Cellphone Sidekick

We love smartphones, and I sometimes love simpler low-end phones too. High-end smartphones with great functions are indeed great, but sometimes all I need is some basic functions and a little entertainment, so a low-end phone will just do fine. Now let’s take a look at the Nokia 5250.

With the proliferation of highly advanced smartphones, it’s amazing how Nokia still continues to produce low-end phones yet possessing some nice, advanced features. One of these phones is the Nokia 5250, a touchscreen phone powered by Symbian and is being geared as a music-centric mobile phone.

The Nokia 5250 main feature has got to be its music player which has its own icon on the phone’s homescreen. The music player app supports Nokia’s Ovi Music Store, meaning you can purchase music tracks from the online store and download it directly to the Nokia 5250 phone. While the phone’s built-in memory is only 512MB which could hardly accomodate thousands of music tracks, you have the option to expand it via a microSD memory card up to 16GB. Aside from this, the Nokia 5250 also comes with a built-in FM radio and a complementary copy of Guitar Hero 5 Mobile.

Aside from the music player on the phone’s homescreen, there are also other apps, particularly social networking app such as Facebook, MySpace and others. The phone also lets you access your Ovi Mail, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. You can also check out your IM accounts. For more apps, you can just check the Ovi Store to get the apps supported by the phone.

And since this is a music phone, it has to have long battery life. Fortunately, the Nokia 5250 can last you up to 24 hours of continous music playback or up to 18 days standby and 7 hours talktime.

Other features of the Nokia 5250 include – Symbian^1 OS, GSM/EDGE Network connectivity, 2.8-inch TFT screen with 16:9 aspect ratio and 640×360 resolution, and a 2 MP camera.

The Nokia 5250 is slated for a 4th Quarter release. It will cost you €115 to score this phone.

Well, how do you like the phone? I really like the polished design, it is quite chic, and the functions are ok to me. It seems a really nice phone to me.

Motorola, the renowned cellphone manufacturer yet makes another gorgeous cellphone — the Motorola Droid 2. Although I haven’t really get my hands on this beauty, there’s indeed lots of buzz out there already, enough to drive us to check this new phone out!

Verizon just made the Droid 2 available to the public! It was a much awaited release. Following the successful Motorola Droid phone, finally here comes its successor – the Motorola DROID 2. And Verizon has just made it available for pre-order days ago under its various mobile data packages. But perhaps what makes the Droid 2 a much awaited Android device is the fact that it will be pre-loaded with the Android 2.2 Froyo OS.

Being a much talked about and overhyped smartphone, expect the Motorola DROID 2 to pack-in tons of great features that will surely give its rivals a run for their money. Let’s take a closer look at what the DROID 2 has to offer then.

DROID 2 features a 3.7 touch screen 480×854 WVGA display that supports up to 16M colors and has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. It is equipped with a 5MP camera with auto-focus, touch-to-focus, face detection, panoramic modes and other great camera features. This camera also captures DVD-D1 videos and has its own dedicated camera key.

Going further inside the DROID 2, you’d have an Android phone running on T1 OMAP 1GHz processor with its own dedicated GPU, an 8GB internal memory, 8GB pre-installed microSD card, Android 2.2 OS with Motorola Application Platform, aGPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and speakerphone.

The DROID 2 is also loaded with various Verizon-specific features including 3G Mobile Hotspot support for up to 5 devices, Visual Voice Mail, VZ Navigator, Skype Mobile, V Cast Media Manager, VZW backup assistant and of course a plethora of Google apps and third-party Android apps.

The Motorola DROID 2 is available for pre-order now from Verizon Wireless. It will set you back for $199.99 if you opt to get it with Verizon Contract which will run for 2 years.

With such gorgeous hardwares and so many powerful useful functions, the Motorola Droid 2 is a smartphone of the highest quality! So if you’re looking for a nice smartphone now, just check it out, you won’t be disappointed.

August is golden season for cellphones, (and for vedio games too), so it’s really no surprise that we finally see AT&T’s Samsung Eternity II and Flight II get a true release date. I love the blue exterior design, so great news!

The incoming Samsung Eternity II and Samsung Flight II wanna-be smartphones for AT&T finally have an official release date, with the Eternity II being released on August 15th. It looks like they’ll both be ready to take on the onslaught of back to school competition that will be starting in a few weeks.

The Samsung Eternity II sports a 3.0″ touchscreen that helps take advantage of the fact that it has support for the optional AT&T Mobile TV powered by FLO TV in it for streaming live shows. It’s also got a full HTML web browser with one-finger zoom, a 2.0 megapixel camera, a mobile email, music and video player, and AT&T Social Net for keeping on top of your Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace accounts.

The Samsung Flight II sports a touchscreen as well, but has a slide-out horizontal QWERTY keyboard, along with a 2MP camera, full HTML web browser, mobile email, a music and video player, and enhanced social networking with PicDial, Star Tweets and WHERE. The Flight II is available now exclusively at Radio Shack and the Eternity II now available at AT&T too.

Go and get a dark blue beauty to dive with you for this august!

The iPhone 4 has been out for quite awhile now, if you are one of those who love to use the iPhone just like a small iPad, then here’s a great new for you all: the Vodafone offers iPhone 4 on Pay As You Go!

Vodafone is to offer the iPhone 4 on a Pay As You Go tariff. Also adding in a few extra incentives up until November this year, Pay As You Go iPhone 4 Vodafone customers can enjoy one year’s worth of data which will be capped at 250MB a month in addition to one year’s access to BT Openzone Wi-Fi, set at 1GB a month.

Vodafone have launched the Pay As You Go option as a reaction to customer needs; with many people preferring the flexibility that PAYG systems offer. Mark Bond the Consumer Director of Vodafone has also stated that there will be further options and incentives introduced later this year.

Of course, the main disadvantage of PAYG is the hefty cost of buying the phone which when on contract, is usually offered for free. The 16GB PAYG iPhone 4 through Vodafone will cost you £480, whilst the 32GB version will set you back a whopping £570. If you’re still a lover of the iPhone 3GS, this will cost you £385 on the Vodafone PAYG deal.

Yes, quite pricey, but if you use the iPhone like a smaller iPad, (like browsing the web a lot, or downloading things quite often on the iPhone 4) then you might find the contract thing actually quite reasonable.

Get tired of iPhone all the time, don’t want a business phone (like BlackBerry)? Well, you might be looking for a great smartphone with incredible powerful features, and this Acer Stream is probably exactly what you are looking for. It is great for daily use, and totally awesome for movie playback, music playing and other entertainment, and it is now available exclusively from Expansys.

Acer and Expansys has officially announced the availability of the Acer Stream this August 9. A high-end multimedia smartphone, the Acer Stream is a nice mobile device both in and out.

Inside the smartphone are powerful features that optimized the phone for movie playback, music listening and web browsing. Outside is a well design form factor made from highly resistant materials Feature-wise, the Acer Stream is in full steam with advanced features topbilled by a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED display boasting of 1.67 million bright color. Completing its superb display feature is an incredible contrast of 2000:1 that allows the phone to display clear images even in light condition.

For its connectivity features, the Acer Stream offers fast 3G connectivity at around 7.2mbps download speed. It also features Bluetooth and WiFi.  Specs-wise, the Acer Steam features Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM which are both perfect for running Android 2.1 OS. The Acer Steam allows you to record 720 HD videos and have it played back with Dolby Mobile quality sound, powerful bass and crystal clear clarity.

Other features of the Acer Steam include – a 5MP camera, integrated GPS, geotagging, HDMI port, and micro-SD card support. The Steam has three types of predictive keyboards, a smart dialer and redesigned contacts list.

With all those features, the Acer Stream will let you quickly start favorite apps in one touch, easily switch apps with the History panel, customize your phone and enjoy smooth animation and fine graphics.

Beautiful design, powerful feature, if you like it just as I do, the Acer Steam now retails for £399 at Expansys. Go and get your own one!

Yes, I know we talked about the Sony Ericsson X10 mini pro in our earlier post.  But this is different, well not much different, but it now comes out in white, and it’s beautiful! You know Sony Ericsson cellphones, they’re always beautiful and enjoyable, and the Sony Ericsson X10 mini pro makes no exception, is a great phone for daily use!

The x10 mini is a scaled-down version of Sony Ericsson’s flagship phone – the X10. The strapline is “Mini but Mighty” and it does pack a lot of power in its 90 x 52 x 17 mm frame. It’s a slider handset with a 5 megapixel camera and a high speed internet receiver built over an Android operating system, giving you access to all those apps.

The handsets have a reputation as great camera and video phones, though the user interface can be a bit counter-intuitive.

Anyway white is The Thing apparently. They tell us: ”The timeless fashion pallet dominated the collections this summer with everyone from Stella McCartney, Fendi and Calvin Klein featuring dazzling white ensembles. The fashion elite are also well aboard the white wagon.”

There you go. That’s why you should really get a white phone this summer. This white Sony Ericsson X10 mini pro is totally adorable and fashionable, totally the white phone you should have to go along with all your fashionable outfits! And also, it makes a great cellphone for daily use and for entertainment.

Blackberry smartphones are the best selling business phones in US. Many people use the Blackberry phones because they’re really good at what they’re doing, and we’re quite used to their trackball design and shape too. However lately Blackberry comes out with quite a lot new ideas, like the optical trackpad, the touchscreen thing, and now even a slide-out keyboard…

Want to see how these are working out? Well, that’s a “WOW”, the news are that this new slider touchscreen Blackberry – The Torch 9800 will launches in US soon.

It has a slider keyboard and a full touchscreen and it is the latest gadget in Blackberry’s redoubtable range of business phones. The Torch was unveiled yesterday and will go on sale in the US on AT&T from 12th August. Features of the new flagship phone include the Blackberry OS 6.0. The new operating system will be rolled out to other handsets but the Torch will be the first phone to carry it.

The Torch features a 3.2″ touch screen with 480×360 pixel color display. The unusual feature is the slide-out QWERTY keyboard and optical trackpad.

The key features of the new Blackberry operating system are: a new “PC-like” web browser. It renders pages “beautifully” apparently, with tabbed browsing for access to multiple web pages at the same time and pinch-to-zoom capability and – secondly – a Universal Search tool.

The new device is geared to take advantage of your media resources elsewhere, so it syncs to iTunes, Windows Media Player DRM-Free music, photos and videos on the go from your computer to your BlackBerry. Sync from your home computer music library to your BlackBerry can be done wirelessly over Wi-Fi.

And based on the picture above, the Torch 9800 looks nice too, a very beautiful design. Although I do adore the traditional Blackberry look, this phones looks really cool and nice, so maybe it is time to make a change. The phone’s launching in the US first on the 12th August, for more information you can check out the AT&T pages.

I usually love Sony Ericsson phones just because they’re good in design, and alway has friendly user interface. However for this Sony Ericsson Vivaz I do expect more for they’ve promised much more! And the result? Yes, I’ll tell you.

This week, I got my paws on Sony Ericsson’s Vivaz. With HD capability – and a nice new curvy design – I wanted to know whether it pulls off the multimedia magic we’ve all been promised.

First, let’s talk about the looks. Much has been made of the ‘human curvature’ design, and it’s not exactly been a universal hit. But I like it, actually, and certainly don’t think you’d be ashamed to take it home and introduce it to your mates. However, while I like the fact that it’s lightweight, the casing does feel a bit flimsy – taking the back off to get to the battery and SIM is a bit fiddly, and I was worried that it might snap with a teeny bit of pressure. The 3.2 inch touchscreen looks great though, and buttons are kept to a minimum (I was particularly pleased to see the camera shutter button, along with a video button, along the edge – much nicer to use than on the touchscreen itself, as in the iPhone).

However, I was disappointed upon opening the box to be presented with: a stylus. I’d vainly hoped there wouldn’t be the need. And I wasn’t particularly convinced with the thing when texting – the handwriting feature wasn’t quite as responsive as I’d hoped (I got lots of ‘hollo’s, even with my neatest handwriting), while the mini and full-sized QWERTY keyboards had me wishing for something in between. I did also struggle to see the screen properly when outdoors (just occasionally) as there seemed to be a bit of glare even on days that weren’t particularly bright.

Web browsing was nice and easy though, and the 360×640 pixels make sure your picture is sharp and bright. I must confess, despite regularly trying to ditch the stylus I kept having to pick it up again whenever I didn’t get the response I wanted.

But, I hear you cry, what about the camera? Well, this is where the Vivaz starts to show off a little. With 8.1 megapixels, face and smile detection helps to make sure you get the snap you’re after. And having the hard button on the side means it’s easy to grab a picture even in those blink-and-you’ll-miss-them moments. We thought that video quality was great – it’s certainly a good idea for anyone who wants to be able to grab some footage or pictures whenever they like, and upload them straightaway to YouTube or Picasa. YouTube (along with Facebook and Twitter) is preinstalled, too, alongside iPlayer and other video services, meaning your favourite videos are close to hand.

Ultimately, I had mixed feelings about the handset – it’s stylish, perhaps a bit specialist, but could be so much more user-friendly in terms of the interface. For the average user, the Vivaz might just be a bit fiddly for everyday use. But for multimedia fans who take pictures and movies regularly, it’s not bad at all.

Overall, this is a nice looking phone with pretty nice functions, but I have to say that I’m indeed a little disappointed, for they’ve promised so much more. But still the phone is really pretty!

Samsung, a classic Korean phone manufacture, like other Korean phone makers, they value fashionable shape and designer more than functionality, and yes, they make really nice sleek fashionable phones.

So, when the Samsung M350 Seek Mobile Phone comes in Floral Pink, it is really not a big deal, they do such things. However this phone really worth a second look.

It may not quite be a smartphone, but the Samsung M350 Seek mobile phone has a lot going for it, especially now that it comes in pink with a floral design on it. Sure, not every girl will go for this, but there are plenty who would appreciate this phone’s feminine looks.

The phone also sports a 1.3MP camera, bluetooth, a full QWERTY keyboard with a 2.6″ touchscreen display, and dedicated apps for Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, IM, and email. Overall, that isn’t too shabby for a free phone with contract when you sign up with Sprint.

Like I said, not functionally powerful, but sleek and fashionable, and sometimes that’s all a fashion girl asks for a cell phone.

The iPhone undeniably is a milestone in smartphone history, Apple has really made a generation with it, and now here comes the iPhone 4, a new generation of iPhone, and a new generation of all smartphones. If you haven’t read a lot about this new iPhone already, then let’s have a quick look at the new iPhone 4 with iOS 4 together.

First of all, since the iPhone 3GS resembles the iPhone 3G so much, I just want to give you a heads up that the iPhone 4 is drastically different from the iPhone 3G or 3GS, it’s literally the new generation of iPhone.

To start, it has an all new design features a sheet of glass on the front as well as the rear. Having glass on the rear means that it is scratch resistant. The edges are aluminum and act as the antenna for the WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular radios. The iPhone 4 is the thinnest smartphone available at 9.3mm, but is a bit heavier than the iPhone 3GS. The display has such high resolution, that each pixel is nearly the width of a human hair. This makes for a super smooth image that is many times clearer than what you’ll find on any smarpthone. The resolution is 960×640. Most high end smartphones like the Google Nexus One or EVO 4G have resolutions of 800×480. The iPhone 4 has two cameras. The camera on the front is used for the FaceTime video chat feature. The camera on the rear is 5MP with an LED flash, and can also record 720p video.

Sounds to me, this is really the most impressive smartphone for both entertainment and communication! The new iPhone ships with iOS 4 and is going to be available on June 24, and you can get the 16GB model for $199 and the 32GB model for $299, with a contract of course. Let’s just wait and see if it is really that good as the official said “It’ll change everything again”.