FASHION PHONES - Launched by Samsung

Although Samsung is not so impressive in the mobile phone market in India which is dominated by NOKIA and SONY ERICCSON, still they have brought up some good news for all the ladies who would like to leave a style statement with their cell phones. The L310 and L320 clamshell phones sure seem like fashion statements for the fashion conscious woman.

THE L310

The L310 clamshell, available in black and gold, is a tri-band handset with a 1.8 inch TFT display that has resolution of 176 x 220 pixels. What makes it so feminine (aside form the fact that it simply looks like something a girl would buy), are the applications that Samsung has thoughtfully incorporated into the device – including apps that assist in shopping and counting calories. It’s a very compact handset (with dimensions of 93.4 x 44 x 17.9 mm) and is equipped with Bluetooth and USB 2.0. It has a 2 megapixel camera and microSD card slot, and supports GPRS and EDGE for internet connectivity.

THE L320

Samsung's second fashion phone is the L320, also a clamshell. But unlike the square-edged L310, the L320 has a curvier look. It has an external OLED display and a 1.9 inch internal TFT LCD with a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels. Features include Bluetooth and USB connectivity as well as GPRS and EDGE for net connectivity. It comes with a microSD slot for external memory and a 2 megapixel camera.

Both phones will be out in February – but only in select markets. The L310 is priced approximately Rs 13,846 (€240) and the L320 will cost around Rs 12,695 (€220). There’s no official word yet whether they’ll hit the stores here.

THE NOKIA 888

We People generally consider our smart phones as cool but those are not even half as cool as the NOKIA 888.
Though it is a concept phone designed by Tamer NAKISCI, it is thought to be targeted among large number of customers across the world.

The Design Concept(Inspiration)
"The Perfect Form" does not exist. The "Form follows you". In other words you can mould the phone into various forms according to your requirement.The Unique feature is that you can change the form of the body, not just the color. And you can do the same by sending an e-motion to your friend.

The Latest Technologies Used

It uses liquid battery, speech recognition, flexible touch screen, touch sensitive body cover which lets it understand and adjust to the environment. It has a simple programmable body mechanism so that it changes forms in different situations.

It is targeted to the young consumers who are likely to be active and take place in a lot of different activities.

To know more about this phone visit NOKIA 888

Creative Aurvana DJ Headphones

This is for all you guys who aspire to be a DJ one day.
Creative came out with these DJ headphones in the middle of last year, and they're called Creative Aurvana DJ. Aurvana is their latest line of headphones; their in-ear headphones were reviewed last week in the earphone shoot out.

Design and Features

These closed-back circumaural cans are nice and heavy; with quite a sturdy build. This is not usually the case with Creative products, so it is impressive. The aesthetics include a dual tone: the earpads and headband are black, while joints and driver enclosures have a brushed metal finish. The latter is more like gunmetal than your regular aluminum, and imparts a slight coppery tint. The material used isn’t metal though; it’s hard plastic.

The earcups are angled in towards the ears when viewed from front, and are rotatable 180 degrees vertically, so they can be inverted outward for one-ear use. This is a must for DJ headphones. The drivers are 40 mm with neodymium magnets, while the specs state copper-clad aluminum wire voice coils, oxygen-free cables, and gold-plated connector plugs. Speaking of plugs, a 3.5 mm EP-¼ inch TRS (small to big) converter is included for use with pro audio equipment.

The driver cases and adjustable headbands are padded well, with the regular leathery finish for the pads. The frequency response is 20Hz~20 kHz, sensitivity is 105 dB/mW (at 1Khz), and the impedance is 32 ohms.

Performance

The first thing noticable is the ergonomic factor of these headphones, as DJs will be using it for hours, that too standing up. As you put them on they do feel a bit heavy, but you get used to it after a while.
Here are some observedresults : bass was not audible all the way down to 20 Hz; at about 27 Hz the levels dropped off. The response was not linear above 2K, the highs and high mids were at least 3dB higher, simply speaking the headphones sounded bright. The bass was extremely tight though, and the beats sounded very good. This was probably the best part of the sound. Level-wise the headphones' perceived loudness was decent, though not the loudest.

Conclusion
At Rs 8000, these are expensive. Sound timing and bass response are very impressive though; so enthusiasts and DJs who have the cash might want to try these out but it would be convinient if the price would be cut off to something like Rs. 5000.

Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC

First I gave you information on the Electrovaya Scribbler Tablet PC and now I bring to you the recently launched Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC.
That is right, Dell Latitude XT Tablet Pc the is available now. Dell's first Tablet PC has been the talk of the Web for months. The XT looks like a solid tablet PC and it is believed to be a great competitor to other Tablet PCs.
The Latitude XT is being marketed toward business professionals, thus the reason it is so thin and light. The XT is packed full of features that are sure to please anyone, the only caveat is that Dell left out an optical drive to keep it thin -- there is an optional Media Base if you need that though. The Latitude XT sports either a 1.06GHz Core 2 Solo ULV processor or a 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo ULV processor. The XT also has a touchpad and a track stick, so navigating around on this tablet should be easy.

The Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC specifications:

• Core 2 Solo 1.06GHz ULV processor or Core 2 Duo 1.2GHz ULV processor
• ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 integrated graphics
• 1GB DDR2 SDRAM - 3GB DDR2 SDRAM
• Hard drives: 1.8" 4200 rpm 40GB or 80GB, 1.8" 5400 rpm 120GB or 32GB and 64GB SSD
• 12.1" WXGA (1280x800) display with option of LED-backlit (220 nits) or Outdoor viewing (400 nits)
• Touchscreen and digitizer pen input
• Mobile Broadband with EVDO Rev A service through Verizon Wireless or Sprint
• Dell Wireless 802.11a/g/n
• 10/100/1000 Ethernet
• Optional Bluetooth
• 54mm Express Card
• 3 x USB ports
• SD Card slot
• IEEE 1394
• VGA-15 pin
• RJ-45
• Optional media slice for docking
• OS: Microsoft Vista Ultimate, Business or XP Tablet PC Edition
• Batteries: primary battery is 4-cell or 6-cell and then there is the secondary 9-cell slice battery
• Weight: LED panel model with 4-cell battery: 3.57 lbs. Outdoor model with 6-cell battery: 4.1 lbs
• Dimensions: LED panel 1"H x 11.7"W x 8.6"D

Dell is trying to change the tablet scene around with the XT and its dual-mode digitizer technology that is supposed to offer improvement in tablet usability. The XT uses the N-trig digitizer technology, which supports both pen and touch input, while improving accuracy and using less power.

The XT is the perfect travel companion considering it is lightweight and the 45W power adapter is very light as well. The battery life is claimed to last an entire work day or around 9.5 hours with the battery slice. Even the media base is portable for those of you who have to have an optical drive. The pen even comes with multiple tip options so users can customize their own writing experience. Road warriors and college students are rejoicing.

The Latitude XT is available now with prices starting at $2,499.For more info click here.

The W960i by SONY ERISSON is here

The phone has been on the market since about a month, but Sony Ericsson has now officially launched its W960i Walkman phone that flaunts a touch-screen display, 8GB memory, and Walkman media player among others.

Weighing around 119 grams, the W960i sports a slender 16mm frame, and allows you experience music with either the touch of a finger or a stylus. With 8GB of built-in flash memory, the phone is claimed to store up to 700 albums or 8,000 songs.

The touch-sensitive 2.6-inches 262K color TFT (240 x 320 pixels) display serves as a super screen for watching videos or browsing the Web using 3G network or Wi-Fi connectivity. It doubles as viewfinder for the built-in 3.2 mega pixels camera with auto-focus. The W960i allows picture messaging and email/picture blogging, and supports TV-quality video playback at 30 frames per second (fps).

Significantly, the phone sports 160MB phone memory with 8GB built-in flash memory, and promises up to 25 hours of music listening time. Tracks can be managed using Media Manager while you can build your music collection in three simple steps with PlayNow. In keeping with the tradition of Sony Ericsson Walkman phones, the W960i packs a Walkman Media Player with support for MP3, AAC, and eAAC+ music file formats.

While the W960i incorporates Sony Ericsson's TrackID feature just like other Walkman phones, in this iteration of phone, the TrackID feature has been taken to the next level, where it is possible to get detailed information about a particular song identified. Also, newer ways to search have been added.

The UMTS 2100-GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 Sony Ericsson W960i is available in Vinyl Black color for Rs 28,995 across India. The phone package comes with an included stereo portable hands-free.
This information is brought to you by Techtree

HP's Photosmart A626

Here's another photo printer.....but this has a cool design and some cool features too.

Snapshot printers are gaining a good amount of popularity, which makes perfect sense considering how amazing their print quality is and how user-friendly they generally are. The HP Photosmart A626 is definitely one of the smaller snapshot printers we've seen lately. With its toaster-inspired design and compact size of 11.7 x 13.2 x 25.2 cm, it's easy to pack this one into anything and carry it on your little vacations. It even comes with a nifty handle for toting around!

The glossy piano finish exterior, which seems to be the material of choice for most manufacturers these days, will look smashing at first, but you had better have someone around polish it with a lot of love and devotion to keep it that way.

Though the main USB connectivity of the A626 is at the back, the front part can be flipped down for PC-free connectivity options. There are four memory card slots to cover most of the commonly used card standards. Then there's the Pict-Bridge port and the slot for loading the single cartridge this uses. You can also buy upgrades that allow you to connect to the printer via Bluetooth or WLAN.The main highlight of the printer is its large, adjustable, touchscreen LCD display that comes with a convenient stylus. The display is as user-friendly as it gets, and the touchscreen options help reduce the button clutter on the printer body.

While doing performance tests pictures of various types were printed(taken from D-SLRs, consumer cameras, phone cameras, artwork etc), at the maximum resolution (1200 dpi) until the prints started to show signs of ink depletion. Only a couple of prints were taken in normal print mode, for quality determination. All the tests were done on 4x6 inch glossy photo paper.

The printing speed at maximum dpi was pretty slow at around 2:2 minutes, rather lower than what we've seen in other snapshot printers. Sure, you could always print in normal mode to speed things up, but that isn't too fast either at around 52 seconds a print. Most home users wouldn't be too bothered if all they do is print a couple of pictures at a time, but when you want your entire vacation album printed, I'd suggest you spool the prints and head for lunch.

Color quality is bright and lively, just as one can expect from Vivera inks. The black levels seemed great, which worked really well for B&W prints. It was only in a few cases where some shades of red looked a bit brighter than they should, but otherwise the colors are a-okay!

The print sharpness looked great at maximum resolution, but there's little the A626 does to hide image compression marks. Besides that, on closer inspection the sharpness levels seemed just a little lower than what we're used to from such printers. On magnification the lines seemed a bit more jagged than usual, but not to the extent where you'd spot it with the naked eye.

The best thing about the A626 is its print output: we got a whopping 40 prints at the highest quality settings before the ink showed signs of running out. That's a lot higher than all other snapshot printers we've reviewed so far, and is quite commendable.

Rs 7,999 (MRP) is actually a pretty affordable price for a printer of this caliber; and considering the print output you can get out of it, Rs 840 (plus taxes) for its cartridge isn't too bad either. The quality levels may not be at par with some of the other snapshot printers we've come across, but the print quality is good enough for frame-worthy photos. If you're in the market for snapshot printers, do give this one a thought.

Electrovaya Launches Scribbler® SC4000 Series Tablet PC

On the 9th of Jan 2008 Electrovaya announced the launch of the Scribbler^® SC4000 series, a tablet PC which will have the winning combination of a 70Wh Lithium Ion SuperPolymer^® battery, powerful processing from an Intel^® Core 2 Duo ULV CPU, a fingerprint security feature, a 1.3 Mega pixel camera, built in blue-tooth and 802.11.a/b/g wireless, a 60 GB Hard Drive upgradeable up to 160 GB and a 1 GB memory upgradeable to 4 GB. It is also has TPM security pre-loaded and the option of a sunlight readable screen. The Scribbler SC4000 is lightweight at 3.3 pounds and is less than 1 inch (21.8 mm) thick. The Scribbler SC4000 has amongst the longest run-time in its class.

Scribbler^® SC4000 comes with the Microsoft Vista^® operating system and customers will have an alternate option of using the XP Tablet PC operating system. The Vista^® operating system extends the usability of the tablet PC format and enhances its ability to integrate with other Microsoft software.

VIEVU PVR-PRO

VieVU Launches Wearable Personal Video Recorder(PVR) at the Consumers Electronics Show (CES)

Las Vegas (NV) – Leave it up to some Seattle-based police officers to create THE coolest gadget we’ve seen at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. The VIEVU PVR-PRO device is about the same size as a pager and it digitally records video with a flick of your fingers. Snap the lens cover down and it’s recording, snap it back up and the recording stops.

The PVR-PRO clips onto your clothing (or anything else) and digitally records at 30 fps

The specs of the PVR-PRO are impressive, considering its small size. Recordings are made in MPEG4 format at 640 X 480 pixel resolution and 30 frames-per-second. Company reps tell us the lens has a 64 degree field of view and the sensor only needs .5 lux to record. Internal flash memory provides more than four hours of recording time and the internal rechargeable battery lasts for four hours. An LED on the top of the unit will blink when the unit is low on memory or power.

The 5-ounce recorder has an adjustable clip on the back that can mount on clothing or anywhere else you desire. A USB port, which charges the recorder and transfers video, is on the bottom of the unit. You can see in our photos that removable rubber seal covers the port.

Of course, it rains a lot in Seattle and the inventors rubberized the PVR-PRO chassis and also made it water resistant to IPX5 standards. So you can splash water on the recorder and also briefly submerge the unit in shallow water.

The PVR-PRO sells for $500 and an encrypted police version is available for $700.

THE Origami Experience 2.0

Origami Experience 2.0 is been shown at CES this week and is being made available to UMPC manufacturers for testing and pre-installation this month. Here's a quick peek into it :-

The release has four applications.

Origami™ Central

Origami Central is an update to the original Origami Experience application in the 1.0 release. As well as the familiar media features, we have created a fully-optimized browsing experience for UMPCs and an RSS reader. We have also extended the media features to include feeds that can provide information on new movies, audio books, or any media content that can be published using RSS.

Origami™ Now

Origami Now provides one-touch access to the information that’s important to you, email, calendar, RSS feeds, weather, to-do lists… . All organized into one context-sensitive screen that can change the information displayed according to the time, your current location, and freshness of content.

Origami™ Picture Password

This is a real breakthrough for using mobile touch PCs. Origami Picture Password allows you to login by tapping on a sequence of points on a picture; this not only makes it easier to login on a UMPC but also personalizes the login experience. You can choose your own picture and select points that mean something to you. It’s fun and secure.

Touch Settings

This is the familiar Touch Settings application from the Origami Experience Pack 1.0 release.That is you can perform all the functions by just simply touching the screen.

The 6GB Iriver E10

Last year saw a good number of media players launched in India. Things are getting hotter than ever, now that some important players are concentrating on A and B class cities. And Iriver is one of them! Mid 2007, we had seen some attractive products from the company.

The iriver E10 is the latest offering and without letting too much out, it must be said that it is a brilliant product. Notwithstanding the premium pricing, iriver does seem intent on portraying itself as a serious player.

One of the main reasons why you should go for the E10 is the capacity. Yes, 6GB is a good reason. Features come next, and the E10 is well-conceived. Four function buttons take care of navigation and playback. The main menu button is on the top left, just below the screen, while the power on/off key is on the right corner. Volume keys can be found on the right hand side, while the left has the hold slider button. The 3.5mm earphones jack is situated beside the USB slot at the bottom of the player.

The display is a 1.5-inch screen with dimensions capable of 128 x 128 pixels. Although the display quality is good, although you should not be bothered for features like video playback. Honestly, it’s a waste, for one because it’s too tiny, and for another it’s a pain to get the conversion done right.The player can play MP3, WMA, ASF, and OGG formats. It offers JPEG format as the only way to view pictures. You will have to careful though, since the player tends to act up while working with heavy files. The pictures take a long time to load.

There's a built-in text reader, which is another redundant feature. Inclusion of FM radio is a plus point though, and as for the FM recording feature, while some players offer a recording facility, the E10 allows you to choose between three different recording qualities. The FM reception is decent, although train travelers should be wary.

As an afterthought, the E10 has been bundled with an infrared remote control option. There are lists of brands to choose from. Locate the brand that works best with your television, and you have a remote control. It works fine, but a bit of money could have be saved by doing away with this feature. As far as performance goes, iriver can be trusted as a brand. The sound quality is quite good. Although this one doesn’t provide iPod-like loudness, it can submerge the racket on the road quite effectively.

You will need the bundled software (do upgrade online to a newer version) to transfer music. Although it allows drag and drop, the songs will fail to show up on the music player. You will need to go to Extras > Browse Device and manually feed all the music into the player. The player costs around Rs 9,500, which is a good price for the storage capacity it provides. The battery life is pretty good. In fact it is about 18 hours, which is damn good.

Nokia Suitcase

The new year has come and the year has proceeded, but there is some good news especially for those who bought Nokia Xpressmusic phones.
Why?
Maybe You are wondering.......
Heres why....


This kit contains the Nokia 5610 and 5310 phones, with a host of products to aid the music experience. Apparently, the suitcase was just a teaser and the products it contains not yet launched in India. After a lot of digging it was found out that JBL might be interested in bringing its docking station (present in the suitcase) to India.

JBL Docking Station

The docking station is primarily for the Nokia 5310 Xpressmusic phone. The phone fits snugly onto the given space and the buttons on the station sort of latch on to the ones given on the phone, allowing you to control playback and volume from the docking station itself. The best thing about the docking station is that it also charges your phone. The sound quality is something to kill for – it’s brilliantly loud. The lows are well-rounded and have a lot of character. You can feel the thump, and if we are talking about a small room, well let's just say you can have a blast. The volume can be cranked up to the max without much visible jarring. Once the 5310 is connected to the docking station, you can control playback, forward/rewind and volume from the external controls itself. Also with the converter (generally provided) you can blast music from any Xpressmusic phone, or even a regular MP3 player. So you need not limit the docking station usability to the 5310.

Altec Lansing Speakers

Altec Lansing speakers are in all fairness decent. This, however, is when compared to the docking station. For a small room, you can have a decent output, provided you do not blast the volume. The bass lacks warmth, and jars when the volume is pumped up high. This is because it doesn't have proper drivers to drive the sound.Mind you, this isn’t a docking station. It has a 3.5mm cable sticking out, which can attached to any MP3 player. From the way it was packed, we got the impression that the speaker was clubbed with the 5610. Well, if it is, it’s heavily undermining the 5610!

Philips Headphones

The Philips headset included in this ‘spy kit’ of sorts is quite light and easy to use. It can be folded and carried around easily. The sound quality is really good; you can comfortably listen to music with minimal distraction even while commuting. The cushioning around the ears helps to keep out ambient sounds. You will have to use it with a Nokia headphone adapter, as the wire is too short.

Accessories

The Nokia kit comes with plenty of accessories for mobiles and dock stations. What’s included is a mobile charger, a DC charger for the JBL dock, an additional Nokia adapter, 3.5mm to 3.5mm and 2.5mm to 3.5mm cords that can be used to connect the phones to the docks as well as other devices. So the Nokia case is quite well equipped – not just for the 5610 and 5310 but for any mobile or media device that use 3.5mm universal connectors for music output. Unfortunately the kit as a whole is not available in India. Then again, would you really buy it?We do know that the JBL dock will be available officially soon, but there's no definite word on price and availability.