Samsung Focus is the first Windows 7 phone to launch here in the US. This phone hasn’t been launched yet; it will arrive on 8th of November and the carrier sent me a model for review. This phone looks and feels very familiar to the Galaxy S series devices. It is an all touch screen phone having; the surface is dominated by a four inch super AMOLED display. It is as gorgeous as some of the best Samsung smartphones that I have previously seen in my labs. Also noteworthy is that the phone is pretty slim and light. Like other Galaxy S models, this phone is plasticky and slick than what I would have liked but the plastic body doesn’t make the phone look cheap. The main difference between the Galaxy S phones and the Samsung Focus is that the latter is running Windows 7 OS. The new operating system comes with a slew of new features and I liked them a lot. The user interface has been revamped here; the start screen consists of live tiles which  [...]

After LG Vu Plus, this manufacturer didn’t make messaging device for AT&T and it has been an year since then. The LG Neon II that we have here first debuted at CTIA Fall 2010 and is a sequel to LG Neon that we saw last year. This phone has a few changes, like there is a four rwo QWERTY keyboard instead of three, the keypad design is different, and there is support for 3G now. There are a few disappointments too, the touch screen is available only for the phone dialer, and the camera hasn’t been upgraded, it still has the same two megapixel camera. I didn’t like the touch-sensitive soft keys much either. Neon II is costs $29.99 and you have to sign a two year service agreement with a $50 mail-in rebate. For the design, the LG Neon II has a lot of similarities with its predecessor. The size and shape are just the same. Neon II is 4.06 inches long, 0.6 inch thick and 1.96 inches wide. The phone has a rectangular body with straight  [...]

Windows 7 phones are here and everyone AT&T has announced their two bits already with HTC Surround and Samsung Focus. T-Mobile has too joined the race with HTC HD7, their first Windows 7 smartphone. T-Mobile said that the HTC HD7 will come on November 8th and will cost $199.99 along with a two year contract and after $50 mail-in rebate. It will have a large 4.3 inch touch screen display with a very spacious keyboard. Such specs are indeed mouth watering and we cannot wait for this handset to come in our labs for testing. HTC HD7 will be powered by a 1 GHz processor which will make sure the phone will remain fast even if you run multiple applications on it. A faster processor opens up the applications really fast. For storing music, videos and photos, the phone will be having 16 GB internal memory which is quite impressive. You can carry the entire music library in your pocket. On the back, the HTC HD7 phone will have a five megapixel  [...]

Apple’s Q4 earnings are out and this is another wining quarter for this manufacturer. Apple said that the results for fourth quarter are highest earnings and revenue ever. They have set new records for iPad, iPhone and Mac sales. Highlights here include about 14.1 million iPhone sold (which is up 91 percent for Q4 in 2009), 3.98 million Macs (up by 27 percent), 4.19 million iPads and 9.05 million iPods (down by 11 percent). The profit is at all time high with $20.34 billion and the net profit has been $4.31 billion. These figures are all really impressive except for the iPod. The music player hasn’t been doing well in the market especially because the iPhone is now a much capable substitute. It can do everything that the iPod Touch and also has cellular service. Many think that Apple might stop selling the iPods in near future. Apple is holding the Mac event today and it will be interesting to see what all they have to announce for their computer  [...]

There are lots of smartphones coming in the market regularly and the prepaid market is one of the fastest growing segments in the cell phone industry. Most of these phones are quite similar to Samsung SGH-T369 that we’ve got here. There are cheaper choices in the market too. This handset has a sturdy sliding mechanism with compact design and slide out full QWERTY keyboard. The hardware inside is pretty impressive too; you get good feature set like music player, microSD card slot, camcorder, etc. However, there are some problems with the design. For instance, the manufacturer gives a proprietary port for headphone jack and charging port and the memory card slot is located behind the battery cover. You will have to take off the cover to access the memory card every time. I would still recommend the Samsung SGH-T369 if you are looking for a prepaid phone because at a price like $79.99, the flaws are acceptable. You also get the playful T-Mobile's carousel interface  [...]

Nokia X3 Touch and Type runs on S40 platform and the device is not a full fledged smartphone like the N8 based on Symbian 3 OS. This means you won’t get some of the goodes like free turn-by-turn navigation through Ovi Maps and Exchange support. Otherwise, the phone is a feature packed device especially for its price and size. The messaging application on the Nokia X3 Touch and Type has support for Windows Live, Gmail, Ovi Mail and also other IMAP and POP3 accounts. I could easily set up my Yahoo and Gmail accounts on the phone without any problems. The mail app is pretty basic in functionality but still supports folders. This phone is far from an e-mail machine but you can still check your mails and reply whenever necessary. For faster communication, there is multimedia and text messaging, Twitter, Facebook and some instant messaging apps. Nokia X3 Touch and Type is a quad band world phone and give you speakerphone, conference calling, speed dial, vibrate mode and  [...]

Nokia 2610 is an entry level handset and it is covered by AT&T. Nokia initially rose to popularity because of its basic handsets like these. The company is concentrating more on high end phones these days but they do come back to their roots once in a while. The 2610 that I got in my labs is a very basic phone with no extra bells and whistles. Tech enthusiasts like me might balk at such bland phones but there are people who just want a phone for calling and nothing else. Such people hardly use the phone for anything else and hence hesitate to buy high end or even mid range phones. Nokia 2610 has a pretty basic candybar design and I must confess that there is nothing attractive about the phone as compared to other high end smartphones that I get from this manufacturer. The navigation array and the numeric keypad too are kept simple. I was disappointed to see that the handset doesn’t have any buttons on the sides, Nokia could have given  [...]

Nokia is the biggest cell phone manufacturer in the world and their phones famous all over except in the US. So the company has tried harder to make a smartphone that is as good as the iPhone or some of the most popular Android handsets in the market. Nokia sent me this phone in my labs for review and after going through it, I can confidently say that the features and performance has been improved a lot on this handset. But it certainly cannot compete with the mighty iPhone, especially in the US. Another turn off is that the Nokia N8 is offered only as an unlocked device and the price is whopping $549. The Nokia N8 is a quad band world roaming phone offering features like speakerphone, conference calling, speed dial, voice dialing, multimedia and text and messaging along with threaded chat view, and vibrate mode. The address book of the phone is limited just by the available memory and the SIM can hold 250 more contacts. A single entry takes multiple numbers, home and work addresses,  [...]