Orange San Francisco Phone Review

November 24th, 2010 | Google Android, Mobile Phone Reviews, Touchscreen

Anyone thinking of buying a new mobile phone should take a little time to compare the latest models on the market in order to find one that offers lots of features at a great price without compromising quality.  A good example is the Orange San Francisco.

An android 2.1, the San Francisco has received good ratings in many mobile phone reviews.  It does not claim to be a high-end phone, but at the same time has a lot of features that will be of interest if you are looking to change your mobile phone.  With a 3.5” OLED touchscreen, images will look bright and sharp.  The 3-megapixel camera will do the job for most people who use their phone to take photos and videos.  Other features include video recording, Bluetooth, WiFi, MP3 player, FM radio, 3G, web browsing and email.  150MB of memory is available and the battery will provide 4 hours of talk time.

As the name suggests, the Orange San Francisco is one of the contract mobile phones exclusively supplied by Orange.  The handset is currently only available on a pay as you go contract, priced at £99.00.  At the time of writing the Orange San Francisco is not yet available as a free phone with a monthly contract, but it is understood that Orange intend to introduce this option soon.  There is no doubt that it compares favourably with many more expensive handsets so users seeking a budget option amongst the latest mobile phones would do well to give it serious consideration.

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Samsung Galaxy Portal Review

November 20th, 2010 | Google Android, Mobile Phone Reviews, Samsung Mobile Phones, Touchscreen

For those looking for a decent phone to provide a taste of the hottest new Android mobile OS on a budget, the Samsung Galaxy Portal is a welcome addition.  Originally shipping with Android 1.5, it has received updates to the latest 2.3 version, giving users turn-by-turn navigation and voice searching capabilities. This brings the software right up to date with new mobile phones on the market.

The case is made from the black plastic that Samsung seems to favour, which gives the phone a bit of a tacky unsubstantial feel.  However the rubber back should prevent major scratches.  The screen is what you’d expect from this price range and is a surprisingly accommodating LCD 3.2” HVGA display.  The capacitive technology works well, but this isn’t a surprise.

Physical controls include an array of hardware buttons on the front which might feel a little tacky, but are actually useful.  There are the standard Android buttons: back, home and phone functions, as well as a big OK button.  There is a lock button on the top which wakes or sleeps the phone, as well as a volume rocker and a dedicated camera button.  This is perfect for those users who prefer the traditional feel of real buttons.

Overall usability is good even while using push email, Facebook and the built in 3.2 megapixel camera, all thanks to the 800 MHz processor.  This is not as fast as the 1 GHz found in the latest mobile phones, but does the job without too much lag.  Call quality is good.

With no glaring omissions or disadvantages, this is a solid and no-nonsense Android phone available at a very reasonable price, and is certainly a worthy choice amongst many other contract mobile phones sporting the Android OS.  A Samsung Galaxy Portal review can only conclude that this is good value. Offers currently on the market include a contract deal from 3 at £15 a month.

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Nokia 5370 Xpress Music

November 17th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Nokia

As the name suggests, the Nokia 5370 Xpress Music mobile phone is very much concerned with providing the user with some serious musical entertainment.

The Nokia 5370 Xpress Music is a curious mix of personal and the business functions, but this is not necessarily a bad thing; this phone offers plenty of variety for the consumer.  The phone basically offers a little bit of everything, including a QWERTY keyboard, GPS and WLAN in addition to its more music-centric gimmicks such as enhanced music playing capability plus access to N-Gage, as well as the company’s own Nokia Music Store.  The enhanced music playing capability comes courtesy of an 8 GB microSD card (although the phone itself has a memory stick capacity of up to 16 GB). The 3.5 millimetre headphone socket is perhaps expected, though a particularly neat touch of the Nokia 5370 Xpress Music mobile phone comes with the “Say and Play” voice control device, which enables the user to simply say the name of the song or artist they wish to listen to and the phone will find and play it automatically, without the user having to personally skip through all the tracks on the phone first.

The phone also comes complete with such relatively standard accessories as a 3.2 megapixel camera (with dedicated shutter key, video playing resolution of 30 fps and geo-tagging) as well as FM and internet radio.  With special keys dedicated to both music and gaming, the Nokia 5370 Xpress Music is a cool little phone for the music lover.

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How to Get More from Your Broadband

November 13th, 2010 | Broadband

There are so many deals on offer within the broadband UK market nowadays that it is worth shopping around to see if you can get some extras for your money.  Many broadband providers are now giving additional incentives in a bid to tempt users, so why not see what else you can get from a service that interests you?

Any fixed line connection will need a modem, and it is common for internet providers to include them free of charge with packages – so make sure you are not paying for one unnecessarily.  If you have more than one computer that needs internet access within the same location then you will need a Wi-Fi connection, which requires a wireless router to send the signal to multiple computers.  It should be possible to obtain a router free of charge with some companies, so make sure to check into this if you are doing a broadband comparison.

If being able to access the internet anywhere is important to you, or if you don’t need a fixed phone line, then it may be worth your while to compare mobile broadband packages.  Some mobile broadband providers will even offer a free laptop as part of their package, though generally speaking this will require signing up to a longer term contract.  If you are happy to commit to one provider for a lengthy period then this can be a great deal.  Many providers also offer broadband as part of a bundle including TV or phone lines, so this can be another good way of saving.

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Blackberry Bold 9000 Smartphone Review

November 9th, 2010 | Blackberry, Mobile Phone Reviews, Mobile Technology

The Blackberry Bold 9000 is a popular Blackberry model and has a sharp, bright screen that should satisfy even the most fussy mobile phone user.  The phone is slightly bigger than other Blackberry mobile phones which allows for easier typing using the larger keypad. 

The phone allows users to access the internet using Wi-Fi or HSDPA and there is also GPS for those who need some help to find their way around.  Music lovers can store tracks on the phone and make use of the 3.5mm headphone jack, but the main attraction of a Blackberry phone is the email applications.  All major email providers can be accessed from a Blackberry and accounts are easily synchronised. 

The phone also comes with a 2 megapixel camera and is ideal for either work or personal use.  The Blackberry Bold 9000 is available through a number of mobile phone providers and is a popular contract mobile phone.  There is a wide range of contracts available for the Blackberry range and those looking for cheap mobile phones may be able to find a deal that offers them a free handset in return for a fixed term contract. 

These deals vary in monthly charges and the benefits that they offer, but most deals will give the user a set number of call minutes and text messages included in the monthly cost.  They can also vary contract length, which can be anything from 12 months to 24 months.

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HTC Desire – is it better then the iPhone?

November 5th, 2010 | Google Android, HTC, Mobile Phone Reviews, Touchscreen

With an average user rating of 85 per cent, the HTC Desire smartphone can either match or beat everything that the Apple iPhone has to offer.  Its 3.7-inch OLED touch-screen comes complete with a variety of smartphone features.  This large screen, however, does not make the phone feel unusually large.

After the launch of the impressive HTC Legend, the reviews of the HTC Desire have been nothing short of fantastic ensuring HTC Desire deals can be found everywhere.  T-Mobile added more power to their latest model, which translates into bigger and better when it comes to the HTC Desire mobile phone.  The phone is very slim, measuring 119 x 60 x 11.9 mm and weighs a mere 133g.  For those phone purists, the HTC weighs in 2g more than the iPhone 3G and is the same weight as the iPhone 3GS.

Finer details include the six buttons on the front of the phone, all being standard HTC Android fare – Home, Back, Search and Menu – and the Terminator trackpad can also be used as an ‘enter’ key.  The USB slot can be found at the bottom, also having a feature for a microSD card, which can be taken out without having to turn the phone off.

The HTC Desire boasts a large assortment of technologies such as GPS navigation, HTC Footprints support, Bluetooth wireless technology, 3G HSDPA and HSUPA technology and Wi-Fi.  The phone offers an integrated HTML browser for Flickr, YouTube and Twitter users.

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LG GB102 Review

November 3rd, 2010 | LG, Mobile Phone Reviews

The LG GB102 handset is for those who want a phone for the simple things in life; it is excellent for just talking and texting.  There are no frills with this phone.  It does not have a camera for you to worry about and this mobile phone is small and lightweight so will not take up a lot of room in your pocket or purse. 

It has got hands free facility and predictive text.  So that you can make it to all of your meetings and appointments this handset has a diary function, which is a must for most of us who lead very busy lives and need to be organised.  It also has a vibrating alert to let you know, discreetly, if you’ve received a message or call.

The LG GB102 gives you up to 6.5 hours of talk time and up to 400 hours of standby time.  It has a proprietary operating system with dual band coverage.  The dimensions of the phone are 45 x 103 x 14 mm and it is very lightweight, as it weighs just 70g.

Although the LG GB102 is very simple and has very few features it is still a very good cheap phone to use.  Its simplicity is its calling card for those of us who just want a phone to call people and send simple text messages.  This phone would be ideal for some of the older generation who find it difficult to understand technology but whose family want to stay in touch.

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Acer Stream Review

October 30th, 2010 | Acer, Mobile Phone Reviews, Touchscreen

Loaded with an HDMI port for easy television hook-up, customized Android user interface and a large AMOLED touch-screen, the Acer Stream has made nothing but a big impression.  The Acer Stream is definitely Acer’s best-looking handset to date, with a very slim 11 mm thick package, combined with a dark aluminium and black, high gloss finish on the front.

The huge 3.7-inch AMOLED touch-screen is the best way for this phone to show off its incredibly vivid colours, featuring astonishingly deep levels of black, combined with a beautiful bright contrast.  The high WVGA resolution guarantees photos and web pages alike are seen very sharply, even when using the pinch-to-groom, multi-touch zoom feature to quickly navigate in and out between maps and web pages.

The home-screen displays eight permanent shortcut applications on its single screen, which has been divided into two parts.  This is different from the usual multi-page Android screen.  Upgraded to a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor with 512 MB of Ram, applications load ultra-fast and make the Acer Stream one of the fastest smartphones on the market today.

Equipped with a Nemo media player, users can make use of the built-in 5-megapixel camera, enjoy listening to music, viewing photos and watching video playback.  The phone comes with 2 GB of built-in flash memory as well as with an additional 8 GB microSD memory card (in the box) and can be upgraded to hold an additional 32 GB of memory if needed.  This model is very easy to use and is definitely Acer’s best hands free phone to date.  Acer Stream deals can be found on the internet.

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Mobile Phone Reviews – Samsung Highlight T749

October 27th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Samsung Mobile Phones

Let’s face it; the iPhone is the current king of the touch screen phone. That being said, there are still new mobile phones out there that offer a full touch screen interface experience that are worth taking a look at. One of them from the Samsung mobile phones range is the Samsung Highlight, currently on offer exclusively through T-Mobile.

The Highlight is a solid-looking and feeling phone that comes with more-than-decent features and specifications.  The touch screen offers a 240 x 400 pixel resolution on a 16 million colour, three-inch display. The unit is 1.37cm deep by 10.8cm high by 5.4cm width. There are two colours on offer: ice and fire. The ice combines black and turquoise while fire provides a more vibrant combination of orange and red.

The interface is Samsung’s TouchWiz OS – which means you’ll either love it or hate it. Interaction is fairly easy and the desktop works similar to Windows 7 or Mac, which means it can be customised it to suit.

Web browsing is via 3G, there is no Wi-Fi on this phone. What this means is that you have to be in a T-Mobile area to surf and you won’t be able to network your phone when at your office or home. A built-in accelerometer provides landscape functionality, and for fast emails, etc. a keyboard automatically appears when you rotate the screen. Overall, the Highlight T749 is a fairly good handset, but as far as new mobile phones go, it still doesn’t rival the iPhone.

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Motorola Backflip Overview

October 24th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Motorola, Touchscreen

The Motorola Backflip is Motorola’s first Android mobile phone, first released in 2010. Android mobile phones are open source phones that allow users to create and share their own applications. The technology was developed by Android Inc. and Google.

The Motorola Backflip measures at 4.25 by 2.09 by 0.6 inches. It weighs 4.69 ounces. Its range of features includes 5.83 hours of battery life for talk time and 13 days of battery life for standby time. The main display screen has 320 x 480 pixels, is capacitive and measures at 3.10 inches.

The Motorola Backflip’s inbuilt camera has 5 megapixels resolution and has LED flash, auto focus, digital zoom, geo tagging and white balance. The inbuilt multimedia features are a video playback supporting MPEG4, H.263, H.264 and 3GP files and a music player supporting MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WAV and AMR files. The inbuilt memory is 256 MB.

The Motorola Backflip has the Android 1.5 operating software, also known as Cupcake, has a full QWERTY keyboard, HTML internet browsing, Wi-Fi, 2.0 stereo Bluetooth, A-GPS and GPS.

The Motorola Backflip’s major point is the novelty of its keyboard, which is accessed by a literal back-flip of the touch-screen. The keyboard, though, can be hard to use as the keys tend to be on the small side. A common drawback of many touch-screen phones is that the battery can run down relatively quickly with intensive use. The Motorola Backflip has great applications for social media, including Facebook and Twitter.

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