Author Archive: Matt

Panasonic RP-HS33 headphones (mini) review

Panasonic Lightweight Sport Clip Earphones with Sweat-Resistant Earbuds (RP-HS33)

GENERAL

How often do you go running, either in the gym or where you live? For me the answer is not as often as I should, ok it’s never. I don’t but I’m more of a cyclist, however I still get the same problem as runners; your headphones keep falling out. Not only is it really annoying but can be quite dangerous as well. So when Panasonic sent the RP-H33’s to test out I was happy to get on my bike, so to speak.

Panasonic RP-HS33 headphones

HIGHLIGHTS:

LOWLIGHTS:

Panasonic RP-HS33 headphones specification:

REVIEW

Ok so the colour choice is orange or green, the colour is one thing that many people who have seen them have commented on. The target consumer group the RP-HS33 are aimed at do not care about colour and here’s my thinking as to why! Imagine this for a second, you’re running along listening to your music through your orange RP-HS33’s then out of nowhere a car pulls up along side you. The window rolls down and Claudia Schiffer or Brad Pitt (whoever takes your fancy) pops there head out and asks you directions. Do you then panic about your orange headphones or are you more concerned with sweat all over you and a bright red face? You see my point.

On the subject of running and cycling I have found a little bug bear but only a little one. They are designed to stay in your ear so you can exercise without worrying about them keep popping out, however there is no clip to stop the wires moving about.

I don’t have a vast knowledge of isolation (db), impedance (ohms) or even the Frequency response (Hz), however I know what music I like and how I want it to sound.

The RP-HS33 are lightweight and designed for active people at 23g (inc cable) they are light and you hardly feel your wearing them. However they are still robust enough to be thrown in a bag everyday for a month and still look and sound as good as when you got them.

To the quality now, the mid to high range makes most music sound crisp and clear, but the bass impact is quite poor, I love my bass and was a little disappointed. I listened to a few songs through iTunes on my laptop, True Colors by Phil Collins, Sandstorm by Darude and In The End by Linkin Park these where probably my widest range of music. True Colors sounded clear and as it should be with no complaints, Sandstorm was very crisp and clear but lacked the punch of the bass which is essential for dance music. In The End also had the same problem as Sandstorm where the sound was clear but lacked any punch in the bass.

CONCLUSION

I like these headphones, maybe it’s because they feel like you could stand on them and they would still work (please don’t test this theory out though) or maybe it’s because I can finally concentrate on my cycling instead of counting the time between my headphones falling off. The bass is a big issue for me but I still like them and for any sports enthusiast I would definitely recommend them.

Review by: Russell

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Panasonic, RP-HS33, Tracy & Matt]

Palm Centro review

Can the latest offering from Palm stand up to Windows Mobile?

10 second review:
Device: Palm Centro
Cost: SIM free only: £153 (£179.78 inc VAT)
Available from: Clove Technology
Summary: Small sleek and lightweight the Centro is ideal for communicating with its colour touchscreen display and convenient full QWERTY keyboard.
Best of: form factor
Worst of: poor email support for MS Exchange

Palm Centro

What’s in the box?

Nothing out of the ordinary in the box with the Centro and you can see more in Matt’s Palm Centro unboxing video but the basics are:

Palm Centro specification

General

The Palm Centro has a fairly unusual 320×320 pixel square display which takes up a good portion of the device. Below the screen are a number of fairly typical soft keys, phone keys, d-pad style navigation and a full QWERTY keyboard.

Palm Centro Keyboard

On the bottom of the device you’ll find socket for the wired MONO headset, a proprietary connector for the USB connections and to the right of that a small connector for the mains charger which is again a custom connector.

Palm Centro bottom

The left side of the Centro has a volume control rocker and a simple soft key for camera control.

Palm Centro left

The right side has very little to show, here you’ll just find an IRDA port and the cover over the MicroSD card slot (more on this later).

Palm Centro right side

In a departure from the standard, the top of the device is not home to the power button but instead there is a switch for setting the device to mute/vibrate mode.

Palm Centro top

The back of the Centro is also pretty clean, just the 1.3MP camera and a loudspeaker.

Palm Centro back

The other thing that’s quite striking about the Centro is the case material. Rather than just being a black plastic it has small metalic flecks in it which is quite attractive.

Palm Centro case material

REVIEW

Palm are keen to offer this as a smart phone, with there own Palm OS installed. But in testing I found that it lacked features that are commonly available on competing Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and the Nokia N series devices – as it does not offer WiFi or GPS.

The Palm Centro is thin at (107x53x18mm), is light at 119g, and its smooth plastic case feels comfortable in the hand.

I felt that the Palm Centro is definitely made from cheaper materials than the Treo. I found that the removable battery cover was a bit fragile and somewhat difficult to remove and replace. Also the skinny black plastic stylus feels as though it might snap in two.

I was confused by the small plastic door on the Palm Centro’s side that was abelled ‘Micro SD’. You can pull out the door, but the only way to insert the card is after you’ve first opened the battery cover. Surely it would have made more sense if Palm had designed the door not to open at all unless the user removes the battery cover.

Palm Centro MicroSD slot

Because the Palm Centro is so small, the keyboard keys are small but functional; I did fear at first that typing would be an unpleasant experience. But Palm has done a good job here. The keys are coated in a squishy plastic that keeps your fingertips from slipping; this did not slow me down much when typing emails or texts.

The 2.4in 320×320 colour touch screen looks good, although it’s smallish. The navigation controls – an oval pad; buttons for the phone interface, the main Palm OS menu, the calendar, and email; a red on/off button; and a green Send button – were responsive and easy to use.

I tested the Palms performance as a mobile phone, I made phone calls which where clear and crisp. The people at the other end sounded as good as on a landline, and they commented that the sound coming from my end was good too.

The Palm Centro supports Bluetooth; I tested this by transferring Ring tones and images from the palm to my laptop with excellent transfer speeds.

When I was browsing the Internet with the Palm Centro’s Blazer browser over O2’s network I was delighted that I was getting near Broadband speeds.

Email setup went smoothly, I just entered my ISP details and I was able to send and receive emails, I sat there and was purely using the Palm for a whole after noon to send and reply to email and it handled it just fine, if your use to writing emails on a blackberry then you should be fine with the palm.

Another good thing about the Palm Centro is that it supports concurrent instant messaging sessions with the three supported IM services AOL, MSN and Yahoo, and allowed me to keep in touch with friends and work colleagues.

The Palm Centro comes with the Deluxe version of the PTunes music player, which is a nice addition. All preinstalled music sounded surprisingly robust, I also put on some MP3’s of my own and these also sounded excellent.

The Palm Centro’s also has a 1.3Mp camera captures images at either at 1X or 2X digital zoom which was nothing to really write home about. The palm can also record a short amount of video. Image quality was adequate but nothing special.

The Palm Centro comes with loads of other useful applications, like Google Maps and DataViz’s Documents to Go for at least basic editing of Microsoft Office applications.

Conclusion

Overall the palm Centro is just a palm organiser with a phone added on to it, it’s ok for business and blackberry users, but I suspect that if you’re the type of person that likes a phone to “Do everything” then the palm is not the phone for you. But if all you need is to send text messages, emails edit a word document and browse the internet on the go, then this is the perfect device for you.

Review by: Phillip

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Palm, centro, Tracy & Matt]

Living with the HTC Shift (Part 5)

Part 5 – Bye bye Shift! 🙁

I’ve been using the HTC Shift for the past few weeks but sadly the loan unit is going back tomorrow and I’m genuinely going to miss it. Ignoring showing off on Lombardy’s trains it’s been a real productivity boon. Yes I have some misgivings but overall I’m really going to miss it, I may even shell out some of my hard earned and get myself one.

I’ve almost got used to the keyboard and I can rattle off even sizeable documents without too much trouble and can even carry it with me in my play life as opposed to just work. There do need to be a few tweaks for it to fulfil its original promise however it’s a great piece of kit.

Watch this space for the imminent full review.

Go back to Part 1 or Part 2

Posted by: Alasdair

[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, Orange, HTC, HTC Shift, Microsoft Communicator]