Gadget Scraps
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Posts tagged Reviews
Portable DVD Player
Oct 5th
Portable DVD Players! The name itself brings a wide knowing smile across my face. Yeah, it’s been true that we can have good video viewing experiences in portable devices without compromising the video quality or video size. I can assure all you will know for sure what’s mobile media. At least, everybody with a multimedia capable mobile phone will knew it better. But the worst part of mobile media is being the smaller size of Videos and some compromise in the quality of the same. DVD-quality videos in a mobile device is still a dream to come true for us.
But before we feel unfortunate, we can count on certain portable devices other than the so called mobile. I’m not denying the fact that mobile devices are beginning to accommodate more crisp and clear videos. Yet, the viewing area is such smaller that it will make a pain in your neck if you truly watch a full-length movie in your mobile device. Read the rest of this entry »
BlackBerry Curve 8300
Aug 21st
I simply think I can’t live with just any Smartphone. I’m really a Gadget Freak! OK, what made me say this? I’ve just bought this excellent business toy two months ago and playing around with it. I guess at last, I’ve found the one which I will settle with for sure.
I don’t know how many of you out there know about BlackBerry services. For those who don’t, it’s a Push-Mail service offered by RIM (Research In Motion Ltd) in USA and UK along with cellphone carriers. In India, it’s newly launched with AirTel and Hutch. And as there isn’t many choices of BlackBerry devices so far, they’ve also offered BlackBerry Connect which is a similar service like BlackBerry but allows you to use any Push-Mail enabled mobile device such as Nokia E-series and Windows PDA’s. I’ve been using this BlackBerry Connect service for almost one year now and know it’s advantages and disadvantages. Though, BlackBerry Connect works similar to BlackBerry, it’sn’t just same. It supports only 34KB of attachments against 8MB supported by BlackBerry devices. And, so many other features that belong to the Email are only supported in BlackBerry devices. So, at last, I thought I should go ahead and buy a BlackBerry device. As usual, I always wanted the BEST in range and the newly introduced BlackBerry Curve 8300 is the one I found the BEST. Read the rest of this entry »
HTC Touch – The iPhone Beater
Jul 29th
HTC might be unknown to many Indians due to their lack of products availability in India. But they’re actually one of the largest Windows Mobile based PDA providers in the world. But as they’re very much into the OEM behind iPAQ, O2, Dopod and i-Mate they didn’t came into the big picture. Now, they’ve acquired Dopod Brand and are very keen in the ever increasing Indian Market on global products. To start up their big plans for India, they’ve released this cute buddy HTC Touch in India along with AirTel (Bharti Cellulars Pvt. Ltd.)
As of now, this product in India is available ONLY to AirTel Customers as it’s locked to AirTel GSM SIM Cards. Considering the larger growth of AirTel in India and it’s huge consumer database, (including myself as I do hold an AirTel connection) it didn’t came as a minus point. At least, for me. 
At first glance itself this device suggested me greatly that it’s not any ordinary Windows Mobile PDA (not even O2). It comes with a revolutionary TouchFLO™ Technology developed exclusively by HTC for this beauty. The technology makes the touch screen distinguish between a Stylus and a Finger and acts differently according to that. You can scroll up and down or side to side with just a flick of your finger on the Screen in most of the applications that comes pre-installed in this device. Read the rest of this entry »
Nokia N95
Jun 25th
Nokia N95 is a much awaited mobile of the year 2007 I can say. At last when I received a complimentary pack for reviewing that in here, I was so surprised. I never thought I will get my hands on this device until it’s another 6 or 8 months. Anyways, let’s see what it delivers.
At first when I unwrapped the package, I’ve been presented with the beautiful N95 in it’s pitch black casing. It seems just like Nokia N80 (the other one from N-Series which is also a slider phone). But when I took a closer look it revealed the efforts Nokia taken to make this mobile ultimate mobile computer device. The front-side of the mobile is fully dedicated to the large scree. The screen is simply superb. The screen provided excellent contrast, brightness and color depth. And what’s more? The screen has a small light sensor next to the Front VGA Camera which adjusts the brightness levels automatically according to the outside lighting conditions. I should say excellent! Read the rest of this entry »
Sony Ericsson P990i
Jun 22nd
After my previous post about O2 Atom XDA, I’ve decided that I should buy another PDA. You all know how hard it is to satisfy me when it comes to Gadgets. And that’s what happened to my good old O2 Atom XDA once I’ve dropped it.
Even though the O2 Atom XDA was my best choice, I was wondering whether I can have a PDA with BlackBerry features after all AirTel in India started providing BlackBerry services since 2006. Anyways, after a long search and analysis, the Sony Ericsson P990i seems to be the BEST choice. So, I went ahead to buy one for myself.
At first, I thought Sony Ericsson would easily satisfy my needs. Yes, it’s true to some extend. The Package they’ve sent to me contained everything I need to start playing around. One of the BEST things I’ve liked about this mobile is that it has both options of hardware like you can use the mobile as a complete PDA with full QWERTY keyboard or you can use the mobile as a complete Mobile+PDA with mobile phone keyboard and QWERTY keyboard. It sounded cool, but at first I thought the extra flip-flop keyboard make it look very bulky. So, I’ve got rid of that using the inbuilt screw driver and the replacement piece they’ve provided in the Package. With the flip-flop removed, it looked stunningly cool and provided me all the options I needed in a PDA. The sad part is, this one is NOT a Windows PDA. Of course, I knew it before I bought it, but what’s more, I thought their unique Symbian OS UIQ 3.0 will have loads better than a Windows PDA. But I should say I’m wrong. There is not even softwares for the new UIQ 3.0 system. Some softwares cost me very much.
As usual, I’ve put a 2 GB MemoryStick Duo Pro card into the Phone and it became the ultimate storage device. I tried installing Adobe Reader with failure. The Adobe Reader for mobiles doesn’t support Symbian 9.0 OS. My ultimate wish of a PDA that’s eBook Reader ready failed. The included PDF Reader PDF+ is not at all what an eBook reader should be. As this, the included QuickOffice is also another mess when compared to the Windows Mobile PDAs. So, I’ve ultimately lost the Application and eBook facilities that I always wanted in any PDA. Anyways, I tried the other facilities of the mobile.
The included 2 Mega Pixel camera is ultra cool and captured some nice shots even in the night time. The Business Card reader included in the phone is excellent. It saved me a lot of time by entering my Contacts. I wonder is there any software application available in Windows PDA’s to do this Job. The Sound Quality as usual to Sony Ericsson Mobiles was excellent. The bundled head sets are also very fine in quality though I felt a little disturbance in maximum volume. It surely can’t combat with Sony Ericsson Walkman phones. The Jog Dial in the left side is a cool idea. But I thought like the BlackBerry devics the Jog Dial in the right side would have been better. The return back button and the Key lock sliders were cool ones too. But all of them in the left side makes me a left handed man which I’ven’t felt much comfortable because, I’ve been more productive when I play around with my right hand as I’m a right hand man.
The Touch Screen is ultra sharp, crispy and very smooth. Unlike the O2 Atom XDA, I don’t need to give much pressure to my Stylus as the smooth surface received light touches easily. I think this is because, this PDA is NOT a surface-mounted one like the O2 Atom XDA. The voice call and video call both (oh… I forgot to say, this one comes with front-side VGA Camera for Voice Calls as this PDA is the 3G one!) offered nice connectivity and there were no disturbances in the voice clarity.
But I must say, making calls and accepting incoming calls are a mess as you have to completely rely on the touchscreen to do those things. This really frustrated me very much at last I’ve decided to try the flip-flop attached with this phone. I should say the effect is ultimately impressive. Once I’ve attached the flip-flop with the mobile phone, it provided me two interfaces. When the flip-flop closed, the mobile acted exactly as a cellphone with limited applications and more of call related services and the mobile-phone keyboard on top of the flip-flop is really very much useful. When the flip-flop is opened, it provided me the bigger screen with touch sensitivity and allowed me to use all the applications installed. This fitted me perfectly well (even though I should say, the mobile became reasonably bulky) as I’m a frequent caller.
Also I’ve been impressed by Sony’s technology of closing the touch sensitivity whenever the flip-flop is closed and allowing us to touch the screen once the flip-flop is opened. They should’ve got really good engineers.
The PDA phone of course lacked in many things as usual to any other PDA’s. The first thing being the Battery Backup again. Even though this one provided more battery backup than O2 Atom XDA, it still provided me only one and half days on full recharge. The major problem with this PDA which was NOT in the O2 Atom XDA is the memory power. It lacked so much in memory power that ultimately killed me from using more than 3 applications at a time. Even for smaller applications like Contacts and Messages, I’ve received frequent warnings saying the Memory is full and it abruptly ended the application. Many times, this leaded to crashes and even restarting of the device. I should say, Sony Ericsson MUST improve in this area very much. I don’t quite understand why all these people do these kinds of silly mistakes. When they provide all the things you need in a Mobile or PDA, why they don’t give you enough Memory and Battery Backup to play with it? It’ makes the device ultimately useless and pointless right?
That being said, please let me know your comments…
O2 Atom XDA
May 31st
After a long time, at last my dream came true…
I always wanted to own a PDA but the cost of one kept me away from buying it. But after some time, I was able to get some fund and buy this beauty: O2 Atom XDA.
I always go for the BEST when it comes to gadgets. That’s why my friends call me the Gadgets Freak! (And that’s how the name for this Blog came up). So, I’ve decided to buy the costliest one with many features and looks. The ultimate choice is of course an O2 PDA.
O2 is always been an excellent provider in PDA’s and Pocket PC’s. So, I’ve went on buying one. The one that seemed perfect for me is an O2 Atom XDA Pocket PC. So, I’ve bought it.
Now, one thing is very clear about O2. They do really superb graphics. The Screen Quality of O2 Atom XDA is excellent. The screen is also bigger and crispy. I particularly liked O2’s Logo and the Today Background screen they’ve provided. I even switched the PDA many times on and off just to enjoy the O2 Logo which is displayed when the PDA is switched on. Carrying an O2 Atom XDA easily earned me the high respect in my Friends and Colleagues circle. They all admired it. So, as for looks, this PDA is the BEST for sure.
The OS is Windows Mobile 5.0 (Windows Mobile 6.0 has been released, but there are very few models available with WM6 preloaded). The OS does Microsoft’s ultimate goal easily… The User Friendliness. It’s so easy to use that even my friend’s son of 6 years old can play well with it. The Interface is also much faster. As usual with every PDA, this one accepts everything through Touch Screen interface with the Stylus for pointing. I hated having to grab the Stylus everytime so, tried to go by fingers. I MUST say, this PDA really does it for the people just like me. It has big screen pointers and icons which are easy to click with your fingers. And the O2’s exclusive Phone Interface is the ultimate example for it. It provides an virtual telephone keyboard with bigger buttons on which you can play around with just your fingers for making any type of calls.
The Pocket PC comes with all options that are usual in high range PDA’s. Connnection options: InfraRed, Bluetooth, WLAN, WiFi and GPRS. I particularly liked the WLAN very much as it helped me to browse in O2 XDA as well as in my Laptop at the same time using Wireless Broad Band connection which I’ve in my home. Surprisingly for a PDA Mobile, this one comes with 2 Mega Pixel Camera with LED Flash. Hey, that’s one of the cool features you can only find in Mobiles. Needless to say, the Camera Quality is also excellent. It does allows night time photo shoot also with a special preset mode.
Being an Windows Mobile PDA which supports miniSD for external storage (As usual I went for a 2GB miniSD that really rocked!) the installable applications and documents possibilities are huge. I particularly liked the original Windows Pocket Office that comes pre-installed in this PDA. That supported almost all of the Desktop version features. Having this PDA replaced my laptop almost up to a certain extend. The internal Outlook is excellent for frequent Email receivers. I’ve also uploaded some of my PDF books and downloaded and installed Adobe PDF Reader for Pocket PC and voila, I’m having the ultimate eBook reader in hand! It even supports UTF-8 which means, I’m able to see my Tamil eBooks like Ponniyin Selvan, Sivagamiyin Sabatham etc without a worry. The Adobe PDF Reader also supports the Reflow mode under which the PDF (with Text) is automatically wrapped according to the PDA’s screen making it very easy to navigate and read.
It supports Desktop Fonts also. I’ve tried installing some of my favourite fonts and had an enjoyable moments of typing Email in those fonts. Needless to say, I’ve installed few useful softwares also and made this PDA the ultimate tool of my Business and Personal needs. Being a Windows Mobile PDA really helps the PDA lovers very much as it’s applications and usability is unlimited.
I think that’s enough for the positive pointers about this PDA. But I’m sad to say it had few negative pointers also. I don’t know why anybody is NOT able to come up with a Gadget that never had any negative pointers. Particularly I hated it very much to see some of the important things that needed in a PDA or Pocket PC were negative in this PDA!
Main thing is the Battery Backup. Come on O2, you gave me an excellent PDA with utmost features in the world to play around but I won’t have the enough battery power to keep it on? That sounds to me like keeping all delicious food in front of me when I’m particularly hungry and then asking me not to eat them! They surely need to work on the Battery Backup. It didn’t even lasted for one full day for me.
I don’t know why these Microsoft guys also do the same. They always give us the BEST Operating System in it’s class with superb User friendly interface and everything along with very buggy and frequently hanging problems! I thought they only had it in the Desktop Operating Systems. But I’m wrong, they had it in this Mobile Operating System too! It’s frequently hanging and I kept resetting it (that ultimately killed my very much liking to the O2 Logo which I hated to see so many times as I’ve to reset the PDA). One thing that killed me is whenever I close a Program, it doesn’t actually closes it. It just keeps it in the Memory and clears only from the screen. This ultimately reduced my battery power, memory limits and also the speed of the interface. Luckily O2 gave the Today Screen button in O2 Plus (which is free, but you need to install separately) which when clicked will show all running programs and you can end them in there (just like a Task Manager). Now, I know why these Microsoft guys ever came up with a Task Manager in a PDA!
One additional thing missing (optional thing of course) is the Keyboard. I’ve provided with virtual keyboard (which I can only use with Stylus. Fingers can’t work with that much small keyboard) and handwriting recognition and everything. Still, I think it will be good if O2 had a keyboard that I can physically handle. Here, I must mention that the hand writing recognition technology is really working great in this PDA which almost satisfied me and kept me away from thinking that it didn’t had a physical keyboard!
So far so good. Considering the Pros and Cons of this PDA, I still suggest this is the BEST PDA you can buy. Not just because I bought it. It’s just because, I found out later that most of the Cons I’ve mentioned here are usual among all PDA’s. But the Pros on this PDA really makes it stand out in the crowd.
Apple iPod Shuffle – The small wonder
May 7th
I’ve recently bought a Apple iPod Shuffle 1 GB (Orange Color) after so many recommendations from my friends. After using it for three weeks now, I’ve decided to review it here in my own personal way as I felt it.
I’ve always been reluctant to buy Apple iPod as I’ve received comments from existing users that it’s tend to attract dust and scratch easily and will loose it’s glamor within weeks. I was using Sony Ericsson W700i mobile as my MP3/MP4 player for a long time.
Now, I can say, I’m WRONG! Still, the facts about all iPods attracting dust and scratch easily is true, it’s worth having for anyway!
I’ve been addicted to it. Now, it’s with me everywhere I go. Office, home, travel or even while going to Cinema theaters.
I always wanted a small and compact solution to music. But I never thought this much small and compact is possible. Even while seeing the pictures of iPod Shuffle in Apple’s website and other magazines, I didn’t able to figure out the exact size. But when I received the Box from Apple three weeks ago in a catch White transparent box with a middle cut where the iPod was seated beautifully, I was totally lost. I’ve fall in love at first sight. I’ven’t even opened the package for long time and just sat there admiring it’s beautiful look. When I opened the box, voila, it’s such a small thing I can ever dream of!
I don’t know what is the technology geeks in Apple thinking of themselves, but I can only think of them as Gods! They did their job very well. One immediate cool factor you will came to know when you purchase an iPod Shuffle is it’s tiny size. I don’t know how these guys are managed to put a Rechargeable battery and an 1 GB chip along with Player programming processors in this tiny unit! It’s simply the small wonder. I’ve even seen 1 GB RSMMC (Reduced Size MMC) chips which I wondered how came this much small is possible. But when I compare them with iPod Shuffle, I can’t even put them in equal state.
One amazing thing for me is the Sound Quality of this small wonder is awesome and supports super volume levels. One thing you will surely notice is no matter whatever the volume you raise, the Sounds are NEVER noisy. That’s an amazing thing! I always think even Sony Ericsson has one default like when you put a maximum volume, you will have some noise in the Sound delivered. I always thought Sony is the best in Sound world. But Apple is surely an equivalent and even a bit more of Sony.
One more thing that amused me is the Battery Capacity. Apple site for iPod Shuffle says the iPod Shuffle can last for 12 hours. I thought it’s same as the cellphone companies claiming their cellphones offer the longest lasting call duration and standby time and we buy it only to realize it’sn’t actually that much longer. But I was AGAIN WRONG! Apple iPod Shuffle provided me full 12 Hours playback. And one side note to this, the Battery Capacity when on the last of it’s minutes, doesn’t actually reduces the quality of sound or volume like other mobiles does, it just plays the Sound as it did in a fully recharged state until the Battery dies and it just switches the sound off abruptly once the batter dies so you don’t even know the Batter is going to die until the Sound is abruptly switched off. Man, that’s the wonderful thing to happen to any Rechargeable Battery based gadgets. I only hope this kind of backup can be given on Mobile phones too. (May be Apple iPhone can have that)
The bundled ear phones are of high quality and one specific aspect of them which I liked very much is, it allows us to hear outside voices even when on full Volume! That’s an amazing thing for me as I’m a frequent traveler and I always hear music on travel. It helps me to hear the blowing horns, back-seat person’s talks and everything even I’m on full volume. I don’t know about you guys who might like a fully filtered sound that didn’t allowed anything of the outside world sound inside (like the Sony Ericsson headsets does), but for me, this is the BEST thing!
I think I made a wise decision on buying an iPod Shuffle rather than iPod Nano or iPod which isn’t as small as iPod Shuffle. Also, the excellent 1 GB capacity is more than enough for me. I never watch videos on small Gadgets so, this perfectly fits me.
On the negative part, I can only say three things about the iPod Shuffle and even the whole range of Apple iPods. One, they didn’t offer any possibility of fast forwarding or fast backward of sound tracks (which is offered in so many other MP3/MP4 players I knew). Two, they are easily attracting dust and scratches. Three, they NEVER offer FM Radio capability. I know even a small gadgets now a days comes with FM Radio and I don’t know why the geeks at Apple never thought about that.
That being said, I still like and love the iPod Shuffle very much. Let me know your comments guys and gals…