Here’s the LG Shine Touch. It’s a touch screen device with a 3″ 400×240 display, 3 megapixel camera and WiFi. The back has a metalic finish which reminds me of the original LG Shine.
It’s available on Rogers now.
You can visit LG’s website to download a song from Jason Derulo plus be entered for a chance to win a $5,000 shopping spree in Los Angeles at LG.ca/shinetouch
Add comment March 12th, 2010
The Samsung Galaxy Spica (it’s pronounced speak-ah (I hope Samsung doesn’t try to sell this one in Mexico)).
It’s similar to the Samsung Galaxy I reviewed a while back but it adds a 800Mhz Samsung processor (up from a 528Mhz Qualcomm) plus if I remember correctly the Spica will get a Android 2.1 upgrade eventually. The Spica lacks the original Galaxy’s 5 megapixel camera and has 2GB instead of 8GB of built in memory.
It’s 79.99 on a 3 year voice and data plan.
1 comment March 9th, 2010
Bell just annouced they’re getting the Android powered Motorola DEXT. The DEXT has Motorola’s MOTOBLUR software.
It’s a touchscreen device with a slide out keyboard, 3.1″ 480×320 display and 5 megapixel camera.
You can sign up for more info here and be entered to win 1 of 5 DEXT’s.
1 comment March 5th, 2010
The BACKFLIP comes with Motorola’s Android customization called MOTOBLUR.
It’s got Android 1.5, a 5 MP camera with LED flash, QWERTY keyboard, 480×320 touch screen plus Gmail, Google Maps, Google Talk, AIM, Live Messenger, Yahoo Instant messenger support. The keyboard is located on the back of the device and the screen flips around. You can also leave the keyboard facing down and only partially flip the screen so you can use it like a picture frame.
Pricing and available have yet to be annouced.
Add comment March 4th, 2010
The Motorola Brute i680 is now available on TELUS Mike. It’s a ruggedized phone with rubberized grips, Push to talk, a 2 megapixel camera, GPS and stereo bluetooth.
It’s $429.99 straight up or $229.99 on a 3 year.
Add comment March 1st, 2010
Here’s my review of the Nexus One, Google’s first phone. This one is manufactured by HTC.
These days, everyone seems to love Google (everyone besides the Chinese government, Apple, Microsoft and other competitors) so let’s see if I love the Nexus One.
Since it’s very subjective I don’t generally comment too much on a phone’s appearance. That said I was pretty disappointed when I first got the Nexus One. It looks like an ugly HTC phones from a couple of years ago. It really has an appearance deficit. Anyways now that I’ve had it for a few weeks I don’t really notice it anymore but I thought it was worth mentioning.
The Nexus one supports quad band EDGE but only has HSPA support on AWS bands (1700/2100Mhz). In Canada the only available network that currently supports AWS is Wind. I have a Wind SIM but I don’t have Wind service in my house (I’m about 5 mins from 3G coverage) so I tested the Nexus One mostly on Rogers network and on WiFi.
The display is a 3.7″ OLED with a resolution of 800×480. It looks fantastic indoors and manages to make most phone’s regular LCD displays look washed out. What’s irony is that it washes out when it’s sunny so keep that in mind.
In front there is a trackball and 4 touch sensitive Android navigation areas along the bottom of the display. The left side has 2 volume buttons. On top are the power button and 3.5mm headphone jack while there is a lone micro USB connector on the bottom for charging and hooking up to a computer. The back has a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash plus the speaker is located there too.
Check out my unboxing to see more:
The back comes off to reveal the 1400mAh battery, SIM card slot and Micro SDHC slow. Google includes a 4GB card in the box.
I did notice two usability issues with the Nexus One. The bezel isn’t very wide so I often found myself accidentally touching the side of the screen with my the palm of my hand. This can cause unexpected behavior. The second problem is that the menu buttons are part of the touch screen on the bottom. I found myself accidentally pressing them from time to time while other times I’d brush them with my palm.
In the end I found the Nexus One difficult to use with one hand. Typing is particularly trying.
The volume buttons are difficult to differentiate. It’s not a huge problem but I usually have to look at them before I can adjust the volume.
The trackball is mildly useful – It’s good for correcting spelling mistakes and some games but otherwise I rarely used it.
To save power the screen has an auto dimming feature so it will increase the brightness when it’s bright and lower it when it’s dark. – at least it’s supposed to. I found that the Nexus one had the most annoying auto dimming feature ever. It’s way too sensitive – I just ended up disabling it.
At the heart of the Nexus One is a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor. It works great in the Nexus one. While the Nexus one can lag occasionally when multitasking it’s generally very snappy feeling.
When inputting text there is usually a voice recognition button on the on screen keyboard. The voice recognition generally works quite well, the problem is that there’s a noticeable delay from when you finish speaking to when the Nexus One recognizes what you said. It seems the Nexus one actually uploads what you said so Google can recognize it – so if you don’t have 3G it can take a few seconds.
If you want to use the voice search feature just press and hold the search button and then tell it what you want it to do.
To get the most out of the Nexus One it helps if you use Google stuff like GMail, Google Calendar and GoogleTalk. When you start using the Nexus One you enter in your Google login and it will automatically download your contacts and calendar information plus it will push your Gmail to you.
If you want to use your own non Gmail/Google Apps email there’s a separate email app that can handle POP, IMAP and Exchange.
The browser works well and handles multiple browser windows with ease. It’s relatively quick and after a new firmware update a week or so ago it can handle multitouch like on the iPhone and Palm WebOS devices.
You can download programs from the Android Market. There are a ton of programs in the Market. Some are good and a lot are no worth downloading. Still, like the iPhone App Store I had a lot of fun downloading and trying programs.
I liked the picture gallery, it’s pretty fast and the firmware update I mentioned a while back added multitouch support.
To add music to the Nexus One you connect it to your computer, mount the SD card and then copy your music files to the Nexus One.
If you tether your phone a lot you should know that the Nexus One doesn’t come with a tethering solution out of the box. You’ll have to go out and find one.
Google Maps is built in. It’s very good at getting a GPS fix very quickly and it’s pretty easy to use. It has navigation in that you can ask it for directions – the catch is that there’s only voice guided navigation in the ‘States so up here in Canada I don’t have the option for it. There is multitouch support for zooming in and out of maps.
There is an app called Car Home which you can use to search for a location and phonebook entries using your voice.
The camera has a resolution of 5 megapixels. Quality wise It’s about average as far as 5 megapixel autofocus cameras goes. The flash tends to wash out subjects while the sensor could be more sensitive so pictures captured in low light lack some detail. The autofocus feels a hair faster than with most camera phones (though it’s still way too slow).
The camcorder captures video at 720×480 (DVD quality) into 3gp files. Video quality is above average but the microphone isn’t very good.
I noticed that the Nexus One uses a ton of data in the background. I managed to pull down around 25MB of data minimum each day which is quite a lot considering I wasn’t streaming anything besides a few short YouTube videos every couple of days. In fact according to a data counter widget I installed (search the market for “Data counter widget”) I used up 1GB of data in about 2 weeks. What more incredible is this is all over EDGE. Make sure you have a beefy data plan if you’re going to get a Nexus One!
Please note I’m still in the process of testing the Nexus One’s RF. I don’t have Wind 3G service in my house plus I’m running into some APN issues – I also have a Wind Blackberry Bold 9700. Check back in a week or so and I’ll have some observations on the Nexus One’s RF performance.
Battery life is pretty weak. The Nexus one will struggle to make it through the day. I’m terrified to see what the battery life will be like once I have 3G service. The included battery has a capacity of 1400mAh. I’d like to see manufacturers start using bigger batteries to keep up with the faster processors, bigger displays and more capable operating systems.
In the end I really liked the Nexus One. This really confused me since I didn’t enjoy using the Nexus One from an ergonomic standpoint – The bezel is too narrow which means the keyboard is difficult to use and the screen unpredictable at times. After more thought I realized I really liked how the Nexus One pairs Android (version 2.1 on the Nexus One) with a 1Ghz processor.
So I guess while I liked the Nexus One I’d advise you to see how similar upcoming phones are (like the Sony Ericsson X10).
Howard Chui
02.14.2010
6 comments February 2nd, 2010
Just got my Google Nexus One:
Check back in a few days for a review.
1 comment January 27th, 2010
When I think of the E71 I’d say it had a very nice design, so-so hardware (when it came out) and software that was obviously missing features compared with Nokia’s other phones. The E71 has been around for a while now so it’s time for an update. While it looks similar to the E71 the E72 has a higher resolution camera (which doesn’ t take purple tinged pictures), a much faster processor, support for an extra HSPA band and more software features you usually find on Nokia’s N series devices. So now it doesn’t feel like you’re giving up as much if you’re using an E series device.
Check out my unboxing if you want to see what the E72 is like in my hand along with some comparisons with the E71, Blackberry Bold 9700 and HTC Snap/Maple.
At a glance the E72 is quite similar to the e71, but there are a few major differences both hardware and software wise. First off the e72 is wider than the e71 – I didn’t notice this at first because the e72’s keyboard is the same width as the e71’s. This is a shame since I thought the e71’s keyboard, while not horrible could be a little wider. I also noticed that the e72 can charge via the mini USB OR the Nokia barrel port – horray! The 2.5mm headset jack is now a much more useful 3.5mm headphone jack. The headphone jack doesn’t have video out though it can act as a line out. The navigation keys have changed, on the e71’s the softkeys stuck out whereas now they’re flat – I prefer the e71’s softkeys. The center of the navigation pad is a trackpad thought it’s not that useful in my opinion. I found it got in the way when I was navigating menus and didn’t work well with the browser. I just turned it off.
In my opinion the biggest difference between the e71 and the e72 is that the e72 has a 600Mhz processor (up from 369Mhz). It makes a huge difference and completely transforms the S60 user experience – it’s a shame the n97, n86 8mp, etc don’t have it too. There is only 128MB of RAM which can put a damper on things.
Software wise the e72 is also a big improvement – particularly with regards to multimedia. Whereas the e71 felt like Nokia was holding back a bunch of features software wise the e72 feels much more like a N series device. You get DLNA client, the better picture viewer, in addition you get an improved email client with built in Nokia Email support Exchange support. While I’d say it’s getting late for this, not removing features is what Nokia needs to do to make their phones more compelling.
In the box is a leather case. It’s very thin and slim like the E72 but I found it difficult to fit because it fit so tightly.
There is predictive text support which had an uncanny ability to select the wrong word – even when I didn’t make any spelling mistakes. It drove me nuts so I turned it off.
Out of the box there is no support for threaded SMS which is pretty pathetic considering the E72 is marketed as a business phone with a QWERTY keyboard. There is a neat message reader feature that will read your SMS to you.
The messaging client supports POP, IMAP plus it has Exchange support. When I got my E72 I set it up with my gmail and it automatically downloaded my contacts and calendar too though I had to setup my email a second time and turned off Exchange mail because the built in Exchange client doesn’t seem to handle HTML email. Apparently it only works with the newest version of Exchange. That said when I set it up as just a Gmail account HTML mail worked okay.
You can adjust the size of the system fonts. While not a bad feature the E72’s display lacks the resolution and size to really make resized fonts look really good.
GPS wise you get Ovi Maps which now has free voice guided navigation. If you don’t want to use data you can connect the E72 to your computer to download map data so you can use it without an internet connection. You can also plan your trip online and then have it sent to your phone (I didn’t try this feature).
The e72 has a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash. It’s about average for 5 megapixel cameras. While it’s way better than the e71’s 3 megapixel camera it’s not as good as some N series 5 megapixel cameras. I suspect this is because the e72 camera sensor is less sensitive than the ones found on the N85, N95, etc because the e72 is much more reliant on it’s built in flash. The e72 also seems to be more prone to blasting out subjects with the built in flash though it’s not as bad as some 5 megapixel camera phones. The E72 doesn’t have a dedicated shutter button so sometimes the camera app is a bit unintuitive to use since the same button that controls the shutter can also be used to select camera options.
Video capabilities have also been upgraded so that video is now captured at 640×480 which is nice but the frame rate is only 15fps so videos always seem slightly jerky. I’m pretty sure the e72 is capable of capturing video at 30fps so I’m disappointed at this limitation. There’s also a minor bug with the video recorder, sometimes it won’t record and gives an error message instead. The way around this is to press right (this hides the options which don’t always show up) before you record.
The built in browser is pretty average. It’s reasonably fast but there’s not easy way to open up new browser tabs, it seems to crash more than I’m used to on most phones and it doesn’t automatically go to the last page you were looking at when this happens. The e72 could really use a higher resolution display. There is support for Flash lite so some Flash animations will work on the e72. The 600Mhz processor has enough power so most flash animations aren’t slide shows like on slower Nokia phones. The problem is that the e72 lacks the resolution to make this a really useful feature. If you don’t turn the trackpad off you’re probably thinking you can use it in a similar manner as the Bold 9700’s trackpad. Unfortunately the E72’s pointer doesn’t move with enough resolution so it’s not as useful as you’d think.
As far as office-y features go you get a version of Quick Office which lets you create documents (most phones come with a edit only version, you pay extra if you want to create), a unit converter and a business card scanner. I tried the business card scanner and didn’t find it accurate at all.
Out of the box the E72 has a SIP VOIP client which is completely integrated into the operating system. So when you dial numbers you can choose whether you want it to go via your cell provider or via VOIP.
Sound quality is not bad. RF performance is about average.
In the end, while I thought the navigation and softkeys were a step back from the e71 and I was a little disappointed with the displays’ low 320×240 display, the fact that it only has 128MB RAM and the narrow keyboard everything else about the e72 is a huge improvement.
When compared to the Bold 9700 both phones have very different strength. While both have push email support the 9700 has IM clients for MSN, Yahoo and GoogleTalk that you can download from RIM directly plus you can message other Blackberry users using PIN. The e72 has support for OVI chat (unfortunately I don’t have any friends who use it) and while you can use IM via a 3rd party client you’ll have to go out find it and download it yourself. For SMS the 9700 will automatically thread conversations while the e72 doesn’t.
RIM also offers Facebook, MySpace and Flickr clients you can download from them. Facebook recently released a S60 client for the E72 (which I tried installing – it didn’t work). As far as Facebook, MySpace and Flickr goes you’ll have to go out and find a 3rd party client yourself.
These differences show where RIM and Nokia’s priorities lay.
The 9700’s keyboard is also easier to use than the e72’s because it’s wider and the keys are a better shape. While I liked the e72’s shortcut keys, I preferred the 9700’s trackpad over the e72’s navpad + trackpad though you may find the opposite true.
As far as the display goes the 9700 wins hands down. It’s bigger and higher resolution than the e72’s.
While the 9700’s multimedia is adequate for most the e72 has a leg up in this department. The e72 has a slightly better camera with higher resolution video capture. Besides the camera the e72 also has a DLNA (not a feature everyone uses but it’s neat if you do).
The e72’s browser is much better than the 9700’s. It’s not that the e72’s browser is amazing (it’s slightly above average in my opinion) – it’s that the 9700’s is horribly slow.
The 9700 has a leg up as far as battery life – along with most other HSPA smartphones Though the e72 is much better than I was expecting.
GPS-wise the E72 has Ovi maps which now comes with free voice guided navigation. Ovi maps is very fully featured though it can take a while to get a fix. The 9700 comes with Blackberry maps which is a much simpler, less featured application.
Both come with leather cases. The 9700 comes with a belt pouch while the E72 has a thin leather slip case. While both are nice the 9700’s is easier to use.
I’ve been a fan of Nokia phones for years, but lately I’ve been disappointed with Nokia; I’m trying to forget the time I spent with the N97 plus I found that the N86’s processor couldn’t keep up with it’s 8MP camera.
The E72 is a big step forward for Nokia, instead of holding back features from it they gave it most of the features from their N series phones plus they finally put a decent processor in on of their phones. Let’s not forget that the E72’s slick design. The end result is a phone that competes better with it’s contemporaries.
Howard Chui
01.24.2010
1 comment January 22nd, 2010
Nokia has just announced that navigation is now free for compatible phones.
Recently Nokia revamped their mapping application. It’s now pretty decent but the downside was that you had to pay for navigation – I didn’t have a problem with that but the thing is you can only purchase a subscription for it, it wasn’t a one time purchase. It made me feel like I was being nickel and dimed (only navigation cost a lot more then that).
Anyways now it’s free. Get it at www.nokia.com/maps.
1 comment January 21st, 2010
TELUS just launched the Blackberry Curve 8530 (a CDMA blackberry). It’s got 3G, WiFi, trackpad, BlackBerry OS 5.0, QWERTY and a 2 megapixel camera. Note that unlike the Storms 2 and Tour this one doesn’t have GSM/EDGE/HSPA built in so you can’t roam with it
It comes in red or silver.
Prices are $349.99 straight up and $299.99, $249.99 or $49.99 on a 3/2/1 year contract with a minimum $50 monthly voice + data plan.
4 comments January 20th, 2010
