Blackberry 9800 - Rim and their new Torch

Recently Rim announced their first Smartphone with a full touch screen and QWERTY keyboard. Equipped with a precision trackpad, slide out blackberry keyboard and an excellent high resolution screen the blackberry 9800 is a brilliant addition to the blackberry 9 series. Spec wise the phone is quite standard in comparison to other Smartphone’s these days as it sits with a 512mb ram/512mb rom and 4GB micro SD included. It has a 5MP camera, with a autofocus and led flash and a 360x480 resolution touch screen (similar to the 9700) and also uses the now standard blackberry optical trackpad. Now I’m not generally a blackberry fan although I do recognise them as excellent phones, its just I don’t see how different blackberry’s email capabilities are that different to any standard Smartphone now-a-days. Although one thing I always liked about Rim is their ability to show some diversity in their handsets with the likes of the Pearl 3G and the 8520. The pearl is one of those slim, stylish and suave devices that emulates allot of contrast between itself and other blackberry handsets. It is an extreme upgrade from the original and thank God they took away the QWERTY keyboard, it just didn’t work on such a small handset. The phone is really a great phone experience although what separates it from other blackberry devices is that the form factor doesn’t allow it to be held in just one hand. A great thing about blackberry’s is that you can pull out your phone and send a quick text or email using one hand, but the new bigger design on the 9800 doesn’t allow that. The new blackberry 6 software is designed to provide a fluid interface to its users to give a more dynamic experience and it does just that. It seems that the main improvements or changes to the software is that there is allot more freedom to explore the handset and blackberry has put their hands in a few pockets to pull out some features that are present in other mobile operating systems such as android and ios4. 

Also with the new software the browser issues have been drastically improved, which really was needed because a pointer system for a browser just doesn’t work any more, and with the majority of blackberry users complaining about it, it’s about time that they fixed it. overall in my opinion i think the handset will be a win, it just looks incredible and with this kind of software and hardware its bound to be a business favourite.

The handset will be available soon on 3UK, Orange and Vodaphone.

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Parents & the phones they buy for their kids

The LG KS360, LG Cookie, Orange Vegas, LG GW520, Samsung Genio Touch/Qwerty and the Samsung Tocco Lite. These are but a small list of the somewhat useless phones that parents are forced to buy their kids. But why? In simple its because they are colourful, low cost, touch screen handsets that kids become consumed by because of warped advertising strategies and social peer pressures. Buy why do parents give in to the demands of these manufactures so easily? Why not just sit down and spend 15 minutes on the internet, especially Ebay and look at the fantastic alternatives to stop their kids whining when the colourful, low cost, touch screen handset breaks after five minutes? A thing ive noticed is that over the Christmas months the likes of the LG and cheap Samsung handsets sell like sweets to a diabetic because every kid wants one, but its getting so bad that now the parents are buying them themselves and whining even more when the break. Generally its because the kids loudly shout the features of these phones and why they want one to their parents, which in turn basically sells them to their parents as well. First things first, parents should have the will-power and intellectual know-how to grasp what makes a product good and what makes it cheap. A cheap product that seems to offer a lot of features isn't necessarily going to be good, in fact in most cases it isn't. I got my first phone when i was twelve and ive had many payngo phones all up to i was 18 and got a contract. Contract phones are, in my opinion, a far cheaper option for any 18 year old. A student should know that when your spending £20 a month on credit and you still have a phone that is like a manic-depressive you should be on a cheap £15 a month contract, with a decent handset and maybe a bit of insurance for peace-of-mind. Everyone has this strange idea that contracts are a burden and will ultimately rob you blind of all your money. In some cases this is true but this is because people don't understand them. By the way i know I'm getting off topic but this needs to be said. 12 month contracts do NOT exist any more, its all 18 month and 24. If something says £20 a month it probably wont work out exactly £20. You still have VAT, any roaming charges you rack up and the possibility of going over your allotted usage. If you phone breaks the manufactures has to deal with it after a certain period, not the network, unless they do in their policy. GET INSURANCE, no matter what insurance is a good thing. Not with all companies mind you, I'm not just saying this because i work for Orange, but Orange has the best and cheapest insurance, ask anyone whose made a claim. Anyway, were back in. Parents make sure you spend some time on the likes of you-tube to get reviews for you kids new phone. Check to see if a cheaper option is available on Ebay. Read up on gsmarena, phonedog, cnet and stuff magazine to get a better idea of how the phone will behave. And finally contracts for kids. Parents have the right to be worried about where the children are at all times, so a contact with free minutes and text could be a good idea to keep in touch. But manage the contract, make sure they know their daily use on the phone. Don't let them download paid apps, music, photos, etc cause it will only pile up on your bill. That being said, in a somewhat brash and forceful manner i think some (not all) parents need to take a mature look at the phones being bought for their children and themselves to save allot of time and effort in the long run. 


And don't yap at the sales-person, there only doing there job!


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Windows Phones 7 - Is it Microsoft's cry for help?

I know that Microsoft are chewing their nails right now thinking this is the software that will make or break us in the mobile technology market. Now I love Microsoft when it come to PC, I'm not a Mac-man at all but in the phone world it seems that with the likes of Win-Mobile 6.5 you have all the capabilities of a phone but with a cluttered software bringing the whole experience down. Its hard to find a handset with a more complicated file structure than a blackberry but windows mobile takes the bullet. But this could all change with windows mobile 7, I think it looks fantastic. Although I'm pretty sure Microsoft wont get the kind of sales they want from it. There is just far too much competition now a days from Google, never mind Apple. Google has now become the proprietary software that every major manufacturer is loading onto their handsets even if they have their own software on top. Are companies, who still know how incredible and well established Microsoft are, going to scrap Google to make way for a new bread of Windows phones? I don't think so. The likes of HTC, Samsung and LG have already announced their Microsoft branded handsets but comparing that with Google, it just seems like their lending Microsoft a hand but putting Google at top Priority. Which is fair enough in some respects but their is still a large amount of loyal windows phones users out there, although specifically in the last quarter of 2009 windows phone users dropped from 12% of the smart-phone population to 3%. This leaves Microsoft with the daunting task of delivering a handset software to which know one is interested in any more. I'm sure developer interest will drop a fair bit as well as windows 6.1/6.5 have been a developers favourite for the majority of applications, which will change with the new software.  Aside from all these tasks the phones themselves look excellent, polished and very presentable. The software itself it pretty much a internet and call enabled Zune, which isn't a bad thing at all as the Zune HD has been a Ipod Touch competitor for a while now and is a fantastic MP3 player. 


Windows Phone 7 is due for release in October this year in Europe and it should hopefully be a killer handset, even if no fool buys it.


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IOS4 Jailbreak - Its Here!

The folks over at jailbreakme.com have finally jail-broken the phone 4 software. Dubbed the ios4 jailbreak 'star' it allows iphone 4 and 3gs users to jailbreak their new software to get all the free cydia and rockk apps from free. It isn't dodgy and i jail broke my 3g and was happy doing it but i pretty sure it voids warranty and insurance so be warned. To jailbreak your iphone 4, which is quite quick and painless and by-the-way now LEGAL go to www.jailbreakme.com and find your step by step instructions. It may be quicker to go to the site from your safari browser from your iphone 4 and do the jailbreak direct from there.


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Good luck

Why you haven't got Android 2.2 yet

I posed yesterday about the Android Froyo 2.2 update and it seems that allot of people are running about the net looking for an answer to why they haven't received their update yet. Here it is in short: Any Google phone users running HTC Sence or some other on-top software will have to wait a bit longer for their manufacturer to approve and tweak their handsets software to co-exist with 2.2. As well as this anyone running a device that is a locked, branded handset from a UK carrier like Orange, O2, Vodaphone, T-mobile will have to wait longer again. Vodaphone have so far been the only one to respond to this saying that the Froyo update won't be until around September time, whereas Orange and O2 have remains silent. Good news though for 3UK users as most 3 handsets are unlocked and unbranded so they will receive their updates today. This may be a major buzzkill (major buzzkill salute) for most UK HTC desire users as they are going to have to wait a bit longer.


To sum up: Don't get to excited as the update is only for unlocked handsets at this point. Operator specific handsets still have to undergo testing so i expect the update to appear in several weeks time. HTC hero users on Orange still should receive parts of their 2.1 update in this next week. So unless you paid out-right for the likes of the HTC Desire, you may be waiting a few weeks. NOOO!

Nokia N8: Will the hardware outweigh the software

In my own opinion the only real problem I have with Nokia smart-phones is the fact that they may well have a great spec but when it come to the interface and the complete layout of the phones software, its just completely let down by poor GUI. The Nokia N8 is a prime example of this. Ok so i know the handset isn't released yet but from news and reviews ive gathered that the will obviously run Symbian 3, which will be tweaked a bit with the final product. The spec for the handset is incredible, apart from the low end ARM 680 MHz processor. But its still equipped with 3D Graphics and features like a 12Mp camera with 720p video capture and a 16GB internal memory with memory expansion up to 32GB. This is all well and good but the interface....ewwww. It just looks god aweful, cluttered and badly designed. It seems as if nokia are a bit confused by smartphones. They know that they can make smart-phones and make them well but with their software its as if their trying to keep some memory of their over simplified cheaper handsets. Apple made a smart phone and kept the majority of its interface simple. Google creatred an interface that your can customize how ever you want. Samsung annd LG copied every interface they could and Nokia try to make their software look like an advanced, touch screen version of a Nokia 3510i.


When it comes to the spec of the handset its unreal:

▪ 12MP Camera with4000x3000 Pixel density and Xenon flash

▪ 720P Video Capture and playback at 25 FPS

▪ 16GB storage with a micro sd capacity of 32GB

▪ A 360x480 capacitive AMOLED screen

▪ 680 MHz processor with a 3D Graphics accelerator

I can only speculate at this point to whether or not the phone will be good but it just reminds me over the over-hype when the N97 was coming out. I new from day one that the phone was going to be everywhere and marketed like it was sex-in-a-box but the problems that surfaced with the phone just showed how Nokia can promptly over-market a phone which from a user point of view is  a bout as useful as a ashtray on a bicycle.

So far its pretty safe to say all networks will get the phone when its due for release around September/October. Whether or not you go for it, i leave up to you!

Relation: For a quick look at the N8's younger brother check out gsmarena @ http://www.gsmarena.com/next_nokia_c700_leak_confirms_name_and_specs_720p_video_too-news-1849.php

Did Steve Jobs lie to us?

I think the video below says it all:

Well the drama that surrounds the antennagate problem with the iphone, in my opinion was only worsened by the fact that steve jobs stood up and tried to crack that other phones do the same thing. No they don't. Certainly if you hold a phone, covering all sides of the handset you may get dropped bars in signal and wifi but not to the extent that the iphone 4 does. The overall problem is a complete and utter design fault on the hardware side. Maybe if they didn't specifically point out where the antenna was on the handset they wouldn't have as many complaints, but they did.

With all the features of the Iphone 4 being so incredible it is hard to find a fault in the handset, but when your seeling 3 million in 3 weeks of course people are going to find problems. I remember christmas around two years ago the LG KS360 was the handset that all and any kid wanted. It was mayhem. It got to the point that pre-orders where taken and the adverage phone retailer was selling around 10 - 20 Lg's a day. But after christmas the inevitable happend, which was around 20 - 30% of the handsets were being returned with software faults, etc. So again its extremely difficult for any high demand manufacturer to keep the same level of quality in their handsets when there shipping out so many. Apple knew that was the case and thats why they stated 'Their not perfect'. Which is fair enough but don't think the public are so nieve. Don't tell use were holding the phone wrong, that its a fault in your algorithm and that every phone behaves in the exact same way because it doesn't. Overall the Apple Iphone 4 is pretty much the best handset around even with its flaws, which will probably be fixed soon enough. I'm sure the Iphone 4 White was delayed so that when they ship it it doesn't have the antennagate problem, even if Apple said they were delaying it because the colour of the handset wasn't right. Dont be taking us for a ride Apple, We know what your up to son!