It’s just a mobile browser which will work on most smartphones. As long as you have a Symbian or a Windows Mobile device, you can get it now and improve your browsing experience.
And Skyfire is now ready to be installed on Canadian smartphones. Skyfire has launched in Canada so if that’s your favorite country in the whole wide world, go ahead and download the beta. Check it out and send some feedback to Skyfire.
Why should you get it? Well it is available for lots of phones, whether Symbian or Windows Mobile; it supports full Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, Quicktime and other similar multimedia programs.
The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) concluded a few days ago in Los Angeles, which means the long awaited debut of Windows Mobile 7 was made. Although A-list blogger Bob Cringely made waves by asserting that “Windows Mobile will die”, Microsoft had turned the tide at the unveiling. Tech journalist Mary-Jo Foley at ZDNetgives readers a sneak peek into what was presented and distributed at the conference:
“Attendees will get a demo of Windows 7 by Windows engineering chief Steven Sinofsky, as well as pre-beta M3 bits to take home. Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie is on tap to outline Microsoft’s Live Framework, the Live Mesh development platform. Windows Server head Bob Muglia is expected to unveil Microsoft’s cloud development platform and explain how Microsoft plans to try to one-up Amazon and Google in this space — via a combination of its Windows Cloud OS, virtualization and a variety of cloud-optimized services. There are sessions on Microsoft’s Oslo modeling strategy and platform, Silverlight 2 for mobile, parallel/concurrent computing and more.”
Cloud computing is the wave of the future; I4U News explains that Google is already employing it and Apple is close behind. However, Microsoft has always managed to compete and thrive in spite of the competition. If this week’s debut is successful, it appears that they will continue to dominate in the mobile market.
As most of you who have used Three mobile will know, all Three mobiles have a customised patch which will change the standard Internet link button to a “My3″or “Plant3″ button.
Now if you buy a none Three 3G mobile and try to view your accounts like how you would on your three mobile, you cant, because you are not setup for it. You contact three, they tell you that you need a three mobile otherwise you cant do it, obviously they are only doing that in order to make you buy and use a three mobile.
After figeting with the settings all you have to do is go to your browser settings and set one of these as your homepage:
Find Tab:
http://three.net.au/fnd/gethome.do
New Tab:
http://three.net.au/mynow/getnow.do
Mine Tab:
http://three.net.au/min/gethome.do
Fun Tab:
http://three.net.au/fun/gethome.do
My Account:
http://three.net.au/hss/getmyaccount.do
My3 (Same as Mine Tab):
http://three.net.au/my3/gethome.do
The standard site you enter when you click on the 3 internet icon on your three phone is My3. When you first enter this website you may be required to enter your 4 digit pin.
For those of you who use mobile windows or mobiles which sync with Microsoft Outlook, there is a recent change in Daylight saving dates. you may think that by turning off the daylight saving and manually change the clock will eliminate the problem. It will until you start syncing calender events on your computer with your mobile. Calender events will go forward or back one hour or if its a whole day event, dragging the whole day event over a span of two days when you view by month.
If you live in a Daylight saving region you will need to:
Patch your computer clock with “WindowsXP-KB931836-x86-ENU.exe”, the following link will lead you to the Microsoft download page.
Now if you check outlook some of your events may become messed up, do not try to fix this your self as it will take a long time and may change again when you sync with your mobile. Download “Microsoft Office Outlook Tool” and fix your calender events with this program.
The program would have fixed all or most of your problems on your computer regarding calender event times. If not you will have to manually fix this your self. the program should have fixed most of your events and assigned a time zone to each event.
Now you will have install a similar daylight saving patch on your windows mobile to fix the daylight saving problem on the mobile (if you do not do this step the same time problem will still occur)
After this your outlook events on your PC should all be fixed (if not fix this your self) and then sync the mobile, the events should be fixed. Sometimes there is errors which prevent the calendar events on the mobile to be fixed, if this problem occurs try to export the calendar events form PC outlook, delete them from outlook, then import the events back. This will fix your mobile events after syncing and any new events created should not have any more problems.
Note that if you have an older windows mobile, you may already have a 2007 daylight saving patch on your mobile. This file needs to be uninstalled from your mobile before the 2008 patch will become active otherwise the 2007 file will stop the 2008 patch from working.
The HTC Touch Pro is a Windows Mobile which incoperates the use of microsoft office tools. This allows the sychronisation of mobile contacts with Microsoft Outlook. Similar to most new smart phones, most fields from outlook are available on the mobile, where as a few years ago only some of the most basic essential fields are available.
The mobile comes with a Touch Flo 3D interfact which is catchy to the eye but abit laggy at times. It is only a face, where as if you need to access more advanced functions the programs original file will be called leaving the catchy interface and back to the standard program interface.
I came across one problem while using this phone. It allows the use of Live Messenger if your Provider allows, or you are able to connect to wireless network. This is all good, where as the phone will store your Live Messenger contacts to your phones contact list, also merging your Live Messenger contacts with your phone contacts if possible. This is all good until you decide to close down Live Messenger and try to access your phone’s contact list. It will not load and your Touch Flo 3D interfact becomes super laggy (everything is of course fixed if you restart the mobile).
The camera on this phone is quiet advanced, including a auto focus function which allows you to take photos from nearly all distances even within 5 cm of the camera lense. This is worth mentioning because most digital cameras cannot focus at this distance where as the HTC camera can take the picture as clear as if you were taking pictures of items 5 meters away.
The touch screen interface is addictive and comes quiet handy when navigating through the mobile and internet, though there is the rare occasion where the on screen keyboard would pop out even when you are in the full qwerty mode. The problem with programs closing when switching from full qwerty to standard touch screen mode (vertical to horizontal) or vise versa mentioned on other HTC Touch Pro reviews have not been experienced on my version 1.90.861.6 (possible firmware upgrade). Typing on a qwerty keyboard is definately much faster then without a qwerty keyboard, but sometimes its annoying just to slide the keyboard in and out.
Battery Performance
Battery Standby Time: 239 Hours
Battery Talk Time: 299 Minutes
Video Talk Time: n/a
Data and Memory
External Memory Type: Micro SD (Supports up to 16GB)
Memory: 260MB
PC Sync: PC Active Sync
Form Factor
Depth: 18.1mm
Height: 102mm
Main Screen Resolution: 480 x 640 pixels
Main Screen Size: 2.8″ TFT LCD flat touch sensitive
Secondary Screen Size: n/a
Weight: 165 grams
Width: 51mm
Media and Camera
Camera: 3.2 megapixel camera
Camera Flash: LED integrated flash
Digital Zoom: Autofocus lens
Image Editor: No
Video Camera: Video Streaming
Phone Features
Bluetooth: 2.0 technology
Email: No
FM Radio: yes
Infrared: No
MP3 Player: yes
MP3 Ringtones: yes
Mobile TV: No
Network Band: yes
Operating System: No
Polyphonic Ringtone: yes
Speaker Phone: yes
USB: yes
Video Calling: yes
Video Player: yes
Voice Activated Dial: No
Voice Memo: n/a
WLAN: No
GPS: Built in GPS/A-GPS function/Touch-sensitive Navigation controls
Since the early days of the iPhone, frustation has simmered over Safari’s lack of support for flash, essentially leaving a majority of websites off limit to the iPhone. But not for much longer! Sources at Adobe have confirmed that the company is working on Flash support for the Apple iPhone’s Safari browser.
“My team is working on Flash on the iPhone, but it’s a closed platform,” Adobe’s senior director, engineering, Paul Betlem stated during a town hall presentation. The source did not provide further details.
However, one can imagine by enabling Flash on the iPhone it would open up the device’s browser to a much richer and even more desktop-like Internet experience - and that can only be good for the you iPhone junkies out there.
LG Korea today announced their latest mobile gadget, th LG KP500. At 11.9 mm thick, the LG KP500 is a new touch screen vying for the emerging touch screen mobile generation.
Using the latest reincarnation of the proprietary LG Flash-based UI, the UI is thumb-optimized, but a stylus is also provided to assist handwriting recognition - a good idea considering that the screen is only 3 inch compared to 3.5 inch of the Apple Iphone 3G, and the 3.2 inch of the Samsung Omnia. A marked improvement from the previous LG Viewty however, with the stylus in the KP500 is intergrated into the handset’s main body.
Targeting the higher spectrum of the entry-level market, the LG KP500 lacks the high end appeal of the likes of the iPhone. Instead LG has again focused its attention as a feature packed device with reasonable affordability for the average user. Suprisingly, the KP500 does not support 3G (for now at least), but it does have quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE which means its capable of gloabal roaming.
It is also only a 3 megapixel fixed focus camera (YES! not a auto focus we’re used to). However, that is somewhat offset with a 256K 3-inch wide touch screen display with a resolution of 240 x 400 pixels - not bad for a phone made to a budget.
Other features include:
- an epandable microSD memory card slot (up to 8GB)
- stereo Bluetooth
- FM radio and an accelerometer
- light weight at only 89g
Clearly, the lack of GPS support and WAN is a turnoff in an otherwise competent device.
Expected to be available in the first half of October in Europe, the phone should be available for Australian buyers via HongKong import shortly after. Expect to pay around $700AUD.
Expansys (Hong Kong) are taking international pre-order for the KP500 now, if you can’t wait for it to hit the local market, head on over to register your interest.
See the official LG KC500 video demo:
Specifications:
2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
Announced 2008, September
Status Coming soon. Exp. release 2008, October
Dimensions 106.5 x 55.4 x 11.9 mm
Weight 89 g
TypeTFT touchscreen, 256K colors
Size 240 x 400 pixels, 3.0 inches
Features - Flash UI
- Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
- Handwriting recognition
- FM radio with RDS
- Java MIDP 2.0
- MP3/WMA/AAC player
- MPEG4/3gp video player
- Organiser
- Document viewer (DOC, XLS, PDF)
- Voice memo
- Built-in handsfree
- T9
Sound Polyphonic (64 channels), MP3
Customization Composer, Download
Vibration Yes
Phonebook 1000 entries, Photocall
Call records 40 dialed, 40 received, 40 missed calls
The guys over at Mobile Review have relased a review on the new Samsung M8800. Boasting a 3.2″ touch screen and an industry benchmark 8MP auto-focus camera, it stands as the new heavyweight champion of mobile optics. Has Nokia missed the boat?
Camera
Much like the INNOV8, the M8800 is an imaging-centric phone, and this time around, to put a special emphasis on its focus, Samsung have come up with a new prefix for this type of phones - PIXON. Nevertheless, the first 8 Mpix cameraphone in their range, the i8510 INNOV8 won’t have its name changed, but all phones to come will feature the “PIXON” part in their names. Curiously, though, non imaging-savvy handsets (even with 8 Mpix cameras) won’t have this prefix either.
The M8800 camera’s specs are as follows:
8 Mpix CMOS module, 1/3.2 inches
x16 digital zoom (no optical zoom, regrettably)
LED flash
Miminun macro distance – 10 c,
Face Detection/Smile modes
Focal Length – 5.70 mm
ISO – 100, 200, 400,800, 1600;
F=4.6 mm, 2.4
Even this quick rundown of the M8800’s camera specs makes it crystal clear that it doesn’t have a lot in common with that found in the Samsung INNOV8.
The camera module is mounted on the rear panel of the M8800 and enjoys a mechanical lens cover that snaps open automatically once you fire up the camera application (you can do this by hitting the dedicated camera key on the right). The zoom controls aren’t particularly easy to handle, since it’s somewhat recessed into the casing, meaning that you’ll have to use both hands to adjust the zoom level.
The M8800 enjoys a landscape camera interface and allows the user to tweak all settings and change options on the fly by simply tapping on thumbnails you need right on the screen. Needless to say, this makes the phone’s camera app a breeze to work with.
The phone also comes equipped with a GPS receiver that, however, keeps a low profile in all menus except for the camera app, where it enables geo-tagging. What’s really frustrating, even though the M8800 does come with a real GPS chip in it, you won’t be able to use it, say, in Google Maps for navigation purposes.
We’ll talk more about Face Link mode when we get to the M8800’s Photo Browser. The last thing we need to note between going straight to the camera’s settings is that the handset comes bundled with an image stabilizer (when using it you won’t be able to adjust ISO level).
Using the settings menu you can select a special mode for shooting text fragments, although you probably will never have to turn it on, since even in the Auto mode the M8800 does a great job adjust all options and settings for crystal clear snaps.
In many ways and situations a LED flash is a superior choice to a Xenon unit, especially when shooting from several meters away. On the other hand, Xenon flash modules fare much better when it comes to close-ups. But as they say one picture is worth a thousand words – you better see what we are talking about for yourself (all shots below feature the M8800 and Sony Ericsson C905).
The top ISO level available in the i8510 is 1600, although it’s not exactly clear why would a mobile phone need such a high sensitivity level. When shooting in fairly good lighting conditions, noises become discernible with ISO settings 400 and above. Naturally, when shooting in low light they surface much earlier. Should you decide to run with the ISO 1600, you’ll get a totally blurred image with all details smeared away. Probably the only situation when you might want to use it is when you need to take a picture of some object in the dark and image quality doesn’t really matter, as you just need to make sure that the object’s outlines are well-visible
Effects
Below is a bunch of images rendered with the help of the Samsung M8800’s standard effects.
The i8510’s panorama mode is quite remarkable not only because of its image resolution, but also the way you take panorama shots with it. Basically, all you need to do is snap the first image in the sequence and then start moving the camera left or right - the i8510 will trigger the shutter automatically for the second and third images, and then it will stitch all images together. While it’s pretty convenient to have the software do all the work for you, you won’t be able to enjoy the quality just as much due to the abovementioned resolution limit.
You can record video clips in one of the following resolutions: 720x480 pixels (30 FPS), VGA (30 FPS), QVGA (120 FPS). When capturing videos you can zoom in/out and also apply one of the standard special effects. We were more than satisfied with the M8800’ quality on this front and didn’t really find anything to pick on.
Since the Samsung M8800 is one of the most affordable 8 Mpix solutions around, it wouldn’t surprise us if its camera was somewhat subpar. However, it holds its own against the Sony Ericsson C905 and even manages to offer slightly juicier colors, and more aggressive image processing algorithms (the same thing that Nokia does with its imaging-centric phones). However, the M8800 tends to focus on the central part of the image, and doesn’t provide the same level of detail for the background and flanks. All in all, we couldn’t pick the winner, even after taking a series of shots with these phones – neither of them had a perfect score. Same goes for the M8800 vs INNOV8 dilemma. As for the question many are struggling with – whether Xenon flash modules are preferable to LED units – we shall note that it’s more about how (i.e. in what light conditions and at what range) and what you are going to shoot. Both flash types are not without their own shortcomings and neither of them can guarantee you perfectly sharp and detailed images.
Photo Browser. This application is a welcome addition to the M8800’s software department – as its name suggests, “Photo browser” kicks in whenever you feel like viewing your gallery. It allows using various filters when browsing your images, such as file name or prevailing color (other filters like folder name, face tag and date are also available). By the way, the face tag feature is something we haven’t seen on mobile phones yet. Here is how it works – when browsing the gallery, select the Face Link option – the phone will try to find a face in the image you are currently browsing and in case it fails, you’ll get to select it manually and add a tag or assign the fragment you selected to a contact in the phonebook right away.
Among all other things the Photo Browser also features slide-show mode. But what we really liked about this application is that it allows scrolling through images not only with finger gestures, but also by simply tilting the phone right or left, and the lower one of the ends goes, the faster it jumps between photos, which is an interesting way to utilize the bundled motion sensor.
The M8800’s user interface has its roots in the Samsung F480 and also stands in one line with Samsung’s latest Windows Mobile offering, the i900 Omnia. Essentially, they are trying to bring these completely different UIs via one unique feature they have developed and implemented in mobile phones – Widgets. As you probably remember the first phone to sport these mini-applications was the F480 and Samsung have been upgrading and polishing them ever since.
While at the standby screen, the display’s base is occupied by a bar containing three shortcuts to the dialing screen, phonebook, messaging app and menu. On the left is an arrow, tapping which will expand the applications bar, allowing you to drag any Widgets to the screen (their layout is also adjustable). Obviously, the M8800 looks so much nicer with only a handful of windows tacked on, rather than a cacophony of widgets all around its real estate. Let’s take a look at what things you can be up on the screen:
Carrier name
Date and time
Analog clock
Digital clock
World time (for any chosen city)
Player controls
Radio controls
Album with thumbnails (you can also scroll through images with it)
Games shortcut
Events (missed calls, SMS)
Birthday reminder
Profile switcher
Five favorite contacts – you can call them or send SMS, all in one touch
Mirror – uses the forward-facing camera to show what’s going on right on the screen
Google search
Quick access for Samsung’s Fun Club
Alarm Clocks
AccuWeather forecast – somewhat similar to the visual effects found in HTC’s Touch Diamond
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Samsung’s Widgets allow the user to tune and tailor the display’s layout to his/her own liking. Unfortunately, sooner or later you will run into the only real limitation of the M8800 in this department – physical size of the screen; naturally, we’d like to be able to cram more elements into it. But, it is what it is today, even in this state Widgets is the most flexible solution out there and it’s definitely ahead of Nokia’s Active Standby.
The M8800 boasts almost twenty widgets, along with a download manager that enables the user to upload new ones from Samsung’s web site. Needless to say that no other phone maker can offer anything even remotely as flexible as the M8800’s standby screen.
You can enter the main menu by pressing the icon at the top of the screen. The numeric keypad or messaging appis called up from the standby mode hands down, which is also pretty convenient.
The main menu is displayed as a 3x4 grid. The touch-sensitive display is easy to handle – you tap the item you need, then bring up a data input field by double-pressing it, since the first one will select it, and the next one will enabled the on-screen keypad.
Unlike the Samsung F480, the central button serves for going back to the previous menu.
All texting is done via the on-screen keyboard, which is almost identical to that of conventional looking handsets – it houses twelve buttons with a batch of symbols attached to each, so in order to type some particular letter you will need to tap one of these buttons sequentially. While the Samsung F480 didn’t have an on-screen QWERTY keypad, the M8800 comes with a full-featured landscape-oriented thumbboard – all you need to do is turn the phone and grab it sideways, then the motion sensor will re-render the screen and bring the thumbboard to the top. It allows typing with both hands simultaneously, although they haven’t implemented multitouch technology yet. All in all, we were pleased with how easy it was to text with the M8800’s full-sized thumbboard.
Another thing that has gone through a major revamp is the predictive input system T9. You can enable it both for the numberpad and thumbboard in one touch. The good thing about the M8800 is that it tries to predict what letters or words you will punch in next and therefore makes it a lot easier to pick word endings by simply tapping on them. It’s also worth noting that the Apple iPhone can’t stand comparison to the M8800 solely because the latter’s keyboard may be called up in any menu or application, it features sizable buttons, predicts word endings much better and saves new words in its dictionary.
Furthermore, the M8800 sports several new options for handwriting - you can use the screen’s real estate as one big canvas or divide it up into separate zones and set individual recognition languages for each of them. We weren’t particularly thrilled by the quality of text recognition, but very few will actually use this feature, given that the M8800 is optimized for stylus-less operation.
All applications feature a context-sensitive tool bar at the foot of the screen.
Another area where the M8800 improves over its predecessors is scrolling – sliding your finger down on the left will make lists scroll through much faster than if you were doing that on the right. In case the list you are browsing features names, you can always opt to jump straight to some particular letter, like in the gallery.
All in all, based on our quality time with the M8800 it’s safe to say that it’s a major leap forward, if not a breakthrough, compared to the F480. Now it’s much easier to move around the phone’s menu, and your eyes will never get tired of its quite likable icons and animation (which can’t stand up to the iPhone’s glossy menus, however). But while we couldn’t recommend the Samusung F480 as a good alternative to the iPhone, the M8800 can well qualify as one – while it may lack in the way of looks, its user interface will not leave you disappointed and craving for more.
You can call up the phonebook by tapping the shortcut at the standby screen; you will see a list that contains all entries from both the SIM-card and phone’s memory. On the left there is a magnifier-shaped shortcut that allows scrolling all the way down to the letter you need. The drop-down list in the top right corner allows sorting the list by entry types – contacts, groups or favorites.
The only view available for the phonebook is a plain list with contact names – you won’t be able to browse assigned images or phone number right there, to do that you will have to enter the detailed view.
You can assign any image, photo or video clips as caller ID. Each entry can have up to 5 phone numbers of different types (mobile, office, home, fax, and other), one of them will be the main number (by default it is the first one you entered). All fields are customizable.
There are two lines for First Name and Last Name (search is performed only by the former), these fields get merged when displayed in the general list, and First Name comes first. For example Eldar Murtazin will be shown only in this order. The length of each field is 20 characters for any supported input language. You can also switch languages on the fly when entering a name.
All entries, regardless of language, are sorted out in the following way – all contacts with headings made in a local language (Russian, for example) go first and then those with names in English. This is a rather convenient and handy list sorting system. Taking into account fast language switch option during the search, it’s clear that no language will spoil the experience of working with this phone. The list can be sorted by first or last name.
But let us return to the information entered for a contact. Apart from phone numbers, e-mail address (there may be several of them), a little text memo can be submitted on top of all that. Any music file (including MP3) can be picked as a ring tone for a contact. Three caller groups are provided by default with the possibility for creating any number of additional groups, setting a personal melody and image for each (by default there are three groups). SMS alerts are not customizable.
The phonebook is capable of holding up to 2000 contacts with filled in data fields. Even if all the available blanks are not used, the cap won’t get any bigger and will still make two thousands. It is possible to specify in the settings where all new numbers should be kept by default. There is also an option for moving entries from the SIM-card, although the reverse action is denied. According to the developers, PC (MS Outlook in particular) is best for data synchronization with the M8800. Any contact in the form of SMS/MMS, mail message or other text file can be quickly sent through Bluetooth to another device. There are no problems with sending, and the phonebook entry gets beamed to another device, where it is read without any trouble.
The phonebook may contain a business card as well, though its structure copies all the fields found in a regular contact in the phone book.
There can be up to twelve numbers in the fast dial list; separate numbers tied up with a single contact may appear on this list as well.
You can create any number of caller groups, assign up to 20 contacts and customize them with a picture and tune.
On an incoming call, the caller ID picture occupies half screen, but that doesn’t make indiscernible.
Call lists
Each of the given lists contain up to 30 phone numbers. There is a combined list of all the last calls with an icon indicating call type. You can quickly switch between the lists. The date and time of the calls are displayed in the extended view for separate entries. Calls from/to one number are grouped up, so that the number standing next to the call specifies total number of calls made. As always, the overall time of the calls and their cost can be viewed in this menu (in the case that the service has been enabled).
For certain numbers you can arrange a black list that will reject all calls coming from these contacts.
Messaging
Much like other makers, over at Samsung they have forgone that artificial division into SMS-MMS types – you just start composing a message, and only then, depending on the contents, it is attributed to SMS or MMS. The menu still holds an option for switching message into MMS mode (for example when you need to send only text, but to an e-mail address, without calling up the bundled client).
The phone memory can hold up to as many as 500 messages; the handset supports EMS standard compatible with Nokia Smart Messaging. While choosing recipient, you can either select a telephone number from your contacts, or pick one from the call lists or groups. All messages are manageable, this means you are at liberty to move a certain number to your black list, in order to make sure all messages coming from that phone number will be deleted automatically; possibility for moving messages to any folder of your own is also at your disposal. For e-mail, you can move not only addresses to the blacklist, but unwanted subjects as well.
There are no size restrictions as far as received messages go, though an outgoing message’s size is limited to 295 KB. As for additional services available with the M8800, message rejection and message retrieval type options are onboard. All messages are stored in general dynamic memory, the same goes for e-mails.
Also there is a useful function for sending SOS-messages – when activated, should you find yourself in an emergency, after pressing the volume key four times, the message «I am in emergency. Please help me» will be sent to contacts submitted earlier, all incoming calls from these numbers upon sending the emergency message will be picked up automatically. Recipients (not more than 5), as well as the number of Repeats may be set up manually, while the text of the SOS-message is not customizable.
The bundled mail client is standard in all its components – 5 accounts and the maximum of 100 incoming messages; attachments are also handled by the phone, though there are also several caps – there’s no way you can receive a file more than 5 Mb big, or send one with size exceeding 5 Mb. Received files can be viewed via the bundled browser. The M8800 doesn’t support HTML in e-mails, which breaks formatting of most letters you receive, so they become really awkward to read.
Also, the M8800 features a setup wizard for the mail application that will walk you through all essential options and settings.
Organizer
The phone’s memory can store as many as 300 events of one type – meeting. Day and time as well as end time of an event are indicated for each entry. Alert signal and its duration can be adjusted to your liking; repeatable events are available for setting up (repeat time is also manageable as well as the exceptions). The week and the month calendar views are very convenient with each type of the event having its own color (in the month view you’ll see up to three upcoming events at the bottom).
Memo – standard text notes.
Tasks – a to-do list allowing you to set different priorities and adjust alarms for up to 100 tasks
World time is displayed for two chosen cities.
Calculator It divides, multiplies, subtracts and adds and does several more things – quite enough for a mobile calculator.
With the converter, you can operate with different units of measurements as well as with a number of currencies.
Applications
You can store up to 20 radio stations in the memory; the range of available frequencies is 87.5-108 MHz. Also, you can enjoy auto-tuning, but particular channels cannot have own names attached – they are always shown as frequencies. The radio implementation is fine, although it doesn’t pick up all stations equally well, but on balance, it is quite competent in comparison to other vendors’ offerings. The radio can be minimized.
RDS here displays only the station’s name in the general list, no advanced options available. On top of that, the M8800 can identify music you’ve just heard on the radio and record broadcasts either to a memory card or its internal storage.
Voice recorder. You can record up to several hours of voice memos with the number of files being unlimited. Basically, limitations on recording duration are set by the user himself, though length of a single recording cannot exceed 1 hour. All the files are stored in a separate folder in the memory bank. The recorder performs well during lectures, conferences and presentations – I could even say that it is a partial substitute for a digital tape recorder.
Countdown timer and stopwatch have no bells and whistles.
Video editor. Allows editing video clips and overlay sound tracks. The most basic editor that makes its first appearance with the M8800.
RSS Reader. This is a stand-alone utility for RSS feeds. However, it would make more sense if the RSS Reader was bound up with the web-browser, but this is not the case with the M8800. This way, RSS links are not picked up by the browser, or sent directly to the application. You will need to manually submit a channel address in this app to subscribe, or enter a web address and let the application try to find an RSS channel on it.
While uploading your news feed, the M8800 can upload text, as well as video and audio files, and it is up to you to set the size limit (by default – 5 Mb per file). Regrettably, there no scheduled feed updates are available, thus you will need to refresh the feed manually every time you need hot news.
Bluetooth. As far as this app’s outfit goes, it has definitely been reworked thoroughly in the M8800 – now you can view the device map (like in some wireless managers on desktops) or opt to browser the standard version of device list. In terms of Bluetooth, the M8800 is a full-spec solution that won’t let you down.
Live Pix. This application is in fact some sort of a note pad allowing you to draw with bare fingers. It’d seem there is nothing special to it, but it also enables saving your drawings as a plain JPEG imagesor Flash animation where you’ll see all strokes and splashes you’ve just made recapped, which is quite an amusing feature.
Games. The M8800 can multitask with Java applications, meaning that you can fire up a couple of programs, minimize them and bring them back to the top whenever you please. The games pool may vary by market; our unit features a full version of Checkers Deluxe and demos of BrainChallenge, DiamondTwistter, Millionaire 3 and PyramidBloxx.
Browser – read our lowdown on the browser below, in the section titled “Google”.
Google. This menu features Google search, Gmail and Google Maps applications. Let’s start with the latter – there are no bells and whistles in the M8800’s version of these maps, however its 3.2-inch diagonal does make scrolling through them a much more gratifying experience. On top of that you can jump between satellite and street views, although the satellite images seemed somewhat rough to me, compared to other phones with this feature onboard. But probably it’s more due to the fact that the M8800 boasts a sizable diagonal, but lacks in the way of resolution. The phone pinpointed our location via cellular networks without any problems, so all in all, we have no gripes with this department.
The phone comes preinstalled with NetFront 3.5 (WAP-browser ver. 2.0), sporting an improved page rendering algorithm that makes the whole process even smoother and faster. On the downside, unlike its Windows Mobile edition, this browser doesn’t have such a wealth of extra options and abilities.
Apart from JavaScript support, fonts scaling (three types), Smart-Fit (single-column view), full-screen mode (all controls are hidden), page caching, they have embedded a new feature – on-screen ‘mouse’ pointer. Much like Nokia’s S60-powered handsets and Opera Mini, you can view pages with a tiny navigation window displayed. The browser itself packs a lot of goods under the hood and will be appreciated by most users.
Alarm clock
You can set up a number of alarm clocks in one touch or enable/disable the ones you have already created. Every alarm is fully customizable – you can pick any day you want and also use a custom tune.
File Manager (My files)
That’s the place to search for all files such as music, pictures, video and sounds. Any uploaded file gets stored here. The disadvantage is that files sometimes are not displayed in the list immediately - in that case you will need to leave the menu and enter it again.
Files and folders can be viewed either as a list or thumbnails. You can mark any number of files. The handset supports Move, Copy and Delete operations, as well as various types of sorting (by type, name or size).
Settings
Traditionally this item boasts a standard set of options inside like password protection of selected sections. No special or quaint settings are available with the M8800. It only comes with an assortment of wallpapers and the ability to swap them randomly. The M8800 comes preloaded with profiles enabling the user to change the settings momentarily.
The font size, as well as its color and style are also adjustable.
The user can also modify vibration power for the VibeZ.
Mobile Tracker – submit a phone number, where notifications will be sent to in case SIM-card was changed - that message will contain number of the SIM-card being used with the handset. This section is protected with password, so that no one other than you or someone else who knows the password could disable the Tracker. Should your device have the SIM-card switched once, the specified number will receive one message instantly, and one more each time a new card is plugged in. A fetching feature which can prove to be of much help in case the handset is lost or stolen.
MP3-player
The M8800 comes with is a typical latest-gen Samsung player. The integrated mp3 player, supports random, sequential and cyclic playback. Mp3 files can be uploaded onto the handset both directly over Bluetooth and through the sync application or Windows Media Player. There are no limitations on tags and names of music files. Bitrates are not something that really matters either – the handset easily deals with all available formats and supports WMA, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+.
The title of the currently played back track is displayed as well as the number of the remaining tracks. There is an equalizer is embedded in the M8800, but no way to tune it. Your tracks can be played through the stereo headset as well as the speakerphone. The volume bar has 14 scales on it. And of course the user can make up their own playlists. The player can work in minimized mode – in this case the display will show current track title and music controls, which is a good thing.
The player boasts the following filters: all tracks, recently played, most popular, artists, albums, genres and composers. Filters may be edited in the Settings menu (so that they’ll take account of some particular options). The M8800 also sports Album Arts support.
Speaking of new options, the player has obtained the rating system, enabling you to award any track with one to five stars. The maker has driven the integration with Windows Media Player as deep as it has never been before; actually, this manager also sports the rating system.
The bundled headset has a socket for plugging in custom earphones and ensures pretty good sound quality overall. Generally speaking, as a music-minded solution, the M8800 comes close to Sony Ericsson’s Walkman range, especially as far as the first generation is concerned. While at the standby screen, if you have the music player minimized, you will see its controls and current track title right on the display.
While in the speakerphone mode, the M8800 was not the best performer we had seen – it played somewhat distorted sound and obviously lacked power, even though the sound didn’t feel muffled.
Music Recognition – a mere alternative to Sony Ericsson’s Track ID service. The gist of this service is this: you record a short clip from some music track you fancy and then the phone finds you its title and artist.
Watching video with the M8800
Some words about how the M8800 fares on the video front – thankfully, its widescreen gives it all it takes for a decent experience. The phone supports mpeg4, H.263, H.264, DivX, which allows you to drag and drop movies onto the memory card. In fact, maximum file size is unlimited, at least in our tests we used 600-700 Mb movies and experienced no hardships with them.
But the biggest letdown here is also one of the best things about the M8800 – its display. Sounds awkward, right? However, if your video is 240x320 pixels big, it won’t occupy the entire display, since the handset can’t fit the picture into the screen size, leaving black stripes on all sides. Where the Apple Touch excels, the M8800 simply can’t make a movie look eye-candy. You can also opt for bigger video resolutions, but at the cost of having occasional freeze-ups and blockiness on the screen. All in all, we felt pretty content with the M8800’s 240x400 display resolution as far as videos are concerned. Another thing going for it is that you won’t have to convert movies before uploading them onto the phone.
Picsel Viewer
Putting it short, Picsel Viewer is an application that opens MS Office files (for instance, MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Adobe Acrobat (PDF), picture and video formats on the phone. The attraction of this technology is its speed, when a 20 MB PDF file takes a couple of seconds to open, then you can quickly page through it, zoom in/out and rotate pages. No editing abilities here, only viewing is available with the M8800, but that is pretty much enough already, especially considering there is no need in extra conversions.
Australian buyers who can’t wait for its official Australian release can expect to pay around $AUD 980 for an import version come November. The expected international release date for this baby is 5th November 2008, and its expected to be compatible with local 3G and the Telstra NextG Network.
The LG KC780 8 megapixel cameraphone is now officially confirmed, as we managed to snatch a press photo of the upcoming slider. We don’t have the specs of the KC780 as yet, but we know that it’s being touted by as the slimmest 8 megapixel phone availble. That means it has to be slimmer than 13.8mm to qualify and beat the Samsung M8800 Pixon.
The LG KC780 made its debut last week in a blurry, under-the-shelf photo, but this time we have a nice pic for you to enjoy. We still don’t know more details about the handset than we already had last time, but you know, a picture is worth a thousand words.
And by the way, we also received word that LG will be announcing a new slim full touch handset tomorrow that promises to break the barrier of affordability. But more on when the time comes.
The 8 megapixel slider LG KC780 should be able to offer quad-band GSM support and even limited touchscreen functionality - we shall see. We can also expect 30fps video recording - but that of course is a no-brainer for LG cameraphones.
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