VC’s Techie CockTail

At a time when the “iPhone” fever has been hitting fever pitch (seeing the cost , some people’s fever might have cooled down) ..I came across a LG Viewty (i.e KU990R) …supposed to be one of the “iPhone Killers” in the mobilephone market.

From the time I saw the box , a black one which slides out and dimensions reminding vaguely of a “iPhone box”, i thought may be its supposed to be a iPhone killer, but from now on in the remaining part of these posts I will forward the features and some comparisons to “what many people crave for around this world at this moment” …(sorry I am not one of them)

• Phone Wise : At a dimension of 103.5 x 54.4 x 14.8 mm and weighing 113g its somewhat chunky but the metal finish gave it a solid look. With only three buttons at the front its 3″ 256K TFT screen 240 x 400 pixel screen with its flash based touch UI is the main focal point of this phone. The flash based UI with haptic feedback was nice but it takes a time to get used to and in some areas the UI is slightly laggy.Network reception and sound quality was good. Battery life was the only thing i couldn’t test out and from what i’ve read on the web it could be a sore point of this phone.
• Multimedia Wise : Fitted with a 5 Mpx camera and Xenon flash it made some ok shots indoors but outdoors and lighted conditions should turn out some pretty decent photos. Another major selling point of this phone is its VGA video recording @ 30 fps and QVGA @ 120 fps. It also had a decent mp3 playback with good sound and also a FM radio with RDS. Another “ace” up its sleeve is the divx movie playback, Watching on the 3″ screen was nice but it wasn’t as vivid and bright as a iPhone (But in the above mentioned areas Viewty holds all the aces).It seems it can only accept upto 2 GB micro SD card. It also had a muvee editor and picture editor.It can play Java games and one nifty feature is that all standard 240 x 320 Java games play full screen with the remaining 240 x 80 screen displaying a virtual d-pad.
• Business Wise : Address book with 500 contacts, Organizer and Document viewers are some tools which can be useful tools for your business. On the connectivity front it has GPRS, EDGE, 3G (HSDPA) with front facing camera, Bluetooth with A2DP and USB. I didn’t test out the browser, but there was options like GMail, Blogger and YouTube pre-installed in the phone. EMail account can also be configured but I am not sure whether this has any sync support.

So at a competitive price of 18,000/- bucks (405$), its a nice touch screen multimedia phone.

written by Vignesh \\ tags: LG, Mobile Phone, Viewty

I don’t know how far statistically Indians do online shopping and whether they get any fantastic deals to back them up, but still there are plenty of online stores to compare prices and see whether any offers are available,

• MobileNxt : This is the newest site I’ve come across, some interesting deals
• Univercell : Maybe the biggest franchise in south India, updated prices so can be on the money on price drops.
• WaveTel Mobiles : A Chennai based retailer with various brands of mobilephones and some mp3 players, laptops too.
• SriVasavi Mobiles: Another chennai based retailer with some good deals.
• Indiaplaza : A large online retailer with some good deals for mobile phones

written by Vignesh \\ tags: Mobile Phone

Nowadays phones equipped with music players & extendible memory are a rage among students, teens and even a ordinary Joe. So when I came across the Nokia 5310 Xpress Music phones I was quitely impressed by what a mid-range music phones these days provide the buyers with,

• On the spec sheet, this phone is very much similar to Nokia 6300 for which you can read my post here.
• According to me the phone is quite attractive and stylish with its black carbon like finish with its slim profile and weighing just 71 grams
• Some of the features which gives its Xpress Music branding are the side mounted multimedia keys to control the music , a 3.5mm headphone jack to plug in your favorite headphones, a capable multimedia player to organize and play your music, a FM radio, bluetooth with A2DP for wireless music.
• As I mentioned earlier the other things are same as the popular 6300 with its 16M display with resolution of 240 x 320 running on the Series40 platform.
• But the thing I observed from the phone and from the phone’s owner were that its ringer volume was not loud enough, the phone has certain bugs like it restarts automatically in the middle of a call and it 2 megapixel camera is a gimmick.

People looking for a music phone can try it as its quite well priced at 8,000/- bucks (190$).

written by Vignesh \\ tags: Nokia

Anyone who is interested in a smartphone from how it works to the more common expectations of what phones are using which OS and what softwares are available to enhance these smartphones, here are a list of various sites dealing with the symbian operating system. (Its popular two avatars being Series 60 and UIQ).

• Symbian : The official site of symbian operating system with guide to its technology, phones and developer tools
• Series60 : Nokia’s popular implementation of symbian OS in its smartphones and multimedia phones. A must see for all current and perspective series60 phone owners.
• UIQ : Another popular flavor of symbian made famous by Sony Ericsson’s P series smartphones and the brand new G series phones.
• All About Symbian : As the name itself implies a comprehensive on anything and everything related to Symbian.
• Symbian Freewares : A great starting site for symbian based freeware applications, games and themes to power up your phone.

written by Vignesh \\ tags: series60, symbian