Nokia Lumia 800 Review

I was lucky enough to get my greasy hands on a Nokia Lumia 800 recently to review. Up until a month ago I knew a whole sum total of one person who had a WP7 device; a HTC Trophy. I must admit, I was impressed with it, the OS was silky smooth and the apps had a really nice design to them utilising the paged appearance where the adjacent items can be slightly seen poking out of the right of the screen. As said, I liked it, however, I was a bit disappointed by the hardware though. The phone looked a tad boring with Microsoft obviously keep very tight wraps on even the hardware specs of the devices allowed to run the OS and HTC failing to inspire the world with the phone design.

So, move along about a year and I find myself un-boxing a nice shiny Nokia Lumia 800. From the packaging it’s clear Nokia have aimed to produce a high end device. The packaging is small, neat and sturdy with the contents well organised. It seems the days are gone when phone packaging was the size of a shoe box. The accessories are all fairly standard, with some black headphones and a wall charger/USB cable. Here lies a small gripe though…the charger looks very similar to an iPhone charger. Now this isn’t a huge problem, except the phone is black, the USB cable is black, the boxing interior is black and yet the mains charger is a small white triangle almost identical to the iPhone’s. Why Nokia didn’t you make it a small black triangle? Black is classy, it would have looked so much better! [Read more…]

iOS 5.1 GM Might get Japanese Siri and Slide to Camera

The current version of iOS 5.1 for developers is the beta 3 version. BGR appears to have got hold of an early version of iOS 5.1 GM though and along with it, they have detailed a couple of new features.

The first is a slide up to access the camera which is similar to what is on iOS 5. In this version the small camera icon can be slid up the lock screen to reveal the camera view finder. It doesn’t really change much, but the slide instead of tap is noticeable. I am guessing that the big change here will be with the icon always being available on the lock screen. At the moment, the camera icon only appears after a double-tap on the home button.

[Read more…]

Galaxy Nexus Review

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the latest officially backed ‘Google’ Phone, following in the footsteps of the G1 and the Nexus phones. It comes pre-loaded with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS); the Android OS that is supposed to bring together fragmentation that Android has suffered between tablets and phones.

[Read more…]

Verizon iPhone 4 Drops Less Calls than AT&T Version

AT&T and Apple has faced a bit of criticism over the years about the iPhone and it’s dropped call rate. It has never been completely clear as to where the fault is with some blaming one or the other.

Some data was collected in March that reveals the iPhone 4 on Verizon actually drops calls a lot less than the AT&T version. Numbers show that from those surveyed, 4.8% on AT&T had dropped calls, while only 1.8% on Verizon had experienced drop calls. [Read more…]

The FCC Take a Look Inside the Motorola Bravo

The FCC has taken apart the Motorola Bravo and pictured it to let us see what’s inside. The reason the FCC do tests is to make sure that each device sold adheres to the guidelines in regards to frequencies and what not.

What we see on the image below is what goes on inside the Bravo. We see a number of chips on there with the 800MHz TI OMAP processor and iNAND flash memory from Sandisk. A camera sensor is also on show (top of the middle image) as well as a SIM card slot. [Read more…]

Motorola DROID 3 Pictures Show New Device is Coming

The Motorola DROID 3 has appeared over on Howard Forums and reveals the new generation device along with a few cosmetic changes to the keyboard layout.

The DROID 2 had a 4 row layout on the QWERTY keyboard which means the top row doubled up with numbers which were accessed by the function button. What we see on the DROID 3 is that a fifth row of keys has been added which brings dedicated 1 to 9 and 0 numbers on the top row. This also allows for more symbols to be added to the function key such as a other financial symbols. [Read more…]

Instapaper for iOS Updated to Version 3.0

The popular Instapaper app for iPhone and iPad has received a major update today. The new version is 3.0 and it brings a number new features that according to the developer, makes it the largest Instapaper update to date.

New features include Sharing, Likes, Connecting with Friends, Editors Pick as well as a completely written web browser. A number of other features and bug fixes can also be found in the update. [Read more…]

The Daily Coming to Android in the Spring

At the moment, the only place you can read The Daily is on the Apple iPad. This is about to change though as it seems there is an Android tablet version being prepared for launch.

It is expected that The Daily will launch on Android devices at the beginning of the second quarter of this year and when it does, it will break the current exclusivity.

The Daily launch on the Android platform is likely to be related to the release of the Android 3.0 Honeycomb release that first arrived today on the Motorola Xoom. Now that Android will become a serious competitor in the tablet market, The Daily can look towards them for getting its content to more readers. [Read more…]

Android Devices Can be Used as Second Monitor with iDisplay

iDisplay has been launched for Android OS based devices. What it does is allow you to use your Android smartphone or tablet as a secondary display for your computer. Once installed and connected, you can then drag windows on to the smaller screen such as a Skype conversation or perhaps a media player you want to be able to see but not clutter up your main screen.

To get it to work, you need to first download the app on your Android device and once installed, you then need to install some software on your Mac or Windows computer so that your Android smartphone/tablet can hook up and get the data it needs. [Read more…]

Apple NC Datacenter for iTunes and MobileMe

During the annual shareholders meeting yesterday, Apple [AAPL] was asked about the datacenter being built in Norch Carolina. In response, Apple said that the new datacenter was to be used for both iTunes and MobileMe services.

This new datacenter, that opens within days, will start offering services for iTunes/MobileMe sometime later this year. Apple also commented that this is the second datacenter that they own with the other one being in Newark, California. [Read more…]

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 Could be Unveiled in March

At MWC a few weeks back, we had the chance to see the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 being announced (device pictured above). We now hear rumors about Samsung releasing an 8.9 inch version that could potentially be called the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9.

This new model will sit right between the Android 2.2 Galaxy Tab (7 inch model) and the newly announced Android 3.0 Honeycomb Galaxy Tab 10.1. This new model will also run the Android Honeycomb operating system it is believed. This comes from the Android 2.X range being good for devices up to 7 inches in size, so the 8.9 model is likely to get Honeycomb. [Read more…]

MacBook Pro Thunderbolt Connector Leaked

Some pictures have leaked of a 13 inch MacBook Pro that are believed to be the new 2011 model that could be launching as early as tomorrow.

One rumor that accompanies this is that Apple will also utilize some kind of Light Peak connector for high speed transfer between devices. This particular rumor was further strengthened last night when Intel announced an event also being held tomorrow. [Read more…]