Author Archive: James Richardson

HP not to carry on making Palm smartphones

It looks like we may not see many new Palm phones in the future I am afraid.

HP’s CEO Mark Hurd spoke yesterday at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Technology conference and what he had to say was not encouraging.

Hurd reportedly said that HP isn’t going to ‘spend billions of dollars trying to get into the smartphone business; that doesn’t in any way make any sense.’

To add insult to smartphone injury, Hurd continued ‘We didn’t buy Palm to be in the smartphone business. And I tell people that, but it doesn’t seem to resonate well.’

So what many of us thought would happen is going to happen. It looks like HP bought Palm purely for the WEB OS and that is what they will roll out within millions of HP products. Having the WEB OS on handhelds is not a bad thing as it is a great OS. It’s just a real shame that it doesn’t look like the OS will be implemented into many smartphones, if any.

Is this foolish of HP? I think so. With the right hardware and right OS we all know that it can be an extremely profitable business. Just look how far HTC has come on over the past few years.

Although not massive Palm fans both Matt and myself have both owned Palm devices in the past and we will be sorry to see the company disappear from the smartphone market.

Posted by: James

Leaked picture of the BlackBerry Curve 9300

With the BlackBerry Pearl 3G set to arrive in the next week or so I just stumbled upon a nice article over at crackberry.com. A secret spy has managed to get hold of some pictures of the next generation BlackBerry Curve, the 9300.

The main change I can see here is the chrome bezel around the outer edge. This is not present on the curve 8520 (and 8530 in the USA). The BlackBerry Curve 9300 is believed to retain the lower res 320×240 display which is a shame but it will come with Wi-Fi and 3G as standard and that is a big bonus.

The device is clearly in its early stages as the screen shots below shows it with 256MB of memory vs.. the 512MB newer devices are getting. Also this device is running version 5.0 which will hopefully be upgraded to BlackBerry 6 in time for an official announcement.

BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9105 get priced at Vodafone

I am hoping we will get to see the BlackBerry 9105 in the next week or so. Vodafone will have it for sure and it looks like the device will be free from £25 per month on a 24 month contract. Good news for the phone but not so good for the contract length.

The price of £25 per month is the same as you would expect to pay for a BlackBerry Bold 9700 and frankly I am not surprised. The 9105 has the same power as the 9700 just in a different form factor.

I have a sneaky suspicion this new BlackBerry is going to sell rather well.

Unboxing video and review will be here soon.

Posted by: James

Samsung I9000 Galaxy S will be with us soon

Recently the high end Android focus has been on other manufactures but Samsung are back with the I9000 Galaxy S which we hope to have our hands on in the next week or so thanks to our friends at Clove who will selling the device.

The I9000 Galaxy S is Samsung’s flagship Android device. The Galaxy S not only runs version 2.1of Android , but packs a feature set sure to rival that of any other Smartphone.

So what sets this handset apart from other Android devices on the market? First of all there’s the 4″ SUPER-AMOLED, touch-screen display. This new Super AMOLED technology developed by Samsung not only produces an amazing picture, it also saves on battery life, making the I9000 Galaxy S ideal for media playback and in-car satellite navigation.

iPad cases from mobilefun

Our friends over at mobilefun were kind enough to send us a couple of iPad cases this week to give a test drive. One being a kind of skin type case and the other being a more traditional fold over one similar to what I have had in years past for pocket PCs.

Which type of case you use with your iPad really comes down to personal preference. I would however suggest you have one. Scratching the iPad will result in tears I think!

The FlexiShield Skin case, as you can see below only offers protection to the outer edges and the rear of the iPad. Before I used it I thought to myself that I did not see the point of it but once the iPad was inside the skin I soon changed my mind.
The green colour case I was sent would not be my first choice of colour, or second, or third but the case does have some benefits apart from being able to change its appearance. Apart from the obvious benefit of offering protection the first thing I noticed was that it made the iPad feel a lot safer to hold. The naked iPad is rather sleek on its rear and although not slippery it’s brushed metal is very smooth. The FlexiShield skin case gives some extra grip which I felt offered some reassurance.

The only downside I can see is that if you use an iPad dock you will need to take the iPad out of the case.