Black and Blue
Can’t afford a Blackberry? Well, you might just be able to run to a Blueberry @9500, just don’t expect it to be compatible with Blackberry’s email service or apps. Yes, it’s a fake, and a pretty shameless one at that, and it’s not the first time the Malaysian company CSL has had a pop at Research in Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of the genuine article. On paper the spec is quite impressive, it has dual SIM slots, a Micro SD card reader, camera, optical trackpad, a number of ‘Islamic’ features, wi-fi and the cheeky beggars have even fitted it with an analogue TV tuner. It’s priced to sell, at around £120 but there’s not much danger of you getting hold of one in your local high street, at least not above the counter…
Nokia E71 smartphone review
Nokia’s E-range is aimed firmly at corporate users, with the E71 offering a full QWERTY keypad to make emailing easier, and loads of features that help to make it a great out of office tool.
Build quality is among the best that we’ve seen to date on a smartphone, with aluminium used on the front and rear to create an incredibly stylish yet robust finish. The most surprising aspect of this handset is just how thin it is, however, making it appear a lot smaller than it actually is.
It’s also narrower than rivals such as RIM’s Blackberry Bold, leading to a keyboard that may be too cramped for some users. Raised centres to the keys make it easy to get up a good typing rhythm, however, striking a good compromise between portability and usability. Read more
Using camera-readable barcodes
Microsoft has released both a new highly reliable & resilient computer-readable graphical code called “Tags” that are designed for rapid recognition and interpretation to enable people to post graphical objects on web sites, business cards, corporate literature, etc. and enable the average cell phone to:
1. READ/INTERPRET A TAG
It will enable the camera on the cell phone to capture the graphic through a viewfinder that is shown on the phone’s screen and interpret it into an Internet URL.
2. VISIT/SAVE/EMAIL THE URL
Once interpreted, the URL is then fed into the phone’s Internet browser for immediate resolution. The URL can also be automatically emailed or stored for future reference. Read more
BlackBerry Bold Is Finally Out
Although everyone was expecting RIM’s latest high-end smartphone, the BlackBerry Bold 9000, to be first released in Canada (via Rogers), the handset made its debut “a bit” more to the South, in Chile, via Movistar.
Thus, Chilean mobile users are the first people in the world to buy the new BlackBerry (only with a contract agreement, for the moment). The price set by Movistar for the smartphone is a bit surprising, and not in a good way: with a contract for two years, the Bold costs 299,900 Pesos, the equivalent of around 587 USD or 378 Euros. Read more
Digg for Mobiles Gets Enhanced
In a piece of news that might or might not be Digg-worthy, the mobile version of the popular social networking website has gone through a reconditioning process and is now said to be better than ever. Which means that you can digg and/or bury articles from your handset more efficiently (if there’s any efficiency in “dugging” at all).
However, the refreshed Digg Website is not targeted for all the mobile diggers out there, but only for those who own handsets supporting a “full web browsing experience”. You know, the likes of BlackBerry, Palm Treo (or even Centro), Samsung Omnia, HTC Touch Diamond, Apple’s new iPhone 3G and so on. Read more
