Category Archives: Mobile Phones

Samsung Wave S8500 Review

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Sansung had previously lunched their proprietary Bada OS back in November last year and at this year’s Mobile World Congress we finally got to see it in action. as Samsung unveiled their first Bada OS enabled smart phone called the Samsung Wave (S8500).

Samsung Wave has a 3.3 inch super AMOLED screen having a 800×400 pixel WVGA resolution. Normal AMOLED screens have a glass layer and an electric sensor layer separated by air, but super AMOLED has merges these two layers. This, claims Samsung, to reduces reflections by five times than a normal AMOLED screen.

Samsung Wave S8500

Samsung Wave S8500

The phone runs on a Cortex A8 1GHz processor which is the same that runs on iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre albeit on lower clocks. A 5MP auto focus camera is located on the rear side with an LED flash.

Wave has features like integrated contacts – which gets all the various channels of communications like Calling, Messaging, Facebook, Twitter on one screen; push to calendar – which integrates Google, Yahoo and other calendars.

Samsung claims that their main idea behind developing Bada was to make the smart phones more accessible to the masses. It is partly built on a Linux kernel and the company planes to release the Software Development Kit (SDK) to developers in March for building applications.

Samsung Apps is the application store from where you can download applications.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro

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Sony Ericsson lunched their credit card sized smartphones Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Mini Pro at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The most striking aspect about these phones lies in the Operating System. For the first time Sony Ericsson have used the Android OS on their phones.

Android seems to have become the preferred OS if the number of mobile phone manufacturers adopting it is anything to go by. Sony Ericsson is the newest Android convert on the block. While the Xperia X10 Mini has a touchscreen interface, the Xperia X10 Mini Pro has a QWERTY keypad which slides from beneath from it’s tiny body.

Xperia X10 Mini Pro

Xperia X10 Mini Pro

The basic specifications of the Xperia X10 Mini series includes a 2.55 inch TFT scratch resistant touchscreen, a 600MHz Qualcomm processor running Android OS v1.6. This sleek phone boasts of a 5 MP camera with auto focus and geotagging.

It has an interesting interface which has four contextual cornet buttons which can be customized according to your needs. Sony Ericsson’s Timescape is being hailed as an interesting feature which tends to integrate all your contacts in one place such that it is easier to access their call history, Facebook, Twitter, Messaging etc all in one screen. But then, we have seen this feature in HTC’s Sense UI, so its nothing really new.

“With the X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro, we have pushed the boundaries of what is possible with smaller devices and are giving consumers exactly what they want; two high performance mobile phones with a fully customizable user experience platform and a stunning ultra compact design”, said Rikko Sakaguchi, EVP and Chief Creation Officer, Sony Ericsson.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Motorola Motoming A1600 : Another Linux Mobile Phone

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Motorola Motoming A1600 is another Linux-based Motorola Mobile Phone. The A1600 has a rounded profile & comes with a transparent flip which allows one to peek at the screen it protects. The A1600 is touched-based & has a really well built exterior.

The call buttons are small but well laid out with good tactile feedback & the joypad is also easy to use. The volume buttons are on the side & comfortable to use with good tactility intuitiveness. The menu structure is easy to understand & simple. The A1600 has a large display (2.4-inches) that is quite crisp.

Motorola Motoming A1600

Motorola Motoming A1600

Although the fonts used could be better. The lack of a hardware keypad is also felt, although not as badly as on the ROKR E6 because this phone is wider, giving the onscreen keyboards a large area as well. One of the most noticeable features is the addition of a talking dictionary that can translate any world into another language & pronounced the word as it would sound very useful if you are traveling abroad. We tried it for some common words & the result were pretty good.

Other than that the 3.2-megapixel camera is useful & features auto focus & a slightly weak flash unit. Its antenna is strictly OK & call quality could have been better. The A1600 is a decent music player with good hands free quality and decent volume on the loudspeaker. If Motorola had thrown in a QWERTY package, this would be a feature-loaded device at a price of $329. As it stands, it is not a bad phone but has the odd quirk that keeps us from recommending it sans reservation.

Popularity: 1% [?]