At the previously concluded Mobile Word Congress last February, HTC has unveiled their latest smartphones and this includes the HTC HD mini.
Buy the HTC HD Mini:
Design
The HTC HD Mini is a miniaturized version of the first generation HTC HD. This smartphone has a 3.2 inch touchscreen rather than the 3.8 inch screen of its big brother. HTC's latest smartphone also has a capacitive touchscreen rather than the previous resistive touchscreen on the HTC HD. Even though its smaller because of the smaller screen area, in terms of thickness, the HD Mini is only a hair thinner.
With the pletora of mobile phones in the market, it's really hard to make a decision on which phone to buy. Take the Google Nexus One and the HTC Desire. Both are almost identical handsets, made by the same manufacturer but with different brandings. The Nexus One is Google's own branded mobile phone while the HTC Desire is HTC's with their own Sense UI.
If you recently bought a new phone, next thing you have to do is buy accessories for it of course. Mobile Fun is a good place to start as they have a variety of cheap mobile phone accessories to choose from.
For those watching the news but aren't really blog hoppers, you might have heard about Windows Phone 7 series and wondering what is it? Is it a phone? Can I buy it? When will this be available in the UK? Well, let me introduce to you the new mobile phone OS that is Windows Phone 7 Series.
Well, it's not the Nexus One that we've been waiting for but it's still a new phone. Vodafone has put up the Sony Ericsson Vivaz for pre-order. And as if 720p video recording, 8 megapixel camera and 3.2 inch touchscreen isn't enough to entice you to buy this phone, Vodafone is throwing in an extra 300 minutes free when you pre-order your Sony Ericsson Vivaz phone online.
Remember that email I got from the Orange account manager affiliate wherein they said that Orange will get the HTC Bravo come March? Well, it seems that the HTC Bravo is actually the HTC Desire.
Buy the HTC Desire:
Design
The HTC Desire sports the similar look as the Google Nexus One. The only difference hardware-wise is that the HTC Desire has hardware buttons for the home, menu, back, and search whilst on the Google Nexus One these buttons can be found onscreen. HTC also swapped the trackball on the Nexus One with an optical mouse button. Those differences aside, both mobile phones have 3.7 AMOLED capacitive screens and the powerful 1GHz Snapdragon processor.
I'm a bit active in Yahoo! Answers and the thing is, I've come upon this question almost 3 times now. So, how do you send text messages to another country?
First, make sure that the service is supported by your service provider. Some service providers doesn't allow your plan to send text messages or call internationally so call your service provider and ask.
So what's the cheapest Android mobile phone in the UK today? Well, it's the T-Mobile Pulse which you can get for £149.99 with PAYG. I actually thought the Samsung Galaxy Portal was the cheapest. Anyways, Huawei is known for making cheap OEM mobile phones (they're actually the makers of the T-Mobile Pulse) and now they've showcased at the Mobile World Congress, probably the cheapest Android 2.1 mobile phone that we'll ever see: the Huawei U8100.
The Huawei U8100 sports 2.8-inch QVGA touch screen (now word if it's resistive or capactive),3.2 Megapixel camera, 900/2100MHz WCDMA, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity.
The screen is a bit smallish but the phone has a nice design. The Huawei U8100 will be called the T-Mobile Pulse Mini and it will be available here in the UK come April.
I never thought Android would grow on me. I've recently given up my Motorola Milestone and been using the Samsung B7610 and I find myself missing the Android interface of my Milestone. It's a good thing that I have this Galaxy Portal to review to get my Android fix. Wow, how about that, iPhone wasn't able to pry me away from my Windows Mobile phones but it seems that its Android who will do that for me. Anyways, until I purchase another Milestone, or unless someone would give it to me freely, I thought I'd review the Samsung Galaxy Portal or Galaxy Spica in other countries while it's Galaxy Lite in some but in Samsung model numbers, this is simply, the Samsung i5700.
DESIGN
I got the white version of the Portal now I'm not really into white mobile phones but there is some advantage to getting the white one: first, it's kinda cute and second, it's less of a fingerprint magnet than most black mobile phones. While I miss the flat square that is the Milestone, the Galaxy with its rounded edges and silver lining with yellow green highlights has its own appeal.
On the front of this mobile phone you have 7 buttons. The upper left button is the menu button, upper right is the back button, lower left is the call button, lower right is the end button, lodged between the menu and call button is a shortcut to Google search while lodged between the back and end button is the homescreen button. In the middle is the ok or select button and surrounding that is the directional button.
On the left side you have the volume rocker, on the right is the lock button and the camera button. On top is the microUSB and the 3.5mm headset jack.
You can take off the battery cover by just popping up the lid. I don't get why Samsung is going the pop-up battery cover way with their newer phones. I hate it. First, I got no fingernails because I have the nasty habit of biting them so I couldn't get the right grip on the cover plus the phone is in danger of being scratched by your fingernail during the times when you fumble to open it. I miss the old days when I have to slide out the battery covers. Samsung, if you're listening, this is a major design flow, bring back the slide-off battery covers!
Now here is something new that I haven't seen in other Sammy mobile phones: The simcard slot isn't at the back of the batterry, instead, it's on the left side. Now that's what I call good design. We're in that age where most users have more than 1 mobile phone numbers so naturally they have more than 1 simcards. I love the fact that I can easily swap simcards without having to take out any battery. Good move here.
The Samsung i5700, like its predecessor, the Galaxy i7500 has 3.2 inches capacitive screen. The only difference is that the i7500 has AMOLED screen while the Portal only has TFT LCD screen.
FEATURES
User Interface
The Galaxy Portal runs the 1.5 version of Android, similar to that of the previous Galaxy. It's not the updated version of Android like on the HTC Hero since the latter has the Sense UI while the former is just plain old Android. Not that I'm complaining, I mean, plain old Android was okay for me when I got the Milestone so I'm more than familiar with the Android UI.
You get three homescreens with the Galaxy which you can put shortcuts or widgets on. You can delete widgets by holding down an icon then dragging it to the trash at the bottom of the screen and you arrange icons by just holding and dragging the icons around.
You can access the start menu by press the arrow at the bottom of the screen or by flicking/swiping the arrow upwards.
The screen is actually pretty responsive although with an 800Mhz Processor compared with the Milestone's 600Mhz one, I still feel that the latter is a bit faster although it could be attributed to Android 2.1. I don't know how much RAM the Galaxy Portal has but since the Milestone runs a bit faster with Android 2.0 even though it only has 600MHz processor, I'm guessing the Milestone has a bigger RAM. The Galaxy Portal is due for an Android 2.0 update in March so we'll see if it would run much faster. Unfortunately, this phone doesn't support multitouch but again, let's hope that with the upcoming update, it would soon support that much needed feature.
Messaging, Phonebook, Calendar, Applications
The Galaxy Portal has threaded messaging but doesn't show your contacts picture in the conversation, unlike in Android 2.0. You can turn the message into an MMS by attaching a picture or sound. The keyboard is pretty much the same as the onscreen keyboard on the Milestone. I don't know what it is but I find it easier to type on this handset and I have less typos. Also, thanks to the directional pad, you can easily go back on a word and delete the typo. What I love about Android's SMS app is that like the old Windows Mobile 6.1, it has some sort of smart dialing wherein you just type your contact's name and the app automatically searches for contacts that matches what you type.
Email set-up is pretty easy if your mail provider is in the top 20 email providers, according to Android's email wizard. Setting up your email is as simple as entering your username and password.
Unfortunately, like the Motorola Milestone, you can't sync your Outlook contacts directly. Best solution is export your contacts as a csv file and import it via a Google account. Unlike the Nokia N900, Microsoft exchange is not supported unless you cough up $15-$30 for a third party sync software. The good thing about Google contacts is unlike Outlook, you can add as many mobile phones under one name as possible.
You can also sync your Calendar over the air via Google Calendar. If you want to sync your Outlook Calendar, you also need to do the export-import way but recurring appointments can't be synced.
One of the disadvantages of owning an Android handset is that it doesn't have an included document editors unlike Windows Mobile which has Office Mobile. The Galaxy Portal doesn't even have an included document reader but there are free ones in the Android Market for you to download. Document Editors are not free though. Best choice for a document editor is DataViz. There's not a lot of pre-installed apps on the Galaxy i5700 so you can check my must-have Android Apps for your phone.
Multimedia
As I've already mentioned, I really hate the native Android music player. It doesn't have any equalizer, bass boost or anything. I would really recommend MixZing which automatically searches for Album Art for your Music. Audio quality through the speakers is actually good, using the headset is slightly better.
The Samsung Galaxy Portal seems like the only Android mobile phone that supports DivX video playback. Unfortunately, the 800Mhz processor doesn't seem to be doing anything. The Samsung Jet Ultra which also has an 800Mhz processor as well as the Omnia 2 can do a much better job of DivX video playback. The same 356MB DivX video file that I played on the Omnia 2 and Jet Ultra played smoothly but the Galaxy struggles with it. The video runs slowly and audio is TOTALLY out of sync. The solution is to convert the file to a lower resolution, around 320x480 using AlltoAvi. This is just a minor setback, hopefully, the 2.1 Android update would fix this. This is an instance where you need a file explorer because DivX videos can't be accessed through the gallery. If you have a DivX file on your microSD card, you need to open it via a file explorer.
The picture gallery is a joke and I miss Samsung's proprietary gallery here. You can't finger swipe on the pictures. Instead, you have to press on the arrow button to scroll through pictures.
Browser and connectivity
I'm already in love with the Milestone's browser. The web browser on the Samsung Galaxy Portal isn't as fast as the Milestone's but it's definitely better than the browser on WinMo phones. What I love about it is that unlike other browsers, Safari included, there's no checkered board pattern when you're scrolling through pages. The disadvantage about the browser is that it has no pinch to zoom feature since this handset doesn't support multi touch. You have to use the onscreen magnifyer to zoom in and out of web pages. Tap to zoom would have been better but there's none of that. Even the dolphin browser, which allows multi touch browsing on the Motorola Droid, can't bring pinch to zoom on the Galaxy Portal. There's a magnifying glass that lets you zoom in on a particular part of a page when you're viewing a webpage as a whole.
The Samsung Galaxy has a lot of connectivity options. There's 3G HSDPA, WiFi, GPS, MicroUSB, and stereo Bluetooth. I have yet to find a 3rd party GPS application for the Android, if anybody knows something which works, let me know. I have yet to test the layar app which lets you see things such as nearest hotels, highest peaks, Twitter users near you, etc, using your phone's camera.
Camera
The Samsung Galaxy Portal has the sorriest camera in a mobile phone I have ever seen. Shame on you Samsung, you've spoiled me with things such as smile detection, face detection, image stabilizers on some of your mobile phone cameras that I was expecting more on this phone. Instead, the only option you have to is change the storage to your microSD card, set video quality, and to turn on the nightmode. Jeez, even the lowest Nokia camera phones offers more option.
However, even though there's lack of camera options, there's autofocus and this mobile phone actually does a decent job of taking pictures especially outdoors. Even without flash, the Galaxy Portal manages to capture some images in low light conditions, unlike the HTC Diamond2 which can't even capture an image in low light conditions. Sample pictures below:
CONCLUSION
Right now until March, the Samsung Galaxy Portal is exclusive to T-Mobile UK. You can grab it for free with a £20 a month tariff. Samsung's latest Android mobile phone is turning out to be a pretty solid. Thank goodness Samsung didn't go overboard by skinning it with their TouchWiz. Sure, Android by itself without Sense or MotoBlur is pretty boring but its still Android and as a die-hard WinMo fan, I have to say that Android grows on you in terms of its ease of use. Its closes competitor, the HTC Hero, is slightly more expensive so if you're going for an Android handset and you're on a budget, you can't go wrong with the Galaxy Portal. Nice screen, DivX playback, decent audio playback, good browser, a decent camera, and Android 2.1 upgrade, are amongst the things the Samsung Galaxy Portal has going for it, add a very attractive unlocked price and Samsung has done it again and made a handset worthy of your money.
Sony Ericsson's smartphones have failed to wow me these past couple of months. I didn't even bother to write about their Aino and Satio line because--well, honestly, they're expensive and they don't really have anything new to offer. Add the fact that some retailers are pulling out stock because of "software issues". Anyways, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is the next mobile phone that the Japanese-Finnish company will be releasing, and hopefully, if all goes well, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz will be available on Orange come March.
Design
The Sony Ericsson Vivaz sports a 3.2 inches resistive touchscreen with three buttons at the bottom front: the call button, menu, and the end button. Unlike most smartphones, the 3.5mm headset jack isn't located on top, instead, it's on the left side together with the microUSB port. On the right is the volume rocker with the video and camera button.
With the Vivaz's features, you can't help but compare it with the Samsung i8910 HD. Design-wise the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is much lighter and slimmer than the latter.
Features
It seems that Sony Ericsson is lacking in the innovation department so they took the Samsung i8910 HD's features and put it on a different hardware but hopefully, SE improved on some things. So why do I keep comparing the Sony Ericsson Vivaz with the i8910 HD? Well let's see, both mobile phones runs Symbian S60 OS, both have 8 megapixel camera, both is capable of recording 720p videos, both have WiFi, 3G HSDPA, GPS, TV-Out, microSD slots, and FM radios. The differences are: that the Samsung i8910 HD has an 8GB internal storage, both run different UI on top of Symbian, Samsung with their TouchWiz, and Sony Ericsson with their own homescreen interface, i8910 HD has a 3.7 inch capacitive AMOLED screen while Vivaz only has 3.2 inch resistive touchscreen, and the CPU (Samsung runs 600MHz ARM cortex, Sony Ericsson has 720MHz).
Anyways, the initial review from GSMArena seems to be fairing well with the Sony Ericsson Vivaz. 720p video recording puts it on top plus initial image quality test shows that the Sony Ericsson Vivaz can be a very good camera phone. Things are looking good for the Sony Ericsson Vivaz.
Outlook
While things may seem great for the Sony Ericsson Vivaz, the fact is, like the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2, it comes a bit too late. The Samsung i8910 HD has been in the market for almost a year now. In fact, I think that Samsung and Orange, the exlusive distributor of the Samsung i8910 HD in the UK, is slowly phasing this phone out. Knowing Sony Ericsson's pricing scheme, the Vivaz will likely be expensive at initial launch and with some stock of the i8910 HD still in the market, you can bet that you can find a much cheaper option with the latter if you're looking for a great camera phone. Also, the Samsung Wave will probably be available at the same time as the Sony Ericsson Vivaz, it has a lower camera resolution but it has Samsung's Bada OS and capacitive touchscreen and if it's priced lower or similar to the Vivaz, well, it would be hard for the Vivaz to get a solid footing in the mobile phone market.
Rest assured that you'll be hearing more about the Samsung Wave S8500 mobile phone these upcoming weeks. It's because Samsung would be officially announcing this mobile phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona tomorrow. Of course, after announcing it, it will only be a few weeks, or months before it's finally available in retail stores so let's take a look at this mobile phone.
Design
Based on the leaked photos, the Samsung Wave S8500 is probably the sleekest and sexiest mobile phone Samsung has ever built. Looking at the phone brings to mind the Samsung Tocco Ultra Touch but it's sleeker because of the aluminum body. The Samsung Wave also makes use of Samsung's latest mobile screen technology, making it only 10.9mm thick and the 3.3 inch super AMOLED screen makes the phone better to use in direct sunlight. The tempered glass use on the screen also adds to the beauty of this handset.
Features
The Samsung Wave S8500 does not lack in features. Aside from the AMOLED screen, it has a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash capable of 720p video recording like the Samsung i8910 HD. Connectivity is also not a problem with this mobile phone, aside from HSDPA, Bluetooth, and a 3.5mm jack (probably capable of doubling as a TV-Out jack), it's also capable of WiFi b/g/n. Most notable is the 1GHz processor which we still don't know from which maker and also, this is the first mobile phone to run Samsung's own OS: Bada.
As of writing, those are the only features known about the Samsung Wave but as soon as we get the official word from Samsung, I'd update this post.
Conclusion
So, what does it mean if Samsung get's their own OS? Well, this company has really changed the mobile phone playing field. Their smartphones, like the i8910 HD, Omnia 2, B7610 Omnia Pro, etc, are the cheapest when compared with other smartphones of similar OS. Having their own OS means they won't have to pay any royalties to use third party mobile OS so if Samsung plays their card right, Apple, RIM, and HTC might take notice and we'll see cheaper smartphones in the near future.
Have you been a victim of mobile phone theft or know someone who have had their mobile phone stolen? Well three mobile phone anti-theft technology had won government backing and hopes to minimize further mobile phone theft.
Here are the winners and I've also put in some thoughts regarding the technologies:
The Tie (developers: Peter Phillips from Lyndhurst, Hampshire and Dr Anthony Rix from Royston, Cambridgeshire) - an anti-theft system which matches a mobile phone with a SIM card as well as protects any data stored on the mobile phone such as passwords, browsed websites, contacts, photos, etc. The system works so that when stolen, a mobile phone cannot be used with another SIM card and data on the mobile phone cannot be accessed. It's all good except that 1) It might pose a problem to person who has two or more SIM Cards unless the system allows registration of two or more SIMs. 2) While data protection is nice added touch, it wouldn't hinder mobile phone thieves who don't care about any data and just wants the phone. They could easily wipe off the data as well as the system by just restoring the phone to factory default or "hard resetting" the phone as we like to call it. I think that the system would only work if it's hardwired to the mobile phone handset so that when the handset is flashed or restored to factory default, the SIM card tied to the handset would still be recognized.
Touch Safe (developers: Neil Garner from Norwich, Norfolk and Nick Field from Framlingham, Suffolk) - a system which makes mobile transactions more secure by using a small card carried by the owner. The owner can touch the card to the phone to enable the transaction. Good, but happens if the phone and the card both get stolen which is not improbable if both the handset and the card are on someone's purse.
I-Migo (developers: Saban Demirbasa, from West Norwood and Graham Lacy, from Hammersmith) - a system that sounds an alarm and locks the handset if it is taken out of a set of range. Effective for preventing both theft and lost of the mobile phone. It also does an automated backup of data using Bluetooth technology. I love this idea but again, this technology should be hardwired to the handset as simply taking out the battery would disengage the alarm sounds. Also, it would be nice if data can be backed up over the air either through 3G/EDGE connection or WiFi.
These three prototypes will be on display at the Mobile World Congress next week.
Nokia N900 users, if you're a bit on the techie side, here's something you might want to try on your mobile phone: run Windows 95 or NT 4.0. The Nokia N900 has already been seen running Android and even Mac OSx. Of course, not all of these are really useful because it's slow and laggy but with a little more work I'm sure we'll see better versions in the near future. Check the videos below.
Ahh, how I miss my Samsung i780. If you ask me, that was one of the better windows mobile handsets that Samsung has released. Too bad, they didn't feel the need to resurrect it with a part 2. They did come up with the Samsung B7320 and Samsung B7330 but though both handsets sport the Blackberry-like look, none of them have touchscreens.
But what's Samsung's lost is Sony Ericsson's gain. The Japanese-Swedish company has recently introduced the Sony Ericsson Aspen. A Blackberry-like mobile phone that supports touchscreen and best of all, it's part of Sony's GreenHeart line, simply put, it's made from eco-friendly materials.
The Sony Ericsson Aspen has 2.4 inches resistive touchscreen (kinda small compared with the Samsung i780, 3G HSDPA/HSUPA, WiFi, Bluetooth with A2DP, and runs the latest version of Windows Mobile 6.5.3. In addition, it also supports Sony Ericsson's Xperia Panels which is probably similar to the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2. Other features include 3.2 megapixel camera, Stereo FM Radio with RDS, microSD slot, and a 3.5mm headset jack.
There's no word as to when the Sony Ericsson Aspen will be available in the UK or its price.
So, what better way to get news about upcoming mobile phone releases than from affiliate account managers? According to an email I got from an account manager of Orange at Buy.at, Orange has some interesting handsets lined up for release in February and March.
This February, Britons would likely get a taste of the Nokia X6, another touchscreen mobile phone from Nokia sporting 3.2 inches capacitive screen, WiFi, HSDPA, 5 megapixel camera, and Symbian S60. Although I don't know why they had (Space II) after the handset name, probably the UK name of the Nokia X6?
Anyways, March is what I'm excited about. We'll see two high end phones this March in the form of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz (Sony Ericsson's take on the Samsung i8910 HD), and the HTC Bravo (HTC's take on the Nexus One). The Sony Ericsson Vivaz is pretty much set in stone regarding the specs as Sony Ericsson has been showing it off on their blogs, but the mystery is the HTC Bravo. Apparently, there's not much to go on about the HTC Bravo except that Engadget dubs it as Nexus One-alike. Then again, maybe the HTC Bravo is actually the Google Nexus One but the account manager got the name wrong. However, the email is pretty clear that the HTC Bravo is the "Android device which will eventually replace the HTC Hero" so this could be HTC's version of the Nexus One but with the awesome Sense UI on top of Android 2.1.
If so, then the Vodafone Nexus One would have a tough competition. Vodafone should definitely release the Nexus One soon if they don't want the HTC Bravo eating up its sales. And if specs from GSMArena and Engadget is to be believed, then the HTC Bravo would trump the Nexus One as it also has a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 3.7 inches capacitive AMOLED screen, optical D-pad instead of a trackball, multitouch support, and of course, Sense UI.
Although officially, Vodafone doesn't have the Motorola Milestone up on their website, you can get the Milestone with a contract from Vodafone via Mobiles.co.uk.The Motorola Milestone with a Vodafone contract comes for free at a very cheap monthly tariff of £25. This mobile phone is very much available at the website, it's in stock, and ready to be shipped to your doorstep.
If you're an Orange subscriber, mobiles.co.uk is also offering the Milestone for free with an Orange contract at £30 a month tariff.
Looks like the Motorola Milestone is still a free for all mobile phone with no specific network having exclusive dealership over it. The fact that retailers such as mobiles.co.uk, e2save, Expansys, and Carphone Warehouse are offering it with different networks, means the Milestone is a free bird which, even purchased with contract from these retailers, would still be unlocked so if you have a spare SIM lying around, feel free to swap SIMs on your Milestone.
Okay, so I longed to review the Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 ever since it was first announced together with the Omnia 2. I loved the first Omnia and the only thing missing, for me, was a physical keyboard. When the Samsung B7610 was announced, I thought it was the answer to my prayers, so, was it? Read further.
DESIGN
Having owned the Motorola Milestone, everything seems to feel like a "brick". The Samsung B7610 does feel huge and heavy compared with the Milestone but the good thing is that it's slightly thinner and weighs a bit less than the Nokia N900. Every surface is also a fingerprint magnet from its 3.5 inch screen to the glossy red back. But what's great about the Omnia Pro is that Samsung didn't scrimp on its design. It's a brick alright, but its an elegant kind of brick, thanks to its metal-like highlights and brushed metal effect.
On top of the phone you can find the 3.5mm headset jack and the microUSB port. On the right is the screen lock button and the camera button, on the left is the volume rocker and the dedicated button for switching between the "work or life" homescreen. Unlike the i900 Omnia and the Omnia 2, the stylus doesn't come separately, instead, it is housed on the top right portion of the handset.
The sliding mechanism does give an assuring click when opened and closed, unlike the Milestone but the screen feels wobbly when opened. I hope that doesn't pose a problem in the long run. There's a four row QWERTY keyboard which is adequately spaced though sometimes feel flat. Good thing Sammy put in audio feedback for the keyboard as every press of the keypad, there's a resounding "click".
Overall, considering that the Samsung Omnia Pro B7610's thickness is standard in today's landscape QWERTY phones, I'd give it an A for effort in terms of design.
USER INTERFACE
Like the Samsung Omnia 2, I'm a bit torn about its UI. In Winmo 6.5, touchwiz 2.0 is pretty much set in stone, meaning you can't turn it off without some sort of registry hack so this is a bit of a turn-off for winmo users who are all too familiar with the standard winmo ui. For first time winmo users, touchwiz 2.0 may come as a blessing because it makes the phone more user friendly.
The touchscreen is very responsive and kinetic scrolling is fluid. Of course, this is a windows mobile phone so occassional lags is expected. Although I must admit that the Samsung Omnia Pro seems much more laggy compared with the HTC Diamond2 and Touch Pro2.
The Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 comes not with one, two, nor three, but with FOUR homscreens. And I'm not just talking about homescreens with different wallpapers but TOTALLY different homscreens. First is the standard widget homescreen with the widget sidebar and three different screens to put your widgets on. This is called Samsung's "life" homescreen because its casual and can be customized according to the user's preference.
The second homescreen is the Samsung "work" homescreen because it is more suited for businessmen. The work homescreen is similar to the old winmo homescreen but more "pretty". You get a professional looking homescreen and shortcuts to your email, calendar, and connections.
The third one is the standard winmo 6.5 homescreen which is similar to zune. You get vertical panels with options which you can scroll through horizontally. It's pretty and simple.
The fourth one is the VERY OLD school windows mobile homescreen. It's ugly but long time pocket pc users will feel right at home.
MESSAGING
Like the Blackberry, Windows Mobile is known for its messaging prowess. Setting up emails is as easy as entering your email address and password and the Samsung Omnia Pro does the rest. You can sync your Outlook contacts via Activesync or your work contacts and calendar via Exchange Server which the B7610 supports.
Threaded text messaging is supported although the text messaging application is one of the ugliest I've seen so far in smartphones. I hope Samsung remedies this in the future with updates. Trust me, Samsung, the combination of green, orange and black is unappealing to the eyes.
The onscreen keyboard is a joy to type on. I'm typing this review on the Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 using the onscreen keyboard and I've had more mistypes on the Milestone than on this handset. My only wish is that there's directional buttons on the onscreen keyboard as well so I can have the complete touchscreen experience.
MULTIMEDIA
The Samsung B7610 has a 3.5 inch AMOLED screen so colors are very vibrant. The phone supports DivX playback and watching a 356MB divX file is no problem and is like watching HD TV on your hand.
The music player is awesome and I like the coverflow like interface in landscape mode. Audio quality through the speakers is okay but gets tinny in high volumes. The included headset is okay and audio quality gets better if using the headset.
WEB BROWSER AND CONNECTIONS
The Samsung B7610 is HSDPA, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and TV-Out, so connection is not an issue. It also comes with Samsung's DLNA technology which will allow you to connect with other products that has DLNA support (haven't tried it though).
You can choose to connect to the Internet via Internet Explorer or Opera Browser. Internet Explorer supports Flash but both browsers are considerably slow compared with the browser on the iPhone, Motorola Milestone and Nokia N900. However, the browser does its job if you have the patience to wait for pages to load.
BATTERY LIFE
So far so good. Battery life seems okay, will probably last 1 1/2 day. Right now, I still have 2 bars left but that's a good thing considering that I've used it extensively and even typed half of this review on this mobile phone.
CAMERA
The Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 has a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash. The camera is faster than on the Milestone but I don't know whether its a software glitch or not but previewing photos on the mobile phone itself looks grainy. Anyways, here are some sample shots in low light conditions without flash, and in brighter areas, the mountain picture is the wallpaper on my monitor so the lines is not due to the camera but because the picture is taken from a monitor.
PROBLEMS
One of the problems I've encountered, aside from the standard WinMo interface being gone, is that it seems Samsung automatically closes some applications, thus rendering multitasking ineffective. Whenever I try to run the music player in the background while trying to access another application, the player automatically stops playing mid-song. Also, when I exit Internet Explorer to go to another application, instead of IE running in the background, it automatically closes when I try to return back to it via the task switcher. It would have been okay if IE, like the browser on Android, saves your previously visited page before closing but it takes you back to your homepage. I'm hoping there's a fix somewhere that I haven't seen. Will probably visit some forums soon.
CONCLUSION
If I haven't used the Motorola Milestone, I probably would be satisfied with the Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 but as it is, I've tried a lot of smartphones before this so it's mildly disappointing. No, it's not just Android vs. WinMo, I've had a better user experience on the Diamond2 and Pro2, maybe TouchWiz 2.0 over WinMo 6.5 without the option of turning it off just turned me off or maybe I'm getting tired of WinMo. Of course, I haven't had a chance of installing any custom ROMs so I'm not completely writing the Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 off. The Samsung B7610 does have a lot to offer.
It seems that Vodafone will indeed carry the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 in the next couple of weeks. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 is the follow up to Sony Ericsson's first windows mobile phone, the X1. This time around, the Xperia X2 has an upgraded OS, slightly bigger screen, and a much bigger camera resolution. Let's see if X1 users would want to upgrade to this mobile phone.
DESIGN
In terms of design, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 seems to be a let down compared to the Xperia X1 mainly because Sony Ericsson decided to use more plastic on this mobile phone. There's a four row QWERTY keyboard which is much more tactile than the ones on the Motorola Milestone and even the Samsung B7610 OmniaPro. The Xperia X2 is also slightly thinner in terms of thickness and width compared with the B7610.
Overall, the sliding mechanism is much more solid too and the width is just right so that I don't feel like I'm carrying a huge handset. The Xperia X2 still retained a lot of metal especially in the back to make this mobile phone a sleek looking handset.
Sony Ericsson retained the optical directional pad which is great because it gives users the option of having arrow keys while in portrait mode, an option which is lacking on the B7610.
FEATURES
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 runs Windows Mobile 6.5. Unlike the HTC Pro2 or the Samsung B7610 which did their best in hiding Windows Mobile, Sony Ericsson opted to make their panels sort of an icing. Meaning you can choose to use it or not and the UI doesn't really go deep so this can either be a blessing or a course depending on how much you like/hate WinMo. For me, it's okay though I still prefer HTC's TouchFlo 3D but those who miss the old Windows Mobile interface would definitely love the X2.
Screen responsiveness is okay though I don't know why for the life of me, is opening some applications more laggy compared with the Diamond2, which shares almost exactly the same hardware: 528MHz CPU and 256MB of RAM. The screen auto rotation doesn't even have any animation and SE did a lousy job of implementing the auto rotation on this device.
You can access the Xperia Panels interface by pressing the shortcut button right below the call button on the left side. The Xperia Panels is really pretty, I'll tell you that. Sony Ericsson incorporated their media library which can be found on all Sony Ericsson phones. I really don't know the useability of the Panels such as Pixel City, which basically is an animated city and displays status icons such as battery status, missed calls, etc all over the city. It's an eye candy alright but you have to make use of your stylus most of the time in order to press any of the notifications.
The Tilewave panel is another eye-candy panel. The tilewave panel is just a bunch of moving squares, also with notifications. The most useful panel is probably the SPB mobile shell. It's a whole new homescreen for your handset and is tons better than the standard WinMo 6.5 homescreen.
PHONEBOOK AND MESSAGING
I love the Xperia X2's phonebook compared with the Samsung B7610. Why? Because this is one of those instances where I miss the old Windows Mobile interface when inputting my contacts. SE's phonebook is also much more visually appealing compared with the B7610.
The Messaging application on SE Xperia X2 features the old windows mobile threaded messaging which is simpler to look at compared with Samsung's but isn't really that much finger friendly. There's also an onscreen keyboard in case you don't want to use the physical keyboard. The onscreen keyboard is pretty useable and doesn't give you a headache when typing. The added optical directional pad also makes it ideal for one hand texting.
MULTIMEDIA and WEB BROWSER
I really like Sony Ericsson's media gallery on this handset. The photo gallery is great and allows you to scroll through your photos via finger sweep. It would even allow you to rotate your photos even without turning your phone in landscape or portrait mode.
Audio quality through speakers is pretty loud but is average when compared with the audio quality on the iPhone. The audio player is quite nice, similar to the audio player on most Sony Ericsson Walkman phones. You can organize your music by playlists, albums, authors, etc. Unfortunately, Samsung's Touch player beats the audio player on this one as the latter has equalizer presets.
The Xperia X2 supports DivX playback with subtitle support and watching videos is nice although I'd advice against watching videos in direct sunlight because you'd probably wont' see anything.
Unfortunately, like most Windows Phone, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 doesn't have a lot to boast about in terms of web browsing capabilities. You have the regular internet explorer which seems much slower on this handset compared with IE on B7610. The good news is that IE supports flash, bad news is that it seems YouTube won't be supporting PocketIE even with flash in the future.
CAMERA
I wasn't able to download the sample shots I've taken with the Xperia X2 but the 8 megapixel camera seems pretty awesome. You can shoot picture by using the touchscreen focus or the dedicated camera button on the right side of this phone. There are also a lot of in camera options such as white balance, macro mode, geo tagging, etc. Like Samsung's camera phones, there's an option for shooting images with just text on it (useful for students who rely on copying their classmates' notes).
CONCLUSION
Design-wise I really love the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2. I've longed for a directional pad on newer Windows Mobile handsets and only the Xperia X2 has this feature. The Xperia Panels is also nice though I hope that in future updates, Sony Ericsson would do what HTC did and maybe try their hand at customizing the old Windows Mobile UI though not completely overdo it like what Samsung did. An 8 megapixel camera is also a first for a Windows Phone so those looking for a camera phone/smartphone might be interested in this handset. Sure, it's laggy at times but there've been rumors that Sony Ericsson would soon fix these bugs around March so hopefully, the batch of Xperia X2's coming to Vodafone wouldn't have these issues. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 is a promising phone except that knowing Sony, the price for this handset would probably have a premium and those looking for a better bang for their buck would be wise to look at the Motorola Milestone or if you're a WinMo fan, the Samsung B7610 is way cheaper and has a better CPU.
Nice. Looks like Virgin Mobile is trying its best to lure in customers. According to tweets between BBC's Click team and Virgin reps, starting April 1st, the company will be offering free calls between its landline and mobile, dispelling those per minute charging.
This should be very useful for some who still uses landlines because of weak mobile phone signals either in their basements or in their general area. Hopefully, this move will help improve sales for Virgin Mobile, this and probably some newer phone models, Virgin and you'll be top of the mobile phone game in no time.
Valentine's Day is just a few weeks away. Tired of the usual roses, chocolates, or love notes to give your special someone? Well in this day and age what better way to express your love than through a pink mobile phone? And e2save has these clearance pink mobile phones that are just under £50.
Network: GSM 900/1800 (will not work in US) Weight: 96g Screen Size: 1.8 inch 65k colour screen Memory: 5MB expandable up to 2GB with Memory Stick Micro Camera: 1.3 megapixel with video recording function Connections: Bluetooth, USB Other Features: FM Radio w/ RDS, MMS, Opera Mini Browser, Walkman phone, TrackID music recognition Recommended For: Music lovers
Network: GSM 850/900 /1800 /1900 (will work in US) Weight: 86g Screen Size: 2.0 inch 65k colour screen Memory: 15MB expandable up to 8GB with MicroSD card Camera: 640x480 pixels with video recording function Connections: Bluetooth, USB Other Features: FM Radio w/ RDS, MMS,Web Browser, Mobile Tracker, Voice Memo Recommended For: Fashionistas
Network: GSM 850/900 /1800 /1900 (will work in US) Weight: 101g Screen Size: 2.0 inch 256k colour screen Memory: 40MB expandable with MicroSD card Camera: 2 megapixels with video recording function Connections: Bluetooth w/ A2DP (for streaming audio through Bluetooth headset), USB Other Features: FM Radio w/ RDS, MMS, Web Browser, Organizer, Voice Memo, slide out QWERTY keyboard Recommended For: Text addicts, budding photographers, people young at heart.
For any feedback or queries, you can contact me at: feedback[AT]cellphone-reviews[.]co[.]uk. You can also reach me here if you want me to review a phone or product.
