Samsung Soul U900

August 19th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Samsung Mobile Phones

The Samsung Soul U900 is a slider phone with a touch-sensitive navigation pad that changes colour as you use it.

When it comes to aesthetics, the Samsung Soul is one of the more pleasing phones on the market. With dimensions of 50 by 106 by 13 mm and weighing only 112 grams, the Soul is a full metal design, coming in a brushed stainless and black combination and in a salmon pink colour. When holding it, the Soul feels solid and the slider mechanism is sturdy.

The key selling feature of this phone is the touch navigation keypad, which changes icons according to the menu selections. For instance, if you’re using the camera, the camera keys pop up. It is a nice touch as well as a unique one.

In addition to the navigation keypad, the Samsung Soul U900 features a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, image stabiliser, face detection, and wide dynamic range. The music player features a Bang & Olufsen digital amp for generous sound and there is also an FM radio player onboard. Unfortunately, there isn’t a 3.5 mm headphone jack, so you’re stuck with either using the supplied headphones or an adaptor.

While this is a 3G phone, there is no Wi-Fi or GPS functionality. Also missing is push email. Internal memory is 100 MB, with a microSD memory card slot for memory expansion.

If you are looking for contract mobile phone deals, the Samsung Soul U900 is available through most major UK networks.

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Nokia C3 Review

August 16th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Nokia

If you can imagine a BlackBerry in shocking pink, you’ll have a fair idea of what to expect when you pick up Nokia’s funky C3 messaging phone. Nowhere near as staid and dour as the company’s business-orientated E series, the C3 still boasts a full QWERTY keypad below the 2.4 inch landscape display and, even though its price tag places it towards the cheap mobile phones category, it feels pleasingly solid to hold. And lurid pink isn’t its only outfit – it also comes in graceful grey and Liberace-like gold, too.

Despite the slightly Las Vegas Lothario costume, the glossy plastic casing looks expensive, and the aluminium battery cover lends a distinctly up-market appearance to the handset.

Even though the phone doesn’t have a touch screen, the keyboard has the same elegant, concaved keys as the considerably more expensive E series, which makes it a real pleasure to use. There’s a generous space bar and the most commonly used punctuation marks have their own dedicated keys. The home screen features three panels displaying contacts, shortcuts to apps (like the camera, web browser, and email client) and updates from Facebook and Twitter, respectively.

To keep the price reasonable, Nokia have not included 3G on the phone, opting instead for GPRS, but you will get both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The music player’s not at all bad and there’s a standard 3.5 mm jack for conventional headphones. You can pick it up for £80 on Vodaphone’s pay as you go deal (which also adds a 2 GB micro-SD card to boost the handset’s rather paltry 55 MB memory), or SIM-free for about £130.

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How to Make up to £150 for an Old Mobile Phone

August 13th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Recycling, Mobile Technology

Most mobile phone networks offer customers a new phone each year and the old ones tend to be thrown into the bottom of the cupboard or relegated to the garage. Anyone who does this is actually throwing away money, because the longer the mobile phone sits in the garage or wherever else, the less resale value it has. Mobile phones depreciate very quickly and as the latest trendy model comes out, the old ones become ‘uncool’ and drop in value. After four years, most mobile phones are too old sell. They just aren’t worth anything, anymore.

Mobile phone recycling makes sense for your pocket and for the environment. The plastic cases on the phones and more importantly the batteries with all their chemicals end up in landfill sites if the mobile phones are thrown away. Recycling means that some of these phones can be refurbished for resale, while others can be stripped down and the parts reused, which is much more environmentally friendly.

So, what’s in it for you?  A quick look at a comparison site for companies that buy used mobile phone will give you an idea of what your phone, in perfect condition, is worth. Some phones are worth as much as £150, but other older ones are worth nothing, so the quicker you sell that phone the more chance you have of it being accepted.

Once you have found the best price for your phone on a site such as Mazuma or Envirophone, you ask them to send you a pre-paid paid. Send the phone and you receive a cheque for the value or the money is paid into your bank account, depending on how the particular company works.

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Smartphone Reviews – Sony Ericsson Satio

August 10th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Sony Ericsson, Touchscreen

For people looking for Sony Ericsson deals, the Satio smartphone is a good option to consider when comparing mobile phones – combining camera, music, and FM radio capabilities with some of the best in smartphone features.

Let’s start with music capabilities. The Sony Ericsson Satio uses Walkman technology to provide excellent music quality accessible through an easy-to-use interface. Unfortunately, it also uses Sony’s proprietary headphone connection; but it doesn’t seem we can get around that with most of their phones.

As to the camera, it is an outstanding 12 megapixels with Xenon flash. Also noticeable is the absence of shutter lag which is typical of most mobile phone cameras.

The Satio uses the Symbian OS, which we love and the home screen makes it easy to access five pages with simple swipes of your finger. Provided shortcuts take you straight to Google Maps, Wi-Fi Wizard, and TrackID amongst others. The internet page is also well designed, with links to Facebook, BBC News, YouTube, etc.

Finally, amongst the plusses is the looks of this phone, in particular the glossy black casing. And it feels comfortable and sturdy in your hand.

However, there is a downside to the phone – and that is the resistive touch screen. The absence of a capacitive screen makes the phone harder to work and therefore it’s easy to get frustrated during even simple tasks like texting.

Bottom line, if it weren’t for the touch screen and the absence of a 3.5 mm headphone jack, the Sony Ericsson Satio would be near-perfect.

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BlackBerry Curve 8900 Review

August 6th, 2010 | Blackberry, Mobile Phone Reviews

Small in stature but big on features, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 provides excellent mobile email capabilities, a great camera with video, a music player, GPS, a solid battery, Wi-Fi connectivity, and loads of memory.

Pros

Like the other Curve models, the 8900 has a full QWERTY keypad with trackball navigation.  Similar in looks to the BlackBerry Bold, the Curve 8900 is lighter and smaller, making it pocket-friendly.

The generous 2.44-inch screen with 480 x 360 resolution is brilliant for reading email, surfing the web, viewing photos, or watching video.  Users who like to compare mobile phones will find that the Curve 8900’s screen is as impressive as the iPhone’s.

For mobile email applications, the Curve 8900 excels.  It is compatible with all the major web servers, most corporate accounts, supports attachments, and includes a viewer / editor for Microsoft Office files.

The camera is the best of any of the BlackBerry mobile phones, with 3.2 megapixels and flash with autofocus.  It likely won’t replace a digital camera, but in a pinch it will perform beautifully. 

Cons

The only significant drawback worth noting is the Curve 8900’s lack of 3G connectivity.  Seeing how other BlackBerry mobile phones are equipped with the technology, it’s curious that the Curve 8900 is not.

Conclusion

Easily one of the best BlackBerry mobile phones to come along in some time, the Curve 8900 handles a wide range of communication and entertainment functions with style.  Aside from the missing 3G, there’s not much holding this phone back.

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Sony Ericsson C902 Review

August 5th, 2010 | Camera Phones, Mobile Phone Reviews, Sony Ericsson

The Sony Ericsson C902 is a slim candy bar styled phone featuring a five megapixel camera, imaging options, and video and music playing capabilities.

This is truly a well-built phone that looks good. The slim line design, metallic exterior, and three-band metal edging give the phone a simple, but contemporary look. With the top portion closed, the phone looks like a standard camera-less candy bar; slide the top portion up and the camera lens is exposed and camera features are activated.

With the camera activated, eight glowing blue touch-sensitive camera keys become functional. These let you switch between camera and video, access the photo gallery, and turn the LED flash on and off, amongst other things. To enhance photo quality, features like auto focus, face detection, best picture setting, and neat macro mode settings are included. Once done, photos can easily be geo-tagged and uploaded using HSDPA.

While all of those features are lovely and somewhat impressive, once you close the lens cover, your settings are lost. This can be quite annoying, given that you’ve taken loads of time to get things just right.

The Sony Ericsson C902 weighs 107 grams and is 49 by 108 by 11 mm in size. Talk time is up to 9 hours and standby is up to 16 days. Connectivity includes USB 2.0 and Bluetooth and this phone is push email capable. The 160 MB of internal memory is expandable via an M2 memory card slot.

For individuals looking for deals on contract mobile phones, this phone is available on most standard networks.

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Nokia E72 – great for business use!

August 3rd, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Nokia

The Nokia E72 is the company’s addition to the current batch of new mobile phones which are aimed at business users – the physical style is reminiscent of that of a Blackberry while the layout and practicalities of the phone are perfect for business use. Meanwhile, the Symbian operating system is based off of a typical Windows layout, meaning that it should look familiar and be easy to navigate.

The Nokia E72 comes with good options for listing contacts, keeping track of calendars and email, with several email accounts able to be forwarded into one inbox on the phone.

The phone also comes with Nokia’s Ovi Maps pack, which essentially gives users a free SatNav around the whole of Europe for use both in the car and on foot. This can be useful for those looking to travel long distances for meetings, or those who are just looking for the nearest place to eat. Along with these business applications, standard mobile phone functions such as a 5-megapixel camera and FM tuner are included.

The phone also has the innovative ability to be able to quickly switch between ‘business’ and ‘personal’ profiles, with different layouts, backgrounds and short cuts based on the user’s need at any point.

However, despite this extreme versatility, the Nokia E72 does fall down on a few fronts – it can have connectivity issues when both 3G and Wi-Fi are available, while the D Pad and keyboard can be hard to navigate.

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HTC Droid Eris Review

July 30th, 2010 | HTC, Mobile Phone Reviews, Touchscreen

The Droid Eris, the HTC variant of the popular new Droid phone offers a slim, low profile design with a wide variety of features, high performance, and sharp display quality.  With the software support we’ve come to expect from the Android operating system, the Droid Eris has proven to be an excellent phone at an excellent price. With the HTC mobile phone range, it is possible to obtain cheap mobile phones without sacrificing quality or features.

While the Droid model phones have been the subject of mobile phone news for some time, it often comes with little information in terms of raw specs and figures about the device.  Most notably, the Droid Eris boasts a 3.2 inch HTC screen.  This screen performs excellently, requiring very little pressure to register a press, yet not reacting too harshly to quick movements on the screen.  Entering text is a breeze and multimedia looks excellent on this screen, and is one of the key features of the Droid Eris.

While this may be true, the Droid Eris isn’t without its faults.  Running Android 1.5, its operating system is sorely out of date, and is inherently less efficient than later Android versions.  The sometimes sluggish performance, especially when typing, can be frustrating, bringing the user’s experience down as a whole.

Despite the issues, the Droid Eris is one of the best mobile phone deals around, managing size, performance, display quality, and price all in one.  Negative aspects aside, the Droid Eris is a competent smart phone that can be purchased at an excellent price, filling its own niche quite well.

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Samsung Wave Review

July 28th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Samsung Mobile Phones, Touchscreen

The Samsung Wave has been released by the Korean electronics giants as a top of the line model to compete with the market leading iPhone and Android smart phone platforms.

In order to try to compete, Samsung included the much heralded Super AMOLED screen on their latest mobile phone, which is by far one of the best on the market. The sharp and crisp display, along with the overall responsiveness, makes the screen one of the best of all of the new mobile phones on the market. In fact, the screen is so sharp that even the 5-megapixel camera can seem to produce low quality photos when displayed on it.

The phone is also lightening fast thanks to a speedy processor and custom programmed OS, meaning you will never have to wait for the Samsung Wave to catch up to your instructions.

Other common smart phone features such as the ability to sync contacts with Twitter and Facebook and a touch screen QWERTY keyboard which works in both portrait and landscape mode are also included.

Where the Samsung Wave falls down, though, is in its applications. As Samsung joining the smart phone market is only recent mobile phone news, very few applications are available from the Samsung store, and most of those are of poor quality.

The Samsung Wave also falls behind its rivals in terms of mobile phone contracts, with the best deals only giving away a few hundred minutes of free call time.

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De-clutter your draws – recycle your old mobile phones!

July 26th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Recycling

Recycling your old mobile phones is a good way to clear out some clutter from your home and make a bit of cash besides. It is thought that there are on average, four unused and unwanted phones in every household in the UK. This works out to be approximately 50 million phones nationwide. Every one of these phones could have a cash value.

Companies such as Fonebank and Mobile Phone Exchange offer a service that will value your phone according to its make and model and pay you that value if you return your phone to them. Obviously more up to date phones will be worth more, but if you are one of those people that upgrade their phone on a regular basis you can often get over £100 for your old phone.

If the phones you have lying around are not really worth anything, you can still make use of these services as they will take broken and older models in for recycling, free of charge. These phones will either be broken down for parts to be used in repair centres or sent on to specialist recyclers for the reusable materials to be extracted.

Using these services is a good way to extend the useful life of an old mobile and prevent the dangerous materials they contain from getting into the environment. So next time you’re offered an upgrade it’s really worth looking into getting your phone recycled, you could even make a bit of cash out of it.

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