Latest News and Reviews about Smartphones
Friday, September 3, 2010
Posted by Digg RSS Search for smartphone on May 21, 2010
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones designed and marketed by Apple Inc., and released in 2007. An iPhone functions as a camera phone (also including text messaging and visual voicemail), a portable media player (equivalent to a video iPod), and an Internet client (with e-mail, web browsing, and Wi-Fi connectivity)Posted by smartphone - Google News on April 26, 2010
Twitter Snaps Up a Text-Messaging Company New York Times (blog) Today, though, most people in the United States think about Twitter as a Web tool, and they use it either online or via smartphone apps. ... |
Posted by Digg RSS Search for smartphone on April 19, 2010
Soon you’ll be able to play FarmVille on your mobile phone, not just your desktop web browser. Supported devices will probably include the iPhone, the iPad and Android smartphones, and some sort of text messaging-based play could be in the works too.Posted by Smartphone Review on March 31, 2010
The thinnest Palm mobile phone yet, the Palm Pixi for Sprint is a smartphone that’s designed to be easy to use and light in your pocket. In addition to high-speed connectivity via Sprint’s dependable 3G network (EVDO Rev. A.), a vibrantly colorful touchscreen and full QWERTY keyboard, the Pixi features the instinctively useable Palm webOS platform. With Palm webOS, you can keep multiple activities open and move easily between them–like flipping through a deck of cards, using natural gestures. This allows for easy movement between messaging and email or searching the Web while listening to music, and items are rearranged simply by dragging them.
The Palm Pixi features the Palm webOS platform, a strikingly thin design, touchscreen-enabled display, and visible full QWERTY keyboard. |
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Palm webOS brings together the most important information from your phone, at work or on the Web, into one logical view. In addition to linking information from Google, Facebook, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and LinkedIn, Palm Pixi adds Yahoo! integration to Palm Synergy, which offers:
And a new Facebook application is available with Palm Pixi, enabling you to see and comment on all the latest news from friends and easily update their status.
The phone’s full QWERTY keyboard puts it all at your fingertips, and the multi-touch screen lets you move back and forth between open applications using natural gestures. The unique removable back cover is rubberized, making it scratch-resistant, slip-resistant and durable.
You’ll enjoy GPS navigation capabilities for accessing the optional Sprint Navigation turn-by-turn direction service as well as access to Sprint TV’s video-on-demand with full-motion video and vivid sound. Other features include 8 GB of internal memory, 2-megapixel camera/camcorder, digital audio player, Bluetooth connectivity for hands-free devices and stereo music streaming, access to personal and corporate email, and up to 5 hours of talk time.
Organize your work and social life by integrating calendars, contacts, instant messaging and social network sites. |
The Palm webOS offers the ability to keep multiple applications open at once with “activity cards,” so you can do more than one thing without losing your place. |
Palm Pixi has the ability to pull in your online calendars from places like Facebook, Google and Office Outlook and layer them into one view of your whole day. |
Each person’s contact information is pulled in from places like Facebook, Google, Microsoft Office Outlook, and LinkedIn, and combined under one entry. |
Vital Statistics
The Palm Pixi weighs 3.26 ounces and measures 4.37 x 2.17 x 0.43 inches. Its 1150 mAh lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 5 hours of talk time, and up to 350 hours of standby time. It runs on the 800/1900 CDMA/EV-DO Rev. A frequencies.
What’s in the Box
Palm Pixi handset, rechargeable battery, charger, USB cable, quick start guide, user manual
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To access, just text “NASCAR” to 7777 on your Sprint phone or visit the Sprint Digital Lounge to download NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile (standard text messaging and data rates apply).
This phone also provides access to NFL Mobile Live–your all-access pass to the NFL from DRAFT to Super Bowl. Stay on top of every game with real-time red zone alerts, game center scores, stats, and more. Manage your fantasy football team like a pro with up-to-the-minute insights, analysis, stats and alerts. Access by texting “NFL” to 7777 on the handset to download NFL Mobile Live from Sprint Digital Lounge (standard text messaging and data rates apply).
5 Stars Great Phone!
My wife has had this phone for a few months and she loves it! This phone has the best form factor of any phone, slim, GREAT keyboard. Excellent for a heavy texter or for email. Multi-tasking is great as well and you don’t appreciate it until you use it. Web browsing on the pixi is a pleasure as well. Highly recommend it.
4 Stars Reality Decent, Potential BIG
I’ve had Palm smartphones for at least the past 7+ years and I have always liked them so when it came to upgrade my Sprint Palm Centro in November’09 I went for the Sprnt Palm Pixi. Here are my pros/cons after using this phone for 3 months:
Pros:
+Form Factor: I got this phone because it is one of the smallest thinnest smartphones I have seen. I like to keep my phone in my front pocket and the lighter the better. After using it for 3 months the size is still great although I wish it actually was slightly taller to accommodate slightly bigger screen. I chose the Pixi over Pre mainly because I didn’t want a slider (hassle to slide in/out and also durability concerns). I also like a physical keyboard and the Pixi keyboard is awesome (even for my fat fingers).
+WebOS potential: I see alot of potential in this software. Easy to use, fun to use. Nice to run multiple apps. Of course we are still in early release versions for WebOS and there are some things that need to be improved so I expect to see that over time.
Cons:
-Screen Size: Could actually be a bit bigger for internet experience even though I am partial to small phones.
-WebOS Current Reality: This is still an early generation of WebOS and that means living with growing pains. Palm has been issuing software updates which are good but some of the updates have reduced my battery life and also slowed down my phone. Sometimes there are noticeable lags when using the phone features (ie, 5-10 seconds to open up an application, etc). There are not that many downloadable apps compared to iphone and android and developers want to develop for the biggest users bases first (in fairness I should note that no smarts phones are perfect yet and iphone and android users have their own gripes in their reviews). Cloud Storage- personally I don’t think web connections are fast enough or reliable enough yet to keep everything on the cloud…when I use an app dictionary I don’t want the app to lookup the word on the web (sometimes I am on an airplane or in a bad coverage area, etc). I think over time WebOS can be refined to be an amazing software platform…I just hope Palm has the additional capital to invest in this and keep up with the likes of juggernauts like Apple and Google (it may be a likely scenario that another player buys Palm and invests more money in evolving WebOS).
-Brand Name: Palm “Pixi”? As a red-blooded American male I almost didn’t buy the phone just because of the unmanly name…but finally I brushed my pride aside and bought it because it had the form factor I liked the best. When friends ask me what kind of phone it is I just say it is the new Palm Mini-Pre.
-Other minor details: No add-on memory card. No video camera feature yet (expected with future webos upgrade). Back cover durability. I actually like the changeable back concept but the backing that came with my phone is already torn and coming off after 3 months (I will buy a new one for $20).
Overall:
=I give this phone 4 stars (3 stars for current usability reality, 5 stars for potential= 4 star average). This smartphone technology is amazing me (gps location tools, etc) and the speed of evolution is startling compared to my old smartphones from 5 years ago. It will be scarey to see what smartphones will be in 25 years…will we just be using implantation chips…or will we be absorbed into The Matrix!?
3/13/10 update: The recent web os 1.4 software update pushed out to my phone has noticeably increased the speed of my phone…I don’t have much lag anymore when switching between functions. The 1.4 also added video capabilities to the camera and I’ve found the vid works well. My battery life also seems improved. Keep up the improvements palm!
I hope you found my review helpful, I will try to remember to update my review if I think anything new/important is worth mentioning.
5 Stars Excellent Phone, Highly Recommended
I had the Palm Pixi for a little over a month now and it works really well. For me, everything is great. Before I bought the phone, I wasn’t sure about buying it though Amazon, but everything turned out fine. The first phone I received didn’t work, and Amazon replaced very quickly. Since then, haven’t had a problem. I chose Sprint over Verizon to save extra money each month. Also, the big selling point for the Pixi on Verizon is that it has the WiFi, but I haven’t had any problems with the phone’s speed. However, I do receive excellent coverage around where I live.
Pros: Sensitive touch screen
Easy to use
Full Keyboard
Great at multitasking
Syncing contacts with AIM, Facebook, ect.
Syncing with Mail including AOL and Yahoo
New WebOS allows video with camera (though only 2MP lens)
Phone connects with USB making transferring files easy
Cons: None
I read a lot about the battery life before buying the phone. For me, it is usually no problem making through the day. I just charge it overnight. I could see how it might not last the day with extremely heavy use. I got a car charger just in case and for use with the Sprint GPS. I also bought ZAGG armor for the phone, protects the phone with no added body.
Excellent Phone, Highly Recommended
3 Stars not that cool
I have owned the phone for almost two months now, and I came from using a blackberry, soo.. from comparison. this phone is pretty wack.
4 Stars Cool and very portable smartphone
I had the phone for over a month and it is proven to be a solid and fun phone so far. I really like the webOS software. I might have been jealous over the iphone apps but since I have an i touch, I can play games and use apps on that one. The very cool thing is the universal search. You just start typing and your contacts names start to pop up and if you continue to type you can also search google, google maps and even wikipedia. Apps even pop up when you start typing. For example, you type “M” and your contacts that start with M will pop up as well as your app “Maps”. And if you continue to type say “mustard” the os will realize you dont have any contacts or apps that match so it then offers to search google, maps and wiki for you.
The notifications are way better than I have seen with the i phone. Notifications get “stacked” at the bottom of the screen and you can “throw” the one off that you want to ignore with a left to right swipe.
This phone is great to text on. The keyboard is pretty cool and how the os organizes your text conversations is awesome. The synergy feature is very cool. It pulled my contacts from facebook and yahoo all together. Now I just add contacts to yahoo and the automatically are on the phone. I am less worried about loosing the phone and loosing contacts. I believe Palm also backs up contacts and stuff for you that you save to the phone itself.
For negatives: A couple of nights when I first got the phone the phone automatically shut off. But it has not done it again since. I wish the earpiece and speakerphone could be a little louder to be more audible in louder areas. The phone can be a tad slugish, but the time saved multitasking prob makes up for it. Apps are still in its infancy, but in my opinion, just the sprint navigation (which is awesome) is more useful to me than all the iphone apps.
Oh and back to the positive, 25 buck, really! I am looking forward to enjoying this phone and purchasing another high end palm in the future since WebOS is so easy to use. And the thing about pixi being for women is bs. Yes, the name is not great but its a sleek and powerful phone that can slip in my pocket and doesn’t even feel like its there. I have the touchstone charger on the way. Sure its a little pricy, but any phone especially the iphone is going to try to entice you with pricy accessories. I thought about the pre as well. My thought was grab this phone for 25 bucks and maybe get the next gen pre (when more kinks are worked our in the build) in a year or two.
Posted by Digg RSS Search for smartphone on March 29, 2010
Smartphones like BlackBerries and iPhones aren't just for yuppies, corporate suits, and early adopter-types anymore. But the majority of people in the U.S. still own feature phones -- the "dumb" phones that are primarily used to phone calls and do text messaging.
