Penny Mobiles – Mobile phone news, reviews & information

There is just no way to escape advertisements these days. We all know that Apple is implementing the new iOS 4’s iAds feature (expect to see more of this once the whole antenna debacle has toned down a notch), but aside from the more obvious advertising features, there is one other factor that tends to influence consumer’s decisions: social networking.

We all know how effective word of mouth advertising can be. While the average person does not need to listen to the recommendations of his or her friends, a few words from a choice individual among peers who a person truly admires or respects is more than enough of an endorsement to give a purchase a reason.

Now imagine that scenario on with the element of social networking on your mobile phone. Receiving a quick message or Tweet from close friends saying how nice it is to visit a certain establishment or to purchase a certain product will be a very strong influential factor for many people.

This is not just a one sided influence either. As effective as social networking can be, it is the accessibility that smart phone technology (as well as WiFi and 3G network access) gives that makes this a very potent element for marketing. And of course, the social network gives the messages more potency than standard mass forwarded content on mobile phones. After all, receiving spam messages on a mobile phone is never good, but reading about updates directly from friends is considered enjoyable.

Research firm Gartner has been gathering data on how people’s social networking habits tend to influence and affect their purchasing decisions. This influence is a crucial factor that has to be considered by marketers if they want to successfully advertise a product in this day and age. The study covered about 4000 consumers across various territories in the world during the last quarter of 2009.

Cambridge based electronics manufacturer ARM is enjoying a very solid position in the mobile phone industry, even with competitors such as Texas Instruments, the company’s CPU’s are the standard hardware for many smart phones by manufacturers all over the world.

Intel, a major player in the computer industry, seems to have their sights on the mobile phone market as well. With the introduction of the Intel Moorestown CPU several months ago and the continuous evolution of the Atom hardware to consume less and less power, the company is getting close to producing hardware that will provide plenty of processing power, but will not be consuming so much energy.

According to recent reports, the first Intel bearing smart phones might be seeing light by 2011.

The company is taking the transition slowly and steadily. The company has already started with several Taiwan made tablets –providing the CPU for handheld devices can go a pretty long way.

The MeeGo operating system which Intel co-developed with Nokia is going to be released in October to November. According to Intel, they intentionally designed the MeeGo to work with a wide range of processors –not exclusively Atom technology. By doing this, their OS can be more widely used. Their previous operating system, the Linux based Moblin OS seems to have been scrapped in favor of the MeeGo mobile platform. Of course, with their team up with Nokia, it is likely that new devices from the Finnish phone maker will be showing the new Intel CPUs next year.

In the meanwhile, ARM is steadily strengthening its position in the industry. They have already acquired the support of Microsoft for Windows Phone 7 –according to Steve Ballmer, Qualcomm will be playing an instrumental role in the development of the OS and as such, a Qualcomm CPU is a requirement for the new platform. Aside from Microsoft, Intel has also teamed up with phone manufacturers HTC and Motorola.

The last trend on the internet that has taken solid roots is the ability to take old videos, convert them into digital format and upload on the net. Photos are significantly easier, simply upload the existing digital images (or simply scan old photographs) and users are ready to go send these contents into Facebook, YouTube, Picasa and other media storing and sharing websites. User generated content is the main bulk of today’s online media, and that volume is not going to stop growing anytime.

Thanks to the standardization of digital cameras on mobile phones, there are now more and more people who are able to instant web celebrities, news reporters or simply sources of funny content. There is plenty of freedom here, which brings us to the main question, should this be controlled?

So far, having the ability to upload content on the internet has not been the cause of trouble, many people are able to report crisis and emergencies as they happen –which speeds up the verification process that some groups need before they can mobilize. Any user with a video capable smart phone and access to the internet can instantly share with others the latest events.

While this freedom cannot be caged up, it should still be self-managed. Several months, back, Google Executives took the fall and blame for an uploaded video to the now defunct Google Video service. While the content was not created by Google, the Italian government still found it proper that the company be held responsible for the content that their site possessed.

In many ways, people should be more conscientious about what they shoot and more importantly, what they upload. Many people now feel anxiety when performing in large crowds or even private locations –not because of performance anxieties, but that worry that someone in the crowd would record the whole thing on a mobile phone, and upload it to Facebook where the whole world can see it.

Microsoft’s Window Phone 7 is going to be their biggest move in the mobile phone industry. For many years, they have stayed within the business market, creating their own niche for the Windows Mobile operating system. But as the number of smart phone users increased –and the type of users started to range from business users to the general market, Microsoft has seen the need to create an operating system that appeals to the larger crowd.

Looking at the preliminary versions of the Windows Phone 7 operating system, one cannot help but be impressive by how neat and stylized the interface is. The screens slide and sweep from side to side, panels (or tiles) swivel from the background to the foreground and buttons pop up in smooth fluid animations that create a sense of composition.

Accessing content could not be easier, with just a few taps of the screen; you can be instantly updating all your social networking accounts with a single status update. With a few more taps, you’re at the contact screen viewing all the latest updates online. And just a menu more and you can be instantly uploading new images and content to your favorite social networking site and adding tags to the photos –all using the WP7 interface.

It does not stop there. Zune integration means that you can instantly get access to a large library of media content online –no need to hook up with wires, the WiFi access is more than enough for this sort of task. Silverlight and the MSN player will also be included as well.

Microsoft’s Xbox Live service will also be present in the OS, which means that players now get to earn achievements for their hard work, and they can even connect to their exiting XBL accounts as well.

Digital camera maker Altek is a Taiwanese company that is known for making cameras. What has caught our attention was the latest device that they unveiled at the CommunicAsia event in Singapore.

With a 14 mega pixel CCD sensor camera with 3x zoom capabilities and Xenon flash, the Altek Leo makes for a very good digital camera. It even comes complete with software features like smile detection and photographers can even do tricks like panoramic sweeps. The Leo also has a nice big touch screen display on the back which lets users view the images and even do some quick edits.

But what is most interesting about the Altek Leo is that you can also take and make calls with this device. Yes, the 14 mega pixel snapper loaded device is actually a mobile phone- -and it also runs the Android operating system.

This makes Altek’s Leo the camera phone with the best features for anyone who wanted to fully consolidate a high end digital camera with a powerful smart phone. While Altek has not revealed the full spec sheet for this device, it is estimated that the display is a 4 inch TFT capacitive touch screen. Hopefully, they match this device with a good CPU at 800MHz or faster, and of course, plenty of internal storage (or at least supports 32GB micro SD cards).

So far, Altek has given no clue as to when this device will be launched. It is confirmed that it will certainly be coming out in Asia, though hopes for getting this Android smart phone locally in the UK are pretty low at the moment.

This latest device shows the world how far the mobile phone has come since the very first devices made it to store shelves. These days, people rely on mobile phones for everything. As more and more features are put into the phone and even more gadgets are consolidated into a single device, it will not be long before smart phones will be all that we need.

Turn based games are always a welcome addition to a smart phone’s gaming line up. While it lacks the action oriented pacing of real time games, the fact that you can play a game while on the go without having to sacrifice focus on walking or working because of a boss battle is certainly a great convenience.

Anyway, mobile app developer Handy-Games has released Panzer Panic, a highly artistic, turn based, tank combat game. The point of Panzer Panic is simple, move your tanks around, shoot enemy tanks and avoid getting blown up. The scenarios are pretty simple; with the basic top view perspective allowing players to plan their moves ahead. Still, the game provides a good degree of challenge with excellent enemy AI and the addition of stage obstacles.

Graphically, the game is outright unique. Instead of the usual gaudy sprites or semi 3D tanks moving on low-resolution backgrounds, developer Handy-Games has decided to go for a more artistic and very efficient notepad look: the entire game looks like it has been scribbled on a piece of paper. Now that may sound like the formula for bad graphics, but instead, it actually looks really good. The tanks stand out from the backgrounds, color coded explosion trails litter the stage as the battles commence and there are even small scribbled tank thread trails when the tanks move around.

The challenge comes in several fronts. Aside from the fact that you have to plan your moves per turn, actions are also limited by ‘ink fuel’. While the earlier stages will give you allowance to experiment, the later challenges will have you conserving ink a lot.

Handy-Games has also added in a multiplayer mode which will let you play this fun Android game with your friends –which means that you get to blast your best buds with the satisfying explosions of ink shells.

There is plenty of focus on the availability of eBooks on digital devices. Since the launch of the Apple iPad touch screen tablet, there has been a renewed media focus on digital literature. Google has not only launched Google Editions and a Kindle app has been released for the Android as well. Indeed, eBook reading is a smart phone feature that people actually want and manufacturers recognize that need.

Still, games developer PopCap has taken a small study of user preferences and from their findings, people would rather play games than read eBooks when they are on the road or travelling. While it might be said that people in general prefer to play games than read books, there is also the fact that this study is pretty isolated and that the sample was taken from a very niche crowd –gadget owners who are on the commute.

In general, people grow up knowing that games can be played everywhere. Book reading on the other hand, is practice that most people prefer to engage in when they are at the comfort of their homes (certainly, there are also individuals who are quite comfortable reading a book in public).

Another factor to consider is that book reading is an activity that requires more time than a quick round of a casual mobile phone game application. It makes more sense for a person to engage in a quick activity for the duration of a commute. Had the study taken in samples of people who are otherwise engaged in long trips then the number of people who read would also increase.

In any case, the study did prove something very valuable; it is that small, easy to play games are quite appealing to a lot of people. Many folks spend bits and parts of their days engaged in small moments of waiting and rest that they would want to fill in with something entertaining –like a good game to play.