections than you’ll find on the slick body of something like the HTC Desire Z, but we found it to be free from creaks or warping under pressure. It might not give you a minimalist high-grade finish, but it has a sort of Master Chief busyness to its look that we like. It looks like a smart business tool, which is essentially what it is.
Aside from the 5-megapixel camera, the BlackBerry Bold 9780 has seen a boost internally to 512MB of memory (over the 256MB previously) as well as a step up to 515MB of RAM. The processor is the same 624MHz as we’ve seen previously. Whilst we don’t advocate playing the numbers game for the sake of it, there was noticeable lag dealing with some applications on the Bold 9700. The RAM upgrade and the refinement of the new operating system mean these are certainly reduced.
We liked the Bold 9700, but it was showing the hallmarks of a phone reaching the end of its operating system. In the highly competitive world of mobile phones, where every couple of months we see a new feature arriving on one of the major platforms, BlackBerry OS faces the challenge of evolving fast enough to keep pace. We saw BlackBerry 6 on the Torch, but it was immediately obvious that it wasn’t the greatest multimedia handset out there.
BlackBerry 6 on the 9780 is essentially the same and has the feel of an operating system designed for a touchscreen device to a certain extent. That may, admittedly, be a result of us using the Torch before getting hands-on with the 9780, but there are certain aspects of BB 6 that don’t seem to fit quite as well as they did on the touch-enabled Torch.
The main one is the use of those pull-up tray menus. On the Torch, you can swipe from side-to-side and pull the menus up and down as much as you like. Without touch, you are left to open the menu to its entire three lines of icons either using the menu button and selecting “Open Tray”, or by hitting the top category line (All, Favourites, Media, Downloads, Frequent). It looks as though it doesn’t quite fit, but it is easy to navigate once you get savvy with the optical navigation key in the centre of the device.
For existing Bold users, the first impression might be that an extra step is involved with getting into the menu - previously a press of the menu button would open your menu so you could scroll to the application you wanted, now it opens a menu, offering to open another menu. However, there is a chance that you’ll need to use the menus less than before because of the introduction of universal search.
Start typing and the Bold 9780 starts returning results. You can customise what you want it to search, and what you want it to offer by way of results, and it is a really powerful tool. It pretty much is only possible with a permanent keyboard too, as touchscreen-only devices will need you to open something or select something first. So, if you want to open an application, just type the name - a lot like Spotlight on Mac OS X.
Type a person’s name and it will return their contact card, emails they’ve sent you, calendar details and so on. It makes it really easy to pick up a conversation or message stream, without entering messaging and scrolling through the list, or performing a search in that application. Universal search will also offer to search YouTube, BlackBerry App World, Facebook, Google Local or Google web too, so if you don’t have it in your phone, you can seek it out elsewhere in a flash.
The homescreen of BB 6 is much more usable than the rather static BB 5 screen. It has always conveyed a great deal of information (sound profile, battery, time, date, networks, connection status, message indicators from various core apps) but now this information is better managed and more useful. It is divided into five selectable areas. The sound profile is very much as it was before, but now the message display can be opened to give you a quick overview of messages and calendar entries, so you can click through to what you want.
The search area opens the search window, but you don’t need to use it, because as mentioned, as soon as you start typing, universal search swings into action delivering results. The final area lets you manage your connections (cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth), set alarms, as well as providing direct access to settings for connections. Lurking at the bottom of the list is “options” which takes you into your settings menu, which is a nice shortcut to have.
Of course the tray menus aren’t just static, they adapt as you use applications and download them from BlackBerry App World. There is the potential for a lot of duplication of applications - not only can you get to an app by searching for it, but it will be in All, Downloads, Frequent and possibly in Favourites too. There is an argument that those frequent apps you use don’t ever need to be marked as a favourite, but this sort of management is down to the user. We found it took a week or so before we were totally happy with access and to begin with you’ll spend a lot of time getting to things via different routes - it can be confusing, but there is plenty of choice and we like being able to turn a shortcut into a Favourite and have direct access from that section, a little like dropping a shortcut on the home screen of an Android device.
The inclusion of a Media tray means you can swipe across to get to video, music, your pictures, podcasts, ringtones and video camera. We’ve already said that the Bold 9780 isn’t a great media device compared to rivals like the HTC Desire HD or the iPhone 4, but it still offers those features you’d expect. The resolution of the screen means there is detail in the video you do opt for and the external speaker is very good, having more body than many other rivals. This makes it a great device to use on speakerphone, as well as watching a little video in your hotel room.
We’ve mentioned apps, and of course the apps experience is very much the buzzword around smartphones at the moment. BlackBerry App World is a little lacklustre without the strength or depth of the major rivals. There is a lot of obscure paid-for content, and the addition of new and exciting applications is a little slow. The core is just about represented, but not all content has been updated for BB6 compatibility, including some of RIM’s own apps, like the eBay app. So, for the immediate term you have the basics covered, but the full experience is yet to arrive. (UPDATE: eBay has arrived on BB 6 as of 17 Nov, so updates are coming.)
Drilling deeper into BB 6, you’ll find that much is the same as previously, but with some reorganising and a visual lick of paint. Settings are better organised and laid-out and the fiddly Wi-Fi/3G options have been simplified so you don’t find yourself having to select between Wi-Fi preferred and 3G preferred when you want both to be handled by the device without your involvement.
The browser is one of the biggest changes however, and one of the most dramatic improvements. Previously the browser was slow to load pages and often stopped mid load. The new WebKit browser is much better placed to deliver pages, offering up tabs and a much faster experience. You don’t get the niceties of pinch zooming like you do on a touch device, but you do get to zoom with text reflowing to fit the screen. It will never compete with larger screened devices, but it’s certainly a marked improvement over previous versions. One downside, however, is that UK residents will find BBC iPlayer, supported on the old browser, it isn’t supported here at present.
The BlackBerry family is really about communication and central to this is the email experience. BlackBerry has always been a smart choice if you are a big emailer because of the ease of setting up your emails, the instantaneous delivery and general no nonsense experience. In recent years the BlackBerry has become equally adept at dealing with your personal email as it has at handling the corporate email that brought it into favour.
You also get the option to sync contacts and calendars natively from Google (as well as the Google Sync app option that supports BB 6). We’ve found the contacts works reliably with Google, but the calendar is sometimes a bit hit and miss - some appointments populating the calendar and some not. But as we said, the Google Sync app can always be downloaded to fill in instead if that is a concern.
BlackBerry still offers a universal inbox, bringing together not only all your message streams (email accounts, MMS, SMS) but also those core app services that have messaging, so your Twitter direct messages will appear here, as will your updates to Facebook. You also compose not only emails, but Twitter and Facebook postings here too, and when other core apps appear, we’d expect to see direct interaction supported here too.
We’re still big fans of the BlackBerry approach to email and give it top marks. There are a few quirks, like the universal inbox not offering threaded conversations (that’s a feature of the individual mailboxes), but on the whole, it is an excellent device for staying connected, especially as it isn’t overly dependent on 3G networks as the service over older GPRS networks is still speedy. We like the new ability to flick through your messages by swiping across the optical key - it takes some practice, but once you've mastered it, you'll be well placed to sit and browse through all your messages with never having to exit back to the mail folder.
Of course BlackBerry Messenger has found favour with teenagers, as has competitive pricing on BlackBerry devices. You also get apps to handle other messenger protocols - Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, AIM - all pre-installed on the device. The only glaring omission for us is Skype support, with the Nimbuzz app not yet available on BB 6.
With a nod to the rising influence of social networks, BlackBerry has introduced a new Social Feeds app. This neatly runs together a collection of feeds from the networks you are signed in to (Facebook, Twitter, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger) as well as offering up RSS feeds. You can opt to post updates to those services from one location too. It’s convenient, but with the simplicity of Facebook (recently getting an update to include Places) and Twitter apps, we can’t say we ever found ourselves using Social Feeds to any great extent.
Moving with the times, the BlackBerry Bold 9780 has updated the camera offering to 5 megapixels, as well as redesigning the interface to give you easy access to a selection of scene modes, the camera and geotagging. The performance overall is better than before, with better overall definition and better low light performance. It isn’t exceptional, but it copes well enough for passing snaps to share online. There is a single LED flash supporting the camera.
Video hasn’t seen the same love however, with a maximum resolution offering of 640 x 480. This puts the Bold 9780 behind the times, with most rival handsets offering 1280 x 720 HD video capture. We suspect that the processor wouldn’t handle a higher definition of video capture which would then be an argument for a upgrade in that department.
One of the real strong points of the BlackBerry Bold 9780 is battery life and this is where it runs rings around those large screen touch devices. Under average use you’ll probably get at least 2 days from it. It’s the sort of handset you can take away for a weekend and not need to charge. Yes, hitting it hard and making lots of calls will drain the battery faster, but under normal use you’ll still be connected when others are scurrying for a charger
Pinball Magic appcessory turns iPad into table
The ball plunger, flippers and start buttons all work when it's combined with the company's free to download Pinball Magic app, and lights flash as if you're really in an arcade (or a small scale version of The Who's rock opera Tommy).
As add-ons for Apple's device, it's not cheap, costing $79.99 (around £50) - not including shipping. Nor do we know whether it is, or will be, compatible with other pinball apps on iTunes.
And there's the further problem that neither the manufacturer's own website (www.newpotatotech.com) or the retailer that originally listed it (www.brookstone.com) have it on their sites at present. Maybe it's just proving too popular on the run up to Christmas for them to keep up with demand. Either way, we recommend you keep checking back.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
TeePee Games: Control your online gaming from one place
A new British website is soon to be launched that aims to help users find, play and keep track of all of their Facebook, online and smartphone games, all from the one place.
Tagged a "discovery portal", TeePee Games is the brainchild of Tony Pearce (hence, TeePee), who was previously CEO and co-founder of Player X. And he's joined in the venture by, among others, games industry bigwigs Nick Alexander, former CEO of Sega Europe, and Simon Jones, former managing director of GameJacket. So, it certainly has a weight of experience behind it.
The site itself allows users to create a customisable homepage and populate it with their favourite games, dragged in from thousands of sources. Additionally, as TeePee integrates with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, users can also manage their social networking through the service.
It also recommends new games based on the visitors' tastes, and hopes to promote casual games that don't necessarily get to the top of the charts, be they mobile phone apps, Flash games or social MMOGs:
"The problem is very clear, game players are simply not finding new games because the top 20 dominates each category", says Pearce. "TeePee Games has built an incredible discovery engine, a cross between Amazon’s recommendation engine and Apple Genius. It learns and grows with the user, building a detailed profile of what the user has played across different gaming platforms and in turn recommends the "best in class" games content, selected for them personally".
TeePee Games launches early in 2011, and you can check out a demo video of the service on its homepage at www.teepeegames.com.
Developers are also being encouraged to visit the page in order to sign up for inclusion.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Facebook new Messages: Everything you need to know
The ultimate FAQ guide to the Zuckerberg communication aggregator
We talked through the arrival Facebook Chat, we were there when Facebook Places hit the ground and now that Facebook new Messages has been received we’re sending out word of exactly what this latest branch of the world’s favourite social network is all about.
So, for those more than a little confused of what Zuckerberg International has had to say, here’s the plain English of what it means for you, the user, and when you can expect to be checking it out for yourself.
So, for those more than a little confused of what Zuckerberg International has had to say, here’s the plain English of what it means for you, the user, and when you can expect to be checking it out for yourself.
What is Facebook New Messages?
The short answer is that it’s like the old or current version of Facebook Messages only one step further in its evoutionary history. At the moment, your Message centre is pretty much a list of any new messages that come in, in chronological order, in a psuedo e-mail inbox style. You compose a message to someone, they receive it and, if you’re lucky, they reply. You might find out about it through e-mail notification but that’s about as complicated as it gets.
The next generation of this facet of the social network takes things quite a few steps on. The first thing to note is that you can now send and receive messages as SMS on your mobile phone as well. On top of that, new Messages will also incorporate your instant Facebook Chat IMs too whether ot not you were online to receive them live. Finally, you’ll also be offered an @facebook.com e-mail address and the new Messages center is where these mails can be sent and received from. Confused? No problem. Let’s get granular.
The next generation of this facet of the social network takes things quite a few steps on. The first thing to note is that you can now send and receive messages as SMS on your mobile phone as well. On top of that, new Messages will also incorporate your instant Facebook Chat IMs too whether ot not you were online to receive them live. Finally, you’ll also be offered an @facebook.com e-mail address and the new Messages center is where these mails can be sent and received from. Confused? No problem. Let’s get granular.
How does it work
The idea behind the whole project is to make it become irrelevant what device and via which medium people contact each other and it does this by putting all the communications in one place which is the Facebook new Messages centre. Within new Messages, there will be two main areas.
Social Inbox
Social Inbox
The Social Inbox is the bigger and more interesting section where you can send and receive communications between yourself, friends and friends of friends. Facebook has more or less ignored the idea of subject headings in messages and will instead list the Social Inbox by contact. Click on the contact and it will expand to show an entire threaded conversation between you and them from the year dot until the present day. This will include all the Facebook Chats as well. It will also include e-mail and SMS communications between the two of you but only those sent to your @facebook.com address and texted from your phone in a special way. More on that in a minute.
You’ll be able to search your Social Inbox as you would your normal e-mail service, i.e. by contact or the content of the messages, and add attachments of all sorts of shapes and sizes at will. You’ll also be at liberty to add people into converstations and remove yourself from group chats that you’ve had enough of. Just like e-mail, you can forward and reply in the normal way but perhaps one of the more interesting twists is the way the Social Inbox will filter your messages - those at the top will be from people closer to you and the group talks will not appear so high up.
Other subfolder
You’ll be able to search your Social Inbox as you would your normal e-mail service, i.e. by contact or the content of the messages, and add attachments of all sorts of shapes and sizes at will. You’ll also be at liberty to add people into converstations and remove yourself from group chats that you’ve had enough of. Just like e-mail, you can forward and reply in the normal way but perhaps one of the more interesting twists is the way the Social Inbox will filter your messages - those at the top will be from people closer to you and the group talks will not appear so high up.
Other subfolder
While your Social Inbox is where messages from friends and friends of friends turn up, anything sent by other individuals, faceless corporations and/or spammers, will turn up in the Other subfolder instead by virtue, of course, that they are not in your social network. The idea is that you don’t have to get your bank statements mixed in with your fun stuff. What’s more, it also keeps the riff raff at bay. Should you get social messages or e-mails sent in that aren’t from friends or friends of friends, you can always tick a box next to them in the Other subfolder to switch them forever more to your Social Inbox instead. By the same token, you can demote contacts from certain friends or friends of friends to Other or even block them entirely. That way, the parameters of who gets in and who doesn't remain tight but under your control.
So how does the e-mail and SMS work then?
This is the first time that you’ll be able to send and receive Facebook communications across the Facebook/rest of the world barrier in quite the same way but the upshot is that it will be more or less completely possible to live your entire e-mail and messaging life through the social network.
@facebook.com e-mail
@facebook.com e-mail
Everyone will have access to a free @facebook.com e-mail address if they so wish to use it. You give it out as your normal e-mail address and anyone who sends e-mails to it will either end up in your Social Inbox or Others subfolder depending upon whether or not they appear in your social circle. You can of course adjust this as it goes but the result is that you get an in-built, if slightly heavy, spam filter. E-mails will appear in your threaded histories under each contact’s name and will integrate just as seamlessly as all the other media. Effectively, you won’t need to know whether it was sent by e-mail or not. Mails will just appear in you threaded histories. When you reply to external e-mail addresses, the formating will appear exactly as it should do when it arrives in Gmail or Hotmail or wherever your recipient chooses to read it.
As for claiming your free @facebook.com e-mail address, the bad new is that it has to be the same as whatever your Facebook public user name is - i.e whatever is written in the URL address bar of your browser after Facebook.com/ when looking at your profile pafe. So, if some bugger has already claimed your name, you’re stuck with Joe.Bloggs173 or whatever it is you got lumbered with. If you haven’t already claimed a public user name, you can do so here. Your actual name whole and pure is unlikely to be available, so please don’t get your hopes up.
SMS
As for claiming your free @facebook.com e-mail address, the bad new is that it has to be the same as whatever your Facebook public user name is - i.e whatever is written in the URL address bar of your browser after Facebook.com/ when looking at your profile pafe. So, if some bugger has already claimed your name, you’re stuck with Joe.Bloggs173 or whatever it is you got lumbered with. If you haven’t already claimed a public user name, you can do so here. Your actual name whole and pure is unlikely to be available, so please don’t get your hopes up.
SMS
While the rest of the communications methods are relatively smooth, text is perhaps the one that’s not going to work so well. The reason is that you need to preface every text you send with “msg john smith” - if you’re trying to get hold of your buddy John Smith - and rather than send to Mr Smith’s phone number, you text the message to 32665 instead which is the alpha-numeric for FBOOK. Of course, what will happen if you have two friends called John Smith is currently a mystery.
By the same token, you can “Send To Phone” from your new Messages Social Inbox to fling messages straight out to your buddies’ mobiles. All of this can be yours as soon as you activate text messaging from Facebook.
By the same token, you can “Send To Phone” from your new Messages Social Inbox to fling messages straight out to your buddies’ mobiles. All of this can be yours as soon as you activate text messaging from Facebook.
How does this affect my privacy?
As ever with Facebook, the watchword is privacy and changes often cause interesting repercussions in this department. The good news here is that much of it is still largely in your control when you head into the Privacy Settings.Who can send me a message?
As is currently the case, anyone on Facebook can send you a message whether or not they’re a friend of yours and, in the same way, once you have an @facebook.com e-mail people from outside the site will be able to e-mail you on it regardless of whether or not you know them. The difference, of course, is that all unknown senders will end up in your Other subfolder and not your main Social Inbox. If that isn’t security enough for you, you can change your Who Can Message Me options in the Privacy Settings to keep it to your social circle only.
Will my @facebook.com e-mail address be listed?
Will my @facebook.com e-mail address be listed?
Your e-mail address will not appear on your profile unless you want it to. The only issue is that because your e-mail address will match your public user name, people will be able to tell what it is. Whether this is going to cause enormous amounts or spamming into your Other subfolder or not will be a problem that Facebook has to deal with.
Will applications be able to message me?
Will applications be able to message me?
The short and rather nasty answer is yes. Yes, they will but only applications that you have given permission to do so. Essentially, any app that you attach to your Facebook profile will probably insert the rights to do that. Facebook hasn’t stated which area of your inbox these messages will appear in by default but there should be no problem in blocking or relegating them into the Others subfolder.
Can I delete individual messages from my threaded histories?
Can I delete individual messages from my threaded histories?
At the moment, that’s not possible. You can delete entire conversations but not individual messages.
Who holds the rights to the content of my messages?
Who holds the rights to the content of my messages?
Facebook has said nothing specific about this in this announcement, so, presumably it would be the same terms of service that currently apply. As it stands intellectual property that you post on Facebook can be used by the company royalty-free for the time that it exists on the site subject to certain other conditions. So, coupled with the fact that you can’t delete individual messages, it might make some people feel like watching what they say. However, this wouldn’t be the only mail service to hold such rights.
Do privacy settings work the same way for children?
No. Essentially, the Everyone setting doesn’t work in the same way. It is not possible for minors to receive messages from everyone. Instead it will be limited to friends and friends of friends only. Any other messages will be bounced completely and will not even turn up in the Other subfolder.
When can I get Facebook new Messages?
Facebook new Messages is rolling out from now and instructions on the upgrade will turn up as it arrives for your account. If you want to make sure that it comes to you as quickly as possible, then you can request an invitation here.
So, how do you feel about new Messages? Are you up for using a Facebook e-mail address or does it scare the hell out of you? Either way, do you think that this kind of device/platform agnostic communication is a glimpse at the future? Let us know in the comments
Angry Birds Heading to Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network & WiiWare
We could say that Angry Birds is popular, but that would be an understatement. The game, which has made its way from iOS to webOS and Android, is a mobile title that lets you sling-shot birds from a set location, and take down structures where pigs reside, all in hopes of collecting points while you take out the pigs. The game’s popularity has been insane, and it looks like Rovio, the developer behind the game, is getting ready to expand the horizons of some angry birds.
At the first ever Social Gaming Summit, which took place in London recently, Rovio’s CEO Peter Vesterbacka confirmed that the bird-flinging title is indeed heading to the Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network, and WiiWare. Vesterbacka also said that this new console version would be the beginning of the future of the Angry Birds IP.
However, it looks like the console versions of the title are going to hit the market before an official sequel. Interestingly enough, Vesterbacka did say that fans of the game could expect to see a twist in the game’s story, and instead of seeing it unfold through the eyes of the Birds, we’d actually get to see how it all went down, according to the pigs. Exciting, right? There’s no word on a release date, for either the inevitable sequel, or the console versions of the title. Let’s just go ahead and start hoping for soon
Google's Next Phone Could Replace Your Credit Cards
The next Google phone aims at replacing its owners credit cards. Google's Chief Executive, Eric Schmidt, showed Google's next phone (deliberately covering up the name of the phone, so we don't know if it's the Nexus) on this year's Web 2.0 summit opening day. The phone will contain a chip, that allows users to make credit card payments from their handsets.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt holds up the next Google phone
Even though this device had the manufacturer's label deliberately covered it, it is pretty much safe to guess that it's the next Nexus. The chip will be a Near Field Communication chip which will make the phone act like a credit card. The Nokia 6131 was the first phone to use this technology which hasn't become the next big trend yet.
Schmidt also said the next version of Android aka, Gingerbread, will power this device and will be out in a few weeks. Gingerbread will feature this mobile payment system as a key tool.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Intel Unveils New 120GB SSD
Many PC consumers nowadays are looking towards SSD (Solid State Drives) when it comes to custom D-I-Y computers. When SSD’s come into the equation, they allow you to boot your PC faster then ever before as well run other application as the speed of light.
Intel is making SSD buyers very happy by cutting the price on their existing line of SSDs as well as introducing a new 120GB model. Troy Winslow, Director of Product Marketing for the Intel NAND Solutions Group commented, "Every Christmas, consumers are looking for the latest tech gadget; this year, with prices dropping, the solid-state drive is becoming more mainstream and can make the single greatest improvement to PC performance. With an SSD, tech shoppers can give the gift of a technology makeover that will help speed up, or breathe new life, into a current PC by just swapping out the hard drive for an SSD.”
Intel offers SSD’s in 1.8 inch as well as 2.5 inch form factors and the pricing for the entire range is given below.
The 160GB will retail for $415, 80GB for $199, 40GB for $99, while the new 120GB model will retail at $249. SSD’s are definitely the way of the future when it comes to Data Storage. Even notebook manufacturers are now looking towards SSDs to provide better performance, but at the same time give their notebooks a much more svelte look.
Intel offers SSD’s in 1.8 inch as well as 2.5 inch form factors and the pricing for the entire range is given below.
The 160GB will retail for $415, 80GB for $199, 40GB for $99, while the new 120GB model will retail at $249. SSD’s are definitely the way of the future when it comes to Data Storage. Even notebook manufacturers are now looking towards SSDs to provide better performance, but at the same time give their notebooks a much more svelte look.
Twitter Joins Hands With Ping, Allows iTunes Previews Within the Microblog
Twitter made an announcement that Ping, which is iTunes' social networking service has joined hands with the microblogging service. The most useful feature of this collaboration is the ability to preview songs within Twitter.com itself.
Let the awful jokes of the Twitter bird singing begin
Other benefits include finding out about concerts via venues' twitter accounts, which sync with their own Ping accounts, as well as keep up with events like award shows via live tweets.
Here's a video demo of the integration.
Let the awful jokes of the Twitter bird singing begin
Other benefits include finding out about concerts via venues' twitter accounts, which sync with their own Ping accounts, as well as keep up with events like award shows via live tweets.
Here's a video demo of the integration.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
RockMelt Takes Aim At The Browser Big Boys
Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla have a new competitor in their midst. Its called the RockMelt and is backed by the father of the web browser Marc Andreessen.
The RockMelt is based on the open source Chromium project from which came Google's Chrome web browser. RockMelt will earn revenue from search engines for referring search traffic, which is the same method use by Firefox as well.
RockMelt is indeed something very interesting because it combines your internet browsing with a list Facebook friends as well as display frequently used social applications in an adjacent browser pane.This make it your web experience all the more simpler and enjoyable.
You can experience RockMelt for yourself here. So go ahead, have a look around and tell us what you think in our comments section
You can try out early
According to RockMelt’s co-founder and CTO Tim Howes, "Wherever you go on the Internet, RockMelt makes the Web a personal experience, it unlocks your Web experience with your Facebook friends, your feeds, your favorite services, even your bookmarks and preferences. RockMelt is also the first browser to be fully backed by the cloud."The RockMelt is based on the open source Chromium project from which came Google's Chrome web browser. RockMelt will earn revenue from search engines for referring search traffic, which is the same method use by Firefox as well.
RockMelt is indeed something very interesting because it combines your internet browsing with a list Facebook friends as well as display frequently used social applications in an adjacent browser pane.This make it your web experience all the more simpler and enjoyable.
You can experience RockMelt for yourself here. So go ahead, have a look around and tell us what you think in our comments section
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