Penny Mobiles – Mobile phone news, reviews & information

Now for some information regarding the new LG GD910 watch phone. Cue the inevitable Dick Tracy references. It seems that any article or blog post regarding the new LG watch phone, and its Samsung rival the S9110, has to make at least one mention on the 1950’s comic book hero. Why? Perhaps this is the easiest reference to watch phones and a good way to get an article moving, but anyway I am pretty sure there are plenty of other cultural references that can be pillaged instead.

But this post is not about Dick Tracy, it is about the new LG GD910 watch phone. This is not the first watch phone to be released; in fact they have been around for a number of years. This may come as news to you, you may have never come across a watch phone before – but this is no great loss. If you have never seen a watch phone before it is for a reason; they were always shoddy and disappointingly crude, a far cry from the Dick Tracy fantasy that many a young comic-reader often hoped for.

The LG GD910 is noteworthy for this very fact; it is the first watch phone that is actually feasible and worthwhile owning. With the recent developments in touch screen phones, high speed data transfer and video calling the watch phone is more and more aligning itself with the mental image people have of such a device. Being able to communicate face to face with someone through a gadget strapped to your wrist is something that was once merely consigned to laughable sci-fi films in the bargain bin at BlockBuster, or an unconvincing piece on yesterdays Tomorrows World.

Touch screen technology is also another advancement that makes the whole having-a-phone-on-your-watch idea a lot more appealing, as now the whole face of the watch can be dedicated to the display, rather than having to compete for space with physical buttons. The technology used here is the more favourable capacitive (made famous on phones like the iPhone) that provides greater sensitivity while not requiring you to apply excessive pressure onto the screen.

Having a watch that can make video calls (as well as ordinary calls of course), send and receive text messages, play music and take photographs is something most people will rightfully get excited about – Dick Tracy fan or not. Sure there are limitations – things the GD910 can’t do that an ordinary candybar phone can; but even then there are many features to be found on the GD910 that are not even found on many standard non-watch phones.

Vodafone’s internet-based 360 service gets launched in the UK markets this October 30^th with a couple of Samsung smartphones exclusively built for the UK carrier.  The Vodafone 360 H1 figures as the first smartphone in the lineup with 4 Nokia smartphones joining the service.   It now has 10 smartphones in its stable supporting the 360 service.

Smartphone meant for 360 Features.

Vodafone hopes to increase its subscriber base with the 360 which replaced the 7-year old Vodafone Live. The Samsung-built Vodafone 360 H1 does a perfect job maximizing the 360 service with its competent upscale features

The H1 runs on the stable Release 2.0 of Linux-based LiMo (Linux Mobile) OS that has been used by Motorola for its latter ROKR and RAZR smartphones.   No less capable than the Android OS that has since overwhelmed it, the H1 automatically links in one unique 3D interface your phone contacts with VOIP, IM and social networking sites like Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk and Facebook.  Twitter and other social networking sites will follow soon enough. It also makes sharing your multimedia content a breeze of the 360 service, provided your friends are on the same Vodafone network.

Hardware Features

The Vodafone 360 H1 is a full-featured touchscreen smartphone on a candybar that is fashionably slim and weighs just 134g.  It’s a quad band GSM and dual band 3G/UMTS with HSPA data connectivity for broadband internet speeds as well as WiFi that greatly complements the Vodafone 360 service in hotspots around the country.  It has a 3.5-inch AMOLED TFT touchscreen with Wide VGA resolution and 16 million colors. The usual accelerometer auto-rotate features are there. You get a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, GPS, FM stereo radio, Bluetooth with A2DP and 16 GB of internal memory which you can expand with its microSD slot.

Availability

The H1 handset is available now for pre-ordering at the Vodafone website.  Vodafone is offering it free on a tempting ₤35 24-month contract.  You have a choice of black or silver body color. If only for an elegantly sleek and full-featured handset you can get for free outright, it’s worth giving Vodafone your patronage this Christmas.

Sony Ericsson has been having some major issues with its Aino series phones and the touch screens. The worst part is the news came just a few days after they found out about the same problems in their Satio devices as well. These phones have been taken off many of the shelves in the UK because of these problems.

A spokesman for Sony Ericsson was quoted saying “we are working on the problem as quickly as possible.” These devices were meant to revitalize and reshape Sony Ericsson’s catalogue. These setbacks are going to cause major problems for the company.

There are many features included with these touch screen phones once all the bugs get worked out. One such feature is the 8.1 megapixel camera all of which can be controlled right on the screen. You can also control the music and film features of the phone right on the screen as well.

For the PS3 fanatics, you will be happy to know that the phone has a remote play feature that allows you to interact with anything that is stored on your PS3.

The texting platform for this phone is a little off base as it is not compatible with texting slang. And being a touch screen phone it does not allow for the entire screen to actually be touch sensitive. The screen lock has a delay on it that can cause issues when placing the phone in your pocket, accidently starting an app or other tool on your phone without even realizing that you are doing it.

With all the features offered in this phone Sony Ericsson might want to think about going back to the drawing board and rethinking the way this phone works in order to get all the features in order.

Greening the planet has never been more compelling than when you start to hurricanes and abnormal weather disturbances worldwide as a result of global warming.  No effort is too small to make the eco-friendly bandwagon start rolling.  Mobiles phones are no strangers to the save-the-planet movement with eco-friendly phones released over the last few years.  Samsung is taking this quite seriously and has just released its latest environment-friendly Samsung Blue Earth.

Green All the Way

The new Blue Earth is an eco-friendly handset right from the drawing board.  It’s highly glossy exterior in cool blue won’t betray that it uses recycled plastic from discarded water bottles that got stripped of harmful chemicals like phthalates and Beryllium.  Samsung claims its manufacturing process for the handset is also earth friendly as it reduced carbon emission.  Even the packaging is made of recycled paper.

But what stands out are its solar panels that recharge the handset’s batteries from sunlight exposure giving you 10 minutes of talk time for ever hour under the sun.  You still get a regular charger though and it’s also green with its 5 star efficiency rating.

Using the handset reveals apps that further its reputation as a green smartphone.  There’s an Eco Mode feature that dims display backlighting and turns off the Bluetooth when not in use.  It has Eco Walk which tells you how much carbon emission was prevented by not taking the car.

Smart All The Way

No less as versatile as any upscale touchscreen smartphone in the market today, the Samsung Blue Earth feature set starts with a brilliant 3 inch wide-VGA capacitive touchscreen with accelerometer and 258k colors. It’s a quad band GSM and dual band UMTS on 3G with HSDPA/HSUPA broadband data connectivity. You get excellent imaging with a 3 megapixel camera with flash and QVGA video recording, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and microSD expansion up to 16 GB. There’s a full internet browser and an application called Communities that facilitate updating your social networking sites in a snap.

What else is there to say about a full-featured smartphone that will soon be out in Europe starting in Sweden for a SIM-free price of ₤365.  Pricey alright but you can’t get an upscale smartphone that’s eco-friendly and still expect it to be cheap.