iPhone Desktop Sync/Charger Review

If you are in the market for a desktop syncing and charging solution than look no further than the Kidgi Desktop USB Cradle for Apple iPhone 3GS.

Contents of the box

The Desktop cradle comes in a clear plastic case, with the black desktop sync base clearly on display. Unlike most packaging similar to this that needs a pair of scissors to get into, the back very easily pops off and can even be resealable.

The contents are pretty self-explanatory, we have the black desktop base, a USB cable and a UK mains adapter.

Up and running

Set-up is pretty straight forward, plug one end of the USB cable into your computer and the other into the cradle. You should then have an illuminated blue light to indicate that the desktop sync/charger is receiving power. All you need to then to do is slip your iPhone 3G / 3GS into the dock and off you go.

The USB Desktop Sync base is very solid in construction, and feels quite weighty, giving you reassurance that its going to hold your precious iPhone upright and not allow it to topple over.  The base also has some non-slip feet that also keep the unit firmly in place.

The unit has a clear plastic lip around the dock connector that gives the phone a snug fit and gives the iphone support while it is connected.  Unfortunately as this is a very snug fit, it does mean that anybody out there that has a cover on your iPhone will have to remove it to use this unit.

With the ability to also plug this straight into the mains, you could even use this as a bedside charging station for your power-hunger iPhone.

Price

You can get the Apple iPhone 3GS / 3G USB Desktop Sync & Charge Cradle from MobileFun.co.uk for £9.99 who also specialise in a range of iPhone Accessories.

Conclusion

All-in-all this is a great value desktop sync and charge solution for your iPhone at just a tenner.  With the official Apple Universal Dock coming in at £36 (although that does come with a remote) this is a steal! All you need it to do is charge and sync, and it does what it says on the box.

Unlimited Texts and Internet for £15 on Three

Three (3 UK) have a cracking 1 Month Contract on their SIM Only plans that gives you unlimited internet, unlimited texts, 300 minutes and free 3-to-3 calls.

On the SIM Only page of the 3 Store there are a list of 1 Month contracts offering unlimited texts and 3-to-3 calls.  If you look carefully below this you will see a line saying “To get a SIM contract with 300 minutes, unlimited texts, unlimited 3-to-3 calls and unlimited internet for just £15 a month call 0800 358 4425.” Yes thats right for £3 more than the £12 Online Exclusive deal you can get unlimited Internet.  Sadly this deal isn’t available online, just by calling the number.

On the 1 Month Contract you get the following for only £15:

• 300 Minutes
• Unlimited Text Messages
• Unlimited Internet
• Unlimited Free 3-to-3 calls

With the contract term being only 1 month, you’re not tied into a long term deal, and you can end it anytime you like. Can this be one of the best deals going?

Hands-on review of the Nokia N900

Back in September last year, I was invited to the onedotzero event at the BFI London and was one of the first people to get their hands on the shiny new Nokia N900. During the event I was able to grab a quick hands on with N900 with my fellow bloggers, but sadly the time was limited and didn’t get to try out the new handset as much as I’d have liked. Thankfully the lovely people at WOMWorld/Nokia we kind enough to send out a trial handset that I could test properly. Read on to find out more…

Whats in the box

The Nokia N900 comes in a stylish square grey box with an embossed outline of the N900 handset, with Nokia Nseries and Nokia N900 written in silver writing.

I’ll come to the main item in the box in a minute, but for now here’s some of the other things that you’ll find in your N900 box:

A video out cable to connect your N900 to a TV/sound system, and a Micro USB > USB cable for connecting your N900 to your computer.

Now that Nokia have signed-up to use a standard phone charger with other phone manufacturers, they have been good enough to include an adapter that will convert your old Nokia charger cables to the new Micro USB format.

Also included is a Nokia Nseries cloth to clean those grubby little finger marks that you are going to leave over the phone.

A set of Nokia earbuds, and a power adapter are the remaining items that can be found inside your N900 package along with the usual manuals.

The front of the N900

So here it is, the Nokia N900. The handset sports a glossy 3.5 inch touch screen which dominates the font of the device. The handset is designed to be used primarily in landscape mode, as you can tell from the orientation of the Nokia logo and model number above the screen.

The earpiece can clearly be seen on the left of the screen, and on either side of the handset are the stereo speakers.

On the right hand-side of the device you will find the headphone jack, mic, lock switch and the infamous Nokia Stylus that they like to include on their touch devices.

The back of the N900

Flipping the glossy screen over for a minute, we take a look at the back of the N900. Here you will find the 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens with dual LED Flash. Surrounding the camera is a kickstand which can be used for propping up the N900 to watch a movie.

The slide-out Keypad

As well as being a touchscreen device the N900 has a slide-out keypad containing a nice set of QWERTY keys. The slide mechanism gives a nice solid click as the device locks open.

Unlike the similar-looking Nokia N97 (which runs Symbian OS) – the QWERTY keyboard feels much more like a traditional laptop keyboard, but in miniature.

Keys are nicely spaced, and a joy to use.  There isn’t a navigational D-pad like on the Nokia N97, but instead arrow-keys like the Nokia N97 Mini. I did miss not having the D-pad, I guess thats a personal thing, but it’s removal of course keeps down the size of the device which is more important.

The Touchscreen

The screen is gorgeous, and has a bright 800 x 480 touchscreen display.

You are presented with a ‘desktop’ on your phone that allows you to put shortcuts and widgets to your favourite applications and sources of information for quick and easy access.

The top left of the screen is your main navigational method through the device. This can take some getting used to, as it’s not immediately obvious how you cycle through the various Applications/Desktop/running apps modes of the phone. The top of the phone also has a menu bar that can be tapped to pull down more options depending on what you are doing, again this isn’t that intuitive and can take a bit of time to get used to.  Once you do understand how this works, it does become second nature though.

One of my main concerns about the touchscreens used in the N900 was that it uses resistive instead of capacitive touchscreen technology. Basically the difference between the two is that you have to apply more pressure to the screen on a resistive screen (ie like you are pressing a key) where as a capacitive screen can pick up light taps (like the iPhone). On the Nokia 5800 and Nokia N97 you have to firmly press the screen and slide to scroll.  Thankfully the resistive implementation of the Nokia N900 is pretty darn good, almost as good as the light touches you would apply to an iPhone.

Inside the N900

The Nokia N900 flys! This is one fast mobile, in-fact it can’t really be called a mobile, it truly is a pocket computer.

At the heart of the N900 is an ARM Cortex-A8 processor running at 600 MHz. This provides the N900 with plenty of power that gives the user a desktop-like experience in the palm of their hand. Opening and switching applications is painless and quick, its really is a tiny powerhouse.

The N900 comes equipped with 32GB of internal storage which is plenty of room to store all your applications and documents.  This can be expanded should-you-really-need-to with the included MicroSD card slot, although this will only be up-to an extra 16GB.

The camera is a standard issue 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens, that we have come to know and love from previous Nokia handsets.  Great pictures as expected, and with the dual-LED it can help out in some lowlight situations.

Here here for the full list of N900 Technical Specifications.

Quick Questions Answered

I know that you cant really compare like-for-like on handsets that are made by different manufacturers for different audiences, but when people have a choice of choosing between 2 similar-in-spec devices they really want to know basic things like ‘is it fatter than my friends iPhone?’ So here I have tried to answer some of those questions:

• How heavy is the N900? – The N900 weighs 181g.
• Is the N900 fatter than an iPhone – Yes the N900 is fatter than an iPhone, for those familiar with the Nokia N95 its pretty comparable to that.
• Can the N900 run more that one application at a time? – Yes the N900 has full multitasking, unlike the iPhone.
• Are there lots of apps for the N900? – At the moment the platform is fairly new, but new apps are always being added to the Ovi Store.
• Will my existing Symbian apps work on the N900? – No, The Maemo Operating System is different than Symbian.
• How much is a Nokia N900? – The SIM free price of the N900 varies, but you can expect to pay around £460.

In you have a question about the N900, add it to the comments below, and I’ll get it answered for you.

Win a N900 or an all expenses trip to SXSW

Those cool guys at WOMWorld/Nokia have an awesome competition running, where you could be in with a chance of bagging yourself a brand new Nokia N900 mobilephone or even an all expenses trip to SXSW in the good ‘ole US of A.

If you have never heard of WOMWorld/Nokia, they are a ‘Word of Mouth’ company that allow bloggers and people interested in Nokia products to trial the latest Nokia products for review on blogs and forums all over the Internet. Each year they send out loads of devices all across the globe for trials.

All they want to know is the total number of trial devices WOMWorld/Nokia sent out last year (as opposed to the number of devices they have).

How to enter

There are 2 parts to the competition, firstly using Twitter, tweet your answer to @Womworldnokia with your guess before 9am tomorrow (Friday), UK time.

The first 100 people closet to the correct answer will then be able to takepart in the second part of competition called Which Nokia am I?

For more details on the competition head over to the WOMWorld/Nokia Competition page.

Goodluck!

Nokia N86 8MP ‘Explore Exhibition’ at Terminal 5 Heathrow Airport

A brand new photography exhibition opens in Heathrow Airports Terminal 5 that showcases two very different cities captured with a Nokia N86 8 megapixel cameraphone.

Photographer Henry Reichhold’s latest installation features more than 90 images contrasting the streets of Mumbai – the city made famous by Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ – with the dizzying heights of Dubai, one of the world’s fastest developing cities.

The Nokia N86 8MP Explore exhibition visually maps the polar opposites of two of the world’s most extreme urban dwellings: Dubai is a showcase of extraordinary wealth, development and architecture, whilst Mumbai is an extraordinarily vibrant city driven by the resilience and incredible good nature of its people who live for the most part in poverty. – Henry Reichhold

The Nokia N86 Explore exhibition opens on Tuesday 2nd March and runs until May can be found in Terminal 5’s Expo area.

Copyright Henry Reichhold

Copyright Henry Reichhold

Twitter from your mobile for free on Three

Until the 31st March 3UK are offering free access to Twitter on their mobile network.

All you need to do is point your 3 mobile handset, or any handset with a 3 SIM in it to m.twitter.com and off you go.

Sadly the offer is not valid via Twitter Apps that you can install on your mobiles, apart from the the preloaded Twitter app on the homescreen of the following 3 mobiles: Sony Ericsson T715 and Naite, INQ Mini 3G and Chat and HTC Hero.

Twitter by Text on 3

Alternatively you can twitter via text on 3:

Receiving Tweets on your mobile is completely free.

Sending a Tweet by text to 86444 costs 10p. Any free text allowance that may come with your price plan will not include Tweets by text.

Get Tweeting

If you havent used Twitter before, now is a good opportunity to try it out for free. Why now follow me on Twitter @nechbi and let me know what you think.

The Apple iPhone coming to Three (3UK) in 2010

It would seem that 3UK are looking to expand their mobile handset portfolio and have plans to add the Apple iPhone to its lineup.  In a recent blog post, it has indicated that they are looking to tie-up with the Californian mobile manufacturer.

…we’re asked a lot about our position with regards to the iPhone. We don’t currently have a commercial relationship with Apple but are working to change this during 2010 and add Apple to our portfolio.

Although 3 may have one of the best value-for-money offerings when its comes to mobile broadband and internet usage, their handset line-up has, to be fair, been pants. Things were improved upon last year with the introduction of the very popular HTC Hero which came with Spotify, but the rest of the line-up leaves much to be desired.

It seems odd that a company like 3, who is all about getting connected to the Internet, dont have the handsets that people want to make use of their infrastructure. Hopefully with a big name like the iPhone on the 3 network, it will drive more users to join them.

Personally, I recently unlocked my O2 iPhone and returned to the 3 network late last year, a great combination!

[via 3 Blog]

Google Earth is now available for Android 2.1 handsets

Last week during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Google showed off Google Earth finally running on an Android handset – the Google Nexus One.  Today that application has now gone live in the Android Market.

Sadly the Application only supports the latest version of Android – 2.1 and that means currently only the Nexus One, so for those of you with Magic’s, Hero’s and Droids, you are going to be out of luck.

I’m amazed that it has taken Google so long to get one of its applications onto its own mobile platform.  The App has been available on the iPhone for a long time now.  There has been lots of requests for the app on various forums here and here. Better late than never Google.

iPhone download limit upped from 10MB to 20MB over 3G

iPhone owners will be pleased with this quiet update that has increased the download limit over a mobile network from 10MB to 20MB.

Previously if you had a download from iTunes/App Store that was over 10MB, you had to wait until you were able to connect to WiFi to complete the download.  Now Apple have doubled the size of the download limit, meaning that any Apps up to 20MB can now be downloaded via your mobile carrier. Great Stuff.

Get the Sky News App on your Android mobile

Following the success of the Sky News App for iPhone which has recently reached One Million downloads, Sky have annocunced that the app is now available for Android mobiles.

The Sky News App for Android is available for free from the Android Market.

The Android app delivers breaking news in text, images and video and features seven different categories for users to choose from: top stories, UK news, sport, politics, business, world news and showbiz news.

The Sky News App for Android also includes a Sky News Widget that you can place on your Android homescreen, to allowing you to see your chosen news category at a glance.

Open the Android Market from your phone and search for Sky News, and download for free.