Monday, June 1

LG KM900 Arena

LG’s latest touchscreen handset that’s been making waves with their new S-Class User Interface since February of 2009 made its way to our labs before hitting the stores. Yours truly got a crack at the prototype and instead of waiting for a review, when it launches perhaps sometime in June (not confirmed yet), I thought I’d give you a quick preview of the handset. Please understand that this is only a prototype and while I did have a few issues with the handset, it’s very possible that the actual review piece may be perfect. With that in mind I’ll update the preview with a Review when I do get a proper handset so you’ll have to be a little patient guys. Until then here’s what I can tell you about the Arena and its features.

Form Factor
The design is quite typical for a touchscreen handset. Unlike the iPhone its front is designed to be a full touchscreen with the Call Take and end keys and a shortcut option all being touch sensitive. This is quite like the HTC HD’s functionality; the difference is that these keys light up.

Friday, March 13

Samsung Pixon 8MP Touch Screen Camera Phone


The Samsung’s Pixion is here in all its 8 mega pixel camera glory and touch screen wonder. The M8800 Pixon is the latest addition to Samsung’s growing touchscreen range of handsets following the F480 TouchWiz and i900 Omnia.

"Samsung Pixon is made for users who want to experience the best multimedia
entertainment on their mobile phone with the ease of a touch. Right from enjoying music and videos on the 8.1cm wide full touch screen, to high quality image and video capturing, to sharing them with their friends and family, Samsung Pixon offers consumers the real benefit of mobile entertainment,” as per Country Head, Samsung Telecom Division.

The Samsung Pixon features the latest camera functions found in digital cameras, like advanced shake reduction, blink, smile and face detection, panoramic shot, geotagging etc. The photographs taken on the phone can be edited and users can even make a photo memo by scribbling on the photos. The phone also facilitates easy mobile blogging. For scrolling through images, flick control may have been one thing, but the Pixon takers it to a whole new level with what I’m calling ‘tilt-to-scroll’. It also has video recording capability and TV output for both PAL and NTSC systems.

The Pixon is also equipped with –
* a 3.2-inch WQVGA (240 x 400 pixels) touch screen featuring Samsung’s TouchWiz UI with auto screen rotation
* Samsung widgets on the desktop
* 3G (HSDPA), GPRS/EDGE
* GPS
* DivX, Xvid, mp4 file support
* Music Player with SRS 3D surround sound
* MicroSD card support
* 8MP AF camera with LED flash
* Bluetooth with A2DP and USB 2.0 (micro)

Samsung Pixon is also ideal for enthusiastic gamers as it comes pre-embedded with a host of popular games like Brain Challenge, Diamond Twister and Millionaire-3. Apart from these, users can also enjoy the motion-sensor based game - Tumbling Dice.

The SAMSUNG Pixon is priced at US$550 which is almost US$400 less than the INNOV8. That in mind I’m presuming that there’ll be no 16GB memory card included with this one.

Wednesday, February 18

First Solar Powered Full-Touch Phone

The Samsung "Blue Earth" is made from recycled plastic called PCM, which is extracted from water bottles

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. unveiled the innovative solar powered full-touch screen phone "Blue Earth", alongside Samsung's vision for environmental sustainability. Under the slogan: "The Blue Earth Dream: Eco-living with SAMSUNG mobile", Samsung reinforced its commitment to protect the environment through the design of eco-friendly products and a programme of activities for its customers. It will be showcased at Mobile World Congress 2009 for the first time.

Designed to symbolize a flat and well rounded shiny pebble, Blue Earth is the first solar powered full-touch screen phone. By charging with the solar panel located on the back of the phone, users can generate enough electronic power to call anytime anywhere.

Blue Earth is made from recycled plastic called PCM, which is extracted from water bottles, helping to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions in the manufacturing process. The device, including charger, is free from harmful substances such as Brominated Flame Retardants, Beryllium and Phthalate.

The latest in a series of eco-friendly products, Blue Earth comes with a unique user interface which is designed to draw attention to preserving our fragile environment. Simple to set screen brightness, backlight duration and Bluetooth to an energy-efficient mode, this new user interface allows the user to be energy-efficient with just one click of 'Eco mode'. Through the 'eco walk' function the user can count their steps with an in-built pedometer, calculating how much CO2 emissions have been reduced by walking as opposed to motor transport. This unique function allows user to calculate the value of this footprint through the number of trees that have been saved.

The packaging for Blue Earth is designed to be both small and light, made from recycled paper, and comes with a 5 star energy efficient charger which uses standby power lower than 0.03W. As part of the Voluntary Agreement of European Commission IPP (Integrated Product Policy) pilot program, Samsung has agreed to start using rating on energy consumption on the no-load mode of the mobile device charger.

Sunday, February 15

Friday, December 12

Top 5 iPhone Competitors

Since the introduction of the Apple iPhone on January the 9th, the world has gone touch pad crazy, touch pad technology is the way of the future and many companies have heard the call and made their own touch pad phones in direct competition with the iPhone.
This is a top five list of iPhone Competitors, some of the phones are the real deal, some are just concepts at the moment, all are cool.

1 - HTC Touch

HTC Touch

The HTC Touch uses TouchFLO touchscreen technology that was developed by HTC. It runs Windows Mobile 6 and a rotating “cube” shows you icons for your contacts, music, and more. Unfortunately there’s no Wi-Fi which is one of the down-sides to this phone, but it is fairly affordable at $250 from Sprint after instant savings and a mail-in rebate.






2 - LG Voyager

LG Voyager

The LG Voyager is priced at about $299.99 from Verizon Wireless with a 2-year contract. Of course it’s touchscreen like the iPhone but also includes a physical keyboard that pops-out. Overall it does look pretty sleek and includes Ev-DO support, but doesn’t have Wi-Fi.







3 - Samsung Instinct

Samsung Instinct

Samsung’s Instinct hasn’t reached the stores yet, but from the looks if it, it’ll be a great competitor to the iPhone. Gizmodo says that it may be the best stab at the iPhone yet! As far as size goes, in dimension and weight, it’s about the same as the iPhone. Even with battery life, it’s right up there with with 5.75 hours of talk-time. Sprint will be the one to carry this one for an estimated $200-$250.






4 - Garmin Nuvifone

Garmin Nuvifone

Sometime this year in the 3rd quarter we’ll be seeing the Garmin Nuvifone hit the market. The phone will be big on GPS and helping you navigate, and will feature an on-screen keyboard like the iPhone. Just a few days ago, rumor started floating around that it will be sold to AT&T subscribers for a whopping $500! While it may be pricey, that GPS could be worth it!






5 - Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

Yet another phone that is expected later this year is the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. It’ll have a full QWERTY keyboard, and will run on the Windows Mobile 6 operating system. What will be unique with this phone is a “paneled” interface and an “optical” joystick for easy web scrolling. The price is expected to be over $400, so it’ll definitely be on the higher-end of the pricing spectrum.




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