Shout About Mobiles

Windows 6.5 has raised its head at this year’s MWC, and questions everyone has been asking, have been answered!
I’m afraid the answer just is not what we have been hoping for…

Windows Mobile is a popular operation platform, but it is starting to lag behind the other OS’s out there, and it seems that all Microsoft are willing to do is to cover it up with shiny gadgets.

True, it is great knowing that if you have a Windows mobile device, you have an worryingly large sample
of applications to download and play with.
But it does take the edge of getting a new phone when you know that it has the same inards as the last one, it’s just wrapped up in a new colour.

With the release of Android and Mac OS, customers are seeing that there are simple and easy to use phones out there; when comparing these toys to Windows mobile, the results are just not going to help Windows Mobile’s little corner.

What? I hear you ask!
Well, dual SIM devices allow you to have two SIMs in one phone.

Why? I hear you ask!
Well, it lets people use their business and personal numbers on one device – no constant swapping of the SIMs, or having to carry around two phones. One phone, two SIMs – ingeius!

Samsung are now releasing photos of the new B5702 (their 5th dual SIM handset), which will be a nice upgrade to their previous handset the Samsung D880.

Should I get one?
Well,  they may not ever become a mainstream device as not everyone needs two numbers, but for those that do, they’re a pretty nice little device.

Are they worth it?
Well,  at between £130-£190 for the D880, it’s not as expensive as the N95 (around £400) when it was first released, and thousands of people bought that!

Any other choices?
The only other major phone manufacture to produce dual SIM phones is LG although they have only released the KS660.

The phones seems to targeted mainly to the Eastern Europe and Far Eastern markets, few adverts are found over here in the west. But they do have a lot of uses when compared to ‘normal’ phones.
Their main advantages are the ability for users to be contacted on different networks (ie, your Vodafone and O2 numbers in one phone, so when coverage drops on one network, you have the other to still recieve calls/SMS on). As well as allowing a user to have both their work and personal SIM’s in the same handset to save on carry arouns seperate devices (however, they aren’t the thinnest handsets on the market).

So, it appears that these Dual SIM devices are starting appear more and more on the Western market.  Samsung are now renaming their dual SIM phones as “B” for business rather than “D” for dual SIM, so it is likely that for the ‘normal’consumers, we wont be seeing these devices for a while, and we will probably face the prospect of having to pay for them (business devices are rarely FOC on a Consumber contract and very costly when buying as a PAYT/SIM-free device).

Baring all this in mind, it’s a device worth keeping in mind…

Have you ever had content on your mobile phone that you wanted to print out such as photos from a night out?

You don’t always carry around a laptop, but more than likely carry your mobile phone with you 24-7 and you may have an email or photo that you wanted printed rather than viewing on a small mobile screen.

Usually you would have to hook up the phone to a computer with some software that takes an age to install, and may not work at all. Well with Bluetooth technology and the range of new printers being released it is possible to print remotely. Simply enable Bluetooth on your phone and connect to your printer and then you’re away.

Just remember to make sure that you check your printer cartridges are full and ready for printing otherwise you could be disappointed.

The battery is the lifeforce of a mobile phone. So as you can guess without a battery the phone has no use at all. Mobile phone manufactures work extremely hard to minimize the power they use by making the phones more efficient, but obviously different types of battery help too.

So what are they different types of mobile phone batteries?

The three basic rechargeable batteries can be seen below.

Nickel Cadmium
This is the rechargeable battery that most familiar.

• The chemicals in Nickel Cadmium are not environmentally friendly.
• If you do not fully discharge before recharging it, after a few times, the battery starts acting as if it is discharged at this point.

Nickel Metal
Nickel Metal Hydride batteries claim to be superior to Nickel Cadmium because they don’t contain cadmium. They also are less prone to the memory effect problem. The only problem is they don’t last as long as the Cadmium counterparts, so they wear out pretty quickly and become useless after a short space of time.

Lithium Ion
This is the latest and best for mobile phones. This battery gives excellent life for its size and weight and does not suffer any memory effects. So you can charge up as and when needed. They are expensive to produce so pump up the cost of mobile phones.

British Airways is now letting passenger’s book flights using the iPhone. BA claims it is the first airline in the uk to offer this service on the iPhone 3G.

Its passengers will be able to book flights, access real time arrival and departure information and view the BA timetable. BA say that the iPhone is revolutionising mobile communications and that they are always looking for ways to improve the service their customers enjoy by the use of innovative technology and the iPhone is a fantastic way to do this.

Read more…

Last weekend we were treated to an unlock solution for the latest iPhone firmware. Now you can have the latest firmware with any SIM card. Unfortunately the 3G iPhone is not supported just yet, but we would imagine it won’t be long until it is.

The iPhone Dev Team have designed a new version of the Pwnage tool. This is software that lets set your iPhone free, much like on Windows Mobile devices. What you essentially do is download the original iPhone firmware, run it through the Pwnage tool customizing whatever you want such as preinstalled apps and apply it through iTunes. Easy as pie.

If you have recently update your software on the iPhone Apple then you will need this tool.
An extremely popular tool, breaking download records every day. This really makes the iPhone what it should have been from the start, a fully customizable device.

Unfortunately the HTC Touch Diamond, as good as it is has a rather low battery life and a such quite easily drains away should you use it more than twice a day. Why on earth all this modern technology cant produce a smaller, more powerful battery, I don’t know. Why couldn’t HTC just give it the same battery as previous models.

Well if you’re a little fed up of having to charge the device up every five minutes then never fear, there is a replacement battery available, along with the replacement battery cover to match the Diamonds finish.

Obviously there is a downside to the new battery; the thickness of the device has increased as has the weight. But that shouldn’t be a problem as the extra battery life it brings will be quite welcome. Now if only HTC could have made the new back flat to help the usability issues that the device has been plagued with.

The cost of the new cover and battery is estimated to be around the £40 mark.

In everyday situations we come across the need to streamline our business and of course the economic climate means we also have to consider costs. So it comes to no surprise that the general office based environment is moving towards the virtual office arena.

The first step towards this is using a Blackberry as they are the market leaders in mobile email solutions. Costing as little as £15 per month, they enable you to receive email as soon as it arrives at the server. It’s excellent for increasing productivity as you don’t have to actively check emails, which is a plus as you can do more with your time.

The second step is using a virtual office. These offer an address with a mail forwarding service and telephone number with call and message forwarding provided by a dedicated team of trained professionals. Virtual offices negate the need to actual rent a physical office as you can work from home or on the road. These are really useful for new businesses as the costs are much lower and enables resources to applied else where.

What mobile do you use for business? Do you make use of virtual offices or do you still rely on that physical office? Let us know.