LONDON, November 24, 2009. fring, the multi-award winning mobile application that lets users communicate and share web-based experiences from their mobile devices, today announces the world’s first mobile video calls over internet protocol (IP).
fring video enables users to conduct video calls with other fringsters as well as with Skype contacts over their device’s Wi-Fi or 3G internet connection.
This video feature is embedded within the fring application that enables free voice calls to other fring users, Skype and GTalk buddies as well as friends on regular phone lines via Skype-Out and hundreds of popular SIP services. fring users live chat, update profiles, share files and talk with friends from several Instant Messaging services like MSN, AIM, GoogleTalk and Skype, in addition to interacting with popular online social networks including Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm and more, all from one integrated fring contact list.
Avi Shechter, Co-Founder & CEO of fring: “As the mobile VoIP trail-blazers since this industry’s inception, we have a responsibility to continue breaking the mobile-internet barriers, and bringing users all the choices, richness and always-on connectivity that internet communications on mobile can deliver.”
Shechter continued, “fring was the first to bring Nokia, iPhone and Android users the choice to make free calls together with live chat over their devices’ internet connection, the first to enable cost-saving mobile twitter over internet, and now we’re proud to continue leading the field with the world’s first mobile video over internet including fring and Skype mobile video calls.”
The new fring version with video calls support is currently available to users with Nokia X6, N97 mini, N97, 5800, N95 8G, N95 and N82 devices. Versions for other handsets and operating systems will be launched very shortly.
via Press Release
It’s been a little while since we last reviewed a digital camera here on the site and even longer since we looked at one from Samsung. Last week Samsung sent us over the Samsung ST550 digital camera, a good looking piece of kit but with an innovative ‘trick’ up its sleeve (or lens).
The Samsung ST550 digital camera
Not only is the ST550 well specified in the lens and sensor department, with a 4.6x optical zoom, 12 megapixel sensor and 3.5″ touchscreen on the rear but the ST550’s real party piece is the forward facing LCD screen right next to the lens. When you first see this in action you realise what a simple idea it is and wonder why on earth it’s never been done before. How many times have you tried to take a picture of yourself with friends or family holding the camera at arms-length to take shot? Well this makes the process a little easier!
The forward LCD isn’t just limited to live view mode though either, it can also display a count-down for the self timer or display a smiley face when you are about to take the picture, idea for taking pictures of kids!
We’ll be looking at the Samsung ST550 over the coming weeks and will have a review online for you soon. For now, have a look at the unbox for a quick tour of the camera.
Samsung ST550 specification:
- Style: Ultra Compact
- Megapixels: 12
- Print Ratios: 4:3, 16:9, 3:2
- File Formats: JPEG
- Memory Cards: Micro SD/ Micro SDHC
- Zoom: 4.6x
- Focal Length Equivalent: 27-124.2mm
- Shutter Speed: 8 – 1/2000 seconds
- Aperture: F3.5(W) – F5.9(T)
- Sensitivity: Auto, ISO 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200
- White Balance Settings: Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent_H, Fluorescent_L, Tungsten, Custom
- ExposureCompensation: -2EV to +2EV (in 1/3EV steps)
- LCD Screen: 3.5 inches
- Flash Modes: Auto, Auto & Red-eye reduction, Fill-in flash, Slow sync, Flash off, Red eye fix
- Flash Range: 3.4m
- Shooting Modes: Portrait, Night Portrait, Backlight Portrait, Macro Portrait, Backlight, Landscape, White, Action, Tripod, Night, Macro, Macro Text, Blue Sky, Sunset Sky, Natural Portrait, Natural Green, Beauty shot, Frame Guidet, Portrait, Children, Night, Landscape,Close up Text, Sunset, Dawn, Back Light, Fireworks, Beach, Snow
- Maximum Movie Resolution: 1280 x 720 pixels
- Maximum Movie Frames Per Second: 30 fps
- Maximum Movie Duration: To capacity of memory card
- Macro Focus: 3cms
- Metering: Multi-pattern, centre weighted, spot
- Image Stabilisation: Yes
- Video Out (TV Playback): Yes
- Computer Connection: Yes
- Batteries: Lithium-ion Rechargeable
- Dimensions: 99.8 x 59.8 x 18.6mm
- Weight: 165.7g
See the Samsung ST550 page for more info.
Posted by: Matt
In celebration of reaching the milestone of the big 5 0 we have dragged old timer and mobile phone veteran Chris Oldroyd out of retirement for one last adventure! Chris and I catch up and discuss a few topics before being joined by our regular co-host Andy.
Thanks to everyone for their kind comments and we are so proud to have managed to output a 50 podcasts over the last year and a half. It wouldn’t be possible without the dedicated band of listeners and it grows every week, so we must be doing something right. Thanks for the support and we hope to crank out many, many more.
In countries where there is only one carrier that offers iPhone, situation is very bad: that operator offers inferior services or higher prices and customers cannot do anything but have to buy iPhone and service from a carrier that they hate.
One of these countries is USA where every dwarf knows that Verizon has much better 3G coverage than AT&T, that offers iPhone exclusively.
Continue Reading »
SuperETrader today gave us a little tip the the Motorola Milestone may well be here sooner than we thought!
Motorola Milestone
The Milestone is the European name for the Droid which has been available in the USA on the Verizon network for a little while. For some strange reason this nice looking Android device will get some extra spec in Europe though!
The major difference is that the our version will support multi touch which is fantastic news. I have no idea why we are getting it and the Verizon Droid does not.
The other noticeable change is that the U.S version is running the beta of Google maps navigation. We will not get this but it has been replaced with Motonav instead. Once Google maps navigation is out of beta I hope we will be eligible for the upgrade.
Keep an eye on the site for updates.
Posted by: James
You can now get your hands on the much talked about HTC HD2 on T-Mobile.
T-Mobile
HTC HD2
Prices on T-Mobile range from free to £195.73 but in order to qualify for a free handset you must be prepared to shell out £40.00 per month. You also have the option of having the package come with or without data if you fancy saving yourself £5.00 per month, but i cant see many people taking up that tariff!
What is quite impressive though is that the fair use policy for data currently stands at 1GB which is even more than Orange are now including with the iPhone.
Lets hope the other network providers follow suit.
A while ago when the HD2 was leaked as coming to T-Mobile I believe it was going to be called the Touch HD2. They have clearly scrapped that idea!
If you want to order a T-Mobile HTC HD2 you can order from here.
Posted by: James
You may have seen a while ago my review of the HTC Tattoo. Well, Orange recently sent me there own version of the the Tattoo and for some reason that I cannot think of they have changed the name slightly and called it the Tattoo Ink.
Orange HTC Tattoo Ink
Despite the name change and the new colour of the phone, yes blue!, they have made a pretty good job of rebranding the Tattoo.
Orange have added a few bits of software to the Tattoo and in my opinion made it a wee bit better.
First off is Orange Maps. I first used Orange maps some time ago and I actually really liked it so this is a huge bonus getting it pre installed on the Tattoo (Ink). Orange Maps is a free service as long as you pay over £30 per month and on PAYG its only £4.89 per month which I don’t think is too bad. All data is included in the costs as the maps are downloaded to your device as required. For an extra £2.45 per month you can subscribe to some premium features such as live traffic alerts, safety camera alerts and auto re-routing in case of heavy traffic. I have not tried these features but I am sure they work just fine.
Next up is Orange Messenger which is essentially Windows Live (MSN). I don’t remember this being on the HTC Tattoo so this again is a bonus.
Finally is Orange Photo. This is a service that enables you to upload your photos to the cloud. Here you can store up to 1GB of photos and in addition you can then organise them, arrange prints and turn the photos into fun stuff such as Christmas cards or fridge magnets.
There may be other changes but without the original Tattoo here its hard to remember. As you can imagine we get to play with a lot of phones!
So all in all a pretty good job by Orange apart from the name. Good job!
Posted by: James
Sony Ericsson are producing some nice looking handsets at the moment and the Aino looks pretty sweet too. Is it the perfect device for those of you that like the traditional slide out key pad?
Sony Ericsson Aino with Dock
What’s in the box:
-
Phone
-
Battery
-
Charger/Dock
-
Bluetooth Headset
-
USB cable
-
Warranty/User Guide
You can view Matt’s Sony Ericsson Aino unboxing video for more.
The ten second review:
Device: Sony Ericsson Aino
Cost: £391.00
Summary: A smart looking traditional feature phone with some impressive features.
Best of: 3G, GPS, Wi-Fi, Camera.
Worst of: Keyboard, Video.
Buy it now from: Clove
Sony Ericsson Specification:
- On Board Memory – Up to 55MB
- Display – 3 inch- 240 x 432 pixels – 16,777,216 True Colour TFT
- Operating Frequency – GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 & UMTS/HSPA 850/900/2100
- Bluetooth technology
- Wi-Fi
- DLNA Certified
- Google Maps
- PictBridge Synchronisation
- USB mass storage mode
- A-GPS
- MicroSD Slot
- 8.1 megapixel camera
- 16x digital zoom – Photo flash – Video recording – Auto focus – Face detection
- Battery – Talk time GSM: Up to 13 hrs, Standby time GSM: Up to 380 hrs
- Dimensions – 104 x 50 x 15.5 mm
- Weight – 134 grams with battery
General:
A single button sits on the top of the Aino. This shuts off the screen.
Sony Ericsson Aino top
On the left side of the device is the Sony Ericsson propriety USB socket.
Sony Ericsson Aino left side
The right side house the up/down volume rocker as well as a dedicated camera button.
Sony Ericsson Aino from the right
On the rear of the handset is the camera lens and flash. In addition there is a nice Sony Ericsson logo.
Sony Ericsson Aino from the rear
The front of the device, when closed, has no visible buttons and only a speaker grill at the top.
Sony Ericsson Aino front (closed)
With the phone slid open there are tons of buttons.
Sony Ericsson Aino open
Highlights
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Wi-Fi
-
3G
-
GPS
-
Camera
Lowlights
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Keyboard
-
Video Camera
-
Music Quality
Review:
Out of the box the Sony Ericsson Aino feels very good. Its sleek, smooth and sits well in the hand. Its quite heavy but feels solid. Once opening the sliding keypad the phone still feels solid but now big. From top to bottom it measures 15cm!
The Aino has a strange kind of form factor which will suit some but not others. When the device is closed the screen is touch sensitive and acts as a PMP with quick access to the camera, pictures, music, video and the radio. This worked very well although it does not have the biggest screen for viewing pictures.
Open the keypad and the screen is now non-touch and you must use the phones buttons and track pad to navigate. Odd!
One thing I will say about the Aino is it has a lovely animated home screen. This consists of a black background with various coloured bubbles floating upwards. Its quite beautiful to watch!
On a downside, the buttons on the slide out key pad are way too small for me and too close to each other. I have not got big hands and I really struggled to navigate and type on the Aino.
When open, under the screen are two soft keys. Beneath these are the call send & end keys. Beneath them are the shortcuts and cancel keys. The track pad/wheel sits in between all the buttons and this can be used for up/down, left and right with a push button in the centre for selecting.
As you would have seen at the top of the page the Sony Ericsson Aino comes supplied with a charging dock and Bluetooth headset. There is not much I can say about the dock apart from it makes the device look good when its on charge. The Bluetooth headset however is a nice bonus as I saw this headset for sale the other day in an O2 store for £60.00.
So lets have a look at the main features on the Aino.
Using the web browser was a bit difficult. Although the pages looked good on screen navigating was a bit of a pain using the track pad. You get an onscreen arrow (mouse pointer) and this can be moved up/down/left & right. If the Aino had a track ball or optical track pad like on a Blackberry this would have much nicer as you can move diagonally, but this cannot be done on the Aino and I just found that selecting text was time consuming. The mouse movements were also jumpy which again didn’t help doing stuff quickly. The browser does auto rotate but using this with the track pad is a bit strange.
Most features on the Aino are very similar to on the Sony Ericsson Satio that I reviewed recently. Like the Satio the messaging applications are straight forward and setting up an email account is simple. The Aino is just let down buy its key pad.
The Sony Ericsson Aino comes with an 8.1MP camera built in and this was one of its better features. The photos I took in daylight came out rather well and once on the computer I was able to crop and zoom and still retain a good quality image. Low light photos are no problem. The flash on the Aino is more than capable of lighting up nearby objects. I was quite impressed. Not so impressive was the video quality and that’s all I am saying on the subject.
Listening to music on the Aino was surprisingly not all that special. The sound just lacked the wow factor which we have become used to on so many devices. Very disappointing. On the up side though the supplied Bluetooth headset is nice. It consists of standard in-ear headphones that connect to a bass unit which houses the controls. Would I buy the headset on its own – no, but for free its okay. I would have tried some other headphones out to see if the bad music quality was due to the supplied ones but as Sony Ericsson have used their propriety socket this meant I didn’t have any that were compatible
The last feature I am going to comment on is GPS. The Sony Ericsson Aino comes with A-GPS which is always good for a quick fix of where you are. I firstly tested Google maps and it worked a treat. Also built in is WisePilot, a GPS navigation program. The good news is I tried it and it seemed to work perfectly. The bad news is the maps are not stored on the handset but downloaded over the air as required, so if you are going to use it a lot then please make sure you have a decent data plan to prevent extra costs from your network provider. I liked WisePilot but I certainly wouldn’t give up using TomTom or CoPilot for it. Nice to have for emergencies though.
Conclusion:
The Sony Ericsson Aino is definitely suited to people who currently use this form factor of a slide out key board. It’s jam packed with features and seems to perform fairly well. As you have probably gathered it’s not my cup of tea but like most devices this all comes down to personal preference and what you are going to use the device for. For a phone that does not excel in many departments it is rather expensive to buy sim free, but it does have that beautiful animated home screen!
Posted by: James
You know what, let me tell you something: if whole life you are just commuting to work and you travel only once a year for holidays then don’t read this review – because then you have absolutely no idea.
However if you are traveling regularly, come on, you can’t miss this review:
Continue Reading »
Our friend Mickey Papillon who runs thecellphonejunckie.com recently got his hands on the latest offering from Palm, the Pixi.
Palm Pixi
The device, which is only available in the USA at the moment, takes on Palms more traditional form factor of having a front facing QWERTY keypad.
The Pixi is the second device from Palm sporting their new operating system, Web OS, which seems to be going down a storm on the Palm Pre.
As I don’t expect to get the Palm Pixi over here in the UK anytime soon please check out Mickey’s review here, and while your at it you may as well have a listen to his podcast too.
Posted by: James
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