Category — mobile-review

The Nokia N70 Music Edition is one of the few N-series mobile phones available for less than 10k in the indian market. The main attraction of the N70 Music edition is the ease of playing music on the mobile. Unlike earlier mobile phones you do not have to go through an arcane set of screens to be able to play the music. A dedicated music key on the Nokia N70 Music Edition, means the mobile phone gets converted into a music player at the touch of a button. Ability to create and edit multiple playlists is a great feature as well.

The Nokia N70 Music Edition comes with a 2 megapixel camera. The N70 has good features like 3G and GPRS as well. You can read the user guide for N70 music edition 

The specification for Nokia N70 Music Edition

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is the first touch screen phone inroduced by Nokia in India. Nokia rules the Indian makret with more than half of all phones sold in the market. However in recent days nokia has seen a threat to its leadership from the touch screen phones introduced by new entrants like Apple and HTC.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic mobile phone is Nokia’s attempt to fight back in the touchscreen mobiles market. Priced at close to 20k, the 5800 XpressMusic looks much more attractive than the iphone. Looks like the pathetic performance of iphone is not going to change anytime soon.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has a 3.2 mega pixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, LED flash and video capturing capability. A virtual QWERTY keyboard makes typing messages or email easier. Like IPHONE, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is 3G compatible. It is not possible to use 3G technology in India though.

The Nokia 5800 comes with standard softwares like Nokia maps, Nokia music client etc. This phone has access to OVI, the online music store from Nokia. For this onlne music store, Nokia has collaborated with leading international and national music companies; Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, EMI, Warner and Tseries, Big Music and Yashraj.

The mobile is expected to be released in India in January 2009.

Fewdays back I had bought a LG 6600. In that post I had promised to post a first hand review of the LG 6600 mobile phone. As promised I am ready with the first installment of my review.

Looks of LG 6600: The metallic finish of LG 6600 looks quite impressive. However the corners and edges should have been a little more rounded. The screen is quite bigger compared to similar handsets. That is quite helpful in reading messages and especially in playing games. Unlike most other mobile phones that I have tried, the button to end call is not on the front panel but rather on the side panel. It was a bit of problem early on however now that I am accustomed to this positioning I am quite comfortable with it.

The voice quality of the LG RD 6600 leaves a lot to be desired. The voice quality is so bad that it makes me wonder if I have got a defective piece. The voice quality does not justify the huge interest level shown by people in this handset from LG.

However the RD 6600 from LG looks like a great value for money handset. At close to 6k price tag the mobile comes with camera, music player, FM radio and a screen that makes playing games on the handset quite comfortable as well. I am yet to try the picture quality of LG 6600 and will update this post as soon as I manage to click some pics.

The Samsung Innov8 mobile is the first mobile phone with a 8 megapixel camera. The Innov8 is a slider with a 2.8 inch screen. It comes with some great features like anti-shake, smile detection and blink detection etc. However the anti-shake mode does not work with the flash switched on!!

Video: The Samsung Innov8 has a video editor, movie maker and storyboard maker. The video editor enables you to edit video and add subtitles. With the storyboard maker, you can prepare a video from a number of images. You can directly upload photographs to the web as well.

Music: It comes with a music player and FM radio. It comes with a 16 GB memory. enough for storing as much songs as you may wish. The sound quality is damn good too. who needs an ipod???

Smartphone: It comes comes with pdf reader, zip manager and ofcourse a built in browser. Opening a mail attachment on the Samsung Innov8 is child’s play. It has a smart reader for business cards as well.

Price: I am sure many of you would not have read this post if I had put the price tag in the title itself. At a price tag of 43,500 RS the Samsung Innov8 makes the iPhone look like damn cheap. I think I will pass this phone and go and buy a bike insted.

Bleu 458x is a sleek but simple mobile with some really interesting features. There are 2 soft keys just below the screen of Bleu 458x. The phone comes with a VGA camera. While the camera of this bleu mobile leaves a lot to be desired, the 458x is perhaps one of the few mobiles in its price range to come with a camera.

The Bleu 458x comes with 4MB internal memory and PC connectivity. It also comes with a FM radio. It also comes with bluetooth that helps smooth transfer of file. It has standard features like FM radio.

Most importantly Bleu 458x comes at a price of Rs 3,600. That makes it one of the best budget mobiles available in the Indian market.

 Spice mobile seems to be getting agressive in the Indian market. It has launched the Spice S930 mobile. This latest offering from spice features the finger swipe technology. A swipe of the finger unlocks the mobile. A swipe of the finger is enough to make the virtua keyboard come alive.

Priced at less than 8000 rupees, it offers a lot more value for the price. It comes preloaded with opera mini browser. The 2 megapixel camera will not make you win any photography award but it is enough for your personal album. You can use it as a webcam as well.

LG 10000 is one of the premium handsets available to the customers of reliance communication or RIM. The LG 10000 mobile phone costs more than Rs 20,000.

LG 10000 : The Business Phone 

The 2 megapixel camera that comes with this handset from LG is a bit of let down at that price point. However the LG 10000 has been designed to act as a business phone. And it comes loaded with features that business users need like push and pull email support.The all new LG mobioe handset sports a 2.8-inch external touch sensitive LCD along with an internal display and a fully operational QWERTY keyboard

Other Features of LG 10000 Mobile phone

Dual speakers and voice recorder
Bluetooth v2.0 A2DP.
Extendable memory upto 8GB (using a microSD card)

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is the same phone that you know as Nokia Tube. Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has been touted as the i-pod killer. The comparison with i-pod is inevitable considering that the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic looks very similar to the i-pod.

I have not been able to personally use the handset before writing this Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Review. This review is a summary of other reviews on the net.

The Nokia 5800 has a one-finger touch screen while the iPhone can handle input from two fingers simultaneously. The 5800 has a better camera, including a Carl Zeiss lens. The Internet browser of Nokia 5800 can handle Flash files, which the iPhone can’t.

The XpressMusic is among the first devices to support Comes With Music, Nokia’s music service which offers one year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue, that includes close to 40 lakh songs.

I could not find any information about the price of Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. However I think it will be priced below Rs 20,000 and will give the iphone a good run for money.

The biggest problem in going with a cdma connection like reliance or tata indicom was that you got tied to the service provider. Changing the connection meant, you had to say good-bye to your mobile handset as well. Not any more. Many mobile handset manufacturers have come up with dual sim mobile phones to solve this problem. Dual sim mobile phones support two SIM cards in a single handset.

Spice, Samsung, Fly and Motorola have already launched dual sim mobile models. Nokia and LG have plans of introducing dual sim mobile phones in future

Dual sim mobile phones from Spice 

Spice mobile has 3 handsets with dual sim. D-80, D-88 and D-90. The Spice Spice D-80 supports only gsm networks. Hence it is ideal for people with 2 mobile numbers as they can carry both of them in a single spice d-80 mobile. Spice D-88 was introduced along with D-80 and it has the killer feature of suporting both gsm and cdma networks. No need to stick to your cdma provider if his services are crappy. Spice D-90 again supports 2 gsm networks only. It is a smart phone with all the multimedia functionalities too. It has a 2 MP Camera which can double up as a webcam.

Verdict: If you want a handset that can work with both cdma and gsm networks then go for Spice D-88. If you want to carry 2 gsm numbers at the same time, then go for spice D-80 or Spice D-90

Motorola and Kodak have launched the Motozine ZN5 camera phone in the Indian market. Even before considering the specification of the handset, I have been highly impressed by the amount of local content that these 2 global players have put into the handset.

The handset comes with default access to many indian newspapaers including Financial Express, Indian Express and Deccan Chronicle via the daily news link in ZN5. It comes loaded with a number of wallpapers that are clearly indian in taste.

Moreover three cricket games by Krish games have been preloaded on the Motorola ZN5 along with live cricket scoreboards, ball by ball commentary, live match simulations and news.

As far as connectivity is concerned the ZN5 supports Wi-Fi, EDGE, GPRS, bluetooth with A2DP and USB v2.0.  The handset comes with a TV out feature, a 3.5mm earphone socket and Motorola’s crystal talk technology.

The Motozine ZN5 is expected to be priced around Rs 20,000.

Also as a part of the introductory offer, the users would get 100 Kodak free prints of their personal photographs at select Kodak stores until March 31, 2009.

Nokia has just announced the Nokia N85,the latest multimedia smartphone in the Nseries.  It is a two-way slider.

 The Nokia N85 comes with a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. Combined with A-GPS it is possible to geotag favorite pictures. The Nokia N85 also offers a full range of standard scene modes, including Portrait, Landscape, Close-up, Sport and Night. It also offers a red-eye reduction flash mode and a flash range of up to 3 meters.

Each Nokia N85 comes with an 8GB microSD card. The Nokia N85 also supports the Nokia Music Store and other online music vendors, and music libraries can be synchronized via an USB cable.

This phone is going to be a hit with gamers as well. The Nokia N85 is pre-loaded with ten N-Gage gaming title demos and a voucher to activate one full game license. Dedicated gaming keys light up when the device is in gaming mode.

Finally LG has announced the LG KC910 the successor to the KU990 Viewty. The LG KC910 is the latest addition to mobile phones with 8 megapixel camera. Apart from the 8 mega pixel resolution the camera has a Xenon flash, Schneider-Kreuznach lens  and video capture in VGA resolution at 30fps.  The camera has advanced feaures like face, smile and blink detection and image stabilizer features. You can choose to shoot manually as well.

The KC910 is also the slimmest camera phone measuring only 14mm in thickness. The phone is fully equipped with Dolby sound, DivX and XviD for video playback, built-in GPS, a geotagging feature for photos and multiple codec support.

It sports a faster internet connection compared to Viewty. It comprises of both Wi-Fi as well as 3G cellular data support  with up to 7.2Mbps speeds downstream. The phone additionally features Bluetooth 2.0, a microSD card slot expandable up to 8GB, support for quad-band GSM and a TV-out for watching both still images and videos on a large LCD screen.

The LG KC910 is expected to launch this October. There is no news regarding the price though.

Untill today I never knew that Lenovo makes mobile phones. The Lenovo P990 is a cool slider phone. It comes with GPS capabilities. Looks like the P990 is targetted at the chinese market. The handset from lenovo supports handwriting recognition in 2 languages i.e english and chinese.

 The Lenovo P990 has a 3″ display with 240 x 320 resolution. It also features SIRFStar III GPS receiver chipset, a 2 megapixel camera, a 3 core CPU and microSD memory card slot for memory expansion.

 The  price of the handset is not known yet.

Nokia announced the launch phone, of its latest mobile Nokia 3610 fold. The mobile phone has 1.3-megapixel camera with 6x digital zoom on its outer flap and an external display showing the time and other relevant information.

Besides this the phone also boasts for having the organizer features, text and multimedia messaging, microSD slot for memory expansion, music playback and a 2,62,000 color display. The handset would be available in red, green and blue colours.

The phone is expected to be released during the third quarter of this year. However, the company has not disclosed any information about its price.

Palm recently made public the details of the Palm Treo 850 on a company website. The Treo Pro is expected to compete with the RIM BlackBerry Bold and Apple iPhone and is percieved to be Palm’s way of facing the competition from Motorola, Samsung, Apple and RIM.

The Palm Treo 850 is powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 and it encompasses features like a 2.4-inch 320×320 resolution touch screen, microSD expansion slot, 2.0 megapixel camera, QWERTY keyboard and WiFi. Sporting a built-in radio, the phone will have a 3.5 mm headset jack, a micro-USB jack for transferring data and 100 MB of RAM. In a glossy black and white colour scheme, the smartphone is expected to be leaner and more compact than the Palm Centro.

This phone is for those people who will not settle for anything below the perfect mobile. It does everything, and does them well. It is thick for a multimedia phone however the dual-slide design of the N95 looks nice, and works well.

The Nokia N95 makes calls that sound great. It uses Bluetooth 2.0, has a very loud speakerphone, and makes conference calls easily. The contact list is quite robust. Contact list backup is handled through Nokia’s PC Suite software, which can synchronize with Outlook and other PIM programs.The Nokia N95 has a nicely curved, comfortable keyboard, and does a fine job as a basic messaging phone. The N95 has a Bluetooth keyboard profile built in.

The Nokia N95 has a 5-megapixel camera on the back and a VGA camera up front. The 5-megapixel camera features Carl Zeiss lens and automatic focus. The phone includes plenty of camera options, including various shutter modes for fast-moving subjects or night time portraits. The Nokia N95 is a musical powerhouse, with support for a wide range of file types, including MP3, AAC and even some DRM WMA files.You can access the internet as well

This is the slimmest of Nseries devices with a 2.4 inch screen, Nokia N78 features high-speed connectivity via WLAN and HSPDA 3.5G, and a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics.

The Location Tagger application which automatically tags location data to the picture – allowing users to save pictures by date as well as by geographical coordinates is the greatest attraction of this device. It also takes full advantage of Nokia Maps and integrated A-GPS. There is an integrated 3-month navigation license with the device as well.

It simply rocks at the Price at around Rs 20,000

Asus M930 is positioned as the Nokia E90 killer. And it does a good job of it. The exterior has a traditional QVGA display and numeric keypad. There’s a 2 megapixel autofocus cam around back, and the usual microSD expansion, WiFi, and Bluetooth. However it runs Windows Mobile 6 Standard — not Professional — so there is no hope of touching the display with a stylus.

At 113 x 54 x 18.7mm and 158g make it wider, taller, thicker and heavier than most comparable phones. There is of course a reason for the M930’s extra bulk – a keyboard. But instead of a sliding to open, the M930 sports a hinged mechanism.

The full qwerty keyboard underneath is impressively spacious and even a dedicated number key row running along the top. Above it, set into the underside of the lid is an extra screen, slightly larger than the one on the front at 2.6in, and a slightly higher resolution of 400 x 240. It looks fantastic and in use it works just as well. The keys are responsive and the fact that the edge of the screen doesn’t encroach on the top of the keyboard means it feels far less cramped in use

Samsung has launched its flagship model SGH U900 in India.

Samsung U900 features a ‘magic touch’ navigation panel that changes according to the application or part of the phone that is in use. Like, when in music mode, music related icons will light up on the navigation indicators. When in camera mode, camera related icons such as zoom and brightness icons will appear.

Priced at Rs 20,585, the SGH U900 features a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and image stabiliser, to help get professional quality shots. It has a video record facility, and records at a QVGA resolution.

The Samsung U900 has support for HSDPA Mobile Broadband, offering high speed downloads of up to 7.2Mbps on compatible networks. It is also compatible with Bluetooth 2.0 which allows to listen music from the phone to a compatible wireless headset.

The new Nokia N78 handset is loaded with Wi-Fi connectivity, FM music transmitter and Bluetooth support. The model has integrated GPS with free Nokia maps for geo-tagging of your photos taken by its 3.2-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. Unlike the previous N73, the N78 gets rid of real keys in favor of touch surfaces. It has HSPDA 3G support, however that may not be very useful in India.

The Nokia N78 weighs only 101.8 g. It has 70 MB internal memory and 96 MB SDRAM memory. It does not have a infr-red port though. Its Li-Ion battery shall run for 320 hours in stand-by mode. It offers upto 4 hour nand 20 minutes of talktime in a single recharge.

It is expected to be released in the second quarter of 2008.