Blackberry Bold 9700 is here !

The buzz in the world of communication today is smart phones. Every company is vying the market potential of smart phone with their innovative product launches. From Apple to Google, iPhone to Android-based phones and with the latest iPad, options have more than doubled for high-end consumers. Indians get another option in the smart phone category as Canadian mobile phone manufacturer Research in Motion, the world leader in wireless technology, launched Blackberry Bold 9700 for the Indian market. The Smartphone arena is getting hotter!

Here are some specifications of a sleek and elegant Blackberry Bold 9700 that is packed with multimedia and mélange of communication features:

• Blackberry Bold 9700 has 2.44 inch TFT- LCD (Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display) with 480 x 360 pixel bright and high resolution.

• Similar to Blackberry Curve, Bold 9700 is equipped with track pad navigation system. It consists of Full QWERTY keyboard.

• It supports 3G HSDPA network and is powered by 256 MB on-board flash memory and 624 MHz processor. It is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology enabled. If you wish to expand memory you can insert micro SD card.

• One can click photos with 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus and 2X digital zoom, multimedia player and video camera.

• Blackberry Bold 9700 comes with new operating system and that is Blackberry Messenger 5. However users need couple of upgrades to make it stable.

• Blackberry Bold 9700 measures 4.29 inches in height, 2.36 inches in width and 122 Gms in weight.

• Battery has standby time of 21 days and has talk time of up to six hours.

• Security feature in Blackberry Bold 9700 includes screen lock, password protection and sleep mode.

Blackberry bold 9700 is available in India through Blackberry, Airtel and Vodafone retailers.

However, to woo customers, I personally felt that it lacked exciting features. Let’s see how Blackberry penetrates Indian Smartphone market with Bold 9700. It is priced just around Rs 32000 in Indian market.

Google brings Nexus One to enter into Smartphone arena

Here is the internet supergiant Google in the world of smartphone with its latest product Nexus One and in direct competition with Apple iPhone. Google is now vying the smart phone market and is trying to establish and build its market presence in the world of communication coupled with Web technology.

Nexus One is powered by Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1 and Snapdragon 1GHz core processor. It is the look of the latest Google smart phone that is mind blowing. Nexus One is slimmer, slightly thinner as well as lighter than the iPhone. Nexus One measures 119mm in height, 59.8mm in width and 11.5mm in depth. Additionally, the weight of Nexus One is slightly lighter than iPhone that is 130 gms in comparison to 135gms of iPhone. This high-end smart phone from Google is Android’s signature gadget.

The display of Google’s smart phone will be through 3.7 inch WVGA-AMOLED capacitive touch screen with picture clarity of 800 x 480 pixels. It is through this screen that most of the navigation happens and is quite a pleasure to watch. The snapdragon processor is fast and is able to handle multiple applications without much discomfort.

Officially the phone has up to 7 hours of talk time, 5 hours of internet use and up to 250 hours of standby time on 3G, 7 hours of video playback and 20 hours of audio playback.

Now we see how the new Google Nexus One gives competition to other Smartphones, specially with Apple iPhone.

Keep Reading !

Smartbooks: The perfect hybrid of a Netbook and Smartphone

After smartphones, it’s Smartbooks now.

Smartbook is a mobile device that is a fusion of a smarphone and a netbook, they are the netbooks with the connectivity and battery life of a smartphone.

Though there aren’t much details available on its exact tech specs, let’s try to find out the features that makes it smart:

• Instant-on access: When switched on, the device turns on instantly, much like smartphones.
• 3-g connectivity: You can enjoy mobile broadband speed provided by your network carrier.
• Battery life – Week long standby and 8-10 hours charge
• Built-in GPS – Helps you in locating places and directions.
• CPU Configuration: A 1 GHz CPU and 600 MHz DSP
• Screen Resolution : A high definition WXGA( 1280 x 768)
• The OS is anticipated to be a Linux-based Instant-On operating system.
• It will possess a display having a size of somewhere in 10-12 inch (diagonally) range.
• It will come with a QWERTY keyboard.

The Tech giant, Lenovo will be the first one to launch a smartbook powered with a ARM (Advanced Risc Machines) based chip called Snapdragon, manufactured by Qualcomm.

AT&T has tied up with Lenovo taking up the role of distributor and they use a chip called snapdragon manufactured by ARM (Advanced Risc Machines). The first Smartbook will be seen in market in JAN 2010.

Pegatron, an Asus copany, is working towards their Smartbooks using Freescale ARM Cortex- A8 processor and 512 MB DDR2 RAM, 1024 X 600 LCD screen.

Acer also has joined the race of Smartbooks and is expected to come up with one of it’s very soon. The price tags are predicted to be around $200.

As we see days nearing for Smartbook’s launch, it would be interesting to see how well this concept seeps into consumers.

Motorola Droid : The latest Android phone

Motorola droid is one of the most hyped and talked about smart phones that is going to make its way to the market on 6^th Nov 2009. The phone is powered with the Android version 2.0 and is expected to show a noticing leap in the over all performance as compared to other android mobile phones. This CDMA phone comes with Verizon wireless network. Let’s see what makes it better or at least at par with other smart phones.

The Tech-Spec:

• The processor: Arm Cortex A8 (600MHz, OMAP 3430). This brings a significant improvement in the speed specially while switching from one app to another.
• It possesses 256MB RAM and 512MB ROM.
• Screen: 3.7 inch touch screen with a resolution of 480 x 854. It is not a multi- touch screen, a point worth noting.
• Keyboard: It sports both a physical and an onscreen QWERTY keyboard. The sleek slide out physical keyboard has a toggle bar similar to RIM’s Blackberry trackball where as there are no enhancements in the onscreen keyboard.
• Camera: It is coupled with a 5 megapixel camera having 4X zoom, dual LED flash, automatic focus, image stabilization, real-time colour effects, scene modes, location tagging, and videos can be captured at 740 x 380 resolution, upto 24fps and playback up to 30fps. It also has image editing tools.
• Connectivity: It has Stereo Bluetooth Technology v2.1, WiFi 802.11, micro USB connector, provides support for Corporate calendar, email and contacts( Exchange 2003 and 2007), Google contacts, calendars, Gmail, Facebook contacts
• Battery power: Up to 385 min of usage time and standby time up to 270 hrs.
• Messaging: Includes email (corporate, Gmail, IMAP, POP3, Attachment and browser document viewer), MMS, SMS, IM (Gtalk), Voice mail.
• Navigation: It has come up with beta version of new navigation service that tells us the real-time direction, turn by turn in collaboration with Google maps. Google provides a good combination of its satellite, map, traffic and location info with text to speech directions. This is considered as one of the major enhancements.

With droid being the first mobile loaded with Android v2.0, it is a much awaited smart phone. Let’s wait and watch how well it grips the market.

Sony Ericsson Satio 

 Satio, a Sony Ericsson product, launched in market on 7^th Oct, 2009 will definitely leave you amazed with it’s the startling features. You might call it a perfect blend of a whooping cyber shot 12.1 megapixel camera, a walkman music player and of course a touch screen mobile phone. It has all the multi media features you can think a phone can have. This phone was first introduced in Barcelona with a name ‘Idou’. Now to substantiate on the above claims, let’s have a brief overview of its tech specs: 

1. Camera:

• 12.1 Megapixel Camera
• Upto 12x digital zoom
• Auto focus, intuitive touch focus
• Xenon Flash
• Face and smile detection.
• Geotagging
• VGA 30 f/s Video recording
• Photo Editing
• Best Pic 

1. Dimension : 112 x 55 x 13.3 mm
2. Weight : 126 gm
3. Screen: 3.5 inches, 16:9 widescreen, TFT Screen, Accelerometer Sensor
4. Resolution : 640 x 360 pixels
5. Internal Memory: 128 MB, 256 MB RAM
6. Card Slot : MicroSD, expandable up to 32 GB
7. Colours : Black, Blue, Bordeaux
8. OS : Symbian Series 60, 5^th edition
9. CPU : ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz
10. Connectivity :

• In-Built Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth : v2.0 with A2DP
• USB : v2.0
• 3G : HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 3.6 Mbps
• TV Out

1. Keyboard : Onscreen QWERTY Keyboard
2. Battery Life :
3. Miscellaneous :

• Stand By : Up to 360 h (2G) / Up to 340 h (3G)
• Talk time : Up to 11 h (2G) / Up to 4h 50 Min (3G)

• HD and 3D Games
• FM Radio with RDS
• Facebook Application
• YouTube
• Google Maps
• Media Player, Bluetooth Stereo ( A2DP), Music Tones ( MP3/AAC)
• Web Feeds
• Document Readers/Editors
• GPS Positioning 

Satio comes with many other basic functionality along with the above mentioned ones. One striking change is the customization of the OS, as a result of which Satio features a tabbed homescreen with tabs that link to favourite app, gallery, contacts, network services etc. It comes with colour-matched Wireless stereo hands free. 

Satio provides you with ultimate multimedia experience, from HD Games to smooth High Definition video viewing, from GPS positioning to photo and document editing to a rich experience of a Digi Cam. What else do you want from a mobile phone? 

Last, but definitely not the least, its price – Rs 35,500 (Approx). Now, It’s for you to decide if Satio deserves to be your handset or not.

Music lovers should get ready for a phone that is exclusively dedicated to them, kudos to Samsung. It will soon, introduce in market, Samsung M3310 Dual slider which is termed as ‘a music phone’, however the launch date and price is still not known.                                                      

It is expected to be first launched in selected Asian Market. Let’s have a glance at the features of phone that have been revealed till now: 

• It sports a Dual Slider. When you slide it up you can use the alphanumeric keyboard and when you slide it down you can see the built in speakers.
• Dimensions : 101.8 x 46.9 x 15.9 mm ; Weight : 94 gm
• There are dedicated music control buttons.
• It comes with 40 MB of internal memory and also has MicroSD Card support for people who feel the internal memory won’t suffice them.
• It has a QVGA TFT display with 65 colours.
• For all camera admirers there is a reasonable 3.2 megapixel camera but it is still in dark if it is equipped with auto-focus feature or not.
• For connectivity you have Quad-Band GSM/EDGE and Bluetooth
• Another appreciable feature for music buffs is the FM Radio, which it possesses. 

All these features in concurrence with an unconventional trendy look, definitely makes it a good deal to own one (Subjected to price announcement!!).

LG unveiled NetTop XPION X30 

Its LGs turn now, after Asus and Acer, to make its mark in the race of slim and laconic PCs. LG has rolled out its first small desktop computer known as the XPION X30 that will be powered by the vaunted NVIDIA ION graphics. LG has done it with style, launching its first ever nettop, XPION X30 on 18 Sept, 2009 in its native market, Korea. 

Let’s have a quick look at the tech spec of this Ion based nettop: 

• It is powered with 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N230 processor.
• It also encloses 2 GB RAM, 250 GB HDD.
• It is pre-loaded with Windows vista, but is soon expected to come with Windows 7 (after its launch).
• Nvidia Ion (MCP7A) enables it to handle full 1080p HD video with 7.1 HD audio and supports DirectX10 which liberates you from the worries of sluggish behaviour of the system when playing a high definition video and a game simultaneously.
• With a weight of mere 1.54 kg, it draws a power of just 40 W.
• It sports a sliding cover on a 3.5” case, under which there are 6 USB ports , audio ports and a 4-in-1 memory card reader. 

The most scintillating feature of this nettop is its ability to get VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) mounted to an LCD.

Let’s wait and watch when LG plans to open up its nettop sale to other countries.