VC’s Techie CockTail

I hope many of you would have your own resolutions for this New year , on other hand many of you might not believe in resolutions like Me . But I think everyone should have a common resolution i.e to save our Planet Earth. I strongly believe its upto every individual to do his part to Save Our Planet. So here is my list of Resolutions of how Me,You and ALL in this Planet can take small little steps with our Gadgets & Gizmos to help save Earth,

• One of the easiest and commonest thing, please switch off your TV , Hi-Fi Audio Systems,PC when you are not going to use it for many hours. [ Putting on 'Standby' still consumes Power ]
• And when you can’t switch Off your PC, atleast switch Off the Monitor. And Also the Fans, Lights when you are the last one to leave the room be it in your home or office ..
• When your Mobilephone, MP3 player, PDA is fully charged kindly remove it from its power source.
• On saving paper, when you are taking printouts for your own personal use, Use both sides of the paper (and try to use the printer in ‘Draft’ mode..Hey ! it saves your Money too )
• Last but not least, don’t leave your water running ……….

I have taken a ‘pledge’ to these resolutions, hope all of you will do the same. If any of you have other ideas, please post your comments, I would love to hear from you …..

written by Vignesh

After a brief encounter with Samsung E250 a budget slider, here is another “Svelte” & “Sexy” slider from Samsung’s so called Metal Series - E840. For starters its retailing around Rs. 9,000/- ( 225 US$), so its not as expensive as its looks. Its finished with a mettalic shimmer and the entire screen when it’s not active looks like a mirror. Even though it looks stylish when its new,its prone to scratches so you would have to be Xtra careful to preserve its looks.

Its specs at a glance,

• Size: 101.5 x 52.5 x 10.6 mm
• Weight: 99gm
• Screen: 240 x 320 pixels, 2.2 inches
• Network:     GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
• Messaging : SMS, MMS, Email
• Camera : 2.0 Megapixel
• Connectivity : USB / GPRS / EDGE / Bluetooth (with A2DP)
• Memory : 70MB Internal & MicroSD Card slot

The top row of keys are touch sensitive making it very ‘touchy’ to use, I couldn’t get any tactile feedback making it difficult to comprehend how much or how many times I’ve pressed a key. The slider mechanism felt soild even though the mobile I used (my friend’s) has been through alot of rough stuff. The music quality was crisp but not that loud through speakers. The camera was OK. One of the things I admire about Samsung is the Picsel viewer which enables us to view office and pdf documents, but I couldnt test the feature on this phone and the other thing is the Display. To say the least its EXCELLENT. The color reproduction is bright and when the same picture was compared to a Nokia N72 the Samsung’s display won hands down.

People who are looking for a nice stylish slider with solid features can try this phone. But after using Sony Ericsson so long I found the User Interface somewhat plain (icons and customization didn’t help much) and every action needed extra presses (like opening a video needed one press to select the video, one to open its menu and the third press to play the video).

written by Vignesh \\ tags: Mobile Phone, Samsung

First of all, I would like to wish all my readers and techies a Happy & Prosperous New Year ! Hope to serve all the flavors which would make a perfect Techie CockTail….

I would start this New Year with some stylish sliders, these mobilephones will not only allow you to flaunt with its stylish looks but also its good features. First in line is Sony Ericsson W910i. This is the first slider from Sony Ericsson that I have got my hands on, and its given me mixed emotions about this gadget.

Looks : Its slim and sexy with a sizeable screen (2.4″ diagonal). And the slider mechanism feels solid (mind you it was the first day for the phone). I got to see the red version which will be more suitable for “Eves”.

Phone : Here is the major downer, the signal reception is weak hence affecting the voice quality. Otherwise When the reception, call audio quality is good. Provided with a very good phone book with multiple no’s , address and other details.

Music : Since its a walkman phone, its music qualities are its main selling point with the new WalkMan 3.0 player and the revamped media manager to manage music, photos and videos (resembles the Sony PSP). Sound quality is good through the earphones with good bass and treble(but the voulme thru speaker is not that loud compared to Nokia).The phone comes along with a 1 GB M2 card and a USB pen drive like adapter to plug it into your USB port and just copy-n-paste. Interestingly all the provided accessories were also in red. And one more thing by pressing the “Walkman” key and shaking you can change tracks.

Camera : Another downer in this phone. At the rate this phone is retailing around (about Rs. 17,500/-) other manufacturers have 3.2 Mpx camera in their phone and Samsung , LG have 5.0 Mpx phones. Not only that the 2.0 Mpx camera doesn’t have Auto-Focus or Light, so taking snaps is viable only in outdoors or well lit rooms.

Connectivity: It covers almost every area in this department, like Bluetooth with A2DP profile, 3G (with a front facing camera) and HSDPA (3.5G). The 240 x 320 resolution screen with Net Front browser displays the webpages almost correctly. But there is no flash support. There is no EDGE so people in India, at the max can use GPRS.

Misc : The accelerometer which enables the screen to switch between landscape and portrait modes as we turn the phone is slow sometimes. For gaming the screen and landscape is good. Java based applications and games can be installed. The themes enables us to change the entire User Interface of the phone.

Note : I think some of the sore points of this phone including a somewhat sluggish UI will be rectified in further firmware upgrades.

written by Vignesh \\ tags: Sony Ericsson, W910i