cellrater

Hey boys and girls, I have been getting a lot of email requests asking about when the Video review for the E6 will be up. I am getting everything ready tonight and hope to film tomorrow so keep your eyes peeled I should have it up either Monday or Tuesday so if you’re interested check back in a few more days and I will be ready to run through the entire interface and feature set as well as talk about some of the things I liked and did not like about the phone. Since this will be my first FULL video review I am hoping to get a lot of feedback from my readers, feel free to let me know if I REALLY need to run through something or need to emphasis something. I know a lot of people have been asking about text messaging I will definitely run through that. I am thinking to make it easier for people who don’t want to sit through a 20 minute long demo I will break some features up into sections so you can skip to the stuff you care about.

Popularity: 80% [?]

Sharp has just released its newest multimedia cellphone, the SH903i. I think what makes this phone most interesting is its facial recognition software which works through the 3mp camera so you can only unlock the phone when you flash those gorgeous pearly whites at the screen. In addition the 903i has an privacy filter that you can turn on and off to keep people from seeing your screen from the sides. Last but not least, get this, the strangest of all features… an ultrasonic mosquito repelling system. Seriously, I dislike the occasional mosquito bite as much as the next guy but to have it built into my phone? Seems a bit extreme.

The handset also boasts a 2.8″ LCD, second camera for video conferencing, removable SD media, MP3 playback and a 50 hour battery life. No word on pricing or availability but I doubt this would be slated for a US release.


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Popularity: 23% [?]

Well it looks like Danger and T-mobile are gearing up to introduce their new… um… old… uh… rehash… Lets just say they are announcing a new sidekick model to their lineup, the Sidekick ID. Now, as excited as I am that I can totally change out colors and stuff to make my sidekick prettier, I think the $99 price tag is pretty cool. Granted they did remove a couple of features, mainly the camera (which has always been horrible on the SK series), bluetooth, MP3 playback, and they have removed the memory expansion slot. The word on the internet is that this phone is just a polished Sidekick 2 and that they have stripped it down to almost nothing now which I agree to some extent. I have owned many a cellphone in my day but to be honest there aren’t many that I miss day to day than my sidekick. Sure, it was huge and the battery didn’t last very long, and the photos were horrible but the things it did well, it did very well. Hands down the SK series has the best keyboard you can buy on a cellphone, I could knock out a message in no time flat. My emails would come from multiple accounts straight into my phone and with the unlimited plan being so reasonably priced I could send unlimited text, picture, emails and surf the web without sending the bill sky high. My contacts were all organized online so that even if my phone died, I could log into my tmobile account and pull up all of my information, from contacts and photos, to notes and text messages. Sure, they stripped off the useless camera, and I never did use the MP3 player on the thing… bluetooth kind of sucks but you know what, for 99 bucks I think I may grab myself one of these ugly little buggers and use it as an extra phone for days when I feel like text messaging a lot. I know its ugly and not VERY functional, but gosh darn it I really did enjoy that brick of a phone and look forward to grabbing its ugly little brother the ID.

What do you guys think? Is this phone worth it? Who knows, maybe they will sell millions.

Popularity: 21% [?]

So I came across this cool little program today called The Filter for my itunes library and I thought, hey this is cool I can add this little plug-in and it will make all these awesome new playlists from the stuff I listen to and modify itself over time to learn what I like. Normally I wouldn’t bother mentioning something like this here but as I went to download I saw that it also comes with an option for Nokia Phones running Symbian S60. Right now they only have support for Nokia E60, E61, E70, N73, N80, N91 and N95 and apparently you can run it on some older models but because of the lower screen resolution they don’t promise great quality. Anyway, I thought I would mention it here for any of you who use your Nokia device as your main music player, I plan on installing it later tonight on my N80 and hopefully I can do a quick video demo for you later this week. I will keep you posted. In the meantime even if you don’t have a Nokia you may want to check out The Filter, I haven’t had a chance to use it yet but it looks interesting. Check it out here.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Ok so I know what you are thinking, I just talked about the apple cellphone and now here I am taking about a banana cellphone… what is up with the fruity phones coming out lately? The LG-SV80 is a new phone by LG that actually curves when open; making it look like… well… a banana. Hence the name. But doesn’t this phone concept seem mysteriously similar to the Motorola RIZR Z8?

Anyway, this phone is sporting 142Mb of memory, 1.3 MP camera, and an integrated MP3 player in its little shell. I am not too wild about the orange though.

Popularity: 29% [?]

According to Phonescoop.com, Samsung was grated a patent this week for a new hinge design. The dual hinge will allow 1 half of the clamshell to rotate a full 360 degrees. Which means you can flip the screen over to close either way. I remember my college roommate had a Sony Clie that had a screen that would rotate like hat.

The idea is that both sides of the screen would have different buttons and interfaces and you would spin it open depending on what you were doing. Phonescoop mentiones the E90 but I am thinking more like N95 flip phone action only it rotates all the way around.

Anyway combined with Samsungs ability to make freakishly thin phones, this sounds like a patent I could actually get excited about.

Popularity: 27% [?]

So just when you think you’ve seen it all, a 15 year old Korean high-school student studying in Canada designs a touchscreen slider concept that blows just about anything I have seen in a long while out of the water. Personally I would love to see something like this in production, I would be all over that. What do you think? Click the link below for larger images.


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Popularity: 27% [?]

So across the boards today, almost all of the websites I visit were talking about a post by John C. Dvorak (former editorialist for MacWorld), who claims Apple should pull the plug on their upcoming phone. Dvorak says that he recently spoke to a Cingular Employee who mentions multiple problems with the soon to be released cellphone. According to the rep, the phone has many issues ranging from a 40 minute total talk time to an interface which “fouls up constantly”.

I could see how a phone like that would freeze in the wrong hands; one of my favorite phones over the years has been my Nokia N80 which has been mentioned by people to freeze a lot. Then you speak to other users who own this phone and they have no problem with it. After using the phone for a few months I think the problem boils down to the fact that some people are trying to run far too many programs at once on these phones. The N80 is a small computer and gives you the ability to run multiple applications at once easily but if you aren’t paying attention to your file manager you could have stuff running in the background and not even know it. I could easily see this as being a problem with something like the iPhone. The problem is that there are far too many idiots in the world and not enough idiot proof products.

As for the 40 minute thing I am skeptical, I mean I know the phone has a huge screen but I don’t think apple would release a phone with that low of a talk time for the price they are asking. Now I could see the 40 minute mark becoming a reality with bluetooth on, music player going, and screen at full brightness while surfing the web or something like that. I guess only time will tell.

What do you guys think? Would you still be interested in buying the iPhone for $500 if the talk time is only 40 minutes?

Popularity: 26% [?]

I posted about the Samsung Upstage (Also known as the Samsung Ultra Music Phone) and as promised here is the Samsung Ultra Video Phone to be released only in Europe (as of now). I am assuming that if the Upstage does well then his big brother might make the trip overseas but I wouldn’t bet on it.

The phone is a lot like the Upstage in that it has two screens and two sets of inputs on each side. There is a switch on the side of the phone toggling the screen from one side of the phone to the other. So you dial on a small screen just like the Upstage and then flip the switch and have music and video controls on the other side, also just like the Upstage.

So, you may be asking, what is the difference? Well boys and girls, as you can probably see from the photo the Samsung Ultra Video (also known as the F500) actually pivots or swivels from one corner of the phone so that you can actually sit the phone on a table, or maybe your in flight platform thing on a plane, and watch yourself some movies without having to prop up the phone.

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Popularity: 29% [?]

So Pantech does occasionally produce a phone that turns my head every now and then. Just a little while ago I was trying to find some information on a new phone concept they announced today and I came across this little beauty of a concept from 06. Its called the Pantech Transformer and as you can see it has a very large screen that swivels (Probably great for watching movies).

What is with all of these rotating phones? Do you think that phone manufactures are adding moving parts because it looks cooler or is the decision to rotate parts inspired by actually being useful?

Click the link below to see bigger photos of this phone.

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Popularity: 26% [?]