February 27th, 2010 | Google Android, HTC, Mobile Phone Reviews, Touchscreen
The HTC Magic is a touch screen smart phone using the Google Android operating system. As a competitor to the iPhone, the handset is smaller and may suit users who prefer a sleeker mobile phone.
The touch screen works quickly and easily and users can bring all of their installed applications on to the screen with just one touch. A number of applications can be installed free of charge from the Android market though more pre-installed applications would be of benefit.
The keyboard for text messages and emails works better in landscape mode than in portrait and some users may find that the screen is not as sensitive around the edges as it is in the centre, so typing needs care.
Applications that can be supported include GPS navigation and internet social networking such as Facebook, Twitter and instant messaging applications. The handset can also be connected to a computer with a USB cable to allow for easy data transfer of music and videos, which can be played in several formats.
The music functions on the HTC Magic do let it down a little. It does not have a 3.5mm headphone jack and all music has to be stored on an additional memory card. The camera is also disappointing as there is no flash and the battery life is much shorter than similar models of mobile phone, though time-saving applications can be downloaded to extend battery function.
However, for those looking for a basic smart phone with email and internet access the HTC Magic is a good choice.
February 24th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Nokia
Nokia’s introduction of the 6600 Fold produced plenty of mobile phone news. Nokia has predominantly based their mobile phones on the bar design. The 6600 Fold is one of the few devices to feature a clamshell design that easily fits into your pocket.
The Nokia 6600 Fold is just 87.7 mm long by 44 mm wide and it is a trim 15.9 mm thick. This mobile phone weighs 110 grams with the battery attached. When the device is opened, users will find a bright 2.1-inch OLED screen that supports up to 16 million colours. There is also an external OLED screen that blends into the cover of the Nokia 6600 Fold.
The battery gives users up to 4 hours of talk time or 300 hours on standby. The Nokia 6600 Fold is quad band and will operate on 3G networks. Users will find support for Bluetooth technology included with this mobile phone. For easy surfing, a WAP 2.0 browser comes pre-installed on the Nokia 6600 Fold.
Users will find a 2-megapixel camera integrated into the Nokia 6600 Fold. This camera offers users LED flash and can capture video clips. A secondary camera has also been integrated into the device for video calling functionality.
Nokia has only included 18 megabytes of internal memory in the Nokia 6600 Fold. Users who wish to store music and photographs on their device will be able to take advantage of the integrated microSD expansion slot that supports cards up to 8 gigabytes in size.
February 23rd, 2010 | Mobile Phone Recycling, Mobile Phones
Mobile phones have gone from being a tool for busy business people to being a fashion accessory. As we all know, fashions change constantly, so the phone you bought a year ago is no longer the style icon that it once was. Thankfully many mobile service providers offer free upgrades if you have a contract, and pay-as-you go phones can be quite reasonably priced. This makes it easy to follow the latest trends in mobile phones and keep your phone as up to date as possible.
A side effect of this is that we end up with old mobile phones lying around our houses, hidden away in cupboards and drawers. Companies such as Envirofone and Mazuma have realised that there is a market for re-conditioned mobile technology and offer cash for mobiles.
With the majority of old phones being less than a year old it is usually a simple matter of testing the phone and preparing it for re-use. With a new SIM card and a clean, what was an unwanted phone becomes useful to someone else. With strong relationships with well-known manufacturers, networks and retailers, these companies are ideally placed to find new homes for used mobile phones and can offer you cash for your old mobile.
Envirofone and Mazuuma will also take broken and unusable phones and recycle them. Reclaiming up to 80% of the materials for use in the manufacture of new items. If your phone is broken or damaged however, you will find that you don’t get as much for it as if it were in good order.
February 19th, 2010 | Broadband, Mobile Broadband, mobile technology
The number of broadband providers can seem bewildering to the newcomer looking for a fast connection for one reason or another. Should you go for Tiscali broadband or Plusnet broadband? One friend recommends Orange home broadband, another raves about Be broadband. What should you do, with so many broadband providers and so little time? A good first step is to take a look at a few of the many broadband comparison websites, where you can check out the latest broadband deals. Compare broadband providers on these broadband comparison sites and you might even decide that mobile broadband is best for your schedule, and mobile broadband comparison sites will provide in-depth information on this. Thinkbroadband is a good place to start.
The choice between Orange home broadband and Plusnet business broadband may be a simple one, but digging further down into the maze of broadband providers will reveal more of the broadband deals on offer as well as the finer points of the services provided. For many, Virgin Media Broadband or Sky broadband, tying in your telephone and cable TV for additional savings, will be a good choice. Others, especially businesses, will need to customise their broadband requirements when they choose their broadband providers, as business broadband provides varying levels of support. For a business, UK broadband might be a good choice because of their use of WiMax technology. This system means that networking can be customised to suit a range of corporate requirements.
After checking out a few of the broadband comparison, and mobile broadband comparison websites, things should start to become clearer!
February 18th, 2010 | LG, Mobile Phone Reviews, Mobile Phones
The LG GW520 is a networking phone for the current market. A slide top mobile phone with a well designed physical QWERTY keyboard will allow you to readily keep in contact with all your friends, tweets and fellow networkers.
Opening LG’s homepage accesses a screen full of your favourite contacts and the waving icons show message lists and the latest contact you have had with the people on them. Its predict number facility is great for regular users and updating the home screen to include other widgets is simple.
The GW520 is an update of the KW360 and succeeds in many areas. The addition of 3G supporting Internet access takes this phone out of the realms of merely texting and emails. There are lots of favourable things about the GW520. It has good connectivity, FM radio, and good battery life and as an entry level touchscreen is definitely worth a look.
The phone does have a few problems because the screen is a little unresponsive, typing is a slow laborious process and the 3-megapixel camera produces dubious results. Email push is slightly problematic and not able to work simultaneously with other programs, so you need to have it constantly open to use it effectively, while the 2.8 inch screen does feel a little cramped.
These complaints aside the LG GW520 has proved to be a popular phone with customers. It is slightly heavier than its cousins the KW360 and the Cookie, but definitely not a house brick.
February 15th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Recycling, Mobile Phones, Wireless Devices
There are many hazardous chemicals used in the manufacture of mobile phones. The majority of the materials in a mobile phone are the plastics and polymers that go into making the casing and circuit boards. These components generally don’t break down over time and will remain in the environment for years after being discarded.
Brominated flame-retardants are used to prevent fire inside mobile phones but are, oddly enough, highly flammable themselves. They are thought to cause cancer and complications in pregnancy leading to developmental problems and learning difficulties. These substances are now banned in some European countries.
The high quality capacitors and other electronic components contain rare metals such as arsenic and beryllium. Both of these are group 1 carcinogens and have other toxic effects in the body, usually resulting in death. Mobile phone batteries contain the highest amounts of some of the more toxic materials in the phone including lithium, cadmium, and other heavy metals such as cobalt, zinc and copper. Of these cadmium is the 7th most toxic substance known to man.
All of these chemicals can escape into the environment if a mobile phone ends up in a landfill site, possibly making their way into ground water that makes up our drinking water supply. For this reason it is best to have your old mobiles recycled free of charge by one of the many phone recycling companies that are available such as Mazuma or Envirofone. These companies also offer cash for mobile phones that are reusable and can be sold on.
February 11th, 2010 | Google Android, HTC, Mobile Phone Reviews, Touchscreen
The HTC Hero is a powerful and comfortable phone that uses Google’s Android system. This is really something different and not a simple iPhone copy when you compare mobile phones. The designers have used much of the good practice present in the HTC Magic but have given it a restyling.
The HTC Hero incorporates a clear, bright and very usable virtual keyboard, which can be orientated either portrait or landscape. The developers have tweaked the Android system making it even more user friendly and it now comes with a Twitter app as standard, so social network fans will find it easily integrates with their other programs such as Facebook and Gmail.
The Hero, as HTC discovered during development, is a fully customisable phone, enabling you to download and customise your favourite widgets to suit. One nice feature is its “postcards” set up where you can personalise locations by their GPS coordinates and include photos, notes and video clips.
Connectivity is no problem with the Hero, as it supports Bluetooth, mini USB,
Wi-Fi and has a 3.5mm jack point. There is a reasonably good camera but no flash and unfortunately it is not capable of video calling. The big determining factor with many phones is battery life but this is not a big problem with the Hero.
HTC has produced a good competitor when compared to the iPhone and has many qualities worthy of consideration when choosing a mobile. With increased development in the apps market this HTC mobile phone has a mass of additional add-ons you can purchase.
February 10th, 2010 | Mobile Phone Reviews, Nokia
The Nokia 6600 Slide is definitely a phone, but one that offers a little bit more than many other Nokia models. It also happens to feature one of the company’s best and most arresting designs in years.
It slides open and shut in a manner that’s both solid and smooth, and feels very reassuring in the hand. That makes for a very good start, but it’s just the beginning of the impressive features on this Nokia mobile phone.
The clarity of the display is stunning, and makes pictures look good – which says a lot, since the 6600 Slide only comes with an average 3.2 megapixel camera. Below the screen a blue directional key controls everything – again, spare, useful design. Everything is intended to be simple and logical, and it’s all perfectly intuitive.
The keypad, when pulled out, is just as one would expect from Nokia, easy to use, nicely responsive, and definitely not cramped.
The Symbian Series 40 operating system makes for fast, easy browsing for those who want to access the web from the handset.
Is there anything wrong with it? About the only lack appears to be no 3.5mm headphone jack, but on a regular mobile phone, that’s hardly a deal-breaking omission.
In other words, the Nokia 6600 Slide has pretty much everything going for it. The design is outstanding, even by Nokia’s high standards, and it does all the basics very well, with a minimal learning curve. Once again, Nokia has produced a classic handset for people who just want a phone.
February 8th, 2010 | Broadband, Mobile Broadband
When selecting the mobile broadband that is most suitable for your needs, it is worth making a comparison of all of the mobile broadband options that are available to you.
There are many different mobile broadband comparison websites around, and a simple search will bring up the most popular. When comparing mobile broadband you should take into account many different factors. One important one that you should consider is how much you would like to use the mobile broadband. With some packages you may find that there is a strict limit to the download volume that you can use.
You should also look at the coverage that the provider can offer. This is perhaps one of the most important factors that you should consider when making a mobile broadband comparison. If you live in an area in which there is a poor mobile broadband coverage by that company then you could be tied into a costly mobile broadband contract without being able to use it effectively.
When you make a mobile broadband comparison make sure that you check out as many different mobile broadband providers as possible so that you can get the best mobile broadband deal for you. It is important when you make a mobile broadband comparison that you are using reputable websites when reading reviews of mobile broadband services and mobile broadband comparisons. You may find that the mobile broadband providers themselves write some reviews, so when you make a mobile broadband comparison look for truly independent opinions.
February 5th, 2010 | LG, Mobile Phone Reviews, Touchscreen
These days, the newest mobile phones seem to be developing specialities to appeal to niche markets. Some aim for the young, while some aim for music lovers. The LG Renoir KC910 seems to be targeting those who take their pictures seriously (aptly, since it’s named after an artist).
A touchscreen phone, the Renoir boasts a mightily impressive eight megapixel camera with its own shutter key, and a stout lens cover. Shooting video, even in slow motion, is a snap, and the camera comes equipped with both smile and face detection, a small but very neat bonus. GPS means pictures can be geo-tagged if the user wishes. Given the emphasis on pictures, though, it would have been good to see a stronger flash
This mobile phone also offers playback of movies downloaded from the Internet (with both Wi-Fi and 3.5G, download speeds are very good indeed). However, before going into that it’s worth doing a little research; while most of the main movie formats are supported, the reach doesn’t extend to them all.
It seems a waste to have Dolby on this LG mobile phone, but no 3.5mm headphone jack to take real advantage of it – a definite omission. Indeed, outside pictures and video, the LG Renoir KC910 is disappointing, especially given the company’s high standards in other handsets. Both the touchscreen and the interface itself, vital components on any phone, are disappointing.
The Renoir might well find fans among photo buffs, but if LG had integrated these camera features into one of its top touchscreen models, then it would have been a much better experience.
