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The HTC Magic with Google Android reviewed

Published
by
Kyle
on April 17, 2009
in News and Opinion
. 0 Comments

The HTC Magic was announced at Mobile World Congress this year and it’s been getting a lot of buzz. It’s a shame that more Android phones aren’t on the market but the few that have come out are looking very slick.

The HTC Magic is the newest phone designed on the Google Android platform. The device has many of the same features that the HTC G1 is packing, obviously because they’re both running Android. Why choose this device over the G1? It’s all in the handset design. The G1 is a little more bulky and if having a phone that fits nicely into your pocket is a big priority, then you should consider buy the HTC Magic instead.

The HTC Magic is expected to retail between 99 and 199 Euros and will launch initially on Vodafone. Although Europeans will have the first crack at the device, T-Mobile is expected to pick it up in the near future where it will likely be called the G2.

For a full review of the HTC Magic, check out DAP’s full review of the device.

Samsung Tocco Ultra 8300 impressions and details

Published
by
Kyle
on April 17, 2009
in Opinion
. 0 Comments

The Samsung Tocco Ultra 8300 is available now and it’s going to do a great job capturing a young audience looking for a media rich phone but don’t need push email. The device is a 12.8mm slider with a duralumin anti-scratch, anti-fingerprint casing.

In terms of media, the Tocco Ultra boasts an 8MP camera that comes with a dual LED flash, autofocus and video recording. The display is touch sensitive and is 2.8 inches. At 3G with HSDPA, you’ll be able to download all your favorite vids and pics sans hassle. Also, the phone features an accelerometer that will make web browsing much easier a la iPhone.

This phone is perfect for a very particular demographic in North America, but the real market for this device will be in its native country South Korea. Many of North America’s devices are shifting towards full QWERTY because it’s the easiest way to type SMS and emails to friends and coworkers. Korea and many other Asian countries on the other hand, prefer a keypad based phone because Asian characters are fewer and better represented in that way. That previous statement obviously excludes Chinese because you couldn’t possibly fit every Chinese character onto a phone.

Here in the West, this phone will be especially popular with a demographic that wants a classic style phone that fits nicely in your pocket, but has all the rich media capabilities of a modern smartphone.

[Via]

Nokia 6700 review, specifications and impressions

Published
by
Kyle
on March 30, 2009
in News and Opinion
. 0 Comments

The Nokia 6700 is a 5 megapixel camera phone that is the latest Series 40 device by Nokia. The device has some nice specs with an autofocus camera, GPS navigation with Nokia Maps and the Nokia WebKit Open Source Browser which was previously only available for Series 60 handsets.

The device is fairly thin at only 11mm but there is a lot inside it. The device supports both quad-band GSM and tri-band UMTS networks (plus HSDPA up to 10 Mbps). Also built into the device is an accelerometer which for tap-for-clock and turn-to-mute features.

The Nokia 6700 will be shipping with a 1GB microSD card and will be available in the usual metallic colors: Silver metallic, Matte metallic, Black metallic, and Brown metallic.

Expect the phone to retail for 235 euro in Q3 2009.

The HTC Magic review, specifications and impressions

Published
by
Kyle
on March 30, 2009
in Opinion
. 0 Comments

The HTC Magic is a slick looking device with a curvy design that seems reminiscent of the Android G1. The device features a rollerball, quick keys, and a much improved camera. Video recording and the responsiveness of the camera have been improved for the launch of this device and will surely please.

The first difference from the G1 that you’ll surely notice is that it is thinner and lacks a keyboard. Other than that, you can expect the same screen resolution and size. The screen might be somewhat brighter and the color temperature slightly different, but now we’re getting into some minor details.

Overall, the phone is a good device for touchscreen lovers who want an Android phone but would like something a little slimmer with no slide out keyboard. The device looks very pretty and it’s nice to see the Android platform start to influence the look and feel of a device. For a company that also manufactures the less-than-beautiful Windows Mobile, they’re really proving they can make a wide variety of devices.

Help the environment and recycle your mobile at CTIA

Published
by
Kyle
on March 30, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

Starting next week, Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile), will team-up with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Plug-In To eCycling program to encourage cell phone recycling during Plug-In To eCycling National Cell Phone Recycling Week, April 6-12. Samsung Mobile will be handing out mobile phone recycling envelopes at the Samsung Mobile booth at CTIA Wireless 2009, leading up to the official kick-off of the EPA’s program on April 6.

Samsung Mobile’s Take-Back recycling program is a part of Samsung Recycling Direct SM which allows consumers to recycle both Samsung-branded and non-Samsung branded consumer electronics for no fee throughout all 50 U.S. states. AT&T, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless are supporting this nationwide effort with special promotions highlighting cell phone recycling.

This was a guest post by Nick who normally blogs about mobile phone deals at the DAP blog

Everything a serious blogger should know

Published
by
Kyle
on March 6, 2009
in Opinion and Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

The commitment

In order to maintain a successful site, you need at least 5 articles per day. These 5 articles are broken into quick links (called QLs) and features. A good balance is 4 QLs and 1 Feature. It’s good to get into this mentality for a few reasons:

  • Stops you from over-posting (there is always tomorrow)
  • Allows to cover the day’s scene
  • Forces you to get in a daily grind
  • Each day has a traffic driving post

    • If you can only commit to a post a week, don’t bother. Now you might be asking why QuicklyBored isn’t following the above formula. Well it has for a long time, but this is a recession folks. My time is completely taken up by BlackBerryCool.com because it generates more money and traffic.

    Choosing your blog

    As I described above, a blog should be a full time commitment. If you’re doing something every single day, you’re going to have to enjoy what you write about. Once you’ve got your head wrapped around the fact that this blog is a daily commitment, start thinking about what you’re going to blog about.

    Niche markets are key when choosing a blog with a future. The thought process should be:

  • What do I like?
  • What can I write about?
  • What do I know about this that most people don’t?
  • Who am I writing for?

    • Let’s say for example you’re into video games. There are a ton of video game blogs out there so now it’s time to find a niche. What games do you like? Maybe you could blog about the company that makes the games you like. Maybe you like listening to music while you play vids. If that’s the case, blog your gaming playlists.

    Getting down to writing

    When it comes time to writing, it’s important to know that you’re writing on the internet and a certain degree of technical understanding is in order. Know the technology behind how your content is being discovered and read. Here are some key technologies to know:

  • Google analytics
  • Open source blogging platforms
  • Basic HTML, CSS and PHP
  • Keywords and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Excerpts, categories and tags
  • RSS feeds and readers
  • IP addresses
  • Comments and comment moderation

    • With these technologies, you’re going to make sure that people are finding what you’re reading and sharing it with others. Remember, the end goal of a blog is to build a place where knowledge, ideas and opinions are shared. Even if you’re blogging about how great your tits look in the morning, you want people finding those tits, telling their friends about them and sharing their thoughts about them.

    Also, you should know all the basic video, audio and pic editing software. Final Cut, iTunes, Garageband and Photoshop will be of daily importance.

    Monetize or go home

    If you’re not in it for money, then you’re a walking billboard for your favorite subject: “ME.” You’ll be surprised how much you learn about your readers and what they like. It helps to shape your writing as well. For example, when I write about BlackBerrys and see that sales of cases are up, I know people want to read about some cool cases. In the end, your writing job gets easier and you’re rewarded for being smart.

    Social networking works

    Social networking is addictive and while it serves as a great promotional tool, it can also suck up all your time. Have a game plan with social networks. Make friends both in your field of interest, but also who are pals and can keep you entertained. Think of your Twitter followers as a babe you want to impress, and the people you follow like your wing men. The people you follow big you up while you try pick up lines with people out of your league.

    Goals, direction and redesigns

    It’s going to take a long time for your blog to really gain some steam. It’s important to have the patience and persistence of Santiago. When it comes to traffic, think of it like your stock portfolio. If you check your stocks everyday, you’ll be on highs and lows that will make you feel like an OC housewife. No amount of Xanax will help you on a bad day. So just check it either biweekly or every month. It also helps you keep focused on the big picture.

    Now that you’ve actually read this much, you have to comment.

    Can’t think of anything to say? Comment your personal or favorite blog. Shameless self promotion welcome (no Viagra blogs).

    Top 10 Camera Phones

    Published
    by
    Kyle
    on March 4, 2009
    in News
    . 2 Comments

    Samsung Memoir T929 (T-Mobile, 8.0 MP camera, QVGA 240×400) – Black
    America’s first 8 megapixel camera features a 16x digital zoom and xenon flash. The TouchWiz Samsung Memoir features auto-focus, geo-tagging, anti-shake, easy upload to a variety of platforms, and can even record up to one hour of video.

    Motorola Zine ZN5 (T-Mobile, 5.0MP camera with Kodak lenses, QVGA 240×320) – Black
    Designed by Kodak, the surprisingly slim Motorola Zine ZN5 packs a 5 megapixel camera with xenon flash, auto-focus and more, as well as Kodak’s Perfect Touch and other editing abilities.

    Samsung Behold T919 (T-Mobile, 5.0MP, QVGA 240×320) – Espresso, Light Rose
    Predecessor to the Samsung Memoir, the 5 megapixel Samsung Behold was the first to feature Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface, with its easy-to-use features, LED flash and an expandable memory up to 16 GB.

    Samsung Omnia (Verizon Wireless, 5.0MP, VGA 480×640) – Black
    Featuring Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro, the 5 megapixel Samsung Omnia’s 8GB memory (expandable to a whooping 24GB with addition of a 16GB microSD card) is as a productive as it is fun.

    Sony Ericsson W760a (AT&T, 3.2MP, QVGA 240×320) – Black, Red, Silver
    The 3.2 megapixel Sony Ericsson W760a is a slider-style phone with multiple shot modes and easy uploading of photos to the web on the nation’s fastest 3G network.

    BlackBerry Storm (Verizon Wireless, 3.2MP, QVGA 240×320) – Black
    The touch-screen BlackBerry Storm moves beyond the workplace with a 3.2 megapixel camera, including LED flash, face detection and editing tools.

    HTC Fuze (AT&T, 3.2MP, VGA 480×640) – Black
    With new 3D TouchFLO, the 3.2 megapixel HTC Fuze is intuitive to use and easy to customize for business and pleasure. Auto-focus and editing tools ensure a great shot everytime.

    HTC Touch Pro (Sprint, 3.2MP, CIF 288×352) – Black
    With a 3.2 megapixel camera, the slide-out HTC Touch Pro for Sprint has a full QWERTY keyboard and the Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro that business users need while providing the entertainment features everyone wants.

    LG Dare (Verizon Wireless, 3.2MP, VGA 480×640) – Black
    A reasonably-priced iPhone competitor, the LG Dare has a 3.2 megapixel camera with features including face detection, SmartPic technology and editing tools. Besides camcorder noise reduction, the LG Dare is the first American phone to be able to record high-speed video and play it back in slow-motion.

    Samsung Eternity A867 (AT&T, 3.2MP, QCIF 144×176) – Black
    Featuring a popular touch-screen with vibration response, the Samsung Eternity has a 3.2 megapixel for not only on-the-go photos and video, but also AT&T’s exclusive Video Share – the cutting edge of video calling.

    This was a guest post by Warren who normally covers mobile phones at DAP. Grab the RSS feed for his daily updates.

    Free trial - Vayyoo reinvents email for BlackBerry

    Published
    by
    Kyle
    on March 4, 2009
    in News
    . 0 Comments

    We’ve been talking a lot about Vayyoo for a few reasons: we love their product and we’ve been playing Settlers of Catan with their director of marketing on a pretty regular basis.

    Here are some old articles about them that tells the story of the product’s progression.

    Today Vayyoo has launched vPost to the public at a one-time purchase price of $9.95 with a free two-week trial.

    Check them out in the store here.

    vPost is an app that lets you capture and email any combination of Pictures, Video, Audio Notes, Text & GPS location using an extremely powerful and simple interface.

    Once you capture any combination of media you can send it via email to friends, family, colleagues, blogs and social networks. Without vPost it can take over 5 minutes to compose an email with 2 pictures, an audio note, and GPS location. With vPost this task can be done in less than a minute with no hassles. You can try vPost today and start sending rich-media to anyone and everyone!

    Use it for anything:
    - File a life experience by emailing it to yourself
    - Share moments with close friends while it’s happening (near real-time)
    - Publish media to Facebook, Blogger, Wordpress, Flickr, Picasa, etc. and share with you online communities
    - Annotate pictures with a voice recording of what’s actually happened
    - Send accidents, act’s heroism, & other newsworthy events in to news agencies (CNN, BBC, etc.)
    -Update Twitter via services like posterous.com, pixelpipe.com, and utterli.com
    - Send vPost voice & video messages to each other
    - Send your friends your exact location in near real time.

    Vayyoo has assured us a that a storm version will be available soon.

    Vayyoo has setup a vPost website at www.getvpost.com where they have a FAQ, contact info, and links to their Twitter account.

    Comment with what you think of the app!

    We’ll be sending an email to some of the comments with free license keys.

    Again, you can see the app here.

    All about Ryan Block, Peter Rojas, gdgt and whatever

    Published
    by
    Kyle
    on March 3, 2009
    in Opinion and Uncategorized
    . 4 Comments

    Ryan Block is the former editor (and current editor-at-large) of Engadget. He reminds me of Justin Long from the “I’m a Mac” ads, only he takes himself seriously. Peter Rojas is the founder of Gizmodo, as well as a host of other blogs. Although the sites were perceived rivals, their two generals got together for a content startup called gdgt.

    Gdgt is currently nothing more than a weekly Podcast but the concept is great. Get 2 young guys who know everything there is to know in the space, and have them form like Voltron. The project will be supported by Josh Topolsky, editor of Engadget, and Brian Lam, editorial director of Gizmodo.

    Although Ryan claims that he and Brian Lam are friends, Ryan made some fairly limp attempts at shutting him down. Ryan once started a “Boycott Gizmodo” blog. If it’s true that they were as friendly as they say, then their relationship was reminiscent of the 3rd grade when you “hated Craig’s guts.”

    “The time has come to Boycott Gizmodo,” reads the post. “Not only did Brian Lam and Gizmodo purposefully deceive long standing readers such as myself about the iPhone, they did a terrible job of covering their tracks.” (Lam’s post promised readers news about an “iPhone” device on a Friday, before the launch of the actual device — and then, on a Monday, revealed that Cisco owned a trademark on the term, long attached to speculation about an Apple cell phone, and had released an iPhone-branded product. The companies long since settled the matter, giving Apple rights to the iPhone name)

    Ryan made sure to shed a blog tear after the episode and titled his post “Bygones and Rivalries.” My favorite part is when he blames the boycott on an employee. “I let myself get talked into [the boycott blog] by a particularly hateful former writer.” It’s a beautiful lie because it puts the blame on someone else and insinuates he fired the “hateful” asshole soon after. I think the firing went something like this:

    Ryan: James. You fucked up. You made me do a bad thing.
    James: What are you talking about? You agreed to it.
    Ryan: I know but then people got mad.
    J: So stand up for yourself. They totally did lie about the iPhone.
    R: Look, I’m firing you because you stole from the company.
    J: This is your way of getting around a lawsuit right?
    R: Get out of here you hateful thief!

    So if that was Ryan Block’s relationship with Lam, how did things go with Josh Topolsky? Nobody knows. Nobody has ever heard anything about Josh Topolsky, but he was probably a post monkey for Engadget. It’s easy to get ahead in blogging, just make sure you can post 40 articles a day and get your boss a no-water-no-foam-non-fat-Tazo-chai-latte on top.

    If you’ve been following gdgt, you know it’s just Ryan and Peter talking about the news and throwing in their 2 pennies. Remind you of anything? I would be surprised if there is anyone out there who has followed QuicklyBored since the beginning, but we had something very similar going on here. The QuicklyBored Podcast started out as Doug and I talking about the same stuff in an incredibly similar format. The problem was that we weren’t internet celebrities and founders of the biggest sites on Earth. There is still a shocking resemblance, no?

    So if you’re looking for something to sleep to, you can follow gdgt on Twitter, although it’s a link bot, or visit the site here.

    You can also follow Peter here (blog, Twitter), Ryan here (blog, Twitter), and any gdgt updates here.

    Also, whatever you do, don’t follow me on Twitter. Please.

    How to cheat on your loved one with an iPhone

    Published
    by
    Kyle
    on March 2, 2009
    in Opinion
    . 1 Comment

    I should really start this article off by saying that I’m not writing from experience, I’ve just been using an iPhone for some time now and I’ve become aware of the dual purpose of some of its features. That being said, here is how to cheat and never get caught.

    Step 1: Turn the password lock feature on

    To turn this feature on, go to Settings> General> Passcode Lock

    This feature locks your device so that if anyone tries to use it, they have to enter a 4 digit code that allows them access to the device.

    Make sure to enter a 4 digit code that only you know. I tend to use the last 4 digits of an old telephone number that nobody would remember because I had zero friends at the time. The reason you’re doing this is because you have to realize you’re doing something terrible and if you’re caught, you will spend the next 6 months living in a stress-induced nightmare. Don’t let someone snoop and find out something you don’t want them to. When they ask why you have it locked, just say it’s for work. The line is:

    “I’m paranoid about coworkers snooping through my phone and seeing the emails where I make fun of them and talk about how much my job sucks.”

    Step 2: Make sure SMS preview is off

    SMS preview is a feature that will show you the SMS that was just sent to you, allowing you to respond or ignore it right away.

    This feature must be turned off because it will ruin you. Imagine this: your phone is sitting on the table while you’re out to dinner with your spouse. A chime rings indicating a text has come through and you both stare at the phone out of habit. The preview comes up and says “thanks for last night but my thighs are KILLING me.” How are you going to explain that? You were supposed to be studying last night with friends. Turn the SMS preview off by doing the following:

    Settings> General> Passcode Lock> Show SMS Preview> Off

    Step 3: Never keep his/her name saved in contacts

    You’re going to inevitably get calls from the person you’re cheating with so don’t bother saving their number. If someone sees the caller ID the jig is up. When you’re dating, you’ve introduced your spouse to your whole social network and anyone new is going to arouse suspicion. Just avoid it and don’t answer the call if spies are listening.

    Step 4: Have a good excuse about why you ignored the call

    When you get a call, you’re going to have to ignore it if you’re in the company of either your spouse or cheating partner. When you ignore a call, have some reason that doesn’t make you look guilty. Here are some examples:

    “I can tell it’s work related and I’m not interested.”
    “I really don’t feel like interrupting our hang out.”
    “I’m just being lazy. If it’s important they’ll leave a message.”

    Step 5: First one in last one out (FILO)

    If things are looking like they’re starting to fall apart, ABORT. The rule is an accounting rule but it applies here: “first one in, last one out.” Save yourself an incredible amount of pain and shame and tell the person you’re cheating with that you think it’s time to end it. Tell him/her that it’s just not working out and never tell anyone about you did. Keep this whole charade a secret until you die. Actually, just before you die tell 1 person. You’re dead so who cares right?