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Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini preview

Deepak Bhakoo — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:33:26 +0000

Mini is the John Smith of names in mobile phones these days. All makers in the Big Five are keen to have a diminutive version of a popular handset but if there is one to be the definitive repack, it would be the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini.

You know, a couple of millimeters on each end are obviously enough for Nokia (N97 and N97 mini). Even the HTC HD mini isn’t that much smaller than the Touch HD. But when Sony Ericsson go mini they mean it.

The X10 mini is here to show how a mini phone should live up to its name – sheer smartphone power in a half-size package. There’re always sacrifices involved to fit the new cut but if size is what matters it’ll hardly get any better than that.
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini at a glance:

* General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 1900/2100 MHz, HSPA
* Form factor: Touchscreen bar
* Dimensions: 83 x 50 x 16 mm, 86g weight
* Display: 2.55″ 16M-color TFT capacitive touchscreen with QVGA resolution
* Platform: Android OS 1.6 with Sony Ericsson Timescape UI
* CPU: 600Mhz processor
* Memory: 128MB internal memory, microSD card slot, 2GB card included
* Camera: 5-megapixels auto-focus camera, LED flash, geotagging
* Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, digital compass, 3.5mm audio jack
* Misc: Accelerometer for screen auto rotate, FM radio with RDS, TrackID music recgnition
* Battery: Non-removable Li-Po battery

OK, there are downgrades in most departments compared to the original XPERIA X10 but those are never too painful, especially if they’re reflected in the price.

Some might argue that the 600 MHz processor is nowhere near as impressive as a 1GHz Snapdragon but the X10 mini doesn’t seem underpowered at all – screen resolution makes quite a difference. In fact, it is the most capable handset with a QVGA screen to date and we have seen those kinds of devices perform admirably on weaker CPUs.

Of course this is all on paper and we all know a handset is more than a spec sheet can tell. We’re about to see if the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini (now that certainly is a long name for such a small phone) will cash the checks its features wrote.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini 360-degree spin

At 83 x 50 x 16mm the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini sure is tiny. There is hardly a pocket that won’t find enough free space for it and the mere 88 grams of weight will almost make you forget it is there.

The X10 mini redefines compact

Some might frown at the 16mm of thickness which is too much by today’s standards but it doesn’t really make the device unattractive. It almost looks like the boxy appearance was exactly what designers were looking for. Thinner than that and the phone would’ve been near impossible to handle comfortably. And the X10 mini is truly the smallest handset we have had recently.

Design and construction

It’s all a matter of personal taste how you feel about the X10 mini. The boxy handset is quite different than most of its competitors. Manufacturers would usually go for tall slimmer bodies for their touch phones.

The plastic used on the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini won’t earn it many points either, especially against metal-built phones, but is decent. The back is nicely fingerprint-resistant with rubbery finish.

The shiny plastic on the front does become greasy with use (it doesn’t take too long) but, since the front is mostly taken by the display anyway, we are willing to let that one go.

The touchscreen itself measures 2.55” in diagonal, which seems like the very minimum that still allows finger-use. Sony Ericsson did well though to make the best use of the screen estate with the interface. We’ll get back to that later but the icons are all large enough and you won’t have trouble pressing any of them.

The 2.55” display has its ups and downs

The screen sensitivity, as was to be expected in a capacitive unit, is excellent. The slightest of touches is enough for a click to be registered, for a great touchscreen experience.

Equally important, the QVGA resolution is adequate for this screen size but doesn’t allow for too fancy graphics. For example, most of the icon labels don’t look sharp enough and the icons themselves are not as smooth as we’ve seen on HVGA and WVGA Android handsets.

The 65K-color limitation inherent to Android versions prior to 2.0 could result in the occasional banding but it’s not as easily noticeable on a screen this size. If the X10 mini ever receives an Android 2.0 update those issues will be completely solved but we wouldn’t hold our breaths just yet.

The image quality is passable as far as TFT displays go, with good brightness and above average contrast. Anyway, an AMOLED display would’ve made sense on the full-grown XPERIA X10 but is obviously too much for the mini league.

On the positive side the sunlight legibility of the X10 mini display is pretty good. There is some loss of contrast but you are still able to operate the handset trouble-free outdoors on a bright sunny day.

Design and construction (continued)

Below the display there are three hardware keys – contextual menu, home and the back button. Those are thin buttons but nicely raised and with good press feedback. The obvious absentee is the Search button: in exchange there’s a search widget on the homescreen.

There are three keys below the display

Above the display we find a status LED, the earpiece and the proximity sensor. The proximity sensor is in charge of locking the display when you hold it next to your ear during calls.

The proximity sensor is right next to the earpiece

The left side of the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini is completely bereft of controls. The only thing of interest here is a small groove to pull the battery cover off.

There are no controls on the left

On the right you get a volume rocker and a shutter key. The volume rocker is as good as the three keys below the display but the camera key is a bit too tiny. It still has a proper stroke though and very distinct half press. It’s not bad at all, just needs some time getting used to.

The right side controls: volume rocker and the camera key

On top of the handset is the screen lock key which also acts as a power button. Again, it isn’t the most comfortable to press but we suspect it was done on purpose to minimize accidental presses. More than often it needs a push with a fingernail really.

The power/screen lock is thin and flush with the surrounding surface

At the bottom the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini has the audio jack and the microUSB port. The audio jack is absolutely compatible with standard 3.5mm plugs but the unusual shape accommodates the X10 mini prebundled headset. There is a protective cap over the microUSB port, while the audio jack is exposed.

The custom Sony Ericsson headset plugs at the bottom, right next to the microUSB port

The back of the phone hosts the 5 megapixel camera lens and the LED flash. The loudspeaker also goes in here, slightly to the right.

The 5 megapixel camera and its LED flash are next to the loudspeaker grill

Removing the battery cover reveals the microSD card slot and the SIM compartment. The microSD slot is hot-swap enabled but the bad news is the battery isn’t replaceable.

Not only is carrying a back-up battery out of the question but effectively once the original battery runs its life span you’ll have to buy a new phone. You’re more likely to upgrade long before the battery expires anyway.

The microSD card slot is hot-swappable but the battery isn’t removable

At this stage we are unable to comment on the real life battery performance of the X10 mini. It’s quoted at up to 285 hours of standby and 4 hours of talk time in a 2G network. In 3G mode, it’s up to 360 hours of standby and three and half hours of talk time.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini is so tiny you can cup it in your hand and out of sight. It’s brilliant to handle and makes you want to cuddle it. Some users might find awkward making calls on something that small but otherwise working on such limited touchscreen estate is trouble free. There are inevitable compromises of course, like no virtual QWERTY keyboard, but the little chap sure is hard to resist.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini is the smallest Android

User interface: perfect fit

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini runs version 1.6 of the Android platform just like the rest of the X10 gang. There is nothing out of the ordinary but what makes the mini special is the QVGA resolution which debuts on Android.

In all fairness, Android doesn’t look as pretty on 320 x 240 pixels but this certainly isn’t a deal breaker. Sony Ericsson have done a good job of customizing the interface and making the icons large enough, given the limited screen estate.

Android isn’t as pretty in QVGA

They have opted for more screens rather than downsizing the tiles, which, even if a bit slower, is the more comfortable option.

The XPERIA X10 mini packs the Timescape UI plug-in but lacks the Mediascape that is only reserved for its full-grown sibling for now. In fact, Timescape is a separate application but its job is to bring all your communications together. It always displays an aggregated view of your SMS, MMS, email, missed calls, Facebook and Twitter updates all on one screen. It also has a large number of tabs that can filter the content by type.

The Timescape UI

As we already mentioned, Sony Ericsson have managed to make best use of the limited screen estate by adding large thumbable shortcuts at the four corners of the homescreen. Those lead to the message composer, music player, phonebook and dial pad/call log. The tiny Android is obviously short of hardware keys but they’re not badly missed.

The homescreen has also been affected by the size factor. You are limited to widgets only – no shortcuts or folders are allowed and you can only add one widget per screen.

One widget per screen is all you get

On the other hand, the number of available homescreen panes isn’t limited so each time you add a widget a new screen appears. You can then rearrange the screens as you please.

Luckily, Sony Ericsson R&D have found enough space for the notification area, which we consider to be one of the best Android features. It’s a thin bar at the top of the screen with status info about battery, signal strength and others such as Bluetooth or missed events. Sliding it down however reveals the whole story – you get a list of all recent notifications.

To bring up the task switcher on the X10 mini you press and hold the Home key just like on any other Android phone. It gives you access to the six most recently used apps although, due to the specific operation of the operating system, some of them might be hibernating rather than actually running in the background.

Now, the actual performance is surely where the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini is nothing short of impressive. Regular HVGA resolution and a 528 MHz CPU that most other droids use surely ensures a decently smooth Android run. But when you cut the number of pixels in half and crank up the clock speed a bit and, the thing starts flying.

Limited text input puts the brake on messaging

The SMS and MMS messaging section is quite straightforward and simple at first glance – there are no folders here, just a new message button. It doesn’t stay like that for long – under that button is a list of all your messages organized into threads.

When viewing a thread, the newest message is placed at the bottom. At the bottom of the display is the tap-to-compose box and the send key, of course. There is a counter on the right which is displayed once you have 16 or fewer characters remaining of the 160 limit. It also shows the number of parts the message will be split into for sending.

Converting an SMS to MMS is logical and easy. When you add multimedia content to the message, it is automatically turned into an MMS. You can just add a photo or an audio file to go with the text or you can choose to go into a full-blown MMS editor, depending on your needs.

Moving onto email, the Gmail app supports batch operations, which allow multiple emails to be archived, labeled or deleted.

There is also a standard email app for all your other email accounts and it can handle multiple POP or IMAP inboxes. You have access to the messages in the original folders that are created online, side by side with the standard local ones such as inbox, drafts and sent items.

The standard email app

And by the way, the folders are organized in a tree structure – one click over a specific folder reveals its contents and the second click closes it.

Google Talk handles the Instant Messaging department. The G-Talk network is compatible with a variety of popular clients like Pidgin, Kopete, iChat and Ovi Contacts.

Quite naturally, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini isn’t the heavy texters’ choice. The software is just fine, but with the limited text input options long messaging sessions are out of the question.

With the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini you are limited to a standard multitap keypad and given the available screen estate we don’t think a virtual QWERTY would have made any sense. Not on a capacitive screen anyway, where stylus is a no go.

The multitap keypad is all you get on the X10 mini

In any case, the X10 mini pro should be the choice for those that actually do more than an occasional SMS on their phones.

Music player is pretty basic

Despite boasting a new design the music player on the XPERIA X10 mini didn’t get much in terms of new features. It manages your audio files decently but there is very little extra functionality to support that.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini music player has a new design but no new features

The best bit is the shortcut key that allows you to quickly look up a song on YouTube or via Google search by holding down a finger on a song.

There isn’t even gradual typing for searching a specific song this time so you will have to use the kinetic scrolling or opt for artist sorting. At least there are three smart playlists that automatically gather your newly added, most played and never played tracks.

The “Now playing” screens There are still a lot of shortcomings of the music player that need addressing, though. For example there are still no equalizer presets, nor any alternative skins.

Plain 5 megapixel camera

On the hardware side of things Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini has a 5 megapixel camera module for a maximum image resolution of 2592 x 1936 pixels and a LED flash. It doesn’t sound like much but the size of the package says it all.

The camera interface is as simple as it gets with four buttons in total. There is a camera/camcorder switch, a gallery button, scene mode and flash settings. The four available scene presets include twilight, sports, landscape and, of course auto.

The camera interface

This is certainly one of the most basic camera interfaces on the market but we guess Sony Ericsson thought users wouldn’t need much more and will prefer simplicity to functionality. In the end, it all comes down to the image quality, so let’s see.

The image quality is pretty pleasing with a good amount of resolved detail and the noise levels kept well under control even in not so favorable lighting. Contrast on the other hand is somewhat low.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini camera samples

Synthetic resolution

We also snapped our resolution chart with the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini. You can check out what that test is all about here.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini resolution chart photo • 100% crops

VGA video recording

Video recording on the X10 mini goes as high as VGA resolution which, needless to say, is far from impressive. At least the framerate is good 30 fps to make sure action looks smooth.

The interface of the camcorder is similar to the one on the still camera, except that there are even fewer settings. You can set the video quality turn on and off the video light and that’s that.

Things get even simpler in camcorder mode

Videos are recorded in 3gp format suggesting lower bitrate, which in turn leads to some compression artifacts.

Web browser needs a higher-res screen and Flash support

The XPERIA X10 mini is an Android phone and an excellent web browser is an important part of that description. With the exception of Flash, the browser performs pretty decently.

The user interface is rather minimalist – all you get on the screen are the zoom controls. The address bar is hidden by default to save some space as the low resolution doesn’t allow too much content to fit on the screen anyway.

The low-res screen doesn’t do the browser justice

Unfortunately, the Android browser on the X10 mini supports only a single zoom method – the dedicated onscreen buttons. There is no double tap or one-finger zooming.

On the positive side, the browser supports text reflow – as soon as you zoom, columns of text adjust to fit the screen width.

Checking out the available options

The minimalist UI is still quite powerful – hit the menu key and four keys pop up. You can open/switch tabs, refresh the page, go forward, open bookmarks.

Flash support is the other letdown of the X10 mini browser browser. There is of course a YouTube application onboard but Flash content doesn’t start nor end with YouTube.

Final words

When you’re experimenting you want to make sure you minimize mistakes. Well, the first thing about the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini is it just can’t be a big mistake. In fact, the only way for it to go wrong would be the price. The pint-sized package may be taken to imply half price. Let’s be clear though: it may be a dwarf droid but it still is a full-featured smartphone.

So, this experiment could well be a success. They tried to create a mini handset without sacrificing performance and they simply nailed it.

The touch-optimized interface makes great use of the limited screen estate and the performance is excellent. As snappy as they get, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini only has a few things missing on its specs sheet.

That’s why it’s a particularly easy handset to recommend – if you are happy with the specs, you might as well go ahead and buy it – the phone will deliver. There won’t be any nasty surprises and the handset even has a trick or two up its sleeve.

To make it even simpler – the XPERIA X10 mini is not burdened with the kind of responsibility the original X10 will have to deal with. Instead it brings all the smartphone basics, garnished with a snappy CPU and served in a body that every pocket can take.

It may be that Sony Ericsson have found an empty niche in this busy market. The XPERIA X10 could be too unusual to catch on, too small to get noticed but certainly not afraid to make a stand.

Light Folio – Free Wordpress Theme

Deepak Bhakoo — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:33:32 +0000

Light Folio is our new free wordpress theme today, Light Folio build with style clean and light a combination black and white color. The theme has a unique, simple design that will perfectly fit for your personal blogs, portfolio, corporate and can be a perfect fit for a unique magazine-style-blog.

Light Folio Theme is provided to user under the open source GPL License, you can use it for all your project or at least use it as a foundation for your next projects for free and without any restrictions.

Live Demo | Large Preview (.jpg, 529.5 kb)

Installation Guide and Configuration

Light Folio Documentation page. (Updated, 4th Mar 2010)

Download

LightFolio.zip (198.4 KiB)

Symbian goes open source, free download

kapiloffline — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:33:05 +0000

There have been quite a few rumors about the fate of Symbian, but now the OS has entered a new stage of its existence – its code is now open source. This move began in June 2008, when Nokia bought Symbian and created the Symbian Foundation to take over the development of the OS. And the Foundation has big plans for the future.

Symbian OS is still the most popular smartphone operating system with 330 million units shipped only last year. The Foundation claims this is the largest transition to open source ever and believes it will help speed up the evolution of the platform. And evolution it needs – with the likes of the iPhone and Google’s Android OS, which is also open source, exploding into popularity.

The Symbian Foundation includes Nokia, LG, Motorola, NTT Docomo, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, operators Vodafone and AT&T and chipmaker Texas Instruments. Nokia has been the primary developer in Symbian, but plans to reduce their input to less than 50% by the second half of 2011.

This will leave room for a lot more contributors – now that the Symbian code is available for anyone. In fact the source code should be up for download from the Symbian Foundation website starting 14:00 GMT today. The platform includes the OS itself but also things developed by individual members of the Foundation, including the user interfaces.

The Foundation also hopes this move will lead to a faster development of third party apps now that developers are not hindered by so much proprietary aspects of Symbian. They also hope that the open source nature will improve the security of the OS.

So, in a way Symbian as we know it is going away – this is the end of the line for Symbian S60, which is the last man standing after Sony Ericsson gave up on UIQ. The source code that the Symbian Foundation is releasing seems to be Symbian^3, especially since Symbian^1 is actually S60 5th edition and Symbian^2 was dropped.

We are yet to see the impact this move will create on other open source initiatives like LiMo and if it will help Symbian recover some of the lost ground against iPhone and Android.

Apple iPad: Everything You Need to Know

Deepak Bhakoo — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:19:59 +0000

From the realm of sci-fi to Steve Jobs’ stage: The iPad is official. What is it? What can it do? How does it work? Here’s everything you need to know about Apple’s newest creation, all in one place.

It’s almost impossible to overstate the buzz leading up to this device. Immediately after the death of the Newton, rumors began trickling out about a followup from Apple; in the last five years, speculation and scraps of evidence about an Apple tablet have been a fixture in the tech media; in the last year, the rumors were unavoidable. Today, Apple’s tablet has finally arrived, and we’ve got the full rundown—from specs, features, content and price to what it’s like to actually use one.

The Hardware

• Size and shape: The screen’s aspect ratio makes it seem a bit squat, but this is intended to be a bi-directional tabl—err, Pad. The bezel is a little fat, but otherwise, this thing is basically a clean slab of pure display. It’s just .5 inches thick, which is a hair thicker than the iPhone 3GS, and measures 9.56 x 7.47 inches. Final weigh-in is 1.5 pounds without 3G, and 1.6 with. Says Mark, who’s actually held one:

Imagine, if you will, a super light unibody MacBook Pro that’s smaller, thinner and way, way, way lighter. Or, from a slightly different perspective, think about a bigger iPhone that’s been built with unibody construction.

• The screen: The tablet’s multitouch screen measures in at 9.7 inches, meaning that it’s got a significantly smaller footprint than the smallest MacBook, but a much larger screen than the iPhone. (That’s 9.7 inches diagonal, from screen corner to screen corner.) The screen’s resolution is a dense 1024 x 768.

Here’s what it looks like in photos, and on video:

• The guts: It’s a half-inch thick—just a hair thicker than the iPhone, for reference—and weighs 1.5 pounds. It’s powered by a 1GHz Apple ARM A4 chip, and has 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of flash storage. From the looks of it, Apple finally got some use out of that PA Semi purchase, and built their own mobile processor, but that’s no totally clear yet. It’s also loaded with 802.11 n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, a 30-pin iPod connector, a speaker, a microphone, an accelerometer and a compass. Video output runs through and iPhone-type composite adapter at up to 576p and through a dock-to-VGA adapter at up to 1024 x 768. No HDMI, no DVI—not even a Mini DisplayPort.

3G is optional, and costs more, not less. Along with 3G, the upgraded models include A-GPS. (More on this below)

Oh, and there isn’t a rear-facing camera, nor is there a front-facing camera. This tablet is totally camera-less, which seems a bit odd.

• The battery: Apple’s making some bold claims about battery life: ten hours for constant use, with a one-month standby rating. Ten hours of constant use includes video viewing, so you could conceivable watch about six feature films before this thing dies.

• How you hold it: You can hold it two different ways, and the software will adapt to both. Portrait mode seems like the primay mode, a la the iPhone while landscape mode—better for movies and perhaps magazine content—is a secondary mode. The Apple decal is oriented for portrait mode, so basically, just get ready for a whole bunch of HEY IT’S A GIANT IPHONE!! jokes.

Connectivity

Some models have Wi-Fi exclusively, while some have 3G as well. It’s with AT&T, and costs either $15 a month for 250MB of data, or $30 for unlimited data. With the plan, you get access to AT&T’s Wi-Fi hotspots as well. Best of all, it’s a prepaid service—no contract. You can activate it from the iPad any time, and cancel whenever you want. This sounds like a fantastic deal, until you consider how it’s probably going to brutalize AT&T’s already terrible 3G coverage.

The iPad itself is unlocked, so you can conceivably use it with any Micro SIM card . But what the hell is a Micro SIM card? For one, it’s not the same kind of SIM that’s in your iPhone, so don’t expect to just pop that in and surf for free. It’s a totally different standard, and the iPad’s the only device that uses it right now. Even if, say, T-Mobile released a Micro SIM card, the iPad can’t connect to its 1700MHz 3G network.

The Software

• The OS: The operating system on the tablet is based on iPhone OS, which is in turn loosely based on OS X. In other words, it’s got the same guts as the iPhone, as well as a somewhat similar interface. What this means in practical terms is that the UI is modal; you can only display one app at a time, and there aren’t windows, per se. There’s a new set of standard UI tools as well, including a pull-down menu, situated at the top left of most apps.

• The homescreen: It’s like a mixture between the iPhone and OS X: it uses the iPhone launcher/apps metaphor, but has an OS X-style shiny dock. It feels very spread out compared to the iPhone’s homescreen, though I suspect this is necessary to keep things from getting too overwhelming.

• The keyboard: Input comes by way of an onscreen keyboard, almost exactly like the iPhone’s. Typing on it is apparently a “dream,” because it’s “almost lifesize”. Steve wasn’t typing with his thumbs, but with his fingers, as if it were an actual laptop keyboard. Navigation throughout the rest of the OS is optimized for one hand, though.

• The browser: The browser is essential an upscaled version of Safari Mobile, with a familiar, finger-friendly title bar and not much else. It rotates by command of the accelerometer. From the looks of it, it doesn’t have Flash support, but we’ll have to confirm. UPDATE: Yup, none at all. You can get away with that kind of thing on the iPhone, sort of, but on a 10-inch tablet it’s a glaring omission.

• Email: Mail again takes its visual cues from the iPhone, but with a lot more decoration: you can preview your mailbox from any message with a pull-down menu, and preview any message from within the mailbox, with a pop-up window.

• Music: The music player is even more hybridized, styled like a mix between the iPhone’s iPod interface and full-fledged desktop iTunes. Interestingly, Cover Flow seems to have more or less died off.

• Maps: This one may be the most direct conversion from the iPhone, with a very similar interface through and through. It includes Street View, too.

• Photos: The photo library app looks a lot like iPhoto, only adapted for multitouch finger input.

• Video: YouTube is available by way of an app, iPhone-style, which can play videos in 720p HD. iTunes video content plays back in a dedicated app, just like on the iPhone, and can also play back in HD. Movie codec support is otherwise the same as the iPhone, which is to say pretty limited.

• Calendar and contacts: The calendar app is desktop-like, until you open contacts and calendars, which look a lot like actual contact books and organizers. They’re beautiful, and dare I say a bit Courier-like.

Apps

• iPhone apps: This thing runs them! The iPad runs iPhone apps right out of the App Store, with no modification, but they’re either relegated to the center of the screen or in “pixel double” mode, which just blows them up crudely. Any apps you’ve purchased for your iPhone can be synced, for free, to your iPad.

• New apps: The iPhone app SDK has already been expanded for tablet development, including a whole new set of UI elements and expanded resolution support. The raw iPhone app compatibility is just a temporary measure, it seems—any developer who wants their app to run on the tablet will develop for the tablet. Some of the early examples of adapted apps, like Brushes, are spectacular.
Apple’s pushing gaming on this thing right out of the box, demoing everything from FPS N.O.V.A to Need for Speed. It’s presumably running these games at HD, so the rendering power in this thing is no joke.

• Ebooks: Apple’s also opened an ebook store to accompany the iPad, in the mold of iTunes. It’s called iBooks.
It offers books in ePub format, and makes reading on a Kindle seem about as stodgy as, you know, paper. To be clear, though, this is just Apple’s solution—unless they’re explicitly banned from the iPad, you should be able to download your Kindle app as well.

This store doesn’t sell magazines or newspapers, which’ll be relegated to regular app status. At this point, whether or not the tablet helps them out is in their hands.

• iWork: Apple’ also designed a whole new iWork suite just for the tablet, which implies that this thing is as much for media creation as it is for consumption. There’s a new version of Keynote designed just for the iPad, as well as new version of Pages, (word processor), and Numbers, which is the spreadsheet app. Here’s what Keynote looks like:
The interfaces are obviously designed strictly for touch input, but from the looks of it can handle every function that the old, mouse-centric version could, plus a few more. And man, they’re so much prettier. Each app costs $10, and you can get them all for $30.

• File storage: Unlike the iPhone, the iPad does seem to have some shared storage aside from the photo roll. The newly released SDK reveals that when you connect an iPad to a PC or Mac, part of it—a partition, maybe?—mounts as a shared documents folder.

Accessories

Right away, Apple’s offering three main official accessories: a book-style case, a regular dock and a keyboard dock. (Ha!)

The book cover doubles as a stand, so you can prop the iPad up in a few different ways. The keyboard dock hooks up with the iPad when it’s in portrait mode, so you can type longer documents, charge, or both. The iPad will also support Apple’s Bluetooth keyboards.

The iPad’s only really got one accessory port, and it takes an iPod dock connector. Apple’s solution for this? Adapters! So many adapters. There’s a Dock Connector to VGA adapter, a USB camera adapter (which gives you one plain USB connection, though it apparently only works for importing photos), a USB to SD adapter, and an included USB power adapter, which lets you charge by AC or USB. It’s essentially just an iPhone charger with a bigger brick.

UPDATE: We have prices:

the Keyboard dock costs $70, the case costs $40, the SD/USB connection kit costs $30 and the VGA display adapter costs $30 (1024×768 only)

What It’s Like to Use

It’s hefty. Substantial. Easy to grip. Fast. Beautiful. Rigid. Starkly designed. The glass is a little rubbery but it could be my sweaty hands. And it’s fasssstttt.

Price and Release Date

The iPad ships worldwide in 60 days, but only in Wi-Fi versions. The 3G version will be another 30 days after that. Here are the prices:

Without 3G:

• $499: 16GB
• $599: 32GB
• $699: 64GB

With 3G:

• $629: 16GB
• $729: 32GB
• $829: 64GB

Apple will ship all the iPads in 60 days—the end of March—to America, and just the Wi-Fi models internationally. It’ll be another 30 days beyond that for 3G models to be available outside our shores; Apple says they’re still working on carrier deals.

3G comes by way of AT&T, who’s offering the service without contract, for $15 a month (250MB of data) or $30 a month (unlimited). That’s why, unlike the iPhone, the iPad is actually cheaper off-contract.

Symbian^3 OS and a Maemo 6 device coming later this year

Deepak Bhakoo — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:05:54 +0000

According to the Symbian numbering scheme we’re at Symbian^1 now, but we won’t see ^2 at all – Nokia is jumping straight to Symbian^3. Maemo 6 is coming later this year with at least one new device running it.

Symbian S60 5th edition or Symbian^1 is the OS powering the touch phones from Nokia – from the Nokia N97 flagship to the entry level Nokia 5230. The next version – Symbian^2 – however has been dropped in favor of Symbian^3.

Symbian^3 is expected to come out in the third quarter of 2010. For now it’s not clear if older devices will be compatible with the new OS, which will feature multi-touch gestures. We will also be seeing Symbian^4 in late 2010 or early 2011.

Maemo is also getting an update – Maemo 6 is just around the corner (the Nokia N900 runs Maemo 5). Maemo 6 is expected in the second half of 2010, but more importantly there are plans to launch new products based on Maemo 6 – yep, the Nokia N920 could well be on its way. And the use of plural in “products” gives us hope of there being more than one Maemo device coming out this year, despite the rumors to the contrary.

Nokia expects that Symbian devices will overtake S40 devices by 2011 – 55% vs. 35% – and Maemo devices will be 10% of all devices shipped.

Michael Dell shows off Android-powered Mini 5

Deepak Bhakoo — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:56:18 +0000

Crunchgear caught up with Michael Dell in Switzerland and he was showing off the new Android-powered Mini 5 (aka Streak, M01M). Nothing official has been announced, but a teardown revealed most of the specs. The Mini 5 has often been referred to as a MID or slate because it features a 5 inch screen, but the device also has support for 3G.

Rumored specs of the Mini 5 include:

* 5-inch 800×480 touchscreen
* 1 GHz Snapdragon processor
* 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and front facing camera

* WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3G support
* 1530mAh battery
* Android 1.6

We know Dell will soon be launching an Android device on AT&T and this might be it (or the Mini 3). The Mini 5 is said to retail for ¥7,500, which converts to an astronomic $1,098, but we expect the actual U.S. retail price to be much lower.

What do you guys think? Is a 5 inch screen too large to be a phone?

Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO

Deepak Bhakoo — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 11:35:42 +0000

The S3650 Corby was just the beginning of a lineup that appears to have no visible end. There is a Corby for the touchscreen addicts, a Corby for the music buffs, Corby for the heavy texters, Corby for the young, and one for their parents. That’s pretty much everyone, don’t you think? We guess there should even be a Corby for the bored-with-the-Corby.

The founding member of the Corby wasn’t announced so long ago, but so much has been changed. Well, if you put the S3650 Corby and the recently announced B5310 CorbyPRO side by side you’ll notice one thing that hasn’t changed at all: design. But on the inside they are very different, indeed.

The Samsung CorbyPRO is meant for a different range of users altogether. It combines great texting and the intuitive touchscreen control tops that up with a nice connectivity package (such as HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and a 3.5mm audio jack) and all that is delivered at a bargain price.

Key features

Quad-band GSM/EDGE
Dual-band UMTS support with HSDPA
2.8″ resistive TFT touchscreen of QVGA resolution
Four-row side-slide QWERTY keyboard
150 MB onboard storage, microSD card slot (up to 16GB)
3.15 megapixel fixed-focus camera with smile detection, QVGA video @ 15fps
FM radio with RDS
Find Music recognition service
TouchWiz and Cartoon UI
Social networking integration with direct file uploads
GPS with A-GPS support
Wi-Fi and GPS
3.5mm audio jack
Accelerometer sensor for screen auto rotation
Office document viewer
Excellent web browser
Push email
Smart unlock
Replaceable rear covers (Fashion Jackets)

Main disadvantages

Disappointing sunlight legibility
The camera has no autofocus or flash
Video recording maxes out at QVGA@15fps
All preinstalled games are trial versions only
Google Maps is the only GPS navigation app
microSD slot is under the battery cover

The original Corby was all about design, about touchscreen, about budget. The CorbyPRO, on the other hand, has managed to keep all that but goes much further by adding some killer features that are well above the S3650 league.

For instance, now you get UMTS support with HSDPA which will dramatically boost web browsing. But the really big news here is Wi-Fi support. It is a great addition to the comfy QWERTY keyboard and the numerous social networking services that the phone gives you access to.

Samsung B5310 live shots

Strangely, the latest of the Corbies also has an integrated GPS receiver. You can use it for image geotagging as well as for navigation. Unfortunately, if you decide to use your CorbyPRO into a GPS nav device you’ll have to solely rely on the preloaded Google Maps app or on a third-party Java alternative.

And when it comes to the Corby basics, we shouldn’t forget to mention the 2.8″ touchscreen. Well, it turned out to be resistive this time around but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The colorful UI is also aboard and, unfortunately, so is the fixed-focus camera (3-megapixel this time).

The time gap between the S3650 and the B5310 is rather small but it was enough for the competition to release some good CorbyPRO rivals that offer a similar feature pack at nearly the same price. But before we come to that, there’s planty of Corby to cover here. Starting with the looks and feel of this Pro on the next page. Click Here now…..

Nokia X6 review: Going up the ladder

Deepak Bhakoo — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:38:04 +0000

In the world of Nokia it’s all about evolution, rather than revolution. So don’t expect the specs on the X6 to blow your mind. The handset is the next logical step for the market leader scrambling to make up for a late start in touchscreens. To be honest, the Symbian touchscreen OS has been struggling to catch up with the standard setters in terms of user experience. And the X6 claims to have the answer: the responsiveness only a capacitive screen can bring.

Nokia X6 official photos

The Nokia X6 is also the first XpressMusic handset to head straight for the high-end. Midrange is the highest the music Finns have gone so we are interested to see how this change of approach works. Nokia have always had a strong appeal to the masses, but pleasing the selected few is undoubtedly harder.

Key features:

Quad-band GSM support
Tri-band 3G with HSDPA support
3.2″ 16M-color TFT LCD 16:9 capacitive touchscreen (360 x 640 pixels)
Symbian S60 5th edition UI
ARM 11 434 MHz CPU, 128 MB of RAM memory
5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash
VGA video recording at 30fps
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology
Built-in GPS receiver
32GB built-in storage
FM radio with RDS
Bluetooth and USB (standard microUSB connector) v2.0
3.5mm standard audio jack
Very good audio quality
Proximity sensor for screen auto turn-off
Accelerometer sensor for automatic UI rotation and motion-based gaming
Stereo speakers
TV out
“Comes with music” edition gives you a year of all-you-can-eat music subscription
Landscape on-screen virtual QWERTY keyboard
Ovi Maps 3.0 Touch
Further Ovi and MySpace service integration (direct image and video uploads)
Most regional retail packages include a set of the great Nokia WH-500 headphones

Main disadvantages:

X6 is still quite pricey (around 500 euro at the time of writing)
UI is still immature with somewhat inconsistent user experience
Touch web browser not quite polished and with dodgy Flash support
No voice-guided navigation license
No office document viewer preinstalled
Doesn’t charge off microUSB
Very poor sunlight legibility
Slow image gallery
No DivX/XviD support for the video player
No microSD card slot (as a connectivity solution)

As you can see in the two lists above there is almost nothing new in the software package, so it all falls on the hardware to justify the high asking price. The well-stuffed retail package is a great place to start but does the capacitive screen improve usability enough to be worth the extra money over, say, the 5800 XpressMusic? And the difference in price is by no means trivial.

Nokia X6 at ours

In the increasingly competitive touchscreen market manufacturers don’t have much room for error. The unpolished S60 UI is enough of a burden already, so Nokia X6 has to be near perfect in every other respect. A tall task indeed, but let’s see how they’ve tackled it.

Click here for full review

Free WP Theme – Blue Rooster

Deepak Bhakoo — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:49:28 +0000

The theme is a two column layout with a extra templates that can convert your blog into a CMS. The sidebar and footer are both widgetized, author and category templates included, as well as social buttons already intact. The theme style is a mix of rounded corners, flat edges and wooden elements with a schema of muted, dark colors on a plain white surface. Blue Rooster is free under Creative Commons license.

Demo – Click Here

Download : Click Here

Old News – Free Wordpress Theme

Deepak Bhakoo — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:41:24 +0000

Old News WordPress Theme is a creative wordpress theme that resembled an old newspaper. Ultimately, it’s a personal blog theme, probably not the best for a business, but great for blogging. The theme was developed in a WordPress 2.8 testing environment and is fully 2.8 compatible, right down to the threaded comments.

It is very easy to navigate, fonts are large, padding is somewhat generous. Breadcrumbs are already built in with no plugin needed. jQuery tabs are built-in for the top widget to condense some sidebar space.

Demo : Click Here

Download : Click Here