Posts Tagged ‘Gadget Review’

Nokia E71

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

If you loved the Nokia E61 and E61i, you will surely love the Nokia E71. It is smaller and thinner compared to the E61i at a thickness of only 10mm and at just 57mm in length. The display screen is respectable at 2.36 inches although it is smaller compared to the 2.8 inches of Nokia E61.

The Nokia E71 features a 3.6 Mbps HSDPA, wifi 802.11 b/g with a Symbian operating system 9.2 that is perfect for your internet browsing requirement.  The QWERTY keyboard lets you type your

grey nokia e71

grey nokia e71

messages just like using a computer keyboard but it’s just a bit too small to be comfortable. If you have big fingers, this phone may not be that appealing because of its cute keyboard. It’s perfect for women though as women are gifted with smaller fingers compared to men but if you could master the fingernail typing instead of using your fingers for pressing the keys then this won’t be a problem for you.

In the Philippines, you could purchase your own Nokia E71 for about P21,000. If you want to buy it from Nokia it can be bought for more than P35,000 inclusive of warranty. With all of Nokia E71’s features, this cellular phone is priced just right.

Of course this cellular phone is not all superb. It only has a 110 MB internal memory with an extra 128 MB of SDRAM memory but this could be increased if you buy a higher memory. Its camera is not designed to compete with other new camera phones as it only has a 3.15 megapixel camera. To some, this is an advantage because this phone is not built for taking photos but for its laptop-like features which is what Nokia focused on for this quality phone.

If you need to check your emails regularly but doesn’t want to buy a bulky laptop, the Nokia E71 is an excellent buy.

Sony Ericsson C702i, The Rugged Cybershot

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

Sony Ericsson announced Cybershot C702i phone on 10th February 2008. This phone is one of the 7 new phones launched by Sony Ericsson at this year’s GSM World Congress at Barcelona. Targeted at mobile users who like to shoot and use phone, but are limited to choices due the environment being too rugged for use.

The special thing about this phone is that it is splash and dust proof which means that you can safely drop the cameraphone in puddle and still be sure of receiving the next call or taking the next shot through camera. The build quality of the cellphone inspires confidence that no matter where you use it, it will be faithful to you. The phone is a 3G enabled quadband phone with HSDPA 3.6Mbps connectivity available for 2100 MHz networks The front features a big screen of 2.2inches with resolution of 240×320pixels a alphanumeric keypad with a front VGA camera whereas the back of the cell has dimpled surface with a lot of gripping provided and a bolt like feature provided on the cover of battery to give it rugged and macho feel. Just next to the bolt is a big eye for wrist band. Weight of the device is mere 105grams with the thickness being 15.5cm which is very less considering the tough built of cellphone. The thickness of the cellphone has been kept more so that it doesn’t slip from the hands of user. The phone has 3.2megapixel sensor and since it comes in the series of mighty Cybershot Brand of Sony Ericsson, it packs a lot of power in the camera. The image stabilization, red eye reduction is from its predecessor K850i.

The camera on this device is 3.2megapixel sensor with Sony lens and autofocus feature. New things on this device are face recognition which allows you to focus on the subject of the picture rather than on the background. Also featured here is Photo fix which is software provided by Sony Ericsson for fixing the photo after it has been shot. Red eye reduction is further improved from the previous K series model. However the biggest thing missing here is Xenon flash which was a hit with K850i. The newphoto light on this device is said to do same functions and also provide lighting in video shooting too which was not possible with Xenon flash. Let’s hope that this LED based photolight does as the company promises.

Another good thing about this phone is that it features GPS which had been pretty much domain of hi-end phones like Nokia’s N95. This makes the foray of GPS technology into the mainstream feature phones. The GPS module integrates with the camera and does “geo-tagging” of images which is a very new and interesting feature. The phone comes with 160MB of memory onboard which can be further extended through memorystick M2. Other features like mp3/aac/wma enabled music player, Blogging tool, radio with rds, notes, calendar is standard which is very similar to other phones made by the company. However, it remains uncertain whether the users will be able to use 3rd party softwares from companies like Tom-Tom on their phones as doesn’t have an operating system. It’s a phone for outdoor type of users who work in conditions where there is a lot of moisture and dust. This phone could be a boon to those people who previously had been avoiding a cameraphone from the fear of dropping/wetting the phone while using. Let’s wait to see the reaction of market to this phone when it is launched in Q2, 2008.

Nokia N96 – 16GB

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

We thought that nokia had reached epitome of mobile development when they had announced N95-8GB, but it seems that they have something else in mind while they have launched N96. It’s somehow a N95 with cosmetic changes and storage upped to whooping 16GB with further 8GB addition possible through micro SD card. It also features a DVB-H receiver for times if you want to view TV on its big 2.8 inches screen. It is targeted towards multimedia oriented audience.

Let’s go towards the specifications of the device. It’s based on same platform as the previous N95-8GB, but offers poor battery backup as it is powered by 950mAH battery, the same one on original N95 which was very poor on battery life. It seems that the DVB-H would be sucking a lot of battery from the device rendering its usability limited by the battery backup. Seems like keeping a backup battery for extended viewing maybe not a bad idea. The phone comes in similar shape of newly launched Nokia N82 and looks crafted out of steel. The design is sleek two way slider, similar to N95, with one side having keypad and other having dedicated multimedia control buttons like play/pause, FF, RW and stop. The buttons are tactile to touch and so wouldn’t find much of audiences with youngsters who are much into text messaging. The weight of device is whopping 125 grams, far more than other competing mobiles, but it can be easily ignored if the number of features on the device is considered.

The display is 2.8inches with QVGA resolution of 240×320pixels. It seems that Nokia does not understand that when most of the manufacturers are going to higher resolutions, they are still stuck to technically inferior quality resolution in spite of the fact that they tend to put this device as true multimedia substitute. The phone has auto-rotate UI and the back of the phone has a stand kind of protrusion which allows you to keep the handset at a particular angle when you are watching video in landscape mode. This feature is quite useful for prolonged viewing of videos. The speakers are made on right side of the handset and come on top when the device is kept in landscape mode. As usual, they are of superb quality and produce stereo sound. Also if you want to view your videos in discretion then you can use the standard 3.5mm jack to plug in a standard headphone to listen to music or videos. The phone with hefty 16GB space would help you dump all of your videos without any second thoughts about the memory getting filled up very fast.

Featuring host of connectivity options like 3G with HSDPA for both international and American networks, EDGE and GPRS, it’s surely a phone made for world. There is WLAN 802.1b/g, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, infrared and micro USB for connecting it to other devices. When you plug it to your PC then it has a special mode where it is recognized as a music player by windows and allows you to synchronize it with Windows Media Player with ease.

The camera module is taken directly from the Predecessor N95, which is a 5megapixel autofocus sensor with 20x digital zoom. Other features like red-eye reduction, image stabilization, and exposure control are standard. But its really pity that Nokia is still not putting optical zoom and xenon flash in its flagship phone, when it has already introduced that concept in N93i long time ago. Though this phone has very good specs, but if you already happen to own N95 or N95-8GB, then there is not much worth in going for upgrade. It is expected to be priced around 800$ .

Xperia X1 – Sony Ericsson

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

The rumors have finally been found true. Sony Ericsson has opened gates for new platform for its high end business mobile phones. Currently its most sophisticated P series phones were run on Symbian UiQ, now it has given that slot to Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0 and that seems for good only considering number of bugs and problems previous P series devices were having in their firmware

At World GSM Congress, Barcelona, Swedes-Japanese phone maker released its new flagship phone called Xperia X1 which as people say has been developed with collaboration with HTC. The phone would come in arc shaped slider form which means that while using the slide out QWERTY keyboard, you won’t have difficulty in seeing display screen which itself is gigantic 3 inches wide. The phone will come with thickness less that 16mm which is superb for a business class phone packed with full keyboard. The device has WXGA resolution of 800×480pixels which is highest at the moment in market with pixel density almost 1.5times that of iPhone’s display. The phone has a lot of goodies to talk about like the acceleratometer which changes the orientation of Ui with any rotation of the device. The navigation is through touch screen interface which is a specialty for Sony Ericsson mobiles and also through an optical joystick which is useful specially when browsing through big WebPages for moving scroll bars. The Processor is pretty decent Qualcomm’s 520MHz unit which will make this device slick when it comes to multi tasking. Further it has 128MB RAM and 512MB ROM. This makes it compete with the likes of HTC’s behemoth TyTn II. The external expansion is through Sony’s Micro M2 memory. The phone features a lot of connectivity options like GPRS, EDGE, 3G and HSDPA/HSUPA 7.2Mbps which makes it at par with Nokia’s N95 mobile phone. The EDGE support had been lacking in almost all the Sony’s business phones till late. Also for local connectivity there is provision of Wifi 802.11b/g (Yes g also!!) and Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP. The exclusive thing about the phone which makes it stand apart from other windows mobiles is that it features Xperia interface which is a very cool 9 animated icon’s which are displayed in active display screen and can be used directly to open apps. However the biggest disappointment is that the display is meager 65k color when even the low end Phones these days feature at least 16million color display. The phones sports 3.2megapixel autofocus camera which takes shots at 2048×1536pixel resolution and video recording at vga resolution at 30FPS. Phone comes in with windows live, MSN messenger, Internet explorer mobile, windows media player 10 for mobile and mobile outlook. Though it is fitted with WM 6.0, but Sony says that it will be fitted with updated version of WM called WM 6.1 before it is launched. It also has GPS facility and the media player virtually plays all the popular codecs of audio and video without any need of external softwares. The phone comes in two colors black and white. The phone is truly state-of-art and the finish is marvelous much better than the W960i which was launched a few months back.

The keyboard has spaciously drawn out keys which allow even people with big thumbs to type easily. For people who use smileys a lot, there is a dedicated smiley button on the keyboard. Though it is a business phone, still it has a slot for a 3.5mm audio jack which is quite a surprise as it is not offered even on the company’s walkman series phones which are targeted towards music lovers.

The camera module is same as the one being used in P1i so not much point in discussing that. However as the handset is announced to be released in Q2 of this year, you may expect a lot of changes in the specification. Being termed as iPhone killer, it has created a league of its own. It seems that bar has been raised for the competition. Let’s see how Nokia counters this phone.

CANON 400D

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Photography professionals, amateurs and enthusiasts alike love to capture everyday moments to help.

Here are some of Canon 400D’s highlights:

  1. Integrated Cleaning System – image-sensor dust is one of the most annoying problems a DSLR owner can have. Since a camera lens is very sensitive, you can’t just wipe it off with an ordinary cloth. Canon 400D has an incorporated cleaning system built in its body that generates ultrasonic vibrations which shakes off dusts that enter when a lens is mounted or removed.
  2. Dust Delete – to further enhance the cleaning system of this camera, the Canon 400D has a second defense system to remove dust that the integrated cleaning system did not totally get rid of. A computer program composed of two steps locates and identifies dust that appears on the images and automatically deletes it.
  3. Noise Reduction – this feature is built into the CMOS sensor to aid in preventing image noise when a higher ISO setting is selected.
  4. 10.1 megapixel CMOS sensor – this camera can produce 3904 x 2598 pixels and has a sensitivity range which varies from ISO 100 to 1600.
  5. Display-Off Sensor – it’s a bit annoying when light seeps into your eyes everytime you peek into a camera’s viewfinder. Canon 400D’s Display-Off Sensor attribute automatically switches off whenever the photographer’s face is pressed to the viewfinder.
  6. Picture Style – this function presents various “film emulsion” choices to photographers in order for them to take advantage of the different options to utilize exceptional color, saturation and resolution to suit a certain subject or particular object.
  7. Three-layer optical low-pass filter - this characteristic focuses on helping the camera reduce chromatic deviation or abnormality and color fringing. It makes up for artificial red coloration brought about by infrared rays.

If you’re still not satisfied with this camera’s fine focal points, then maybe mentioning a few more worthy features will make you run out the door to avail your very own Canon 400D.

The Canon 400D is a great DSLR camera for beginners, who prefer this type of camera over the regular point-and-shoot ones, as its controls are very clear-cut and it has basic icons and icons for easier comprehension. It consists of standard exposure modes which include Manual, Shutter-Priority Speed, Aperture Priority, Full Auto, Auto Depth of Field and Program. As mentioned a while ago, beginners will have a fun time taking photographs with this camera since it is equipped with a Full Auto Mode which will give novice photographers superb results.

Newbies often enjoy chimping. This term simply means looking at a taken photo consecutively—shoot, look at the picture, shoot, look at the picture. It’s not really an offense but most newbies are identified with this habit. However, with Canon 400D’s 2.5 inch LCD monitor, chimping won’t be a problem any longer since it displays your pictures clearly.

If your concern is about the battery life, there’s no need to worry. Once the battery is fully charged, you are guaranteed to enjoy it throughout the day. The camera’s weight won’t be a problem as well since it’s quite light so you can take photographs without complaining about aching arms when you wake up the next day.

Of course, nothing is perfect in this world. The Canon 400D also has its weak points and one of it is its smallish grip which is a major complain by photographers who has medium-sized hands or bigger. This next snag is for serious photographers who have discovered the beauty of shooting in RAW format. Shooting in RAW format makes the camera lag for a few seconds, this is a problem because a photographer has to wait before he can shoot another picture.

Evidently, not all photographers opt to shoot in RAW format. So disregarding this matter the Canon 400D is a good choice for those who are planning to take up photography as their form of relaxation. Of course, professionals and amateurs will surely benefit from this camera too as it has a lot of features that can be quite useful to all photographers.