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I’ve actually been playing the three games that are included with the cellphone since I got it a few days ago. The said games are Need for Speed ProStreet, Solitaire and a photo hunting game (forgot the name, the game’s name I have is in Chinese). After playing all three, there is one disappointment and one positive surprise. The photo hunting game is actually not new, its one of the games for my now dead Sony Ericsson K790i.

Need for Speed ProStreet is the disappointment here. I knew it wouldn’t be too enjoyable since its on the cellphone but I didn’t expect to be this bad. I will skip the how good or bad the controls are because its hard to play this type of games using cellphone keys anyway. The major issue I have with this game is graphics. I know graphics is only one of many factors that determine if the game is worthy or not. But I expected something better than the graphics for this mobile version of Need for Speed ProStreet. I closed the game within two minutes. Oh yes the music also sounds horrible.

I honestly did not expect Solitaire to be THIS addictive. This game is not just A game, but rather a series of card games such as Klondike, Freecell, Pyramid, Poker, Spiderette, Flower garden, Scorpion, Yukon, Golf, Calculation, Seven Sisters and Beleaguered Castle. That is an impressive total of 12 card games in one! Klondike is pretty much the classic Solitaire you play in Windows, Pyramid is the one where you take away cards that have a sum of 13 and your goal is to clear all the cards. Finally Poker is not the one which you play with your poker friends, but a grid of 25 cards so you can chain pairs, flushes, 3 or 4 of a kind vertically or horizontally. It forces you to do more thinking because there are now more ways to get good hands. Unfortunately I have never heard of the other 9 games until now.

You think that’s it for this game? Think again! This game also has an RPG element to it. You will start off with a character and you get to choose your gender. You are in a cafe and your goal is to keep playing cards, gain more experience points and ranks. As you gain more experience you will unlock more clothing to customize your character. You will also get trophies and see the cafe gets bigger as your ranks go up.

The photo hunting game will have you take pictures under the sea, there are different types of sea creatures such as fish, obviously, sea horses, turtles etc. As you complete missions you will unlock more missions. The objective is straight forward, you will have to complete missions like taking pictures of given species or capture a group of the same species within your air tank’s limit. Your air tank will be refilled for every 1000 points, for the first time, by 30 seconds, then it will gradually refill less until you reach 10,000 points where it will stop refilling.

Well I think that’s it for this review!

This 4 series review should cover most, if not all of the features for the Sony Ericsson c902i. I hope this will help those that are looking for a new cellphone as well as those that are thinking of getting this cellphone but are unsure if it will suit you or not. In my opinion, the c902i is perfect for those that want to have everything in one but does not need a data plan, much like one you will need when signing up for an iPhone. Although it has a built-in 5 megapixel Cyber-shot camera, it CANNOT take quality pictures at a distance like a digital camera can due to lack of optical zoom.

Related articles:
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 1)
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 2)
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 3)

As promised, I had a chance to play with the built-in 5 megapixel Cyber-shot camera for the Sony Ericsson c902i. After going through the menus of the camera, its pretty safe to say it has most, if not all the commonly used features as you see in a real digital camera. Functions such as Normal, BestPic, Panorama, Frames (wrapping the actual picture inside 1 of 18 preset frames), timer, movie mode, flash on/off and face recognition etc. After all it IS branded as a Cyber-shot camera so having those functions should not be a surprise.

Although it does pretty much what a real digital camera can do, it does not offer optical zoom but only digital zoom. You will quickly notice “noise” as soon as you start zooming in. Then again that is the case for all cellphones’ built-in cameras. Even though it has 5 megapixel, picture quality is only good if you don’t zoom in. I don’t think these built-in cameras are meant for taking pictures at a distance anyway.

I recently downloaded WipEout HD (yes capital E) and I thought it was perfect opportunity for testing the camera’s strength, at least close range. By default, the picture is 2592×1944 averaging about 1.3mb in size. I’m no photographer but the picture quality is as good as pictures taken from my 4 megapixel Canon SD400 (I know its old!) if not better. See for yourself!

  

Finally, what one feature that makes this camera phone stand out from the rest of the camera phones out there is the 8 blue backlit touch sensitive buttons surrounding the screen (4 on each side) and when you press any of them the phone will vibrate a little so you know you pressed something. The keypad will also be backlit by blue light as well and when you are not in camera mode, the keypad is backlit by white light instead. These buttons are basically the functions I mentioned from above but I still find it very cool and I have yet to get bored of pressing them. I know you iPhone users are probably laughing at me right now about this touch sensitive feature. Oh well, I would love to get one but I just can’t justify paying for data plan as I don’t really need to use any.

Stay tuned on Friday for the games review. See what kind of games this phone has to offer! I probably cannot write the review since I will be out for Winterlicious.

Related articles:
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 1)
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 2)

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)

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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.

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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!

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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!

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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.