Nokia C3 Review 2011

Nokia has unleashed new three messaging phones namely C3, C6 and E5. Nokia also kept their prices very competitive and affordable. The C3 is nice, sleek phone with full qwerty keyboard. The C3 is aimed at attracting heavy texters and social network users. The C3 will also features 2.4 inch display, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3.5mm audio jack, microSD card slot and microUSB. On the whole, Nokia C3 mobile phone is meant for, namely messaging, e-mail and social networking.

Design

The Nokia C3 somewhat resembles Nokia E72 in design. It has got attractive sleek look. We also liked its slim profile and it is one of the compact messenger phone around. The Nokia has ensured to make C3 message friendly. It measures 115.5mm tall, 58.1mm wide and 13.6mm thick. it weighs around 115grams. It is availabale in three colors: Hot Pink, Golden white and Black.

The C3 sports 2.4inch display, which has the resolution of 320 x 240 pixels and supports 262K colors. The screen is bright and colorful. We don’t have any gripes with it, taking price as consideration.

Below the screen you will find a navigation array that includes a four way square toggle with middle select key, two soft keys, dedicated shortcut keys for accessing favorite contacts and messages, the call and End/Power key. We liked the full qwerty keyboard. The keys are sufficiently large and tactile, which offer better feedback. The messaging on this phone is breeze. You will find a 3.5mm audio jack on the top of the device and a microUSB port on the left spine. There is a camera at the back of the device.

Features

The Nokia C3 runs on the Nokia’s S40 mobile operating system. You can access the favorite contacts immediately above the display, so that you can get in touch with them instantly. The favorite contacts will be listed horizontally and you call make call with just a click of a contact. Any updates from Facebook & Twitter w.r.t. to that contact will be displayed on the home screen itself. You can customize the home screen with dedicated widgets for the calendar, chat, email and organizer. You can also download themes, wallpapers, games, widgets from the Ovi store. You can personalize your contacts with ringtones, pictures and more.

Connectivity & Internet

We are glad that Wi-Fi has been included at a price tag of Rs.5500. You can avail data transfer through USB v2.0 and Bluetooth. You can stream audio to Bluetooth headset wirelessly, thanks to A2DP support for Bluetooth. The internet can be accessed via Wi-Fi, and GPRS. The data transfer speed is enhanced with the EDGE support.

The C3’s web-browser supports full HTML and as well as WAP 2.0. It also comes with preinstalled Opera Mini browser that allows faster browsing. It has community widget that gives live updates from Facebook and Twitter.

The C6 also supports Instant Messaging for Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, Ovi Chat and Windows Live Messenger. The C6 provides quick access to popular email accounts like Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail, Windows Live and other email accounts (SMTP, IMAP4, and POP3). Nokia offer free Ovi mail account from phone directly. As usual, it supports text, multimedia and audio messages.

It provides quicker access to Social networking web sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Multimedia

The C3’s multimedia player is simple and convenient. It supports MP3, WMA, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+ audio formats and video formats like MPEG-4, H.263 and H.264 video formats. The interface is simple and convenient to use. It supports popular audio and video formats. The sound quality is excellent. It also features FM Radio with RDS feature.

The C3 has an internal memory of 55MB. You can extend the external memory up to 8GB.

Camera

The Nokia C3 is equipped with 2 megapixel camera with a Flash, which captures images at a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels. The camera interface is same as other Nokia phones. The camera features Autofocus, self timer, 4x zoom, full screen viewfinder, white balance, color tones and viewfinder effects includes greyscale, sepia and negative. It can record videos at a resolution 320 x 240 pixel.

The image is quite good. The images look bright, crisp and colorful with good detail. The video quality is reasonably good.

Other Applications

The other essential features of the C3 include voice recorder, Calendar, Note pad, To-do list, a timer, Calculator, unit & currency Converter, Voice commands, a world clock, vibrate mode, Flight mode, a 1000 entry phonebook and speaker phone. It doesn’t feature Document and PDF reader.

The C3 comes preinstalled with four games namely Sudoko, Diamond Rush, Block’d, and Bounce.

Performance

The call quality is impressive with no distortion. Callers at both the end have no problem. The sound is clearer and louder. The speaker phone is also good.

The Nokia C3 is equipped with 1320 mAh Lithium-Ion battery. It has the rated battery life of 8 hours of talktime and 500 hours of standby time. The battery life is excellent comparing to most of the phones.

Price

Nokia has priced C3 very competitively. It comes at a price of just Rs. 5500. it is very affordable and economical too.

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SAMSUNG S5233: Mobile Review 2011

Samsung USA has achieved another milestone in devising the Super Class phone– succeed another bench mark by leveraging “the magic of touch”– a total makeover of fun and fantasy. This time it has, it has unveiled a unique touch technology that gives a magic feel, the power of touch screen which will change your world in to happiness and contentment.

This unique and advanced touch phone Samsung S5233 has already rocked the market. Among other classic features it basically designed to give you magical feel by it touch screen, multimedia system, total entertainment through the music.

Samsung has unveiled this stylish handset with classic H/W and S/Ws. It is very sleek and slim with 11.9mmdepth, 53.0mm width and 104.mm height. With a remarkable 7.62cm LCD screen which displays brilliant colour of 262k WQVGA, this phone enables a wider view of your operations. Moreover, the hyper QWERTY keypad has maximised the typing convenience, user input and navigating capacity. This hand set is also inbuilt USB port, FM radio in it.

Maximum Store Capacity:

You can save your memorable videos, images, music and other text message and multimedia items. This set gives you ample opportunity to express yourself easily. Not even that you can manage the store capacity also. The set has a maximum of 50GB storage capacity which can be expendable up to 8GB.

Touch Screen: The Magic of Touch:

The universe and the environment around you can be magically flourished in to fun and fiesta. The one touch can give you millions dollar happiness. This phone is embedded with a unique WQVGA full-touch screen of 7.63 cm, most important a Touch Wiz User Interface and Mobile Widget, which revitalises your passion. It also gives you a passionate touch facility like touching of a predefined image to call the concerned person.

NextGen Music Station:

What is next? Next is Samsung music station! Yes with Samsung you can rock on you world. This can easily suit the younger generation. Specials option like Music Recognition can recognise tracks for you by sending it to server. It widely supports the MP3 tracks ((MP3/AAC/AAC+/e-AAC+/WMA/WAV).you can also get enhanced management to your music through equalizer and 3d sound effect due to DNSe. While you are accessing other operation you can tune into background music and FM radio.

Classic Camera:

Be ready to store your memorable moments and youthful day in this unique and aristocratic camera with Samsung S5233. This is one of the most remarkable and extraordinary features in it. This set it gifted with 3.2 MP Camera that can capture high quality images and photographs. You even can manage the images into an album and edit the photos in it with out any PC. Moreover, you can also record video and play the MPEG4/H.263/H.264/WMV through it s video player.

Internet:

Among other most important features, qualitative and improved internet accessibility enables the phone to act like a internet browser. With a Classic WAP browser, Bluetooth, GPRS and internet HTML browser, this phone give you ample opportunity access internet. You even can access Google application like Google Mail, Google Search and Google Maps. While SharePix updates you blog, RSS Reader automatically access news and other fun items.

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Source [blog.itechtalk.com]

Jabra Stone 2 Review

The Jabra Stone headset based on Bluetooth was released a year back. It was indeed one among the headsets that was stylish being a Bluetooth device. It did not create much embarrassment when it is worn over the ear. It has a unique and a distinct design that stays quite close to the ear.it looks like a modern piece of jewel than a headset. The successor to the Stone is the Stone 2 which also makes use of the same design concept. It packs more number of features in order to keep up the competition.

Specifications

* Design: ear buds
* Headphones type: closed, mono
* Microphone: noise reduction
* Connectivity: Bluetooth with A2DP
* Battery: 10 hours
* Price: $129.99

Design

The design of the Stone 2 is the same as its predecessor, the Stone. The headset has the shape of a comma or that of a curved hook. It is contained inside a round shaped smooth portable charger. The package of the headset includes four different pairs of ear gels that are ergonomic to feel and they offer excellent comfort to the ear. It is very easy to power on or off the headset. The main difference in the design of the Stone and the Stone 2 is that the latter has a leather finish that is glossy. This is quite contrary to the Stone’s smooth and pebble like feel. The glossy finish model is available from the AT&T stores while the leather finish model is available from the Verizon stores.
Features

The Stone 2 has the voice control feature that allows the users to answer or reject the calls with their voice. The voice guidance feature helps the users by informing them who is calling them, the status of the battery, the set-up process and more. The noise blackout extreme feature makes use of dual microphone technology in order to produce excellent sound output. The headset has the usual features like last number redial, answer, reject and end calls, multipoint support and voice command support. The A2DP protocol allows the users to receive turn by turn instructions through the headset.

The voice guidance and the voice control features are quite new. These features are present in the higher end headsets such as BlueAnt Q2 and Jawbone Era respectively. It is a good inclusion by Jabra in order to compete with the other manufacturers. For the users of smart phones, Jabra has collaborated with certain third party developers to facilitate the users to make use of some voice applications such as Voice Assist, Dial2Go and Vingo. The headset includes an on-package redemption code in order to allow the download of a maximum three free applications. The voice applications can be used on the Jabra website too.

Performance

When paired with the iPhone 4, the call quality of the Stone 2 is quite good. The callers sound natural with too much volume. There are some occasional hiss and static however. The quality of the calls is not much different without the Stone 2. The quality of the outgoing calls is not too good as that of the incoming ones. The microphones perform decently in blocking out the external noise with the Noise Blackout Technology. The callers can hear our voice digitized and harsh. There is presence of some beeps and clicks often.

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HP Palm Topaz, Opal Tablets Leaked

Hewlett-Packard is going to launch the webOS 2.0-based HP Palm Topaz and Opal tablets, according to Engadget’s source.

The Topaz is nearly identical in size to the Apple iPad, while the Opal is a bit shorter and wider than the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The Opal will have a 1,024 x 768-pixel display, and the Topaz will most likely have the same resolution.

The tablets will support multitasking that enables up to 20 apps to run simultaneously and will have access to “tens of gigabytes” of cloud storage space. Other known features include Tap-to-Share, which “lets users easily transfer a website, document, or song from the phone to the tablet (or vice versa) simply by tapping the two devices together,” Beats-branded audio, and a wireless charging docking station that can transform the device into a GPS device, alarm clock, or digital photo frame.

The Topaz will reportedly ship about three months before Opal. HP’s tablets are expected to be officially released on February 9.

Source

Update: The Topaz has a 9-inch display, whereas the Opal sports a 7-inch screen. Both tablets will reportedly include a 1.2GHz processor, a front facing camera, and three speakers. Leaked slides reveal that the Opal will be available with Wi-Fi only and with Wi-Fi + 3G.

“We’re told that units will start to arrive at Palm HQ in June as production ramps up for launch later this year – a timeline backed up by an internal marketing slide we received that lists WiFi-only, AT&T 3G, and Verizon LTE versions of the Opal arriving in September 2011, and on AT&T LTE in July 2012,” Engadget reports.

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Cruz Reader with Kindle App and Android 2.0 Review

Velocity Micro is best known for its computers, which tend to appeal to the niche, higher-end users. With the Cruz Reader and Cruz Tablet, the company has its first entrants into the increasingly mass-market tablet space, which is finally starting to be populated five months after the launch of the iPad.

We got a chance to spend some time playing with the Cruz Reader, and to look at and hold the Cruz Tablet (the device we saw wasn't a working prototype). We found a lot of things to like about the devices, but a few things that gave us some pause. More than anything, we're curious how devices like these are going to be received.

The Cruz Reader isn't really an e-book reader—but it's not a tablet either. It's a $199, 7-inch device running Android 2.0, but thanks to its larger-than-a-phone screen, it doesn't have access to the Android Market. Velocity has developed the Cruz Store, with custom apps for the device, but apps won't likely be a huge focus for the Reader.

The reason it's even called a Reader, rather than a full-fledged, iPad-competing tablet, is because the Cruz Reader has a resistive touch screen. It doesn't allow for multi-touch and is significantly harder to navigate than the capacitive touch screens on most phones (and the iPad). The resistive screen was chosen to keep the price low - $199 seems to have been a magic price point for Velocity Micro. Navigating the Reader took some getting used to, but I eventually got the hang of it. In a store, though, the screen might seem unresponsive and difficult in the few seconds most shoppers will give it.

The Cruz Reader did handle its stated purpose—reading e-books—pretty well. It uses the Kobo reading application and the Borders bookstore, both of which are excellent. Turning pages in a book was simple and responsive (for someone who knew how to press on the screen). Since it's a full-fledged Android device, the Reader also has a full browser, e-mail client, Facebook app, and more. Not having an E Ink screen loses some of what makes dedicated e-book readers so nice to look at and easy on the eyes, but it's a tradeoff—all things non-book look much better on the Cruz Reader than they do on a Kindle or Nook.

Though we didn't get to play with the Tablet, we got to hold it and take pictures of it (see the slideshow for evidence of both). The tablet has a 7-inch screen, in 16:9 rather than the 4:3 on the Reader, and will cost $299 rather than $199. Its screen is also capacitive, which means that touching it will make more sense to anyone with an iPod touch, iPhone or iPad – pinching and spreading will work, and everything should feel much more responsive. It's got 4-Gbytes of internal memory (to the Reader's 256MB), has Android 2.1 instead of 2.0, and has the same battery life, bookstore, and file support.

The key for both of these devices is the price. There are a number of things I didn't love about the Reader, but a $199 price tag for what is essentially an Android tablet covers a multitude of sins. At $299, too, the Tablet is cheaper than most of its competitors. The Reader is a tweener device—more than an e-book reader, not quite a tablet—and the question is whether people want such a device.

The Reader is already on shelves in Borders, Staples, and elsewhere, and on virtual shelves at stores like Amazon and Newegg. The Tablet will be available in October.

Sony e-Reader Price Slash To Compete With Kindle And Nook

If you prefer Sony brand e-book reader, here is a piece of good news for you. Just recently, the Japanese consumer electronics maker has slashed its price of all the three models of its e-readers to make them more affordable to public.

If you recall, Sony e-reader devices have been in market for quite a while but with the widely available and more advanced rivals’ products such as Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook, it sees the need to adjust its retail price in order to stay competitively in this niche market. With the new price announcement, its entry level pocket version will be retailed at $149, which is about $20 from original $169. Meanwhile, its Touch Reader were down by $30 to $169 (original cost $199). Similarly, its mainstream highest end model, Daily Edition is now priced at $299, a significant $50 down from previous $349.

Apparently, Sony has tried a different approach and instead of focusing on developing new feature with cutting edge technologies to compete with other rivals’ products, it chooses to lower down the retail price to compete against other newly launched models with more comprehensive feature sets. However, with its slightly out-of-date e-ink technology and lack of mobile connection capability, it could be tough to excel even in its own geographic areas.

Olive Pad VT100 Android Tablet review

While there have been a plethora of iPad tablet competitors announced, we have yet to see once materialize and become commercially available. If you’re in India, that may be happening sooner than us here in the States.

Olive Telecom has just announced the Olive Pad VT100 Android-powered tablet capable of running on 3.5G bands. This device runs Android 2.1 and features a 7-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 800 x 480. Additionally, it is to feature WiFi, 512MB of built-in storage, Bluetooth, SD card slot, mini USB, 3.5 mm headset jack and a 3 megapixel camera.

What’s strange about this device is the fact that it actually features the ability to be used as a mobile cell phone. It will be available next month for around $500 with no word on a North American or International launch.

via engadget