Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Nokia N97 finally on sale
I haven't used a Nokia for years, but I have to say this one looks pretty nice!
On sale through Nokia for $699, but from Amazon for $603 by clicking here.
Vivid 3.5 inch Touchscreen
Full QWERTY Keyboard (screen tilts)
32GB internal memory plus memory card slot
5.0 Megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and auto focus
Full Support for Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Plazes - a small step towards location-based mobile presence
Yesterday I sent in an SMS update saying "Playing with plazes @ STRI" where STRI is the shorthand for the office I work in. Within a few seconds the following appeared as my status:
It had my status as "Playing with plazes" but more importantly gave me a location: It parsed out the location after the @ sign, compared it to the locations that I had defined previously on the Web, and gave me map coordinates in a town in Israel.
For some reason there's no map of that town at the resolution they're showing, but that's another thing. The key point here is that they've geo-tagged me from a simple SMS.
I assume that this feature will soon be incorporated into other mobile blogging systems, including Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger. In the meantime, check it out!
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Sony Ericsson rumored buying HTC
Rumours of a Possible Sony Ericsson Purchase of Taiwan's HTC
There are a series of unconfirmed reports that Sony Ericsson may be about to announce the purchase of Taiwan based smartphone manufacturer, High Tech Computer - or HTC. The reports are selective, ranging from a short article in a Swedish newspaper, Elektronik Tidningen to various reports of meetings with HTC being cancelled at short notice and without explanation, and although business meeting cancellations are not uncommon an excuse is usually provided.
HTC is best known for its range of smartphones and being an early developer of Windows based smartphones, although the history of how it leapt into that market is controversial. The company, which initially focused on operator branded handsets has been building up its own profile recently and started selling phones directly under the HTC brand name. The company is also reportedly working on an Android-based phone, dubbed the Dream, that will be on the market by the end of 2008.
HTC has denied the rumours, saying that they "have no truth". However, early last year, Peter Chou the company CEO did say that he thought that Sony Ericsson would make for a good partner should an acquisition occur.
Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1 will be manufactured by HTC - and will be the company's first Windows Mobile smartphone. The company has traditionally stuck with Symbian based smartphones.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
HTC Touch Pro - announced but not yet available
Touch Pro Press release
HTC Touch Pro Bridges Mobile Work With Mobile Play
Taipei, Taiwan - June 4, 2008 - HTC Corp., a global leader in mobile phone innovation and design, today unveiled its advanced next generation business phone, the HTC Touch ProTM. Bringing a beautiful new angle to mobile business productivity, the HTC Touch Pro utilizes similar styling and functionality of the highly anticipated Touch DiamondTM and introduces a variety of business-focused enhancements that make getting work done on the go quick and easy.
“The HTC Touch Pro and Touch Diamond have created a new generation of HTC touch devices that make the promise of the one-hand, one-touch mobile Internet a reality,” said Peter Chou, president and CEO, HTC Corp. “HTC Touch Pro is for those customers that demand the ease of use and enjoyment of TouchFLOTM 3D and want the styling of the Touch Diamond but also need the powerful mobile business experience that HTC delivers.”
A New Dimension To Touch - One hand, one touch
HTC has taken a great leap forward in touch screen innovation with its 3D touch interface called TouchFLO 3D. TouchFLO 3D provides a stunningly intuitive way to zip through common tasks like messaging, calendar appointments or making calls with just one touch. Delve a little deeper to find that your music, photos, contacts and surfing the web are also responsive to the touch. In addition, the Touch Pro includes a new innovative touch-sensitive control for device interaction.
Making The Mobile Internet Useful and Fun
With the introduction of Touch Diamond and Touch Pro, HTC delivers an entirely new mobile Internet experience that utilizes broadband-like speeds with HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA wireless connectivity. Committed to improving Web browsing, HTC provides a new customized mobile Web browser that enables easy viewing and effortless navigation of Websites in the way they are designed to be viewed on a PC. As part of this browsing experience users can zoom and pan Websites with one-hand and automatically view optimized content that has been specially created to fit the display. Turning the device sideways automatically rotates the web page view from a portrait to landscape view.
In addition to Web browsing, the Touch Pro includes an HTC-developed, YouTube application for watching a variety of user generated video content as well as including Google Maps for mobile for mapping and traffic data.
Unmatched Style With Complete Productivity
Like the Touch Diamond, Touch Pro is crafted with precision to fit comfortably in a user’s hand and brings together elegant touch screen response with the direct precision of HTC’s trademark sliding keyboard design. Introducing a new five-row QWERTY keyboard layout that makes typing-intensive tasks like composing email or working on Microsoft Office® documents quick and easy. Built-in TV-out functionality means users can deliver the perfect PowerPoint® presentation from the Touch Pro.
Bursting with Innovation
The Touch Pro delivers an unrivalled combination of features and functionality. The 2.8 inch display provides near-print quality viewing that enables beautiful Web browsing and viewing of photographs. The built-in camera includes an optical auto-focus lens that ensures the photos you take will be clear and consistent. Advanced wireless and auto sensor screen pivoting are just a few of the features that make the Touch Pro experience a stand out.
AvailabilityThe HTC Touch Pro will be available to customers across all major European, Asian and the Middle East markets in late summer. The North American and Latin American versions of Touch Pro will be available later in 2008.
Key HTC Touch Pro Specifications:
- Size: 102 x 51 x 18.05mm
Weight: 165 g
Connectivity: WCDMA / HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA
Operating system: Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
Display: 2.8-inch VGA touch screen
Camera: 3.2MP, with video calling
Internal memory: 512 MB flash, 288 MB RAM
Expansion Slot: microSDTM memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
Keyboard: Slide-out 5 row QWERTY keyboard
Bluetooth: 2.0 with EDR
Wireless: WiFi 802.11b/g
GPS: GPS/AGPS
Interface: HTC ExtUSB (mini-USB and audio jack in one; USB 2.0 High-Speed)
Battery: 1350 mAh
Talk time: GSM: up to 8 hours
Standby time: GSM: up to two-weeks
Chipset: Qualcomm® MSM 7201A 528MHz
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Great sale price on 8gb memory card for TyTN (microSD)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012Y2LLE?ie=UTF8&tag=tytn-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0012Y2LLE
And 4gb is only $18!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000SMVQK8?ie=UTF8&tag=tytn-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000SMVQK8
This much memory makes it possible to carry around a lot of media, both music and movies, on your TyTN or other device that can take MicroSD cards. I recently got a full-length movie down to about 70mb by sizing it for the TyTN, so 4gb or 8gb makes the TyTN a pretty solid media device.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Site for mobile blog browsing: mippin.com
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Back to mobile blogging...
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Dual-SIM smartphone (but not from HTC)
Haier's booth was way in the back of one of the halls at CES, but we wanted to swing by to see if (and when) the company would be bringing its cell phones to the United States. The PR rep wasn't exactly forthcoming, but we did get a brief tour of the models the company is hoping to bring here. The most interesting of the bunch was the HG-N99, and we can only hope that it actually arrives on our shores (Haier says it is in talks with U.S. carriers).
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Amazon released Kindle e-book reader
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Make a recharger from Gatorade and an onion
Sunday, September 16, 2007
HTC TyTN 2 review and differences
http://www.tracyandmatt.co.uk/blogs/index.php/2007/09/07/htc_tytn_ii_review
It's also now been announced by AT&T in the USA, called the AT&T Tilt, here:
http://mobilitysite.com/2007/09/att-tilt/
Looking at the high points, the basic specs are:
TyTN II Hardware Specification:
- Windows Mobile 6
- Tilted 2.8” 240*320 QVGA touch screen
- Sliding QWERTY keyboard
- built-in GPS
- 3 mega-pixel auto focus camera
- VGA camera for 3G/UMTS video-calling
- HTC Home menu screen
- Tri-band UMTS with Quad-band GSM/GPRS/Edge
- HSDPA up to 3.6 Mbps HSUPA
- ROM 256MB and RAM 128MB
- 360 degree 3 way jog wheel paired with OK button
- microSD card slot
- WiFi 802.11 b/g , Bluetooth 2.0
- TouchFLO Technology
The biggest differences from the HTC TyTN (first model) seem to be GPS, TouchFLO technology (although not as complete as on the HTC Touch), Windows Mobile 6, improved camera (3mp with autofocus), faster data connectivity (HSDPA/HSUPA), and the keyboard tilt.
IMHO, the most important of these are GPS, TouchFLO, and camera quality. GPS is simply nice to have, the the review goes into some detail there. Camera quality is important, since I've written before that the TyTN has limitations as an always-with-you camera. As for TouchFlo, it's not clear now much they've included, but any improvements to the interface are good.
Enjoy! Comments welcome, especially links to additional info on the new device!
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
New TyTN 2 video from another blog
The new HTC TyTN 2 has arrived to the market.
This video doesn't show it being used, but shows what it looks like coming out of the box.
I'll post more here when there's coverage of the device in action...
Sunday, August 26, 2007
HTC TyTN 2 details released
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Second iPhone look: one-handed multi-touch
Bottom line, I'll stick with my TyTN for now. Although I'm curious about a future HTC Touch with touch interface on a TyTN... (come on, HTC, let's see it...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfItpe6TeLs
Sunday, July 08, 2007
A TyTN-user's perspective on the iPhone
I put a short video clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN1ngdB3S5g
Technically, the biggest deal about the iPhone is the quality of the graphics, not just the resolution, but the amazing speed of response. Scrolling feels like scrolling, 3d effects look fantastic. Screen response is instantaneous. And let's face it, on my TyTN and on other Windows Mobile machines I've seen, it's nowhere near as good.
Most other cool features are a consequence of this -- multi-touch, touch-and-rub scrolling, and so on. The soft keyboard is very cool with pop-up balloon-letters showing what you've typed. And the zooming browser is nice. All are consequences of blinding-fast high-resolution graphics.
But I'm not interested in buying one, because I like the TyTN's keyboard too much, and also like 3g connectivity too much. But if HTC can come out with a version of the HTC Touch with graphics as high-resolution and quick-response as the iPhone, with the HTC-style keyboard and 3-g, I'll be very tempted.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Yahoo OneSearch - very good but not revolutionary
In general, it seems like a decent mobile search system. But it doesn't seem anywhere near as revolutionary as they describe in articles like this and this. When I put in a search query, I got a list of links. It was a well-structured list of links, roughly 3 screens of scrolling on my TyTN, combining web links, mobile web links, pictures, etc. But it wasn't what they claim, which is "instant answers with no need to sift through a bunch of links."
To be clear, I bookmarked it, and I think it's a good mobile search system. But when they build it up with the "get answers instead of links" kind of pitch, it's disappointing when they don't deliver what they pitch, even if what they delivered is good.
The URL above also has links to Yahoo's other mobile systems, such as mail, address book, calendar, directions, financial info, etc.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Mobile webmail on TyTN and other Windows Mobile devices
For my primary e-mail account I definitely prefer POP3, but for other addresses that I don't use as often, or if I want to selectively delete messages from the server, the mobile browser based webmail systems are getting much better.
Yahoo: http://us.wap.yahoo.com/p/mail?_dm=0
Hotmail: http://www.hotmail.com (redirects)
GMail: http://gmail.com/
there's also mobile browser access to MSN messenger and other MSN services at:
http://mobile.msn.com
Getting better and better!
Comments welcome...