Archive for December 9th, 2008

By December 9, 2008 Read More →

Mobile Tech Addicts Podcast No 16

image Our latest podcast is now available to download, in episode 16 we discuss various HTC stories, Skyfire browser, new Android phones and various iPhone apps, news and much more. You can subscribe via iTunes, RSS or download the mp3 file here. Full show notes after the break.

Posted in: Site Announcements
By December 9, 2008 Read More →

Skype 2.5 Beta for Windows Mobile

image Skype have released a new beta version for Windows Mobile that they claim gives improved sound quality, better stability and a more familiar interface. If your a Skype user then it may be worth giving it a whirl, full details and links to download after the break.

Posted in: Phones
By December 9, 2008 Read More →

Press Release: O2 to Launch BlackBerry Curve 8900 smartphone in the UK

A nice piece of news here for Blackerry fans in general ad those on the O2 Network in particular.

Blackberry Curve 8900
Blackberry Curve 8900

9 December 2008 10:09

O2 to Launch BlackBerry Curve 8900 smartphone in the UK

O2 today announces that the new BlackBerry® Curve™ 8900 smartphone will be available for pre-registration in the UK from December 10th and pre-order from December 22nd from the O2 website: www.o2.co.uk/blackberry. The BlackBerry Curve 8900 will be available to customers from 5th January 2009.

A sleek, new twist on a classic style, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 is the thinnest BlackBerry® smartphone yet. With its powerful communications functionality and rich multimedia capabilities, the smartphone enables people to remain productive and entertained while on the move.

The new BlackBerry Curve 8900, as well as being an exceptional phone with email, messaging, organizer, web browser and multimedia applications, also features built-in Wi-Fi®, GPS including BlackBerry® Maps, a fast processor and a dazzling hi-resolution display that gives users an enjoyable and exceptional communications experience.

The stylish new BlackBerry Curve 8900 has a full featured media player that supports media streaming and can play all your favourite songs and videos. With a 3.2 megapixel camera, auto focus, digital zoom and flash, you can take sharp, print quality pictures that you can send straight to friends or post directly onto the Internet.

Steve Alder, General Manager Group and UK Devices for Telefónica O2 UK said “The BlackBerry Curve 8310 was one of our fastest selling handsets and we are pleased to offer our customers yet another fantastic smartphone from RIM, the BlackBerry Curve 8900. It is ideal for both business customers and consumers who want the functionality of a smartphone in a sleek, slim form that feels great in your hand.”

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 is approximately 110 grams and 109 x 60 13.5 mm. Its large, striking, 2.4 inch HVGA+ display projects vivid colour and makes information easier to read.

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 will range from free to £234 depending on tariffs and is supported by O2 for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server and BlackBerry® Internet Service.

For corporate users BlackBerry Enterprise Server tightly integrates with IBM® Lotus® Domino®, Microsoft® Exchange and Novell® GroupWise® and uses advanced encryption and IT policy controls to enable secure, push-based wireless access to email and other corporate data.

BlackBerry Internet Service is designed for smaller businesses and individuals. It allows customers to access up to 10 supported corporate and personal email accounts (including most popular ISP email accounts such as, Yahoo! Mail and Google Mail) from a single device.

Technical Data

• Preloaded DataViz® Documents to Go® allows users to edit Microsoft® Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the handset
• A sleek, new twist on a classic style with a large 2.4-inch, HGVA+, 480×360-pixel display with light sensor
• 3.2 megapixel camera, with variable zoom, auto focus, image stabilization and a powerful flash that also provides continuous lighting when recording video
• Built-in assisted and autonomous GPS
• 256MB Flash memory and a microSD®/microSDHC® memory card slot that supports up to 16 GB of additional storage
• A 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, support for Bluetooth® 2.0 stereo audio profile (A2DP/AVRCP) and dedicated volume controls
• Quad band support for GSM/GPRS/EDGE on 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• 512 MHz processor
• It features a full QWERTY keyboard and is the thinnest full QWERTY BlackBerry smartphone
• Extend your wideband coverage with its built-in Wi-Fi support (802.11 b/g)
• 1400 mAh removable/rechargeable battery with 5.5 hours of talk time and 356 hours/15 days of standby time

We will of course be getting a hands on with this device really soon so watch this space for our review and our un boxing video.

Posted in: News
By December 9, 2008 Read More →

Sony Ericsson to release Android phone

image Sony Ericsson today announced the extension of its portfolio strategy to include support for the Open Handset Alliance “Sony Ericsson is excited to announce its membership of the Open Handset Alliance and confirm its intention to develop a handset based on the Android platform,” said Rikko Sakaguchi, CVP and head of Creation and Development at Sony Ericsson. “We believe Sony Ericsson can bring a wealth of experience in making consumer focused multimedia handsets with new user experience to the Alliance drawing on the successes of the Walkman and Cyber-shot sub-brands.  Sony Ericsson is a strong supporter of open operating systems and we believe the Open Handset Alliance offers an exciting opportunity for a new and unique user experience only Sony Ericsson can deliver.” Membership of the Open Handset Alliance will complement the company’s existing Open OS strategy which is based on the Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms.

Posted in: Phones
By December 9, 2008 Read More →

Acer Aspire One Review

Acer Aspire One Review – Appliance computing

Another day, yet another small cheap portable computer. This time it’s the Acer Aspire One. After having been wowed by the MSI Wind of recent, I was keen to see how the Acer compared as it takes a different approach to the task of lightweight mobile computing.

Aspire_open

The Acer Aspire One

What’s in the box?

Not a lot. Bearing in mind that this was a review machine, the contents of the box are not likely to be representative of retail machines.

1. Acer Aspire One

2. Mains charger.

General

Controls and ports:

Left side: Power jack, VGA port, RJ11 ethernet socket, USB2.0 port, SD card slot (marked as storage expansion)

Aspire_left

Right side: Microphone socket, headphone jack, 2 x USB2.0 ports, multi-card reader, Kensington lock socket

Aspire_right


Acer Aspire One Specification:

  • CPU: Intel ® N270 Atom 1.6GHz
  • Operating System : Linpus Lite v.0.5
  • Chipset: Intel ® 945GSE
  • System Memory: 512MB
  • 8.9”LCD panel, 1024×600 pixels with LED backlight.
  • 8GB Intel SSD
  • Keyboard 80 key keyboard/Touch Pad
  • I/O Port USB X 3,Mic in, Earphone out, D-SUB, RJ45, SD/MMC/MS/MS
  • Audio Speaker x 2
  • Integrated Acer Crystal Eye Webcam, supporting 0.3megapixel resolution
  • Networking: Wireless LAN 802.11b/g, 10/100 LAN
  • Protection: Kensington lock
  • Battery: Li-ion 2200mAh
  • Dimensions: 260 x 180 x 19-31.5mm
  • Weight 1.15kg
  • 1year RTB warranty

Highlights:

  • Robust feel
  • Simplicity.
  • Linux stability.
  • Sturdy screen hinge

Lowlights:

  • Mouse glidepad and buttons
  • Screen
  • Dumbed-down operating system

Review

The review unit was the base A110L with 512MB of Ram and an 8GB solid state disk which retails for about £200 – £220 online.

In use the first thing to strike you is how quick this machine boots up. The operating system is a lightweight and optimised version of Linux that goes by the rather unfortunate name of Linpus. Together with a solid state disk they make any similar Windows-based netbook look positively tardy. From cold to rock ‘n’ roll takes 12 seconds. Portable computing is not quite instant, but it’s getting there.

The 512MB and 8GB solid-state disk might seem a bit lightweight these days, but it’s not that long ago when leading edge desktops had that amount of RAM, and 8GB is more than enough for a tight Linux installation. For this class of machine there’s sufficient applications installed for everyday tasks which left about 4GB of space for files. A machine like this is not going to be used for storing large numbers of files on, but mostly surfing, music and email so 4GB is enough, but for those of you who need more this can be augmented by popping a high capacity SD card into one of the two available slot.

Aspire_closed

The operating system can best be described as a dumbed-down version of Linux. On boot-up you’re presented with a desktop, which is divided into four panels: Connect, Work, Fun and Files. Within each panel software is installed so, for example, in Connect we find a web browser (Firefox), an instant messenger application, an e-mail client (Thunderbird), Skype and Google Maps. In Work we find a word processor, spreadsheet application, a contacts database and calendar application. Everything you might need for computing on the move is there and, my only criticism is that adding to the suite is not easily possible unless you know your stuff because the o/s is locked down tightly. For Linux fans like myself this is disappointing as one of the things I like about Linux is its versatility, its ability to be customised, new applications compiled, installed or removed. This cannot be easily done with the Acer. There’s not even access to the command line which, is the backbone of Linux. In many ways though this is not a bad thing as it removes the potential (of which there is plenty with Linux) for completely screwing things up badly!

With a speedy and silent SSD, applications loaded very quickly indeed and there was little noticeable lag. In comparison to other netbooks running Windows XP Home the little Acer was noticeably quicker and a joy to use. Setting up a wireless network connection was simplicity itself compared to Windows machines. Sadly, it was unreliable. Sometimes it would connect and sometimes it wouldn’t despite all settings being correct. I never got to the bottom of the problem.

Typing is like on any other netbook, it takes some getting used to. I did find the Acer more fiddly and cramped than other netbooks that I have tried recently and there was too much flexing in the keyboard for my liking. It felt flimsy which, was highlighted by the left-shift key falling off. Having said that, it was obvious that the review machine had been through a bit of a hard life.

Aspire_keyboard

Aspire One glidepad and keyboard

 

The mouse glidepad was perhaps the only bit of hardware I disliked. It was small, imprecise and had the mouse buttons unconventionally either side of it. In use I found that the mouse pointer would suddenly veer off screen which caused no end of confusion. The pointer was small which didn’t help and there were no means of changing the speed, size or acceleration of it.

The 2200mAh battery should be more than capable of delivering enough life for the type of use the machine would be put to. Having an SSD means battery life is likely to be better than hdd-equipped competitors. The battery in our review unit was, unfortunately, unable to hold a charge for more than a few minutes – again evidence of the life the review unit has lead. Reports elsewhere state that using the machine for a couple of hours at a time seems to have virtually no impact upon the charge level. I’d estimate 3-4 hours use would be possible with more aggressive power management.

The display is a typical netbook standard 8.9” 1024 x 600 pixel item. It’s nowhere near as good or sharp as the MSI Wind’s display, but then again this machine costs a fair bit less so you pay your money and take your choice. Illumination is even and bright, but it lacks punch and the standard themes included with the o/s are dull. In fact, all colours are fairly dull, but the screen is fine for documents, surfing and mailing and not so good for photos and videos.


Conclusion

I liked the Aspire One. It feels quite well put together, the software is solid, reliable and well matched to the hardware so the machine is surprisingly fast and responsive. I am a little disappointed in the operating system and software suite insofar as adding to it is not immediately possible, but perhaps that is no bad thing because the upside of this is simple, utilitarian appliance-like computing. At about £200-220 depending upon specification it is good value and arguably more so than my current fave the MSI Wind, but is this enough to overcome the lack of Windows familiarity for many people?

 

Review by: Nigel

[ Post Tags: UMPC, laptop, Windows Mobile, Acer, Aspire One, tracyandmatt.co.uk ]

Posted in: Reviews
By December 9, 2008 Read More →

Skyfire beta hits the UK

image Today Skyfire, the makers of the exact-same PC-like browser for mobile devices, launched their beta in the UK and announced new updates aimed at making the browser easier to get, share and enjoy as the company readies the browser for general availability. “We are pleased to bring the Skyfire browsing experience to the UK,” said Skyfire CEO Nitin Bhandari. “Consumers in the UK have been promised the ‘real web’ on their phone ‘real fast’ only to be disappointed by slow rendering, no Flash support, error messages, watered down WAP pages or second-rate mobile versions of their favorite site.

Posted in: Phones
By December 9, 2008 Read More →

Devicewire.com to help with the Credit Crunch

OK I know it’s a rather vague title for a post but it got your attention didn’t it?

Devicewire.com have complied with the new 15% VAT rules and on top of that have also decided to reduce the price on every single piece of stock that they have.

A very welcomed move and I’m sure you will agree that they are indeed very nice people for this but that’s not where it stops, they have also decided that you should not need to pay a single penny for delivery on all purchases over £100 throughout the month of December.

This means that all items bought from Devicewire.com will undergo 3 discounts making it a must stop shop for that last minute Christmas Deal and with their new online live help system which is available between the hours of 9am and 5pm GMT (Mon to Fri) and their price match system you should find it easier and cheaper than ever to get what you want this Christmas.

Posted by: John

Posted in: Deals & Offers
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