Just Another Gadget Blog

With so many smartphones on the market what are the top 4…

1. Apple iPhone 3GS
This isn’t a phone, it’s a computer. Apple is way ahead of the market but with Google and Anroid on the case they need to keep upping the ante. All this means better smart phones for us… wuhoo

Read more on the iPhone

2. HTC Hero a.k.a G2 Touch

HTC have produced a multi-touch interface powered phone that can really give the iPhone something to worry about. Also, the internet base apps are brilliant.

3. HTC Touch Pro2
With its 3.6in touch-screen, full QWERTY keyboard and speakerphone, this phone is probably the best business phone yet that will rock any meeting.

4. Blackberry Bold 9000
Blackberry may be the choice for multi-national cooperation business but they have now made a brave attempt appealing to the like of you and I. With a bright half-VGA screen, GPS, HSDPA and its amazing email functionality they have done a good job.

Oh yes, Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone manufacture does not make the list. You never know, with Nokia introducing the OVI things may change and lets hope the Nokia E71 lives up to the expectation.

Personally I would suggest rather than chasing Apple in the courts for patent infringement, just do the same to them and copy the iPhone 3GS.

I really wanted to watch Queens club tennis, especially Murray’s straight sets victory over Fish yesterday but was miles away from a TV. With limited sunshine in the UK, I wanted to make the most of the beautiful weather we had yesterday and therefore I didn’t want to go indoors to watch the game. All I had was my smart phone, a phone that could do everything, well I was wrong!

I thought why it isn’t possible to get live commercial TV on the phone. It can’t be that hard, can it? They have thought of everything else, I can watch last nights Eastenders at my pleasure on 13 different handsets but why can’t I watch live TV?

Well, having searched the web, I came across a phone by Softbank and Sharp, the Softbank 923SH mobile phone. Currently only available in Japan, It boasts the ability to get decent terrestrial TV on your handset.

The Softbank 923SH features a 3.3-inch widescreen swivel LCD display, a 5.2 mega pixel auto-focus camera, GPS navigation and Bluetooth. The handset was designed and developed with help from those who designed Sharp’s AQUOS hi-definition TV range.

softbank-sharp-923sh

This sound’s quite unique and looks very impressive, once released in Europe I can see this becoming the next big thing.

When it comes to phones, all we seem to be hearing these days, is the iphone does this, or the iphone does that, don’t get me wrong its amazing phone, I’ve got one myself, but I was getting bored of constantly hearing about it.

So it was a breath of fresh air when I heard Samsung had launched the Samsung E1107 also known as the “Solar Guru”, the world’s first solar powered mobile phone. Yes you read correctly “Solar Powered”. The handset itself is quiet basic and definitely not much to look at, but it has a solar panal on the back. Now you maybe wondering what “solar powered” actually means, basically in Samsung terms, 1 hour of solar charging gives you 5-10 mins of extra talk time (depending on lighting), so if I was you, I wouldn’t throw away your conventional chargers just yet! However great if you’re going somewhere where electricity is limited, such as camping.

The features on the handset are as follows: 1.52 inches CSTN Display with 128×128 pixels & 65k colors, FM Radio, Mp3 ringtones, built in flash light, a mobile tracker, the handset supports dual band and most importantly the phone has a fake call app that’ll let you call yourself to get out of an unwanted conversation….now I know the iphone has an app for that……..but does it have a solar panal?………I think not.

The Samsung E1107 has been released in India and is priced at an affordable price of 2,799 IND ($59). It will also be available in Europe, Southeast and Southwest Asia later this month.

Once a market leader in personal data devices, Palm all but disappeared from the market. But now are they are back to take their rightful place in the market or are they being naïve. With the advancement of technology and the successes of Apple’s iPhone, Google Android and RMI’s Blackberry, are Palm placing all their hopes of survival in one basket?

Palm have recruited many of Apple’s ex-iPhone workforce to come up with a serious challenger for the iPhone. ‘The Palm Pre’ is born.

The Pre has received a very positive reaction from many Smartphone critics and has generated a huge amount of interest since its announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas at the beginning of this year.

A first look at the specifications and the new Palm webOS, the Palm Pre certainly looks like a very impressive smartphone.

The main focus has been Palm’s new webOS platform, focused on people on the move. The phone automatically recognises when the owner connects to websites, social networks or e-mail services and builds up a global list of contacts and login details as it is used.

The phone has an innovative interface based around its touch screen and a “gesture area” below the display. And unlike many other smart phones, the Pre also allows users to have several applications running at once and easily switch between them. It has built in 802.11b/g WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, a 3 megapixel camera with an LED flash and 8GB of flash memory, there is also a wireless charger.

Finally, not much is known about the availability of an App store which is becoming ever more popular with smart phone companies and users led by the iPhone App store.

The world’s first 12-mega pixel camera phone has arrives with Samsung officially announcing the new Pixion 12 (M810) Camera Phone.

I guess it started life as a camera with a phone added on or was it the other way round!!! The Samsung Pixon 12 (M810) has 12-mega pixels and a full AMOLED 3.1-inch touch screen with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and an FM tuner as standard. The camera or should I say phone delivers superior high resolution images with its Xenon power LED flash and a 28mm wide-angle lens .

Using the 3.1-inch touch screen in camera mode you can tell the auto focus where to focus in framed shots, this camera phone is better than most digital cameras available on the market today. Moreover, the camera phone can records stunning full motion videos at 30fps at a resolution of 720 x 480 and has a huge 150MB internal storage and supports MicroSD card. The Pixon 12 operates on HSPA 900/2100MHz and GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900MHz networks.

If you’re a happy snapper and just need a phone for emergencies, this is the camera phone for you. Stylish, amazing picture quality and practical with all the standard features we have come to expect from mobile phones (Apple iPhone an exception, lets hope the iPhone Version 3.0 holds up to all the hype and expectations).

The HTC Magic, powered by Android™, is designed to turn heads with its sleek and stylish looks, and command attention with its advanced list of capabilities. It provides everything you love about the internet, Gmail, Google Search, YouTube and Google Maps geared up exactly how you want it. Further enhanced with Outlook synchronization, Smart Dialler, and an onscreen keyboard with predictive text, the HTC Magic will keep you entertained and up to date wherever you are.

This is a handset where everything goes, you can personalise your handset as much as you with a multitude of enhancements from the Android market and the best thing is you can get to it all very easily.

We’d say if the Apple iPhone is not for you, or too common then this is an excellent alternative.

Magic, HTC Specification

Processor Qualcomm MSM7200A™, 528 MHz
Operating System: Android
RAM: 288 MB
Dimensions 113 x 55.56 x 13.65 mm
Weight 116 grams ( 4.09 ounces) with battery
Display 3.2-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with 320×480 HVGA resolution
GPS Internal GPS antenna
Connectivity Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g
HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
Camera 3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus
Audio supported formats AAC, AAC+, AMR-NB, MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC-LC, MIDI, OGG
Video supported formats MP4, 3GP
Talk time: Up to 450 minutes for GSM
Standby time: Up to 420 hours for GSM
Expansion Slot microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
Special Features G-sensor, Digital Compass

With results down by 90% due to the current market conditions or just more demanding customers Nokia are to release a new flagship phone in June 2009, the Nokia N97.

With Nokia loosing market share to the Apple iPhone, this is not just another N-series phone. This is a product built on years of experience in the mobile phone market, it has tangible new technologies, pushed to the extreme and embodied in a slimline pocket shell.

The new Nokia N97, a fusion of the best proven Nokia hardware and software, such as the much loved Nokia contacts list and apps front and centre on the home page and the touch screen from the Nokia 5800 Tube. It also has the E-series style slide-out QWERTY keyboard hidden behind a 3.5-inch widescreen 16:9 touch display that tilts smartly above the keys as well as the excellent camera and multimedia trimmings we have so much come to admire from the previous N-series handsets.

Nokia have gone all guns blazing with the N97, with 32GB of memory and a microSD slot, this is by far the largest amount of memory found on any smart phone enabling you to use the device as a trully portable multimedia device for music, movies, photos and N-Gage games.

With the launch of the N97, Nokia are to launch the Nokia Ovi Store to rival the Apple App store and the Android marketplace. It is unlikley it will have the same volume of apps but give it time and it won’t be far.

The N97 will truely rivel the iPhone and the Android, it does the simple things well, it looks very sexy and with 32GB storage it has alot of potential. Are Nokia too late in joining the smartphone party?

Specifications: Nokia N97

Screen: 3.5 inches, 640×360 pixels
Connectivity: 3.5Mbps HSDPA, Wi-Fi, A2DP, A-GPS
Storage: 32Gb + MicroSD slot
Camera: 5 Megapixls, dual Flash, Carl Zeiss lens
Battery: 6.6 hours talk time / 18 hours standby / 37 hours music playback / 4.5 hours video
Dimensions: 177 x 55 x 15.9mm
Weight: 150g