Archive for June, 2008

New Toshiba Sportio cell phone

Friday, June 6th, 2008

The Toshiba Sportio is the latest addition to Japanese carrier KDDi’s lineup. The phone which is rather fat helps you keep in shape, it has a motion sensor counts the calories burned in a workout and using GPS it plots your jogging route along with average speed and running logs. The phone can stream music to compatible Bluetooth headphones with the ‘BEAT RUN’ function which adjusts the tempo as per your workout. Coming to the specs the phone has 2.2 inch TFT (240 x 320), 2 Megapixel camera, GPS and 1 Seg Tuner. The Sportio will be available in five colors orange, white, black, red and green. The candybar phone measures 52×93×13.7mm and weighs 86 grams.

SCH-B550, the new Samsung blast

Friday, June 6th, 2008

This sunrise, while look at the Samsung December catalog, I found the SCH-B550. This phone right missing made me think about the Sky IM-U140, but different it, the SCH-B550 is primarily designed for video games (3D graphics, Joypad, TV output, GXG hold up in Korea…). The SCH-B550 has many other features, such as the DMB mobile TV, an MP3 player, a 2Mpix camera, Bluetooth… If you’re involved in it, this phone is only on hand in Korea.

But in recent few weeks Samsung’s activities and successive announcements of new products left me with no doubt about Samsung’s route. Samsung is difficult to replace Digicam, PSP and TV with mobile phone. Well to bad for Sony, as I am sure Sony wouldn’t be too happy about Samsung’s latest release. Though sadly this let go is another region targeted release, i.e. will be only available for Korean (South Korea off course) customers.

We are talking about a mobile phone with - Bluetooth, an mp3 player and a 2-megapixel digital camera. Well these days every phone has it, but how about DMB digital TV, 3D graphics and Joypad for mobile gaming and a TV output for those times that you’re near a big screen? Now that is the kick ass new feature! Yes you will get all this in SCH-B550, Samsung’s new Korean holiday gift.

The keypad seems a bit oddly laid-out (Maybe because it’s the Korean keypad), similar to the Calculator-alike P310 in Samsung’s own range, but given the bells and whistles I think you’ll be far more likely to be playing games or watching TV than actually bothering to make calls. No indication of battery life, however, which could be a killer running that fancy 3D graphics engine, nor price. Couldn’t find anything on Samsung’s English official release too, the Korea site though have an article but way beyond my translator capabilities.First in Italy Mobile TV now in Korea DMB digital TV, hmm! Samsung really got into mobile TV fascination.

New Motorola Razr V3c Cellphone (Gray)

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

The Motorola RAZR, in its various incarnations, has been on the market for almost two years. The RAZR V3c is a newer version and the first to be offered on Verizon’s network. It keeps all the usual RAZR virtues intact, including its anodized aluminum housing, gorgeous looks and a beautifully thin design that you’ll barely notice in your pocket.

Motorola RAZR V3cThe V3c is ever so slightly thicker (0.57 inches vs. 0.54 inches) than the original, though we didn’t notice it until we put the two models back to back. The flat keypad works better here than it does on T-Mobile’s PEBL, and poses no problem in normal use. Our phone exhibited a slight looseness in the hinge and the top of the keypad, but it had been tested before and had an unknown history. Other RAZRs we’ve tested all had tightly wound hinges with close tolerances.

Motorola RAZR V3c

Sound quality is clear and noise free, with slightly muffled treble. It’s not the clearest sounding phone we’ve heard, though it’s close. We were less enthused with the camera. It uses a new 1.3 megapixel sensor, which is normally superior to the VGA cameras on less expensive phones. But test photos were over-exposed, with blown out highlights.