Smartphones and Cell Phones

MobileTechRoundup show #186, Nokia N900, dual boot laptops, Moto CLIQ

James, Kevin, and I kicked off MobileTechRoundup show #186 with my thoughts on the Nokia N900 Internet Tablet and my pleasure about finally receiving my blue Zune Originals media player. Kevin brought up the dual boot Acer Aspire D250 and we learned that it actually boots into Android first where you can then switch to Windows. James has been playing with the Dell Latitude ON device and we chatted a bit about that new laptop. The Motorola CLIQ reviews went live this week too.

October 16, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Microsoft

AT&T Tilt 2 reviewed as last of four Touch Pro2 US variants

It looks like the final US carrier branded Touch Pro2 device will be launching this weekend. AT&T's Tilt 2 is scheduled to be available on 18 October, but the folks at WMExperts were able to get their hands on one and posted a review. The Tilt 2 is the first of the four carrier HTC Touch Pro2 units to launch with Windows Mobile 6.5. It also appears to look most like the European HTC Touch Pro2 with curves and silver highlights. I still really like using my T-Mobile HTC Touch Pro2, especially since it is not loaded with bloatware like AT&T continues to do with all of their smartphones that are not iPhones.

October 15, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Enterprise Software

Is the Motorola CLIQ good enough to recommend?

The Motorola CLIQ review embargo was lifted last night and the review floodgates were opened. Most every review has the same feelings about the processor speed and keyboard and it looks like the 528 MHz processor may be the limiting factor on current Android devices.

October 15, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Processors

Will the Sidekick data issue affect the future of mobile phone cloud services?

The T-Mobile Sidekick was my very first fully converged device (see my 2002 Geek.com review) and I don't recall ever hearing about a significant data issue over the 7 years since T-Mobile has been carrying and supporting the Sidekick devices. The Danger seamless syncing was on the cutting edge of cloud services and I wonder if this service outage will tarnish perceptions of cloud services outside of the connected tech community. It looks like Microsoft (fairly new owner of Danger) may be able to recover most of the data now and may have put out the earlier statements so people didn't get their hopes up too much. We in the mobile community have all been talking about the service outage and some stories make it sound like the end of the world, but I wonder if the teenager using the Sidekick cares so much to never use their Sidekick again.

October 14, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Hardware

Nokia N900 Maemo 5 device in hand, S60 apps on the Internet Tablet

Given that the Nokia N97 flagship product did not receive the highest praise from everyone that Nokia hoped, there has been a lot of excitement about the upcoming Nokia N900 Linux Maemo-powered Internet Tablet. I just received a pre-production unit and posted some first impressions along with several photos of the hardware. The hardware is finalized, but I understand the software will be updated before production models hit buyer's hands. That said, the N900 so far is quite an impressive device that is very responsive with an excellent web browser.

October 13, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Microsoft

Gist iPhone app; your mobile talent scout

Do you ever go to meetings wanting to know more about the people who will be in attendence? Do you ever have some spare time while traveling and think it would be a great time to touch bases with a client or prospective client? If you answered yes to either then I highly recommend you give the free Gist service a try. And if you have an iPhone you can now take that experience mobile and have a ton of valuable information right at your fingertips with the Gist iPhone app (iTunes store link). I have been testing Gist for about a month and the iPhone client for just over a week. I am not in sales, marketing, or an industry that meets with a ton of people, but I do meet with clients and other industry people at conferences and events and find Gist to be a valuable tool to have in your arsenal, especially if you are socially connected.

October 13, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Smartphones

T-Mobile offers Sidekick customers $100 credit, is that enough to retain them all?

I wrote about the T-Mobile Sidekick disaster a couple of days ago and there have been many other stories talking about the impact this has had on customers. My local news has some stories on small business owners who lost all of their contacts and calendar data for scheduled engagements and most everyone they interviewed was at a loss for words. I don't think this is a phase of T-Mobile's rumored dark project even though they left hundreds of thousands of Sidekick owners in the dark. We received word from T-Mobile that customers will be given a $100 credit to use for a phone or to pay their bill, along with the month's credit for data services if they were one of those impacted by the outage. As I said before, I think it is time that Sidekick users think about moving to a Google Android device on T-Mobile seeing as the Sidekick brand may be eventually phasing out anyways.

October 12, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Mobility

Danger/Microsoft lose ALL Sidekick data, do not reset your device

Engadget tipped us off on the news that all Sidekick users may lose their data due to a failure of the server that backs up and syncs all the data. I started out my wireless data experience with the original T-Mobile Sidekick, but thankfully have moved on to using services that I back up both locally and in the cloud. According to the T-Mobile forums data services provided by Danger, a Microsoft subsidiary, were experiencing a major service disruption that has now results in a loss of contacts, calendar entries, to-do list, and photos that were backed up on the server. This is pretty bad news for Sidekick owners and maybe the remedy should be for T-Mobile to replace Sidekicks with Google Android devices and drop the Sidekick line for good, seeing as how they will soon most likely be phased out anyways with the ownership of Danger by Microsoft.

October 10, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Mobility

MobileTechRoundup show #185; Windows Mobile 6.5 and Google Android

The biggest news in the mobile world this week was obviously the launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 and several devices so we had to spend some time during MobileTechRoundup show #185 talking about Windows Mobile again. We did go on to talk about the other hot news story of the further adoption of the Google Android operating system, including by Verizon Wireless. Kevin has been having some Google Sync for iPhone issues and also told us we should try out data roaming on the Palm Pre and HTC Hero.

October 9, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Mobility

UPDATE: Hands-on with Evernote for the Google Android platform

Capturing thoughts and notes is something that many of us do with our smartphones and my favorite cross platform application to perform this is Evernote. I have been asking them for an Android client since I purchased my T-Mobile G1 last year. I read a Tweet about a beta appearing on the Android Market so I have been testing it out and using it on the Sprint HTC Hero the past few days. It is a great first start with support for a few ways to capture notes and I am sure it will get better over time, just like the other mobile clients.

October 7, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Developer

Sprint announces Samsung Moment Google Android device, which would you buy?

After using the HTC Hero on Sprint now for over a week I have almost made the decision to add a Sprint account to my mobile arsenal, even though I don't have the strongest reception in my area. Sprint just has too many extremely compelling devices for me to resist and I may just have to figure out a way to make it work. The latest announcement brings us the Samsung Moment launching on 1 November for $179.99. This is the second Google Android device and it has a full QWERTY slide-out keyboard. I need to get my hands on it and see how it compares to the outstanding HTC Sense UI experience on the Hero.

October 7, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Mobility

Windows Phone and WM 6.5 wrap up

As you all know, yesterday was Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Phone day. Mobility Site posted links to several articles on Windows Mobile 6.5 that you should check out. Microsoft is launching quite a campaign around the Windows Phone brand and Windows Mobile 6.5 and as stated in their press release they expect their hardware partners to deliver more than 30 phone models in 20 countries over the next three months.

October 6, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Enterprise Software

Microsoft My Phone service helps you find your missing phone and much more

I sync my PIM data (Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, and Email) with my work Exchange account, but have to manually manage my other data. Microsoft launched a new service with the Windows Mobile 6.5 update that is available for an Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1, or 6.5 device. My Phone lets you synchronize your contacts, appointments, text messages, photos, videos, songs, favorites, and documents between your phone and their servers. If you use Exchange, then that specific data will not be backed up with this service. Most of the services are free, but there are some premium features available as well.

October 6, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Microsoft

HTC announces HD2 with large capacitive display and 1GHz processor

Even though I am quite disappointed with Windows Mobile 6.5 that doesn't mean that I still don't like Windows Mobile devices and personally find my T-Mobile Touch Pro2 with Spb Mobile Shell 3.5 (see my review) to be one of the best devices I have in my collection. I was excited to read the HTC press release announcing the HTC HD2 that runs Windows Mobile 6.5 with their HTC Sense UI (something I LOVE on the Sprint HTC Hero) on a huge 4.3 inch capacitive touchscreen display.

October 6, 2009 by Matthew Miller in Mobile OS

Hands-on with the Pharos Traveler 137 running Windows Mobile 6.5

I posted some thoughts on the Pharos Traveler 137 back in June and at that time it was the first Windows Mobile device that supports the T-Mobile 3G wireless data network. We now have the T-Mobile HTC Touch Pro2 with keyboard available as an option for T-Mobile customers too. The Pharos Traveler 137 is one of those selected Windows Mobile phones that will soon be receiving a Windows Mobile 6.5 update and I was pleased to be able to try out this latest software implementation on the device.