Say we’re behind the times and we’ll say just keep reading. But in the case of PocketSurfer2, the handy web-based device from wireless services/printer company Datawind and we might admit to some tardiness.
Launched before Christmas in the UK at the recommended retail price of £180, PocketSurfer2 is a mobile web device that lets you surf for free via GPRS for 20 hours per month. Traffic over this amount is charged at around £5 per month.
Perhaps the closeness comparison is the wi-fi-only Nokia N810 Web Tablet, which with a touchscreen and QWERTY keypad, retails for £280 (although PocketPicks recently picked up the earlier touchscreen-only N770 on eBay for £80 plus P&P).
As for PocketSurfer2, it’s a closed device that uses Internet Explorer as the browser on a Linux-based OS with some proprietary special compression sauce from Datawind combining to offer a “full internet experience” - at least as much as you can have on a 640 x 240 VGA backlit colour screen (i.e. it involves some side-to-side scrolling on most web pages).
Continue reading ‘PocketSurfer2 - the GPRS web device - Germany bound’
Samsung’s ultra-durable ruggedised handset – the Solid - is finally being released in the UK courtesy of O2.
Manufacturers don’t release enough handsets like this. It’s all very well having a swanky new iPhone or N96 8GB, but as soon as you drop it or use it in the rain you’re scared it’s not going to work. If you’re working on building sites or have an active lifestyle, then you need something that’s going to bounce of the ground and carry on working.
Originally due in December on Orange, the Solid is shock, water and dust resistant being encased as it is in a thick rubber body. It has a FM radio, Bluetooth and a camera, but also a built-in flashlight. Cool.
Another cool unique feature is SOS Dialling. If the owner gets into trouble, pressing the volume button three times sends an alert message to a nominated person. The next incoming call is then automatically answered. Handy in an emergency, but not, we think, if you’re struggling to catch the bus home from work.
Anyway, if you want one, the Solid’s available free on all O2 12 month contracts, or £59.99 on pre-pay.
Mobile phones with some high-profile, non-mobile branding seems to be all the rage with manufacturers and retailers at the moment, what with Samsung’s Armani phone, and Carphone’s Ted Baker and phones. Now Motorola’s got in on the act with its new Ferrari phone.
While most deals like this feature new or original handsets, Motorola’s gone for the easy option and basically slapped a Ferrari badge on a reasonably-old handset, the Z8 RIZR.
To be fair, the Z8 isn’t actually that bad a phone but this new limited edition isn’t exactly going to set the world alight. As well as a Ferrari logo plastered on the side, the Moto Z8 Ferrari Limited Edition, comes with two pre-loaded Ferrari videos, registration to the official Ferrari website, custom Ferrari wallpapers and ringtones and direct internet links to magazines like Top Gear, Auto Express, GQ, Esquire and Autosport. And like the standard Z8 release, you also get a bundled copy of The Bourne Identity movie.
Sadly, this won’t even be out in time for Christmas either, as it’s not going to be out until early next year from Ferrari and Motorola’s main retailers. Oh well…
IntoMobile’s reviewed the SE W960i and it’s verdict? Well it’s both good and bad apparently.
Sony Ericsson’s ‘iPhone killer’ sounds like it almost lives up to the billing but doesn’t quite surpass Nokia’s latest NSeries handsets like the N95 8GB, according to Intomobile.
This follows Mobile Review’s recent report on their experience with it, concluding that ‘it doesn’t have much going for it’.
Intomobile says the 3.2-megapixel camera does the job and the phone has a whole wealth of pre-installed applications as well as 3G/Wi-Fi but unfortunately no HSDPA, and the Media Manager software is nice and quick when transferring files.
But despite being ‘the most beautiful UIQ 3 smartphone ever made’ and offering the ‘best out-of-the-box music experience on any UIQ 3 smartphone’ it still has some flaws.
There’s no 3.5mm jack despite being a high-end music handset and only a single speaker built in (although it does have stereo Bluetooth).
However the biggest problem seemed to be the UIQ 3 OS. Like Marmite, UIQ seems to split people in a way Symbian never does - you either love UIQ or hate it. Intomobile were of the opinion that UIQ 3 still isn’t perfect and while current UIQ users will love the device, those coming from a Windows Mobile or Symbian device might struggle to get to grips with the W960i’s menu system.
So that settles it then. The W960i is a great handset… and yet not a great handset. You can read the review for yourself here.
Channel Five’s The Gadget Show has reviewed Sony Ericsson’s latest smartphone on its WebTV site and the conclusion? It’s not as good as Apple’s iPhone or Nokia’s N95.
The reviewer, John Bentley, said he had hoped the P1i would be a good alternative to the other two now ubiquitous handsets but he was sadly disappointed.
He liked the camera and music player and that was about it. They keypad, web browser, Wi-Fi (Which he couldn’t get to work), design and the fact that SMS messages are set up for only 70 characters (You have to manually select 160 characters) all came in for criticism.
It’s a shame for Sony Ericsson but then I’m sure sales of its K800-series cameraphones and W-Series walkmans more than make up for it.
The Beeb has been quick to experiment with the iPhone’s capability for web applications, with the first fruits being its BBC Podcasts site. It lets you browse the broadcaster’s radio podcasts by station, genre or title (an A-Z list). I wrote about it earlier this month, but have been having a play with it to see how it shapes up.
It’s well designed, with a clean and easily navigable interface mirroring the way the iPod feature works on the iPhone. Clicking through (that should be thumbing through, really) to the podcast gives you a paragraph of textual description of the overall podcast, as well as a description of each individual podcast, along with their duration.
But what’s good is the Play button, which lets you stream these podcasts directly to your iPhone over Wi-Fi using Quicktime streaming - which again, means the controls for pausing and controlling the volume work in exactly the same way as the iPod feature.
Continue reading ‘iPhone Web Apps No. 2: BBC Podcasts’
The latest installment of the Pocket Picks iPhone review concerns the two most high-profile Web 2.0 apps on the handset: YouTube and Google Maps. They’re both the result of Apple palling up with Google, despite the latter having its own mobile ambitions with the Android platform.
YouTube first, then. It lets you browse the popular video-sharing site by Featured vids, Most Viewed, Top Rated, Most Recent, and using a Search function. In the case of Most Viewed, you can narrow it down to today, this week, or all-time depending on your preference. On the iPhone, you can see how YouTube is a good dip-in dip-out experience, in that you fire up the app, watch a few videos to kill time, then duck out again.
Choosing a video switches iPhone into widescreen mode, and the quality is pretty good (obviously, you’ll want to be using the iPhone’s wi-fi connection rather than EDGE). Once watched, you can bookmark them, share (this sends an email with the link in), and click straight through to a bunch of related vids. The only disappointment is there’s no way to read or post comments, or even ratings.
Continue reading ‘UK iPhone Review Part 5: YouTube and Google Maps’
This is the first of many posts in which I’m going to look at cool and interesting iPhone Web Apps - websites that have been made available in special iPhone-optimised versions. First up is book publisher HarperCollins with its Browse Inside site.
It lets you read the first few pages of a bunch of the publisher’s latest books, navigating by an A-Z author and title lists, or by checking out the most popular books. As a guide, the latter list currently includes Lewis Hamilton’s autobiography, Gordon Ramsay’s ‘Playing with Fire’, Doris Lessing’s ‘The Grass is Singing’, and the Dangerous Book For Boys yearbook.
Clicking through takes you to a summary screen for each book, with a Read button to go through to the pages, which you can zoom in and out of using iPhone’s Safari browser. They’re images of the actual pages, too, not just the basic text. Each has a Buy button too, which takes you through to Amazon’s own iPhone-enabled site. Browse Inside is a neat idea that’s well-implemented, and certainly useful if you’re thinking of buying books for people this Christmas.
Link: http://mobile.harpercollins.co.uk
Apple is clearly pitching the iPhone as “Your New Primary Music Device”, with the idea being that you can junk your iPod and just use the iPhone for music and calls alike. Trouble is, there’s a few issues preventing me from doing that. For starters, at 8GB, the capacity is a bit on the small side if you’ve got a sizeable digital collection - 16GB would have hit the spot better, although that’s down to limitations of flash memory.
More annoying is the headphone jack, which is recessed, and thus doesn’t fit a lot of third-party headphones, including my two Sennheiser pairs. As a result, you’re left either stuck with the white earbuds that come with the iPhone, or you have to spend £8 or so on a special adapter from the Apple Store. Swizz, to say the least.
However, as far as I can make out, the sound quality is good, with a range of EQ settings available through the main Settings menu on the iPhone. Getting music onto the device could be easier though, since on iTunes you can’t just drag and drop songs across as you would with an iPod: you have to set up a playlist to be synced, and drag them into that. I’m not sure why.
Continue reading ‘UK iPhone Review Part 4: iPod and the iTunes Wi-Fi Store’
I’ll come right out and say it: iPhone’s Achilles heel is its camera functionality. For a device with such a big hi-res screen and fluid interface, its camera is plain disappointing: not to mention no video recording feature or the still-baffling lack of MMS to send (or receive, for that matter) picture messages. Leaving MMS out smacks of a US-centric approach to the iPhone’s design: us Europeans might not use MMS that much yet, but it’s growing.
But first things first: iPhone’s camera is at least idiot-proof to use. Jab the camera icon on the homescreen, point, and press the shutter button to shoot. And that’s it: no flash, no shooting modes, no zoom, and no video option. There’s not even a Camera section in the iPhone’s Settings menu. It’s certainly easy to use, but it’s basic compared to all of its mobile competitors.
Continue reading ‘iPhone UK Review Part 3: The camera and photos’
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