Posts Tagged ‘Mobile’

Another late Review – Samsung i5700 Galaxy Spica

A couple of weeks ago, we had gotten a hold of a Samsung i5700 Galaxy Spica and tested it with a 2.1 ROM. Same as always, we lack a proper tool to take the pictures (or host it, for that matter)

In this review, we use HTC Hero as the control phone for come comparison. Galaxy Spica is slightly heavier than a Hero, but is slightly thinner.

Speedwise, with its 800MHz processor, we wouldn’t call this a lightning speed, but its Android 2.1 ROM is indeed way more smooth and is noticeably faster than any given custom 2.1 Hero ROM up to date. We proceeded to re-flash the HTC Hero back to Android 1.5 nearly immediately.

There is a lot of buttons for this innocent i5700. Just by bottom of phone we have dial, hook/power, return, menu, search, home, four-way cursors, and an OK button. On the right side, there are also a camera key on the right side which is disabled in the 2.1 ROM, and a Lock-screen button. On the left side there’s volume control. To make things worse, the arrangement of the buttons are not quite easily adaptable, especially the Return button.

On battery life, we have no special complaint since it beats Hero quite comfortably, as we didn’t need to charge it in the middle of the day, while we can’t probably make the Hero pass 4PM even with a brand new official battery (Model TWIN160). Look, we had to recharge the Hero!

The 3 megapixel camera is quite impressive and is comparable with (if not better than) the quality of a 5 megapixel camera of an HTC phone.

With most Android handsets over US$400, Samsung Galaxy Spica’s price is virtually unbeatable – we can get it for below US$250 here, less than half of price of the Google Nexus One. It’s definitely a nice budget choice for new users of Android.

A very late Review for Samsung Pixon12 (M8910)

I’m going to sell the Samsung Pixon12 M8910 that I’ve been using for like two months so as to get one with Wi-Fi tethering support.  Before I sell the phone, I’m going to write a very belated review of this powerful handset.

Startup Time
Startup time is quite fast. After pressing the power button for 2 seconds, the phone starts up, and in 24 seconds, it’s in a fully standby mode.  A couple of control experiment results: It takes 30 seconds for a LG Viewty KU990 to get ready from booting up, and 95 seconds for an HTC Hero with a “VillainROM 5.3” to be ready (more info about VillainROM here (external site)).

Voice quality
Voice quality is nice.  No big complaints were received from the other side of phone for a daily usage for two months.

Photo quality
Singlehandedly wins against all other phones in the market even after six years of its release. 12MP pictures with very fast refresh time, equipped with powerful LED and Xenon Flash.  Very fast reaction to the dedicated camera/video button; comprehensive configuration menu; and auto-focus tracing function just by touching the object in the screen.  Photos are of extremely high quality and the quality bests the competitor, SonyEricsson’s Satio, quite easily.  Its default mode is intelligent enough and one needs little configuration to take a photo with a camera level quality.  One minor caution:  Some phone cases available in the market are ill-designed and can cause awkward interaction to the flashlight.  It is recommended to remove the phone case before taking a photo with flashlight.

Video quality
720 x 480 limitless 30 frames per second video both make Pixon12 the best phone ever.  Also it plays video files smoothly.

Ringtone volume
Ringtone is loudly, and music is played properly.  Nice.

Screen
3.1 inch AMOLED screen, still displays pretty well under sunlight.

Gesture Feature
Gesture shortcut is more or less the same as Samsung JET S8000.  Basically you can set up different gestures to directly run any function/program in the lock screen.  It can be convenient, but it is definitely not for the ones who never keylocks their phone.

Alarm
Pixon12’s alarm system is so good that it deserves a paragraph here.  Multiple clocks with individual triggering days of week can be set up.  It also has the general option to enable or disable the alarm when the machine is off (the function is referred as “Auto Power” in the Alarm menu).  Auto Power gives incredible flexibility – you can disable when you turn your phone off during exams, while enable it in other occasions, for obvious example, at night.  Snooze and stop can be achieved easily – they are arc-shaped gestures in opposite directions, ensuring your snooze will not be fatal.

Response Time
There is no delay in most actions, and for the most basic function – i.e. talk, you can immediately pick up a call upon passing the call button.  This sounds silly, but you know it’s something iPhone can offer but Windows Mobile handset cannot.

Battery Life
This phone can last for around two days with normal usage (take and upload 5 pictures + 15 minutes talk), a little bit distance from our expectation.

Misc
Generally user-friendly, with a few glitches to blame:

• Touchscreen Sensitivity
  Resistance touchscreen is the issue here.  While it allows better hand-writing recognition, if you somehow forget to lock your phone and put into your pocket with other things in it, chances are Pixon12 will keep moving desktop widgets, or even dial random calls.  Be sure to keylock the phone.
• Keypad Issue
  Dialing those automated number is a nightmare.  You will have to keep unlocking the phone in order to press the dialpad.  You will get fed up with this really soon.
• Connection type
  It’s annoying to set Internet connection between 3G and Wi-fi.  It seems kind of silly to toggle every time you switch the connection method. This is particularly bad for uses without unlimited 3G tariff plan.

Additional features
150MB storage (with expansion of Micro-SD card up to 16G); Bluetooth 2.0 EDP; FM Radio; GPS positioning; “Communities” service – one touch upload of pictures or videos to Facebook/Flickr/Photobucket/YouTube/Picasa/MySpace; Dynamic Canvas; Find Music


Overall
The best choice if you need its unparalleled multimedia functions. With its current price of about US$420 (See the link below) as of April 2010, we consider it as a better than buying a mid-priced digital camera. We would recommend it to readers who do not need to Twitter a lot and goes to Internet every hour, and those who love to take photos but do not wish to always bring along a digital camera.

Never buy from Expansys! Bad shopping experience for HTC Hero

Europe has the release of HTC Hero first, Orange and T-mobile were the first operators offering the phone. We decided to get a phone for extensive testing.

We quickly placed a pre-order from Expansys UK, and the order was quickly expired with their rep’ asking us to buy in Expansys Hong Kong instead. We followed their advice and pre-ordered in Hong Kong for HK$4,812 excluding shipping.

After the launch delay, when the product was finally available (more than one week after Orange’s Hero Graphite was available, one week after T-mobile’s white version was available, Expansys Hong Kong had been raising the price from $4,812 (no VAT in Hong Kong) to $4,868 to $4,951 to $5,231 to 5,332 as of 5 August 2009.

Expansys contacted us thru email and said they cannot offer the product for $4,812, which was clearly a lie, since Expansys UK has been selling at 347.82 pounds (ex VAT) with 30 pounds voucher rebate. One of their rep’ called Agnes Chan had said “. . . we can lower the price to HKD4,812 . . .”, implying the offer is a boon to us and we should be very appreciated for their “kind” offer. And this Agnes Chan subsequently ate her words and said minimum price must be $5,000. We have immediately replied her email with her own email clearly indicating that they agreed to sell at $4,812.

Another rep called Chilli Kum (weird nice name by the way) insisted that the price was a very low price (which is not), and urged us to confirm the order with that offer. Meh. We urged them back to make sure they expire our order, instead of holding our credit card charges in the “pending confirmation” status. We are preparing the documents to follow up the case in Consumers’ Council, and of course, WE RECOMMEND READERS NOT TO ORDER FROM EXPANSYS.

Then we turn to computeruniverse.de, a German site selling electrical gadgets. We had heard about this company from users who bought some Sagem phones which were otherwise unavailable to Hong Kong (As a side note, the distributor in Hong Kong for Sagem mobiles was closed down.), and the user had very good comments on this company in terms of shipping time and product choice, we decided to give it a try.

We have just ordered an HTC Hero weiss (White) and an HTC Hero silbergrau (Silver) (Quote coupon code: FW8TY5K for €5 off), and no VAT to countries outside EU means we save 75 euros on the price, offsetting the extra shipping charges incurred. We will update this blog to recommend ComputerUniverse if we receive the product in satisfactory condition.

Extended Battery for HTC Diamond (Update)

Battery life for HTC Touch Diamond P3700 and Extended Battery

(Originally posted on 12 January 2009, update on 24 July 2009)

Original content:
HTC Touch Diamond (“P3700″) is a great phone with multimedia functions, but we’ve heard that most users are complaining the very short battery life of the handset. Even if you switch off GPS, Wi-fi and Bluetooth, it’s hard to sustain the battery for one day.

The original battery is 900mAh, which usually lasts for less than your daily usage. If you decide not to charge your Diamond in office, it seems inevitable to acquire an additional battery for your normal usage. You can find in the market some types of replacement batteries to beef up Diamond’s battery life.

1. The original extended battery, model “BP E270″, features a larger size 1350mAh battery. This still comes with a thick back, but it’s more elegant though. Warning: High price.

2. “Big” batteries. With capacity ranging from 1530mAh to 2000mAh, so physically big that the original back cannot be covered, and the dealer will include a rather bulky back along with the battery. This new back does not look as good as the original one, of course. The extended battery will affect reception of GPS due to its size. Don’t believe words like “works like original”.

Besides these two, you can always buy the 900mAh batteries. This is not recommended as you will soonly find yourself changing batteries several times a day.

UPDATE: We recently got a BP E270 for extensive testing on the duration of battery. The battery has significantly prolonged by around 40%. It still cannot support prolonged use of MSN Messenger so you either have to turn in off in long train trips or you really should bring along the original 900mAh battery.

With the software “WMWifiRouter” on, we enabled wi-fi sharing, and the machine is not as hot as using the original battery as there are space inside the thick back. We wish the final launch of WM6.5 include wi-fi sharing (like what ASUS P835 offers) though.
Click here for an extended reading on wi-fi sharing / ASUS P835 on our site

One more thing, the thick back makes the machine looks flat as is not as reflective as the original one. Basically the Diamond becomes lower profile, and and fingerprints are no longer attracted.

LG KM900 Arena will launch … on March 2009

Yes, it’s official. LG KM900 Arena is out this month. Being one of the most powerful flagships in the MWC this year, Arena takes the earliest invasion to the market.

LG’s marketing strategy is to focus on the multiedia features. True, aside being regarded as too “iPhone” in the menu, its media functions are overwhelming. In addition to the Dolby Mobile sound system, a 5mp camera on a 3 inch WVGA screen, it features the all-new “3D S-Class” interface.

Better still, it finally features a 3.5mm audio jack, which is a big stepforward – you can finally use the handsfree when charging.

Beware of their “40GB” memory though. It merely means it has 8GB internal storage and can support a 32GB MircoSD card.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QSnjCtCOx8]
Hey, look, it lags.