NOKIA N8

This was the phone I was waiting for badly. Nokia's N96 proved to be an expensive phone to maintain but it stayed by my side for 2 long years and I wanted to move over a worthy successor. I became the first customer in my city to have Nokia N8.

Nokia N8 Smartphone

Nokia introduced the Nokia N8, the latest smartphone that intuitively connects to people, places and services that matter most. The Nokia N8 enables people to create compelling content, connect to their favourite social networks and enjoy the latest on-demand Web TV programs and Ovi Store apps.

12mb Camera

The Nokia N8 introduces a 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, Xenon flash and a large sensor that rivals those found in compact digital cameras. People can also make HD-quality videos and edit them with an intuitive built-in editing suite.

Unrivaled entertainment system

The Nokia N8 offers a true home theater experience with HD quality film and Dolby Digital Plus surround sound. You can plug the device to your home theatre system with an HDMI cable.
The Nokia N8 enables access to local and global Web TV services that deliver TV programs, news and entertainment from channels such as CNN, National Geographic, E! Entertainment and Paramount directly on the homescreen.

Social media

People can update their status, share location and photos, and view live feeds from Facebook and Twitter in a single app directly on the home screen. Calendar events from social networks can also be transferred to the device calendar.

Software

The Nokia N8 comes with free global Ovi Maps walk and drive navigation, taking you where you want to be and showing you what want to see in over 70 countries worldwide.

Memory

The Nokia N8 has 16GB of in-built storage space, expandable up to 48GB with a Micro SD card. Large files can be easily transferred to a memory stick with the USB On-the-Go.

Symbian 3 advancements

Multi-touch and customizable home screens

Symbian^3 introduces several major advances, including support for gestures such as multi touch, flick scrolling and pinch-zoom. The Nokia N8 also offers three customizable home screens which can be loaded with apps and widgets.

The new 2D and 3D graphics architecture takes full advantage of the Nokia N8’s hardware acceleration to deliver a faster and more responsive user interface.

The Nokia N8 marks the global device debut of the new Symbian^3 software, featuring several major advancements:
• Usability enhancements across the user interface, including single tap, multi-touch and support for gestures such as “pinch-to-zoom.”
•Three personalized home screens on the Nokia N8, easily maneuvered through by a simple flick.
•Faster and more responsive user interface with new 2D and 3D graphics architecture that takes full advantage of hardware acceleration
•More efficient memory management allows more applications to run in parallel for a faster, more complete and efficient multi-tasking experience.

My final verdict is that THUMPS UP to Nokia. I am using this beauty and I just love it and have no plan to switch over soon.

APPLE iPHONE 4

I watched Steve Job's live event which unveiled the iPhone in a whole new avatar. I got this mobile for few months before I can switch on to a new one. So let me just share my experience with what Apple claims to be the best mobile device ever.

It’s likely down to the combination of Apple’s A4 processor and, according to teardown reports, twice as much RAM (512MB) as the 3GS. There’s also 802.11n Wi-Fi, though it only works on 2.4GHz networks with a lower maximum speed than those running on the 5GHz band.

Aside from that, it’s the new design of the iPhone that’s most striking. Beyond the front face, it’s a marked departure from the ergonomics of all three previous generations, as it’s flat on all sides and edges. Only the corners are curved.

iPhone 4's edges aren't sharp, though. The glass front and back are slightly inset from the metal frame. It’s 3mm thinner, but it doesn’t feel like it fills the curve of your hand as well as the older ones, unless, perhaps, you have exceptionally small ones. And there’s the rub: it took mere minutes to appreciate the curved back when it debuted on the iPhone 3G. It’s a shame to see the previous design almost entirely abandoned.

The improved camera is a good thing given that's one of the major new features, FaceTime video calls would fall flat on its backside if the camera quality was awful. So far, we’ve taken part in call, which has to be done over Wi-Fi, and what struck us was the elegance of turning on FaceTime and switching between the front and rear camera mid-call.

Steve Jobs claimed there was no set-up required. He was right. You just tap the FaceTime button on screen and the iPhone tries to establish the video call with the other person. If they’re not using an iPhone 4, it rejects gracefully and your voice call continues uninterrupted.

By now you’ve probably seen reports of issues with the signal indicator when the phone is touched on the left and right sides and the bottom-left corner of its metal frame. It’s easy to reproduce. That’s how we held our 3GS, but so far we haven’t experienced any dropped calls because of it, even when it fell to one bar, nor did call quality appear to suffer.

The sound quality in every call we’ve placed has been remarkably good. It seems the second, noise-canceling mic on the top of the phone does its job well, but we’ll be putting it through more extensive testing in different environments over the next few days.

Beyond hardware changes, the most important update to Apple’s phones could well turn out to be the new operating system.For consolidating your home and work emails, iOS 4’s best feature is the unified inbox, which is standard on iPhone 4 and available on old models once updated via iTunes. It lets you see all of your incoming mail in one folder, no matter which account they’re from.

Being able to gather apps into folders was rapidly becoming a necessity for us. But you can get these features on your 3GS and if you’ve got one of the older ones with plenty of capacity for your needs, you may want to think long and hard before you decide on splashing out or waiting another year to see what Apple pulls out of its hat. We expect you’ll love it if you’re coming from the original iPhone or iPhone 3G, though.

The final verdict is that those who are Apple fans will love it but this isnt a revolutionary product at all. Its just an evolution.

I PHONE 3GS

I PHONE 3GS

The new Apple I Phone 3GS is out. The "S" stands for "SPEED!" And according to Apple, it is faster launching applications or rendering Web pages.

• The iPhone 3GS has a new processor built-in. Apple claims that it is up to two times faster than the previous generation: Launching messages is 2.1 faster, load the NY Times in Safari: 2.9 times faster. It also consumes less, which has an impact on the improved battery life.

This is one of the strong points of the iPhone 3GS, according to Apple. They increased the resolution to 3 megapixels• New camera, with auto focus, auto exposure, and auto white balance.
• You can also tap to focus, changing white balance in the process. That is really neat, if you ask me.
• Special macro and low light modes.
• The camera also supports photo and video geotagging.
• Any application can access all the camera functions now.

• It supports video, 30 frames per second VGA with auto focus, auto white balance, and auto exposure. • You can trim the video shot just using your finger, then share it via MMS, email, MobileMe and YouTube.The other part of the "S" is the support for the faster 7.2 Mbps 3G standard, which in theory will deliver data faster to your iPhone.• The new iPhone 3GS includes new 3D graphics support in hardware. This means faster and more complicated 3D games. • Same 3.5-inch widescreen multitouch display, but this time it has a fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating. I wonder if it will withstand a full frontal Shake Shack burger attack. • It has a magnetometer, which works with a Compass application, third parties, and it is integrated into the new Google maps app, showing your orientation with a small semitransparent cone. • Voice Control. You can now talk with your iPhone, Enterprise-style. You can instruct it to play similar songs to the one you are playing, or call people. • Nike + support built in. • Supports accessibility features, like zooming on text, inverting video, and voice over when you touch whatever text is on screen. Price and availability • $199 for 16GB version. • $299 for 32GB version.

NIKON D3X

NIKON D3X


Well it has been perhaps one of the most talked about releases in recent years and finally this morning Nikon have announced their new flagship, the Nikon D3x . Following the usual Nikon trend for having an "x" version with increased pixels, the Nikon D3x now produces a 24.5 megapixel file which should please all those who have been clamouring for Nikon to match the Canon EOS 1Ds Mk III and 5D Mk II.
Sensor: Nikon have designed a brand new 24.5 megapixel FX format CMOS sensor that has been engineered specifically for the D3x.
ISO: The default range is ISO 100-1600, but is expandable to make it ISO 50 to 6400.
Image Processor: Such a huge file does produce some performance issues but Nikon have addressed these with a modified version of their existing EXPEED digital image processing system.
UDMA: The Nikon D3x fully supports the new UDMA cards, which allows you to get a higher performance card to deal with the increased file sizes of the Nikon D3x.
Shooting Speed: The Nikon D3x allows you to shoot at 5fps in the full FX mode and 7fps in the cropped DX mode.
HDMI support: The Nikon D3x provides a type A output for HDMI playback of images, this will be a very useful feature for those in the field of fashion or studio photography.
ADR Auto setting: The Nikon D700 introduced the Auto setting to the Dynamic Range function which allows the camera to control the dynamic range according to the situation. Many of you will know that I changed from my Canon system to use the amazing Nikon D3 and now have two of these plus a Nikon D700. It seemed obvious to me last year that Nikon had to bring out a high resolution DSLR and the forums have been alive these past few months with rumours and speculation.The Nikon D3x certainly provides that, in fact it is a 100% increase, and that alone is worth the price. Frame rate at 5fps is acceptable as these users are not generally needing to blast, and the new HDMI support will allow much better viewing options for clients present during the shoot. So for these target sectors the Nikon D3x provides market leading performance and will be a must have camera.

COWON Q5W

COWON Q5W

Cowon's most ambitious product to date, the Cowon Q5W, is a super-charged, touch-screen portable video player (PVP) with an astounding list of features. The Cowon Q5W comes with a hefty price tag ($549 for 40GB, $599 for 60GB), however, and its dense, needlessly complicated feature set may overwhelm some users.

With a recessed 5-inch wide-screen display and elegant metal construction, the Cowon Q5W looks like a Cowon D2 on steroids. Considering that the Q5W comes in at nearly a pound of unwieldy metal girth--measuring 5.5 inches wide, 3.5 inches high, and 0.8 inch thick--it would also make a decent weapon should you choose to hurl it at someone. The Cowon Q5W's 5-inch touch screen (800x480 resolution) is both beautiful and responsive.The top edge of the Cowon Q5W includes conveniently located buttons for controlling volume, a power switch that doubles as a hold button for disabling onscreen controls, two built-in speakers, an infrared sensor for the included remote control, and a pinhole microphone for creating voice recordings. A useful (often necessary) stylus pen for the Q5W's touch screen is conveniently housed in the top-right edge of the player. Packed into the left edge of the Q5W are jacks for a 3.5mm headphone cable, a 2.5mm headset cable (for voice recording), a power adapter input, a USB-to-PC port, a USB host port, and the oddest feature of all: a fragile, retractable antenna that we first thought was for the FM radio, but is actually used for Wi-Fi reception. The back, bottom, and right edge of the Q5W are bare, save a small proprietary port on the bottom for the player's AV cable output and optional GPS dock. The Q5W supports an extensive list of acceptable audio and video formats (including DivX, XVID, WMV, MPEG, and audio formats such as MP3, WMA, WAV, ASF, OGG, FLAC, APE, MPC), but chokes on AAC, h.264, MKV, VOB, and MOV files. Beyond the in-depth audio and video playback features, the Cowon Q5W includes a built-in FM radio, standalone Flash file player (presumably for games), photo viewer, text reader, and voice recorder. The Q5W also includes a suite of Microsoft applications that run natively on its Windows CE 5 operating system, including MSN Messenger, Internet Explorer, WordPad (which makes the text reader somewhat redundant), and a couple of card games.