Nokia 5230 Overview

October 20th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Nokia, Touchscreen

Nokia mobile phones continue to be the market leaders in the industry, and the Nokia 5230 shows why. It ticks all the right boxes – squarely in the cheap mobile phones bracket, you can pick it up for around £78 on a pay as you go deal or free on a £15-a-month contract. As contract mobile phones go, this is exceptionally reasonable and there are plenty of punters out there looking for precisely this kind of deal. But it’s not just the price tag which is appealing.

The touch screen is generously large at 3.2 inches, and the resolution is pretty darned good at 640×360 pixels. Not quite the same size as the iPhone – but you get more pixels on the 5230. Although the touch screen is resistive rather than capacitative, it’s creditably responsive and you get a stylus thrown in to make life easier. There are a few pluses and minuses to consider – whilst the phone does have 3G, it doesn’t have Wi-Fi and although it has an A-GPS receiver, the feeble 2 megapixel camera is, well, pants. But the positives on this entry-level phone outweigh the negatives: it comes with Bluetooth and USB connectivity, and you’ll get download speeds of around 3.6 Mbps with the high-speed HSDPA.

The 5230 doesn’t have stereo speakers, and Nokia have been careful not to brand it as an XpressMusic phone. But you will find an FM player, a 3.5 mm audio jack for ordinary headphones, and a passable music player. You can also expand the phone’s 70 MB memory to 16 GB with a micro-SD card, and the battery life is outstanding. Not quite A star, but definitely above B+.

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LG Viewty Review

October 17th, 2010 | LG, Mobile Phone Reviews

The LG Viewty serves as the 3G upgrade to the KE850 Prada. The key difference between the two devices is that the Viewty now supports HSDPA data, at rates as high as 3.6 Megabits per second.  This mobile device is a clear and direct upgrade from previous technology, and therefore offers improved functionality, but little new innovation.

While the Viewty manages to do many things correctly, unfortunately it’s difficult to say that it manages to stand out in any profound way. As a whole, the device manages solid performance all across the board, with unit size, display size, display resolution, battery life, and every other vital technical specification.  The Viewty manages to do most things quite well, providing a useful touch screen that is easy to use, and well responsive to even light touches.  That said, the most notable feature of the Viewty is its camera, with five Megapixel resolution, auto focus, bright flash, digital zoom, white balance, and other features.  Even so, most stand alone cameras support this and more, leaving the Viewty less than stellar in most areas.

For many people the LG Viewty may work just fine, however with no specialty in any one area, it’s hard to indicate the sort of people this mobile handset would be best for.  In addition, with no access to the Android Marketplaces and all the apps available there, there’s little reason to consider this device special in any way.  While it’s not a bad phone, it’s still very difficult to recommend to anyone based on these few grievances. Comparing mobile phone reviews online should be your next step in finding a suitable solution for your needs.

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World of Broadband

October 13th, 2010 | Broadband

Broadband deals and special offers abound in a broadband world of cutthroat competition where getting new customers to sign on the dotted line is the primary objective.  As a result, it is best to take a look through the introductory freebies and special discounts for new customers, and broadband comparison websites are very useful here.  They trawl through broadband deals like whales through plankton to find the best deals to suit your requirements.

Do not just select the cheapest package without first checking exactly what you will be receiving.  Internet users fall into distinct categories depending on their occasional, average or heavy usage.  There is no point in paying for innovative security and 24-hour engineer support if all you will be doing is checking a few emails each day.  Equally, a business will probably place a lot of value on security and support to ensure its continuing integrity and efficiency.

Introductory offers range from unlimited talk time to free modems, fixed-term discounts and other freebies, but it’s the general level of annual service you should be looking at, however tempting the promotions are.

Broadband UK has great advantages over dial-up, such as much faster download speeds and independence of PC and telephone lines.  Fixed-rate monthly packages are very cheap and certainly competitive with dial-up, which varies according to usage and where most of your time seems to be spent in getting online in the first place.

Try a few broadband comparison websites to narrow the choice down, and then obtain some final quotes before making your final selection.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 Overview

October 9th, 2010 | Camera Phones, Mobile Phone Reviews, Sony Ericsson, Touchscreen

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 takes aim at the BlackBerry with both 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity as well as a full QWERTY keyboard.

Pros
The body of the Xperia X1 feels substantial and able to handle a fall or two.  The 3-inch touch-screen is large and vibrant.  The metallic accents give the handset a luxurious appearance.

The distinctive panel-based interface gives the X1 an impressive visual impact.  App shortcuts are accessed via the traditional grid layout or a rotating set up that can be activated with one touch of the X Panel key located right on the handset.  The panel system allows users to side-step the notoriously tiny Windows Mobile menu icons.

Cons
Initial set up takes a long time, a rather low-tech and sluggish experience if one were to compare mobile phones from other brands with similar features. 

The camera is positioned on the back of the handset, which is foolish because holding the phone in landscape position to compose an email means that the user’s fingers completely cover the camera lens.

Though the X1 has a QWERTY keyboard, the keys are entirely too small and flush with the handset face.  Fast or frequent typing is exceedingly difficult and frustrating.  The touch-screen is surprisingly unresponsive, and Windows Mobile requires the use of a stylus – never ideal for those who rely on their phones for business communication.

Conclusion
The solid build and stylish looks of the Xperia X1 are unfortunately not enough to overcome its underwhelming performance.  Business users would be better served seeking out other mobile phone deals.

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Nokia E55 Review

October 5th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Nokia

The Nokia E55 is a super thin little smartphone (its frame coming in at just 9.9 millimetres thick) and has a rather controversial QUERTY keyboard design which we will come back to in a moment.

Queer QWERTY issues aside, this is a neat little machine that comes with all the smartphone whistles and bells you might expect, including Office Editing (emails, memos, presentations, spreadsheets etc), strong internet connectivity including Wi-FI, Bluetooth Stereo and assisted GPS.  The touch-screen is 2.4 inches in size with a resolution of 16M, and there is also the standard 3.2 megapixel camera which comes with LED flash and fixed focus.

The quirky QWERTY keyboard design – essentially split in two – is perhaps the biggest innovation on show here, and it is bound to cause a little bit of heated debate among supporters and detractors.  Certainly, in our opinion, it takes a little bit of getting used to when most people have been brought up on the standard QWERTY keyboard.

The 3.5 millimetre audio jack for headphones is an improvement on previous E-series phones, allowing you to use your personal phones rather than just the ones supplied, whereas previously the 2.5 millimetre jack left users little choice but to use the phone’s own headphones whether they really wanted to or not.

All in all, the Nokia E55 offers reasonable value for money, though some may be disappointed by the poor video recording facilities offered (maxing out at just 15fps) or put off by the peculiar split keyboard design.

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Samsung F480 Tocco Review

October 3rd, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Samsung Mobile Phones, Touchscreen

The word Tocco originates from the Italian for touch and Samsung certainly is on a winner with this phone.  It’s not a new baby, being two years old now, but it still is a serious contender for the mobile purchaser.  It’s very similar to the Samsung Nerva – so what is the best buy?

The F480 Tocco is available in black, silver or pink and is a smart, stylish phone.  The Nerva is an eye-catcher as well.  They are both touch screen, which looks cool but texting is slower on a touch screen compared to a traditional QWERTY keyboard.

The Tocco comes with the standard QVGA resolution screen, size 2.8 inches, as opposed to the long screen, 3.2 inches, used by the Nerva.  Both the Tocco and the Nerva are ultra slim but the Tocco is just a smidgen slimmer at 11.6 mm.

The two phones have similar cameras and are pretty fabulous, coming with five megapixels, digital zoom, smile detector, auto focus and LED flash.

The music system is good and plays the majority of standard formats and beats the Nerva in that an FM radio is included.  There’s also loads of memory, enough for thousands of your favourite tracks, 240 megabytes with the option of adding another eight GB.  The phone also supports Shazam, a facility that identifies the track that you’re currently playing.

The Tocco disappoints in that it drops calls and the voice quality can be poor.  So the Tocco has better features but the Nerva is more reliable.

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Motorola Deft Review

September 30th, 2010 | Google Android, Mobile Phone Reviews, Motorola, Touchscreen

A new Android smartphone designed to fit snugly into your pocket, the Motorola Defy is the latest in the line of new mobile phones from the Motorola mobile phones range.

The Motorola Defy is being heavily promoted as being resistant to dust, scratches, rust and water and Motorola Mobility Senior Vice President of Device Product Management Alain Mutricy says it is “designed to handle everything that life throws your way… a design that withstands the challenges of everyday life.”

Sounds good, doesn’t it?  More to the point, the Motorola Defy is also a pretty good little smartphone on its own terms as well, even without the “resistant to life” gimmickry.  The screen is a healthy 3.7 inches and the phone also has excellent features including a Connected Music Player, an Adobe Flash Lite enabled browser, and a camera with five megapixels, flash, digital zoom and auto focus.  The Defy is also able to share, stream and store content from game consoles, PCs and HDTVs in your home that are also enabled with the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA).

As with the Motorola Milestone 2, the Defy uses Motorola’s own user interface, known as MotoBlur, and while it is not as powerful as the Motorola Milestone 2 (for one thing, it can’t shoot video in 720p), providing this is reasonably and sensibly priced (don’t expect it to be one of the cheaper contract mobile phones around, however) this will likely be a very good phone for the mid-range market.

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Nokia 6300 Overview

September 27th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Mobile Technology, Nokia

The Nokia 6300 is a popular mobile phone that is easy to operate. Users will notice that this Nokia mobile phone is sleek and stylish. The beautiful 2 inch screen on the Nokia 6300 supports up to 16 million colours.

At just 91 grams, the Nokia 6300 is a lightweight mobile phone. The device is 106.4 mm long by 43.6 mm wide and is just 11.7 mm thick. The battery included with the Nokia 6300 provides 3 hours and 30 minutes of talk time or approximately 348 hours on standby.

Integrated into the Nokia 6300 is a basic 2 megapixel camera. This camera is capable of capturing video clips. There is no secondary camera provided for video conferencing. To store the pictures and video you capture with the Nokia 6300, there is 7.8 megabytes of internal memory. Users can expand the memory up to 2 gigabytes through the provided microSD expansion slot.

To add to the functionality of the Nokia 6300, this mobile phone includes a stereo FM radio. Users can also listen to music in a variety of popular formats such as AAC and MP3.

The Nokia 6300 provides several messaging styles, including MMS, SMS, and instant messaging. Users will also be able to access their email accounts through this mobile phone. To browse the internet, the Nokia 6300 includes a WAP 2.0 browser.

Users will find a variety of contract mobile phone plans for the Nokia 6300. This cheap mobile phone is available on several different networks and there are numerous plans that provide users with a free handset.

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BlackBerry Storm 9500 Overview

September 24th, 2010 | Blackberry, Mobile Phone Reviews, Touchscreen

The BlackBerry Storm 9500 was the first touch-screen BlackBerry mobile phone, marketed to rival the iPhone. As such, it marked RIM’s switch from targeting business users to potential iPhone buyers.

The BlackBerry Storm 9500 measures 4.43 by 2.45 by 0.54 inches. It weighs 5.47 ounces. Its battery life can extend to 15 days on stand-by and 5.5 hours of talk time. Its touch-screen is 360 x 480 pixels and is 3.25 inches. The mobile phone’s camera has a 3.2 megapixels resolution with flash and autofocus. The inbuilt memory is 1024 MB. It has Bluetooth, an HTML browser and GPS.

The BlackBerry Storm 9500’s positive highlights centre on the high quality of the touch-screen, most evident when viewing photos or videos. All of the multimedia applications, videos and music are of a market leading quality. Its email services, as with all BlackBerry mobile phones, are of excellent quality. Although the BlackBerry Storm 9500 is not one of the latest mobile phones to feature touch-screen technology, its clickable touch-screen remains innovative.

The lack of Wi-Fi technology weighs heavily against the BlackBerry Storm 9500 when compared with similar mobile phones. Wi-Fi is a now standard feature in many smartphones. The 3.2 megapixel camera, though excellent under normal conditions, works much less well without natural light.

Current BlackBerry deals are offered by PrePayMania: for £214.00 and for £400.38. The deals are SIM free mobile phone deals – mobile phones sold without a SIM card or phone number.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 16GB

September 20th, 2010 | Samsung Mobile Phones

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 16GB looks set to be a big player when it comes to new mobile phones releases.  With a camera featuring 3.2 megapixels, Wi-Fi (of up to 802.11n), 3G (HSUPA 5.76 Mbps and HSDPA 7.2 Mbps) internet connectivity and a memory capacity of an enormous 16 GB, Samsung in certainly trying to stake their claim in the Android tablet market.

The Galaxy Tab looks set to be something of a revolution, with web browsing of a standard comparable to that of most PCs and, despite its fairly compact size, the phone will also offer a perfect seven inch screen on which to experience many kinds of multimedia content.  The phone will also offer customers the ability to email, voice and video call and the ability to SMS/MSS and utilize social networking sites to their hearts’ content.

The seven inch touch-screen will come with a very high resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels, and the phone also features GPS and integrated sensors such as an accelerometer, a geomagnetic sensor, gyroscope and light sensor.  The 3.2 megapixel camera includes the expected flash, as well as autofocus and the ability to record video in a resolution of up to 720 x 480.  The video chat function allows customers to chat to their friends and family with a 1.3 megapixel VGA resolution.

All in all, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 16GB (together with the 32 GB version, which will no doubt be even more expensive) is not expected to be in the cheap mobile phones range, but it is expected to be one of the more impressive devices of the year.

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