» Wireless

First I want to apologize for not taking the protective sticker off the screen because I haven’t had a chance to buy a real screen protector yet.

Today I had a chance to play around the c902’s interface. One thing I want to point out is that instead of having two rows of buttons surrounding the center Navigation key like the T616 and k790i, the c902 actually has 3 rows of keys or buttons (the manual calls them keys). The top row has “Selection” keys and they function based on what are displayed on the screen. As for the middle row, you have the “Call” Key which also displaying the call history and “End” key on the opposite side which also acts as a on/off key as well as closing all the menus. Finally the last row has the “Toolbar” key as well as the “Clear” or cancel key. There are more on the right side of the phone but I will cover that tomorrow when I review the camera.

Honestly I am still trying to get used to these three rows of keys and I still press the wrong key once in a while. I don’t recommend this phone for those with big fingers because the keys are rather narrow. I’m not a big person myself but I’ve hit the wrong key before because of the narrowness as well as the little space in between them.

First thing I noticed when navigating through the Grid layout (default style) menu is how fast the screen saver gets activated for inactivity, roughly 20 seconds. I have no luck finding the option to extend the screen’s active time. There are four styles for the menu layout – Grid, Rotating, Single icon and From theme. I am unable to test the last one because I don’t have a theme that supports menu layout yet. After testing the other three styles I still prefer the classic Grid style that displays all 16 icons.

The menu is pretty standard with the only a few additions comparing to my T616 and K790i. The PlayNow, Radio and the Alarm function is now on its own separate icon as oppose to having it as part of the Organizer. The PlayNow allows you to buy and then download music to your phone. For more information, visit the Sony Ericsson page I found.

Basically the menu offers functions that are pretty common among other cellphones out there, nothing special in particular which is fine because I think the real strength of this phone is the 5 megapixel Cyber-shot digital camera as well as the games. Stay tuned for my camera review tomorrow and games the day after!

Related articles:
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 1)

I just read news, or rather rumors from DailyTech that Walmart will be selling the 4GB version of the ever popular iPhone. If the rumor is infact real, then its no brainer about seeing more people with iPhones. Hack, even I am tempted to get one myself now. I was tempted to get the 8GB version from Rogers AT&T when I saw the 8GB version for $199 with 3 year contract. For $99 you get a 4GB version, size doesn’t really matter to me here really. And I think 4GB is more than enough for me anyway. iPhone is more of a cool gadget to have and chances are I won’t be using it for heavy gaming, as a multimedia player, checking emails or surf the web even though it is capable of doing so. Most likely just like any other cell phones.

And there is this data plan that I have to worry about because as I said it comes with a 3 year turn, that’s the price to pay when you can get an iPhone for $199. The minimum cost for monthly cost is $35 (Voice Plan) + $25 (Data Plan) which equates to $60 + all that tax and other lame charges. Which is probably going to end up being 2-3 times more than what I am paying now.

Either way definitely a great move by Apple if in deed the rumor comes true and great news for those that crave for an iPhone but cannot justify buying the 8/16GB versions or without contract.

[update] Looks like the rumor will remain just a rumor. According to WIRED Appl WIll start selling iPhones through Walmart but not the $99 version like in the rumor. But will be selling the same 8GB and 16GB ones that we are seeing now.

Oh well, it doesn’t hurt to dream right?

There are different wireless companies out there and most likely you have heard of them like AT & T, Sprint, Tmobile and Verizon. Another competitor out there called SouthernLINC Wireless offers competitive cell phone plans compare to those wireless service providers. SouthernLINC Wireless also has a feature called Push To Talk or PTT developed by Motorola, which is a 2-way radio technology that offers talking one-to-one, in a group, off-network or even directly from your computer! This technology is very secure as there is no known scanners that can intercept communications between you and the other person. PTT can benefit businesses in particular because it allows employees to freely and easily communicate with one another and its cheaper than with a phone call.

Reliability-wise, SoutherLINC Wireless has a utility grade network with proven reliability through all kinds of weather and has the most comprehensive coverage throughout the Southeast (Georgia to Alabama to Southeast Mississippi to Northwest Florida).

Another thing I like about it is the fact that you will get a notification when you are roaming outside of SouthernLINC Wireless calling area so you won’t accidentally make calls and get charged because it SoutherLINC Wireless knows you don’t want to pay that high roaming charges unintentionally.

If you are looking for a different wireless service provider, you should check out SouthernLINC Wireless’ business cell phone plans as well as their family cell phone plans.

I found this on Tech-On! and they had tear down a fake iPhone made from, you guessed right, China! I’m Chinese and I feel really embarrased for all these copy cat electronics and not just electronics, practically anything China can and will copy if there’s a market for it.

As explained in the said story, it is a lot easier to break the fake iPhone, or the ciPhone as they called it and the internal parts are all simplified as to cut down the manufacturing cost obviously. Based on looking at the image from the article, even the size is different with the fake one slightly longer but then again it won’t be noticeable unless you put it side by side with the real iPhone. Looking closely you can also see the text at the back of the phones are different as well.

In terms of hardware, the chip used in the fake iPhone “is widely used for general no-name mobile phones in China and it costs about US$6 per set”. An engineer from Tech-On! estimated that the total manufacturing cost is “roughly ¥3,000 to 5,000″ and is sold for ¥16,000 a pop (approx US$170), that’s at least ¥11,000 in profit!

The article also reported the “slow response” from the touch panel which isn’t a surprise really given that the fake phone uses a generic low cost chip.

 

Source: Tech-On!

So you are a blogger and have been blogging for a while, have you ever think of more ways for people to access your blog anywhere anytime? One solution is to mobilize your blog using blog4mobile. With blog4mobile you can improve the accessibility of your blog through cellphone, PDA or any other wireless or mobile devices by storing the content of your blog through the URL of your blog plus your RSS feed URL into their database. One interesting difference between conventional RSS feeder for mobile devices and blog4mobile’s service is that blog4mobile displays not an extract of the content but the actual complete contents from the blog so therefore the readers are reading the contents in full instead of just bits and pieces of them. With this mobility, people can read their favorite blogs anywhere and anytime or when they don’t have access to computers with internet connections.

I also like the fact that instead of just pointing out the “goods” of its services, it honestly and openly lists potential issues and corresponding solutions that may arise such as reading some of the RSS files submitted and issues reading some special characters from some contents. The contents will also be promoted and blog users will receive up to 70% of the advertising revenue!

Another great feature of using blog4mobile is once your blog URL and feed URL are submitted, you don’t have to update them manually as the system will check for updates automatically everyday.

blog4mobile is definitely an innovative web service for bloggers looking to improve the level of accessibility for their readers and potential readers. And it cannot get any better than the fact that the service is free. Finally it also has its own blog for those interesting in news regarding the service.

Sony PSP-3000 will be released in Japan on October 16th. The newest version features faster response time, higher contrast and color depth that result in better display quality. It also has an anti reflective screen, I’m guessing its something similar to the TFT technology on most of Sony Ericsson’s cellphones starting from the T630. Video-out option now supports outputting to analogue televisions as oppose to only progressive televisions.

Display improvement aside, a built-in internal microphone will also included in the new PSP located just below the screen which supports Skype.

The new PSP will come in three colors – Piano Black, Pearl White (my favorite) and Mystic Silver. Again in two trims – the basic version with the PSP, AC adapter and a battery while a value pack will have all those plus strap, cloth for cleaning the screen, a nice pouch (specially the white one) and a 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo which is something extra. It used to come with a 256MB one if I remember correctly.

I am happy Sony is adding so much more features to the PSP, features that will actually be useful! Unfortunately I’ve already got one, the oldest version in Pearl White.

Sony and Spanish based WiFi provider FON have joined forces to provide free WiFi access for PSP owners in Japan. Imagine surfing the net, watching streaming music and movies on the go! But in Japan only, which is somewhat expected since Japan has a history of keeping the goodies to themselves. For those lucky enough to be in Japan and own a PSP, they will also be able to download custom Dissidia: Final Fantasy themes which the game itself will be released in December. I wouldn’t have heard of a new Final Fantasy release if it wasn’t for this WiFi deal.

It would be great if this offer became available to us in North America, but chances are pretty slim in my opinion, at least it won’t be free. One reason is that Japan is much smaller than say, Canada, so setting up those hot spots is much easier and less costly. They are already setup in Japan which made the setup even easier. Its just a matter of integrating with each other’s system.

Although we will most likely not get this free WiFi access anytime soon. It is still good news to those living in Japan, again the Japanese always gets the goodies. Think I have one more reason to go to Japan since I have a Japanese version PSP.

Opera releases first public version of Opera Mobile 9.5 beta. First impression was it looks like a real broswer compare to the previous Opera browswer with its improved user interface. Its not just a simple facelift but it also contains new features such as panning and zooming to a particular section of a webpage, saving and/or mmsing contents (images, or the pages themselves) with a click.

Hopefully Opera will fix the few issues such as limited Flash support, no multilingual support, text wrapping etc.

Download it here

Original source from: pcworld.com