Lenovo g550 review

This configuration of the Lenovo G550 is a 5.5-pound, mainstream consumer notebook computer.Compared to other consumer level notebooks on the market, it is very inexpensive at around $600.The 15.6 inch widescreen has a native resolution of 1366 x 768, which is better than most laptops.Built around the Intel Pentium CPU.This unit includes a 500GB hard drive and 4 GB of ddr3 memory.

The new Lenovo G550 is an update to the Value Line G530 with the primary difference being the shift from a 16:10 to a 16:9 screen. This is becoming a common trend for most manufacturers, as they shift to the now more standardized 16:9 screens.

Lenovo Value line G550 Specifications:
Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4400 (2.30GHz,  800MHz FSB)
Microsoft Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (w/ SP1)/dos
15.6-inch glossy 16:9 display (1366x768)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
4GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM
500GB Western Digital 5400RPM HDD
SuperMulti DVD+/-RW Optical Drive
Broadcom WiFi (802.11b/g), 10/100 Ethernet, Modem
6-Cell 11.1V 48WHr Battery
Limited 1-year standard parts and labor warranty
Dimensions: LxWxH, 14.9 x 9.6 x 1.4"
Weight: 5lbs 9.0oz

The chassis is constructed entirely of plastic, but where most budget notebooks might feel flexible or flimsy, the G550 feels like a solid block of sturdy material. When talking about the palm rest on most notebooks, including ThinkPads, notebooks with good support still show some flex under a very strong grip. Somehow squeezing the palm rests on the G550 feels like you are trying to squeeze a rock. Other areas of the notebook share the same toughness, including the keyboard and surrounding trim.

To upgrade components the G550 has easy access panels to the memory and CPU, wireless card, and hard drive on the bottom of the notebook. No components, including the processor, had "warranty void if removed" stickers, making it very easy to handle upgrades or repairs in the future

Screen and Speakers
The 15.6" LCD is average compared to most 15-16" notebooks, with bright and vibrant colors and decent viewing angles. The G550's big change is the transition away from the 16:10 screen size to the wider (but shorter) 16:9 panels. The screen offers a glossy surface, which helps improve colors and contrast at the cost of added reflections and glare. Compared to "frameless" displays the reflections were tolerable as long as you were not outside under direct sunlight. Screen brightness was adequate for viewing in bright office conditions, but might not cut it outside unless it is an overcast day. Vertical viewing angles were adequate with a broad viewing sweet spot measuring 30 degrees forward or back before colors started to wash out or invert. Horizontal view angles were much better, showing minimal color distortion at steep angles.

he speakers are located on the front edge of the palmrest and sound more than adequate for playing music or watching streaming video. Sound quality isn't the best compared to other notebooks of this size with a tinny sound that lacks bass. Headphones would be a good accessory for this notebook.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard is easy to type on, sharing the same comfortable and durable feel as my ThinkPad T60 keyboard and only differing in layout. Individual key action is smooth with no audible click when pressed. The keys are textured with a smooth matte finish, giving decent traction for typing ... unlike the glossy keyboards we are seeing on a greater number of notebooks these days. Keyboard support is excellent, barely a hint of flex on the main section of the keyboard. The newer 16:9 chassis on the G550 allowed Lenovo to add a numberpad to the keyboard, but they didn't change the support under that side of the keyboard frame. It doesn't appear to have much flex, but it has just enough to make a squeaking sound against the optical drive when press down. Media-related keys are limited to touch-sensitive mute and volume up/down buttons located above the keyboard.

Lenovo transitioned to a new touchpad on the G550, switching from the Synaptics model on the G530 to an ALPS pad. The ALPS pad doesn't have as quick of a refresh rate, so at times it feels like the pointer is lagging behind your finger. Another problem is the surface isn't as sensitive for users who like to use tap to click and tap to drag frequently. On the Synaptics pad it is easy to drag and lift off, while the ALPS models seem to need a strong tap at the end, otherwise it won't let go of the selected item and you keep dragging it around the screen. The touchpad buttons are similar to the old ones, with shallow feedback and giving off a positive "click" when pressed.

Ports and Features
Although the G550 is now larger than the G530, Lenovo still managed to decrease the amount of ports available. The ExpressCard slot is missing, USB ports are down from four to three, and the modem jack is gone. I can see no other reason besides cutting costs for such a loss of features. Still this is a bang for the buck laptop

Panasonic HDC-SD60K

The good: Manual shutter-speed and iris controls; comfortable size; smarter-than-average autofocus; lens focuses relatively closely; decent battery life.

The bad: Soft video; cramped, low-resolution touch screen.

The bottom line: Panasonic's quartet of entry-level HD camcorders--the HDC-HS60, TM60, TM55, and SD60--deliver a nice manual feature set and good performance, as well as solid video quality for their class. As long as you don't pay list price, the SD60 is a great value, and if possible, avoid paying the unnecessary price premium for the hard

Is it just me, or are four nearly identical versions of the same product a wee bit much? Panasonic seems to be taking a carpet bomb approach to the entry-level HD camcorder market, with those four models in the slim range between $500 and $700. The HDC-SD60, TM55, and TM60 are all identical save the amount of built-in memory: none, 8GB, and 16GB respectively; the TM60 is an exclusive to Best Buy. The HS60 includes a 120GB hard disk, and because of that has a slightly different design. Reviews of all four products are based on testing of the SD60 and HS60.

Overall, the camcorders have a comfortable-to-grip design and feel well built. If your hands are large or you simply don't like the tubular design of the flash-memory models, the HS60's hard disk sticks up on the right side, giving you a little extra edge to grip. None of them have an accessory shoe, so the top of the camcorder simply has a zoom switch and shutter button for still photos. Unusual for the price class, the series includes an LED video light for shooting in dim environments. Though it's a nice touch, don't shine it directly at people--it's quite blinding.

  Panasonic HDC-SD60/TM55/ TM60 Panasonic HDC-HS60 Panasonic HDC-TM700/ HS700
Sensor 3-megapixel CMOS 3-megapixel CMOS 3x3-megapixel 3CMOS
1/4.1 inch 1/4.1 inch 1/4.1 inch
Lens 25x
f1.8-3.3
35.7 - 893mm (16:9) 25x
f1.8-3.3
35.7 - 893mm (16:9) 12x
f1.5-2.8
35 - 420mm (16:9)
Min illumination (lux) standard: 1,400
low light: 4
Color Night View: 1 standard: 1,400
low light: 4
Color Night View: 1 standard: 1,400
low light: 1.6
Color Night View: 1

EVF No No Yes
0.27 inch, 123,000 dots
LCD 2.7-inch 230,400-dot 2.7-inch 230,400-dot 3-inch 230,400-dot
Primary media 0GB/8GB/16GB flash; SDXC 120GB hard disk; SDXC 32GB flash/240GB hard disk; SDXC
HD recording AVCHD:
1080/60i @ 17 , 13, 9 Mbps; 1,440x1,080/60i @ 5 Mbps AVCHD:
1080/60i @ 17 , 13, 9 Mbps; 1,440x1,080/60i @ 5 Mbps AVCHD: 1080/60p 28Mbps; 1080/60i @ 17, 13, 9 ,5 Mbps
Manual shutter speed and iris Yes Yes Yes
Accessory shoe No No Yes
Audio 2 channels 2 channels 5.1 channels;
mic, headphone jacks
Body dimensions (WHD, inches) 2.0 x 2.6 x 4.4 2.2 x 2.6 x 4.4 2.6 x 2.7 x 5.4
Operating weight (ounces) 10.5 12.9 15.2/17.7
Mfr. Price $499.95/$529.95/$499 $699.95 $999/$1,399.95
Ship date March 2010 March 2010 April 2010

Panasonic provides a switch on the back of the camcorder to select among still, video, and playback modes; it's much more convenient than having to go through the touch screen. Next to the switch is the power connector. Along with the power button, a full complement of ports and connectors live in the LCD recess: proprietary video and Mini-HDMI out, USB, and an SDXC card slot. Though everybody's doing it, I dislike the placement of the connectors inside the LCD, since that means it's got to be open while you're attached to other devices, which is just kind of awkward. You toggle between intelligent auto and manual via a button on top of the camcorder.

In both modes, the relevant options become available via a flyout set of icons on the touch screen. All provide manual shutter speed and iris controls similar to their higher-end counterparts--uncommon, but not unique at their price points. As with their siblings, I find the user interface relatively straightforward. There are also nice iris controls for their class, switching from f-stops to decibel display when you cross the line where the optics are wide open, as well as providing an optional luminance-level readout.

BlackBerry Torch 9800

The good: The RIM BlackBerry Torch combines both a touch screen and full QWERTY keyboard. BlackBerry OS 6 brings such improvements as a better user interface, universal search, and an improved browser and multimedia experience.

The bad: The smartphone can be sluggish. The Torch has a lower-resolution screen. Applications can be saved only to the phone's main memory. Camera shoots only VGA video.

The bottom line: Though performance could be better and it could stand for some hardware upgrades, the RIM BlackBerry Torch 9800 and BlackBerry OS 6 offer much-needed improvements to stay in step with the competition, and keep BlackBerry enthusiasts happy.

Though BlackBerrys continue to be extremely popular, it's no secret that RIM needed to step up its game and really work on improving and advancing its operating system. Over the past few months, the company has given us previews of a refreshed OS, but now, we've finally had a chance to put it to the test.

The RIM BlackBerry Torch 9800 is the first device to ship running BlackBerry OS 6 and will be available starting August 12 for $199.99 with a two-year contract. We actually got the smartphone a few days before the official unveiling to put it through its paces, and we found a lot to like about it. The slider phone--a first for RIM--brings together a touch screen and a physical keyboard into a solid, compact design. The new OS brings some much-needed and welcome additions, including a better browser, an enhanced multimedia experience, and improved user interface. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, none of this is new but at least it puts RIM back on track. It's just unfortunate that RIM didn't upgrade other parts of the phone, such as the display and processor, as the Torch doesn't quite stack up to some of the latest smartphones. Still, there's enough there to keep BlackBerry fans happy.

Design
The BlackBerry Torch marks new territory for RIM. It's the company's first slider phone and isn't meant to be a one-off design, but rather, the start of a new series. RIM and AT&T actually began work on the device about a year and a half ago, and when creating the phone part of the goal was to offer a design that not only combined the best of all worlds--touch screen, full keyboard, and track pad--but also a familiar experience to previous and current BlackBerry users. For the most part, we think RIM was successful in doing so.

Nokia x3 review

While smartphones are all the rage these days, there's still a market for the budget mobile phone. The Nokia X3 is exactly that, a slide-out music-phone that costs just S$278 (US$198). It may not have all the bells and whistles that many are used to these days, but the X3 still shines in some areas, especially when it comes to battery life.

Design
Though primarily black in color, the red stripes and silver keypad quickly tell you that the Nokia targeted at youths. It is really compact measuring 96 x 49.3 x 14.1mm when closed and weighs 103g. Overall, the design is not too striking and some may not like the overly angular shape.

The 2.2-inch screen has a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, pretty standard for a budget phone. Quite a number of buttons are found on the front face, including softkeys and a directional pad below the display and music control buttons on the left of it. These music controls let you start/stop music and navigate between tracks. If you are listening to the radio, it lets you switch channels.

Sliding the screen up will reveal a flat keypad. This looks like a single sheet of metal separated by bits of rubber. Spacing between keys is sufficient, and though it isn't excellent, the keypad didn't give us any crippling problems when in use.

On the left is where you will find a microSD card slot. This supports up to 16GB cards which will let you store quite a bit of music. On the left is a volume rocker and camera shortcut.

On top of the X3 are three ports. These are the 3.5mm audio jack, a micro-USB connector and small 2mm charging connector. We look forward to the day when Nokia decides to integrate the charging port with the micro-USB on all its phones.
Features
This is a low-end device and the number of connectivity options reflects that. It supports quad-band GSM and Bluetooth, so there're none of your fancy HSDPA or GPS radios. This may not be such a bad thing if you are a basic user since it benefits battery life, as we shall see in the performance section later.

Based on the Nokia S40 interface, the X3 is easy to operate. Anyone who has used a Nokia phone will be able to get the hang of it in no time. There are also a few extras preinstalled, such as the Opera Mini browser which downloads Web pages in a compressed format so you won't have to wait all day just to look up something online using your GPRS connection.

Music is a main feature of this handset and the X3 gets the basics right. As mentioned earlier, the controls on the front face make playback easy. You can use your favorite headphones as the audio jack is standard. Even if you don't have a pair, the package provides one that has a built-in mic, too, for making phone calls.

The FM tuner feature is interesting in that it doesn't require you to plug in headphones to work. FM tuners generally use the headphone cable as an antenna, but in the case of the X3, this is built into the phone, just like the iNo Mobile CP09. Reception for the radio was fine for most popular stations. But when we tested out some stations that usually require a better antenna to get a good reception (in Singapore, for example, the BBC World Service), crackling was evident, especially when walking around in built-up urban areas.
Performance
Because we are so accustomed to smartphones requiring daily charging, it was refreshing to use a phone that just went on and on. We carried the X3 for almost four days without having to plug in a charger. This included phonecalls, occasional GPRS usage with the browser, and daily radio listening sessions during commutes.

Voice calls sounded good and we had no issues with the cellular reception throughout our review period. There is also a speakerphone option for instances when you need your hands to be free.

Panasonic Viera TH-50PZ800U

For the last year or so, our reigning favorite plasma TV was Pioneer's PDP-5080HD "Kuro," which got there by dint of its game-changing black-level performance, which is still the best we've tested outside of OLED. But many of Panasonic's 2008 plasma TVs, including the TH-50PZ800U, come mighty close to the vaunted blacks of those Kuro models, and this set's THX mode adds significantly improved color and video processing performance compared with other Panasonic plasmas. The bad news, of course, is that THX will cost you hundreds of dollars over the company's step-down, non-THX TH-PZ85U series. Whether that extra scratch is worth the better picture is entirely up to you, but we can say with certainty that Panasonic's TH-50PZ800U is a worthy competitor to the Kuro, and in many ways, it performs even better. For shoppers looking for the ultimate plasma TV that may be enough, at least until the new Kuro models debut later this year.

Design
In photos, the Panasonic TH-50PZ800U looks a lot like every other HDTV on the market: a glossy black rectangle. In person, however, it's a lot more striking and less glossy. In fact, the black frame around the screen isn't glossy at all, it's simply fronted by a big pane of glass that lends the panel a somewhat more sophisticated look than a typical set, where the frame is raised a quarter inch or so from the surface of the screen. Below the screen the Panasonic's frame has what resembles a pair of pursed lips that protrude forward, bearing the logo and hiding a set of inputs behind a flip-down door.

The stand looks identical to the sloped number common to lower-end 2008 Panasonic plasmas such as the TH-46PZ85U and the TH-42PX80U, but unlike those stands, this one swivels, courtesy of a lazy-Susan-like base hidden underneath. Including stand, the TH-50PZ800U measures 49.9 inches wide by 33.4 inches tall by 15.3 inches deep and weighs 92.6 pounds. Divested of stand, its size shrinks to 49.9 inches wide by 31.2 inches tall by 4.1 inches deep and its weight shrinks to 81.6 pounds.

Panasonic's remote remains the same as last year, and we remain fans of its layout. The medium-length wand groups the distinct sets of right-sized buttons in an easy-to-feel arrangement, and although we'd have liked to see some backlighting, we didn't really miss it after a few minutes of becoming familiar with the button arrangement.

A familiar yellow-on-blue menu system leads to the television's setup functions, and although the graphics lack the panache of a Sony or a Samsung menu, navigation was intuitive enough. We liked that the company renamed its previously confusing "Normal" command to "Reset," which more accurately describes what it does to your picture settings.

Features
As we mentioned, the big step-up feature between Panasonic's TH-PZ85U series and the TH-PZ800U models such as this is THX Display Certification. The certification involves testing in a number of categories such as contrast ratio and color accuracy, according to THX, and the TH-50PZ800U has a special THX picture preset that, when engaged, causes the TV's picture to comply with the certification.

Like most plasmas in Panasonic's 2008 lineup, the TH-50PZ800U has a native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, or 1080p, which is fast becoming a standard feature on all flat-panel HDTVs. As we've said before, however, the difference between 1080p and lower resolutions is difficult to discern, even at this relatively large screen size.

Picture controls on the TH-50PZ800U aren't as extensive as seen on many higher-end HDTVs. While we appreciated the capability to adjust all of the five picture modes, including THX, and the fact that the Custom mode is independent per input, we couldn't adjust color temperature beyond the three presets. Advanced picture controls on the TH-PZ800U include a color management control that we left off in THX mode; a "C.A.T.S." mode that changes contrast on the fly and so should be left turned-off; two species of noise reduction, and a black-level control. In case you're wondering, the step-up TH-PZ850U series does include adjustable color temperature and a host of other picture tweaks, although it lacks THX certification.

Panasonic also touts the mysterious Game mode, which turns out to be little more than an easy way to select a particular input. A quick press of the "Game" button on the remote toggles between any of the inputs that have been labeled "Game" in the input naming menu. Pressing that button does not engage the Game picture mode (which is simply another connection of adjustable picture settings) nor does it affect video processing or lag time between controller and screen--although, to be fair, such modes on other HDTVs have little value as far as we can tell.

The TH-50PZ00U offers five aspect ratio controls for HD sources, more than most HDTVs on the market. There's also a setting, called "HD Size 2," that lets the TV display every pixel of 1080i and 1080p sources without overscan or scaling, and we recommend using it unless you notice interference along the extreme edges of the screen, which can occur on some HD sources. Unfortunately, selecting the THX picture mode doesn't automatically engage HD Size 2; you must go into a separate menu item to do so. We'd prefer HD Size 2 to be the default for all modes, or at least available among the standard selection of aspect ratios. A selection of five modes is also available for SD sources.

A new menu for 2008 deals with burn-in or, as the company calls it, "image retention." There's a pixel orbiter that moves the entire image gradually around the screen, along with an option to set the 4:3 mode to include gray bars to either side of the picture (as opposed to black, which cause image retention more easily than gray). On the off chance that the plasma retains an image, there's a scrolling bar that slides across the screen as a sort of eraser.

We would have liked to see an energy saver mode on this TV, but it does include one nice extra that really helps ameliorate power consumption. When you first plug in and set up the TV, it asks you whether you're in a store or home environment. Choosing "home" engages the Standard picture preset by default across all of the inputs, which saves quite a bit of power over the Vivid preset. This savings is reflected in our Juice Box measurements below, where default was measured in Standard mode.

The Panasonic TH-50PZ800U lacks picture-in-picture, but it does include a thoughtful "Surf Mode" control, which can be set to restrict the TV's tuning options. You can set it to "all," "favorite," "digital only," or "analog only."

The jack pack of the TH-50PZ800U is as well equipped as any high-end HDTV we've seen, starting with three HDMI jacks on the back panel and a fourth available out front. A VGA-style PC input is also onboard (1366x760 maximum resolution), along with two component video inputs, an AV input with composite or S-Video, an RF input for antenna or cable, as well as an optical and an analog audio output. In addition to that last HDMI input, the front panel also sports a second AV input with composite and S-Video, as well as an SD card slot for displaying digital photos on the big screen.

Nokia C3

The C5, Nokia's first Cseries phone, didn't quite set the world on fire. That's understandable, given this lineup is meant for the mainstream market. The company recently added two more devices to the series, the C3 and C6. The C3 is the only one of the three to use the basic Series 40 interface and has a low price of 90 euros (US$121.20). Let's take a look at what it offers.

Upside
The first thing you'll notice about the C3 is that it looks a lot like Nokia's most popular Eseries phones, the E71 and E63, because of the exposed QWERTY keypad. This is new for a feature phone running on the basic Series 40 interface, but is a good thing because non-smartphone users may also appreciate it.

The QWERTY keypad will facilitate messaging, which Nokia expects the user to do lots of with software included that gets you onto popular instant messaging services such as Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger. Though the specifications sheet does not mention dedicated Twitter/Facebook apps, it does indicate that live feeds of status updates are possible through a widget.

The C3 also caters to music lovers with a 3.5mm audio jack and software that supports various formats such as MP3, WMA and AAC. Though there's only 55MB of internal memory, there's also a microSD slot that supports up to 8GB cards. This handset also comes with an FM tuner for those who prefer their tunes dished out by a deejay.

Available in three colors, the C3 will cater to a variety of tastes. Those with more conservative preferences can go for the gray version, while the wild ones may prefer the shade that Nokia describes as "Hot Pink".
Downside
Nokia touts the Internet connectivity features of the C3 but has not given it 3G. This means users who have only data access over the cellular network will need to bear with slow transfer rates when using features such as viewing Facebook feeds and browsing the Internet through the browser. However, to its credit, Nokia has included the third-party Opera Mini browser which optimizes full Web pages for faster loading on mobile devices.
Outlook
Some criticism has been leveled against Nokia when discussing its influence on the growing smartphone market. But when it comes to mass-market phones, the Finnish company is still king, and the C3 is a decent addition to its portfolio. The phone will be available this quarter, so look out for it from your operator if you need a budget messaging terminal.

Dell Venue Pro.

This is the new phone from Dell that is a windows phoe 7 phone with a slide out qwerty keypad and a full touch screen. As you might be thinking it is aimed at buisness users. So, it doesn't quite have the same ring to it, but no matter what you call Dell's Windows Phone 7 portrait slider, it's downright awesome. We got a chance to play around with an early build of the phone a few weeks ago -- as you'll hear us say in the video below, it was still codenamed the Lightning -- and we haven't been able to get it out of our minds since. The handset has a very similar look and feel to its Android brother, the Thunder -- its rounded chrome sides are reminiscent of an iPhone 3G/S, the black contoured back has a nice grippy feel, and the curved, WVGA AMOLED, Gorilla Glass screen is just stunning. The 4.1-inch capacitive, multitouch display is joined by additional back, home and search touch-sensitive buttons, all of which seemed responsive in our short time with the device. The back is also home to a 5 megapixel cam with flash while there's a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top of the device and a micro-USB port on the bottom edge.

But obviously, it's that glorious slide-out QWERTY keyboard that makes the Venue Pro, well, so pro. The rubber-feeling keys remind us a lot of those on the Droid 2 -- though, they feel a bit firmer -- and the slider mechanism felt sturdy when we slid it open and closed a number of times. On the spec front, we were told it was packing a Snapdragon processor 1 gz, and while the phone seemed to briskly run an early build of WP7.
AS you can see the phone looks really cool and would be the envy of anyone standing across the road looking at you. This is the way the manufacturers have to go forward. make phones that look good and also have all needed features.

Xperia X10

How can I write  a review of the X8  and not then talk about the X10.

The Xperia X10 is costly but its the top of the line sony handset with everything you can Imagine.

Design and display
"Big" is the first word that comes to mind when you see the X10. We doubt that many consumers are actually using an X10, but complaints about its size are littering user forums. We, however, take a more neutral view. Seriously, if you want a compact device, you really shouldn't be looking at a touch-screen smartphone in the first place. The X10 makes for a tight fit in a pants pocket, but it remains portable if you stick with a jacket pocket or purse.

At 4.7 inches long by 2.5 inches wide by 0.5 inch deep, the X10 is only slightly larger than the iPhone, and you hear no one complaining about that device's size. The X10 is lighter than you might think (4.8 ounces) though we enjoyed its sold feel. Its face is purposely curved; Sony Ericsson does this so the device matches the natural curve of your hand. We understand any skepticism, but it's only the slightest bit gimmicky. Indeed, the X10 fits comfortably in the hand, but it wasn't a huge leap over other handsets. On the other hand, the curved back means that when it's resting on a flat surface, the X10 wobbles if you try to tap at the screen.

Size, of course, does have its advantages. A bulky phone can offer a sizable display and the X10 comes through with a 4-inch screen. That makes it larger than most touch-screen phones currently on the market and we couldn't fault the rich resolution (65,536 colors; 854x480 pixels). Graphics, photos, and colors were sharp and vibrant, and we could see the display relatively well in direct light. The touch interface was accurate and responsive, both when tapping icons and swiping through long lists. It even was responsive at the very edges of the display

You get three home screens that you can populate as you please with shortcuts, folders, and widgets. Like all Android phones, other display options are limited to the wallpaper, brightness, and backlighting time; the menu font size and style aren't customizable. Our only real complaint about the display is that it shows smudges way too easily. Indeed, we were wiping it clean constantly just to see it clearly. The display has the Android notifications bar and an accelerometer, but not a proximity sensor.

Below the display are the X10's only physical controls. The Home key, back button, and menu control are large and tactile, so we had no trouble using them. On the left spine you'll find the volume rocker and a camera shutter. The latter is a rather small, but it didn't pose a problem. On the top of the phone are the 3.5mm headset jack, the power control, and the Micro-USB port for the charger and syncing cable. We give Sony Ericsson major points for ditching the proprietary connections and including a microSD card slot. The slot is located behind the battery cover, but we'll let that slide in this case since we aren't stuck with a Memory Stick Micro format.

Virtual keyboard
The X10's virtual keyboard is very close to the standard Android design, but it offers a few unique elements. In landscape mode it takes advantage of the display's full size so you have plenty of room for typing. There are three rows of alphabetic/punctuation keys with separate keyboards for numbers and symbols and other punctuation. You also get a special pop-up keyboard above the alphabetic buttons that includes smileys and some symbols. That's particularly convenient since it puts oft-used characters, like a dollar sign and parentheses, right on the main screen. The space bar is conveniently located in the center of the bottom row.

We also love the X0's autocomplete function and dictionary. Instead of just one possible choice when writing a word, the X10 offers up to 20 possible choices. For example, if you type "it" you get not only "its" as an option, but also "itself," "Italy," "item," and even "ignore." What's more, the X10 is adept at remembering previously used words and offering them as suggestions even if they aren't in the dictionary. After typing "germank" just once, we got it as a suggestion each time we started typing another word that begins with G.

Not all was well in keyboardland, however. For reasons that we can't fathom you can't use the landscape keyboard in the messaging app (it does work in e-mail). When typing a text message you're stuck with the portrait keyboard at all times even if you tip the phone to its side. In additional to being smaller, the portrait keyboard doesn't have the same autocorrect feature described above.

UXP interface
The X10 runs Android OS 1.6. We've rattled on endlessly about the fragmentation of Android, but we're starting to wonder if anyone besides us really cares. Google always has said that manufacturers and carriers decide when a device receives an OS update, so it shouldn't surprise us that the X10 runs a different version than the Motorola Droid. But updates aside, we still think it's a problem that new Android handsets aren't given the most recent version of the OS at the time of their final release. The Droid hit stores months before the X10 was ever made it past the announcement stage, but it runs Android 2.0. So why do we have to fall back to 1.6 to use the X10?

We expect that the answer partially lies with Sony Ericsson's User Experience Platform (UXP), which the company is debuting on the X10. UXP, formerly known as Rachel, sits on top of the Android OS and will cross to other phones like the X10 Mini and the X10 Mini Pro. Normally, we're wary when a manufacturer tries to mask Android--really, what's the point?--but UXP wins our approval. Before we received the X10 for review, we got an in-depth tour of UXP from one of Sony Ericsson's lead designers. Sure, the X10 will get updated at some point, but UXP no doubt was written with 1.6 in mind.

The premise of UXP, much like that of MotoBlur, is to combine your various messages, alerts, and contacts into a steady stream of communication called Timescape. We'll get to that in a moment, but UXP also skins Android with its own color backgrounds and typography; the company developed a new font for UXP called "Soma." In particular, you'll notice slight changes to the phone dialer, the calculator, and the music player (more on that later). Also, the menu is accessible through a thin bar on the bottom of the home screen rather than the standard Android tab.

On the whole, the various elements of UXP are clean and attractive, but more importantly it lets Android be Android. The icon-based main menu, the internal menus, and most basic apps look the same. And unlike when Samsung crammed TouchWiz on the Samsung Behold II, UXP doesn't provide any redundancy functionality. That's a good thing.

Timescape
The main draw of UXP is the aforementioned Timescape feature. After registering your accounts for e-mail, Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook, it displays your latest e-mails, text messages, and social media alerts in a flowing design that resembles a stacked deck of cards. To move through the deck, just swipe your finger along the display and the cards will fly by. Timescape also displays your latest social media alerts on the home screen, though we chose to remove that option. Like with the "Happenings" widget in MotoBlur, we just didn't need to see what was going on with our friends at every moment.

On the upside, Timescape is slick and pretty, and it offers a wealth of features. For instance, tapping an individual card or tile will display that message or update in its entirety with the source (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and the contact's photo. You'll also see an infinity symbol in the upper right corner. Tap that and you'll see a list of all communication between you and that contact. You also can use the touch controls on the bottom of the display to sort the feed by the source and set your status for Twitter and Facebook.

On the other hand, Timescape can be a bit much. Yes, we said this about MotoBlur when we reviewed the Cliq, but the X10's busier design makes it even more overwhelming. For example, when you switch between the different feeds, the old tiles fly out to one side and the new tiles fly in from the other. It's rather like you were playing a game of poker and a disgruntled opponent took the playing cards and threw them in the air. The effect is exciting the first few times, but then it just gets a bit disorienting.

Xperia X8

The Xperia X8

Specifications


General 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 900 / 2100
  HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100


Size Dimensions 99 x 54 x 15 mm
Weight 104 g
Display Type TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 320 x 480 pixels, 3.0 inches
  - Scratch-resistant surface
- Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- Timescape UI
Sound Alert types Vibration, MP3 ringtones
Speakerphone Yes
  - 3.5 mm audio jack
Memory Phonebook Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records Practically unlimited
Internal 128 MB storage, 168 MB RAM
Card slot microSD, up to 16GB, 2GB included, buy memory
Data GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
EDGE Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G HSDPA
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth Yes, v2.1 with A2DP
Infrared port No
USB Yes, v2.0 microUSB
Camera Primary 3.15 MP, 2048x1536 pixels
Features Geo-tagging
Video Yes, VGA@30fps
Secondary No
Features OS Android OS, v1.6 (Donut)
CPU Qualcomm MSM7227 600 MHz processor
Messaging SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push email, IM
Browser HTML
Radio Stereo FM radio with RDS
Games Yes
Colors White, Dark Blue/ White, Aqua Blue/ White, Pink/ White, Silver/ White
GPS Yes, with A-GPS support
Java Yes, via third-party application
  - Digital compass
- MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player
- MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV player
- TrackID music recognition
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk
- Facebook app
Battery Standard battery, Li-Po 1200 mAh
Stand-by Up to 446 h (2G) / Up to 476 h (3G)
Talk time Up to 4 h 45 min (2G) / Up to 5 h 40 min (3G)

As you can see its like a baby brother to the X10 and still bigger than the X10 mini in terms of size. I am not sure where sony were trying to put this product.

Upsides

With its trade-off between, size, power and price, the Xperia X8 could be the biggest seller for Sony Ericsson this year. It features a similar full touchscreen interface like its big daddy Xperia X10, but the screen will be a smaller 3 inches as compared with the X10's monstrous 4-inch display. This shaving down in size will also affect the overall screen resolution, with the X8 sporting an HVGA (480x360 pixels) resolution.These may seem like downsides rather than upsides for a prospective phone buyer, but the really good news is that Sony Ericcson plans to keep the handset cost down and so the phone is availabe for 14000 Rs thats between the X10 and the X10 mini


Downsides
Well the First and most dominent downside is android 1.6 and then comes the 3.2 mp camera without flash. There is also no media-scape.I also did find the processor to be a little slugish for android as its only 600 mz and it shows.

Lg Optimus7 impressions

Well as you all know Windows phone 7 is out and Lg Optimus7  is one of the first ones to come out with it. 

The Optimus measures at 125 x 59.8 x 11.5mm and has a 3.8-inch capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. It has a 5 megapixel camera with an LED flash and is capable of recording videos in 720p resolution and interestingly can also take 360-degree panoramic shots. Among the usual suspects, the phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack, accelerometer, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor and a digital compass, par for the course for a high-end device, which is what all Windows Phone 7 devices are going to be considering the OS's rather high hardware requirements.

Apart from the built-in Windows Phone 7 features, LG has also added a few of their own. These include the DLNA based Play To, which lets you access content on your phone on other DLNA compatible devices, such as a TV, Scansearch application which lets you take pictures of things and search online for more information and Voice-To-Text, which is pretty self-explanatory.

I feel the phone looks cool and pocket-able. well only time will say how it will fair in the market. the phone is rock solid but the only issue I had was with windows mobile 7 interface itself, but i am sure Microsoft will solve it ... well hope so...

Netgear N150 Wireless Modem Router DGN1000 review

I got this router a day ago as my old one was giving me issues. It  has four 10/100 Ethernet ports, a built-in firewall, parental filters and the Netgear N150 Wireless Modem Router DGN1000 even has physical buttons for controlling the state of the wireless network.
Its connection speed tops out at 150 megabits per second rather than 300Mbs So its not the one for you if you want to transfer a lot of files here and there across your home network but if what you want is just sharing your Internet wireless across some devices and getting sharing a few files here and there.. this one will be perfect for you. The speed is enough to stream video across your network.

The modem in the Netgear N150 Wireless Modem Router DGN1000 performed very well from my test location, which uses an  ADSL2+ connection. We averaged a download speed of 16.595Mbps and an upload speed of 845 kilobits per second using Speed test.net. The download speed is even better than the one we achieved with Netgear's DGND3300, but the upload speed was a little sluggish.

Setting up the Netgear N150 Wireless Modem Router DGN1000 modem was a simple task: all I had to do was enter our username and password. The modem detected all the connection settings on its own. When you first install the modem and log in to its interface, it will check for updates to its firmware — it does this even before you get a chance to configure it. Just cancel this and perform the upgrade after you've set everything up. It's a good feature for users who don't feel comfortable manually upgrading the router's firmware.

If you're a parent, you might appreciate the easy to use keyword and URL filtering, which can be used to block access to any sites or search terms that you don't want your kids to be exposed to. Users who try to access a prohibited site (or a site that features a flagged keyword) will end up with a big notice on their screen telling them that access has been denied. That's a great feature.

Setting up the wireless and securing it was a breeze. The wireless range was good. I have it installed in one corner of my 2000+ sq feet apartment and even in the places across walls on the furthest ends of the house I still have 3 bars of signal. Not bad compared to my old router which was only able to give me 1 bar in those areas. I also liked the wireless lock feature which is a button on the router. I liked the glossy black color makes it look good.

I know there are much more high-end routers available in the market but for the price range its on its one of the best products. So if you are just getting a router for basic network sharing and a basic networking then this one should be on the top of your list.

nokia n8 review

It's a mixed bag with the N8. It feels like we're writing about an old friend we've known for a while now. But the smartphone has just been made official as the first device running Symbian^3

Symbian^3
Symbian 3, marketed as Symbian^3, isn't the end-road we're looking forward to... that'd be Symbian^4. Instead, this version of the Symbian operating system is a prelude to Symbian 4, with a software overhaul scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. The enhancements with Symbian 3 are in three key areas: User interface, multimedia and performance. We lambasted the single- and double-tap confusion when we reviewed the 5800 XpressMusic, N97 and N97 mini. It felt as if we were flogging a dead horse back then. Symbian 3 finally addresses this issue by shifting to a single-tap interaction model while adding support for multitouch gestures on the capacitive touchscreen. We don't want to jump the gun here since we haven't had the chance to waddle though the menus yet. But if the briefing material is to be believed, there's a good chance Nokia has finally gotten it right with one of the biggest pain points with earlier devices.

The software has also enabled the multiple home screens feature so users can swipe across the display to switch between three customizable panels, with widgets to access the music player, emails, contacts, news feed and social-networking applications. We'd imagine the look and feel of this to be similar to the Maemo home screen interface on the N900.

Multimedia also plays a huge role in Symbian 3 with support for HDMI output, which means you'll be able to plug the phone into a TV and watch an HD video sans a Blu-ray player. According to Nokia, video playback via the HDMI adapter cable is rated for 6 hours, though we're not sure if the accessory will be bundled or it has to be purchased separately. The N8 also has 2D and 3D graphics acceleration, so it should, at least in theory, be capable of running high-performance and graphics-intensive mobile games.

Finally, in terms of performance, Nokia claims the N8 is more efficient when it comes to memory management, which means more applications can run at the same time. The N900 is a good example of this. So if the same kind of experience can be ported over to the N8, it should be something to lookout for. For the record, the N8 has 256MB of RAM and a 512MB ROM.

Features
Aside from Symbian 3, the N8 is also Nokia's first handset that's integrated with Qt. To end-users, this probably doesn't mean anything. But for developers, the software development environment lets them write applications and use these across different platforms with minimal modification.The screen is a new kind of screen form Nokia which is scratch resistant even if you try to scratch it with a key. wow thats cool just what we need.

The N8 takes 12-megapixel pictures and 720p high-definition videos at 25fps. The camera has an aperture of F2.8, focal length of 5.4mm and a Xenon flash. According to Nokia, the N8 is its first 12-megapixel camera-phone and the company claims that the image sensor used is bigger than many of those found in dedicated digicams. So it'd be interesting to see how the shooter performs in low-light conditions.

The capacitive touchscreen measures 3.5 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels. One thing Nokia smartphones have never lacked is their suite of connectivity features. The quad-band GSM N8 also supports quad-band WCDMA, Wi-Fi (b/g/n), Bluetooth stereo and Assisted-GPS. It also comes with free walk and drive navigation as well as Lonely Planet and Michelin guides on Ovi Maps.

According to Nokia, users can watch Web TV from channels such as CNN, E! Entertainment, Paramount and National Geographic on the home screen. Local content, on the other hand, can be accessed from the Ovi Store. There are already 2000 apps on it for N8

Wrapping up this section is the 16GB of onboard memory with the option to increase that to 48GB via the microSD expansion card slot. The N8 also has the ability to act as a USB host for transferring data to another USB device.It also supports Usb on the go ... using this you can connect any usb storage device including usb sticks and also otherphones.for more read the Usb on the go post.

Outlook
While it's easy to get carried away with the enhancements of Symbian 3, it also serves as a reminder that nothing else has changed fundamentally. We are still looking for an overhaul in the Symbian user interface and that's still many months away. Symbian 3 is a stop-gap solution, just as Windows Mobile 6.5 was for Windows Phone 7. It may be better, but meanwhile, competing software are also improving at the same time. this device is available for 26,265 which is a great price for this device. In short I would suggest to buy this phone if you are looking for a great media phone.

Kingston HyperX review

Kingston is one of the larger memory vendors and has long offered upgrade kits and enthusiast memory, along with related products such as flash memory devices.We are reviewing a  4 GB DDR2 memory kit,  HyperX kit with two 2 GB DDR2 DIMMs called KHX8500D2K2-4G, from which you can already tell these are PC2-8500 DIMMs (DDR2-1066 speed). The HyperX family is Kingston’s product line for enthusiasts, and there are DDR, DDR2 and DDR3 memory kits available. However, Kingston does not belong to the group of memory vendors that races for maximum clock speeds. This isn’t really a bad thing. In fact, Kingston is actually the only memory company that provides a truly solid technical specification sheet. You can get information on Kingston products on the corporate website www.kingston.com, while there is a microsite to deal with the HyperX line.

Package, Specifications

Believe it or not, we really liked the way Kingston boxed its memory. Both DIMMs fit into an anti-static plastic box with a clear cover, which is sealed with the product specifications. That’s not as fancy as a huge color box, but it’s as much as you really need to box a pair of memory modules. Both DIMMs are inserted in such a way that prospective buyers can examine the product stickers. These tell you about the part number and the voltage specification (2.2 V in the case of our test samples), but they don’t tell you anything about memory latencies. Only CL5-5-5-15 timings are supported, at 1.8 V default voltage or at 2.2 V maximum voltage. The SPD ROM is programmed to run the memory at DDR2-800 speed, 1.8 V and CL5-5-5-15 timings, which are the default values.

Overclocking

We started our overclocking attempts at the default DDR2-1066 voltage of 2.2 V, which didn’t take us much further than the default speed. However, a slight increase to 2.3 V helped to reach DDR2-1130 reliably. Any faster speed would result in the system becoming unstable.

Kingston provides an amazingly attractive price for performance within the expected range. If you can live with the fact that it doesn’t overclock much

I got a new phone

I was having issues with the nokia n97 browser and also with the software.

 Dont get me wrong its a great phone but it was not the perfect one for me as the software let it down. the hardware part was right but the software was weak. I have to do a lot of multitasking and it was giving me out of ram issue.!! So I had decided to get another phone to be my primary phone.
As you know really digging the nokia n900 Nokia's pocket computer and on using the device I was impressed.  And the device is a great for multitasking. So good that it can run 50 applications and still no lagg. How it is able to to do this is it has a total of 1gb or ram (256 fixed and 786 shared page). It is one of the only phones I have seen that has septate graphics and audio chip. so you can see its a real computer with phone built around it. There in lies the only problem. its great as a tablet and trust me there is nothing I found in the price range that can beat it. And trust me it totally kicks the apple Ipads butt. And there is nothing that can beat its multitasking capability. And the web browsing is the best you can ever find. That being said it lacks some basic stuff. you can say its rough around the edges. thats cause its a basic phone built around a computer.And there are some issues with the software. Like the music player is great but it lacks a equalizer. and many other bugs. You will say its Linux and you can program it easily but i am paying the full cost of the phone and why should i get a incomplete phone that i have to work on to complete.
  So then I was hunting for the new phone.. I wanted something that will let me work online just as good as on a pc, and it should also let me stay connected with my social accounts and my email. push mail to be precise and last and not the least let me stay online 24x7 on my IMs and skype calls .

  I got the answer in the form of Nokia E72. You might be thinking that i am only looking for Nokia.. no  I was in the market looking at every brand available, at prices till 1000$ and this was the best one i could get. and dint cost me much either. I have used the phone for a Day now and the phone is a great phone both as a phone and a internet device. The internet browser is so good on the phone that i am actually effortlessly creating this entire post on the device. The camera is a 5 mp and its really great. really impressed by it. the screen is very sharp.The phone easily fits into my pocket and is very light. It is a dream because of this. at the end of the day the more pocket-able the phone is the more easy you will use it. I am very happy with it so far.  Many people were saying that they are getting freezeups on the phone but I have not even had one yet. Its never given me out of ram issue like the nokia N97 and the battery life is very nice. The phone is able to do a lot of multitasking without a sweat. I was able to use nokia maps IM client , Mail client , music player , and web browser all together and  that dint cause any problems to the phone. Email client on the phone is a dream. navigation is very nice.and the phone is ready for all this out of the box and you dont have to install anything on the phone for all this stuff. Thats a good thing. The audio quality is better than many music phones and even standalone music players. so in short i am very happy with this phone... i will tell you more about it and my impressions and if any problems in a later post.

Google Sync

Millions of people are addicted to using Gmail and a variety of other Google services such as Calendar and Contacts. If you’re one of them, you no doubt have wished for a way to wirelessly sync your phone to your computer.

Today Google has granted your wish in the form of Google Sync. If you have an iPhone, BlackBerry, Nokia Series 60, Windows Mobile, Sony Ericsson, or Nokia standard phone, you can now sync your Google Contacts and Calendar with your mobile phone of choice, wirelessly, and for free.

I’ve heard from a number of people already how great it is to finally sync their Google stuff wirelessly. The only caution that keeps coming up, though, is that Google wipes out your data on your device first, so make sure to run a backup before you use the software.

This is definitely interesting timing by Google especially since Microsoft mistakenly announced its new My Phone service, which will do the same and more, but just for Windows Mobile phones. Google’s offering covers a wide variety of phones, including Windows Mobile, so it will definitely be interesting to see what happens next.

I’ve been using Hosted Exchange for a while now. Since I pay for that service and Google’s and Microsoft’s new services are free, I think I’ll give them a shot and see how they compare.

It supports all kinds of phones and you can get your contacts from one platform to another without much issues,.. its a gr8 tool to manage your contacts and backup too.

nokia x6 review

Nokia has finally made a touchscreen music phone worth craving with the X6, which is everything the 5800 XpressMusic should have been. Plenty of water has flowed under the bridge since the 5800 was released, and the X6 doesn't break any new ground, but there's still much to like about this music maestro.

Capacitive capability
Nokia struggled to make us crave the 5800, due to its chunky design and unresponsive resistive touchscreen. The X6 feels like the 5800 reborn, with a capacitive touchscreen and sleek, angular body.

The X6 uses a touchscreen-orientated version of Nokia's Symbian operating system, which isn't the smoothest or most user-friendly system out there. For example, you have to tap an option once to open it in some places, and you have to double tap in other places. It's not a huge problem, but it can get annoying.

The X6's capacitive touchscreen makes it feel more responsive than other touchscreen Nokia phones, because you don't have to apply pressure with a fingernail or stylus to get it to respond. Even with its capacitive advantage, the screen could be more responsive, though. At times, we felt the phone took too long to respond, although it isn't the slowest phone we've used by any means.

Music magic
The X6 sports an epic 32GB of memory and Nokia's Comes With Music service, so you can fill it up with a year's worth of free downloads, choosing from zillions of music tracks. The tracks are chained-down with DRM, so you can't listen to them on your other music players, but you can keep them on the phone even if you choose not to renew your subscription to Comes With Music after your free year is up.

Nokia has released yet another version of its desktop syncing software to help you get music on and off the phone, and it's an improvement on previous versions. Now called Nokia Ovi Suite, the software is a good attempt at creating an iTunes-style music store. We found downloading tracks easy, and syncing the phone was surprisingly simple. We particularly like the ability to sync the phone over Bluetooth, so, if your laptop has built-in Bluetooth, you may never have to break out the USB cable once the phone is set up. You can also download tunes directly onto the phone when you're on the move.

Once you've helped yourself to some free music, you can listen to it on your own headphones, thanks to the standard 3.5mm headphone jack. We weren't blown away by the audio quality, though, especially at low volumes, and even when we were using high-end cans. The volume settings also leap too quickly from tinny and quiet to deafeningly loud.

Calls don't benefit from this music phone's pedigree. In our tests, they sounded tinny both to us and the recipients of our calls. Nevertheless, with its huge storage and access to endless free tracks, the X6 makes for a top-notch music phone.

Ovi blown
Music isn't the only thing you can download onto the X6. Slowly but surely, the Ovi Store is developing into a handy place to get apps for Nokia phones. The X6 makes it easy to get started, providing links on the home screen to the Ovi Store and other Ovi features, such as email and an online calendar.

Ovi is still hit and miss. You can't sync your Ovi calendars with other online calendars, like Google's, for example. But it's a good service to have if you want to back up your photos online or manage your contacts on the Web instead of on the phone.

Shutterbug
The X6's 5-megapixel camera is a pleasure to use, thanks to its fast shutter speed. You can capture snapshots without having to wait around, even when shooting at the highest quality settings. For a phone, its photos are excellent too, with bright colors and sharp edges, although they can't compare to photos taken with a proper camera. The two LED photo lights are harsh, but do a good job of illuminating dark situations in which you'd otherwise get no shot at all.

Conclusion
If music is your passion, the Nokia X6 offers an inexhaustible supply of tunes, thanks to its Comes With Music service and huge 32GB of memory. The capacitive touchscreen isn't as zippy as we'd like, but the X6 is a huge improvement on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic in terms of functionality and looks. An excellent camera and standard 3.5mm headphone jack are the gravy on top of this tasty package. Overall, the X6 is proof that Nokia is sorting out its touchscreen troubles, although it still feels rather late on a scene now crowded with less-expensive touchscreen competitors.

Nokia e72 review

The Nokia E71 was one of our favorite business smartphones thanks to its attractive design and full range of useful features. More than a year on, is its successor, the E72, just as compelling a smartphone? Let's look at the differences between the two to find out.

Design
Given how well-received the form factor of the E71 was, there wasn't a need to change things much in its successor. The E72 has a similar solid metallic feel and is almost the same size and weight at 114 x 59.5 x 10.1mm and 128g. On the front, you get the same landscape-oriented QVGA display, below which lie shortcut buttons and a QWERTY keypad. The shortcut keys surrounding the directional pad are laid out differently, but the ability to access your calendar, contacts and mail in one button press remains intact.


The physical design of the E72 (left) is similar to the original E71's (right).
What must be most significantly different is the directional pad itself. While it shares the same square design with a large selector in the middle, this center button now doubles as an optical navigational pad. So, aside from pressing one of the four direction buttons, it is possible to move cursors by stroking your finger over the selector. This can be annoying as we found ourselves moving the cursor accidentally at times. The application in which it is useful is the browser as it gives better mouse cursor control--clicking on small links can sometimes be a very precise affair. Those who don't like the optical pad can turn it off completely, rendering the directional pad identical to the E71's.

The E72's QWERTY keypad layout doesn't differ much from the E71's. It has a shorter spacebar, making way for two extra keys on the bottom row--a shortcut to select symbols and a dedicated exclamation mark key. As indicated by a diagram on the spacebar, it now doubles as a shortcut to turn the camera light on for use as a flashlight. Pressing and holding the key will activate that useful feature. Though the shape of the keys remains the same, we found the tactile feedback different. Less force is required to depress a button, and consequently, the "springiness" of the keys is reduced. This takes some getting used to if you are switching from an E71 and we can't conclude if it's better or worse--just different.

One of the best changes is the inclusion of a 3.5mm audio port on the top of the device. The E71 had a 2.5mm version which required an adapter if you were using your own pair of headphones. Other connectors remain the same with a dedicated connector for charging and a micro-USB port on the left. One thing it lacks which is present on the E71 is infrared, not too big a loss to most users we reckon.
Features
When it comes to connectivity features, the E72 doesn't differ much from the original. You get the full works including HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and A-GPS for navigation. There are some slight improvements such as a faster 10.2Mbps HSDPA maximum speed and HSUPA for high-speed uploads. Do note that these are highly dependent on the operators' 3.5G network quality, so users may not really feel the impact.

Since the launch of the E71, Nokia has been making improvements in the Symbian S60 3rd edition software. The E72 has convenient features such as transition animations, Ovi Store for downloading third-party applications and built-in support for Microsoft Exchange synchronization. It's important to point out that these features can be activated on the E71, too, by downloading the appropriate updates from Nokia. What makes the experience different is that the E72 is much more responsive thanks to a faster processor. More on that in the Performance section later.


The test shot from the E72 shows decent image quality. (Click for original)
Another improved feature is the inclusion of a 5-megapixel camera, up from the 3.2 megapixels in the E71. In our tests, we found the photo quality much improved with excellent macro shots as one of its highlights, perfect for archiving namecards. Also, you don't have to press the "2" key to activate autofocus, a cumbersome and unintuitive implementation on the E71. Now, simply touching the optical pad will let you focus on your subject, while depressing it will snap the shot.
Performance
The performance of the E72 is where it really shines compared with the E71. Now, the E71 is no slouch and, in fact, was one of the most responsive S60 devices when it was launched. But this Nokia comes with a 600MHz processor that blows the E71 out of the water when it comes to speed. There was no lag felt throughout the menu system and even long contacts and message lists loaded very quickly. This was felt most in the Web browser as you can now scroll around full Web pages before they are fully loaded. There may be software improvements in play here, but we're pretty sure the faster chip has a part in that, too.

The improved speed didn't affect the battery life much. With the same 1,500mAh battery, we got about 2.5 days of use on a single charge. This included phone calls, messaging and occasional use of HSDPA for emails and Twitter updates. We reckon most users will be able to get by on more than a day without recharging.

We had no issues with reception and call quality, and the speakerphone was sufficiently loud for use in quiet situations.

One thing we've brought up time and again over the past year is how the S60 platform feels dated compared with the competition such as the iPhone OS and Google Android. This reduces the value proposition of the E72 slightly, especially when you consider the availability and quality of third-party apps.
Conclusion
As you would have probably gathered by now, the E72 is a very competent business smartphone. Nokia stuck with what worked in the E71 and made a few improvements in the process.

The big question is whether current E71 users should upgrade to the E72. There's no quick answer to that, but if the camera quality and responsiveness of your current smartphone irk you, the E72 would be a good replacement. Otherwise, stick with your E71 because the major features such as a good keypad, push email and decent battery life remain the same.

The E72 is available from operators and stores in Asia at S$750 (US$540). As usual, check with your provider for subsidized prices as these will be significantly lower than retail.

Dell Streak

Everyone is eager to see a serious competitor for the Apple iPad tablet computer. For the moment, the Dell Streak is the strongest contender we've seen, though its pocket-size design and phone capabilities have us wondering if it shouldn't really be judged as a smartphone. However you want to define it, the Streak's features and design quality are simply too tantalizing to ignore, even if its price ($299 with a two-year AT&T contract, $549 without contract) is tough to swallow.

Design
The most notable aspect of the Dell Streak is its design. Chances are, you already know what Google's Android operating system is capable of, and the Streak's phonelike hardware capabilities (camera, touch screen, memory expansion) are nothing we haven't seen before.

When you pick up a Streak for the first time, the first thing you'll notice is its size. At 6 inches wide, 3.2 inches tall, and 0.35 inch thick, the Streak is about the size as a pocket Moleskine notebook. It breaks the norm for smartphone dimensions, yet it's nearly a third the size of Apple's iPad tablet.

The size charts new territory in the middle ground, and potential buyers should be aware that it does not fit naturally as a replacement for your phone or your laptop. That said, if you're having a Goldilocks moment looking for that "just right" compromise between convenience, portability, and features, the Streak should be at the top of your list for consideration.

Putting the issue of size aside, the design quality of the Streak is solid, and befitting of the $500 price range. The 5-inch capacitive touch screen is covered in a seemingly indestructible Gorilla Glass, developed by Corning, though the tapered edges to the left and right of it use a more conventional scratch-resistant plastic. These same edges also conceal three soft keys (back, menu, home), an earpiece, microphone, and a front-facing VGA-resolution camera. We carried the Streak loosely in a messenger bag for weeks, along with keys, loose change, and an iPod, and failed to make a dent or scratch in its finish.

On the flip side of the Streak you'll find a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with an integrated LED flash. The camera is awkwardly placed, so your left hand tends to obscure the lens when holding the Streak in its prescribed landscape orientation. Anyone with common sense will, of course, reposition their hand before snapping a photo or recording video, but the fingerprints left on the lens through regular use do tend to cloud the image quality.

The back of the Streak also includes a small speaker grille at the edge of a large battery cover. Along with a removable, rechargeable battery, the Streak battery compartment also offers access to a SIM card slot and the included 16GB microSD memory card. Both the SIM and microSD cards can be swapped out quickly, but removing the door to the battery compartment will automatically shut down the Streak as a safety measure. A cold boot after removing the battery cover takes about 40 seconds.

Slim buttons for volume, power, and camera mode run across the top edge of the Streak, along with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack (in-ear headphones come included). Our only complaint with the buttons is that the power and camera buttons have an identical shape and are place directly next to one another, making it easy to confuse them.

Finally, the bottom of the Streak offers a 30-pin connection, which is similar to (but not compatible with) the iPad's. A USB cable compatible with the connection comes included, along with a wall-charging adapter. The 30-pin connection is also compatible with Dell's AV dock accessory, which is sold separately and includes connections for HDMI, mini-USB, and audio line-out.

Features
The Dell Streak fits right in with today's superbly specced Android smartphones. It ships with Android 1.6 installed, which is a little antique compared to the snazzy Android 2.1 OS available on a device like the Motorola Droid X. Dell is promising an over-the-air update to Android 2.2 down the line, but until then, features such as multitouch gestures, multiple e-mail in-boxes, live wallpaper, and Flash video support, are out of reach.

While the Streak doesn't break much new ground in the world of smartphones--as an Android tablet, it's without equal. Similar offerings, such as the Archos 5, or Archos 7 Home Tablet, simply don't have the speed, the specs, or the design quality to match the Streak. They've also all lacked one critical feature: the Android App Market.

The good: The Dell Streak offers an unprecedented combination of processor power, screen size, and design quality. Support for 3G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth hit all the wireless sweet spots, while photo, camcorder, and calling capabilities blur the boundaries between tablet and phone.

The bad: Battery life isn't great, the touch-screen keyboard is awkward, music quality is below average, and the position of the camera tends to cloud photos and video.

The bottom line: The Dell Streak is the first Android tablet worth taking seriously, though its size puts it on the fence between tablets and smartphones.The only problem to some will be price.