VC’s Techie CockTail

Here are some interesting pics of a “Transparent Mac” received via a email from my friend Honeyking . See it for yourself and decide

Read on…… Continue reading »

written by Vignesh \\ tags: Fun Junkies

A month back, one of my friends asked me my choice between a Nokia 5610 and 6500 slide. My preference was to go for a 6500 slide mainly because of its positive reviews over the net and some reported problems on 5610. A week back I got to play with this black, solid , somewhat stylish 6500. First things first, even though the metallic slider with its rectanglish look was ok to look at its finish and build quality was premium. Weighing at 125grams it was solid to say the least. Here are some other points of mention,

• The screen with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels with 16M colors at 2.2″ was a real beauty but under sunlight it tended to dim a bit
• Music player and audio quality was good and loud. With a micro sd slot you can store music and videos as much as you want.
• The 3.2 Mpx autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss optics is supposed to be good. I didn’t test it but some of the snaps captured by it looked good on the phone screen
• Based on S40 UI the user interface was friendly but still somewhat laggy and not as intuitive as of Sony Ericsson’s non-smart phones
• Connectivity is well covered with quad band,3G, USB, Bluetooth with A2DP and even a TV-Out.
• Call quality and network reception are upto Nokia’s excellent standards.
• It has regular PIM features like a 2000 contact address book, calendar, notes, alarm, stop watch.
• You can extend functionality via Java apps and games.

At 13,000/- bucks (310$) its a stylish phone with business looks suited for individuals mainly for calls, sms, occassional multimedia and internet/email usage.

written by Vignesh \\ tags: Nokia

In this post, for the first time in my blog I will put some trivial happenings in my Gizmo world. Last week I was on a trip to Chennai and while on a short shopping stop in Spencers Plaza I decked in & out of some gadget shops.

First & foremost on my mind was to get a Memory Stick Pro or a Memory Stick Pro Duo with a Pro adapter for my Sony Cybershot DSC-P73 (quite a old digicam and recently I lost my 256MB Sandisk Memory Stick Pro). After a exhaustive search, one thing became pretty clear that nowadays Sandisk Memory Stick Pro isn’t available and Memory Stick Pro Duo doesn’t come with a Pro adapter, but Sony does. Finally at Landmark, I got a good deal for Sony 1GB Memory Stick Pro Duo with Pro adapter for Rs. 750/-(17$). Unfortunately this was not end of this episode, first the memory stick was tough enough to push it inside the adapter and it was even tougher to get it inside the cybershot. After a small struggle I got it in, then the camera first flashed the message there is no memory stick media, then after small adjustments it worked. But the problem now is I am pretty damn sure I won’t be able to get the memory stick out of the camera (it’s stuck ) but i won’t be able to lose the memory stick again

While on this shopping hunt, I came across a Sony Ericsson Service center at Spencers, I thought I would go and ask for a solution for my ciphering problem .They said it could be resolved and within ten minutes I got my phone back with the irritating ciphering error solved but my wallet got lighter by 250 bucks since my phone is more than a year old and warranty is over.

written by Vignesh \\ tags: Sony Ericsson

This is one of the first sliders by Sony Ericsson almost two years , bringing out its elder sibling W850i with 3G support. The W830i is a triband phone with only GPRS / EDGE support. One of my friends has recently got this and my first impression of getting my hands on it was that it is definitely “stubbier” than the recent crop of SE sliders like W580i & W910i . Here are some of my views on this walkman+phone ,

• Even though its bulky at 106g its construction seems very solid and the slider mechanism looks good
• It has a somewhat retro feel to make it a cool looking slider phone. The walkman key below the screen with its orange light enhances this.
• The 240 x 320 pixel TFT screen is nice to look at , and add to that the nice SE User Interface with flash themes makes it a joy to work with
• Camera @ 2 Megapixel with no autofocus is OK for bright and sunny conditions
• The walkman 2.0 player with album art and megabass makes it a true sound machine and also there is FM with RDS to mix and match your music
• Connectivity department is well served by USB, IR, Bluetooth , GPRS/EDGE
• Java application and games support makes the phone more useful and enjoyable
• Battery and phone call quality was good
• The UI was somewhat slow to respond , might be due to a fully loaded memory stick pro duo card or might be to the flash themes

This phone is still available at some retailers and if you are lucky you might get a good deal. Be sure to check it out to see whether it suits your needs for your next mobile jukebox.

written by Vignesh \\ tags: Sony Ericsson, Walkman