I will focus on different areas (mainly software related) not covered in the previous 2 reviews after using it as my work phone for almost a week.

The Nokia N9 has been available in Singapore since October 2011 for SGD$799 (16GB) and SGD$899 (64GB).

Nokia N9 Official Specification

• Networks: Pentaband WCDMA 850, 900, 1900, 1700, 2100, Quad band GSM/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900
• Speed: HSDPA Cat10: 14.4Mbps, HSUPA: Cat6 5.76Mbps
• Display: 3.9″ WVGA (854×480) AMOLED display with curved Gorilla glass, no air gap, anti-glare polarizer
• OS: MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan
• Memory: 1GB RAM, 16GB/64GB storage
• Camera: 8Mpix auto-focus Carl Zeiss, wide-angle lens, 2x LED flash, Video capturing MPEG-4 SP 720p @ 30fps, 2nd camera for video calls
• Size / Weight: 116.45 mm x 61.2 mm x 7.6–12.1 mm (L x W x T)/ 76 cm3/ 135 g
• Connectivity: BT 2.1, GPS, A-GPS, WLAN 802.11abgn, NFC, 3.5mm AV connector, uUSB connector, USB charging
• Processor:ARM Cortex-A8 OMAP3630 1 Ghz, PowerVR SGX530
• Audio: MP3 player, Audio jack: 3.5mm, Supported codecs: mp3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, FLAC
• Battery: 1450 mAh
• Talk time: (GSM/WCDMA) up to 11 h / up to 7 hours
• Standby time: Up to 450 hours (WCDMA), up to 380 hours (GSM)
• Video playback (720P): up to 4.5 hours
• Music playback: up to 50 hours

Box

Box Contents

Nokia N9 (Front View)

Nokia N9 (Back View)

Nokia N9 (Top View)

Nokia N9 (Right Side View)

Events Screen

Application Screen

Multitasking Screen

Accounts
The N9 has a Accounts app that manages all your accounts that you have connected with the N9, similar to what Windows Phone 7 is doing. When I first got my hands on the N9, I went straight up and connect all my social networking sites with the N9.

Accounts App

I connected 10 accounts with the Nokia N9. They are: Facebook, Flickr, Google, Google Sync (MS Exchange), Office Email (MS Exchange), Nokia, Picasa, Skype, Twitter and YouTube. I notice that my the N9 has become very laggy once these accounts are connected and sometimes the lag is unbearable. At first I thought this would be fixed in the Nokia N9 PR 1.1 Software Update, but apparently it does not. I do hope that future software update will fix it.

Contacts
Once your accounts are connected, your contacts in your social networking sites will appear in your Contacts app, similar to that of Windows Phone 7. I am using Google Sync to sync my personal contacts over to the N9. If your contact’s email matches a Facebook contact, it will merge them together and your contact’s display picture will be his/her Facebook Profile Picture. Pretty seamless here.

Contacts App

One nice little touch to the Contacts App is that it will have an icon that represents your contact initials. I store the names of my contact only in the first name field to avoid conflict when syncing to multiple devices and hence you will see only a single letter “D”.

Contacts Category

If you are like me that links many accounts to the Nokia N9, you will notice that scrolling through the contacts is a little laggy. One nice feature but rather a buggy one is it allows you to filter your contacts based on account. As you can see from the above screenshot, I got 102 contacts in Facebook, 126 in Skype and 6 on Gtalk, by tapping on any of them will only show the contacts in that respective account.

If you notice my phone book has 378 contacts, I have no idea how they arrived at the number, my Google Sync has 349 contacts so technically I only expect to see 349 of them. I also realized that some of my Skype contacts sneaked into with my Google Sync and got sync back to my Google Contacts and I have to manually delete it. I am still figuring out how that happens. This is sometime the reason why I love iOS sandboxing because often the app can’t mess with your contacts.

Calendar
The Calendar app in N9 was pretty alright, it allows you to rename the calendar and even allow you to choose your own color label. No complains here.

Manage Calendar

Email
The Email app is not that bad, once you have new emails, it will sent a notification to your Events Screen, my only complain is that you can’t rename the email account. I have 2 Mail for Exchange accounts initially but I have no way of differentiating between them as both mailboxes will just write “Mail for Exchange”. So I dropped the Mail option for Google Sync and switch it to Gmail, so at least now I can differentiate between my work mail and personal email.

Manage Email

Syncing Schedule
Similar to all Symbian devices, I love the syncing schedule as this allows you to fine tune the polling time to the server to get new contents. A good use case is for my work email. When I am at work, I do not need the device to keep polling the Exchange server for new emails/calendar events/contacts as I will get a prompt by Microsoft Office 2011 on my Mac. However, once I finished work, I need to be kept up to date with emails and meeting invites. The sync schedule allows just that!

In the screenshot you see below, it is the settings for my Google Sync, I need it up to date no matter what day and time is it.

Sync Schedule

Twitter

Twitter App

There is a lack of Twitter clients in the Nokia N9 and the built-in Twitter app is the best Twitter client you can get on a N9. It works as advertise without any settings that allows you to customize it. I can’t get retweet and photo upload to work.

For retweet, when I tap on it nothing happens despite the retweet icon being lighted up and for photo upload, after I pressed the photo button, it just gives me a black screen with the button “Done” at the top. I hope this is also address in the next software update. Pretty disappointed in this 2 areas as I use both of this features pretty often.

Facebook

Facebook App

The built-in Facebook App is pretty good despite not having all the features as compared to the iOS/Android version, but it is acceptable. UI is smooth and responsive and all the features work as expected unlike the Twitter App.

My wishlist for both Facebook and Twitter App is for Facebook’s notification and Twitter’s mentions/direct message to be pushed as notifications to my Events Screen. Right now, I have no way to know who have mentioned me on Twitter or replied to my post in Facebook without going into the respective app itself.

Nokia Store
The apps on Nokia Store is pretty limited and the User experience design (UX) needs more work. As it is my first time visiting the store, I would like to get free apps first, preferably most popular free apps to see what others are downloading. To do that, I need to tap on the 2nd icon at the bottom, go to applications and tap again for “All Applications” before it allows me to see the top free apps or another way is to scroll down to the bottom of the home aka featured page and tap on “All Applications”. I reckon they should have a popular apps shortcut to allow users to discover popular apps easily.

Nokia Store

I hope to see more apps on the Nokia Store for the N9 but that is provided that Nokia do not kill it.

Multitasking
The Nokia N9 boost true multitasking which I really like! When in the app just swipe to the top, left or right and the app will be brought to the background and you can see all apps in the background in the Multitasking screen. Just press and hold on the preview and you have the option to close all apps! This is brilliant and the iPhone needs this feature. Also, when you restart the phone, the background apps will no longer be there unlike the iPhone.

Multitasking

Wi-Fi Hotspot
Nokia N9 has a built in Wi-Fi hotspot feature which is good for Internet sharing! Right now only WEP64 and WEP128 encryption is supported.

Wi-Fi Hotspot

Software Update
When I first heard of the Nokia N9 PR 1.1 software update, I was looking all over the phone to find out where I can upgrade it via Over The Air (OTA), after searching high and low for the options, I finally found it and it is under “Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> 2nd Icon At The Bottom”. I was expecting it to be under “Settings -> Device” or “Settings -> About”. But too bad the PR 1.1 update is not yet available via OTA in Singapore, so I have to use Nokia Software Updater to update my N9 firmware.

Software Update

After updating, it seems that all the passwords for my linked accounts got wiped and I have to enter it again. I wonder is this for security reason or a bug in the software update process. But nevertheless, it is not a big deal.

Camera/Video
The N9 camera takes pretty impressive pictures but when it comes to low light, it is a little grainy. I also love the continuous autofocus when taking video!

Taken With N9 (Click To Enlarge

Taken With N9 (Click To Enlarge)

Taken With N9 (Click To Enlarge)

The front facing camera is a little useless right now, I can’t seem to find any Apps within the N9 itself that activates the front facing camera, you only can rely on 3rd party app from the Nokia Store like Simple Mirror.

NFC
Nokia N9 has NFC capabilities for you to transfer contacts and photos to another NFC enabled phone and even stream music to the Nokia Play 360° Speakers. Unfortunately I can’t test that as I do not have any other NFC devices. I do wish that a developer will create a app that allows us to read the contents of our EZ-Link card similar to the one they have in Android called FareBot.

Battery Life
The N9 has a 1,450mAh battery and the battery life is pretty decent, I got about 2 days of standby time (not touching the phone at all) and about a day for normal usage. Normal in the sense that I check my tweets and Facebook often which averages to once per hour and I get pushed emails for my personal Gmail account instantly and pushed email for my work account happens instantly only after office hours.

The battery life easily last twice that of my iPhone 4S.

Conclusion

• Pros:
  • Fantastic screen with clear visibility under direct sunlight
  • NFC supported
  • True multitasking
  • Unique UI
  • Great Camera with continuous autofocus for video taking
  • Decent battery life
• Cons:
  • Laggy user interface once you have many accounts linked
  • Limited apps available
  • Price a little steep as compared to competitors

Links

• Blog Post: Nokia Connection 2011
• Blog Post: Nokia N9 Blogger Event
• Official Site: Nokia N9

I will not be touching on the OS aspect as it is still based on Symbian^3 which is exactly the same as Nokia N8. This short review is mostly a comparison with Nokia N8.

Box Front

Box Back

Package Contents

Package Contents

• Nokia E7 mobile computer
• Nokia Battery BL-4D (embedded)
• Nokia Connectivity Cable CA-179
• Nokia Stereo Headset WH-205
• Nokia High Efficiency Charger AC-10
• Quick start guide
• Nokia Micro USB On-The-Go Cable Adapter CA-157
• Nokia HDMI Cable Adapter CA-156

The build of the E7 is as solid as the N8 and the internal processer and ram is the same as well. Both the E7 and N8 boost a 680 MHz ARM 11 processor and 256MB of RAM. The E7 because of the screen and keyboard is slightly bigger and heavier than the N8. E7′s 123.7 x 62.4 x 13.6 mm – 176g vs N8′s 113.5 x 59 x 12.9 mm – 135g.

4″ AMOLED Screen

The screen of Nokia E7 is slightly bigger than Nokia N8. Nokia E7 boost a 4″ AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of 16M colors with 360px x 640px resolution, while the Nokia N8 is only 3.5″. Another difference here is the clear black display on the E7 which when compared to the N8 screen, you will notice the black on the E7 is really black. I also find that the E7 screen visibility is slightly better than the N8 under direct sunlight.

Back Of E7

The camera of E7 is not as good as the N8. The E7 boost a 8MP camera while the N8 boost a 12MP Carl Zeiss optics camera. The N8 camera works very well under low light conditions thanks to the 1/1.83″ censor and the Xenon flash light while the E7 only has dual LED flash which is not too shabby either.

Do also note that the E7 does not have an expandable storage unlike the N8′s MicroSD slot and hence it has only 16GB of storage, but it has a 1GB ROM instead of the N8′s 512MB.

Keyboard

The E7 comes with a full QWERTY keyboard which is my personal favorite. The tactile feedback is good and the spaces between the keys are adequate for my fingers and most importantly I have no problem accessing the keys on the top row. Some phones just cramped their keys togethers and pressing the keys on the top row is an issue.

Left of E7

The slider on the left of the E7 is to lock your screen which takes some time to use to since the N8 one is on the right.

Right Of E7

The slider on the right of the E7 is to control the volume which I think is poor design. The N8 volume up/down button wins hand down in this aspect. When I first saw the 2 sliders of the E7, I was wondering which is for volume and which is for lock having come from using the N8.

The E7 is targeted towards business users because of the keyboard while the N8 is targeted towards the casual users. Personally, as a power user, I will go for the E7 because I like the keyboard and 4″ screen. The camera/expandable storage does not really matter to me because 16GB is more than enough and the camera of the E7 is not that bad either.

Check out the gallery below as it includes comparison shots with the Nokia N8.

Links

• Nokia Singapore: Nokia E7
• Nokia Singapore:Nokia N8
• GSM Arena: Nokia E7
• GSM Arena:Nokia N8

Packaging Front View

Packaging Back View

When I first opened the package, I thought the quality of the tripod might be terrible and it is flimsy. Despite most of the parts being made in plastic, it is still pretty firm.

Mobile Phone Tripd Holder

Holder

What exceeds my expectation was the holder that mounts onto the tripod. You need to exert some strength to expand the holder so that that it will expand to fit your phone, after that it holds your phone extremely firm.

With my Nokia N82

Wanted to try with my iPhone 3GS but it doesn’t make sense because the camera in iPhone suck, so I decided to use my Nokia N82 instead.

You can get the Mobile Phone Tripod Holder for £14.97 (including taxes but excluding shipping).

For more iPhone accessories, Check out Mobile Fun’s iPhone Accessories.

SingTel send me the Motorola BackFlip for a review last month but because of my busy schedule I can only review it till recently. I apologize for the delay. I will be only covering the physical aspect of the phone because in terms of OS and software it is very similar to the Motorola Dext which I reviewed 5 months ago.

Package Content

If you notice the battery cover comes separately in the package instead of being pre-fixed to the back of the phone.

Back View

I would consider the Motorola BackFlip a form factor of its own because it is neither a candybar phone, sliding phone or a flip phone. The reason it is called a BackFlip because at the back instead of the usual battery cover, you will see a keyboard and the keyboard can be flipped so that it is directly below the screen.

Keyboard And Screen

Trackpad

Once you did that, the hidden trackpad at the back of the screen is revealed. You can use the trackpad to navigate around the phone. It takes quite sometime to get used to. Because of the trackpad, the Motorola BackFlip has 3 forms on input method, touch screen, QWERTY keyboard and trackpad. I would say it is an overkill because I don’t think you can move the mouse cursor faster than you tap on the screen.

Keyboard

The keyboard does not have any gap because most of the time it will be facing down on a table and having gaps means dust and even bits of food will get into the keyboard (like our desktop’s keyboard, I know we all eat in front of our computer at one point). The keyboard provide moderate tactile feedback but it felt a little stiff when typing on it. The camera and LED flash light is located on the keyboard also put placed at the top. It looks pretty well camouflage.

USB Port Light

Charging

When your battery is getting weaker, it will prompt you to charge via blinking the light around the micro USB port. When it is being charged, the light will be lighted permanently. I think that is a pretty cool feature.

The review unit that I received is still Android 1.5, but no worries as it is upgradeable to Android 2.1 when it is make available by Motorola. I can’t seem to find any difference in terms of hardware when compared to the Motorola Dext. The battery of Motorola BackFlip is 20mAh lesser than the DEXT which I don’t think it will be that noticeable. Similar to the DEXT, navigating around the BackFlip is laggy as well and all the cons about MOTOBLUR platform that I mentioned in my Motorola Dext review are still present. Pretty disappointed with that. Common Motorola, I believed you can do better than that!

You can get the Motorola BackFlip exclusively from SingTel Hello Stores or SingTelShop.com for SGD$248 with a monthly subscription plan of SGD$39.00 (3G Flexi-Lite AMPed) or for just SGD$98 with a monthly subscription plan of SGD$55.99 (3G Flexi-AMPed).

Official Site: Motorola BackFlip
SingTel Site: Motorola with SingTel

Desk Genie Non-Slip Charging Desk Stand

Package Contents

Contents

• 1x Non-Slip Charging Desk Stand
• 1x 8 different charging connectors
• 1x charging connector adapter
• 1x MiniUSB to USB cable
• 1x Instruction Manual

Left View

Left View

The 8-in-1 memory card reader built-in into the charging stand allows you to read the following memory cards:

• M2
• Memory Stick
• Memory Stick Duo
• SD
• Mini SD
• Micro SD
• MMC
• RS MMC

Right View

Right View

2-Port USB hub.

Front View

Front View

Blue light LED indicator will indicate whether there is power flowing into the charging stand.

Back View

Back View

You can charge your phone using two ports, MiniUSB port on the left draw power from your computer while the DC power jack on the right draw power from the electrical socket by using an external power supply adapter (not included).

Connectors

The connectors included will charge the following mobile phones:

• iPhone/iPod
• Nokia 2mm (works with 5800, N95, 6700 and more)
• MicroUSB (for Nokia N97/BlackBerry 8900/Samsung Omnia II and more)
• Mini USB (for BlackBerry 8300 /HTC Hero/MP3)
• LG (works with all LG phones)
• Samsung Tip1 (works with D900, U600, D800 and more)
• Samsung Tip2 (works with Omnia, Pixon, Tocco Lite and more)
• Sony Ericsson Fast Port (works with all Sony Ericsson phones)

Non-Slip

Non-Slip Material

I am very impressed with the non-slip feature of this charging stand. It is the best non-slip material I have seen! It really works as advertised and in case you are wondering, the material used for the non-slip is not sticky at all and it is made from some special shiny rubbery material.

You can get the Desk Genie Non-Slip Charging Desk Stand for £14.99 (including taxes but excluding shipping).

For more iPhone accessories, Check out Mobile Fun’s iPhone Accessories.

The attributes of it being slim and light is greatly due to the LED Technology that lights up the screen which gives it an excellent 2,000,000:1 Dynamic Digital Fine Contrast Ratio. Speaking of the screen display, the auto brightness control will automatic adjusting your screen brightness to match your surrounding room’s lightings.

It’s 2ms response time ensure that you can play FPS games with no ghosting effect, tried and tested when I played Left For Dead 2 with it.

The LG Monitor W2486L retails for SGD$498, just 2 years ago, I bought my Dell’s 2408WFP for SGD$900+, literally twice the price!

Box

Monitor Front

Monitor Back

Thin Box

Monitor Side

Features

• 16:9 Aspect Ratio
• Full HD (1920×1080)
• HDMI Connector
• 2ms Response Time
• Photo Effect
• 4:3 In Wide
• LED 2,000,000:1 Dynamic Digital Fine Contrast Ratio
• Slim with Passionate Crystal Design
• Eco with green technology

Box Contents

Box Contents

Monitor Front View (Without Base Stand)

Monitor Back View (Without Base Stand)

• VGA Cable
• DVI Cable
• Power Adapter
• Power Cable
• Installation Guide
• Manual
• Base Stand

Monitor Inputs


Monitor Ports

• 2x HDMI Port
• 1x DVI Port
• 1x VGA Port
• 1x Audio Jack Port
• 1x Power Port

Monitor Menu

Monitor Buttons

The only complain I have is the touch sensitive menu buttons of the monitor and that includes the power button. However for the power button, there is a U shape below it to allow you to find the power on button easily.

Beside the power on button there are 6 other buttons, Smart, Fun, Menu, Engine, Source and Auto Set. I personally find there are too much buttons and the naming is confusing. I can never operate the menu correctly even though I played around with it a few times. The first time I played with the buttons, I accidentally changed the language and spend 15 minutes on getting it to change back. This has never happen before with previous monitors that I owned.

Monitor Menu

Monitor Menu – Smart

Monitor Menu – Fun

Monitor Menu – Setup

The setup is the most confusing menu among the rest. From the screenshot you see above, you can see the brightness and color icon or tab on the left side. But for some reasons I can never get to those icons. For example, for Color, I only can access it via Menu -> Color rather than Menu -> Setup -> Color. They should remove the icon totally in the setup screen to avoid confusion.

Conclusion

W2486L On My Table

W2486L On My Table (Close Up)

The only cons I can think of is the monitor touch menu buttons, but it is compensated with the excellent contrast ratio and LED screen technology. The price is pretty affordable as well SGD$498! You may want to consider saving up your red packet money to get this monitor for Chinese New Year! Did I mention that the button lights are red in color as well?

Box Contents

It comes with the cradle, the MiniUSB to USB cable and the charger head.

Charger Head

Cradle – Front View

Cradle – Back View

You can either charge and sync your iPhone 3G/3Gs with the cradle by connecting the USB cable to your computer or just choose to charge your iPhone 3G/3GS by connecting the charger head to a power outlet.

Cradle With iPhone 3GS – Front View

There is a blue LED light on the right side of the cradle to indicate that there is power coming to the cradle.

Cradle With iPhone 3GS – Side View

As you can see, my iPhone 3GS fits perfectly into the cradle and I like the plastic backing because it is pretty high and give the iPhone a pretty good back support. That is important to me because sometimes I type on my iPhone while it is still docked in the cradle.

Most of the stuff on my table are black, my monitor, my television, my keyboard and even my mouse. The only white colored things around is my table itself and my Apple’s Universal Dock. This black cradle is perfect for all black iPhone users because it blends well with your black iPhone 3G/3GS and even the devices/gadgets on your table.

You can get the Apple iPhone 3GS / 3G USB Desktop Sync & Charge Cradle for £9.99 (including taxes but excluding shipping).

For more iPhone accessories, Check out Mobile Fun’s iPhone Accessories.

Even though is my first time reviewing/playing with an Android mobile phone, I will not be touching any of the default Android stuff aka Google stuff. I shall be focusing on the enhancement Motorola did with Android. I would like to apologize first if some of the stuff I mention are part of Android instead of an enhancement by Motorola.

Specifications

• OS: Android 1.5 (Cupcake)
• Input: QWERTY slider with Touch Screen
• Display: 320 x 480 pixels, 187 DPI; 3.1 inch HVGA screen
• Battery: 1420 mAh lithium polymer
• Standby Time: up to 325 hrs / 13.5 days
• Talk Time: up to 360 min / 6 hrs
• Camera: 5.0MP with Auto Focus
• Bluetooth: 2.0+EDR, stereo Bluetooth
• WiFi: 802.11 b,g
• Headset jack: 3.5mm audio jack
• Connector Type: MicroUSB 2.0 high-speed
• Weight: 163g
• Size: 114mm (H) x 58mm (W) x 15.6mm (D)
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Network: WCDMA 900/1700/2100, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps (Category 7/8), EDGE, GPRS Class 12, AGPS
• Built-in Memory: 256MB + 2GB MicroSD bundled
• Removable Memory: MicroSD up to 32GB

For more detailed specifications, check out the Official Motorola DEXT Specifications Page.

Packaging Contents

Box Contents

• Phone
• Earpiece
• Manual
• USB Cable
• Charger Head
• Spare Earpiece Sponge Cover

Motorola Logos

You can find Motorola logos almost on every item.

Charger Head

The charger head is simple, small and compact, similar to that of the charger from Apple’s iPhone 3GS.

Motorola DEXT

Front View

Front Hardware Buttons

There are three hardware buttons at the front. First button is the Settings button, followed by the Home button and lastly the Back button. The design is not only imprinted but also embossed and hence you can feel each (similar to braille).

Back View

There are some circular deboss on the back which makes it easier to hold and adds to the overall design of the phone.

Right Side View

Right Side View Button Closeup

There are two buttons on the right side, one right at the top and one right at the bottom. The top button is used for locking the phone and switching on/off the phone. The button at the bottom is used as a shortcut button to launch the Camera App and use to take photographs when in the Camera app.

Left View

At the top, the first toggle is a ringer switch which allows you to silent your phone by moving it down, similar to the iPhone. The next two buttons are for adjusting the volume of the ringer. The port at the bottom is for the MicroUSB connector.

Front View – Landscape

Sliding Full QWERTY Keypad

There is a sliding full QWERTY keypad and the tactile feedback of each key is pretty good. Just want to highlight that I got no problem pressing the top row of keys despite my fat thumbs, I know some phones have this issue because the keys are placed too closed to the top edge.

Back View – Landscape

You can see the Motorola logo being lighted up when the phone is switched on, similar to Apple’s logo on the MacBooks.

MOTOBLUR
After creating an account with MOTOBLUR, the next step is to setup your services.

Services Setup

MOTOBLUR supports the following nine services:

• MySpace
• Facebook
• Google
• LastFM
• Twitter
• Email
• Corporate Sync
• Picasa
• PhotoBuket

Facebook Service Setup

Setting up these services are pretty straight forward, just key in your username and password and you are good to go. Similarly for email, MOTOBLUR will try to make a smart guess of your IMAP/POP/SMTP settings. I tested the Facebook, Google, Twitter and Email services and only the Email service allows you to have more than 1 email account. In another words, you cannot have more than 1 Twitter, Facebook or Google services in your phone. These days, a handful of people have 2 Twitter accounts, so I think it would be good to at least support multiple Twitter accounts. Hope we can see this feature in future software updates.

MOTOBLUR’s Accounts App

You can choose to add more services anytime by going into the MOTOBLUR’s Accounts App.

Android Widgets

Home Screen – Portrait

Home Screen – Landscape

MOTOBLUR comes with five widgets in the DEXT:

• Social Status
• Happenings
• Messages
• News
• Weather

Social Status

Social Status App

The Social Status Widget displays your current status update. What it does is pretty straight forward. Tapping on it will open up the Social Status App and it will allow you to post your status update to either Facebook or Twitter or to All Services. For some reasons, it only displays the latest status update from each service which is rather annoying.

Happenings

Home Screen – Portrait

Happenings Widget

Happenings Widget displays your friends feed in Facebook and status updates of the people you are following in Twitter. There is a small icon at the bottom right hand of the widget which tells you which service is the update coming from and an avatar or Facebook profile picture of your friend posting the update.

Tapping on it will make the widget popup with more details on it. For Twitter updates, it allows you to favorite the tweet, but there are no options for you to @reply to the tweet or retweet it. Perhaps it would be good if you can @reply, retweet and even direct message your friend. For Faceboook updates, you can view comments associated with the update and even post a comment straight from the popup window.

Clicking on the Diagonal arrow will open up the Happenings App. For the Facebook service, it will display more information like pictures in the photo albums that your friend had uploaded. For Twitter service, it will allow you to @reply to your friend but you still can’t retweet the tweet or direct message your friend.

I still think the Happenings Widget have room for more improvements. One thing I dislike about it, is not being able to filter the updates from my services in the widget settings. It just lump everything together. I can’t filter by Twitter or Facebook updates which is irritating. However once you open up the Happenings App, you can press the Settings key and set which services to show.

There should be an option to let user choose how often he want his updates, it is being defaulted to 15 minutes, which is way way too long. I think 5 minutes would be good.

Messages

Messaging App

Messages Widget works somewhat similar to that of the Happenings Widget, in terms of design, but the placement is inverted. The avatar is displayed first before the message. If you got any new direct or private messages from Twitter or Facebook, you can reply directly reply from the widget. But once you click close, the message is being marked as read and the only way to access it is via the Messaging App.

Universal Inbox

The Messaging App allows you to check all your messages in just one place. Emails, Facebook private messages, Twitter direct messages, SMSs, etc. Once you opened up the Messaging App, you will see the Universal Inbox icon, Text Messaging icon and the icons of all your services which you have setup. The Universal Inbox aggregates all your messages and emails into a single view allow you to reply or delete them. If you only want to view the messages from a specific service, lets say Facebook, just click on the Facebook icon.

You can set which service messages to be included in the Universal Inbox. The ability to filter your service messages in the Universal Inbox would be a good addition instead of exiting the Universal Inbox and tapping on the respective service icon to view it’s messages.

News
News Widget allows you to display RSS feed on your homescreen. There are two ways you can enter the feed. One is by the direct URL to the RSS feed and the other is by typing in the website URL and the widget will automatically determine the RSS feed for you. I would say the second way is pretty good to have.

Weather
Weather Widget is simple and no frills, it gets the weather data from AccuWeather.com. I wish it has better design and bigger just like the way HTC does it.

Contacts

Contacts App

Similar to the Messaging App, MOTOBLUR also integrates your contacts from places like Google, Twitter and Facebook into the Contact Apps. There are three tabs at the bottom, History, A-Z and Status. History allows you to view your previous communication you had with your contacts and that includes Email, Facebook messages and Twitter Direct Messages. A-Z just simply list down all your contacts you have in the phone. Status allows you view the latest status updates of your contacts from Facebook or Twitter.

Contacts App Filter

You can even filter your contacts based on services like Facebook or Twitter and even down to your Google Contact Groupings. Neat!

Camera
Despite the camera being a 5.0MP camera taking 2560×1920 pictures, I think the quality of the picture is pretty bad even when taking under full bright light conditions. There are a lot of noise in it. You can view the sample photo taken and judge it for yourself. In case you are wondering, there is no built-in LED flashlight.

Battery
The battery has a capacity of 1420 mAh, but similar to all smartphones these days, it cannot last a full day with heavy usage. So you have to be prepared to charge it everyday. The official specifications indicated that it can have 6 hrs of continuous talktime which is 1 hour more than the iPhone 3GS. I got about 11 hours of heavy usage playing with the phone without talking.

For the standby time, it is stated to last 325 hours. I managed to get about 300 hours by disabling all MOTOBLUR Apps so that there are no active background Internet connection going on and I only touch the phone once a day just to see check the uptime and battery level. For normal circumstances, mine lasted about 23 hours without touching the phone at all, but of course there are active Internet connections going on in the background from MOTOBLUR Apps, Facebook and Twitdroid.

After playing with it for about 30 minutes, the phone started to heat up and you can feel that it is very hot at the back. The reason why I mentioned this is because the heat seems to be greater than the average smartphones.

UI Walkthrough Video

Conclusion
The Motorola DEXT is good android phone to have if you are looking for a Android phone with a full QWERTY keypad. With the Android 2.1 update coming to Motorola DEXT, you can ensure that the phone will be future proof for the time being. But similar to all smartphones, the cons is always the battery, but for the DEXT an additional thing to watch out for will be the heat issues of the battery.

The MOTOBLUR is a very good alternative to Apple’s MobileMe and best of all, it is a free service that comes together with your phone with no yearly subscription. I am still wondering why they use the word “blur”, it seems inappropriate here. Despite the great MOTOBLUR platform, the widgets/applications which makes use of the MOTOBLUR platform, needs some improvement in terms of usability and additional features. But in the mean time, you can use the native Android Facebook Widget/App and for Twitter, the Twitdroid.

SingTel’s mSocial VAS
SingTel will offer a newly created value-added service, mSocial, priced at SGD$5.35 per month for consumers to enjoy unlimited local mobile data using the MOTOBLUR platform. These include photo uploads, postings received and status updates on popular social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter within the MOTOBLUR service platform.

mSocial includes 100MB of local data for all other internet surfing and email access. In addition, excess usage beyond 100MB is capped at SGD$30 per month, giving customers peace of mind when using Motorola DEXT. Also, as a launch promotion, mSocial is free to all customers who sign up for any 3G Flexi plans with the device.

Availability
Motorola DEXT is available from this Saturday, 23th January 2010 onwards from as low as SGD$0 – SGD$248 (on any 3G Flexi Plans) or SGD$0 – SGD$348 (on SingTel’s free incoming call plans) at any SingTel retail store or SingTel Exclusive Retailers, and at SingTel’s online store.

Customers on free incoming call plans who sign up for mSocial will enjoy an additional SGD$50 discount.

Customers on SingTel’s free incoming call plans (excluding 3G Flexi plans) can sign up for mSocial at a promotional price of SGD$5.35/month (usual price is SGD$9.90).

mSocial is free for customers who sign up for the latest enhanced 3G Flexi plans that come with 12GB of local data, starting from SGD$39/month, with local data usage capped at SGD$30.

Press Release: Motorola introduces a unique mobile experience with the launch of Motorola DEXT, exclusively with SingTel

Press Release

Razer Imperator Offers Comfort, Customization for All “Righties”
Carlsbad, Calif. – November 26, 2009 – Razer, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-end precision gaming and lifestyle peripherals, today announced the Razer Imperator, a right-handed ergonomic mouse for palm and fingertip gamers. The Razer Imperator is designed with gaming-grade ergonomics in mind – contours and grooves specifically crafted to enhance aggressive mousing movements made by gamers.

“Ergonomics and control were the key objectives with this mouse” said Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff, president, Razer. “Your grip stays locked and planted no matter how often you lift and swipe your mouse while playing. One of the typical complaints of gamers is the difficulty in reaching the side or thumb buttons on a mouse. We have pioneered adjustable side buttons that slide and lock into your ideal thumb position. You just can’t get a more custom tailored fit than the Razer Imperator.”

Specifications

• Ergonomic right-handed design
• Adjustable side buttons
• 5600dpi Razer Precision 3.5G laser sensor
• Razer Synapse on-board memory
• Up to 200 inches per second / 50g acceleration
• Seven independently programmable Hyperesponse buttons
• 1000Hz Ultrapolling / 1ms response rate
• On-the-fly sensitivity adjustment
• Zero-acoustic Ultraslick Teflon feet
• Approximate size: 123(L) x 71(W) x 42(H)

Box Front

Box Back

Box Open

Packaging
The packaging is identical to the Razer Abyssus’s packaging.

Box Contents

Manuals/Stickers

Drivers/Firmware
Since there is on-board memory in the mouse for storing settings similar to some Razer mouses like the Razer Copperhead, there is a need for a firmware to access this settings on the fly. The firmware I got out of the box is v1.01, but now there is v1.04, so head down to the Drivers/Firmware for Razer Imperator and download it. Everytime when you launch the Razer Imperator software, there will be a delay of about 10 seconds as it is reading your settings stored in your mouse.

Wire
The USB head is gold plated and the wire is protected by nylon instead of rubber as you can see from the picture below. Personally, I like the nylon protection over the rubber one as it looks more classy.

Wire

Buttons
There are a total of 7 buttons on the mouse, 2 on the left side which defaults to forward and backward action and the remaining 5 are on top. Apart from the usual 3 buttons (left click, scroll click and right click), the additional 2 buttons on top are defaulted to increase and decreasing the sensitivity on the fly.

Front View

Back View

Side View

Unlike the Razer Abyssus which have two hardware toggles that allows you to switch your preferred dpi and polling rate. For the Razer Imperator, there is only one button and one toggle below. The button allows you to quickly cycle through your pre-defined profiles. You may ask how do you know what profile is being activated. In your settings page, all your profiles are numbered and when you do a switch of profile, the Razer Imperator will flash the corresponding number of times. For example, if Profile 3 is activated, the mouse will flash three times to indicate the profile you have been selected.

The toggle on the other hand allows you to move your side buttons front or back or anywhere in between which is rather innovative. Personally, I prefer to use the top portion of my thumb to press and hence I moved it to the top. For gamers who like to use their middle portion of the thumb to press, I think the back position is for you.

Lighted Logo
The Razer logo glows and there is light along the side of the scroll wheel which turns out to be pretty nice. The scroll wheel of my Razer DeathAdder is lighted as a whole. If you dislike the lights (I don’t see why anyone would hate it), you can disable it via the settings as well.

Lighted

Software
Since this is a higher end mouse, there are more settings for you to choose when compared with the Razer Abyssus, such settings include Macros, Profiles and Lightings.

Settings: Buttons

Settings: Performance

Settings: Profiles

Settings: Macros

Settings: Lightings

Conclusion
This mouse is a worthy successor to my Razer DeadthAdder, the Razer Imperator is now my primary mouse. The weight feels right and the height of the mouse is conformable for my right hand. In terms of sensitivity, it can goes up to 5,600dpi which is one of the highest I have seen so far. Not forgetting that it is powered by laser instead of the infrared sensor which allows more surface tracking power.

The adjustable side buttons is not really a selling point as I don’t see myself adjusting it that often, I would think it is more of a hype rather than obtaining something practical out of it.

Since this mouse is designed for right handed person, this can be considered a con for left handed person. In that case, you might want to consider getting the Razer Abyssus instead.

Press Release

Razer Abyssus Gives Gamers the Competitive Edge by Focusing on the Fundamentals

Carlsbad, Calif. – Nov. 10, 2009 – Razer, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-end precision gaming and lifestyle peripherals, today launched the Razer Abyssus gaming mouse. By combining simplicity with a state-of-the-art 3.5G 3500dpi infrared sensor, the Razer Abyssus stands ready to frag.

“Less is more,” said Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff, president, Razer. “We’ve taken our ambidextrous three-button mouse design and loaded it with our industry-leading technology without the added cost of too many bells and whistles. Our goal with the Razer Abyssus is to give competitive gamers access to gaming grade hardware without breaking the bank.”

Specifications

• 3,500dpi Razer Precision 3.5G infrared sensor
• 1000Hz Ultrapolling / 1ms response time
• Mechanical dpi/polling rate switches
• On-The-Fly Sensitivity adjustment
• Always-On mode
• Ultra-large non-slip buttons
• 16-bit ultra-wide data path
• 60-120 inches per second and 15g of acceleration
• Three independently programmable Hyperesponse buttons
• Ambidextrous design
• Scroll wheel with 24 individual click positions
• Zero-acoustic Ultraslick Teflon feet
• Seven-foot, lightweight, non-tangle cord
• Approx. size in mm 115(L) x 63(W) x 40(H)

Box Front

Box Back

Box Open

Packaging
The packaging of Razer mice are always simple and straight to the point which is the mouse itself. Hence, when you open up the box, you will see the mouse first and underneath it, is a folder that contains quick guide, manual, stickers, etc

Box Contents

Manuals/Stickers

Drivers
Most of Razer mice drivers are being updated quite oftenly and hence I recommend users to go to the Razer drivers page and download and install the latest drivers instead. Drivers for Razer Abyssus.

Buttons
The mouse is made for simplicity and hence there are no other fanciful buttons on either side of the mouse just the usual left and right click and the scroll click at the top. The buttons also felt a little stiff and hence harder to click when compared with my Razer Deathadder maybe because the buttons are designed for rapid clicking response. I think this may need some time to get used to.

Front View

Back View

Side View

The stand out feature of the Razer Abyssus is the two hardware toggles that allows you to switch your preferred dpi and polling rate. You can choose from two polling rate, 125hz or 1,000hz and from three dpis, 450 dpi, 1,800 dpi and 3,500 dpi. The combination of 125hz and 1,800 dpi is just nice for me doing normal office work as well as playing games.

Hardware Toggles

Lighted Logo
Similar to all Razer mice, the Razer logo on the mouse will be lighted up or have the glowing effect in different colors. For the Razer Abyssus, the light is blue and it is just lighted up without the glowing effect. Unlike my Deathadder, there is no light on the scrollwheel.

Lighted

Software
You can set various settings such as the sensitivity, scroll wheel speed, double clicking speed and button assignment using the software which is included when you installed the driver.

Settings: Sensitivity

Settings: Scroll Wheel

Since this mouse is designed to be ambidextrous, you can set whether you are using the mouse on the right hand or left hand under the button settings.

Settings: Buttton

Conclusion
Pros

• Simple & no frills
• Ambidextrous design
• Hardware toggle for dpi and polling rate

Cons

• Mouse is too light for stability
• Mouse is small for gamers with big palms
• Stiff buttons
• A little pricey

INQ Chat 3G

Specifications
The official specifications of the INQ Chat 3G is not stated on the official website and I have to get it from SingTel’s INQ website as well as the press release which is sent to my email.

• Qualcomm QSC 6270
• QVGA (320×240 pixels), 262k TFT
• 3.2M pixels Auto focus outward facing camera & P2P video (“see what I see”)
• Built-in: 100MB NAND + 128MB SDRAM, User Memory: 100MB, Expandable: Micro SD/SDHC memory card slot (support up to 8GB capacity)
• Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (Headset, Handsfree, File Transfer, ObjectPush, A2DP, AVRCP, DUN)
• Audio Playback: AMR-NB, aac, aac plus, XMF, EAAC, MP3, WAV, MIDI, IMY
• Video Playback: MPEG4, H.263, H.264
• Audio Streaming: AMR, AAC, AAC+, EAAC+(Audio only)
• Video Streaming: MPEG4, H.263, H.264
• DRM: OMA DRM 1.0
• Battery Life: Capacity: 1500mAH (nominal), Maximum standby: 470 hours, Talktime: 550 minutes

Applications

• BREW 4.0 + INQ System 1 extensions
• Java MIDP2.0 (Multi Tasking)
• Access Net Front 3.5 browser INQ UI including Switcher
• Facebook application. Integrated with Contacts, Messaging, Caller ID, Camera, Photos, Switcher, Status Bar, Notifications and My Stuff
• Twitter application. Integrated Contacts, Messaging, Homescreen widgets, Switcher, Notifications and My Stuff
• INQ Push Email. Presented on Switcher and integrated with Contacts, Messaging, Switcher, Notifications and My Stuff
• INQ Hub. Presented on Switcher for quick access to INQ Hub, a portal where users can discover new applications available for INQ handsets, and access mobile support
• Instant Launcher, RSS Feeds, Native Widgets (Weather, World Clock, Search, RSS Feeds), Startup Wizard
• Drivers and modem dashboard for dialup connection (PC and MAC)
• SMS, MMS, Email (Support POP3, IMAP4, SMTP) SyncML
• Copy and Paste, file manager (including memory card search)
• Smart Learning & Predictive Text Entry (edit user dictionary)
• True Type Fonts
• File transfer, Message, Phonebook management on PC Suite (MS Windows)
• Embedded USB Plug-and-Play

Unboxing
The packaging style is identical to that of the INQ Mini 3G, the only difference is the image used on the front box cover.

Box

Phone

Accessories

Box Contents

Keypad

Keypad

The keypad is pretty good, nice to press and great tactile feedback, still maintaining the same standard as the keypad on the Mini 3G. The kepad is a little similar to the Nokia E71 just that for for the Chat 3G, the number pad is on the left side instead of being in the center.

Side

Left Side

On the left side of the phone contains the Mini-USB port and the volume switch. The Mini-USB port is used to charge the phone, transfer data as well as for the earpiece for hands-free talking. I wished they used a 3.5mm port and Micro-USB instead as the industry is moving towards that.

Right Side

On the right side of the phone contains the “Switcher” switch which enables you to move through the menu icons on the main screen. I don’t see myself pressing that button often as I am used to pressing the navigation button on the keypad instead.

Camera
The camera has a great improvement from 2MP to 3.2MP with auto-focus. I have taken a sample picture using the camera, as you can see the picture turns out pretty ok. Similar to the Mini 3G, there is no front facing camera as well and hence you can’t do video chat.

Facebook

Facebook App

The Facebook app still remains the same from the Mini 3G from what I can see, it is still integrated into your message app as well as the contact app. Not forgetting that in the pictures app, you can view your Facebook photos as well.

Twitter

Twitter App

The Twitter app for Chat 3G has also been changed a little, there are now tabs on top and by pressing the left and right arrow keys, it will allow you to move through the tabs. This solve the problem I mentioned in the Mini 3G where there is a missing “mention” or “direct message” view.

Star Up / Shut Down
It took about 50 seconds for the phone to start up and only just 5 seconds for the phone to shut down. This is similar to my Snow Leopard which takes minutes to startup but only 10 seconds to shut down.

Conclusion
This is definitely a significant improvement over the INQ Mini 3G which I reviewed 3 months ago. It makes a good social media phone and coupled with a good battery life. Camera is also not bad. It would be cool if there is a non-camera version of it so that NSF can bring that phone into camp. Many NSF/regulars are using the Nokia E61 which have a non-camera version if they wanted a full QWERTY keypad.

SingTel is offering the INQ Chat 3G for SGD$0.00 aka free with 3G Flexi plans, iTwo plans, iThree plans and premium plans, check it out here.

Here are the features and specifications copy + pasted from the website:

Features

• Solar Powered Bluetooth Hands Free Kit
• No Wires to Distract Driver
• Affix to windscreen with accessories provided
• Fast and Easy Pairing with Mobile phones
• Noise cancelling Omni directional Microphone

Specification:

• Bluetooth V2.1+EDR (enhanced data rate)
• Operating distance: up to 10 metres
• Frequency: 2.4 GHz – 2.48 GHz unlicensed ISM band
• Supports headset and handset 1.5 profiles
• Paired device memory: 8 paired devices
• Talk time: Up to 13 hours (excluding solar charging)
• Standby time: up to 800 hours (excluding solar charging)
• Charging time: Using USB/car charger: around 3 hours (18 hours via solar panel)
• Charger voltage: DC5.0V 550 mAh
• Rechargable battery type: 650mAh lithium-ion
• Size: 92.5 x 54 x 15.5 mm

Box – Front View

Box – Back View

Box Contents

Front View

Back View

It supports multipoint technology and hence it allows you to pair up to 2 mobile phones with the device.

Back View With Holder

In the package, they give you extra 2 suction cups which is good because when I received my device, one of the suction cup is spoilt and I have to replaced it. Because it is placed continuously under the sun, the rubber of the suction cup may not be able to take the heat after a year or two.

I got a complain with this holder is that when the device is in the holder, I can’t seem to press the volume up or down button.

Micro USB

There are 3 ways of charging this device, USB port via your desktop or laptop, USB Port car charger which is included in the package or using solar. The USB port on the device is using Micro USB. I wish they include AC charger as well because the initial charge of more than 3 hours is recommended. In Singapore, a drive from the east to the west does not take more than 2 hours. I am tempted to use my USB Port AC Charger to charge it initially but as usual the manual said that if you use other means of charging not stated in the manual, and if anything happens the warranty will void.

Once there is an initial charge in the device, I think we will not be needing the car charger anymore unless you are a heavy user who talks more than 4 hours in the car every day. A 2 hour solar charged will give you 1 hour of talk time. And in sunny Singapore it is not difficult to get 2 hours of sunlight if you park outdoors.

Paired With iPhone

I paired it with my iPhone and got it working within 5 minutes, it really helps when you read the manual. The speaker in the device is pretty loud when I on it to the maximum and in fact it is louder than my radio! There is a 16-bit digital signal processor (DSP) in it that filters the surrounding noise and reduces the echo of your own voice. This works pretty well, I tested it with my radio both on and off and when I on my radio, the radio in the background becomes very mild. Of course when the radio is off, there is no background noise because the noise when driving on the road is filtered off.

I got have two weird issues when using it with my iPhone, I can’t press the Multi Function Button (MFB) on the device to answer the car, I have to press the answer button on my iPhone. The voice dialing works but somehow it doesn’t work correctly, always giving me the wrong names. When I tested it without the device and speak straight into the iPhone, it works well.

In The Car

I recommend it placing right at the top of the driver’s windscreen to prevent it from distracting the driver’s view when driving.

I highly recommend this because most of the time you only need to use handsfree when driving. It is much better than having a ear piece because it is uncomfortable wearing the ear piece all the time and it will make you look dumb.

You can get the DriveMultiSolar Bluetooth Car Kit for £24.95 (including taxes but excluding shipping).

The bag is compatible with most netbook of screen sizes from 8.9″ to 12″. Here are some netbook models that are compatible.

• MSI Wind U100
• Asus Eee PC 900 901 4G
• Asus Eee PC 1000HE
• Asus Eee PC S101
• Acer Aspire One A150X 8,9″
• Acer Aspire One D150
• Medion AKOYA Mini E1210
• Samsung NC10
• Dell Inspiron Mini 10
• Lenovo IdeaPad S10e
• Toshiba NB100

Packaging View

The bag contains four compartments, there is one in the front and at the back. The back compartment is using magnetic button instead of zip.

Front View

Back View

The two compartments are so called the main ones. One of them allows you to put up to four cards and there are two velcro pouch holders in it allow you to put your USB drive, broadband mobile modem and maybe a Swiss army knife if you carry it along.

You can fit in an A4 size paper inside the bag if you do not mind not zipping the top portion.

You can consider putting your netbook charger in this compartment.

Main Compartment

The other compartment holds your netbook of size 8.9″ to 12″. The velcro flap is elastic and hence it is flexible. There are cushion in it but it is very mild but it should be able to withstand the shock if you drop it. Also because the cushion is mild, the bag does not feel bulky like my Crumpler messenger bag. There are additional 2 pouches which allows you to put in your mouse and 2.5″ portable HDD.

Netbook Compartment

Netbook Compartment With Netbook In It

The build quality of the zip and strap hook is pretty good but of course this being a netbook bag, try not to put in too heavy items.

Zip

Strap Hook

Bag With Strap

The Cool Bananas Netbook Organiser Bag is meant to be a casual bag. Netbook is pretty small because it is meant to be portable. But if we need to bundle accessories along with it like a charger, mouse, portable harddisk drive or broadband mobile modem. This bag makes the perfect fit to carry your netbook as well as those accessories.

You can get the Cool Bananas Netbook Organiser Bag from Gear Zap for £28.95 (including taxes but excluding shipping).

Packaging – Front View

Packaging – Back View

Technical Specifications:

• Integrated Ceramic Chip Antenna
• Data Transfer 3 Mbit/s (max)
• 10 Metre Coverage
• Class 2 Specification
• Frequency: 2.4GHz ISM Spectrum
• Dimensions: 12 mm x 13 mm x 3 mm
• Supported Profiles: A2DP, AVRCP, BIP, DUN, FAX, FTP, HCRP, HID, HSP, HFP, LAP, OPP, PAN, SPP
• Security: Pairing Encryption and Authentication

Plugged In

If you are like me and your laptop does not have a Bluetooth adapter, this Bluetooth Pico Dongle is definitely for you. I bought my Fujitsu LifeBook S7110 more than 3 years ago and at that time it did not come have a Bluetooth adapter for some reasons.

I have 3 USB ports on my laptop and normally I will used up to 2 USB ports (1 for mouse and 1 for portable hard disk or thumbdrive). With this settings, I got 1 USB port to spare and I can just plugged in the Bluetooth Pico Dongle to have the Bluetooth functionality permanently.

Size

As you can see from the size, it is the size of a 5 cent Singapore coin. If you have bought it, I would suggest you plugged it in to your desktop or laptop immediately to prevent it from being lost.

The Atomic Pico Bluetooth Dongle is available at Mobile Fun for £8.95 (SGD$20.22).

Sony VAIO W (VPCW115XG) – Lid Close

Sony VAIO W (VPCW115XG) – Lid Open

The Sony VAIO W VPCW115XG comes in 3 colors, pink, brown and white. Its recommended retail price is SGD$899.00.

Technical Specifications

• Processor: Intel Atom Processor N280 (1.66 GHz)
• Operating System: Genuine Windows XP Home Edition 32-bit (English Version) with Service Pack 3
• Main Memory: 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM (Only 1 SO-DIMM slot)
• Hard Disk Drive: 160 GB　(Serial ATA, 5400 rpm)
• Graphics Accelerator: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
• Display: 10.1″ widscreen (WXGA: 1366 x 768) TFT colour display
• Interfaces: 2x USB High Speed USB 2.0, 1x 10Base-T/100Base-TX (Network RJ-45 Connector), 1x Analogue RGB mini D-sub 15 pin (Display Output Connector), 1x Headphone Stereo mini jack, 1x Microphone Stereo
• Memory Card Slot Memory Stick Duo (Memory Stick PRO compatible, MagicGate compatible) and SD Memory Card (SDHC compatible, MMC compatible)
• Wireless Connection: Integrated Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11b/g/Draft n
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth standard Ver. 2.1+EDR
• Camera: 0.3 MP (640 x 480)
• Battery Life: 2.5 hours with the bundled VGP-BPS18 Lithium-ion battery
• Dimensions (W x H x D): 267.8 x 27.5-32.4 x 179.6 mm
• Weight: 1.19 kg (including the supplied battery)

Contents

Default Package

The package comes with an AC Adaptor (VGP-AC19V39) and Lithium-ion battery (VGP-BPS18) (3-Cell).

Battery Compartment

Ports

Power Port, VGA Port, Microphone Jack, Headphone Jack

2x USB2.0 Ports, LAN Port, Notebook Lock

Wireless Switch, Memory Stick Port, SD Card Port

Battery Indicator, Hard Drive Activity Indicator, On/Off Switch

Screen
The 10.1″ widescreen with native resolution of 1366 x 768 is amazing! The display is sharp and crystal clear! The best I have seen so far for a netbook! I can’t post any pictures because it will not justify the screen. You have to see it yourself at any Sony shops.

Keyboard

Sony VAIO W (VPCW115XG)

The VPCW115X features a chiclet keyboard similar to the MacBook Pro/Air which makes typing on a small computer easier as it reduces typo errors due to the increased in space between the letters.

Trackpad

Sony VAIO W (VPCW115XG)

The trackpad area is pretty large and moving your fingers across it is smooth. The left and right buttons below the trackpad are easy to press as well. I said easy because the buttons on my Asus 1000HE are very stiff and hence difficult to press. The num lock, caps lock and scroll lock indicators are just above the trackpad.

Summary
Pros:

• 10.1″ Widescreen with resolution of 1366 x 768 (16:9 ratio)
• Nice aesthetic looks and does not attract fingerprints
• It’s a Sony

Cons:

• Poor battery life
• Low resolution camera
• Only 2x USB Ports

In terms of the looks department, I would say none of the netbooks can beat this Sony VAIO W. It just looks sleek! If only Sony has the option of including a 6-cell battery instead of the 3-cell one, this would be the perfect netbook for me!

PS: I am asking Sony whether they will be selling the 6-cell battery. I will update this post when I get the information.

Specifications

It features a 2.2″ QVGA (240×320 pixels) TFT screen with support up to 262k colors.

Remaining technical specifications:

• Camera: 2.0M pixels fixed focus outward facing camera. P2P video (“see what I see”).
• Memory: On board: 128MB NAND + 128MB SDRAM (User Memory: 50M) | Expandable: Micro SD/SDHC memory card slot (support up to 4GB capacity)
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (Headset, Handsfree, File Transfer, ObjectPush, A2DP, AVRCP, DUN)
• Connectivity: USB 2.0 Full Speed
• Download & Playback: Audio: AMR, AAC, AAC+, E-AAC+(Audio only), MIDI, MP3, wav | Video: MPEG4, H.263, H.264
• Streaming: Audio: AMR, AAC, AAC+, EAAC+(Audio only) | Video: MPEG4, H.263, H.264
• Battery capacity: 1150 mAh
• Standby: 2G – 260 hours | 3G – 285 hours | Talktime: 2G – 210 minutes | 3G – 160 minutes

Applications bundled:

• BREW 4.0 (Multi Tasking) + INQ System 1 extensions
• Java MIDP2.0 (Multi Tasking)
• Access Net Front 3.5 browser
• INQ UI including Switcher
• Integrated INQ Applications:
  • Facebook application. Integrated with Contacts, Messaging, Caller ID, Camera, Photos, Switcher
  • Skype application. Integrated with Contacts, Messaging, call log, dialer, Switcher
  • Twitter application. Integrated with Switcher.
• Instant Launcher, Traffic Controller, Feeds, Startup Wizard, Static Widgets (World Clock, Weather, Search, Feeds)
• Copy & Paste, file manager (including memory card search)
• Smart Learning & Predictive Text Entry (edit user dictionary)
• True Type Fonts
• File transfer, Message, Phonebook management on PC Suite (MS Windows)
• Embedded USB Plug-and-Play drivers & modem dashboard for dialup connection (PC & MAC)
• SMS, MMS, Email (Support POP3, IMAP4, SMTP)
• SyncML

Even the official specifications listed Skype application, I can’t seem to find the application in the phone itself. Instead there is an application called IM on Mobile which is basically Windows Live Messenger.

Unboxing
I did post the unboxing pictures on the INQ Mini 3G last week. The packaging is very unique and I personally like it, I think it is better than the Apple’s iPhone 3G packaging. The content of the box includes the phone itself, battery, a charger head, a USB cable, ear piece and the card-like instruction manual.

Universal USB Port

Universal USB Port

The mini-usb port at the top of the phone is used for charging as well as for the ear piece. I think it is pretty cool.

Camera
The camera is a fixed focus camera with resolution up to 2MP. I have taken a sample picture using the camera. As you can see, the picture is pretty lousy. I think my iPhone 3G 2MP camera does better than that. I think it is meant to be a video camera as it supports P2P video.

Facebook

Facebook Application

The selling point of INQ Mini 3G is the integration of Facebook as well as Twitter into the phone. The Facebook integration is pretty well done as it will stay connected to Facebook even after closing the application. You can view your Facebook contacts in your phone contact book as well as Facebook private messages in your phone messaging function. When you compose a message, it will prompt you whether you want to send a text message (SMS), Facebook private message or email.

Facebook Request

Whenever you get a friend request, it will prompt you. Upon accepting the friend request, it will ask you whether you want to resync your phone contact book to add in the new friend. Pretty neat.

Twitter

Twitter Application

I do not really like the integration of Twitter as unlike the Facebook application, Twitter seems like a standalone application that will disconnect after you exit. I expect that whenever I get a mention or a direct message the application will prompt me. But apparently it does not.

Twitter Application Options

Also the application does not allow me to filter my timelime as there is a missing “mention” or “direct message” view. I am disappointed with the way Twitter is integrated.

User Interface Walkthrough
The interface is similar to the Nokia S40. I have no complains on it as I think it is pretty user friendly and straight forward to navigate around. Here is a full walk through video of the user interface of the phone.

The only complain I have with the phone is that it LAGS. It lags real bad especially scrolling through Facebook, Twitter and browsing the web.

Summary
Pros:

• Unique packaging
• Great integration with Facebook
• Compact & lightweight
• Excellent battery life
• Keypad tactile feedback is good
• Real affordable

Cons:

• Laggy interface
• Camera not up to standard
• Missing Skype application
• Twitter integration can be improved
• No Wi-Fi

SingTel INQ Mini 3G is priced at $0 aka FREE, if you sign up for the 3G Flexi Lite AMPed plan or the iOne Plus Youth plan.

Birthday Party Bash as the name suggest is extremely suitable to be played during birthday parties as the focus of the whole game will be on the birthday boy or girl. When you start the game, you will get to choose 3 options, “Custom Party”, “Quick Party” or “Free Play”.

Since I am hosting the games day at my house and reviewing the game, I was arrowed to be the birthday boy. We choose Custom Party play mode because we want to be able to customize our birthday party. We can choose from 10 different types of Birthday Party themes.

Themes

How Many Wiimotes To Use?

The next few screens involved customizing the birthday person.

Birthday Boy Or Girl?

I Am Only 25!

Customizing The look

It will take some time to customized the looks! The customization is more detailed than Mii.

How Many Party Goers?

Despite the limitation of only 4 Wiimotes, you can assign up to 12 players to the game (take turns to play). But the downside to this is that before every mini-game starts, you need to choose who is playing in that mini-game. After a few mini-games, this becomes a little irritating. They should do a check on the number of Wiimotes vs the number of players assigned, if both the number tallied, there is no need to show the choosing of party goers screen.

After customizing the birthday boy, the next screen sill show an empty room which is not decorated with anything. As each mini-games is completed, the room will be decorated with an item. The details of the room is quite well done, they have a banner which displays the birthday boy name.

Empty Room

The mini-game instructions is detailed and there is even commentary to teach you how to play. This is useful for kids who may not understand what is written on the screen. But for older kids who read faster, they may find the instructions lengthy.

Mini-Game Instructions

Here are some in-game videos.

I lost count of the number of mini-games per session in order to fully decorate the room, I think it was about 10. The last item will be the birthday cake with your age on the cake itself! Pretty cool.

Decorated Room

Birthday Cake

Once the room has been fully decorated, you have completed the session and your birthday song will be played with your name in the lyrics! Pretty neat.

Birthday Song

In conclusion, Birthday Party Bash is a very kids oriented game and hence it might not be suitable for older children. This would make the prefect game to play during a children birthday party to keep them entertained. I think this game would make a good birthday present for the birthday boy/girl if he/she has a Wii.

Birthday Party Bash retails for SGD$39.90.

I Got Mine In Blue

Low Resilience Polyurethane Foam

The sleeve is made in a soft, shape-memory material using Low Resilience Polyurethane (LRPu) technology and the thickness of the form is 5mm and it also features and inner lip for maximum protection. This will absorb significant amount of knocks to your netbook. I believed (not tested) that it will also reduce the impact on your netbook if you drop it a low height.

White On The Inside

It is blue in color on the outside and on the inside, it is white in color which give it a good contrast.

Fitting It In

Fit Perfectly

The sleeve fits perfectly my Asus EEE 1000HE. There is still a small amount of allowance for netbook whose screen size is about 10″ but has the extra battery bulk. On top of that you can even slot it a few folded A4 papers or even your mobile 3G modem. The sleeve is much more flexible as compared to the Cool Bananas Netbook Envelope Case.

Default Thickness

Thickness After My Asus EEE 1000HE Is In

As you can see, there is not much change in the thickness of the sleeve after slotting in your netbook. This is a huge plus point when you compare it with the Cool Bananas Netbook Envelope Case.

Zips

The only thing that I may not like that much is the zip, zips are known to scratch your previous gadget if you are not careful enough, It happen to me a few times. In this area the magnetic buttons from the Cool Bananas Netbook Envelope Case proved to be better.

If you are like me, whose primary priority of a sleeve is to protect the gadget, then the LArobe 2Color Netbook Sleeve is definitely for you, its thick low resilience polyurethane foam will keep your netbook safe from knocks whether it is a major or minor one. But just try not to drop it!

You can get the LArobe 2Color Netbook Sleeve from Gear Zap for £16.95 (including taxes but excluding shipping).

Front View

Back View

Let me start off with the first review which is the Cool Bananas Netbook Envelope.

Fitting It In

Fit Perfectly

I am using the Asus EEE 1000HE. The Cool Bananas Netbook Envelope will fit any netbook whose screen size is between 8.9″ – 10.2″.

The size of the envelope is 27cm by 20cm and it weights 178 grams.

Lifting The Flap

Most cases use zip or velcro, but for this, there is a magnetic button which is used to hold the flap together. This made taking out the netbook easier. Zip will scratch your netbook if you are not careful and velcro will be subjected to wear and tear if you open and close it too often.

Leather On The Outside

Velour On The Inside

Velour On The Inside (Close Up)

It is made of leather (I am assuming syntactic leather) on the outside and on the inside, it is made of some silky smooth soft velour lining which will not scratch your netbook. In fact, I think to a certain extend it will help to clean the glossy surface of your netbook (like mine) from fingerprints.

The padding between the leather and velour is pretty thin and it does not use shock absorbing materials. I don’t think it will protect your netbook from hard knocks or even a slight drop.

Default Thickness

Thickness After My Asus EEE 1000HE Is In

Thinner netbooks will fit better into the Cool Bananas Netbook Envelope Case rather than my Asus EEE 1000HE as you can see from the picture above.

But nevertheless, if you want a sleeve that is unique to your netbook, you can consider the Cool Bananas Netbook Envelope Case. If you want to protect your netbook from shocks, I would recommend you the LArobe netbook case instead (review coming soon).

You can get the Cool Bananas Netbook Envelope Case from Gear Zap for £17.95 (including taxes but excluding shipping).

Samsung sent me the Samsung Lapfit LD190G for review. Thank you Daniel =D

Box

There are currently 2 models/sizes available, the LD190G (RRP: SGD$239) and LD220G (RRP: SGD$339). The sizes are 18.5″ wide and 21.5″ wide respectively. For the LD220G model you are able to connect to multiple Lapfit monitors or any USB devices through the 2 extra USB ports at the back. You can connect up to a maximum of 4 monitors at a same time with a serial USB connection and 6 monitors with a parallel USB connection.

In the user manual provided, they recommend using USB cable to connect to the monitor if you need more than 1 display or multiple monitors in Plug & Play mode. On the other hand, they recommend using the VGA (D-SUB) cable if you are using a single display, playing 3D games or watching HD videos.

LD190G Specifications

• Screen Size: 18.5″ Wide
• Resolution: 1,360 x 768
• Brightness: 250cd/m²
• Contrast Ratio: DC 20,000:1 (1,000:1) (Typ.)
• Response time: 5ms
• Viewing Angle (Horizontal/Vertical): 170˚/160˚ (CR>10)
• Signal Input Connector: D-Sub / USB
• Sync. Signal: Separate H/V, Composite, SOG
• Video Signal: Analog RGB, USB
• Power Power Consumption: 20.0W (TYP); 22.0W (MAX)
• Stand By Power (DPMS): ≤ 1W
• Features Plug & Play: DDC 2B
• Multimedia Speakers: No
• Optional Accessories: No
• Special Features: Magic Clear (Glare) Easy Connection (UbiSync) Image Size Touch Button Windows Vista Basic
• Dimension Product Dimension (With stand, WxHxD): 450.2 x 295.8 x 72.0mm
• Weight Product Weight: 3.6kg
• Stand Function: Tilt

Package Contents
The contents in the package is pretty straightforward as shown in the picture.

Package Contents

• 1x Samsung Lapfit LD190G
• 1x USB Cable
• 1x D-SUB Cable
• 1x Power Cord
• 1x Cleaning Cloth
• 1x Installation/Driver CD
• 1x Quick Setup Guide
• 1x User’s Guide

Features
According to the official website, it states that the Lapfit monitor uses 33% less energy than conventional monitors and hence as stated in the specification, it uses between 20W to 22W of power. The convention monitor stand and base is missing from the Lapfit. Instead it uses a Photo Frame-like stand attached at the back of the monitor in order to match the height of a laptop to provide a harmonious dual display and that explains why the Lapfit may look lower than the usual conventional monitor. The Lapfit is able to provide tilting of 10° to 40° degree to match the viewing angle of the laptop screen.

Lapfit Matches The Height Of The Laptop

My Thoughts
The monitor is finished in Piano Black and it is very glossy and hence no matter how I take the photo, it will always have a reflection of my hand holding the camera.

Front View

Back View

The monitor is slim and light weighing at 3.6kg and it is very easy to carry around as there is a groove at the top (where the ventilation holes are) for you to grip it as shown in the back view picture above.

Photo Frame-like Stand

The Photo Frame-like stand attached at the back of the monitor can be pulled till you hear a clicking sound (the 10° to 40° degree tilting comes after the clicking sound) and that will make you monitor stable when you place it on the table. At first I dare not pull it out too much as I afraid that it might break, and hence when I place it on the table, slight movement on the table, will cause the monitor to topple and I find it weird. I did not find anything that says about the clicking sound in the user guide, so I assumed that the user guide assumed that its consumers know about it.

Photo Frame-like Stand Rollers

There are 2 rollers which is attached to the end of the stand and that allows you to tilt the monitor easily without the need of hearing the screeching sound.

Rubber

There are also 2 rubber pieces attached at the bottom of the panel to ensure that it does not move easily.

3 Ports Only

There are only 3 ports at the back of the monitor for the LD190G model, 1 for the USB connection, 1 for the D-SUB connection and the last one is for the Power Cord.

Touch Sensitive Buttons

The buttons (including the power button) of the monitor are touch sensitive, only if you touch around the power button then the menu buttons will appear.

Using With Windows Laptop
The current latest drivers for Windows is v4.6.

Windows 7 Device

I am using Windows 7 RC1 on my laptop and apparently the driver does not work with Windows 7 yet. When I first plug the USB cable into my laptop, Windows 7 manage to detect it as Samsung UbiSync Monitor without the need to install the CD at all. But because nothing appears on my screen after that, I tried installing the drivers from Samsung Website and when i run the setup.exe, it states that my Windows is not compatible. I tried running it in backward compatibility mode as Windows Vista SP2, it still does not work. hopefully this issue will get fixed as soon as possible.

Dual Display

Single Display

Luckily there is still the VGA cable to fall back on, the moment I plug in the VGA cable and viola, it displays perfectly. Note that my laptop has a native resolution of 1024×768 (old laptop) and hence when I extend the monitor onto the Lapfit, it has the black area on the side because the aspect ratio is 4:3. Samsung called it the intelligent Image Size function which maintains 4:3 integrity on a wide screen and effectively eliminates image distortion and stretching.

Single Display

I tried it on my brother’s laptop which is running Windows XP SP3. Similar to Windows 7, Windows XP detect it as Samsung UbiSync Monitor without the need to install the CD. However to play safe, I downloaded the drivers from Samsung website again, and after running setup.exe, viola, my desktop extended to my Lapfit monitor.

Note that your Lapfit monitor is defaulted to Extended Monitor after you install the driver.

Using With MacBook/MacBook Pro
If you are using a Mac, you need to download the drivers manually from the Samsung Lapfit LD190G as it is not included in the CD. Do note that the file will be in rar and hence you may need WinRAR in a Windows machine to extract the DMG file.

MacBook Pro With LD190G

Once you installed driver, you will need to restart your Mac. After that just go to System Preferences -> Display and click on the Detect button and viola!

Limitations

• Because the USB monitor is recognized as a USB device, the DOS screen that appears for general monitors when a PC is booting up may not get displayed.
  In this case, you will need to connect the monitor using the VGA cable instead of the USB cable.
• USB monitor is not compatible to any software that requires 3D hardware acceleration. Such software includes most 3D games as well as programs based on DirectX.
• Because of the lack of a base and a proper stand, it might not be feasible to use it as your desktop monitor.

Conclusion
The monitor is not really a true plug and play monitor as it still requires you to install the driver on both PC and Mac (you just need to do it once). The software does make configuration the Lapfit much easier like whether to extend the monitor to the Lapfit or use it as the main monitor, etc. However, the thing I like about this monitor is that it is catered specially for laptops because it is designed in such a way that it almost the same height as your laptop screen when you place it side by side. Without the conventional monitor base/stand, it makes the Lapfit monitor very compact and does not occupy much space on your table. For those who are considering getting a monitor specially for your laptop, you might want to consider the Lapfit. The recommended retail price (RRP) for the LD190G is SGD$239, which is quite reasonable.

If there is a monitor bag specially designed for it, I think this would make carrying it around easier and Samsung can market it as a portable monitor for laptops.

Hopefully the driver issues for Windows 7 will be ironed out before Windows 7 is launched on the 22nd October 2009.

Links

• Samsung Singapore
• Samsung Singapore Monitors
• Samsung Lapfit LD190G
• Samsung Lapfit LD220G

PC Show 2009
For PC Show 2009, Samsung will be offering the LD190G at SGD$229 (SGD$10 off) and LD220G at SGD$309 (SGD$30 off).

If you are intending to get the LD190G or LD220G during PC Show 2009, please print the below e-coupon. You will receive an additional SGD$20 Takashimaya voucher when you present the e-coupon. If you bring a friend along to buy (maximum of 6 sets), both of you will received SGD$30 Takashimaya voucher instead.