Smartphones and Cell Phones

The lines of features, functionality, and price are blurring between cellphones and smartphones, but there are still many cellphones (check out my free phones and feature phones Holiday Guides) that are very good at serving as a phone that the majority of the people are looking for. Jeremy Toeman put together a good article that list how you can use even your current feature phone as a smartphone for many tasks that I think meet the mass market needs. I am reviewing the Motorola ZN5 and T-Mobile Behold and have to say there is some appeal to a standard cellphone.

December 11, 2008 by Matthew Miller

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According to Gizmodo a new solution called Pastebud will bring limited copy/past functionality to the iPhone. This solution doesn't require you to jailbreak your iPhone or install any applications and just uses two Safari bookmarks to work. This is limited to only copying text from Safari and pasting it into Mail or another web page. There is no copying and pasting into Notes or anywhere else on the device.

December 10, 2008 by Matthew Miller

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I've used multiple clients, like fring, on my S60 devices to try to connect to Skype. I was very pleased when Jason Harris, Techcraver, posted on Twitter about an official Skype Lite version for S60 devices. You can visit the Skype website to find the application and load it on your S60 device. You can also visit skype.com/m in your mobile browser to download and install the application on your device.

December 9, 2008 by Matthew Miller

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We put together our Holiday Guide on Smartphones to help you see what some of the great devices are available this holiday season. Airwide posted a press release that presents some considerations you will want to consider as you try to figure out which smartphone is best for you. As I evaluate and post reviews on mobile phones here on the blog, I try to give you a complete understanding of the device and how it works for me. Smartphone purchases are personal and there will never be a single device that is the best for everyone.

December 8, 2008 by Matthew Miller

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I have been very pleased with my Sunset BlackBerry Curve on T-Mobile and was very impressed with the BlackBerry Bold that I had for a couple of weeks. Today, RIM and Rogers announced the BlackBerry Curve 8900 (aka Javelin) that has been known to be coming for a few months. The Curve 8900 builds upon the Curve and offers a device that isn't as large as the Bold for those still looking for a more compact QWERTY keyboard BlackBerry device.

December 8, 2008 by Matthew Miller

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It's Monday morning so what better way to start off the week than with a bit of mobile phone rumor news. Jenn at Pocketables posted a photo and some information on a possible new Palm device that some are calling the Quatro. Jenn was wondering if it was some kind of new UMPC/MID concept design and now others are saying it may be a future smartphone. The similarity of the keyboard to the Palm Treo Pro and Centro devices indicate it may be a Palm device.

December 7, 2008 by Matthew Miller

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I have way too many phones as it is now, but one device that keeps drawing me closer is the Sony XPERIA X1 and a couple of new reviews aren't helping to keep it out of my hands. Lisa Gade posted an excellent and detailed review (aren't they always great?) on MobileTechReview and Joel Evans chimed in with some initial impressions on Geek.com. Both of these mobile phone enthusiasts are quite pleased with the device and agree that it may be the best current Windows Mobile Professional (touch screen) device on the market.

December 6, 2008 by Matthew Miller

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I am pretty pleased with my T-Mobile G1 Google Android device (see my review) and in a couple of months I understand I will be able to unlock it and use it with my AT&T SIM card or overseas too. If you want an unlocked G1 now, according to Engadget you can buy one for just $424 right now. The G1 is US$399 and then you have to register as a developer and pay the US$25 fee to get access to the purchase option from T-Mobile USA.

December 6, 2008 by Matthew Miller

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The big news of the week, at least from Nokia's perspective, was the announcement of the Nokia N97. James, Kevin, and I offered our opinion on the device on MobileTechRoundup show #156 and while it looks like a fantastic Nseries device, we were expecting something different from Nokia. The N97 discussion also brought up the issue of capacitive and resistive touch screen devices on mobile phones. As these high end devices all tend to have the same specifications today, the features do not seem to mean as much as the user experience. Apple iPhone sales have taken off over the past year and Apple has now passed up Windows Mobile while Nokia dropped below 50% worldwide share for the year. Kevin also mentioned a new iPhone freeware that you really need to try out.

December 6, 2008 by Matthew Miller

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An AT&T executive at the Symbian partner event made a statement (Yahoo! News article) that Symbian is "a very credible and likely candidate" to become the single smartphone OS of choice in the future for the wirless carrier. However, there are caveats to that statement that make the news really a non-event IMHO. AT&T stated this consolidation into a single OS is focused on AT&T branded devices. The iPhone is specifically excluded in the interview and RIM may be as well because there is no AT&T branding on the BlackBerry devices. That just leaves Windows Mobile that still has AT&T branded devices, such as the AT&T Tilt. So in reality, hasn't AT&T already consolidated their branded products on a single smartphone OS?

December 5, 2008 by Matthew Miller

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