Technodorm » Cellular Phones

Blackberry Tour 9630 Review

Fahad — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:37:22 +0000

The Blackberry Tour is one of RIM’s latest devices and aims to bring much needed improvements to the popular Smartphone series. That said, it should be noted that this is not a Blackberry Curve replacement. Although they share similar dimensions and design cues, the Tour is a whole different story compared to its brother the venerable Curve 8300.

DESIGN:

If you take a look at the Curve and the Tour it’s clear to see they have an obvious resemblance, but at the same time, admire the differences between the two. The Blackberry Tour would remind you of what would happen if the Curve and Bold made love and out popped a baby phone. The device is sleek and slender measuring just 4.4 inches high by 2.4 inches wide and only 0.6 inches thick. Weight is a mere 4.58 ounces.

The screen is 2.6 inches with 480 x 360 pixels and over 65,000 colors. The phone features a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus and image stabilization, video capture, 2x digital zoom and geo tagging. Also included is a Bluetooth 2.0 chip which accepts hands free, stereo headset and Phone Book Access. A standard 3.5mm jack is also included. The different networks supported are CDMA 800/1900 with support for EVDO. Rev A. a SIM card slot is also included so roaming is supported on the 850/900/1800 and 1900MHz GSM/GPRS and EDGE networks.

Full QWERTY keyboard and a 1400 mAHr removable battery that is rated at 5 hours of talk time and up to 14 hours of standby time are all included.

PERFORMANCE:

Blackberry’s have long been known for the stellar call quality, top of the line messaging support and more recently, great multimedia functionality, all of which have been bundled together in the Blackberry Tour.

The full QWERTY keyboard is beautiful and typing is a pleasure. The keyboard is more in line with that of the Blackberry Bold and keys are not too firm and not too soft. Plus, thanks to a special coating, slipping and sliding on the keys due to sweating fingers is not a problem.

The 3.2 megapixel camera is decent. While it didn’t take the best quality picture we’ve seen on a mobile device is was still comparable to most and colors were accurate. Video recording quality on the other hand was not the best. While not as bad as the Curve, there were still some pixilation and jitters.

Messaging is still the best. Being a Blackberry owner myself, I never knew how much I loved my email until I got one. The Tour brings all the messaging functionality the Blackberry is known for and thanks to Blackberry OS 5.0, support and integration is tighter then before.

Call quality was, as always, great. Voices sounded crisp and clear without a hint of any noise. Speaker phone was also good but still not hitting the mark that the Bold has set. While we’re at it, WiFi is nonexistent on this device thanks to Verizon. That said you will be stuck with either Sprint or Verizon’s high-speed 3G network when data is required.

Speaking of data, we did find that the JAVA based browser wasn’t comparable to that of the iPhone, Pre or Skyfire. While it is a great improvement from Blackberry OS 4.3 it still needs some work as pages don’t always render right and sometimes the CSS is screwed up.

During our battery drain tests we were able to pull a full 6 hours of continuous talk time out of the device.

CONCLUSION:

Out of all the Blackberry’s to come out in recent years, the Tour seems to be one of the best. No, it hasn’t reinvented the wheel, but rather RIM has wisely chosen to refine the features that define the Blackberry. Have they succeeded? Yes!

Windows Mobile 6.5 Review

Fahad — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 03:58:57 +0000

Microsoft has long been a major player in the Smartphone software industry. In fact they were one of the first (just behind Palm). However, in recent years, they have seen a slew of attacks from other players. Blackberry has become the defector king for those concerned about security and messaging. Android has come out of nowhere to court some of Microsoft’s major partners, whereas Apple has created a Smartphone that even a baby could use. Palm on the other hand has shocked everyone with their Pre, the one device that can truly be called an iPhone killer.

With the new onslaught Microsoft has sought to ramp up production on its Windows Mobile platform. Windows Mobile 6.5 is supposed to be the next step just before Windows Mobile 7 which will finally bring long awaited features such as multi-touch, better browsers, etc, to the fledging platform. So how does it stack up? Is it a worthy upgrade from Windows Mobile 6.1?

Windows Mobile 6.5 is not a radical change from version 6.1. Rather it’s more like what Snow Leopard is to Tiger on the Mac OS (sorry Mac fans). Design wise, it has been reworked and many of the outdated icons and menus have been replaced.

In the latest craze for touch UI’s, Microsoft has updated the UI of Windows Mobile to be more finger friendly. Menu text is bigger, icons are also larger and more spaced and in general the UI seems more on the lines of a design that were thought out sans a stylus.

The “Today Screen” has been reworked and now resembles that of the Zune HD. For those still stuck in 2003, the old “Today Screen” is still there, but we will say the new version is a whole lot better. Speaking of UI, there is also a new addition to the improvements which include a “Honeycomb” Start screen which as it would sound would remind you of a bees hive honeycomb. As we said before, the outdated icons are gone and have been replaced with more moderns ones.

The lock screen has been reworked. Microsoft has implemented a design that allows you to go right to the location you wanted when you unlock your screen. For instance when you get a new text message or email the lock slider changes so that when you unlock you phone it carries you right to your inbox for you to read your message.

One of the bigger additions to Windows Mobile 6.5 has been the revamped Internet Explorer. We will be frank, it’s not up to par with the iPhone web browser but Microsoft deserves credit for reworking their crappy excuse of a browser to include better zoom and pan features as well as full support for HTML and a new JavaScript engine. It would be interesting to see how feature rich the web browser is in Windows Mobile 7.

Windows Mobile 6.5 has gotten a marketplace as well. Windows Marketplace is Microsoft’s version of the App Store, App Catalog or Android Marketplace. The store is available on Windows Mobile 6, 6.1 and 6.5 devices. While not the best designed application store, is does provide a way for Windows Mobile users to get all the apps they want in one place.

Overall the improvements of Windows Mobile are great. Microsoft has really made an effort to speed up the development of Windows Mobile and version 6.5 is a worthy upgrade. It might not carry all the fancy animation as webOS or the iPhone but it is still one of the most mature Smartphone brands and deserves a look.

The only thing you should have a problem with, is deciding which one of the many Windows Mobile 6.5 devices suits your style.

Nokia N97 Officially Released!

Fahad — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:20:57 +0000

Nokia has officially released information regarding their 2009 flagship phone, the N97! The N97 comes fully loaded with all the latest specs and more!

Featuring a 3.5-inch, 640 x 360 pixel touchscreen display with tactile feedback and QWERTY keyboard, Nokia calls it the “worlds most advanced mobile computer”. Nokia N97 also has HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth radios, A-GPS, 3.5-mm headjack, 32GB of onboard memory with microSD expansion (for up to 48GB of total capacity). The N97 also features strong battery power to keep this beast running non-stop. The battery is capable of 1.5 days of continuous audio playback or 4.5 hours of video playback. The N97 also features a 5 Megapixel camera. It is powered by Nokia S60 5th Edition operating system. The following videos show more info about the phone.

The N97 will launch with a retail price set at around €550 ($693) excluding subsidies and taxes. It is expected to be shipped by H1 2009.

[Via Engadget]

Download Pwnage Tool 2.0 to Unlock iPhone 2.0

Fahad — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:15:24 +0000

The much awaited Pwnage Tool 2.0 has just been released a few hours ago! Pwnage Tool 2.0 is the name of the software which allows for the unlocking of iPhone of versions 2.0 firmware. So you can use this software to unlock the 2.0 firmware for iPhone 3G, iPhone, and iPod Touch!

You can view the official blog entry posted by iPhone Dev Blog by clicking here. As you can see, their server crashed over the heavy load of downloads, so mirror links are being sought after. I have provided various mirror links from rapidshare to megaupload to torrents.

Note: This release is only for Mac users but windows users can also install and use this tool. For the tutorial click here.

Also Note: If at anytime, you get an error 1600. Following is the extract from iPhone Dev Blog:

If you get Error 1600 from iTunes (or if you see in your log a failure to prepare x12220000_4_Recovery.ipsw), try: mkdir “~/Library/iTunes/Device Support” ; if that directory already exists, remove any files in it. Then re-run PwnageTool.

Download Links

Download Pwnage Tool 2.0 from Rapidshare

Download Pwnage Tool 2.0 from Rapidshare #2

Download Pwnage Tool 2.0 from Megaupload

Download Pwnage Tool 2.0 from Torrent

Download Pwnage Tool 2.0 from Mirror Link

Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta – Download Now

Fahad — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:31:06 +0000

Opera software have released beta of their much awaited iPhone safari “killer” web browser Opera mobile 9.5. The beta is named “9.51b1? and is available on opera mobile website as a download. The browser though in beta is far better than the aging internet explorer web browser. The beta currently available only for touch based devices has been tested on all HTC make pocket PCs, though it is said to work on others too. Some features are currently disabled and would be released in next version of the beta. Also the beta is available only in English language.

According to opera software, known issues are:

ActiveX is disabled – Flash plug-ins and embedded video streaming do not work.
Custom IME’s (like HTC’s IME) will be buggy at best, not working at worst.
Not multilingual build – Only English is supported. Problems with other languages (and input methods) are not unexpected.
Installation on memory cards may cause problems.
Text wraps in overview mode.
Main testing has been done on English HTC devices (Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, Touch, Touch Dual, Touch Cruise, TyTN and Wizard) and Samsung i900.
We have got reports from some users that this build will disable the phones sounds/notifications.

To download Opera Mobile 9.5, click here.
This post by Maverick. Check out his website at SoundMobiles.com.

Unlock iPhone 3G using Pwnage Tool 2.0

Fahad — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:06:00 +0000

The iPhone Dev team have done it again! The iPhone 3G with the new 2.0 firmware has been shown to be fully unlocked in this youtube video given by the iPhone Dev team. The tool is called Pwnage Tool 2.0. Although the bad news is that the tool hasn’t yet been released to the public. The team is still ironing out bugs and glitches with the Pwnage Tool 2.0 to make it as error-free as possible. From their recent blog entry, it seems like the tool will be released any day now. I will update this post with the download links as soon as the tool is released.

By using the Pwnage Tool 2.0, users will be able to fully unlock their iPhone 3G, which will then enable them to use their iPhone 3G with any GSM cellular network as well as being able to install third-party apps from the App Store.

Stay tuned for the download links.

Update(thanks to rallat for informing): Pwnage Tool 2.0 has just been released. To Download Pwnage Tool 2.0 click here.

CulArt, Stylish Concept Phone with Nature’s Help

Fahad — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 14:53:59 +0000

As you may know, I am an avid reader of Yankodesign. I like the technology designs concepts that they come up with. Today, I liked the new CulArt(pronounced Cool Art) cellphone design by Seungchan Lee. The main theme of the phone is to incorporate both the retro aspect as well as the nature’s gifts. As you can see from the image above , the wood paneling represents the idea of trees. Also, the rocky textured surface at the back of the phone represents rock climbing. So these two aspects cover the nature aspect of the phone.

The retro aspect is covered with an external bluetooth keypad(see image below). The keypad has a bunch of knobs that are used to access the basic functions of the phone. This does bring out the retro factor but at a great cost since its not really convenient to use your phone through an external keypad but still it is a creative idea and I will give it that. Overall, I really liked the idea of mixing both the retro and nature’s perspective. Although I really like the design, I doubt it will ever be made nor would it be very successful.

Comment posted by omar
at 1/29/2008 6:09:59 AM

wow! very nice cellphone…thanks for the information…i will talk about it on my blog…

Comment posted by Nathaniel
at 2/2/2008 7:26:04 AM

It looks nice! And does incorporate both aspects. The only complaint is the color of the wood at the bottom of it. I think that should be a different color

Comment posted by modifoo
at 2/1/2008 2:11:06 PM

Reminds me of a watch from the 90s, that was made of wood.

Love the idea of having nature in my hands.

Comment posted by Search rapidshare
at 2/5/2008 4:21:46 PM

This is freaking sweet! Web 2.0 phone shall we say?

Top 10 Most Intriguing Gadgets Released in December 2007

Fahad — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:02:55 +0000

Well, I had thought of doing a post like this earlier on in the month but for one reason or another it got delayed…. till today. This will be a very captivating post for many of the gadget and tech lovers of Technodorm. I have basically compiled a list of the top 10 most intriguing gadgets that were released in the past month of December 2007. I scavenged all the nice gadget and design sites to handpick these great and exciting gadgets plus some concepts. I picked them mostly on the basis of the nice ideas of the designers, creativeness and their usefulness. I am pretty sure that many people wont agree with this list and that is to be expected as these are my personal favorites and may not be much favorite of yours. This post has consumed my last couple of days on the net so I hope you like it! I would love to hear your comments about this post.

10. LLUON Crystal, an Ultra Slim Desktop from Trigem Computers, South Korea

This tiny computer, weighing in at 3 kilos and measuring at 45×277×244mm, should catch your attention. The specifications are not as tiny though, as both the type of models have an inter core 2 duo processor. The price ranges from 892€ to 1041€.
For more info, click here.

9. iPhone Platinum

From the precious metal enthusiasts at Goldstriker International, you can now buy a platinum-coated iPhone for about $2,230.
Click Here for more info.

8. Au releases high-res widescreen phone claiming to have a 2000:1 contrast ratio

Manufactured by Sharp, this phone has a 2.8-inch Acquos screen, 240 x 400 resolution and a 2000:1 contrast ratio.
Click Here for more info.

7. Wallet MP3 Player (Concept)

Walletex has produced a concept MP3 player named the Wallet MP3. Wallet MP3 is supposed to be a USB flash drive-based MP3 player, the thinnest MP3 player in the world and the world’s 1st wallet friendly credit card sized MP3 Player!
Click here for more info.

6. Spy Snooper Robot

This spy snooper robot is capable of entering a room undetected and listening in on conversations and then transmitting them up to 90 feet away to the listening receiver.
Click here for more info.

5. Micro TV (Concept)

This micro TV concept design by Tokyo Fiber really is an interesting piece of gadget. It is specifically designed to impact all your senses.
Click Here for more info.

4. Nokia Digital Pen

This latest Digital Pen SU-27W by Nokia can record writings and pictures from the Digital Note Book and store them in the 1.3mb built-in memory. So that later on, users can transfer the data into their telephone directory via USB or Bluetooth.
Click Here for more info.

3. Fingertip Sized Cube Speakers

These tiny 1-inch cube speakers are an easy to carry alternative to your headphones. Priced at just $9.99, these speakers have an amplification rated at 0.8 Watts. Not too shabby!
Click Here for more info.

2. Chocolaty Flash Drives (Concept)

These last two concept products are my favorites. This one is a bunch of USB flash drives that connect together with a central touchscreen, that lets you view and organize your files, to form the shape of a typical chocolate bar! Although it is a nice and very captivating design, its not of much use. The several smaller flash drives can get lost easily and this design is just not practical enough for the real world.
Click Here for more info.

1. Sony’s Apple Remote Control (Concept)

Now this may look like a product from Apple but it isn’t. This concept is designed to be a remote in the shape of an Apple for all the household members. Each can get their own shade of green apple. You can program your own functions into the remotes to suit it to your TV watching needs. The remote also responds to motion gestures. Rotating it left lowers the volume, rotating it right raises it. The stylish and elegantly looking bowl that they reside in, is perfect for showing some style. The bowl also recharges the Apples through induction charging!
Click Here for more info.

I hope you enjoyed this post. It took me a damn long time to find these gadgets and to incorporate them into this post. If you liked this post, please leave a comment. If this post gets to be popular then I will certainly continue the trend every month.
Have a great day everyone!

Comment posted by Pages tagged “intriguing”
at 1/29/2008 10:15:29 PM

[…] bookmarks tagged intriguing Top 10 Most Intriguing Gadgets Released in Decembe… saved by 6 others naruto22b bookmarked on 01/29/08 | […]

Comment posted by Becky
at 1/20/2008 2:14:06 PM

Enjoyed your post. Thanks for your hard work. I really like the Sony remote control. Let us know when it goes on the market.

Comment posted by Fahad
at 1/20/2008 3:28:58 PM

Thanks all.

@Becky
Your most welcomed. Even though it took me a long time to complete this post, it was fun as well seeing through all the great gadgets and then picking these 10. I am also a sucker for new and sleek gadgets…

Comment posted by Norski
at 1/21/2008 1:48:02 AM

Thanks for this post, and the effort it took to make.

I enjoyed getting a look at the new products (the Sony Apple Remote Control and the cube speakers remind me of something from my pre-digital childhood).

Also, your post gave me something to add to my “Apathetic Lemming of the North” (Shameless plug).

Comment posted by SadPanda
at 1/21/2008 4:40:43 AM

4 of them are concepts. Meaning: it only exists in the imagination of someone unknown who happens to be handy with photoshop.

Comment posted by Techman
at 1/19/2008 1:30:58 PM

Its an excellent and informative post!

Comment posted by Fahad
at 1/18/2008 11:48:58 AM

@Aaron
Thanks for your kind words. And I surely will be adding more quality content in the coming days so you will be glad that you subscribed!

@Keshav
Thanks buddy!
And the fingertip sized speakers is a nice little gadget. I personally don’t like to wear headphones and these will replace their use quite efficiently!

Comment posted by Edward
at 1/18/2008 11:08:39 PM

The iPhone… It’s so cool!

Comment posted by Aaron Wakling
at 1/15/2008 1:08:43 PM

I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.

Aaron Wakling

Comment posted by Fahad
at 1/26/2008 1:02:17 PM

@Chris
Yea, the wallet mp3 is really nice as well. And thanks for the info, its nice to know that its being made. It would be awesome to have the other concepts made as well.

Comment posted by bhaktapurgirl
at 1/23/2008 11:58:11 PM

its dammed good
thats the technology
thanks for sharing
bhaktapurgirl
mazzako.blogspot.com

Comment posted by Chris
at 1/24/2008 5:42:11 AM

@SadPanda
If you click the link below the wallet mp3 player, it seems like they’ve actually made one of those. It says on their website that its patent is still pending, but they should be on the market pretty soon.

All of this stuff is awesome, but I really love the credit card sized mp3 player.

Comment posted by Keshav Khera
at 1/18/2008 7:30:22 AM

great post buddy. my favorite are the Fingertip Sized Cube Speakers!

Transparent Cellphone Concept

Fahad — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:18:19 +0000

Well here is something you might not have seen before. Its a concept of an ultra-slim transparent cellphone. The design is made by Nao Tamura and is called the Cypress Mobile Phone. It features a transparent case, integrated camera, and an OLED display.

Source

Comment posted by Jake
at 1/11/2008 1:57:23 AM

Wow… This a very awesome concept. Very futuristic and cute. bookmarked it…

Comment posted by pligg.com
at 1/9/2008 11:24:24 AM

Transparent Cellphone Concept | Technodorm

Its a concept of an ultra-slim transparent cellphone. The design is made by Nao Tamura and is called the Cypress Mobile Phone. It features a transparent case, integrated camera, and an OLED display.

Comment posted by iCalvyn
at 12/21/2007 7:20:49 AM

this concept are nice, we can see if the component are nearly burn, or may be we could clean it if having dust insite

Nokia 8800 Arte and Nokia 8800 Arte Sapphire

Fahad — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:29:58 +0000

The Nokia 8800 Arte and Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte combine elegant appearance and uncompromised functionality. On the surface, the seamless metal and glass body gives the Nokia 8800 Arte and Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte an incomparable sense of style, while under the skin their hearts are driven by pure innovation. By tapping the steel surface below the display, an analogue clock appears – indicating time in its most classic form. Incoming calls on a Nokia Arte handset can be silenced gracefully with the “turn-to-mute” feature – allowing owners to quiet their phone inconspicuously by simply turning over the phone, screen-side down. Other state-of-the-art features include:

Stunning 2.0? QVGA 240×320 pixels, OLED display with up to 16 million colors
3.2 megapixel auto focus camera with 8x digital zoom
3G capabilities
1 GB built in memory space
MicroUSB all-in-one-connector
Anti-fingerprint coating on metal and glass

Both the Nokia 8800 Arte and Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte feature a high-end metal and glass composition, creating their classic, iconic style. A smooth slide mechanism – comprised of state-of-the art ball bearings and a unique spring mechanism – ensures each handset is a pleasure to touch and behold. The Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte adds to the sense of exclusivity by further enhancing its polished steel case with a genuine sapphire gem stone and an accent of soft leather, creating an even more rich, sensual feel.

The Nokia 8800 Arte will start shipping in the fourth quarter of 2007 with an estimated retail price of 1000 EUR before taxes and subsidies. The Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte will follow in the first quarter of 2008 and retail for approximately 1150 EUR before taxes and subsidies.

My thoughts: This is a pure beauty. It is definitely one of the most stylish and elegant phones of all time. The price is very much on the high side though, and you could buy 4 or 5 iphones with this kind of dough! But still this is an awesome looking phone!

Comment posted by pligg.com
at 1/9/2008 11:25:48 AM

Nokia 8800 Arte and Nokia 8800 Arte Sapphire | Technodorm

The Nokia 8800 Arte and Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte combine elegant appearance and uncompromised functionality. On the surface, the seamless metal and glass body gives the Nokia 8800 Arte and Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte an incomparable sense of style, while …