VC’s Techie CockTail

Here are two interesting java apps for your mobile phones,

• Qeep : Supposed to be a mobile social networking community with free membership, software and ability to chat, blog, play games with fellow members
• FPC Bench : Its more for the Java techies interested in developing j2me softwares for mobile as this is a benchmarking tool.

In other interesting news, MyPhoneExplorer’s latest version has support for Sony Ericsson’s UIQ phones like G700,G900,P1i etc . But I tried connecting it with a G900, the problem is it also needs the SE PC Suite with m-router to be installed and the m-router identifies the phone at its own will so connecting it becomes a great hassle.

P.S: As you might have noted I got time to play with a SE G900, so upcoming posts will have my thoughts on it.

written by Vignesh \\ tags: Java softwares, Mobile Goodies, Mobile Phone

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

At the time when I first started writing in my blog a budget phone in the price range of 125$, will have  a maximum specification of a basic color screen at 128 x 128 pixel (STN - basically dull), polyphonic ringtones and might be a VGA camera and Infrared.Nowadays this segment has seen a dramatic makeover with VFM phones emerging left, right & center from all the mobile phone manufacturers.

This time I came across a Nokia 3110 classic. Its a typical Nokia Series 40 candybar phone. But beneath its somewhat bland exteriors its feature packed for a phone costing around 4750/- rs (110$). Let me list out some of its notable features,

• First & foremost its reception and call quality are excellent making it a nice phone importantly
• The black plastic body weighing around 87 grams is nice to hold and quite sturdily built
• The 128 x 160 pixel 65,000 color TFT screen was nice & crisp to look at.
• A good phonebook system with multiple contacts, calendar, reminders, alarms make it a handy PIM
• A media player which supports mp3 / wma / aac / 3gp / mp4 playback with micro sd card slot to expand memory makes it a capable portable multimedia player
• A camera with 1.3 megapixel is quite a good one at the current price range and will be useful as a snapper in well lit conditions and when you don’t have a digital camera in your hand
• Connectivity department is well stocked up with GPRS,EDGE, USB, Infrared (one of the few phones to still have it), Bluetooth with A2DP
• With extras like FM, Java games and apps it will be a ideal companion on the road or in your free time
• Last but not the least the Nokia Series 40 UI is quite easy to work with and there are lots of ways to customize it.

Its quite a impressive phone , the only downer was the ringtone volume which I felt was not that audible (it might be that a louder mp3 file could have made it better). But at this time, I think its just a step ahead of its competitors like SE W200i, LG KG 195 & Samsung E250

written by Vignesh \\ tags: Mobile Phone, Nokia