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The Vivaz Pro is the second of four phones Sony Ericsson announced back in February at MWC. It is very similar to the Vivaz spec-wise, although with a few notable differences such as the sliding 4-row keyboard. Despite this addition, there is a minimal increase in size, just 2mm thicker, which is no mean feat. It may have a ‘downgrade’ in the camera megapixel count, but it still keeps the 720p video recording of the original Vivaz.
The camera and keyboard makes this phone an ideal contender for messaging and media types, but is the Vivaz Pro good enough to compete with smartphones from like the likes of Nokia and Sony Ericsson themselves?
Today’s the day that many have been waiting for – iPhone 4 pre-order day. Since it was officially announced last week iPhone 4 has scarcely been out of the news with all of the networks making some kind of announcement or another relating to pre-order tariffs and contracts.
As at the time of writing there’s still no news on the SIM-free prices and none of the networks have confirmed PAYG pricing either but I suspect that we’ll start to see some UK pricing over the next few hours.
You can find out more from each of the networks:
We like looking a new and different gadgets here at tracyandmatt and last week Logitech asked us if we’d care to review the Logitech Squeezebox Radio. I said that we’d be happy to take a look but asked the inevitable question; ‘What is it?’ To which they replied…
A compact all-in-one network music player and alarm that lets you rock the house with the digital music on your computer and the Internet.
Basically the Squeezebox is a WiFi enabled music player that can not only connect to your own music collection stored on your PC or Mac but also stream music from the internet using a variety of free and paid for services.
The unit is pretty compact, has it’s own batteries for completely wireless use and, having given it a quick try over the weekend, sounds pretty good too.
Just a quick unboxing video below as the Squeezebox doesn’t come with many accessories, it doesn’t need to. I’ll have a review here for you soon.
The Samsung Monte was released a few weeks ago and it’s already getting quite a lot of attention. Samsung have a huge selection of mobiles from entry level sub-£100 handsets all the way up to high-end smartphones such as the S9000 which is due next week.
The Monte is a decent looking handset offering a 3″ capacitive touschscreen display and features Samsung’s tried and trusted TouchWiz interface.
Lots of decent features really for a handset that will set you back less than £160 SIM-free, including Exchange Email support, GPS, FM radio, and WiFi. There are also widgets for the most popular services such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
We’ll be looking at the Monte over the next few weeks but you can have a closer look at the handset in my unboxing video below.
The BlackBerry Pearl is nothing new but the 3G version is and we have been lucky enough to get one prior to the device going on sale.
The 9105 also has a brother, the 9100. The 9100 has two letters per key, like we have seen before and the 9105 has three letters per key, more like a traditional feature phone.
The 9105 is the only version we will see here in the UK and I think it’s a wise choice.
What the BlackBerry 9105 Pearl 3G will offer people is smartphone features and the full BlackBerry experience but still with a keypad that people are used to. I often speak with people about BlackBerry smartphones and many of them say "oh, I couldn’t use that keyboard. It’s way to complicated".
Well the solution is now here. Check out the video below. It may be just what you are looking for.
The Samsung i9000 Galaxy S is another of those handsets that many seem to be eagerly awaiting. I’m sure that the 4″ Super AMOLED has a lot to do with the handset’s desirability and coupled with Android 2.1 it’s sure to make an impression.
Last night I saw that Vodafone have opened the Samsung S to pre-orders on their site and according to the current information if you pre-order today you’ll actually have the handset on the 15th June. I’m sure that it’s no coincidence that this is the same day that the iPhone opens to pre-order!
So following the Samsung S appearing on Vodafone I got an email tip this morning from a reader claiming that the handset would also be available on the Orange network over the next few weeks, this has yet to be confirmed though.
If you want to order the Galaxy S sim-free you can do so from our friends over at Clove Technology.
It looks like 2010 is going to be the year of the tablet with many manufacturers following in Apple’s footsteps and releasing their own tablet style devices.
There are several Android based tablets on offer at the moment and we’re hoping to look at many of them over the coming months. Today though we’re concentrating on the Dell Streak, Dell’s first attempt at an Android device. At the moment the Streak is exclusive to O2, you can’t even buy direct from Dell, yet.
The Streak is a decent looking MID (mobile internet device) although many comment that it looks like a large Blackberry Storm. The spec is also good, 1GHz CPU, 256MB RAM, 512MB ROM and 5″ screen with ‘Gorilla Glass’ which is all but indestructible. Perhaps the only disappointment with the device is that it’s currently shipping with Android 1.6 rather than 2.1 or even 2.2. However, we’re told that later it will ship with 2.1 and there will be a free upgrade for existing customers very soon.
In the video below you’ll see me unbox the Dell Streak and then take a look at some of the key features and applications. I’ll be back with a full review soon too.
I’m sure that by now you will have heard all about the iPhone 4 which was announced yesterday at Apple’s WWDC event. It was a mammoth two hour presentation during which Steve Jobs spoke about all the new hardware features of iPhone 4 as well as the new version of the iPhone OS which will now be know as iOS4.
The question that almost everyone has at the moment is when can I buy one and how much will it cost. Well you’ll be able to pre-order from the 15th June and the iPhone 4 will start shipping on the 24th June – not long at all.
In a tweet last night, our friend Conor from Orange confirmed that Orange will indeed have iPhone 4:
Great news folks – Orange UK to launch iPhone 4 on June 24th – not too long to wait!
We hope to have more news throughout today so please stay tuned!
Posted by: Matt
Almost three months have passed since we published our review of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz and now we’ve finally managed to get our hands on the Vivaz Pro. Quite why there has been such a gap between the two devices I’m not sure, they are very similar in design and have identical operating systems.
The key differences between the Vivaz and the Vivaz Pro are the sliding QWERTY keyboard on the Pro and ‘only’ 5MP camera on the Pro versus the 8MP on the Vivaz. The difference in the camera spec is down to the keyboard, I guess that an 8MP camera and sensor just take up a little too much room.
Despite the QWERTY keyboard, the Vivaz Pro is only 2mm thicker than the Vivaz and a few grams heavier, this is impressive in itself.
In the video below I’m just concentrating on the Vivaz Pro pro hardware as we have already looked at the OS on the Vivaz in our Vivaz Demo video and the devices are identical in this department. We’ll have a full review for you over the next few weeks.
It seems like a long time ago that we first saw that Samsung Wave, back at MWC in February in fact so it has taken a little while to make it to market.
The Samsung Wave is the first handsets to feature Samsung’s new BADA operating system and the new TouchWiz 3.0 user interface. It’s also the first handset that I have come across to have a Super AMOLED display. I’d heard that this new display technology was good but seeing it for myself i have to say it really is stunning, clear, sharp, bright and incredibly colourful.
The unboxing video and demo you see below was literally the first time I’d touched the handset and I have to say I am initially impressed. However it takes a little more than first impressions for a product to get a thumbs-up from us so you’ll have to wait a week or so for us to put it through it’s paces and complete the full review.
For now you can see the handset in more detail in the video below.
The Vivaz Pro is the second of four phones Sony Ericsson announced back in February at MWC. It is very similar to the Vivaz spec-wise, although with a few notable differences such as the sliding 4-row keyboard. Despite this addition, there is a minimal increase in size, just 2mm thicker, which is no mean feat. It may have a ‘downgrade’ in the camera megapixel count, but it still keeps the 720p video recording of the original Vivaz. 
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