Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Phones Review

Phones Review

Nook Color To Android 2.2 Tablet: Your Views

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 12:47 PM PDT

The Barnes & Noble Nook Color is going from colourful eReader to Android tablet, with the introduction of an update that includes lots more extras.

The introduction of so many extras in the update for the Nook Color means the tablet can be priced at $249 and sold with an Android 2.2 system, email, Flash supported browser, apps and calendar. The 7-inch reader tablet by Barnes & Noble has had 125 apps designed specifically for the device and will launch today, but at only $249 it is a short price to pay without famed Twitter apps or Android 3.0.

Making things even simpler for Nook Color owners, who will not even have to think twice about getting Nook Apps, Nook Books, Nook Email and "an enhanced web experience" after today, as the roll-out begins and ends with an automatic update.

As indicated in an article by Meaghan Clark of ExecDigital, the Barnes & Noble Nook Color tablet prides itself on creating a harmonious world between the avid reader and the executive businessman, but strangely enough the latest advertisement focuses on the aforementioned rather than the latter. To celebrate reading in all platforms and coinciding with the tablet's update, Barnes & Noble have launched the "Read Forever" advertising campaign.

In an advertisement campaign that will come out on television, social media platforms and print, Nook Color focuses on both Nook Color readers and paperback ones. The new advertisement centres around the endless amount of information users can gain from the Nook Color tablet.

"Our 'Read Forever' campaign beautifully expresses what Barnes & Noble has always stood for, a genuine love of books and reading, and also illustrates what readers love about reading – the ability to lose, find, amuse and educate yourself in written pages.", as quoted by Sasha Norkin, Vice President of Digital Marketing at Barnes & Noble.

Please let us know what you think of the update and the many extras that have been included. Also of interest might be our article on Android 3.0 Honeycomb being ported over to the Nook Color tablet – see here.

Vodafone SMS Outage: Easter Sunday Network Problems

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 11:26 AM PDT

At a time of the year when people were enjoying the Easter festivities, some Vodafone customers in Australia found that they were unable to send SMS texts on Easter Sunday, apparently due to network problems.

Thousands of Vodafone customers were unable to send text messages on Easter Sunday, due to what Vodafone is claiming was a network fault at an exchange. During the service disruption a number of customers took to Facebook and Twitter to voice their complaints about the service in what was known as “vodafail”. During the SMS outage a Facebook group which was devoted to the issue gaining 20,000 members, whilst the SMS services was offline and "vodafail" becoming the top trending topic on Twitter for a day in Australia.

Vodafone told ZDNet Australia “The disruption to SMS services on Sunday afternoon was caused by a network fault in one of our exchanges. Engineers are currently completing their investigation, but the fault was an isolated issue that affected the core network elements which manage our SMS traffic,”.

In a blog post Vodafone tried to appease their customers by apologising for the outage and offering customers 12 hours of free SMS services on 1 May between 8am and 8pm. However, this gesture by Vodafone did not go down too well with all of their customers, as some have plans, which give them unlimited free SMS anyway.

This is not the first time that Vodafone customers have had a problem with the SMS service going down, as UK customers suffered the same problem when a Vodafone exchange centre in Basingstoke suffered a break in on February 28th, 2011 – see full article here. Have you suffered with any Vodafone network issues? If so, please let us know.

iPhone 6 2012 to Sport Sharp p-Si LCD

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 08:49 AM PDT

I'm sure most are becoming tired of all the iPhone 5 speculation, so how about leaping ahead a year to 2012 and the iPhone 6? What can we expect the sixth generation iOS smartphone to sport when it hits the mobile space?

Well according to an article over on Apple Insider, by way of Japanese newspaper Nikkan, Apple has apparently decided to go with Sharp for the iPhone 6 display opting to go with Sharp's new low temperature poly-silicon liquid crystal display.

Apparently Sharp has already begun preparing machinery at their plant No 1 in Kameyama, a plant that is used for producing LCD displays. With the p-SI LCD the film transistor is manufactured from polycrystalline silicon, which apparently means the display drivers can be situated on the glass substrate and thus allowing for a thinner display.

So basically if this rumour turns out to be true, the iPhone 6 will likely come with a thinner and lighter display, and apparently would negate the need for additional components in such devices as the iPhone, although of course at present this is just rumour and should be treated as such.

HTC Thunderbolt Accessories: Inductive Battery Cover

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 08:42 AM PDT

Since the arrival of HTC’s Thunderbolt there have been a number of issues raised surrounding the handsets battery life, with some users stating that they are only getting around 2.5 hours when using the device on LTE.

With all the hype and expectation surrounding this Android smartphone before its release, it is a shame that the battery issue was not resolved first. We did an article surrounding the problems Thunderbolt users were experiencing, in which we invited owners to give us feedback on any battery life issues they had, the feedback does not read well for the HTC Thunderbolt – see article here.

Verizon’s HTC Thunderbolt will most definitely not win any prizes in the longetivity department judging by the response from users of the device. The guys at Mobile.Engadget have indicated that they mentioned a while back, about a Qi-compatible inductive back for this handset. However, since their article the Verizon store has stripped the picture and $39 price tag from the link, with a part now named “ThunderBolttrade Inductive Battery Cover.” in its place.

The article by Mobile.Engadget via MobileBurn goes on to indicate that Verizon may offer the inductive back as some sort of trade-in deal. If you are the owner of a HTC Thunderbolt and some sort of trade-in deal is offered regarding the inductive back, please let us know below.

Please note that we offer a few solutions to the battery life nightmare that some Thunderbolt owners are experiencing, in the way of extended batteries: iSound Portable Backup 8000mAh Battery, Seidio Innocell 1600mAh Slim Battery and 2750mAh Extended Battery & Cover.

Gingerbread Nexus S 4G on Sprint Price and Release Date Confirmed

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 08:16 AM PDT

For those of you that have been waiting to grab some Android 2.3 Gingerbread goodness on the Sprint network in the form of the Nexus S 4G smartphone, although Sprint went official with the device a while back they haven't given a confirmed release date for the device.

Well now that has been rectified as according to the guys over at Phone Dog, the Nexus S 4G will release on Sprint as of the 8th of May and will command a price tag of $199.99 when signing up for a 2-year term.

Although the device has been available from T-Mobile for about 12 months so it's about time Sprint got round to finally releasing the Android 2.3 Gingerbread Nexus S 4G to play nice on their WiMAX 4G network.

As you are no doubt aware the Nexus S 4G is made by Samsung and sports a 4-inch Super AMOLED touch screen with a 1GHz processor, 5 megapixel camera and a front facing VGA camera and apparently will be among the first to receive Android updates.

So there it is, now any of our readers been waiting to pick up the Samsung Nexus S 4G so they can play nice on Sprint's 4G?

Android Honeycomb Acer Iconia Offered By Best Buy

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 07:47 AM PDT

For those that might be after an Android Honeycomb tablet but can't or don't wish to shell out the hefty 600 buck asking price for the Motorola Xoom, you can now grab the Acer Iconia tablet from Best Buy that commands a more reasonable price tag.

According to Unwired View, Best Buy has now made the Android 3.0 Honeycomb Acer Iconia tablet available for a price of $449.99. The Acer Iconia features the same processor as the Motorola Xoom and the Motorola Atrix 4G, an NVIDIA Tegra 2.

The Acer Iconia is a WiFi only tablet that sports a 5 megapixel rear facing camera, a 2 megapixel front facing camera, a 10.1-inch WXGA display 16GB storage, Bluetooth, USB 2.0 port, and a digital media card reader.

The Acer Iconia Honeycomb tablet measures 10.2 x 7 x 0.5 inches and weighs 1.7 pounds and is available to purchase as of right now from Best Buy. So any of our readers looking to pick up the Acer Inconia?

Windows Phone 7.5 Mango OS Update: Live Agents

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 07:29 AM PDT

It would appear that later on this year Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 will have a name change in line with their Mango update, which includes new enhancements.

Microsoft will be changing the name of next version of Windows Phone to either Windows Phone 7.5 or Mango, this according to the official Windows Phone website that Microsoft has recently updated, the site is an essential resource centre for developers working with Microsoft and would only confirm the expected release date of Mango as arriving “later in 2011″. We previously did an article on the Mango update coming in the fall, see here.

It has also been announced by Microsoft that they will be dropping the “7″ version reference in the product’s title, thus means that the product will now be referred to as simply, 'Windows Phone'. The introduction of Mango will include the following enhancements updated developer tools (which will be available in May), new capabilities for Marketplace and multitasking improvements.

According to an article by ItProPortal it is believed that the new features will enable Live agents to create “superior customer engagement” with real-time integration. There will also be access to the camera and Motion sensor library for the developers, which could pave the way for even more immersive augmented reality experiences.

Now we know that in the second half of the year Mango will come with IE9, and will power the second generation of Windows Phone handsets coming to the market. Currently, there are less than a dozen Windows Phone 7 handsets on the market; Dell Venue Pro, Samsung Omnia 7, LG Optimus 7 and HTC's 7 Mozart, 7 Pro, 7 Trophy and HD7.

HTC Droid Incredible 2 Price and Release Date Confirmed

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 06:34 AM PDT

For the Android faithful over in the good ole US of A who have been awaiting the release of the Android 2.2 Froyo packing HTC Droid Incredible 2 on the Verizon network, the Big Red has now gone all official and confirmed price and release date of the device.

According to the guys over at Slash Gear, Verizon has confirmed that the HTC Droid Incredible 2 will become available as of the 28th of this month and command a price tag of $199.99 when signing your life away for a 2-year term and mandatory data plan.

Spec reminder of the HTC Droid Incredible 2 although those waiting for the Android smartphone probably have them committed to memory, a 4-inch WVGA Super LCD touch screen, Android 2.2 Froyo OS, 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash, 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 720p video, DLNA< Adobe Flash Player and of course HTC Sense.

So there you have it you should be able to snap up the HTC Droid Incredible 2 in a couple of day's time. So any of our readers hoping to play nice with the Droid Incredible 2.

Windows Phone 7 Nokia Ovi Maps Integration

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 06:18 AM PDT

The new partnership between Nokia and Microsoft appears to have gotten even stronger with the integration of Ovi Maps on Windows Phone 7 handsets.

As well as bringing Nokia's expertise in location-based services and mapping to Windows Phone 7, Stephen Elop, Nokia's CEO has announced on Nokia Conversations (the official Nokia blog) that Nokia has "shifted from a mode of developing our strategy to one of putting our strategy into action." This announcement comes to us from the guys at T3 via BGR.

Elop goes on to talk of a new Nokia branded application store being delivered, and there is also some good news for published Nokia developers who want to work with Microsoft's Window Phone 7 platform, for the first year the developer registration fee – normally $99- will be waived, most likely to encourage developers on board.

In addition, Symbian is not left out of the announcement as the Nokia CEO said that Nokia has a "laser focus" on the delivery of great Symbian smartphones, as well as the soon to be introduced Symbian Anna software as part of "an ongoing pattern of software enhancements". Which seem coincide with our article 'Nokia To Continue With Symbian For a While Yet' – see article here.

This all sounds like great news with the relatively new Windows Phone 7 platform merging with Nokia's strengths. Let us know what you think about the partnership between Microsoft and Nokia, and what software enhancements you would like to see on the Windows Phone 7 smartphones.

Also of interest why not check out our articles on the Windows Phone 7 – Latest Chassis Specs Detailed and 16MP Camera Handset Coming from HTC: Video.

Nokia C2-06 Specs, Images: No Price or Release

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 06:03 AM PDT

It appears that Nokia has announced a new touch screen smartphone, the Nokia C2-06 and has delivered on the specifications for the device along with a couple of pictures but no work on when the handset will be released or at what price.

According to an article over on Usanet, the Nokia C2-06 will be a Symbian Series 40 device with a TFT resistive touch screen with a 240 x 320 pixel screen resolution, and a 2 megapixel camera with video recording.

Although the specs of the Nokia C2-06 aren't that impressive the device is a Dual SIM handset with GSM 850/900/1800/1900, Bluetooth, Ovi Mail, Ovi Chat, Nokia Life Tools, Ovi Chat Instant Messenger, and memory expansion up to 32GB.

The Nokia C2-06 has a 1020mAh battery delivering up to 6 hours talk time and up to 480 standby time, and as previously mentioned there's no word on when or where the Nokia C2-06 will surface for what pricing it may command.

Smartphones: Android 2.3.4 Getting Google Talk with Video

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 05:41 AM PDT

Google I/O isn't that far off now and it appears that the rumours are beginning to leak out as to what the Google guys will bring to the Android platform during the event, and one such leaked feature has been supposedly revealed by a guy who apparently works for Samsung.

According to an article over on Droid-life by way of Android Police, apparently Google may introduce Google Talk with video to smartphones at Google I/O, a feature currently only available on Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets.

Apparently the word that Google Talk with video came Twitter with @MAFiA303 tweeting…" Just had a video call using gmail on Nexus S. Impressive quality @googlenexusGingerbread 2.3.4 #io2011"
Of course the tweet says Gmail, which already has video capabilities on computers, so we can presume the guy meant Google Talk, as when it comes to Gmail or Google Talk on smartphones there isn't a video call option.

Furthermore if said tweet turns out to be true then the next Android update to be released to the Google Nexus S should be Android Gingerbread 2.3.4.

So does having the ability to video chat in Google Talk on your Android smartphone sound like a good idea to you?

iPhone 5 Fake Keynote Rehearsal by Steve Jobs

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 05:13 AM PDT

If all the speculation about the iPhone 5 isn't enough for you, there is now apparently a video floating the net waves of iPhone guru Steve Jobs rehearsing the iPhone 5 intro keynote, although one does have to say it's obvious that it is a fake.

According to Cult of Mac, apparently the Steve Jobs in the video sounds a lot like George W. Bush, and according to TUAW, by way of Macrumors, the fake video says that the iPhone 5 will have "digital scent technology" and a battery that doesn't require charging.

The video can be found on Chinese site Tudou and lasts 46 seconds and even has the Steve Jobs impersonator stopping mid keynote to change his shoes and says they are as light as an iPhone 5.

Have to say it is a considerable poor attempt at faking an Apple keynote, but the big question here is why would anyone want to create such an obvious fake? Smell-o-vision and a lifetime battery sounds good though, lol.

Android 3.0 Honeycomb On BlackBerry PlayBook Mistake by MacMall

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 04:43 AM PDT

Give someone in the retail business access to photoshop and mistakes are bound to happen. For example are you aware that the first tablet out of the Research In Motion camp runs Android 3.0 Honeycomb? No, neither did we.

However according to an article over on Ubergizmo and by way of Nexus404, it appears that retailer MacMall seems to be under the assumption that the BlackBerry PlayBook does indeed run Android 3.0 Honeycomb rather than RIM's QNX operating system.

Apparently MacMall slapped up an advert for the BlackBerry PlayBook and mistakenly photoshopping Android Honeycomb onto the BlackBerry tablet, and apparently were in no real hurry to take it down.

Most are aware that the BlackBerry PlayBook can run Android apps via an type of emulator, but that isn't the save as running Android natively. Perhaps whoever made the image is a devoted Android fan with a great deal of wishful thinking.

Would anyone love to see the BlackBerry PlayBook be able to run Android 3.0 Honeycomb? Perhaps that would make the RIM tablet more acceptable to consumers.

Apple and Google To Face Senate Over Mobile Privacy

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 04:15 AM PDT

Looks like both Apple and Google are to face the lawmakers over concerns of the iOS and Android platforms collecting location info on users as the two giants of the mobile space have been summoned to appear before the Sensate.

According to the guys over at 9to5 Mac, Illinois attorney general, Lisa Madigan and Senator Al Franken have both summoned Apple and Google to appear before a Senate judiciary hearing on the 10th of May concerning mobile privacy.

Here's what Senator Al Franken says in a statement…" Recent advances in mobile technology have allowed Americans to stay connected like never before and put an astonishing number of resources at our fingertips. But the same technology that has given us smartphones, tablets, and cell phones has also allowed these devices to gather extremely sensitive information about users, including detailed records of their daily movements and location. This hearing is the first step in making certain that federal laws protecting consumers' privacy-particularly when it comes to mobile devices-keep pace with advances in technology."

While Lisa Madigan said in a statement…" I want to know whether consumers have been informed of what is being tracked and stored by Apple and Google and whether those tracking and storage features can be disabled."

According to the article other privacy watchdogs will appear at the hearing including top people of the department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, privacy expert Ashkan Soltani, and the director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Project on Consumer Privacy, Justin Brookman.

Looks like the powers that be aren't too pleased with the iPhone, Apple iPad and Android smartphone sharing location data and are going to bring Apple and Google to task over it; more on this as and when we hear.

iPhone 5 or 4S: My Name is?

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 04:14 AM PDT

Well the latest revelations regarding the iPhone 5 seem to blow quite a few of the previous rumours regarding this device out of the water. That is of course if they are to be believed.

Apple's newest iPhone has become known by us as the iPhone 5 and was thought to be launched with this name, but this new information that has surfaced indicates that the handset will actually be called 'iPhone 4S' and will look like the iPhone 4, but with an Apple A5 dual core CPU within.

The handset apparently will also not come with an 8MP camera and not be able to record 1080p HD videos, but will have a 5MP camera that is only capable of shooting 720p HD videos, with the front camera being the same resolution. This information comes to us by way of a thegadgets article via what they claim is there 'Apple source'.

According to the thegadgets article there is no information on the screen size or resolution of the smartphone. However, their source did say that Apple has given the prototype versions of the 'iPhone 4S' to certain developers within the Apple headquarters and also some selected application developing partners who are getting the apps sorted for the phones release and that the prototypes must stay on the campus.

In addition, the source indicated that the iPhone 4S will not come with iOS 5, but will have a version of iOS 4 instead, believed to be iOS 4.5 or possibly 4.6 and that it is more likely that the iOS 5 will be revealed at WWDC 2011, with the release date being withheld. However, the shipping of the latest iPhone addition in 'September', is believed to be correct, with the white version being shipped from the start.

Earlier today we did a post on this topic, see article here and we would now like to know what your thoughts are on the 'iPhone 4S' name and the possibility of the iOS handset not coming with many of the features we were perhaps hoping for? Please let us know below.
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