Nokia just launched two of the latest addition to their mobile smartphones that both sports a windows phone 7 OS. The before-code-named SeaRay, Lumia 800 looks very much like its sibling Nokia N9. It comes with a 3.7-inch AMOLED ClearBlack display which is a bit smaller compared to N9. Here’s what it boasts on the paper:

NOKIA LUMIA 800 Key specs

3.7″ AMOLED display @ 480×800 pixels (252ppi)
1.4 GHz processor
Qualcomm MSM8255 chipset
3D Graphics HW Accelerator
512MB RAM
16GB
HSDPA 14.4Mbps, HSUPA 5.76Mbps
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1
8MP autofocus camera, Carl Zeiss optics, flash
720p video recording
FM Radio tuner
GPS w/ aGPS support
Li-Ion 1450mAh battery
Windows Phone 7.5 Mango

The Lumia 800 is equipped with a 1.4GHz processor paired with its 16GB internal memory capacity. The Nokia Lumia 710 on the other hand is less spiced with specs compared to the LUMIA 800. Although both handsets sports a 1.4 GHz Qualcomm chip and a 3.7-inch display, the LUMIA 710 is only equipped with a TFT display whilst the LUMIA 800 has an AMOLED display.

Nokia Lumia 710 Key specs:

3.7″ LCD display @ 480×800 pixels (252ppi)
1.4 GHz processor
Qualcomm MSM8255 chipset
3D Graphics HW Accelerator
512MB RAM
8GB
HSDPA 14.4Mbps, HSUPA 5.76Mbps
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1
5MP autofocus camera, flash
720p video recording
FM Radio tuner
GPS w/ aGPS support
Li-Ion 1300mAh battery
Windows Phone 7.5 Mango

Both handsets are now ready for shipping in  U.K., France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. LUMIA 800 will cost about €420 ($585) while the LUMIA 710 will cost about  €270 ($376). We’ll get back to you as soon as these phones landed the Philippine shores for official local pricing.

© 2011, montsch. All rights reserved.

There was once a time where mobile phones were solely meant for adults. Nowadays, however, children as young as four or five are being given their first mobile phones. Worse yet, some parents are even browsing through mobile phone comparisons, trying to decide whether or not their toddler should have a smartphone yet. A kid with unlimited access to the internet. Imagine that.

So, with more and more kids becoming owners of mobile phones at earlier ages, this leads to the problem of school disruptions. First is the jealousy factor, whereas some parents are still making their kids wait until they’re teenagers before granting them the big responsibility of a mobile phone. These kids oftentimes feel envious of their mobile phone-owning peers, which has led to fights and stealing in some classrooms.

Also at risk is the child’s developmental behaviour, because heavy usage of mobile phones by kids under the ages of seven and eight can spur hyperactivity and make them more easily distracted. These are two problems that affect the child for the rest of their school years and even beyond in some cases. Hyperactive kids have trouble paying attention to the teacher in class, don’t like focusing on homework if it’s not exciting and digitalized, and tend to show lower levels of critical thinking when compared to their phone-less peers. It’s even more damaging when kids bring their mobile phones to school and use them there.

Schools have began implementing stringent rules against mobile phone usage during normal school time hours, but kids being kids, they usually find loopholes in the rules. They text behind books they’re supposed to be reading. They surf the web under their desks. They make calls to friends during lunchtime. Teachers are supposed to take away the mobile phone when the child is caught using it, but sometimes kids are so sneaky that the teachers simply never notice it. Mobile phone comparisons will tell you that these are the ultimate distractions for children, particularly in an environment- school- which they’re not overly fond of.

Cheating is also a major problem for the older kids. Once the tests get harder and the average number of mobile phone owners in a classroom rises, there is a higher propensity for cheaters using their devices to get answers to difficult questions. With soundless texting on touch screen phones and the unlimited internet access on smartphones, getting an answer is not terribly difficult if they’re good at concealing their mobile phones.

So, when browsing through mobile phone comparisons for your child, try to keep all of these issues in mind when making the purchase. There seem to be more risks than benefits to kids owning a mobile phone, so if they simply must have one, consider getting them a regular mobile phone with limited texting and no internet until they’re older.

Kelly writes about mobile phone technology for Mobile Phone Finder, providing you with the best mobile phone services online.

© 2011, montsch. All rights reserved.

Facebook, the social network giant in the world, just recently announced the availability of a new Facebook app that can possibly support 2500 mobile devices that doesn’t came with a native Facebook app out of the box through their Facebook For Every Phone project.

Facebook For Every Phone includes Facebook’s most popular features including News Feed, Inbox, photos and even uploading images.  Facebook aims this app to be “affordable to try and use” as they collaborated with many carriers around the world for the masses to take advantage of the app and use it free for 90 days.

Carriers offering free data access for a limited time:

•   Aircel (India)
•   Airtel (India)
•   Banglalink (Bangladesh)
•   Beeline (Russia)
•   Celcom (Malaysia)
•   Etisalat (Egypt, Nigeria)
•   Globe (Philippines)
•   Idea (India)
•   O2 Telefonica (Germany)
•   Reliance (India)
•   Smart (Philippines)
•   Smartfren (Indonesia)
•   Telkomsel (Indonesia)
•   Three (Indonesia, United Kingdom)
•   TIM (Brazil)
•   TMN (Portugal)
•   Ufone (Pakistan)
•   Vodafone (Turkey)

“This experience is optimized to use less data than other Java apps or mobile sites, making it much more affordable for people to use when the 90-day period ends.” says Facebook in a Facebook note release Wednesday, July 13, 2011. While this is very exciting, many users aren’t still interested as most are still eyeing at Google+. Some skeptics are also shouting out loud addressing Facebook to remove their mobile carriers on the list of supported carriers as most of them are being charged by their telco’s when they’re using this Facebook app.

A friend of mine (Philippine pre-paid subscriber) once tried this Facebook app searching for diet pills that work on facebook pages  noticed that he is being charged normally as he would when he’s browsing the internet using the 3G connection. He already contacted the “not-so-smart” telco, letting them know about the issue and he still haven’t heard a word from them.

Facebook For Every Phone is already available for download since Wednesday. Just put in d.facebook.com/install directly from your phone browser and follow the onscreen instructions.

Have anyone tried it yet particularly in the Philippines? Let us know your experience on the comments box below!

© 2011, montsch. All rights reserved.

Lets take a quick look at how mobile phones started:

• 1973 – Japan was the first ever country to introduce the commercial 1G cellular network. This is the same year when the first call on a mobile phone is made by Dr. Martin Cooper
• 1982 – First mobile phone is introduced by a company in Finland.
• 1983 – First 1G network was introduced in the US using the first handheld mobile phone.
• 1989 – First flip-phone is introduced
• 1995 - First commercial usage of text messaging was implemented.

Year 2000 – Came smartphone that offers more advanced computing ability and topnotch connectivity, there’s nothing more we can ask for. We expressed out our heartfelt welcome, embraced and patronized it in its every single strand.

But every now and then, people tend to ask for more as our daily task requires faster response. Personally, I prefer a ‘smarter’ phone that just offers some basic  features such as text messaging, social media app integration, email client, and of course, a phone wouldn’t be called as a phone when one cannot make a ‘phone call’ using it. These are the basic tasks a smartphone possesses nowadays and for a while, these are the ones that really matters most to me.

Lately, I was thinking if its possible to double up smartphone‘s ‘everything’ starting from its processing power. Question arises if we can now toss the term ‘smartphone’ and dismantle its core and think out of the box. I was thinking if smartphone’s capabilities can be outrun by a much smarter device, a much more advanced smart phone, perhaps a phone that is genius. And LG mobile gave an easy ‘yes’ answer to me by introducing the world’s first dual-core Android ‘geniusphone‘, LG Optimus 2x, and the LG Optimus Black.

I still haven’t personally seen both of these beasts but its key features promises a lot of good things that I am personally excited about.

Let’s take a look at LG Optimus 2x key specs:

1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 proccessor ULP GeForce GPU Tegra 2 chipset
4.0 inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen 16M colors
512 MB RAM
1080p video capture @ 24fps, 720p @ 30fps
8MP Camera

The LG Optimus 2X sports a high-tech dual-core processor powered by the  NVIDIA Tegra 2 mobile dual-core CPU which offers a huge performance improvements over the recent generations of mobile smartphones.

Talking about firsts, the NVIDIA Tegra 2 is the world’s first mobile super chip which features a Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU. Now, this is most useful for me as it offers faster mobile web browsing. I remember a lot of instances when I am out from home and I needed to search for something on the internet only to find myself wasting my time watching the little hourglass while loading a webpage on my so called ‘smartphone‘ display.  This makes sense though as single-core smartphones or weaker powered smartphones aren’t capable, and won’t ever be capable, of fast internet browsing like the LG Optimus 2X does whichever internet plan you are subscribed to.

Mobile gaming can also be a walk in the park for the LG Optimus 2X as the Tegra 2‘s Ultra-low power GeForce GPU is specifically made for low-powered applications. I can now play the once lagging games on my phone.

The LG Optimus Black on the other hand features a minimalist design with its extreme light weight (109 grams) and thin (9.2mm) body. This is really perfect for people like me who prefers a stealthy gadget that fits right into my pocket without the bulky feel.

LG Optimus Black features the following specs:

1 GHz Cortex-A8 processor, PowerVR SGX530 GPU, TI OMAP 3630 chipset
4.0 inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors @ 480 x 800 pixels
512 MB RAM
720p video capture @ 30fps
5MP Camera

One notable feature of this LG Optimus Black is its NOVA Display that features an In-Plane Switching (IPS) display that aligns the liquid crystal cells in a horizontal direction making it more visible in a much lighted environment such as outdoors. This feature is also inherited by its sibling, the LG Optimus 2x. Smartphone displays have been an issue for me ever since. That is probably because past phone displays lack such technology or this part has always been ignored by most of phone manufacturers. Whichever the case, I’ve never really used a mobile phone that is well-lit outdoors. The NOVA display however is capable of generating up to 700 nits of brightness and is able to produce better color reproduction even on a bright sunny environment. This can be very useful to people like me who spends most of their time outdoors and multitasking with their mobile phones.

Speaking of multitasking, having a dual-core powered smartphone such as the LG Optimus 2X means indulging on its multitasking capabilities. Android devices are known for its tons of applications through its Android Market. Installed android apps into an Android device runs on the background after you first open it so that there would be less app loading time the next time you initiate to open it. This is where most of the low-powered smartphones flaws, leaving the device to often suffer on processing a task that it isn’t capable of. This is where also I’m having problems with, I am a type of person who gets easily irritated if a certain gadget isn’t working as promised specially if I paid good money for it. Knowing that the LG Optimus 2X is capable of performing well makes me more lovin’ it and appreciate its true value.

Here is a benchmark made to ‘burn-test’ the LG Optimus 2X to its fullest and compare processing power to its competing devices courtesy of gsmarena.

Take note that the test unit they used for benchmarking is still running the Android 2.2 Froyo OS which isn’t still capable of  maximizing dual-core powered device. This presentation only shows how powerful LG Optimus 2x is and how it can outperform current smartphone systems single-handedly.

Because the LG Optimus 2x is powered by NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor, I can now possibly watch 1080p HD movies stored on my mobile device on HDTVs. Take a look at the video below and grace yourself with one of this genius phone‘s feature, HDMI mirroring, courtesy of engadget. 1080p full HD all the way!

What’s so very impressive about this is that it consumes less power considering that you are running a full HD video on an HDTV, thanks once again to the Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU in Optimus 2x’ Tegra 2 processor. Added 8GB internal phone storage isn’t bad at all as I can already store up to 4000 mp3 songs or 5700 jpg images or over 5 HD movies on an h.264 compressed 1080p file types, thing that brings out the multimedia-addict in me. The 8 Megapixel camera of the LG Optimus 2x is capable of shooting great pictures much like the 5 Megapixel camera of the Optimus Black, I can now say goodbye to point and shoot digital cameras!

The LG Optimus 2x will be shipped with Android 2.2 Froyo out of the box but it is definitely upgradable to Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS.

This is where this phone outshines most smartphones in the market. The availability of an upgrade on this device makes it possible to ensure future app installations.

LG electronics really awed me with these revelations. This clearly shows that a smartphone can be much smarter, can be genius in every aspects. These genius smartphones can be completely compared to a swiss army knife for its versatility and mobility. Owning these gadgets can further push me and the humankind’s capabilities towards the fast paced technology. Indeed, ‘geniusphones‘ have arrived!

“Optimus is more than just smart. It’s genius. Visit lgoptimus.ph for more information!”

© 2011, montsch. All rights reserved.

A new Series 40-powered phone from Nokia has been announced known as the Nokia C2-03 which features Dual-SIM functionality with Touch and Type technology.

This will be the first slide Series 40 phone that features Dual-SIM and I was impressed hearing this news today considering that Nokia is now six feet under the ground on the mobile industry. ‘Easy Swap’ feature is also added for an easier access of SIM cards if in case you’re using more than 2 SIM cards. And best of all, you wont need to restart this phone every time you will be changing SIMs.

The Nokia C2-03 measures 103mm x 51.4mm x 17mm, and weighs 118 grams. With a standby time of up to 400 hours and a talk time of up to five hours, I would say that this has a good battery such as the motorola phone batteries that I’ve reviewed in the past.

The Nokia C2-03 will be arriving in India, China, South East Asia Pacific, and Eurasia sometime in third quarter this year and it will cost roughly €77 prior to taxes and subsidies.

© 2011, montsch. All rights reserved.

Operating system giant Microsoft Corporation recently collaborated with Foursquare, one of the fastest growing location-based social networking for mobile phones which enables you to “check-in” whether you’re taking a sip of coffee in ‘bucks or holding that inexpensive gift baskets in the market, in creating a new Foursquare app specifically for Windows 7 Phones.

According to a statement released by Liz Ngo, Global ISV Group at Microsoft Corporation, through the MSDN blog, there will be a new official Foursquare app that will be released soon that will take advantage of some of the unique capabilities, features, and experience for Windows Phone 7.

“Keep up the enthusiasm, keep up the dedication, and we will continue to keep you posted as we continue to develop the new official foursquare mobile app for Windows Phone 7.” says Liz Ngo.

© 2011, montsch. All rights reserved.

LG, a global leader and technology innovator in consumer electronics, mobile communications and home appliances announced their newest smartphone.

Introducing, LG Thrill which has a dual-core/dual-channel 1 GHz RAM processing 4G speeds and its capable of capturing 3D images and 3D videos with its 2 stereoscopic cameras at the back.

LG Thrill is the first smartphone in the United States to feature glasses-free 3D view. Unlike some 3D lg lcd tvs and led televisions, this 3D smartphone features a glasses-free display which marks another first on the smartphone history.

The embedded Dual 5MP stereoscopic 3D at the back of this phone can capture crystal-clear 3D images and view 720p HD 3D video playback.

“LG is very excited to offer the LG Thrill 4G to the next generation of thrill seekers. We have taken mobile phone technology to the next level with another first to market feature, this time being 3D capabilities,” said Tim O’Brien, vice president of marketing for LG Mobile Phones.

LG Thrill 4G will be available exclusively at AT&T retail stores in the US market this coming months.

© 2011, montsch. All rights reserved.

November will probably be one of the happiest moments of tablet enthusiasts as Archos will be releasing five new Android Tablets in the whole wide Asia.

Archos 101 which will be pre-installed by Android 2.2 Froyo will be the flagship model among those 5 tablets and is due to release by first week of November.

Archos 101 Specs:

• 10.1 inch display @ 1024×600 pixel capacitive screen
• 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU
• 16GB internal storage
• 720p HD video playback
• VGA camera
• HDMI port
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1
• SRP: Php19,990

Much more smaller models, Archos 70/Archos 43/Archos 32/Archos 28, are also available with almost the same specifications with their flagship model but are cheaper.

Archos 70 Specs:

• 7″ display @ 800×480 pixel capacitive screen
• 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU
• 720p HD video playback
• VGA camera
• HDMI, USB ports
• 8GB Flash or 250GB HDD model
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1
• SRP: TBA

Archos 43 Specs:

• 4.3-inch display @ 480×854 pixel resistive screen
• 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU
• 720p HD video playback.
• VGA camera
• HDMI, USB ports
• 8GB or 16GB model
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1
• SRP: TBA

Archos 32 Specs:

• 3.2-inch display @ 400×240 pixel
• 800MHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU
• 8GB or 16GB model
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1
• SRP: TBA

Archos 28 Specs:

• 2.8-inch display @ 320×240 pixel
• 800MHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU
• 4GB or 8GB model
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• SRP: TBA

Suggested retail prices of the latter models are still To Be Announced but Archos will make sure that a month of delay is enough for its enthusiasts to indulge into these cool gadgets.

As cited earlier, these Android tablets will all be running Android 2.2.

So what do you think guys? Let us know know in the comments section!

© 2010, montsch. All rights reserved.

Now, I’m back to a phone with less features.  But sometimes, I’m tempted to buy a new QWERTY phone. Do you have any suggestion? Do you think I need one?

© 2010, montsch. All rights reserved.

Pre-Orders:

•Early hours for pre-order customers start tomorrow at 7 am. Make sure to check your receipt for the actual arrival date—if you were late to the party, you may not be able to score your phone right away. This goes for shipping pre-orders as well. If you ordered early enough, devices will begin shipping to your home or office tomorrow.

Pricing:

•199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB) for all new AT&T customers and existing AT&T customers who have fulfilled their previous agreement. In addition, AT&T yesterday extended this pricing to iPhone 3G customers who will be eligible for a full upgrade in July, August, or September 2009.
•$399 (16GB) and $499 (32GB) for existing AT&T customers who have not yet fulfilled their existing agreement but would like an early upgrade to iPhone 3G S. This early upgrade option is exclusively available for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S.

Prices above require a two-year service commitment and approved voice and data plan. Options are available to purchase these phones without a two-year contract commitment.

What To Bring:

New AT&T customers who wish to port or retain their phone number from another wireless carrier should consider bringing a copy of a bill from their current service provider. Customers will be asked to provide account information as it appears on record with their current provider, including:

•Account number
•Name of the account holder
•Account holder’s Social Security Number or Tax ID
•Billing address
•PIN or password (if applicable)

Customers should listen to voice mail messages on their current devices and write down any necessary information before purchasing iPhone 3G S, because existing voice mail messages will be lost switching devices.

Purchase Requirements:

Initially, AT&T stores will sell one iPhone 3G S per person for new customers; existing customers may purchase one per eligible telephone number. Online shoppers may purchase one device per household.

Customers who inherit an iPhone 3G from a friend or family member will need to visit an AT&T store to activate their device. Customers who inherit an iPhone can request a SIM card from AT&T and activate at home using iTunes.

AT&T will offer accessory bundle options specific to iPhone 3G S in its retail stores.

Check out the AT&T page for additional details on plans and features.

Pre-authorization does not guarantee iPhone availability at an Apple Retail Store. iPhone is sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

© 2009, montsch. All rights reserved.