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    Review: Nokia C7 Smartphone

    Gadgets Team
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    2
    Review: Nokia C7 Smartphone

    I thought the Nokia C7 was beautifully crafted the moment I unboxed it and held it in my hands. Its simplicity in design—a sturdy aluminum candybar phone with a sleek black finish, a generous 3.5-inch screen encased with a mirror-like bezel, only 10.5mm thick and weighs 130g made the C7 an absolute wonder to behold (and hold). Of course, as I am naturally averse to anything that doesn’t have a tactile keypad, I was a bit intimidated having to work with a touchscreen. But the UI wasn’t all that unfamiliar and accessing the menu had simply been reduced to just one wide button below the vibrant AMOLED screen and in between the call and end-call buttons.

    On top is your on button, 3.5mm jack for head/earphones, and a USB port with cover whereas on the phone’s right side (as there’s nothing on the left) is a voice-command button snuggled in between a volume adjustor, a phone lock switch, and a camera button which activates the C7’s 8-megapixel camera capable of HD-quality 720p video and equipped with a dual-LED flash at the back. The battery, microSD card and SIM card slots are safely kept within a thin, aluminum cover that is just as sturdy as the rest of the phone.

    However, despite the phone’s external beauty, it still has a bit of a way to go if it wants to compete with other, more sophisticated smartphones. The performance and response is a bit slow, although I wouldn’t say it’s too significant a lag. The web browser takes a while to load and refreshing it can be a bit tedious. The design of the Symbian system and its core applications make it hard to recommend the C7 as a smartphone for someone with a busy email and social media life. We would recommend it to those who want a basic phone with a good web browsing experience and who likes to listen to music (the C7 makes for a pretty good music phone) especially since it’s got a great battery life that can last you almost two days.

    Despite Symbian^3 being a clear improvement over its predecessors, it’s still evident the OS hasn’t been designed to maximize the benefits of a touchscreen. There is no QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode, the keys are fairly small and there are no intuitive, context-sensitive buttons. Symbian^3 also brings up a new screen when you have to enter text so you can’t see the messages you are replying to as you are typing despite already being able to see your messages in “conversation” form.

     

    What’s Hot:

    Battery life

    Good sound quality

    Great design

     

    What’s Not:

    Camera isn’t great

    Sluggish

    Texting is a bit of a chore

     

    Bottomline:

    Though we wouldn’t recommend it for business users, the C7 would make a very capable everyday phone for many people.

     

    Specs:

    Form factor Candybar

    LCD size and classification  3.5-inch OLED

    Physical Dimension  117.3 x 56.8 x 10.5 mm

    Weight  130g

    Band  Quadband

    Internal memory 350MB; expandable microSD

     

    Play a Les Paul guitar on Google

    Gadgets Team
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    1
    Play a Les Paul guitar on Google

    Hop on over to Google’s homepage today and get a chance to play a Les Paul guitar.

    No, it’s not a real guitar, but rather, it”s a fun guitar app/widget (I’m not sure what to call it) that could definitely lighten up your day. It even has a “distortion” switch! phrase recorder!

    Today is Les Paul’s 96th birthday (R.I.P.), a legendary musician and inventor known primarily for his name-branded guitars that have been used by artists from all genres, from rock to jazz.

    Happy birthday sir, thanks for the inspiration and for your inventions. I bet you’re rocking out in the clouds.

    ———————-

    UPDATE 6/10/2011

    Since Google Doodles are archived – and since you can look at the code by choosing a View Source feature in your browser – these little novelties also have a life beyond their one day of glory. (Note, you may need to visit the US site if you’re in a part of the world that doesn’t have this Doodle, since they’re localized.)

    Here’s where things get a little geekier:

    Using the free and open source tool SuperCollider (Mac, Windows, Linux), composer and coder Nick Inhofe scripts Google’s interface, using the ability of SuperCollider to talk to keystrokes. You can download SuperCollider for free and try it out – it’s an insanely powerful real-time synth and processing engine – or just hit the Google shortcuts to hear the results. Full details:

    source: CreateDigitalMusic

    Meet the world’s smallest, lightest interchangeable lens camera

    Gadgets Team
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    1
    Meet the world’s smallest, lightest interchangeable lens camera

    Meet the Sony NEX-C3, which has been declared as the “world’s smallest, lightest interchangeable lens camera with an APS-C sized sensor.”

    Weighing in at a mere 8 ounces with a metal-top exterior, the NEX-C3 boasts 16.2 megapixels and can shoot 720p HD video. It also features a tilting 3-inch LCD display (which utilizes Sonty’s TruBlack technology) and 20% improvement in its battery life over its predecessor.

    The NEX-C3 will come bundled with either an 18-55mm kit lens or 16mm prime, but Sony has stated that a new 30mm f/3.5 E-mount macro lens will also be available.

    Not only is the hardware impressive, but the NEX-C3 will come with several Picture Effect filters that can be used within the camera such as Pop Color, Retro Photo and Toy Camera. Once Sony’s new camera is officially released in August, users will get a choice of colors between black, silver or pink.

     

    Source: Popular Photography

    Globe celebrates IPv6 day by bringing IPv6 connectivity to the Philippines

    Gadgets Team
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    0
    Globe celebrates IPv6 day by bringing IPv6 connectivity to the Philippines

    Did you know that IPv4 addresses, the four set of numbers that makes the internet possible (if you’ve ever mucked around a router, it’s the 192.168.1.1 address you type in) is running out? Without a public IPv4 address that’s needed by every device that connects to the internet won’t be able to connect to the internet using your smartphone, tablet and yes, even your PC. You don’t need to panic though, as there’s already a successor to IPv4 called IPv6, and local telcos are gearing up to start transitioning into the new internet protocol and chief among them is Globe. In fact, today is World IPv6 Day, and Globe is at the forefront of the change into IPv6 by participating in the 24-hour IPv6 test flight with other international companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and Limelight Networks. Globe is working hard to ensure businesses and consumers are spared the headaches of the transition into IPv6.

    We’ve included a few slides of Globe’s presentation below so you’ll have an idea what devices and operating systems will support IPv6 from the get go.

    You can go to Globe’s IPv6 webpage here to know more.

    Samsung Galaxy Tab 3G and Samsung Galaxy Tab Wi-Fi: An all-around companion

    Gadgets Team
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    1
    Samsung Galaxy Tab 3G and Samsung Galaxy Tab Wi-Fi: An all-around companion

    A mini-PC, media player, and e-reader all rolled into one incredible device, the Samsung Galaxy Tab is a powerful entertainment device and business tool. Premium features include Google Android 2.2 (Froyo), a 7-inch touchscreen for mobile computing, watching videos, and browsing the Internet, a rear-facing 3MP camera and camcorder and flash, and a front-facing 1.3MP camera and camcorder for video chat, and flexible access to the World Wide Web with 3G or Wi-Fi versions.

    The Samsung Galaxy Tab supports Adobe Flash Player 10.1, providing an enhanced content experience by allowing access to thousands of websites with complex Flash-based applications and content while the Samsung Galaxy Wi-Fi allows you to connect with friends and family faster and easier through the Samsung Social Hub. This allows users to integrate social networking services, messages, personal and business e-mail, calendars, and contacts. Information from web calendars, such as Google Calendar and Facebook, are merged into a single interface for easy organization, too.

    Source: Samsung

     

    NVIDIA announces StarCraft 2 tournament, set all phasers to pwn

    Gadgets Team
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    2
    NVIDIA announces StarCraft 2 tournament, set all phasers to pwn

    You think you’re the shiznit when it comes to SC2? Well, now you have an opportunity to prove it. NVIDIA’s sponsoring an online tourney for both amateur and pro level SC2 players, and it’s dangling over $22,000 worth of cash and prizes as incentive to annihilate your enemies. According to the official release, there are levels of two participation:

    • Pro Open: The top StarCraft II players in the world will be competing in the pro line-up with no limit to the number of players.
    • Amateur Open: Amateur registration is open and free to all ages of 16 and over with no limit to the number of total entries per Protoss, Terran, or Zerg.

    All tournaments are 1 versus 1 (1v1) head-to-head battles. There will be at least 5 weeks of guaranteed group play, with the top players from each group moving on to the double-elimination championship brackets. The games will be shoutcasted by Husky and Day 9, and will be broadcast on Geforce.com and the Game Station YouTube channel. World-class tournament features including match setting, anti-cheat controls, leaderboards and more are being provided by tournament management veterans, Cevo.  ASUS is the official hardware sponsor offering GeForce GTX 500-series of GPU products to the top 20 pro and amateur winners.

    Interested? Then go to here to the official sign-up page and get ready for war.

    Meet StudioBLADE, the World’s Most Powerful Keyboard Workstation

    Gadgets Team
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    0
    Meet StudioBLADE, the World’s Most Powerful Keyboard Workstation

    Dubbed by its manufacturer as the “World’s Most Powerful” keyboard station, feast your eyes on one monster music production machine.

    The StudioBLADE (Gen 2) utilizes up to dual 6-core (12 core total) Intel Xeon server platform processors that are capable of hyper-threading, so users get up to 24 virtual computer cores to ensure that DAWs and VSTs can run uninhibited. By using server grade processors, this keyboard is able to outperform others by accessing more RAM, and with 12 RAM memory slots able to handle 16GB modules each, this comes to an astounding total of 192GB RAM.

    With that much power in its core, The StudioBLADE can purportedly handle over 2,000 plug-ins at the same time and sequence thousands of tracks at once onto its 6TB hard drive. It runs on Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) that has been calibrated specifically  for music production/recording. Users navigate via a 10.1-inch touchscreen that tilts to the their preferred viewing angle and two external video ports provide users the option of running up to three monitors at the same time.

    Its compact form factor comes in 61-key or 88-key versions, but it is also a midi controller, featuring mapabble faders, encoders, 64 lighted pads, and a Monome for triggering sequences. It is also equipped with Presonus audio interfaces guaranteeing studio quality a/d converters making the StudioBLADE the complete workstation where users can create, record, mix and master their musical compositions.

     

    If you want to lust further, visit Music Computing to view the StudioBLADE’s complete set of features.


     

    Source: Sonic State, Music Computing

    Nintendo announces Wii U, awesomeness ensues

    Gadgets Team
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    0
    Nintendo announces Wii U, awesomeness ensues

    While we were unable to go to E3 this year (you can blame that on the 5,000 mile divide) we’re still able to follow the multiple reveals via the series of tubes we call the internet. One of the biggest announcements to come out today was the Wii U, Nintendo’s successor to the massively successful Wii. The Wii U features a 6.2-inch touchscreen in the middle along with the traditional buttons and d-pads that consoles have. The unit will have an accelerometer, is totally backwards-compatible with old Wii titles and has built-in camera that allows some facetime-esque chat functionality. A neat feature is the devices’ ability to continue a game on the touchscreen when someone uses the TV that’s being used. Speaking of TVs, the Wii U will beam the game images straight on to your boob-tube without the use of wires, and will be in HD. There’s so many gameplay possibilities with the new console that it’s really hard to begin to fathom, but if the Wii is anything to go by, it’s probably going be awesome and fun.

    Source: Joystiq

    Toys for the Big Boys

    Gadgets Team
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    0
    Toys for the Big Boys

    This father’s day, give the most important man in your life the gift of being a kid again. Let your favorite big (or not so big) boys relive or simply enjoy their childhood with these cool and exciting toys.

     

    Hot Wheels Custom Motors

    Challenge your two boys (big and small) to build their very own customized Hot Wheels.  From street race car to monster machine all these are possible with the interchangeable modular system that can be assembled in a matter of few seconds.   It has more than 15 easy-to-snap parts providing your big boys endless combinations that would let them transform their Hot Wheels from one style to another.

    Airhogs Sharpshooter

    Lock in your spouse heart with this newest Air Hogs Sharpshooter.  A micro remote control helicopter and shoots real projectiles.  It combines the indoor/outdoor flying capabilities with dual rotor, detailed fuselage, realistic landing gear and a stealthy black paint.

    Tech Deck Paul Rodriguez Small Skate Lab

    If you find your big boy too old for skateboarding having his knees skinned, why not let him still get the experience with the authentic replica of Paul Rodriguez’s first training facility.  Let him hit the killer lines, smooth out sketchy landings and perfect each trick just by fingerboarding.  Collect all the pieces and replicate the complete skate lab of P. Rod.

     

    Hot Wheels, Air Hogs, and Tech Deck are exclusively distributed by Richwell Trading Corporation. They are available at all leading toy stores and department stores nationwide. For more information, call Richwell Trading Corporation at telephone number 732-5141 to 47 loc 211 or visit our website at www.richwell.net.

     

    Review: Acer Iconia Smart

    Gadgets Team
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    1
    Review: Acer Iconia Smart

    The high-end smartphone space is dominated by premium brands like HTC, Samsung and LG, with a smattering of different form factors and screen sizes ranging from the standard 4-inch Samsung Nexus S and to the relatively bigger 4.3-inch HTC Desire HD. To really make an impact in a market that’s dominated by high-profile brands and devices, you need to be a little bit different. The Acer Iconia Smart is certainly that. Sporting a massive 4.8-inch, 480×1024 resolution capacitive sceen, the Iconia Smart is an imposing smartphone, at least physically.

    In a time where smartphones are shedding hard keys and moving into touch-sensitive controls, the Iconia Smart does the opposite. Housed directly below the gigantic 4.8-inch screen lies the home, search, back and option keys.

    The volume rocker and camera shortcut keys are all located on the right side of the unit.

    The left side holds the USB slot that pulls double duty as a USB charging port and the HDMI out port if you want to export video to your HDTV.

    There’s an eight megapixel camera located on the back, as well as a smaller secondary camera on the front. The whole thing weighs in at a hefty 185 grams – which is a bit heavier than your average smartphone. Some may see this is a negative, but I actually didn’t mind the added weight as it gave the unit a bit of heft. Of course, your mileage may vary. The battery is located at the bottom of the unit, and Acer seems to have taken a few design cues from HTC’s unibody devices when it comes to accessing the battery. You have to take off the bottom cover first, and then open the compartment via a small latch to access the battery.

    The Iconia Smart uses Google’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS with UI enhancements courtesy of Acer. The unlock screen slightly differs in that you’re presented with 3 initial home screens that you can scroll through without unlocking the phone – great for checking how many unread SMS messages and missed calls you’ve received, checking to see what track is playing and so on. As with anything on Android, that screen is customizable.

    Once you’re past that, you get 7 home screens that you can customize depending on your needs.

    The first and seventh screen has Acer’s own quick-access solution that acts like a mini-rolodex of sorts for your media (music, photos and video) for the first screen and websites in the case of the second.

    The Iconia Smart is powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8255-1 Snapdragon Scorpion processor. While I was slightly disappointed that something this large wasn’t powered by a dual-core procie, the performance of the unit made up for it – the device was pretty quick, and it was capable of decent graphics. To scientifically gauge performance, we ran a couple of benchmarking tools on the Iconia Smart – Neocore, a graphic benchmarking tool, AnTutu, a system benchmark that stresses the entire phone from graphics to memory, and  Quadrant Standard, which gives another benchmark perspective into the performance of the phone.

    Because of the unique size of the Iconia Smart, the Neocore benchmark only ran in the maximum 480×854 resolution, and not the 480×1024 the screen was capable of. Nevertheless, the Iconia Smart came in at a zippy 57.6 FPS.

    For AnTuTu, the results were 1992, which were decent.

    Quadrant Standard on the other hand, gave the Iconia Smart 1480 points, which was a bit higher than what the benchmark gave the Nexus One on Android 2.2.

    For something that has a huge screen, battery life wasn’t as bad as I’d initially thought. The Iconia Smart needed a sip at the end of every workday (with moderate to heavy use), but considering the screen size I think that’s pretty good. Call quality was good.

    Two issues stop me from recommending the Iconia Smart to Android freshmen. Ironically, its biggest appeal is also its biggest stumbling block: size. While the Iconia Smart is easy enough for someone like me to use, anyone with dainty hands (which constitute a majority of Filipinos) is in for rough ride. It’s mainly a personal thing, and as such your mileage may vary. Sound isn’t as loud as I’d hoped, which is a major let down since the device sports Dolby Mobile sound enhancement. The huge screen is such a nice place to view movies, unfortunately the disappointing sound makes headphones a necessity if you want to hear what the actors are saying.

    The Acer Iconia Smart is a nice take on Android, and its distinct size and features make it stand out against the myriad of other devices currently in the market. Unfortunately there’s still no word on local pricing, or when it’ll be available for local consumption.

     

    What’s Hot:

    Large, 4.8-inch capacitive touchscreen

    Large screen makes it a natural for watching movies

    Good performance, ok battery life

     

    What’s Not:

    Large screen makes it a challenge for people with dainty hands to use

    Sound could be better

     

    Bottomline:

    The Acer Iconia Smart is certainly different, and if you don’t have issues with a large screen, it just might be your next Android smartphone.

    iOS 5 is PC-Free!

    Gadgets Team
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    0
    iOS 5 is PC-Free!

    No longer will you have to take on the cumbersome task of connecting your iDevice to a computer in order to set it up.

    iOS 5 presents its users a PC Free experience, which means that devices can be activated wirelessly instantly. As long as your iPhone or iPad has access to a shared Wi-Fi connection, it will sync, update and backup itself with the help of iCloud.

    So, for all of you out there that have your parents and/or grandparents constantly hounding you for help with their iDevices, you just received a break.

     

    Source: Apple, MacRumors

    iCloud: a closer look at Apple’s new service

    Gadgets Team
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    1
    iCloud: a closer look at Apple’s new service

    After following and anticipating its release for quite some time, iCloud has officially been made public.

    By taking a trip over to the Apple’s site, users can read the official description. Confirming previous rumors, iCloud provides an easy way to sync your music purchases across all of your Apple devices (assuming you have more than one), functioning as an online hard drive. So, to mimic Apple’s own example, if you download a song on your iPhone at work, it will also be available on the iMac or iPad you left at home. Moreover, every single song you’ve previously bought will be stored in a “purchase history”, meaning it will be available for download any time to any of your devices.

    iCloud also has the capability to sync any of your previously purchased songs, regardless of the source (i.e. ripped from CDs, downloaded from P2P software, bought at Amazon, etc.). In tandem with iTunes Match, iCloud will search its online database and find the corresponding song and instantly place it in your library. The only songs you have to manually upload are those that can’t be located in the database.

    Furthermore, iTunes will automatically upgrade the fidelity of your music files to 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality. Whether or not this upgrade in sonic quality is free or requires an additional fee is still unclear.

    The annual price to avail of iCloud is $24.99 for 20,000 songs (approx Php 1,080.00). Oddly enough, Apple’s doesn’t mention anything about streaming, and instead focuses on downloading and syncing. This leads to some confusion on what exactly iCloud is offering as its primary service.

    MP3.com, back in the year 2000, introduced an identical concept but was quickly shut down by the RIAA. So, since Apple was able to sign deals with record labels and publishers, will iCloud’s apparent “legality” last long?

    Other questions arise with the launch of Apple’s new service, especially with regards to artists and the indie community. According to TuneCore, labels and publishers receive revenues every time an iCloud subscriber streams or re-downloads a song, based on Apple’s current business model.  While this initially sounds great, it will definitely shape the direction of the music industry. For starters, indie artists might have a reason to worry because not only will they get less playtime, they will struggle to receive their financial dues as well, despite the fact that they can be featured on iTunes for a fee. Moreover, iCloud might dominate the mass music market far too much by imposing to its users to download only from its database and subconsciously discourage them from hunting for and acquiring music from other sources, making it even more difficult for obscure artists to be heard.

    Regardless, iCloud is a very useful service and provides its users with a lot of perks. It will be interesting to see in the coming months how both the public and the music community will be affected by Apple’s new service.

     

    Source: Apple, CreateDigitalMusic, TuneCore

    MI6 hacks al-Qaeda on-line magazine, replaces bomb-making recipes with delicious cookie dishes

    Gadgets Team
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    1
    MI6 hacks al-Qaeda on-line magazine, replaces bomb-making recipes with delicious cookie dishes

    Don’t get us wrong, hacking is a nefarious thing to do. But once in a while, its devilish powers are harnessed for good, like when British intelligence service MI6 (yes, the same MI6 from the Bond films) replaces bomb-making recipes with recipes from “The Best Cupcakes in America” published by the Ellen DeGeneres show. Would-be Jihadists expecting DIY recipes to blow up infidels instead found recipes for Mojito Cupcakes – “made of white rum cake and draped in vanilla buttercream”- and the Rocky Road Cupcake – “warning: sugar rush ahead!” This important and hilarious operation may have just cemented MI6 as the best intelligence service ever – yes, even better than the Mossad, and those guys are hardcore. Game, set and match. It’s your move, CIA.

    Source: Telegraph

     

    PowerColor single slot Radeon HD 6850 makes life easy for your case

    Gadgets Team
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    0
    PowerColor single slot Radeon HD 6850 makes life easy for your case

    If there’s one thing that you should expect from today’s graphic cards, its that they’re massive space hogs. It’s not surprising for most of them to consume two, even three slots in your rig. The PowerColor HD 6850 we spotted at COMPUTEX is an oddity then, as it only consumes a single slot in your precious rig, making it a great choice for people who have very limited space in their rigs.

    Of course, a thinner profile doesn’t mean that some of the features have been nerfed – the card has 1GB GDDR5 Memory, an engine clock of 775MHz, DirectX 11 support and all the other goodies that the reference 6850 is known for.

    Apple has its head in the iCloud

    Gadgets Team
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    0
    Apple has its head in the iCloud

    After numerous speculations, Apple has finally laid down the details for iCloud, the company’s all encompassing cloud service. Aside from pushing your music from your iOS device of choice, iCloud also allows users to access their photos, iBooks, video, and a myriad of other items including devices settings and contacts. The service will be free and will not be ad-driven. Another ingenious feature included in iCloud is the Photo Stream service – that automatically uploads the pictures you take (or in the case of devices like the Apple TV, imports it to your the cloud) and makes it available to all of the iOS devices you own. Pretty cool huh? Head on to the official press release below to get the whole gist of everything iCloud has to offer.

    Source: Apple

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