With the world’s first real Ultra Mobile PC, the HTC Shift you get a complete mobile office communication.
Bear in mind that it is not a mobile phone. You can only call with this device if you install Skype or any similar application on it. But you can send SMS and do other basic functions.

The smartphone HTC Shift has a powerful processor to ensure a smooth operation of these technologies. In fact, this device is based on a good Intel Ultra Mobile platform (UMP) and is powered by processors derived from Intel Dothan 800 MHz and equipped with a 7-inch touchscreen (800 x 480 pixels), which slides over the keypad QWERTY, sliding forward and upward.

The user can use this smartphone as a GSM phone with support for GPRS and EDGE cellular networks built, and will boast a wide range of wireless connections from the wireless 802.11b / g Bluetooth. Can also be optionally equipped with a 3G module.

Two Operating Systems
Operating System

HTC Shift is the first mobile device that will finally be able to work with two different operating systems: in fact it can interact with both Windows Vista and Windows Mobile 6 Professional. This amazing feature has led to the need for very specific hardware configuration: The HTC Shift has, in fact, 64MB RAM and 128MB of ROM (Read Only Memory, a type of memory that only allows the operation of reading data ) dedicated to Windows Mobile, and 1GB of memory and a hard disk 30GB or 40GB capacity, to ensure the functioning of Windows Vista.
Unbelievable but true.

HTC Shift Technical Specifications
Here are the full tech specs of HTC Shift:

* Dual operating system
or Microsoft Windows Vista Business 32-Bit (computer mode)
or SnapVUE (handheld mode)
* Processor
or Intel Stealey A110 800 MHz CPU (Windows Vista)
or ARM11 CPU (For SnapVUE) [1]
* Memory
1 GB or RAM (computer mode)
or 64 MB RAM (handheld mode)
or 40/60 GB hard disk
or SD card slot
* Intel GMA 950 video card
* Communication
or Quad band GSM / GPRS / EDGE (data only): GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900
or Triband UMTS / HSDPA (data only): UMTS 850, UMTS 1900, MTS 2100
or Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g
or Bluetooth v2.0
or USB port
* Display
or Active TFT touchscreen, 16M colors
or 800 x 480 pixels (Wide-VGA), 7 inches
or Qwerty keyboard
or Handwriting
* Fingerprint Reader
Ringtones
or Polyphonic, MP3
or vibration, dual speaker

HTC Shift is almost a perfect mobile phone. The only cons that we could found were the price and the size of the device. But if you consider the technical features that this mobile pc has in it, the dimensions are very small and the price, although not for everyone, it is justified to match, what this phone can offer. The product is a true jewel of technology.

Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro is based on Sony Ericsson’s first Android device, the Xperia X10 and its only difference from the “regular” Mini is the physical sliding keyboard that makes typing much easier.

X10 Mini Pro Specifications
The most impressive thing is that Sony Ericsson on the specifications of the device are not worse than the slighty larger Xperia X10 is.  The Xperia X10 Minis are all smartphones, like the great X10. They run the same version of Android (1.6) as their big brother. The 600MHz processor lets everything run remarkably smoothly. The Mini’s are equipped with Bluetooth, WiFi and HSDPA. On the back is a 5 megapixel camera with fast response. At the front, 2.5 inch capacitive touch screen reacts just as quickly.

The X10 Mini Pro is a fraction thicker because of the sliding keyboard.

Timescape UI

Android for Sony Ericsson has developed a unique user interface. They call the Timescape and is on the X10 Mini and also on the Mini Pro. But for the small screen is adjusted so that with one finger to operate. Especially the shortcuts in the four corners of the screen are a godsend in that respect. They take up little space, but still take you quickly to a user defined program.

Qwerty on Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro
Difference between the ordinary and the Mini Mini Pro’s on several points. The most striking is the sliding QWERTY keyboard of the Mini Pro. This makes it slightly thicker than its ‘normal’ twin brother, but he will be in your pocket not in your way. Because the keyboard over the entire length of the device is inserted, it has more space than, say, a Blackberry Bold 9700 or a Nokia E72. The keys are nice and far apart and with thicker fingers is good at typing.
They are available in five different colors from matt black to bright green.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro Pros

• Fast
• Good user interface
• Small
• Excellent technical specifications

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro Cons

• Screen is very small

Nokia, the leading of mobile phone manufacturer that has lost a lot of its market share in the recent years, wants to return to the top of the world in the field and. After the presentation a few weeks ago on the Nokia World 201,0 the Finnish giant intends to meet the onslaught of the iPhone.

The Nokia N8 has been officialy released. It is a model that we believe will make a havoc of sales and now we will explain why in the following Nokia N8 review:

The price and release date

The technical features of Nokia N8, as announced, are very powerful:  the 12-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and Xenon flash puts it directly on top as the most powerful camera phone ever, and only this specific enough by itself to explain the power of the phone, but we do not stop here, because we also have the pleasure to announce that N8 is the first device to have the Symbian OS ^ 3, that would bring several new features like: pinch zooming, scrolling and multi-touch and it also supports multitasking. It ‘available in gray, black, pea green, dark blue and orange color.

Nokia N8 Camera

Going back to the camera can also record video in high definition (HD), which can be edited and modified thanks to special applications in your phone. It ’s a multimedia phone and confirms that it is possible to use WebTV services (watch many TV channels worldwide in streaming) and see the same videos in HD audio system with Dolby Digital Plus.

Social Networking

But why do take such beautiful pictures and videos if you can not share them? Nokia N8 developers must have thought of this as associate this mobile social networking (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. ..) is simple: you can upload photos directly, calendar sync to the phone online, direct links in the homescreen and many other things you will surely love the convenience of online life.

The pictures are likely to take a lot of memory space and that is why the Finnish company Nokia has decided to equip N8 with 16 GB of internal memory, which is expandable (up to 48 GB) thanks to the MicroSD support. Maps is free and there are maps of 70 countries available. It ‘also a USB port to export the data and an HDMI to connect it to TV. The battaria is long term, it supports music playback for up to 50 hours.

Nokia, the leader of mobile phones, wants to return to the top of the world in the field and, after an incident a few weeks of the Nokia World 2010, an occasion during which he presented his new terminals C6, C7, E8 and N8, gave away yesterday at his sale in Italy of one of the top models of her new creations, the Nokia N8, with news that the Finnish giant intends to meet the onslaught of the iPhone.

“With the Nokia N8 and the new Symbian software, we are taking on the most popular smartphone platform in the world and a familiar user experience faster and more intuitive,” said Jo Harlow, Senior Vice President, Smartphones, Nokia, which also stressed as the N8 has received the highest number of pre-orders from consumers in the history of Nokia.

Based on the new Symbian OS, the Nokia N8 focuses on speed and ease of use and multitasking. Incorporates a 12 megapixel camera that takes pictures of high quality and allows you to record movies in HD quality, users of this phone will also have the ability to edit pictures and videos from your screen and choose from multiple ways to share, transfer large files to an external hard drive with USB-on-the-go, or upload photos to social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or Renren directly from the main screen.

The Nokia N8 is also equipped with an AMOLED display 3.5 ‘glass has the Ovi free feature maps, which offers free surfing walk & drive in over 70 countries, shows the routes of public transport in 85 cities around the world, the real-time traffic, safety camera warnings, the availability of parking and petrol stations and information on speed limits.

Conclusion

It really looks like a five-star ultra-luxury mobile phone, we strongly recommend that you buy for, especially if you love photography, you will not find anything better and the price also related to the quality of the product is very low.

Nokia N8 price will be around 450 Euros, which is about 620 USD dollars including taxes and should be on sale from the third quarter of 2010 on some markets at least.

Pros: camera, display, battery lifetime

Cons: New Symbion OS takes time to get used to



We were finally able to get our hand on HTC Trophy – a new smartphone by the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer that uses the Windows 7 Phone operating system. Let’s look in more detail the various features of the product, to better understand what kind of smartphone it is.

HTC Trophy Technical Specs
The HTC 7 Trophy is a GSM quad-band compatible with third-generation networks and HSDPA (Maximum download speed of 7.2 Mbps and 2 Mbps upload speed). It also has WiFi, Bluetooth and USB connectivity.

Trophy has a TFT LCD 3.8-inch capacitive touchscreen with WVGA (480 x 800 pixels), and is able do display over 16 million colors. The camera is a 5 megapixel with autofocus, digital zoom and video recording capabilities.

As with most of the latest generation of smartphones, HTC Touch 7 Trophy also has various sensors, such as proximity and brightness sensors. It also has digital compass and A-GPS.

Mobile internet is fast and easy to use with the large screen. The HTC Trophy supports 3G internet so you can enjoy high speed internet. There is also Wi-Fi available so phone can be connected to wireless internet access in the area.
The HTC Trophy also features multimedia applications and has a 5.0 megapixel camera that you have very nice pictures and videos to enjoy. Besides the camera it also has an extensive media player that can be made use as an mp3 player and this smartphone also supports MP4 and WMV.

The RAM of the device amounts to 576 MB, while the ROM is 512 MB. The available space is 8 GB, but unfortunately there is no expansion slot for additional memory. The chosen processor is a Qualcomm QSD 8250 to 1 GHz, a real guarantee of power and performance. Also worthy of note, an FM radio and a Lithium-Ion 1350 mAh.

In terms of software, the Trophy uses the Sense UI with many renewed widgets, as well as applications installed with the Microsoft operating system.

Design and finishing

At first glance, the Motorola FlipOut surprised us because of its square shape, with dimensions of 67 x 67 x 17 mm 120g, the Motorola device will appeal to anyone whose first selection criterion is portability. Remember the tamagotchis? The FlipOut is almost designed in the same spirit. With its touch screen and hidden rotary qwerty keyboard, the phone seems to prevail in the ruthless world of smartphones.
When closed, the screen is even more highlighted. It shows three touch buttons: left for menus, for welcoming environment and had to go back to the right. When you slide the screen to the right, an alphanumeric keyboard with mini directional pad included appears.

It is noted on the left button of the mobile to raise and lower the volume on the top lock and for the key in and if turned off then a 3.5mm jack to plug in your headphones can be noticed. On the right side, just at the door, a microUSB for data transfer but also charging the mobile is included.
With pure side design, the color blends FlipOut with matt chrome, for us, the rear seat is orange, but the motive is also available in blue, green, pink and black.

Handling and overall use

The FlipOut slide has a system that seems very fluid and strong. Regarding autonomy, the phone can hold two full days usage of battery (calls, internet …) a good average if one takes into account the wealth of the system from Android. In addition to this, the phone is very ergonomic. What you will certainly regret is the low resolution of the screen that displays a poor color rendering and sharpness.

Features and Characteristics

The Motorola FlipOut is shipped thankfully with Flash version of Android, which makes it really easy to manipulate. If you are familiar with the giant’s suite of tools, your life will be simplified. “Competitor” Live from Microsoft Kin? Looks good. But with a longer life, inevitably … Like the above cited mobile on FlipOut is a terminal for social vocation. We find MotoBlur integrated mobile similarly, other software used to simplify your life as much as they combine all your mobile buddies and social networks with parameterized included. Speaking of social networks, we find the essential Facebook and Twitter (not Twidroid, phew!), Picasa, MySpace, Last FM, Skyrock and Photobucket.

You will find all information related to various accounts that you set in advance in an “Events”. Small snag, since everything is mixed, the fast tracking of information is prohibited.

The phone incorporates the QuickOffice suite that can play different file, excel, word, powerpoint. A configuration wizard for Email, ofcourse Gmail and Google Maps GPS, are finally included in the mobile.

I have never been impressed by Android, particularly the UI, so I wasn’t looking forward to receiving the HTC Legend for review. But this thing runs HTC Sense, and I have high hopes that it would be able to tuck away some of Android’s own UI deficiency.

First the hardware. The Legend features an incredibly sleek aluminium unibody design. This gives it a  highly desirable and premium look, but it also makes it a very slippery phone. There are some rubber on the backside, but they are on the wrong sides. The front is dominated by a gorgeous 3.2″ HVGA (320×480) AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display. It is equally as good as my Walkman X-series DAP. While the screen works amazing indoor, it is for all intent and purpose utterly useless during sunny days.

Below the screen are a couple of hardware keys. These includes Home (self explanatory), Menu (assessing the menu), backspace (return to previous screen) and a magnifying glass for bringing up the quick search box. Below the row of keys is the optical joystick shaped like a tiny ball. While it duplicates the functions of a traditional d-pad or optical trackpad, I can’t say I enjoyed using it due to its sensitivity and its location very near the bottom.

The left side features a volume rocker. After years of getting used to the volume keys being on the right side, it did take some getting used to, but it isn’t a huge issue. The right side on the other hand is bare. The power key and 3.5mm headphone socket resides on the top. The bottom house the micro USB charging/sync slot, microphone and lanyard loop. Finally the backside features the 5 megapixel auto-focus camera and a single LED bulb for flash duties. The loudspeaker sits on the left side of the camera module.

Accessing the battery, sim card slot and microSD card slot requires you the pry out the rubber plastic hatch. Removing the hatch will expose a flap that when flipped will give you access to the 1300 mAh battery, sim card slot and microSD. microSD cards are unfortunately not hot-swappable as the battery will merely slide out if you try. Overall the build quality is excellent with nary a flex or creak when squeezing it.

Booting up the HTC Legend reveals HTC Sense running on top of Android 2.1. Sense is a very pretty and quick UI, though it gets tedious after a while. I also can’t say I like the small icons that much, which makes it harder to select especially those with big fat thumbs. Widgets are easily accessible by swiping around either through the screen or the optical joystick.

There are two hugely annoying bit about the HTC Legend’s software (and I suspect all HTC Android phones with capacitive screens). First the screen is just too sensitive. I can’t remember the number of times during the past one week that the OS would misinterperate an accidental skin contact for something else, thus ruining what I was doing. Second, the screen vibration feedback only works on the virtual keyboard and nothing else.

The Legend has surprisingly good audio quality. While it isn’t no where near my Walkman or even some mid-end Nokia phones, it is a massive improvement over my last HTC device (Artemis) – which often sounded like a cheap MP3 player you get at market stalls. The Legend on the other hand sounds excellent via my Sennheiser IE 8, with good neutral mids though it does suffer from bass drop-offs. Overall, the Legend is competent enough to be a ‘backup player’. The same can’t be said about the bundled headphones which is pretty awful sounding, so make sure you invest in a proper pair of headphone.

The 5 megapixel auto-focus camera has a maximum resolution of 2592×1936 pixels, and should perform well, in theory. The UI unfortunately left much to be desired which isn’t surprising to be honest. Still there are plenty of manual settings for people who wants to get the most out of the camera. Image quality is average with pictures suffering from poor contrast and plenty of noise. This isn’t a camera you would want to use in low light situation. Samples are provided in the gallery below.

99.99% of all cameras has shutter buttons on the top right casing. It has been the norm for decades, if not forever since compact consumer cameras were first created. There is a reason why it is there – it allows one to hold the camera securely, even one-handed if they wanted to, whilst using the index finger to take pictures. Not so with this. The camera shutter is that small poxy round thingy known as the optical joystick I mentioned earlier. It is so unnerving to use.

The camera module at the back is too closed to the edge, meaning if I am not careful my fingers will often find its way into pictures. I could use it one handed, but the combination of poorly placed camera shutter button joystick and slippery body meant that unless I used it two handed I would be staring at an incredibly expensive paperweight.

Like most modern smartphones, the HTC Legend comes with a built-in GPS receiver chipset. Cold lock without A-GPS takes a couple of minute which is pretty much standard these days. It does not ship with any navigation application bar Google Maps (it is a Google OS after all), which works well provided you have a pretty good data bundle with your service provider. Using Google Maps is easy enough so I won’t bore you with details about it.

Perhaps the most important bit of a smartphone that many forget is the call quality. Fortunately the voice quality and reception is above average (tested on T-Mobile UK network). The Legend would also vibrate when your call is answered, which is a very useful feature where one do not have to hold the phone to the ear in order to know if the call is connected. Unfortunately the Legend does not feature a front camera, so video calls are not possible.

The phone book (called People) is one of the most fleshed out address book programs I’ve had the pleasure to use on any phones. It not only holds all the basic details as expected from a phone book, but will also display text messages and e-mails, Facebook/Twitter/Flickr integration and call history – all of which are sorted in tabs associated with that particular contact.

HTC has produced a great looking smartphone with the Legend. At around £350 in the UK for a sim-free model, it is similarly priced to many decent smartphones with similar spec-ed on the market like the N97 Mini and Motorola Milestone. Both the N97 Mini and Milestone has slide out keyboards, so can be argued as better value (the Milestone also has better overall specs). though one does runs Symbian^1 which most either love or hate, and the other runs on stock Android. And for only £50 extra you can get the HTC Desire, a phone with much better spec and a better form factor.

While I’ve not change my mind about Android, the Legend should be a sound investment for people who are in the market for a phone with such an OS. It is rather lovely looking. However I do believe that  HTC has taken the form over function road with this. It isn’t something I can’t imagine people would be happy to use as an everyday device after the initial oohs, and aahhs. Maybe the Desire?

The Dash 3G offers quite a bit more than the original Dash, including a much faster 528MHz Qualcomm CPU, 256 megs of RAM and flash storage, a GPS that works with Telenav (a $10/month subscription navigation service offered through T-Mobile) as well as Google Maps and Windows Live Search. It has a meager 2 megapixel camera, WiFi and Bluetooth with A2DP Bluetooth stereo support.

Other goodies include HTC’s YouTube player, plenty of IM clients (AIM, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, MySpace IM and Yahoo) and Microsoft’s Office Mobile suite.

If you’re a T-Mobile G1 user who’s tired of the G1′s bulk and poor battery life, the Dash 3G will seem like a thin slice of heaven. It’s extremely thin, small overall and fits in a pocket. The battery life is surprisingly good for a 3G HSDPA phone and ours easily lasted 3 days on a charge with moderate use. MS Direct Push email will eat more battery, so expect more like 1.5 days if you use push email. That’s obviously quite a bit better than the G1′s battery life, but you do forego the touch screen.

The Dash 3G is thin. That’s the volume rocker on the smartphone’s left side, and that’s the only side control.

Above: the Sprint HTC Snap and the Dash 3G.

The Dash 3G went on sale mid-July 2009, and the price seems a bit high at $169 with a 2 year contract. The retail price is quite reasonable at $349, however. If you want a data plan, the phone is available only with T-Mobile’s 3G Smartphone Unlimited data plan ($25/month with no SMS/MMS and $35/month with unlimited messages), just like the G1. A data plan isn’t required though, for those of you who want to save money and use WiFi for data.

The Nuron (Nokia Nuron 5230) is a Symbian OS 9.4 smartphone running Nokia’s S60 5th Edition software. If you’re already a Nokia S60 user, you’ll likely feel right at home, even if you’ve never used the touch screen 5th Edition version. The icons, menus and metaphors are largely the same. That’s great for familiarity, but the user interface still isn’t ideally touch optimized as it is with the iPhone 3GS and Android (two mobile operating systems that were designed from the ground up for touch rather than being ports of d-pad centric product lines). Since Nokia has released six 5th Edition phones, starting with the high end Nokia N97, we’d hoped they’d have evolved the UI more. But the new ^Symbian phones are coming later this year, and we assume Nokia didn’t want to spend much more development time with S60.

What exactly bothers us? It’s not just the resistive touch screen, which has its good points: you can use it with gloves and fingernails and it’s more precise. Yes, you do have to press a bit harder than on the iPhone or Motorola Cliq XT, but it’s not a wretched task. What we don’t like is that you actually have to use skinny scroll bars in some places, and those are certainly not finger-friendly and are terribly dated. In some cases you have kinetic scrolling and in others you don’t. Since this isn’t a capacitive display, there’s no pinch zooming. In some places you must single-tap on an item and in other places a double-tap is required. Good gosh, these kinds of things should have been sorted out long ago. The on-screen keyboard isn’t the easiest to use, but once you remember it’s not capacitive and that you must pay attention and precisely tap the key you want, it’s passable.

But there are things to like as well: once you get used to how the UI works, it’s easy enough to fly around the screen and get things done. It’s a fun phone to use, though it gets sluggish at times running on an ARM11 434MHz processor with a lean amount of available RAM. The smartphone is compact and very light at 3.98 ounces, and it makes the Cliq XT look like a battleship.

Like the Nokia 5800 and 5230, the phone’s hardware is laid out a bit differently from most phones. Nokia ships the phone with a sticker over the display that lets you know that the SIM card slot and microSD card slots are under rubber doors on the side of the phone instead of under the battery door.

The Nuron has a screen lock slider on the right, a feature common in recent Nokia phones. It’s easy to operate and saves you from the two step touch the power button then slide on the screen to unlock method that we find tedious. There are dedicated hardware call send and end buttons and a center key that opens up the programs window. These are mechanical buttons and work easily. A touch sensitive button lives at the top right corner above the display and this launches a shortcut bar to the multimedia apps. There’s a standard 3.5mm stereo jack up top (music is one of the phone’s strong points) and a dedicated camera button. The volume buttons are on the right and they control everything except ringer volume (you must use the Profiles settings to change the ringer volume which seems a little silly).

As we’ve come to expect from Nokia phones, the Nuron has excellent voice quality and strong reception. If making calls and holding a signal are important to you, the Nuron is definitely a good choice. It has better reception than the Cliq XT and Nexus One Android phones. Again, like most Nokia phones, the Nuron plays well with Bluetooth headsets, car kits and stereo headsets– it’s not finicky in the least. The contacts application is the usual Nokia affair with plenty of fields. The PIM applications sync with Outlook on the desktop, but there’s no iSync plugin (at least not yet). Using the Ovi Store application, you can download Mail for Exchange which supports syncing with MS Exchange 2003 and 2007 as well as Google contacts and calendar.

We’re a bit disappointed that the phone has only 3.6 Mbps 3G HSDPA when most T-Mobile smartphones are now shipping with the faster 7.2 Mbps flavor. The Nuron is a quad band GSM world phone with 3G on T-Mobile’s US 1700/2100MHz bands. It features Nokia’s usual webkit-based web browser that really impressed us 3 years ago but now looks a little weak compared to the Android and iPhone browsers. It’s not bad though and does a good job of rendering desktop sites (and it’s much better than RIM’s BlackBerry web browser). Email comes in the form of Nokia Messaging, which is functional but not sexy. The phone works with POP3, IMAP, Gmail and MS Exchange email (Exchange support is a free download).