Posted on 2009 under Samsung |
22
Feb
The Samsung Pixon is a camera phone that’s been designed from the ground up to be the best camera phone on the market. Not content with fitting it with a huge 8 megapixel, Samsung have also equipped the Pixon with GPS, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, DivX support, a fantastic screen, an upgraded version of their TouchWiz touchscreen user interface, and more camera wizzardry than you knew existed.With so many features in the Pixon, you’d expect it to be a bit bulky, but not a bit of it. The pixon is just 13.8mm thin, which compares favourably with the Nokia N96 (18mm) and the Sony Ericsson C905 (18.5mm), both of which will be the Pixon’s main competitors.
The Pixon is a touchscreen phone with no stylus or keys except for the usual call connect/disconnect and a cursor button. The phone’s front is dominated by a huge 3.2″ screen that can display 262,000 colours (16 million would have been better, but hey, you can’t have everything!)
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Posted on 2008 under Sony Ericsson |
22
Nov
At MWC 2008 in Barcelona, Sony Ericsson presented its G-class. In contrast to Mercedes’ this one targets the mass consumer. Although they use Symbian UIQ, the phones presented should not be viewed as smart ones. They are rather average, easy to operate devices, for which the touchscreen and the OS are extras broadening their potential on the market.
In this preview, we will explore the G700, intended as a mid-level phone.
Design:
The phone has the typical Sony Ericsson candybar look and dimensions of 4.2 x 1.9 x 0.5 inches (106 x 49 x 13 mm) and weighs 3.5 oz (99 g). In contrast to its older brother G900, the device has more of a fashion design. All edges are rounded and the back lid is ribbed, which adds a pleasant stability feeling while using it. We liked the colors used as well – the one seen here is in dark and light brown. We liked this one more than the official silk bronze and we wonder why it has not been announced.
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Posted on 2008 under Nokia |
20
Nov
Nokia N96: designed for those who want to create content as well as consume it.
Nokia’s all-singing, all-dancing N96 crams an amazing number of features into your pocket.
The N96 is a multimedia powerhouse designed for those who want to create content as well as consume it. First the obligatory Jesusphone comparison - Nokia’s N96 is no iPhone-killer, but it’s not really intended to be (although the upcoming Nokia 5800 Express Music fancies itself as an iPhone slayer).
The N96’s 2.4-inch, 240×320 display is not a touchscreen and the phone doesn’t have a full qwerty keyboard. Instead you navigate the menus with a five-way rocker, surrounded by 11buttons including dedicated multimedia buttons.
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Posted on 2008 under Samsung |
20
Nov
When the Samsung Omnia i900 was unveiled a few months ago, this smartphone’s features quickly drew attention as a possible worthy competitor for the iPhone.
It has a tablet shape with a relatively large touchscreen, and while it runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro, Samsung is adding its own user interface which has been designed to be easy to to use with a fingertip.
And like many consumer-oriented devices these days, it offers megabytes of built-in storage.
First thing’s first: I’d be remiss if I didn’t throw a shout out to the folks over at eXpansys, who happily and quite painlessly provided my review unit. Like a great many high-end gadgets, they offer the Omnia in an unlocked version suitable for use on any GSM carrier, in whichever color you prefer, as long as you’re not attached to your firstborn child. (I kid. They really only expect part of your liver, or one kidney.)
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Posted on 2008 under LG |
30
Mar
ALMOST no one will contest the appeal of LG Viewty’s sexy little chassis, ultra-slim profile or anorexically light weight. But its famously slow operating system and lacklustre user-interface has had users scratching their heads over whether they should buy it.
Enter LG’s latest mobile phone - the KS20. The KS20, by contrast, is a full-feature handset, shrunk to the Viewty’s small size and oozes the same sex appeal.
This baby’s 2.8-inch touchscreen lets you easily navigate the features with a stylus or your fingers.
The gizmo is also perfect for users who need their music and media files everywhere they go. The phone comes with a 2-megapixel camera, MP3 playback and an inbuilt FM radio. Workaholics will also love their push e-mail messaging feature, instant messaging and video calling functions.
Posted on 2008 under General Talk |
25
Mar
| Double duty: 2 SIM cards, 1 phone |
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| LECTURER Ziggy Soh used to pack an extra sling bag along every time he flew to Beijing and Taipei for work.
It was either that, or stuffing two phones - a Motorola ROKR and a no-frills Nokia - into his trouser pockets whenever he went out.
“If you carry two cellphones, one in each pocket, it feels weird,” he quipped.
Ziggy, who lectures in advertising and integrated marketing communications at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, would whip out the phone with a local pre-paid SIM card to make local calls within whichever city he was in.
He used the other phone with hisSingapore SIM card to remain easily contactable by friends and family back home.
But he has since ditched those phones.
Three monthsago, the 40-something man bought a dual-SIM card phone in Taipei. The Pierre Cardin phone, which cost him $200, allows him to use two SIM cards at the same time - in the same phone.
This is possible because both cards are on “standby”, ready to receive and make calls and SMS messages, thanks to two antennas built in.
What’s available
AMONG the big-name brands, only Samsung seems to have such a dual- SIM card phone here. The SGH-D880, ($598 without contract), was brought in last December.
“It’s more targeted at a niche audience, at least in Singapore,” said Aloysius Choong, an analyst from market research firm IDC, explaining the dearth of such phones by big-name handset makers.
Yet, sales of the Samsung phone have been quite encouraging in the past few months, said Ng Long Shyang, the company’s vice-president of sales & marketing for telecommunications and IT products here.
Digital Life understands that Chinaand Taiwan-made dual-SIM handsets have also made their way to Singapore.
A check with shops in Sim Lim Square show that they cost anything from $200 to $300. Most carry unfamiliar brand names such as CECT or Anycool. Shopowners interviewed reported “”brisk” trade, but mostly for export.
They go mostly to countries like India, Malaysia and Indonesia, said one distributor, who did not want to be named.
But they admitted there were people buying them for use here too, despite the fact that the phones have not been approved for use in Singapore by the Infocomm Development Authority.
One vendor admitted that listing the phones for export allowed him to skirt “strict” licensing issues.
Unlike the dual-SIM phone plans of six or seven years ago, which only operate one SIM card at any given time, the newer breed allows both SIM cards to operate at the same time.
This could solve the headache of having to carry around two phones.
And with more cellphones than there are people here - 5.7 million mobile subscriptions against a population of 4.5 million - such folk might not be too uncommon.
Take marketing executive Mavis Leow.
She had been carrying two phones around for five years, in a bid to keep her personal and work line separate.
A month ago, a relative told her about the dual-SIM phones, and she was sold. “I didn’t want to give out my personal line for work purposes, and it’s also for billing purposes because my company pays for the work line,” she said.
Other people use these phones to combine different phone plans. For example, one for unlimited incoming calls, and another for unlimited text messages, said Aloysius.
Dual-SIM card phone converts, like Ziggy, find their new handy aids more than handy.
He uses a prepaid card in the phone for making calls to companies and unfamiliar numbers, and switches to his regular SIM card for people he knows. A smart way of keeping his regular number from being spammed, he explained.
“Many companies record your phone number when you call them, then send you marketing messages. If I use a prepaid card, even if any company records my number when I call, it can send its text messages only to my prepaid card, which I can get rid of without much hassle.”
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Posted on 2008 under General Talk |
23
Mar
TOKYO, JAPAN - Japanese stores took delivery of no second-generation mobile telephones in January for the first time since their launch as shipments of advanced handsets soared, an industry group said Tuesday.
Japan and South Korea are at the forefront of third-generation (3G) phones, which offer high-speed Internet access and other interactive features and have not even entered the market in many developing nations.
Manufacturers sent 4.08 million cellphones to Japanese stores in January, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association said.
“For the first time, the number of second-generation models was zero,” it said.
Japan becomes the second country to be virtually finished with second-generation following South Korea, according to Nomura Research.
Japanese stores continue to offer a small number of second-generation phones, but it is almost impossible for new users to start fresh subscriptions.
At the end of February, nearly 85 percent of Japanese mobile users were carrying third-generation or equivalent phones. Japan’s top-ranked NTT DoCoMo Inc. in 2001 became the world’s first company to offer 3G.
Despite the success in Japan and South Korea, 3G has caught on more slowly in other countries amid questions over whether customers will pay much steeper prices for features they could find on their home computer.
Third-generation or advanced second-generation accounts for about 50 percent of North American cellphones and 10 percent of Western European mobiles, according to industry surveys.
In Japan, mobile operators have increasingly written off second-generation phones as a source of profit and have been developing more advanced features to woo customers.
More than 60 percent of the phones delivered by manufacturers in January are equipped for digital television broadcasts.
Japan began digital broadcasts in 2006 that allow mobile phone users to watch several hours of interrupted television on their phones without recharging the battery.
“It’s the third straight month that such phones make up more than half of the mobile phones,” the industry association said.
Some 20 million Japanese now have phones to watch digital broadcasts, which major networks offer for free. –AFP
Posted on 2008 under Samsung |
3
Mar
| Samsung SGH-G800 |
 |
| WHAT caught my attention were the words, ‘Photographer’s Choice’ emblazoned on the packaging of the Samsung SGH-G800 phone.
Quite a bold claim, I must say, but the G800 does come with drool-worthy camera features such as a five-megapixel sensor, image stabiliser, Xenon flash, and most impressively, a 3x optical zoom, something that’s still pretty rare in phone cameras.
Sounds promising, I thought. Can you really leave your digital camera at home and just bring the G800 along on holidays?
First, you’ll have to get past the design. Given Samsung’s track record for making super-duper slim and stylish phones, I was rather disappointed to pull a large, chunky device out of its box. (Think Nokia N95.)
The back of the phone is fashioned like a digital camera with a sliding lens cover, but this protruding cover felt awkward and somehow looked like it had been slapped on as an afterthought.
And I would also advise G800 owners to invest in a pouch - I found small scratches on the lens cover of my new test unit after using it for a week.
Thankfully, Samsung designers have decided to eschew those pesky touch-sensitive buttons, opting instead for more conventional but practical ones that give a reassuring ‘click’ when you press it.
I found the G800 easy to use, with a logical menu layout that made it easy to find what I needed. For convenience, the navigation button doubles up as shortcuts for the flash, macro, self-timer and viewfinder icon settings.
You can adjust exposure compensation, metering (normal, spot and centre-weighted) to get your perfect shot. It also has a macro mode and there are 13 shooting scenes to choose from.
The camera performs well too: Start up is relatively quick - simply slide the lens cover and you’re ready to shoot in about two seconds. Focusing in good light is fast, but sometimes takes slightly longer in low light or higher zoom levels.
Shot-to-shot timings are about four seconds with a standard microSD card - slow for a digital camera but decent for a camera phone.
My daytime shots of objects around my house and scenery photos taken in good lighting conditions mostly turned out sharp and colours were vibrant.
I suspect most casual shooters would be happy with the G800. A night shot from an overhead bridge overlooking an expressway turned out better than other camera phones I’ve tested, although the glare from light sources was sometimes captured. I also wished the flash was stronger too.
Another issue: I wasn’t sure why the G800 automatically disabled the image stabiliser every time I restarted the camera. I would have preferred to leave it on all the time!
A single charge lasted me just over 100 photos over two days, if I didn’t make calls or send SMS messages.
Of course, the G800 isn’t just about photos - it’s also a phone, and it does that job well. It’s got goodies like HSDPA (7.2Mbps) for fast Internet surfing, MP3 player, FM, and an Office document reader.
FINAL SAY
Well, to call the G800 the ‘Photographer’s choice’ may be a bit of a stretch, but it’s a great phone with a good camera, especially if you want to travel light. |
Posted on 2008 under General Talk |
21
Feb
From phones with “magic touch” panels to gizmos that come with digital maps, the world’s biggest cellphone show did not disappoint with its preview of the year’s gadgets last week.
At the Mobile World Congress, formerly the 3GSM World Congress, the annual show-off of newhandsets saw Samsung and Sony Ericsson push out the most models.
No. 2 phone-maker Samsung unveiled 14 new models in what seemed like a carpet bombing run. Its gizmos ranged from touch-screen models like the SGH-F480 to its “hero product”, the Soul.The Soul has a “magic touch” panel, which, unlike regular buttons, shows the different options you can press on when surfing the Web or listening to music, for example.
nullSony Ericsson, the No. 4 phone-maker, showed off seven new models, including its first Windows Mobile device, the Xperia X1. Finally, you can almost hear Windows fans shouting for joy. Finally, a beefy smartphone that is pretty, too.
Market leader Nokia did not let up either.
Despite a busy, busy schedule - restructuring the company to launch online music stores and its ovi Web portal - Nokia came up with the N96. This update to the successful N95 comes with 16GB of memory to store songs and photos, bringing it on par with Apple’s latest iPhone.
Then there are prototype phones running Android, Google’s much-touted open-source software for phones.
Android made its first showing here on phones that were demonstrated by chip designers like the Britain-based Arm.
But there were no commercial Android phones to be shown yet, despite manufacturers promising to ship such gadgets later this year.
The main disappointment, not surprisingly, came from the troubled Motorola, ironically the inventor of the cellphone.
Struggling in a cut-throat industry, it has been plagued by talk of its phone business being spun off, possibly to rivals or even computer makers like Dell.
Motorola, having slipped from No. 2 to No. 3 in the industry pecking order last year, showed off
nothing that would be turning its fortunes around soon.
It launched three new phones - the Z6w, W181, and W161, which were updates of previous phones it had released.
Posted on 2008 under Samsung |
28
Jan
Like the Apple iPod, Samsung’s SGH-E740 cellphone has the trademark iPod scroll wheel on the front. But the scroll wheel is where the similarity ends - there’s nothing else on the phone that resembles the iPod. The E740 has a glossy chrome finish around its screen, while the rest of the phone is decked out in matt silver.
A shortcut on the side of the phone turns on the MP3 player. And like most other players, songs are sorted by artist, album and genre
And I was hard pressed to tell the difference in sound quality between my iPod Nano and the E740.As a phone, this triband GSM/GPRS/EDGE device has the usual features such as a 2-megapixel camera, FM radio, and a microSD card slot. It works fine as a basic phone, but is missing the latest must-haves of more upmarket phones, like 3.5G, HSDPA, GPS or push e-mail.
FINAL SAY
If you have enough cash for either a cellphone or an iPod, the E740 might be perfect - it sounds just as good as the iPod!
